Week in Training - December 3 to December 9

Sick.  I hate being sick.  It's been a stressful last 2 weeks so I suppose it was bound to happen.  A job interview last Tuesday followed by a quick 3 day trip to the USA Track & Field annual meeting in Daytona Beach, FL followed immediately by 4 straight days of snowshoe presentations at REI stores - Saratoga (20 miles round trip), Berkeley (100 miles), Sacramento (260 miles) and Manhattan Beach (720 miles).  Fortunately for me and much to the disbelief of my wife, I only missed one day of training from this "sickness".

Attendees trickle in for my Snowshoes.com Get Going! presentation

Monday: Flat 10k run in Mountain View before driving down to Saratoga, CA.
Tuesday: 15 mile roller-ski on the Shoreline Trails before driving up to Berkeley, CA.
Wednesday: 1 hour of Dailey Method core strength followed by an easy 4 mile run in the rain. Left early to beat rush hour on the long drive to Sacramento, CA.

Cooler temps brought out the arm warmers

Thursday: 5.6 mile road run before flying down to Los Angeles for another snowshoe presentation.  That evening I lost my appetite and started feeling like shit.
Friday: Flew back from LA, made a massive bowl of chicken veggie soup and sat on the couch for the rest of the day.
Saturday: Forced myself off the couch and ran 4 miles with Kelly.  Made more soup - Potato Leek.
Sunday: Feeling slightly better. 25 mile flat road bike ride.

Getting fit for snow skiing starting next week in Bend, OR.  Can't wait!

Sunday's ride was my first in 2.5 weeks after I had some really unnerving sharp pain and swelling in my right knee.  Having already had 2 knee surgeries (Right in 2006 and Left in 2009), I was really worried I damaged the cartilage during one of my core strength workouts.  After seeing an ortho and my regular PT it was determined to be misalignment of the patella - something easily fixed by rest and some patella mobility exercises.

Felt good to be back on my bike again.

So, not a horrible week of training all things considered.  20 miles of running, 15 miles of roller-skiing and 25 miles of cycling - a total of 7 hours of training.  My carbon footprint was not so good - 400 miles of driving and 700+ miles of flying.  As payback perhaps I should compost myself.

Week in Training - November 26 to December 2

I felt pretty good this past week and bagged 39 miles of running.  That included taking Sunday off, a strength workout, plus roller skiing for 12 miles.  I didn't ride my bike as that's what kicked off my recent bout of knee pain but I do plan to try it again this week.  Fingers crossed.

Monday: 7.5 mile flat run on the Shoreline Park trails.
Tuesday: 12 miles of roller skiing on the Shoreline Park trails.

Wednesday: a rainy 6 mile run in the morning and 1 hour of core strength in the afternoon at The Dailey Method.
Thursday: Ran a flat 5 miles on the roads before flying to Daytona Beach, FL for the USA Track & Field annual meeting.

Dave & Jason at Tiger Bay State Forest

Friday: Dave Dunham, Paul Kirsch, Jason Bryant and I ran 5 miles in the morning at Tiger Bay State Forest.  It was flat but we found some nice dirt roads, single-track trails and a small lake to run around.  In the afternoon we ran another 5 miles at the Spruce Creek Campground.

Spruce Creek Campground

Saturday: Race Day!  Every year at the annual meeting USATF organizes some kind of low-key race for attendees.  Last year is was a cold & painful 1 mile race around downtown St. Louis.  This year's race was a out-n-back 5k on the beach - nice!  Dave, Jason, Paul and I got 3 miles warm-up and warm-down for a total of 9 miles for the day.  Having not raced or done speed since mid-September, my goal was to finish without getting hurt.

Dave picked up an awesome speed suit on sale.

With that in mind I started out at a comfortable 6 minute pace for the first 1/2 mile.  At 1/2 mile Dave & Jason were about 15 seconds ahead with the eventual winner & runner-up while I ran behind the top woman.  When we turned around (at 1/2 mile) the wind was at our backs, the pace felt too easy and no muscles or joints were complaining so I picked up the pace to close he gap on Jason.  As we approached the next turn around at 2 miles I passed and gapped Jason so he wouldn't be able to draft once we hit the headwind.  At the turn I think I was about 15-20 seconds behind Dave and running in 4th place.  With a headwind and running in sand against an encroaching high tide, the last mile felt pretty hard.  I was also working harder since I wanted to close the gap to Dave and run a respectable time - somewhere near 17 minutes.  At the finish Dave was 3 seconds up and I crossed the line in 17:13 for 4th overall.  While the warm-down run felt painfully slow, it was good to have a race under my belt without getting injured (again).  Now I feel comfortable starting the process of getting speedy again........very carefully.

USATF Beach 5k Race - 17:13 - 4th place - 5:42 pace - Max HR 172.

The clock tower at Daytona Beach