March 5 to March 11

Another hard week of training is ahead. With most of the week off from work, getting the miles should be no problem.

Monday; March 5: With the early morning departure out of Jackson Hole and then the commute home, it was the day off.

Tuesday; March 6: Waking up late, 530am, Traysen and I finally made it out the door for a 11 miler. A nice effort on the hills around the house.  No mountain lions to report!

Wednesday; March 7:  An early morning weight lifting session of shoulders, triceps, and abs started the day. Then out for a slog fest of 13 miles. This was a mentally hard run. Traysen was with me for the first 7 miles as I tried a new pair of running shoes. These are a departure from my normal New Balance, being the Adidas Response. The verdict is that the shoe may be a bit small in the toe box for wide foot here, but a few more runs should loosen things up. Not sure if this shoe will  make a long distance run but it will work for shorter 10 milers.
So, dealing with new shoes, a pulling dog and just a blah, not sure I wanna run this far feeling, it was a challenging run. But it is these runs that are very important as they make the head stronger while dragging the tired body along.  A total of 13 miles today.

Thursday; March 8:  A much better effort today with a 13 miler easily completed. I am amazed at how warm it is already! This entire winter has been way too toasty and not much snow....on the other hand, it has been nice trotting around in shorts and a sweatshirt!

Friday; March 9:  A basic 7 miler today with some sloppy hill walking. When running these high mileage weeks, even a psycho runner like me has to know when to back off the throttle a bit and the easy runs allow for mental and physical recovery.

Saturday; March 10:  Meeting good running buds, Lynne and Lori, it was a 6am start from Garden of the Gods. The first few miles took us through the park, then we began the 5 mile, 5% grade climb up Rampart Range Rd. Once reaching the Williams Canyon trail turnoff, we hung a left to start the long steep descent to the bottom, only to start the steep slog back up to Waldo Canyon trail. Taking the shorter version of the Waldo intersection, we dashed across Hwy 24 and continued onto Ute Pass Trail to Manitou, back through Garden of the Gods to the cars. Lori and Lynne had a nice 21 miler and Psycho Bunny went on to complete the 30 miler for the day....An awesome, no effort sort of run and the energy level, body would have easily allowed more miles. We can only hope the race itself goes just as well.

Sunday; March 11:  Even with some stiff, sore legs, Traysen and I made it out for a 9 miler in the early morning snow. It would seem "normal" to take a day off after a long run of 30 miles, but then again, we know that a Badass Psycho Bunny is anything but "normal."

Summary: Another great week of miles. At this point, it is amazing how well this is going! Hopefully I will not jinx myself here!!!

Another question came up the other day: "How do you do hill repeats on a treadmill?" Very easily was the first response but more specifically: After about a 2 mile warmup, I set the speed at 6.0 mph, raise the incline, and up I go for whatever distance and time needed. Here are a couple of sample hill repeat workouts:


Workout #1:
*Warm up for about 2 miles at 6.0 mph, no incline (after each incline repeat, recover for the length of the repeat at 6.0 mph)
*6.2 mph, 2% incline, 3 minutes
*6.4 mph, 3% incline, 3 minutes
*6.6 mph, 4% incline, 2 minutes
*6.4 mph, 3% incline, 3 minutes
*6.2 mph, 2% incline, 3 minutes
*run remaining miles at whatever speed I feel like and sometimes add in a 1-2% incline for fun

Workout #2:
*warm up for about 2miles at 6.0 mph, no incline (after each incline repeat, recover for the twice the length of the repeat)
*6.5 mph, 2% incline, 1 minute
*6.0 mph, 5% incline, 1 minute
*6.5 mph, 2% incline, 1 minute
*6.0 mph, 5% incline, 1 minute
*6.5mph, 2% incline, 1 minute
*run remaining miles

These are examples only; that is the ease of a treadmill for interval or hill repeats; you can determine whatever workout you need and can change it as you go.

total miles: 83.0
total miles for 2012: 662.0