May Training Wrap

The raw stats:

• Miles - 286 Miles (2nd most all-time)
• Time - 49 Hours (2nd most all-time)
• Vertical - 39K (Most all-time)

I noted last month that this was going to be the big month. While I figured my mileage would dip a bit with the addition of some quality, it didn't happen that way mostly because there were five weekends in May. Instead, this was the second largest month of training I've ever done (next to July 2012 as I peaked for LT100). I am really happy to have hit quite a bit of quality too, including some tempo efforts at incline, some progression runs, and several good back-to-back weekends. There really isn't anyway to be disappointed with the training I did in May.

June is going to be different because I have one big week remaining and one moderate week remaining before taper. I'm not quite home yet, but I am close. As I look at my goals (review below), I am really happy with how things have gone.  I've hit nearly every goal and pretty much stayed on schedule the whole time. The hallmarks of good training and consistency and discipline and I think both have been as high as ever for me this year. That is extra pleasing to me given the amount of mud and water that I have had to work around all Spring.

The one big thing left to do is some heat training. Unfortunately, the weather in Colorado has not cooperated as we've had a record wet and cold May. I am going to change directions and follow a sauna protocol I found over on the Badwater website. It will only take about 3 weeks, so I won't start that protocol in full until the first week or ten days into June.

As has become my norm, here are a few updates from my goals:

• Heat training, as noted above, is the last thing I need to do.
• I have completed my night runs, doing four of them total and three on technical trails in the dark.
• Volume was never an issue for me. I crushed my average weekly goal (62 actual vs 55 target) and my 70 mile weeks (six compared to four as target). I think I will line up at WS100 with about 20% more volume YTD than anticipated.
• Quality was present through the final eight weeks of training, so I am very happy with the amount of that I did.
• I did "fight" Winter (and Spring) somewhat. I may not have had a choice, particularly in May, or I wouldn't have trained much. However, I did my best to make the most of each circumstance, including some hilly road runs in place of muddy trail runs.
• Overall my cross training definitely dipped a bit this cycle. I stayed true to lots of light cross-training like walking (almost 10 miles per week), stretching, easy yoga, and a bit of body weight strength training.  But, I probably averaged a little more than one session a week instead of the two or three I traditionally aim for. It is really close, but I will just barely give myself a passing grade in this department. Fortunately, cross-training was really good early and just dipped as I peaked.
• I did hit the trails and vertical harder than I anticipated, but I also made some smart choices to back off when the body was achy or conditions where poor. I'll give myself a passing grade here.