[mountainmilers] July Progress Report
- From: Terri Rashid <terri@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "mountainmilers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <mountainmilers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 20:06:35 +0000
July was another month of mostly trail run/hikes in Montana. I logged my
highest month mileage ever, by a LONG margin: 325.6 miles!! (My previous
highest was last month's 260.5 miles. :)) I also hit new highs for my longest
log week (Mon through Sunday) of 86.6 miles, and my highest 7-day total (in
this case, Thu-Weds) of 109.1 miles with over 22K feet of ascent. That 7-day
stretch included Cheri's visit to Montana, where we were intentionally doing
some really long trail runs and generally having a 4-day "training camp" type
visit. (Thanks Cheri!! :))
My last big trail run/hike in Montana was a Big Sky style "hill repeat"
workout. The trail up the "hill" (Cinnamon Mountain) is a bit over 4 miles
with 2500' of ascent. I did that 3 times (to the astonishment of some of my
non-running friends) for a total of 25.4 miles, with 7500' ascent. That's a
higher rate of ascent than I will need to do at The Bear, so I am happy with
that.
After logging 4 weeks with mileage totals of 86.6, 84.7, 79.7 and 83.6, I used
my last half week in MT and first weekend in August to have a significant
cutback week - by plan. (I also intentionally broke my running streak again in
August since I didn't run on the day that I drove 16 hours to get back to AZ.
:))
I made my first and last goals for July - namely I hit LOTS of trail, I had fun
and I took lots of pictures. The second goal was to make progress on the PF
and Achilles issues while keeping mileage high. I'll count this as a partial
success because while I didn't really get those issues to be much better, I
increased mileage by a huge amount and I didn't let them get any worse. :) I
have taken to wearing a night brace on my right foot (and sometimes on my left
as well) to help keep the calf from shortening up while I sleep and then doing
more damage to the PF with my first morning steps. Even with stretching and
massage, I found that with the mileage load I was carrying it was just too easy
for the calf to shorten up at night. Thus the night brace.
Goals for August:
1. Decrease overall mileage and increase the speed of many of the miles.
Now that I am back in Prescott and on the boys' school schedule, I don't have
the same kinds of long climbs available that I did in Montana. (There are
great climbs in Flagstaff but I won't often have time to drive there, do a long
run, and get back in time to get the boys from school.) So instead I am going
to try to pick up the pace on my trail runs here to keep them at a good effort.
I am also going to add in some tempo workouts (either on roads or easy trail,
or on the treadmill) so I can get a bit of leg speed endurance. I did LOTS of
hiking on my run/hikes in Montana, now I need to rebuild my ability to do more
sustained running.
2. Get back to doing my physical therapy p/rehab exercises. These mostly
got sacrificed in Montana because there were so many other things we were doing
there - trails, outings with friends, running boys to activities, lots of
eating out, etc. Now I want to get back to those like I was doing in May.
3. Do some events and training runs with my Mountain Miler friends. I
think both of those will help increase the quality of my training as I decrease
the quantity (a little) of the miles.
4. Do some core specific training in addition to my PT exercises. I am
pretty bad about doing things like that, but it is definitely a goal. I think
this goal is the most likely one that I will fail on. :}
Hope you all had a great July and are excited about your August running!
Best wishes,
.Terri
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