Spring Break for It

Spring is springing. And I'm running. And biking.

Last Friday, I put in two back-to-back 27 mile rides with a commute to and from work. It was a bitch of a ride with T-Rex hauling me out in the high 160's on the ride into work and one shitty northwest headwind beating me up on the ride back.

Earlier in the week, the madman family vacationed in Parajo Dunes near Watsonville, CA. This gave me the opportunity for some beach running as a means of some insight into this fall's Lost Coast Trail run. Ok, maybe I'm a 10%er but beach running is just boring. It's mile after mile of white noise and monotonous landscape. I mean occasionally there is the "Dude that was a narly wave!," but my limit is somewhere around 100 crying seagulls or 250 hopping willets. Maybe this doesn't bode well for the Coast Trail run, but I do think the scenery is a little more interesting and the challenge a little greater than a beach jog.

Summer vacation plans

Week 9 of the new year's training plan. I finished this peak week in my 6 week cycle feeling very good. Despite a cold that severely reduced training for week's 7 and 8, I was still able to ramp up to log 9 hours with a combination of road, trail, and home gym while biking and running for a combined 87.2 miles. I had a blast with last Sunday's 12 mile trail run on a beautiful CA spring day, put in a real hammer of a road ride up Calavaras Road and back on Wednesday, another gorgeous ride through the Livermore wine country while dodging showers on Friday, and even felt good enough to squeeze in an extra short run due to short falls in planned riding times. Runs included not only endurance pace distant runs, but also, a zone 3 run, a fartleig run, and a 10k race pace run--all for a total of 27.4 running miles.

I'm going into this upcoming week is a rest week with only 6:30 of training time and 63 miles anticipated feeling very good about my training level and progress.

So I'm on track as I prepare for this season's upcoming activities:
- 22K trail race in April
- metric century in June
- century in July
- 12 hour adventure race in July
- 12 hour adventure race in Sep
- 24 hour adventure race in Sep
- 25mile trail run on the Lost Coast in Oct

It's that last item though that I'll devote another entry towards, as it has captured a lot of interest by new "team mates".