Weeks 5&6 – oops

I didn’t hold up my end of the deal. 🤦🏼‍♀️ My bad!

Truth be told there was very little Cruel Jewel training or prep worth mentioning here, as week 5 was a down week, and week 6 was subpar.

Every single minute of my life is accounted for lately. I absolutely hate it, but it is what it is. The past two years dealt a few family blows I have tried to white knuckle through, but it’s all catching up to me. I find myself exhausted most hours of the day. Training is being forced into the hours of 10pm & midnight, if that is even available, so I’m working with lots of fatigue during each session. Some days I’m at the point of diminishing returns, so I cut it. I’m keenly aware of when running is stress & when it’s not. This being said, I logged about 30 miles with 5k gain week 5, and week 6 I only logged 37 with better vert avg – 8.9k gain. Given all the life “fun” I was up against the last 14 days, I’m okay with the outcome.

That’s 100 prep, through. Seriously. It’s rare that any of us have a picture perfect lead up to a long event. Running just isn’t that important.

…Except for when it’s my T&F kids’ RUNNING. I will always put the kids practices & meets before any of my own run plans. Being Coach Malm just brings way too much joy and I love witnessing the ways running positively impacts each athlete. 😁 I volunteered about 20 hours the last two weeks coaching. Worth it.

Regardless of the time constraints, I still got in a handful of 9-12 mile runs in the mid 7 range & a couple solid climbing workouts.

My takeaways after every major workout remain the same: I’ve got enough speed. My fitness is not going anywhere. But my strength needs more work & my eccentric (downhill) response is lacking.

I finally got my sauna in place & ready to roll, so the coming weeks will have more focus on incorporating that, in addition to increased lunges & “drop down” work for the eccentric loading.

Every single person close to me – literally, all of them – have pulled me aside & insisted I need to take a break. I’m planning to do just that. The weather looks to be promising towards the end of the week, so I’m hoping to shut everything down & disappear deep into the mountains for a day. Fingers crossed.🤞

Anyway, that’s it, that’s the update 😆 Have a great week!