Recovery Day......

In more ways than one today was a day of recovery.....Got in 5 miles at PL with solid time on 15% incline at 3.7-4MPH pace. Yesterday had a great cook out with our great friends...lot's of good food and drinks. A picture perfect day in Brentwood 90F sunny not a cloud in the sky. I spent majority of the afternoon in the pool house cooking - which was very therapeutic.

Will have to post some pics. Up early tomorrow - heading back to CO. Hitting the rack to get my beauty sleep.

Cheers!

14.5 Mile Run .....80F....Sunny Beautiful Day

Got up and out early today for a 14.5M run. Didn't push it really hard and felt especially good. I walked every hill and only ran fast late in the run on flat trails by the YMCA. Had my camelback which I'm getting use to again and like quite frankly. I'm thinking that if I take it easy on my runs and don't push hard up or down hills that I should be able to keep my muscles, tendons, joints in pretty good shape. My HR started off really high which didn't make sense as I was only walking it settled down throughout the early part of the run and stayed pretty low though out the run....I've gotta down load the info from my Garmin to check it out..

A Solid Week of Training...So Far

Was able to get in a few miles this am along with my strength training before getting into the office. A frustrating day at work..... oh well...made up for it this evening by getting in a 7.5 mile run in Golden Colorado on the trails at White Ranch. It was a beautiful night for running, temps were mild and a great showing form the Denver Trail Runners Club. It was a very challenging run but was motivated by younger runners that hit the hills pretty hard and some older runners that did the same. Surprisingly I'm sore from the run, knees, calves and achilles. Probably over did it tonight.

Tomorrow have a lot of work to do - can't get a flight till Saturday am - which sucks - but going to make the best of it with a late afternoon/evening bike ride at White Ranch. Hope to get in 40-50 miles to see what it takes and feels like on a mountain bike. I have a 70oz camel back that I'll take with me along with hammer gels so should be fine as I'll put Heed in my camelback as well. My biggest concern is riding these trails as they are pretty tight and have very technical turns. the goal is to not get injured but take it easy - stop along the way and take some cool pics.

Pretty please that I have 35 miles in so far and expect to get in at least 15 more by Saturday to get my total miles up to 50 this week, without injuring the old body.....

It's late and I'm hitting the rack....

Cheers!!!!

Up at 4am today to catch my usual 6:05am flight to Denver. A little stiff this am and feet mildly swollen. Fortunately no issues with the knees or Achilles. My right mid back is sore. Need to have it worked on this week.

The plan tonight is to get in a good core and strength building session. Will get in 2-3 light miles to get warmed up. Must spend time in the IT bands and Gluts tonight.

I'm exactly 3 months out from Leadville 100 trail run. Hope to pick up my GF29r this week and make it out on some light trails to begin to get the hang of it.

Work will be especially busy this week - so I'll need to plan carefully to get my sleep hours.

Kids are out of school Tuesday. Mamma should be happy.

Cheers.

20 Miler.....

Wow....after back to back 70.3's I would've thought that I'd be in better shape....Banged out a 20 mile run today and actually felt it. Quads a little beat up....otherwise my infrastructure held up. The temps today hovered around 80F. The run had some rolling hills at 800Ft above sea level. Nothing too arduous. I had my 70oz camelback with perpetuam, strawberry/vanilla....definitely need to deep six that shit....every time I take it I get nauseous. That is what practice is all about - testing and figuring out what works and what doesn't. What was interesting is the fact that it took about 12 minutes after each hammer gel before it hit my blood stream - then I felt like Popeye after choking down a can of spinach - blam!!!

Only 90 days till the LT 100 trail run....so much work to do....Not even close to be trained up. Good news is that I've been to this rodeo and know what I need to do to prepare...I have my nutrition, strength, mental and mileage training fairly well organized..just gotta stick to my schedule.....lots to do so little time.

Getting up early to make my weekly pilgrimage to Denver on the SWA 6:05AM flight.......looking very much forward to training at altitude. Miss Hope and I have a big date coming up.....I'll be ready for her.....

