Trails and Travails

Looks like another good day of running.

Mike MacLellan wrote:Thanks all. Easy 4 this morning (8:06 pace) to shake out the cobwebs and keep my legs fresh for tonight: group run, 2 laps on K2. 8-9 miles total, 2 of which will be straight up.

Good luck...sounds like a good run!!

Today was a very good day for running. This morning's easy run felt pretty good - just some minor complaining from my knees when my quads didn't take up the workload - and was a nice cruising pace for the fact that it was a recovery run (8:06 as opposed to the usual 8:20-9:00 range).

Classes continue to feel more and more "normal" again, and meeting more of the students in the interpreting program with me certainly helps to keep things moving along when the lesson runs a bit slowly. Which brings me to a completely unrelated train of thought, but just go with me for a minute:

If you ever find yourself in a situation with an ASL-English interpreter, for the love of God, do NOT talk to the interpreter directly, especially to ask how to sign something or to just yak about your day. They're there to interpret, and that's it. They don't fucking care if you can't wait until it's Friday, and they're not your ASL teacher. I'm hoping all of that is pretty implicit in the title "interpreter," so maybe a few things that are less obvious: talk to the Deaf person directly. They'll sign directly to you. Maintain eye contact. Don't look at/talk to the interpreter. Don't worry about waiting for the interpreter. The list goes on, but that's the basics. Thank you for listening (can you guess what some people in my classes have been doing?).

So, I felt pretty good and ready for a run when I got home from class. Met the group at 6 and off we went. Wasn't thrilled about the mention of a regroup at the top of the hill, since I really, really don't like stopping during runs, but it's part of the group "rules." And what did we happen to stumble across less than 2 minutes into the run? Yep, my first rattlesnake in Auburn. People were calling him a 3-footer, but I'd put him at 2.5 (6 inches makes a difference, am I right ladies? ). I slowed up and stepped off the trail to pass him... and accidentally caused a rock to clack off another, which in turn caused the snake to lunge at me. Seriously? Snakes fucking LOVE lunging at me AFTER I pass them. Fortunately, we all made it by safely and continued on.

I let the group leader pace the first K2, since I knew my ego would get the best of me and I'd blow up on the second time around if I led. Since he's tapering for a 100 miler in 10 days, we walked the majority of it, ran maybe 1-2 of the semi-flat sections, and topped out at 15:37 (distance = .95 miles). Not too shabby, considering my first go-around was 15:17 and felt much, much harder. We regrouped at the top (6 minute stop) and the group of us doing the loop twice carried on. Down down down and loop 2 started. The leader took off up the hill - the first section is the second hardest of them all - and the other 3 of us fell back a bit... Until the leader blew up 30 seconds later. I passed him and took the lead, then got into a race mentality and made sure I kept a healthy gap on the other 3. Was soon out of sight and earshot of them, and I topped out at 13:34... And really wasn't tired at all. Another regroup (8 minutes between me and the leader, who was now last), and we started again. I took the lead on the downhill this time, since I was missing a lot of footings not being able to see from all the dust kicked up. Again, a gap formed and I just bombed it. Once the rocky/rooty/technical section was done, I just let the legs fly. Held a 6:30 pace all the way to the bottom, passed a group and overheard, "Oh, I thought he was on a bike!" "He's going FAST!" - nice little ego boost, which caused me to pick it up even more - and then drilled the last 200m into a 90% sprint.

Overall, 8.5 miles in 1:18 (not including the stops) with a negative split (41:04 vs 37:19). Running again with the group leader on Sunday, even though at one point he told me he kind of hopes I get injured, because I'm already one of the fastest guys in the group, and it's hurting his ego (he acknowledged that even saying that as a joke was "kind of dick-ish").

And now... time to catch up on La Vuelta.

Nice job out there on K2. Good thing you didn't let your ego get the best of you.

(BTW, thanks for the insight on the life of an ASL-English interpreter. I'd wager that most people rarely encounter a situation with an ASL interpreter and pretty much invariably screw up protocol. That seems almost understandable. The fact that people in your class are doing it, however, is nuts. Shouldn't they know better?)

Nice running Mike. When's your 50?

Mike MacLellan wrote:Snakes fucking LOVE lunging at me AFTER I pass them. Fortunately, we all made it by safely and continued on.

