Monday - Sunday

Put in another week like the previous, but without the high altitude. Just over 10 hours of running and just under 10,000' of verticle.
Monday and Tuesday were more on the recovery side w/ a few uphill strides thrown in there.
Wednesday was a progression run that did not progress as planned. 3 mile w/u with some strides, then a 7 mile progression. After about 3 miles any progression had me struggling so just cruised at whatever I felt I could handle for the rest of the run.
Thursday was some more recovery followed by a moderate 90 minutes on Friday.
Felt strong on Saturday going 40 minutes at 1 hard/1 easy, 16 reps were uphill and 4 were down for 1,500' of climbing. With w/u and c/d this was a 90 minute run.
Nice and long and easy on Sunday with a good amount of climbing. 2:33 w/ 3,730' of up/down. Struggled a bit on anything steep, but felt really good on all the moderate stuff.

Can't beat blue tongues, snowcones, and a ball game on a Sunday afternoon.

"Hey Rick, You need to get rid of that stupid phone. I'm not waiting up for you anymore."

10.7 - 10.5 - 9.6

No, these are not my secret ratings for Juliette Binoche, Valeria Golino and Denise Huxtable. These are my weekly totals on 5 days of running.
10,715' of verticle
10,507' max altitude
9.6 hours of running
Big week for me in terms of time on my feet, verticle wasn't too bad and I had the pleasure of doing most of this between 8,000'-10,000'. Todays run, back in Asheville, was 3 hours with 3,600' of verticle all done at at an easy-moderate effort. No fitigue at all this week, even today I was feeling strong. I'm ready to take this training to another level.
Cool story on my last evening in Snowbird. I decided to go to a bar for a little recovery. To my suprize there were a bunch of local ski/mountain bike bums hanging out and working there. An even better suprize was that they had Hop Rising in a bottle there. This ain't no 3.2 beer! Plus the 9.? goes much better with my weekly numbers this week. Right away I get into a nice talk with the ski/bike bum sitting next to me, he's done some 100 mile mtn. bike races as well as some 24 hour ones. He asked me where I ran this week so I showed him the photos I took since I had no idea where I went. In about a minute he told me the names of every land mark in my photos and told me where/what I did, pretty cool. He asked me if I knew Karl M. I said I had heard of him. They, the guy I was sitting next to and the girl behind the bar, started telling me that Karl used to bartend here when it was called the Keyhole. They started telling me some good stories. I asked it they knew of his race, Speedgoat 50K. They said, yea, it's run right here, the start is right there (they pointed to the tram). Now my curiosity has me re-thinking which race I want to do in the Rockies this summer, PPA or Speedgoat 50k? It'd be aweful nice to take the family to Snowbird and run a bas ass 50k, Then again, PPA has alot to offer, and watching the marathoners summit on Sunday is a huge incentive...

10-5 Good Buddy.

2:00, w/2,500' of vertical on a beautiful snow road up to 10,500'. Was hoping this road would take me to 10,000', but couldn't resist taking this road to the end and see how high I could get today. This road, groomed by a snowcat, ended at a ridge. I looked at my watch and it said 10,496'. There was no way I wasn't going to see 10,500' today! The snowcat had pushed a pile of snow at the end, so I climbed up on that pile and saw 10,507' on my watch. I can go home in peace now. I'm ready to go home, this place is unbelievable, but only half as beautiful if I can't share it with family. Perhaps we can make a summer vacation someday here in Snowbird, UT and do some family hikes.





View From 10,500'
View From 10,500'

Last Steep Climb to the Ridge

Highgear Alterra

Nice&Easy

1:20 - with 1,100' of vertical. Legs and lungs felt good keeping it very easy. Did some exploring to set up tomorrows run, my last run before I leave Sat. morning. I found this nice snowroad that I'm hoping will take me to 10,000' tomorrow. I'd like to see 5 digits on my altimeter before I leave.



Road to 10,000' ????
View from 9,200'

Gettin' High

2:15 - all between 8,200' and 9,525'.
30:00 w/u.
1:15 Fartlek on the groomed snow. Went to 9,525 twice. Last 18 minutes was a 700' climb to 9,525'.
30:00 c/d, 1,275' descent.
A total of 2,400' of vertical for the day.
Felt Great

Fartlek Trail to 9,525'.

View from 9,525'.

Highgear Alterra IPT

A Chairlift House sign at Snowbird.

Alta-tude Training

1 hour of exploring nice and easy. 1,115' of vertical and a max of 9,078'.

