Use it or Lose it

No running miles, but I did have a nice hike at Alta with some Wasatch Mountain Club friends.  Lots & lots of snow still up there which made it nice and cool, but it also made us keep changing our destination because of impassable conditions.  Our fearless mountain goat leader Steve finally got us up to the ridgeline between big and little cottonwood canyons with the plan of hiking down to the Prince of Wales mine, but we were again stymied with a steep snow field. We finally had to call it quits but still enjoyed a gorgeous view of far off mountains from the ridgeline.   

Did a good set of shoulder stretches in the morning, and did my strengthening exercises in the evening.  But I think I was a little too ambitious and tweaked something because my shoulder started hurting in some strange places.

Nice run from home to city creek picnic area 14 and back.  Mr. Salmon guy passed me like I was standing still on the hill between 11th & 12th.  I gave some semblance of chase, but he turned and stormed up the hill to 13th.  Wowsers, it was HOT running back on 12th Avenue!!

Did my shoulder stretches, and even did some running stretches. :)

Nice early morning hike with my son to the Broads Fork beaver pond in Big Cottonwood Canyon.  Great day for hiking - overcast with a faint drizzling of rain from time to time.  Wild flowers starting to come and should be in full bloom in 2-3 weeks. ~6 miles out & back and ~2400 feet climbing.

Evening: slow 3 mile run to city creek gate and back.  

Okay, off to shower and finish my shoulder stretches and exercises for the day.  My shoulder is getting better ROM and strength, but its also starting to hurt a bit more through out the day - don't know if it's because I've been pushing it pretty hard with my home pt or if the cortisone injection is starting to wear off.

By the time I was ready to run today it was 11 & hot & sunny.  I could probably have handled the heat, but since I scorched my chest and arms on a hike over the weekend no way did I want to be in the sun for an hour.  So I did the most dreadful thing I could think of and cleared the junk off my treadmill, dusted it off, and gave it a whirl!  It was nice listening to music for a change, but it wasn't so nice to see how much I have slowed down since last year!!  Anyhow, I mixed some faster paced running with some slower paced running and took a couple short breaks to move my water sprinklers around.  Better go shower and stretch now.

Morning - nice slow easy run up to the 3 mile marker in city creek canyon & back.  Cool with a nice cloud cover today; I feel so lucky to live close to city creek - it is such a beautiful peaceful place to run!!

Better go stretch now . . . 

From home to city creek pa8 and back.  It was way HOT running back at 11 am 

Morning run from home to city creek pa8 and back.  One of my neighbors was out running in city creek this morning, too, and we ended up running the last mile or so together.  This made for a great work out for me because it was all uphill and he is much faster and I was huffin' and puffin' pretty hard to keep up.  Plus, I was pushing the pace a bit before that point because I knew he was somewhere behind me and I was trying to get home before he caught me!  

Much cooler than yesterday with a nice cloud cover!

59.5, 31.25, 28.25 = 3 minute negative split for my run  :)

Late evening run  to & from city creek gate with Evy. She waxed me the last block heading home!

Just finished my shoulder strengthening exercises - need to do my shoulder stretches next then I'm ready to crash...

Early morning run to city creek pa 8 and back.  My legs are tired after running 4 days in a row - I'll probably take tomorrow off then try to do a long'ish run on Saturday.

Hey ho, though, just went to my orthopedics doc today for my shoulder follow up.  He's real happy with how I've progressed and has given me the green light to do whatever I want!!  :)   I'm still hesitant to go trail running, though, because I'm a klutz and fall at least 2-3 times each year on trails, but I am getting tempted by that nice shady trail that parallels the city creek road!!   o&o

Seriously need to work on increasing my speed, and since I tend to loaf along smelling the roses when I run city creek I decided to run on my TM.  Warmed up 3/4 mile, then ran a bunch of tempo'ish miles that were punctuated with cursory pit stops and water breaks, then ran about 3/4 mile cool down.  Not a great speed work out (especially considering all the breaks), but the tempo pace did force me to breath harder than usual.  It's a bummer that my tempo pace is a minute+ slower than last year!! 

I better go stretch & do my shoulder stuff now because I have a lot of chores to do today.

Evening run to city creek pa8 & back. Only counting it as 5 miles, tho, because I walked a bit after leaving city creek canyon because I twang'd the back of my knees flying on the down hill part . . . not smart, not smart, but 'twas fun for sure!

Did my shoulder strengthening exercises earlier today, but haven't done any shoulder stretches yet. Better hurry before I'm too tired...

okay, first bona fide sw for the year ;). 1 mile warm up, then 4 x 1/4 mile @ 9:30 pace, with 1/8 mile recoveries, then cool down.  dang slow but it's a start. 

Did some good running stretches afterwards, then my shoulder exercises, then my shoulder stretches :) (I was bad because I skipped two days of shoulder stuff and that is NOT good!)

