4 x 1/2 mile Centennial Hill Repeats (3:27, 3:33, 3:36, 3:32) + 30 minutes on Foothills trail.
Since the Rec center was closed because of New Years (so no treadmill climb), and the trails have been a hit or miss with either an icy crunch or a sloppy mud fest, I decided to get in some hill repeats on the road....Centennial Road. For those that don't know, Centennial road on the West side of Fort Collins is filled with a handful of decent 1/2 mile or so long uphill climbs, so it is always a good place to go when wanting to get in some hill repeats.
Workout went like this:
Parked my truck at the West most parking lot at Pineridge. Then ran the 1/4 mile or so uphill climb to the "T" in the road. From the stop sign I did 4 x 1/2 mile repeats up the hill. This hill gains about 250ft of vertical over this half mile stretch of road!
The first couple of repeats I was feeling good, but the last 1/3 of the 3rd repeat really put a good sting in my legs for the 4th and final repeat. I had to dig down deep on the last one....wheww, feel the burn!
After my 4th repeat I decided to tack on an additional easy 30 minutes of running. From the stop sign I turned North on Centennial Road and ran up and over monster hill, and then dropped down the back side of the stadium along the Foothills Trail, then ran past Maxwell TH and up the short climb in the road to my truck. 30 minutes even.
The trails were pretty sloppy, but I wasn't running hard, so I didn't mind the slipping and slopping down the trail.
Tuesday - 01/02/12
OFF- SICK
and when I say sick, I mean SICK! woke up at 4am early Tuesday morning and on top of having my face hovering over the toilet, I had muscle aches, cold sweats, involuntary muscle contractions, nausea.....yeah not good.
Spent the next 20 out of 24 hours sleeping in bed. I could only muster up enough energy to drink some OJ and head down to the kitchen and consume whatever food I could handle...then back to laying my head on a pillow.
Wednesday - 01/03/12
OFF - SICK
Woke up this morning feeling better than yesterday. Of course, "better" is all relative. Gone was the nausea, vomiting, muscle aches, cold sweats...etc. However, I was super fatigued and flat out exhausted. I slept in till 11:30am and worked a half day. However, I use the word "worked" very lightly. Came home from work, ate dinner and took a solid 2.5 hour nap, before waking up, eating some food and going to bed.
Thursday - 01/04/12
OFF - SICK
I felt better today. Technically I probably could have got out for an easy run, as my energy levels were back up to normal. However, I didnt want to risk it. So I took this day off as a precaution day. I figure an extra day off would serve a better purpose then getting in an easy 30 minute trot around town. When not sure, err on the side of health and safety.
Temps were in the mid 60's, so it was hard to let a perfect running day get away from me. But oh well, there will be more warm days in the future.
Friday - 01/05/12
Horsetooth Mtn.
Feeling better, and itching to hit the trails after feeling ill and fatigued for the last 3 days, I decided to head up to Horsetooth Mtn park for a solid trail run.
Not having any energy whatsoever for the last few days I had no idea if I was gonna get 10 minutes into my run and feel a wave of fatigue hit me and just take a nap on the trail, or if I would feel nice and fresh since I haven't ran much this week. Thankfully it was the latter and I had a fresh bounce in my step.
Workout went like this:
Horsetooth Mtn liquor store > Main TH > Falls > South Ridge > Westridge > to Wathen, turned around at Wathen > back down Rock Trail > South Ridge > TH > back to truck.
I originally was going to run the summit of Horsetooth Rock, but the further up I ran, the more and more ice covered the trails. There were a couple 1/4 mile and longer sections of trail that turned from dirt to ice. Making traversing up the trail very difficult and a slippery mess. I decided to turn around at Wathen (after realizing I wasnt about to ice climb to the summit of the Rock), and thought I could continue on my way running the Horsetooth trail race course. But the trails were covered in ice and I had no traction whatsoever. As I looked up ahead the trails that got sunlight appeared to be dry, but once again I didn't feel like slipping and sliding my way to get there.
The run down the Rock trail was much drier than the run up South Ridge. I should have taken the Rock trail up.....but ohh well.
Total Time : 68 minutes
Saturday - 01/06/12
Foothills Trail.
A pretty chilly afternoon made all of the lower elevation trails in the area turn from a muddy slop, to a hardened mud trail...easily runnable.
With this being the case I decided to head over to the Maxwell TH for an easy trail run.
Workout went like this:
Maxwell TH > up the hill behind the stadium > foothills trail on West side of Centennial > looped back around down the hill > back to Maxwell TH
This was a planned easy run, as it was only my second run since Monday after being sick earlier in the week. Felt good today. Had a nice bounce in my stride. I could have easily ran further than I did, but I didn't want to tax my body and get sick again.
It felt good to get out and hit the trails on this chilly afternoon.
Total Time : 40 minutes
Sunday - 01/07/12
Blue Sky + Rim Rock loop
Starting from the Horsetooth Mtn Liquor store I ran over to the Blue Sky TH (an easy 1 minute jog).
Then proceeded to run South on Blue Sky. My legs felt good throughout this run, a sure sign that whatever bug got to me earlier in the week was gone.
The first part of this run had me running on a thawing mud pit. Thankfully it was still early in the morning and the cool temps were keeping the muddy sections fairly hard and easily runnable. When running these muddy sections you just gotta take short quick steps, and think "tap, tap, tap, tap" and traverse your way across the mud in pitter patter steps. At least that's what works best for me.
I haven't ran The Rim Rock loop, or Coyote Ridge for that matter, since we moved back to the Fort from Loveland a couple of years ago. Living in Loveland at the time, Coyote Ridge and Devils Backbone were my regular stomping grounds for about 5 years while we lived there. And so it was nice to run the trails in the south valley for a change.
Blue sky trail is always a fun run, as it is filled with up and down rollers for several miles.
Rim Rock loop is a fairly short loop that is made up of a combination of dirt trail and rugged technical rocks (hence..rim ROCK)
Total Time : 72 minutes
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Well, on the running front the week started off strong with some solid hill repeats. Then spent the following 36 hours feeling ill and sleeping 20 out 24 hours a day. Then recovered, and had a few nice runs over the weekend.
I really wanted to get in a long 20+ miler over the weekend. And although I felt well enough to do so, I didn't want to take a chance taxing my body to that extent after getting the flu. If I was 99% healthy I didn't want the remaining 1% to come back and bite me and send me back to the medicine cabinet. And so I took the weekend easy. I am glad I felt strong and had a good pep in my step on my runs because I thought I would be fairly fatigued and have some sort of flu-like hangover on my first few runs feeling healthy again. But it was the opposite, I felt really good.
A great way to end this week.
Looking forward to a healthy running start of next week.
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