April Summary

244 miles, 7.9 vertical miles

for comparison,
January 221, 6.5
February 208, 6.2
March 211, 6.3

Today was my 16th trail run of the month, by far a personal best.  The increased trail miles helped to increase the vertical to almost 8 miles.  I really had no epically challenging workouts this month, but was just consistent with lots of time on the trails.  Next month I will be looking for at least 2 or 3 longer workouts.  Hopefully a Greyrock Quad, Crosier Triple, and maybe a return to some higher mountains by the end of the month (but still a lot of snow).  Black Hills on June 25 will be here before I know it.

The breakdown:
Trail (16 runs) 197 miles, 7.4 vertical miles, 40 hours
Road (2) 13 miles (yes, just 2 runs on the road all month)
Treadmill (1) 4 miles, 0.5 vertical miles
Track (5) 30.5 miles
Strength Training (10)
Rest days (6)

9 Weeks to Black Hills

Reservoir Ridge

Slog - to plod (one's way) perseveringly especially against difficulty (Merriam-Webster)

My week in review:  Monday slog, Tuesday semi-slog (track), Wednesday slog, Thursday slog, Friday slog, Saturday rest, Sunday run (finally)

At least there was no walking:

One of the new signs along Foothills Trail.  No shame in walking?

The week in a little more detail:
Monday - Coyote Ridge/Rim Rock (6.9 miles, 1050 feet vertical, GPS data here), Strength training

Tuesday - CSU Track (10x400/400, 5x200/200, 1 mile warm up and cool down, 7 miles total)

Wednesday - Coyote Ridge/Indian Summer (10.67 miles, 1699 feet vertical, GPS data here)

Thursday - Horsetooth Rock time trial with Kevin (PR? not even close), return via Wathen/Horsetooth Falls (5.94 miles, 1646 feet vertical, GPS data here), Strength training

Friday - Coyote Ridge/Indian Summer (10.6 miles, 1678 feet vertical, GPS data here)

Saturday - Rest

Sunday - Foothills Trail/Reservoir Ridge (13.04 miles, 2184 feet vertical, GPS data here)

Just grinding through it this week.  Rather than going long for what would have been another slog on Sunday, I decided to push the pace on a shorter distance.  I was 7 minutes off my PR on this run, but by far my best run of the week.

Weekly totals: 54.15 miles, 8257 feet vertical

10 weeks to Black Hills

Audra Culver on Sunday afternoon.

The countdown to the Black Hills 100 has begun and I have made a major paradigm shift in the training.  With all of the great trail resources here in Fort Collins, getting one or maybe two trail runs a week was just not satisfying enough for me.  So with a commitment to a lot of trail miles via the headlamp on weekday mornings (much like I usually do on the weekend anyway), I hope to be on the trails more like four to five times a week with a sprinkling of speed workouts on the track mixed in.  I am also continuing my commitment to time in the weight room which I enjoy, so my total mileage really isn't increasing that much.  However, my trail miles and vertical are taking a big jump (over 60 miles and 11K feet of vertical this week).  So rather than post each trail run (that would be too many posts for me), I'll do a weekly summary much like many others do.  I guess this site has evolved to a training blog (but I am certainly no expert).

Monday (4/11) Coyote Ridge/Rim Rock
6.89 miles, 1052 feet vertical, GPS data here
Strength training

Tuesday (4/12) CSU track
4x1000m/400m, 4x200m/200m, 1 mile warm up (5.5 miles)

Wednesday (4/13) Coyote Ridge/Indian Summer
10.61 miles, 1674 feet vertical, GPS data here

Thursday (4/14) Towers Road time trial with Kevin (congrats on the PPA qualifier at Horsetooth Half today)
6.8 miles, 1714 feet vertical, GPS data here
Strength training

No PR this morning running through this:

Friday (4/15) Coyote Ridge/Indian Summer/Laughing Horse
14.8 miles, 2141 feet vertical, GPS data here

