Training Log Archive: silkychrome

w Biz and Erl and packs. Mo came to for the first 4 miles. snowy and cold but so fun catching up on WEDALI love.

C • Like! 4

w Erl n T and packs. out to the barn and then introduced T to some horses and now they are BFFs. then continued out Amity Trail to gravel Skyline Pkwy and found new Duluth Traverse single track to take us up Hawks Ridge. my mind was blown...amazing ridge line snowy single track that was so fun to run. the Duluth Traverse system is going to make Duluth a real deal MTB destination, year round. wowza!

downhill skiing at Spirit "Mountain" w Erl. sooooooo fun, skiing and people watching both. so many kids out. we loved riding the lift above freestyle features and cheering the kids on.

pretty cold and a fierce wind blowing up the hill. funny sensation to be slowing down going downhill.

loop at Hartley from my parents house w Erl n T. the whole run was Insta-worthy...6" fresh sparkly snow, low angle sun setting, running on a beautiful ridge, T zooming around, every minute was beautiful. until my stomach turned funny and we had to walk last 1/2 mile to avoid disaster.

C • Are you a MN native too? 4

group jog to remote start location.

90 min trail score-o at Murphy set by Space Monkey. Erl, T and I ran w Mr. Wentzel for fun company at an EZ pace. 1-2" freshy snow on the trails which hid the icy spots for some entertainment. but a great time for chat. notice the precise finishing time. then went out for lunch w the crew including Yogaslackers Eric and Mr. GearJunkie so got some great Belize Intel.

w Erl n T in AL. 1" snow on the ground, a little ice, 25F. misty frost on the trees. Merry Christmas!

WU:
10min AD, foam roll, 2x10 SD, 3x5 WS, leg swings, 2x15 AS, 2x10 OHS/PVC, 2x20m forward/backward lunge.
THEN:
10 --> 1 box squat ladder, 18", 35-55-75-85-95-105-115-125-135-145.
THEN:
5 rounds of: 5x acc squat heavy chains, 10x off-box lunge 12", 5cal skiERG sprint, rest.
CD:
3 rounds of: 10x GHD sit-up, 5x GHD.

morning run w Erl n T to the park for a swim.

chiro appt w Dr. Nick. everything is getting much better. the exercises are working!

w Erl and T. nice morning.

2 rounds of: 40x russian twist 8#, 40x bicycles, 40x cross knees.
2 rounds of: 2x10x ES side knees, 2x10x ES side plank raise, 20x sitting leg raise, 20x modified frogger.
1 round of: 20x ranger
3 rounds of: 10x push-up, 5x ES clock, 10x ES SL squat, 10x ES glute bridge leg raise.

w Erl, Tess, Jeff, and David at CW. 4L in pack. first part of run.

w Erl, Tess, Jeff, and David at CW. 4L in pack. second part of run. saw ebuckley at the end of this one too!

WU:
10min AD, foam roll, 2x5 WS, 2x15 AS, 2x10 SD, 2x20m forward/backward lunge, 2x10 GM.
6x6 off-box lunge
THEN:
5 rounds of: 5x 1.5 FS 55#, 10x step-ups+knee raise 18" +20#, 15x DL 65#.
THEN:
4x 60sec KBS 25#

the OT loop from The Mound w Erl, who had started earlier. headwindy on the outbound Katy leg but nice once we got up on the ridge. 3L water plus some shoes and other things in my pack. i had to loosen the shoulder straps to get it more comfy. but hip belt was rubbing a bit. tweaks needed.

ran into ebuckley and Yvonne at the end! bonus trip up to the top of The Mound. pretty sunset.

1x40 Russian Twist 8#, 1x40 bicycles, 1x40 cross knees.
2x2x10 ES side knees, 2x2x10 ES side plank raise, 1x20 seated leg raise, 1x20 modified frogger.
1x20 ranger.
1x10 push-up, 1x10 ES glute bridge leg raise, 1x10 ES single leg squat, 1x5 ES clocks.

trying to hit this every other day. shorter sesh so we could go to dinner.

beautiful night run w Erl and T. Opie's owners got Tess a blinky collar from Germany so she got to be reflective too. super nice night and legs felt much better.

morning run w Erl n T. nice day. both hammies super tight, esp L. a little peg-leg action.

