I brought running back in week eight. I ran five times, and four days in a row for the first time since early June, 2024. The numbers:

• 31.9 miles running

• 12 hours, 12 minutes all training

• 5,171 ft D+ running

Tuesday I did hard running and hiking intervals on Towers road, 5.5 km of 10% grade. 30 minutes at 9/10 effort, my biggest single workout of the season. I'm only a minute slower on the climb than early season runs in 2020 and 2021. That's very encouraging.

Today I went back to the hills for an easy long run. It felt easy until mile eight, where I boarded the struggle bus for the last two and a half miles. Still, I enjoyed the entire run, saw lots of hikers, and the season's first wildflowers: sand lily, clematis, pasqueflower, and springbeauty.

Conditions are very dry in our foothills. The creeks in Well Gulch and below Arthur's Rock often have running water into May, but have none now. It's not a good sign.

Poor weather last week complicated my training plans. I ran more than I did in week six, but not much more. I did some indoor intervals, a tempo run, the usual yoga and pool HIIT, my favorite bike loop of Southwest Fort Collins, and a great trail run in the hills of Lory State Park on Saturday. All together, here are the numbers:

• 24 miles running

• 9 hours, 32 minutes all training

• 2,313 ft D+ running

My body is holding up well, so I'll be doing even more running in week eight. Spoiler alert: I've already had one solid running workout, the hardest of my season so far.

I'm not the first person to make a sandwich with fried eggs and pastrami, but I think I may have come up with a name for it that could stick. Served hot with melted cheddar cheese on slices of grilled sourdough bread, I call it the "Poulletier" after François Poulletier de la Salle, the discoverer of cholesterol.

Hash browns would be good in this. As would a thick smear of pesto sauce, suggested by a person in a reply to my Mastodon post. I'll try one or both of these additions next time.

Tuesday, April 1, Ruthie and I, and a couple of friends, drove to Denver to see The Bug Club at the Hi-Dive on South Broadway. The Bug Club have become one of my favorites over the past two years, since I first heard them on a WFMU show. I can't remember if it was Joe Belock's or Todd-o-Phonic Todd's. I was extremely excited to see them, and to see them with Ruthie. We're going to Denver to see music less frequently as we get older, so this was a special occasion. The Breeders at The Ogden in 2018 was our last show in Denver, if I recall correctly.

The Hi-Dive is a small club with a modest stage and no seating, only an open floor in front of the stage. I don't think there is any backstage, either. Bands enter and leave the stage using steps at the front of the stage. It's unabashedly no-frills and I liked it.

Ducks Limited were nominally the main act. I've listened to them a little and they're good, if not exactly my cup of tea. The opening act was Denver's own Mainland Break. Like Ducks Ltd., they play a jangly 80's pop, but also channel the Replacements on stage. I enjoyed their short set.

The effect of putting The Bug Club between these bands was a bit like giving the Minutemen a long set in the middle of an REM show in 1983. They tore through 20 songs in a little over an hour with humor and grace but otherwise no break. Every song from The Intricate Inner Workings of The System, minus Actual Pain and Cold Hard Love (which I love), a new single, and from earlier albums: Marriage, Cheap Linen, Short and Round, It's Art, and Little Coy Space Boy. There were songs I didn't recognize, including one with dueling spiels between Sam and Tilly, that especially reminded me of the Minutemen, what with their physically imposing and proficient producer Tom Rees driving the drumbeat, Sam's buzzed head, and it being D. Boon's birthday. Uncanny!

I'm looking forward to my next chance to see The Bug Club. They really did put on a satisfying show.

A productive week six is done!

• 22.8 miles running

• 11 hours, 39 minutes all training

• 2,277 ft D+

That's not a lot of running, but it's the most I've done in a week since last July. I did two hill workouts outside on a 10% grade stretch of single track above Pineridge open space, Tuesday and Thursday. Today, Sunday, I did an easy long run from my house to the same dirt climb, and went up to the bench one time. My left Achilles, which has been nagging me, feels better. Weather permitting, I'll run 3-4 days next week, and increase my mileage to 25-26.

My week 5 was a light one. I did some indoor workouts early in the week, some telemark skiing on Friday, and then short and easy trail runs Saturday and Sunday. Saturday's was my first run above 8000 ft elevation this season, on some very nice trails outside Nederland, Colorado. Here are the numbers, not including my skiing, which I didn't record.

• 8.5 miles running

• 5 hours, 6 minutes all training

• 761 ft D+ running

Week 4 was light on trail running, because I'm letting my irritated left Achilles tendon settle down, but it was still a pretty good training week. I logged 34 minutes of max intensity intervals on an elliptical trainer, a new weekly high for me. I also did the usual yoga, weight training, pool exercise, and some biking.

• 4.5 miles running

• 10 hours, 3 minutes all training

• 36 ft D+ running

The highlight was a long ride along creeks and rivers in Fort Collins and through the valley trails of Lory State Park. I'm getting more comfortable on the steep road descents between my house and Horsetooth Reservoir and am feeling more fit on the steepest climbs. I didn't set any records climbing up from the Blue Sky trailhead or up Centennial from the reservoir, but I was able to stay below my aerobic threshold. Last fall I was blowing apart on the same climbs.

I just noticed that the original URL slug for last week's recap blog post was "beer-training-weeks-1-2-recap.html". "Beer" instead of "bear". I'm fixing that now. I'd be down for a beer mile, but not a beer 100 miler.

In week 3, I got two interval workouts in, but developed a knot in my left calf and some Achilles tenderness. I ran twice, and did long bike rides instead of long runs. They were quality rides, though, and so I still got a good mix of intensity and long easy effort.

• 11.3 miles running

• 11 hours, 50 minutes all training

• 476 ft D+ running

The highlight of my week was a long Sunday ride on the Poudre River Trail east of Fort Collins, stopping by a taco truck and tap room, and ending up at Hoedown Hill, which might be Colorado's easternmost ski hill. It's a bar and restaurant on top of a 200-foot tall butte, with a north-facing slope beneath.

It's time for the first training recap of my 2025 season. I'm training every day, but only running 2-3 days a week because I'm cautious about stressing my Achilles tendon too much. When I do the numbers, I'll report running distance and elevation gain, and the time for all training, including cycling, weight lifting, elliptical or stationary bike, and yoga.

Week 1:

• 11.3 miles running

• 5 hours, 40 minutes all training

• 1,112 ft D+ running

The first week of my 32-week season was a little light. The highlight was running at Cougar Mountain Regional Park in Issaquah, Washington with my sister-in-law. Even in winter, it's green, with moss and ferns everywhere.

Week 2 was complicated by back pain. Instead of skipping workouts, I did a lot of chugging indoors. Going easy on my back early in the week let me recover and get out for a solid long run today at Bobcat Ridge, my longest run in seven months. In all, this was one of my biggest weeks since April, 2024.

• 17.8 miles running

• 10 hours, 18 minutes all training

• 3,199 ft D+ running

As a side project, I'm doing some physical therapy on my left hip flexor muscles, which are much weaker than those on my right side. I do seated single-leg raises, supine marching with a resistance band, and Joe Uhan's skaters. I'm making slow progress.

Hi, my name is Sean Gillies, and this is my blog. Blog is short for "web log". I write about running, cooking and eating, gardening, travel, family, programming, Python, API design, geography, geographic data formats and protocols, open source, and internet standards. Mostly running and local geography. I live in Fort Collins, Colorado, and sometimes in Montpellier, France. I work at TileDB, which sells a multimodal data platform for precision medicine. I appreciate emailed comments on my posts. You can find my address in the "about" page linked at the top of this page. Happy New Year!