August 15 - 21

Monday, Aug 15

AM: 11 miles, 500'

Turkey trail loop from WJU.  Ran first half conservative and increased pace throughout.  Felt strong, but calves sore from pavement.  Left for WJU XC running camp later in the afternoon.

Late PM:  1 hour of kayaking on the lake.

Tuesday, Aug 16

AM: 6.5 miles

From Rogers Lake, headed out toward Camp Far West entrance and back.  Super easy jog. + Core

PM: 1 hour of kayaking.

Wednesday, Aug 17

AM: 9.5 miles, 500'

Same route toward CFW entrance, but hooked a right into the campground and ran down to the boat dock and back.  Tacked on a short, but steep little hill and headed back at ~6 - 6:30 pace.  Calves a little sore.

Noon: Kayaking

PM: Team Relay, 1st place! ~1.5 miles

Inter-squad relay competition.  My team ran really smart, well done guys!  Relay consisted of a 1/4 mile figure eight loop.  Was pretty much like a 4x400 relay for a continuous 10 minutes with 3 separate rounds.

Thursday, Aug 18

Late PM: Active recovery.  Walked on the treadmill barefoot with my pack on at 10% incline for :30.  Followed by squats, lunges, and core.

Friday, Aug 19

PM:  5.5 miles, 1,500'

Ran from Green Gate out toward ALT with my wife, while my father-in-law biked.  The WS trail is nasty right now; overgrown with star thistle in some sections and plenty of poison oak to greet you on some parts.  Really impressed with how strong my wife is becoming as a runner.  She has been putting in loads of trail time and amassing some stout vertical gain as she gears up for her first marathon October 15th.

Saturday, Aug 20

AM: 13 miles, 1,500'

Lower Quarry - Brown's Bar - toward ALT and back.  Really pleasant run with the team.  Cruised efficiently and enjoyed the outing.  WS trail nasty from Brown's toward ALT.  Including yesterday, first time I've been on these sections since pacing Nick at WS.  I somehow even recognized the exact spot Mike Wolfe powerfully crept up on us roughly 1.5 miles out from Brown's.  Thinking about that day gets me excited about WS 2012 and the possibility of chasing the Cougar.

Sunday, Aug 21

0 - Full rest day.

Weekly Mileage - 47

Weekly Vertical - 4,000'

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Continuing to keep the mileage low and steady as my body gets back into a groove.  Still focusing heavy on recovery and trying to keep diligent with core strengthening and form-work. 

2 weeks from today is the Sizzler 49'r Canyon 10-miler.  I believe this will be the last year it's held, therefore, my last attempt to tackle the beastly CR which has stood the last 5 years (59:38).  Right now, I'm in far better shape than I was last year heading into Sizzler.  Whether that equates to a 3 minute improvement from my time last year remains to be seen.  I figure if I can run a mid-to-low 33 minute 10k for the first part, throw down at least a 16-flat clip on the 2-mile climb up stagecoach (850' of gain), and maintain 6:30's for the last 1.5 miles; that should work itself out to around 59:30, so I expect it to be -- if all goes well -- a nail-biter.

As excited as I am for this challenge, I'm really pumped about how Sara will do.  She owns the women's CR still (1:15) and with the amount of work she's done in the last month, she could very well dip below 1:10, which would be super impressive.  Prediction: Sara beats Connor Curley and finishes top 5.