DOUBLE-CROSSING

I’m so out of touch with my blog that I can’t remember what I’ve written lately. As Beth pointed out, my reference to R-cubed wasn’t very clear in my last post. R-cubed is also known as R2R2R or rim-to-rim-to-rim. It’s a double-crossing of the Grand Canyon. I tried to find it on Wikipedia, but it’s not there. However, you can Google rim-to-rim-to-rim and come up with some links, including some youtube videos.

This will definitely require a drastic change in my approach to training. No longer will my focus be on weekly mileage and pace. Instead I’ll focus on time on my feet and nutrition. “Time on my feet” will largely be affected by back-to-back long runs over the weekend. For example, Saturday night I ran on the treadmill for 2 hours and then Sunday I hit some trails for 2:45. I’m sure I wasn’t very fast at all on the trails, but that wasn’t my concern. Goal #1 was to build strength and goal #2 was to see how my body could handle eating a PBJ sandwich during a run. I think both goals were achieved.

For the week I had 48 miles of running, 33K of skiing, and two sessions of core workouts. For my core workouts, I’ve been following along with McMillan’s DVDs. They are one of those things I wanted, but didn’t want to pay for – so I asked for them for Christmas. I like them because they show me exactly what to do and they’re less than 30 minutes. My goal is to follow along 2-3 times per week. Hopefully it’ll be enough to make me look good in my speedo.

Quote of the Day;

“Be the hero of your own life story.” – Jodie Foster in Nim’s Island

IT'S ON

Well, it’s on. After my initial trepidation, I signed up for R-cubed. And by “signed up” I mean bought a plane ticket.

Immediately after doing so, I realized how much over my head I really am. In addition to the mileage, we’re talking about 10,000 feet of descending and climbing and temps that could be in the 100s. This all sounds right up my alley given that I’m a terrible hill climber and heat runner.

And coming off of an injury doesn’t really help either. Last Saturday I ran 14 miles and felt pretty good about that. Then I checked emails and found out that the other guys running R-cubed with me ran between 20 and 31 miles. Hopefully I made up a little bit of ground by getting in 15 miles the next day.

Sure, going from 0 to 50 MPW may not be the smartest training plan, but nobody ever said I was smart.

Anyway, with all that said, I’m super excited. It’s one of those goals that you can’t stop thinking about. Morning, noon, and night my mind thinks about R-cubed. Of course, I have a ton of work to do before May 6th, however, that’s part of the appeal.

Quote of the Day;

“It’s not a race, but you will need to be pretty fit to be able to at least enjoy most of it.” – Tony Kocanda, regarding R-cubed