Hahaha! Snakes are not very bright animals... Great run last night - that is too cool that you have a group to run with, even if you are the fastest one out there! Your presence will probably help someone else out too, as you've obviously learned a lot on how to attack trails and hills (mountains to us mortals). That is scary to think about bombing a hill at 6:xx - I'd be afraid of wiping out - hard. Glad to hear that school is settling in well for you.

Mark B wrote:Nice job out there on K2. Good thing you didn't let your ego get the best of you.

(BTW, thanks for the insight on the life of an ASL-English interpreter. I'd wager that most people rarely encounter a situation with an ASL interpreter and pretty much invariably screw up protocol. That seems almost understandable. The fact that people in your class are doing it, however, is nuts. Shouldn't they know better?)

Thanks Mark. And no problem with the insights. The whole where-to-look thing is understandable, as is the whole wanting-to-slow-down thing, but just casually chatting with them? That'd be like casually chatting with the stenographer at a trial. Uh... Yeah, you'd think people would know better. Then again, the class I'm referring to is not an interpreting class, but a Deaf studies class, so you don't have to be familiar with ASL or even Deaf culture to take it.

Alex Kubacki wrote:Nice running Mike. When's your 50?

Thanks Alex. It's Dec 3. I know, I'm still pretty far out, which I keep having to remind myself of. But when I break it into training blocks, I've got:

3 more weeks of base, starting Monday; let's get comfortable with those 100-mile weeks
2 weeks of build leading into
2 weeks of mini-taper leading into a 50k/34M: A- priority, so it's important... and whaddoyaknow, it climbs K2 twice!; it's basically the run I did on Saturday, but two loops instead of 1 - goal pace ~9:00/mi
a cutback week after the race to heal up for
2 weeks of peaking, with a B-priority 50k (road - goal pace <8:00, preferably <7:45) on the last Saturday followed by a 4-5 hour trail run on Sunday
3 weeks of taper into the race itself.

Crazy.

John Kilpatrick wrote:
Hahaha! Snakes are not very bright animals... Great run last night - that is too cool that you have a group to run with, even if you are the fastest one out there! Your presence will probably help someone else out too, as you've obviously learned a lot on how to attack trails and hills (mountains to us mortals). That is scary to think about bombing a hill at 6:xx - I'd be afraid of wiping out - hard. Glad to hear that school is settling in well for you.

It is awesome to have a group, especially with a run like that. Definitely felt more buddy-buddy with the guys in my pace group (4 of us total) than the other two group runs I've done, and we all agreed that none of us would've gone for loop #2 had we not been doing it together. I'm still learning on the hills, but my legs are showing me that they're learning a lot, as well, especially in terms of lactate flushing. The refresh time on them is getting to be ridiculously fast, and I'm definitely completely fresh by the time I hit the bottom of the hill 20 minutes after cresting the peak. It's a cool thing to actually feel tangible gains being made.

And we don't think about falling. At least, we try not to. That said, I definitely had a few "whoops" moments where I either landed on a root/rock wrong or tangled up my feet. Fortunately, no spills.

From my experience with interpreters, that rule, talk to the person, not the interpreter carries across all languages. I get patients who speak no English so we have an interpreter for their therapy and it's always, talk to the person, the interpreter is just there.

Your training is going so well! I saw your 50 mile question but I just have to say it scares me even more away from running a 50 miler because I just can't imagine putting that many miles in a week. You're doing great, though!

Thanks Julie! Yeah, I think most of the rules are universal with interpreters, but I figured I'd go for specificity since I wasn't positive on the matter. And you don't HAVE to put in this kind of training for a 50. Like Jeff (I think it was Jeff) said, you can run a 50 on a marathon plan. I believe that. You just won't be competitive, most likely.

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Yesterday's off day was very, very nice. Not sure my body needed it so much as my brain did, since I was still wanting to be up and about, doing things most of the day. I know, you're not really supposed to get off the couch on full-recovery days, but I ended up allowing myself a little leeway with some cross-training (50% water change on the big fishtank... the cross-training involved lifting a 5g bucket full of water to a height of 5' about 10 times). Other than that, cooked a lot, which I haven't had time to do lately, and did some school work. I have to admit, I'm much more interested in this homework than I ever was in high school or college. Even when I was writing (my major), I never had the "oh boy, I get to grab a highlighter and do this!" feeling. I guess I technically did another bout of cross-training, as I took an hour-long stroll to replenish my dwindling wild blackberry stores.

