Lots of Running

It seems like there has been quite a bit of running on my schedule recently. It started last Saturday with a 12+ mile run up Deer Creek Canyon. This was not the original plan. The Saturday workout should have been a bike City View/run 8 mile brick. However, a blizzard on Thursday resulted in a last minute change of plans.

Because of the last minute nature of the workout, I didn't have time to think too much about what I had agreed to do. It turned out to be a great run. Steve paired me with Sarah and started us up the canyon ahead of the rest of the group. We ran at a constant pace up High Grade towards the school. I kept expecting to see Troy, Sonja's awesome husband who provided support for our run, pass us in the truck, which would indicate that Steve's group was not too far behind us. It didn't happen. We actually had to wait for Troy for about 5 or so minutes at the school to replenish our water.

After getting more water from Troy, we then continued on from the school toward City View. Again, I was expecting Troy to pass us before we reached City View but it didn't happen. It turns out that Steve had given us too much of a head start. Since Troy was not there, Sarah and I decided to keep on running. We continued running along the road until we could see Denver from City View. We then turned around and headed back to the meeting point to see if Troy was there. He still wasn't there, so for some unexplained reason we decided to run back from where we had just come to see Denver again.

After seeing Denver again, we again headed back to the meeting point. Just as we started back, we saw Troy driving towards us. We gladly accepted a ride from Troy back to the meeting point, where we waited for Steve and the others to arrive. We ended up running 12.75 miles. When I realized that we were just short of 13.1 miles, I was kind of disappointed since it would have been cool to have run a half-marathon uphill. However, I was happy about the run because I felt that I could have gone farther. Plus, it was the second farthest distance that I have ever run with most of the run being uphill.

On Tuesday, I had an 8 mile, no speed run on the schedule. After the long run on Saturday, it actually seemed easy. I felt especially strong the last 5 miles.

Today was a 10+ mile run around Chatfield. This was the same run that I had done earlier in March. The run seemed much easier today. In early March, I was barely hanging on for the last two miles. Today, I could have kept on going at the end of the run even though the time it took me to do the run was almost 14 minutes faster than the same run in March.

What surprises me is how good the last three runs have felt even though this is by far the most running that I have ever done in one week. I am kind of interested in how my body will respond to the scheduled 12 mile, no speed run scheduled for this Saturday.