AC For Me

12.19.11 to 12.25.11

Well I did it, after all the lotteries, I knew I needed to sign up for the Angeles Crest 100 so I bite the bullet and did it. Now I hear it is sold out so it was good that I did. The race is not until July but already my focus is on it. I believe I have 33 hours to finish (tad under 20 minute miles) and I bet I will need all that time. The more i read the harder the race gets and someone my size will have trouble making the cutoffs. The uphills will be tough but I am more worried about the downhills where I always lose time.

This week, I have been going back and forth on whether I should join a new boot camp in town. They are indoors for the next 6 weeks but the gym is 2 miles away and I can only attend the morning sessions since I coach in the evenings. Now 6 am is doable but I like and need my sleep. To make the 6am I will have to get up around 515 am so I can walk to the camp. sure I could drive but I hate to drive. It just goes against my code to drive somewhere to workout.

Now I do drive twice a week to the hills to train but this is a necessary evil because I have to do hills if I hope to do the ultras I have planned. But to drive to a boot camp is just lame. Though I do get fitter doing a boot camp, I do not know if it makes me a netter ultra runner. Weight is my enemy and I bulk up quickly so doing a boot camp may be a bad idea. I need to get leaner not stronger. Hiking and running will make me leaner and stronger so I think I will stick with the girl that brought me to the dance.

That girl is mileage. Almost all year I have kept the mileage high, stayed healthy and my times have improved. I think I have put in another 5000 mile year almost and ofter log 100 miles a week sticking to a schedule.So like Anton and his Green Mountain run, I think I will stick with the old lady.

My stats for the past week:

12/19/11	BCDOWN	1645	HIKE	10.2
12/20/11	12A	1835	ODD	10.7
12/21/11	BAGELDOWN	1542	HIKE	11.5
12/22/11	12B	1514
12/24/11	BLUFFDUMP20	1335	ODD	20.1
12/25/11	12		2531	95
12/25/11	CASABAGEL	1553	HIKE	9.3

Monday's BC hike was the same as it has been for a few weeks now. I think in the future, I am going to through in a 30 step run every 5 minutes on my walk days. One to save my feet and two to throw a little speed work into every day. My walk days are over 2.5 hours so this means I do 30 sprints per hike or more. It is interesting to see that my bagel hikes are a minute per mile faster than my BC hikes. Which makes sense since the Bagel hike is pancake flat.

Now Tuesday and Thursday are my running days and I have decided to run them on two different courses each week. Tuesday is the long day and Thursday is the shorter faster day.I follow the elite training plan designed by Jack Daniels. Now he suggests doing them three or four days apart but my weekends are booked with coaching so I have to do them when I can.

I have my goal race as the LA marathon in March so I am on week 12 of his schedule. He suggest 20 miles easy so I do 200 minutes of hiking on my ultra course and then the short run I do on Killa Hilla.where I did 20 minutes easy, 100 minutes hard and 20 minutes easy. Easy is where I walk and hard is where I do my odd wog. I run up to four minutes and then walk to the next odd minute or so. On the long hike I did 10.7 miles at 18:35 pace. On the short day I did 9.3 miles at 15:14 pace.

On Saturday, I did a 20 miler with Haney at 13:35 pace using a 1/4 pattern and felt pretty good. We walked the first mile and finished the run with a trip up the switchbacks. For the week I got in 95 miles despite only doing 4 miles on Friday and only one workout on both Saturday and Sunday.

So with only a few hours left before the boot camp deal expires, I think I will pass on it. The Kentans do not so boot camps and from what i can tell most of the elite ultra runners do not either. They log lots of miles and do as many hills as they can and I am going to stick to that plan I think.