Going With The Flow

Substituted running with skinning/skiing today. We hiked up Grizzly Gulch (~1600ft) and then skied back down. Afterwards, we relaxed in the sunshine for a while to enjoy the clean air and beautiful day. Great way to start off the New Year!

Lunch run outside, 4.3 miles. The weather was great - cleaner air, warm and sunny. No watch today, but I ran one song hard (which turned out to be 0.83 miles in 4:38, 5:35 pace).

My New Years Resolutions for this year are basically the same from last year with a few additions. 2013 was a hard year for me, both mentally and physically. I would love to get back into serious training and racing again, but my body is not ready. I don't know when that time will come - it could be a couple months or a couple years. The last time I was stuck in an injury cycle, Jake and I hiked the 221 mile John Muir Trail and I was cured. So, maybe a big backbacking adventure this year?! :) At any rate, I really want to enjoy this year and make up for all that I missed out on last year.

Continued Resolutions from 2013:
Get injury-free
Stay injury-free
Take days off from running regularly
Log consistent mileage throughout the year

Added Resolutions for 2014:
Have more FUN and go on more adventures 
Eat healthier with a lot more vegetables

5 miles with Jakers.

Allie and I are meeting Saturday morning at Highland High 9am if anyone wants to join us. Strict easy run policy applies. 

Snowy slippery 8.5 miles with Tara and Allie around Millcreek, 8:05 pace.

Took the day off today to go skiing. Although we took a slightly different route, Jake and I ended up hiking to the exact same spot as Wednesday. Very cold at Alta which means we hiked up 20 minutes faster this time. The recent storm brought 4" of new snow = perfect dust-on-crust skiing down.

AM - Treadmill 4 miles. Ran 4x0.5mi at 6:30 pace w/ 0.25mi recovery to keep it interesting. 

PM - 30 min strength training. 

Runblogger Reader Survey Results: Top Road Running Shoes of 2013

Five miles around the tempo loop, 8:20 pace.

AM - Very pleasant morning making fresh tracks on the snow covered roads. Love snow runs!

PM - 35 min of strength training. 

I'm having a hard time not getting this Groupon...would be pretty fun to try - Four Hours of Elliptigo

5.5 miles around the tempo loop. I ran 2 miles at 6:43 pace with caution on the slippery/slushy roads.

Slushy 10K run, first 4 with Jake. It's Friday!!

"Big boys" and "little girls" groups running from HHS at 9am tomorrow if interested.

Nice warmer morning run with Kassi and Allie. This was the best I've felt running this far in a very long time. My belief in balance and stability training (that Jake and I have been doing for the past month) is rising.

POWDER skiing up at Solitude! It was cold, snowy, and very windy (15 degrees, 30-45mph winds) but totally worth it. We skied for three rounds of 90 mins with hot chocolate breaks in between. Hip felt surprisingly good - no issues at all. So much fun!

AM - 5 miles around the tempo loop. Ran 1 mile at 6:03 pace. Back is sore from skiing yesterday.

PM - 30 min of strength training.

The USATF Convention Report in December. I do not agree with the change to the mens standard, especially in the middle of the Olympic cycle, for many reason. [Update: turns out it was a typo, but could be changed at any point!].

"The Men’s and Women’s LDR committees have set the qualifying times for the trials as follows: Men: 2:17:00 (B standard, no expenses, of 1:04:00 for a half marathon); Women: 2:37:00 (B standards of 2:43:00 and 1:15:00 for a half marathon). Men’s chair Edwardo Torres defended the toughening of the standard, “It [the Olympic Trials] is not a come one, come all race. . . we are there to select a team. . . it’s not a fun run.”

Woke up really sore (DOMS from skiing) so it was a good day to take it easy - 4.1 miles. 

Thought this was interesting - What are Americans Eating

AM - 7.4 cold miles around Millcreek, 6 with Jake. Two mile tempo in 6:33, 6:21 that felt relaxed.

PM - 4 miles with Jake in the afternoon to make up for doing this all afternoon.

