Month in Review (March)

3/2010: 109.0 miles
3/2011: 129.6 miles
3/2012: 153.3 miles
3/2013: 174.7 miles

The Midland Trail in BV. A regular spring destination to escape from Leadville's snow.

Well, this post is a bit late. Life has not left me much time for blogging lately, but I wanted to at least record a few thoughts on how my training is going so far this year. March, March... let me see if I can remember what the hell I did in March. Hmm... based on the chart above, it looks like I managed to run a fair bit-- at least for this time of year. In all seriousness, I feel like I had a very solid month of training. I had a 20+ day training streak going until I took a few days off to help prepare for my 40th birthday party. Good times. Of course, the Salida Marathon went surprisingly well. Better yet, I recovered from it quickly. Then, on a business trip to Boston, I was able to squeeze in another 20-miler on the Minuteman Trail. That put me one 20-mile run ahead of where I was at this time last year. I also managed to set PRs on a few local routes that I routinely run in winter (a 6.5 miler out-and-back up 7th St, another 6.5 miler with 1,000 ft of vertical up 5th St to Adelade and back down California Gulch, and the 16-mile Midland Trail loop down in Buena Vista). Not too shabby. These winter PRs aren't quite a stout as my more frequently run summer routes, but I'll take what I can get.

The most important difference from last March was that I survived the month without any IT band problems. It appears that my hip stretching, strengthening, and foam rolling are able to keep in it check. I do feel a little tightness from time to time-- without any apparent pattern-- but perhaps that's a good thing. It keeps me from becoming complacent and slacking off.

All in all, a good month. More to come...