Use it or Lose it

Another B&B run from my house up to picnic area 7 in city creek then back home. Warm this morning, with a touch of humidity for a change.

Ran from my house up to PA 7 in city creek canyon and back home.  Nice and cool in the canyon, but it was way hot running back up to my house!

AM:  2.8 miles. Just a short morning run to and from city creek gate with my daughter.  She was leaving on a 4 day trip today, and wanted to run before she left so I joined her.  I was planning on running some more after she left, but by the time I helped her and my other kids get all packed up for the trip it was getting way late, and I really needed to get in to work.  So, I'll need to finish running this evening.  Nice morning for running, too, last night's rain storms really brought the temps down!

PM:  3.2 miles.  Another short run around 9:30 at night.  I was totally tuckered out tonight for some reason.  Besides the "slow miles" and "fast miles" categories, they need a "super slow plodding miles" category for me!! 

I'm dog sitting a 3 year old German Sheperd until Sunday night.  Now this little girl needs LOTS of exercise, and I was hoping to take her running, but she has NO MANNERS AT ALL!!  She yanks and pulls on the leash to no end.  She managed to pull me off balance once which gave me a pretty good tweak to the knee, so I think I'll just settle for "walking" her for now.  We took a 2 mile walk this morning, and a 3.5 mile walk to city creek this evening.   

Knee is still tweaked, so I took Penny (the German Shepherd I'm watching) on a nice 2 mile morning walk, and a longer 4 mile evening walk up around the city creek area.  Knee is still feeling weak, and went out on me 3-4 times during the walk.  Saw some really cute raccoon babies on the walk.  It sure takes a long time to walk 4 miles!

Still a tweaked knee, and still dog sitting, so I took Penny on her "usual" 2 mile morning walk and 4 mile evening walk thru the city creek canyon area.  Nice stars out tonight - could see Venus, Mars, and Saturn all in the same area!

Loop from home up to one mile marker in city creek canyon and back home.  Ran with my daughter Evy again.  I do believe she's starting to like running.  :)

My knees ached a bit during/after the run, but no more than usual.  The knee I "tweaked" seems better so that is a relief.

Standard loop to the one mile marker in city creek canyon and back.  Pushing a bit on the hills in city creek.  It was actually cold starting the run this morning! (Very Weird for August!)

Usual loop to one mile marker in city creek canyon and back. Cool this morning, and nice running conditions. Pushing myself just a bit on the hills to keep my breathing rate up.

I feel bad for not blogging much lately - I've been super busy with work, kids, school registrations, summer activities, etc. I do hope everyone is doing fine out there!

Usual loop to City Creek PA7 and back.  HOT this morning!  I feel like I'm just in a bare bones maintenance mode running wise - dog days of summer, kids out of school, working a lot, . . . It was nice as always up in city creek, tho!

Darn, something crashed in my house (probably a cat or kid knocking something over) around 2:30 this morning, and I never did get back to sleep. Finally got up at 4:30, had some coffee, and started cleaning my room/office area. Took off running around 7, and ran up to the 2 mile marker in City Creek canyon, and back.

A noteworthy first for me today. I didn't eat much breakfast before leaving, so on a whim decided to carry a gel with me, thinking that if I took it at the water fountain part way up city creek it would give me a boost when I had to run the last mile up hill towards my mouse. I have never tried gels before, but bought a Cliff Shot Strawberry gel a couple months ago thinking I should try it some day. E-YUCK - I took my first taste, and it was really awful!! (I thought it would be sweet, but it was surprisingly saltly tasting.) Not one to give up, I perservered and choked it down, chased it with plenty of water, and then took off running again. It didn't seem to upset my stomach, and I did seem to have a bit more energy, both running downhill out of city creek, and running up my home stretch hills. I will probably experiment and try another one sometime. . .

Evening run up to one mile marker in city creek canyon and back home.  Ran with my daughter, which always makes the run more fun. Plus she was keeping a pretty good pace on the way home!  :) 

Then she convinced me to do some other exercises once we were home, so . . . I did 3 sets of sissy sink push ups and 3 sets of sissy crunches and miscellaneous stretches mixed in with a bunch of talking!  I really should do more upper body core strengthening exercises so I hope I can get in the habit.  I'm guessing it is like running, in that in the beginning it is hard and seems so impossible that you're ever going to get better.  But then after you make youself run 3 or 4 times in a row, you see improvement and start thinking "I can do this".  I need to get to that stage with my sit-ups and push-ups!

Whoosh - it's hot & windy today! Woke up late and needed to run an errand before running, so decided to park my car on the corner of 11th avenue & bonneville and start my run from there. Mentally that gave me a boost because I knew I wouldn't have to run the last .6 mile uphill in the hot sun to my house (especially nice since I started running after 10 am). Since I started closer to city creek I decided to run further up the canyon and went to picnic area 20, which I'm guessing is about 4.25 miles from the gate.  Quite nice in city creek.- on the way down I met a lady named Maryanne at one of the water fountains and talked with her for a couple minutes. Then I saw my friend Mary and talked with her for a couple minutes. It was nice talking, but I stiffened up and had to hobble-run for a few minutes until I loosened back up!!  Very nice & very enjoyable run today.  :)

Nice afternoon hike with Evy and Ryan up to Twin Lakes at Brighton.

Ran to capital building and back, which I hadn't done for a while.  Tried to keep a good tempo pace for part of it.  My kids start back to school on Wednesday and I'm hoping that going back to a regular schedule will help me be a bit more rigorous with my training - I'm turning into a softie and think I could really benefit from some structured hill work and speed work!

Took another afternoon hike with my kids for their last day of vacation. :)

Morning:  3 miles on TM (middle 2 miles a quasi-slow tempo pace @ 6mph)

Evening:  Nada ~ supposed to run with my daughter this evening, but it didn't happen because she is thinking about joining the cross country team and wanted to save her energy for running with them tomorrow.  Ran errands with my son instead of running. 

Morning run up to PA 8 in city creek, then I decided to run back out of city creek using the meandering trail to the west of the main road.  It was nice running on the trail, but it dumped me out on the main bonneville road so I didn't go by my normal water fountain (which I missed more than I thought I would!).  I headed home so I could get a drink and start some laundry and water sprinklers, and then did 3.75 miles more on my treadmill.  

Ramped up the speed a little on the TM so that I ran the middle 2.25 miles at a 10 minute mile pace.  That used to be my tempo speed, but I think I need to bump my tempo speed up a little because while that pace is faster than the very leisurely pace I have been running lately, it really didn't seem quite hard enough to consider it a tempo pace.  (I've just been running slow and lazy for about a month now, and need to incorporate some faster running each week; it's time to try to speed up my old body!) 

What a bunch of lightening and rain this morning!! (Good day to run indoors for sure!) 

SW today.  Wasn't sure what to expect, as I haven't done any rigorous speed work in months, so I planned on playing it by ear - maybe 6-8 1/4 mile reps @ 6.5 mph, or maybe some 1/2 mile reps @ 6.5 mph if I felt good. 

I warmed up for a mile, then started my first rep.  It didn't seem too horendously hard so I increased the distance of the reps and ended up doing 3 one-mile repeats (each @ 6.5 mph and 1.5% ) with a much appreciated 1/4 mile slow jog recovery after each rep.  I felt pretty encouraged that I could do mile reps at this pace, although the 3rd rep did start feeling rather brutal!  Then finished running at a relatively easy pace.  (Next week I'll try doing shorter reps at a faster pace, perhaps 1/4 mile reps @ 7 mph)

Cool crisp morning run up to city creek picnic area 7 and back.