When I ran Leadville in 2018 I spent much of my training focusing on preparing my legs for the notorious 5800' out and back Hope Pass climbs. From research, I knew I would be required to traverse Hope Pass twice in a relatively short period of time after already running 40 miles. Preparing for the inevitable challenge I spent many hours hammering out long climbs on a stair stepper during the months leading up to the race. My 2018 Leadville 100 experience eventually ended as I had feared, I could not make it to the top of Hope Pass before the race imposed cut off time. Interestingly, I did not miss the Leadville cutoff time because I was not prepared to climb Hope Pass. In fact, I believe I overprepared for the Hope Pass climb. My day ended that day because I had not prepared for the long and fast descents of the Leadville 100. I found that my quads were trashed by the time I made it to Hope Pass making it extremely difficult to maintain a continuous forward effort as I climbed the pass. Every time I was forced to stop and recover during the climb I lost valuable seconds and inevitably missed the Hope Pass aid station cut-off time by only 2 minutes.
Week five recap -
Tuesday's 6-mile run finished up as a 2-mile warm-up, 1-mile tempoish pace, 1-mile recovery, 1-mile tempoish pace, a 1-mile walk/run recovery. I never really made it to a tempo pace for the two 1 mile sets however still exerted significant effort and finished with 6 miles as planned.
Thursday I ran 8 trail miles at an easier effort than scheduled. I found that the Wednesday plyometrics workout left my legs a little more sore than expected. From this point forward on the Thursdays that I schedule faster-paced workouts, I will make my Wednesday Plyo workouts much easier.
Saturday I ran 17.5 moderate to easy effort trail miles with a running friend. By the end of the run, I was feeling the fatigue and mixed in a few run-walk intervals.
Sunday I ran 9 trail miles at the technical and hilly Cedar Ridge Preserve (CRP), running a 5mile loop at an easy warmup effort followed by running a section of the trail that has a steady half-mile hill. This allowed me to run down the hill 4 times at an increased faster effort and power hiking up. I will be prepared for the Leadville downhill sections in this year's race. =)
Week 5 finished out with 40.7 total miles, 2,900' of climbing, and 2,913' of descending.
My planned Workouts for Week 6
Week 6 - Week Ending Feb 14, 2021
Monday - Monday is my Recovery Day
Tuesday - 6-mile road run at whatever pace feels good (Goal for this run this week is to keep my total miles above 40 for the week - slowly pick up the pace based on how my legs feel)
Wednesday - 30-minute EZ Plyometrics workout (for muscle power, fitness, and fatigue resistance. I discovered last week that for me to be successful at my Thursday Steady State effort I must not overdo it with this workout. I will complete more difficult Plyo workouts on Wednesdays before an EZ effort Thursday runs )
Thursday - 8 miles Steady-state trail run - Short warmup finish @ steady moderate effort (for fatigue resistance & Endurance)
Friday - 30 Min strength workout (for fatigue resistance, muscle power)
Saturday - 20 miles Trails (for fatigue resistance & Endurance)
Sunday - 10 miles @ (CRP) 2 X 5-mile loops of technical trails with significant incline @ whatever effort I can maintain (for endurance, fatigue resistance, muscle power)
* You can see how each run progresses in my Strava feed below
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