Update

 Just rollin' with the open hand slaps. No real punches. I don't have cancer and no one has died yet so I won't complain. My motivation has been crazy high and all I think about during my practice for running and biking is Leadman next year. This year's edition is coming up next week. I get twinges of regret that I'm not in it but I've become quite adept at crushing regret up in to a little ball and swallowing it where it sits in my gut for future fuel. It's better than fat really... I could run across the entire world (maybe even the whole county) on just that. But really it's good for me to sit it out and I fully plan on sitting out the entire year in terms of racing. Absence makes the heart grow fonder (they say) and since I hate racing I need all the fonderness I can get. And so I'll wait. Mt Evans (which was last Saturday) 2014 is my next planned race. 52 weeks. 365 days or 730 hours of training. I'm giddy already.  

 I'm also coaching a fairly high percentage of the entire Leadman field so I'll be plenty busy and I want to focus my energy on them. I expect the next 7 weeks to be pretty brutal for me. As a coach it's very difficult to see an athlete fail. The reality is that it's possible that not all my athletes will finish. I'll get to  balance that  with the success of others. A schizophrenic state of super high and super low (or is that bi-polar? I should know that since I'm fairly certain that I'm one of them) that I'm not looking forward to. Shit happens and shit really happens when you have to complete 5 races in order to finish.

 All is good though. I've been training but have developed a real aversion to my Garmin. I love Strava but I want my Garmin to die and go to hell, so I've been training mostly with just my old school Timex HRM/ stopwatch. MAF/ volume  focused like usual for me. I've also been in the weight room consistently. I tried the battle ropes for the first time (Miss Prazak would be proud) and I can barely get my shirt over my head today. Nice. The plan is to just get fit and get strong until next year and then take back my Leadman record which I am seriously hoping falls. I need it to be broken.    

One year ago this two weeks- Mt Evans and Leadman taper.

 4 weeks before Leadman and you can see where the focus was. Red pen indicates quality sessions so I had 6 days of hard sessions.
Monday- Bike with 2 X 3 mile/ 1000ft climbs at Tempo efforts. If I remember correctly I was seeing 260-270 watts. I remember being disappointed. Pretty weak considering I've ridden 120 miles in workouts at  260 normalized power.

Tuesday- Bacon Strip. 10 miles with 1800ft of climbing in 1:12 (7:12 pace). Speed was starting to come easy.

Wednesday- Long ride with 8000ft of climbing

Thursday- 20 miles with 4400ft of climbing averaging 7:37 pace. This run indicated to me what I could do at the Leadville Marathon.

Friday- Easy bike

Saturday- Run w/ 10 X 1:15 hill intervals on 45" rest

Sunday- Run w/ 3 mile climb at threshold

Total: 16 hours with 28000ft of climbing. 53 miles running with 10,600ft of vertical but I averaged 7:38 pace all above 8000ft altitude. The speed of my volume was really starting to come. I sort of panicked this week concerned that I hadn't biked enough and I gave in to that and didn't trust my training plan. Common thing to do for many of us. As a coach I preach the discipline of not doing this and it cost me a much faster time at Mt Evans the next week.

 Start 3 week taper for Leadman. This was a fairly sharp drop in volume and quality. On Tuesday I did a 2.6 mile hill climb at Threshold which was specific to Mt Evans on Saturday. Mt Evans would be my first running race in a YEAR (my last running race was Mt Evans the previous year) and I was crazy nervous which caused me to cramp while standing on the start line. Then I cramped from mile ~7 to the finish. I was super happy though. I placed second and the third place guy went on to win the Leadville marathon 2 weeks later.

 I felt that the Leadville marathon and then the 50 mile bike were intense enough to warrant true tapers. The 100 bike and the 100 run did not. It comes down to pointy end speed/ intensity. For a 100 mile race the effort is moderate enough that 'peaking' is not needed. For the 100's you just gotta be super rested. And you can't peak for all the races so I had to choose. The previous year I had focused solely on the 50 and 100 bike and trained like a cyclist so I rode much better then. This year I had focused on running and put very little stock in to the bike races and hoped to just coast on the previous year's cycling fitness and it worked. I ran very well and my bike was just adequate. I suspected that for Leadman the bike didn't matter and the only goal should be to not lose too much time to my competitors. I guessed correctly.  

