Hay In the Barn - 21 Weeks Out From the Leadville100

Down to 21 weeks out!

Things are slowly starting to change. Mileage is slowly growing back, more time is getting spent on recovery, eating habits are regularly being adjusted, priority is getting placed more on the things that support this effort, and Leadville is pretty much all I can think about on a regular basis.

There's a lot of sacrifice that is and will be going into this race prep. I haven't had any alcohol for roughly 4 months now and my social life is super limited. Both of which were my choice and I am completely fine with. At first I thought I would struggle more with both of those, but after a few weeks of keeping my head down and sticking to the plan, all the outside noise seemed to slowly go away.

Running Update:

This past week I accumulated roughly 40 miles of running with 70 miles of hard resistance on the bike. Two to three weeks back, my weekly totals looked more like 25 miles of running with 120-140 hard miles on the bike. As my right achilles gets stronger and can handle more load, running volume will continue to increase. The goal is to hit 50-70 running miles regularly within the next couple of months. Hopefully a good chunk of those runs are my weekend trail runs. I've had to limit trails due to my achilles and the muddy conditions recently.

My friend Levi Perez is doing his portion of an ultra relay called MS Run the US this upcoming May. He will be running from Steamboat, Colorado, to Denver. I will be running two of the seven days with him, each of which being 23-26 miles. My coach and I have decided to use this as a check-in point for how my legs are feeling and how my right achilles handles the volume. With that being said, there is a lot of work that needs to continue to be done between now and then.

The reason I named this post Hay In the Barn:

So I may be a little late to the show, but this was a fairly new term (to me) that I had not heard until recently. Nick Bare (Founder of BPN Supplements) was prepping for a race last year and he mentioned in an Instagram post that all the hay was in the barn and he was ready because he knew he had put in the work that was required leading up to the race. I can't wait to feel that same way. I feel like the past two months have been filled with me putting more and more hay into the barn and trying my best to remove myself from situations that affect that process. I think in the past I would have probably thought more about how much hay is in the barn down the road and thinking too much about what's ahead. Now I'm just taking it day by day, workout by workout, run by run.

Enjoying the process, working hard. Putting hay in the barn everyday. Staying consistent.

That's this blog post wrapped up, I'll check in with ya'll in a week or two.

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Also, if you want to support Levi's fundraising campaign for MS Run the US, visit the link below. This race hits home for him and his family, with his dad being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. All support is appreciated!

Levi's Fundraising Page

- Andrew