Happy New Year! and tapering.

The final blog post of 2010 and this year has been pretty good for the most part.

This year brought me to branching out to my own office mid-year which has turned out to be a good thing and something I have been waiting to do for a long, long time.

This year I also had an increase in running miles. In 2009, I ran 845 miles and this year, 1106 miles. That's a good increase but for some crazy reason I was looking for it to be higher! Oh well, 2011 right!

I have to say that 2010 also brought a great year with Dez even though the last quarter turned out to be a diagnosis of breast cancer for her and now with current chemo treatments, she has a great positive spirit and I am glad I can be here to support her, Love ya babe!

I am excited to bring in 2011 with the opening of HURT100 in 15 days! This will be an exciting way to open my run season as I have some great plans for this year in the run area, already applying for Wasatch 100 in Sept 2011, cant wait till Feb 5th! to find out!! I am also excited to advance to Level 2 of certification for stretch to win in February as well and of course this year I turn 40!!!! Yahoo!!

All will be fun and I will enjoy all the good, tough, fun and happy times that 2011 brings!

I have also officially entered Taper for HURT 100 and by my opinion a littler earlier than planned simply because of increased rain and crappy weather here in Vegas. The few short runs I have had I have felt pretty good and didn't push the pace simply because I knew I had been rested. With 14 days left there is nothing much more I can do but sauna-steam room train, keep my legs feeling good, rest and not get sick. I have been planning my trip, my mental plan and just overall preparing and am excited to get the show on the road!

see ya all next year!!!

Rockon'

Rainy dayz and Beauty.

For the past few days here in Vegas it has been rainy, colder, windy at times and just plain Yuk! But it is Winter and this is how it is around here, not always fun in the Sun in the desert. However, this type weather is certainly not working with My plan for my last push to taper for Hurt100.

My Plan was to have this week my last big week and than head to taper at Christmas time, which in the grand scheme of things tapering down from 70 miles + is still 50 miles-ish so with the weather rearranging things I am now basically playing with my run times and just trying to stay in the game. I mean, Okay, I could get out there and run in the rain, get all soaked up, freeze and basically not have a good time but since entering the long training days of ultra running I have told myself you have to enjoy being out there running or you will simply look for every excuse to cut the run short simply because you are not having fun and with the weather the way it is, for me, it's not fun! So I am basically just looking for my run windows and take advantage when I can.

According to weather reports, this Thursday the skies will part and for the next week after it will look to be good running times and with that I will be 15-20 days out and taper will have to commence, although if we are keeping track of numbers, I am basically on taper now with about 30-50 miles this week and probably next and if we translate that into hours somewhere between 8-14 hours. I think my main goal here is not to let my self get mentally beat in worrying about how much training I am getting or not getting in the next 3 weeks but simply take advantage of the rest on the legs while giving them just enough exercise to not lose site of the main job we are up against come Jan 15th!

If I have to say, overall I am feeling ready but being this far out still just seems a little too far ahead to be "ready" and wait, Ready? Are you really ever ready for a 100 miler? Honestly, I don't know because I have not attempted one but I do know I feel the same as when I did my first Ironman in terms of doubting my readiness! and I do know I feel more ready today than when I did the 100k back in October.

I will start planning all my aid stations, drops, logistics of the race and going over all my details in my head over the next couple of weeks and making sure my plan is in my head so come race day all I have to do is run and not worry about things and just take it as it comes. It's a lot to do in the short amount of time so I better get with it.

On a side note, my wonderful girlfriend Dez is doing great considering Chemo treatments but she made it through round 1 of 6, this week is 2 of 6. She has a great heart and positive outlook on all this and that keeps her strong. I will say this week seemed to be a little harder because her hair really started to thin and come out even after cutting her hair short from day 1. So with the strong heart she asked me to cut it all off for her last night. At first there was discussions about why and why not to cut it but finally it came down to she wanted to cut it. We broke out the clippers and as hard as it was to see her crying before I made the first pass, I was standing there with doubt in my mind she said "I can do this!" covered her eyes and said Go! When it was all done she had a nice buzz cut #4. She no longer cried and we laughed together about it, simply because she is as Beautiful with hair as without. You're the bestest Dez!

rockon'

My Tired Legs.

What a week!! I think... At the end of this week I was a little down on the way I have been feeling the last 3 runs simply because my legs have been really tired. I felt I had no snap, no push, barely a shuffle and mostly just out of gas.

I even complained to Sweet Baboo aka BIG B coming of some stellar running events but what am I supposed to say to guy with the one of the greatest license plates I've seen "Run Big". I even complained to this GUY and then thought, shoot, he hasnt even updated his blog since October! and must still be singing and dancing to the Buring Ring of Fire!

My thoughts about how my legs feel for the past couple of days have been all over the charts and with the calculations in my head on my run mileage I was definitely not impressed and left wondering why. Was it the increase in road mileage the last two weeks to increase my overall mileage? Was it the increase in road running pace per mile vs. trail running pace? Was it that I missed calculated a couple of my nutritional caloric needs and now I was paying the price? Was it a combination of all? I went back to my training log and here is the break down and the Answer!!!

• Sunday - 26 miles (trails)
• Monday - Off
• Tuesday - 3 miles (road)
• Wednesday - 16.5 miles (road)
• Thursday - Off
• Friday - 5 miles (road)
• Saturday - 26.2 miles (14 trail, 12.2 road)

Total 7 day mileage = 76.7 miles!

Now that's why my Legs are Tired!! Somewhere along the line I forgot I ran 26 miles on Sunday. After this I totally felt much relief and understanding of my tiredness and hungriness.

Today and yesterday I took off but tomorrow will be back on the road. I feel a little more rested and with the help of some extra stretching and Epsom salt bath relaxing. I basically have 12 days till Christmas and one of the best gifts of all, TAPER!!

rockon'