The week of Jaime

Great week of running so far with one day left. This week I met Jaime Yebra on Thursday night and got in a nice little run around Green Mountain. I had only known Jaime from his blog because he was at Steamboat this year, but he lives just 4 blocks from me! Jaime's a cool dude and we got to chat about all sorts of things in the car and on the run, both of us are Bay Area guys and played D2 baseball in college.

Then this Morning I met up with Scott Jaime and Jim Petterson for a long run on Mt. Falcon. The early (6:30) start held some chill in the air, but it warmed up quickly into just about perfect running weather. On the initial climb, it was pretty clear that is was going to be a long day for me as the legs just really didn't want to climb, but good training I guess. We did the full loop ~15 miles with Jim jamming back to the car after Parmalee for a meeting. Good chatting with Scott on ultras and such, seems more and more I need to focus on mental fortitude, being able to convince my body that it can do more than my brain thinks it can. We are tougher than we think. We passed new Evergreen resident Brandy Erholtz on the way down to the cars; sure is getting faster around here.

The second trip back up became a mental struggle for me as the legs just did not have any go left whatsoever. I was cursing Lucho for suggesting the weight room last Saturday; I got in two sessions (Monday/Friday) with some solid work on the leg sled. Unfortunately, that led to my legs being sore and slow today but hopefully it will eventually lead me to being a stronger climber, something I desperately need in order to progress in my running. In any case, I stopped at the shelter and came back to the car for 21 miles on the day and 4600' of climbing. A good start to the Hellgate buildup.

Good times here though, enjoying the Indian Summer weather, though I believe I'll have plenty of time to become "cold acclimated" for Hellgate.