Peterson Ridge Rumble race report and training update

This weekend April and I headed East over the snowy central Oregon Cascades to Sisters for the Peterson Ridge Rumble.  April killed the long course, coming in so much faster than her projected splits that she was visibly upset, while I, with my newfound emphasis on quality rather than quantity, opted to tackle the short course.

 

April smells the barn ...

... and finishes at her fastest pace for ultra to date.  Nice one!

The course is beautiful:  lots of rolling undulating trails with just the right number of rocks to keep it interesting.  There is something truly magical about Ponderosa pine forests with broad open understories.  It’s also much flatter than the McDonald Forest that we usually run in, so I thought I’d get a chance to work on my leg speed quite a bit.  What actually happened is that I ran like I had

1)      run a 30 miler the weekend before

2)      run 200 meter intervals a few days before

3)      just capped my biggest weekly mileage of the year so far.

I guess that’s what to expect though when training through a race.  My breathing was fine, but I wasn’t able to my heart rate up without seriously tiring out my legs.  They felt dead from the get go.

I did manage to hit my projected splits pretty well.  I finished about 1 sec per mile faster than my goal pace (full results here).  I might not be fast, but I'm totally awesome at predicting splits!

The heart rate plot tells the story.  Blue diamonds are my average heart rate for my PRs at various race distances.  Sundays effort at the Peterson Ridge Rumble indicated by the red circle.

By opting for the short course I did manage to get some quality in this week so far.  Wednesday’s track workout was Yasso 800s @ 3:40.  It was a really great workout, not coincidentally one week before this years Boston marathon and a week and a year before next year’s.  I hope to get the 3:10 to qualify sometime late this year or next.  My body is slowly and surely accumulating fitness and I hope to accelerate that process by including more track sessions at a pace that will not leave me with the nagging hamstring issue that I dealt with early last year.

Time for one of my favorite routes for the last 3 months.  Last summer's times were around 57 min.

I’ve realized that weekend long runs often take away from any quality workouts in the following week.  Basically anything over a 30 mile run takes me days to fully recover from.

Weekly mileage and long run mileage for the year to date

The 14th week into 2010 saw me accumulate my biggest weekly mileage of the year so far.  I’ve had 6 weeks with cumulative mileage over 50 miles and 1 week over 60.  I’ve had 5 long runs between 20 and 30 miles, and 4 runs over 30 miles, including the 4xMcCollough Peak repeats that left me sick for a week.  Long recovery times and subsequent reduction of quality workouts exemplified.  In the last 14 weeks I’ve done a total of 42 substantial climbs, 29 of which included over 1000 feet of vertical gain.  The standings for Corvallis local peaks are as follows:

15 – Dimple Hill

14 - McCollough Peak

08 – Bald Hill

05 – Mulkey Ridge

Yesterdays 7 mile Mulkey Ridge Bald hill was done at recovery pace in Vibrams Five Fingers (VFF’s).  They are really fun to run in.  That was my longest run in them so far and my soleus muscles are very sore today.  The Erythronium are peaking, and the Camas is very showy right now.  All of this bodes well in my training for Western States, which in June will be first attempt at the 100 mile distance.  I’ve got my weekly mileage where I want it to be, I’ve started to bring some quality in my training, and I think my long runs are going quite well.  The latter supposition is sure to be tested next weekend at the the Capitol Peak 50m in Olympia, WA.