Weekly Training Wrap - 6/25 - 7/1

Well, lots to say this week, so let's get to it. First of all, I took a crazy light week last week. This was done entirely on purpose. First of all, I haven't had much down time in the past 18 months and I figured I was due. What better time to take it than after getting your butt kicked by a 50 mile course? Second, my legs were extremely swollen from all the blood and fluid pooling to repair my over worked muscles. The long and the short of it, I could have run sooner, but I just didn't think it was prudent. I think the decision payed off as I was pleasantly surprised at how good things felt when I started running again on Friday.

After some reflection, I have gained an appreciation for the difficulty of the San Juan course and how far I have to go if I plan to make 25 hours at Leadville.  Here are a few stats that I figured out about San Juan by looking at my Garmin data:

• Four of the five hardest miles were the first climb and the last (where I crashed). I didn't realize that last climb was that hard (though I felt it!) -- miles 42 and 43 were both 15%.
• Four of the eight hardest miles were in the first climb.
• There were 13 miles that averaged 10% or more grade of climbing
• Highest grade were miles 7 and 8, both over 17%.
• Overall the course averaged 260 of climbing per mile. LT100 is "only" 180.
• There are somewhere between 13 and 15 miles of SJS50 that are entirely above 12,000 feet (a rule of thumb number for altitude issues). Only about 3 or 4 miles of LT100 is above 12,000 feet.
• 5 or 6 of those miles above are above 12,500 feet.

I feel pretty confident in my climbing right now. I think that running the runnable miles in LT100 will be the key to my remaining training and my racing. And I feel like my nutrition needs to improve by about 25% to avoid crashing. I will have to re-evaluate that a bit. My plan is to spend more time running local, easy trails these next few weeks working on long, slow runs with walking breaks to push food. And I think I will just go with my higher calorie beverages and give up on Clip2. That alone should provide me an additional 100 cals more an hour. Also, I enjoy the taste of the Roctane Brew and it has been agreeable to my GI system. So it is a no-brainer decision.

Every day is one step closer to my goal....46 days to LT100.

Day	Miles	Notes
Monday	Rest	Light x-training
Tuesday	Rest
Wednesday	Rest	Light x-training
Thursday	Rest
Friday	10	Pace controlled run
Saturday	10	Pace controlled run
Sunday	14	Deer Creek Trail Run
Total	34	About 4000 vertical feet