January 24 - 30

Coming to you live from the lovely Tulsa airport! I fully intended to put the fingers to the keyboard last night but the back of my eyelids got the best of me. Travel has been coming from every direction, which means my runs have been as well; Aspen, Los Begas, Denver, and now Tulsa. Now because of "the storm" I'm stuck here in Tulsa and remains to be seen if I can make it back to Denver.

Last week was very tough not only in terms of being in meetings all day but also from the sickness aspect. I went to the doctor on Tuesday and she determined I had a virus because I was not producing any phlegm... I know from selling antibiotics that the rust colored junk coming out was more bacterial, ie Steptococcus Pneumoniae. I ran every day trying to get the stuff out of my system but little by little it made it's way into my lungs. So from Sunday through Wednesday the runs were absolutely miserable. Thursday running in the desert with Josh Brimhall was the first time I actually felt decent, still coughing up a lung, but decent. By the weekend I managed to string together back to back 20 mile runs. So now I feel back on track and ready to see what I've got for Hagg Lake 50K. Here is the week in review:

Monday - 6 myles Venetian TM

Tuesday - 6 myles Venetian TM

Wednesday - 8 myles Venetian TM

Thursday - 20 myles Bootleg Canyon

Friday - 4 myles East/West trail

Saturday - 20 myles Chatfield Resevoir x2

Sunday - 20 myles Tour De HR

Total - 85 myles, 11.54 hrs, 4947 ft climbing. 344 myles for January.

Ultra Runner vs. Iron Man

This is classic! No need to explain.

January 17 - 23

As I write this I feel like total crap! Saturday night was miserable with chills and night sweats followed by coughing and sore throat the next day. Having said that, sorry for being brief here but I just don't have the energy to put any thought into this post other than noting my workouts. I fully intended on writing a little write up on MAF-HR but will put more thought into later this week.

Obviously feeling this way my week ended with a big thud. For the past 3 weeks most of my workouts have been very mellow, keeping the HR below 155. Now what I'm finding is that it's a lot harder to get my HR above 160, whereas before 160 was easy running, at least from my perspective. I'm building the foundation here which will help me immensely come June time.

Here is what my week looked like:

Monday - 8.25 myles, 1.10:02

Tuesday - 10 myles, 1.17:38

Wednesday - 12.25 myles, 1.39:51

Thursday - 17.9 myles, 2.25:52

Friday - 8.2 myles, 1.05:48

Saturday - 8.2 myles, 1.24:12

Sunday - 4 myles, 34:03

Total - 69 myles, 9.37, 9407 ft of climbing

January 10-16, 2010

Another Newsflash: I am in UTMB!!! Along with my PI teammates: Nick, Darcy, and Josh. Other U.S. notables on the list: Dakota Jones, Nick Pedatella, Scott Jurek, Hal Koerner, Diana Finkel, Mike Foote, Joe Grant, Tony Krupicka, Glenn Mackie, Karl Meltzer, Krissy Moehl, Geoff Roes, and Roch Horton

Newsflash: UROY and POY have been announced over here. Congratulations to everyone! In particular, my PI teammates Nick Clark and Darcy Africa, 4th and 6th respectively. Well deserved!

Second full week of resetting the metabolism. I'm really happy the way my body has responded to running every day of the week, and in a few cases, twice a day. I may have said this before but it seems the more I run, the more I want to run.

The highlight of the week was certainly The Ponderous Posterior 50K (aka Fat Ass) put on by the CRUD guys. I don't need to go into further detail just read the previous post. Outside of that the week was a busy one traveling to Kansas for a short trip and trying to fit in two-a-days. In Kansas it was below zero so the treadmill was the only option. Most of the runs were easy runs, keeping my HR below 155. I did have one workout of 4 x 20 second hill sprints and my HR spiked to 163 each time, felt really refreshing.

Sure I'm anxious to get some leg turnover but the goal is to peak towards the end of June not the end of April. Last year I was hot with the training starting in November the previous year and I made the mistake of trying to carry the volume and intensity throughout the year. If you look at my race results from last year, I had my best results through May and then the wheels fell off. Then after a miserable stretch through September, a little break, and then one final race in November to cap the year off where I started - running good. I didn't realize what has happening at the time but in hindsight instead of pushing through (harder and faster workouts), I should have backed off and "reset". I think it's a common mistake we all make. As a result, I AM being patient right now and will take the next 24 weeks to peak.

