Rest week! My legs were telling me it was time to finish up the training block and give the body a nice rest, so I listened. I also had a fairly important band practice and a big show to play on Saturday, so to keep myself sane, it’s good to not attempt to try to do too many different fun things at the same time. Try to fit too many things in, and you’ll most likely miss a few things you had planned to do, and that’ll make you feel less than ideal. You’ll just basically suffer mentally for it. Instead, I hung up the running shoes and focused on the band and with working. I’ve big plans for this summer, and those need to be paid for, somehow!
So, only one day of fairly easy running for me, and about three visits to the rock gym, as well as my usual 10-ish miles riding bikes all over town (ahem: “active recovery”). Top roped up an actual route indoors for the first time in, let’s say: 15 years, which is terrifying to type, but I do think it’s true. I’m using the same exact shoes I was using as a teenager. They’re in need of finally being replaced.
I took the top rope session pretty easy, finishing every route I started on, without a fall and topping out one or two 5.10a’s, which isn’t spectacular or surprising, but makes me feel pretty happy. Bouldering is going well – able to finish up V3 problems – again not newsworthy, but gives me a ton of confidence once I get out-of-doors again in a few months.
As a precocious youth, I was able to finish up a 5.11c top rope route with a good dash of sloppiness, and that seems to be something that’s within sight again. If I wasn’t spending 20+ hours/week running I’d say, “give me a month”, but since I’m predisposed with excelling at something quite different, I’ll be happy to make some slow progress for the next few months and work more at the mental aspect of it all, which is what I really like.
1/1 – Group run up Flagstaff/Green
Another easy group run for me. Doing Stuff with other People isn’t something that comes easy for me – I’d much rather be alone, which may not be the most positive thing in the world, so when I’m on group anythings, I’m usually working on sharing the experience. To extroverts, that may sound really weird but – work on weaknesses, you know?
I also wanted to learn the routes up Flagstaff (which I’ve never run up, before) and was happy to be shared the route from the group organizer. It’s actually a pretty nice, runnable route up.
Week total on my feet: 9.7 miles, 3,260 feet of elevation
Week total on the bike: 0
Next week’s goals may be just a long run in the O.S.M.P., tagging multiple peaks. The weather is going to be fairly questionable, so hitting up higher peaks may be kinda dangerous b/c of avy conditions. If that’s not an issue, I may try for S -> N Arapahoe Traverse, getting to Ned. by bike via something like Magnolia (steep!) but it’s not a planned thing. Perhaps a multi-day trip out to Breckenridge to do some slippery sliding on planks is in the cards?
