Thursday, May 1, 2014

"Miles are adding up"

Ok, getting a breather to catch up on this week... it’s been a good one, by Wednesday night I’ve already hit 48 miles running and feeling strong.  Not too crazy as far as mileage goes but it is combined with a pretty large amount of swimming, cycling and weight lifting so far this week.  Triathlons are around the corner and while I don’t normally talk too much about my non-running activities here I will plug them today as I feel I’m progressing pretty well.  I've got the continuous mile swim down and right now sitting about 28 minutes at a fairly comfortable pace… it’s a start and will keep working to improve that time.  I’m getting more comfortable on my bike as well, I recently purchased a Trek Madone 4.3 Road bike as I want to do a half Ironman next year and my mountain bike was not cutting it anymore, I’m hoping the weather warms up over the next few days so I can get it out a little bit more.  Galena Tri is the first of my list this year on May 17th and I’m looking forward to breaking up the weekend race routine with a different kind of event… Ok, enough about tri’s, on to the running…

SUNDAY -  22.1 miles -  Long Run with Bill, Shannon and Scott

So Sunday was quite the run, I did a total of 22 miles which was enough itself but to add to the challenge we ran in 45+ MPH wind gusts and pouring rain… add in a few nice hills and it made for a pretty fun morning.  This was definitely a run I will never forget as the wind was so strong it blew my had right off my head and almost tipped me over twice.  Despite the less than ideal conditions I continue to feel more comfortable with every 20+ mile run and I’m not feeling the ache in the muscles anymore that I used to at that distance.  This is a good thing as the month of May has 20+ mile long runs every weekend.   

TUESDAY – 18.7 miles – Hill Run with DRC

Tuesday night started nice and easy but eventually we turned up the heat… Scott and I had an easy 8 mile warm up around town which was perfect as the combination of the race on Saturday and the long run Sunday had my legs feeling a little sketchy.  We ran to UD and met the crew who decided to take a night off the track and run hills.  From there we did a 10 mile hill route that included Loras, West Locust, University, Hill and Bryant streets… it was an awesome run and I felt surprisingly fresh picking up the pace on the hills.  That being said I did make a pretty big mistake by not drinking enough water that day… I felt great during the run but minutes after crashed pretty hard, lucky for me it did not last long and once I got some food and water in me I got back to normal quick. 
(I hit 1,700 feet of elevation on this run which I believe is a new

WEDNESDAY – 7.27 miles – Mine of Spain


Wednesday night was a nice relaxing run at the mines… I really enjoy the Wednesday trail runs after work, I feel it sorta hits my internal “reset button” which I need after the tough Tuesday night runs and long weekends.  I just love running trails, I used to run 75% of my mileage off road and am looking to get a large portion of miles out there again this year.  The soft surface of the wet trails felt amazing and the cool air really hit the spot.  A few miles in I crossed paths with Matt Jasper and Jason Charley, they were doing an early run before their trail group run at 6pm.  It was a lot of fun chatting and running with those two, especially nice to talk triathlons for a bit as I’ve been training pretty hard for the upcoming “Tri Season”.   I’m going to make a point to join a few of their Wednesday night runs this spring and summer as I think it would be a really good time.

No comments:

Post a Comment