Training in Montana

Only 3 miles again today but I'm ready for more. I'm getting my groove back! I took it nice and slow on the first mile and pace is still slower than I'd like but I'm okay with that. Closing in on my 1.5 turnaround point I picked up the pace and on the way back was in the 7s for quite a bit. It felt good but not strained. Looking forward to getting some nice runs in while in St. George later this week for Spring Break.

AP: 8:10

1X90 plank (or so), 10 pushups (was running late). 

Ran at lunch today from the YMCA. I haven't run this routes in many moons and I missed my dirt roads and shoulder. It took a bit for the GPS to start up so my first mile is off, but most miles were in the low 8s to mid 7s. I pushed it but it was feeling good so I kept going. I definitely can tell my fitness lost a lot, but there's a lot still there. Ran on the grass as much as I could to protect my foot. Overall, good run. Beautiful weather - temps about 55-60.

Ran 5 miles with my 22 year old nephew while in St. George. Youth stinks. He barely runs and I was huffing and puffing to keep up with him. I wish I would've figured out running at his age. I knew I liked to run but didn't know how to have a plan and be smart about it. Rats. It was a good run. After a warm up first 1/2 mile kept the pace around 8 minutes per mile up the river trail. The last mile I picked it up and we sprinted in to the end at a 6 minute pace. Slight downhill, but felt good. He was pleased that we tied, but I was pleased just to keep up with him.

4 miles in St. George. It was cool-ish at 47 degrees so wore a long sleeve tech shirt & gloves. It was mostly the right choice. My legs were tired from yesterday and from having a 3 week layoff. I wasn't sure I'd get to 4 miles but at the turnaround another guy was coming the other direction so as soon as I turned around I thought he'd pass me and I must have upped my pace. He never did pass and I got to around an 8 minute pace and held it most of the way back. Overall a good run. Nice to run on tired legs every now and then.

AP: 8:32

3 running miles with Peg in St. George, then 5 brutal hiking miles in Zion National Park. Took two of my boys & their cousin to the top of Angels Landing. Awesome hike, scary at parts. Since 2004 six people have fallen to their deaths on this hike. It is crazy the last 1/2 mile. Fun though. After getting to the bottom my right outside calf muscle was aching - the normal spot after a long run. Went & soaked in the river and felt better, then took some vitamin I after getting home and all pain went away. Ah.

Did 4 1/2 miles in Smithfield before driving back to Billings. It was fairly chilly for shorts but not too bad. Ran up towards Smithfield Canyon and turned around just before entering the canyon. Hit some great speeds for a few seconds on a steep downhill section. Overall, a good run. No pains during or after.

AP: 8:10 

5 miles this morning in 29 degree temps. Hands were a bit cold and I was glad for my beanie to cover my ears. Felt good after getting lots of sleep on vacation. I found a 50K training plan last night and I'll do my best to follow it over the next 10 weeks. I'm not too far off this 12 week plan so maybe I'll do okay.

Went to the PT after my run to check out my groin problem. He'll do some research but he thinks it's a lower abdominal issue that's affecting a spot in my groin. I always thought adductor but he doesn't think that's it. Gave me some low intensity workouts to target the lower abs and he wants me to call him on Friday. I'm looking forward to beating this lifelong issue that continually crops up. Hurts like the dickens when I sneeze.

AP: 8:11 

Slept in today. It felt good. 

Found a 50K training plan and added the miles to my Outlook calendar so now I have to do them. Has me running 10+ on Saturday and 8-10 on Sunday as a recovery run. My Saturdays are 14, 16, 18, 20, 10, 22, 22, 24, 10, then the 50K. Yikes. I think I'll break up some of those runs up throughout the day as it's all about hours on feet, not continuous miles. Different way of thinking for an ultra. One site said to expect 2 hours more than my most recent marathon, so 5:45 is what I'll probably do. Yikes! That is a long time to run. I'm looking forward to it though. 

6 miles in semi wet conditions. It rained a bit before the run and a smidge during but not too bad. Went pretty slow, felt pretty good. My right outer calf muscle is bugging me as it has in the past. It normally only hurts after 10+ miles but started after the Angel's Landing hike Saturday and was throbbing a bit last night even not running. I rolled it out before bed & took some ibuprofen. It twinged again during the run so I rolled it before work. Hopefully it will calm down quickly.

AP: 8:42

10 trail miles, my first trail miles as a runner. Ran around an area called Phipps Park which is a Folf course outside of town. The trail heads up on top of the rims to the highest point in Billings, of which there are many on the same plateau. Ran with a friend of ours and we did a few loops around the plateau to get the 10 miles. Ran really slowly as she hasn't been putting in the miles. Side note - she's a Cross Fit user who's trying to see if she can do a 50K on low mileage. She did the Bighorn 30K the past two years and is now increasing the race mileage while decreasing her training mileage. I've shared my opinion so now that I've done that I'll just run with her on some Saturday runs before the race and cheer her on during the race. I hope she does okay but that will be a long walk. She knows it might not go well and she also knows the 100M runners won't be done until early Sunday, so she has plenty of time to finish... More power to her. Needless to say, our miles were very slow, averaging a 12:30 or so and our 10 miles took 2:06. I had a blast though. Ready to cheer on some Boston runners on Monday.

Couldn't wake up this morning so I ran at lunch time. Nice 51 degrees with 12 mph wind. Perfect for Boston - too bad it was in Montana. Too bad it wasn't so. I felt great on this run. My training plan says I need a longish recovery run the day after my long run, but I feel weird about training on Sunday so I didn't do it. I'm going to switch up my plan and do my "recovery" run on Fridays, the day before my long run. Not perfect but it will work. That being said, as I took yesterday off I was interested to see how my body felt after my first long run in a while. It felt great. I ended up pushing my speed faster than I should have but it was fun. I did feel something a few times in my left foot where it hurt before but it went away so hopefully no damage. I ran on the grass as much as I could, but that is probably only 1/2 mile each way. Rambling report but there you go.