Mid morning run a little past city creek gate & back.  Threw in a handful of 60 second strides on my way home. 

Yea!  I found a nice little flat bladed screwdriver on the side of the road - makes up for all the tools my kids take off with!

Did morning stretches (running & shoulder stuff), and did evening shoulder strengthening & stretching. finally did what I'm supposed to do . . .

Oh gheesh - I missed my goal of 60 minutes by 4.3 seconds!  On the positive side I was ~ 30 seconds faster than last year (I was in much better shape last year, but sorely lacked motivation to push last year and just kind of leisurely ran along.)  I injured my shoulder badly a few months ago and only started running in earnest again about 5 weeks ago.  Since I didn't have much time to prepare, I figured I would consider this 10K a success if I put my heart into it. And for the most part I did. :)

So how did it unfold?

Well, I planned to have a nice dinner last night, get my stuff ready, and get a good night's rest.  But my daughter's friend called at the last minute and offered us free VIP tickets to the Steve Miller Band concert at Red Butte Garden. Really!!!  I couldn't resist, so with about 10 minutes notice we were out the door to go to the concert. The concert was a blast!! The guitar playing was absolutely awesome, and the keyboardist was really rocking, and so we got up and danced, danced, danced for a couple hours!  Lotza fun!  By the time it was over, I was really pumped and wishing I could run the 10K at 11:00 at night!  

That was a no go, of course, so I just had to hope that the music magic (madness?) would carry over into the next day.  Got home late, got my clothes ready, went to bed around 12:30, and fell asleep around 1 am.  I did not appreciate my alarm going off at 4:30 am!!!  Finally managed to struggle out of bed to get dressed, suck down some coffee and pnb & honey toast, and head out the door. Parked at the university and did a slow 1/8 mile jog to the start (it would've been smart to do a longer warm up and throw in some strides, but ...)

Que'd up about a minute and a half back from the start, and then we were off.  The first 1-2 minutes were pretty slow as my body was protesting quite a lot (really should have done some warm up strides!), but I finally kicked into a good pace going down hill on Wakara Way. And, it felt REALLY GOOD to run fast!!! For about two miles anyway . . . then I'm not sure how fast I was running any more, but I was certainly breathing hard, so I felt good about my effort. My mouth was pretty parched so I walked a few seconds and drank water at the 1st water stop, then took off at a hard effort again.  I probably slowed a bit because it seemed forever to get to where South Temple turns onto 200 East).

I was feeling the pain on 200 East and it took forever to get to the second water stop.  The second water stop was pretty funny; I took a quick sip then dumped the rest of the cup and a second cup of water on my head.  The runner ahead did the same thing, or at least tried to; but when he went to throw the cup of water on his head, he missed and splashed it all over the very shocked volunteer's face! (I shouldn't laugh, but it was funny!)

Then it was around the corner onto the home stretch along 900 South, and mercifully the sun wasn't beating down on me. This has always been a hard section for me, but I actually pushed pretty darn hard on this stretch, remembering to run with short quick strides, and then it was through the finish line. I felt pretty crummy afterwards & didn't even want any water; good indication that I pushed hard.  But, dang, missed my goal by 4.3 seconds!  Wish I'd looked at my watch, but dumb me, I forgot! (That's what happens when you only run with a watch 3 times a year!)

Afterwards Evy and I watched the first 4 marathoners finish, then walked back to South Temple and cheered on a whole bunch of mid-pack marathoners.  We were really clapping and whooping and hollering at them, and that was fun! Then we walked up to my house on 12th Avenue so Evy could shuttle me back to get my car at the University.

Okay, I feel good about my effort today, but I KNOW I can run a faster time.  All it takes is lots of consistent running - all year long, not for just a few short weeks!

Manana - o&o

Evening run to and from city creek canyon one mile marker.  First part of the run my legs were more sore than tired, but by the end of the run my legs were quite fatigued, especially going uphill.  A little embarassing because as I came (shuffling) home I spotted my neighbor out watching me, and he had a look on his face like 'I really thought you could do better than that'!

Finished up with my shoulder strengthening & stretching routine.

Mid morning run to and from city creek, pa 8.  Got home at 11:15 a.m. and boy was it hot outside, especially since my last 1.25 miles home is uphill in the sun.  My legs felt better than they did on Tuesday's run, but they sure don't have much spring to them, even while I was running downhill in city creek.

Did my shoulder strengthening exercises; now I need to fnish up and do my stretches. :)

Morning run to city creek gate, then I detoured onto the trail and ran on it until it came out into picnic area 12.  Then I ran back home along the paved road.  Felt fairly strong & pushed coming up the hill to 12th Avenue.  Oh, there was a nice cloud cover this morning - that helped immensely! :)