Where does the time go?

I've been meaning to write a blog entry for some time now but just haven't had the time. Spring is always unbelievably busy with many projects that languished during the racing season and other family obligations like a spring break trip to Phoenix and my daughters ice skating show. I'm always so busy in March and April that I'm forced to stop training and take a break whether I like it or not. By now I've got several blog topics stacked up in the queue. I'll try to get to them in the near future, but for now I'll just leave you with a teaser; planning training for the coming season, working through shoulder and knee pain that started end of winter (I'm icing my shoulder as I write this), and more thoughts on what caused my slump last winter. I'll just have to make the time and get them posted. Now if only I could train and write at the same time.

I saw a bumper sticker once that read, "God put me on this Earth to accomplish a certain number of things and right now I'm so far behind I'll never die." Ain't that the truth!

Last snow day for the year?

I dont know if I should jinx it by even saying it, but I am ready for the snow to be over so that the running will be a little better. Nichole and I, along with Nichole's running buddy Jenny, did a long run this morning. I did 14, Jenny did 16, and Nichole did 22 miles. Long days like this would be nice to do along the minnesota river on the woodchip trails, but this spring has made things very muddy, so we stuck to the roads and paths. The water still did find a way to complicate things when one of our bike paths near the river was still under water. This meant running right by 35W for a while and then jumping a fence (see Nichole's blog for more info on that adventure) to get on dry trails. I am hoping all this running will pay off later in the summer. My total training hours for March 2008-Feb 2009 was 328 (although I don't count any time lifting in my hours). This is still a little less than I think is ideal (I would like to be closer to 350-375hrs a year), so my goal is to increase most of my weeks throughout the spring and summer by an hour per week. So far so good, since I have hit 5:50, 5:20, 3:10, 4:30, and 7:00 so far this year, and that is already 5.2 hours more than 5 weeks into last year. We will see if we can keep that up, but I think it is doable, and a sane way for me to break it down (52 weeks in a year, so just bump up one hour a week).

First get-together of the year for the Vakava Team is this week. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again, plus some new faces (including my wife Nichole!).

Spring Training

So I think I will declare the 08-09 ski season officially over (even if Dave still has a race on the schedule and it's supposed to snow this weekend). This means that I am doing a lot of running (I did marry a marathoner, for better or for worse). I am trying to do as much on the trails as I can, since they are much kinder to my joints (I am only 26, but ouch I feel old), but a lot of my running has been on the roads. I have a half marathon in 2 weeks in St. Cloud and I am trying to get in reasonable shape. This afternoon I did threshold with Nichole. I did 5.5 miles of her 7 mile threshold at 6:20 pace, and my legs hurt. This week has been my biggest so far this year, with a 14 miler on Sunday (with a 30 min double-pole rollerski afterwards), Mon was off, 45min on the bike on Tuesday, 9 miles on Wed, 7 miles on Thurs, and 7 miles today. I do feel like I am starting to round into running shape (although that still does not mean I will be fast), but my legs are quite sore. My big goal for the summer is the vacation that Nichole and I have planned for August (that’s right, I have to train for the vacations that Nichole and I take). Our plan is to drive up to Calgary and then hike to the Haig glacier for a day or two of on snow skiing, and then we will run the Moose Mountain Marathon (the one in Calgary, not the one in MN). It should be a ton of fun, but I need to get my butt in shape to survive it! Wish me luck!!

New Blog Location!

It has been great having the Vakava Race Team provide race reports this past year, but one of the drawbacks of hosting on the FinnSisu website is that there was no good way to have people comment on a report, and it often took a little while for a report to make it up on the site. At this new location we should be able to handle both! So here we go!!