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ilanaramaI kept meaning to post about my training and plans, and...I never quite managed to. So, this Saturday I'm running the Thirsty Thirteen. In 2014, the first year of this race, I volunteered and worked an aid station; I ran it in 2015, with minimal (by my standards) training due to our extensive Canadian Rockies vacation and still came in a few seconds under 1:44. (Admittedly, I was only a couple of years past my PR!) I registered in 2018 and last year, but was a DNS both years due to injury that could have been due to mountain biking in Telluride (each time!), so this year, I cannily did not go to Telluride. :-)
This morning, Chuck and I drove the course to give him an idea of what it's like, and remind me. (He ran last year, but due to Covid? or some other issue, they couldn't get the busses to drive to the start of the point-to-point course, and rerouted along a different road, which honestly I was not thrilled with and so I wasn't too bummed about missing that year.) It's soooooo downhill, which means fast, except it ends with an extremely nasty big uphill/big downhill/big uphill again combination.
Other than the backpack trip (which was cross-training, at least!) I've been running 30-35 miles a week all summer, with a track workout and a tempo workout each week, plus mountain biking and hiking. (Normally I've done either track or tempo, because at higher mileage I can't recover enough for both.) I've run 5 "long runs" (11+ miles), including an excellent progression 12 last Friday. As it happens, my last LR as well as my last track workout were the same as I did in the run-up to the Canyonlands Half in March, where I ran 1:43:53, and they were both a little slower, but not much slower. But it's really hard to tell how the race courses compare, as Canyonlands is also net downhill but much gentler, and at lower elevation altogether. So my A goal, I guess, is to beat my 2014 time (sub-1:45) my B goal is 1:45-1:48, and my C goal is sub-1:50. I guess my D goal is, you know, upright and breathing.
This morning, Chuck and I drove the course to give him an idea of what it's like, and remind me. (He ran last year, but due to Covid? or some other issue, they couldn't get the busses to drive to the start of the point-to-point course, and rerouted along a different road, which honestly I was not thrilled with and so I wasn't too bummed about missing that year.) It's soooooo downhill, which means fast, except it ends with an extremely nasty big uphill/big downhill/big uphill again combination.
Other than the backpack trip (which was cross-training, at least!) I've been running 30-35 miles a week all summer, with a track workout and a tempo workout each week, plus mountain biking and hiking. (Normally I've done either track or tempo, because at higher mileage I can't recover enough for both.) I've run 5 "long runs" (11+ miles), including an excellent progression 12 last Friday. As it happens, my last LR as well as my last track workout were the same as I did in the run-up to the Canyonlands Half in March, where I ran 1:43:53, and they were both a little slower, but not much slower. But it's really hard to tell how the race courses compare, as Canyonlands is also net downhill but much gentler, and at lower elevation altogether. So my A goal, I guess, is to beat my 2014 time (sub-1:45) my B goal is 1:45-1:48, and my C goal is sub-1:50. I guess my D goal is, you know, upright and breathing.