Hang Nine

Friday - fried from a bunch of life stuff but got some miles in with GW before practice.  Jumped in kilo repeats but bailed after the second one, just being soft.  9.7 miles

Saturday - 9 miles.  Strides, hip mobility.  Slow and dead legged.  

Sunday - 10.1 miles on a gorgeous morning,  moving okay through Broomfield (8:02 pace average).  

62 miles on the week with a couple of workouts.  235.6 on the year / January, which I think is probably better than almost every month in 2023 and a good chunk of 2022.   So, swinging into some good habits again, just need to maintain.  

Monday - pressed for time so a quick 6 as I started the team up for practice.

Tuesday - 9 miles in the AM.  6 by 45 seconds (ish, prob a little short of that) on the hill south of 10th and then 6 x 200m on the track (42-44).  

3rd open mic of the year on Tuesday night at Rickoli.  Did "Mushy Peas," "What Have I Done," "Stick Season" and "Knowing You."

Wednesday - super easy with RT.  9 miles on the Josh Pond loop in the afternoon.

Thursday AM - with GW and the kiddos.  9.1 miles with strides and hurdle mobility.  A bit dead legged but glad to get it done in the AM.  Clicked through 200 on the year with this run.  

Sunday - met Don and Shad over at the Costco and we ran the Marshall Road segment.  They continued up to NCAR, and I flipped at the underpass on Broadway.  10.1 miles and I averaged sub 8s for the run, but it was a bit of work.

Earlier in the AM I got an easy 1.9 with TZ.  Ended up with 56 plus on the week, with two workouts in there (hills on Main and 8 x 90' earlier in the week).

Started the writing project for the Big Book of Broomfield Running.  I will let you read about that there if you are interested versus replicating it all here.  

Thursday - afternoon and with the kids, out to the 36 bike path and back.  8 miles.  Felt pretty decent actually.

Second open mic of the year, first at Rails and did this one with Steve G and Rob B.  We did "What Have I Done to Help," "Stuck in the Middle," "Overkill," and "Nada."  

I mostly worked the board in prep for a Spare Change show coming up.  It was good to learn that and the back line.  Mostly figured out that amped guitars up there don't need a mic even if folks think they do,  

Friday - did hills with the kids.  50' up, back down, 25' back down, repeat.  5 Sets.  Did these on Main, getting my butt kicked by the varsity girls.  8.8 miles

Saturday - easy with GW and RT with the Eagles.   8.7 miles.

Poking back to a bit more miles on the daily again after a bit of a lull in the snap of cold days.  About 161 on the year as of today.  Will need to start to get to some longer runs as things warm up.  

A dragger of a morning, but I knew I had to get it in because my afternoon would be tied up.  6 miles with GW.  The snow melt, wind and then overnight freeze made the conditions less than ideal.  I was definitely going through the motions this AM.  Grateful I had G-dub to make it easier.  

The cold snap finally broke, but some wind came with it.  I headed out towards Interlocken as that was mostly plowed.  On the way back I did 8x90' on a minute jog, and then I did four 30' surges on 2 minute jog.  7 miles.

A little recording from this AM.

Saturday night was catching SP and his band Slyjax at the local watering hole.

Got this video from Tuesday night when I played with SP at Rickoli.

Sunday - still very cold.  Got out on the same route as yesterday but went a bit further into Interlocken.  7.1 miles.  

Monday - snowing and still sub zero in the AM but I got out a little later and found a places where I was making new tracks.  

Forgot to mention the other day I clicked through a 100 miles for 2024. 

Thursday - temps have been getting a bit chillier.  Supposed to get stupid cold this weekend.  9.3 easy in the afternoon with the Eagles.

Friday - met GW an hour before Eagle practice and we took a crack at the weekly workout.  It was good in that we got some work done but it was a bit of a flop for me.  Goal was a 20 minute threshold but I was feeling pretty worked already by 7 minutes in (probably not adjusting appropriately for the up wind or uphill part).  Hit the can at about 11 minutes and then we finished it, and again I flopped pretty hard in the last 400 up hill and up wind.  Guess it was okay in that I did some hard breathing.  We had a long warm down as we ran with the kiddos - 10.9 on the day.  

Saturday - well the temps dropped pretty hard overnight and we got about an inch of snow.  It was -7 when I got out.    I bundled up pretty good.  3 layers on top (Tech long sleeve, cotton T and then running hooded jacket), double tights, wool socks, gloves covered by mitts, and a hat with a balaclava and then a buff over my mouth and nose (I had to cover the nose for the second half of the run as it was getting a bit crispy).  Super slow - but enjoyable on a very quiet AM.  

Six miles.  

Monday AM - with the Eagles, 7.2 miles easy.

Tuesday PM - 8 miles, with 8 x 100m uphill strides.

Wednesday AM - 8 miles, windy with GW and the Eagles on the ditch (laps to avoid much of the wind).  Slow and easy, legs a bit tired.  

 I recall why I was not updating this log on the regular.  It is because training is often just boring.  You show up, you do it, that is it.  

