Training Log: Carbon's Offset

14.4
45.2 km
A big day. "Ultra" big :)
Was going to try pushing the long day up to 6 hours today (this is what I will max out at in my training. There's only this weekend plus 2 more to go big before I start tapering). Was feeling pretty good and set off at a decent pace (by ultra training LSD standards), even with a bit of a big pack because we didn't know what weather might happen, plus bear spray, plus lots of food and a full 1.5 liters of water.

Went to the Canmore Nordic Centre and ran the singletrack of FYI to EKG, to the Mine Meadows, where all of the choices are double track, so took Banff Trail to Rundle Riverside. I've said this many times and will say it again - I love that trail! (Rundle Riverside). A fun run, trails were in good shape despite all of the rain recently. Then ran whatever trails I could find plus some road to travel along the golf course to Spray River / Goat Creek Trail. Was going to do some scrambling up and down Mt Rundle but got to the trailhead junction at 2hours24 minutes and figured I would only do 2:45 out to allow 3:15 to get back (accounting for fatigue and more uphill on the way back) so decided to just keep on running along the trail for the remaining 21 minutes. Wasn't as slow as I thought on the way back, 2:56 vs. 2:45. Kept the average speed at 5.0 mph or better until the last 20 minutes or so. The last 30 minutes were getting tough. Didn't eat too much today (a PB&J sandwich and a pack of Stinger chews) and only drank about 1.2 liters of Nuun, but I think my slowdown was simply due to getting tired. For me, that was a pretty solid pace for the long slow day, for such a long run. Enjoyed pushing it, and will now need to make sure I get some good rest to recover well.
This is the farthest I've ever run outside of my 4 ultras last year.

Saw a really cute, very young black bear at one of the trail junctions. Took a while for him to decide to move on. Didn't see any other bears (mama) around. He looked just big enough to be out on his own.

Finished before a little bit of rain finally moved in.

Average speed 4.9 mph (7.9 kph)
2:24 12.43 miles 5.2 mph
0:21 1.83 miles 5.2 mph
2:56 13.83 mph 4.7 mph

14.2

A good long sleep, and still could have slept longer.

1 hour massage today.

14.6
Felt tired this morning. Slept solid last night, but still struggled to get out of bed, even more sleep would have been good.

The workout similarly showed signs of being tired. Was last night's session with Llew really that tough? Or am I just getting tired and need a rest day or two? Felt great on the third day of the training weekend and felt good in the session with Llew last night.
Tried out the stepmill at the office gym, 50 minutes at 95 steps/minute. Got pretty tired by the end.
Then hopped on the treadmill, at 0.5 incline and about 6.2 mph, and felt quite tired. Lasted about 20 minutes before deciding that I should stop rather than push when maybe I need to back off and then have a good weekend.

15.2
While warming up, it was kind of entertaining to see one of Llew's super sprinters dying on the workouts we've been doing. He would quit when they got really tough and start cursing. He needs to suck it up more.... He needs to do an adventure race to learn about not quitting :)

Was feeling really good so I told Llew to hit me hard. The warm ups went well and felt good. Running stretch, running lunge, leg swings, scorpions, v sits.
Squatting on an upside down Bosu while thrusting a medicine ball up from the abs.
One foot forward on a Bosu, one foot back on the ground, while twisting and raising the medicine ball, to work the abs. Had to modify the foot placement on this because it flexed the toes on my rear foot too much.
Supermans and swimmers without weight, really flexing and holding the pose.
Leaning lunges: walking up double stairs, first without weight and staying really low, while kicking the butt and tearing the ground, squeezing the glutes (this saved the hamstring from getting tired too early) driving the knee forward, repeat; then with a 35 lb plate held over my head, not having to stay as low. 10 sets of each.
90 seconds of burpees while holding and raising a 35 lb barbell. At first I thought this was pretty crazy but I did fine with the weight until the last 10 seconds.
Calf raises on the leg press machine (inverted sled), with 180 lbs of weights plus Llew leaning on it, especially during the last 20 of 50-40-30 with 5 second holds between each. Really had to battle him for about the last 20 of each set and was cramping up.
25 inverted ab curl ups - these went well.
3 minute elbow plank.
Good, sweaty workout.

C • Burpees with barbell 2

14.0
An easy spin on the stationary bike to flush out the legs from the big weekend.

Two laps of the singletrack around Salty Dog / South Canoe. Feeling a lot peppier than on Saturday, and running with the belt instead of the 12 litre pack.
Ran most of the uphills.
First lap 1:24:30, 4.4 mph
Second lap 1:18:44, 4.6 mph
Didn't think I was faster on the second lap but I guess so.
Interestingly, when I get really tired, I seem to do better at flowing down the downhills with less impact. It's almost as though I'm working too hard at making the downhills have less impact, and when I get tired I quit trying so hard and just flow more.

Didn't feel too tired at the end of this, and the body didn't feel that sore. It was a good day. I'm getting a bit excited, wondering how I will feel when I actually taper :)
Kinda makes you wish you had a big race coming up soon ;)

Up the Salty Dog climb and over to the Larch Hills traverse. Rode the first two singletrack sections of Larch Hills traverse and they were great! Will definitely have to come back and ride the whole thing sometime. Lots of steady climbing on the way there, and a fast ride out. So fast that we blew past the turn back down to the South Canoe trails and ended up at the Larch Hills ski area parking lot. Used some of the XC ski trails to connect back to where we wanted to be, including a trail called Bilbo's Bog. Sure enough, it was a bog. Lots of AR-style, wet foot hikeabike. Then onto the Salty Dog descent - somewhat exciting for this Albertan on his first day on the mtn bike this year. So fun to be on the mountain bike again!

A quick trail run on tired legs after the ride, complete with wet socks and feet from the big hike. All of the uphill on this trail was tough but still did okay and was fairly smooth on the downhills.

C • Quick Run 4