Half-marathon this weekend

A week or two ago CV emailed and told me to jump into a running race. After procrastinating a week or so, I pulled up an online running calendar and discovered the Colfax Marathon, which takes place this Sunday. The start and finish are at City Park, just a few miles down Colorado Blvd from my place -- nice. The biggest downside is the 6:45 AM start -- yuck.

I'm not going to taper for the race, but I am going to try to be at least semi-rested so that my time is reflective of my fitness. Here's the problem, though: yesterday I decided to head out for a run and simply go by feel. I had no notion of how long to go or where to run, and I didn't use a HR monitor or GPS. In fact, I didn't even look at my watch the entire run. My run ended up lasting a bit over two horus and ten minutes, which needless to say left me a bit sore.

That leaves me with today and tomorrow to recovery. Today I did an easy 1 hour swim and was fairly exhausted. In the evening I added some active recovery, a 45 minute spin in a nice light rain (I stayed warm though!). I was considering a second swim, but I feel tired and just want to close my eyes. I'll take that as a sign to lounge on the couch the rest of the evening. Hmm...time to catch up on Lost episodes, I guess. The show has been pretty bad the past few seasons, and I have very low expectations for the finale. But I digress.

Tomorrow I'm thinking I will do a double swim day with a ride in the middle. I'll keep the intensity moderate at most for both swims, and I will shoot for 6-7k. The ride might be an issue fatigue wise, so I'll start with a readiness test to see how my recovery is going. (Incidentally, implementing a test like this is a great way to see if you're ready for intensity or whether you should take easy.) If things aren't looking good, I'll either do more active recovery or get off the bike altogether.

The goal is to get some hours in while ensuring that I'm at least moderately rested for the race, and I think my plan should work. I'm at 13 hours so far this week, and I'm thinking if I do 3.5 hours tomorrow and another 4 hours on Sunday (the race plus an easy spin and easy swim) I'll have put in a solid week with a slight run focus.

Prior to this week I've averaged about 22 hours the last four weeks. Even if the hours aren't huge this week (e.g., if I go really easy tomorrow because I'm still not recovered), I'll still be well positioned to begin IM specific prep very soon.

On another subject, on a ride earlier this week I picked a route from mapmyride.com, but for whatever reason didn't take the directions out of my pocket and instead just headed in the general direction of the mountains. After an hour and a half I wasn't sure where I was, but it there was a nice view:


I continued on, figuring I could always backtrack if I got totally lost. A few miles later I figured out where I was:


You may be able to figure it out from this one if you've been there before:


I liked this part:


If you haven't yet figured out where I was, here ya go:



Definitely a ride I'll do again. From Red Rocks I can head up 93 to Golden, where I can then climb Lookout Mountain, head over to Golden Gate Canyon (haven't ridden that one yet, only been up in a car), or head back to Denver, among other options.

Finally, a shout-out (yeah, that's right, I said "shout-out") to Gu for this recent shipment:

I love vanilla Gu and if I had a bit less self-discipline I'd eat 'em for dessert.

Oh, goal half-marathon time: 1:14 or 1:15. Who knows, though.