Observe the rest day and keep it holy...

Of course I am not talking about Sunday... for me pretty much this entire past year Monday has been my rest day each week and pretty much without exception.  Lucho made sure that I always took at least Monday off.  Now it is sort of a standard.

I remember when he told me that after training for a bit come Saturday during a training week I would be dying for Monday to get here.  Anyway, it is a plan or part of the plan that I am intending to stick to from here on out.  Gone are the days of trying to get two months or more logged without a day off.

This past training week was my biggest week in both time and mileages in I don't know how long.  Sixty Six miles, over eleven hours of running and over 9500 in vertical gain.  Not a bad week really.  The challenging part wasn't the physical aspect of the runs but more the mental.

First there were the three ten milers in a row mid-week last week. I have always struggled with that distance.  Again, it isn't the distance per se but the time involved in running it.  Internally I am usually done by mile eight.  It is never short in duration but just long enough that the mind has to really work to keep going.  The 20 miles on Saturday were pretty easy but the ten miler again on Sunday took a great deal of mental urging to get it done.  Melissa ran the first 5.5 with me and to be honest I was about to just call it good when we got back to the apartment before I took off to get another 4.5.

This week starts off easy though... all runs before the weekend being under five miles even but that is just building up for a long 30 miler on Sunday after which I get a day off.

Found some great new trails here in Aspen this weekend.  The Maroon Creek trail from the Recreation Center to highway 82 is a great little single track as well as the Meadows trail which goes from the Meadow's Resort down to the Roaring Fork River/Rio Grand Trail.  I don't know how runnable each of them will be in the winter once the snow gets deeper but for now they are quite pleasant. 

Saturday's run was pretty eventful. I ran into a someone (Eric Sullivan) that I met this past summer at Leadville and we ran a bit together up Smuggler Road.  He had to take off after an hour as he had things to get done but I went another hour up to the gate which had me running in a lot of snow that second hour.  I also got to see some elk, a nice bull elk even and a lot of mountain lion tracks.   But even up high in the snow it was warm enough to be comfortable especially in the sun.  It is the second time I have gone up that high on that road and it was nice to see that it was every bit as steep running up and down it as it was when I rode it last month or so.

I've added another business to the list that Aspen is lacking... A good late night diner.  I bet King's Chef could make a killing here!

It's not the best picture but this is the bull elk that I ran into on Saturday.