One year ago this week + weak week in review.

Last years training log. 6 weeks before the start of Leadman.
100 miles run
2 hours biking
21900ft of climbing.
Tuesday- 21 mile day with a 12 mile run, 2200ft of vertical averaging 7:45 pace and HR 140. Very solid.

Wednesday- 30 mile run with 6500ft of vertical on Walker Ranch. Averaged ~1:16 per lap.

Friday- 18 miles running. Super solid day that had Vo2 max efforts on the bike and finished with a baby jogger run with 1300ft of climbing. And I added 20 pounds to the already 100+ pounds.

Sunday- 10 miles with 10 X 1:00 hard/ 1:00 easy. 7:30 average pace/ HR 140.
 This is the identical run that George Zack and Bob Sweeney and I ran on Thursday.

One of the better run weeks I had last year. Everything clicked and the quality days were very good quality.

 I'm posting this partly for people to see what I did to prepare for Mt Evans and Leadman, partly because my fragile and giant ego needs a pat on the back and part motivation for myself. Although seeing weeks like this are almost deflating.

This past week.
I had set a goal of 30 miles of jogging, and I got it by Thursday so in order to hit my goal I've rested since  Thursday. How's that for doing the minimum? It turned out however that taking 3 days off from jogging was actually the smart thing to do after I got obliterated on a hard workout with George Zack and Bob. We did 10 miles in 1:26  with ~1800ft of climbing that included 10 X 1:00 hard/ 1:00 easy up a 2.5 mile climb to 9200ft altitude. I averaged 8:55 pace with an average HR of 165/ max HR 184. Got severely dropped on every interval and threw up 3 separate times. For reference, I did this identical session last year (see previous  paragraph), nearly this same week, and ran it in 1:15/ 7:30 pace with an average HR of 140. And I've also run this same route in 1:06/ 6:36 pace with an average HR of 155. Ugh.
 On Friday I was wasted. Saturday I was really wasted due to my 48 hour lag in fatigue. And today I'm just lazy. The workout was difficult enough that 3 days off is fine and good at this point.

 It feels awesome to get back on a bit of jogging. I'll be happy to hit 30 miles again next week.

One year ago this week

 Solid week of running. I was gearing up for The Mt Evans Ascent and the Leadville Marathon. I'm currently coaching 6 Leadman/ Leadwomen and I've told them all that the bike needs to take a back seat right now and my own schedule reflects this. I felt that the bike training had to pretty much be over and done with at this point.
84 miles running/ 2:35 total biking. 17855ft vertical gain.
Monday was solid with 3 sessions finishing with the babyjogger. And red pen denotes quality or something positive. The babyjogger (~100+ pounds) is just brutally difficult up here at altitude with vertical.

Tuesday was 18 miles running.

Wednesday was my 4 Crosses hill which climbs over 800ft in 3/4 of a mile. I did it twice and negative split the two. I ran them as tempo effort or about Evans/ marathon effort.

Friday was 12 miles with 2000ft of vertical averaging 8:10 pace with an average HR of 139. Solid!

Saturday was an 18 mile tempo run averaging 6:24 pace (Garmin had it at 1700ft of vertical but that's high) and it felt quite easy and relaxed. This session showed me that I was nearly ready to crush Leadville.


 This morning was 6 miles in 1:01:39. 10:16 pace with average HR 147. 957 feet of vertical.

MAF test

 Here's the Strava data.
6 miles in 1:03
10:31 average pace
146 average HR.
957ft of vertical gain. Lowest altitude 7991ft.
Very difficult to hold HR down. A dog ran out in the road and my HR shot to 160. AC/DC's Thunderstruck had me at 155... walking. Super touchy, which is only showing me how fit unfit I am. This is motivating to me though, not even slightly frustrating because this is an honest assessment of my fitness.
  I'll try to run this same route again in a week and see if there's progress.
 

I ran ramble + Spiderman cake.

