Month in Review (June)

6/2010: 215.4 miles
6/2011: 210.2 miles (37,998 ft vertical)
6/2012: 221.7 miles (45,458 ft vertical)
6/2013: 247.8 miles (53,140 ft vertical)

I'm happy to say that this June was probably my best month of training ever. I set a personal record for both most miles run and most vertical climbed in a month (beating May of '10 and July of '11, respectively). With the exception of one run in Buena Vista, all my runs were at 10,000 ft. Quality. My running/biking streak, which stretches back to April 8th, is still going strong. During June, I set nine separate PRs on various routes I commonly run around town: including the Turquoise Lake Half Marathon, the Leadville Marathon, and shaving ~10 minutes off of my PR to the top of Mt. Elbert (with hurricane force winds knocking me over above treeline). My weight is hovering around 170 lbs these days (and has hopefully stabilized-- I'm almost down to my Appalachian Trail weight from '02). No significant injuries to speak of. Everything is going very well and I feel amazing. When I set my modest training goals for this year back in January (which could be basically summarized as "Just don't get injured!"), I never would've guessed my training would go this well. I'm still about a month out from my taper for the 100, but I can't imagine being in a better place.

My training from June of last year. Green = long run. Yellow = bike. Blue = sea level.

Compared to June of this year. Consistency ftw.

I feel like with just a bit more work I can squeeze a little more fitness out of this body in July. I think the key is to add just a few more miles to my long runs and maybe 1,000 ft more vertical. Towards that end I just got finished running 11.5 miles with 3,000 ft of vertical yesterday and 24.5 miles and 7,400 ft of vertical today. I am beat. But in a good way. I've got seven days to recover before the Silver Rush 50 next Sunday. I'm thinking: 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2. Something like that. Lots of protein, plenty of ice, and as much sleep as I can handle.

I have never exactly been happy with my performance at the Silver Rush 50. Every year I say to myself, "10 hours is totally doable. I know I can run this race in 10 hours!" Not so much. I somehow manage to set a PR each year, but I'm still a long ways away from the 10 hour mark. I honestly think that dehydration has been my main problem over the years, leading to nausea, leading to not taking in enough calories, leading to a massive drop in speed in the last 13 miles of the race. Iowa Gulch is always depressingly brutal. It takes its toll. 20 people must have passed me in the last 5 miles of the race last year. It was not pretty.

This year I vow to stay on top of my hydration, to keep as cool as possible, to drink copious amount of calories, and to finally (finally!) finish strong.

And if I miraculously manage to finish under 10 hours... Well, I may allow myself to write up some very tentative splits for a 24:59 finish at the 100 this year!

Let's do this!