Author: admin

Sixty…

I don’t like having you as my cousin… you’re tall and old. ~ Jack (my new step-nephew, actually)

Fri 23 Apr: 1:12, 8.65 miles, Air Force Academy Loops
Sun 25 Apr: 4:55, 28.5 miles, Niwot/North Boulder Loops
Weekly total: 9:45, 60.65 miles

Great week. Both training and otherwise. Friday was a bit of a cluster but the rest of the week featured solid training and good times.

The non-running highlight of the weekend was my dad’s wedding in Colorado Springs. He and his new bride, Donna hosted a wonderful weekend and are now in the air on their way to Hawaii for the honeymoon. Here’s the weekend recap:

Headed down to the Springs early on Friday, hoping to beat both traffic and pretty crappy weather. What should have taken about 2 hours turned into 3:20 with I-25 being turned into a parking lot for a good portion of the morning. So golf was out and watching it puke snow was in.

Dad arranged lodging at the Air Force Academy (he was a Major in the Air National Guard) and so we hung out there most of the afternoon. I had planned to hit some trails I used to ride a lot in college, but the snow and wind made that seem pretty fruitless. By mid-afternoon, I really needed to get my run on and headed down to the gym to log some treadmill miles. The room was way too hot so I bailed after 3/4 of a mile and decided to brave the outdoors. Fortunately it stayed relatively warm so the roads throughout the Academy fairly quickly melted off. Though it stayed windy, the street surface alternated between damp and wet. I selected a 6-mile loop (which turned out to be closer to eight) and got in a short run. Actually ended up feeling okay but got a little messed up given the mileage difference.

Friday night, we went to a party and met all our new relatives. Donna made special food for me (given my wacky vegan-ness) and it was wonderful to meet everyone and catch up with my brother and his wife, uncle and cousins. I decided to head home late Friday night and got to bed around 1:30. A bit of a long day but worth it.

Saturday, Rach and I headed back down for the actual wedding, which was a lovely event. Rach taught the little kids shame, even. Everyone should know that. We had one fairly major kink in the plans when one of our bunnies, Flea, got sick. We tried to get him to feel better before leaving for the event, but were unable to do so. So we brought a secret guest to the wedding carrying on a long and proud tradition of us bringing critters to family events. Why anyone expects otherwise at this point is beyond me.

Today, I got up early (after not a lot of sleep again) and jammed down to Boulder to run with the group. The run was a little slower than normal and I felt great despite the lack of sleep. Put in a strong effort and ended with about 28.5 miles in just shy of 5 hours. Run time was probably more like 4:40 or so. This pushed me up and over the 60-mile mark for the week. Good stuff.

Hoping to finish up the month with daily runs Tuesday-Friday. Heading to Palm Springs for another wedding on Friday, however, so that day may be a day off. Planning a decent run on Saturday but this week will be a bit on the low side in preparation for a big week the first week of May.

~stubert.

Trigger pulled…

What’s it gonna be, punk? ~ Harry Callahan

Tues 20 Apr: 00:46, 5.22 miles, Mtn. Meadows/Beaver surges
Wed 21 Apr: 2:01, 13 miles, Boulder tempo – Dearborne
Thurs 22 Apr: 00:50, 5.25 miles, Boulder Janet’s house easy

Good solid week of training thus far. Feeling fit, back to health and ready to get after it. So much so that I pulled the trigger on Leadville and received confirmation that I am in and running this year’s LT100 on August 21. Whee!

Tuesday I was feeling slightly unmotivated but once I got out, felt terrific. Just kinda went with the flow with 7 surges on our road after a short tour of the neighborhood for a warm up. Added one hill sprint for good measure and felt like it was a good, organic run. Just did my surges wherever they felt right, mixed it up a bit and had fun. The perfect kick-off to the week.

Yesterday, I jammed down to Boulder for a tempo run. Warmed up for 1:20 or so super easy and even managed to hook up with Art Ives for part of the warm up. Totally unintentionally, at that. It felt kinda cool to dump out onto Baseline right as he passed coming from a totally different starting point. So we ran together through east Boulder farmland to the start and then started our tempo together.

I was running far less than Art so I peeled off the front after about 3 miles of steadily decreasing splits and finished my 5 miles strongly with negative splits overall: 7:30, 7:15, 6:55, 6:54, 6:42. Not blazing at all but comfortable and strong for the likes of me.

Today I met with Janet and just ran super easy. We worked on a couple of wacky form items that continue to make me a bit less efficient than I might otherwise be. Talked a bit about Pbville strategy, nutrition and crew and whatnot and generally got pretty pumped for the event. So when I got home, I signed up.

Things are falling into place. Rach has me on a super-healthy diet, I am feeling really healthy and have a positive mindset. The next two weeks will be a bit goofy as I have weddings both weekends (head to Colorado Springs tomorrow for Dad’s event then Palm Springs next Friday to see my buddy, John get hitched). I’ll be working in runs during both weekends, however and hope to really keep things moving in the right direction for a good kick-off to the last 120 days before the big event.

