Training for a 200 miler
Divide 200: Week 12, Phase 1 done. Down week
Prescribed mileage: NA/Completed miles: 31.42 miles
Prescribed vert: NA/ Completed vert: 10,019 feet
Did he chase a down week with an even more down week? God damn right he did.
Last week was a whirlwind, moving into a new house and spending time with the in-laws for Easter, so coming home on Sunday, I was excited to settle into the new house and explore the out-the-front-door trail access. I was feeling pretty worn down from move week so decided to take a totally unstructured, no numbers driven week. I just wanted to see what I could access from our new place and go up as much as possible as winter is finally slowly starting to break.
And I did. Grabbing a 10,000ft week pretty easily and snagging the first true summit of the spring, I enjoyed a lot of cruiser miles on some single track around town. The access from the new house is ridiculous as I can tap into probably close to 250 miles of alpine trail systems out my door and bag a half dozen summits from home without thinking twice about it, so this spring is going to be a lot of UP. Legs felt and body felt generally tired coming down from the big move week, so I hit the gym a little harder than normal, got my bearings on some trails and capped the week off with a fun little shuffle up Lady Mac, which still had a pretty solid cornice on its ridge line (thankfully you could dance around it).
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a few days in the last few weeks that I second guessed chasing the 200 miler, but I recognized it was a product of life being busy and already feel the fire returning, so pretty stoked about that. The temps are finally steadily above freezing which means 1) it’s going to be a real wet week ahead and 2) the alpine will be clearing soon. My plan is to take the next few weeks to not be a slave to numbers, but to ramp back up the miles and settle back into 50-80 mile weeks and then when everything’s truly melted out, I’ll throw my 100+ mile weeks into the mix with some pretty epic days and some big back to backs.
Big stuff ahead and I can’t wait.
Onward, Always.