Vail Hill Climb 3rd Masters/13th Overall

Ran the Vail Hill Climb this weekend. Got 13th overall and 3rd master. Results here.

Not sure if this was a good race or a bad race. Course was 7.7 miles with 2233 ft. of gain. I ran 8:15 pace, which was really a 6:19 mile, followed by an 8-minute mile, followed by some 9-minute miles, followed by 6-minute pace for the rolling hill last .7. Kept my HR steady-ish, but the course went uphill and I slowed down.

At first, I thought it was an underwhelming result. But the runner who finished one place in front of me ran at DIII nationals in cross country last year, which is something I never managed when I was a DIII runner back in the day. And the guy who finished two places in front of me is a 1:16 half/2:36 marathoner. I am nowhere near that good. I suppose I finished about where I should have.

Some pics.

A little too eager at the start. Been going to too many track meets.

Finish

This young man had never seen me race

These guys are better than I am at running up mountains.

264 miles in June again. Just hit 1500 miles on the year today. That’s a lot for me, considering the fact that I only ran 1575 in all of 2021. No wonder I sucked at Pikes Peak that year. 

I ran the same number of races in the last two weeks as I had in the last four years. That by itself is an achievement for me. Nothing immediately on the agenda after this other than to continue to build and run races when I feel like it. I hope to roll with it and sign up for races when it works for my schedule. 

Fibark 5k 1st Place, 16:49

For the first time in a couple of years, I ran a race this weekend. Results here.

Salida’s biggest festival of the year is the Fibark festival, which happens every year at the peak of whitewater intensity in the summer. It’s mostly a kayak, rafting, paddle-boarding deal, but they throw in a few running races for good measure.

I didn’t have anything going on this weekend, and I felt like I was in decent shape, so I decided to give it a go. 

I ran 16:49 for 3 miles. It was labeled a 5k, but it was short. 

My main competition was two of the kids I coach on the track team, our likely 2nd and 3rd runners for the upcoming cross-country season. They were talking a lot of smack going into the race, but I was reasonably confident, given that they had just taken two weeks off at the end of the track season, and I was coming off some 60-65 mile weeks. 

The course goes up for 1.2 miles about 130 feet, and then rolls back down to where it starts for the remaining 1.8. 

We went out in 5:52, which was not easy for an uphill at 7250 ft. I told the kids I coach that when we turned back to town, I was going to make a move, because if it came down to a sprint, I didn’t want to be racing a 2:05 and a 2:07 800 runner in a dash to the finish. I ran a 5:30 and then slightly faster for the next mile and that was good enough to give me some space for the win. 

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I’ve decided that I need to get over my silly perfectionist tendencies when it comes to racing. I have it in my head that I can only race when conditions are perfect and I’ve had a perfect lead up, but I put a lot of time into running, and I might as well get out there and race on occasion. 

I was never that good to begin with, but I’m getting older but I’m not yet slowing down. I think being a coach has made me smarter about my own training, and that’s helped me fend off father time a little bit.

Still, that trend won’t continue forever. Might as well get out there and get after it while I still can. 

May Deets/An Actual Race?

264 miles this month with around 18,000 ft. of gain.

That’s my second biggest month in the last five years. I’ve run some strong workouts, but I’m doing mostly threshold sessions and easy days, with a tiny bit of speed, so it’s hard to read too much into what I’m doing right now. I can do 10 800s in 2:55 on 1-minute rest and I tend to touch at lactate threshold right at the end of that workout. Toss in a few 100s or 200s at the end, and that’s my go-to training right now. The other standard workout is 7 x 1 mile on 1’ rest at subtempo, so around 6:10 pace, if I’m on the track. Most of the time I do the latter workout off the track, so I do it be HR or just by feel. 

I’ve built up to 65 mpw, and assuming I have the time and don’t get hurt, I’m going to park it there other than race weeks.  

Speaking of which, I just signed up for the Vail Hill Climb. 7.7 miles, 2200 ft of vert. Seems like a low-pressure way to revisit the racing scene. Have really no idea what to expect in terms of time or competition. I mean, it should take an hour or so, so hopefully I won’t blow up like I did at Pikes a couple of years back. 

The track season ended well. Our top boy went 4:32 in the 1600 and 9:46 in the 3200 at state. He’s a sophomore, so he’ll have chances to improve on those times the next two years. Our top girl went 4:59 for 1600 and 11:08 for 3200, good enough for 3rd and 2nd, respectively, in our classification. She now owns the school records for both distances.

