12 myles - 1.25:33

HR urban trails - 8:00 AM

60s, clear, dry

mind/body - clear/strong

easy effort

Finally back to normal! 7:07 pace today with 700 ft of climbing and it felt easy - good signs all around. 52 myles for the week with 69 and 80 the two previous weeks. During this time (post Bear), I had 4 speed/interval workouts with incline and flat. My goal was 6 but didn't quite make it cause of the green apple two step earlier in the week. For the month of October - 275 myles - by far the most I've logged in this month over the last 7 years. October is usually a down month to get ready for the next year so hopefully doing this volume won't be detrimental later next year. November will have to suffice to be a down month this time.

As far as MMTR goes, the last time I ran here was 2005 for a time of 7.52 and 7th place. This was my second year of ultras and was shocked to look back at my training logs to see very low mileage - we're talking 50 mile weeks consistently. Five years later I'm still not a "high mileage" guy (compared to some) but I'm peaking out at 40 more myles/week and smarter about my training. Having said that, I have high hopes to crank out something in the low 7s with Horty there harassing/encouraging me all the way around.

14.5 myles - 2.08:32

Mt Falcon v1.0 - 8:30 AM

40s, windy, sunny

mind/body - coming around

easy effort

Met up with JP this morning over at Falcon. Was really unsure how my body would feel but I committed to being there and glad I did.

Jim led the way to the shelter and I was happy to ride his coat tails. Sure was happy when he had to tie both his shoes cause I was not liking the first 10 minutes or so. We made the shelter in a steady 31:26 and then made our way around for a full loop. It really wasn't until the shelter I started to feel half way decent, which was a clear sign this junk was nearly out of my system. I was climbing well and felt better the longer we went. We never really pushed the pace but it was steady on everything. And it was certainly good to get out with someone to mix it up cause neither one of us would have gone 14 on our own.

My Highgear barometric altimeter reads 3014 ft of climbing, Jim's GPS reads 2903, and MapMyRun (mmr) GPS lists it as 2093 ft of climbing. I'll take the 3014 ft. Also mmr gives a distance of 14.90 myles (without that straight line at the end in the map above), Jim's GPS gives 14.26 myles - FWIW.

11 myles - 1.14:20

Wildcat Ridge - 8:00 AM

40s, still windy, dry

mind/body - better but still weak

Hard effort

I'm feeling a little bit better today. I woke up and had my coffee with no nausea, as the previous days, so I think I've turned the corner. For whatever reason I felt I needed to do some quality work and really make it hurt.... maybe a little mental training?? I gave myself 2.75 myles to warm up and rethink the quality stuff and still felt good so I dug in - 5.5 myles with rolling single track, 400ft of elevation, in 34:53 (6:20 pace) - then a casual 2.75 myles cool down. mmm. mmm. mmm. That hurt!

9 myles - 1.07:47

Lone Tree + loop - 3:00 PM

40s, strong East wind, a little damp

mind/body - miserable

easy effort

Been down and out the last couple of days. Either ate something bad or caught a bug going around. I've had no appetite, nausea, and the green apple two step. Hopefully the run today flushed everything out. I've only eaten 3 bowls of cereal in the last two days so obviously I had no energy and no zip in the legs. Better now than in a weeks time

"What is going on with America's team?"

18 myles - 2.39:34

Deer Creek - 8:00 AM

40s, clear, dry

mind/body - good

easy effort

18 myles in 2.39:34 AND one large Domino's pizza in 8:45 that is!

The day started with a casual run over at Deer Creek. I started out at the lower parking lot in South Park to gain some extra elevation (3137 ft of climbing total) and mileage. Not too many people out this morning, for whatever reason, which is just fine by me. Deer Creek attracts a ton of mtn bikers on the weekend and last time I wore headphones -a mistake- because on Red Cloud loop several bikers brushed passed me with scowls on their faces - my bad. I took the headphones again but this time took them off around Red Cloud. Go figure, didn't see bikers up there. Nice day all around and would have liked to stay longer but I had another challenge to get to...

