Week in review. April 6-13.

Hmmm...Well it looks like this past week was even more ordinary than the last one I wrote about.

Last week I had 6 workouts planned for 7 hours and 15 minutes.  I completed 5 for just over 5 hours and missed my long run thanks to rain. Obviously, the weather contributed to the less than spectacular training numbers, but that's not much of an excuse.

I got an invite to go running with a friend here in Santa Cruz on Saturday, but when Saturday arrived so did a nasty mix of cool rain and drizzle.  It went on throughout the morning and into the afternoon and we decided that there would be better days (like maybe today) to get out and explore some trail and bagged the run.

Otherwise, all of my workouts were on the order of an hour, easy; with one really good stride session and a faster run on Sunday (weather aided/inspired).

To better describe the stride workout, I run for 20 seconds at about 400 meter race pace, then take 2 minutes of easy jogging to recover, and I repeat the cycle 8 times.  My goal during the 20 second work interval is to have at least 30 left foot strikes - and the goal of the weekly workouts is to turn me from a plodding runner to a prancing one (though it's hard to imagine a 6'1", 200lb Prancer).

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see if I start getting better turnover rates on my daily runs.  I do enjoy the interval sessions, they really help break up the monotony of KM 14, 7 mile loop.

That's about it, given the spectacular weather, I'm going to take today's unspecified "rest day" and get out for 90 minutes or so...

Thanks for reading.
j

An actual race calendar.

For the first time since moving to Bolivia, I have a calendar of races for which to train.  They're all in Bolivia, but just this morning I discovered the possibility of a 100K in Argentina.  That'd be a backup if the Ultra Trail Tiwanaku turns out to be a mixed Bike/Run event.

For now, I've had 2 very solid weeks of training, nothing terribly long or hard, but no missed workouts. Yesterday featured the Bella Vista road for an hour and fifteen minutes, and this past Friday I found myself way out...somewhere near the end of the road behind my house, somewhere I've never been before.

Cattle Ranch

Near the end of the road

The thing about Friday's run (and something which hasn't been a problem this summer because of the ridiculous rains) was the strength of the sun.  Holy cow did I get dehydrated.  I described it to Nataly's cousin:  pee the color of a rotten orange.

Anyway, my other runs were essentially nondescript: the usual roads, easy miles, one "stride" workout and 1 short run in Vibrams, in total seven hours and fifteen minutes of time dedicated to exercise last week after five very easy hours the week before.

On to the race calendar.  Last September I ran my first race in Bolivia, a 10k which I essentially did as a hard training run (I had all of 2 weeks notice, and really hadn't done any specific prep).  I did nab a PR, but the real benefit was meeting another expat runner who was connected to the race scene.  Via Facebook, she alerted me to a calendar of races in Santa Cruz for 2014.  All 10k or less, but at least it was something.

Then about 4 weeks ago, out leaked info in regard to an actual marathon in Santa Cruz.  Unfortunately, the race organizers decided to provide 2 weeks lead for competitors to get ready, and I didn't participate:  why run a road marathon, out of shape?  I could have finished, but... I gripped on the FB and one of my friends a couple of days later provided me with a link to the "Bolivia Adventure Series".

Oh Happy Day!  

A series of 5 races potentially concluding with an 80k Ultra outside of La Paz in November.  Since then I've been tweeking a training schedule and calendar and I've got it pretty dialed.

Here they are.  A, B, and C indicate whether I am using them as training races, or if there's any focus/special prep for the race.

• Circuit of the Stations, 8k: C priority, will be using this as a LTHR test.  May 18.
• Laguna Volcan 18k: C priority, part of the Bolivia Adventure Series.  June 8.
• Sky Race 28k: C priority, part of the Bolivia Adventure Series.  This race climbs the "Bolivia Death Road".  August 10.
• Ninos de la Calle 10k.  This is the race I PR'd in last year, and I'll come back to it this year, C-B priority.  If I'm feeling strong, I'll probably ease off the volume for the week and give it a good crack.  September 7.
• Conociendo a la PACHA MAMA 100k:  This is where things get a bit fuzzy.  This race is the race in Argentina.  If I do this race, it's because the Ultra Trail Tiwanaku is a part bike/part run event and I couldn't convince the race organizers to let me run the whole thing solo.  It would be the end of my racing season. A priority (or not at all).  October 13.
• Salar 42k.  Part of the Bolivia Adventure Series. B priority (or not at all) October 19.
• Ultra Trail Tiwanaku 80k.  80 kilometers running around La Paz? Yes please.  November 23.  A priority.  
• Cotoca 21k December, date unknown.  A or C priority depending on UTT.

