It has been a while now since I have had the time and more importantly, the motivation to update this blog. I have been exceptionally fickle in this respect over the last year. The weekly logs were getting redundant, and my daily routine of get-up, run, got to work, try and run again and then go to bed seemed to lose its allure. Dabble in this the fact I was away from computer access for the entire month of August and am currently enjoying my first week of law school, things have been a little chaotic to say the least. In saying this, I can briefly say that my summer months of running were some of the more enjoyable I have experienced.
In terms of the numbers, I was continuing to experiment and push my body, attempting to find that ideal niche between overtraining and adaptation. In June I ran a total of 379miles with a significant amount of those weeks accumulating over 11000 feet of vertical. July was similar in this respect as I ran 325 miles with decent vertical gain on a weekly basis. My mini-goal within these months was to implement a strict level of consistency. Naturally, I took this to the extreme and had no days off for these 2 months and dating back to May, took but 1 day off in a nearly 90day stretch of running. This was more an experiment then anything else. I was not racing during this time so the need for staying refreshed was secondary. Instead, I wanted to test my body and its ability to adapt to these strains. There were definitely hard days; many runs where it took me a few miles to even realize that I was running. But to a large extent it simply became routine. The thought of not running on a daily basis was perverse. In this sense, not only was my body adapting but critically, the mental shift had occurred as well. And in my experience, this seems to be at least half the equation.
August was a month of exploration and the fulfillment of a personal bucket-list item. My girlfriend and I drove down to Colorado to spend the month, running, hiking, and simply enjoying a change of environment and trying to get up as many high peaks as possible. The trip was absolutely the highlight of my summer. I was able to run trails that I had only read about and explore the training environments of many of the best ultra-runners. This was epitomized with a week in Boulder, CO and a subsequent 100mile week in Manitou Springs including a summit of Pikes and a few trips to Barr Camp. I will let a brief series of photos tell the rest of the story....
At this point I am unsure of what the Fall will withhold as it relates to my running. I have tried to take it easy so far, mostly because I felt that my body needed a bit of a break. But the daily routine of running still persists as I have tried to get on some of the classic local routes here in Vancouver before the days shorten and the rain ensues. Perhaps even a little racing will find its way back on my radar pretty soon...
