And the Beat Goes On

Up at Four Corners. This is the ridge that divides the Hunter Creek drainage from the Woody Creek drainage at about 10,000 feet. Still a bit of snow up high.

As predicted, summer finally arrived in Aspen last week on Wednesday... a day earlier than forecasted. YAY! Without going into my total lack of appreciation, understanding, or comprehension of winter sports (putting wood on your feet and sliding down a mountain as if it is fun) I will just say that from now until October is MY absolute favorite time to live in Aspen. THIS is when it is a paradise.

Anyway...

Good training week last week. Was supposed to back off a bit but I followed Saturday's 30 miler with a fifteen miler instead of just five. BOTH runs felt pretty good. I was amazed on Saturday when I hit mile 20 just how great I felt and how much I was NOT dreading the next ten miles. All of THAT waited until about mile 24 to set in. Still a win.

As for Sunday I gave myself the freedom to run whatever I felt like. If I felt like only five, fine. If I wanted to go further, then fine again. I did handicap myself by only taking one water bottle and one gel on purpose as so to limit my range Sunday morning but the truth is if I had another bottle... following Saturday's 30 with a 20 would not have been a huge stretch.

In all this training for Leadville I have had a plan but I have deviated from it somewhat and have been doing a lot of volume week after week with no clear idea of direction or an absolute end result in mind. Just enjoying the volume (running a lot) and being where I am in training I guess.

But yesterday it occurred to me that I needed to get things dialed in a little tighter. There must be structure! After a wonderful chat with GZ this morning and ruminating on all of that information, on my run at lunchtime I came up with somewhat of a heavy yet still periodized schedule and structure that I think is manageable and at this rate sustainable.

The beauty of it is that I KNOW what the last five weeks going into Leadville are supposed to look like and that doesn't vary... the awesome thing is that what I schemed up over my run today dovetails perfectly into that. The next 11 weeks are fully and perfectly planned out.

Was it by accident or by design? Was my inner genius guiding me along all this time? Who knows... LOL!

Haven't weighed myself in over a week. But I will say this... this morning I washed my cargo shorts and decided to wear my jeans instead, they are 31x30. At first I figured foregoing the belt... but as it stands, the belt was mandatory instead of optional. Another win.

Took the Trek to the shop today too for a tune-up and to get the old sealant out of the tires and to put new sealant in them. I figure in another two weeks I will begin to mix the bike in as things melt out further... Not quite ready yet.

Anyway... that's about it... here's a perfect quote I found today on training that is totally true.

"If you under-train, you might not finish, but if you over-train, you might not start. - Stan Jenson