Graduation Weekend…back to Lynchvegas!

This past weekend my wife and I traveled back to Lynchburg, VA to participate in our graduation ceremony to confer our master’s degrees. My wife received her Masters in Professional Counseling and I will be getting mine in Teaching as soon as I finish my last classes this summer. The ceremony was awesome and over 10,000 students graduated. My parents and my sister flew in from MN for the occasion and as always time with them was too short but tons of fun. Aside from the obvious fun of hanging out with them, I was equally stoked to run on the trails surrounding Liberty Mountain. Upon arriving, I was disheartened to learn that the forecast for the weekend was rainy with a chance of rain. Luckily,  the rain held off for the graduation as well as both of my morning trail runs. I did however manage to find myself some large mud holes in which to dirty myself. Below are some pictures taken from my phone while on the run. As you can see, my phone doesn't take the greatest of pictures but it does the trick.

I'm grouping 2 weeks of training together because I'm still playing catch-up and have been very busy. I am currently researching some races near Phoenix to run this fall. You can see the very, very tentative race schedule posted on the right. These are all up in the air as of right now because money and time off work are going to play a part in them since most are 4-5 hours away, save a few. But either way, I'm training to be ready to run an Ultra this fall. Most of my weekly mileage is done on the flat bike path near my place and I try to get my weekend runs done in the "mountains" in the city. My run mileage has been quite low due to increased bike mileage and simply lack of hours in the day. I've also sufficiently bruised the mess out of my feet.

Monday, 5/2/2011
AM-Ride to Work-11.66 miles (45:35)

PM-Ride part way home from work-7.25 miles (27:38)
      -Flat Tire Run-4.13 (34:06)
Ended up blowing a tire on my way during this run so had to run whilst pushing my bike the rest of the way. Ended up making pretty good pace considering I was pushing a deflated bike. Looked pretty retarded too.

Wednesday, 5/4/2011
Arizona Canal-3.13 miles (22:52)

Thursday, 5/5/2011
Arizona Canal-4.76 miles (34:58)

Sunday, 5/8/2011
Hedgepeth Hills-5.45 miles (53:14)

Monday 5/9/2011
Bike from Work-11.88 miles (49:51)

Tuesday 5/10/2011
AM-Arizona Canal-3.01 miles (23:13)

PM-Bike from Work-11:11 miles (44:34)

Wednesday 5/11/2011
Shaw Butte Trail-5.19 miles (53:06)
Tried out the North Mountain Preserve area next to work. Good trails. Really rocky but some decent elevation change. Will try to use this trail more often. Most likely will have to be in the morning as the afternoons are getting too hot for my liking. Ran a mile barefoot on the infield of the track by work while waiting for Patsy to come pick me up.

Thursday 5/12/2011
Ride home from Work-12.85 miles (57:50)

Sunday 5/15/2011
LMTS-Lake Trail/Great Escape/Split Decision-7.5 miles (1:18:20)
Great run on the trails. Started the run very early and in the dark and the rain so it was very slow going to start with and the slow pace seemed to continue throughout the whole run. I didn't mind because it was good to be back out in the woods again.

Was nice to run under a canopy and in the mud and green! 

 

 

It was also nice to get some decent hill climbing in as well. The run up the Split Decision road/trail is all uhill and by the top I was above the low cloud/fog and the sunrise was beautiful. Monday I ran basically the same route with a short detour onto the lawn mower trail, picture featured here.

High quality images from my high-res phone!

Fog or clouds?

As always friends...

My contribution to the graffiti in the gazebo on the mountain

Jog Log is Back

I know its been a while since I've updated my training plans lately, and that is mainly due to the sporatic natuer of both the training and life itself. Due to my new method of daily transportation I have been accumulating a large amount of bike mileage. As I mentioned in my previous post, there is a bike trail that is right next to our apartment and it goes all over the city of Phoenix and surrounding suburbs. The trail conveniently dumps out right next to where I work. Amazing how God has a plan in everything. Nice part about the canal is that it can provide a variety of different loops and out and back runs. The only complaint I have is the frequency of thorns and the complete lack of elevation. Hill running is something my training is going to lack severely. Here is my activity over the last month or more. Everything since my last jog log update.

