Bookkeeping and Catching Up

It's been a while since I've had an update on here, but that's mostly because I was consumed with finishing out the school year and also because Miwok caused my knee to suffer a bit of a relapse.  I was afraid of that going into the race, but I felt like I was in a bit of a Catch-22 situation--if I wanted to have an opportunity to race at Western States, I had to race Miwok, even though doing so might set me back physically.

With that in mind, I've taken the subsequent two weeks quite easy in terms of training load.  When I registered for Miwok last December I felt that it would be key to be sure to fully recover from Miwok before launching into any theoretical final preparations for Western States, and I feel like I've been successful (rare for me) in doing that.

After deciding that I do indeed want to race there (a more in-depth exploration of this topic here), I now feel ready to embark on another period of high-volume running before the taper for Western States, and, with the advent of the summer season, can't wait to start making regular forays into thinner air.  Now some snow just needs to melt!

Here are the past three weeks of "training", i.e. just lots of tapering and recovery with a single 62 mile effort interjected into the middle of it all:

04-26-2010
Mon-AM: 16 miles (2:21) Green Mt. up Back down Bear Canyon, 3000'

04-27-2010
Tue-AM: 8 miles (1:01) Creek Path+4mi barefoot at Kitt

04-28-2010
Wed-AM: 8 miles (1:03) Creek Path+1mi barefoot at Kitt

04-29-2010
Thu-AM: 8 miles (1:00) Creek Path in the rain

04-30-2010
Fri-AM: 8 miles (1:04) Creek Path+2mi barefoot at Kitt

05-01-2010
Sat-AM: 62 miles (8:02:51) Miwok 100K, 10,400' vertical

05-02-2010
Sun-PM: 1 mile (:10) Barefoot at Kitt with Jocelyn
Sore, but not too bad. Knee is definitely the worst thing.

Total
-Miles: 111
-Hours: 14h 42min
-Vertical: 13,400'
----------------------------------------------------------
05-03-2010
Mon-AM: 1.5 miles (:13) Barefoot at Scott Carpenter Park

05-04-2010
Tue-AM: 3.5 miles (:30) Creek Path with Jocelyn
Everything in my body feels recovered except for the knee.

05-05-2010
Wed-AM: 4 miles (:33) Barefoot at Kitt with Jocelyn

05-06-2010
Thu-AM: 7 miles (:54) Creek Path+2mi barefoot at Kitt

05-07-2010
Fri-AM: 6 miles (:48) Creek Path


05-08-2010
Sat-AM: 5 miles (:42) Creek Path with Jocelyn


05-09-2010
Sun-AM: 6 miles (:47) Creek Path to Chat and home


Total
-Miles: 33
-Hours: 4h 27min
-Vertical: nada
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
05-10-2010
Mon-AM: 9 miles (1:22) Green Mt. up Back down Front, 2800'
Knee was decidedly unhappy with this test.  Hitchhiked home.


05-11-2010
Tue-AM: 8 miles (1:02) Creek Path
Brutal acupuncture session with Allison afterwards.

05-12-2010
Wed-AM: 12 miles (1:30) Creek Path
Definite progress here.  Knee was 100% until the last 15min.

05-13-2010
Thu-AM: 13 miles (2:00) Green Mt. up and down Back, 2800'
Effortless 39:35 through 6-8" of new snow on Ranger.  Felt great to be back up on the mountain and knee was surprisingly tolerable on the downhill, especially considering how bad it was Monday.


05-14-2010
Fri-AM: 4 miles (:31) Campus

05-15-2010
Sat-AM: 13 miles (1:33) SoBo Creek out past Bobolink and back
Knee felt great and I got in some steady, easy flat running at sub-7s.


05-16-2010
Sun-AM: 14 miles (2:00) Green Mt. up and down Back, 2800'
Best run I've had since before Miwok.  34:41 up Gregory-Ranger despite not really feeling any exceptional energy in my legs--just felt like a normal day but with a bit higher exertion.  Really excited to get back into a solid daily training routine.

Total
-Miles: 73
-Hours: 9h 58min
-Vertical: 8400'

2010 Summits (Day 136)
-Green: 136 (I've now exhausted the +16 advantage I'd built up)
-Bear: 7
-SoBo: 2