Over the past 2 months I've logged less than 20 miles (I didn't wear a watch and I didn't map it either so I'm guessing) and it was probably closer to 15. Today GZ had a speed session on tap so I joined him down on Plainview Road for 4 X 200/200/400 at roughly his mile race effort. Which ended up being closer to my 400 race pace. We ran on a slight incline so some were slightly up and some were down and I completely blew up halfway through a 200 and a 400 trying to keep up with G, but I hung OK on the rest. I didn't have a Garmin and my timing was useless but I remember a few 35"-40" 200's and a couple sub 80" 400's with the last one in ~71". G will post the splits on his blog, I may be way off.
 I haven't missed running, but I miss being fit and strong and capable. I did feel that old love pop up on the intervals. I forgot how much I love speed work. And then I felt the true state of my fitness on the cool-down where we were running easy for 4.5 miles. But 'easy' is misleading. I had to walk a few times not because my HR was too high, I didn't wear it but it was easily ~170+, but because I was literally blowing up even at 13:00 pace. It felt at one point like I was finishing a 5k. That is motivating to me and I can see that being so weak really isn't going to work out for me.
 Not sure yet if this will hold. People who know me know that it's a crap shoot to predict what I'm going to do in terms of toeing the line at a race or even training for a race. Motivation is everything so I'm hoping today will put a little spark in me. My biggest problem though is I'm all or nothing. I either burn at 1000 degrees or I'm completely cold. So if I do something then I have to be all in. I'm not there yet, not even close. I may retire again tomorrow (seriously).
 We'll see. Today felt good though!

 One thing that I am aware of is accountability and the lack of it for me. I'm not motivated so what can I do to force it along a little bit? Hire a coach? That's a good option but finding someone I trust and also shares my ideas on training is tough. In years past I've asked a couple of people to coach me and every one of them say's I'm uncoachable, which I totally get. I would HATE to coach me, we rarely get along well as it is.
 Another idea is this blog. When I post my training then you get to see it and I'm sort of accountable. Sort of. I think posting training logs can be ego based which I find absolutely nothing wrong with. Ego in sport is a requirement once you reach a competitive point. So maybe part of the solution is to start posting my training daily again. My ego is huge and it would be fuel for the fire maybe.  


 And Liv's birthday party was Sunday so I made his cake.

Lumpy buildings made out of rice krispie treats.

One year ago this week

Training log from this week last year. I keep going back and looking at what I did. Doing this is my way of trying to guilt myself back in to running. I want to want to run but am unwilling to go through the motions and  run because of the idea. Unlike 4 months ago though, I can feel something there in the back of my mind that resembles interest.
 What I have always found to be enjoyable is being fit enough to win. Run to be fast. There is a definite performance aspect to what makes training fun for me. All or nothing. I'm OK with that. That little whisper in the back of my mind doesn't say to just go run though, rather it says to train for something that you can't wrap your brain around. Try something big. THAT'S interesting and makes running fun.
 So one year ago this week. Meh. OK week. You can see a strong focus on running and running fast. 80.5 miles running (8:56 average pace with 13,450 of vertical) and just 4:00 biking. Tuesday was 3 miles at 5:57 pace at 8200ft altitude on a fairly rolling dirt road. Then a long run, three laps of Walker Ranch which was my go to training course for both Leadvilles. It's a 7.25 mile loop and I could set up an aid station at my car. Plus each loop has about 1600ft of vertical which is pretty good. Motivating to me to see what I did and wanted to do. Like I said, I want to want to run. I miss it.

Snow day at home in random pics

 We just had our biggest snow storm of the year and it made me realize that we just haven't had enough days like this. I love our home year around but with a fresh layer of snow it's gorgeous to me. All these pics are within a block of our house. I'm going to miss winter.

This is what you see when you step our front door and look up.

9200+ft socked in

At the end of the driveway looking up at Four Crosses, one of my favorite climbs at 880ft in 3/4 of a mile. 

9200ft not socked in. 

My street. Walker Ranch is just over that hill.

One of our neighbors... their summer cabin. We see them maybe twice a year.

