Last Night

Great run last night!

I put down 40 miles of relatively easy running yesterday. Since this was by far my longest run of the season, I kept the vertical fairly mellow and focused almost exclusively on patience. I ate well. I drank consistently. I walked the steepest sections and basically maintained an even pace throughout the day/evening. One of my main goals was to concentrate on good nighttime miles and was glad that despite minimized visibility due to a series of snow squalls my pace remained strong. Running at night is definitely a weakness of mine and in particular running into the night (as opposed to running toward the sunrise) seems to beat me up both mentally and physically. Hopefully yesterday was the beginning of solving this problem, rather than an aberration. I have recently wondered if part of the issue is the drop in temperature that typically happens after sunset, or if I simply let the little things get into my head because I worry obsessively about my pace slowing. In either case, if I ever hope to get stronger at the 100 mile distance, I need to keep working on running well during the darkness.

One of the best parts about last night was the ridiculous number of deer I came across -- it seemed every time I came around a bend another group of 2 or 3 deer started off to find better cover. Good times! Actually wanted to carry a camera, but because of the weather it seemed like I had already thrown everything but the kitchen sink into my nathan and didn't want another piece of the material world to hassle with for 7 or 8 hours so once again I am left with mental images only . . .

Training

I ended up clocking about 70 miles for the week, which was actually a bit more than I planned on;however, it seemed like the right jump in distance and well within the 10 percent rule . . . more important than the distance was the fact that I got two days of good climbing in rather rough conditions: snow, mud, rain, ice, and a little bit of sun. In terms of distance I am hoping to bring my mileage up over the next 6 weeks and then pretty much maintain a 90-100 mile week-to-week training schedule until Western. I am never sure what is enough, what is too much, and what is purely slacker mileage; however, it seems like my perfect peak zone lies somewhere in the 90 - 100 mile range . . .

A couple of cool moments from the week included a massive elk clomping around in the snow just above me on the hillside, a bunch of deer kicking it on the side of the trail, and a good social run in the sun.

Carbon Footprint

I am a hypocrite!

I bicycle to work for environmental reasons, but travel around the western United States (primarily the Rocky Mountains) to run in races that I have no chance of winning or even competing in as far as it relates to the elites. I keep telling myself that I will develop a local races only mentality and then find some new excuse to sign up for a more distant race (or I'll simply exaggerate the idea of local and take it to mean within the state or maybe even neighboring states) . . .

Beyond my personal hypocrisy, I have been wondering for some time now if travel distance could become a new handicapping factor in lotteries. Maybe RDs of lottery based races could add an extra ticket for in-state, in-region, or in-town applicants as a way of reducing the carbon footprint of ultras . . . not sure what in-town would mean for a race like Wasatch, but I think the idea is not completely absurd. It would preserve a sense of local community in some of the most desired races, but still allow runners a chance to race in more distant lands and gradually make it to all their desired venues.

Anyhow this is just a random rambling . . .