It's a Big Sky: Week(s) in Review: April 9-22

Monday, April 9^th

AM—None

PM—6 Miles—0:58—1,650’—Flagstaff

All-around horrible run. My legs felt like crap and I couldn’t get my breathing under control for the first 12 minutes or so. Justin and I rested at Panorama Point for a few minutes then he headed home and I headed up to Flagstaff. Finally, my legs started to get a little pep in them and I cruised up to the top. Given how questionable my legs felt, I took the descent SLOW.

Tuesday, April 10^th

AM—5 Miles—0:41—150’—Creek Path

For some reason my legs just felt crappy this morning. I decided to get in a quick shakeout run on the Creek Path to bring some life into them. Didn’t really seem to work…

PM—18 Miles—3:18—3,150’—Viewpoint/Mesa Out-and-Back/Roads

This was the second day in a row of my legs feeling blah. I hit the climb up to Panorama Point in about 11:45 or so, which isn’t terrible, but it felt like I had to work much harder than usual. The descent down to Baseline/Chautauqua made me feel like a drunk idiot and immediately let me know that it was going to be a long run. Ran into Alex at the parking lot and did the out-and-back with him. Eventually my legs started feeling strong on the climbs, but I restrained myself and kept from taking off on these sections. We had a fox come within 5-10 feet of us on the next-to-last switchback heading up from the South Mesa trailhead (of course I didn’t have my camera). We rode out the rest of the run at a pretty mellow pace.

Wednesday, April 11^th

AM—None—Tired

PM—None—Acupuncture Recovery

Thursday, April 12^th

AM—None—Acupuncture Recovery

PM—None—Acupuncture Recovery

Friday, April 13^th

AM—None—Acupuncture Recovery

PM—7 Miles—1:14—1,700’—Flagstaff Summit and Rangeview

After a few days off I decided to take an easy run up Flagstaff to shakeout my legs a little before Saturday’s long run. Nothing particularly special about this run. I took the descent really easy at almost a snail pace.

Saturday, April 14^th

AM—30 Miles—4:40—1,950’—Creek Path/Bobolink/South Boulder Creek Out-and-Back, Flagstaff

I went into this run wanting to cover 40-60 miles, but some pain in my left ankle told me I better cut it short at 30 miles when I stopped to refuel at the apartment. The first 21 miles were an out-and-back on the Creek Path, roads, Bobolink, and South Boulder Creek Path (all of which are flat and unbelievably boring). Most of my upcoming race is flat or a gradual descent with two climbs (from the elevation profile it appears that one is about like Green Mountain spread out over a few more miles and the other is similar to Sanitas). For the last 9 miles I headed up Flagstaff to get in a little climb. On the way up I ran into my roommate at Panorama Point and chatted for a bit. About 5 minutes or so later I ran into Jenny (Scott’s girlfriend) coming down Flagstaff and talked to her for a while. I eventually hit the four-way at the top and made my way down Rangeview with some surprisingly energetic legs. The last five miles or so was all downhill via the Tenderfoot loop jeep road to Red Lion and the Creek Path. I could have kept going since the pain in my ankle subsided after about 5-10 minutes of moving, but I didn’t see any point to risking long-term injury. My pace was really slow since I ran with the intent of covering a lot more miles.

PM—None

Sunday, April 15^th