Quick Catch-Up

Thursday, November 5, 2015

So almost 2 months have gone by since my last post. Not ideal, but in my defense, I haven’t been doing a lot of racin. In the weeks following the GGP XC race, I ran 5k’s at Garin XC on Sept. 26 and Mt. San Bruno XC on Oct. 3 (nice, new course), and a half marathon around Tiburon on Oct. 4. All of the races went pretty well and I felt like my training was coming along nicely. Somewhere in there, I switched from Vo2 max workouts (3-5 minute intervals at the fastest pace I could manage) to longer stuff. I’m now running intervals of 10-15 minutes with 3-4 reps. While I appreciate both types of workouts, I think I like the longer ones a bit more. Sure, they prolong the pain, but they also allow for specificity for the races I’ve got coming up. I’m able to get on the courses and really simulate what pushing on the climbs and descents is going to be like on race day. This specificity is a good thing when I’ve got 5 races in a row to close out the year (and it’s a good thing in all training cycles, really). Starting Nov. 14, I’ll run the Inside Trail Mt. Tam 30k, PA XC Championships (10k) on Nov. 22, the Quad Dipsea (28 miles) on Nov. 28 (my “A” race for the fall), TNF 50 Mile on Dec. 5, and Club XC Nationals (10k) on Dec. 12. I know this seems like a lot of racing, but I LOVE racing. I do it pretty much as often as I can. I thrive off of the race day atmosphere and have a much easier time running faster in a race (even if it’s just for training purposes) than I do in workouts. There are a couple other hardy souls who are planning to join me for the last 4, which we’ve dubbed the Dirty Quad: Ezra, Edmundo (I think), Alex Ho and maybe a couple more. We’ll see who makes it through the gauntlet. Within those 5 races, the first two races are going to be more training-oriented then racing-oriented. The 30k will be a great long, hard effort 2 weeks out from the Quad and PA’s will be a controlled, tempo-ish effort with the main goal being to not be too tired for the Quad the following Saturday. I plan to leave it all on the course for the Quad and then see what’s left in the tank for TNF50 and Club Nats. But let’s be honest… the real event those weekends will be the afterparties. See you out there!