I haven’t been one to do videos, and I dont really dig posting photos or videos of myself, but here it goes…

Today was a 7 mile zone 2 run after several days off. The DEADLIFT session last night left my legs a little stiff, and I definitely felt it near the end of the run. Eating on the run is still a bit of a challenge, coordinating the chewing, swallowing & breathing.

Take advantage of the nice days, and harden yourself up for the not so nice days.

Go do something hard.

Today was a 31 mile ride in Upper 80° heat. I used that time to test out some Precision Fuel and Hydration gels during the ride. Apparently they’re sponsoring the Leadville events, so their gels will be available at the aid stations. It would be a shame to need a little extra go, grab one of those, and end up with stomach issues because of them. Today I used the 30gm carb packs that include 100mg of caffeine.

First one was on a pretty empty stomach, just the usual morning 24oz of LMNT water and supplements, about 45 minutes prior to the ride. Second was about 20 minutes into the ride, and the last was just over an hour into the ride. Overall, I felt pretty good, nothing spectacular, but 90gm of carb to fuel a 2 hour ride seemed to be pretty easy to tolerate. I only drank water and, again, ran the hydration pack dry shortly before getting home.

The gels had a pretty mellow, but sweet, flavor. That’s probably a good thing, since there’s only one flavor. I don’t think I’d want to spend an entire day just sucking those things down. Over the next few weeks I’ll test these gels out with some other food/drink combos to make sure I don’t run into any nasty combo. I’ve also been playing with some maltodextrin mix, working my way up to double the dose on the bottle, and I’m tolerating that well too. The taste is much mellower, and it seems to mix well with LMNT and other electrolyte options for a bit of flavor.

Hit the first DEADLIFT workout in almost a full month. Only worked up the first 4 warmup sets. I wasn’t expecting much since I hit that about an hour after the ride. Not the best way to get in some strength & cardio on the same day, but it’s what I could do with the time available today. I’m looking forward to dialing back the riding some after the race and getting back to moving more heavy stuff.

Do hard things.

This time it’s just two rides. Good news is I’m getting acclimated to the summer heat. Bad news is I need to carry more water. Hit the Refuge for a quick hour ride a couple of days ago and back to White Ranch for another somewhat prolonged climbing session.

Not much to report on the short ride. Yesterday was hot and dry at WR though, burned through a full hydration bladder and two water bottles with about 5 miles to go. Fortunately, most of that was down hill.

Still dig the view over the city from that little cliff out cropping. Riding in the middle of the day is hot, but there aren’t many people around, so it makes life a little easier.

Life lesson- figure out what you need to deal with now, and what you can hold off on and do all together in a batch. As an example, the workouts need to get done on a regular basis, but I can batch up these updates, as they won’t impact my performance on race day. Focus on what you need to get done now, and work out the other things as time, and your priority tasks allow.

I’ve been behind on these updates, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been getting after it. Had some good days, including a 32 mi ride where I felt good through the whole thing and finished feeling solid.

There were also some not so great days like the Green Mountain climb repeats where I was planning on getting 8 in, but the heat wrecked me, and I only finished 5. I was not ready for that kind of work in 90 degree heat and ALL the sun. It’s been a while since I’ve crushed a full hydration bladder.

Lifting is backing off a bit more, very much in maintenance mode there. The running has also dropped off significantly during this last month leading up to the race. Looking forward to hitting them both again next month!

Do hard things

Today was something old that was new again, White Ranch Park in Golden. I don’t think I’ve ridden there since the mid 90s. It’s still fun, and hard. Some parts were familiar, some were new, but it was definitely worth the trip. All 18 miles, 4+ hours and 4100′ of climbing. The watch shows less time, and slightly less mileage, because I forgot to re-start it after I stopped to put my rain jacket on.

On the fun side, yeah, there was a good bit of variety on the trails I rode. Some smooth, flowy singlegrack, some rocky obstacles, both up and down hill, some mellow gravel, and a decently long climb, which is exactly what I was there for. I think I have a solid training plan for the next time I hit White Ranch, and I should be able to get in more climbing in fewer miles and less time. Not as much as I can on Green Mountain, but the climbing is definitely more sustained. Today was a mix of train & explore.

My feet started going numb on me, so I pulled out the insoles for my shoes, and immediately felt better. I don’t know what it is about insoles, but they mess me up. I need a relatively smooth, hard, base for my riding shoes. Speaking of, I still need to trim the inside heel lugs on the sole, as they like to hit my crank arm & chainstays, and that’s just annoying/distracting.

