Week 10, 2014: It ain't worth it, if it doesn't hurt

Second week of my comeback and again everything according to the plan. It wasn't easy though.

It started with what slowly becomes my signature training: a ritual run up the Black Mountain. 8 kilometers with almost 1000m of elevation gain is not a route to be taken lightly. My best time on this segment is 54:30. I did not even dream of coming anywhere close to that result; slowly recovering form I was expecting to be around 10 minutes slower than that, hopefully not clocking my slowest time ever. But frankly all I wanted was to survive this monster of a run.

While out there I was quite surprised to see that I was actually making a very decent effort. It helped a lot that I did not remember exactly what my best time was and that I mistakenly though that I have a shot to set my personal best on this route. That certainly gave me wings and I was giving it all I had. I ended up finishing 3 minutes slower than my best, which, given my shape (or lack thereof), is far better than I could hope for.

I followed up with an easy run on Wednesday and had to postpone another easy run from Thursday to Friday as I was pretty sore.

Then the long run on Saturday. I'm trying to fill in the gaps on my running map and this time my pick was the Sanborn County Park. I had a 20km long route planned with a half loop followed by exploring two short outstretching legs and finishing on the second half of the loop. The weather was nice but my legs were heavy. Especially on all the uphill parts I was struggling quite a bit.

Then at some point when I though I was reaching the end of the half-loop I realized that... I ended up pretty much back where I started. Duh, I got lost. Not for the first and certainly not for the last time either but this time I had no excuse: I had a map in my hand, the route was marked... I guess it's just my natural talent :D.

I did laugh when I realized my mistake but I have to admit it also knocked the wind out of me. I really lost motivation and came very close to calling it a day. Eventually I managed to dig deep and do another small loop ending up with a decent 17K total.

Sunday was a relaxing day. With a couple of friends we went to Santa Cruz and spent the morning on the beach. The weather took us by surprise as it was really warm and I even ended up getting slightly sunburned. After the beach we went for a ride on the Giant Dipper and then headed back home. I was so tired after the beach that it took all my strong will not to collapse on the bed and instead change into shorts and head out for the last training of the week.

So lots of struggling this week but as one dude famously said:

If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.

Amen to that.

So a decent 75km this week. I'd love to up it to 80-85km next week, but Wednesday till Sunday I'll be away skiing at Lake Tahoe, so it's not realistic. I'll try my best but even reaching 70k will be great, given that doing any running there is going to be tricky... And the 50k at Canyon Meadow is awaiting me a week after that...

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