Week of 12-5-11; Round 2 of Wilson 20 miler

This week has been a busy one as always; but for some reason there has been more stress and late nights preparing lessons and grading than usual. As a result, it was a week of little sleep and lots of coffee.

Monday: 7 mile run with coworker, Joe T., and a freshmen who is probably going to tear it up in a couple years.

Tuesday: 6 miles at the Deer Flat trail by Lake Lowell. Ran in a new trail shoe, the La Sportiva Wildcat's, and did 6x2 minutes at 5k effort through the hilly section on that trail.

Wednesday: 3.5 miles from Skyview High School to the Wilson Ponds and back. This was a much needed recovery day.

Thursday: 5 miles at the Nampa Rec Center. 1st mile was a warm-up and then I progressively got faster until I was running about 6:30 per mile. This actually felt pretty good and I was wearing the Wildcat's again to try and get used to them.

Friday: Day off!

Saturday: 20.3 miles around the Wilson Creek trails on the Frozen 50k loop. This time around it was a bit colder and it was just Tony Salazar Jr. (aka Fast Tony) and myself that were running together. There were probably about 40 people out there running various distances. The director of the Foothills Frenzy 50k was out there with an aid station set up for people running the 10 miler and the 20 miler. I also found out that Joe T. was out there running, although I never met up with him.
The 20 mile loop never gets easy, but I can definately say it was easier this week than 3 weeks ago. When I combine that observation with the fact that I ran 8 minutes faster in colder weather I felt pretty good about the whole run. Fast Tony wasn't feeling the greatest physically this week so when we hit the big descent section he hung back and I just went with what felt good. It was a very fun day out there, although I can't imagine running 10 more miles when I finish the 20 mile loop on January 21st. It will definately be a test of my limits and mental fortitude.
I mentioned it was colder this week, I saw temps as low as 11 degrees F while driving to the trail. The cool thing was, the run happened to fall on a night with a full lunar eclipse, and that eclipse happened right before we took off on the run. It was really quite amazing!
Running up the trail in the dark was pretty cool. I look forward to doing this again soon.
Standing on top of Wilson Peak for the 2nd time in 3 weeks. It never gets "easy" but it was easier this time.
There are some really cool rock formations on the way down from the summit. I snapped this one, and the one below of Fast Tony right before we split up for the day to run our separate paces. Sunday: I haven't made it through today yet, but most likely I'll take one of the kiddos out for a ride in the jogging stroller or take a good hard nap. Not a bad way to end a week.