At any rate here is what my week looked like:

Monday - 4 myles, 32 minutes

Tuesday - AM 8 myles, 62 minutes. PM 4 myles, 32 minutes

Wednesday - 11 myles, 1 hour 28 minutes

Thursday - AM 4 myles, 31 minutes. PM 6 myles, 54 minutes

Friday - 6 myles, 48 minutes

Saturday - 32 myles, 5 hours 19 minutes

Sunday - 4 myles, 33 minutes

Total - 79.2 myles, 11 hours 41 minutes, 10,626 ft of climbing

You'll always be with us Fast Eddy Cooper

Ponderous Posterior Fat Ass 50K

The last stop in the Fat Ass series here in Colorado happened yesterday in Colorado Springs. Apparently there was a Fat Ass race in Boulder last week but I didn't know anything about it. First off, thanks to Tony for getting the ball rolling on this series to join in with all the Fat Ass races that happen all over the nation at this time of the year. And second, thanks to JT and Nick for hosting these events and marking each of the courses.

For those of you who don't know anything about this series it truly is just a gathering of runners who have been slacking in the winter months and is fully intended to get people off the couch and back into the groove.

Just like Nick had done in the El Chubbo Grande, JT sent people off in three waves so that everyone could get back at the same time and enjoy some food and brewski's. Roughly 90 people showed up with the 7 AM and 8 AM waves holding most of the people. The small elite group at 9 AM was just that "elite" with Tony, Joe, Scott, and a few other notables.

I chose the 8 AM wave knowing I wanted to keep the HR below 160 for most of the time as I am right in the middle of reseting my metabolism so I didn't want to blow it. I ran the whole day with Justin Ricks who just nabbed at 2.21 marathon PR at CIM so I knew I'd just be holding on with his speed. But it was nice, pretty much all day, with an average HR of 151. I did have to scale it back a bit as Justin powered up Longs Ranch road, I was tapping out at 172 bpm so I resorted to walking some on the second 1/2 of the steep, snowy slope. Coming down Barr trail was a little tricky because of the ice patches; if you try to slow down then you slip, if you get going too fast, it's an all out yard sale. Neither of us fell as we tip-toed down pretty quick and then proceeded onto Intemann trail. Still 25 myles in we were cruising and my HR was still around 145 so I was happy that I felt good and could still keep the HR down. We did take a minor detour onto section 16 and then toured Red Rocks perimeter to add on a mile or so. Someone had pulled the flagging so me missed a critical left hand turn as did Gangels and BFish. Bonus myles right? Justin and I ended up coming away with the fastest time, but again, this is extremely casual and no racing was ever going on. Although JT did make some trophies

TP came with it

All in all it was a fun time running, catching up with Justin during, and then the little Soiree that ensued afterwards. I had some of the best home brew I have ever tasted that rivals some of the best craft breweries around. George Zack crafted a very nice IPA in which he calls EPO-IPA. It was nice to finally meet him after reading his blog for two years. Good to catch up with BFish, Gangels, Patrick Garcia, Tony, FF, Scott J, Joe G, all the CRUD guys. Also nice to meet new people and put faces to names. Up next Hagg Lake 50K

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My watch says 32.07 myles and 7638 ft of climbing

January 3-9, 2010

Second full of week of training and I'm well on my way to a good year... Yeah only two weeks in but I feel great. I've run every day since Christmas and each day I look forward to getting out. I feel strong, healthy, and revived after a short hiatus through November and December. At 41 I'll take healthy and strong all day long! My approach to training has changed a bit this year with Lucho as my co-pilot, HR training early in the year is teaching me something that I have overlooked in years past. I'm building to Western States right now and building means a good base and NOT peaking too early. Most of my runs for the last week has been very mellow keeping the HR between 135-155. It's much harder to keep the HR above 135 on the downhills and serves as a good reminder to not get complacent. In addition, I have been doing core training such as: one legged jump rope, crunches, band resistant workouts with the legs, and jack knifes. It's all been good and a refreshed approach. I know the coming weeks will have me begging for mercy with some leg turnover stuff but for now it's building the endurance and taking the right nutrition in. Here's what this week looked like:

Monday - 11 myles Daniels Park w/ 5 x 1 minute VO2Max @ 10% grade

Tuesday - 9.5 myles HR Backcountry w/ 3 x 20 second strides

Wednesday - 13.5 myles White Ranch w/ Lucho

Thursday - 14 myles AM 8 myles Griggs loop. PM 6 myles Bluffs loop - relaxed/shake out.

