Month in Review (April)

4/2010: 163.3 miles
4/2011: 135.0 miles
4/2012: 164.9 miles
4/2013: 175.0 miles

While April got off to a bit of a shaky start at the Grand Canyon, all-in-all I think it was a very solid, consistent month of training for me. Since we arrived back from our family vacation, I've been able to exercise every day-- running when possible, but also hitting the bike trainer when the weather is nasty or my time is short. And this April's weather has been, well... certainly less conducive to running than last year. (But also less conducive to forest fires, so that's good.) Looking at my training log from '12 I can see that I was already running on snow-free trails around town in early April! This year... well, I'm hoping that the lower elevation local trails might melt out by the last week of May? It will probably be even longer before I can run above the Fish Hatchery or up to Native Lake. This morning I brushed 3 inches of fresh snow off of my car while wearing flip-flops. Gotta love Leadville.

A shot of snowy Mt. Princeton, taken on one of my training runs on the CPTR course.

Interestingly, I do think the fact that the snow kept me off the local trails may have actually benefited my training. It pushed me onto (dirt and paved) roads, where I typical run about 1:30 min/mile faster. Though 7th St, 5th St, Cal Gulch, and the Boulevard are getting a little old, I'm also regularly running <8:00 min/miles on the downhills. That's pretty fast for me. Just last week I recorded my second fastest time ever for the Boulevard. My PR was set in early August of 2011, after an entire summer of training. So, that probably says something.

Of course, my #1 training goal this year is simply to stay injury free. So far, so good. That fact alone has enabled me to log one more long run in April than I did last year. Other than that, my weekly mileage has been fairly conservative, but more consistent this year than last. I feel 45 miles/week is about right for me for this time of year. I generally try to increase it by 5 miles/week/month up until August.

April 2012 Training. Last year, the first two weeks of April I was recovering from ITBS.

April 2013 Training. This year, I didn't have much time to run while on vacation. I did manage a 9-hour poopathon, though...

The Collegiate Peaks 25 is always on my mind while I'm training in April. It's certainly served as a reliable benchmark of my early season fitness over the years. As I'm writing this, the race is behind me, so it would facetious of me to pretend to make any uninformed predictions about my performance. However, I will say that I entered the race feeling confident that I had a good chance at setting another PR for the course. I had more long runs under my belt. I have a better nutrition strategy now. And I've stayed injury-free. (Oh, and the race is one week later this year, allowing for that much more training.)

The result? For now, let's just say that much ass was kicked. The course's ass or my ass? Stay tuned...