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And then 6am came, and the luxury was over. Got on the road around 8am (no, it doesn't take me 2 hours to get ready, Jim, and no, Mark, I didn't get caught up watching cartoons ) for a 10-miler on a trail I keep forgetting I hate. Ever since they've done maintenance on it, it's been pretty fucked up. They widened the single-track to about 4-5' wide, more or less destroyed every foothold on the hills, and somehow made it all a fine, red dust. Absolutely terrible to run down; it's bad enough that descents bang up your quads, but when your feet have to be angled downwards because the footholds are all gone... Up, not as bad, but still... ugh.

Learned that it's just short of 5 miles from my driveway to the gate at Confluence (just east of where Hwy 49 hits Old Foresthill, for those of you familiar with the area). 40 minutes down, 42:40 (I think) up, for an average pace of 8:16. I incorporated some semi-structured fartlek in the last 2 miles of the run, doing hard efforts up short (30-60 second) hills and recovering at a normal pace until the next hill. No idea how many intervals I did, but it wasn't many. Just something to work the high-end, since I tend to neglect it completely.

5 easy this afternoon and 15 with a group tomorrow.

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For those of you who like a post-run smoothie, I just made this one, and it was really fucking good:
1 medium (7-8") banana, frozen and slightly thawed (30sec in the microwave)
1/8 "personal size" watermelon, or ~150-175g watermelon pieces (no shell)
1.5T protein powder
just-under 1T honey
couple ice cubes
Has the 4:1 carb:protein ratio, makes about 16-20oz, and it's yum.

Internet went down last night as I was posting about the second of Saturday's runs and didn't come back until now. Man, I'm such a internet-dependent schmuck; I had no idea what to do with myself, so I went to bed at 9:30.

Met up with the FTR (Folsom Trail Runners) group at the park near my house this morning at just before 7. We waited around for about 20 minutes for 3 other runners who started down at Confluence (basically they started with the 2nd half of yesterday morning's 10-miler) then were on our way. Pack split up early into me and Thursday's leader - his name is Mitch - out front and the rest of the runners a ways back. By the time we hit the top of Cardiac 2 miles later, we'd gapped them by probably around a half mile.

Cardiac is like a slightly-easier version of K2, except I'm not sure how much easier it actually is. It's shorter and less steep - .84 miles @ 18% (790' net, 850' total gain) vs. .95 @ 22% - but way more technical. Branches, rocks, and dust-covered rock slopes to run down. My feet were sliding down the steepest section and I seriously wondered how I was going to stop myself. When you can only manage a 10 minute pace downhill, you know it's tough...

After that, we ran along the Pioneer Express Trail, which is what my 30k was on 2 weeks ago (we took Cardiac Bypass in the race, which crisscrosses Cardiac and is longer/less steep). Mitch turned at 6 miles for him (6.5 for me since I started from home) and I went for another mile. Stopped for a short nature break then headed back. I swear, the psychological blow of going from being paced to being on my own is massive. Granted, we were averaging 9:20s before Mitch turned and I brought it down to 8:30s after... And I didn't eat my granola bar (only fuel on the run) until ~11 miles in...

Still, the legs were pretty pooped, so I didn't push them too hard. I ended up blowing up a little bit on Cardiac, but kept calm, resigned myself to the fact that this was a big hill and I'd be at the top soon, and continued on. Recovered fast at the top and averaged 7:45s for the last 2.5 miles (60' net, 370' total gain). Not too shabby of a finish.

15.02 w/ 3.7k' gain/loss (most of it due to trail undulations; probably only 2k' actual hills) @ 9:08 overall with a 2 minute negative split (and 830' net gain vs. 830' net loss for the first half).

Brings the week to just shy of 75 w/ 10.3k' gain/loss on trails; total time of 10:30. And that was a stepback week. Whew.

EDIT: Forgot to mention: earlier this week, I was on Skype with Aileen and I could see my pulse in my arm (I was laying on my side with that arm under my head) and it looked very, very slow. I've always put my resting heart rate around 50 - and by resting, I mean when I first wake up, not just lounging around - and this seemed to be in that range, so I counted it off. Uh... 40bpm, on the nose. Cool?

