Training in Montana

6 miles this morning from the Y as I dropped my son off for weight lifting at the school at 6 am. He really wants to make the basketball team....

Decent run, fairly windy but good temps. Tired legs the first couple miles but on the way back felt pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. That mountain running hit my legs pretty good, which is a bit crazy as it wasn't very many miles.

AP: 8:01

10 miles on the rims, which is our killer trail above town. Great trail, lots of fun to run the ups and downs and over sandstone and on a single track and ducking under tree branches. Great fun, beautiful albeit cold morning. 42F which is chilly even for us, and my hands are just now warming up. Wore gloves and arm warmers and that was fine on the run, but afterwards I was a bit chilled. Hopefully summer will hit at some point.

AP: 8:52

6 miles this morning. Thermo meter showed 42F so I wore gloves and arm warmers again, but probably didn't need the arm covers. It was gorgeous. No wind, no clouds, bright sun at 6:35 am. Perfect running weather. I felt really tired when I woke up, dawdled for a while, and on my run I was convinced it would be a laggard run. Turned out to be a good one actually, and not sure why. The 3 miles up weren't terribly hard but I seemed to be keeping a decent pace. On the way back my legs were automatically at a 7:35 so I pushed it and the last mile it felt great to be running sub 7 so I let them go.

AP: 7:52. Last three miles: 7:32, 7:17, 6:57.

Rest day, which normally means absolute & complete rest for me (even though it would be a good cross training day), but as my son is now doing Cross Fit with the basketball team at 6 am most mornings, and I get to drive him, I hit the gym for a bit of cross training. I love run on sentences. I saw a friend at the Y and we both happened to hit the recumbent bikes at the same time and chatted for 30 minutes and I got in 8.5 miles of cycling. Time goes fast when you talk. I rarely talk at the Y. I then did some lunges to beat up my quads a bit before the race. Should've been doing this way more, but alas. Did 20 pound dumbells, 2 sets of 15 walking lunges. Then did my 25 pushups.

8 miles this beautiful (and warmish) morning. 54 degrees, ah. There was a breeze so I could've worn gloves as my hands got cold, but it really was perfect. I'm concerned about my race being hot as I've had almost no heat training. Oh well. It's a trail run and it's more about scenery and finishing than being fast.

My legs are a bit sore from the lunges yesterday, but not bad. The perfect amount of soreness. I went up my Veyo hill and back and it was a good effort. A bit sluggish as all the training and not enough sleep has me worn out a bit, but overall not a horrible run. I'm pleased with it. Tomorrow is my last double digit day (and 17th wedding anniversary) and hopefully we'll get out on the boat and do some knee boarding and tubing with the family afterwards.

AP: 8:16.

Last double digit run of the training cycle, 10 miles on the Zimmerman to Indian Cliffs trail. Great fun. 954 feet of up, 988 feet of loss. Sadly that's just above what single miles look like on the 50K course, but at least I got some good up and down. If you check out the Garmin link the trail at the end (turnaround) is hugging the edge of finger canyons. A lot of fun to hug the side of the fingers. Nothing treacherous, but plenty of elevation change.

I had a nice nap this afternoon. I'm ready for a week of not doing much. 

AP: 9:18.  

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/324843186 - today

http://connect.garmin.com/splits/190110574 - 50K elevation splits (same route this year)