Monthly Capers: May 2025

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Thursday 5/1/25: StairMaster, 1hr

L7 — just getting back to it. HR was low (av of < 105bpm), but legs were sore, so my guess is that my aerobic conditioning is really good right now, even with such a grueling trip.

Friday 5/2/25: StairMaster, 1hr

L8, average of 121 bpm. Still pretty good. Still felt sore, still, but the not-heightened HR made me happy.

Saturday 5/3/25 Rest

Worked a food truck the last few days, and worked it again today — but today was in Civic Center Park at Cinco de Mayo! 8 hours of that was enough for me to call it for the day!

Sunday 5/4/25 Rest

Another day working the food truck so another day of “rest”

Monday 5/5/25 Treadmill 1hr, then Treadmill w/20lb ~10min

I mistakenly thought I had done a Treadmill sess at 15%, 3.5 mph, so I decided to up this to 3.6mph. Given two days of rest-ish, it gives me a good window to see what my performance could be. Average of ~129bpm, 10% HR drift. My HR drift is always high it seems when running, so I took this all as positive results at a speed I’ve never really hit before. The high HR drift I think is just from my weight being higher than most runners of my experience. Considering it wasn’t that long ago that results at 3.0mph had an average bpm of only +7 bpm, I’m kinda over the moon.

After a short rest, I thought I’d play with some different workouts to support my summer goals: weighted runs!

Tuesday 5/6/25 Treadmill 1hr+

Rainy day. Upped the speed to 3.7mph because why not? 3.5mph is borderline Z3 for me, but 3.7 is most definitely. Chilled at a slower speed, then did 4mph just because. I think one of my weaknesses is turnover speed. I also made the decision not to test myself on a TT up Green Mountain until I can run this pace (or better!) more easily. But at least this treadmill gives me elevation gained in realtime and I can use that to roughly figure out where I’d be on the mountain with the time on the treadmill.

Wednesday 5/7/25 Run, Stairmaster

Ran to/from the gym (6.5 miles), Stairmaster 1hr, L8

Thursday 5/8/25 Green Mountain, Chapman side quest

Late night hike. Started really easy up Green Mountain via Greg. Canyon but diverted off at Flagstaff Road after filling up with 10 Liters of water. The idea was to do some weighted miles down, then up Chapman. I’m trying to temper my body to carry some weight while going fast-ish, and thought Chapman would work well, as it’s an easy grade and not technical (good because it’s dark).

The goal is to go under 18:30 min/mile with the 20lb load with 1k’ elevation gain/loss over 5 miles, as that’s what I’ll need if I would like to break Pawel’s Collegiate Loop FKT. Down and up Chapman is all of 5 whole miles. I averaged 8:36 min miles going down @ 121 bpm average hr and 15:03 min/mile, 124bpm going up, so goal achieved. Only need to do that 31 more times in a row, and the FKT is mine! Training the CT locally has been somewhat challenging as our trails are so steep, but somehow, I’ll manage.

After the Chapman detour, I took it easy, summited Green, then briskly trotted down. I’m not sure I’ll do the weighted-ish carry down/up Chapman like this, but may just do it as a run as the +5 miles is compelling just to get some more distance in the legs in a convenient area.

Friday 5/9/25 Weighted Treadmill, StairMaster

Pretty tired from yesterday I’ll admit — makes sense given the weighted downhill jog. After work, I hit the gym before passing out at home. First hit the treadmill with my 20lb pack again, staying at ~2.5mph for about an hour/about 2,000′. Then, hit the StairMaster at L6, for another hour gaining supposedly 2400′ more feet. Quite tired afterwards. North of 15,000′ of elevation gain for the week.

Saturday 5/10/25 Rest

Sunday 5/11/25 Rest

Monday 5/12/25 StairMaster L7/6 + 20lbs

Tuesday 5/13/25 Chapman Repeats

I revisited the idea of going down/up Chapman Road, but this time just as a run. Did 2 laps and that kind of crushed me. There certainly is a difference between losing 1,000′ on an easy although steeper gravel road and losing 1,000′ on a very technical, even steeper trail — the former seems to create more DOMS for me right now, so I may do more of these to work on my eccentric bulletproofness. HR is well in Z2 going down, so it looks like I could have pushed it harder; HR going up was will in Z3, so in a race I should probably have hiked this, even though the grade isn’t terrible (6.7% average, chiller than the CT, but not a bad estimate). Approx 10:30 min/miles for the down/up — happy enough about that.

