June 23-29
250min (~35mi), 5-days, 70min LR, 3xlifting. I'm overlapping with my last post a bit because a modest amount of structure has imposed itself on my training over the last couple of weeks. It seems my main problem with running over the past few weeks was all of the running involved. So the week is now five days instead of six, and on three of those days I'm using a pair of recently acquired arms to lift things. Situps also happen to me everyday. And running feels good, if not particularly fast.
June 30-July 6
250min (~35mi), 5-days, 70min LR, 3xlifting. Some terrific runs early in the week, and some wonderful social tennis and biking sprinkled throughout. Post-run weight has been hovering in the low 150s and has now taken a few encouraging trips south of the 150 mark. Sunday's long run was a horrid slog beginning at 4-all in the third set of the men's final, ending early in the fourth set. Felt remarkably strong for the first 45min; still one of the first times I've felt strong since last fall. Probably because this was my first shirtless run since last fall. Spent the final 25min fine-tuning my tribute to Khadevis Robinson finishing the OT 800m.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
On late Tuesday afternoon, Sarah, Keeley, Max and I returned to Winthrop. My/our visit to Minneapolis was somewhat skewed by an incident with my Portland-based brother Colby, otherwise I would have made a better effort to say hello.
As it happened, we arrived in MN after four days on the road... and my mom was just boarding an airplane because my little brother was in the Legacy Emmanual Hospital ICU. I left for a week on the following morning and S and K became temporary Minneapolis residents.
Colby had collapsed in a bike race, and was given 15 minutes of CPR before an amulance/parimedic arrived and was able to administer a shock to bring him back. His heart had gone into ventricular fibrillation and was no longer pumping blood to his body. The near immediate CPR saved his life. He also just happened to collapse as he passed through the start-finish area of a 2.5 mi loop. He spent two days in the ICU and an additional 2-3 days in the hospital as they tried to determine exactly why a fit 30 year old with no history of heart disease would succumb to such an incident.
In the end, no real answers. No problems with the structure of the heart. No dicernable confusion with the signals that keep the correct rhythmn etc. Thusly, even though this might never happen again, Colby now has an internal defibrilator (like a pace maker) that will deliver a shock to the heart should it ever enter that v-fib ryhthmn again.
Suffice it to say, this was an unexpected turn of events. He is doing VERY well all things considered, but will have some psychological hurdles to conquer as he gets back to a more normal, post-incident routine.
Regarding my own psychological adjustments, round one played itself out at the Afton 50k. I was definitely thinking about Colby for most of the race, and not really feeling in much of a "push myself" mood. Still, attempting to take it easy on the first lap, and basically zoning out into the turf, I came through in about 1:56. I felt very fresh due perhaps to 8 days of not running, and part of me actually considered taking a stab at Chris' CR. This was never a consideration in the weeks leading up to the race - with good reason - but I was briefly confident that I could negative split the second lap - or at the very least maintain. As it turns out, the heat and crazy pre-race sleepless week caught up to me in lap two. I managed a respectable 5th place overall in about 4:19. Since I ran 2:09 for the 25k back in my first or second year of coaching at Carleton, I consider this recent race a certain improvement.
Additional Carleton alums survived the course as well. A few dropped at 25k, but good decisions were made in all cases. There was much time for visiting and parenting in the day or two after.
Back home now and writing/drawing more than running for a while. Take it easy out there!
Crap Brooksie, like I wrote to you earlier, that's awful/wonderful. And yes, if you walked the uphills at Afton, that's probably what cost you the CR.
I've had a pretty chill week of runnaj thus far: I think Monday was an easy out n' back in the evening, but I can't remember if I already posted that one.
Anyway, Tuesday was another "track workout" which consisted of a warmup, 6 x 400, cooldown, and "Around the World" abs. Crap, those were hard. But good. Talked Smitty into taking the workout a little easier, with the aim of hitting 75's. Ran 76, 75, 74, 73, 73, and 66. As things progressed I was feeling better and better, so I decided to turn things over in the second half of the last lap. Took it out easy and split approximately 38/28, which felt surprisingly easy.
Wednesday was 46 mins of trail running up at the resort. Kept a pretty decent pace with Big Wray, but the late lunch led to a need to cut things short and make a deposit in the bushes. Oh well.
Thursday night I warmed up for 10 mins, then did 10 mins worth of diagonals barefoot over at the high school, then a 10 minute cooldown. Had a few late nights this week, and the 14 hours of running/uphill hiking of last week was catching up with me.
Friday morning I slept in, then looped up to the dump and down to the Spud, skipping the meander through Creekside Meadows, so it took 53:40. Got a lotta studying to do this weekend, but I'm hoping to sneak out for a long mtn run each morning. It still blows my mind that I can go out and run in these places any freakin' time I want.
