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.