A tough course and a cold day made for a challenging day. I felt very flat during my warm-up an the quads were tired just trying to do strides. I was hoping that they would feel better as the race progressed but they did not. The legs felt very heavy and dead even on the downhill sections. I never truly felt winded but felt like I had hit the wall in a marathon pretty much the whole way. Overall this was a tough day for me. That's ok though because it is good to just be able to get out to the races and at least get to know everyone a little better. I have not really set any goals this year time wise so I keep having to remind myself to not be disappointed in the results right now. My first goal is to get the mileage back up to at least 100 miles a week before the end of the year. My second goal is to run a sub 2:45 marathon this year. I figure if I accomplish the first goal the second will happen as a result. I am up to 70 miles a week the last two weeks on single runs so things are headed in the right direction. Next week I will shoot for 75 miles and then take a drop down a little the following week. I have found that three weeks of building or maintaining higher mileage followed by a week about 10-20% lower works well for me and lets me recover enough to build again for three weeks. I hope to be up to 85 miles a week by the first week of May and maintain that through most of the summer before increasing the mileage again after TOU Marathon. If all goes well I will be at 100 mile weeks during the month of December. Well there you have it my year long progression plan. Hopefully it all works out so next year I can start going after some PRs at the age of 39. Congratulations to all for finishing today and especially to all of those that actually had a decent race. I am not sure how tough the 10 miler will be in a couple of weeks but I hear it is another tough one. It sure would be nice to run one of those fast downhill courses that Utah is famous for because so far the only two races I have run in Utah have been two of the toughest courses I have ever run. Here's hopeing that tough race courses equals faster racing in the future!
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