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.