Wednesday 5/14/25 Treadmill, 3mph @ 15%

Hurting. Easy TM workout. Happy again the HR is not elevated, just legs sore, so cardiovascularly, this was a pretty easy workout.

Thursday 5/15/25 Stairmaster, 45 Minutes, L9

Another long work day, but I snuck into the gym before they closed for a shortish, hard-ish workout, but still under Z3, which was surprising, so I guess that’s good sign of increased fitness.

Friday 5/16/25 TM 1hr, 4mph, 15%

Decided a good bludgeoning was in order, so a run firmly in Z3 was the only thing on the menu. After a warmup, I cranked the TM to 4.0mph. Only a 7% drift in the hour, which doesn’t see too bad. I don’t really know where my HR Zones are anymore as it’s been a minute since I set them, but this certainly felt hard but not 10k race pace. Still funny to be all hyped-up on a 4mph run.

I did some calculations, since bettering my PR on Green Mountain is still a goal of mine, although it seems it’s a “sometime this year” goal, rather than my birthday, which was a month ago. If Green Mountain was at a 15% grade rather than the 23% for my chosen route, I would actually need to run at a pace of 4.5mph to get to the 2,330′ up in 38 minutes. That feels well beyond my abilities. So: hmm. Maybe I’ll try it out, but treadmill season seems to be coming to a close.

I also did the calculations for how difficult this would be to do on a StairMaster. Given that each step is 9″ long and 8″ high (89% grade), and a StairMaster “story” is 16 steps or 128″/10′ 8″. The route up Green Mountain being 2300’ is equal to 27,600” or 3,450 StairMaster steps and a distance of a little under a half mile. Level 10 (5.6 floors/minute) will get you up Green Mountain in 38.5 minutes. That seems hard, but doable — more doable than at a 15% grade for me. I feel I’ve done that, but I can’t find a record of it, so let’s say I haven’t. I think partly this is easier as you’re going 4 miles less in distance!

Anyways blah blah blah, TODO: get in better shape.

Saturday 5/17/25 Rest

Sunday 5/18/25 Rest

Monday 5/19/25 Green Mountain (PR on long descent)

Part of PR’ing my chosen loop on Green Mountain is the downhill. I find this more skill than fitness, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to work on techy downhills in general. I love this descent route off Green that takes the West Ridge trail to the road, to Long Canyon, down Flagstaff, then finishes up on the front side of Flagstaff. I’ve ran it a few times, and it’s fun to go fast. One of the big cruxes is a brief uphill section the first time you cross Flagstaff Road — it’s sort of a make or break for PR’ing. If you can’t run this part, you’ll lose too much time.

Took the steepest route up at a gingerly pace, then hung out on the summit for a minute trying to get my HR down, then I was off! Right away, my left ankle felt pretty unstable — ugh. But I decided to give it hell. PR’d Summit to end of West Ridge, then PR’d summit to end of Long Canyon, which is excellent. The next segment with the brief climb — all of 200 feet — was a little rough, but I knew all I had to do was make sure I kept running (Personal 3rd fastest time). Got to the top of the climb and I knew that it was literally all downhill from there. PR’d the rest of the trail down to the finish. Holy hell!

Took over 10 minutes off my PR of the whole thing which is pretty wild for a 6.24 mile segment — ~2:00 min/mile faster overall. That’s substantial!

Tuesday 5/20/25 StairMaster L7 1hr

Woo: cooked from yesterday. Was going to run to the gym, but was having a hard time getting out the door, so just rode there instead. Then only an hour on the SM at L7. HR Drift almost 20% on this low setting so good chance I’m both sore from the downhill eccentric and cardiovascular-ly destroyed. Not a mystery!

