Overdue Post

Whoa, it's been a while since I last posted. I get into these flurries of posts, and then nothing. Ah well, that's life.

Zumbro 100
My first 100-miler is just 10 days away and it couldn't be sooner. This past Sunday, my AHU mentor, Mitch, my running buddy, Molly, Julie Berg, Steve Quick, John Taylor, and 2 other trail runners, whose names I can't recall at the moment, all headed out to Zumbro Bottoms to recon the trails. Actually, Mitch, Steve and I are the only ones out of the group actually running the race next week, but others wanted to come out for a fun day of romping through the woods. A great time was had by all, and new acquaintances were made. Race director, Larry Pederson met us out at the race start and handed out maps with some loops marked off as part of the course. We managed to run most of them, but missed a few sections due to get lost a bit. Thank goodness the course will be marked! Recon of the course showed it to have some challenging and rocky ascents and descents. In addition, the trails have some spectacular blufftop views. Overall, the course is winding, and varied in elevation, groundcover, and type (singletrack and standard trails). It should make for an awesome experience.

Paleo Update
I'm on week #6 of the Paleo Diet so far and absolutely loving it. I've finally hit the state of ketosis (fat burning) because I have that telltale sweet and fruity taste in my mouth. As a result, I've trimmed down to a very lean 165 lbs. Last year I got down to that weight by late summer, but was weak and tired. Now I'm feeling strong and energetic, with my muscle tone noticeably improved. It will be very interesting to see how this affects my run at Zumbro next week. Thus far, my strength and stamina have been excellent on the Paleo Diet, so I'm very optimistic about everything.

Training
The past two weeks of training have been going well. I've had a couple of 20+ milers, with a 20-minute challenge each week. Lately, the challenge of choice has been the burpees with a pushup after the leg kickout. An interesting note when comparing this year's training to last year's is that I ran 12 more times at this point last year. However, I have almost the same total miles, with my average run being 12.3 miles, compared to 9.5 last year. I feel that last year I put in a lot of "empty" days of running 4-6 miles. This year I've been focusing on putting in runs of at least 10 miles, which I believe is really helping my stamina and endurance. In addition, this year I've also been doing the challenges, which are helping my core and upper body strength. Again, the Zumbro 100 will be a great gauge of how well my training really is going.