Another neighbor. Hand hewn log home.

Old log barn still in good shape. 

Saturday fishing and church

Just randomness from a day of fishing (my 20th in the last month) in my back yard.

Tolland Road. Can't think of a better place for a house of God

If I went to church this is where I would go. 

I can't escape it

The nearest town to me... it's called Pinecliffe for this.

A decade+ of training by the numbers

 This post is more for me than you.

I've really been struggling lately with training. Although struggling isn't the right word. I've pretty much turned my back and walked away from running which turned out to not be that difficult. I'm really enjoying the time  with my boys and I can see it will now be more difficult than ever to sacrifice this time with them in the future.

 I've been at this for a long time. I started training hard in 1996. And by training hard I mean full bore. When I fell in love with Ironman I did nothing else. I was logging 100 mile run weeks and 7 hour rides in 1997. I was doing 27-29 mile training runs. I'm tired. Not physically but mentally and down to my soul. Thinking about going out and training with purpose just sounds awful and pointless to me. I could write pages on this, and I have actually but I didn't post them.
 Today I got to thinking about totals and what I have done. Again this is much more for me to gain clarity. I can almost define my life by handing you my training logs. It's what my life was about and it defined me 100%. So I went back and counted up 11 years worth of data, kept it simple with just year totals in hours and running volume. I was a little surprised at how low the numbers were but this doesn't count the paces nor the actual intensity that I was working at or the month I took off completely every year. I remember 100 mile weeks where I averaged ~6:10-6:20 pace. 26 mile runs in workouts in 2:45. 120 mile bikes averaging 240-260 watts. I saw weeks that maxed out at 43 hours with consecutive weeks over 600 miles on the bike. Consecutive weeks between 130-150 miles of running. Weeks of 27-30k in the pool. The devil is in the details so the numbers are only a rough idea... but taking a step back now makes a little more sense. And remember that there were 8 hard years before these. And these are averages for 52 weeks and I always took ~4 weeks off at the end of the year, so you could say 48 weeks.

2002- 940 hours. 18:00/wk
       Run 1825 miles. 35/ wk
       13th at Ironman Hawaii

2003- 917 hours. 17.6/ wk
       Run 1940 miles. 37/ wk
       101 miles biggest run week.

2004- 1039 hours.  20/wk
        Run 2050 miles. 39.5/ wk
        Biggest week 43:00
        101 miles biggest run week
       Worst Ironman finishing time ever.

2005- 522 hours. 10/ wk
        Run 2200 miles  42/ wk
       127 miles biggest week

2006- 582 hours.  11.2/ wk
         Run 1655 miles  32/ wk
         14:44 5k.

2007- 577 hours. 11/wk
         Run 3243 miles  62/ wk

2008- 412 hours.  8/ wk
         Run 3307 miles. 63.5/ wk

2009- 403 hours  7.75/ wk
         Run 3101 miles. 59.6/ wk

2010- 393 hours  7.5/ wk
           Run 2166 miles. 41.5/ wk

2011- 448 hours.  8.6/ wk
           Run 1623 miles. 31.2/wk

2012- 390 hours  7.5/ wk
         Run 1809 miles. 34.8/ wk

11 year Total:
6623 hours. 11:40 per week.
24919 miles run. 43.5 miles per week.


  Interesting that last year (2012), my Leadman year, had the lowest training volume I've ever had. I can guarantee that 1997-2001 were some of my biggest so factor them out. This is partly why I feel that the Leadman record is quite soft, or it's soft based on what I could have gone. I barely trained for it really. I averaged probably ~3 hours a week on the bike I'm guessing.
And in 2010 and 2012 I averaged 41 and 34 miles a week running and both years I was 'focused' on a 100 mile run.

Buyer beware: Protocol Supplements

 Satisfied customers tell three friends. Angry customers tell three thousand.
   Andy's blog is an example. And Protocol Supplements will probably now lose many hundreds of dollars rather than just the $161 it would have taken to do the right thing. It probably wasn't their fault, but it sure as hell is good business to eat the cost to ensure return customers... and to prevent blog posts like this. I certainly won't spend a dime there.

