This week's training schedule was completely ignored. It started to fall apart when I decided to make up Monday's long run on Tuesday. That threw the whole week off. I did get good mileage and good training in this week, but next week, I'll stick to the plan.
Yesterday I ran 5 miles on snowshoes on BJ's trails. We had 12 inches of new snow and the trails were only lightly packed. It was good hard running. I took my pulse after running three miles and it was 180! That is right around my maximal heart rate. Then I did two more miles at an easier pace with my heart rate in the 150's. There was a lot of backsliding and some sinking in which felt just like running on loose sand. The trick is to ignore how slow I am moving forward, and just keep plugging away at a good effort. My leg turnover was fast, it was just the forward progression that was slow. I could feel how much I was working my quads and upper hamstrings, good stuff.
The new Dion racing snowshoes are great! They are much lighter than my Red Feathers and don't extend as far medially. So unlike with the Red Feathers, I don't start clicking the inside frames together when I get tired. I'm excited about trying them in the Cobble Mountain race tomorrow.
After my snowshoe run I helped BJ get the Max, the vehicle he uses for grooming the trails, back up the big hill to his house. On such deep loose snow it isn't an easy thing to do. The first time it got stuck, I started pulling the winch line up the hill to attach it to a tree and BJ said, "try pulling." So I dug in with my snowshoes and leaned back and pulled with all my strength and it worked! It was pretty cool! But I only had the strength for that one effort, after that BJ pulled some and we winched some. By the time we got it up to the house we were both freezing. I had been out for too long in sweaty clothes and BJ had been sitting in the Max for too long. We were both shivering and hopping around saying, "oh, my feet, my feet!" Pretty comical.
Today is a beautiful day. I will probably go out on skis or snowshoes, but I have to remember to take it easy. I have a snowshoe race tomorrow and have done intense workouts every day except one this week. Believe me, I feel it in every muscle in my body.
I really like my Dion racing shoes. I entered the snowshoe marathon in Pittsfield on 3/7, so I'll find out how my feet hold up for a day that long. So far, I've never gone past the two hour mark in the snowshoes, although I hope to change that between now and the marathon. I'm guessing it will take me at least 8 hours to do a marathon in snowshoes.
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