Tuesday night was the first open mic for me for the year.  Went to Rickoli and played "Overkill," "King of Oklahoma," "Nada," "Green and Dumb" and "Feathered Indians."  "Green and Dumb" was with Sean playing on sax (it was the first time that TZ heard it that way).   I really enjoy the Rickoli  setting / room.  The sound is just great.  I almost feel you could record and album there raw.  It was a good set for me ... I tend to play with a greater confidence and thus ease ... so better performance overall.  And it is just great to sit in and watch / listen to other local musicians.  There will be more of this in the future.  

Ended the week with a 9.1 miler, most of it with GW.  

He pinged me last night to do a workout and I could see the part of my brain that was a bit reluctant.  But seeing that, I realized I had to just do it.  We met up on Kohl, jogged to the track, did a few strides and got to work:  2 x 2k at threshold.  

The challenge here was more mental than physical.  We want to do what we use to do and because we really can't it is easy to NOT do anything.  Instead, we have to be where we are and just do this workout.  We agreed to "ease" into this.  We did the five laps at 7:10 pace, with each lap getting a little faster.  We did a lap jog and then jumped out onto the roads, and did our second one aft 6:56 pace.  It was a good workout.  

I finished the week at 60.4 miles.  It was a good week with two thresholds, and a fartlek.  The next step is obvious - keep this sort of basic volume, and a couple of quality efforts for each week.  

Read this yesterday, and this ain't just for guitar.

There hasn't been any significant snow, which typically means training is a little better.  But the area is at 50% averages, and that ain't good.

Anyway ... the training ... 

Wednesday - got out mid day when it was a bit warmer.  Did the bigger loop of Lac Amora, heading down the north side first.  Bumped in to MH and some of her UNC team mates she is hosting out here for a few days.

9 miles on this loop and was happy that I was moving pretty well towards the end even though I thought the legs felt a little tired.

Thursday - was pressed for time with work, and I did feel a bit more tired and so kept it short and easy.  Did a bit with TZ and then a little bit with GW and RT as a part of Eagle practice.  6 miles.

Friday - joined up with the Eagles.  They had a fartlek at Stonehenge so GW and I did 60-40-20 on equal rest (4 sets).  Good to move a bit.  8 miles ish.  

Saturday - a little bit to start this with TZ and then did a couple with GW.   Finished up with 10 easy on the day.  Did hip mobility.  

Been dealing with a weird ache in the front of my left shoulder, so might need to avoid weights for a bit.  Not impacting running at this point.  Legs on whole are a tad tired, but I am trying to lean into it a bit with pushing some.  

As I have considered where I am fitness-wise, and done the inevitable and not always good comparison to where I was, much thought has turned to not just how my body has changed, but also my mind.  My brain, and its bent to performance has significantly shifted in the last decade.  Like much of what I say here, some of that is good, but there are some behaviors I can see that should shift if I have some degree of seriousness about improvement.

Blogging is one of those.  Yeah, I know, "back in the day" blogs were all the rage and they have gone the way of the CB radio.  I am one of those who still do it, but it has shifted from the daily to the weekly - and most of the weekly posts are just a mileage recap versus a post of what I actually did.  

I am not going to go back to firm expectation of daily posting, but I expect to post more frequently, and more transparently about runs, workouts and training.  This represents a slight shift to be more accountable to what I am and what I am not doing.  I recognize a blog itself doesn't create accountability, but I will look to leverage it as a tool to assist me.  Keeping a training log helps.

On Monday, the first day of the year, GW and I jogged over to Ziggi's Coffee.  The Broomfield Running Group, a social running group we had talked about checking in with for a while now, was hosting a 5k run.  It was super low key - no bibs, no clock, no awards, no fee - just a start and a finish and arrows painted around the sidewalks it followed.  We progressed into the run, talking the whole time but definitely getting into the discomfort of threshold for a bit.  It was a nice tempo for 22 minutes - and probably 3 miles versus 5k.  It is one of those things I should be adding in weekly.  8.8 miles on the day.

Tuesday - 9.3 miles.  Easy, dead legged with GW and RT as part of the Eagle AM practice.  Did strides and felt clunky.  Also added in doing the hip mobility hurdle set the kids have been doing.  I figured I need to stop watching that and just do this stuff even though I look horrible at it.  

2151 on the year.  Better than last year (less than 2100) which was quelled with the lung issue, but less the second lowest year for a decade.  Had all of May off due to injury however.  

Got back to Pikes which was good but it was a PW there by a LOT.  But given I had not done anything over a dozen miles, a marathon to the top of a 14er and back was something of an accomplishment.  

Fitness slipped, measurably so, in many categories.  Some of that is expected with age, some things are choices I need to make ... perhaps choices I could have made a long time ago but are more apparent with a body well into its sixth decade of life.  

Did more concerts this year than in any other year - that was cool.  All sorts of venues, indoors and outdoors, small and large, and had the privilege of being on both sides of the mic and stage.   Music was certainly a highlight for 2023.

I have done my own mental review of 2023 in regards to running and what I'd like to accomplish with it in 2024.  Certainly I have performance goals.  They are personally challenging but are not particularly epic.   They come with the recognition that chasing a goal is fruitful for me in the broader pursuit and enjoyment of running, and well, just basically ... trying to be a good person.  I mostly run for mental health these days.  Yeah, that is it - the pursuit of the physical helps my mental, but on most days it is not that.  It is simply getting out the door and having a moment to breathe.  

Last week was 60 plus miles with a couple of days of fartlek (45-90 sec segments).  The ball inched forward a bit.