I stopped to get a few good pictures today. I almost missed the huge panoramic view. I rode past that spot 3 times before I noticed it. Part of the point of doing cool stuff is to appreciate where you’re doing it, and I totally blew right by an awesome view. Makes me wonder how many other cool things I’ve missed, not paying attention.

I saw the leprechaun down in the valley, and his pot of gold, but I was beat. Also of note, kids and animals will turn just about anything into a toy.

Do hard stuff.

Knocked out another ride at the Refuge today. It’s really nice having some decent trails to ride close by without having to worry about traffic or driving to get there.

This one was relatively easy, but my focus was on keeping my pedal cadence up. After the last ride day, I started thinking about the climbing days and how it was hard to get my heart rate up. Probably because of how steep that fire road is. I think I’m going to keep mixing it up so I get a lot of elevation gain in a short period there, and visit other trails where the climbing is more sustained, but not as steep.

The Silver Rush has about 7500′ of climbing, but that’s over the full 50 miles. And the first 10 is pretty much all climbing according to the course info. That’s a different problem to solve than steep, comparatively short, intervals of roughly a mile and a half.

Overall, this week was a little lighter on training across the board, but I got about 40 more minutes of riding in this week compared to last. No running, and only one lifting workout this week, which was the DEADLIFT day right before big climbing day. Judge as you will on the decision making around that pairing of back to back days, but…

Do hard things.

I took two days off after the big climbing day this week. First one was intentional, second was because I was lazy. Usually, if I just start getting changed, get my heart rate monitor on, my shoes, helmet, etc I can build that momentum and get going. Not Thursday. I gave in.

Friday was a decent ride. I’m starting to figure out that pedal cadence has much greater impact on my heart rate than the difficulty of the pedal strokes. Basically, I am not a high RPM Yamaha R6 engine. More like a diesel truck. So that’s an adaptation I need to work on. Not surprising, though, with the emphasis over the last several years on lifting heavy (for me) things.

I also felt a calf cramp coming on a few times, which is weird because I’ve never dealt with cramping in exercise before. I had started to work on increasing my pedal cadence, so maybe that had something to do with it. I will get a calf cramp if I’m stretching in bed first thing in the morning and point my toes down (plantar flexion for my nerd friends). I am taking a relatively high dose of Methyl Folate, which can cause cramping, so maybe I need to cut down on that some.

This was my fastest average speed this year at a little over 15mph. I took a little detour though, and ended up on pavement for a couple miles, which felt markedly faster than the gravel road around the Arsenal Wildlife Refuge.

Still experimenting with eating on the bike. So far, nothing has really messed up my stomach or caused a poor performance as far as I can tell. I’m starting to mix it up a bit with things that don’t have the word “bar” on the package. Found some tasty little crushed fruit strips at Costco. They’re just fruit (apple and mango, apple and blueberry, etc) and they’re not so incredibly sweet. I tried some of the energy chews over the last couple years and I just can’t deal with the hyper-sweetness, or the stickiness of them. I don’t know how people chew on those things and breathe at the same time.

Do hard things.

Not the longest ride of the year, but definitely the most vert. The 7 laps were all within a few minutes of each other, but the last one felt especially tough. I’d be surprised if I could’ve done an 8th without walking the two steepest sections. On that last lap I had to stand up to get through them. I’m thinking I’ll be in pretty good shape if I can work up to about 8000′ of climbing, so about 11 laps, or about 28 miles.

All in all, I’m happy with the day, considering I got about 5 hours of sleep last night and had to do a few hours of work this morning before I could get out. Didn’t plan too well though. I remembered the big stuff, like the bike, water, shoes, but I forgot some mid-ride chow and socks. I grabbed a good pair of socks from work and stopped by a gas station to grab a couple Clif bars. I should’ve made it 3 or 4 bars though.

Not the best post ride meal, but 4 double cheeseburgers and a Coke should’ve loaded me up with plenty of protein and carbs to build and re-fuel the legs. Definitely could’ve planned that better too.

A little over two weeks out from the Leadville Marathon. This one was slower, but longer. Only one Bull Snake today, but he was big. Sorry, no pictures this time. Definitely looking at this race more as a challenge to finish it than to win anything. I think it’ll be a good indicator of where I’m at and what I need to work on moving forward.