Week ending 8/29

Well, pretty frustrating day for me overall. Turns out I'm a bit more worn out from last Saturday than I let myself believe and perhaps should have turned in for some rest instead of pushing through. Really, the long run today should have been the capstone to a decent block of training for Steamboat in 3 weeks, but what it did was create some doubt in my time goals. I bailed at 18 miles and just sat in Bear Creek for 2 hrs, which while fun, didn't accomplish what I had hoped for in 28 miles today. The wisdom in my head says that it's better to show up to the start line a touch under-trained than a touch injured. 80 miles on the week.

I'm trying not to let this go to my head, I know that the miles I put in and the summer of running I've turned in so far is a show of forward progress. I have done some great work, seen some really lofty goals come down by putting in the work necessary. I took over an hour off my PR at 50 miles (actually more, since Silver Rush is a short course), ran a decent half marry half-assed, and stayed healthy.

I have 3 weeks to tune up for Steamboat, and I'm going to start by taking two days off in a row, something I haven't done in a long time, but something I feel I need to do in order to be able to put in the quality miles to sharpen up. I'm not a high mileage guy yet, I think I wanted to become one this summer because it sounded good and everyone else is seemingly putting in huge miles. What I've come away with is that I am still a work in progress, I was not a runner until about this time 2 years ago. Since then I've gone from trying to run my first ultra on 40 mpw, to racing a 50 and logging some much higher mileage.

Being able to juggle family and everything else is tough for me, but I love my family, and won't do anything to sacrifice them. Today, I spent some quality time with my son playing in the river along with "uncle Jon". Jon is my training parter (I've dragged him along on long training runs before he even cared much about running) and he's been the best companion one could ask for out on the trail and in life. Xavier is lucky to get so much time with him.

Tomorrow, I will start my taper by playing some footy over at Dick's Sporting Goods Park. Thank God that Liverpool won today, because the Padres were swept by the Phils and without that, my sporting world would have been 0-3.

Time to rest and finish my beer.