Spring Is Here

This was a great week to be outdoors…especially running. I am so happy that I was able to stay in good enough shape over the winter to be able to put in some long mileage and not kill myself now that the weather has finally gotten better. This was my third week in a row of trying to get in some high mileage on my new 6 day a week schedule. My week looked like this:

Monday: Off
Tuesday: 12 miles (Very Hilly)
Wednesday: 11 miles (Flat and Fast)
Thursday: 10 miles (Flat and Fast)
Friday: 8 miles (Hilly Arboretum Loops)
Saturday: 10 miles (Rolling Hills)
Sunday: 20 miles (Coopers Rock Trails)
Total: 70 Miles

The weather was great for all of the runs. I was able to run with Josh on Thursday morning, which made it go by a lot faster than my usual Thursday morning runs. Hopefully we can get together for more in the future. It works out well for me to run with Josh on his easy days because it forces me to pick of the pace on some of my runs (his easy days are my hard days!).

After my hard effort on both Wednesday and Thursday, my SI joint was killing me. I decided to go see a chiropractor (Dr. Gambino in Clarksburg). He had stopped in for shoes last fall and I had been meaning to stop in and see him. Now I had no choice and boy am I sure glad I did. He was nice enough to fit me in that day and get me adjusted after the initial check up. I felt a little weird the rest of the day but the next day I felt great. No more pain at all. It was like he pushed a reset button for my entire body. I felt great on all of my runs the rest of the week and even felt great on my 20 miler. I would defiantly recommend Dr. Gambino to anyone.

Sunday was an awesome run on the trails at Coopers Rock with Erin. I was able to go shirtless which felt great (although I got a little burnt by the end). I also felt like I could still keep going for another couple of hours. My strength is really coming along and I feel I am at a new level I have never been before. I am getting so anxious about my upcoming trial races. I can’t wait to see how I will do!

Back Again!

Well, here I am again. This will make try number three at keeping a weekly blog going. I guess that I have more to talk about now that I am back into a solid training phase for my ultra runs. I figure this can at least serve as weekly log of my mileage since this is something I have tried to keep track of ever since I started running but have always failed at doing.

I am still registered for the Capon Valley 50K on May 8th and the Highlands Sky 40mi. race on June 19th. The plan for now is to use the 50K as a good solid training run for Highlands Sky. I would still like to do well at Capon but Highlands’s Sky is defiantly my goal race.

I am still alternating between my NB 100 and Brooks Cascadia trail shoes although I am currently in the search for an in-between. The 100’s are great and I love the feel of them on the trail, but I they are just a bit to minimalist for my taste to go 40 miles in. The last thing I want to slow me down is my feet. The Cascadia’s are great too but they are just a bit heavy for my liking, especially when they get wet. Both of the races have several creek crossings so this could be an issue. Right now I am looking at the Inov-8 X-Talon (≈7.5 oz) and the La Sportiva Crosslite (≈10 oz). I am having some trouble choosing between the two because as you can see they have similar issues to the 100 and Cascadia when it comes to weight.

I have dropped running to and from work. It worked great during the winter to keep my mileage up especially with all of the snow. Only our Subaru goes well in the snow so Erin and I were stuck with one car most of the winter. I was able to run to work while she could use the car to get the essentials done with Ellie safely.

Now, I am just trying to slowly increase my weekly mileage. I have moved to a 6 day running week instead of a 5 day. I would like to go 7 days a week but it is nice to have at least one day to recover especially if something comes up with work, the shop, weather, and Erin or Ellie. I am currently focusing more on quantity rather than quality for the first time in my career. I am just trying to get my body use to a lot of running and running even more when I am tired. I have also been trying to squeeze in as many hills into every run as possible; although this is nothing new for me. Here is my run down of last week. The previous week ended with an extremely hilly 18 mile run through the streets of Morgantown on Sunday.

Monday: Off
Tuesday: 12 miles (rolling)
Wednesday: 8 miles (Arboretum Loops, Up and Down several times!)
Thursday: 10 miles (rolling)
Friday: 7 miles (with Erin on Deckers Creek trail)
Saturday: 10 miles (Big Hills)
Sunday: 2 Hrs. (Trails at Brakcamp, not sure of the mileage)

Erin and I were hoping for another long run on Sunday but the trail conditions were just horrendous. Trees were down everywhere with jaggers intertwined. You would get started running, go about 100 meters, stop to climb over a tree or go around a massive pile of jaggers and then repeat. This was the case the entire run. See Erin’s post at mommyrunning101.blogspot.com for more details.

I am going to increase my mileage even more this week. It is defiantly getting easier with the nice weather. I promise I will try to keep up with my blog this time!