Flip it! Another weekly summary.

Week: 41 miles. Two big accomplishments -- a good long run of 2:5o AND I brought my camera along for fun! A little silly perhaps, but the views are good and the sunflowers are starting to bloom. More pics to be posted as the training continues.

Arrowleaf balsmroot - the local sunflower - on south shore of Patterson Lake. Cabin Creek Trail.

Wasatch realization o' the week: 20 of the last 40 minutes in this week's long run were spent bouncing down some single track amist the bitterbrush. The jarring palpable. The legs begging for flatter ground. I might have decended 1200ft. The last 5mi in Utah will drop about 3000ft... after 95 previous miles of joy and lord know how many hours of running :)

Mt. Gardner in the distance. Patterson Lake below.

April 28

18mi, 2:50.11: LONG I'm calling it 18. I have no real idea except that I didn't walk very much and I ran the downhills pretty quick. Black Bear spur from Wolf Creek. Lower Fox to Aqua Loop and a random exploration of abandonded F.S. 5386. Too many dead trees to pick around, but found the end. Little Wolf to Thompson Ridge. Rader Creek. South/North Patterson loop and Power's Plunge to home. Solid run. Legs tired coming down from Patterson, but felt fine again on the flats to home. (cas II)

PS Somehow already blowing out the sides of these Brooks Cascadia IIs. Not so preferable for a "trail" shoe with only 120 miles on it thus far...

Fork in the trail on Patterson Mountain. Downhill from here...

Post run chicken enchilladas AND a super delux reverse hug.

April 27

7+, 51:14: For the life of me I can't remember where I ran... must have been great! (brn)

April 26

6mi, 41:15: A good easy run. W.C. Road to Merle's Trail. Good to slow down after yesterdays "race" down the Winthrop Trail. (cas II)

April 24

10mi, 1:15.24: Up-tempo. Good speed on the downhills! Black Bear spur to Kraule Trail. Lakeside to the Winthrop trail and then to pick up K in town. A great new route with good loop potential from the front door! (cas II)

Weekly it is!

AND SO I DIGRESS TO THE WEEKLY POST: I will try NOT to do this every week...

April 17

6+ mi, 50:17: Hilly but good and slow. Home to the Black Bear trail up on Sun Mt. (cas II)

April 19

HIKE: 5am. 1:15 min. up on Patterson Mt. for McCloud's photo shoot. Trying to catch the first rays over the Okanogan Range to the east of Winthrop. More on this later!
5mi, 36 min: An up-tempo evening run on Winthrop Community Trail west of home. (ax)

April 20

8+, 59:43: HILLS - Winthrop Trail to Black Bear/Moose/Lakeview and back down. 33min to Sun Mountain Lodge. A solid climb. (cas II)

April 21

7mi, 48:11: Home from the bookstore mural project via the Winthrop Trail. A nice little climb and less time on the road. (ax)

April 22

14 mi, 1:40: LSD -- Kept it slow. Wolf Creek road west. Dorked around on the BOB ski trail and a little bit on the fire line from last summer. Too much debris on the fire line for any real running. (cas II)
BIKE: Into town with S & K. Back home from the bookstore. 1hr + total but two halves divided by 4 plus hours of painting

Week: 41 miles. Very happy to have another week in the 40's. The intensity and the long run were backed down a little this week, which feels good considering the steady building that has taken place over the last 12 weeks since I phased away from skiing. I'll stay in the 40's next week but bump up the long run this time. Shooting for 2:30-3hrs however far that may be... Also giving due consideration to adding the White River 50mi to my summer training plan. More on that soon.

Rattler Half Marathon

April 14

Rattler 1/2 Marathon (13.1mi), 1:34:56 (about 7:15 pace): With 10min warm-up and 15 min cool-down, I put in about 16mi for the day. This is what matters with respect to Wasatch I suppose -- time on task and overall miles. The 1800 ft of elevation gain also made for a solid effort. That being said, I should hope that I don't run a single step at this kind of pace on Sept. 8th! Good for a first place finish this weekend, such exhuberance would be foolhardy in Utah.

True to form in recent years, I raced smart but whimpy. An early lead evaporated quickly on the long, mid-race up hills. I walked on purpose through these steeper sections, but pretty much let the leader get almost out of sight at that point. To my ultimate surprise, I caught up after 2mi of technical downhill and took back the lead with 3+ miles to go. Another gradual climb meant loosing the lead again, but my legs were fresher on the final 600m into the finish. In the ultimate nod to lame racing, I only put my head down and went after it when I noticed the leader's cramping legs. I really should have toughed it out and never fallen back into second over this final stretch... Alas, my "killer instinct" is hard to find. I'll be happy with running wise and see what happens from there.

Next up: The Sunflower Iron. I'll add on about 5mi and run to the start from home

April 15

7mi, 50:42: We'll call this 7. In might be a little short. Ran easy on the MVCommunity Trail west of home. Came back on the ski train through piles of logging slash. The Sunflower will have to be run on the road through here this year. Have to check that whole route out as well and see if even that is possible...

