Keeping up a substantial training load while in the middle of an important racing season can be a challenge. You don’t want to train too much and show up to your races tired, but you also don’t want to taper too much and lose fitness for races in the future. With this in mind I decided to bump my mileage up a bit this week with my long term goals taking precedence. Although the Mount Washington Road Race is the mother of all mountain races in the U.S. (Pikes Peak and Mt. Ashland climb higher, but neither is consistently as steep), it’s my least favorite mountain race and it’s not a championship race this year. It would be nice to run a great race at the big W, but the U.S. Mountain Running Championships on June 26th are more important.
So you can imagine my surprise when I shredded nearly 6 minutes off of my Mt. Washington best time and finished in a very solid 23rd place. I have come to realize that I’m not well suited for the long, steep grinds and will happily accept that this year’s performance might be the best I’ll ever do in this race. Now on to more important races… at least until next year when Mt. Washington again becomes the National Championships.
- Total Training Time – 13:04:55
- Total Running Time – 12:39:55
- Total Running Miles – 84.6
- Total Elevation Gain – 9,586 ft
Monday June 13th – 01:36:52
- Roads – West Linn, OR – 4 miles, 35:27
- Trails – Portland, OR – 6 miles, 1:01:25
Tuesday June 14th – 00:43:22
- Roads – Bennington, VT – 5.2 miles, 43:22
Wednesday June 15th – 02:42:05
- Roads – Bennington, VT – 13.3 miles, 1:45:22
- Roads – Bennington, VT – 4 miles, 31:43
- Upright Rower – 25:00
Thursday June 16th – 01:05:24
- Trails – Mt. Equinox – 4 miles, 39:53
- Trails – Bartlett, NH – 3.16 miles, 25:31
Friday June 17th – 01:01:05
- Trails – White Mountains, NH – 6.2 miles, 1:01:05
Saturday June 18th – 03:01:43
- Trails – Race Warmup – 2.3 miles, 26:04
- Mt. Washington Road Race – 7.52 miles, 1:11:50 (New PR)
- Down Mt. Washington Auto Road – 7.53 miles, 1:05:29
- Roads – Stowe, VT – 2.3 miles, 18:20
Sunday June 19th – 02:46:34
- Roads – Stowe, VT – 6.1 miles, 50:36
- Roads – Burlington, VT – 7.7 miles, 1:06:34
- Roads – Middlebury, VT – 4.8 miles, 49:24
Weekly, Monthly and Yearly training totals can be found at http://runningraw.com/training.html