There you have it.  I've got training weeks scheduled out to the end of November, the longest individual week will have me at eleven and a half hours.  That should equate to a distance somewhere in the neighborhood of 135 kilometers, which should get me to the finish line of the Pacha Mama.  Last year's winning time was 13 hours there, so it's not an easy race, but the field wasn't exactly from Boulder either.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and check back for weekly training updates as my season progresses (so cool to be able to say that)...
J

A long silence.

It's been a busy couple of weeks.  Cuevas was fantastically busy over the holiday weeks and we as a family really needed to spend time up there.

Then, I wanted to make some measurable progress on the visitcuevas.com website, so I spent some time up there alone and without the interruption of a 2.5 year old gymnast leaping on my back every time I sit down.  I was able to get some stuff done.  It still needs some design work and content needs to be created for a couple of pages so I may spend another day or two up there this coming week to try to finish up, perhaps going up Thursday.

There have been a couple of quite notable things in the last couple of weeks.  I've been logging my two longest runs for the week on back to back days.  This is pretty standard operating procedure for folks training for ultra distance events, but it's new to me.  As far as the running muscles go, I haven't had any huge complaints, but I'm also not logging huge miles.  As far as the rest of the body goes, well...

Last week my long runs were 7 (Wednesday) and 10 (Thursday) miles.  I did them in the middle of the day in La Guardia on hot sunny days.  Hot means 97 degrees and by sunny I mean:

I snapped that photo at mile 5 of the 7 mile run on Wednesday.  At the end of that run, I weighed 85.7 Kilos (a loss of 1.8 kilos).  The next day I went out for 10 miles in similar conditions.  Again I dropped about 2 kilos during my run.

I got a headache.

The headache was so bad, in fact, I couldn't sleep.  It stuck with me throughout the day Friday.  I drank lots of water and even added salt to my bottle, but the pain behind my eyes wouldn't go away.  Acetaminophen helped, sending the headache to a more distant place, but it didn't eliminate the problem by any stretch of the imagination.  I spent a lot of time lying on my bed and in general being grumpy.

Sorry Deneb.

Sorry Nataly.

Needless to say, Friday turned into a day off.  I needed it, because when I awoke on Saturday I still had the headache.  It had eased off, but I was no where near a happy camper.  With the help of the Tylenol, I did get out for my run that day, but it was slow and rather uninspired.

I finally got back to normal on Monday, up in Cuevas.  It was cooler and I think I finally got back on top of my hydration and electrolytes.  Somehow through all of this, I've stayed on top of my workouts.  I have yet to miss a scheduled run, and this week I'll be able to offer Nataly the choice of my running days off.  Which is better for her, us and Deneb: Saturday or Sunday?

That's nice.

Anyway, since last I wrote, I've logged something like 99 miles and climbed something like 9000 feet.  Not a bad 3 weeks.  The vast majority of those climbing feet have come on the road to Bella Vista.  This coming week, I think I'll do my long run on the road to Palermo.  I've only hit that once and I was really turned off by the mud, but obviously it's not muddy all of the time.  Not sure why I've never been back...

Thanks for reading and keep your electrolytes up.
jay

Incomplete Week in Review.

Got one more run on tap for this week.  I'll get to that when Deneb is down for his nap this afternoon.  Going to let him have a long one because tonight will go late.  Somewhere, someone is roasting a whole pig for the Ascarrunz Family Christmas.

Anyway.  Somehow I've managed to stay on top of my workouts this week.  There was a brief moment of "despair" as I thought I'd miss a workout on Wednesday thanks to Christmas shopping, dilly-dallying, and eyeglasses, but I doubled up on Thursday and managed to log the miles.

I'm not a big fan of making up workouts in that fashion - I think it tends to lead to injury.  Especially if one hasn't built up to the required mileage and toward the end of my second run on Thursday, I was feeling it in my Achilles tendons.  An almost burning sensation which I've never experienced before.

The same sensation resurfaced yesterday during my short recovery run.  Not psyched about that at all, but I was able to make the pain go away yesterday by focusing on high turnover rate and lifting up rather than pushing off. Going to have to spend more time doing form drills.

