1st round of hill intervals

Another mighty cold start to the week!  Yesterday was windy and just 5 degrees for my easier 8 mile run around the Griffin Hill Loop in Castleton.  I was feeling pretty good in preparation for my workout today, which was to do 1 mile repeat intervals on Piontek Rd Hill.  I had a short amount of time between classes to make it happen, but I was just able to squeeze it in!
I chose a 1 mile section from the bottom of the road where there is a continuous climb of ~450' over the mile.  I ran 4 cycles of up at 8:45 to 9:00 min pace then 7:30 pace on the rest down for a total of 8 miles.  I was definitely feeling pretty beat nearing the total 1800' in gain at the end of mile 7.
Two days so far on my Salomon Missions and I so far so good.  Less aggressive than the Speedcross3, a bit more support and they have still been pretty grippy on the snow packed dirt roads.

Heart rate and elevation profile for the hill workout

Week 3 2014 - Recap

Another successful week of training!  I feel like I am at a pretty healthy balance of faster training runs, longer miles, and adequate rest.  After the faster 6:45 pace for 7 miles tempo workout on Wed I was a bit sore, but I was recovered and ready to go for my weekend miles.  Saturday's 17 miler had about 5 miles of atv trail with 3 inches of snow and the rest was snowpacked roads, so it was overall a great workout even if the elevation gain was not enormous.  Today I ran my first 4.25 miles with Hillary.  It was difficult to get out of the car with the temperature at 14 degrees and the trees swaying back and forth due to the high winds.  It took us a mile to get warmed up as we crossed the open farm fields, but once we started to climb Griffin Hill all was good for the rest of my 11 mile run.

Hill intervals and a 20 miler to look forward to next week!

Summary of Week 3
M   OFF
T    7.4 miles, 640' elev gain, easier run
W    7 miles at 6:45 pace; 1.2 mile cool down; total 8.2 miles
Th   45 swimming in the pool
F     OFF
S     17 miles, 1700' elev. gain, lots of snow on trails and dirt road
S     11 miles, easier recovery run

Weekly Totals
Run Distance:  43.7 miles
Total time all activities:  6.5 hours
Total elevation gain:  3,232'

Weekly highs in the single digits, where to run

So it has been cooold!  Since I have no desire to run on a treadmill I have been having to beef up the clothing for my runs this week.  Unless the wind is unbearable you too should not fret the cold weather on a run.  The hard part is to just get motivated and start moving!
My typical run gear on a 5 degree run is a synthetic T-shirt, 2 midweight wicking shirts (one with a tall zippered neck), a lightweight wind resistant vest, double pair of gloves and my Swix wind resistant front breathable back pants.  I have also been enjoying my Salomon Speedcross 3 running shoes for the recent conditions.  The cleat like bottoms provide sure footing on the snowpacked dirt roads and I find even the regular model warmer than most shoes.  I do not really need to beef up from a normal running sock.  This gear is good for up to an hour or so.  If the run is slower paced I may need to add one more layer.
I have ran two ~8 mile runs the last two days.  One was casual the other was a faster tempo run near 6:50 pace.  Today was another glorious 45 minute swim.  My legs were getting a bit sore/tired, but I feel great again tonight after the swim.  Swimming does tend to make me tired though.  I am nearly ready for bed at 8:45p.

Week 2 2014 - Recap

It has been another great week of training! I was a bit worried about trying to get in my miles during January and February, but I just have to convince myself to stay off of most trails and make the best of the rolling hills of the Vermont dirt backroads. This week had some easier long runs, 1 mile repeats, and one 15 mile run at a decent pace. I am on track with the schedule I have made for training and do not yet have any reason to back down mileage. It was extremely useful to come in to this with a lot of nordic skiing leading up to January.  I should add that the swim day after intervals was complete rejuvenation! I may hit the pool again tomorrow if time allows during my off day.

Summary of Week 2
M  OFF
T   8.2 mile easier run
W  5x1 mile repeats with 0.25 mi recovery - total 8.9 miles
Th  Swim in pool - 45 minutes
F   OFF
S   15.0 mile run at faster pace, dirt and pavement (~1200' elev. gain)
S   10.1 mile easier run (~1000' elev. gain)

Weekly Totals
Run distance:  42.2 miles
Total time all activities:  6.3 hours
Total elevation gain:  2,877 ft

Sunny and 32 degrees

It was a great day for a longer run.  I ran the first 3 miles with Hillary and the dogs to the end of our road, then took off on an atv trail to connect over to Castleton Village via Ames Hollow and Pond Hill.  Some hills to start and a stroll back on flatter Rte. 4a back to the house.  I am feeling really good this week even with some intervals and the longest run to date under my belt today.  A 10 miler is on the schedule for tomorrow and a rest day on Monday to start the school week.