I recently dealt with a sort of similar situation where I ordered a vintage Carhartt jacket off e-bay. It never arrived. The postal service lost it. Not the sellers fault at all. The main difference here is that the guy I bought the jacket from refunded my money and apologized. I just ordered another jacket from him.

Someone I hope to meet someday.
 "I love you, True Believer, and I want you to know that I'm still here, running a shitload and doing my best to turn the parts of me that are black and combustible into something clear, cold and eternal."- P.




 Things are OK these days. Training is going swimmingly. But I hate swimming... so there you go.
 Life is awesome and amazing though.

Repost

 Ironically (or coincidentally? I never know. Which is ironic.) I was up this morning at 1:30am. Insomnia. And I noticed that I had a few hits on a post from September of 2011. Not a bad post and it's kind of cool to see my pre-Leadman thoughts.
 And since I'm lame not writing much these days I'll just repost it.


I almost made it to 3am today... at 2:58 a sleep cycle ended and I was wide awake. I went on a dietary hiatus last week and allowed myself to eat like a normal person which meant my energy dipped. I've been back on a Paleo-esque diet this week (although I had a Twizzler last night but I think I read somewhere that the first thing cavemen did when they discovered fire was to invent licorice) and my sleep has been reduced by an equal ratio to the caloric drop.
 I went in to Boulder yesterday to redeem a gift certificate to the Boulder Running Company that I had won at a race. All the shiny and fancy $100-$190 (WTF?) running shoes made me sick bored me so I bought my wife a pair of Chaco sandals instead which will last 10 times longer and cost less.

She's talked about them quite a bit and last week one of her flip flops blew out (no, she didn't step on a pop-top). Maybe the funniest thing I saw (sorry if I'll touch a few nerves here) was a pair of Five Fingers for $129.00. I know I know... I get the point of the shoes but it's ironic to spend a whole bunch of money to mimic nothing. For me, I'll wait for a good (enough for me) pair of running shoes to surface at the thrift store.
 I also stopped by (the main reason I went to Boulder) Rocky Mountain Anglers to freshen up my supply of flies for our 10 day camping trip that starts tomorrow. Really nice shop with excellent staff. I ended up hanging out for a while chatting with another customer and the guy working. I learned a ton. I've been needing a fly case but they all cost too much so I made my own. I finally found a use for my old college track All-American medals... or the cases really. I threw the medals back in to the shoe box.