The highlight (and lowlight) of the week has to be Monday and Tuesday in Cuevas.  In my previous post I mentioned that I stayed in Cuevas.  I actually wrote that post Monday morning in Cuevas before Hugo and I went out to collect some bench making material...

We set out around 10:30 or 11.  Hugo with a chainsaw over his shoulder and me with an axe, oil, gasoline, DSLR and Jackson.  We hiked up above the second waterfall at Cuevas, took a left and quickly reached the property boundary.  After another quarter mile or so we got to the location where a tree was already felled, deposited our bench making supplies and continued onward.

Hugo wanted to get out and visit with the mountains.  We ended up walking the better part of 5 miles with a fair number of ups and downs.  The highlight of our hike was the pool at the bottom of a tiny waterfall which must have been 400 feet high.  The water came down from above and hit a tree making a sound just like rain. Beautiful.

We eventually made our way back to the chainsaw and tools and Hugo cut the tree trunk to fashion 3 long benches.  Wizard with a chainsaw he, but the chainsaw decided that Monday was a good day to die and it stopped working about 80% of the way finished.  That was that and so we headed back to the cabins.

Tuesday Hugo found some help (who had another chainsaw) and went back to finish up the job from yesterday.  When they left I wasn't quite ready and I took off about 30 minutes behind them.

Somewhere along the way I took a wrong turn and found myself above where they were working.  I cut through the brush, heading to where I could hear the sound of the chainsaw and pissed off a nest of bees.  Suddenly I was crashing through the forest, and breathlessly telling Hugo in my worst Spanish, "Arbeja, Arbeja!" which locally translates to: "Peas, Peas!" (Simply adding an R causes all kind of confusion)...

Now there were 4 of us crashing through the woods (Jackson included - he thought it great fun!).  Eventually the bees settled down and I'd been stung on the order of 20 times, putting an end to my day and sending me to the pharmacy for some antihistamine.

I wasn't entirely sure what kind of bee had hit me and having ancient history of allergy to wasps, I had to be careful not to die.  I was pretty confident that I wouldn't have problems because I was pulling stingers out of my head. But I have never been stung that many times before and Hugo was saying that these bees weren't honey bees so we decided the best course of action would be to head back to Santa Cruz.

So much for the week in review.

Thanks for reading and the pictures below are pretty much in temporal order from our hike Monday.
J

Knocked out 'em all

Good week in training this week.  I managed to get out for an interval session (Tuesday), a "long" run (Friday) and a hard, race-like effort yesterday.  My other runs were ritual miles.

Homey and I ran together Monday and Thursday.  There's a new nuisance dog on a section of my run which has harassed me on every run this week when I went by it's house.  From a piece of rope, I've fashioned a "Monkey Fist" to influence the choices it makes the next time I run by.  I expect that hideous animal will try to bite me soon, so I'm going to be ready when the time comes.  I cracked myself across the head accidentally with the thing travelling at high velocity and I feel quite certain that the Hideous Mutt will think twice about it's course of action if I ever do Swing With Purpose.

In other notes:  I should be in Cuevas right now, but Nataly's work wouldn't permit it.  She was in the field until mid-afternoon yesterday and didn't get home until after 9.  I'll be going sometime today.  Hopefully I can continue with my consistency from this week.  I'm tacking on 3 more miles and 1 more 400 meter effort.  It'll be interesting to see how the 400 works out on the road to Bella Vista.  I'll probably powerhike Dissertation Ridge too.

Thanks for reading.
J

Five Finger Marathon and More.

Beautiful tree covered in blue flowers
between Cuevas and Samaipata

This past week and weekend were pretty big for me.  My aforementioned change of racing schedule made it so I wanted a fitness checkpoint.  I set out the week with the goal of logging 2 hours running per day, but after registering for the Blues Cruise I decided that I'd switch my runs up a bit and go long Saturday and not so long on Wednesday and Sunday.

I ended up averaging almost 2 hours running per day last week even though I had an unscheduled day off on Thursday.  Unfortunately, Thursday I spent 4 hours in a bus.  First it had a flat.  Then we got to a section of the road to Cuevas which was closed as they try to get a bridge finished before the rainy season comes.  By the time the bus arrived in Cuevas it was getting dark and my back and knees were hurting so bad all I wanted to do was lie down.

Whining aside, the good stuff came during my run on Saturday.  I ran out and back from Cuevas to Samaipata (link on Garmin Connect).  I was hoping to end up with around 4 hours running on Saturday and 25 miles, but my watch time had me at just under 4:30 and as I was pulling back through the gate to the waterfalls, I knew I was only three tenths of a mile short of a full marathon.  If you were on a training run and had .3 miles left for a full marathon, would you stop or run for 3 more minutes?

