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