Training Week of 4/15

4/16/13 - Ran my usual 6 mile loop in 42:56 and 3.6 mile cool down.
4/16/13 - Later in the evening I ran 4 miles in Five Fingers.
4/17/13 - Ran 8 miles at the cove.  Ran in on the road, songbird, tuck-a-way, and 4 gorge to the parking lot.  Lungs felt pretty bad today.  Maybe due to all the pollen and humidity.
4/19/13 - Ran a 6 mile loop to the greenway and around Raleigh Court (graveyard loop CW)

I am now just under a two months until the San Juan Solstice 50 miler and one month from the Smokey Mtn Traverse.  The traverse has been planned as the last big training for the SJS 50.  The plan is to tackle the 68+ miles of the Appalachian Trail in the Smokey Mtn. National  Park in 2 days.  Day one will be from I-40 to the parking lot of Clingman's Dome.  This has been mapped out at around 40 miles and 16,000ft of elevation gain.  Day two will take us from Clingman's Dome to the Fontana Dam and maybe a little beyond.  This section comes out to 34 miles and 9800ft of elevation gain.

4/20/13 - Ran the Catawba Run Around - 31.67 miles.  This is the second time doing this full loop.  Jonathan Adcock and I started at 779 where Andy Lane Trail Starts.  We crossed 779 and started out on the Catawba Valley Trail, which took us up to the ridge of North Mtn.  From here it is a rocky technical ridge run to 311 and the Dragon's Tooth parking lot.  We headed up the trail to Dragon's Tooth and took a left onto the Boy Scout Trail (this trail skirts around the pretty much non runnable terrain and comes out, on the AT near it's junction with Newport Road.  We continued on the AT to 311, where Gina and Rebecca started, and refilled our water and loaded up on some more food.  Next up was McAfee's Knob for a brief soaking in of the view and then onward to Tinker Cliffs and down Andy Layne Trail to finish the loop.
See all the stats here - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/300753568
     We took it pretty easy on this one.  The goal was to do the loop at a comfortable pace and not beat ourselves up.
4/21/13 - Feel pretty good today.  Not very sore, quads are a little tight but all in all I feel great for travelling 32 miles on rugged terrain yesterday.  I ran the 6 mile graveyard loop that I did on 4/19 but CCW.
Total for the week was 65.27 miles running.