95.24 miles in last 7 days + Al’s 2012 race debut
Run 1: 11.04 miles, 2:00, Boulder Valley Ranch
Run 2: 5 miles, 0:47, foothills and Wonderland Lake trails
Total for the day: 16.04 miles, 2:47
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Today I hit a new “Mike-Randall-most miles in a 7-day period-other-than-the-TransRockies-Run” record. While that has a couple of mostly meaningless qualifiers, it is a milestone worth mentioning. Far more important than the exact number of miles logged is that I feel good. Nothing hurts, minimal soreness, mentally ready to get back at it tomorrow. Really, the biggest limiter of running even more during this stretch was the concern that I don’t want to push too hard too soon.
Tomorrow I’m out to support Alison and her buddy, Ceci, as they tackle the Diva Dash. Their custom uniforms include knee-high girlie socks and v-neck boob-hugging t-shirts, each with an ironed-on cupcake on the chest. Ceci has had strep throat and walking pneumonia in the last week; Alison last ran three consecutive miles in April 2011. Good luck, girls, this should be fun for everyone!
Quick notes:
- Huge congrats to Harry Hamilton, the runner I get to pace in next month’s Leadville 100. Harry ran a super impressive 18:55 at last weekend’s Vermont 100. His performance is a bit more incentive to train hard and often, as it will be more than embarrassing to get dropped by my runner after he has already gone 50+ miles.
- Nice running by Andres Capra, my frequent partner in suffering, for his 12th place in last weekend’s Cap’t Karl’s 60k race, where temps reached 107 degrees with 300 percent humidity. This was his second consecutive strong finish in the 4-race series – great prep for our mutual attempt to run well at Cactus Rose 100 this October.
- I am really enjoying the Talk Ultra podcast. If you like trails or hearing about insane human feats or just are a fan of British accents, give it a shot. Episodes come out every couple weeks but go 2-3 hours, perfect content and flow for long runs.
- I had a vague goal of logging 20-hour running weeks when I peak sometime in late September. I JUST looked at the relevant spreadsheet column for the last 7 days and it turns out I ran for 19 hours and 53 minutes. That’s kind of an “oops” but also interesting and pretty cool that essentially “running as much as seems reasonable” resulted in run time that was so bizarrely close to my goal.
Kind of Like Fun 