Second Half…

Prompted by Stephanie when she asked me on Daily Mile what was I training for, I figured it was time to update my race schedule. But first let’s recap what I had on the agenda:
Hmm not such solid first half of the year, this may turn out to be my quietest race year yet, even after wrecking my leg in 2009! I did manage the 13.1 in January though! Plans to run some races with the kids didn’t really come to much fruition as I wasn’t racing neither were they although we did all run a 1 miler in March and we may squeeze in a 4th July something! That being said I am actually training for something…shut the front door! And I do have some semblance of a plan for the second half of the year and early part of next…yes I am talking about 2012 already; 178 shopping days till Christmas!

So it’s looks kinda like this:

8/28 Half Marathon of the Harbors – this is what I am training for and I am aiming for a sub 1:30. Then I head back to the dirt…

10/22 Coastal Trail Runs Malibu Creek 25k – there are several races that run this loop each year; along, up, along, down, easy!

11/12 Catalina Island Eco Marathon – this race claimed two toe nails and whole chunk of pride last year, time for some revenge!

11/20 PCTR Santa Monica Mountains 50k – I have run either the 30k or 50k 4 out of the last 5 years, it was my very first Ultra

1/16 Calico Ghost Town 50k – I raced this in 2008, four years later seems about right, just like the Olympics right!

2/25 Ray Miller 50m – this follows a similar course to the PCTR race, this is up in the air for now…we’ll see, but I do need a sub 11:00 finish!

As we all know it’s very easy to write a list of races for the future, it’s another thing to get the training done and then turn up to the start line uninjured and healthy!

I intend to take these one at a time and hopefully enjoy some success.

Wordless Wednesday…seen on my ride!

Not bad for an iPhone!

Beaten up and bush whacking on Boney Mountain

I am really liking the routine I have gotten myself into, three training runs; Monday, Wednesday and Friday, a recovery run and cross training on the other week days and that leaves me the weekend to play. It can be a bit brutal starting the day at around 4:15am and squeezing in a 10-11 miler and getting home around 6:00am is a challenge but so far so good, this weeks training was another solid week; 49 miles, another 24 miles on the bike, some stretching and all in for just under 10 hours. The week shakes out with Intervals on Monday; totally messed up my Garmin data.

Wednesday; Short tempo: 1m w/u 5m x 6:53

Friday; Long Tempo; 9m x 7:13, messed up the first mile’s data!

I am pretty pleased with the splits, these are not easy runs but I am getting in range of the target paces, I am trying to learn to feel the pace rather than rely on looking at my Garmin or using the Pace Alert to warn me to slow down; happens not much or speed up; happens much.

So with these in the bank I had Saturday to play, I headed to Boney Mountain to run the Xterra Half Marathon course, it’s a challenging course which I have not been on for a couple of years, so it took a bit of total recall to remember the actual route and I made a couple of wrong turns, one which took me off course by a couple of miles. I was pleased that I managed to run the first set of climbs and pretty much I ran the first 11 miles only stopping to take photos.

Around this time to trail turned from fairly runabale:

To a bushwhacking bonanza:

Yeah it’s in there somewhere, and it it got thicker at ground level, leg level and chest level! This continued for another couple of miles and left me no resort but to walk, I never realized I could get my HR to 165 walking and the ever fun 14:00 minute miles! Finally at the top it opened out and I was treated to the downhill view of well, nothing; thick cloud, thick bushes and 30 minutes behind schedule meant that the camera went away and I was resorting to calling home to reshuffle things much to the amusement of some hikers as I dashed down the hill! I pushed through back to the car and had enough mileage, over three hours on my feet, a lovely green smear across my shirt and a cactus thorn in my thigh to show for my efforts!

It’s a nice reminder not to get too complacent and that while I am getting reasonably quick on the roads, the trails can give me a right good ass kicking!

None of the photos are great, but they’re here:

Boney Mountain, 6/6/11 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I wish I could write like this…

“….it's about believing in yourself when you don't have a reason to; it's about the courage to try something beyond hard when the rest of the world is incredulous; it's about your own personal honesty with yourself; it's about living life with passion and conviction; and most importantly, it's about bringing out the best in human beings. I don't see this race as a fearsome challenge anymore, but an amazing opportunity to do achieve something brilliant. We aren't much more than tissue and bone, but when we are committed and driven, our incredibly insignificant small bodies do some amazing things that shock the entire universe."