Monday 3/21/2011
Beechwood-2.66 miles (21:19)

Tuesday 3/22/2011
LMTS-4.2 miles (42:15)

Saturday 3/26/2011
Terrapin Mtn 1/2 Marathon

Thursday 3/31/2011
Poplar Forest-7.31 miles (1:02:56)
Great run on my normal route. First run back since the 1/2 Marathon. Really starting to feel the pressures/stresses of preparing for the move.

Friday 4/1/2011
Timberlake-Sandusky-11 miles
April Fools run. Wasn't really sure about where the heck I felt like running today. Just went out and ran. About half way thru the run I thought it would be fun to see if I could make it to Lynchburg College and back before work. Almost made it. Better luck next time I guess.

Saturday 4/2/2011
LMTS-3.65 miles
Great trail run. Jammed out to some Katy Perry (yes...guilty as charged) and stumbled accross this out in the middle of the woods. Great relaxed run. Took my time and got enjoy and soak up the company of the trails.

Monday 4/4/2011
LMTS-6.68 miles (1:07:31)
Ran same trail as I did on Saturday in search of a lost article from Saturday's run. Didn't find it but had a great run anyway.

Tuesday 4/5/2011
Timberlake-Sandusky-10.3 miles (1:30:42)
Tried again to get to LC but didn't quite make it due to weather and time constraints. As the time of this run reflects I was quite sore and I also got poured on about one mile from home. Good to get some miles in.

Wednesday 4/6/2011
Best Coffee Ever!
This run marks the success of making it to LC. Being as I didn't have to go to work today I took my time and made sure to make it all the way to Lynchburg College. In celebration of this monumentous achievement (it is in my mind anyway), I stopped at the local gas station for some coffee. BEST CUP OF COFFEE TO THIS DAY! WIN!

Saturday 4/9/2011
Altus, OK-3 miles (25:30)
Barefoot run with Cory in the streets around the massive city of Altus, OK. Good to run with an old friend! This is the first run on our great journey accross the nation.

Sunday 4/10/2011
Altus Cotton Feild-5.55 miles (43:01)
Great Vibram run on some dirt roads outside of Altus. Very flat.

Sunday 4/17/2011
Canal-3.25 (37:56)
First run on the canal. Ran in the Vibrams with Patsy.

Monday 4/18/2011
Canal-4.88 miles (38:16)

Tuesday 4/19/2011
Canal-2.72 miles (21:25)

Wednesday 4/20/2011
Canal-2.86 miles (25:10) +barefoot

Thursday 4/21/2011
Canal-6.56 miles (48:32)
Great Tempo Run

Sunday 4/24/2011
Hedgepeth Hills-5.05 miles (53:53)
First trail run in AZ. Trails out here are very rocky and busy. Lots of foot traffic if you go any later than 5am. This set of trails is fairly close to the house so this may become my usual weekend spot unless I want to drive a little further for some trails.

Monday 4/25/2011
AM-Bike AZ Canal to Work-12.07 miles (43:43)
First bike commute to work. Great ride with nice trails the whole way.

PM-Bike AZ Canal from work-12.09 miles(51:45)

Tuesday 4/26/2011
AM-Canal Run-2.72 miles (19:22)
      -Ride to Work-12.3 miles (48:05)

PM-Ride from Work-12.23 (59:56)
Very windy ride home.

Wednesday 4/27/2011
Ride to work-11.91 miles (46:48)

Thursday 4/28/2011
Ride from work-12.11 miles (47:40)

Friday 4/29/2011
AM-Ride to Work-11.5 miles (43:42)

PM-Ride from Work-12.23 miles (50:24)

Total Mileage for April
Running: 75.21 miles
Biking: 96.42 miles
Hiking: 1.51 miles

Now I know that was just a whole bunch of useless info but I needed to spit it out somewhere so there it is. Another post is soon to follow regarding this weekend's trip back to the great city of Lynchburg.

Jog on Mates!