I'm baaaaack!

What with FB and all, this blog has been on the sidelines for a long time. Much water has passed under the proverbial bridge - but since I signed us up as "returnees" for TRR 2011, I decided now is the time to re-activate.  Stay tuned - we're about to start training!! :-)

Final Pre-Run Post!

Final stats:
(08/03 -- 08/09): Run: 66.4(street 40, trail 26.4); elliptical 30, tmill 35, stepr 60; stairm 16. [This is the most mileage I’ve ever done in one week!!]
(08/10 – 08/16): Run 53.5(trail 32, street 21.5); elliptical 30, tmill 15; stepr 30, stairm 15.
(08/17 – 08/18): Run 13.1 trail; elliptical 30, stepr 15. And, will stay on the Higher Peak thru Thursday night.

Well, this is pretty much it. I will run 5 on Tuesday, and 4 on Thursday per the schedule. Flying to Colorado on Friday. The schedule calls for a 3 miler (easy) on Saturday and Sunday before the BIG DAY. Not sure if doing that will make me feel better or worse, as we’ll be in Buena Vista – not a sea level any more! Will have to see what we feel like—I don’t think resting would be contraindicated either.

Still getting the final gear together. Have no idea how it will all fit into our allotted duffels. I’m sure it will be a challenge once they hand us the bags! I don’t know how good I am at stuffing! Have to delivery the cats to the kitty hostel on Thursday which will be hard on us all – they’ve never been away from home before. With all the chores, it will be Friday morning before I know it. Hopefully between final prep and work I will be too busy to think about the actual race.

Looking forward to meeting all the people, especially Sat and Jo. Am not so much looking forward to Monday morning at the start line! It is so hard to believe I ever thought this would be other than exceedingly challenging. Finishing this race will truly be an accomplishment – a PR for sure. I doubt I’ll ever attempt anything quite this difficult again, but, you never know!!!

If I make it back alive, will post -- w/ photos.
Again, Good Luck to all the teams!

Final Pre-Run Post!

Final stats:
(08/03 -- 08/09): Run: 66.4(street 40, trail 26.4); elliptical 30, tmill 35, stepr 60; stairm 16. [This is the most mileage I’ve ever done in one week!!]
(08/10 – 08/16): Run 53.5(trail 32, street 21.5); elliptical 30, tmill 15; stepr 30, stairm 15.
(08/17 – 08/18): Run 13.1 trail; elliptical 30, stepr 15. And, will stay on the Higher Peak thru Thursday night.

Well, this is pretty much it. I will run 5 on Tuesday, and 4 on Thursday per the schedule. Flying to Colorado on Friday. The schedule calls for a 3 miler (easy) on Saturday and Sunday before the BIG DAY. Not sure if doing that will make me feel better or worse, as we’ll be in Buena Vista – not a sea level any more! Will have to see what we feel like—I don’t think resting would be contraindicated either.

Still getting the final gear together. Have no idea how it will all fit into our allotted duffels. I’m sure it will be a challenge once they hand us the bags! I don’t know how good I am at stuffing! Have to delivery the cats to the kitty hostel on Thursday which will be hard on us all – they’ve never been away from home before. With all the chores, it will be Friday morning before I know it. Hopefully between final prep and work I will be too busy to think about the actual race.

Looking forward to meeting all the people, especially Sat and Jo. Am not so much looking forward to Monday morning at the start line! It is so hard to believe I ever thought this would be other than exceedingly challenging. Finishing this race will truly be an accomplishment – a PR for sure. I doubt I’ll ever attempt anything quite this difficult again, but, you never know!!!

If I make it back alive, will post -- w/ photos.
Again, Good Luck to all the teams!

PANIC CITY!

The official word of the day: PANIC!!
Bad (Again): three more weeks have flown by, since my last post on 7/15!
Worse (Again): TR is now only 20 days away!!!!!

