06/20/2011: Ran 30 minutes out Turquoise Lake Trail then turned around and ran back. A good run. Not too much. 1:01, 6.0 miles. 100' vert.
06/21/2011: 40 minutes out on the Turquoise Lake Trail. Out past a memorable prospect with light colored rock/sand around it. Felt amazing and was running fast up until I had to shit. Lost about 5 minutes there. 1:25, 9.0 miles, 200' vert.
06/24/2011: Back in the Sangres for an Adult Renewal course end. While here I love to take advantage of this amazing trail running location. The thing I love about the Sangre de Cristo mountains is that the trails just go up forever at a beautiful grade because of the rich history of horsepacking. It is just too easy to continue extending the run longer and longer!
Ran up to 11,000' from the top of Alvarado Campground where the course is staying (at 9,200'). What started as a 30 minute "out, then turn around" turned into "just a little further," then "just a little further." I started on the ascent of Comanche Lakes Trail (or the Comanche Trail depending on source) by the Rainbow Trail connectors that run along the bottom of the east side of the Sangres. 0:14 to the Trail Register on the Comanche Lakes Trail, then ascended to the small saddle just above the switchbacks (tops out just above 11,000'). Then ran back. Somewhat technical loose rock on top of dirt. 1:40, 6.0+, 1,800' vert.
Weekly Summary: 21.0 miles, 2,100' vert.
A somewhat shorter week than I had planned. I don't know how I feel about this. On the one hand I am disappointed that I didn't get my planned long run in. On the other hand I have needed a bit of a break in the mileage. I think that having run hard since March by increasing my mileage at rates sometime well in excess of the 10% rule (no more than 10% weekly mileage increase at a time) has put me in a state of feeling "slow" despite my obvious increasing speed. We'll see how this affects how I feel. I do like to feel "peppy" when I run but sometimes running while feeling worked can be good for training. It is just that I haven't really felt peppy in several weeks (since my big week and a half in Boulder). I suspect that it is the fast running that has made me feel like my legs are slow. In the future I will probably be spending some time reflecting on the specifics of my speed work and recovery. In truth this is the first time I have incorporated speed work into my "training." Maybe this is normal?
My other thoughts as of late are in how I stretch. On Tuesday I ran around the Turquoise Lake Trail for 40 minutes out and then turned around. On the way I passed from feeling "overfed" to feeling great and I turned up the speed to high. On my way back I felt the sudden urge to take a shit and knowing that the Tabor Boat Ramp had public toilets, I turned the speed up to "11" to get there in time. It was a photo finish to the toilet, let me tell you. After my high speed run I decided to cool down and stretch. When I got to my butterflies to stretch out my hamstrings I felt a sharp pain when I let my legs relax in the stretching position. Maybe it was too harsh a movement or maybe it was just a bad idea to stretch after a speedy workout, but I felt a bit of pain for a second or two and then it went away. I thought nothing of it until the following morning when I woke up with dull pain in my hamstring. This pain didn't really go away until Saturday but it was the cause of my lack of the planned long run this week.
My thought include many possibilities including:
- that the speedy run should have been considered intense running that warrants rest without stretching afterwards
- that I just need to continue stretching and in time I won't have pain after speedy workouts
- I haven't run many speedy runs like this and that it was a byproduct of the running and not the stretching
Regardless, I will be spending more time thinking and experimenting to trap this down. It is quite fun figuring out how my body works but disappointing when I look at my weekly mileage graphed out.
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