Too long between runs I tell ya!!!

The start is scary!!!

It's been a crazy ass week and then some for sure and I needed a break. After my great run last Thursday afternoon I got a pretty good sinus mess I couldn't quite shake (AGAIN!!) so I had not run an inch since then and I needed to play. I did some cycling (50 miles last weekend) but I just couldn't breathe well enough to run. It's finally been better the last couple days so I took part of the afternoon off again and headed to LaLuz. I have been looking, often, at the profile for the Valles Caldera run and I know my biggest weakness is starting off on a hill. Caldera starts out with over 200' elevation gain in the first mile and a half! So I was wondering where I could closely simulate that for a training day and the LaLuz quickly came to mind.

I quickly discovered two things, 1) I HAVE to warm up before I start a real run, I walked less than .2 of a mile, I did stretch first, but that wasn't enough. I need to run a good quarter, even on level or very close to it is fine, to warm up then walk it off and have just a few minutes before the "run" starts. Today I decided to head up and see where 200' of climbing ended. Well on LaLuz, as you know if you've done it, that's not far. I ended up doing a little over 300' of gain to complete 3/4 mile of climbing. In other words much steeper than Caldera so this should be great training.

Hoping this kind of training will get me ready!!! I'm getting excited.

I did make it up and down the 3/4 of a mile three trips so a little over 1,000' of gain. Yes there was some walking on the ups, less on the second and third, but zero walking on the downs. Which is great training also because there is a lot of downhill at the Caldera. I think I may actually be ready for this thing. I have 4 months to train and in that time I would love to drop about 25 pounds.

I say again, I am SOOO fortunate to have these mountains to train in!!