Stats:
(07/13 – 07/19): Running 55 mi (all trails); Elliptical 60 min; Stepper 60 min; tmill “marching”: 45 min.
(07/20 – 07/26): Running 19 mi (trails); Stepr 120 min; Elliptical: 60, stationary bike: 30, tmill “marching” 60 min [Note: Injury on Tuesday, 7/22]
(07/27 – 08/02): Running 52.2 mi (street 10, tmill 12, trails 20.2); stepr 60, elliptical 60, stairmaster 30, tmill “marching” 30 min

Higher Peak: holding steady now at ~13,000 feet for the duration.

The good: the “accident” happened on 7/22, and not (say) on 8/12. One minute there I was, attempting to do a reasonable 8 miler on one of my usual trail routes at Rancho. Next minute: wham! However, instead of my normal “3-point” landing (knee, elbow and one other point of contact) I slipped and crashed, taking the brunt of the impact on my left side – my rib cage. It hurt quite a bit, but as I was at least 2 miles away from the car via the shortest route and since I was only about 1/3 of the way thru the run, I decided to hobble on and complete the originally planned run. Much as it hurt then I was afraid it would REALLY hurt next day (and I sure hate it when I’m right). I won’t bore you with details but suffice it to say I greatly exceeded the recommended dosage for Ibuprofen for over a week. Needless to say, the 2 scheduled long runs for Saturday/Sunday did not go off as planned. Instead of 12 mi on Saturday I did 2 hours of aerobic workout at the gym: [30 min ea on elliptical, stairmaster, stationary bike and treadmill] (the tmill was 30 min of uphill marching at a 14 min/mi pace). Sunday I plodded slowly through a 10 mile run in my neighborhood, instead of the 20 miles of trails I had planned. Major bummer.

However of now I’m quite a bit better (although my ribs are still sore I can run and have made good headway on catching up on training and should be able to finish up the schedule in decent form.) I have made a sincere effort to train for this and I hope that I will be in position to finish under my own power – and within the permitted time limits.

Good luck to us all!!!

Time is not on my side

Bad: Two more weeks have flown by, since my last post on 6/30!
Worse: TR is only 39 days away!!!!!

Current Stats:
(06/29 – 07/05): Running 55 mi (10 street, 45 trails); Elliptical 60 min; Stepper 60 min.
(07/06 – 07/12): Running 40.5 mi (32.5 trails, street 2, tmill 6); Stepr 60 [but on travel Mon-Thurs]

One reason for lack of a post was the travel – business travel is not a vacation and really wears me out! The other reason is that not much has been happening. It seems like there is no time for anything other than commuting, working, running and sleeping (in about that order). Housework and socializing are suffering! By the time long runs get done on the weekend I don’t have energy for much else, even if I do seem to have enough time to accomplish something else.

The trip to the east coast was really work, although it was nice to meet some of my sales team face to face for the first time. And the weather was incredibly humid, although not as hot as it might have been. Apparently I “dodged a bullet” in one respect as there was another heat wave out here in the bay area. I wouldn’t really have been able to run even if I’d have been home – it was 100 degrees in San Jose!

The local air quality is improving as the wildfires are finally getting under full control. It has taken quite a long time and certain counties have been declared to be disaster areas. Fortunately many endangered buildings (houses) were saved, but many, many square miles of beautiful and valuable woodlands and parklands have been destroyed.

Training is really taking center stage—I actually dreamed a long, hard training run last night. No wonder I was so tired when the alarm went off! On the other hand, I’m not sure what I’ll do with myself once we return from Colorado. I’ll need another goal, but probably not one that will require quite so much training. I can’t even contemplate that right now, anyway!

Catching Up....

