Week Summary 2/6 - 2/12

Monday              

AM: 6 miles, Recovery, South Platte Trail

PM: 4 miles, Recovery, South Platte Trail

Tuesday

AM: core strength/stretching

PM: 13 miles, Aerobic, South Platte Trail

Ran on the South Platte Trail during lunch, a run that I do a couple times a week. I love getting out on my lunch break. I find it difficult to run with any kind of intensity during the dark, early hours so I’ve been holding off and going mid-day. It’s also a nice way to break up the work day and stop staring at a computer for a bit.

Wednesday

AM: core strength/stretch

PM: 13 miles, Aerobic, South Platte Trail

A couple that was walking on the trail stopped me to point out a bald eagle perched on top of a telephone pole. Pretty cool.

Thursday

AM: core strength/stretch

PM: 12 miles, 1300', Hill Repeats

Warmed up with 3 miles, then proceeded to do 6 miles of repeats on the biggest hill I’ve found close to work. It’s pretty weak…only a third of a mile, but It’s about a 10% grade, so it definitely gets the heart rate up on the climb and I can pound my quads on the way down. During the 3 miles back to the office I tried to bang out a couple fast miles on tired legs. Felt decent. I’ve been tempted to use the treadmill more during the week to get in more climbing, but I’d rather get outside when at all possible. I’d also be missing out on the downhill.

Friday

AM: 6 miles, Recovery, Cherry Creek Trail

I actually got up early to run, since I had plans for lunch and dinner with Jess immediately following work. As hard as it can be to get out of bed, it is nice to get a run in early. Watching the sun come up while running is a nice way to start the day.

Saturday

AM: 31 miles, 7900’, Mt. Falcon

With the snow storm last week, I was really excited to actually run some trails, as opposed to trudging through snow. Mt. Falcon has become a somewhat regular trail for me due to its proximity to Denver. I did 5 repeats from the parking lot to Walker ruins. 3.1 miles and ~1,600 feet of climbing. Then I bombed back down and repeated a bunch of times. The climb isn’t crazy steep. It’s all run-able (at least for the first few laps). But it’s one of the Denver’s best trails that I know of for climbing. However, I do want to get on some steeper stuff to work on my hiking for Hardrock.

Sunday

AM: 15 miles, Aerobic, Denver

I got out for a nice loop on the Cherry Creek Trail, Cheeseman Park, City Park and Wash Park. As much as I love the trails, I do also enjoy getting around the city on foot.

Recap

Time: 16:10

Miles: 100.5

Vert: 10,100’

This was a really solid week for me, and the third consecutive week of 90+ miles. I spent 4 months (Oct-Jan) building a solid base and it’s been fun to start increasing the mileage and staying healthy. I hope I didn’t just jinx myself… The past few years I’ve focused on triathlons which meant a lot of time on the bike and not much time running, so I never really had a great base or any consistent running routine. In the next month I’m hoping to focus less on the mileage and more on climbing/elevation gain. Hardrock just scares the crap out of me and I know I need to work on my climbing.