Weekly Summary: May 21 - May 28

5/21 - Rest.

5/22 - 6 miles.  1000'.  Steamboat Ski Area.  Ran 10 minutes to warm up from The Lodge thru the base area and up Right of Way to Thunderhead.  From there, I did 5-minute hill intervals on Why Not Road up to Vagabond saddle (where the tepee is in the winter) before turning around and continuing intervals all the back to The Lodge.  Pretty hard effort both uphill and down for my first "speed work" session of the year.  My aerobic base is in good order after a solid winter/early spring of gradual build ups so I figure it is time to start adding some anerobic workouts. 

5/23 - 7 miles.  700'.  Spring Creek Trail.  Nice and easy steady state recovery run in some cool, wet weather on Spring Creek.  Kept the effort on the flats and downhills at 8 min/mile and did all the climbs without any hard breathing.   

5/24 - 7 miles.  400'.  Stagecoach.  A couple downhill miles warming up at 8:30 min/mile, then 3 miles steady at 7:00 min/mile on Elk Run Trail next to the lake.  Uphill back to the house at 8-9:30 min/mile.  Solid effort.

5/25 - Rest.

5/26 - 2.5 hours. 3000'.   Howelsen Hill, Emerald Mountain - Larry's - Quarry Mountain Trail - Ridge Trail (out) - Ridge Trail - Lane of Pain -Little Moab-Blackmere Drive-Howlesen Base area -roads (in).  Tough, hilly run from downtown over Emerald Mountain on several trails and out towards Cow Creek on the Ridge Trail.  Many, many healthy climbs this day, starting with Howelsen Hill face.  Ridiculous climbing at some points. Ran some good wooded single track on the ascent up Emerald with a couple of open meadows on the way.  Once on top of Emerald there are several brutally steep climbs afterward before finally hitting a couple miles of meandering downhill on the way out to Cow Creek.  It was warm and I went through a lot of water.  Long, long downhill from the top of Emerald via Lane of Pain, Little Moab and Blackmere Drive. 

5/27 - 6 miles.  Stagecoach.  Route County Road 18. - Easy effort across the dam and down the road for a few miles.  Super windy day and a little chilly.

5/28 - 12 miles.  1980'v.  "Mad Creek" (Swamp Park) Trail.  Six miles of gradual uphill on Mad Creek until I reached it's junction with Red Dirt.  Along the way, I crossed the creek a couple of times, spotted a deer and power hiked most of the ascent with trekking poles.  About 1:15 to the turnaround 6.2 miles up trail.  I ran just about every step downhill except for the most technical footing parts.  The trail is almost entirely in the woods with only a few small meadows and follows the creek the whole way and, aside from about a dozen really technical sections, is really smooth track.  Very easy to run on. 

8 day total:  50 miles.  6080'v.

A decent amount of miles and vertical this week made for some good running.  Almost all of it on trails, which makes me even happier.  Just more or less trying to mix it up and make sure my runs are fun and challenging with a little rest and easy recovery runs thrown in.