Monday - AM - 45 min stairs, PM - 4 mile, MT 101, float workout (1:00/0:30)
Tuesday - AM - 45 min stairs, PM - 4 miles, BF
Wednesday - 21 miles, MT 110 (salvaged!), Rowlett Creek Preserve - nice warm day resulting in bonking some kind of hard on this run
Thursday - 45 min stairs
Friday - 45 min stairs
Saturday - 4 miles, BF
Sunday - 8 miles, BF
Total - 41 miles plus 3 hours of stairs
This week was a success given that I got in a nice longish run and was able to sew my MT 110s back together. I've now managed to get in 14 straight days of running trails, roads, or stairs and my legs are feeling really fresh. My training plan for Cactus Rose 100 is starting to come together for the summer. I plan to do a tempo run on Monday nights, speed work at the track on Wednesday mornings, lift on Fridays, and then get in as much stair and trail running as I can on the other days.
Wednesday - 11 miles, Rowlett Creek Preserve, MT 101 - legs felt really good but not sure how many more miles that I will be able to get out of my trusty 101s.
Thursday - AM - 45 min stairs, PM - 6 miles, BF, random creek path / community jogging trail behind our church. I didn't want to run circles in the parking lot while my daughter was up at the church and was able to stumble across this. Some nice views with decent elevation change.
Friday - AM - Gym - Squats and Deadlifts - kept the weight pretty low, just easing back into things.
Saturday and Sunday - Lots of beer, relaxing, family and recovery.
Monday - 2 miles, BF - crap ton of fertilizer all over the community bike path caused me to cut this run short. They even spread it back up in the wooded sections... such a waste of money and unnecessarily harmful for the environment.
Tuesday - AM - 45 min stairs, PM - 4 miles, MT 101
Wednesday - 45 min stairs
Thursday - 45 min stairs
Friday - AM - Gym - Squats and Deadlifts - at about 80% of pre-Hells Hills, will probably match my max Dead next week and then start adding weight each session to make the push to 300.
PM - 4 miles, BF
Saturday - 4 miles, BF
Sunday - 4 miles, BF
Total - 35 miles and 4.5 hours of stairs
I think that I am done with my recovery and ready to start the long hot summer grind that will eventually lead up to Cactus Rose 100. I've been out to the course a number of times to run and know that it is a quad shredding course with lots of ups and downs. My quads held up really well at Hells Hills but that wasn't an overly hilly course and I took it really easy. I'll have to run a good bit out of my comfort zone at Cactus Rose to reach the goals that I have set.
On another note, I love to cook and was hoping to bring more of that to this blog but it is such a pain to take pictures while cooking and then load them to this blog. I'm a even worse food blogger than running blogger! Anyway, I made some killer pizza but really only have two pics to show for my efforts.
Small Batch of Dough Ready for Pizza Making!
Perfectly Crispy Crust and Amazing Sauce Full of Fresh Herb
I tipped the scale at 206.5 the other day and that is down from the 214ish that I carried into Hells Hills. The problem is that I really need to be down in the 180s come Cactus Rose (I'm 6'4ish), if I want to do anything more than just shuffle to a finish. I was around 200 last summer for El Scorcho and got down into the 190s during the summer. I then started doing more upper body lifts and obviously eating / drinking more during football season and on into the holidays.
I noticed that I have really added some bulk across my chest and shoulders over the past 6 months or so. Do I need bulk across my chest and shoulders? No. In fact, I need to lose this bulk and slim down my upper body. I'm not really sure how to do that but cutting out bench press and standing press would probably be a good start. I'll still do daily pull ups and push ups to maintain strength but will limit my lifting to squats and deadlifts.
I will also need to get a bit more serious about my diet and eat cleaner over the summer. I've got a general plan in mind for my Cactus Rose training - weekly speed work plus lots of long runs - that I will hammer out in another post.
Started eating cleaner already, well except for the beer!
I came out of Hells Hills feeling great but still took some time off from running. I've been hitting the gym (deadlifts last Friday blew my legs up!) and grinding some stairs during the week but taking the weekends off. The itch finally got too strong and I headed out to the trail for 11 miles today. I guess that marks the official kickoff of Cactus Rose 100 training.
A
great race put on by the Tejas Trails folks that I highly recommend
Nice
course but not really flat, if that is what you are looking for
Camping
is the way to go for this one
Great
aid stations
The Good
No
blisters again, injinji socks and proper fitting shoes do wonders
No
chafing, I have that dialed in pretty well\
No cramping
My
favorite running shirt is my fishing shirt
Ultra
running is made up of mostly great people and I have met some great friends
along the way
The Bad
Cool
spring means no heat acclimation and that sucks when racing on a warm day
Not
really anything else to add to this column
Some Narrative:
Hells Hills50 was my first 50 mile in over a year, but I did do a couple of 50ks during
that time span.I had big running plans
coming out of last year’s Rocky Raccoon 50 mile but life and being over trained
pulled the plug on that.It would take
me until this past December to truly recognize that I had basically spent the
whole year of 2012 fatigued and worn down.I guess going from very little mileage in my life to 2,400+ miles in
2011 was a pretty good way to wear my body down.Because of that, I spent most of this past
winter just doing whatever felt good and not really focusing on racing this spring.I had planned to do both Grasslands and Hells
Hills but eventually decided to just do Hells Hills.