The annual CRUD party was at JT and Katie's Hacienda and the second eating challenge - A large Domino's cheese pizza as fast as you can. Thank goodness Tim Hola wasn't there! In my opinion, I only had to beat JT for some braggin rights. Only 4 people participated: Paul, Rick, JT, and myself. Muzzy, who was a ringer for the burrito eating contest, elected not to participate (probably good for me). I won't bore you with the details cause the video that Harsha took (coming soon) tells the story. What you need to know is that I CRUSHED JT! My time 8:45. JT's time 12:40. Almost a full 4 minutes. Rick came in second around 10 minutes and Paul DNF'd. It might be a good thing Paul DNF'd cause Myles kept trying to steal a piece of my pizza and when I ate the last one Myles buried his face in a chair and started crying! It was either DNF or beat JT... Good times all around! I will admit though, half way through the pizza I had a sudden urge to throw up. Mouth started salivating and the gag reflex started but then I started bouncing up and down and that seemed to push the food down. A little trick I learned from Hola at the burrito eating contest. I was stuffed, a painful stuffed. But not Rick. Rick ate his pizza and proceeded to eat a pork sandwich, washing it down with beers. Ooof! I'm still stuffed.

Two at a time for me while Paul is eating like a bird

9 myles - 1.05:00

Southridge Treadmill - 8:00 AM

hot and steam in that room

mind/body - better than yesterday

hard effort

I had planned for 6 x 1 mile @ 5:50 pace today but I just didn't feel like driving over to Chatfield. In fact, I was going to throw in the towel today (11 myles yesterday felt terrible) but Jaxon suggested we go to the gym. How can I pass that up?!?! Jaxon has a mile test next week in school so he wanted to get a little practice on the indoor track.

I resorted to the treadmill, specifically the dreaded Kenyan cutdown with a little twist. The Kenyan cutdown is basically starting at 7 MPH and increasing 0.1 MPH every lap or 1/4 mile, going up to 10 MPH. The twist was increasing the incline to 4% on every 4th lap. I'm happy to say I made it all the way through to 10 MPH! The last 4% @ 9.7 MPH was very hurtful but even more-so was trying to recover flat @ 9.8 MPH. I'm sure people around me thought I was going to die. This workout is all about recovering with a fast pace. What an ingenious workout Paul crafted for me last year!

Speaking of treadmills, what do you think of this one? Woodway makes a very fine TM but they're not cheap so I'd like to get some input before I take the plunge. Does anyone have any experience on this machine?

Non-motorized Woodway Curve

8 myles - 59:00

HR urban trails - 6:30 AM

40s, clear, dry

mind/body - groggy/slow to start

easy effort

Not much to put down here, just the fact that I got out early this morning. I did, however, crank out a good fast mile at the end - 5:49. I also got out yesterday with 9 myles in 1.06. Work is crazy so I won't be able to notch it back up until Friday, in which I'll do 6 x 1 mile @ 5:50 pace. Saturday will be down at Pikes Peak for some elevation and then the CRUD party at Brown-eyes' house. We are having a Domino's pizza eating contest. I believe the rules are simple: just finish a large as fast as you can without barfing. Gotta beat JT for some braggin/smack talking rights. Then again he probably won't show up....

12 myles - no time

Daniels Park - 7:00 AM

40s, clear, dry

mind/body - clear/strong

Hard effort

Coming off a "day off" is always a good mini test to see what race day is gonna feel like. I ran 9 days straight with 118 myles prior to yesterday so yesterday was refreshing.

The air was crisp this morning but felt good. 4 mile w/u and c/d to and from "the hill". And then 10 x 1 minute @ 10% grade. And just for my future reference here are the splits: 1:03:01, 1:02:87, 1:03:44, 1:01:19, 1:01:25, 1:02:19, 1:01:50, 1:01:50, 1:01:31, 1:01:25. The trend is that I was getting faster and that's what I wanted. On each one the legs were getting heavy the last 20 seconds with the last 3 sets above LT. I figure the last 3 is where I started to build up my LT a bit. Last time I did this workout during my marathon build up I was hitting 1 minute flat but that was after 5 weeks of speedwork so these numbers today are a good sign.

