this is good. especially after wandering a geyser field at 12,500 ft, gazing out at a ridge of volcanoes that were all 18,000 footers. truly, i will head back to the atacama desert within the year to summit at least one of those. the image of those peaks, looming over me while i'm standing on a FLAT PLAIN at 12,500 ft. really impressive.
of course, first i'll have to now lose the 5 pounds of pure beer fat that i've accumulated in the past 2 weeks. stupid. stupid. stupid.
In the 10 days since my Complete Training Re-Think, I have battened down my psychic hatches, hunkered down in my mental bunker, posted barbarians at the gates of Will and Strength and have not had A SINGLE SLIP-UP into horrifying sobriety. I have been drunk for at least 6 hours every day for the past 10 days and I have not run even once. No, actually, I ran twice BUT! I was drunk for both of those runs. If I figure 6 hours/day of drunken-ness, that calculates into 42 hours/week of training...totally annihilating my old weekly training average.
I may be onto something...or something may be onto me, but I've never been one to let my guard down, so let the chips fall where they may...ideally into my mouth. and covered in salt and vinegar.
As I stare off the into the horizon from my perch atop Mount Terrific, I can see the ominous storm clouds of Brutal Monday accumulate along the coast, slipping silently into the Valley of Get-Your-Shit-Together...heading directly towards my carefully constructed bastion of all that is pale, bearded and slurry.
I just realized that I actually base my life around beer consumption and not running at all. This is no longer a running blog, but a beer drinking blog. Running is just something I do when I want to listen to music and not think about cleaning my bathroom.
This combination of stacks of back-pay, summer vacation and cheap rental cars is going to kill me. I'm too old for this shit.
Fri: AM: torres - virgen, 8 miles, 1:00:00, 1000 ft.
PM: punto de lobos, 8 miles, 1:00:00.
Sat: around Pichilemu. 11 miles, 1:30:00. 1,000 ft.
Sun: off.
TOTAL:
69 miles, 12:00:00, 8500 ft.
Went to the beach this weekend. The Friday run to Punto de Lobos actually included 3 miles at low 6:00/mile pace, the rest was shuffling and feeling crappy. Sunday, I had planned to run, but just felt a little too shitty to think it was worth it. I definitely have noticed a steady decline in the quality of my running this past week. I need to be careful about this.
Week Ending 2/12/11
Mon: AM: lo normal, 9 miles, 1:30:00, 1500 ft.
PM: torres - virgen, 8 miles, 1:30:00, 1000 ft.
Tues: AM: lo normal + virgen, 10 miles, 2:00:00, 1500 ft. (tired as hell)
PM: ran w/ Steph towards the virgen, but she needed to turn back early. 7 miles, 1:00:00
Wed: AM: torres-virgen, 8 miles, 1:25:00, 1000 ft (still very tired)
PM: torres, 7 miles, 1:15:00, 1000 ft. (tired-er)
Thurs and Friday: OFF. resting before Volcano Marathon.
Sat: Desafío de los Senderos del Volcán 42K. 26 miles, 4:40:00, 5th place overall. 5,300 ft.
Sun: off.
TOTAL:
75 miles. about 13:30:00, 11,300 ft.
Elevation profile for the race
Looking back at the first climb.
Quim finishing.
Recovery meal. Lamb on a stick.
The race went OK. I was tired and felt kinda bad going into it. I have completely smoked my hamstrings over the past couple of weeks and it really sucked having to run/hike the longer climbs in this race. Downhill, I was very fast and felt strong, but going up...oof. I did beat Chile's reigning ultra-queen, Marlene, who runs for The North Face. To be fair, this is her off-season and I think she was just chilling through the race. The guy who won traveled from the south of Argentina, nearly 24 hours in buses and whatnot, alone. He won and then got back on the bus early the next morning to go home. Awesome.
This week I learned an important lesson: Yes, I am able to make myself get out and run even when I just can barely pick up my feet to get out the door. While it is good to know (I guess) that I can push myself beyond what my body can handle, I need to now take that knowledge and try to be a little more attentive to making these runs "count" for something. Flopping around in the hills feeling absolutely useless is a fairly limited approach to training.
Also, try as I might, I seem sort of stuck at about the 13 hours/week mark. What I've noticed about my daily runs is that they are never steady, aerobic efforts anymore. When I write that a run was 9 miles with 1500 ft. of climbing, the elevation gain is not spread out over those 9 miles. It is basically one, 1.2 mile climb that is very steep and maxes me out completely. So, while the miles leading up to and back home from the climb are fairly easy, there is always about 15 minutes of very intense, high HR part to every single one of my runs, where I see spots in my vision and I'm gasping for air. So...yeah, I'm thinking I may need to mix things up a bit more and give myself some breaks in between those sorts of efforts.
I'm taking the bus 6 hours south tomorrow to Curacautín to race the Desafío Senderos de Los Volcánes (Volcano Trail Challenge). It's a marathon, but I imagine it's going to be a doozy.
You can scroll down to see the "altimetria 42K"
Taking into consideration the famous adage "It's better to be 10% under trained than 1% overtrained," I'd say I fall into that slightly vacant-eyed, shuffling 1% unfortunately. Sleep has been horrible. Heart rate is up in the mornings. Workouts have been lackluster.
Live and learn. Hindsight is 20/20. Blahblahblah. It should be fun, though. Maybe I'll stick around Temuco for a few days and play tourist as hard as possible.
...and I know that you are and I know that you do. Here's a link to that ultrarunning survey. It sure helped me get through 15 minutes of the 2 hours I spent awake last night, listening to dogs fuck in the street outside my window. I hate those stray dogs so much.
Oh well, at least that stray bottle of wine got drunk up.
