Photo courtesy of Andrew King - D4 Productions

Sunday, May 29, 2011

May 23-29

Finally some time to put some thoughts on a blog post. I've been MIA for couple of weeks but I assure not because I've been lazy. Sometimes life happens fast and furious and all we can do is hang on for the ride. Since the beginning of the year I've accumulated over 40,000 myles flying while staying over 70 nights in a hotel - such an illustrious life. In fact, there was a 3 week succession I went from Palm Springs, Miwok for the weekend with my wife, back to San Francisco, home for 48 hours and squeezed in a U2 concert (thanks Joe), and then to Richmond, VA. If anything, it will be a nice FREE vacation for me and my family when all said and done with the points I've racked up. Speaking of vacation, all reservations have been made for Squaw Valley starting on June 19th and returning home the following Sunday. I'm hoping for some relaxing time to have fun with the family waiting for the Big Juan.

Because of my travel for work (up until last Thursday) I have been feeling way under trained mentally. Even though I've been regularly hitting 80 myles a week and an occasional race, I didn't feel the focus I needed to have a great race in June. That was until Thursday. Friday, Saturday, and today have been a different story - a total of 70 myles and nearly 13K of climbing. Nothing like this guy or this guy but I feel I'm back on track to have a good race. I'm not done yet, I plan on having a 10 day period of this kind of work and then straight into a proper taper leading up to the race. The nice thing about WS is that there are so many good runners I have flown under the radar with mediocre results thus far this season. No expectations on my part and no pressure to perform.... mmm, I take that back. There is the Montrail Ultra Cup in which I am in contention. Right now it's a 3 man race for 1st between Mackey, Olmstead, and myself. $5K for 1st, $2K for 2nd, and $1K for 3rd. Mackey has been unstoppable lately, while I've been faltering late in races, and he is only 0.07 pts behind me. Tall order I know but it is 100 myles and anything can happen.

At any rate, I hope to be posting more frequently as the build up to WS begins. Here is my most recent week:

Tuesday - 4 myles VCU Richmond, VA
Thursday - Travel
Friday - AM 15 myles Deer Creek

Total - 87 myles, 12hr 32 mins, 13,123 ft of climbing

8 comments:

Alverna said...

nice to have you back...hope you can keep up the good runs before BIG JUAN...which I might add is just around the corner....have a great week...

nmp said...

Sounds like you are on track for a good run in a few weeks...see you in a couple weeks in squaw.

GZ said...

Well, at least you have Mariott Gold status.

AJW said...

Not under my radar!

Speedgoat Karl said...

When I saw "this guy" and "that guy", I was hoping you werent' talking about me, but I then remembered, I'm not running WS. :-)

the course at WS is good for you, you'll have a good race, it's only 100 miles. Never second guess yourself in a race that far. Lots of guys are in it and don't even know it yet.

BobbyKnight said...

Scott- did you get my email from flyin' Brian? If you need help at WS let me know, I have the time. Yes? No? Don't leave me hangin'....
bdiesel29er@gmail

Dan Olmstead said...

Scott - good to meet you at Miwok. Because Montrail only counts the top 4 races and we can assume that WS will be one of the 4 I will toss out my JFK and you will toss out your AR. So if we assume we have a winning time of 15:30 at WS that means Dave has about a 7hr lead, I'm only about 20 min ahead, and Tim Olson is only about 2hr behind us.
I hope your last 3 weeks go well, and I look forward to seeing you in Squaw.

Unknown said...

hey Dan. Hope all is well with you.

After I posted last week I read on Mackey's blog that all he had to do is finish WS to win the Montrail cup. I then decided to actually read the rules and you are exactly right. I calculated a 15 hr finish for the winner which would give you about a 25 minute lead or so. It will be fun, especially with all the snow!

See you soon