Saturday's run told me alot of things.  First and foremost:  I can run a marathon in Vibram Five Fingers.  I debated my footwear before heading out for a while, but came down on the side of, "I don't expect to get blisters on the descent back from Samaipata if I wear my Bikilas."  So, I left the Minimus Trail shoes in the cabin.

I seem to have the eating thing down pretty well too since I never really bonked.  I took the last of my tech food and had a gel or half a pack of ClifBloks every 20 minutes.  This seemed to work pretty well, but toward the mid-point of the return I was really wanting a crapper.  Not sure if that was menu choices from the day before, the long descent out of Samaipata, or the half liter of Coke I drank outside of La Estrellita as I took a few minutes in the shade.

Whatever the case, lower GI distress is something that has really slowed me down on some recent runs.  Though were a toilet or secluded knoll to present themselves, the distress would be released in short order.  I'm not a huge fan of dropping trou' right next to a road, and will avoid it at just about any cost.  The cost on this run was a fair number of walking breaks where I may not have needed them.  Oh well.  Hopefully the Blues Cruise has ready access to facilities.

As far as how I feel after logging a full marathon in Vibram 5Fingers, I'm in remarkably good shape.  I seem to have suffered some soft tissue damage in the top of my left foot which made me decide to run yesterday in my old trustworthy Cascadia's and has me taking today off.  Depending how I feel, tomorrow I'll put the Cascadia's on again for my run.  Other than that, I'm not the least sore in muscle or joint and could run another marathon today without too much trouble.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the flowers.
Jay

When last we spoke...

I'd just returned from a run which culminated in a "sprint" to the head.

That run was hot and difficult, both mentally and physically.  I recovered from the physical difficulties pretty quickly, there were no lingering gastro-intestinal problems, but the mental challenge is being a real bear to get over.  I find myself not wanting to go out and run.

Last week I thought I was back.  I ran Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but for some reason, even though I was in Cuevas, Friday I didn't run.  Nor did I get out Saturday, Sunday or Monday.

Friday was supposed to be an easy recovery day.  I worked with Hugo in the river clearing brush, I suppose that counts as strength work.  Much of the "brush" was actually quite large tree remains left from a flood a couple of years back.  One tree trunk was large enough that Hugo hacked it up with a chainsaw and turned the thing into a 6 foot long bench.  The span which made up the seat was too heavy for me to lift on my own (but not Hugo - dude's a beast).

Saturday was cold.  Actually perfect running weather.  I didn't get out.  My time was restricted by being stuck in a long haul cab for the better part of 2 hours.  Sunday was cold too, but I spent that day wallowing in a bit of a fog.  Saturday night the neighbor across the street (who's known Nataly since she lived here 30 years ago), had a birthday party.  We imbibed.

I've got these excuses, but the truth of the matter is that I could have gotten out and run each and every day I've missed.  Perhaps the quality of the effort may not have been where I wanted it, but still.

Consistency.  That's the key to everything for me.  Goeff Roes on Sunday had a good note about consistency for an ultrarunner.  It gave me something to take heart in, but I expect that the type of consistency needed for ultra running is different than the type of consistency needed for shorter distances like the marathon.  The short race consistency is something I have great trouble finding.

I think next week, starting Monday, I'm going to go out and run 2 hours every day.  That's an amount of time I can usually squeeze in without too much trouble no matter where I am.  I should end up somewhere near 90 miles of running, depending on how much running I do in Santa Cruz.

This week is going to be unstructured.  I'm not going to wear the strap.  I'm just going to run how I feel and try to enjoy being out there.  I'm not going to do any intervals, I'm just going to go out and run.  I'll knock out a 3 hour run either Saturday or Sunday, but that's it no other time or target heart rate zones.

Tomorrow I'm going to Cuevas again to plant potatoes.  A crapload of potatoes.  I expect I'll come back to Santa Cruz on Tuesday.  I wonder how hard the work is going to be.  When I get back I'll post some pictures and video of the land and try to give an idea of what the work is like.  I expect it'll be quite the core workout, we're doing it by hand and we may have more than 2 acres to plant, quite possibly more...