I started
January off with a zero mile week but eased into a pretty good rhythm this
spring and was pretty happy with my mileage leading up to the race.I didn’t ever break off any huge weeks but
was hitting some 50+ mile weeks with a good bit of stair climbing and gym work
thrown in the mix.I had a number of
goals heading into this race but really just wanted to finish and have a good
time.
I headed
down to Austin the Friday before the race and met up with Doom at a random
CVS.We then picked up a few essentials
(beer) before heading out to Rocky Hill Ranch, which is near Smithville, TX.Doom ran the 10k last year at the ranch but
still managed to get us lost on the way out there (and he wants to lead an
expedition to the Grand Canyon for a R2R2R!).We got our campsite, setup our tents, headed back to “town” to grab
some food, had a few beers and called it a night.
Nice Afternoon for a Beer
Even Less Comfortable than it Looks
I got up
around 3:30 am for the 5:00 start and got ready quicker than anticipated.This gave me plenty of time to pack up my
campsite and toss everything in my ride.Doom would inform me later that I did leave me car door wide open but
luckily no one wanted to make off with an aging Mazda and its load of
camping/running treasure.
This Repaired Shoe Would Survive the Race
We made our
way down to the starting line around 4:30 (Doom would run the 10k later that
morning) and I was major bummed to find out that there was no hot coffee!I figured that I could grab some coke at the
1st aid station but man did I miss my morning coffee.The race is a loop course that is run 3 times
with the 50 milers running correction section while the 50k & 25k run the
basic loop.
My plan was
to run the 1st lap slow, then run the 2nd lap even slower,
and then just see what happened on the final loop.I was betting on our abnormally cool spring
to play into this plan but that was not to be and this ended up being the
warmest day of the spring.I really
considered changing up my strategy and going out hard and then just hoping to
hold on through the heat of the day.However, I had tried that strategy at my last couple of races but that
resulted in me blowing up over the last portion of the race.
The 1st
loop went basically exactly to plan.I
cruised around in the dark and would slow down anytime I started passing
people.I ended the 1st loop
feeling really good and chatted with Doom for a bit about his 10k before
heading off on my 2nd loop.Other than destroying my right shoe, the 2nd loop went
smoothly until the last couple of miles when it seemed like the temp really
started to take off.I quickly changed
shoes and headed out for the 3rd and final loop.
I was
pleased that my legs felt really good at this point and I had no quad soreness
at all.However, things started to go
down hill pretty quickly as I got nauseous and dizzy pretty soon after leaving the
Start/Finish area.I was pretty certain
that this was heat related and that was pretty worrisome.The two main things that worry me when
running here in Texas are heat exhaustion / stroke and hyponatremia.I essentially spent the whole 3rd
loop battling the heat and this consisted of running until getting nauseous and
dizzy and then walking it off – repeat.I kept running a check list in my head and kept coming up with heat as
being the issue.I would have forced
myself to vomit and continue on, if I felt that the issue wasn’t heat related.
This Shoe Only Last 2 Loops - Can it be Saved?
Anyway, once
the end of the 3rd loop was within striking distance and I came
across welcome site, Doom heading in the wrong direction to make sure
that I wasn’t dropping from the race.We
jogged along and chatted until he sprinted ahead to take some pictures.I eased into the Finish line with a PR and
got a nice firm handshake from Joe Prusaitis.
We hung
around the finish line for a bit cheering on other finishers before heading
back up to the campsite to get my car.I
was basically back to 100% after a sponge bath in the woods and something cold
to drink.This made the drive back to Dallas
pleasant, esp. being able to stop to urinate and not having to wonder if I will
be able to get out of my car and to the restroom in time.I woke up Sunday morning with sore feet and
that was it.No trashed quads, no
stumbling around the house, no wondering what I had done to myself…. this
really leads me to believe that I was way too conservative with my running
early in the day when it was nice and cool.
Saturday - 50 miles - Hells Hills, (33 miles MT 110, 17 miles MT 101), PR
I'll probably write more about Hells Hills later this week but wanted to be sure to give a big "Thanks!" to Doom for coming out and crewing when he wasn't running around.
Monday - Bench plus an abbreviated P90x chest and back
Tuesday - 45 min stairs
Wednesday - 45 min stairs
Thursday - 45 min stairs
Friday - off
Saturday - 8 miles, barefoot
Sunday - Easter
Nice easy taper week. I didn't really notice how worn down I was until this week when my energy level really rebounded. I've had a hard time going to sleep and have been itching to get out and run, grind the stairs, and/or hit the gym for some dead lifts. I also got some good travel news and will be in CO for about 10 days this summer, which will make for some awesome running and beer drinking!
