April 20th- April 26th

"Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Half effort does not produce half results.  It produces no results.  Work, continuous work and hard work, is the only way to accomplish results that last." - Hamilton Holt

-- Back to the grind this week...... 2-3 weeks until the taper...

Monday:

6 AM: 8 miles averaging 7:35pace.  Easy cruise around Davidson Mesa this morning early so I can be home all morning to watch the Boston Marathon. Quads are a touch sore but otherwise everything else seems to check out fine.  

Don did great even though he did not have the day he wanted or that he trained for at Boston.  He has been through hell the past 6 months and I am proud of him for still putting up a 2:47 under all the stress he has been under.  Great job buddy!!

1 PM: Walk 2 miles with Venus... Paula is still out of town until Wednesday and I needed a break from work so walk with Venus it was.

5 PM: 50mins lifting at VASA Lift.  Today was lower body, lots of squats and lunges which of course I had to go light on due to still a little sore from Horsetooth Half on Sunday.

Tuesday:  

6 AM:  8.4 miles averaging 7:25pace.  Easy cruise from work early today since I am tied up in meetings all day. Doing the new normal easy hour route I came up with from work watching the sunrise about 20mins into the run. Still really tired and a little sore in the quads but all is manageable.

Came home around lunch to finish the day working at home since Paula is still gone.  Took Venus for another walk which we cut short because she was struggling a little bit in the sunny 80 degree day then jumped in the hot tub for another 20mins.  Going to get back to the hot tub routine since the altitude tent did not pan out for me.  Just was not sleeping well and after doing more research and talking to Dr. Teddy, you have to spend at least 10-12 hours a day in it for it work, I was averaging 7-8 hours.  If it is not going to work at 7-8 hours then I would rather have my restful sleep back.  That was a failed experiment.  Back to heat training instead.

Wednesday:

8 AM:  12.4 miles averaging 6:40pace.  Workout Wednesday done over at Davidson Mesa yet again. Took the morning off work to get this done and I had to go to DIA to pick up Paula right afterwards. Went much better than I thought it would to be honest with you, my legs still feel the weekend. First one was a little rough but they felt better as I went along. Most of the intervals were in the 5:50ish range after the first one.

20 min warm up

5/4/3/2/1/2/3/4/5 min fast/ 90 sec easy. Think threshold on the fast. No harder than 1 hour effort here. Want this to be pretty controlled.

20 min cool down

5 PM:  50mins lifting....  VASA Lift class with Paula.... upper body day.

--  JT is on a roll with post cards... the board is already half full.

Thursday:  

6 AM:  9 miles w/ 400ft of vert averaging 7:35pace.  Easy pre-work cruise from work doing the normal Monday work loop that I have been doing. Super chill this morning effort wise and the wind was cranking out of the west which affected pace at times. Just tired today but otherwise all is good.

--Spent the evening watching the 1st Round of the NFL draft with these Special Idiots.  Been too long since we have been able to catch up.

Friday:

10 AM:  9.4 miles averaging 7:15pace.  Easy cruise 3 times around Davidson Mesa with Taylor while Veronica was on the bike. Looks like Taylor is finally back from his injury but Veronica will still be a few months. or so before she is back. Effort seemed easy but the legs were heavy as hell, guessing due to late bed time last night and bad sleep after going out last night. Funny how much this affects me in the middle of a hard training cycle.  Thought I rolled over 1000 clockwise runs on Davidson according to Strava but I was off by 1, sitting at 999 laps after today on Strava.

5 PM: 50mins lifting.  Lift class at VASA with Paula this evening, lots of deadlifts and shoulder work.

-- another post card from JT again today.... funny thing is this one is from his Mexico trip he took 4 plus months ago.  He mailed it from Mexico in December but it just arrived today.  LOL.

Saturday: 

-- Woke up early this morning and finished out book number 12 on the year... Given to Fly, interesting story on Brain Morrison's collapse on the track right before the finish line of the Western States 100.  What to read next, back to fiction or Sara Hall's new book? 

8 AM:  15.1 miles w/ 1200ft of vert averaging 7:30pace.  Easy long run doing a big lap of the Dirty Bizmark from the Coalton trailhead, which means dropping down to Marshall Mesa trailhead to make it a little longer. Was going to run from Costco to NCAR in back on the roads but decided at the last minute that I wanted some trail time even though these are not really what I consider mountain trails, they are still trails. Legs are still shot today for some reason but even with that, I think this is either the fastest or second fastest doing this loop and I wasn't really trying today. Getting fit is weird, you feel slow in the process but the times keep coming down.

Sunday:  

8 AM: 9.6 miles averaging 7:30pace.  Easy 3 laps around Davidson Mesa yet again super chill. My legs are tight! I would not say they are sore, just everything is super tight. According to Strava I rolled over 1000 clock-wise loops of Davidson Mesa on this run and also grab back the Local Legend that I have been going back and forth with some random dude.

Noon: 6 miles averaging 13min pace.  Rocky Mountain Orienteering meet down at Chatfield State Park with Paula and Don. Rain and hailed on us but we had a blast. Don's first exposure to orienteering and he seemed to love it. Great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

-- long hot tub session when we got home this afternoon in the rain.

Total Weekly Numbers

Happy with this week even though most of the week was just focused on easier paced runs to recover from back to back weekends of racing half marathons.  This next week should be a tough week but then we start winding down into the taper.  Getting there...