This was another decent week of training. I did the normal 5 days of bike commuting with the extended rides on M,W,F. Tuesday a did a hilly 1:02 run with Cody which was a good session. I also attended my 3rd week of interval training with VFAC which showed another week of improvement I have moved from 3:50 in the first week down to 3:30 km/pace my coach John said I was back but in reality I am over 20 seconds away. The last time I did the beaver lake 1k,2k,2k,1k interval session (well over a year ago) I averaged (3:15,6:40,6:44,3:04) this session was 5×1k with descending rest which I averaged 3:33, 3:30, 3:33, 3:35, 3:33 which is a long way from that. I am still excited to goto intervals next week to see if I improve again.
The most exciting thing this week though was the opening the Grouse Grind which I love. I find the Grind to be the ultimate workout it’s easy on the joints and you can push the HR through the roof if you want(when I go for a PB I will post the heart rate data chart). I generally see a jump in my interval times after a couple grouse grinds, I think this is due to the boost in strength a grind session gives. I headed up on Saturday and did a 20 minute warm-up run then hiked up (no running) I ended up doing a 40 minute grind, on Monday I returned doing another warm up run and hiking up again(no running) and managed a 38:20 which felt easy. I also used my La Sportiva Slingshots on the Monday grind session and man do they rock they are as light as racing flats and extremely grippy because they use an approach shoe like tread which does not slip on wet rock. I highly recommend these shoes to any mountain runner and grinder out there.