Source

A 1000 words…

Well not quite but in the spirit of a picture is worth…total self indulgence…enjoy!

It’s been a while since I hit the trails and hit them hard. 16 miles, 3100’ of elevation gain (and loss), lots of smiles and a 7:00 minute mile on the downswing…I was flying! In other news…I was 1 mile short of hitting 50 for the week, that’s bit of a jump but the legs are feeling good!

Wordless Wednesday…

No Brainer…

Another week of hay in the barn…

Another Sunday night and another week of training in the bank…in fact I had in the bank by 6:45am Friday!

Monday Interval Ladder: 2m w/u 400, 600, 800, 1200, 800, 600, 400 with 400 RI, 1m cd

Wednesday 5 miles at mid tempo pace, that’s a 6:53 pace, I smiled when I saw it was only 5 miles, 35 minutes later I was very happy that it was only 5, this was sheer bloody hard work!

Friday 1m w/u 9 miles at HM+20 seconds (7:13) 1m c/d…this was also tough and not pretty!

Like I said my training log:

“I was a little worried about this run, too many late and broken nights and 40+ running miles in the preceding 5 days were catching up with me. Looks like my worries were well grounded, couldn't quite get up to speed and 2 or 3 miles were just plain horrible. It reinforces the need for rest days and solid nights sleep especially with the alarm going off at 4:30am everyday. All that being said it's actually nice to know "why" it didn't go quite right. On the bright side it's only the end of week 2 so I have till the end of August to dial in all in.”

Tuesday and Wednesday were recovery runs  but I think the overall accumulation just caught up with me! Anyway Friday night my wife and I headed out of LA for a short weekend in Big Bear, we arrived at a reasonable hour had a great meal and were in bed by 9:30pm…10 hours later I woke up, so yeah I think the week had caught up with me! Saturday we did a couple of hikes, well one hike and a nice stroll along the lake. Here are the best of the photos. I also got to put the finishing miles on a pair of GoLite Tara Lites…review to follow!

Being a product reviewer can be hell at times!

Big Bear Lake, June 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Sunday we headed back into LA early and taking full advantage of our baby sitter, I took my bike out for a spin and to get some much needed cross training in. I choose a local ride that had some rollers and some smallish climbing. I wanted to ride with a high cadence so I wasn't mashing in the big gear all the time and try to up my average speed, it seemed to work. Average cadence was 89 just shy of targeted 90 but my average speed was much higher than it has been of late! Of course maxing out at 39.9 mph coming down the big hill didn't do any harm!

So on with Week 3

It’s that time of year again…

A little over two weeks to go to the Gran’ Daddy of Ultra Running happens….

Here endeth the week…

Well actually it did yesterday! I finished out Week 1 of training…Shut the Front Door you say! Yeah training it’s been happening. Back on the FIRST training plan, I have had good results using the Interval sets and the full 10k plan I figured why not, right! It’s an 18 week plan that I will of course shorten…I can’t train for 18 weeks it’s too long and I switch off around week 14! I only have 12 weeks anyway to my target race. The Half Marathon of the Harbors, it’s a pancake flat HM it’s my shot at a sub 1:30! So Week 1 was interesting, if you’re familiar with the FIRST plan it is three structured runs, Intervals, Short Tempo and Long tempo, plus some cross training. I managed to hit all my marks:

Tuesday 2 x 1m w/u 12 x 400m with 400m RI 1m c/d (I was hitting the quarters around 1:40)

Thursday 2 x 1m at easy pace (8:40) 3 x 1m at 7:40 1 m c/d although I forgot my turn around and added an extra three mile

Sunday 1m w/u 8m at HM pace +20 seconds (7:13) 1 m c/d (really pleased with this as they were all around the right mark or faster)

I threw in another run on the local trail, two bike rides and had a day off and finished the week with pretty fair numbers:

It’s basically an 70 minutes of training a day and a bit of time spent loving my foam roller…nothing to set the world alight but consistency is key. If you really want to follow the nitty gritty hit me up on Daily Mile So starts Week 2…