Pic of the Day: Los Pinos 50 Training Run #3
Another weekend, another Los Pinos training run logged on the Garmin. Today was a great day to do some more course exploring with milder temps and new running faces. Feeling a little nervous about my tight calf, I decided to run only the first 12 miles of the course from Blue Jay to Lazy W instead of continuing up through Los Pinos for 25 miles. I really liked exploring this portion of the course because I always wanted to know where I’d end up if I’d continue heading straight on San Juan Trail instead of swinging left onto Chiquito Trail on my way to the Candy Store (Loop). Looking forward to getting back out there again within the next couple of weeks. Huge thanks to the RD who left us a car full of refreshments and the key so we could get back to our cars when we finished. Good day.
San Juan 50K Recap
5:09:02 (1st F / 6th Overall)
Race Site Here
It took me exactly four days to get back on my running feet following the wonderful San Juan 50k. I was pretty wrecked post-race after taking another few spills in the first half of the race. It wasn’t all the missing skin that concerned me but my poor knee, both times I managed to bang my left knee which was the one I had been complaining about for the last month. Luckily, the running Gods are once again on my side and everything seems to be back to normal (less the missing skin).
San Juan 50k was a great last minute race decision as I found myself very anxious for Leona Divide coming up at the end of April; it would be a great opportunity for me to log some long miles on a course I had recently become fond of. I was also very excited that my friends would be proudly supporting Runner’s Booty by each wearing a green themed tech top.
Signing up for the race, my intention was to use it as a long training until Andy told me that if my body felt good, I should use it to gauge myself for next month’s race. Of course this excited me because no matter how many times I try to convince myself or my coach that I will just “jog” or “take it easy,” race-mode automatically gets turned on and I can’t even stop myself from running through the bad kind of pain. I know that is horrible…I am trying to work on that.
My Next Long Training Run: San Juan 50k
I am starting to get restless. My last race was Avalon and that was in January. I originally planned on running Ray Miller 50 three weeks after Avalon but I just didn’t feel like it was the right thing to do. My body felt pretty beat up and then my knee felt sore. Instead of forcing a race into my schedule, Andy Noise suggested that I plan on Leona Divide, a 50-miler at the end of April instead. This would give me ample time to train and get my head back in racing mode.
Since then, I have been following Andy’s weekly training schedule as much as I can, swapping my weekday runs mostly with elliptical hours and doing my best to get in my long runs on the weekend. This swap was mostly due to that knee thing I was referring to earlier. Luckily I am feeling much, much better. Thank God. Thank you Andy.
Although I am feeling better and have had some pretty decent weekend runs in lately, I feel like I need to run a race before Leona. I need that confidence booster to assure myself that I can do it. I mean, know that I can do it, but I want to go into the race confidently. I need that assurance that no one else can give me. I am going to run Baz’s San Juan 50k this coming weekend. Nothing crazy, just a 50k to get into that needed mindset. I am calling it a long training run. Just gonna listen to my body and run. I know everything will work out, it always does.
Cleveland National Forest from Blue Jay Campground — I cannot wait to get back out there this weekend!
Trace B. 