Running and Alpine Skiing: a new kind of duathlon?

After struggling through my last 20 miler, I was primed for an easy cut-back week. Ordinarily, I would have taken this opportunity to get in a race, but the opportunity to go skiing in Lake Tahoe was too much of a temptation to turn down. Last year, I was so focused on qualifying for Boston that I turned down all manner of ski trips so I could focus on getting in quality long runs. This winter, with the sub-3:00 in the bag, the name of the game has been squeezing in medium long runs between ski days and hoping skiing counts as a hard core workout. I have to admit my recovery on the weekend has suffered, but its hard to turn down the sheer hedonism of cruising down a soft powder run. If there was a competition involving running followed by a timed run on a downhill course, I'd sign up for it faster than you can say Haile Gebrselasse.

Here's a quick run-down of the last two weeks (Feb. 11-24)


Mon: 3 miles @ 8:33, easy shake-out run, then 30 min. core work-out
Tue: 10 miles, including 1600m (5:53), 3200m (11:36), 1600m (5:31), really strong workout
Wed: 2 miles @ 8:00, easy treadmill, was going to go longer but ran out of time; core work
Thu: 5 miles @ 7:19; moderate run, surprised a 7:19 comes this easily
Fri: off
Sat: 7.13 miles @ 8:03, easy run up in Tahoe
Sun: 11 miles @ 7:56, longish run along Lake Tahoe

Mon: off, travelling
Tue: 10.6 miles, including 2x4x800m @ 5:33, tough workout, no bounce in the legs
Wed: 6.3 miles @ 7:34, legs feeling much better after Tuesday's intervals
Thu: 10.6 miles w/ 7 miles @ 6:34, great MP workout, building up to 10 miles
Fri: off
Sat: 3.1 miles @ 8:03, fun run in the snow around the reservoir; played some laid-back pick-up basketball for about an hour
Sun: 23 miles @ 7:28, long run starting in Hopkinton, great run and felt strong over the Newton Hills

There were a couple highlights over the last two weeks. I was really surprised by how strong I was in the 1st interval workout (1600, 3200, 1600). I was feeling so good that I dropped a 5:30 on the last interval. This feels like a pace I can hold for a 5K, in which case my 5K time is due for a rewriting. We'll see come summer time. Maybe I'll jump in a 5K two weeks out from Boston....

It goes without saying that Tahoe was amazing. This place will always hold a special place in my heart. I learned to ski here in Kirkwood when I was 7, and our families makes an annual pilgrimmage almost every year. Last year, I celebrated qualifying for Boston by spending a week in Tahoe skiing. This time around, we only managed to squeeze in the long weekend. But this view is always worth the six hour flight. I think I tanned over lunch because it was almost 50 degrees on Saturday.

Finally, I rounded out the last two weeks of training with a strong long run. My running club, periodically organizes long runs and this one in particular, dubbed "Down the Hatch" for obvious reasons, tries to simulate race day. We get bussed out to Hopkinton from Wellesley and then, in a kind of masochistic way, we have to "run home." I had a good group of guys to work with and by the time I got back to my apartment, we had clicked off fairly consistent 7:30s for the entire 23 miles. It was a great denoument to my first 50+ mile week of this training cycle.

Down for the count!

Its been an up and down last two weeks. Two weeks ago, I finally got my mileage back in the high 40s and I was aiming to push into the 50s the following week. I recovered relatively quickly from the hard effort up in Derry. I was expecting to have really sore hamstrings from the poor traction but ended up battling some quad soreness for about two days. In general, I've been feeling run down lately and just low on energy. My running log entries have lately been populated by a lot of "really tired this morning," which is surprising considering I haven't really upped the mileage yet. I've been running the interval workouts a bit harder than usual, but I don't know if that's the whole story.

Here's a summary of my workouts from the last two weeks (1/28-2/10)


Mon: 30 min. on the elliptical, legs tired, so skipped the core workout
Tue: 10.2 miles, including 3x2000m intervals @ 5:54; ran out of fuel on the c/d jog
Wed: AM - 4.9 miles @ 7:50 pace, easy run, legs feeling better; PM - 30 min. core work
Thu: 9 miles @ 7:29, moderate run on a hilly course, good energy today
Fri: off
Sat: 6 mile @ 11:09, easy trail recovery run
Sun: 17.5 miles @ 7:43, tempo & hill run along the Boston course, tough workout but good variety of paces and terrain
Total: 48.2 miles

Mon: 30 min. on the elliptical, 30 min. core workout; legs beat up from Sunday's run
Tue: 10.2 miles, including 4x1600m @ 5:43, strange workout, felt some heart flutter
Wed-Fri: out with a bad reaction to a vaccine, felt pretty lousy
Sat: 5.2 miles @ 7:15, 1st run after lay-off, legs feel good and run felt easy.
Sun: 21 miles @ 7:33, tough long run, ran with some faster guys at a comfortable pace, but lack of mileage showed in the closing miles.
Total: 36.4 miles

The first long run is one my favorite BAA scheduled workouts. It consists of an easy 4 mile warm-up, 2 mile tempo up the last two Newton Hills on the Boston course, then we turn back and do 6 repeats up Heartbreak before finishing up with a long cool-down. This workout goes by quickly, and after you go up Heartbreak hard 7 times, it just doesn't seem so bad anymore. I managed to hold a 6:15 pace through the tempo portion, which I was frankly surprised I could hold.

Last week started off well on Monday. Then Tuesday, I went for my annual physical and found I needed to get a TDaP (Tetanus, Diptheria, and Pertussis) booster. I proceeded with the Tuesday evening speed workout and found in the middle two mile repeats, my HR was shooting up over 200 and I could feel my legs going into oxygen debt because of the lack of circulation. This was a little worrisome, but it went away during the last interval. I was feeling particularly gassed during my cool-down jog and my left shoulder (injection site) was really starting to hurt. By Wednesday morning, I felt like I had the flu minus the cough and runny nose. The vaccine safety sheet outlines the symptoms, but I had no idea it was going to be this bad! I was bedridden on Wednesday, felt only marginally better on Thursday, and really didn't feel great until Saturday. At least I don't have to deal with this again for another 10 years.

I was a little concerned with my condition going into Sunday's long run. I was meeting up with some guys from my running club and we were planning on doing about 20 miles. These guys are about 25-30 seconds per mile faster than I am, but under normal conditions I would be up for the challenge. However, given the week that I had, I wasn't sure how my body was going to handle it. I cruised through the 1st 14 miles pretty comfortably, but my lack of fitness started to catch up with me over the last 4 miles and for the 1st time in awhile, I found myself struggling to finish a long run. On the positive side, I was still holding a ~7:30 pace. A couple caveats also help me feel less discouraged: I was coming off sick week, my mileage was low, and I haven't done a 20 miler since Philly.

Gotta go catch up on some rest! Lets hope the next couple weeks are better.