Day 6 on the stix and a weekly summary...

Remain calm. All is well. ~ Chip Diller

Finally getting some snow up in the zone. We got a couple at my house but it pretty much hammered the whole time we were at Eldora today so that was refreshing. In typical Rock fashion it was blowing about 7 billion miles an hour too so that made it extra special. Fun day on the boards, though with Pete, Edy, and Caleb. Pete was feeling super sexy as he donned Edy's underthings for the day and borrowed my goggles because apparently his ski bag isn't big enough or something. Not sure what made him feel sexier, the goggles or the frilly undergarments. I am guessing the goggles.

Ok, so I have flailed on the weekly updates for a bit. My apologies. Things have been a little funky and I have been remiss about updates. Here are the last two weeks in summary:

• Sunday (11/16): Half a good road run in Boulder, 17 miles, 2:13ish. Well, I was awesome for about 13 miles then got stopped by a light and pretty much blew up. I did the first 13 at an 8-minute pace. Up the creek path to the end, back to 4th, over to Kalmia and down to the Foothills path. Good stuff as this isn't very hill-free. Really suffered for the last 4 but overall, I felt pretty good about the effort. Need to work on the "finish strong" thing a bit.
  
• Tuesday (11/18): Sanitas adventure, 6.5 miles, 1:30. Hit the trails with my buddy, Stephen. He showed me a cool, back way to the Sanitas summit. Really steep in spots so I had to walk a little bit but it was nice to be on trails. We descended the west route and my right knee started feeling a bit bunk from the steep drops and lack of miniscus. We then headed back up the valley trail and I called it at the top and ran back down in near darkness down Dakota ridge. Overall a fun run.
• Wednesday (11/19): Abandoned Broomfield run, 6 miles, 00:55. Well, I had every intention to run about 12 miles but did not feel well at all so I bailed about half way through. Super sore from the day before and my knee was bugging me so I thought it would be best if I bailed instead of pushing it.
• Thursday (11/20): Swim, 00:30. Hit the pool to see if that would make my knee feel any better. It didn't really.
  
• Friday (11/21): Recovery run with strides, 4 miles, 00:31. Hit the track for a bit then swam. Felt okay during but not super afterwards.
• Saturday (11/22): Supposed to do a 6 mile race/run but wasn't feeling it so I skied again.
• Sunday (11/23): Was supposed to do a 17-miler but took the day off instead.
• Monday (11/24): Ski
• Tuesday (11/25): Track run, 7 miles with strides, 00:54. Fast track run. Felt a bit wonky but was able to spin some fast laps. Swam afterwards.
• Wednesday (11/26): Ski
• Thursday (11/27): Ski
• Friday (11/28): Track run, 5 miles, 00:38. Did some strides and kept a steady pace throughout. Actually felt pretty solid, which was nice.
• Saturday (11/29): Ski

Overall, I am feeling pretty beaten up right now but that is getting better. I am going into full taper mode at this point and am even going to bail on some of my scheduled training to see if I can get feeling injury free by next Sunday. The plan for this week is to do a short run tomorrow (probably about 5 miles), a short run with a serious effort on Tuesday (7 miles or so with 3 at super max effort), rest Wednesday-Friday (well, I will probably have to toss in a few laps at the local slopes but rest is relative). I fly to Vegas on Saturday and will probably try to get in a 3 miler then game on Sunday at 6:00 am.

As always, I'll keep you posted.

~stubert.