I’ve only been involved in high school track for the last four years, but the improvement in times and performances is stunning. I’m pretty sure only two girls broke 5 in the 1600 in the 90s in Colorado (Melody Fairchild and Rebekah McDowell), and those girls were all-time legends. This year alone I think 15 girls ran under 5. In 5A, the time that would place you dead last at state now would have been good enough to win state many years in the 90s and early 2000s. On the guys’ side, sub-4:20 used to be reserved for Adam Goucher and a handful of others when I was in high school. Rich Martinez held the 1600 record at 4:10.98 for 40 years. Now, two dozen boys run sub-4:20 every year at state. It’s just a different universe of competition. 

April Deets

230 miles in April with 12k of gain.

Not quite as much volume as last month, but I'm feeling fit. Judging from where my heart rate is in threshold days and easy days, I think I'm as fit as I've been in the last few years. 930 miles in the first third of the year, which is the best I've done since 2017, and the first time I've done decent volume plus quality since college without getting hurt. 

I attribute that to a switch toward threshold work with volume with light injections of speed as opposed to the higher intensity speed that I was doing a few years ago.  

The two races that are on my radar for June/July are Mt. Evans Ascent and Vail Hill Climb. In August, I'm going to visit my parents in California, so I might take a stab at a sub-17 5k on the track there. 

In the fall, maybe the Color Run Half in BV, and then maybe California International Marathon in December? 

March Deets

More than a little late on this one.

255 miles with 17k of gain.

As March turns to April, coaching track turns into a full-time job that’s more time consuming than my day normal full-time job. Last Saturday, I had one 15-hour day at a meet in Pueblo, followed by another 15-hour day five days later ending at 2 am coming home from a meet in the Springs. Not an easy thing when you’re trying to run a law firm and raise a 3-year-old. Coaching in Salida, traveling to meets with good conditions and good competition invariably means long drives and late nights. It’s fun but it’s all consuming. 

I’m doing a better job of maintaining my own fitness than in prior years. I wouldn’t say I’m at peak fitness, but I think I’m close enough to it where I feel I could get there fairly quickly if I had the bandwidth and the motivation to do it. Being a coach does lend itself to access to high-quality training partners, even if they are less than half my age.  

Watching Boston got my slightly motivated to consider a road marathon in the fall/winter. We'll see if I have the motivation and energy to follow through with it when it's time to put the time in for it.

February Deets

204 miles with about 17k of gain on the month. 

A couple of hiccups held me back this month. 

Felt some strain in the lower-back of the hamstring mid-month that caused me to cut a couple of workouts short. Doesn’t really bother me on long or easy runs. Bothered me on a couple of consecutive workouts, though. Took it easy for a while and then I had a couple of good sessions at the end of the month. So hopefully that’s over with.

And I got a stomach bug mid-month. 

The hamstring didn’t force me to miss any time, just take it easy. But the stomach bug knocked me out for a couple of days, which was why mileage was a bit lower this month.  That, and the fact that there are fewer days in February. 

Still a steady month in terms of training. No breakthrough or drop offs. Just steady stuff. 

Some of the locals are doing some crazy mileage, workouts, and prep for the Run Through Time. I suspect there’s going to be a stronger-than-usual presence at the top of the podium with local runners for both the marathon and the half this year. Mark my words.

January Deets

238 miles on the month with about 20k of gain. 

Struggled a bit to build the volume the first couple weeks after getting back from Costa Rica, but the volume feels easy enough now. 50-plus miles every week in 2023, and no injuries or niggles, knock on wood. Only a few doubles this month.

Track coaching duties are in full force for me right now. I’m running five days a week with the kids. I’m mostly running with our two sub-16:30 guys and our 17-flat guy. This time of year I can usually keep up. It's the Vo2 max type work when I get dropped and we're not doing anything like that just yet. 

Mostly standard base stuff. Easy days, long days up to 13 miles, hills, and lots and lots of tempos. Some light injections of speed. I can tell that the lead kids are developing fitness to a degree where I am going to start getting dropped soon enough even on their moderate days. Such is the life of a high school coach. 

Our 800 kids’ training will deviate from the 1600-3200s shortly. So that complicates my ability to mix my training with theirs. From Feb-May, there’s a lot more holding of the watch and less running alongside them. I'll probably only be able to do 50 mpw if I can sneak in more doubles. 

We had a 1:58 kid last year, and I strained a hamstring trying to run a 27-second 200 alongside him. This year, we’ll see if I can avoid being so stupid. 

We’ve got one girl this year that is going to run D-I next year. So this might be the first year where one of the girls I coach starts kicking my butt. Fun stuff.  

Today it was 38 degrees at practice. Downright balmy compared to what we’ve been dealing with.

Looking forward to spring.