Less Than 3 Weeks Until Pain!!

Where has the time gone?  Leadville is 2.5 weeks away, yikes.  Training has been going well.  As always, wish I could do more but there's not much time left to worry about that now.  Got a few longer runs in recently, felling good.  I recovered much better than expected after Mohican 100, so I was able to get back to training with out much time off.  I had planned to blog a week by week update, but this will have to do:

6 weeks to go (July 2nd week):
A few weeks after Mohican, feeling good.  Took 1 week off, then a light week, then back at it this week.  Saturday I ran Creemore Verticle Challenge 50km.  Here's a quick summary:

Creemore Verticle Challange 50km:
It poured rain at the start, delayed about 20min due to lightning.  I started at a moderate pace, not sure if I'd just run this light and slow or not.  I was feeling good so I picked up the pace after a while.  Lots of rain, but this was refreshing as this race is usually scorching hot, so I was enjoying this.  I almost wore road shoes due to the long dirt roads, but good thing I didn't!  I ran for awhile with Paul C., he was in road shoes and he had a horrible time trying to climb the muddy hills when we were on trails.  Did the first loop in 2h 29min.

Second loop started off very messy.  The rain had let up, but by now the trails were a mess.  On the first loop there were maybe 15 people trampling the mud in front of me, now there were all those people but also the people from the 25km race which started an hour later, so the trails were a mess.  The air started to get thick as it warmed up, but we got the occasional light shower to cool things off again.  Actually very ideal running conditions.

I ran most of the 2nd loop with Paul C and Lisa V, chatting made the time go by.  I would pull ahead on the trails as Paul would slip and slide, then he'd catch up to me on the flats.  Paul has run blistering times on this course before, WAY faster than I ever will.  Near the end, Lisa dropped back a bit, then when we got to the trail near the end Paul told me to just go ahead, he knew he'd be slipping everywhere.

 Relaxing at the finish...

Finished in 5h 18min, 12th place out of about 75 starters.  Better than last year's out-of-shape performance, but I did run it a little faster 2 yrs ago.  Post race, jumped in the river with beer.  Overall, felt good, no calf cramps, decent time, I was happy.  Hung out with Chris and Steve post race.  Carlos ran the 25k (he'd be off to Leadville next weekend for a 50 mile), so he was gone by the time we finished. 

5 Weeks to go (July 9th week):

This was my vacation week off with the kids.  Played Soccer on Wed, ran 10k on Sunday.  Planned to recover from Creemore for a few days, guess I got carried away. Oops.

Started vitamins this week to get ready for Leadville, I'll detail below.  Also got a hand roller to assist with recovery.

4 Weeks to go (July 16th week):

Lots of running during the week, then got some good runs in on the weekend.

Saturday, I met Steve at Sulpher at 9am, he'd already done a 20km loop at 6am!  Just after we started, we ran into Elise M, so she joined us for the next 6 hrs.  I knew this would be a slow day, so I brought 4lb dumbells along.  Did 2.5 loops for 47km, lots of time on my feet at 6h 21min. Very hot in the afternoon!  My heels we very sore, I'm still rotating between 2 old pairs of Montrail Mountain Masochists, but cushioning is shot in both.  Right after the run I headed to MEC and grabbed a new pair.

Sunday, headed out to Seaton with Steve, Adi and Steve M.  I knew this would be slow again, so brought the weights again (shoulders aching from yesterday).  Did 1 out and back for 27km, 3h 47min.  Should be 26km, at one point I ran ahead to pick up the pace, then ran back to them which added a km.  Great trails, I'd never been to Seaton before.  There's a shack at the end that sells fries and ice cream, mmmmmm.  Very hot again.

So weekly total was 97km, almost 80km of those carrying 2 x 4lb dumbells.  Makes up for last week's 10km total, but couldn't lift my arms very well by Monday!

3 Weeks to go (July 23nd week):
Week started of ok, but at soccer on Wed I arrived late, then ran on the field without warming up or stretching.  Hamstrings were tight and a little sore, then early in the 2nd half I started to get a bad pain in my left hammie and pulled it.  I went right off and applied ice immediately.  A soccer injury at this point would be stupid.  I used the hand roller when I got home, this was ok on the hammie but my right calf was way too sore to touch.  Brilliant.

On Thurs I did some walking, Fri and Sat I just rested to let my hammie and calf heal.  Still couldn't touch my calf on Thurs without horrible pain.  I was camping this weekend so got some biking and swimming in, some low impact exercise should do me some good.

On Sunday night, I met Carlos for a night run.  I was exhausted after spending the morning packing up the campsite with 2 tents, then swimming, driving 4hrs home and unpacking.  I just wanted to sleep. By 845pm he hadn't called to cancel (part of me was hoping he would, I was friggin tired), so I took a 5 Hour Energy just before he picked me up at 9pm.  Let's see, it's 9pm, add 5 hrs and....ooops.

We headed out to the Bruce Trail in Burlington.  Great technical trails, good hills, I really liked it.  Carlos is faster than me, so I left the weights at home knowing we'd have a good pace.  He didn't disappoint, we did 23km in about 2h 20min, which is great for a technical trail in the dark.  Much faster on the way back, more downhills.  Hammie was getting sore running the fast downhills.  We both stopped our watches and forgot to start them after a pee break on the way back, so we had to guess the total time.  Great run.  Got home about 12:45am.  The 5Hr Energy at 9pm was a bad idea, I'd lie awake until 3am...

I couldn't find my Petzl Myo headlamp after bringing it camping a few weeks ago.  I used my Tikka 2, it was fine for this run but I'm going to tear apart my house soon looking for the Myo, otherwise I'll have to get another before Leadville.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
So, we now have 2.5 weeks to go.  Here's the good, the bad and the ugly of where I'm at now:

The Good:
Feeling great, runs going well.
Recovered way better post Mohican 100 than expected.
Nutrition on track, I'm down 8 pounds since Bear Mountain in May, ran that at 175, currently at 167.
Hills and stairs keep getting easier.
Started vitamins a few weeks ago to prepare for running at altitude.  Taking daily B12, B6, vitamin C, folic acid and multivitamin.

The Bad:
Where's my fucking headlamp?
Not enough upper body and core work, had planned to do more but I need 26hrs in a day.
My mileage is just stupid and erratic.  Here's the last 10 weeks totals (not including soccer and stair climbs):
15 km
48 km
15 km
170 km (Mohican)
0 km (recovery week)
31 km
60 km (Creemore)
10 km
97 km (long runs with Steve)
31 km
....not exactly consistent.

The Ugly:
Left hamstring.  I'll likely take soccer off this week, do lots of stretching, should do the trick.

So......
Actually, overall that's not a bad list at all!  Truthfully, I'm really looking forward to this race.  I don't know how my body will respond to the altitude, so I'm not going to worry about it.  The only scary part of this course is climbing up and over Hope Pass (twice), but I'll just take it slow and enjoy the view!  Carlos climbed it last weekend the day before his 50 mile race in Leadville.  He's still alive, so I'm sure we'll be fine.

2.5 weeks!...........

Morgan