About To Transition, But Not Just Yet

Just finished up my 4th and final camp of the season. Each one of them was a huge success and I look forward to doing a few more again next summer.  Keep an eye here for the exact dates on that sometime in the next few weeks.

It's been an incredible summer of running here in Alaska. I would have hoped for better weather, but despite one of the coldest and wettest summers ever in Juneau I was able to get out in the mountains more this summer than ever before. I'm leaving in a week to head back to Colorado for the Fall/Winter, but not before one last mountain binge up here. As long as the weather cooperates I'm hoping to get in my longest single day run ever in Juneau. I've got a route planned that will be somewhere in the ballpark of 35 or 40 miles with about 20,000 feet of ascent. Looking to "bust it out" in 15 or 16 hours.

It's weird to have run so much this summer, but to have pretty much no idea where I'm at in my running in terms of what kind of actual shape I'm in. I've done a couple mountain runs in the 2-3 hour range in which I've pushed myself pretty hard, and felt pretty good, but otherwise everything has been just about being out in the mountains and enjoying wild and scenic places. Many of the "runs" I've done have had as much stopped time as moving time. I've done almost no runs in which I've actual run the entire time. I did do a 22 or 23 miler last week in which I was running the whole time and that actually felt just fine, but kind of boring.

My plan is to head back to Colorado and begin a little more specificity in my running. I can feel myself wanting to return to a more "typical" running routine in hopes of getting back into some racing soon, but I'm only going to go down that road if it feels right when I start doing it. If things progress rapidly in that direction then I plan to race the Run Rabbit Run 100 in September, and the UROC 100k just 2 weeks later. I am however completely comfortable with the reality that I may also decide that I want to move a lot slower in that direction and maybe put off racing for several more months. Eventually the answer to this will be really obvious to me, but right now this isn't where my mind is. Instead I'm just looking at one day at a time, which means a nice mellow day of rest tomorrow to gear up for the big outing over the weekend. I'll hope to take some photos on this one and get them posted up here sometime next week.

Also, check out this link if you're interested in hearing a bit more about what I've been up to and where I'm headed.