What if 100s...

Hey, keep going...

Week Summary (12/1/2012)

Tuesday

Longview Hillwork: 8.5 mi (+1,574 ft); 11:17 pace

Wednesday
Carson River Flats: 4.8 mi (+22 ft); 10:31 pace

Thursday
Silver Saddle Lasso (Tempo): 10.3 mi (+135 ft); 9:22 pace
Friday
Empire OB: 4.0 mi (+27 ft); 9:59 pace
Saturday
McClellan-Scripps Loop: 14.5 mi (+2,987 ft); 11:49 pace
Sunday

Eagle Treadmill: 8.3 mi (+2 ft); 11:07 pace

Weekly Totals: 50.3 mi (+4,747 ft); 9:04:45 on trail
November Totals: 157.5 mi (+174,081 ft); 28:22:59 on trail

I'm sure runners of all levels get imaginative in order to maintain daily motivation. With my current focus on the Buffalo 100, and the distraction of the coming Western States lottery (next Saturday), each of my runs, short or long, typically has one or two vivid visualizations of being on "the course" of some event. Would I feel this good? Can I keep this kind of downhill going? Of course, the event is one of the 100s I have either run or paced in. Because I usually feel damn good after only an hour or so of training, I carry the delusion to the 20th hour of a 100. Hell yeah! Well, we'll see.

A nice surprise toward Mt. Rose

The strangest thing to come out of my daily delusions is a growing desire to work toward and meet the challenge of returning to Pine to Palm. There are any number of challenges to tackle before next September, but I'll continue to let that fester and see what it brings.

Squalls into Carson Valley

This week was a Key Week, relatively high effort in the cycle of weeks. I'm still relatively early in the monthly build-up, but it was still one of my career training weeks. I kicked off the week with some hillwork around C-Hill west of Carson City. A five-minute intervals with five-minute rest pace in between, I repeated this six times. The overall pace (11:17) seems high, but that accounts for the warm-up jog, rests while still climbing, and a gradual cool down.

With the week's rain squalls and storms, the Carson River Trail is attractive because of its uniform, well-drained tread. However, by Friday the little hop across a ditch would require a pretty stout boat, so I might be cut-off that trail for a while. But after any easy Base run on Wednesday, I returned Thursday afternoon for a wonderful tempo out to Silver Saddle Ranch, a total of about a little over 10 miles. Now that's a well-spent lunch. Returned to run along the trail on Friday watching the river rise and ditches approach over-flowing.

The storms driven by the "atmospheric river" or "pineapple express" arrived Friday and I wasn't sure about the setting of Saturday's Long run. Watching the scudding gray clouds over Virginia City, I thought the hybrid (half-paved/half-graveled) Goni Road should be relatively dry and I was in for a good climb.

Toward the McClellan Peak Towers

I enjoy the unsettled weather of growing storms when wind gusts blow clouds into mountains, snow squalls churn over Tahoe, and it simply looks like it could cut loose at any moment. And then as soon as I reach for my jacket, the sun breaks through tossing rainbows against the Sierra. That was basically my climb to the radio towers of McClellan Peak. It's a good route because the prevailing winds are following for most of the climb, giving a little push to the top. I hit yesterday's snowline just below the summit and slogged through the slush before turning around on the summit. Feeling good I extended the descent into Scripps Canyon coming into Washoe Valley just above the ranch were I saw Strider fueling up for his day of leading his pasture mates in their play (or whatever it is that those horses do).

Strider and Friends

I'll keep the McClellan-Scripps route in the stormy day quiver. It's a quality route under any circumstances.

Crazy amounts of rain and local flooding on Sunday led me indoors for the monotonous 90 minutes on the treadmill; hope I don't have to do too much of that over the winter. Almost too boring for any visualization or imagination.

Dennis and Mary raced in the Winter Sun 10K in Moab this weekend. Seems some stiff competition kept mom off the AG podium.