A Mid-Summer Night's Ramble

Weekly Report: July 14-20
Alrighty, let's get the boring weekly training report done and out of the way first.
Tuesday, July 15: 10x hill repeats on Hyland Park ski hill in 1:00:00. Ran 1 hour extra of hilly trails including a climb up the ski jump hill and one final climb up the repeat hill. Very hot day (91 F, felt like 97 w/heat index) with no breeze at all. My new Outdoor Research sun runner cap worked like a charm and kept me from overheating. Shibby!! Wore my Nathan HPL-020 Race Hydration vest filled with 40 oz. of HEED to keep me hydrated.
2 hours, 10 miles
Wednesday, July 16: Easy loop on grassy boulevards along city streets. Felt super strong and smooth after running in the heat on steep hills yesterday.
1:24:00, 9.4 miles
Thursday, July 17: Recon run at Hyland Park Reserve. Very hot and humid again. Felt sluggish the first hour but perked up the 2nd one. Spent the first hour running the trails on the north end on and around the ski hills. Ran the second hour in the south end on the rolling hills and wood chip trails.
2 hours, 11.6 miles
Saturday, July 19: 25K loop at Afton. Ran first 20K in 2:03:00, the next 5K easy, then finished with a 4-mile cool-down. Felt a little tired in the legs from the increased mileage and hillwork. Not a great day by any means. Blech!
3:52:00, 19.5 miles

Total miles for the week = 50.5

It was a slow, long, hot week. It seemed like every time I ran it was unusually humid. Ah well, that's Minnesota in the summertime! Plus, it's great training for dealing with heat and hydration. In adddition, if you include my 22.1 miles on July 13, I had my highest 7-day total at 72.6 miles!! Woo yeah! Speaking of 7-day mileage records, I challenged myself about a month or so ago here on this blog to run 100 in a week by the end of July. Well, the month is coming to a close in 10 days, so time's a wastin'!!

iPods: Rock 'n' Run Experiment
Last week I posted a poll asking readers to vote whether or not they used iPods when running. The results were 1 'yes' and 6 'no' responses. I also promised I would try it out myself. Well, it turned out not to be for me. First off, trying to figure out how to route the earphone cords so that they didn't interfere with my running and the flaps on my sun runner cap was an exercise in frustration. After about 10 minutes of dinking around with that, I started running while listening to my new favorite band "The Fratellis". About one song into the trail the earbuds started to fall out and continued to do so on a regular basis. After about 15 minutes of constantly pushing them back into my ears, I finally decided that it was far more effort than what it was worth. So, in conclusion, iPods and running aren't for me. I'll listen to one before a race or workout to get me pumped up, but once I'm on the trail, it's just going to be me and nature. Thanks to everyone who voted and posted their thoughts!!

Storm Report
A week and a half ago our neighborhood was hit by a harsh storm with extremely strong straight-line winds and quarter-sized hail, resulting in the downing of many trees and large limbs as can be seen in the photos below. Yup, that's my humble home buried amidst the arboreal carnage. Fortunately, the only significant damage was a six-inch diameter hole in the garage roof. However, our insurance company felt otherwise. They found hail damage to the roof as well as our wood deck. So, they've decided to replace our entire roof and refinish our deck. Plus, they're going to reimburse me for the 14 hours of labor I had to put into cleaning up all of the debris. So, all will be okay. Most importantly, my wife, who was at home alone during the storm was not hurt. On the positive side, we've got more sunlight in our backyard now, so maybe next year we'll actually be able to start a vegetable garden!!

A Few Extra Words
Just a few things to note. First, congrats to Allan Holtz for completing the Vermont 100. For those who don't know who Allan is, he's a veteran ultramarathoner in the Twin Cities who is very active in the trail running community and can be seen volunteering at many races. He is a great resource of ultrarunning experience and knowledge. Second, speedy recovery wishes to Steve Quick who took a nasty spill at the Afton 50K and dislocated his hip in the process. He's been on his feet and pounding the trails already. Hopefully he'll be all patched up for the Sawtooth 100 in September. Hang in there Steve, ya animal! Third, good luck to all of those running in the Voyageur this coming weekend. I'll be looking forward to hearing about everyone's experiences.