Thursday, February 2, 2012

Journey to Leadville - Byrne - February 2, 2012

198 days until the 2012 Leadville Trail 100 Mile Run...


February 2 - Happy Groundhog Day! Foggy here today, I'm guessing he won't see his shadow - he doesn't even look like he can see his toes! If I look like him come time for Leadville, I probably won't finish :o)

Great day and bummer day at the same time. The bummer was that my buddy Rick is nursing a sore hip. When I spoke to him last night he told me that he had tweaked his hip playing basketball. I asked how it happened - he replied, "You know what it's like when you go up and you get caught in the rim? I landed funny on the way down and tweaked my hip." I immediately laughed while replying, "No, I don't know what it is like to get caught in the rim!" I wish I did but that isn't a problem I have had to deal with. Nonetheless he thought he'd make it in the morning. This morning I looked at my cell phone just as I was getting ready to leave and it was from Rick saying that his hip was still really sore and he felt like he needed to rest it. I completely agree - it is foolish to run on an injured body - I told him to heal up.

So I was faced with the dilemma as to what to do. In the past, I have gone back to bed. This time I decided to go - I was already ready and we're taking tomorrow off from running as a break before our 3 hour runs on Saturday and Sunday. 

Our intended workout was to work hard on the treadmill toward the seemingly unreachable treadmill workout of my friend Christian Robbins who runs 60 minutes on the treadmill at Level 10 nonstop (6 minute mile pace). Today was both an exciting and humbling experience for me. Exciting in that I did better than I ever have before with this type of workout. Humbling because I had to ease up on the last half hour a bit - which increased the admiration I have for what Christian does on a regular basis. I truly appreciate having him to look up to and to keep striving toward this amazing achievement. So here is what I did...

1/2 mile warm up jog
0 - 30 minutes Level 10 - 2:10 on  :50 off
30 - 42 minutes Level 10 - 2:00 on 1:00 off
42 - 60 minutes Level 10 - 1:50 on 1:10 off
3 sets of 8 on the benchpress - 160 lbs

I was beat at the end of this workout! Sweat all over the place - my running shoes were drenched as well as the clothes I was wearing. Small puddles of sweat gathered on pockets of the treadmill machine - would have been a great opportunity for the Bounty company to test the absorption power of its paper towels. I was doing well for 20 minutes and then found it began getting harder. I made up my mind that I wouldn't ease up until I had hit the 30 minute mark. At that point I was adamant about going the entire 60 minutes so I thought it would be wise to back off a bit - giving myself an extra 10 seconds of rest and reducing my run by 10 seconds for the remainder of the workout. I wish I would have run 1 additional set at the 2:00 on 1:00 off pace for 25% of my workout but I wasn't thinking clearly as I actually started the workout 4:00 into the time clock on the treadmill. My fatigue also encouraged me to move to the last run/rest ratio. Once I moved to the final run/rest ratio of 1:50/1:10, I really didn't want to ease up any more. During a few of my rests as I was bent over trying to catch my breath, I'd focus on my Dig Deep bracelet and tell myself this was the time to hang in there and keep going. I did and I feel proud. There certainly is room for improvement but I think I did well today.

The improvements came in a couple areas from our last run like this:
1. I ran for 60 minutes instead of 45 minutes - a 33% increase at a high speed workout - I'll take that anyday
2. For the first 30 minutes I ran 10 seconds longer and rested 10 seconds less than the previous workout - doesn't seem like much but it adds up
3. For the next 12 minutes I matched what we had done last week 2:00 on/1:00 off. No improvement per se but it followed 30 minutes of a higher instensity workout
4. For the remaining 18 minutes I had to scale back but it was still a good workout and I pressed on for an additional 15 minutes.

The treadmill said I burned up over 1100 calories in a time frame of 60 minutes - that made me feel good. I missed having Rick today and I hope his hip recovers soon but it was also good for my mental toughness to be able to go do a hard workout on my own.

Until my next post, have a great day! DIG DEEP!