06.20.10: End of spring, long absence, coming soon...

So, another season in the books - summer begins tomorrow. While I haven't been blogging, I have apparently been busy running, and at least by pure endurance standards I'm rounding into some semblance of fitness:

"Official" spring mileage total = 1149M

Backing up a couple of months, I had some trouble with my right shin/ankle right at the start of the year. I immediately took time off, got PT for it within about a week (muscle tears/muscle tearing away from shin bone - nice), but ultimately missed quite a bit of time. Nothing new there. RG actually was instrumental in getting me back into it, as a number of weeks went by without any runs with her. I did a decent job of cross-training in the meantime, primarily sticking to the elliptical machine and rowing machine.

By late March, everything started feeling better, and I got it rolling pretty quickly. I've been very deliberate about sticking to MAF training, which also included all the cross-training workouts. Here's a look at the mileage totals of the past 12 weeks, starting from Monday 03.29:

57.1M
75.9M
80M
95.5M
89.7M
100.1M
105M
100M
106.5M
101.3M
103.1M
104.4M
1118.6M - 93.2M/week

I'm planning one more week of MAF; ideally another 100M+ week. This Saturday I'm planning a final MAF Track Test of 8K. I haven't had a huge improvement in performance during this stretch of MAF training, but we'll see what Saturday holds. I've run 3 MAF Track Tests (HR ceiling of 130), and my times have dropped from 35:32 to 35:20 to 35:01. That said, based on this morning's long run, I'm optimistic I'll show a greater improvement the next time out.

Today's Training
I wanted to run long today, but I wanted to stay relatively close to home, and decided I would do a multiple loop course that I'd been working on:

Start: Erie Lake parking lot - south side of lake - over and around west/south side of Kneebone - an approximately 2.1M loop in Rothman - around the east/north side of Arapahoe Ridge - back to the Erie Lake parking lot via the north side of lake.

This worked out to just over 5.7M per loop. In my head going into the run, I'd thought it was somewhere closer to 7M, and had planned 3 loops. I spent much of the run debating whether I should just run 3 loops, and add some laps around the lake to get my 20M, or if I should run 4 full loops. I ran the 4 loops.

22.85M (2:42:55)
AHR=124. MHR=133
7:08/M
Lap splits: 40:34 (AHR122), 40:59(124), 40:37(126), 40:45(127)

Other than a right hamstring that got a little sore/tight late in the run, I was really pleased with this run. It was a warm and humid (for Colorado) morning (started about 6:20 AM), and while I had a little HR drift, I ran very consistently over a long stretch of time and distance. Also, nobody stole my waterbottles that I picked up and dropped off throughout the run. This loop is definitely a keeper for future long runs, tempo runs, and marathon pace efforts. It's mostly flat with some very mild elevation change throughout.

Later, around 4:30 PM, I headed out for an easy run with RG and Niwot:

2M (19:25)
Home - Thomas Reservoir (1 loop) - Home

We had fun with this one. As I knew it would be hot, I poured a large cup of water over RG's head/cap, and brought a waterbottle along to squirt her with a number of times during the run. Despite just heading out for a casual easy run on a hot day, RG continues to impress me with her recent improvement. She seems to have spiraled upwards a bit in fitness over the past few weeks (starting with the Bolder Boulder).

After this coming week, I'll transition into a post-MAF phase of training, with a primary focus on...well, running faster. I'm still playing around with how I'll structure my training, but I'm planning on initially focusing on tempo runs and varied long runs for my quality work.

While I certainly won't be race ready, I have penciled in a local race to kick things off:

Firecracker 4K

This race and upcoming tempo runs should give me somewhat of a picture of my starting point for racing. For the rest of the summer/early fall, I'm still piecing my "season" together, but I'm leaning towards the Boulder Marathon as a primary race to point towards, and the Coal Creek Crossing 10M a couple of weeks prior. Other races could include: Eldorado Cure 4M, West End 3K, BRR track races, etc.

I'm also intrigued by a new race just a couple of weeks after the Boulder Marathon - the Bear Chase Trail Race. They're having a 10K, 1/2 Marathon, 50K, and 50M. I don't know where my fitness will take me, and how my body will hold up, but I'd LOVE to run that 50M.