C • Sounds like 2

2 rounds of: 40x russian twist 8#, 40x bicycles, 40x cross knees.
2 rounds of: 2x10x ES side knees, 2x10x ES side plank raise, 20x sitting leg raise, 20x modified frogger.
1 round of: 10x ranger
3 rounds of: 10x push-up, 5x ES clock, 10x ES SL squat, 5x ES glute bridge leg raise.

w Erl, and T tried to help too. we are each going to bring a 6-pack to Belize. ha.

bring Opie to AS

chiro appt w Dr. Nick. L hammy so tight after PMETR. but loosened up ok. need to add one-legged squats to glute strengthening routine, 3x10 ES.

2 rounds of: 40x russian twist 8#, 40x bicycles, 40x cross knees.
2 rounds of: 10x ES side knees, 10x ES side plank raise, 10x sitting leg raise, 10x modified frogger. (supposed to be 4 rounds here but i only did 2)
1 round of: 10x ranger, 10x modified v-up.
3 rounds of: 10x push-up, 5x ES clock, 5x ES glute bridge leg raise.

w Erl. um, this was hard. comical.

Erl got this route from JP Bordeleau!
https://www.facebook.com/PrecisionMultisport/video...

Event: Pere Marquette Trail Run
 

after taking Oct off, i tried to put in as many EZ miles in Nov as possible for PMETR prep. that was mostly successful, but once we hit Dec i focused way more on CW8 and ignored specific prep for this race. also have been trying to fix a bum L hamstring so didn't have much intensity prep. and mentally i felt way better than 2014 but not really super competitive, especially once i saw the wave list and a bunch of strong women all starting together. i really liked the all-women wave 4 tho.

so anyway made it to the 1st aid station in about 10th female and thought to myself "oh perfect, just catch 3 girls on each downhill and you got this". so i caught 4 girls on the first downhill and then tried to push the roll-y section after that, but wasn't running too great on the flats and got passed back 3x. lost contact w those girls and then flip-flopped w "teal girl" for the 10th female position for the rest of the race.

Jeff caught me about mile 5 and i hadn't been feeling great up til then. but running w him really pumped me up and i got a 2nd wind. which quickly faded, but i did have those 60 sec of "i feel like a fast runner" legs which is such a cool feeling.

overall a mediocre performance resulting from mediocre prep. but that's just where i am in the swing of things and overall life is pretty great. so good to see so many friends (lots of CW8 visor sightings), Erl had a great race (he had to start in almost last wave), plus we brought Tess and Opie so a great day overall.


2015, 1:12:39, 4th AG, 10th W, 115th OA
2014, 1:07:03, 1st AG, 3rd W, 60th OA
2013, 1:07:24, 1st AG, 1st W, 19th OA <--snowstorm
2012, 1:05:50, 1st AG, 5th W, 69th OA
2011, 1:07:16, 2nd AG, 8th W, 91st OA
2010, 1:18:16, 2nd AG, 6th W, 99th OA
2009, 1:24:03, 7th AG, 53rd W, 262nd OA

C • Guess you need more snowstorms! 6

morning run w Erl n T. to the park for a swim in the creek (for Tess). nice morning, didn't feel esp great but pace was OK.

EZ spin into work. 60F in Dec, i'll take it!

to FS and then HP and home w 17# of groceries in my pack. it handles well!

C • Pack? 4

WU:
50cal AD, foam roll, 2x5 WS, 2x10 AS, 2x10 SD, 2x10 GM, leg swings, 2x20m lunge.
THEN:
4 rounds of: 6x off-box lunge, 3x assist pull-ups, 5x box jump 18", 5x GS 35#, 10x strict press 35#, 10x push press 25#, 250m row <1min.

a short n sweet sesh this morning bc i had to drop my car off for service at 0730. just some stuff to prime the system for PMETR.

EZ morning run on trails at CC Lake w Erl and Tess, off-leash! she did a great job and even found some mud to play in. beautiful morning. also ran w new pack, and a few pounds in it. LIKE.

Event: Alpine Shop Castlewood 8-Hour AR
 

my first attempt at an AR RD went exceedingly well. i was super stressed in the Thurs/Fri leading in to the race, and had minimal sleep based on the amount of small "to-do" items that i left to the last minute. but finally got everything printed/sorted/organized and got 3 hours sleep before the race! i know Erl and Andrei wanted to wring my neck a few times but they were so helpful taking care of most of the CP setting and dealing with my "everything must be perfect" attitude. (i.e. spending 30min at OfficeMax trying to find "perfect" map paper...not too glossy, not too heavy, etc etc etc).

on Fri night we gave racers maps for the middle section of the race (PADDLE 1 and BIKE 1) the night before. they also got a clue sheet w all 34 CPs listed so no surprise CPs during the race. with that info they knew the race was starting and ending on foot, and could probably guess where the final trek was, but the beginning trek was a mystery (and potentially a 10k road run).