On another note, check out this photo below. My father in law sent me this photo of this guy taking a self portrait recently in South Dakota. He had no idea the cat was there until he got home and saw the photos. Makes me wonder how many times cats are watching me.

The eyes on the cat are just creepy

And last, what do you think of the latest BCS rankings? What a terrible system! OU goes from 6 to 1 over Boise State and TCU? Not to mention Oregon! C'mon. The system is seriously flawed. I guess Boise State will just have to beat OU, again....

25 myles - 4.00:09

Mt Falcon v1.75 - 6:30 AM

50s, clear, dry

mind/body - good

easy effort

Easy "steady" effort that is. My father in law and I met PG and JP over at Falcon before the crack of dawn for some fun. Patrick is training for Hellgate 100K and Jim just wanted to get out for a run prior to a day long meeting "inside". Jim stuck around as long as he could, putting in 11 myles before he had to get back. Patrick and I did the full loop in 2.17 and then proceeded to get back up to the shelter for round 2. The initial climb up to the shelter via Turkey Trot smacks me in the face every time but doing it a second time, well, it's just a full blown punch. Made it up to the shelter in 33 the first time and 35 the second time. The second time around decided not to do a full loop, and Patrick had to get back by 11, so we just went around Parmalee and back down. 5437 of climbing with about a 9:39 pace - pretty decent for Falcon.

8.5 myles - 1.03:34

Lone Tree + loop - 8:00 AM

70s, clear, dry

mind/body - sluggish

easy, easy effort

Never snapped out of being lethargic on this run but I know how important it is to get out following a hard run. Definitely Indian summer right now as we sit in the 80s going into the weekend.

In years past, October has been my down month so I really thought I'd be dreading the runs... hasn't been that bad. In fact, I feel solid both physically and mentally - looking forward to competing at Mt Masochist and then shutting it down in November. I bought a season ski pass for myself and Jaxon so that will force me to take it easy (running wise) through the early part of 2011.

Tomorrow at Mt Falcon. Changed the time to 6:30 AM if anyone wants to join.

Cool interview over here on my friend Tim Hola. Very classy and humble guy! 12 times in a row at Kona! And footage of the Timex guys finishing.

13 myles (9-56:43)

Highline Canal - 10:00 AM

70s, clear, dry

mind/body - feeling good

Hard effort

Just got back from Wyoming late last night. On Monday I unknowingly crossed paths with Karlo in Wheatland. I didn't check his progress before I left so I didn't have any idea until I got to my hotel in Casper. Oh well. Looks like Geoff got out with him yesterday. I watched a video of him starting his day getting out of the RV, funny in a sadistic sort of way.

Today I got out for some MP stuff - 9 myles in 56:43 with 2 mile w/u and c/d. A train was blocking my normal route over to Chatfield from the Highline so I had to stay on the Highline canal. Same sort of terrain, just an out and back instead of a loop. Before the workout I predicted my MP would be somewhere between 6:15 and 6:20... ended up with 6:18s. When Paul was coaching me, this was a key workout he would have me do every other week - basically 1 hour at MP. I whittled it down to 6:01 but that was after 7 weeks so I'm happy with 6:18s.

On Tuesday I made it back to Ft Collins, not in time for the track workout with Nick Clark, but enough time to put 8.5 myles on Spring Creek in 59:41. Then on Wednesday I met up with Dakota and Nick for a good, mellow 12 myles (1.42) near Horsetooth reservoir on the foothills trail.

Good solid week so far in which I'll cap off with a double over at Mt Falcon on Saturday with Patrick Garcia. Anyone else wants to join, you are more than welcome. Meeting at 7 AM.

12.4 myles - 1.29:42

Daniels Park - 8:00 AM

40s, soggy, partly cloudy

mind/body - sluggish/not motivated

Hard effort

Starting the week off right with some quality stuff but I really wasn't feeling up to it. Maybe it was the lack of coffee this morning...

