The Connection Runners

Week in review (7/12-7/18)

Monday - 7/12Did the usual Skunk - Mallory climb. I felt really good, which may have been because of the weather. I waited until 5:45, so it was nice and cool since I was in the shade of the mountains.

Tuesday - 7/13
Quick run around the neighborhood. I wasn't feeling good and didn't find my rhythm the entire run. I felt very heavy and my stride felt mechanical. Perhaps I'm coming down with something? Maybe it was just the uninspiring run around the 'hood.

Wednesday - 7/14
Mountain biked. I think we were out for around 2 or 2 1/2 hours, and is a great way to get the heart rate up without doing any damage to the ol' joints. Dave suggested that we go today, and I was all for it after not feeling too well on the run yesterday. Lowell met up with us and we headed up to Ned where went for a ride up around the West Magnolia/Upper Dots (sp??) area. The trails were nice to us today: feeling good and ready to hit the trails again tomorrow.

Thursday - 7/15
Boulder Stroke & Stride Week 7 - the swim actually felt good. It was hotter than hell outside, so I got there a little early and sat in the water. The tri-bums were already doing some warm up laps. Being a mediocre swimmer, I just sat in the water and tried to keep cool. The swim was fine, I did better here than in the past - maybe I'm becoming acclimated to the open water swim. I did the swim in 13:4x and the 5K in 18:58, which is a 6:08 pace. Although I was going pretty fast on the run section, I wasn't feeling all that good. As I said, it was hot and I just haven't been feeling smooth lately. Hopefully it'll come together soon. If I get good at swimming maybe I can actually be a contender in these things.

Friday - 7/16
AM - Skunk-Mallory climb, down mesa to McClintok, up Enchanted across Kohler and then down Skunk. It all felt good, but left a little later than I should have and it started getting hot towards the end. I realized that because I rarely run on the trails in the morning, I have a lot of trouble seeing rocks because of shadows. I should probably start getting up a little earlier to get these runs in and to get used to visual discrepancies due to the angle of the sun. It sounds weird, but I kept stumbling on rocks that were hidden by shadows that I normally don't have any trouble with. My legs were a bit sluggish after the S&S yesterday, but that's ok. Nothing to worry about.

Saturday - 7/17
Mountain biking. Next week is going to be big, so I decided that, when the opportunity arose to get some high altitude biking in, to take it. We spent a few hours riding from Kenosha to Georgia Pass and back. The mtb book said this ride was "mack-daddy"...and it was right. It was epic riding, except for my own stupidity. I brought an old pair of mtb shoes with since they're a bit larger than my newer pair. After Wednesday's ride, where my toe nails were sore from having too small of shoes, I decided to wear the old pair. Little did I realize that the cleats in the bottom of those wouldn't fit my new spds. I spent 4 hours forgetting I couldn't clip in and wrestling the bike on the downhills. Never again will I forget to test out a change in gear before heading out for the day.

Sunday - 7/18
Mt. Audubon. I went hiking with Christian and Nora. I was originally going to head up for a run, but after my running partner bailed after a bike-riding accident and an opportunity to hike with people presented itself, I jumped at the opportunity. We made it up at a fairly quick pace, ate some food and the top and made it down before the rain started. We were back in Boulder by 2 and I was able to enjoy just hanging out and relaxing.

This week did not have much running, as you can tell. That always provides a little pause. But next week is going to be pretty big, so taking it easy this week is absolutely fine. As you'll read next week, I'm doing nothing for the first part, and then hitting the trails (in Spain!) very hard (over 300 miles in 9 days). I may not be on the computer much over the next two weeks, so I probably won't update until later in the first week of August. Hasta Luego, Amigos.