big week, good month

hi everyone

it's been a long time since my last post. december was ski month-- it got to the point where i was skiing nearly every day. but i wrapped up my ski season pretty early, for these parts, with an eighteen mile point to point ski on new years day.

january was going to start my running training for the year but other than running 20 miles at the birdle trails winter running festival i don't think i ran more than 10 miles in any one run. and i don't even think i ran that often. so in hindsight january became my "rest" month.

February turned out to be a decent month with consistent running every week. it could have been different though if i had let not getting into hardrock (again!) get me down. i'm 0-5 in the hardrock lottery (but did get in the last two years off the waitlist but not until right before the race). this year i'm not willing to wait and see. instead i've signed up for cascade crest 100 and it's been providing me with plenty of motivation all month. there's actually 5 other runners in winthrop who will be running a 100miler this summer so there's no shortage of running partners either! even though i've been consistent this past month i didn't do any runs over 20 miles until the last day, running 24 miles on snow mobile trails to get my mileage for the week up to 66 (and today's 7 mile run pushed me up to a total of 73). my mileage for the month was almost 200 miles and is just about perfect for me for my first month of the year.

i'm hoping to slowly build up my mileage to the point where i run a half dozen or so 100+ mile weeks this summer before i begin tapering for cascade crest. with more than 100 miles of groomed snowmobile trails, dirt roads and snowshoe trails i'll have no shortage of off-pavement running options until the trails start melting out in late march/early april!