 This week I hit my goal of saving $700 for the Leadman entry by selling bike parts on e-bay. November 12th marks roughly (they don't have the 2012 race calendar up yet) 24 weeks to the Leadville marathon so I have a ridiculous amount of time (too much really) before I need to even start thinking about exercising again... but I've started thinking already and have been doing some super easy squats. The real risk for me is burning out before the Leadman begins and going in to the marathon cooked. Part of why I ran so "well" (for 90 miles) at the Leadville 100 last year was that I was very rested going in. These are things that I look at when I start planning for 2012. Not so much how big the numbers "should" be but more how well rested I am going in to each race. The hardest training I do needs to happen in March and April far out from my races which, if I remember correctly, was when I did my 40,000ft vertical bike/ run weeks this year.
  I learned a ton from training simultaneously for the Mt Evans Ascent run and the Silver Rush bike/ run (where I DNF'd which according to some people on the interwebs makes me a pussy and is unacceptable. I'm sure a "real" mountain runner would have finished the bike and then finished the run) and the Leadville 100 bike. I placed 4th at Evans only a minute or three behind 2 Olympians and I had averaged maybe 40 miles a week of running in the months leading up to that race. Very sparse on the long runs. I may have placed better had I run more but the focus was on the 100 bike and it showed me that running mileage, for ME at this point in my too long running 'career' (see previous comment regarding my homemade fly cases) has a point of diminishing returns. ~50 mile weeks seem to be my sweet spot in terms of adaptation. I always liken mileage to weight lifting. The best power lifters in the world only do squat sessions 1-2 times per week. A lot of endurance athletes tend to believe that rest is bad and that pushing constantly is how you get fit... but that's incorrect to a point. Rest is what allows for adaptation. Try this- put ~60 pounds on a squat bar and start doing squats, don't stop. Just keep doing squats with out rest. Do you get stronger as you go? Nope. You go to failure. Now come back the next day and do it again. And the next day. And the next. Count the number of reps you can do each day and I'll bet that number very steadily declines as fatigue increases. That's a silly comparison but more definitive in regards to measuring performance than just flogging oneself with miles. With running, when you get super fatigued, you can still step out the door and do more but it may not actually make you more fit. Its the Law of Diminishing Returns... it's a law. And too often I've been sucked in to the numbers game and my performance declined... and notice I said performance? Performance is rarely measured in just sheer volume and most often is associated with the speed of that volume. At the end of your squat week yes you did more squats than the power lifter... but he's squatting a half ton more than you. It's important to look at the numbers that matter. The 100 mile week number is the worst ever too. I think runners tend to look at what elites are doing and think that's what they should be doing. Elites usually don't work full time plus they were probably running 100 mile weeks in high school and they most likely picked the right parents. High mileage is of course one key to running success but once you've done months of it in a given year or over the years then adaptation has occurred. Doing the same thing over and over and over, once again, diminishes the returns... move on and work your weakness. It's the change in stress that brings about new adaptation. Now I'm just digressing.
 Anyway... with Leadman I have to run a (sub 4:00:)) marathon while preparing to mountain bike 50 miles soon after. The build up to the marathon and bike will be planned out 100% Canova style with a liquid transition between training intensities based only on how quickly I adapt. For the 100 bike and 100 run; that will be a mix of what I have done for both before. Long runs of ~30 miles on Wednesday and/or Thursday followed by a long bike (with moderate intensity) on Saturday. Monday will be a hard tempo run followed by a hard tempo bike. All other days will be zeros or very easy and short recovery efforts. Looking back at the past Leadman results the 100 run is where you win it. I think I can go under 19:00. If the next fastest guy runs 24:00 (the Leadman record holder ran 24:10) then that's 5+ hours he'll need on me going in to that race. For sure the focus for Leadman will be the 100 run. I also get to start the 100 bike in the first corral which will allow me to ride reasonably fast but not pressured and I plan to take the bike quite easy, of course if I ride a single speed there is no such thing, and if I lose an hour or even two to someone then that's fine.

Update

I've dropped off the blog posting stuff. I'm sorry about that. I'm busy with 2 kids, coaching, house chores and my own practice with my run and bike parts. I'm not exactly a mental giant to begin with and I seem to have a limited reserve of thought, and so my blog suffers.

 I've become a gym rat and I'm loving it. I sort of dread running but I get giddy the night before my hard leg days in the gym. And the bike. I love cycling right now. Maybe more than ever because it's done with little pressure. Years ago I tried to make a living with my legs but now I can appreciate the purity and joy of just riding.

 My schedule as of late looks more like something out of Men's Health. Monday was 1:00 in the gym on legs and core. Then a 1:00 bike with 8 X 1:00 at 350-380 watts on 1:00 recovery at 100-150 watts. If you don't know anything about cycling wattage then those numbers are amazing and world class bad ass. If you're familiar with wattage then... I'm still building back and I was tired and I was sick I think. Tuesday was upper body in the gym, completely wrecked myself and I could barely get my shirt over my head afterward. Today was a 3 mile run with 8 X 30" max effort (steep) hill intervals followed by a 2:00 bike finishing with 5" max effort sprints hitting 1049 watts on the first one. You never hit your best watts on the last one.

 Not exactly the schedule of an ultra endurance guy. I'm really wanting to regain strength and some body weight. Not just because my wife has a crush on Ryan Gosling, but for my health over the next 15 years. I ain't getting any younger and my kids are only getting stronger. I fully plan on giving them a run for their money when I'm 55.        

Optimus Prime cake.

