Over 20 and 80- Biggest so far!

Biggest week of the year.  Finally broke the 20 hour barrier for the week.  Very pleased with how the volume and work is coming together even though The Dirty Thirty 50K was shorter than expected yesterday due to being a dumbass.  I missed a turn and reran a loop twice. 

Breakdown for the week

Now quick over view of the month of May and before you ask, yes this Leadman training is turning into a part-time job.  This was my biggest month EVER time wise (82 hours!).  I am very pleased where I am at right now.  Got a PR on the Greenland course, marathon PR at Colfax, and a 10K PR at Bolder Boulder.  Yes it ended with a DNF due to getting off course at Dirty Thirty but that was just a planned training run anyways and I was felt great the whole time which is a win in my book.  Things are coming together.

I am thinking June should be about the same maybe a little bit more more due to the family being out of the country for the whole month and that I am flying solo.  About 8 more weeks of solid training time before the taper for the 100s and lots more work to do.  Gotta keep training smart and listening to my body.

Year to Date Check In

On my lunch SLOG aka jog today where I was forced to run 9 minute pace due to how trashed I am from the last 3 days I started to wonder, "How much volume have I done so far this year?".  I knew that I have been putting up 17-19 hour weeks which I have never done before so I had to run the report and check when I got back to my desk.

Yep, rolled over 300 hours on the year in the last couple of days and it is not even the end of May.  Should be around 315 by the end of May if not more.  Doing work!

Bike Focused Week (May 18-24)

Not the week I was hoping for.  I was hoping to hit over 200 miles on the bike but between the weather and a TUV audit at work it was a real challenge to get out on the bike.  Due to the audit at work I needed my car to drive files between the sites my company has in Louisville so riding my bike to work was out, the weather was shit anyways most of those days and I ended up in the gym at lunch.  I was able to make up some of it over the weekend with long rides on both Saturday and Sunday up in the hills.  Saturday was a bunch of laps on Lookout Mountain with Ray which got me 52 miles with 6700 feet of gain.  Sunday was the Lariat Loop with a side of Genesee Mountain, this netted me 43 miles with 4500 feet of gain.  So 95 miles and 11,200 feet of gain on the MTB in 2 days.  Not bad. 

Speaking of the gym I spent too much time in the gym this week lifting hard.  Not the best idea the week after a marathon PR.  Pretty sore and wore out all week.  Live and learn.

Snap shot of the week.  (Click to Enlarge)

This goes into the next week report but extremely pleased with my Bolder Boulder 10k time this morning, ended with a 38:07 which is also a PR at the 10K distance for me.  So in May I have PRed at Greenland course, my overall marathon time, and my overall 10K time.  This worries me, am I peaking to soon?  Or should I keep doing what I am doing?  Or should I push even harder?  I feel slow and tired but keep PR'ing. Not sure what to do here.  25 days to the Leadville Marathon and the start of Leadman.  Still have the Dirty Thirty next weekend too which will be most of my running miles for the week I think. This week a Balanced Focused week which is always challenging to do.

After the Bolder Boulder went and did the Crossfit workout Murph.  What is Murph you ask?  Here is the low down:
-----------------------------
"Murph"
For time:
1 mile Run
100 Pull-ups
200 Push-ups
300 Squats
1 mile Run
In memory of Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy, 29, of Patchogue, N.Y., who was killed in Afghanistan June 28th, 2005.
This workout was one of Mike's favorites and he'd named it "Body Armor". From here on it will be referred to as "Murph" in honor of the focused warrior and great American who wanted nothing more in life than to serve this great country and the beautiful people who make it what it is.
Partition the pull-ups, push-ups, and squats as needed. Start and finish with a mile run. If you've got a twenty pound vest or body armor, wear it.
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Yes this is what the movie Lone Survivor is based on. This sucked doing 2 hours after finishing the Bolder Boulder.  Came in at 39:42 which is actually a good time and really surprised myself.  The funny part is I thought the pullups would be the issue but it was the pushups that took all my time.  The pullups you could work through in sets of 2 and it was not bad but the pushups killed the arms.  Looking forward to doing this every Memorial Day.

Have a great week everyone!

Run Focused Week (May 11-17)

Solid week all around!  Would have liked to get a little bit more vertical in this week but I can not complain considering I ended the week with the Colfax Marathon and getting a Boston qualifying time for 2016!  I will take that any day.  I got my BQ the day after a 36 mile/5,000ft of gain MTB ride up and down Lookout Mountain and at the end of a big run week.  Think the fitness is really starting to come around, just need to be careful not to over do it.

Look at the week (click to enlarge)

As far as the Colfax Marathon goes I started off super easy and just cruised to what felt like an easy long road run pace up to mile 13ish then decided I would do a few miles at a higher effort to get in a better workout.  When I hit mile 18 I looked at my watch and started running the math in my head and realized if I could keep sub 7:25 miles for the next 8 miles I could get my Boston qualifying time and PR.  Game on!  Finished in a solid 3:11:44.   Ran the first half around 1:41 (with 4 potty breaks), then dropped a 1:30 half to finish it out.  I think this was the best run race I have done in a long long time.  Sitting here tonight I am not trashed, just a little sore in the hips from all the concrete.  Even took the dogs out for another super easy 3 miles when I got home.

