Thursday, March 8, 2012

Journey to Leadville - Byrne - March 8, 2012

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


Double rainbow - awesome! Isn't nature beautiful? Rick and I had plans to run outside for an hour today - we were expecting the weather to be as wonderful as yesterday (in the 60's). The thought of running outside in shorts and a long sleeve or short sleeve t-shirt was very appealing given some of the cold weather we had been running in over the last couple of months. However, when I woke up, it seemed colder and more windy than I had predicted so I quickly texted Rick to see if he wanted to forego the outside for the inside treadmill - he chose the treadmill in a New York minute.

By the time we made it to the Y and warmed up, we were a little more pressed for time so we opted for a 45 minute run instead of a 60 minute run. The big question for the day was 'what level do we aim for?' Since I had been able to get 30 minutes in at level 8.5 last week and actually felt like I had a little more in me, I took a chance and aimed for 8.5 for 45 minutes. I wanted to get at least 30 minutes in at this level to match what I did last week but wasn't sure how I would do with 45 minutes. Rick said he felt the same way. Nonetheless we decided to give it a go - and wouldn't you know it?.... MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!! Actually at minute 44 we cranked up the speed to Level 9 and finished really strong. When it was all over I was really feeling like I could have kept going longer.

I would be lying to you if I told you I thought this was going to be easy - I didn't. Actually I was questioning whether I could do it and was a little fearful of failing - not sure why I was afraid of that. If I fail at a workout, so what? At least I know where I'm at and what I need to work on.  I guess I didn't put too much thought into it, we made a quick decision to try it, turned the treadmill on, and off we went!

So today's lesson might be another example of Ken Chlouber's quote that I love so much "You are better than you think you are and you can do more than you think you can". Maybe I just need to have a little more faith in myself, not worry about failure, and push myself as much as I can. The level 10 for 60 minutes that my friend Christian Robbins has done still seems so much like a pipe dream for me but I do feel like I'm getting closer. I'm quite confident that I could have finished 60 minutes at Level 8.5 today if I had taken the time to stay on the treadmill. I'm also confident that I could maintain Level 10 for 20 minutes - it makes me wonder if I could do 25 minutes? 30 minutes? I guess there is only one way to find out and I expect to make that attempt in the future :o)

We finished the day on the bench press with 3 sets of 8 at 180 lbs - Rick's third set was 10 reps instead of 8 - he's extremely strong on the bench press - I don't ever expect to surpass him but if I can stay somewhat close, I'll be very happy with the results.

This weekend my family and I are headed to Chicago for a mini vacation and my wife's continuing education conference for her Physical Therapy license - next week I will be in the state of Washington for a work assignment. I expect to do some running and blogging but if you don't see as frequent of blogs over the next week, that is the reason why.

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

1 comment:

Doug said...

Good to talk to you this morning, thanks for the call. Have a good trip to Chicago with the family and good trip to WA. Where in WA will you be? My brother is just north of Seattle.