Mike, it was good to catch up on a couple of your interesting posts over the last couple of days.
A f___ing rattlesnake! Hope crap, who needs to deal with that on a training run. It looks like it wasn't your first encounter though.
What's this K2 hill (small mountain?) you're training on. If the "cardiac" hill is an 18% grade, than what's K2? I'm sure it's nothing like it's namesake, but you don't call a hill K2 for nothing!
Finally, I'm interested in your ASL training. I'm sure you went into it in some detail earlier in your blog, but what's this about? I graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology, which houses the National Technical Institute of the Deaf, so I had plenty of opportunities to interact with deaf students. Unfortunately I didn't take advantage of the opportunity to take ASL classes that were made available for free to anyone who wanted to learn. As for my interaction with deaf students, the one story that stands out in my memory is living in a dorm next door to a couple of deaf students. This turned out to be a less than ideal situation. It turns out the even though these guys were deaf, they'd still play music....AC/DC and other metal (this was the early 80's). They played it really, really, really loud. Needless to say, communicating with these guys wasn't easy, and to say we ended up not getting along is to put it mildly. There was one occasion when it almost got ugly. Fortunately, that was an isolated experience when it came to interacting with students from NTID.

Your account of slipping and sliding got me wondering: What sort of shoes are you wearing on these trail runs? No, I still haven't decided what I'm going to get.

Also, I have been meaning to ask: What got you interested in ASL?

So apparently my lack of brevity carries through to signing, as well; I just made a video to answer your questions (Seth and Mark) and it ended up being close to 10 minutes long. I don't want to caption a video that long, so I'll just type it here.

I first got involved in ASL through a friend in high school. She was taking it at a local community college for her foreign language requirement, and it seemed a hell of a lot cooler than the Spanish class I was in. When I realized I had to take a foreign language again in college, I decided I was going to go for ASL instead of drudging through Spanish again. Fell in love from the first day, and the rest is history.

The program I'm in now is an interpreter preparation program, which basically means that I should be ready to take my RID test (Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf) and pass it by the time I complete the program. Aside from just learning the skills associated with interpreting, I'll learn the ethical aspects of it as well as the business aspects (in other words, how to find work). I'm only two weeks in, but it's already proving itself to be an awesome program, and I'm super excited about the next two years.

Ah, finally, a Reader's Digest version of something.

Seth - I think I posted an elevation chart for K2 pretty recently. Probably on the last page or two. It's the big, steep hill that starts at around 600' and tops out around 1500'.

Mark - I'm using my Brooks Ghost 3s... Hahahahahaha. And yes, I'm still running in the ones I wore for my FIRST MARATHON almost a year ago. I know, I'm an idiot. I plan on picking up a pair of Cascades this week.

Normally I don't upload the morning workout until I finish the afternoon workout. But today is a glorious, momentous day.

I found flat ground. Sort of (of course there's a caveat).

I've been running along one of the canals here for the past two weeks during recovery runs, but to get to the canals I've always had to do a half mile descent @ 4% followed by a third mile @ 7%. Not exactly recovery. But on yesterday's run, we took that 4% descent and then did a little shortcut up through a trail to... yes, a canal. The same canal that I run along, jut way, way upstream. We followed that, so I saw where it spits out and got an idea: find the beginning of it.

Found it this morning, just feet away from where I start that 4% descent. There's even a sign next to it with a person walking their dog. D'oh. I was super excited when I got home, so I uploaded the Garmin already. Over 2 miles, the course only drops 50' with 1 undulation (up and over a road, about 10-15' up and down). Then only 50' gain on the way back.

The caveat is that parts of it are kind of (really) rocky and it's all technically on trail, so it's not as mindless as a flat road. But still. My 8:23 pace felt like sleeping, and this was probably my lowest effort run since I moved here. Ah, it's a glorious day indeed. Now, how long until I get sick of that canal?

The ASL training is quite cool, Mike. Did I mention before that when we toured RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) earlier this summer that it is the site of the New York (State) College for the Deaf? One of the jobs that a hearing student can do is to take notes for a hearing impaired student (which my daughter thought was pretty cool) and then learn ASL in return.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:The ASL training is quite cool, Mike. Did I mention before that when we toured RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) earlier this summer that it is the site of the New York (State) College for the Deaf? One of the jobs that a hearing student can do is to take notes for a hearing impaired student (which my daughter thought was pretty cool) and then learn ASL in return.