Love looking at these splits.

	split	time	mi	pace
1	8:45.2	8:45.2	1	8:45
2	7:54.7	16:39.9	1	7:55
3	7:28.8	24:08.6	1	7:29
4	7:26.3	31:35.0	1	7:26
5	8:24.9	39:59.8	1	8:25
6	7:24.9	47:24.7	1	7:25
7	7:44.3	55:09.0	1	7:44
8	7:33.0	1:02:42.0	1	7:33
9	7:16.1	1:09:58.1	1	7:16
10	7:19.0	1:17:17.1	1	7:19
11	7:13.9	1:24:31.0	1	7:14
12	7:16.6	1:31:47.6	1	7:17
13	7:46.6	1:39:34.3	1	7:47
14	6:59.9	1:46:34.2	1	7:00
15	7:20.8	1:53:54.9	1	7:21
16	6:58.9	2:00:53.8	1	6:59
17	6:49.5	2:07:43.3	1	6:49
18	6:51.9	2:14:35.2	1	6:52
19	6:57.7	2:21:32.9	1	6:58
20	6:41.1	2:28:14.0	1	6:41
21	6:38.0	2:34:52.0	1	6:38
22	6:48.4	2:41:40.4	1	6:48
23	6:57.8	2:48:38.2	1	6:58
24	6:59.2	2:55:37.4	1	6:59
25	6:53.4	3:02:30.8	1	6:53
26	6:30.6	3:09:01.4	1	6:31
27	2:44.1	3:11:45.5	0.41	6:36

This week is going to be a bike focused week so I should only get about 30-40 miles running.  That should help with recovery from the marathon.

(Photos taken at mile 26 by Melody Drummond)

Recovery Focused (May 4-10)

Pretty cool that I came across this article at the beginning of a "recovery" week.  There are a lot of things in here that I need to get better at.  Yes I know that it is gym focused but this can be applied across the board to any athlete.

Key points for me to think and focus on.

1. Better stress management - I get worked up and stressed out over things that I just need to let go.  How can I tell things are starting to pile up?  When I start yelling at other drivers on my 8 mile drive commute to work.  I mean really?  It is only a 15 minute drive.

2. Recovery Practices- Really really really need to be better about getting work in EVERY night on the roller or with the stick.  I was doing good for about 2-3 weeks and felt great.  Need to really focus on this the upcoming months leading into Leadman.

3. Recovery workouts-  Been doing ok here but could be better.  Easy means easy.  A lot of time my recovery jogs turn into a moderate effort and I need to knock that off.

Best quote from the article to think about: "The training is the easy part. What happens the other 22 hours of the day is where the battle will be won or lost. Remember that when you leave the gym, the real work begins."

I know I have posted this before from Gym Jones but love this chart from the article. (click to enlarge)

So as far as this week goes.  All of the god damn rain this week really kind of forced it to be more of a recovery week than in past recovery weeks I have planned.  First of all the MTB race that was scheduled for Saturday was cancelled due to mud.  Yes I had a 60 mile MTB race planned on a recovery week.  Little more gym time this week due to the rain but that is all good and a great jog Sunday with JP and James at Lair O' Bear.   Overall it was a good recovery week.

Click to enlarge

This week will be a more "run" focused week with the Colfax Marathon coming at the end of the week.  Not planning on racing or running for time but just to use it as a long run.  Been wanting to run it for a few years for fun so figured why not.  Not sure yet what mileage goals I will shoot for this week on the run and bike but just play it by ear daily.

Have a great week everyone!

Not a bad week (April 27-May 3)

I can live with this week.  Would have liked to have more biking mileage but like I said in my last post I am not willing to give up my gym/weights/crossfit time yet but will come mid July.  Good weekly overall volume with the Greenland 50k race thrown in there on Saturday.

Speaking of Greenland 50k it did not go quite as planned.  The goal was to just jog the whole thing with very little walking.  I figured that would be a good goal since the last 2 50k's that I have ran this year I did a bunch of walking due to walking with JT, steep hills, issues, ect.  Well about mile 27 issues started popping up again, yes my famous glass stomach issues.  Every time I started jogging my core cramped and I puked, even downhill.  Now I could have pushed it the last 3 miles and put myself into a deep hole for the next few days but decided since this was supposed to be a "training" run I would just walk it in and live to train another day.  Walked the last 3 miles in about 43 minutes and still finished in 5:02 which is a PR for me on that course. When I got done, I went to the car and chugged a big bottle of Gatorade and laid down for a bit. 30 minutes later I was fine.  Yep, once again I did not drink enough.  Thought I did but nope.  Oh well, lesson learned again for the 100th time.

As I was looking at my weekly volume this week I started wondering where am I year to date?  What have I done since Jan 1st when I signed up for Leadman?  So I ran that report from the training log.  Should be interesting to see what the total numbers are come taper time in Aug.  I don't plan on really tapering for the first events of the series, maybe a mini taper for the 50 ride and run in July.  The real taper will start around Aug 1st. 

This week is suppose to be a "recovery" week but I am really not sure how to approach this once again.  I have been messing up my "recovery" weeks the last couple of times.  I do have a 60 mile MTB race this Saturday which will throw a wrench in the week.  Any suggestions?  I am all ears.

Have a great week everyone!