Tuesday-Sunday & Up- Coming Races

Did some more flatter type running this week, and alot of MAF, back to some more base-building type stuff. The flatter stuff is definately improving my turnover and stride length. My pace at a recovery effort is noticably faster than it was a few weeks ago. This is a much needed type of training that I got away from about 5 years ago and I've definately seen the slow-down from just hamming out long climbs all the time.
Tuesday - 7 miles with some strides. Felt good.
Wed - 11 miles, about 90 minutes, all on a track, oh yea, a 200 meter out-door track, that's 88 times around! Was doing doing some product testing and this was the closest available track. Time actually flew by as I needed to save data every mile. I can't say I didn't enjoy this run...
Thursday - 5 miles. Wanted to do alot more today, but schedule was just to hectic.
Friday - 3 miles easy, just loosened up went back to work.
Saturday - 10 miles, with a 6 mile fixed HR test all on a track. Kept HR at 145 and went 7:41, 7:46, 7:50, 7:50, 7:54, 7:54. I never really felt any different ant any time during this sub 47:00 test. Felt good.
Sunday - 2:15 on rolling trails. Wanted to do this on a lightly rolling trail, but there's really no such thing here, even on roads. Did the first hour at about a 140 HR, then tried to keep the same pace for the last 1:15, actually went a little faster, but was pretty comfortable. To my suprise I ended up with 2,600' of vertical on this run.

I'm sure that I will be doing alot more base-building type stuff in the next 10 weeks. Since I didn't get into MW, I decided to choose a different race on the same weekend, a stage race in Chatanooga, TN. This looks like a good one and I think the family and I will pitch a tent somewhere and make a cool little camping trip out of it. I'm also keeping this race on my radar. I think I still have a couple months to decide. If I start to make imporovements on the weakest link in my fitness puzzel, I hope to be there in August to run on Saturday and watch on Sunday.

Recovery - The Master of Recovery called me out on recovering with a tall, skinny can of Michelob Ultra that I can hold with my thumb and index finger, so I felt the need to respond with my Friday evening Belgain Style of recovery. The Gouden Carolus is an Easter ale from this brewery and I won't even try to explain the taste. I liked it alot, but have never tasted anything like it before. The Oude Kriek is made with fruit and is very sour. Another new beer taste to me and I liked it. Both were good and I'll drink them again if they're available. My 6 mile test on the track went well on Sat. so I'm sure I recovered well on Friday evening.

Tuesday-Sunday

Did alot of flat running this week with the exception of Tuesday's 5 x 3:00 on a moderate hill. I could really feel the turnover and speed making progress this week, by just plain running faster. Threw in some strides on Thursday, even a race report on Saturday and a 2 hour beach run Sunday moring before the Easter Bunny came.
I've thinking a little about where I want my training to go now that I won't be doing Mt. Washington. I think I'm leaning more toward training for a 3 hour effort, and then try and pick some races in that range. In the meantime I look forward to this local 10k, Rock2Rock, that I'll be lucky to break 1 hour on. It's pretty much an up/down with 2,000' of climbing on the way up in less than 3 miles, then a nasty descent before the grade calms down a little. The last mile is a moderate grade on trecherous terrain. Great local race that's part of the La Sportiva Series.

Progression Run turned 5K Race

We are at the beach for the weekend so I headed out onto the hard packed sand for a 10 mile progression run this morning. Was about 20 minutes into it and ready to shift gears for the next progression when I saw a bunch of people on the beach with race numbers on their shirts. I looked around and saw a registration table, headed over to see what was going on. I had hoped this was going to be a 10k or something, but was still happy to find out that it was a 5k on the beach. I explained to them that I was just out for a run and didn't have any money on me and asked to barrow a cell phone, the race was going to start in 30 minutes. Called Maureen and she said she'd be down with the kids asap. The great people at the table registered me and said I could pay after the race if I needed to. Headed back onto the beach to do a little more running since it was still a bit before the start. Threw in some strides since I remembered how energized I feel after doing them during early week recovery runs. The race was delayed a little waiting for the Beach Patrol to set up, but we were finally off at about 10 past 9. The course went a half mile in one direction, then came back to the start, then from there it went another 1.05 miles to turn around at the 2.05 mile mark, then back 1.05 to the start for the 3.1 miles/5k. I was in about 7th place after a half mile, then 6th at the 1 mile mark. Slowly reeled in the 4th-5th guys as 1-3 were about 60-90 seconds ahead. The turn around mark was placed at the 2.05 mile mark, just before the turn around there was a 2 mile marker and right after that a tabe with water, then a BIG sign in a BIG ORANGE CONE that said TURN-AROUND. The 4th and 5th placed guys that I caught were teenagers, the younger one turned around at the 2 mile mark, the other one turned around at the water table and the people were yelling at the boys, but they were in the zone not hearing a thing! I turned around at the sign that said TURN-AROUND and found myself about 20 seconds and 40 seconds behind these guys. I caught the first one quickly, he was finished, and I was now in 5th but never caught the speedy barefoot beach runner. No biggie, these guys just got a little confused and it made me push a little harder. I finished 5th O/A and first in 40-44 age. 2nd O/A was 45 yrs. old and 3rd was 39 yrs. old, so I was a "true" age group winner today with a time of 19:49 on the beach in hard packed sand. Waited around for my cool award, then headed back down the beach for a 24 minute run home. Great morning with about the same amount of milage as I would have run, just a bit different on the training. My family actually showed up before the start and Maureen was able to pay my entry fee before the start whistle blew. Best part of the race was getting a little HR data, so I now know what my 5k effort is for speedwork.