Hm, I don't remember seeing any mention of that, but RIT is well known in the Deaf community (as the rival school to Gallaudet, actually) so I was well aware of its existence

Nota bene: "Deaf." Or deaf. But not hearing impaired, hard of hearing, etc. Not that all Deaf people actually care as much as others - Aileen refers to herself as hearing impaired, for example, since she takes more of a hearing perspective on it, whereas the term Deaf is cultural - but it's better safe than sorry

I had no idea, Mike, and if my daughter goes to school there, I'll let her know.

Nice running and I like how low your resting HR is. If a doctor sees that and doesn't know you're an athlete it can freak them out.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:I had no idea, Mike, and if my daughter goes to school there, I'll let her know.

Ah, I hope I didn't come off as rude/offended. It doesn't bother me in the least. Just giving you a heads up to an ongoing debate whether being Deaf/deaf is a culture or a disability, and there are people who stand very firmly on either side of it (from all areas of the hearing/deaf spectrum).

Personally, I differentiate between the capital and lower-case d. Deaf is a cultural affiliation, deaf is a medical term to indicate hearing loss. As is hard of hearing (more of a politically-correct term, really) and hearing impaired (which, let's be honest, gets to the point of what the medical status actually is).

The reason it's such a touchy subject is that for decades/centuries, Deaf culture has been oppressed, and hearing mainstream society has never bothered to look at Deaf culture or the "Deaf world." Instead, they've focused on the Deaf/deaf person as something to fix, to "make normal." That's the basis of the offense taken by some Deaf people when they're called hearing impaired. To them, the level of hearing (or hearing loss) has no relevance; it's purely their cultural affiliation that they're concerned with.

So, with that said, there are some people with various degrees of hearing loss who refer to themselves as hard of hearing and hearing impaired. Most of my deaf friends in Orange County are like this; they're not super-strongly affiliated with the extremes of the Deaf community. Up here, and in most larger Deaf communities, there's a much stronger sense of culture and pride. Schools, too. That's where you've got to be careful.

Again, apologies if my response came off a bit curt. Not intentional in the slightest

Mike MacLellan wrote:I'm using my Brooks Ghost 3s... Hahahahahaha. And yes, I'm still running in the ones I wore for my FIRST MARATHON almost a year ago. I know, I'm an idiot. I plan on picking up a pair of Cascades this week.

Geez, really? From Ghosts to Cascadias? No minimalism for you, eh? You're into tanks!

How come?

Mark B wrote:

Mike MacLellan wrote:I'm using my Brooks Ghost 3s... Hahahahahaha. And yes, I'm still running in the ones I wore for my FIRST MARATHON almost a year ago. I know, I'm an idiot. I plan on picking up a pair of Cascades this week.

Geez, really? From Ghosts to Cascadias? No minimalism for you, eh? You're into tanks!

How come?

Brooks seem to fit my feel really well, and my philosophy with running has always been if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And, well, the shoes have done me well, and I've heard good things about Brooks. Lots of "wells" in those 2 sentences...

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3 recovery. Went to the track, hopped the fence (felt like John), went in 2 circles, hopped the fence again, moseyed on home. A girl was blasting You Shook Me All Night Long out of her car at a stoplight. It made me smile.

Nice to see you find a little flat ground Mike. Big ups and downs every route can wear on you after a while.

Looks like training continues to go well! I might just run a 50 miler one of these years. Gotta think long and hard about it, though.

Do you have any people training to be tactile interpreters in your program (I hope that's the right term, I believe that is what they called themselves) for deaf/blind / dual sensory impaired? I knew a couple of them, they said it was pretty hard job and exhausting, much much more than ASL alone.

Gosh, no, Mike - I had no idea it was such a "touchy" subject, but then again, it does make sense. I went to high school with a deaf kid, and he referred to himself as deaf. He was a lip reader and often caught more of what the teacher said than we did. I know that he went to a college for the deaf, but not sure which one, and I also know that his wife and children are not deaf. I guess you could say that he was not held back by his hearing issues. I knew some sign because of him - you know the kind of stuff you pick up of any foreign language - how to ask for the bathroom, a beer, and how to swear.

