It's the dead of winter, so must be time to start cranking out some miles and training for spring races, right? Nothing like kicking off training for two trail runs in mountains than by running laps around a perfectly flat indoor track. The last couple weeks have seen a similar weather pattern around here.....colder than sin early in the week and then warmer over the weekend. Running on the indoor track a few days a weeks sucks, but better that it happens early in the week rather than when I have my long runs planned.
At this point, I'm going forward with the notion that Collegiate Peaks is basically a training run for Bighorn. I've never run a marathon as a training run for another marathon before, much less a 50 mile as a training run for another 50 mile, but I'm gonna give it a shot anyhow. Bighorn has been in my crosshairs ever since the moment the friendly aid station volunteer cut my bib off my shorts last year, so it will remain my focus during training. Before I registered for Collegiate Peaks, I had planned on running 30/10 that weekend....now, I'm just running an extra 10 miles that weekend but doing it all on one day.
In any case, here's how the first week of "official" training shook out:
Monday - 6 miles on the indoor track.
Tuesday - 6 miles indoor track in the morning, 4 miles with 8 strides indoor track in the afternoon (different indoor tracks though....a little variety to running in flat circles).
Wednesday - 10 miles indoor track (115 laps of pure, unadulterated fun).
Thursday - 6 miles. Finally got to run outside and it felt horrible. For one, I expected it to be much warmer than it actually was, so I was underdressed and consequently cold. For another, I just didn't have any energy and my stomach felt off.
Friday - 6 miles in the morning, 4 miles in the afternoon. Both outside and felt much better.
Saturday - 15 miles. Totally effortless. Got done and felt like I'd run 5 miles.
Sunday - 15 miles. Took more effort than on Saturday, but still felt pretty good. The 20-30 mph wind sucked hardcore, but overall a pretty decent run.
Total - 72 miles
The biggest thing missing from last week were trail miles. With two long trail runs coming up, I need to get away from the indoor track and city streets as much as possible and get the trail legs going. Unfortunately, Mother Nature makes that a difficult endeavor this time of year. But, the temperature is supposed to be in the 50s and maybe even 60s for most of this week, and was in the 50s over the weekend, so massive melting is occurring. I plan on heading out for a trail run this afternoon and getting as many in as the weather allows for the next few months. I'm guessing today's run is going to be a snowy/muddy mess, but that's just part of the fun of trail running, right? Better than running in tiny circles, for sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment