Recovery Week

Coming into zero hour.  The Blues Cruise is something like 10 days away and I am feeling as ready as I can be.

On Tuesday I got out for my last long run before the race.  It ended up being 15.5 miles and took 2 hours 28 minutes.  I did it without food and drink and took an long break in the first mile to try and help some poor bastard who was having car trouble.  That first mile took nearly 20 minutes.  I posted the run on Garmin Connect (been doing that with all my GPS files recently).  Once again I ran the rollers out toward Bella Vista.

I've said it before, but I really love that road for training.  In the 15.5 miles I logged, there's 2,250 feet of climbing in 4 discrete chunks.  There are stretches where I have to power hike. That's something which I've never really worked on, but I hear people saying it's an important tool to keep in the proverbial drawer.

Anyway.  I really gave a solid effort.  A race quality effort, I thiiink, less the water and food.

I don't really know the Blues Cruise elevation profile, but what I've seen doesn't scare me as much as the one above.  It's got a couple of hills which gain a couple hundred feet in a short distance. Those I expect will require power hiking, but the rest looks runnable.  We'll see, but right now I'm convincing myself that going sub 4:30 is entirely doable.

Ok, that said.  One consequence of running Tuesday without food and water was that it left me trashed.  I got back to Cuevas and immediately had to run off to Samaipata to pay a bill: the bus was leaving and I had to be on it.  I grabbed a couple of cookies and filled a water bottle and off we went.

I put up a big calorie deficit on Tuesday and really felt it yesterday.  Tried working in the yard moving a sand pile, but I had no energy.  Ended up spending much of the day going back and forth from the computer to playing with Deneb.

Speaking of my little star.  He's discovered Kung Fu thanks to the movie Kung Fu Panda.  Would it surprise you that as far as I'm concerned, that's all good?  He's started working on his horse stance.  He says, "Hor Tance!"  Ahhh. Proud Father here.  Did some frog jumps yesterday too.  My garden will feature some Plum Blossom Posts for us to work on balance...

Thanks for reading, and if you learn the secret, perhaps you too can become the dragon warrior.