Nineties

A 90 degree day, finally!

I ran at the lakes today in Loveland. It started out a bit warmer but cloudy and the forecast was for windy and 86 degrees. It was humid and buggy. I had to spray myself with insect repellent and wear my hazmat suit just to keep the bugs off. By noon there wasn't much wind at all and it was still cool, but sometime shortly after noon the wind picked up and blew away the bugs and I got the day I've been wishing for!

The snow is melting off Longs Peak and the Mummy Range but there's a lot of snow up there. They are predicting flooding since the Poudre River watershed has about 170 percent of normal snowpack.

I did 34 miles. I planned on 45 but opted to cut it short and do more heat training. I wasn't moving very fast today for some reason. I worked yesterday and it was busy, maybe I was tired. I didn't feel tired running. It was one of those days with my head not being in the right place to focus on what I was doing.

After the run I sat in the car with the heater full blast for 20 minutes on my way to and from the sauna. I did 30 minutes in the sauna.

While I was running I was thinking about how good it feels to be out there moving forward, with nothing else to do. It's so relaxing. That's what's so nice at Badwater, I can focus on moving forward and the incredible scenery, and nothing else, for a whole week, because I have such a great crew. How awesome that will be!

Heat training

Today we finally got a warm spring day.

I took full advantage of the heat by waiting until 11:00 to go out for my run. I drove out to the Coyote Ridge trailhead and overdressed. I wore my warmest, thickest pair of black tights, a long sleeved shirt, my thickest black hooded sweatshirt from the Leadville Trail 100 in 1992, and a black wind jacket with a fleece liner. I put the black hood over my head and covered that with my hazmat hat. I took a running pack with 3 water bottles, and headed out on the trail up and over Coyote Ridge.

I did an hour and a half on the trail and felt great. I was carrying a heavy load but my legs felt good, no evidence I ran 32 miles yesterday with 26 of them downhill on pavement.

After my run, which lasted an hour and a half, I drove over to the health club and did a quick sauna session of 30 minutes at 160 degrees.

On my way across town, sitting at each intersection through three light changes per stoplight in the never-ending construction projects on Harmony Road, I saw everyone had their windows rolled down, tapping their fingers on the steering wheel, looking irritated and impatient with the slow pace of traffic.

Not me. The traffic wasn't bothering me, I could have waited all day on Harmony Road. I was training.

On the way out to Coyote Ridge and back, I drove with the windows rolled up and the heater cranked to the max in my car. People probably thought I had the AC on, but I was baking in there with the air vents blasting hot air in my face. I imagined myself driving down the highway somewhere in Death Valley in mid-summer, with the desert wind blowing in my face.

When we lived in Arizona I used to do early season heat training by sitting inside the car in the driveway with the windows up, listening to a radio program for an hour, with a big bottle of ice water. The neighbors thought I was crazy, but it worked. I always ran well in the heat.

This heat training takes some creativity but I can always find ways to fit it into my schedule. Even the worst traffic jam is an opportunity.

Positive thinking.