1/28-2/3

Jan 28

Slept for ten hours last night and woke up with a sore throat.

The 4 x 200 on Friday made me more sore than the 17 hard miles yesterday. Funny how 2 minutes of hard running done just right can sometimes impact the body more than two hours of hard running.

5 miles easy on CR 250. Road is still a sheet of ice above 8000 ft.

Jan 29

5 miles easy on CR 140 w/ 6 maximal hill strides 

Jan 30

8 x 1k at 98% of goal 10k pace w/ two minutes rest on CRs 160 & 165 – 5:54 pace average for the first four and then my watch died again. My Garmin appears to be a lemon. Suspect my pace for the set was closer to 6 flat, but that’s just a guess.

Definitely felt some lactate building up on the last few.

Moderate hard effort. 

Jan 31

Day off, ski

Feb 1

There are supposed to be gale-force winds all weekend, so I decided to skip ahead and do my final long run prep for Moab today. Took a half day off work to get it in.

Went over to the Arkansas Hills trails, which I had hoped would be clear by now. They weren’t. Snow and ice and mud all over. Start was slow. After 4 miles of slipping and sliding, I decided to duck over to the Ute Trail, which is really a dirt road (used to be part of the Run Through Time course). The road goes up from 7100 to 8800 feet over five miles. Definitely some icy sections, but mostly runnable.

I turned around at 10.5 miles, at 8800 ft. Then pushed the next five miles in under 34 minutes down the hill, then did the Spiral Drive course for one final 500 ft climb and then back to the car.

Total of 18.51 miles, 2:40, with just shy of 3500 ft of elevation gain.

Hard effort. Not sure what this will translate to at Moab, but I’m reasonably confident if I pace myself that I can put in a sustained effort for 20 miles.

Feb 2

Windy and busy day with friends. 4.6 miles super easy on treadmill in 45 minutes

Feb 3

4.64 miles in 55:30 w/ the CCRC along the Arkansas river toward Rio Grande King. Super duper easy. 

I was actually elected to the Chaffee County Running Club board this week, which is a neat honor. Will be fun getting more involved in the local community, especially since I’m a relative newcomer to town.  

Put my name in for the Canyon de Chelly 55k lottery on Friday. Learned I was number 214 on the waitlist today. Definitely bummed I didn't get in. That makes me 0 for 3 in race lotteries. 

Any ideas for good long October races (20 miles or more)?