July had some busy weekends for Thelen Coaching Athletes, with some great performances. On the 4th of July, three athletes headed up to Palmer Lake for the Four on the Fourth run for some holiday fun; the real goal for all three was only a few days later at the Summer Trail Round Up - Race #2 in the Triple Crown of Running. So I'd scheduled the Four on the Fourth as a workout race. Run hard, but it's not all out pace for the distance. Even so, Merideth still set a new PR at that even, slashing over 8:30 from her time the year before. Just goes to show what consistent focus and training can do! Both Shana and Kendall also had good races, setting new marks to shoot for next year.
A few days later, it was down to the Norris Penrose Event Center for the Summer Trail Roundup. This was the second leg of the Triple Crown of Running, so was the target race for Shana, Merideth and Kendall. None of them had raced it before, so they were going out hard for a solid time. Shana wanted a stronger run to make up for the time lost in the Garden due to her ankle injury. Merideth's goal was to finish close to Shana and Kendall was running with a friend. All three achieved their goals and had a great time. The pacing strategies we'd talked about worked great and the hints for nutrition and dealing with the heat also helped.
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Shana running in her Pikes Peak Sports Marmot Gold |
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Kendall running with her friend - having a great time |
The next weekend brought new challenges. Kelly flew in from RVA to tackle her goal race of the summer. The Barr Trail Mountain Race. It's sometimes called Pikes Peak light since the race goes from the base to Barr Camp and then back down, but that doesn't mean it's an easy. Those six miles of Barr Trail are some of the steeper miles, especially when running down hill. Kelly had been putting in hard training, but the scope was limited by her location. It's hard to train for hills and altitude when there isn't any! But we worked with what we had available, including her work on the set up and tear down crew for a race production team. Carrying barricades and banners makes really good strength training! Kelly persevered and finished strongly, running 3:05:52 - not bad for a sea level ex-mountain biker!
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Kelly at Barr Camp! |
Finally in July was the Ridgeline Rampage mountain bike race in Castle Rock. That race is normally held in April, but the weather forced two re-schedules. As part of the Women's Mountain Bike Association of Colorado Springs, Shana headed for a slight change of pace from running. Ridgeline is a deceptively hard course, with punchy climbs, off camber corners and lots of traffic. Because of the anticipated heat, the races (marathon, and XC distances) all started together, so there was also a lot of passing involved. Shana rode smart, managed her hydration and finished second in her age class, third overall female in the XC distance. A great result by someone who's been focusing on running this year!
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Women's 35-49 podium at Ridgeline Rampage - Shana took second |
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