October 5th- October 11th

 "We all have our time machines, don't we.  Those that take us back are memories... And those that carry us forward are dreams." -HG Wells

Most days I’m up between 4 and 5 AM. It’s my favorite hour because nobody bothers me. The routine is almost always the same: I come downstairs, grab coffee, let Venus out to go potty and then enjoy a few moments of peace, quiet, and reflection before I head out to run or head to the gym to lift depending on weather. Over the past couple of weeks it’s been hard not to notice that every morning is just a touch darker than the one before it. I’ve been thinking about how this subtle shifting of the seasons serves as a good reminder that change of any sort, whether it’s in training, your career, or some other area of life, usually isn’t all that dramatic. It’s unfolding gradually and often imperceptibly in the background until one day you wake up and realize that you’re not where you were a few weeks or months or even years ago. Life’s changing all the time whether we notice it or not, but unlike the seasons, we have some ability to influence it.

Monday:

10:30 AM: 9.5 miles w/ 500ft of vert averaging 7:50pace.  Easy out and back on Rock Creek trail from work heading east. Super chill for I can really feel the work I did this weekend. Just a slogfest, everything is okay just tired. Hopefully rebound by tomorrows workout.

4 PM: 50mins- Garage gym session- Chest and arms

Tuesday:  

 -NOTE:  Weight check in:  164lbs @ 7.9% bodyfat.  Seems I lost all of that weight I gained 2 weeks ago when on work travel.  Like I said back then it was probably mostly water weight and inflammation.  

6:30 AM:  11.6 miles w/ 450ft of vert averaging 6:55pace.  On the work treadmill so I can be more consistent with the pace. Felt pretty good overall and of course the HR was a little lower than it would be outside due to the treadmill doing some of the work for me. Kept the efforts around 6:15-6:20ish pace and the treadmill was at 1% the whole time.

20 min warm up

8x3min fast/2 min easy think 1hr effort on fast

20 min cool down

4 PM: 58mins Garage gym session- Legs

-- Today is our anniversary of our first date 5 years ago, yes I am a dork that tracks those things.  Love you Paula!

Wednesday:

5:30 AM: 55mins Work gym session- Back, Shoulders, and Arms.  Trying to get this done before my first meeting of the day at 7am.

12 PM:  6.6 miles averaging 8:40pace.  All the time I had today, work blew up today. Was going to skip all together but had to get out of the office for at least a little bit. Jumped into the run club at work and just chilled with them for about 45mins then when they stopped got in a little bit more solo. Pace was at their pace so easyyyyyy..... Wish I could have gone longer but came back to 10 missed messages and 52 emails, WTF! Can I go back to my old job? LOL... sorry bitching some.  I should have ran more this morning instead of lifting and done 2 shorter runs since I could not get out for the full 90-100mins that I had on the plan today.  Hot tub in the evening with Paula when I got home.

--  Time qualifier registration for the 2027 Chicago Marathon opened up today, yes I put my name in.  I have always wanted to run Chicago and having the 2:37 time I am almost 30mins faster than the time qualifier so I should get in.  Will find out in the next 10 days or so.  After running Cape Town I made the goal to try and do all 9 of the Major Marathons before I turn 60, I currently have 2 (Boston and Cape Town).  

Thursday:  

11 AM:  11.1 miles w/ 600ft of vert averaging 7:45pace.  Medium loop from work over a longer lunch hour.  Felt like a slogfest in the heat today even though the pace was okay and it was only 80 degrees out. Mental training day for sure. Been trying to run more in the heat anyways to get ready for Javelina 33k and Fatox in Phoenix, figured it would do me good in the long run.

--  Rebecca is starting the Moab 240 tomorrow morning at 6am!  LETS GO RBA!!!!!  Wish I could be there to help crew and pace but between work and putting the house on the market I just could not pull it off this week but will be tracking her until she is done which hopefully be right around the time I post this on Monday morning.  Tracking is here: https://trackleaders.com/moab240-26 ...

Friday:

7:30 AM:  9.2 miles averaging 6:45 pace. Done at Davidson Mesa.  Progression workout which was: "1 hr progression run. start off easy and work down to finishing around half marathon effort. Can add on 10-15 min east at the end if you would like"

Took about 2 miles for my stomach to calm down (bathroom breaks) but after that felt good! Basically just a progression up to mile 7.5 then jogged it in as a cooldown.  Got down to 5:50ish pace at the end of the 7.5 miles.  Funny how the jog is much quicker after a workout than it was before the workout. Liked this format a lot.

