Training Log - Day 48

Hair status below. The locks are getting a little long for me...4-5 months from now will be very interesting!

Time of Day - 2:30 PM
Weather - cloudy, upper 40's; steady breeze out of east
Route - St Vrain Greenway to big tree
Distance - don't care
Pace - slow
Duration - 46:23
Average HR - 150
Cross training - none. Plan to get back on track tomorrow
iPod - Hillsong
Comments - Legs feeling strong. No tightness or ache in knee. Wind is good. Looking forward to my longer distance tomorrow. Hoping weather will be nice!


Run, Willie, Run!

Hair Challenge Update

The hair challenge is well underway as we agreed to let it grow in late January. By August, watch out! My latest "progress report", as of today, is below. This was after my 7 mile run, so it looks particularly attractive. I'm looking forward to seeing your do, Willie!

Hair Challenge Update

Back in late January Willie and I agreed not to cut our hair until after the TransRockies Run. That gives us another 6 months minimum of growth. It's only been a few weeks, but it had been a few weeks before then since my last hair cut. With that in mind, here's the current status, even though I've got a baseball cap on. 

T-204 Days

Willie, glad you're in on the hair challenge. It should be interesting indeed! This might be a Sampson thing.  When we were younger our hair was longer and we surely were faster!  I'm a little concerned about the added heat in the summer training though.  Also, what happens if we buzz it right before the race?  Hopefully we won't lose our mojo! Next step, ZZ Top beards??

Today is beautiful again with an expected high in the low 70's. Of course we are told to expect snow or ice on Tuesday, so welcome to Texas!

Time of Day - Noon
Weather - Perfect! Still, sunny and warm.  About 68 degrees
Route - Out and back
Pace - Moderate
Time - 47 minutes
Distance - Who cares? As I was wisely reminded, we're training for an event with varying altitudes and inclines.  Our major focus should be on time. I'm working on extending my time out on the road and getting used to longer runs back to back (or at least that's the plan!) to aid in recovery.
Cross training - Tonight
iPod - Rolling Stones mix including Monkey Man, Can't You Hear Me Knockin'?, Brown Sugar, Miss You, Shattered, etc.
Comments - Overall very good. I started out thinking this was going to be difficult and struggled for the first 10 minutes or so. After that it was a breeze. The 'back' portion felt much better than the 'out'.  I felt like I could have kept on going for a good while longer.

How long till we get to the point that we crave the road and miss the run when we miss training?  I don't think I'm very far away at all.

Training Log - Day 25

Brian, I think I get the hair challenge! It's like a Sampson thing - the longer our hair the more strength and/or endurance we will have. After much deliberation, I accept the challenge. Please know this will in no way be easy for me. As a matter of fact, I'm more confident in the run than I am in this challenge. What the heck, the pictures will be interesting.

I'm still tenative in my running as I'm concerned my calf is going to blowup. I need to develop some more confidence so I can go strong again.

Time of Day - 5:30 PM
Weather - clear and low 40's; nice evening
Route - St Vrain Greenway to 1st bench
Pace - slow
Duration - 22 minutes
Distance - probably 2 miles
Cross training - Core 10 minutes (planks and crunches)
Comments - quads not as tight as yesterday; calfs a little stiff; thinking too much about my injury and not focusing on running strong; tenative

Run, Willie, Run!

T-205 Days

The numbers have been crunched and we have only 205 days until the mountains.  We'd better make the most of what time we have left.

Time of Day - Noon
Weather - 53°, cool with a gusty north wind
Route - Bogata loop, extended south
Distance - Unclear
Pace - Reasonably quick pace

Time - 23 minutes, plus stretching, warm up and cool down; cross training action tonight
iPod -  New Radicals

Comments - The run felt pretty good.  I had to cut my time short due to work constraints so I picked up the pace and hit it pretty hard on the finish.  Nothing spectacular but a reasonable effort.

As far as the Hair Challenge, this is about as long as mine has been.  If we do this, we are allowed to get it trimmed or shaped up just a tad, but no length reduction!

Training Log - Day 24

Brian, as to the Hair challenge...gotta think about that one! After that many months I may look like my friend Troy here. HMMMMM!

Ran around 5:30PM - weather was clear and in upper 30's. 26 minutes on the road at a SMOW pace. Quads still a little tight but the calf is holding up. Also, did 10 minutes of core workout (planks and cruches). Good day.

Run, Willie, Run!

Training

Today's run was more of a challenge. My calves felt a slight bit tight and after what Willie went through, I didn't want to hurt myself. Pretty quickly I could tell that today would not be as strong as the previous runs.  My legs were heavy and I wanted to quit. To combat this, I decided to mix up my route and just run due north for 20+ minutes and see where that got me. When I arrived at my appointed time, I knew that the fastest way home was to turn around and keep on going. No short cuts. Sometimes you have to play games with yourself.  I got a decent 45 minute run in.

It reminded me of high school time trials where the coach would send us on a run to a point 3 or so miles out and we'd kill ourselves to get there in the Texas heat. Once there, we'd then run all the way back to the showers. Most memorable was the time we caught a ride in the back of a pickup truck all the way to school. Let's just say that didn't go over well.

Today was another beautiful day, clear and crisp, temperature of about 43. A great day to be outside.

Willie, here's a challenge for you.  Let's not cut our hair until the race. If we don't make the race (other than due to injury or emergency) we might not be able to cut our hair until the next year's race!  This would surely be the longest I've ever gone without a hair cut and I'm fairly certain the same can be said of you.  What do you think?  Before you ask, there is no significant purpose to this.  It just sounds like something fun to do.