These guys aren't me, but...

Someday I'll line up for that race.  Look at those trails.  Beautiful.  Who knows, maybe in a few years I'll be able to hang off the back of their group for a while....

Today I got out for a 5 mile run with some intervals sprinkled in.  After 1.5 miles I hit the lap button on the GPS and went 88, 89, 88, 88, 86, 85 on 6 quarter mile efforts with 90 second walking breaks between sprints.  The first 2 were distinctly up hill and the last 2 were distinctly down....

I also laid out a training plan for Leadville in MS Excel.  Here's a chart:

The build is gradual.  No more than 10 percent mileage increase per week.  The long runs obviously spike, but that also means that there is a corresponding decrease in the length of my shorter runs during those weeks where I have a big long run scheduled.  One of those long runs will be a race and another will likely be a round trip to a waterfall accessible from Samaipata named La Pacha.  That's an 80km round trip.

Anyway thanks for reading, and perhaps in that video you can see some of why I enjoy this sport so much...
J

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

Thinking out loud.

My wife may be P.O.d...

Two years ago, I started my running "journey" by undertaking a trail marathon put on by Gemini Adventures (GA) on a Saturday and following that up with another 10 mile jaunt the next day.  GA didn't call it a marathon, but the dang 25 miler measured out at 26.1 with my GPS.  I'll call that sucker a marathon thank you very much.

The 25 miler and 10 miler were 2 races in a four race "Trail Running Festival".  They were run on a weekend where the  "25" mile race and the "50" mile race were run on Saturday and pair of races measuring 10 and 5 miles were run on Sunday.  I thought that running the 10 miler on Sunday after the "25" would be a good way to see if I might not like to try an ultra some day.  Hmmmm....

Right now, my foot is pretty well heeled and I'm looking for something to motivate my training for the next several months.  Hmmmm....

The Trail Running Festival is on April 22 and 23....

Hmmm....

50 and 10...

Hmm...

Thanks for reading and I think I spelled something wrong somewhere...
J

P.S.
My mom took this photo of Deneb and me crossing the finish line together (albeit recreated) at the 25 miler in Fruita - he was just about to turn 1.

Didn't just run yesterday...

I made some bread.

Up in Cuevas, we've got a giant field of potatoes and Saturday night Hugo and I dug out 2, 5 gallon paint buckets full of them.  Needless to say, I've had potato in some form or another every day since then.  They're tasty.

Monday night I roasted a batch, and yesterday turned that yumminess into Roasted Potato Bread.  I'll spare you the recipe this time; it's straight out of Hamelman.  I accidentally doubled the pre-ferment on Monday night, but that's the good thing about those recipes:  If you've got the ingredients, it's easy to adjust on the fly.  I ended up with 4 loaves, one which I gave away, another which got eaten yesterday (except for the scrap you see in the picture below), and 2 for the near future.

Anyway, it seems that my run yesterday was a bit overzealous so I'll be taking it easy on the foot today.  It is achy, and won't let me walk without a hitch in my step.  If it loosens up today, I may try to get some form work in later on.

Thanks for reading and be safe out there.
J

And...We're back...?

This past Sunday, I got out for my first workout since the Blues Cruise.  Sunday marked the 5 week anniversary of my injury.  It also marked my first workout in my new trail shoes - the Brooks Pure Grit.  I'll give them a review eventually, but my first impressions are positive (with the exception of the stupid strap over the top of the foot).

Unfortunately I don't have GPS on my workout from Sunday, but repeats on the course will become regular fare in my training for Leadville.  I had to make a call in the morning to Nataly to get some information for Cuevas, so I powerhiked up out of the valley to get some cell signal.

Since that specific trek is going to be featured often in this journal, I am giving the location the name Dissertation Ridge.  Nataly used a couple of locations above the waterfalls in Cuevas to investigate whether there was a connection between hillslope angle and nutrient availability.  I didn't understand much beyond that but...

What I do know is that the climb up to Dissertation Ridge gains 600 feet in less than a 1/2 mile.  That's a good grunt on any day.  A 5xDissertation Ridge workout would be a tremendous effort. I expect that'll be a goal as I prepare to prepare for Leadville.

I actually ran today too.  A short loop here in Kilometer 14.  My foot hurt.  It probably didn't help much that I wore my Bikilas, but the pain never got worse.  My conditioning is way off. It was hot.

We'll see how my foot is tomorrow.  It hurt during my power hike up to Dissertation Ridge on Sunday, but Monday felt much better than in many days preceding the effort.  I wonder if working the foot is what's best for it now.

