I Survived Hell Week

"You hear about how runnin' ultras is all mental; well, I sure wish it'd hurry up and get mental, 'cause it's feelin' awfully physical right now." ~ Ken Loveless

I survived Hell Week training for my first 100 miler in three (3!!!) weeks. Over the last two weeks (which includes five rest days) I ran 143 miles. I really don't know if I'm trained adequately or not, but at the end of the week I felt a sense of peace that I've done the best I could with the time I had available and didn't compromise family time during my training. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic for the Javelina Jundred.

Monday, October 17th 2011: 6 miles @ 10:41 minutes per mile.

Tuesday, October 18th 2011: 13 miles @ 11:39 minutes per mile. I wasn't madly in love with the idea of waking up at 3:45am to run a half marathon before work, but it wasn't anything some Mountain Dew couldn't fix.

Wednesday, October 19th 2011: 31 miles @ 12:14 minutes per mile. It was 86 degrees outside and it felt like I sweated every ounce of water out of my body. My blood probably resembled hot fudge. (Mmmm.......hot fudge.) The good news is that it feels like my body is handling heat much better. It doesn't bother me much anymore.

Thursday, October 20th 2011: Rest.

Friday, October 21st 2011: 20 miles @ 12:19 minutes per mile. 83 degrees for this run but a slight breeze made it feel much better. The last mile was the fastest.

Saturday, October 22nd 2011: 3 miles @ 9:50 minutes per mile.
But enough of this running jibber jabber! We also did some fun family activities this past week. One of my favorite things to do every October is go to Staheli Farm, complete with a petting zoo, pig races, and a corn maze. I think it has Disneyland beat as the happiest place on earth.

At the petting zoo this pig smiled at me. I think it was because he was planning to go wipe his dirty snout on my daughter's leg. She didn't think he was nearly as cute after this little stunt.


They had a bounce house-ish thing that the kids could jump on and the girls pulled off this jump. Certainly a proud fatherly moment.


On Saturday while Mel was in Las Vegas for the Ragnar relay race I took the kids on my favorite hike in the world: Taylor Creek which is part of Zion National Park. The autumn leaves were absolutely incredible.


The kids were troopers. They made it the whole five miles. It was a little chilly toward the top and one of the kids matter-of-factly said "It's so cold that I can't feel my feet."


I love this picture of my youngest hooligan Kylee. She grabbed a huge pile of leaves and threw them up in the air and had a blast watching them rain down.


I made them head bands out of some reed plants which thoroughly impressed them. They looked at me like I was MacGyver. We had tons-o-fun on the hike.


I'm feeling better than I could have hoped for the amount of miles I've been running. I very, very often think back to April and a disastrous 50k, or May when my knees were so screwed up that I barely beat a marathon cutoff by 18 minutes. Sometimes I get a little choked up thinking about where I'm at with running, considering that not too long ago I couldn't run. I just feel so thankful and I don't take running for granted. I feel like each mile is a blessing.

And now........LET THE TAPER BEGIN!!!!!!!!! Hooray!