September 22nd - September 28th

 "When you start a new trail equipped with courage, strength, and conviction, the only thing that can stop you is you." - Ruby Bridges

"Worrying gets you nowhere.  If you turn up worrying about how you're going to perform, you've already lost." - Usain Bolt

---  Seemed like a 2 quote week with the Cowboy 100 this weekend.  I put a lot of effort in getting ready for this one so fingers crossed.

Monday:

6:30 AM:  7.6 miles averaging 7:55pace.  Easy hour cruise around the roads and trails from work. Made it an effort to go super chill today. Tired today due to the late night airport pick up of Paula last night. Need to focus on sleep this week.  We plan on heading up there on Thursday morning.

11 AM: 1 hour at Koda...

Warmup: Run and mobility

A) 12min AMRAP
200m Run
1 CB Pullups (+1/Rnd)

B) 3 Sets
60s Wgt Chinese Plank - R90s
60s Weighted Plank - R90s

C) 12min AMRAP
250m Row
5 WBS (+5/Rnd)

--  This evening went in to PT and had the calves dry needled to try and get them as loose as possible before this weekend.  Always hurts like hell on the calves do to how tight they always are.

Tuesday:  

-- Woke up to dumping rain and the calves being sore from the dry needling last night.  With the rain I did not get out before work like I have been.  We will see if I can get way from work today or not, weather dependent, no need to suffer through the rain this close to the race.  What is the point?

-- Took a complete rest day today, never stopped raining and since I have not run on a treadmill in ages it was not worth the risk of getting sore from it with the race being only 4 days away.  Rest will do me good.  Spent the day trying to get ahead a bit at work since I will be off from Thursday through Monday.

Wednesday:

6 AM:  5.7 miles averaging 8min pace. Easy cruise before work on the roads and trails close by. Super chill taking my time and just getting the blood moving some. Glad I took yesterday off for the calves feel a LOT better today but at the same time I hate taking a day off, always feel sluggish the next day. Anyways, the countdown to Saturday is on.  Looks like Longs Peak and Indian Peaks got a bunch of snow while we got rain yesterday.

--  Hit the hot tub for 20mins when I got home from work then finished packing for the weekend, plan is to leave around 9am tomorrow morning.

Thursday:  

6:30 AM:  6.1 miles averaging 7:25pace.  Easy miles this morning at Davidson Mesa before hitting the road to Nebraska. Legs were snappy and ready to go this morning after the first mile. Funny how one both dreads and can be excited for a 100 mile race at the same time.

-- left around 9am to start the drive to northern Nebraska.  Realized we would be driving right through Arnold Nebraska which is where one set of my grandparents are buried so had to make the stop to say hi.  Have not been here since 2010.

Friday:

8 AM:  4 miles averaging 7:30pace.  Easy out and back from the hotel on the Cowboy trail. This section I will not be doing in the 100 mile race for we start about 15 miles west of here in Atkinson but the 200 milers who started early this morning should start coming through tonight. This would be mile 85ish for them. Threw in 4 strides on the way back as well.

-- After my run I picked up Paula and drove her to the trailhead and told her I would pick her up in the next town 10 miles away. So she got in her run as well on the Cowboy trail today.  

Saturday: 

8 AM:  Cowboy 100-- 98.26 miles w/ 900ft of vert averaging 10:04 pace which is 16:31:36 overall time.  Got it done... Cowboy 100 for first place and a new course record bringing it down from 18:48 to 16:31. This course can be run so much faster but this is about all this old man had on this day. I would say for the right person this could easy be a 13 hour course, weather dependent. One of my better 100s overall in how I managed everything from heat (it was HOT!) to lack of aid stations for long stretches.  I could not have asked for a better day. Of course I owe a lot of this to Paula and Donnie, they both kept me on track and on the goal of going below the course record. Donnie did exactly what I wanted him to do, keep me on pace to run the last 26 miles in 4:30 or less, we ran it in 4:29ish. That was my A goal for this race, to go under the course record and where ever I fell placing wise is where I fell. Today it just happened to be 1st. This is now my 100 mile PR.  Lots of stories of course coming out of this day that I am still processing.  Always up for a run or coffee if you would like to hear some of them.  My brain is not working well enough yet to type them all out.  I owe a huge thank you to Paula, Donnie, and Matt.   

Sunday:  

We had plans to stay in Valentine at an Airbnb until Monday before driving home but the house we rented was pretty bad.  The whole place smelled like cat piss and it was making Paula sick so we headed out first thing in the morning.  Of course both of us were functioning off of 3 hours or so of sleep last night so we had to stop a few times along the way to nap and took turns driving while the other was napping in the bed with Venus.  We took an hour detour to Sidney to spend an hour or so with my Grandma.  Just had too even if it meant we got home a lot later.  Yes I am almost 50 and still have a grandparent that is alive. ;o)

Total Weekly Numbers

Hell of a week..... Finished my #1 goal for 2025 by completing my 3rd 100 mile run this year.  I have never done three of them in one year before and thought it would be a stretch considering I am getting older but it was a damn good year.  Won 2 of the 3 (no way I could ever be top 10 at Western) which actually blows my mind.  I never would have thought that was possible.  Yes I know they were smaller races but still, I can only race who shows up.  Next on the agenda is California International Marathon in December.  Right now I am not sure if I am going to go all in on this or not, I am so tired from this year currently.  My original goal was to try and break my PR of 2:44 that I set at the age of 40 during the Boston Marathon.  I thought it would be cool to break that at the age of 50 which I will be in December.  Right now I have no desire to put in 6-7 weeks of hard training again but that could change after taking a week off.  More to come on that decision over the next few weeks.  Guess I better get back to work and get caught up from being gone.  Until next week......