Thanks for reading and enjoy your training.
J

What's the forecast? Whatever it is, it makes me sad.

[note--I just finished this note, after a spending a couple of days in Cuevas::I'll start writing about that in a few minutes.]
Whew, here comes another one.  I'm was sitting around with an achy foot and frustration building re: Web Design and content development, so I thought I'd see what the popular stories on Yahoo News were...

While topic #1 is interesting, issue #2 falls into a hot button category for me.  

First thing first, I've got to take issue with the use of "Global Warming" in the headline above.  Global Warming feels like a marketing term.  Global Warming isn't something to be feared.  Everybody likes to be warmer don't they?  What's not to like about warm days.  Warm is often accompanied by sunny.  Given all the recent snow in Colorado, I bet one or two folks would enjoy coming to visit Bolivia, where it's warm.

While still having a somewhat positive aspect, (Green) + (House), I like the term Greenhouse in place of Global Warming in the headline there.  "Greenhouse" actually captures some of the science behind what is often called the "Theory of Global Warming" and I feel it's a more neutral term. And while this is a rant for another day, I feel journalism needs to return to a more neutral tone in general.

Other than that, I have little to no argument with the article itself.  Greenhouse gasses are introduced into the atmosphere as a result of development, both past development and ongoing.  Sustaining development requires energy and energy production releases greenhouse gasses.  2010 was a banner year:

The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated...

and this:

Boden said the latest figures put global emissions higher than the worst case projections from the climate panel.

The International Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC, the panel referred to above) worst case scenario would have the global average temperature of the planet rising by 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.  In 2001, the IPCC published this graphic in their report (wikipedia link):

One way to read this chart is:  Depending upon how humanity modifies it's behavior with respect to greenhouse emissions, this is what will happen in year 20xx.  (Note the error bars underneath the years 2025, 2050, 2075 and 2100.)

For instance, if we continue as we (were going) in 2000, in 2050, Earth's temperature will have risen an average of almost 3 degrees C, and we can expect negative consequences in 4 of their 5 Future Scenarios and Uncertainties. On the other hand, if we had implemented the panel's recommended changes quickly and globally, Earth in 2050 would only see a temperature increase of less than 1 degree C with few negative impacts and a planet which resembles the one we live in today.

What's chilling about the article, is that here we are in 2011 and we're exceeding the worst case projections of the IPCC.  It's a terrifying and sad story, and it's one which I can't stand reading about.  But really, what can be done about it?

I look around here in Bolivia and have to ask, "Do you really expect these people to adopt greener practices, when it costs so much more?  Especially when the United States is unwilling to take a leadership role in their implementation."  Here, I'd be happy if people would just dispose of their garbage some place other than a random gutter.

I'll end it there, my brain is starting to go off on a tangent in regard to competing Nation States and their inability to deal with problems of global scale.

Thanks for reading, and yeah, I think we're all fucked.  Sorry Deneb.
J

Going to have to add a new tag: LT100

Holy crap what have I done.

Yesterday, I signed up for the Leadville 100.

That's not really the scary part.  What I find scary is the content behind the first link on this google search: "Splits for 25 hour LT100".

I'd read Brandon's account of what transpired for him during last years Leadville 100 and for some reason that only made me want to line up for the start more.  What I hadn't seen was his sister's tale: the race from the crew chief's perspective (the first link in the search above).  That's some compelling reading which drives home the magnitude of a 100 mile race; it's not just a huge undertaking for the racer, it's a huge undertaking for all around him.  Whew.

The finality of dropping the better part of 300 dollars on a race leaves very little option other than to begin thinking about training, thank everyone around me and apologize in advance for those times when I will offend someone.

In re: Training.  I've decided my foot wants 1 more week.

At this point I can balance on the ball of my foot and even do multiple sets of calf raises, but Monday while pacing out the fence-line, I stepped, with my bad foot, on a small stump (1.75 inches in diameter, 3 inches tall) while wearing my Minimus trail shoes.  That rewarded me with some stabbing pain and induced some new swelling.  The swelling was gone Tuesday morning and I've been walking confidently without a noticeable limp for the last several days (Monday excluded).  I can really feel that my foot is getting healthy.

I want a couple more days for it to heal up before testing it out though.  I'm thinking now that next Monday will be my first run post Blues Cruise.  I could go out today in all likelihood, but there are times where discretion truly is the better part of valor and I would think this is one of them.  Wouldn't want a lingering injury to keep me from making it to the start in August.

Thanks for reading, and wonder if a race takes 30 hours to cover 100 miles, is that really running?
Jay