Thanks for reading, and I'll try to stop coming up with excuses.
J

Week in review: July 25-July 31

Last week was a recovery week during which I suffered a minor injury.  I'm not going to get into the gory details of the training like my usual WIR posts, but I do want to write about 2 workouts, and the consequences of the little bruise.

The week was scheduled:  Day off, recovery run, recovery run, form work, threshold time trial, whatever in Cuevas, whatever in Cuevas.  It went:  Day off, recovery run, recovery run, form work, threshold time trial (DNF), run really fast from Samaipata to Cuevas, day off.  Guess which workouts I'm going to write about...

Friday I had scheduled a "Threshold Time Trial".  Perhaps you're wondering what that is.  Threshold is really Lactate Threshold - the point at which blood lactate is flushed from your muscles at the same rate it's created by your energy system.  Lactate Threshold Heart Rate (LTHR) is the key to all of my training.  It sets my heart rate zones and guides my future workouts.  A DNF in this workout isn't particularly desirable, but does still yield some interesting information.

Anyway, I had a 1 hour 15 minute block of time set aside for warm up, TT and cool down.  It was freaking windy out, I checked out the weather before I set out and saw that the wind was blowing from the north at 50 km/h and gusting to 80.  That's 30 mph with gusts to 50 for the metrically impaired.  I tweeted it'd be a fun run.

My warmup was 3 of my high cadence form drills spaced 5 minutes apart.  At 20 minutes into my run, I hit the lap button on my Garmin and took off.  I was running in the low 6's and my heart rate was surprisingly low.  The way this test is structured, you run essentially as hard as you can for 30 minutes.  At the end of the first 10 minutes of the test, hit the lap button on your heart rate monitor, and your LTHR will be approximated by the average heart rate of the final 20 minutes of the test.

By the end of the first 10 minutes of my effort my heart rate was still off from what I was expecting to see and I was starting to feel like I wasn't getting enough air (I still have some of that goop in my chest from a couple of weeks back).  I was being pushed along by that wind and faced with the prospect of turning around and running back into it.  Less than 5 minutes after hitting my 10 minute lap, I wimped out.

What did I learn from this workout?  I expect I may have overestimated my LTHR previously and have since adjusted it down 3 bpm.  We'll see how that effects my recovery during the week.  I also have a lot to say on the wind.  I mentioned before, there'll be a pretty lengthy nerd post on the wind in the not too distant future.

The other workout was a run from Samaipata to Cuevas.  I didn't bring my camera.  I did it after lunch.  It was downhill.  It was pretty darn quick.  There were 2 chased by dog incidents.

 For the first 4 miles or so I thought I'd run the 20+ km in under an hour and 30 minutes.  Unfortunately somewhere around mile 4, the perfectly sized rock impacted the underside of my heel very hard.  It hurt like a son of a bitch.

I limped along at a decent clip for a while, but quickly started developing a hot spot (which turned into a blister).  This here is one of the arguments against going minimal.  I did this run in my VFF Trek Sport shoes.  Had I been wearing normal road running shoes, I wouldn't have bruised my heel and likely wouldn't have had the weird stride change that resulted in the blister.

I ended up taking Sunday off because of the pain in my left heel and right calf which I assume took on a lot of the load once I switched from running to very fast limp.  Anyway, even though I suffered that injury pretty early on in the run, I still finished the 12.77 mile on a half marathon PR pace, and it wasn't any near race effort.

Oh well, the pain in my heel is almost gone and I was able to get a really good effort in yesterday.  In fact I think the day off really aided my recovery and will likely incorporate the bookend days off into my future recovery weeks (Monday and Sunday - off).

About the dogs, one of them I thought was going to attack for sure.  It was a giant.  I have no idea what kind of dog it was, but if that sucker tripped me, I think I may have been a goner.  Scared me enough that I may never actually do that run again.  We'll see.  I'm looking into pepper spray and/or a whip.

Thanks for reading, and don't be food.
J

P.S.
If you make it all the way through this post, please leave a comment so that I may commend your fortitude.
j

Week in Review: July 18-July 24

Great week in training this past week.  Toward the end I was fatigued enough to mail in my last run and just struggle through it, and I think I’m doing precisely the right thing by taking a recovery week after 2 consecutive challenging weeks.