Running Writings "52 More Lessons from Another Year of Weekly Writing". Good info here, some of my favs -

1.    Massive increases in training volume and intensity are likely to result in overtraining, a problem where your body responds hostilely and normal adaptation mechanisms fail.  Avoiding this is not just a matter of your training, though—getting more sleep and keeping your overall stress level low also helps keep you safe from overtraining.  If you are overtrained, it can take several weeks to work your way back to health.

6.  The four best exercises for hip strength are the clamshell, side-step (or "monster walk"), glute bridge with single-leg lifts, and quadruped hip extension (pictured below).  If you're only going to do a few strength exercises, do these!

17.  Polluted air has a huge impact on your body's ability to perform.  Heavy smog can saturate up to 5% of your red blood cells with poisonous carbon monoxide, and ozone can impair your oxygen intake by 11%.  The link is so strong that high school cross country times can be predicted by the amount of pollution in the air.  Pollution also increases your risk of getting respiratory infections like the cold, and severely aggravates asthma. 

21.  Carrying around excess weight will slow you down by about 1.4% per 1% of body weight increase, but these measurements are from carrying around artificial weight, like water bottles or camelbaks.  Keep in mind that losing weight, especially rapidly, is associated with muscle loss, so your best bet is to maintain a healthy weight all the time, not try to cut down to a "racing weight" several times per year.

30.  Women should avoid tight-fitting pointed-toe shoes as much as possible.  Some evidence suggests that these shoes can cause bunions, and wearing well-fitted, comfortable shoes certainly can't hurt. 

50.  Most evidence indicates that overuse injuries are not related to inflammation.  Though the "inflammatory theory" of running injuries popularized traditional treatments like icing, compression wraps, and anti-inflammatory drugs, the most successful injury treatments have nothing to do with modulating or reducing inflammation.

AM - 3.5 miles easy.

PM - 30 min upper body weight training.

Lunchtime 5 miles. Sunny!

Thought I would post Runblogger Reader Survey Results: Top Trail Running Shoes of 2013 since there was so much interest in the road shoes last week. No significant favorites here.

AM - 9.2 miles around Holladay on Wander Lane. Forgot how much I like that road for running. My distal hamstring has a knot in it that bothered me a little the first mile or two.

PM - Lots and lots of dancing...LAVA PARTY!

4.7 miles around Millcreek, slowwww. Last night's cigarette smoke exposure + gross air = unhappy lungs.

No run today - DODS (delayed onset dancing soreness). Groin is ACHY.

PM - 30 min strength training.

4 miles easy on the treadmill. I woke up with a sore throat so the warm indoors seemed like the best option.

AM - 30 minutes on the bike. First time I've tried cycling in a couple months...it is definitely still irritating but not as bad. I should probably be doing the bike more than running right now because it forces my pelvis to not move. I'm afraid I've got some major pelvic instability issues. It is frustrating to have felt so good last week and so terrible this week! These ups and downs are driving me crazy.

PM - 30 minutes on the bike.

4.6 miles with Jake in gross smoggy air. Seriously, it's disgusting. 

3.5 miles. Hip and hamstring were bothersome. I know that there is some movement dysfunction that is preventing me from getting to where I want to be, I just can't seem to figure it out.

PM - 30 minutes on the bike.

Missed out on running the Winter Series 5k this morning so Jake paced me to a whopping 25 minute 5k this afternoon in Park City :)

All-day skiing at Deer Valley. FUN!

AM - 30 minutes of strength training. Still debating what I should do this week...

PM - 30 minutes on the elliptical.

30 minutes on the elliptical (10/10). I actually seem to feel pretty good on the elliptical...I can control my pelvis and knee movement a lot more. I have found that my adductor muscle tires out very quickly (like within 5 minutes) so I'm wondering if that is my weakest link.

If you're looking for some good running reads - I've read most of these and have learned a lot from them.

AM - 30 minutes on the elliptical (10/10). 

PM - 30 minutes on the bike.

AM - 4.5 miles, a couple with Jake. 

PM - 25 minutes of elliptical/bike combo. 

30 minutes on the elliptical (10/8). I am going to Dr. Stephen Kirk this afternoon to get a fresh opinion on my injury problems and get some blood work done.

So glad it's the weekend! It's felt like a long week.