Week: 40mi. Really happy to see that number again and to have gotten in 5 good days of running during a busy week. The several months ahead don't get any easier, but my early base is getting well-established. A month ahead in the 40's range would be great. Long runs will begin to oscillate up and down a little bit, with hopefully some 20's (3+ hrs) on the way into May.

Distempo

April 12

Almost 8mi, 54:15: TEMPO for at least a little while. 12 minutes up, 14 minutes at something too fast for tempo run pace. I wanted to go 3-4 miles, but chose an unmarked course running out into the wind. After 12 minutes up-tempo it really felt too hard. Another 2 minutes and I bagged it. Succeded with I'm sure nearly 2.5 mi at pace and I would rather be not TOO worked over for the trail race this weekend. (ax)

Easy at last!

April 10

4mi, 30:22: Methow Valley Community Trail east... ran from home and into the woods. River is swelling, though the peak flow is a ways off still. I finally ran slow. Happy about that. Warmish and blustery out. A coolness to the wind that is supposed to last all week. "Racing" on Saturday. i want to feel good, but would also like to improve upon last year's 1:35:51. We shall see...

Monday, Monday...

April 9

5 mi, 32:33: Supposed to be an easy day. Disappointed with myself by once again running faster that I should. I'm not even training to run a "fast" kids of race for goodness sakes. In any case, the legs felt pretty good considering the 15 mi on Sunday. Ciao. (as)

Pipestone Canyon Trial Run

April 6

5+mi, 35:23: A little bit short of six, but quite up-tempo as these things go. I didn'ty plan to run fast, but I was late getting into town and left the car at home. (as)

April 8

15mi, 2:22: A legit LSD run in the hills. 1800ft of climbing throughout. Snow, mud and sunflowers all in the same run. Joined by Andrew, who kept the pace steady and made sure that we didn't go too fast. His longest run by about double this year, so thanks to him for coming along and keeping me company. Also got the car stuck in the snow enroute... big adventure.

Week: 40 miles! Hot diggity. Still making steady progress. More challenge in the workouts than necessary -- again. The hill, unintentional tempo, LSD (with climbs) trifecta is not a great idea in the long term, but right now I am feeling no ill effects. Overall mileage still reasonable of course, so that helps. Look for mid-30's to 40 again this next week. A 1/2 marathon trail race in Pipestone Canyon next weekend. A tempo run on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Sun Mt. Hills

April 5

6mi, 45:58: We'll call it six. Who really knows. I did run some hill repeats, however. All part of my master plan :) Very much in the base phase of training here. A lot of miles to run and I want to get there slowly. Alternating tempo weeks and hill weeks right now. Just running. No bounding and no pushing the pace. "Natural" intervals. Ultimately, it should help with strength. Today it was 6 x 2:15 with about 2 min. rest on the downs. A fine, fine day! (brn)

F.S. 800

April 4

7mi, 55:54 (am I really calling that 7?): Suppose that I will. Distance of little consequence in any case. The time on task is working. A nice run through the woods and then out F.S. 800 into the logging slash. So many trees down. Lots of clean up to do this spring and summer. Kept thinking that I would/should see a bear since I could see so much farther into the woods than last year. An easy run, but still with hills (a good 7 minute up at one point). Lots of jumping around in the woods to avoid the many very soft snow patches. (cas II)

PS Still considering the format for this. I'll probably switch to a weekly post at some point rather than these daily beginnings... all in good time.

April 3 - easy hills

6+mi, 52:01: For the most part, an easy run. I did ramble around on the north side of Sun Mt. and eventually came back down via Black Bear across wolf creek. A few very casual hills. I've been sleeping about 3-4 hours a night the last few days while trying to finish sketches for a book. I suppose that this is good sleep deprivation training for Wasatch, but its starting to catch up to me. I still feel alright running, but...

April 1

3mi, 22:45: An easy 3 west on w.c. road. Slopped around on some still snowy trails along the river. Not too much however since this was supposed to be easy. Right hamstring a little tight from yesterday's long run and my silly "catch-up" running the week before. I'll likely take tomorrow off. (cas II)

Week: 36 miles. Solid. The LSD run on Saturday felt very good again. I need slow down, but time and distance will do that soon enough. A similar week coming up with one day of hills.

The Days Are Numbered

So here it is. My first post enroute to running the Wasatch 100 Endurance Run on September 8th, 2007. I've been "a runner" for a while. Seriously (of sorts) since my freshman year in college when I abandonded soccer for the glories of cross-country. These days my runs are more of the release from my job as a children's book author and illustrator, but I've really enjoyed running on trails as well. I've run numerous 50ks and a single 50 miler. 1oo miles still seems a little unrealistic to me at this point, but that's the goal :) A running friend of mine suggested that we sign-up, with good intention to train together over the summer, and I basically decided "what the heck."

After a solid winter of xc skiing, I added in some running near the beginning of February. That being said, I'm about 8 weeks into my base training and running a comfortable 30+ miles a week right now. A slow and steady climb from here, but I'll try to make this my training log with some occassional comments on progress for anyone that might be paying attention...

Cheers!