Week in Training

A good, hard week with lots of variety.  Weight training, running intervals, and the longest bike ride to date with a long run the day after. Plus the Kangoo Jumps of course.  An 11+ hour week with less than 2 hours being low impact swimming is just what I needed.

The long bike ride was on a mixture of pavement and dirt roads up to the mountain town of Gold Hill.  I went up via Four Mile Canyon so I was able to see the damage from the fire up close and personal.  The trip up was a bit upsetting and the trip down was even worse because I went down Sunshine Canyon which seemed to have even more damage and destruction.  I felt that sick, nauseous feeling turning over in my stomach again at the sight of the cleared hillsides and missing houses.  At many points on the descent I didn't know where I was, the scenery had changed so dramatically.

It was a hard climb physically too.  It's been a zillion years since I've done this ride and while I used to do the climb up Sunshine all the time I decided to go up Four Mile because it's not as steep.  But at some points it's still pretty darn steep.  I was fine for the first 1 1/2 hours but that last hour of steep climbing up to Gold Hill was brutal.  The elevation gain from town is about 3000 ft. and 1500 of it is done in the last 3.7 miles or so on steep, dirt, switch back-y roads.  I wasn't doing a good job of eating and got shaky and bonky at some points plus my butt hurt, my foot hurt, wahwahwah.  I remember now why I stopped doing these long rides.  It took me 2 1/2 hours to get up there then another 7 minutes or so to climb out of town to Sunshine Canyon then an hour to get back home.  I stopped at the top to put on a fleece and snapped a couple photos of the Continental Divide.

There's a nicer, unobstructed view on the way up the hill but I was too tired and sore to stop for a photo.  Didn't take any photos of the fire damage on the way up or down, I'm still finding it too upsetting and it was such a long, tiring ride, I just wanted to get home.

I managed a 1 hour, 20 minute trail run with some good hills the next day.  I was expecting some miraculous improvement in my long runs because of all the intervals, strength training, boot camp stuff I've been doing so I was somewhat disappointed at first when I finished the run at much that same pace I've doing for the past few weeks.  Then I realized what tired legs I'd done that run on and that at this time last year I had to do a walk/run combo for a fraction of the distance/time so I could hardly complain.  So thankful to even be able to run such a distance.

I've got an agility trial next weekend and the weekend after that so the challenge will be to get in enough training but still be able to run at the trials.  First race is Xterra Curt Gowdy up in Wyoming in 7 weeks so it's time to start ramping up the training.

WEEKLY TOTALS

Swim: 4,200 yards/1 hour, 50 mins.

Mountain Bike: 39.48 miles/5 hours, 23 mins.

Run: 7.56 miles/2 hours, 21 mins.


Other (Kangoo Jumps, strength training, boot camp):  1 hour, 40 mins.

Total Training Hours: 11 hours, 15 mins.