Week Ending June 5

So, where the hell have I been?  Not doing things like I should have.  The lack of motivation carried over a couple more weeks.  I then took a weekend trip to Missouri Valley, IA to visit the fam, and intentions always being good, but rarely followed through, I didn't run the three days I was out there.  I followed that up with a week of just being lazy.  Not sure what that was about.  I decided last week that I should do a little work, what with Pilot Hill mere days away.  That went as well as could be expected.  Here's a brief tally of the previous few weeks before I summarize this past one:

May 16-22: 22.5 on three days run (this is the week I went to Iowa).

May 23-29: 14 miles on two days.  Plain lazy.  Weather was still crap (as it was all spring), and I spent Memorial Day weekend playing in the garden and doing chores.  Fun!

Mon-Tues May 30 and 31 - Didn't run.

Wed. June 1 - 9 miles in 71 min (7:53 pace).  Met Jeff for a lunchtime run.  Can tell I took the previous five days off.  Very sluggish going.

Thurs. June 2 - 8 miles in 59 min (7:22 pace).  Got up earlier than usual in order to beat the predicted gusting wind.  The wind picked up throughout the run, but wasn't too bad.  I felt pretty good going out east on the singletrack, and nice and loose coming back into town on Old Quarry Road.  I like when runs go better than expected (and better than I deserved).

Fri. June 3 - 3 miles in 20 min (6:40 pace).  I ran from home to the UW track, did 8x100m barefoot strides on the infield, then ran home.  Quick and easy pre-race workout to loosen up a bit.

Sat. June 4 - 16.5 miles.  Pilot Hill 25K.  Started the race strong and smart; going out pretty conservatively with Chris Schabron and Dr. Dan.  The wind was coming pretty strong out of the southeast, making the first four miles on the flats a little more challenging.  The three of us Hungry Dogs tucked in together and traded off fighting the wind.  When we reached the bottom of the Staircase (where the real climbing begins) I fell off a little.  Chris looked strong, and soon passed Dan on the way up.  I decided that I should just find a comfortable pace and stick it out for the duration of the climb.  Made it to the top in decent shape in 6th place in 1:09.  Then the fun part, descending!

I took a handful of pretzels (thanks Jeff!) with me and began down.  Nothing super exciting happened for the first five miles or so.  I was out in no-man's-land; Dan was about 4-5 minutes ahead of me, and 7th place was about 4-5 minutes behind me.  I made it to the fenceline feeling okay; then I did fall apart a little.  The last mile, mile and a half were a jog; I just found a pace slightly faster than walking and made it work.  About a quartermile from the finish I realized I was going to be pretty close to the two-hour mark, and since I ran a 2:00:02 on this course two years ago, I really wanted to break two hours.  So I mustered a little remaining energy and sprinted (uphill!) to the finish.  I crossed in 6th place in 1:59:07.  Huntington won in 1:45, Chris was 4th in 1:51, and Dan was 5th in 1:54.  Four Hungry Dogs in the top six with one bringing home the crown.  Not a bad showing for the Club.  

Now Huntington has a mission: TRIPLE CROWN!  All he has to do is win Jelm in September and Silent Trails in October.  Only one other person has every pulled off the Triple Crown in one year.  Who was that?  Oh, right, IT WAS ME!


Sun. June 5 - I went up to the Snowys to see what we could see.  And what did we see?  An unbelievable amount of snow.  The Medicine Bow range got nearly 200% of normal snowfall, and with the cool spring, not much of it has melted yet.  So, now that the temps are back up in the 70s and 80s, we are in for a bit of a deluge.  I hope people in West Laramie are stockpiling sandbags.  

Snowy Range

Anyway, I got to do a little snowshoeing in t-shirts on June 5th.  Hoofed it up from where the road was closed near the Brooklyn Lake turn-off to the base of Brown's Peak.  Then back down for some Bear Tree pizza in Centennial.  Pretty much the perfect day.


Totals:
Week's Mileage: 37
Running Time: 4:39

May's Miles: 111
June's Miles: 37
Year to Date: 541


Gear: Asics Speedstar 4 (384 miles) New Balance Trail 100 (248 miles)