Mountain Running - New Record

I did a lot of leg exercise in preparation for the mountain.  Leg workouts are awesome, I love the pain they bring. All athletes need leg workouts.  My two favorite leg exercises are lunges and squats, or any application of the two.  

*Notice the car jacks, I use whatever means necessary to feel the burn

*Oh man, now I'm feelin' it

I would say that, for the middle of winter, I am the most fit I have ever been.  Notice I said "fit," not "fast."  Being fit in the winter is a good thing; being fast in the winter is a forecast for failure in the summer.  If you are fit, then you have stamina, conditioned muscles and tendons, and motivation.  If you are fast you are most likely over-trained, over-sharpened, and setting yourself up for along season of fatigue and burn out.  A fast winter means your candlewick of race fitness is already burning. Trust me.

Scott and I have both been training for the mountain.  When asked, what is so important about getting to the top of the mountain as fast as possible?  The question reminded me of something.  I know a girl at the pool who, slightly accusingly, would ask, “Why do you swim the IM [individual medley]? You’re a triathlete, you only need freestyle.”  My reply to both her question and the question about the mountain was to smile and say, “Because that’s what champions do.”  

What’s the point of having a huge mountain if you are not going to see how fast you can get to the top?  What’s the point of only swimming freestyle when the IM presents much more of a challenge? The two preceding questions are rhetorical.  Overly simplified, we climb the mountain because it’s a man thing.  We want to run to the top as fast as we can because we want to be champions. 

*Uriah found a pair of my running shoes and wanted to join the summit team

*Actually, it was a half-dozen who made the summit, the pack

*Getting ready for the start

The climb was a tough one.  The footing was still pretty poor.  Scott and I were slipping from the start.  The first few minutes of the climb is when you feel the best. Your anaerobic system is accumulating waste, but it's not overloaded yet.  At about the 5 minute mark, the muscles start to get seized up.  At this time the mountain kicks up to the steepest grade for the last few minutes to the summit.  This is tough.  Scott and I suffered at this point, but we didn't quit.   

*Climb, suffer, climb, repeat

*Jealous of my camo outfit?

I kept my head down and kept pushing my legs up like seizing pistons.  I begged myself to summit and stop.  Scott was right on my heels, he ran before the record attempt so he had extra pain to push him to the top. When we made the summit, we had broken the record by over a minute.  We were both too tired to do much besides look at our watches, and slump over the fence posts we use as the finish.  Man, that was sweet.  Scott and I waddled down the hill with our seized up legs and overly anaerobic fatigue.  "Champions...."

*On the ascent!

*Mackenzie showing her trail running skills coming off the mountain

*Scott in climb mode, he broke the record

My favorite thing after a hard workout is putting on wool socks and putting my feet up.  There is nothing better than a job well done, a thrashed body, and a smashed record.

*Speed solving a cube puzzle in my office

*Take you eyes off the kid for one minute and he opens up the Christmas candy

Some people would wonder why someone (or multiple people in this case) would spend the holidays working  out so hard.  Why punish yourself with leg workouts and running up a flippin' mountain?  You know the answer to that question, I have said it two times in this post.  

The hard workouts were actually fun, it's fun to workout with a goal in mind.  Try it, see how far you can take yourself with personal tests.  The people in my family do hard workouts because we love to workout...hard, we also like to win [some more than others :)].  Breaking the record by over a minute was exactly what Scott and I wanted to do, for fun.

*The prediction is...pain