Training in Montana

Short run before we headed off as a family to Riverfront Park to make breakfast on the Coleman stove. Yum. Run was fine - stayed on the dirt road for most of it, took a new route. I was struggling heading uphill then looked at the watch and I was at an 8:30 going up. Not steep mind you but I'm normally a 9:15-9:30 on that same stretch. On the turn around I got the legs moving and it felt great. I wonder what I can do on a nice downhill course with proper training. Probably do okay. I doubt I'll do that in the SGM but I'm confident that I'll do pretty well.

AP: 8:38 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/112987799

Tough run today, but mostly on purpose. I'm worried about Veyo hill, so figured I'd do my miles heading up my toughest nearby hill. I ran it Saturday and like to tackle it every now and then, but I think I'll start tackling it every run until the Marathon when possible. I felt a little sluggish today, probably from yesterday's work outside. I didn't rest a whole lot and was on my feet most of the day. I was able to get up the hill in a decent time, but coming back down I didn't have the oomph so an 8:00 downhill was tough. I know my legs are beat when that happens. At 6 miles I was doing an 8:44 with a slight downhill and just sluggish, so listened to some Kam advice and bumped up the speed to an 8:15 or so for 30 seconds and that got me out of it. Felt better the rest of the way.

AP: 8:55. 65 degrees out at 5:45 am.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/112987791

5 miles this morning. Beautiful sunrise! One of the best I've seen. There's a thick band of haze on the Eastern horizon from some wildfires (not sure where they are) so the haze diffused the sunrise and completely lit up the horizon with oranges and reds and yellows. It was amazing. Then when the sun finally popped through it was a solid orange. Amazing.

Didn't push it too hard on the run as I'm a bit tired. Need to get more sleep before my 8 miles on Friday and 20 miles on Saturday. So, a cat scared me today. I was nearly home, running past my neighbor's house (1/4 mile from mine) and on the right side of the road there's just tall dried grass, 2-3 feet high. I hear a noise to my right and then suddenly a cat jumped out onto the road right at my feet! I screamed like a little girl and jumped into the air. Then I looked around and I don't think anyone saw me. It freaked me out. I'm normally the one doing the chasing, as I scared away a herd of 50 deer this morning. But this cat had the drop on me. Time to change the shorts.

AP: 8:55 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/112987780

First, a couple weird dreams. Wednesday night, dreamed I was doing the SGM and my legs were completely leaden and I just couldn't do it. I was so frustrated as my training runs have been fine. Had to walk a bunch and finished in 5 hours. Woke up angry! Last night, dreamed I was in Farmington in my old 2 wheel drive Corolla and I started driving up a dirt road and ended up way in the mountains. Looked up and saw a string of headlamps going up a trail, and realized the Wasatch 100 starts today. I saw Davy's green headlamp in the distance and thought that was cool, then I realized I was in 6-12 inches of snow and I was stuck so had to walk back down and my car was stuck for the winter. Very odd. Wonder how those guys and gals are doing?

Now to reality. Ran up the same Veyo test hill as on Tuesday and did it much faster and felt much better. Ready for a campout tonight, football game tomorrow and somehow will fit in a 20 miler at night. AP: 8:26. Splits 9:17, 8:45, 8:38, 9:59, 7:48, 8:01, 7:41, 7:22.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/112987768

My most amibitious and perhaps crazy run to date. We had a Fathers/Sons/Scout campout last night and this morning so that threw out my normal early morning run and I planned to run at night. It's been unseasonably warm - at 6:30 it was still 83 - so I waited until dusk. I don't have a good reflective top yet (plan to buy one but haven't) so I cut up a Harbor Freight one and fashioned it around my waist under my water belt. It worked alright. I had two blinking red lights on back, one blinking green one in front and a headlamp. I felt okay. Headed out just after 8 and drove down to the local gas station as I could buy stuff when I finished. Headed towards the river first for a little warm up, then went up the hill towards my house. My plan was to run up, up, and up, something I'd never done before. It worked pretty well, although it fried my legs and my downhill speeds were much more sluggish than I thought they would be. After about 6 total miles I hit dirt road and realized that with the full moon out I could see better without my headlamp so I turned it off for the rest of the run, except for when cars came and I only saw 3 cars after that. Love rural Billings where I live. Running at night was very interesting. Loved the full moon - loved running without a light. It was tough not being able to just glance at my watch to see my speed and distance, but that wasn't too big a deal. The last 5 miles were really tough. I nearly ended early and ran home which would have cut it short by 2 miles, but I decided against it. Glad I did. I was happy to see I had some toughness/stubbornness in me. Not sure how smart I am, but when I get an idea stuck in my head it's tough to get it out.

Overall thoughts at 12:38 am: hmmm....not sure yet. It was a bit crazy to do such a long run at night, but it was nice being able to run with nobody around. I don't know that I'll do this much more as I really prefer morning runs, but glad to see it's an option to fall back on.

AP: 9:20. Gained 1576 feet elevation, burned 2810 calories. Sleeping this off will be weird. I think I'll be pretty stiff and hungry in the morning.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/113400601