Saturday: 

7 AM:  13.25 miles w/ 1000ft of vert averaging 7:35pace.  Easy loop of Dirty Bizmark with 4X30secs quicker in the second half of the run. Beautiful morning with the perfect temp this morning. Legs and energy were better than I was expecting once I was able to get going, delayed more than I should have this morning.

10 AM: Walk 2.2 miles in an hour.  RMOC Corn Maxe meet with Paula, Erica, and Rey

Sunday:  

7:30 AM: 18.2 miles w/ 1000ft of vert averaging 7:05min pace.  Run with the Boulder Track Club out on the dirt roads between Lyons and Boulder Rez. Ran the first 15 miles with BTC just hanging on the best I could without blowing up and then added on 3 solo on the end on single track by the Rez. that I call my cooldown since those 3 were slower than the first 15 miles. Took in 3 gels (96g carbs), a bottle of Hyperlite (75g carbs) and a bottle of Skratch (20g carbs) for a total of 191g of carbs in two hours. Also took in another 30g right when I finished to help with recovery. Trying to take in more on the longer runs going forward to help with gut processing and recovery.

--  Went straight to Westminster right after my run this morning to catch Paula and Erica finishing the half marathon they were running this morning too.  Good work ladies!!

Total Weekly Numbers

Another really solid week this week on all fronts with the exception of having the house up for sale.  Only got 3 showings in the first week of it being on the market, it is a slow market so fingers crossed.  Training wise it seems I may have turned a corner finally and might actually be ready somewhat for Fatox 100 in November after all.  Just need to string together 4 or 5 more weeks like this and we should be good!  Now if I could just get an offer on the house.  LOL...

--  This is how we entertain ourselves at home... LOL...

September 28th- October 4th

"Life's short.  Anything could happen, and it usually does, so there is no point in sitting around thinking about all the ifs, ands, and buts." -Amy Winehouse

-- Not a lot of photos this week, just never dawned on me for some reason during the runs this week to take some like normal.  Probably because I was just trying to survive getting back to it, been a rough week coming back.

Monday:

  -NOTE:  Weight check in:  169.8 lbs with 8.6% bodyfat.  Gained almost 5 pounds last week with the work travel, eating like shit and not doing any running or working out.  This week is going to suck getting back to it.

6 AM: 8 miles w/ 400ft of vert averaging 8 min pace.  Easy cruise from work up to Kings, over to Link Lake then back via Stern's Lake trails to work. Might become my new 1 hour loop from work. Like that there are some hills in there instead of just flat all the time. Started in the pitch dark, might have to start breaking out the headlamp in the morning.  Legs are somewhat dead as well.

-- Sounds like a dick thing to say/do but spent all weekend tracking the runners for the Cowboy 100 in Nebraska.  This is the last year they are running it from East to West and I set the course record last year.  I was tracking it to see if it got broken or not.  It did not so it is safe for good unless they decide to run this course again in this direction.  Starting in 2027 they are flipping the direction going West to East, might have to go back and see what I can do in that direction.

4:30 PM: 46mins- Garage Gym- Legs with Paula.

Tuesday:  

6 AM: 8 miles averaging 8min pace.  Easy cruise from the Louisville site before work. Ran from here today due to having to give tours of the Louisville site to co-workers from overseas. Super chill run just jogging it out for the most part.

3 PM:  49mins Garage gym lifting- Chest and arms.

Wednesday:

6 AM:  50mins Work gym before work- focus on back and shoulders.  Had the gym all to myself this morning.  

11 AM:  11.5 miles averaging 6:59pace.  Choose the treadmill at work mid-morning between meetings in order to keep the paces more controlled and consistent. Ran the 2 mile intervals at 6:25-6:30 pace. Not quite half marathon pace but the effort is there as I try to regain my fitness. Felt good after this run, not to much and not to little.

20 min warm up

4x30 sec fast/1 min easy
jog 2-3 min
2x2 miles at half marathon effort with 4 min easy jog between each

20 min cool down

Thursday:  

6 AM:  55mins Work gym- before early meetings. Focus was on total body. Did 12 mins of upper body work in a non-stop format followed by 12 mins of lower body work in a non-stop format. Sort of like a mini WODs from back in the day when I used to do Crossfit all the time.

10 AM: 10.5 miles averaging 8min pace.  Easy medium loop from work connecting Rock Creek, Coal Creek and Stern's Lake. Not a bad loop, might be doing this loop more often. Right in that sweet spot for a longer run but not to long to be away from work.

