[mountainmilers] February Progress Report
- From: Terri Rashid <terri@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "mountainmilers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <mountainmilers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 23:15:49 +0000
February was a decent month of running, with 126 miles for the month, although
not quite as much mileage as January (143) since I was in Montana for 11 out of
the 28 days. (In January I was in Montana for 7 out of 31 - so more days of
Arizona running.) When I am up in Montana for skiing, I have still been
running every day (at least since Jan 20th), but I do that on the treadmill and
often only run 1 mile for "streak" purposes, so my mileage for the ski
vacations is quite low. Of course I spend a lot of time skiing, so I stay very
fit and I think I even gained some leg strength on my last trip.
My big running accomplishment for February was a 25.4 mile run/hike, with 5354
feet of ascent. It wasn't fast - total time of 7:39:44 (18:06 pace), but the
whole point of that outing was to spend lots of time on my feet in preparation
for the Crown King Scramble 50K on April 5th! That was the other big thing I
did in February, I signed up for that event. :) I told Noel Kingston (a
Prescott area friend who ran CKS in 2013) last year that I intended to do CKS
in 2014, so I am training for that. CKS is 31.1 miles and 7834' of ascent
according to the .gpx track I downloaded from the race website. The website
itself in the description lists 6750' of ascent, but since I check my training
runs by .gpx files I figured I should plan for the larger number. Fortunately
they have an early start option, which means I will have 10 hours to complete
the distance, so I need to average 19:16 pace per mile or better. I know that
*sounds* easy, but I've been doing a lot of running and hiking lately and when
the terrain gets steep I have a tough time even making a 20 minute mile uphill
after I've been going for several hours. And CKS is a point-to-point run with
a net elevation gain of 4900' so you don't get to "make up" for the slower
uphill miles by going faster on the downhills. :)
Since I've moved into town I've started taking the dogs to some activities
(agility, herding) and I am also running the boys around a bit more (as
planned). With my current schedule Thursdays are a medium long trail run/hike
(12 to 14 miles) and then I try to get out with Rick on Saturdays (6 to 8
miles) and then a really long run on Sundays (17 to 25 miles). We have another
long ski trip planned for March (10 days) so I am trying to get in some good
time-on-feet outings before we take off on March 7th. After we return I will
only have two more weekends before CKS, so hopefully that will be enough!
This year has been odd though, in a positive way for running, in that we have
had very little precipitation, so there's no snow on the trails - even at the
higher elevations in Prescott. From my memory of previous winters that is
really unusual. It means that I've been able to do a LOT more trail running
with nice long climbs than I would typically have been able to do in January or
February. We're supposed to get some rain this weekend, so even though that
will make running harder, I am hoping for that as we need the water.
My goal in March is to keep focusing on the trail run/hikes. While it may make
my overall pace slower, it has been really helping me have great endurance at
that slower pace. I used to be really tired after being up and moving on my
feet for 4 hours or so - now I have no problem going 7 hours and still feeling
up for more. I've gotten a better sense of how to manage my calorie and
electrolyte consumption and I think it's all starting to come together.
My favorite thing to do is run / hike in the mountains of Montana. I love that
*way* more than road races of any kind. The training that I am doing now
should be perfect conditioning for the primary activities that I want to do
this summer, so I am really happy about that.
Best wishes to everyone for great running in March (and beyond of course :))!!
.Terri
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