Mega Hill Workout at Knox Mountain

I"m not gonna lie you ya... when I woke up and it was -10 Sunday morning, I had to have a quick pep talk with myself to get fired up.  I was feeling wimpy as I sipped my espresso in front of the fire place.  It's always easy to talk yourself out of a workout.  You tell yourself you have lots of time to make up for it before your race and you'll do 'extra' on the next workout.  But the reality is one rarely ever feels like there is enough time to prepare for a race before it suddenly is right before you and adding on time to the next workout, for me anyhow, never happens.  I am usually scrambling to even fit the original workout in around work, parenting and other responsibilities I have in my life.

Anyhow... my 'Pep talk' went something like this:

"Suck it up.  Not all your runs are at -10.  This is just one day an you know once you get there and start running, there will be no turning back.  Do you think the Alps are going to bring you sunshine and lemonade everyday?  You have a longer way to go than you think "Unser" if you're feeling even remotely wimpish about -10.  So have some more espresso and go find some merino to wear cause you're being a baby." 

From that point in, I was good to go and on route to meet the 50k crew early at Knox.  I mapped out a loop that was approx. 3.2km and 600feet.  It was a mega climb up and the descent had a good mixture of steep rock, snow, ice, mud, and varying degrees of terrain which allowed everyone to practice both their technique an running on tired legs.  Coming off the climb every lap, your legs had to find their happy place and adjust to the different demands.  We got in 2.5 laps (1.5hrs) before meeting the other groups.

From there everyone jumped into the workout and followed one of the 5 PACE leaders out that day.  Once they learned the loop - they could keep going around until their training time was up.  It allowed everyone to really own their own pace and workout.  Not to mentioned fight their own demons... it was a heck of a hard workout!

I managed to get in 6.5 laps an then decided I neee to stretch out the legs and run it back on the road.  So I took part of the group with me.  Actually, PACE leader Ian Tanner ended up leading the way on a few of his IBWT's.  (Ian Bushwack Trails)

In total, my data (for the 50k training group) showed 4hrs, 28km and 4800 feet.  I was happy.  Chuckanut has 5000 feet over roughly a 30k chunk in the middle... so add another 10k on either end of flat to rolling and maybe I can pull this race off with only 10 weeks of training after all.  I was overjoyed with the focus and determination of my athletes out there and they helped push me too.  It was a good day!! We set some purpose to our long run and everyone got the job done.  LIFE WAS GOOD at Knox yesterday.

Min you, life was also good at Nordic, where my husband and his friend were out for a ski and came across 2 lynx!