July 22-28

July 22
Day off

July 23
7.4 miles in an hour; 4.62 miles subtempo in 35 minutes in the middle; On dirt roads and trails along the river toward Franz Lake.

Decided to move my quicker effort down to 7000 ft. from 9000 ft. and ran quite a bit quicker as a result. Averaged 7:34/mile on the subtempo section. These trails only recently became runnable again with water levels going down from river runoff, but now that it’s passable I think I will come here a lot in the next few weeks and months. Forgot how nice it was.

Ankle pain 3/10.

July 24
4.67 miles in 43:52; 4 max hill sprints; CR 210 to Spruce Creek; 700 ft gain (7750-8450).

Probably ran a bit too hard, given the effort yesterday. I’m actually running enough volume with enough intensity where I’m capable of making myself tired and sore again.

Hill sprints felt like garbage. Probably need to switch these so they don’t come the day after a workout.

Ankle pain 3/10.

July 25
8.61 miles in 79 minutes, CR 250 to Blank’s Cabin, a rocky dirt road; 1400 ft. elevation gain 8100-9100 with plenty of rollers, avg HR 142, 9:11 pace.

Another encouraging run. I think last fall I probably could have averaged 8:40 pace or so on this run at a similar intensity, but not much that faster. That means I’m starting to get within 5-10% of where I used to be aerobically last year. That’s way better than I had expected with less than two months of running.

Pm: Iyengar yoga.

July 26
Pool day, 38 minutes jogging deep and shallow end

Yoga made me sore. I’m worked.

July 27
Hard day: Fartlek 8 x 2 minutes on/1 minute off, followed by 4 x 30 seconds at “mile” pace. CR 220, rolling hills around 8000 ft.

Fartleks averaged about 6:45 pace, with the fastest @ 5:42 pace. 30 second pickups averaged about 5:15 pace with the fastest @ 5:04 pace.

2-mile warmup, 4-mile cooldown, for a total of 9.38 miles.

Ankle pain 4/10.

Things have been going well, and I’m happy with my progress. That said, I need to step off the gas for a few days. Going to do a three-day “consolidation” period with two super easy days and one off day before getting back at it.

July 28
Ran 3.96 miles easy with a friend from the Chaffee County Running Club on the Arkansas Hills Trails. Very easy, Average HR 113.

Both of us have only recently returned to running. Perfectly healthy 13 months ago, between the two of us, we’ve had seven surgeries since the last time we had run together.

Here’s to good health.

July 15-21

July 15
Off

July 16
6.66 miles in an hour on CR 203, rolling hills between 8500 and 9000 ft. 30 minutes “subtempo” in the middle. Felt pretty good, even though the subtempo middle section averaged slower than 8-minute miles.

Ankle pain 3/10

July 17
4.1 miles easy on CR 210 to Pass Creek in 41 minutes. 500 ft. gain, four max hill sprints at the end. Pass Creek road is one of the rockiest roads I’ve run on since the injury, but it felt ok.

My form on the first hill sprint couldn’t have been much more awkward, but they got smoother. I guess that’s the point!

Ankle pain 3/10

July 18
6.98 miles in 77 minutes on CR 224 and the Colorado Trail. About 1600 ft. of gain between 8500 and 9600 with rollers on the Colorado Trail.

I ran on a trail! I think that makes it my second or third trail run of 2019, though the last time I ran on clear trails that weren’t covered in snow or ice was probably October 2018. Felt good, but I took it super baby easy on the trail section, just because running on uneven surfaces is a very delicate thing for me mentally and physically right now.

Ankle pain 3/10

July 19
45 minute pool jogging, deep and shallow end. I never forward to pool jogging, but I always feel great after doing it.

July 20
Went to the track! Goal was 5 x 1k in 4 minutes on 2 minutes rest. Basically a broken-up 20-minute 5k.

Had friends over last night and we had a late-night jam session, so didn’t get out until nearly 9 am, when it was roasting. Did the first 3 right on the money at 4 minutes, the 4th in 3:58, and then decided to call it a day. Whether it was the heat or my general lack of fitness, it felt harder than I’d like to admit. I could have done one or two more, but I would have been really straining to get there, and just not looking to do that right now. Want to finish every session knowing I could have done more.

Ankle was only really an issue when I switched into lighter shoes (Mizuno Wave Hitogamis) for the first interval. Switched back to Hoka Cliftons for the second interval, and the ankle actually felt decent. Tracks are a nice surface for running when you have ankle problems.

