Weekly Summary: Jan. 23 - Jan. 29

1/23 - Rest.

1/24 - 5.62 miles.  :49:27.  ~400'v.  Stagecoach.  PM.  Evening run from the house down to the mailboxes at South Shore and back.  Definitely pressed the pace a bit. 

1/25 - 3.11 miles. :26:16. 

1/26 - 5.17 miles.  :56:08.  Stagecoach.  PM.  A mile or so of road before another mile of postholing in the snow.  Back on the road for most of the remainder as I looped around back home.  Relaxed pace for the most part although it was challenge running some of the deeper snow sections.  Dark but not a particularly cold evening run. 

1/27 - Rest.

1/28 - 13.87 miles.  2:28:09.  1170'v.  Stagecoach.  AM. I woke up to -0.4F on the thermometer, so I waited until it warmed up to a balmy 15F just before 10 a.m. to go out for my run around the reservoir.  A beautiful morning albeit cold.  Even the dirt roads had a decent layer of snow and ice on them but I managed to run a few miles in deep snow on trails, particularly on the north side of the reservoir, where I did some knee deep postholing.  Good stuff.  I came up just a bit shy on mileage but the difficulty of the route more than made up for that. 

1/29 - 2.65 miles.  :28:37.  Stagecoach.  PM.  Instead of doing a 6 miler, I ran a short cool down run after doing a ~2 mile, 1.5hr., 1200'v. hike and snowboard descent on Stagecoach Mtn. with Benihana dog.  We got some decent powder despite the general lack of it this winter.   By the evening, my right hamstring was already feeling a little sore.

Weekly total:  32.42 miles.
January total:  142.76 miles

This was the fourth week in my training cycle and, therefore, an "easy" week, mileage wise.  It's a blasphemous thing to say around here but I'm glad we're having a very mild winter and I've been able to get out and run.  That's not say that I wouldn't be riding my snowboard every chance I got if it was dumping like it usually does but it is nice to actually have the option of running in the winter.  In a normal year, there is just too much snow to do much more than death march and hope you don't freeze to death.

Also, I officially registered to do the Run Rabbit Run 100.  $275 is alot cough up for a 30-hour sufferfest but what the hell?  You only live once.  Last week, I also registered for the Quad Rock 50 in Fort Collins.  It'll be a good training run and alot of fun to run some mountain trails in the Front Range this summer.  I'm shooting for a modest 12 hr finish, to make myself slow down, think about my game plan for the Hundred and just enjoy the views.  I should have a ton of photos to share from that one.  So, my race calender is shaping up and I'm stoked about it.  It's going to be a good year.  Lastly, I am havin second thoughts about running the Steamboat Marathon.  Training-wise, I just think it might be a mistake to throw in a road marathon. I don't know.  It would be fun, right?  That's all that should matter.  Well, we'll see.