Totally blanked on recapping week 3! Mach didn’t harass me about it, and I didn’t remember it. Actually my buddy Adam gets the gold medal for nudging me to keep it real and recap the week! Thanks, AA.😆
So last week was another okay week! I capped it right at 50 and just over 5k for the vert…
Training was mostly uneventful, and I’ll detail it below, but for the most part my mind was totally elsewhere last week. I stepped up to coach our (newer high school’s) brand new track team with my coaching buddy Corey, even though I swore I wouldn’t. Physically, mentally, time / work wise… I’m completely 100% tapped out. But here’s the thing — coaching truly fills my soul cup. I just love it. Like love it, love it. And furthermore, both of my kids are on the team – and one is quickly approaching adulthood – so this is time for me to sneak in some motherly bonding before my “baby” flies the nest. I know I know. The kids 6’3”.
SIDE TRAIL:
I’ve had the privilege of working with the same group of kids for years. Some even since they were very small. It started as me hosting summer trailrunning clubs for Brett and Brook and their friends when they were little, but it slowly grew as they grew. It became “wow ok these kids are actually reeeally good”. And since we’d been together so long and I love my sport, naturally I just continued working with them. Once they hit high school, things really progressed, and the folks at BASA brought me on officially. Still to this day I refuse to take a paycheck, because I truly get so much more out of coaching these kids than money could ever touch, but they’ve been kind to offer.
My nickname with a lot of the crew is “Coach Malm”. And every time I hear it, it makes me smile. Coach Malm – as with most nicknames – is a long string of randomness. When brooklyn was little and used to tattle on Brett, she’d shout “Mommmm” in a super dramatic way, and her brother – being a solid big brother- would just mimic her obnoxiously and drag it out into “Maalllm” with heavy emphasis on the L sound. Eventually Brett just started calling me Malm to annoy Brooklyn, and then all his friends caught on, and boom, “Coach Malm” was born.
All of this is to say that our little arts & sciences magnet Highschool [that does not even have a track] somehow picked up track & field, and Corey and I of course stepped up to coach – because it’s how we roll — and 60+ kids signed up. The result has been a whirlwind. Our first meet is this weekend. The stoke is high. No idea what the outcome will be but one things for certain, we will have fun. Please go peep the insta page for the team and support them. I’ve been putting my marketing skills to work by creating their hype videos. 😁 Show them some love you’ll make their day>> on Instagram @BasaTFXC
Anyway to finally recap the training week – there were a lot of monotonous trail miles in the 8ish range, a long treadmill vert filled run, and a solid finisher with MattyJ. I continued to focus core and leg strength and added that into the easier days with HIIT work. The incline trainer treadmill continues to be my greatest weapon of choice, as I can not find much time to get to real mountains. Steep steep & steeper is critical.
Mon: AM 6 trail – 8:48 avg – chill with Dan on his day off. Humidity was up & i struggled to breath well. PM: 2.4 with the distance crew showing them a new route to warm up on
Tue: 6.21 single track & paved @ 8:01 pace – did a loop around yargo. Felt okay, humidity still kicked my butt. Was almost 80 degrees again.
Wed: 3 miles with a half mile vert finisher on tread. Felt a little crappy and called it early. Practice in the PM.
Thur: 6 comfortable trail – 8:40 pace , catching up on serial killer podcasts LOL. Heat still beating me up a bit.
Fri: 15 on tread , 3k gain, 10:42 avg – 6 WU @ then 3 intervals of 20% climb for a mile, and fast mile after, finished with remainder downhill in the 7:30 per mile range. I felt worked. Need to do super long stuff again, it’s been a longer break than I’m used to. A couple months.🥴
Sat: I toed the line against dan for a dead-legged 400 during track practice LOL! I usually can get right around 60. Even in my advanced age 😆 but this day I was dead by 80 seconds LOl. I was feeling the run from the night before! Anyway this was NOTHING but still totally had me sore after.
Sun: 10.5 with Matt on trails & paved: 8:11 avg Matt is one of my best training partners, but we’ve struggled to nail down times to sync up lately. Really enjoyed catching up with him and hearing all about his fam & their latest happenings. Matt and I work well together because he’s able to run paces that are a push for me, but they’re nothing to him so he’s able to stay pretty chatty and I can just listen and suffer-run. Ha! Neither of us normally wear a watch, so I doubt Matt realized it but we wrapped up the final miles of this in the 6s.
That’s a wrap on week 3. Since I’m already midway thru 4 and all…🤦🏼♀️ Ps don’t forget to sign up for She Wolf 13.1 before the price increase!👇 Catch up with y’all next week!
ASHRUNS100s 