Alex Kubacki wrote:Nice to see you find a little flat ground Mike. Big ups and downs every route can wear on you after a while.

Tell me about it. Even the little ones were taking their toll. Looks like the flat route was just what the doctor ordered, though... (see below)

Julie wrote:Looks like training continues to go well! I might just run a 50 miler one of these years. Gotta think long and hard about it, though.

Do you have any people training to be tactile interpreters in your program (I hope that's the right term, I believe that is what they called themselves) for deaf/blind / dual sensory impaired? I knew a couple of them, they said it was pretty hard job and exhausting, much much more than ASL alone.

1. Just sign up. The training will come. I'm a nutcase, which is why I'm doing double longs 2 out of every 3 weekends. From what I've read, if your goal is simply (simply? HA!) to complete the 50, you only need a couple 20s, and preferably a 30 under your belt.
2. I have no idea what the right term is for interpreters with Deaf-blind clients, but we do have a one-day seminar (optional elective) we can take that focuses on that. I've signed with a Deaf-blind guy before, and it was a neat experience; however, I've heard, too, that interpreting for them is strenuous. There's a lot of facial touching (facial expressions part of ASL grammar, not just there for good measure), I know that much.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:Gosh, no, Mike - I had no idea it was such a "touchy" subject, but then again, it does make sense. I went to high school with a deaf kid, and he referred to himself as deaf. He was a lip reader and often caught more of what the teacher said than we did. I know that he went to a college for the deaf, but not sure which one, and I also know that his wife and children are not deaf. I guess you could say that he was not held back by his hearing issues. I knew some sign because of him - you know the kind of stuff you pick up of any foreign language - how to ask for the bathroom, a beer, and how to swear.

Yep, you're very likely to find the less militant (what a loaded word...) deaf people in mainstream schools. I know a few people, too, who are amazing with lip reading, as well as hearing the "shape" of a word and determining what it was from that. My buddy's girlfriend (hard of hearing/whatever), for example, can read lips ridiculously well and will pick up my offhand remarks even if her back is to me and she's 50' away. Sometimes she's slightly off, but her explanation is that she hears the shapes of words. Interesting.

Most Deaf people aren't held back unless they allow themselves to be. Of course, the socio-economic background of their families plays a large factor, but I'd say that definitely overshadows the level of their hearing loss. There are plenty of jobs out there related to the Deaf community and ASL; it's just whether or not they want to look.

Beer, bathroom, and a good curse or two are extremely handy, and will get you through any Deaf event at a bar.

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So I decided I wanted to try and mix it up today, given that my past two runs on the ECG loop (yes, that's its new name) have been mentally grueling, even if the paces were good. Since there are so many little (30-50') hills on the course, I figured I'd start to incorporate some more VO2max work into the training, using the hills to protect my muscles/joints from too much too soon. Kept it relatively unstructured, kind of like a glorified fartlek, since I haven't done anything like this in a long time. So, off I went. After a good 2.5 mile warm-up, I hit the first hill that I wanted to use for an interval.

Holy shit, I thought my heart was going to explode. No idea what happened, but my entire body just went into "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" mode for 30 seconds. Pretty funny, but I was worried I'd only be able to get 2 or 3 more intervals in before my legs/heart just called it quits. Fortunately, my fears were allayed as I recovered extremely quickly and was ready for another interval long before the next hill came up. I got the first 5 done - :30 each - over the course of 1.8 miles (12 and a half minutes). I know, super long recovery times, but keep in mind, this is the first time my legs have felt anything in the max-effort range since... I don't even know.

Lap two, I squeezed in another 2 intervals (after another 2.5 miles just cruising ~7:30 pace) for 7 on the lap. That made 12 total, or 6 minutes of max-effort work over the course of 8.5 miles. Paces ranged from sub-5 to 5:40 (2-3 of the intervals were flat, 1 was downhill, the others varying degrees of uphill) with an overall average of 7:25.

I like running fast, and I definitely missed it. I think I'm going to do a couple more workouts with increasingly long intervals, then switch to tempos and just maintain the high-end with fartlek intervals every 2-3 weeks. That'll give me 2-3 LSDs, 1 workout, 1 hill run, and a handful of recovery runs each week. Sounds doable, since my body seems to have finally started adjusting to the super-high-mileage weeks.