“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” - Thomas A. Edison
Almost gave up at the end of May and pulled my name out of the hat for Hardrock but glad I didn't. Was struggling with a calf injury and trying to rebound from catching Covid in March. It was struggle for sure... Not only physically but also mentality with a long period of depression where I was skipping races I signed up for and honestly only left the house when Paula or friends talked me into it. I am guessing the depression was caused by Covid due to how long it lasted (about 2+ months) but who really knows. Anyways, happy I did not pull my name out and excited to give Hardrock a try on the 15th.
Monday:
9 AM: Did not get to bed until 3:30am due to travel home from Western States and slept until 9am... total piece of shit all day after being up for almost 48 hours. ZERO today...
Tuesday:
7 AM: From South Mesa trailhead to the top of Bear Peak and back via Shadow Canyon. Love this route! Did the hill work on the way up. Still tired from the lack of sleep this weekend but the body feels good otherwise. Got the calf worked on again afterwards at PT with the dry needling again. Been working so far! Got a post card in the mail from JT, CONGRATS ON RAINIER BUDDY!
3 PM: Bailed on lifting this afternoon.... just still so damn tired to the point where you feel weak if you know that feeling.
7 AM: 9 miles w/ 1800ft of vert averaging 10min pace. Easy jog on the Mesa trail from the south trailhead with a Shanahan loop and Shadow Canyon cutoff trail loop. Just jogging along not pushing at all. Felt good to run verses hiking up Bear or South Boulder like I have been. I just felt like actually running some today. Tired but feeling good.
3 PM: Took GZ up on his offer and bailed up to Fairplay this afternoon to his cabin just outside of town at 10,000ft. It is perfect to get acclimated to the altitude of Hardrock for the next few days or so. Thank you so much dude!!!! It is isolated, but not to much and super quite. Just some reading and working from the coffee shop in town for Friday until Paula joins me on Saturday afternoon.
Friday:
10 AM: 5 miles w/ 500ft of vert averaging 7:45pace. Easy miles with Don from the coffee shop in Fairplay out to some dirt roads and back. Felt really damn good today and the legs were moving well. Been a bit since I have averaged under 8 without trying.
Saturday:
6 AM: 18.5 miles w/ 5200ft of vert in 4:50. Run with Don. Parked in front of Al-Mart in Alma and ran the 6 mile dirt road to Kite Lake where we did the 4 14ers on the DeCalibron Loop then ran the 6 mile dirt road back to Alma. Such a great fucking morning out there.. A lot of time jogging above 12,000ft. Had a moose scare at the end of the run which added some time of course.
Paula showed up after the run for the weekend through the 4th. Going to be a blast of a weekend!
Sunday:
7 AM: 17.2 miles w/ 3400ft of vert in 3:50. Large loop connecting Sheep Mountain to Browns Pass and back. Such a great damn loop and no one else was out there. These trails are not on any running app or anything, you can only find them if you study a map. The wild flowers were off the hook!!! The last 2 miles back to the car were a slug-fest, wiped out and dead legs by the end of it. Awesome day!
Total Weekly Numbers
Very happy with this first week of the taper, still some mileage and vert but not as much as the last few weeks. But the difference is that a LOT of this was above 11,000ft. Could not ask for more.
Total June Numbers
Was shooting for 100,000ft in June but I can live with this. If I would not have taken those 5 days off I would have gotten a lot closer or at least hit it. Of course there was 2 trips to CA in this month too. Crazy busy month!!!
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