It was cake time again for my son's 6th birthday party. We had 22 kids and 20 adults at the house so I knew I had to make a big cake. Ben asked for an Optimus Prime cake and 7 hours later this is what I ended up with. I ran out of time and had to rush towards the end so it's not quite what I had envisioned. The brown cake is chocolate, the white cake is red velvet and the semi is white cake. The trailer is made entirely out of graham crackers 'glued' together with frosting and covered in fondant. It was surprisingly solid.

Q & A on altitude

 I would love to hear other's thoughts on racing at high altitude. Any tips from past experience that may help?    This is a fairly common question (problem) but Dave's question speaks specifically to a 10 day pre-race block.

Question from Dave: I want to do the UROC 100K in Breckenridge, CO on 9/28/13. Problem is I live and train at sea level near San Francisco.
 Going to make a vacation out of UROC by heading up for some altitude acclimatization while watching several friends race IM Lake Tahoe the week before (staying @ 5000ft, running @ 6000-8000 feet for 5 days) , then drive (2 days) to Breckenridge with arrival 3 days before my event (staying @ 9600 feet with all Breckenridge training runs/hikes at as high as I can get ~11K-12K). The big unkonwn for me is the altitude.
 Will going up to 6000 ft @ Tahoe help all that much for a race at 9000-12000 feet 10 days later? I've never run above 8000 feet before.



My answer: I like this question. Essentially will 5 days at ~6k and then 5 days at 9k+ altitude be beneficial. We'll answer this on the podcast on Wednesday... but the short answer is definitely.
The #1 thing you have to do though is not cook yourself. Recovery will be diminished and even a moderate effort will fatigue you more than you're used to- and at altitude that fatigue just hangs around. The first ~1-2 days you'll feel fine and then the altitude is going to slowly affect you, it will have a cumulative effect. If you push the training then you'll likely be in a hole for UROC. But if you relax and don't over do it then you'll gradually feel better and better.
Of course there's a significant genetic component here. If you're a 'responder' then you'll do well. If you're a 'non-responder' then you won't acclimate as quickly. That's something that you will find out.
I would also highly recommend increasing your carbohydrate intake, particularly immediately following workouts. I've lived at 8200+ft altitude now for close to 5 years and this is possibly my #1 rule for recovery (outside of not doing runs that I can't recover from) Your metabolism is going to very readily prefer CHO at any bump in effort, so you'll deplete more quickly. Remember that V02 and LThreshold are significantly lower especially above ~7800ft. A typical recovery intake for me is ~1 liter of water + 40-50g of CHO (Gatorade works well) in the 30:00 post run. Also the air is going to be dry and you'll lose fluid due to respiration alone, hydrate well but don't over do it. A rough guide is to pee every ~2 hours (this is speaking to the time that you'll be in Breck), in Tahoe you may not see a big difference from where you live now, but still pay attention. The more time you spend at altitude, with smart training, the better. It's much better than not spending any time at altitude.
I would also tell you to place a strong focus (~7 sessions in the 12 weeks leading up) on V02 max and try to really make sure you strengthen this before heading up. Also getting lean, get your diet lined out and get body fat % as low as you safely can. At 9000+ ft every pound of useless weight you carry is going to be significantly harder to carry... plus it's a waste of blood/ O2. T

Update

Things are awesome. I haven't really exercised with any focus since Leadville. I've been out and about and definitely getting fit, just not sure where I want to focus my efforts. I vacillate between Leadman again and nothing. Between a fall flat 100 with a speed focus (try to run sub 13 hours) and a focus on the Leadville 100 bike. Mt Evans bike and the track. I've even looked for back to back 100's (bike and run) but can't find them. Maybe I'll just drink beer and focus on KOM's on Strava. I'm starting to sound like GZ! Which isn't a bad thing at all.
 Almost every run I've done has been on the track doing a speed focus, zero base work. I've been biking a ton, more than I did for my Leadman build up, and am loving it. The bike is what motivates me now and if I run then I want to run FAST.
 I'm also seeing the benefits of not being tired. My sons get that energy now and I'm reluctant to take that away from them again. They couldn't care less about my races... they care about my (quality) time with them and that's something that I can't allow myself to look back on in 20 years and regret not giving them.
    

Party in L.A.

