Quick Update

Those are regular sized apples.

I haven't posted in a while.

I've had a bit of a daunting post hanging over my keyboard for a while and I haven't mustered the courage to get on with it.  It has to do with potatoes and Cuevas.  We harvested a couple weeks ago and that was almost as cool and rewarding an experience as the Steamboat 50.  Hopefully I can get around to writing something about it within the next couple of weeks.  In the meantime...

I'm back to regular training.  I'd say the potato harvest marked my official return to regular workouts.  I wore my NB Minimus shoes for that and lugged an uncountable number of 75 lb bags of potatoes out of the field between Monday and Tuesday 2 weeks ago.  My fingers still hurt, but my feet are fine.  There was some complaining from my right foot on Monday, but Tuesday it didn't bother me at all.  If I had to guess, I hiked 10+miles on Monday and 25 more on Tuesday half of those miles with a bag of potatoes slung over my right shoulder.

I took the remainder of that week off, and returned to regular running workouts last week.  6 days in a row I went out and ran the same 4 mile loop.  I alternated days between clockwise and counter-clockwise.  While the loop stayed the same, I varied my effort such that my easiest day took almost 36 minutes to do the loop while my hardest I went under 28:30.  I hope to break 28 minutes this week, but I'll be more tired - we'll see.

My goals now are to build back to regular medium to long distance runs 6 days a week - Sunday is going to always be a day off (marital maintenance).  I am tentatively putting an ultra marathon on my calendar in either April or May.  Something to keep me moving forward - an intermediate goal on my way to my major goal of the Leadville 100.

Nataly was indeed PO'd by my suggestion of the Trail Festival in Fruita, but I hope she changes her mind.  We'll see.

Plan B (and not a terribly bad one at that) is a race I discovered while researching the global versions of The North Face Endurance Challenge(s).  Turns out that TNF has put on an ultra in Salta, Argentina each of the last 2 years.  For some reason, Nataly's more amenable to me taking on an ultra in a country where I need a whole new visa... A number of different distances, but if it comes to it (and the race is on) I'll register for the 80k.

I'm going to tack 3 more miles into my running this week and add a day of official interval training.  That will fall on my medium long day.  This week that means tomorrow.  I'll be doing 6x400 at max effort (whatever that is) with 90 second walking recovery breaks.  I'll repeat the hard effort of last Saturday too.  Friday will be my long day (6 miles-hehe)...

Anyway, thanks for reading and enjoy the snow (or sun wherever you are)...
J

P.S.
Homey's running again too!  Friday last week and today...
Good Dog.
j