A(nother) Day in the Life
What does a workout day look like preparing for my first race of the year?
A couple weeks ago I posted an article about my casual Monday morning run. I had fun writing that, and this time wanted to share some details from my Tuesday this past week. My weekly training definitely follows a general pattern, and while Monday morning runs are slow and introspective, Tuesday runs are tough. This week’s Tuesday was fairly representative of what my workout days look like each week, with the fun difference of being more social than usual.
Balancing schedules to find a two hour slot for a run with friends on a weekday isn’t always easy. I have a full-time job, and while it’s pretty flexible, I have meetings each day I need to be on. Finn has a young baby and does interviews and meetings for Singletrack. Mike probably does stuff too. But this week we made it happen, and at 10am we gathered at Popperton Park in Salt Lake City.
Some important context you should know: Mike and Finn are both also doing the Transgrancanaria Classic race that I’m training for. Both are media guys deeply involved in the ultrarunning community, Finn via Singletrack and Mike via Shitinthewoods photography. Both are in good shape, and both have a history of doing well at some races and poorly at others. Long story short, they’re an interesting match up for this race and are now immersed in an intense online rivalry with a lot on the line (loser has to list their race PRs in their Instagram bio). To give you an idea of just how heated this has gotten, on our recovery jog from Van Cott to Popperton Finn said, “I haven’t felt this sort of competitive drive in over 15 years.” One more thing—they both have YouTube channels and wanted to document this workout together as fuel on the fire of this rivalry. In fact, Mike’s video is already published, go check it out here. Finn’s will be here once it’s published.
So 10am, we’re warming up at Popperton, and Finn’s whole film crew (2 college guys he found at U of U) pulls up. They’ve got multiple cameras and a drone and they’re ready to go. Mike has a cute little handheld DJI camera and he’s trying to convince me to compromise the first 30 seconds of my workout to get some killer POV footage of him and Finn duking it out. I’m not that hard to persuade. We make our way over to the base of Mt. Van Cott, where we’ll do the first part of this workout, 2 x 10min pushes up the ~20% grade of the southwest ridge. Film crew is in position, drone is overhead. We lap our watches and hit it.
I’ve been working out with Finn for years. Historically, he’s very strong in speed workouts and often wrecks me. But I’m not the runner I was years ago. I’m feeling good, and I go out hard just to show Finn times have changed. Unsurprisingly given Mike’s training volume lately and lack of a taper for this workout compared to Finn, he falls a bit off the back within the first minute. We quickly hit some unconsolidated snow on the ridge and I plow ahead, opening up a gap on Finn and Mike (who are both wearing Nordas and complaining about the traction?). After 10 minutes, Finn calls out “Time!” and we regroup at Mike’s turnaround spot and jog back down. Next rep goes very similarly.
Up next, we’ve got 2 x 10min pushes on the road. Our recovery is the trail back down to the cars, where we all switch into our carbon-plated Alphaflys like this is the most important run of our lives. The road on the way out is going to be very slightly downhill, maybe a 1-2% grade, then we’ll flip around and come back up for the second rep. This sort of thing is where Finn shines. We go out ripping (considering we’re training for a hilly 80 mile trail race) 5:04min/mi pace for the first rep. Mike’s a little behind, but well within the tolerance zone for the kind of speed you’d need for TGC. Finn’s film crew is leading the way in a car, trunk popped open with one of them sitting in the back getting what I’m sure will be the money shot for Finn’s video. Once again, the second rep is similar, just a bit slower due to the slight uphill—about 5:31min/mi pace. Maybe it’s because his film crew is right there and he can’t hide, but Finn is right with me on these road reps, pushing hard and looking strong, even pulling ahead sometimes.
We wrap it up with a little cooldown together, give some fist bumps, and talk about how nice it is to be able to push each other. There’s no way I would have done that without these guys with me. I’m excited about how this workout went because it combines uphill strength with faster running economy, and I felt good on both. TGC has massive vertical gain in the first 54 miles, but the last 24 are net downhill, losing over 9,000ft of elevation, so this feels appropriate for testing those two different aspects of the race. Strava activity here if you’re curious.
Finn and Mike offer up some witty interviews for the cameras, and then Finn heads home and Mike and I are off to meet Morgan and Leah at Caputo’s for lunch. Great sandwiches. I stick around after lunch, hopping on my laptop to knock out enough work to not be stressed about catching back up later.
That afternoon I’m back with Mike and Leah, and Anna Fisher joins us for a lap up Grandeur. The trail’s in perfect shape, and it’s a lovely jaunt up one of Salt Lake’s classic wintertime peaks. By the time we’re on our way back down, I’ve got one thing on my mind. Mike breaks first and says it. “Dude I’ve got like a pit in my stomach, I’m starving.” Same, man. We split a Precision chew, but 15 grams of carbs each isn’t going to cut it. I cut the post-run chitchat short at the car and we set off for our final social event of the day, dinner night with Finn and Jules.
Finn and Jules have outdone themselves, as usual, with a wonderful meal, cats, and cookies. We lounge about for a couple hours and chat about things I’m not at liberty to disclose. Being the lame running nerds that we are, we’re getting tired and heading home by 8:30pm. Three items left on the checklist before I can sleep.
#1: Strength. I don’t like gyms and I don’t like things I’m bad at, which has included anything with weight in the past. Ever since I got a home gym setup from Nike, that’s changed. I feel obliged to use it regularly or else it’s just wasting space. As I run through my Tuesday strength routine, the sauna is pre-heating.
#2: Sauna. I often end harder days with a sauna session, which feels great for about 10 minutes and then not so great until I get out, which then feels great again. It makes me sleepy and sets me up well for…
#3: Shower. After marinating in my running clothes all day due to my acceptance of many social invitations, I’m dying for a shower and sleep.
While most Tuesdays are much less social and often involve multiple showers, from a training perspective hopefully this gives you a decent idea of what my harder days of the week look like. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing groundbreaking here that many top athletes in the sport aren’t doing, but that’s probably because it seems to work. I’m excited to put it all to the test in just over a month.