Run, Koper, run

So the day has come. As usual I sleep badly and when the alarm rings (Before 6. On Saturday. What an ungodly hour to get up on weekend!) I feel as if didn't get any rest at all. Quick breakfast and I'm on my way. It never stops to amaze me that there is a fair amount of cars on the highway. What are all those people doing at that time on Saturday? Surely they cannot all be crazy runners like myself? The drive is uneventful and I get there with plenty of time to spare. It's chilly so stripping down to a t-shirt and shorts is not easy, but I know that before long being cold will be the least of my worries. The loop starts with a steep ascent. I'll have to do it three times in the course of this race but there is some consolation in the fact that that's where most of the elevation gain is. Farily quickly I switch to walking. I see some people around me charging up the hill, trying to run no matter what, huffing and puffing. I do feel a certain degree of satis...

With 50k scheduled on Sunday this was the week to fear. Was I ready for it? With mere 5 weeks of preparations? No way! On Tuesday before the race I decided to introduce intervals to my training. Smart? Probably not. I did 6x600m and it was tough. But I lived. Then an easy run on Wednesday and two days of complete rest before the race on Saturday... race write up coming up soon. On Sunday as a form of recovery I went for a hike in the Wunderlich County Park . Good weather, nice park, great company, great conversation... I can hardly imagine a better way to unwind after a tough race. Big part of the coming two weeks I'll spend in Poland so it will be hard to keep up with training. Let's see... I already signed up for Cinderella 50k on May 10, so slacking off is not an option. Oh, and this Saturday a friend at Google completed his first 50 miler with a great time -- congrats man! We're thinking of doing the Chimera together this year. Should be interesting :).

I knew this was going to be a difficult week. Monday was my day off sport-wise and Wednesday till Sunday I was at a skiing trip. Doing 5 workouts did not seem realistic at all but I could see that even 3 or 4 would be challenging. On Tuesday the classic: Black Mountain climb. After my good performance there last week I was hoping that maybe I can do even better now. And I did. It was a hell of a tough run but it was totally worth it: I improved my PR on this segment by a full minute (down to 53:34). On Wednesday the Google skiing trip started. There were two buses: at 5am and noon. The former had the advantage that one could still do some skiing on that day. The latter meant that one could get some sleep that night. To those of you who know me it should be clear which one did I choose. On the flip side it also allowed me to do an easy run before leaving. Thursday was the only day of activities with Google. Since I didn't ski for 15 years when I was choosing activities I thoug...

Second week of my comeback and again everything according to the plan. It wasn't easy though. It started with what slowly becomes my signature training: a ritual run up the Black Mountain. 8 kilometers with almost 1000m of elevation gain is not a route to be taken lightly. My best time on this segment is 54:30. I did not even dream of coming anywhere close to that result; slowly recovering form I was expecting to be around 10 minutes slower than that, hopefully not clocking my slowest time ever. But frankly all I wanted was to survive this monster of a run. While out there I was quite surprised to see that I was actually making a very decent effort. It helped a lot that I did not remember exactly what my best time was and that I mistakenly though that I have a shot to set my personal best on this route. That certainly gave me wings and I was giving it all I had. I ended up finishing 3 minutes slower than my best, which, given my shape (or lack thereof), is far better than I cou...

As you may have guessed from this blog, I'm a very "physical" person. Sport is very important to me and I was spending lots of time doing it for as long as I can remember. On the other hand I was never a very spiritual person. I guess my only brief encounters with the world of spirituality were yoga (that I've been doing on and off for some years) and modern dance (that I was practicing for many years before, sadly, stopping few years ago). However, again, my primary interest in both was physical and the spiritual aspects in both were rather thin. So if you asked me few years ago what I thought about meditation I would have probably deemed it pointless. Sitting cross legged for extended periods of time doing nothing? Well, that sounds like a huge waste of time, right? Obviously that's a very naive point of view. On the outside there may not be happening much during meditation but that's because all the "activity" happens on the inside, in the mind...

Ok, plan for the week accomplished, 4 runs and a total of 63km including a 20km long run on Sunday. But damn it, coming back to running after a break is tough . With this low volume and super lousy pace I'm still tired and my heart rate is sky rocketing. Ehh... Plans for next week: 5 runs, 75k total including 20k long run on hilly trails and a hill run to the top of Black Mountain (this is going to hurt, but if I want to see improvements perhaps it's time to start seriously pushing myself). Btw. I signed up for Canyon Meadow 50k , three weeks from now. Is it smart? Will I be ready? No and no. But I hope it will give me motivation and the plan for the race will be to... well, survive. Wish me luck :).