Mon - Noon: 8.5 miles (2,100'). Horsetooth/Audra.
PM - 7 miles (1,750'). Towers. Nice and easy.
Tues - Noon: 10.5 miles (2,600'). Falls add-on to normal Horsetooth/Audra route. Nice out - like 60 degrees nice. Trails were packed with kids and parents on spring break.
Weds - Noon: 9 miles (2,200'). 1:26. Horsetooth/Audra + extra on Southridge. Wow, tired legs. Slooow. Trails packed again.
PM - 7.5 miles (1,800'). To end of the road on Towers after finishing out FKT route in 39:20, down in a relaxed 26. Easy zoned-out effort. Legs felt better than earlier in the day, but it's always easier to climb on a dirt road than it is on trail - no concentration required.
Thurs - 12 miles (2,900'). 1:57. As yesterday noon, with Westridge/Towers loop add-on via the 'secret trail'.
PM- 6.5 miles easy w/ FCTR around Pineridge and then back to Alex M.'s for burgers and brews. Good times.
Fri - 11.5 (800'). 1:35. 6 miles on Redstone w/Miler loop added on. One last kick in the nuts from old man winter. Cold, miserable run in blowing hail/snow. Ughh.
Sat - 27 miles easy (1,200'). 3:42. Tour de Fort Collins with Alex, Pete & Mike. We had planned a double loop of Bobcat, but the snow dump from Friday scuppered that idea. As a backup, we met at Pete's and then headed up behind the stadium and ran the Horsetooth Half course and then continued on the Poudre trail to Spring Creek and took that all the way west to Cottonwood Glen and back to Pete's. First time I've run the whole Poudre/Spring Creek urban trail system in one go. Makes for a sweet long run with Centennial completing the loop. Very cold to begin with but beautiful once the sun was up. Legs solid the whole way round. Wanted some climb miles in the PM, but window of op. never appeared.
Sun - 17.5 miles (4,300'). 2:50. Triple Horsetooth to Audra: Service drive/Southridge/Audra (27:30), down on Southridge (18:51); up on hiking trail (28:22), down on Audra/Southridge/service drive (19:46); up on service drive/Southridge (28:28), down on hiking trail, then back via Spring Creek/Falls. Conditions were wet and slushy, but could definitely have been worse. A pretty easy effort all around, but I was still pleased with how good the legs felt on the first two laps after the long run Saturday. The third climb was something of a grind, especially starting out, but I got it done.
Total: 117 (19,600')
The mileage load feels like it is starting to pay off. Had a solid weekend and really didn't feel tired or fatigued on or after either run, which is a great sign that the legs are setting up well for some longer races. Looking forward to putting that to the test in April at the Fruita 50.
In the meantime, I'll be running the Antelope Island 50k out near Salt Lake City next weekend as a pit stop on our family spring break road trip out to Las Vegas where I hope to rack up a huge stack of chips and a solid week of faster miles out on the desert trails. We're staying with my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and her kids - so babysitters a plenty and no excuses (except for the free beer). Hoping for some hot weather so I can get some good heat training in too.
Anyway, I don't recognize too many names on the 50k start list, but Brad Mitchel put up a 3:49 CR last year so I'll be gunning for that, if nothing else. The more interesting race is the 50 miler where Scott Jaime and Ryan Burch will be battling it out. Too close to call, although recent race results have the bookies putting Jaime in as a slight favorite.