Things of note: 

• My dad was here.  That was particularly cool.  He came down to visit Deneb and me and Nataly and Jackson and see the digs.  I think he came away pleasantly surprised.  It’s too bad he was here for such a short time, we didn’t get to do too much while he was here.
• I did my first one way run to Cuevas. I’ll write up a separate post about that one, it’s more than deserving, but Bermejo to Cuevas is likely to make regular appearances on my training routes.  Take a trufi to Bermejo and get out, have the driver deliver my bags to Cuevas…
• Wind really messes with me on my interval sessions.  Hard to get a real read on the effort/pacing when the interval is done with a headwind or tailwind.  Had me thinking about the consequences on my run yesterday.  The problem is non-linear.  I expect I’ll write a whole post about that one too…
• Finally, I took an unscheduled day off.  I’ve got some crud in my chest.  Not sure what it is, but every morning for going on 10 days, I hack up a good chunk of lung.  The only other symptom is a little sinus congestion.  The day I took off was rainy and cool.  Without the rain/cool/crud trifecta, I’d’ve run, but…

Here’s the chart:

Click for more gory detail…

Week in Review: July 11-July 17

Two weeks ago I had an improvised recovery week and this was my first real training week since 3 days off.  Lots of things are weird then. 

First my “Trimp” score on the chart is wacked.  Trimp stands for Training Impulse and it’s compiled by multiplying the number of minutes in a heartrate zone by the number of the zone.  If a runner went for a run and spent 10 minutes in Zone 1, 10 minutes in zone 2, 10 minutes in zone 3, and 10 minutes in Zone 4, they’d end up with a Trimp score of 100 (10x1+10x2+10x3+10x4).  It gives an estimate of how hard a workout was and the accumulated total give an estimate of how hard a week was.

Anyway.  My Trimp for the week is all screwy because of the “Odd couple of days running”.  Early in the week, after 3 days off, my heart rate for a given effort was through the roof.  You can see I spent significant time in Zone 5.  On one workout I saw 190 on the HRM and wasn’t even trying.  It’s back to normal now though.

Here’s the chart:

Like I said in my last post...

Ugh.

Not going to bother with the chart and detailed review for last week, it wasn't good.  Four workouts for just under 4 hours (huh 4/4/4).

Tired and flamed, ended up having life get in the way of my weekend workouts.  Today is a scheduled day off, and I'm taking it, but tomorrow I'll be back out there working on my increasing my turnover rate.

That is, if this crud in my gut goes away.  Ugh.

Anyway.  Added some new stuff to the training calendar.  I'm done with Zone 3 for the foreseeable future and instead of Tempo efforts, I'm going to be spending shorter periods with greater intensity (Interval work) for the next several cycles.

Thanks for reading, and don't run into any barbed wire...
J

Week in Review: Jun 27—Jul 3.

I'm feeling tired as I write this.  Yesterday was my longest run both in both time and distance since last year, and I know it...

As far as broken records, last week was another great week training wise.  Same structure as the week prior, but with an increase in the volume - from 8 to 9.5 hours running.  

I did notice my heart rate taking a while to respond on a couple of my workouts, but it wasn't so bad as to worry me.  I'll keep an eye on it though.  The Wednesday, Thursday combo of Tempo and long Endurance run had me run down going into my Saturday workout, but I felt good coming out of it.  It'll be interesting to see if I'm feeling recovered in time for my Wednesday effort.
Anyway - here's a chart.

More after the jump…

Week in Review: Jun-20::Jun-26

Another tremendous week in training, though toward the end I was feeling a bit tired.  In terms of volume and intensity, things were ratcheted up a notch from last week’s un-structured training week. 
I actually had one workout which specifically targeted heart rate zone 3.  To translate that into actual pace and distance terms, the upper part of Zone 3 is probably the zone in which my marathon will be run in November.  The good news from that workout, when I was running on flats, I was ticking over a pace in the low 7s. 
This brings up the other thing I ruminated on while running this week.  Dengue took all of this weight from me and I had been wondering if I’d see any performance gains.  Well, I can comfortably say:  I’m at least a minute per mile faster than last year at a similar point in training. 
Here’s a chart:

For more detail, read on:

Week in Review: June 13–June 19.

First I should say:  This was the best week of training I’ve had since before the Steamboat 50.  I got out for all of my workouts and I completed my workout goals.
My training calendar says that this was an “unstructured week” but in reality I had scheduled several “key” workouts.  Tuesday, form work, Thursday, strength, and more form work on Saturday.
Additionally I had 2 longer runs scheduled on Wednesday and Sunday.  In all, I logged 42 miles of running and got a tremendous core workout in on Thursday.  Here’s a chart:

For more detail, read on…