Training, this years races, and other random stuff...

Haven't really posted much goings on since the fall, so here goes!

Cooper had a successful XC season for Monmouth, capped off by finishing fourth at his conference meet. The team shocked the conference with a second place finish. Considering in 2015 they didn't even have enough healthy runners to SCORE at conference this is an amazing turnaround. Out of the top 7 Coop in the only Junior, the rest being Freshman and Sophomores. Coop also set a Pr in the 5k last week with a 15:39, nabbing a third place finish at the Midwest Conference Indoor Championships. He also scored in the DMR and 3k, heping the Monmouth men to a mind-boggling 18th straight Indoor crown!

Claire and the rest of the Arvada West Wildcats had a great finish to their XC campaign, also. Both the girls and boys teams won the Jeffco Conference 5A Championship and followed that up with first place finishes the next weekend at Regionals. Colorado State saw the boys finish 4th in 5A and the girls 5th. Those state finished were good enough to get an invite to the Nike Cross Regionals in Casa Grande, Arizona. Times were on the slow side because of an unfortunately hot and windy day, but it was a great experience. Gina, Marc (Claire's teammate Katie's dad, and I ran in the "citizens" race early that morning. It was quite a kick to run the course that Casey Clinger and Brie Oakley, both the eventual Nike national champs, would run (much, much faster than we did of course) later in the day. Also got a look at 8th grade phenom Grace Ping, who advanced to nationals and finished 6th there.

Actually, that trip to Arizona ended a running streak at 41 days of running at least three miles. I've never actually tracked that sort of thing before but with the possible exception of my marathon training I doubt I have ever run more than 10-14 days in a row before. I made up my mind to try to run every day this winter and I gotta say, it's made me a bit of a believer. I've always been on the side of a couple rest or cross training days a week but I felt like really putting together a super solid base of training this winter.

I have a tentative plan for racing this year. In April I am planning on running 24 Hours of Palmer Lake Fun Run in Monument, Colorado. The race name is pretty self explanatory: a 24 hour race around Palmer Lake. You run the .8 mile loop as many times as you can for 24 hours at an elevation over 7.000 feet. For some reason this sounds fun to me. Gina, on the other hand, is not quite as overjoyed about the prospect of crewing me for this event! After that I am leaning toward doing my second Tommyknocker 12 Hour in May (last year it was a Fall race, so I am hoping for cooler weather this time around) or perhaps a trail marathon up near South Park. It all depends on what scheduling conflicts I may have or not have with track and Coop coming home from school.

After that I am thinking I am going to ease back on the running during the hotter summer months and tackle some 14ers. Coop, Brandon, and I have tentative plans to take on Mt. Elbert, the highest peak in Colorado, sometime this summer. I also want to do Grays and/or Torreys again, this time during a day when I can actually see some of the views! There is a 14er route near Leadville where you can bag four peaks in one shot that is also calling my name.

I might take on some sort of 50k trail race or a road (eewwww) half or marathon late in the Fall. I have some vague notions about running (more like power hiking) the Pikes Peak Ascent or Marathon in 2018 but I need a qualifier race to enter. We'll see. I also have notions about trying to get into The Barkley Fall Classic in '18. That is pretty much my big dream race at this point. It's the one I have got to try before I quit running. Hoping to avoid the big DNF at that one and get a finisher medal draped over my neck by Laz himself! I've definitely got access to enough vertical close to home to get trained for the Fall Classic.

Here is a super impressive feat: Ultra-marathoner Micheal Wardian won the World Marathon Challenge recently, running seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. and averaged just a shead of 2:45 doing it. Read more about this miraculous achievement here. Retired elite marathoner Ryan Hall also completed it, the last marathons he will ever run.