1 mile Intervals and Swimming

The final week of the mid-year academic siesta.  Yesterday (Wed) was a beautiful day in the 40s with bright sun for the first half of the day.  I reserve Wednesday for either intervals or tempo runs in order to get some speedier workouts in once a week.  I like to run on the Castleton Rail Trail for tempo runs since it is super flat, but it is still really icy.  So I decided to run from my house down into Castleton Village for some interval training.
I set up my Garmin 310XT for an interval workout for the first time and it was great ... well running intervals with the watch was, not so much for the intervals.  My interval workout consisted of:
1 mile warmup
5 - 1 mile repeats at 6:15 pace
0.25 mile recovery between each mile at 8-9 min pace
Cool down for a total of 8.8 miles
The intervals actually went pretty well and it was great to have the watch in order to hit the targets nearly right on for all segments.

Today (Thurs) is a cross-training day.  We did get 2 inches of snow today, but not enough to ski on with the ground still thawed out.  So I hit the lunchtime lap swim at the Castleton pool.  45 minutes of continuous laps really stretches you out, gets your heart rate up, and hopefully served as a good active recovery from the interval day.

Week 1 2014 - Recap

It was a nice week to break in to my more formal training schedule for this upcoming ultra season.  We are still on break from classes; however the weather was a bit of everything ... cold, warm, rain, ice, it just couldn't decide this week.  Since it was break I also had a great lead in to the week with nearly 50 miles the week prior including ski and run miles.

Summary of the week:
M  OFF
T   6.3 mi ice rail trail run
W  6.7 mi dirt/trail run
Th  8.5 mi snow trail run
F    12.8 mi skate ski with Hillary
S    5.0 mi road run with Hillary and dogs
S    10.2 mi road/dirt/trail run

Weekly totals
Run distance:  36.7 miles
Total time all activities:  6.7 hours
Total elevation gain:  4,452 ft

Today's run had about 800 ft of elevation gain over the second half of the run and I am looking forward to getting more elevation into my training.  I need to get my leg strength up again.  It is tough to get really big climbs in when the trails are ice and break through semi frozen mud!  The 2 miles of trail today were pretty broken leg worthy where you would just bust through the frozen ground to your shin at times.  There was also a great stream crossing at the end where I had to wade to the crotch of my running shorts!  Luckily I was only a half mile from home.

XC Skate Skiing at Grafton Ponds Outdoor Center

Hillary had the day off so we scanned the nordic ski centers in Vermont to see who had snow and trails in decent shape.  Since we have season passes to Mountain Meadows in Killington we are also part of the VT reciprocal pass program where you can ski one free day at all of the other nordic centers in VT.  Our research paid off as we ended up at Grafton Ponds Outdoor Center in southern VT.  There was much more snow down there and the trails were perfect for skating!  Hillary and I skated just over 20k and got a good workout on the hills throughout their trail system.  We stopped for lunch in the village of Grafton and even stopped in at the Cheese Store for numerous free cheese samples.  It was a beautiful day to see southern VT and ski some great trails.

Icy Trail Running

I was able to get out for a 6+ mile run on the Castleton Rail Trail this afternoon with temps in the single digits and wind chills well below zero.  In an attempt to stay out of the wind I decided to run on the rail trail which is pretty protected with trees along most of it.  The temps were definitely manageable for the 6+ miles at a pace just over 7 minute miles even though the trail was literally a sheet of hard glaring ice!  My new DIY running cleats performed spectacularly!  There are a couple spikes that I could feel through the foot bed when stepping on hard, uneven glare ice, but no falls and overall great traction.

Registered for the Vermont 100

Today at 10am registration opened up for the Vermont 100 in July.  After continually hitting refresh then filling out all of the info I found that I had just barely made registration as the 325 person field was filled within the next 20-30 minutes!  So I have set my ultra racing schedule through July with:
Bear Mountain 50 mi on 5/3/14 in New York
Bryce Canyon 50 mi on 6/14/14 in Utah
Vermont 100 mi on 7/19/14 in Vermont

This week starts my official start to more formal training, but last week was extremely active with XC Skiing and running adding up to nearly 50 miles for the week.  With the downpouring rain today, morning temps in the 50s and temps around zero tonight I decided to take the off day.  I should have seen this coming yesterday ... as Hillary and I started to gather gear for skate skiing the dogs migrated up to the bed to take an all day nap and let us know that they needed a day off as well!

I have now added race preview links at the top of the page.

New snow and cold!

Hillary, Stout, Hubb and I went for a 7.25 mile XC ski around Bird Mountain out the backyard today.  The temperature was just 1 degree for the entire ski.  We had about 4-5 inches of fresh super light snow when we started on a very minimal base.  There was just barely enough snow on the trails with out lots of debris and ruts.  It is still snowing and we are over 6 inches now.