Runner's Edge of the Rockies Blog

That pretty much sums up the last few days of my training... DOG POOP! After rocking out the 23 & 18 mile runs on Sun/Mon and then following up with a 5M recovery run on Tuesday, I pretty much blanked it on Wed and Thurs. Not ideal, especially with Sunmart just three short weeks away... I hadn't missed a scheduled run since I commited to this ultra. (Maybe moved a run or two, but no missed miles.) Big downer.

One of the toughest times I have with balancing my schedule, is during the first part of any of our three primary training sessions for Runner's Edge of the Rockies. Getting everyone logged into the roster and then set up with their training schedules takes a large amount of time, in addition to prepping for the weekly Saturday run. When I'm not training, I can usually stay up into the wee hours of the morning getting everything done. However, running 50-60+ miles a week is certainly draining, and I've been crashing earlier each night. Good for the body to let me know what it needs, but the E-mails, voice-mails and registrations from members don't stop coming in... So I had to put the group first this week, and my training took a back seat. That, and Julie and I are also trying to blast through the to-do ERR... "honey do" list prior to Jr's arrival, so it was juggle city this week with lots of projects, errands, etc.

The upside of this is that it was during a "down" week where I don't have tons of long mileage. One training trick that I've found out is that if you do have a hectic schedule and have to miss runs, you're much better off to do it during a recovery or down week. Up weeks are critically important to get in 95-100% of your miles, especially when training for a first race at a given distance. But during a down week your body is either maintaining or recovering so missing a run or two won't set you back nearly as much. It's not ideal, and there are definitely no shortcuts in distance running... But let's just call it a compromise.

But on a positive note, I had the opportunity to catch up with an old running friend named Chris De John that I haven't spoken with in quite some time. Chris currently lives in Arkansas with his wife Ali and their two children. (Ali designs fantastic greeting cards and you can buy some online!) He's a very accomplished distance runner having run a 3:01 for the Marathon, and completed several ultra marathons including the Leadville 100. Chris did Leadville in 2003, finishing it in just his first attempt! I had the pleasure of pacing him during that race and actually gleaned quite a bit from that experience that I'm now drawing on for my own training. There were LOTS of stories from that race... Of course the best was sometime around 1:00AM on the slopes of Mt. Elbert and Chris and I asked another runner how things are going and the guy replied, "great until my pacer got me lost a while back and added 2 (bleeping) miles to this damn race." (Doh!)

Chris and I spent a while on the phone discussing various strategies for ultra marathons that are all equally important: Pacing, hydration, nutrition, mental games, etc. Chris gave my training a good vote of confidence despite the two missed days this week, and actually said that those days off may be a blessing in disguise after two weekends of back-to-back long runs. He said that the mental challenge is toughest of all and at some point I may really lose the ability to stay positive. But I just read something this week on ESPN.com that I will remember when the miles get tough. This story about Claire Markwardt is simply amazing as she shattered her leg a mere 45 feet from the finish line in a HS cross country meet and had the toughness to finish the race. WOW.

So tonight I pushed back from the PC despite still having lots of work left, and committed myself to 9 miles to get back on track. I did two of my favorite 4M loops around Stapleton, taking Champ with me for the second one. Then of course added a very slow cool-down mile with Apollo... I think it's really going to be fun when they both can run together!

The next week though is absolutely crunch time and I need to nail all of my workouts. If you've been following along with this blog and comparing my workouts to the schedule (at the bottom) that I initially built, you'll see that I'm off track slightly since I can't run long on Saturday's after getting up at 3:00AM to set up & coach the group run. So with everything shifted out a day, that's created some challenges. For my last two long runs, I will most likely wake up early on Thanksgiving morning and target 24-26M, hopefully including the Turkey Trot here in Denver to break things up mentally. It will be fun to cruise that race with some members in the group and not have to worry about racing it hard through all of the walkers/strollers that for some idiotic reason enjoy lining up in the first five rows of 10,000 people. It reminds me of that game Red Rover... "Red Rover, Red Rover, send Davey right over!" And then you blast past some Mom with a stroller and dog, as she's getting yelled at by everyone around her. Ahhh... Fun stuff! Then on Friday I will most likely head up to Barr Lake for another 18+ miler, and my last "long" run of the training period before tapering down to the race on December 8th.

And with that, it's bed time for this guy... Four hours of sleep before getting up at oh-dark-thirty to go set up the route for the group. Happy running!