well the mystery was revealed at the Saturday morning pre-race meeting with the announcement that busses would pick up the racers from Race HQ and transport them to the start. my biggest fear was that the busses would be late but they arrived on time! hoo-ray!

so the teams started w a short (1.5ish) mile trek around Pacific Palisades Conservation Area boat ramp, the terrain is a floodplain so we had to modify a few CPs based on water levels but overall the area was surprisingly navigable based on a couple contour lines that were on the map. found some cool ruins during course scouting that we were able to incorporate, but there are a few more out there that we are saving for a future race :).

then they returned to the start location for the paddle put-in. got all 103 canoes on the water with only 1 flip, pretty good for a race with 72 first-time racers. teams enjoyed a 7.5 paddle downstream on the Meramec with high water making the current pretty fast and covering some treacherous downed logs. they still had to pay attention though for 3 CPs and then the current was a bit tricky at the take-out.

at the take-out they had their bikes already staged so they did a quick gear check and then started an 8 mile road ride, starting w a big (for MO) 1 mile climb (in case anyone was cold from the paddle). then we took them underneath Interstate 44 in a gravel stream bed instead of thru a busy intersection. i was pretty proud of this part of the race, using CPs to direct racers around the hazard intersection instead of just saying "out of bounds". then we had access to a bit of hotel private property to avoid the final hazard intersection, so thankful the Holiday Inn was on board w bringing bikes through their land/parking lot. the route continued up another big climb and into the singletrack at Greensfelder. lots of route choices here depending on how teams well teams could read and interpret their maps. but they eventually dumped into a flagged trail, bringing them on to Wyman Center property, CP in a teepee, and then a jeep road descent that got increasingly muddy as the day warmed up.

then they got the final map for the race, a 1:20K o-map of GF w 11 CPs, any order. the woods were in amazing shape so the lack of accurately mapped trails didn't matter a whole lot as the redline was just as fast. but it did make navigators pay attention to contours instead of man-made trails.

most teams were able to clear the course, the winning time was 3:23 by Alpine Shop. which was a bit faster than I wanted (4:00 would have been ideal) but given a Dec race, we planned the course to be a bit short just in case of bad weather conditions. the paddle was also faster than planned based on high water.

but a fast course is not a bad thing for a bunch of beginner teams, they were able to feel accomplished for getting all CPs. we really wanted to give beginner teams a positive first experience so that was a big success. also beautiful weather and beer/baked potato bar post-race kept most teams hanging out and socializing until awards ceremony. we did run out of beer but not food!

so being a race director is WAY more stressful than racing but i was so fortunate to have Erl and Andrei, plus a huge (30ish) staff of volunteers who really stepped up and crushed their assignments. had 3 pro photographers on course plus a drone so the media coming from the race in the next few days is going to be incredible. definitely will repeat this race for 2016.

http://labs.strava.com/flyby/viewer/#445789679,SM2...

C • Such a great time! 7

setting CPs 8-10 w Erl. water freezing on the kayak deck! beautiful morning.

Andrei set CPs 1-6 while we were paddling and then picked us up.

WU:
10min AD, foam roll, 2x5 WS, leg swings L/R x2, 2x10 AS, 2x10 SD, 2x20m lunge, 2x10 GM.
THEN:
hip mobility, 2 rounds (lizard, twist, pigeon, duck walk).
THEN:
4 rounds of: 6x off-box lunge, 6x depth squat 45#, 12x KBS 45#, 3min step-up 18#.
CD:
4 rounds of: (30/30) push-press/OH hold, 2x10# DB.

a good sesh this morning. hips finally opening up and was able to go all the way down on the depth squats.

re-tested for alpha-gal and IgE in Nov. results back today:

IgE 2/13/15, 104 IU/mL
IgE 11/13/15, 106 IU/mL
(range is 0-250 IU/mL, so these results are normal, meaning i was not in the middle of, or recovering from, a reaction when blood was drawn)

alpha-gal 2/13/15. 44.80 kU/L
alpha-gal 11/13/15, 34.00 kU/L
(range is 0-0.35 kU/L, so these results are abnormal. meaning i have almost 100x more alpha-gal antibodies in me than the average person. unfortunately.)

i stopped eating mammalian meat in october 2014.

C • Timing 5

morning run w Erl n T. felt kinda stiff and creaky but pace was not that bad. funny how that works sometimes.