Last weekend consisted of hiking Mt. Tallac in Tahoe. I'm thankful to Kevin for introducing me to hiking, something I had never done before (why hike when I can run?) I thought hiking would be a light workout, something pale in intensity on the workout scale when compared with running. That is, until, I lost the hiking trail on my way up Tallac and found myself bouldering up the side of a mountain! The three of us that broke off the group included Jacob, a 12 year old, myself & a man named Brian, who had hiked Tallac a number of times but was his first time in about a year.
On the way up Tallac Jacob had mentioned he had hiked Half Dome before. He is definitely tougher and stronger than the average 12 year old. Knowing Jeffrey, his dad and person responsible for the trip to Tallac, it must be good genes! As soon as we started with the bouldering Jacob took off up the mountain. I kept turning around and asking Brian if we were going the right direction, "is this the correct trail??" while grasping with all muscles of my fingers clenched around the protruding rock. "I can't tell from this angle" he responded a few times before I figured as long as we were going up we would eventually summit.
About 4.5 miles and 2.5 hours later Jacob and I were enjoying views from the tippy top of 9700+ feet Mt. Tallac. Jacob expressed he had never bouldered anything like that before. He has an adventurous future ahead of him.
The following day I was cycling around the massive Lake Tahoe that I, even at 9700 feet, could not completely wrap my eyes around. It seemed a bit more daunting from that angle. My mom and I successfully completed the ride in around 5 hours (riding time) and could not have asked for more gorgeous weather. Previous years were not so lucky.
Tomorrow brings about the long awaited Skyline to Sea 50K which I hope to break 5 hours. I have not been on a training regimen since CIM last year. I'm enjoying the break from being on a dedicated plan and I find that I enjoy running enough that I don't necessarily require a plan to complete the races I sign up for. However, not being on a specific plan does leave me nervous about finishing a race with a time goal in mind. I didn't even look at the pace that would be necessary to break 5 hours until this morning. While not impossible, an average 9:30 pace will be difficult..but then again, that's the point, isn't it? The Western States 100 training runs (day 1, namely) had enough descending to amp up my quads to take a licking tomorrow. And a recently discovered hill in Folsom, thanks to a new runner-old friend of mine, has me slogging up hills, not fast but with ample speed to keep an overall descent pace.
I figured this morning with an 18 week training plan, thanks to the one in the back of Dean Karnazas' 50/50, my journey for a Boston Qualifying CIM will begin end of July. There will be lots of tweaks to this plan. The first "long" run starts out with 7 miles, which I've been gladly doing and then some a couple times during the week. Most importantly will probably be doing the 2x/week speed work. 1 interval workout and 1 tempo workout. Fellow runner and friend, Derrick, recently joined Buffalo Chips and speaks highly of the speed workouts he's been doing with the group. I think I will follow his footsteps there and join sometimes in August.
Until the more intense speed workouts begin, I will fancy myself doing races/rides with nothing more than finding peace and pleasure within them. This race is calling my name and although I haven't signed up yet... I have a feeling these 50 miles will see me:
http://www.insidetrail.com/ai1ec_event/trail-endurance-challenge/?instance_id=
10,000 feet of climbing sounds like a good sufferfest! I hope the next couple weeks will lead me to a wise decision on this.
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