My So-Called Training Life

Since my office move further north, it's been a struggle when it comes to finding a groove for training. The longer commute times (from 23 to 45 miles one-way) have gobbled into my free time, so I've had to consistantly re-evaluate my training over and over. Also, not having access to things that I did from my previous office location (namely, an on-site gym) has also made things more challenging.

However, I do believe I found a decent groove to work from and I've been trying to make a go of it for the last month. This past week, it is improving.

Basically, it's going like this:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Sandbag Strength Training during lunch, 6 mile run in the evening w/4 miles at tempo pace or entire run as a fartlek.
Wednesday; Metabolic Conditioning workout during lunch (although I've missed a few of these sessions since I started), easy 3-6 miler in the evening.
Thursday: Sandbag Strength Training during lunch, Interval runs based off of time @ sprint pace or tempo pace.
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Medium Run (unless its an event)
Sunday: Long Run or event

Funny thing is, I've done the sandbag training almost consistantly for the past month (thank you Josh Henkin @ Sandbag Fitness Systems for the Sandbag Fundamentals program!), the running...not nearly as much as I want. Mileage since my utter FAIL at Mt Si this year has only been: 4 mi for one week, 19 for another, 5 for the next, and 17 for the past week. It's going to be tough to build up to having a solid 40-50 mile week by the time the Oregon 100 comes.

However, I am hoping that I've been developing plenty of running karma due to my volunteering at races. This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of being the trail director for the Redmond Watershed 12-hour ultra. This kept me in the middle of the action the whole time. After 10 hours of being there, I then swept the big loop of the course and ran an overall 6 miles for that day on rolling trails. It was a good day for sure, better than last year's heatwave. I have a few more races that I'm volunteering for during the rest of the year, like the 20th Century 100k. Hope to build that trail running karma to where my races won't punish me severely!