Week 18-24 Dopey Challenge: Too Busy to Blog

I’ve been meaning to update but my schedule has been rough! Teaching four nights a week has taken more of a toll on my work/rest/training schedule than I thought it would. Disruptive current events have also taken a toll on family life, and I needed some time to re-calibrate. I’ve also had some work travel thrown into the minestrone. I’m trying to keep it all together, which has been an interesting challenge but certainly not something I would wish on my worst enemy! The month or so I’ve been gone, I’ve also been fighting some sort of cold. It’s finally cleared up last week with the help of antibiotics, but being down for 30+ days through a grueling work/teaching schedule with a heaping of marathon miles certainly didn’t help.

So, what’s my training schedule been like? The short recovery weeks have been 45 minutes-45 minutes-6 or 7 mile runs. The long weeks are Dopey simulations: there is a short run on Friday, a 10+ run on Saturday, and a 20+ run on Sunday. These weeks are the harshest.

For these Dopey simulations, we’ve taken those runs outdoors. Erik was a little luckier that he had a cross country team where he got some outdoor runs in. I did most of my runs inside for a number of reasons of which I won’t go into here. However, with our first Dopey simulation, we plotted some routes to see how we could get in those challenging miles without hogging the treadmill all weekend long.

On the Dopey simulation Saturday long run, we ran around Sloan Lake, which is a small 2.5-mile loop here in Denver. It’s a paved path and has lots of foot traffic. The next day, Erik had a race near Bear Creek, which was roughly 20 miles away from home. He decided to run the race and then run the entire way home. After I dropped him off, I drove myself to Sloan Lake to run around the lake until I got my 20 miles in.

On the second Dopey simulation, we had a little more struggle. It was a 13 mile + 23 mile weekend. Our first one went fine, but the 23 mile one was difficult. Erik did not eat nearly enough the day before after our 13-miler, which affected him very badly near the end of his 23-miler. Luckily we weren’t too far from one another when I saw him “Caspering” (wobbling back and forth on the footpath, pale as a ghost). I gave him some of my gels (he finished his) and gave him some water (he was out of his!) and we headed home. I still had 7 or 8 miles left to go, but I figured I could get him home safely and get him eating and then get the rest of the miles done on the treadmill. So, the 23 mile run for me was not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but I got the miles in and it hurt like any other long run.

This weekend I’m coming up on another Dopey simulation: 2 45-minutes, a 5-miler, a 13-miler, and then a 26-miler. It’s freezing cold and snowing here in Denver as I predicted it would many many months ago, so thankfully we have tickets out of town to run back-to-back races in Dallas. It’s also a big weekend for me since it’s our first wedding anniversary, and Rogue One is also coming out. So three big things in the span of seven days. My legs may just fall off. Overall it’s a very, very special weekend for me!

There’s about three weeks left to go until Dopey. I still can’t believe I’ve managed to mostly stick to the training plan. At 3-4 runs a week, I suppose it’s pretty hard to fall off. I’ve began to plan my race schedule for next year. I’m looking at maybe two marathons next year – one in June and one in December. I think I can manage it if I repurpose some of these low-mileage training plans. I was interested in a 50K but that one falls around Thanksgiving in Seattle. I suppose I can play that one by ear, since that’s an extra race registration that I’d have to pay for in addition to my Rock n Roll Global Tour Pass. It seems like I’m really going to get great use out of it next year. Erik and I may potentially go for 10 races. The Hall of Fame requires 15 but I have no clue how I could work it into my schedule and still leave some races for a future calendar.

Here are some photos from the last 7 weeks. Apparently I’ve been gone a long time!

My mantra for the upcoming weekend: