Friday 07DEC2018

Off to Singapore today.  If I go off the clock-calendar of where I am/will be, I will sort of not have a Saturday.  That is to say, I will get on a plane on Friday, and then get off the plane in a place where it is Sunday morning.  Of course it will be Saturday at that point back here in CO.  Even better is when I get back on the plane next week I will land at a time of day earlier than when I left. 

We are watching Hans for a few days.  I have run probably a few thousand miles with Hans and Lucy.  And they probably did at least 50 percent more running than I did when we did those runs in the mountains.  They are 14 and 13 now so they don’t run that much anymore but they are always close when in the house, ya know… just in case we have to go for a run.

I got a good run in today.  It was cool but really nice for December.  I did 13 out past the hospital on the trails, in the brown scrub, but keeping it steady and progressing the effort back up the hill.  Fun.

Thursday 23FEB2017

Sluggish all day today. 

I have been asked if I’d do Pikes this year and while there is some itch there, I have been moving away from it.  I have been kicking around pacing Bob for some portion of Leadville.  Simply put, I think I’d get more fired up helping him out for 5 to 10 hours rather than hitting that hill again. At least for now.

Snow’s back:

4 with Hans and the 4.2 after that.  Slow.  Tired.  Sluggish.  And the snow did not help.

Monday 20JUN2016

AM – Got out for a walk with TZ and Jack.

I buzzed over to BrHS practice after this and got in 50 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of core, etc work.

News stuff

• Sooo much racing this past weekend:  just read Justin’s stuff. 
• “I’m a big guy; my race weight is 203 pounds.”
• The video interview of Aish.   Macy, the current Leadman course record holder, put up a faster LT Marathon (although the courses might have been different between these years and maybe even faster this year?  I really don’t know) by a couple of minutes.   It is interesting to look at the 2013 Leadman results because you see a.)  the last three cracks at the record came off guys who did the 50 bike (Macy, Africa, Waggoner) – we can guess that Aish won’t do that, and b.) Africa was ahead of Macy by about 37 minutes in the 100 run, but still was second in the Leadman standings by … 37 minutes.
• While researching that, I found this sweet picture.  Check out that lid!
  
• Dunham’s MW report and all of his splits.  Evah.
• Parr’s LTM report

PM – the hot temps we had yesterday generally vanished today as we got some reprieve via thick clouds.  I got the dogs out in the afternoon for 40ish minutes.

Thursday 011515

As previously posted … got this in an email today:
Anyone got an entrants list link?

While I have respect and healthy dose of fear for a 100 miler, I also have a fair confidence that I could finish this thing.  Sure, stuff can happen, at any distance in fact, and maybe you don’t even make it to the line.  But as I sit here 219 days a way, realizing that I have a bunch of business trips, vacations to sea level on the SEA, and a crap ton of excuses in that time, I also feel pretty good about my chances of finishing this bugger.  It might play out otherwise, but I will look to do what I can between now and then to minimize that.

But it ain’t just about finishing it.  Running races has almost never been that for me – at least at the start (I say that because there are those occasions where all hell has broken loose in the race and it has become a “just finish this damn thing” death march).  I didn’t line up at the middle school gym mile to see if I could run the mile, it was to see how fast I could run it.  And it has been pretty much like that since, be it the mile, the marathon, or a 100 miler.  My first PPM, I was really not even sure if I could finish the thing when I looked at the top from the start line and truly realized I had to go up and down that dang mountain.  But I didn’t walk from the start gun to better ensure I could finish. 

And yeah, I know I am not setting myself up to do it in the smartest fashion by plugging Pikes the week before.  I can fully see myself making decisions in that race that could really stack the deck against me for the week afterwards.  Yup, I am going to go for it because there will come a time when I won’t be able to, and I rather get kicked trying then setting some low bar goal and left wondering. 

I am looking forward to this journey with the whole community that is in it. 

Post script – admittedly, I have gone into burro races thinking about just completing the thing.  When I have gone in wanting to race it, it has never gone well.  Jack has other plans at those times it seems.  As a result he and I need to work through some mental trickery to get around it.
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A holy crap workout described.

If you can’t go fast, go far.

Fellow burro racer, and a Sweeney from a different weenie.

Good interview with a very real guy – David R.

A week from today, I am going to go for a run with this guy as he is in town.  Let me know if you want in.

Screw Paypal.  I tried to buy Hal’s book through it a few weeks ago and it wanted me to do all sorts of verifications of billing address, etc.  I appreciate the fraud checking of course.  I have a pretty high tolerance for that sort of stuff as I wade through a website but it got so nutty I ended up mailing Hal a check snail mail instead.  I went to contribute to Elevation Trail, HOR, or Endurance Planet today and I could not do it because PayPal did not like something about my credit card.  Had no problem contributing to the Scout Master pod, but they don’t use flipping PayPal.

AM – 5 miles with Hans.  Always a challenge when he wants to chase the rabbits. 

PM – mild weather.  Fartlek effort, cruising easy to steady to a couple of hard efforts.  10.1 miles.  I have come to love the brown of these fields I run through.
She likes to SnapChat.

Friday 112814

Interesting interview with Buff Theroux.

