Race Thoughts, Shoveling, and Walking (what am I, like 80?)

We got spanked pretty good with a snowstorm .  I spent a bit of time yesterday shoveling, then watching the snow fall, then shoveling again.  The temps stayed fairly reasonable, so I headed out for my fast walk workout (4.5 miles, 700 ft climb).  Then, to cap the old man activity day, I listened to Prairie Home Companion. I'm not even certain I actually enjoy listening to it but my father listened to it every Saturday evening when I'd visit him in his house in the woods of Western Massachusetts, so it's one of the last few threads connecting me to him.

Thankfully, the temps are supposed to shoot up this week starting tomorrow, so I expect any snow will be gone by this time Monday.  I pushed it fairly well again this week with training and have noticed very faint symptoms of overtraining, mostly in the form of difficulty sleeping, which leads to a nearly imperceptible twitch in my eyelid.  It's enough to drive me nuts and I feel like I must look like a lunatic, raggedy clothes, wild hair, unshaven, and eyelid twitching.  So, this week is a "reset" week for me.  I'll cut the run volume by 30% and balance it with one extra day on the bike instead.

I wouldn't say I'm nervous about my race season kicking off in 4 weeks, 5 days, 23 hours.  The cross country MTB race and short track MTB event the next morning (Rumble at 18 Rd in Fruita, Apr 13-14) trigger different thoughts/concerns than the 100 mile run at Zion the following weekend.  After the crash at Temecula in January, I'll be a bit more cautious at the Rumble.  Of course, it's a completely different situation in that it's short (20 miles), so, much more of a head-to-head race/sprint.  I'll have to balance the fear of crashing with a modicum of daring (I think that's the first time I've used the word "daring" in my life.  It sounds old fashioned to me but seems to fit in this context).  I'd like to win my category but will be pretty happy just not breaking any more bones.  My ribs are about 90% healed at this point and are a non-factor for activity.  My thumb, on the other hand (like how I did that?), is about 50% functional and is pretty painful if I try to do things, like pick up a jar of pasta sauce.  I'll likely wrap it for the race.

The Zion 100 is another set of concerns and thoughts.  I initially intended to just take it as a casual long day of fast hiking and very measured easy jogging.  Now that I've put in a huge phase of some of the most solid training in my running life, I'm edging closer and closer to wanting to compete at Zion.  There are some very good runners there, Jay Aldous and Jason Koop spring to mind first.  Jay is both consistent and amazingly fast.  He'd have to run into some really bad patches for me to even say hi to him when I finish before he's packed up and driving home.  Jason is generally stronger than I am but seems to run hot and cold, especially in longer races.  I'm hesitant to say it at this point but I'd like to run sub 20 hours there.  We'll see whether I feel the same way in 5 weeks.  I now have a crew of one.  Still no pacer, which is cool.  The three best 100s I've ever raced were solo, so no biggie there.

This week was 57 miles run, ~15,000 ft climbing, all between 9,000-10,000 ft elevation.  28.5 miles riding. 12 hours 26 mins total.