Sunday, July 3, 2011

Bread & Butter

This weekend was filled with more 'bread and butter' training sessions.  We refer to the b&b workouts as those routes that guarantee quality workouts and are often well used routes.  Staples, if you will.  Well, to be honest, after this weekend I am so ready to move on...

Friday was a merry-go-round workout.  I parked at Watson Raod elementary school and ran the Glenmore Highlands for 11km, then did the two tits workout, only added on extra hell hill climbs and dilworth climbs to get my total of 28k, 4000feet and 3hr 40min.  Been there done that workout and it probably didn't help that we originally planned to go up to Needle Peak and because of the low levels of snow decided the night before to stay here.  You just can't replace a day in the mountains with the two t's and compare them.  The positive is that I did get very close to recreating the first stage of the race!

(view from highlands looking towards two t's and hell hill)

(view from two t's looking back at highlands)

Saturday proved to be a positive back to back day for me as I set my goal on 6 repeats at Pin Cushion.  This too was close to recreating another stage at 24km, 5400 feet and 3:40hrs again.  Mind you the best part of my day being out with the PACE athletes and coaching.  Everyone did a great job on this challenging trail which ascends 900 feet in 2km, making the up/down repeats not only physically challenging but the trail is loose, rocky and technical.  I opened up the day for clinic participants to invite friends or family and I too invited our good friends Michael and Suzanne.  They were awesome and came out with their packs on and hiked back to back to back... repeats too.  The other highlight of the day was the Inspiration Tree.  I asked everyone to bring along an item that 'inspires them' and we tacked things on the tree so we could be reminded with each repeat. 

I would have tacked all my runners at the end if I was able... they all inspire me for different reasons.

Sunday I got my butt back out the door early and did 17km and 1hr 40min in Crawford.  I felt good again and was pleased with my ability to maintain a nice tempo pace on the flats and run/hike as strong as I did on the climbs.  I picked a flatter route today as I wanted to 'run' my legs and loosen them from all the climbing of the previous day.  I started out with stiff quads but it went away after 20min.  I was shocked to come across a camp fire that was not put out.  If anyone can remember the devastating fires of 2003 you would understand.  Not to mention this is now my neighborhood and community up here.  I called my husband and he called the fire department.  They came and put it out.  Here is a photo of one of the logs.  I hate to think if there was a strong wind this morning...

And aside from training our weekend was busy with fun family time.  We had a Canada Day party, a wedding, Carter was in a swim meet and we managed to find some down time to watch a movie and hang out together on Sunday.  It was a well needed family day and we took advantage of it!! 

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