Monday - 2 miles (500') hike/jog at Horsetooth with A-dog.
Tuesday - 16 miles (5,000'). Longs.
Wednesday - 9 miles (2,300') easy. Horsetooth/Audra loop.
Thurs -
am: 6 miles easy on valley trails
pm: 6.5 miles easy with FCTR at Pineridge, followed by beers, kebabs, and tear-inducing jalapenos at Alex's house.
Fri - 10 miles (2,000') easy in searing heat. Horsetooth - Westridge - Towers - Bluesky - 38e - home. Heat killed me. 95 degrees out at midday.
Sat - 11 miles (1,000') easy on Picture Rock trail near Lyons. I was down in Lyons to satisfy my trail work requirement for Wasatch. Got there early to sneak in a 90 minute run before the 8:30 trail-work start.
While I'm glad I was able to get out and perform some trail maintenance as a means of giving back a little, and also as a way to get a better understanding of what goes into creating and maintaining trails, I resent somewhat being required to do this in order to run a race I'm paying good money to run. In my mind, voluntary work should be just that: voluntary. Being a father and husband, volunteer time is hard enough to come by as it is, and so I've had to find opportunities to volunteer in the running community where it's possible to involve the whole family. Directing the Fort Collins Running Club's Tortoise & Hare series has worked well in that respect. Trail maintenance is definitely not a family activity if you've got young kids. Anyway, rather than bitching, I should probably just avoid such races in the future. Western States has a similar requirement, but they were at least willing to accept the work I do for the FCRC as satisfying that requirement, which was greatly appreciated.
Sun - 20.5 miles (4,400'). 2:50. Towers interval workout with Jason Ostram. Hard effort on the 1.3 mile, 750' climbs up to Loggers, then easy around and down on Sawmill and Valley trails x 5. Loop is just under 4 miles, and those last couple of climbs up Towers were real grinders, especially with the morning getting progressively hotter. Towers splits went: 11:06, 11:21, 11:19, 11:23, 11:13. Recovery splits: 20:34, 22:03 21:31, 21:50, 20:58. Swan Johnson: 4:20, 3:37. This one hurt, but I was happy to get up at a consistent pace for all five climbs. Wanted a fastest effort on the last one, but the combination of fatigue and extra heat left me a few seconds short. Probably try and crank out another one of these on slightly more rested legs in two weeks as one of my last long, hard workouts before Pikes.
Total: 80.5 miles (15,200')
This was a solid week with a couple of really good longer climb workouts in there. I still don't feel particularly zippy, but I do feel strong. To go under four hours on Pikes, I figure that I'll be able to get it done with, at worst, a 2:35 climb which was my Ascent time last year. I feel fairly confident that I'll be able to get close to a 1:25 on the down portion with my longer distance strength and strong, reasonably zippy down-legs. With a 2:30 on the up, which I also think is possible, the A goal is 3:55. Others seem to think I'll be lucky to get under 4 - and that's why we run 'em.
Next week is going to be busy and potentially exhausting. Justin Mock talked me into running a 5k down in Louisville on Wednesday as the first leg in our three-part head to head. Quite comically, I will be running in the 'elite' race, so I am simply hoping to avoid coming DFL in addition to finally posting a 16:xx. I think I got it in me this time. Might just try and hang on to Justin for as long as possible and then hope to not die too badly through the last mile. That way I can at least say I tried to make a race of it.
Anyway, the day after the 5k will be the biweekly romp up Towers, which I will probably end up running harder than planned. And then Saturday, it is Karl's hike-a-thon out in Utah which features a whopping 12,000' of climbing over 31 miles. I like my chances better there than I do on the roads on Wednesday.
