Sunday 12/27

The weather has been quite cool for the December west coast. Seriously. And yes, the viral cold is still hanging around. As I look at the past 2 weeks of running, I am a little bummed (in light of my goal). The week of 12/14 - 12/20 was recovery (and I had just caught the cold). I welcomed the break, actually did stay "recovery" active, but on the 20th I got in a nice little 1:20 run which turned-out to be a little much on the lower respiratory, which is stressed only because of the notorious post-nasal-drip. Believe me, it sucks and probably sounds so lame I should have deleted that; but this is a training blob, too. Then I took it easy before doing a hard hill work-out with incline and steady pace, short but sweet. More easy/off days and then on the 24th I did a nice 7 miler on some nice single track. The cold was definitely still there, but the run was great. The cold seemed to be in a sheer toe-to-toe with my desire to go nuts on the trail. Err.

Took 2 days off and then today I went to the gym and did a work-out Lucho described according to his build-up to an ironman when he was dealing with a pretty severe cold. Basically, run and walk, repeat. He said it helped him get through the cold and maintain his aerobic fitness.

Looking back at the last couple of weeks, I have basically had three solid runs and a bunch of easier work-outs with a few actual days off. All in all, I think I've been a little careless with the HR, which might have prolonged this set-back? Who knows, but trying to train and get over a cold is brutal.

Today's treadmill work-out consisted of 30 mins of 5 walk, 5 ez run, 5 walk, 5 run. . . .HR never got higher than 130. I think this worked well. I spun for another 30 min. I am optimistic. 2 more days should bring me to 100%. I will then go nuts. I should be able to get in 3 to 4 or 5 days of really solid work. That's it.

I will be undertrained for this beast of a 13 miler. But it's just, in the end, a good day in one of our coastal ranges. And the beginning of a new year.