October 21st - October 27th

 "What strikes me is that there's a very fine line between success and failure.  Just one ingredient can make the difference." - Andrew Lloyd Webber

"I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles." - Christopher Reeve

Seemed like a two quote week... my one ingredient at the race this week was Don and Nancy, I would have dropped on lap 2 if it was not for them.  Thank you guys... love you.

Monday:   

9 AM:  6 miles averaging 8:10pace.  Easy spin from the house over to the rec center to drop off my ballot the looped back to the house. Legs are junk today but got it done. Hopefully they come around this week.  

--Followed this up with 35mins in the sauna (last one before I leave tomorrow) and 15mins of stretching.

-- Paula and I meet Don and Amy at Red Rocks for Hardy! this evening.. So much fun!!

Tuesday:  

Left home a little after 8am this morning to start heading to Phoenix with no plan on how far I was going to go.  I can not check into the house I rented until Wednesday at 4pm so I have time.  Drove most of the day making it Flagstaff just after dinner and found a place to sleep just outside of town.  That was a longgggggg drive, about 11 hours with the stops.

Wednesday:

11 AM:  5.4 miles w/ 1000ft of vert averaging 9:30pace.  Easy miles at the base of Mt Eden in Flagstaff before finishing the drive down to Phoenix for Javelina. Basically on the Cocodona course.  HR seemed really high today for the effort level, I am guessing from driving all day yesterday. I am pretty wiped from it today even though I slept well.

Thursday:  

  -NOTE:  Weight check in:  Not on race week and I am at the rental house in Phoenix.

Total day off today with only a bunch of stretching this evening to try and loosen up the hip.  It has really been bothering me since yesterday afternoon.  Guess it is from the 11 hours of straight driving that I did on Tuesday combined with a hillier run I did yesterday at lunch.  Hopefully it will not be an issue on Saturday.

We did get the crew site setup so that is done for Don and Nancy for Saturday then hit up a brewery meeting up with Neal and dinner.  The weather is going to be challenging on Saturday with a forecast of 98 degrees which will be a record high for the race.  Hopefully all that heat training I have been doing helps.

Friday:

10 AM:  4.5 miles averaging 9:40 pace.  Hoka shakeout jog at the race site with Don and about 400 other people. Super chill the first half until we were able to break away on the way back to jog at a normal pace.

--  Spent the rest of the afternoon playing cards at the house with Don and Nancy.  We then took the driverless taxi out to dinner... that was WILD...   Better driver than 99% of the people on the roads.

Saturday: 

6 AM:  Javelina 100 - 99.4 miles with 6500ft of vert averaging 12:37pace for 20:53 finish. What a race, it was going good until it wasn't then finished strong once the sun went down. This race is basically 5 loops with the first loop being about 22 miles and the last 4 just over 19 miles. Ran the first loop in under 3 hours and was cruising along until about mile 31 where the wheels fell off due to the record heat of 100+ degrees. I was expecting it to be hot but damn this was a different level with no clouds in the sky and no shade what so ever on the course. Lots of walking to finish out loop 2 in 5ish hours (about 11 miles of walking), then a walk/jog for loop 3 finishing the loop right when I needed a headlamp and it was starting to cooldown. I had to push hard the last 4 miles of loop 3 to beat the darkness for I did not have a headlamp on me. Loop 4 and 5 were just over 4 hours each evenly paced with Don which was perfect. If you take out my aid station stops my running time was around 17.5 hours but I needed those stops to survive the record heat. This just tells me that my A goal of sub 20 is possible for me. Did hit my B goal of sub 24 so I am mostly happy but still pondering what if..... I could not have done this run in this heat without Don and Nancy there helping me, thank you so much.  I love you guys... And of course the support from Paula and talking me off the ledge at mile 40 when I almost dropped due to heat exhaustion, yes I had to lay down in the med tent for a bit to bring my temp back down.  I love you babe....  Starting to think I am getting to old for this shit...

Sunday:  

--  Finished in the early morning, just back to the house for about 3 hours of sleep before returning to tear down the crew tent.  Spent the rest of the day eating, watching the NFL and playing cards at the house.  Nothing to exciting.  I had plans to finally have a drink after being dry for about 8 weeks but decided against it.  Maybe next week sometime.   Early bedtime of course, long drive home tomorrow.  Not sure if I will do it in one day or stretch it out over 2 days.

Total Weekly Numbers

Got it done, not much else to say that I have not said above.  Now a week or two of recovery then back to it.  Not sure what my focus will be but thinking of working on 5K and 10K speed some until January when I will start getting ready for the road 100 I have scheduled in March in North Carolina.  I will figure all that out over the next few weeks.