Another Good Week

Last week was a real confidence boost for my training. Speedwork and hill repeats went great and felt strong the entire time. Even felt like pushing it on the last couple of repeats which reminded me maybe it’s time to raise the bar with respect to my own expectation.
The 5 hour long run yesterday on the trails felt comfortable and learned a few more tactics to skid myself out on the hills. Normally I start off running the hills but then start using them as brisk walking breaks to keep my HR down for endurance building. This time I leveled my pace more and shortened my stride on the hills. I also stopped concentrating on the top of the hill and focused more on maintaining a shorter stride on a repeatable consistent level while keeping my eyes looking down on the trail. I found this much easier to run the hill even after 5 hours on my feet. The idea of a shorter stride on hills I got from an earlier post by Rooster, and it works (Thanks girl). My downhill pace I backed off (not trying to fly down them) and found my legs feeling stronger later in the day. Although I felt my pace was slower and my time would suffer, I actually picked-up time and had more energy later on.
I also normally feel a low around mile 18 and only last a couple of miles before snapping out of it. Mostly due to not eating enough during my long runs. Normally I slow down to a crawl knowing it will soon be over before picking up my pace again. This time I maintained my pace, pushing even harder during this low, and felt even better when I got to the other side.
I knew it would be dark before making it out of the woods so I made sure my Boy Scout qualities came out (light). Based on the number of cars at the main parking lot, I was the only one on the trails. What an eerie feeling it was under a totally dark sky, strange animal sounds (dogs and coyotes), and constantly scanning for snakes (the bad kind). I also heard a lot of unusually sounds along the sides of the trail and had a feeling of being stalked. I carry a medium size knife for self protection and rehearsed in my mind the motions I would take if confronted, while maintaining a level head, and running through spider webs. Normally, night running does not bother me, but for some reason, I had an uncomfortable feeling, and have read some stories of wild dogs in this area of the woods. My spider senses were alarming. Nonetheless, it was a good motivator to pick my pace up and get back to the trail head. This is a pic I took coming out of the woods with my light on: Really dark (Tree on right, stump on left, spider web in front, snake hiding behind tree, unknown animal following).

I’m still not totally convinced the problem I had with my feet is resolved. When I got done with my long run, the balls of my feet were tender. I‘m going to try and tape (which I never do) and see if that helps! I normally Vaseline my feet and use two pairs of performance socks (Injinji and Under Armor). I will just have to keep working on this until I find what works best for me. Opinions / solutions welcomed.
I have another hard training week coming up and will use the Buncombe race as a training run for working out the bugs.

Morning Brew

I just love the smell of fresh cut grass. I gave the yard a hair-cut yesterday, and this morning while sipping on a hot fresh cup of joe and eating a toasted blueberry bagel covered with peanut butter, I could still smell fresh cut grass in the air. The sky is blue, sun feels good with a comfortable 60+ deg, and I have hill repeats with weighted vest along with weight training on the agenda today. Tomorrow will be a recovery run followed by another long run on dry trails this time. The weather is perfect here in the South, but it won’t last long with 90+ and high humidity around the corner.

Time for a Change

March was a month of struggle and transition which included a good long run, speedwork, and hill repeats without injury. I started to incorporate a weight vest in some of my daily runs and hill repeats to stress my body a little more. I’ve slowly been increasing the weight to allow my body to adjust while protecting myself from injury. Following Rocky, it took about 4 weeks before my running strength started returning to normal. My speedwork was lagging compared to my last session, but has now returned to performing 6X800meters at 3 min per repeat. My first two long runs in March did not go well and I felt an overall fatigued feeling lined with frustration (Still dealing with my Rocky performance). I took a light training week and did a 27 mile long run and felt strong all day. It was a perfect running day and the trail in great shape. The funny thing is I did my first face-plant when my foot got caught on a root and ended up eating some dirt. My hand held water bottles took the brunt of the fall and saved my hands. I was moving pretty fast on a downhill section and found myself airborne with no place to go but down (Gravity still works). I got up, brushed the dirt off, inspected for damage, and started to laugh out loud for a few minutes. Unfortunately, nobody was around to experience my graceful landing.
This past week, I took the family down to Disney World for spring break (And to get out of town with the Masters Golf tournament here in Augusta GA) and had an awesome time. Did not get any running in, but did walk about a thousand miles. The parks were at full capacity, but we still hit all our favorite rides. Also got some sun time in at Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon and got a head start on my tan (or should I say burn).

Went out yesterday for a 30 mile trail run in the rain, wind, and mud - Had a great time and had to check out my new trail shoes which performed nicely straight out of the box (No blisters, drained well, and light at 11oz). Not sure how these will hold up for 100 miles, but the Montrail Mountain Masochist (MM) worked great for shorter runs (Time will tell). Compared to the Montrail Continental Divide (CD), these shoes are so much lighter, flexible, and breathable. I normally wear a 9.5 in the CD and the MM 9.5 feels like a size 10. These very well could be the improvement in trail shoes I was hoping for. I will use them in my upcoming races to see how they perform. I also tried the Superfeet green inserts and was pleased with the performance.
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