Okay, not as impressive, but anyway …

15.1 miles, 5.1 of that with Hans, mid day.  He is coming around so well.  I can actually get him to move pretty well now.  Prairie dogs however remain a challenge.  Unseasonably warm, and little wind so wonderful run.  Felt a bit of the build of the load over the last few days, but all good.  Sort of weird actually … a bit of tired, a bit of knowing that I better not push on that too much, but at the same time an understanding that there is a building occurring under there.  Didn’t bring water and so was a bit parched the last two miles.

I have been without a phone/ipod device for the last week.  So all my runs have in the past week have been without the noise/joy of music or podcasts.  I’d like to say that a week of being without the sound from a device made my head more clear to the voices in my head.  Unfortunately the pool there is probably only hip deep so it was pretty quick wading there.  Tonight my replacement arrived.   Back to the ‘casts …

Latest ATUC, latest ET. 

And you need blind faith … No false hope, no false hope.  Do you have blind faith?  No false hope, no false hope.  Where is your blind faith?  No false hope, no false hope.  Open your eyes, open your eyes, step into the light.  Open your eyes, step into the light.  The sound becomes …

Thursday 112014

News stuff According to Outside Magazine – FKTs have no rules.  Well, at least you can follow him (yes, that guy).  Entertaining ‘cast of ET as always, but most certainly working under an explicit tag now.  Good read on IAAF World Championship qualification standards (the B is gone).   I am simultaneously disturbed and amused by this video (it does make me laugh but then I find myself irked at the nature of this game, and the bratty reaction by the kids).  And apparently most heavy drinkers are not alcoholics.  Not a fan that we should just tax it to make that problem go away.  Not that I don’t think we should address that problem but I am pretty much not a fan of taxes on top of taxes.

14 miles mid day.  Thought I’d get a little more but the calf (right) was quitely making noise after 12 – so when TZ drove by on the way to do errands and asked if I wanted a lift, I took her up on it. 

Evening – dusk – 3.2 miles dog jog with Hans.  Off to KS with him and JZ tomorrow morning for a visit to the beautiful sea of prairie, and to see if we can get a few birds.

Sunday 042714

Finishing up the week of Meb tribute – a nice post interview with him over on the Outside magazine site.

Went easy today – jogging the dogs.  Lucy (1.5 miles, although I toss the frisbee for her while we run so she gets in more than that, with sprints for her), Hans (4.5 miles), Stella (1 mil), Bart (1 mile).  All very easy running.  Nearly all of this is just jogging around the fields at the middle school.

Well sort of.  We have Hans at the moment as TZ’s parents are out of town.  He is great in the mountains when I can run him off leash.  He has gone double digit miles with me up there and just could keep going.  He is a great hunting dog in the fields of Kansas.

He is ridiculously hard for me to run with down here though, in suburbia, on leash.  My runs with him end up being part run, part core workout, an exercise in patience and dog discipline.  Within the first 200 yards, he had knocked me down.  He sees squirrels and goes ape shit bananas to kill them.  He sees other dogs and when Rover the little terrier barks at him, he so wants that. He is just not a leash dog.  Dude needs to run free.

Week ends with 76 miles, but about an hour more than last week (probably because I doubled typical climbing to 5700 feet, most of that coming off the year’s first ascent of Green, but also getting some on the Tuesday hill work).  The workout with Steve on Thursday was solid and gave me a bit of a reminder of what I need to do if I want to break 5 in the mile.  That sort of work does leave the right arse cheek a bit sore – meaning the intensity flares it up a bit more than just plain old volume.  Did get 3 lunge matrix warm ups in and will look to continue or better that.  Currently at 1025.5 miles on the year.

Off to Cork today so I expect next week may be a bit less volume.  As I am at sea level I will try to take advantage of that condition and get some faster work in.  I have not found any races I can jump easily into.  I am thinking I will do a mile TT and take a crack Patrick’s Hill again.  Looks like the FKT on that has improved a bit since I was there last year.

Sunday 111210

11 miles in the land of 10000 plus feet.  Yeah, the land where a quarter mile in 3 minutes can be quite the effort.  This sort of running is the opposite of the treadmill work, where everything is controlled and dialed in.  Instead here, it is snow, wind, thin air and incredibly blue sky.  At least it was blue sky this AM.  It is blowing snow here now.

70  miles on the week. 10.75 hours.  205 miles on November, 30.25 hours.  3655 miles on the year and 555.5 hours on the year.  Little milestone here.  I have passed the number for 10 miles at day for the year, and have pretty much assured that I will exceed my miles from last year.  Not a bad week – a race, a bit of up pace work and fair miles.  I trimmed miles back a bit by design – and the week lent well to it as well.  I am also thinking about that 4000 number (345 away).  That is probably not the smartest objective to have, but it is in the head anyway.  Next week will probably be a bit more of the same … lower miles here on Monday and Tuesday because of skiing, easy on Wednesday because I will probably race on Thursday. 

Oh, but the big news on the week is apparently my blood pressure is fine.  My father in law has blood pressure cuff at his place, so I decided to check it out.

Earlier, before I ate a bowlful of chips and salsa, it was measuring at 115 over 65.