Friday, April 11, 2014

100 Days

We are 100 days into 2014 and running is going pretty well for me. I had some decent snowshoe results this winter, including a 12th place at Nationals. I am certainly not in the same shape that I was in the winters of 2010-2012, but I put in a lot of hard training knowing that I may have to wait until June to see the rewards. Through the first 100 days I have run 577 miles for a total of 102 hours. That works out to 5.77 miles/day and 61 minutes/day. Not a lot by most standards, but I have also amassed 221,000 ft. of vertical gain, for an average of 2210 ft. of climbing per day. That's the equivalent of running up the auto road 47 times this year. I have missed 11 days of running, but 1 of those days I did XC ski up and down a 4500 ft. mountain for 4 hours. I have spent a lot of time on the treadmill just logging miles at 12% grade or higher. It has been good to get a lot of climbing in without having to run back downhill. I have been throwing in some low key tempo, fartlek and progression runs to break up the monotony and to work on my aerobic base. I have managed to lose 7 lbs since Christmas, but I still have at least another 5 lbs. to go. I plan of continuing to log some big climbing weeks through the end of April, then I'll cut back on the climbing volume once the USATF-NE Mountain Running Series starts. Looking forward to racing in the mountains this spring!

Jess and Colin spectating at Snowshoe Nationals. Photo by Scott Mason