Aug 5 - Aug 11

August 5
Am: Another dirt road run in Paonia. 3.69 miles in 34 minutes w/ 400 ft. gain. 4 strides right around 5-min pace avg.

Noonish: 1.3 mile hike w/ wife & dog at the north rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Never been out there before. Holy crap it’s beautiful.

Pm: Back in Salida. 4.45 miles easy w/ Chaffee County Running Club along the Arkansas Hills trails. Sand Dunes to Backbone to Tenderfoot to Burnpile to Chili Pepper. 53 minutes, 500 ft. gain.

August 6
Am: 5.18 miles up Pass Creek to Windy Ridge. 56 minutes, 1600 ft. elevation gain. Steep and rocky up to 9500 ft. Super baby easy on the downhill. Still tender on the ankle.

Windy Ridge, facing Shavano and the Sawatch from the South

Pm: 3.89 miles on CR 220, 32:16, average HR 141. Funny, did back-to-back doubles, and this afternoon’s run was the best my ankle has felt so far since I started up again.

August 7
Am: 6.03 with the Salida XC team, just over 8-minute pace. I’m going to be taking a light volunteer role with the team this year.

We mostly ran on local roads with some trails sprinkled in. Today was their easy day, but as is often the case w/ HS kids, easy days have a way of picking up steam a bit. I kept up w/ the front guys, if only to show them that I could (at least on their easy days)!

I felt the roads a bit afterwards.

Early pm: .3 miles on treadmill during PT super easy. Officially done with PT!

Pm: 4.01 miles on CR 163 in 32:47 average HR 139. Felt ok, but not as springy as yesterday. Stiff headwind on the way back.

August 8
15 up, light plyos and strides, 3 x 8 minutes tempo effort w/ 1-minute rest, along Arkansas River trails, with light rolling hills. 10 down. Averaged about 7:05 pace for the tempo sections.

Definitely felt worked this morning. Will take the afternoon off and just go to the pool tomorrow.

6.4 miles total

August 9
40 minutes of pool running.

In April, pool running was my only form of aerobic exercise, and so the emphasis was on deep end, intense pool running, trying to get my heart rate up. Now, pool running is my main recovery day, and I don’t much care about the aerobic stimulus; I’m more interested in recuperative movements on the pool floor. I mostly spend my time shuffling around in the different planes of motion in the shallow end and then in the heated pools.

August 10
Am: 5.5 miles in 58 minutes on Columbine/Rainbow Trail. Another one of my favorite stretches of trail. Met up w/ the wife and dog for a half-mile hike at the end.

Pm: 4.01 miles in 31:42 on CR 163 near Big Bend. 7:54 avg pace on rolling hills near the Arkansas River, avg. HR 142. First time with the pace below 8 on a purely aerobic run since the injury, and it came on the second run of a double.

Less than two months ago I averaged 10:23 pace on this exact route at a similar intensity level. If I continue to improve at this rate, I should have no trouble dispatching with Kipchoge and Farah in spring marathons next year.

August 11
Headed over to the track for some turnover work. 2-miles up, plyos, 3 in-and-out strides, 3 max 30-meter sprints on full rest, followed by 6 x 200 on 3 minutes rest.

The goal of the workout was to run some at a fast-ish pace on the track (for me, at my current level of fitness) and not hurt myself. The 200s weren’t fast, but they were remarkably consistent, all between 37.44 and 38.27. Still, much less encouraging for my plan to out-sprint Mo Farah next spring.

I could definitely feel the ankle in the first 5 seconds of every interval, but I don’t think I did anything to set myself back today.

10-minute barefoot cooldown in a light rain.

5.4 miles total

51.7 miles on the week, which is fairly high mileage by my standards. And I feel good, all things considered. Definitely not 100%, but I don’t feel like I’m pushing myself to the edge, either.

I’m thrilled with how the aerobic development is coming along. I’m at 90-95% of my MAF-type aerobic fitness pre-injury. The pointy end is going to take longer, as my tempo paces and speed paces are more like 80-85% of where I was pre-injury. I’ll try to park the mileage at between 50-60 miles a week and continue to work on tempo efforts and light quick speed work.

Drip, drip, drip.