June 6th- June 12th

 

“Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.” - Mark Twain

 

This week was just about trying to get a little bit better in my grieving of losing Gemma on Sunday morning and trying to feed what I need to do to get ready for Hardrock hence the quote above.  Been a challenging week for sure.   Shit, I just type Gemma's name on here and start tearing up... god damn it.

 

Monday:  

8:30 AM:  Scouting the first part of the Mt Whitney Mountaineers route hiking up to the ledges.  We wanted to see where the split in the trail from the standard route was so we can find it in the dark.

4 PM: 3.7 miles averaging about 9 min pace.  Mix of dirt road, paved road and sand.  Easy afternoon run with Bob going west from Lone Pine.  Of course it was about 100 degrees outside.

Tuesday:  

4 AM:  16.3 miles w/ 6700ft of gain in just over 13 hours.....  Tour de Mt Whitney. Up the mountaineers route and down the standard route. Long ass day... lots of stories and not sure what to put on here. Guess if you want to know you will have to buy me a coffee. ;o)  Did not want to write out a long report just so much to process.  I might do one in the future.  Anyways here is the link to Strava and a few photos. 

Wednesday:  

 

9 AM:  Spent half the day driving the 4 hour drive from Lone Pine, CA back to Las Vegas and the other half of the day working remotely from a Starbucks by the airport where I am updating yesterday and today's post.  Flight is not until 6 pm this evening.  Gas in CA was silly.... I saw it for over $9 a gallon in Furance Creek in the middle of Death Valley on the way to Vegas.

 Thursday:

10 AM:  1.6 mile walk.... Easy neighborhood walk to help wake myself up some.  Did not get home until 1:30 last night and up until after 2am.  Got up at 6:30 so dragging today.  Coffee is not working today.

 

2 PM:  6.7 miles w/ 1900ft of gain averaging 12 min pace.  Easy mileage around Mount Santias. Up the east ridge, down Lions to Sunshine then about .25 miles into Sunshine I turned right and bushwacked up the hill until I hit Anemone then took that back down. Felt really good today.

 

Friday: 

10 am:   8 miles with 2900ft of gain averaging 15min miles.  Easy loop from NCAR, up Fern to Bear Peak summit, down Bear Canyon back to NCAR.  So damn hot and felt the calf on the first 3 miles of this run before it loosened up.  Need to get back in for dry needling again.  Super hot, finished this run just after 12 so was sweating my ass off.

Saturday:

8 AM:  12.4 miles w/ 3900ft of vert averaging 14 min pace.  From Eben Fine Park over Flagstaff to the summit of Green via Amp. Down Ranger to Long Canyon, Long up to Flagstaff road to Realization Point then Flagstaff trail back down to Eben Fine Park. Only took one hand held bottle with me today and that was a mistake. It was 94 degrees when I finished, holy cow.... Thinking tomorrow I am going up higher somewhere to get out of the heat even though this is good to get ready for pacing Western States. Have yet to turn on the A/C in the house this year. LOL... only 85 degrees in here. HAAAA!

4 PM:  Heading up to Longmont with Paula to the D-Barn for what we thought was a co-workers 60th birthday party.   Well she used that as a cover (it really was her birthday) and turned it into a surprised wedding with who she has been with for 11 years.  SO MUCH FUN....  May be struggling to get moving some this Sunday morning as I type this.  LOL.

Sunday:

10 AM: 13.4 miles with 3000ft of vertical in 3 hours.  Lap of Green via Bear Canyon with Donnie, his wife and my girlfriend. Donnie and I jogged up slowly while the girls did their thing. We came down until we crossed paths with them then went back up again from that point. Went from 90 degrees to pouring rain to hail back to sunny. Perfect mountain weather. Just what I needed today, to run with friends.

 

Total Weekly Numbers

Solid week.... very happy how the week turned out.