AP: 8:00 

3X10 curls, tricep dips, chest. 3X20 PT exercises for my groin/lower abdominals. 

4 miles this morning. 48 degrees - pretty nice. Kept it nice and easy on the out, pushed the pace on the way back. At 1.5 miles out my lower back started cramping - weird. Never felt that. Must've been the weights from yesterday? Stopped to do a few stretches and it went away after a bit. Odd.

AP: 8:40. 

6 miles this morning, 36 degrees. Ran the first mile with my 10 yr old son (10:38) out 1/2 mile & back home then turned around and did 5 more. Felt pretty good, especially with a warmup already done. Pushed the pace a bit and was laboring but it was a solid push.

AP: 8:43

My back was acting up all day yesterday. Had my wife dig into it pretty deep last night - should be bruises now. Feeling better. I guess I did too much with weights on Monday. Oops. 

Did 10 miles this morning before work then headed straight to a meeting. I had to stand in the back of the room most of the time. Felt pretty good. Trying to fit in 16 tomorrow but I have a Boy Scout campout. We'll see.

AP: 8:42 

Did a nice long run this morning while on a Scout campout. We camped at a guy in our ward who has an awesome campout spot on his 20 acres that he allows any group to use - Scouts, family reunions, wards, etc. I'd never run from here before. Got up at 5:15 and got dressed and took off. It was raining on the tin roof of the cabin (my brother and I slept in the small 1 room cabin while the boys slept in tents) and I was worried about getting soaked as I didn't have any rain gear. I went for it and it turned out great. I got rained on a bit in my 2 hour run but not much. I also had forgotten a bandanna for a headband but I made it.

We were on the Crow Indian Reservation so I was a little worried about running on back roads as I didn't know how people would be. Thankfully it was early enough that nobody was awake. I got some beautiful views today running in the shadows of the Pryor Mountains. Gorgeous. Low clouds, slight rain, entire valley was misty, so the orange/pink hues of the early sunrise diffused across the valley. It was amazing. Most of the roads were great with enough gravel to not pile mud on the shoes but the last 4-5 miles I stopped for lots of mud removal. I didn't stop my watch enough today so my AP is much lower than it truly was, but regardless a good run.

AP: 9:45 

Went to the river with my family after dinner and played around a bit. Beautiful day - 80 or so. I had a home teaching appointment nearby so instead of making the family stop what they were doing and driving me there I decided to walk. I hadn't run those roads in a while so I figured it would be 1 to 1.5 miles. Turns out it was more like 2.5 as it took me over 30 minutes walking fast. Great chance to stretch my legs after a long weekend.

4 miles on a warm morning. 52 at 6 am - nice! I felt a bit sluggish from a lot of miles this weekend but stretched out the legs a bit and they were fine. 

AP: 8:38 

6 miles this morning. Pushed the pace, still hard on the uphills. Lost a few minutes over my previous fitness.

AP: 8:20 

6 tired miles today. Legs felt dead the entire way. I'm not surprised as I haven't been getting enough sleep plus I pushed it yesterday. Walked a few times & powered through the run.

AP: 9:06 

Taking the day off yesterday from running was awesome. My body was tired. I was still exhausted last night and could've gone to sleep before 10, but didn't. Ended up having a hard time going to sleep but I didn't worry about it as I knew I was laying down and still resting. Got up at 5:15 for my long Friday run and somehow didn't get out the door until 5:45. What up with me? I am so slow sometimes. Heard the wind howling and knew a storm was coming in. Checked the radar and sure enough, we had rain all around us. Brought my rain jacket along and glad I did. Wore shorts & t-shirt as it was 54 degrees. Should've gone with long sleeve shirt as it was windy and the temps were dropping. After 2 miles of getting pelted sideways by rain I put on the jacket and wore it for the remainder, and it was nice to have. The wind was brutal. Planned to do 10 miles, but at the 3 mile mark I knew I had a mile or more straight into 30+ mph gusts and with my late start knew I couldn't afford it. Turned around and ran North/South more than normal, but I did get in 9 miles. Was going to turn around and only get 8 but had the umph to keep going so I did. Got home later than normal but it all worked out okay. Supposed to have rain all weekend so tomorrow's 18 is going to be awesome.

AP: 8:50 

18 miles today, 9 yesterday, and all of them in wind gusts of 30+ mph. Ugh. Today there was no rain for me, but a lot of wind on a very exposed country road. I went out knowing that the wind would suck, so at least I was prepared. It was 39 degrees but 27 with wind chill so brought 2 pairs of gloves and after 3 miles I wore both pair for the remainder of the run. I didn't know if I'd go 18 outdoors so I took off seeing if I could go out 9 miles. If it was too bad I was going to turn around at 5 and run the rest at the Y. I was stubborn and kept going as the last couple miles had a little bit of wind break. Anyhow, it was probably the gnarliest run I've done to date. By the time I got home I was pretty wasted. I think my 18 was probably more like the effort for 22-24 as I used so many muscles trying to stay upright in the wind.

AP: 9:32. Elevation gain 1235 feet. I walked a lot today.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/172695226 

4 easy miles today. Legs are very aware of the killer weekend workout. My body was too - I was exhausted Saturday and Sunday. My wife asked if I had any workouts of 18 miles leading up to my race. I don't want to tell her I have 4 more that are MORE than 18. A 20 this weekend, then a dial back to 10, then a 22, 22, and 24 before tapering. Hmm. Not sure I'll find any pity for being exhausted in future weekends. Hopefully my body will toughen up quick and get me some fast recovery.

AP: 8:47