Category: running

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.

Week in review…

The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

Tues 16 Mar: 00:46, 4.69 miles, Casa trails surges
Wed 17 Mar: 2:08, 13.5 miles, Dearborn tempo
Thurs 18 Mar: 00:32, 3.11 miles, Snowy trails slog
Sat 20 Mar: 00:40, 4.35 miles, Treadmill surges
Sun 21 Mar: 5:00, ~30 miles, Long, slow Boulder run
TOTAL: 8.75 hours, 55 miles

This was a pretty solid week of training, actually – especially considering how I felt most of the week. After last Sunday’s effort, I was a little beaten up going into my normal schedule and though I was able to keep up the plan, I was definitely feeling it this week. On top of that, I donated platelets/plasma on Wednesday and that took it out of me a bit. Thursday I had to drag myself out on my run but, as experience is proving, once I got out there, I had a great time. I did modify my route to be more about entertainment than running (post-holed for much of the “run” in deep snow drifts) but sometimes that is what you have to do. Mix it up. Enjoy.

By Saturday I was feeling pretty much all together again and Sunday’s run was another tour of way North Boulder. Amazing how the miles just tick off. By hour 4 I was getting a little tired but finished up relatively strongly (even if getting a bit sore) and managed to come away from the whole experience feeling very positively about the effort. I must admit that I am a little sore today but am sure that will pass quickly.

While running multiple hours on end, one has the opportunity to do a lot of thinking and one item that comes up fairly often for me is the philosophy that there is no such thing as a bad run. Sure, some are more productive than others, or hurt less, or have an overall quality that surpasses others, but really, there are lessons to be learned from each and every experience. Sometimes the lessons are big (remember to drink, don’t step on rusty nails, punching yourself in the face is not a good motivator) and sometimes they are as simple as, “I can do this!” Regardless, I have discovered that getting out there, even if the end result doesn’t feel especially “good”, is way better than not getting out there.

Enjoy.

~stubert.

Run, ski, ski, run…

Frickin’ marvelous. ~ Steve Willett

Sun: 1:00, 6 miles, treadmill
Mon: 4:00, ski @ Crested Butte
Tues: 4:00, ski @ Crested Butte
Wed: 1:19:14, 9.5 miles, treadmill/track tempo run

Instead of trying to cram a bunch of running in at the end of the year to reach some arbitrary yearly mileage (don’t hold me to not doing that in the future, however), I decided some skiing was in order. After getting in a nice recovery run on Sunday (and feeling pretty great, actually, after Saturday’s effort), I jammed over to Gunny early Monday morning and met up with Dad, Donna and my cousins David, Dianne and their daughter Reagan. (Wow, that was a lot of Ds.) The skiing wasn’t particularly awesome but it was good to see everyone. I then gorged myself at Donita’s, hung out with Dad a little bit (Donna was wiped out after chasing Dad and me around all day), then did it again on Tuesday. Slightly better conditions on Tuesday and a storm rolled in late in the day so hopefully conditions improve.

I jammed back home Tuesday evening and was greeted to an awesome dinner/snack made by Rach. Too awesome.

I had a bunch of work on which to catch up today so just hit the gym late to do a quick tempo run. Felt great to get back with the program (albeit somewhat abbreviated). Looking forward to starting the year off with some skiing and then have a long run planned for Sunday. As always, frickin’ marvelous.

~stubert.

Fabulous run…

Fan-fucking-tastic. ~ Aurora Greenway

Sat: 00:45, 5.05 miles, Neighborhood loop with some surges

Couldn’t be happier with today’s run. I was planning to go skiing this morning but those plans fell through so I slept in a little, did some work around the house (hopefully our pipes will no longer freeze when the temps drop below zero), then got out for a great run around the neighborhood.

It was a little chilly (~25°) but I opted for the tough-guy approach and tossed on some shorts, a long-sleeved Patagonia Cap 3 shirt, a wind vest, knit hat and gloves; laced up my screw shoes and got after it. I felt awesome from the first step and just noodled my way around the ‘hood then did some surges. Felt so great I decided to toss in a little extra time and ended up with an average pace of just under 9-minute miles with a pretty low average heartrate. This… is good.

Loved being back outside after so much time logged indoors over the past week. Perhaps that was part of my boost. Maybe it was all the amazing food Rach has been making me lately. I’ll take it any way I can get it.

~stubert.

Round and round…

Deep e deep dow do dee do do ~ Hamster Dance

Tues: 00:55, 6.00 miles, Treadmill surges
Wed: 1:37, 12 miles, Treadmill/Track tempo
Thurs: 1:00ish, Not terribly far, Skate skiing

Words can not really describe how nice it was to get out of the hamster maze yesterday. The temps here have been incredibly low of late and yesterday, they finally started to break from their single-digit (or lower) rut and climbed into the mid teens. It wouldn’t have mattered as I was bound and determined to get outside for some fun in the sun but seeing 12° when I pulled on the skate boots at the base of Eldora lifted my spirits for sure. More on that in a moment.

I have been stuck in the gym but have been making good use of my time and spinning some solid efforts. On Tuesday, I warmed up for 30 minutes then did 10, 1×1 surges at an increasing pace. Felt a bit woozy to start after less-than-ideal nutrition for the day and a massage but a gel picked me up and I was able to finish the full workout with gusto. Then I did a circuit of upper body weights and called it an evening.

Wednesday featured the addition of wind to the frigid temps as well as client meetings in Denver so it was back to the gym for a tempo workout. I tried to mix things up a bit to fight off the boredom associated with running on the ‘mill and track and ended up having a great run. Started on the treadmill with 30 minutes at a 10-minute pace, then went into my tempo slowly with 2 miles at 8:00, and 1 mile at 7:30. Then I moved to the track for 35 minutes at 7:00 then cooled down for 10 minutes at 10:00 on the treadmill for a total of 1:37 and 12 miles. Felt great but I was definitely getting pretty sick of running in circles by the end.

So that brings us back to Thursday. This was the first time I have skated since college (about 18 years) and I was definitely rusty. The wind was howling at the Rock but the nordic center there is hidden in the trees so once one gets going it isn’t that big of a deal. I fell pretty much immediately (whoa those skis are skinny!), got up, fell again and broke the grip on my pole. Hmmm. Not an auspicious start but I was committed so I went in and got some rental poles and got back after it.

“Graceful” is not the adjective one would use to describe my form but in the next hour or so, I managed to quickly improve to the point where I was able to glide some uphill and didn’t eat it any more, which was nice. Just worked on staying upright, getting used to standing up on toothpicks and trying to not look like a total kook. Two out of three ain’t bad, I suppose. Had a lot of fun and am excited to get my pole fixed so I can get back after it.

Looking back at the past few weeks, I definitely have had some days that were better than others. All were productive, however and, though occasionally suffering, really have enjoyed myself. Some days feel a bit more like suffering than others but really, post run or ski, I feel way better about well… everything. That’s why I do it and why I encourage others to just go spend a little time getting the old heart pumping. It soothes what ails ya.

~stubert.