Home sweet home!

After exactly 1 month away from home it was nothing but a true pleasure to see our driveway. Living in the trailer for 3 weeks was not as bad as I originally thought it would be but I was thankful to drive home and put it away. Bill, Alex and I spent one week driving from Leadville, CO to Tigard, OR and for three days right after the race we stayed in Moab, UT to explore the Arches National Park and the Canyonlands. It was incredibly hot ranging from 100-105 degrees which was a shocker compared to the 70's we experienced in CO. Since this was Bill's first full two weeks of vacation in 14 years he had lots of plans for us which included hiking in the heat! I am definitely NOT heat trained and felt pretty drained all three days when the sun set. I am sure the race had quite a bit to do with my sluggish finish to each day but nonetheless I was tired. I think the hiking was a great way to get the legs and body moving again. The heat was just an added benefit to be sure I sweat out all the junk from the race. The Arches and Canyonlands are amazing and neat to see but I am definitely more of a mountain person, the desert wasn't that exciting but the miracle of that landscape is unbelievable. I think the highlight was seeing dinosaur bones in the rocks, it just blew my mind. The Canyonlands were cool but the Grand Canyon in much more amazing to me.

When we got home there was no rest as we unloaded, unpacked and began getting Alex ready for school. I can't believe summer is almost over and neither can he as the shock of school sets in.

With Wasatch only 10 days away I am almost packed and ready to go. I have to admit I am looking forward to being on my favorite course and I am ready. I thought my recovery after Vermont was fast and I purposely saved myself at that event to run well at Leadville. I felt like I put my best foot forward at Leadville but if I measure how fast I bounced back I would have to say I should have run harder.....easy to say sitting here now :). I don't know if I sub-consciously held some in the tank for Wasatch when my intention was to spend it all or if I am just simply learning how to recover better. I do think fueling during the event has a great impact on recovery, meaning if you mess up on your fueling during the race you will pay for it after. I really messed up my fueling during WS100M this year and it took a good 3 weeks for me to feel normal whereas both Vermont and Leadville my fueling was perfect and after both races I felt recovered within the week. I don't know if that's true but that is my theory for now :).

So far I have done just a bit of running. After the hiking in Arches and Cayonlands I came home and did a 2 hour run with some 3A but mostly Z2. That went very well and I was pleased with how the legs responded. I have done 3 45-60 min. recovery runs and today was a tempo run at M-Pace. My M-Pace is 7:26 and felt confident I would be able to reach those numbers. I met Stacey at Lief today we did a warm-up and then each did our own tempo, she is peaking for AC100M so she had many more m-pace miles than I and our paces are different so we were on our own. After mile 2 of M-Pace I felt sluggish, yikes! I waited for Stacey to come back around then tucked in behind her but she drug me like a tired dog but it was nice to try and chase her, it made me go faster. After I was done with my tempo I just cruised while she finished up. All in all it was good but not as easy as it was before WS100M. With all this race and recover I feel like I have become a bit lazy, not a word I would ever use to describe myself but I have found my inner couch potato....I don't lay on the couch but you know what I mean. I have sort of lost my appetite too and that's a first! Maybe since I am just recovering I don't need to eat as much but I am finding it hard to eat all the food to get 2000 calories in, normally I have to stop myself from eating to much food.

I am almost packed and ready to go to Utah. Tomorrow I will run a stride workout then finish up preparing for the race. When I get to Utah I have my last big run of 2.5 hours then all the rest are short and fast stuff. Crazy to think the SLAM is almost over but it is and what a wild ride so far. I am hoping to get the turquoise buckle (under 30 hours) at Wasatch but I just can't seem to convince myself it's going to happen. Good thing my crew is in charge because they seem to have no doubt. If I do achieve that then I will be pumped with the whole SLAM, under 24 at WS, under 24 at Vermont, under 25 at Leadville, and (fingers crossed) under 30 at Wasatch. For me, achieving that would be a sweet summer!