Thanks to Bob, Lindsay, Pete, Edy, Brad and Jess for offering to crew again this year. Hoping Janet and Art will do some pacing and, as always, I can’t say enough about how much help Rach is. Amazingly supportive of all the time my training takes and keeps me incredibly well-fed. In fact, she just delivered another kick-ass meal to me as I write this. Time to eat!

~stubert.

The Melting Begins…

And this time, no tears! ~ Tobias Fünke

Sun 18 Mar: 4:30, 25ish miles, Marshall Mesa/Bluestem/Shanahan/Mesa

As volcanoes in Iceland spew liquid hot magma into the stratosphere, grounding air travel over most of Western Europe, we are experiencing our own warming trend – loosening winter’s grip on the Front Range and producing a significantly less caustic liquidity. Spring has sprung in the Denver Metro Area and with the consistent warmer temps comes the goodness of improved trail conditions and glorious morning runs. Got out on there again this Sunday for some serious fun in the sun and felt pretty great, actually. Probably had a lot more to do with the forced taper than any fitness gains over the past week but it was good to just put it in cruise mode and glide for several hours.

My reserves started running out about 4 hours in so the last 1/2 hour was a little rough but all in all it was a great run. Started out with a short warm up on Big Bluestem then transferred over to lower Marshal Mesa and back to Bluestem. We then headed west to Mesa and north to Shanahan. At this point, we were hoping to rendezvous with some water we had stashed but an overly-concerned homeowner had gotten suspicious and called the Fire Department to come dispose of the suspicious material. Apparently, he watches way too much Fox News or something. So we headed back up to Mesa, then made our way to Chautauqua to get our hydration on.

It seemed as if everyone and their dog (literally) was out on Sunday so by the time I left Chautauqua and headed south on Mesa, the trails had become quite crowded. Mesa Trail is always pretty packed on weekends so I jammed up McClintock, intersected with Mesa and then continued on to Shanahan where I called it good and bee-lined it back to the Big Bluestem Trailhead for a solid 4.5 hours total. Power hiked a couple of sections but felt generally okay on the way back. Good fun on a Sunday morning.

~stubert.

Getting better…

Slow and steady wins the race. ~ Marge Simpson

Sat 17 Mar: 00:37, 3.5 miles, Casa trails with surges

As quickly as the snow is melting in the high-country, I am recovering and feeling stronger. The stomach is still not 100% but steadily improving. The legs and mind both are ready to roll… just have to hang back a bit to build reserves and get señor estómago to behave a bit. So tomorrow will probably be a bit shorter than normal.

Taking all of this in stride has been a bit of a challenge, to say the least. I have certain goals for the year and having a soft April was not among them. But I am looking at it as some time off, to rest and reflect on a great winter season of training. And a place on which to build for the next four months on my road to Leadville.

Today’s run featured some seriously un-runnable snow conditions. So I hiked that part of the course and relished the open-trail downhills that were tossed my direction later in the run. Not that I was really out long enough for a true “later” but it was good to get out, get the legs moving and enjoy the springy weather. Saw moose tracks not far from the house so that is another critter to add to the list of neighborhood buddies. They can be a bit feisty but I am really excited to get to see one in the ‘hood. Apparently there have been Canadian Lynx sitings as well in the area. I’d really be excited to see one of those! They were transplanted to RMNP and are on the move. Good stuff.

All in all, I am feeling pretty great. Just working to get back to where I was a couple of weeks ago, take the next few weeks in stride as I have wedding commitments the following two weekends, and hit the ground running (figuratively and literally) in May. Excited about what the future holds and that my guts are good again so I can enjoy all of Rach’s amazingly yummy food!

~stubert.

It’s all a puzzle

Where’s that red one gonna go? ~ Eli Cash

Tues 13 Apr: 00:39, 4.86 miles, Mtn Meadows surges
Wed 14 Apr: 1:30, 10.5 miles, Gap Road Racoon Trail Thorne Lake tempo
Thurs 15 Apr: 00:26, 3 miles, Mtn Meadows loop barefoot

Coming around at this point for sure but still not back to “normal”. Working on it for sure but apparently this is going to take a little time. Not one of those things one can rush.

Overall, I feel like I am in a pretty good place right now. Feeling fit (when not puking my guts out), way ahead of where I was in ’07 (looking at my training from that year just makes me shake my head) and healthy – all great signs for a successful season. The events of last week could have come at a better time but definitely could have been much worse.

The next few weeks are going to be wacky so I’ll have to get in what I can get in and be at peace with whatever numbers fall out. I would go super long this weekend but that would be ill-advised so I’ll hope to go medium-long and finish with a smile. Next weekend my dad is getting married so I’ll have to work training runs around his schedule a bit and the following weekend I head to Palm Springs for another wedding. Again, my run will have to be threaded among other activities.

But May, June and July await and I am pumped to ramp up the mileage and get teed up for a successful run at Leadville. I have put all the pieces on the table and now just need to make them all fit together.

~stubert.