The problem is just that my fitness is crap right now. But you can’t force fitness. Just gotta be patient.

Ankle pain 4/10; 5.39 miles total.

July 21
8 miles on old monarch pass road, 1:16:07; 1400 ft. gain.

Felt good, felt strong. More than 30 seconds a mile faster than last week at the same level of effort. Ankle felt good. Encouraging day.

Ankle pain 3/10

July 8-14

July 8
Day off. Going to experiment with Mondays completely off for the next few weeks to see if that helps with recovery.

July 9
18 minutes easy; 10 x 1 on/off; 13 minutes easy, 5.42 miles. Not sure if it was the day off or something else, but I felt like a runner today. Averaged 6:27 pace for the “on” blocks on rolling hills, and it wasn’t too painful.

Ankle pain 4/10

July 10
44 minutes easy on CR 250, 4.5 miles. Average HR 134, 500 ft. gain.

Thought I could just run from my house today, but the first 1.2 miles were on road, and I re-learned that I am not yet ready to run on roads. Much higher pain levels on the road sections. Otherwise a very easy jog.

Ankle pain 5/10

July 11
am: 7.26 miles on CR 210, 1000 ft. elevation gain (topping out at 8750), in 69 minutes. Four strides at the end.

Longest run since the injury. Leg felt solid on the uphill but nearly four miles of downhill was a challenge. Think I need to run downhills slower if I'm going to sustain this mileage.

Ankle pain 5/10.

pm: Iyengar Yoga

July 12
45 minutes pool running. Leg was very sore in the morning from the run and yoga yesterday. Pool felt great.

July 13
8.37 miles on Old Monarch Pass Road, between 10,600 and 11,375, in 1:24:28, 1500 ft. of gain. Sub-150 HR on the ups and sub-135 HR on the downs.

Ankle Pain 4/10

July 14
4.69 Miles on CR 101, 44:41, Sub-150 HR on the ups and sub-135 HR on the downs. 700 ft. gain, 4 strides at the end. Average 5:45/mile pace on the strides.

Ankle Pain 3/10

Good week.

More than 30 miles with around 4000 ft. of gain with a tiny bit of quality. Not exactly Jim Walmsley stuff, but pretty good considering I was legally allowed to park in handicapped spaces two weeks ago.

Big lessons for the week: Still need to stay off roads and keep the downhills easy. 

July 1-7

July 1

40 minute pool running deep end

July 2

15 minutes easy, 15 minutes sub tempo, 15 minutes easy

4.76 miles, 44:32 total

I started off at a super easy jog pace and that felt surprisingly good. I then did a 15-minute harder section in the middle that was slower than expected but felt fine.

My body just can’t handle volume at quick or even steady paces right now. On Sunday, I caught myself googling the maximum daily dosage for ibuprofen, and it occurred to me that I needed to adjust things.

I want to finish my runs knowing I probably could have done more rather than wondering whether I’m setting myself back. The only way to achieve that is to slow down.

July 3

42 minutes easy, 3.99 miles on CR 250. About 500 ft. elevation gain.

This was the road I did most of my easy days this winter and I’m pretty familiar with it. If today is indicative, I’m about 15-20% slower aerobically on the uphills than I was in February. And I’m more like 30% slower than I used to be on the low-grade technical downhill.

Ankle pain 5/10. Felt fine on the uphill, but the downhill was a challenge.

July 4

5 miles in 53:29, about 600 ft. of elevation gain, CR 210

This run was slow, but it felt good.

Ankle pain 3/10.

July 5
52 minutes pool running; 30 minutes deep end, 22 shallow end

July 6

6.2 miles, 58 miles; 20 minute jog, 20 minutes moderate, 18 jog

Tried to run a little quicker for the middle 20 minutes, but it was still slow. Also ran on the road for the uptempo section, which didn’t feel great. Longest run since the recovery started, so that's progress.

CR 165, 163, 160

Ankle pain 5/10

5.58 miles in 52:31; 5 strides at the end; CR 203

Felt much better than last week. Everything's flowing easier at lower intensity.

Ankle pain 4/10

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The progression has reached the point where what I’m doing is finally starting to feel like the baby stages of “training” rather than just jogging. The plan is gradually build easy miles, five days a week, with one day a week alternating subtempo/light fartlek and a couple of days with light strides. Nothing special. I'll probably keep this up for 6-8 weeks before trying to fit it anything else.