The Ridge Run is kinda legendary among trail runners – at least, legendary among the subset of runners to whom 20ish miles along steep, rocky ridgeline sounds like it might be a good time. Officially, it’s 19.65 or 20.55 miles with 6,800 feet of elevation gain and 9,500 feet loss. None of the stats from […]

Very short rundown today, since it was race week! The forthcoming race recap will likely be very long though. Tuesday 1.9 miles, 810 feet elevation gain. One last trip up the ‘M’ just to remind my legs how climbing works. I kept a moderate pace, but still managed my 2nd fastest time up the steep […]

No, really. I’m not at all the kind of person who gets antsy during taper. I am done training for this race, let me sleep. Especially after last weekend’s runs, which combined were almost the distance of the Ridge Run – I was extra tired most of the week, and so ended up doing even […]

Every time I set out for a long run over the past 2 weeks, it did not go as intended. That makes 4 times…and only 1 long run. Also, the two definitions of biweekly make it a mostly-useless word, except for obfuscatory purposes. Example: I’m currently strength training biweekly. Which definition do I mean? *shrug […]

It was a fairly eventful two weeks, but this will be a fairly brief rundown. I’m going with more photos than words today. 6/24-6/30 Got a relatively large blister on a relatively short trail run. No idea how/why that happened. Finally made it to the top of Baldy… …but probably got some mild heat exhaustion […]

I finally finalized and posted my Ridge Run training plan…eh, “plan” last week. So far (y’know, a whole week) I’ve followed it pretty exactly. Go me. Tuesday 3.3 miles with a wee bit of speedwork (1-2-3-2-1 min ladder w/ equal rest). I’m not focusing on speed for obvious reasons, but speedwork is good for hills […]

I had a reasonable 12-week plan mapped out for this race, but then stuff happened, so now I’m scrambling to fit the most important bits of training into the next 8 weeks. The most important bits, for me, are 1) it’s steep and technical; 2) it will probably take me around 8 hours to finish, […]

The muscle spasm that knocked me out of commission last week hung around longer than I would’ve liked, but I think it is finally 100% gone. And I finally made it over 20 miles for the week, but I put strength training on pause as I was afraid it would re-aggravate the muscle. Monday 2.3 […]

The weather is suddenly acting like summer up here, so I’m trying to adjust to the heat. (Heat = in the 70s. Acclimate = I should wake up earlier. It’s all relative.) Other than that, I had a mostly good running week. Tuesday 1 neighborhood mile with Kara plus 2 by myself. Wednesday Two laps […]