summer

spec·i·fic·i·ty

/ˌspesəˈfisədē/

noun

1. the quality of belonging or relating uniquely to a particular subject.

coming off of 4.5 years of inconsistency, injury and setbacks, i went into the early steps of winter with the goal of rebuilding my relationship with running and rebuilding my body. a modest buildup and lots of backcountry skiing and strength work gave me a chance to slowly start transitioning into specific efforts with an eye on exorcising the demon of my broken foot/dnf in 2015 at waldo 100k. age, time off and lost fitness were a consideration when building my prep i selected a few events that i felt best mimicked the waldo 100k course in preperation.

wild outback 55k course profile

some pretty specific needs: moderate mid level altitude, multiple climbs and descents, lots of douche grade and a progression between first race and goal race.

siskiyou outback 50k course profile

wild outback was an eye opener. hard rust buster that my body physically responded to, just didn't have the stamina to race but was pretty pleased to cover any distance over 25 miles for the first time since 2014. physically my climbing at any sort of anaerobic effort was poor as expected coming off the time off and slow rebuild so management and bouncing back was key in that effort. SOB was a marked improvement with recovery from wild outback and some additional training under my belt, i made a fitness jump. the high country in oregon opened up and geared a lot of my training efforts towards being able to handle the repetition of climbing an descending and overall effort of waldo.

waldo 100k course profile

the program worked. i felt good, physically and a nice 2 week taper after a last long effort coming off a really intense period of work and little sleep set me up to accomplish my goal. i don't usually recommend going into an event like waldo with 4.5 years off and only 1100 miles of running in 8 months, but the balance of aerobic ski efforts, strength work, experience and specificity in training and prep races left me with a result i feel good about. plus, it felt good to see a summer of finish lines, goals met and finally a waldo hat.

descending fuji. capture by teri smith

specificity. quality, not quantity.