Wednesday, July 15, 2009

I'm Back?

Wow it's been a long time. Last post almost 16 months ago...

Going to try and do a better job of keeping this going now. Will shift gears a bit and document my preparation and training for upcoming events, maybe a little bit of other stuff here and there.

I'm working in the Pentagon again, for Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I'm a Deputy to his Special Assistant for Legislative Affairs, doing liaison work with Congress for many topics and functions. It's interesting.

My next big event is the Shenandoah Mt 100, a back-country mountain bike race on Labor Day weekend. It's 100 miles in the Shenandoah Mountains along the Virginia-West Virginia state borders. Lots of single-track, some fire roads, and plenty of climbing - about 15,000 feet by most estimates.

As prep, I did the 12 Hours of Cranky Monkey a couple weeks ago. Was 6th of 28 in my class (35+ Masters), managed over 82 miles after 3 months of training. So I have a ways to go to make 100 miles under 10 hours but that was a great kick start. My heart rate download showed that I worked too hard the first 3-4 hours, HR at about 160 when it should have been about 140. So that was a good reminder of pacing strategies and their impact on fatigue. More on that down the road.

Navenka and I rode the Mountains of Misery 200K on our tandem over Memorial Weekend - I missed a turn that added between 15-20 miles so we called it a day at 118 miles with about 20 more to go out of what was supposed to be 126. Navenka's longest ride before that day was 60 miles so I give her HUGE credit for her effort.

We're going to ride the Reston Century in late August; I'll ride my mountain bike and Navenka her road bike. This will be a final tune-up day for me before SM100.


I'm doing the Richmond Marathon on 14 November. Am on track for my game plan there, to qualify for Boston, which will require a 3:20 finishing time, or a 7:38 pace. I'm running 9+ miles on hilly courses at about that pace with a heart rate of 145, so things are progressing. The focus will shift after SM100 to more running, although I may enter the EX2 Adventures "Day of Endurance" in October, 3 hours of trail running followed by 6 hours of mountain biking. I should be in respectable condition for that.


In December, I'll run a 50K trail run that's one of my favorites, along the Bull Run trail over much of the Bull Run Run 50-miler course that I hope to do for the second time next spring.

Over the winter, I'm aiming to return to Minnesota for the Arrowhead 135 once again. That's the real focus...

So I have a few things to keep me busy.

Hope you are doing great and enjoying your own adventures!

Best, d2g

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home