Stats: (06/08 – 06/14): Elliptical 65 min; Stepper 45 min; Running total 28.6 mi (12.5 street, 10.1 trails, 6 tmill);
(06/15 – 06/21): Elliptical 60 min; Stepper 60 min; Running total 55.3 mi (52.1 trail, 3.2 tmill);
(06/22 – 06/28): Elliptical 65, Stepper 35; Running total: 43.1 mi (24 trail, street 10, tmill 9.1)

In review of previous posts I was surprised to see that I hadn’t included recent stats. So, today’s post includes info up through last Saturday to get me back on track. Not much real news to post about otherwise. I’m doing my best to adhere to the “official” training schedule, with a couple minor tweaks and adds. For example, I usually go to the gym in the morning to do the elliptical and a few weights and abs routines, especially on the days when I will run after work. I was doing some extraneous running on the treadmill (on days when I just couldn’t face the elliptical machine) which was over and above the scheduled runs.

However, now that the scheduled runs are getting longer and harder, I will probably not do much “extra” running, but will still do elliptical, stepper and maybe bicycle. I still feel I need more aerobic workouts as well as to try to strengthen muscles that I’m not using as much when actually running. And, speaking of aerobic matters, we are up to about 10,000 feet on the Higher Peak machine. I really can’t tell if I’m improving, since the runs are longer than what I have been used to, so I’m tending to go slower in order to preserve energy enough to finish (and thank god for GU!). I think we will plan to try to plateau about 11,000 feet on the machine, depending on how we feel. There is still plenty of time to assess this between now and 8/22. Have pretty much gotten used to sleeping with the mask on, but will definitely take a vacation from it when we get back from Colorado!

The weather has returned to more normal temperatures as of yesterday, although I hear there are more hot days coming -- bummer. We have been also suffering an unusual number of wildfires (some caused by lightning others, unfortunately set by people who will be under lock and key if/when caught) one of which was only a few miles “as the crow flies” from our part of the forest. This is already a very bad fire season, with a state of emergency being declared for several counties in the state. I hope this is not a portent of things to come through the fall!

Unfortunately, I have to travel out of town next week which will play complete havoc with both training and the acclimatization process using the Higher Peak machine. I hope this will not represent a major set back! There’s no way to do any long runs while on a business trip.

I had to really gut out my 18 mile run on Sunday. I have a hatred of courses which repeat (i.e., running 2 ea 5 mile loops to get a 10 miler in). However, I’m having trouble constructing out/back or single loops that work for my longer runs. So, for this 18 miler, I hooked together a 6 mile loop that I’ve done several times with my out and back 12 mile run. It took me forever to do the first 6 miles—and I don’t know why, as it was not particularly hot, I was sufficiently hydrated and rested. When I got to the trail intersection w/ the out and back trail it was all I could do to head out, instead of returning to the car and calling it a day. I finished it, but it took like 4 hours which does not bode well for the daily runs on the race course. While this run was on trails, and did incorporate a good amount of hills, it is still nothing like the altitude gain/loss that will be included in the daily stages in Colorado.

This post has gotten slightly out of control, so I’ll call it quits for now!

Off The Sofa

DAVID:
Sunday, June 29, 2008. The Basin Complex and Indians fires continue to rage in the Ventana Wilderness, south of Monterey. The Indians fire has consumed 94 sq mi, twice the area of the city of San Francisco. The Basin fire has kept CA Hwy 1 closed through Big Sur for a week. Each night the summer fog absorbs the smoke and ash - each morning the sky is dirty and lowering. Yesterday as I read the fire coverage in the S.F. Chronicle I could smell the very flames pictured in the paper. Call it scratch and sniff news. The inlanders have been urged to stay indoors and avoid exercising. We are not so lucky – our training will proceed as scheduled.
Judy has hewn closely to the pre-race regimen. I have been severely hobbled by a months old hamstring injury that just now starting to allow me to run a little. I have a LOT of catching up to do, and the prospect is daunting, to say the least. It is hard to know yet whether the Higher Peak machine is really going to help. Judy says her lungs are way ahead of her legs in terms of endurance at this point. This week we have been breathing a nightly oxygen mix that approximates sleeping at 10,000’. Are we crazy? Let me state here for the record: I did not volunteer for the TransRockies – I was drafted.