Monday; Aug 29: After the busy weekend, Traysen and I didn't make it out the door til 7am. By our return at 9am the temps had risen to about 65 and it was toasty!!! (Yes, that is warm for us!!! Plus the sun was blaring down....) A nice 10 miler started the week; the highlight was the twin fawns bounding through the woods. Traysen was sure he had found some new playmates.
Tuesday; Aug 30: With Mom catching a 630am flight, the timing was perfect to run with the Sunrise Striders. When I say "run with," I mean that very loosely. The run for today was to warm up for about 15 minutes and then do 4 x 7minutes tempo run with 3:30 recovery between. Well, for little Miss I am not so Fast Here, the warm up was almost like a tempo run! I hung with the group for a few minutes but they slowly pulled away and left only dust and Sarah in their wake. At the 15 minute mark, my speed increased to a good tempo pace and the 7 minutes was easily covered with no slowing down except on a few slight inclines. The 3:30 recovery was most welcome and I tried to keep it a steady slow trot so as to be able to hit the next repeat with full speed. The next three 7 minute repeats went well and the group caught me on the return as we were finishing our last repeat.
One key concept in this run was this: For all of this year I have been doing hill repeats and intervals; however, the intensity and the quantity have not been what they should have or could have been. All of this speed work has been done on my own with real exterior incentive to push myself. And even though I have enough inner drive to push myself, it is not enough to produce an excellent speed work session.
Wednesday; Aug 31: It is way past time to get back to the gym; took all of last week off. So, it was to the pumping iron bright and early for abs, shoulders and triceps. Then, out the door, without lazy boy, Traysen. A nice 11 miler was the order of the day and it was your basic trot around the neighborhood, watching early morning activities of the deer, squirrels, and rabbits.
Thursday; Sept 1: Today was a Sunrise Strider workout day, so Traysen and I jumped in the truck and off we went to find Eagle View Middle School. While he hung out in the truck I met up with the group for the interval portion of the run. We started with a warm up and it was here that the day took on a painful twist. In the first half mile, ole Clumsy here took a nice digger. The comments went something like this: "Ohhhhh, nice one." "Dang, that sounded bad." "Are you ok; you can't breath!!!" Instead of flipping them off, I managed a couple of "IIII'mmmmmm ok...jussttt neeeeddd aiiirrrr." With renewed air in the lungs, the warm up resumed, bloody hang and knee to boot.
The group's plan for the day was 8x800m with a 2: 00 recovery. Sarah's plan was to do as many of the 800s as possible, remain alive, and not go over head teakettle....again. The first 4x800m went very well. The time was respectable, the energy was good, the form was good,the fun was good, and so I did two more 800s. Again, all went well.....so, I did two more 800s!! At the end, I had completed all 8x800s and the time was within a consistent 15 second range for each interval. As I was gathering Traysen from the truck, Kenneth Chlouber's (Leadville 100 founder) comment came to mind: "You are better than you think you are and you can do more than you think you can."
As with Tuesday's run, this session proved it is easier, more effective, actually more fun to run these hard intervals with others. During this session I was able to latch onto a few folks and push myself harder than in the past and it felt good to mix up the running with a very challenging effort.
Traysen enjoyed his 3 mile trot through Ute Valley Park to round out the day with 8 miles.
Thanks to Harsha Nagaraj's photos!!! Yes, I am smiling..guess I wasn't working hard enough on this particular interval!
Really...I am having fun!!!!
Friday; Sept 2: Today was a solo effort (since lazy boy, Traysen, decided to sleep in with the wiener dogs) of 12 miles. A nice run with plenty of "squirrels" to keep my company.
Saturday; Sept 3: It's Fall!!!!! Finally, it's Fall!!!! Meeting Lynne and Michele at the Rainbow Gulch Trailhead, we ran the 15 mile loop around Rampart Reservoir, complete with long sleeve t shirt temps, aspens rustling in the breeze and a nip to the wind. It is mornings like this that make running all the better...cool temps, good friends, beautiful trails.....and lots of miles. Michele is training for a 100 miler in November so it was good to spend some time catching up on her training efforts and progress. She should be in great shape for a fine showing at the Ozark 100.
Sunday; Sept 4: Down to the basement gym for abs, legs, and biceps and then out the door at just barely daylight. Traysen and I wrapped up the week with an easy 5 miler; the highlight being the very cool temp of 42 degrees!
Summary: A great week of running with 70 miles, including two workouts with the Sunrise Strider group and two medium long, back to back runs of 12 and 15 miles. Also , with two weight lifting sessions were tossed into the mix.
The weeks where I am not working at all gives a brief taste of what retirement could be like in terms of quality rest and evenly spaced, consistent workouts. The two speed sessions on Tuesday and Thursday are perfectly timed during the week and then the body is recouped from those by Saturday for back to back long runs on the weekends......so now, this how everybody else does it? Well, only 9 more years til I join all of you with a normal schedule!
OH...Why 70 miles this week? Because I can!!!!
I don't know about NORMAL schedule--everyone has their interests that keep them occupied the other 16 hours of the day. Good job, Sarah, I believe speedwork with others really can be fun, even though hard. There is a joy in shared pain, which is why ultras are so popular!
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