My homies Matt Hart and Lori Bantekas, among others, are running the Devil's Backbone 50 up near Bozeman this weekend, which is a sweet unsupported 50. On top of that, my friend Lisa should be arriving at the Badwater startline sometime late this evening for the Monday morning start. The thing is that she decided to run the 160+ miles from Las Vegas to Stovepipe Wells over the past couple days as a sort of warmup. I feel like such a wimpy chump out here. . . :)
July 12: Wowser. 6:08:43. Up Game Creek, into GTNP, then back down Moose Creek with a 4 mile road loop back to the car. Uff-dah. So, first attempt at going up Game this year, and the creek was still flowing waaaay too high to be able to pull off the first few crossings. Which is cool, but which also led to some long stretches of bushwacking until the trail re-crossed. There was even a bit of low class V climbing involved. . .it's a damn steep and narrow canyon. Anyway, finally made it high enough in the watershed to be able to cross, enjoyed the trail for a few minutes, and it promptly recrossed in another wicked narrow and deep (read "fastwater") spot. Anyway, I resigned myself to doing a decent chunk of hiking rather than running at that point.
Climbed up through the snow and into the Park, which was, like, ALL snow. Which is cool, but I hadn't run these trails as a loop before, and subsequently was a little vague on where the trail ought to be. Avoided walking off the occasional high cliff that seemed to appear out of nowhere and eventually bushwacked my way down the Moose Canyon headwall and made it to the trail. A bit hairy at times and some awful slow going, but once on trail I was able to run finally. From about 4.5 hours until the end I was moving along pretty well. The water held out until 5:55, so that was nice, since it was starting to get hot.
All told, probably 20-22 miles. I think the loop ought to be possible in 4 hours or less under better conditions, but c'est la vie. Sure beats studying. . .
Very scary Erik, though it's great to hear that Colby is feeling better. Let us know if there's anything we can do to help, and keep us updated!
Erik, glad to know things are working out OK. Still, very scary.
Week of July 7-13
66 miles/ 6 days, 1 wkt, 18.5 LR.
Stupid workout on Tuesday. Wanted to do 5x mile in 5:25-5:30, and failed completely. It was quite windy, and hot, but mostly windy. The first mile was downhill, but into the wind in 5:23. Then, uphill with the wind I ran 5:15. After that my legs were trashed and I managed to struggle through a 5:29 before scrapping the last two. The 5:15 was actually a bit easier effort than the first one, so it was clearly a matter of pushing way too hard on the first two. I'm confident I could have finished the workout well if I had started it more reasonably.
The only other run of interest was 18.5 on Saturday. Next year, someone remind me not to try to run around Nokomis during the Lifetime Fitness Tri. Other than the really crowded part where the volunteers thought I was competing, the run was great. Slowly worked the pace down without really pushing until the end. The second half of the run was probably all 6:25 pace or faster. I especially like that this run essentially goes to the 12 mile mark of TCM, and then follows the course (except on the path instead of Minnehaha Pwky) to about mile 23. Plus there were bikers from Lifetime going by me the entire run, which was a nice distraction whenever I got caught up in how fast I was going.
Erik, I'm glad your brother is doing well. Heart issues can be frightening.
Strangely, I just received a call from my dad today, and apparently my younger brother has WPW syndrome (occasionally his heart beats 300 times/minute). He was in the emergency room yesterday, and they are going to administer an electric shock (via catheter) that should prevent it from happening again.
On a training note, is anyone up for some track stuff in the Twin Cities this week? I was hoping to do 20x400 at 75 seconds, with 100 jog. Maybe Wednesday? I need a rust-buster after the Trials. Partying until 4 am every night, then running hard every morning for 10 straight days...it breaks you down.
Feeling luckier every day. Sorry to hear about your bro Jeff, hope that clears things up. Yikes.
Sunday ran a quick 40 mins in Teton Canyon. Nice and relaxed.
Today ran 1:02:41 up the dump road and over Stateline to Skihill--swung through the Batchen household to congratulate Matt Hart on a solid win at the Devil's Backbone 50 miler. I think that just made its way onto my schedule for next summer. (They also have a 25 mile relay that I could wimp out and do). It turns out Jay broke his toe during our outing in the Big Holes last weekend which stinks. Knockin' on a lotta wood these days. . .
Thanks all, and my best wishes for your brother as well Jeff.
Colby returned to some light duty work at his bike shop late last week. A resumption of normalcy as such is good. Light duty in the running department for me as well. Not even 20 mi on the week. A good adventure run planned for the coming weekend will get me excited about the trails again.
Great to hear Brooksie! Also can't wait for the post-weekend report.
For my part, yesterday was a short warmup, 10 mins of barefoot diagonals, and a short cooldown for 30ish minutes all told. Had a Planning & Zoning meeting to get to in Victor so I missed the track workout in Jackson.
Today, 32:13 up at Targhee. Board meeting went long so I met the krew as they were finishing up Rick's Basin, then went part of the way up Fred's until Wray wanted to turn around. I was cool with that.
So. . .I'm running a marathon on Saturday morning, just for fun. It's a big non-profit fundraiser with a 5k, 10k, 1/2 mar, and marathon. Anyway, so they do prize money in the form of "non-profit bucks" so if you score cash you get to designate which group your cash goes to. The prize calculations for each race are done on a per mile basis, so I figure the longer the race the better my job security, right? Also, there are currently 4 people entered in the marathon, so my odds are decent. It's the first year of the event and the shorter distances have proven more attractive. Which is cool. I know at least two of the other entrants who are great guys, but I should also be able to sit and kick on them. Hopefully the other person isn't a stud.
Post a Comment