A Balance, Redefined

My initial plan was to get up and run before church, but when my alarm went off at 5:23 I rolled over and turned it off. I needed the extra sleep. I’m glad I took it. Instead I went for my run during Kaitlyn’s nap. I went to lab and ran from there, went up City Creek just a little further than usual. There was a surprisingly large number of people out running, walking, and hiking. One of the hikers pointed out a bunch of deer up on the mountains. They really looked magnificent silhouetted by the snow and then at the mouth of the canyon was some raptor playing in the breeze coming down the true meaning of God’s beauty.

I felt great considering the race yesterday. I surprised myself and I’m happy with my progress. I really didn’t know what to expect so I was pleasantly surprised. My quads are sore but the good kind of sore. The pace today was easy to medium it was just too beautiful of a day to take slow. I got my run in right before the wind came crashing down so the majority of my run was in 45F no wind and mostly overcast I actually had shorts on and my sleeves pushed up. Avg. 7:21 no HR today.

AM-5:30am I didn’t get that good of a night’s rest. I went to sleep a little later than normal and woke up a couple times, maybe because of the wind? I ended up waking at 4:45am before my alarm and just got up. Went to head out the door for my run and was nearly blown back in the house so I went to the treadmill instead. Just 7:30 pace straight through…

PM-7:15pm Exact repeat of the morning run. Today was a take the candle lay it on its side and light both ends kind of day. To spice things up I then took a lighter to the side of the candle as well. All that being said I feel ok for now I just have to make sure I don’t push into the red, I’m definitely to the last few lines of yellow. Total, I only had about 5hrs of sleep last night and then worked an 11hr day, plus these two treadmill runs and shoveling the drive. The good news is between all that I snuck in dinner with the family and a little playtime before getting Kaitlyn ready for bed and putting her down for the night. Luckily I think I will be able to go to sleep early tonight and though I have a rough morning at work the afternoon should be relatively easier. Avg. 7:30 HR 130

A little more sleep than the night before, just under 7hrs. Could have had more but decided that some quality time with Sandra was more important. This “balance” of increased mileage is tough, doable but tough. I was in to work by 5:30am, out the door by 10:30am for my run, working again by 12:10pm. I’m taking a quick lunch now while I type this and back to it. I want to leave early today if possible (not likely as I just had an impromptu 0.5 hr meeting with my boss in the middle of typing this, which led to another 0.5hr meeting and now I’m actually an hour behind boo who for me…). My knee was tight from the double treadmill run yesterday but loosened up nicely on the road today. Same run as Sunday but colder and more relaxed pace. Avg. 7:45 HR 142

I’m definitely feeling tired now. But I took an “easier” day. I woke up at 4:55am with the intent of doing two runs today. However, with the snow I just ended up shoveling and heading into work. I had a solid morning of work from 5:45am until noon. Then I took a quick lunch and went back to work until about 3pm. Then I actually called my day early and went for my run and headed home. It’s strange that I work a 9 hr day and felt like I was slacking going home early… I got home in plenty of time to shovel my drive a second time and get some good playtime with Kaitlyn. My run was fun. Even though I was tired, I decided to do some speedplay. I did two miles off two miles on. No particular goal for the on just think hard and let the legs do the rest. I’ll only give info on the hard miles. It was snowing the entire run but the surface was not slippery. I did the same run as yesterday up City Creek and back. The first on mile started right at the Firehouse. 5:23 descent 166 ft, 6:17 descent 86ft ascent 124 ft. The next two started at the turnaround back down City Creek. 5:59 descent 235 ft, 5:34 descent 242 ft. The final two started back at the Firehouse 6:06 descent 199 ft ascent 95 ft, 7:44 ascent 279 ft. If the elevation change was less than 50 ft I didn’t bother noting it. Overall, I good run considering how tired I’ve felt this week. I can’t believe it is only Wed. Good news is even though I got up earlier this morning I still got about 6.5 hrs of sleep last night. Avg. 6:54 HR 157.

AM-11:30am recovery run. Do to my complaining about feeling tired this week (sorry) I slept in an extra hour. I feel much better today. Into work at 6:30am out the door for my run at 11:30am. Just ran down into Memory Grove and back. Saw two deer and a ton of people. It is great when it snows as the following day you can actually see the whole valley (no smog). 8 miles Avg. 7:58 HR 133

PM-7:20pm treadmill run. Just adding a few extra miles. The rest of the day went fine. 4 miles Avg. 7:47

AM-5:20am shoveling. I think I've shoveled more snow this week than all last winter... At least the snow was nice enough to stop while I was shoveling. It didn’t start back up again until I was about 2 blocks into my drive to work. Yeah shoveling two-a-days!!!

PM-2:15pm recovery run. I ran with a guy from work. He ran his first marathon at TOU this Sept and had taken some time off since. He is just getting back into it. In fact this was his longest run this year. He was planning on running 4 mi I was planning on running 5mi so we ran 6 mi. He hadn’t run to City Creek yet so we just ran to the overlook and back. Avg. 9:38 HR 116

5:45AM LSD. I awoke 10min before my alarm at 5:05am. It took me a while to get moving though and I wasn’t out the door until 40 min later and moving slow. It was colder than I would have liked. My initial plan was to do some MP work however my legs just didn’t feel up to it. I ran directly to the 3mi mark and ran on the course through mile 13 and then back part on the course part not to get the correct distance. Overall I was happy with the run and not too surprised that my legs were lead considering the high mileage this week. Two general comments both about other runners and concerns with cars. I saw a lot of people out during the second half of my run. The things that surprised me were one group of women running four abreast completely blocking a lane!? I’m all for getting my right of way but in my opinion that is just going to anger drivers and make them less likely to move over for individual runners. The other concern is people running WITH traffic. Just curious, I think this was discussed before but isn’t it safer and the law for pedestrians to go against traffic? I know cyclists are supposed to go with traffic… Maybe I’ll put this as a survey in the discussion section. Anyway back to the run the first 5 miles were run at about 8 min pace. The remaining 15-miles were run at 6:36-7:14 per mile. Avg. 7:14 HR 147

I almost forgot two important things. I wore my Amphipod belt this morning and started with 4 roomtemp bottles. By the end of my run I hadn't gotten to two of them and they were partially frozen. The second thing is I finally got back to one of the better training things I used to do, "icing". In the past I used to ice my legs after any run over 15-miles. I haven't done it in awhile, probably becuase it is so cold out to begin with. But today I thought it would be a good idea. Except instead of standing outside in my garbage can full of half ice and half hose water I just went for the tub and it actually worked a lot better. I took our meat thermometer and adjusted the temp down to 51F and sat there for 15 minutes. My legs are already thanking me though some other parts of my body were not at the time...