Monday - Rest Day
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| Birthday Breakfast for my Hubby |
Tuesday - 8km Steady
7km @ 165m elevation gain
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| The Birthday Boy Brian |
Wednesday - 6x Hills
6.9km @ 320m elevation gain
Hitting the hills with Jon and Phil is equal to dropping your ass from a 10 storey building repetitively. So I guess I owe them thanks for pushing me to do "one more" repeat until my legs and lungs were deflated!
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| At the entrance to the park, seemed appropriate! |
Thursday - 5km Slow
5.1km @ 41m elevation gain, 4 cans of beer
KH3 Beer Mile
The Kamloops Hash House Harriers were at it again, this time introducing a Beer Mile to the crew. I guess that fits into the training plan, too bad it had to pour rain down on us the whole time.
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| The rain didn't seem to dampen anyone's spirits. |
Friday - Rest Day
Saturday - 35km LSD
36km @ 1068m elevation gain
Oh Saturday, glorious Saturday. Up at 5am for some breakfast and to prep my gear for today's 35km run. Am I anxious? Oh hell yes. I have never run this far in a single effort and I don't feel great about it from the start. I'm going into this on 5 hours sleep and a double mouse hunt overnight.
Jon and Misty met me in the parking lot exuding motivation for what was to come, well Jon was peppy, poor Misty has been suffering a chest cold for the past week and sounded like a feminine Mr. Burns. Jon might end up carrying 2 bodies out of the park.
The distance marched by under our feet pretty easily for the first 12.5km as we randomly chose trails to follow with no pre-set route in mind. The next 10km were a bit more of a push as each of us started to need calories, hydration or walk breaks. By 25km we were back at the parking lot for an "Aid Station", refilling water bottles and I snacked on some pretzels that were stashed in the car. The weather had also begun to change by this point and I seized the opportunity to swap jackets, light wind resistance for light-weight rain resistance. This proved to be a good decision about a half-hour later as the rain clouds drifted over and the temperature of the winds seemed to get crisper before we reached our goal for the day, I found I was quite comfortable in TNF Fuseform Cesium Anorak jacket.
I accomplished the goal set out for me with Mango Orange Nuun/ Nuun Plus in my bottles and Picky Bars to nom-nom on during the hill climbs. Happily my stomach survived the entire run and come the end I didn't seem to have same dehydration symptoms of the previous week's long run.
Sunday - Rest Day (well maybe not)
15km @ 228m elevation gain
Blackwell Dairy 15km Race, Barnhartvale, BC IRA Road Race #6
Okay, so I didn't exactly race it this year. How could I with the lead legs I was ambling around on? No this year I would call it a recovery run. A 15km scenic recovery run with a great big happy running community also out there racing today.
I walked a couple of the hills.
I stopped to take pictures of my Dad at the turn-around point.
And a picture of a barn reflecting on the water.
I definitely was not racing. But I did finish well and ahead of my expectations, adding only 5 minutes to my time from last year.
Week 8 Summary:
72km/60km completed, 2036m elevation gain
Once again I am over on mileage but I feel I did a better job of moderating the intensity of those extra kilometres. I knew full well that I could never race the Blackwell Run the day after my long run but I gave me a great sense for how far my tired legs would continue to carry me if I didn't ask for any stupid miracles from them.
With only a handful of weeks to go before Rundle's I have purchased my bear spray, worn my race vest almost every run to get used to having it on and loaded, and beat down some of my previous misconceptions of my own physical limits.
