Haulin Aspen Training Begins?
Yesterday my wife and I signed up for the Haulin Aspen trail half marathon. This is in Bend, in August. I've heard it's a great event - good trail, good food & beer sponsors, etc. Looking forward to it. Definitely have to get my wife's mileage ramped up, and really, need to up my own a bit as well, as I've yet to run that distance, and have only run over 7 miles a few times now.
Today's run was a sort of hill workout. I started at Fox Hollow, and run up to Spencer Butte summit. This gets a nice even 1000' feet of elevation gain in about 2 miles. The last pitches up to the summit (and much of the return down) I had to hike/walk, as it's too rocky and steep for me to be able to run it. But, up and back took 47 minutes - 26 of that was up, about a minute of hanging out at the top, and then 20 down, if I recall properly what my watch said at those points.
Legs were pretty worked by the time I got to the top, but recovered fairly soon after finishing the slower/rockier/hiking sections back down from the summit. Twas fairly warm, at roughly 76 degrees. Got to try out a new Under Armor running shirt that is super super light weight, and has a bit of a mesh section down the center of the back. This shirt was awesome! Basically felt like I wasn't wearing anything, didn't feel soggy at all (even though it was drenched - probably cuz it's so thin and light that it's soaked but not that much water total). Lightweight Smartwool socks FTW (tried running in some thin Defeet cycling socks the other day, which was mild fail - rubbed a bit, and not comfy). Drank about 1/2 of my water bottle.
Good bit of training for the Haulin Aspen, which has 1300' of elevation gain in the first 8 miles, then down after that. Clearly a much longer overall race, so the elevation gain will be more mild I assume (but don't really know how it stretches out yet - need to check their topo map). It seems a lot like doing the first 10k of the Ridgeline Ramble (I clocked 1250' gain on my watch for that), and then running back down. The downhills rarely bother me, as long as I keep good(? for me?) form, so I think it'll be more about getting up and finished with the ascent, and then enjoying the run back down.