 I'm psyched to have been invited (again) to the Endurance Live Awards in Los Angeles on February 23rd. In 2000 I was voted USA Triathlon's Triathlete of the Year and attended the show rubbing shoulders with the best endurance athletes in the world. This time however I'm not getting anything but drunk. The tables at the banquet cost $2000 a piece but Endurance Planet's Ben Greenfield has stepped up and purchased a table and he's now offering seats to the first 7 people to e-mail him at admin@enduranceplanet.com. The cost is $250.00 per person. Tawnee, Ben and myself will be at the table and we're guaranteeing a crazy good time. The price includes a 3 course meal, drinks and access to the VIP after party. Listen to Ben's latest nutrition podcast to find out the details.
 I have to admit this is outside of my comfort window. Tuxedo? And Tawnee said I have to shave which could be a deal breaker. I think it would be good to have a representative from the Colorado mountain hillbilly community to keep it real.

 A few people who were there last year-
Danny Hart (awesome!)
Ned Overend
Lukas Verzbicas
Jenny Barringer Simpson
Craig Alexander
Chrissie Wellington
Apolo Anton Ohno
Meb Keflezighi

Bulgarian sandbag

  Here's a short and very amateur video of a move I learned this morning- reverse lunge with twist. I'm using a homemade sandbag that weighs 30 pounds. You can tell I just learned it because I suck at it. This also pointed out stability issues, you can see me fighting to stabilize and balance. This was originally meant for one of my athletes who just made his own sandbag, but I'll share.
 Note. I don't have a lisp... not sure what the hell is up with that.

Ramble

So a very long time athlete of mine (10 years now I've worked with Mike) has started back up after an extended break after Ironman St George. After retiring and moving to California he's in the position now to basically train like a professional athlete. I've always liked the idea of a 9 day (or 6 day) week for training but it's difficult since our lives revolve around the 7 day work week and Saturday and Sunday. Mike however is now freed from this so we're going to give the 9 day week a try. It will look like this:
Monday: Hard
Tuesday: Moderate intensity volume
Wednesday: Recovery
Thursday: Hard
Friday: Moderate
Saturday: Easy
Sunday: Hard
Monday: Moderate
Tuesday: Easy
 So it's structured as a 3 day micro-cycle with a hard session, then a moderate intensity/ moderate (maybe long) volume session, and then a recovery day. Repeat.

 I definitely fall in to a body rhythm where I balance on the edge of being able to recover or not. For Leadman I worked off a 7 day schedule because of my wife's work schedule.
 Here's a sample week of Leadman training.

 I love my old school hand written log and I'll never change this. My passion is this sport, why log it on something as impersonal as a key board? I even have a superstition that I can only sharpen my pencil (the same pencil I've used for maybe 8 years now) with the pocket knife that my Grandfather carried in the Battle of the Bulge in WWII... it brings me luck. For real.
  Anyway. The week above is a somewhat typical week (and is written in Lucho code. The up arrow is vertical climbed, HR is heart rate, and red pen indicates either quality or long sessions. Easy to see when flipping pages. The last square is the week total) with variation in the Wednesday session. I tried to run long on that day and then back it up with another long run on Thursday but it didn't always work. This week was also done in the last weeks leading up to the Leadville Marathon (the week before Mt Evans) so the intensity is quite high. I made an error though in the cycling volume and it cost me at both Mt Evans and the Leadville marathon. So it went:
Monday: Threshold Bike
Tuesday: Run Vo2 max hill climb 10 X 1:00 + tempo.
Wednesday: Bike long
Thursday: Long run with 4400 ft vertical at 7:37 pace.
Friday: Recovery bike
Saturday: Run 10 X 1:15 hill intervals on 45" rest.
Sunday: Medium long run with a 3 mile hill climb at threshold then an easy bike.

You can do anything and you don't have to make it as complicated as I like to but the most important thing is to find your own structure or 'basic week'. If you keep a log then look for patterns in training. Not only in terms of recovery but also the intensity of the sessions in the days preceding poor quality days. Maybe you went too hard? Getting good is not about that once a week 'secret' interval session... it's about week in and week out, month in and month out consistent training.