11/10 to 11/16

Monday – I think I was off. I forget. Probably since the day before was a beast.

Tuesday – 40 min. run treadmill, not hard not easy, pretty flat, but it was a goody. I mixed-in some spinning too, so it was all good. Stretched and hit the sauna.

Wednesday – 2k/1k workout. On the treadmill. Thought it would be weak, certainly isn’t the track, or a flat trail section, but it’s dead-on. It spanked me pretty good. I got the job done. That’s all. Mission accomplished.

Thursday – Spun for 30 min., stretched, core-work (a little), and sauna

Friday – 10.5 miles 87 min. 1700’ climbing in the Elijo Lagoon and San Dieguito Park. I felt terrible the first half; I ate too much the night before, a homemade fish and vegetable ramen-type soup. I was hungry and it was salty/spicy which is sorta my big weakness. Food is my weakness. I love it and I think it loves me, too. We’re perfect together. . . There were other ingredients. I gobbled it up!

During the second part of the run, I felt a little better (I had a Hammer espresso gu at the turn-around which might’ve helped!) so I picked it up a little, race paced the last 30 min.

This was supposed to be my hill work-out, but because I wasn’t feeling all that great and I got a late start in these warm temps, I decided to just run. I did mix in some hills followed by some LT (at least) surges, so it’s not the end of the world. I guess my Sunday run is either a another longer run or the hill work-out. The program calls for a build on what I’ve been doing on the hills (4x2min +5, 4x1min +5). That’s a lot of running, a lot of suffering. We’ll see what the weekend has in store.

I’m about 4 weeks out from the show. This might be a good week to go big. We’ll see. I got my Xterra newsletter today with the good news about JW. Not too shabby at all.

I sent Xterra an email asking about an elevation profile of the freakin’ course! I got an email back pretty fast. It said:

Hi Matt
We'll be posting a more complete course description soon but this should get you started...

Length: 21K
Starting Elevation: 50’
Lowest point:27’
Highest point:892’
Total climbing: approx 2,900’

Trails: No Paved sections, Open dirt road, Dual track dirt road, 10’ trail, Single track

Almost 3000’ of climbing! Nice. Big. For a 21k that’s a lot of climbing. Boney Mt. is 3000’, Vail was about 2400’, World of Hurt 25k was about 2600’. Hawaii Xduro looks to be epicantius maximus!

Saturday - I got locked-up! Wife is sick as a dog (whatever that means) and the kid has it too. I told her mid-week Saturday is hers because I love her and it was an easy day for me :-) But come Saturday I wanted to get it! Plus, the only way one stays clear of them germs is to get the hell out of there and get the blood flowing, O.D. on O2, etc. Well, it didn't happen. The kid was home-bound and she went in to the office for a while. I was stuck! So what did I do. . . I jump-roped for 30+ minutes while Jack napped. I took a quick break after 7 min. (phone rang), 13 min. (check on Jack) and then hammered another 13 min. It wasn't that bad. I did do some single-leg jumping, but Lucho mentioned I could throw-in some 4-6min. single-foot. I recommend the rope. BTW, after the run on Friday, I soaked in the ocean at Fletcher Cover. The water was actually pretty cold (good) and at one point as I was hopping around I felt a little strain in fascia (no biggie, it happens, but still). Well, from my limited experience with the rope, I will say that jumping takes care of any of that crap. Just Jump.

Sunday - Didn't sleep well since I'm basically afraid to sleep in a room where there sleeps a sicky; I finally got in about 6 hours. Did not get out at dawn to throw down my big hill work-out, which I was supposed to nail on Friday, but I got in my long run with some good climbing and good race pace stuff. So, it didn't get done at dawn. Then the family got moving around and other things happened. Then the heat of the day settled in (it's freakin warm!) and football came on and I decided to go prostrate on a bed for a while and watch the Chargers look like they have . . a step slow.

With an hour of daylight to go (I forgot it gets dark at 5 and this hill work out is a lot longer than an hour) I hit the road. Where did I go? I parked on a street at the top of a ridge where there are numerous streets running parallel to each other that head down. I did the hill work out (4x2min hills, 4x1 min hills) but did not mix-in the recovery nor did I hit the 5 min LT runs after each hill. I ran 3 4 min. hard efforts and basically just kept running without much recovery. I was worked. It was an improvisation, but I did some solid work on Friday and last Sunday's long run had 2500'+ climbing which was almost 2 hours of climbing and little technical descending. I'm not going to worry too much although the 2900' of climbing in HI does suggest I need to really hit this sh*t so I can throw down!

Plus I'm starting to fight this cold "they" are trying to give me. 56 minutes of hill addiction was good. I'm suffering them pretty well and I still have a good couple of weeks to NAIL these workouts.

I HAVE TO STAY HEALTHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A pic taken after the long road trip back from Vegas, ready to celebrate the outstanding trail fun and the safe ride home!