Friday - 8 myles Flagstaff - 1st hour HR under 155 then 1/2 hour let it drift

Saturday - 21 myles HR tour - everything under 155

Sunday - 6 myles Bluffs loop - No HR, just shake out

82.73 myles

12.13 hours

13,622 ft of climbing

On another note, my Utah Mexican friend sent me this picture. Apparently he has taken my place as this top honor. Congrats Mi Amigo!

Update

I saw a bumper sticker today that read "Why is OUR oil under THEIR sand?" (insert sarcasm) I laughed out loud to myself. And then I laughed harder when I started thinking.... hmm, it's a bumper sticker.... on a CAR nonetheless... HA! How ironic.

If you haven't noticed my training is on the right column, if you're interested. Once in there you will click the box next to "show workouts" and then hit "submit". It will show you all kinds of data of my runs: HR, time spent in HR zones, elevation, pace, map, distance, all that kind of stuff. There are two tabs at the top right: summary and map/graph to show you specifics. Also, I have pushed the daily workouts over to Twitter (right column) as well for your viewing pleasure. Workouts have been going good; running every day while trying to reset the metabolism with mellow runs.

Also for your viewing pleasure, below are a couple of pics so you can see the awesomeness of my MexiStache! Too bad I couldn't keep it around.

before

After - Bew. Chicka. Bew. Bew.

This is what I was going for. I guess when I grow up to be a real bandito huh?

Some of the goodness I've been eating.

8.5 myles - 1.08:35

Highline Canal - 9 AM
20s, overcast, tracked snow
mind/body - clear/lower back tight
easy effort

Met up with Tim Long this morning for a casual, flat run along the Highline Canal. Tim had just done a segment on 9 News (4:40 mark) for McDavid (compression and recovery) so he was on my side of town and up for a run. It's amazing how time goes by when your running with someone, as opposed to being alone (with music) most of the time - it's nice to mix it up with good company and good conversation. Among other things, we talked about doing an FKT on the 66 mile Highline Canal sometime in April that would be some good training for the upcoming season.

This run caps off a great building week for me - 82.33 myles, 11.25 hours. Besides the lower back being stiff today and minor ache in the left arch/heel, I feel great. Always going to be some niggles here and there so I just have to be mindful and take care of them.

15 myles - 2.17:20

Bluffs/Wildcat Ridge - 11 AM

15 degrees, partly cloudy, cold snow

mind/body - good

easy effort

Even though the effort was easy, slipping on the snow was torquing my lower back. Going uphill it was tough to gain any traction so it was two steps up, one step back. I intended on doing the full HR tour (Bluffs, Wildcat Ridge, Backcountry) but because the back was tweaking I decided 2+ hours was enough. Now Wildcat Ridge is closed till March 25th so I'll have to find somewhere else to go. Plenty of other places, just have to drive to them.

2011 is going to be an exciting year, albeit busy. I just got a promotion in my job so I'll be traveling a little bit more, unfortunately not to any mountain states, more like Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Nothing wrong with those states and I'm sure they have some hills but it's not the Rocky Mountains. Having said that, I'm going to start posting my training once a week on Sundays. I'll still be logging my workouts over here on a daily basis so if you want to find out what I'm doing day in and day out, you still can. And then I'll still be blogging about other things as well.

New Years resolutions. Every year I've had a New Years resolution that centers around food and nutrition (no fried foods, no meat, etc..) this year is no different but not as hard and fast as previous years. This year my family has committed to eating healthier. Meaning we are going to eat more whole foods like fruits, veggies, and grains. And eat less processed foods such as refined sugars and carbohydrates. I know it's kind of vague but the idea is to think about what we are eating and how it was made. When given a choice between a veggie tray and chips and dip we will choose the veggie tray when in the past 9 times out of 10 it's been the chips. I guess you can say the book "In Defense of Food" has had an effect on me. In addition, one that my son Jaxon came up with to help the environment is to stop buying and drinking bottled water.