Saturday (4/16) rest

Sunday (4/17) Southridge/Audra Culver/Horsetooth Rock/Soderberg/Spring Creek/Wathen/Westridge/Towers/Mill Creek/Howard/Arthurs Rock/Valley/Sawmill/Loggers/Carey Springs/Towers/Herrington/Stout/Spring Creek/Horsetooth Falls
20.91 miles, 4957 feet vertical, GPS data here

Felt really good on the Sunday long run, which hopefully is a sign this new training approach is going to work well.  Did the long run late in the day again (finishing right at sunset).  A beautiful evening in the parks.

The homestretch just before sunset.

Weekly totals:
65.51 miles, 11538 feet vertical

Afternoon Stroll

It was very strange pulling into the Horsetooth Rock parking lot with so many cars.  I had to apologize to the girl in the permit booth for pulling in through the wrong lane (lane for those needing a daily permit).  Normally I'm the first car in the lot well before sunrise and at least a few hours before anyone is manning the permit booth.  But anyway, despite my abnormally late start, it was nice to see the park by the late afternoon light and not having to bother with a headlamp.  I got up high on Westridge Trail in Lory State Park for a view of the Crystal Fire.  It was still smoldering, but luckily some wet and colder weather really helped get it under control this week.  It would sure be nice for a lot more moisture though.  I'll take some wet and messy trails for a while if that is what it takes.

Some more smoking fast times at the American River 50 on Saturday.  Congrats to Dave Mackey (5:55) and Ellie Greenwood (6:25, 7th overall) on their wins.  Fort Collins strong again with 3rd (Sir Nick 6:00) and 5th (Burch 6:09).  It's amazing to see these trail runners putting down some fast "road" times for 50 miles or more.

Today's run:
Horsetooth Falls/Spring Creek/Herrington/Stout/Sawmill/Valley/Arthurs Rock (with summit)/Timber/Westridge/Howard/Mill Creek/Loggers/Herrington/Spring Creek/Soderberg/Southridge
18.89 miles with 4341 feet of climbing (GPS data here)

Other trail runs this week:
Coyote Ridge/Indian Summer
10.64 miles with 1703 feet of climbing (GPS data here)

The hills straight ahead were ablaze one week ago.

Greyrock 3-pack (almost)

Went after some vertical today back at Greyrock.  The plan was a 3-pack (3 loops, 3 summits) which would have been about 22.5 miles and 7500 feet of vertical.  With heavy and accumulating snow on the 3rd loop, I skipped the 3rd summit (3 loops, 2 summits), but still more climbing that I have done in one run since January.  The snow was actually a welcome sight with the nearby Crystal Fire burning this morning.  I got a pretty good view of it on my first summit when it was still dark.  I'm guessing now that a full Greyrock 6-pack (the idea of some masochistic trail runner) is going to take me probably 14 hours.  We'll see.  You really can't get too much speed going even on the downhills on these trails unless you are looking to make a face plant.  At least I think I've got the summit route figured out finally.

Today's run:
Greyrock 2.5-pack
20.68 miles with 6814 feet of climbing, GPS data here

Early morning double rainbow

80 degrees yesterday, snow today

March Summary

The numbers:
211 miles, 6.3 vertical miles

Trail (7 runs) 119 miles, 4.4 vertical, 24.5 hours
Road (6) 62 miles, 0.2 vertical
Treadmill (4) 17 miles, 1.7 vertical
Track (2) 13 miles
Strength Training (9)
Rest Days (12)
Longest Run 28 miles, 5.4 hours
Most Vertical 5167 feet

My first 3 months of 2011 have been very consistent on the total volume and vertical and right about where I wanted them to be.  Only got to the track twice this month, but I made up for it with some short, hard efforts on the trail.  Also took a lot of rest days toward the end of March.  I hope that rest will pay dividends as I start to increase the volume some, but I can't really say that my body feels "rested" any more than if I took no rest days at all.