Friday:

7 AM:  8 miles averaging 7:50pace. Super chill jog from work up the hill by Kings, over to Link Lake and back to work via Stern's Lake trails. Super chill and good to get on some hills. Same route as I did on Monday morning.

Saturday: 

7 AM:  13.25 miles w/ 800ft of vert averaging 8:35pace.  Easy lap of the Dirty Bizmark loop with Veronica and Taylor on the bike. Taylor branched off around mile 10 on his bike to head home while we finished the loop. Super chill for me as Veronica is coming back from an injury, we went at her pace so not to push her more than she was physically ready for.

3 PM: Biked 16.6 miles w/ 1000ft of vert in 1:30.  Easy date ride with Paula on our mountain bikes stopping about halfway through to get ice cream. Great afternoon that we needed together not having to deal with the house bullshit of the past few months.

Sunday:  

7:30 AM: 16.2 miles w/ 500ft of vert averaging 7:10pace.  First 10 miles with the Boulder Track Club just trying to hang on. Lost the front group when I stopped to pee but was able to keep them in sight so maintained the pace bouncing between 6-6:30 the first 10 miles. Then added on a lap of the Boulder Rez solo to get my running time up to 2 hours total. Of course little slower when running solo. Pretty trashed after this one, been a bit since I have gone longer at a quicker pace. Need to do these through the rest of October.  Followed this up with 20mins in the hot tub.  Need to start to focus on heat training to get ready for the heat in AZ at the end of the month and in November.

Total Weekly Numbers

Big week back after the disaster of travel last week.  Super tiring but that is to be expected for I did lose some fitness with taking that much time off, eating so poorly, and the stress of putting the house on the market, yes it was listed on Friday.  If you are looking for a place let me know!  20mins to Golden, 20mins to downtown Denver and 15mins from Boulder.  Pretty much the perfect location with trails out the door.  Hoping this week is the kick off to a bigger month in October so that I am somewhat ready to try and do what I want to do at Fatox 100 in November.  Let's keep it rolling!!!

September 21st- September 27th

"I just enjoy the moment I'm in. For me, life is a whole experience, not just a series of isolated moments.  It's like submerging yourself into a warm bath rather than sticking your toe under the faucet." - Alex Trebek

--- Short post this week, mostly all work stuff that no one wants to hear about.

Monday:

  -NOTE:  Weight check in:  165 lbs with 7.2% body fat.  Lowest I have seen it in a while.  Lost about 4 pounds over the week.

--  Did nothing today, travelled to MN for work and will be there the rest of the week returning next Saturday evening.  Was able to have my sister and mom pick me up from the airport and had lunch with them before being dropped off at my hotel for the week.  Of course my sister got ahold of my phone while I was in the restroom.

Tuesday-Saturday:  

As stated before, no running or working out this week, it was all work all the time.  Had to leave the hotel by 7am each morning and did not get back until after 10pm each night.  One of the nights it was after midnight.  Just to damn tired to get up at 4am to try and get something in before leaving at 7.  Basically got up at 6, ate breakfast then headed out to Headquarters where all our meetings were.  Then after getting done around 5pm my whole team had some sort of event planned until the late evening.  Tuesday it was at Smash Park, which had axe throwing, bowling and pickleball.  Wednesday after volunteering at the food bank all afternoon was a murder mystery dinner which was a ton of fun, did not get back until after midnight.  Then Thursday after getting done around 5pm I was free from work and headed up to have dinner with Jeni (my sister), her family and mom.  Went home with mom and stayed at her house until flying home on Saturday night.  It was nice just to visit with her for a day and a half, been over a year since I have seen her.  Like I said, not a lot to go over.  A few photos from the week.

--  Also the kitchen in my house is got done this week as well.  Chris Gerber did an awesome job!  Hopefully have it on the market by next weekend.  If you need a handy man call him up or get his information from me.  He does travel for jobs as well, he has done a lot in Utah and AZ.   Chris has done a lot to help get the house ready including replacing front door, replacing back sliding door, and all the drywall work as well.  Here is a before and after shot of the kitchen.

Sunday:  

9 AM: 6 miles averaging 8:15pace.  Was supposed to do 2 hours easy today but considering I have not run in a week and been eating like shit on top of that I just wanted to get out for at least 6 miles. Did that and stopped, everything hurt of course. Feel like I am starting all over again, gotta love that, sigh....  Followed this up with 20mins in the hot tub.  I think my blood volume dropped from not exercising or doing heat in a week which would explain why my heart rate was so high during the run today.

