Use it or Lose it

Wanted to do a hill work out today because I think the strengthening will help both my knees and my speed. Was going to do it on the TM because that is the easiest way for me to do reliable short hill repeats, but my daughter so rightfully pointed out to me that it is darn beautiful outside and I shouldn't waste the nice conditions!

So I decided to run my usual route up to PA 7 in city creek and back, but to take my watch and try to run 3 of the hills as fast as I could.

Started by running at an easy pace to city creek, then:

Hill 1: one mile long from the city creek gate to the one mile marker. I took off and quickly got into a good 2:1 breathing pattern. I was hoping to make it to the one mile marker in 10 minutes, but was 30 seconds over. I don't feel too bad, tho, because I was working and breathing pretty hard the whole time. And now I have a good time goal for this hill!. (I designated this mile as "fast" because even though the actual pace wasn't particularly fast, my effort was way way up there!) Then I ran slow and easy a little further up to PA7, then turned around and ran slow down the hill.

Hill 2: Progably a little longer than a 1/2 mile from the intersection of the citycreek turnoff from bonneville drive up to the intersection of bonneville drive and 11th avenue. My legs were feeling a bit rubbery, but I ran this section pretty quickly in 6 min 14 sec. Unfortunately this section starts off going downhill before going uphill, so next time I'll probably start the hard running where the uphill part actually starts! Then I ran at an easy pace for a couple blocks on 11th Avenue before reaching my next hill.

Hill 3: One block very steep from 11th avenue up to 12th avenue. I gave this hill all I had to muster, and boy did I feel the lactic acid building in my calves!

Then I just ran slow and easy the last 1/2 mile home along 12th avenue.

All in all a good workout, but I think next time I will plan a hill workout with shorter distance hills. I might start at the bottom of the avenues, and then "zig-zag" my way up so that I run hard up a steep hill for a block, then run a block sideways at a recovery pace, then run another steep uphill block, etc., until I get up to 12th Avenue.

Salt Lake City has some truly gorgeous running weather this morning!!

It's my son's birthday, and I ended up going to breakfast with him, helping him with a project, and then wrapping presents, baking a cake, going to dinner & a movie. I really wanted to go on a long long run, but Ryan is more important! :)

Labor Day (ie, a nice day to sleep in), but my daughter wanted to go running at 6:30 am!!  She needed to be somewhere by 9, so we just made it a quick run up city creek (PA5) and back.  And, quick it was with a blazing fast pace from our house to the city creek gate!  (I don't know how fast because neither of us had a garmin or watch, but based on my breathing pattern I'm guessing it was 5K pace.)

I hoped to get out for a longer run later, but spent the whole rest of the day doing yard work.  It is time for our "neighborhood" clean-up, and I had a lot of thorny bushes to hack down in the back yard.  I've got a lot of scratches now . . . so went my "Labor" day!

5 mile easy pace up to PA 7 in city creek and back.  Low energy - I'm slogged down with a head cold.

Short  run up to PA 5 in city creek and back.  Wanted to run my normal 5 miler, but I had an important morning meeting to get to, and I am still slogged down with my head cold so didn't feel like pushing the pace.

Darn, this week's running has not been as rigorous as I had hoped, but I think it is best to save my hill work and speed work for when I'm feeling better.  I sure hope I can get out for a good long run this weekend!

Beautiful day for running, and I'm so happy I finally got in a long run.  My plan was to run up city creek to the 4 mile marker, but somehow I missed seeing that marker (I'd only run up that far once before).  I finally passed the 5 mile marker, and decided with only .6 mile left to the very top I should just continue on.  So I did and am quite proud that I ran from my house to city creek and then all the way up city creek canyon until the road ends.  I never ever did that before and it was my goal to do that before winter came.  It was absolutely gorgeous running at the top of city creek!!  I felt really strong the whole time running uphill, and only stopped 2-3 times for quick water breaks. 

Only problem was after I got to the top, I was faced with running downhill for over 5 miles!  I was worried about hurting my knees so I walked the really steep downhill sections and then slowly jogged the rest of the way down.  Then ran the last 1.5 miles back up to my house.  No garmin, but I estimate I went a total of 14.2 miles today, with at most .7 miles of downhill walking, so I'm logging the total run at 13.5 miles. (I'm finally posting this entry on Monday morning, and I'm very happy that my feet and knees don't seem to be adversely affected from all the running I did. 

Only running I've done so far today is running after the dog I adopted from the super pet adoption yesterday . . .   But I have high hopes of turning "Suzie Q" into a running partner!

Took my new dog "Suzie Q" running at the soccer field path this morning.  She doesn't tug on the leash a whole lot and it seems like it will work out pretty well.  She stopped several times to sniff gopher holes, etc., and I would let her sniff for a few seconds, then told her to "come on" and she did.  I'm hoping I can eventually let her off leash and get her to come back to me by patting my leg and telling her to come.  (She does this in the house real well, but I don't totally trust her outside, yet!!)

Not sure of her conditioning, so I only went a mile with her, then took her home and I ran another 4 miles on the TM with her watching (she didn't seem scared of the TM, but looked at me like I was NUTS!).  I would've liked to finish running outside, but my son wasn't awake yet to watch her and I don't want to leave her unsupervised in my house just yet.

Only time for 3.5 miles.  Ran a little into city creek and back home.  (Also took suzie for a couple long walks and I also did a lot of unplanned hill hiking between my car and my work building.)

Took SuzieQ running at the soccer field.  Ran about 1.5 miles total with her, at a pretty good pace, and she did pretty good.  I still want to slowly ramp up her running miles, even though I'm starting to suspect she could run circles around me!  I decided not to run more miles on my own because I've had a pretty good knot in my left gm (butt) for about a week now.  Very noticeable while running and walking, so I better get serious about doing some stretching and massaging so I can nip this potential problem in the bud. (no butt jokes, please!)

Ran to PA 8 in city creek and back home.  Still have a knot deep in my left gm (butt) that hurt significantly even though I was running slower with a shorter stride than normal.  (I'd hoped that taking a few days off would've made it feel better - ARGH !@#@$#!).  It was a gorgeous morning for running, tho.  :)