Well it has been awhile since I did a report.
I had trained for a half marathon distance trail race in August, and had some nagging injuries, combined with having my wallet stolen the day before the race so I DNS'ed. September found me fighting a chest cold right into my September Elk hunt and I started antibiotics and steroids while I was in Elk Camp at 10,000 feet. Hunting sick sure made me slow down walking through the woods though. Could have been part of the reason I heard the bull that I ended up killing. Who knows?
Anyway I returned to CA in 100 degree temps and joined our training group for a 20k trail race in the Marin Headlands scheduled for December. Because of Elk hunting I missed the first 2 weeks of the 13 week program. My runs were sporadic at best. In October I had 9 runs total. Most Sundays I made the "long" training runs in state parks around the region. My recovery from the respiratory bug, and a week at 10,000 feet paid off in those early runs.
As life intervened, my midweek runs went by the wayside. November I only ran four long trail runs on Sundays.
Not ideal for a 40 year old, and pretty much just asking for an injury. Somehow other than a rolled ankle in week 10, I was doing alright.
I made it to the start line on December 12th with a piddly 85 miles of training mileage for the race. I knew a PR was not reasonable to expect. I just wanted to finish injury free.
Long story short I was about 8:30 slower than when I ran my first trail race on this same course 6 years earlier. I think I have found the bare minimum to "get by" and finish a race. I don't recommend that low of a training volume. I'd much rather be overtrained.