6 x 1:30 @ 5K pace (flat) with 15 minutes between each one. It was really hard for me to judge 5K pace, since I haven't done one in years, but the last 30 seconds were rough on each one. A full 15 minutes between each one allowed my body to fully recover on the run so that I could give max effort on each of them. While these were flat, most of them ended at the beginning of a short hill so I worked hard to get back on 7:30 through the hill - 737ft of climbing.

Also got out yesterday for 13 myles (1.35) real easy to finish the week with 60 myles. I'm off to Casper, WY for the next day or so. On the way home on Wednesday I'll stop in Ft Collins and get out with Dakota and Nick for some myles.

11 myles - ~1.30

Lookout Mountain road - 8:00 AM

50s, clear, dry

mind/body - good

hard effort

Good quality stuff today and little arse kickin done by Mr. Lucho!

Met up with Mike Wasserman, Patrick Garcia, and Aaron Kennard thanks to the open invitation from Tim Waggoner to do a little hill speed work. We did a 2 mile w/u, followed by 6 x 1 mile (actually last one was only 0.64 but fast) with 2 minutes rest in between each mile. I was telling Lucho the hardest part about doing intervals or speed work are the days leading up to the actual workout, not so much the workout itself. I guess I just don't wanna know how much speed I've actually lost so I've been avoiding altogether. I did alright today but I reached my ceiling pretty quick on the second one, spilling some lactate, so I did the best I could to maintain the gap Lucho put on me each time. I'd say I was hitting high 6s/low 7s on each one with about a 6.5% grade. Once at the top we came down the single track which turns out to be 1/2 the distance back down. Good times - thanks fellas!

On another note, Ironman Kona is going on today. Been tracking the Tim's (DeBoom and Hola) all day. Both lost some places on the bike but seem to holding it together and even picking people off through the run. Found the picture below on the PI twitter page. Thought it was pretty cool to see Darcy up on a poster in the PI booth.

Deboom signing autographs at PI booth in Kona while Darcy looks over his shoulder

UPDATE: Deboom finished 32nd - 8.49:26 Hola finsihed 59th - 9.06:03. Solid all the way around!

9.5 myles - 1.07:14

HR urban trails - 8 AM

50s, clear, dry

mind/body - still zippy

easy effort

Easy effort but more of a steady, easy effort. Just wanted to be out there an hour so I stayed true to that. Took the watch (even though I was gonna wait till next week) to see if my perceived effort was matching my time - 7:04 pace with 700 ft of climbing, felt solid - so it checks out. Now for the next 3 and 1/2 weeks I need to concentrate on alternating easy/hard days, rather than steady every day. I've mapped out the upcoming weeks by using workouts Paul Dewitt gave me leading up to Squaw Peak last year. And basically what it comes down to is getting in some interval and MP work each week - I think I can handle that.

Was watching some video clips from Karlo's (that's what Myles calls him) Pony Express thing and Myles asked me, "Where's he goin?" "To Missouri, son" "Why? He wooks mad" hmmmmm..... Don't know how to answer that one! Should I start it this way: "You see son...

9 myles - no time

Lone Tree + loop - 8:00 AM

50s, overcast, dry

mind/body - zippy

easy effort

Easy effort with a hard effort sprinkled in that is! I'm an addict to running period. Even though I committed to taking two weeks as mellow as can be, I'm finding it more difficult than I imagined. I'm 41 years old and when my legs are zippy I have to jump at the opportunity cause these days don't come 'round too often. So what I did today was just a sprinkle of hard (2.55 m - 16:06 (6:18 pace) - 337 ft climbing) to get the legs and lungs conditioned for the next couple of weeks. I feel quality, not quantity, is what my training has been lacking.

8 myles - no time

Daniels Park - 8:00 AM

60s, clear, dry

mind/body - engine is revving

easy effort

Seems like I've been stating "clear and dry" for quite some time. We need a little moisture. Took the same methodical approach today but I added in 6 x ~30 seconds @ 5K pace - everything is working and feeling really smooth. I'm contemplating heading to Wyoming (Casper) on Thursday to do a little work and also intersect Karl. Don't know if I'll run with him or sit in the motor home and eat all his food... On second thought, Karl's looking a little famished so I'll bring my own Little Debbie's or something. Also planning on doing some mile repeats with Lucho on Saturday up Lookout Mountain, I need a little arse whoopin'!

