wasted week

OK, so the whole reason I started this blog was because, after about a year and a half of running with the gazelles, I had lost my focus. I wasn't as interested in running or, more importantly, improving my running. I stopped pushing as hard in workouts, which resulted in a cycle where I would be disappointed with my progress, so my motivation would suffer, so I wouldn't push as hard, so I would be disappointed... blah blah blah. I'm really not looking for sympathy here, I just figured a little background on this exercise in self-indulgence would be called for eventually.

I realized I was in this muddle back in the fall, but I figured I'd be able to shake it off before this spring when I was hoping to improve on my 5K times from spring 2007. Unfortunately, I got sick around Thanksgiving, and then shortly afterward went to Kenya for two weeks (pics here in case you care). I only went running once or so over a 4 week period, and to make matters worse, I lost somewhere around 16 pounds due to illnesses and general travel anxiety. (If you know me, then you know I didn't really have 16 pounds to lose. It was well over 10% of my body weight.)

So January hit, and I was trying hard to get back into things, but I still had this nagging sense of ambivalence. Under normal circumstances, I might not try to force the issue, but I had two upcoming events that made me feel something of a sense of urgency:

1. el beskrownito was due to be born at the beginning of April. Just guessing, but my focus would probably shift a little more to non-running activities after that. If I was planning to train somewhat intensely, it would have to be before then.
   


2. the bun run was in early april. Who cares, right? There are plenty of other 5Ks.... The thing is, I look at the bun run as my annual exam. In 2006, it was the first race I ran a month after joining the gazelles in a PR time of 20:51. Last year, I improved that to 18:52... Almost a 2 minute improvement! While I don't expect such a big drop off this year, I'd still like to do better than last year or I'll feel like I've wasted all the training I've done since then.

(Wow, my verb tense is really awkward in those above paragraphs, but I'll leave it as it is instead of messing it up more. Just wanted to make sure that you know that I know it's borderline unreadable.)

So I still have grand (for me) aspirations; namely, I want to run a 5K at a sub-6:00 pace. But there's not much time to realize this goal. You'd think I'd be cramming in all the workouts I could, right? Wrong. Nope, in the last week, since my marathon experience (which was really Pat's and Diana's marathon experience but thanks for sharing y'all), I've done no running. Instead I went snowboarding in Idaho.

Granted, it was fun, and if I'm going to do activities like this, I need to get them in before el beskrownito appears. But it's not going to help with my running, and it doesn't really do much for the running content of this blog either.

Nevertheless, while I have your attention, I need to tell you that Boise is an extremely well kept secret. It's a smallish town (approx 200,000) situated in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The city itself is located on a high plains type of area, but there are mountains literally within walking distance. Also, there's a trail and park system that runs along the Boise River in the center of town that puts our Lady Bird Lake trails to shame. It runs for 20+ miles and features a lot more park-like attractions than what we have here. Plus it's, you know, actually on the riverfront the whole way. I have to mention that the public library is in a boring box of a building that say "LIBRARY!" on the side. I think that's awesome. And yes, I yelled "LIBRARY!" as I walked by. The only negative comment I can up with about the Boise is that the Asian food is not so hot.

I snowboarded at Sun Valley, a fancy-schmancy resort area about 3 hours away, for 2 days. The views from the tops of the mountains are stunning. Better than Aspen (the only thing I have to compare it to) in my opinion. But the runs are just ho-hum. They're a little steeper than what most places offer, and there isn't much variation in the terrain. I just slants downward the whole way. Plus we had visibility issues on the second day, though I understand that's just bad luck.

I also got to spend a day at Bogus Basin, which is only 16 miles outside of Boise. It's a really scenic drive to get out there on a windy road through the mountains. It's supposed to be a small-ish resort, but it features a lot of trails on different faces of the mountain and, most importantly, a lot of variety. We expected it to be packed since there was fresh snow and it was a weekend day, but the lift lines were short, and the trails felt roomy. All in all, I'd say it was more fun that Sun Valley. The only complaint would be that some of the runs drain into cat-trail-ish greens at the bottom, which is boring and, if you're a snowboarder, a little stressful. (At least for this snowboarder.)

Before finishing this post, I want to get back to running for a bit. This week's workouts are the secret hill (Spring Creek/Norris) on Tuesday and 400m repeats on Thursday. Ah yes, it quickly becomes obvious that the marathon has finally passed as the speed workouts reappear. I don't really care how Tuesday goes... I haven't run in a week, and my legs are still a little wrecked from snowboarding. But I really need to push myself on Thursday and force myself to get a little hypoxic. Or maybe even a lot hypoxic. I'm hoping I'll have some people around my speed to run with to help with the motivation. If I don't run a bunch of repeats at 85 seconds or less, expect a very mopey follow up post. You can see how it all goes in the next thrilling episode.