Wednesday 5/21/25 Treadmill 3mph @ 15% 1hr, StairMaster L7 1hr

First sess. with treadmill, still a fairly insane HR drift of 20%, later StairMaster, looked a lot better. Both firmly in Z2.

Thursday 5/22/25 Chapman laps + Green

Easy warmup hike to the top of Chapman Road, then two laps down, then up. Felt pretty toasted afterwards, but stumbled up to the summit of Green, then down and back to the bike.

Friday 5/23/25 Treadmill 3.0mph @ 15% 1HR (~2300′)

I had thought about doing more, but I also remembered the 13 hours I have to work tomorrow slingin’ drinks. After tonight, I’m already at > 15,000′ of gain for the week. HR very low — av. ~110. 12bpm lower than April 7th — great improvement, especially on tired legs.

Saturday 6/24/25 Rest

If you want to call it that. It didn’t feel like 13 hours of work on my feet was “rest”.

Sunday 6/25/25 Stairmaster, L10, 45 Minutes, 250 Floors

A few Fridays ago, I mused on how long it would take you to StairMaster the 2300′ that’s roughly equivalent of a summit of Green Mountain, and came to 38.5 minutes on Level 10. So today I tried that level for 45 minutes, and was able complete it without absolutely dying. As I knew then, it’s easier for me to hike steeply than run up something of the same elevation, perhaps because I’m a worst runner than hiker.

But I’m happy with hitting that goal, so now the goal is to run the same amount of time at a 15% grade at 4.5mph/13:20 min/mile pace. That grade is less than the 23% of Green. So, if I can do both a 89% grade and a 15% grade up 2300′ in 39 minutes, it should track I should do 23% approx. It also makes me think I should revisit the idea of hiking some of the steepest sections if it means it’s easier for me, to save myself for the more runnable parts, where I have a little less fatigue to push the pace.

Monday 6/26/25 Rest

Work day.

Tuesday 6/27/25 Treadmill 4.5mph @ 15% grade, 45 minutes; 3.0mph @ 15% grade, 15 minutes + StairMaster

Curiosity got the best of me, so I dedicated today to hit that goal of 4.5mph for 45minutes at 15% — something I’ve never ran close to. Merely 4.0mph is new territory for me, so a jump of that much seemed improbable, but why not — whats the worst that could happen? And ego was on the line!

The entire run felt untenable, but (to make a long story short) I held out, even if it was going to the well for me. 2300 of glorious virtual feet topped in 39 minutes, just like on the StairMaster. It felt harder — MUCH harder — than the StairMaster as there’s ~4 more miles I covered, but hey it got done. I used this as an Anaerobic Threshold Test,

Once you have your AnT heart rate, subtract your previously determined AeT heart rate from it. If the difference is 10 percent or less than the AnT heart rate, it could be helpful for you to reduce the amount of your Z2 training and focus more on Z1 for your aerobic base training.

So, 155 – 130 = 25; 155/10 = 15.5 — the difference is not < 10% (not by a country mile). So I guess it’s Z2 for me.

I don’t really have goals of raising my Anaerobic Threshold, as briskly walking 50 miles/day doesn’t really have that as a requirement, but I guess it’s fun to calculate. An AnT of 155 would predict a Z3 threshold of (90% of AnT) 139.5, so either I’m very much unfit (plausible) or this calculation just doesn’t work for me (also plausible).

So I’ve hit my two goals in a controlled environment to hit my real goal of PR’ing Green Mountain (at least the ascent). I may add a third: get down to 180lbs. I’ve lost about 5lbs in the last few months, so I’m on the right track there. Just need to keep an eye on my pizza and ice cream consumption as it relates to my ever-broadening training load.

Wednesday 5/28/25

Ran to the gym, then on the StairMaster for an hour at L6 with a 20lb pack.

Thursday 5/29/25

Ran from home to the gym, then on the Stairmaster for an hour on L6 with a 20lb pack, then ran 3 miles to work, three miles back from work to the gym, another hour on the Stairmaster on L6 with a 20lb pack, then ran home. Around 12 miles of running in total and 2 hours on the Stairmaster.