R2R2R Training: Weeks 6 & 7

Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a great weekend! For my part, this weekend was stupidly busy. It’s all fun, but of course it makes for pure pandemonium in the meantime.

Plus, I had to carve out a couple hours to watch the Broncos games yesterday! In all seriousness, I have no idea what happened but I actually *wanted* to watch that game. I don’t love football and never sit down to watch a game, but I have a soft spot for Denver’s team; guess that comes with the territory of growing up in this cow town. {Side note: back in my dancing days, I danced at Elway’s nationally televised retirement ceremony in 1999. Go find an old VHS and you’ll probably see me in front of the stage with a huge smile on my 17-year-old face. I remember two things from that event: how nice Elway was and how HUGE Shannon Sharpe was!} Needless to say, I officially chewed off all of my nails; what a game!

I never got around to a weekly training recap last week, but never fear. I have a biweekly recap for you! Things have been moving along, although I still haven’t been able to log a day of lengthy miles. I’ve tackled difficult miles and tired miles, but I haven’t been able to lock down a handful of hours dedicated to trail time. Again, a lot of this stems back to the madness going on in our life, so it can’t really be helped at this point. It’s on the agenda for today, so fingers crossed that I finally get into the double digits!

{Not to mention, we’re leaving in seven days for the mystery road trip!}

January 11-January 17, 2016

Monday: I went to CrossFit in the morning for a workout called ‘Jackie.’ It entails the following:

For time:

1000 meter row

50 thrusters @ 45#

30 pull-ups

Time: 9:30

I really wanted a new PR on this workout so I pushed myself as hard as I could. Jackie is totally in my wheelhouse in that it’s high reps of light weight combined with bodyweight movements {I struggle with one rep maxes and heavy barbell movements.} In the end, it was totally worth it as I finished in 9:30; my previous time was 11:11!

After I got home, I immediately grabbed the leash and took Tals on a 3 mile slow run. My legs were already wobbly from the thrusters, but I’m glad we headed out since I think it forced a bit of the lactic acid through my legs. Sadly, not enough though because…..

Tuesday: Rest day. This was an unintentional rest day but Monday’s Jackie left my quads thrashed. They were so sore that the thought of any movement almost made me cry. I did learn a lesson though: I need to occasionally reel it in at CrossFit for the sake of my running. Monday was awesome but it caused me to miss Tuesday’s run. I always struggle with this when I start running more because it’s not in my nature to “take it easy.” That said, the next few months are not when I expect to see gains at CrossFit, and I need to accept that.

Wednesday: 6 miles of running

Thursday: Hill repeats. There is a wicked fire road at North Table Mountain, a nearby local spot for trail running. The hill is about a half mile long with a gain of 412 feet. I did five repeats for a total gain of 2,100 feet and five miles.

Photos by Will Rochfort

Friday: Headed back to CrossFit. The workout was supposed to be 30 burpee muscle-ups for time, but I can’t do a muscle-up. So, I modified it to 30 burpees+30 chest-to-bar pull-ups+30 ring dips. Time: 7:01

Saturday: Powder day at Copper! Our mountains have been getting hammered with snow so Will and I headed up to Copper Mountain to enjoy the fresh stuff. We immediately hopped on the t-bar which pulls you up to the back bowls. Thankfully, we beat most everyone up there so we had three hours of fresh tracks in knee-to-hip deep snow. It was amazing and fun and exhilarating…and exhausting! Powder skiing is tiring on fresh legs but my legs weren’t fresh; they were toast!

Sunday: 8 mile run with a mere 300 feet of gain.

January 18-24, 2016

Monday: 6.5 mile trail run with 450 feet of gain. This was supposed to be another long run but I was toast. It was my sixth workout in a row and my legs just didn’t want to go. It was a sloooooooow 6.5 miles with labored breathing the entire time, even at an absurdly slow pace. For me, that’s a sure sign that my body needs a break, so I simply called it and headed back to the car.

Tuesday: Rest day.

Wednesday: Rest day. This was another unintentional rest day but we had a lot of workers in our house all day: a carpenter, a painter, and a project manager to be precise! {The goal: finish all of the DIY projects I’ve started and discarded!} I had scheduled my week around them arriving on Thursday, but they called late Tuesday and requested to change it. Of course, we obliged but it meant I spent all day micromanaging the happenings in our house rather than doing, well, anything.

Thursday: Eager to counteract the back-to-back rest days, I hit Thursday with a vengeance! First, I headed to CrossFit for back squats. We were supposed to be attempting new one rep max lifts, but I learned my lesson from Jackie the previous week. Instead of going after a new PR, I did 5 x 5 sets (five sets of five reps) in ascending weight: 100#, 105#, 115#, #125, and 130#.

Then, I swapped out my lifting shoes for my trail runners and drove back to North Table Mountain for some hill repeats. I did six hills {adding one on from the previous week} for a total of 6.1 miles and 2,500 feet of gain.

And then I went home and ate seven dinners.

Friday: Back to CrossFit. The workout was:

For time:

400 meter run

50 {modified} handstand pushups

40 hanging knee raises

30 push presses @ 65#

30 alternating lunges with the barbell in the front rack position @ 65#

Time: 11:34

My legs were tired from Thursday’s beating, so I took it easier than usual during this workout. Typically, I would do this workout at 75# or maybe 80#, but I cut it down to 65# to make it more manageable.

Saturday:  Again, life cut into the day’s plans, but I still carved out two hours in the afternoon for a run. I decided to take Tals for the first few miles, return her home, and then finish the rest. We were about three-ish miles from our house when she limped out of the bushes, holding her back paw up for me to fix. I dug around and found the world’s largest goat head embedded in her paw. I dug that out, but found two more in her front paws. I thought everything was fine but decided to err on the side of caution so we turned around. We made it another mile before she simply quit running. She plopped her butt down on the sidewalk, looked at me, and held up her paw. Message = received.

We slowed to a walk and began the slow process of ambling home. Every hundred yards, she would stop and kick her back leg out, as if it was bothering her. I kept searching for more spikes but couldn’t find anything, so I began worrying that something internally was wrong, like a bone or tendon.

Truth be told, I got really upset. Tals is creeping up on 10-years-old now, so her body isn’t as spritely as it once was. I hated to make her walk, but I didn’t know what else to do! Will was at a Caveman Collective meeting in Boulder, so he wasn’t home. Nevertheless, I tearfully called him on the phone, asking him if we was close since I didn’t want to make Tals walk the last two miles. He wasn’t, so Tals and I kept walking. Fortunately, things got a lot better once we hit the pavement instead of the trail. I think the goat heads cut up her paws so the dirt and grass were irritating the wounds and causing her pain. Once we got on the sidewalk and there was less rubbing at the slices, she was fine. Thank goodness!

And that’s the long-winded story of how my two-hour run turned into a 4 mile run + lots of crying and walking.

Sunday: Rest day.

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