Supposedly a recovery run, but in reality a pseudo-justified day to lay off of the residual fatigue that’s been accruing in my legs for a few weeks. Overall kind of a lackluster effort considering the light 7 miles I put in the previous day.
Tuesday Feb 25, 11 Miles, 521′ 1h22m
First run of the day, this time with a little more pop in my legs (relatively speaking) I figured I’d reroute a local 10 mile course to grab the extra mile since I was planning to help my brother move into his new condo in the afternoon, and time was a bit of a factor here.
PM 3 Miles, 194′ 21m22s
Post-moving shakeout thing. Still feeling kind of dead in the legs, but noticing that on secondary runs I seem to be able to push a little bit more even when things feel bad (most likely a result of simply trying to get things over with/generate body heat over a short distance).
Wed Feb 26, 4 Miles, 246′ 31m
Unusually tired in between jobs today, generally a combination of fatigue and under-motivation led to an uncharacteristically light day.
Thurs Feb 27, 21 Miles, 1086′ 2h38m
Long run with Dave. Left from Dave’s house to loop out Snake-Hill Road, skirt around Picatinny, and drop back in through White Meadow Lake. Usually Dave and I try to get together for ambitious slightly insane mountain outings, but with the current snow-pack it just seemed ridiculous to slog it out in the woods for several hours, especially considering that both of our upcoming race goals include entirely runnable courses. Overall I felt pretty good, even with a pretty good dip in energy at the courses high point.
Fri Feb 28, 7 Miles, 459′ 52m26s
Primarily a leg-test/shakeout before the usual Saturday grind. My legs felt pretty raw, but energy levels were consistent, and considering the previous days effort, things felt pretty smooth. Residual fatigue is certainly becoming a factor in daily training, but that’s been the plan all along, so now it’s primarily a matter of staying healthy, and increasing daily/weekly/monthly volume.
Sat March 1, 18 Miles, 1500′ 2h10m
Chester>Long Valley>Chester. Another one of the patented “Yea, I’m aware of an elevation chart when I map out a course, but I usually ignore the Y axis…” course designed by Jay. Super-scenic as far as road running is concerned, causing me to remember how nice and agrarian greater Long Valley/Califon/Pottersville really is. Group-wise, a surprisingly low-energy day, most likely a combination of people having “off-days” while trying to keep up with Jay feeling extraordinarily good. I could definitely notice Thursday’s outing in my legs, especially in the teens, but surprisingly grinding through it didn’t take an unusual amount of grit/gumption, but rather just seemed like the obvious necessity, and well within bounds.
Sun March 2, 1 Mile 7m37s
Unusually jam-packed work day combined with general fatigue, cold weather, and a sensation that I should probably let myself rest.
Totals: 71 Miles, 8h47m 4374′
Overall not a bad week, this marks two consecutive 70+ mile weeks, and a general upward trend in my mileage throughout the year (week to week). The weather is of course frustratingly keeping me resigned to regular daily pavement sessions, which are generally not the kinds of runs that I find inspiring, or particularly motivating.In spite of this, I’ve been able to manage some serious consistency (a fringe benefit of pavement sessions seems to be the general equivalence in effort required mile to mile) in the past 6 or so weeks, which is having a rather noticeable effect on my aerobic capacity, in spite of my general lack of vert/techy shit. Ideally things will clear out soon, otherwise I’m going to need to begin to follow in Dave’s footsteps and start doing some sisyphean hill repeats on the pavement (I’d sore prefer to do them on a mountain).
No Pictures in a while, so instead, enjoy some tasty notes from Grace Potter
Rhythm and Rocks 