Cheers!

Leadville Training has Officially Begun......

This evening I was able to make it up to the foothills of the Rockies to run with the DTR's. We ran the Chief Hosa trails which were more or less dirt roads. The weather at the DTC was heavy rain, however in the foothills it was snowing pretty hard. The run was an out and back. 3 miles up and 3 miles back. Felt really good. Getting prepared on all fronts for Leadville.



Very happy right now with my base and overall conditioning. Planning out the training for the summer and getting excited. Purchased a Gary Fisher 29er this week and getting the tires retrofitted to be tubeless. Cannot wait to get it up to Leadville or the foothills to get it tuned up and race ready...or I guess that'd be me...not the bike.

Anyways, all is good....

Cheers!

Oops. Fat finger'd the send button.

It's now raining. Crazy weather. Oh well - glad I'm not a rookie. Arriving at parking lot.

Going to hit it hard. Go big ...... Or STAY HOME!!!!

Cheers!

Game day :) It's O dark hundred. A line of storms are coming thru producing high winds up to 40-50MPH. Lots of lightning. It's now rain

IM Florida 70.3

Made it to Orlando last night to prepare for the 70.3. Got to bed late unfortunately, but slept in and then managed to get in a 2.5 hour nap. We got checked in around 10:30 am and hit the IM store, checked out the swim course and got our bikes checked out at the mechanics. I had a blown back tire and had it replaced. So tomorrow I'll be riding on a new tube - hoping all is good with it - don't need a repeat of IM Austin.

Grabbed a light lunch at whole foods and chowed down some pasta and 2 beers for dinner at a local restaurant. Now back at the hotel all prepared and getting to bed early. Getting picked up at 4:30am. Swim begins for me around 6:50am EST. Expecting a fast bike and a hot run.

More to follow......

IM STX 70.3

I have to say...IM STX was everything it was known for and more. The swim course was great. Water temps in 80's not very rough. Only about 400 competitors made for a swim that wasn't too crowded. The bike was extremely hilly, hot and 15MPH head winds...a huge challenge. Averaged 17.9MPH on the bike. The run, well is the run. It's always all about the run...but on this day, it was all about the bike.

As I left the water I was 16 minutes behind Daley. I had my work cut out for me on the bike. After the initial 8 mile loop before heading out on the 48 mile big isle loop I was able to pick up 3 minutes on Daley. Carla shouted out 13 minutes down, you've made up 3 minutes already. I was pretty pumped when I got that news and then decided to push as hard as I could on the bike to try and catch him. By mile 43 I was pretty beat down, screwed up my nutrition by 1/2 the intake, which I didn't determine till I was packing my nutrition for IM 70.3 Florida today......All I could think was that I blew my energy on the bike and if I didn't see him soon that I was going to have a very very tough run in front of me.

Fortunately at about mile 46 I saw bib # 113 and thought - yeah buddy......Catching Daley at mile 46 breathed life back into my legs and I told him to grab my tire to draft for the remaining 10 miles - but he was pretty spent after nutrition and equipment issues. I knew at the point that I had broken him. I made it back to T2 a couple of minutes before him and the girls were shocked to see me come in ahead of him.....rule #1...NEVER EVER count me out!!! I decided to take my time in T2 and walked about the first 3/4 mile when Daley went running past me at about an 8min/mile pace. I thought to myself, shit....if he can maintain that and if I can't shake these stomach cramps I could actually lose...so I made up y mind to get my act together and stay on his heels. His little burst of energy didn't last long as I past him at the 1 mile aid station and then didn't look back. At the turnaround I decided to take it easy and run in with Daley.

We finished the race a little over 6 hours....a good race! Im headed out this evening to Orlando to compete in the IM 70.3 at Disney World. Suppose to be a flat fast course, which I usually do quite well on...however the heat will play a factor on Sunday with temps in the high 80's, so the mental game is going to have to be dialed in.

More to follow...expecting a great day!!!

Cheers!