Total Weekly Numbers

SHIT week all the way around on the training front, but a good week on the work front but who really cares about that.  Next few weeks are going to be hard to get back into the groove and sure everything will hurt, especially next week.

Missed these two a lot this week!

September Recap

 "When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out.  Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one's ability to persuade." - Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Some thoughts I had this week:

1. A tiny piece of advice that changed my life: Stop assuming people know how you feel, tell them instead. Tell them when you’re proud. Tell them when you missed them. Tell them when you’re angry or stressed. When in doubt, just tell them. 

2.  If being honest about your feelings causes somebody to leave, then they were never really with you to begin with.

3. This gets said a lot and I have been saying it for years, just typing it out to remind myself more than anything.  Stress is stress, your body does not know the difference if the stress comes from training, work, financial, relationships, ect... I type this out to remind myself that I have a lot of stress right now between trying to train, starting a new job, and trying to sell my house which goes on the market Oct. 2nd.  About the only thing that is not stressful right now is my relationship, thank god for Paula.

---  One of my lowest months in a while.  As much as it pained me to have a month like this it might have been needed.  Did lose over a week of training with days off and work travel so there is that.  Need to have a big October in order to have any chance of hitting my goals at Fatox 100 in November.  Guess we will see how it goes, upward and onward as they say.

September 14th- September 20th

 "Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud." -Maya Angelou

Fell a few weeks behind on my weekly post due to work travel and just getting a little overwhelmed with life in general lately.  Guess it is what it is.  Here are the updates from 2 weeks ago, will try to be caught up later in the week.

Monday:

6 AM: 9.1 miles averaging 7:45pace.  Easy pre-work loop from work. Out to Sterns, then looping back behind the new Medtronic building and down HWY42. Always a great loop, will be doing this loop going forward from a different starting point, this might be my last day in Louisville moving over to the new building for good, we will see.

4 PM: 1 hour Garage gym with Paula... focus on chest, tris, and bis..

-- Decided to put in for Fatox 100 again before the price increase.  Lets see if I can get that course record back in Nov.  

Tuesday: 

6:30 AM:  10 miles averaging 7min pace.  One of the better workouts in a while. Felt smooth for a change which was nice. Think I needed that 5k last weekend to get my ass going again. Legs were good, achilles was good, just a good morning.

Workout was:

20 min warm up

15x1 min fast/1 min float think 10k effort on fast and 50k effort on float

20 min cool down

3 PM: 55 min garage gym session with Paula this afternoon.

Wednesday:

6 AM:  56 mins lifting.  First time lifting at the gym at work. Focused on shoulders and back this morning before my early calls.

11 AM:  9.4 miles averaging 7:25pace.  Ran over to a hill by work to do the hill repeats then back to work just in time to join the 5K they were putting on over the lunch hour. About 200 other Medtronic employees jumped in as well. Kept it moderate for the 5k not going all out and still got 3rd, did not time it so no idea on the time of it but was probably around 19 mins so not too hard.

Headed up to Steamboat late this afternoon to help Mindy run RRR100 on Friday.

Thursday:  

11 AM:  9.1 miles averaging 8min pace.  Easy cruise from the condo in Steamboat along the bike path to the other side of Steamboat and back. Raining most of the time but was not that bad.  Spent the rest of the day getting Mindy ready for RRR100 tomorrow including getting her checked into the race.

Friday:

Took the day completely off, was not planning on that, just happened.  Got to busy crewing Mindy's Run Rabbit Run 100 race and just did not get my workout in.  She had a great day and I should be picking her up sometime in the early morning before sunrise to bring her in.

Saturday: 

4 AM:  28 miles w/ 4600ft of vert averaging 18min pace.  Pacing Mindy from Dry Lake to the top of Mount Warner where others ran her to the finish while I took the gondola back down the mountain. 28 miles of rain, hail, and lighting was enough for me. LOL. It was quite the morning for sure.  She got it done in 28:29 for 8th female in the Hares division.  Not bad for only her 2nd 100 miler.

Sunday:  

9 AM: 8 miles averaging 7:40pace.  Easy miles over at Davidson Mesa. Sore as hell from pacing Mindy yesterday, did not expect that since it was mostly a walk yesterday. Guess 28 miles is 28 miles no matter how you fast cover them.

Total Weekly Numbers

Not a bad week and even took a day off.  Pacing RRR100 was an experience, one of the top 5 times that I was so cold that I thought I was going to end up in trouble.  Got through it with no issue but damn 45 degrees in the rain and your runner is just walking is fucking cold!  Next week is going to be a disaster training wise, traveling for work.  Not sure what I can get in but we will see.