Any more feedback on a proposed PI ultra series? All good stuff so far! I think this could be a series like no other!

9 myles - no time

Lone Tree + loop - 8:00 AM

50s, clear, dry

mind/body - refreshed

easy effort

Still keeping it real mellow - for the most part. There were a few 30 second pick-ups just keep the legs honest. I feel fully recovered so by the end of the week I will start to put in some quality stuff. Maybe just a couple mile repeats and a couple 1:30 5K efforts but really only to make sure everything is working.

Got some good feedback to take back to PI about the ultra series - thanks for the input. And just so you know, I was thinking along the lines of touching all the distances (as Nick mentioned) and picking the toughest of courses. Seems most people feel the same way. It would be nice to get a race back East but I also feel if it's kept in the Rocky Mountain Region then PI can really put their stamp on it and gain the identity of: Extreme/Rugged/Tough/Animalistic/Badass - choose whatever term you like but you get the point. Just my opinion, not PI approved.

Here are my choices:

• Red Hot 50K - February or Chuckanut 50K - March
• Zane Grey 50 - April
• Pocatello 50 or Jemez 50 - May (pick one)
• San Juan Solstice 50 - June
• Katcina Mosa 100K - August
• The Bear 100 - September

Not many 100K's to choose from so Nick's Comanche 100K in August? would be pretty cool to include. Lot's of 50 mile races so I'm not sure what to do there because I didn't even include Squaw Peak 50... They are all just jammed right in that late May, early June time frame so maybe you could have 6 to pick from in the 50 mile. A lot to sort out for sure.

10 myles - no time

Wildcat Ridge - 8:00 A.M.

50s, clear, dry

mind/body - good

easy effort

The weather has been unseasonably warm for this time of year so I'm feeling I can't waste any of them. Most Saturdays when I'm out on this route it's packed with people but I think most people have either shifted their minds to winter or attending to the kids sports. The run itself was slow and methodical but that's the way I plan to keep it. Thoughts were wandering from what to run next year all the way to what I/we should do during my sabbatical in two years.... I know it's two years away and lots can change but planning is good. Check out this documentary video - The Divide MTB race. It's an hour 20 so make sure you have time before you start cause you'll want to finish it. I'd like to run it someday.

On another note, I was snooping around Pearl Izumi on Thursday trying to get the low-down on plans for the team next year. Nothing definitive on the team but the vibes are good, thanks in large part to Nick and Darcy for their wins at Wasatch. One of the ideas floating around is a Pearl Izumi sponsored ultra series utilizing existing races around the country, similar to the Montrail Ultra Cup. I have my own ideas and thoughts as to what that should look like but I'd like to get input from you all. What 4 races would you pick from around the country that are not part of another series but could draw the best competition with the right circumstances? What distances would you choose? Would it be mountainous or relatively flat? PI is thinking big, but new to the game, so I'd appreciate feedback so that I can take that back to them. I know this for sure, trail running is going to be a huge focus for Pearl Izumi for years to come.

6.2 myles - no time

Lone Tree loop - 10 AM

70s, clear, dry
mind/body - recovering
easy, easy effort

Yesterday 6 myles. Today 6 myles. I plan to keep it really mellow (20-30/wk) for the next two weeks. Not only does my body need the break but my mind as well. Although after today's run I can already sense the wheels starting to turn on "turning up" the intensity notch. But I think it's a trap I've been stuck in every since Hard Rock. A vicious cycle of: not having the performance I wanted thus my training must not have been good enough. I think if I take a couple weeks, re-evaluate the situation, and then get back after it for 3 weeks leading into MMTR, I "should" come away with a satisfying result. Nothing scientific here, just random thoughts. Stay tuned.

346 for September, 2468 for the year. I should still be able to catch Tony....

I know it's hard to believe but this is just right around the corner