A Balance, Redefined

Thank you everyone for your support. My stomach returned to normal by the time I got to work last night. I also made it home at an ok time and got 8hrs sleep, we even were only 5 minutes late to church. When Kaitlyn went down for her nap I headed over to Popperton (sp?) park and ran to City Creek. I know you are now in shock. How could Adam run to City Creek. Oh wait I do that almost every day now. I like the sound of the stream… No animals today though as I wasn’t running until noon. I did see the most people I’ve ever seen walking and biking. I took it as a recovery run and more or less felt ok. I ran to a quarter mile past the plowed road and back. Then went sledding with the family. Unfortunately I did have to work tonight and didn’t get back until about 10pm. The mileage is paying off for my running but work is getting tight and this week is looking like a mess at work already so we’ll see how I squeeze in the miles. Avg. 7:44 HR 140

Today was and still is a busy day so I have to make this short. Slept 7hrs, ran at 11am for 8mi to Memory Grove. I ran faster than I was planning as I only had 75 min free today to run and shower Avg. 6:45 HR 155 (four of the miles were between 6:18 and 6:20). Worked from 6:30 to 5:30 minus my run. After Kaitlyn went to bed ran another 6 at SH Avg. 7:32 HR 136.

AM-11am. This may be my only run for the day but I’m logging it as an AM just in case. Yesterday destroyed me mentally so the mental stress was almost physical today. I actually woke 20 min before my alarm. I started work at 6am not too early but it was a long morning. I got out for my run at 11am and just wanted to relax. I headed south for the first time in a long time. To and around the zoo and then toward the BST, I thought it would be clear after three days of above freezing temps but I was wrong. Luckily only two miles of my run were on it. During the run I actually wore shorts and a short sleeves, the bank said 51F though NOAA said 41F. In any case after two miles I was warmed up and I was feeling good. I ran into a women training for her first post-child marathon (SLC) and ran one mile with her, actually my fastest of the run 7:02. Also, I was very surprised that I actually saw deer today. They were right on Sunnyside in This is the Place. It was funny they didn’t blink an eye with all the car traffic but both stopped to watch me run by. One of them was even still there nearly an hour later at the same spot. I continue to believe that running is the best physical and mental therapy. By the end of the run the “work stress” from the last 36hrs had cleared and I’m feeling pretty good about the day now. My heart rate was pretty high but I had just had a cup of coffee and the “excitement” of the lab ordeals. 6hrs sleep 12 mi Avg. 7:42 HR 174

Today has been my best mental workday in almost two weeks. I had to get up early to get some stuff done before a 7:30am meeting. I was in lab by 5:30am, got the stuff done, got the meeting done, got my run and shower done and was back in lab before 10:30am. Good start to the day. The rest of the day has been much lower key. As far as the run went just back to basics nice easy miles. I was concerned with the forecast so I did all my miles in one run again. Just nice and easy up City Creek and back, no animals today but there were a lot of people walking… My heart rate was back to normal. 12 mi Avg. 7:53 HR 137

AM-8:00am. Last night I hit a bit of a hitch but it seems to have gone away as mysteriously as it appeared. Last Thur when I was putting stuff in my locker I stood up and my back spasmed. It hurt on and off the rest of the night but was fine the next day and perfect for the race. Then last night when I was rolling out my legs with “the stick” it did it again but more intense. Sandra rubbed it a little, I rubbed in some Tiger Balm and then put a heat patch on it took some IB and went to bed. This morning it was still achy but by about 7am the pain had subsided. I decided I had to break up my run today so I headed out right as the wind storm hit Salt Lake. I know Brent talks about commando points, but I want crazy points or just plain stupid points for this morning’s run. The temp was ok (with the wind), but into the wind it felt like a 30 degree shift down in temp. There were numerous times I had to stop and a minute because it was white out conditions and my lashes frooze together. That being said I mostly just wandered around campus so I didn’t have to deal with cars not seeing me. The U is good about plowing the sidewalks on campus. 6 random mi, Avg. 8:51 HR 140.

PM-7:20pm easy miles. The rest of the day my back behaved. My wife thinks it has to do with work related stress and is probably correct. Today was less stressful and it didn’t bug me. I also noticed that my sleep was less on Tues night with a good 12hrs of work... Last night I got 7hrs and only worked 10hrs – 1hr for the “wind run”.  Tonight’s run was SW from home and back as a loop. 6 mi Avg. 7:57  HR 131.

Single: New Template. To save myself time I’ve put this in a word document. Then I’ll just update it and cut and paste it for the blog. I have to say there is a very good discussion on shoes and their effects on running in the Forum now under Running Shoes. It got me thinking about a few things. First, I haven’t done anything barefoot since St. Louis, probably won’t for another couple months but it is a great idea. Second, how to change and mix up your shoes. More or less for the last 5 years I’ve only worn NB, except for my racers that have been mixed around. However, NB keeps changing their shoes and I’ve had enough. I wore 8 pairs of 833 in a row and I’m just about finished with my 6^th pair of 825s, I really do not like the 826 so now I’m switching back to the DS-Trainer and giving Saucony a try again with the rides after some suggestions from fellow bloggers. Anyway on to the day in training. I nearly got 8hrs of sleep last night, so didn’t start work until 7am. Luckily today is the lightest day of the week for me. So I’m taking a moment to write this all up with the extra dialog. I decided I wanted to re-run my workout from last Friday. I wanted to 1. Prove it wasn’t a fluke 2. Increase pain threshold 3. Increase confidence level. I did the two mile warm-up easy to the Firehouse then took off. I was thinking one thing and one thing only, sub-5:00!!! Guess what, I did it!!! 4:55.51 same aided mile, slightly different start (181 descent), but as people said last week who cares my legs were still moving me. I’m on cloud 9 about this one. Mi: 6 Avg:  7:26 HR: 154

AM: Mi: Avg: HR:

PM: Mi: Avg: HR:

Asics DS-Trainer #1: 12 / / Asics DS-Trainer #2: 0 / / Saucony Rides #1: 0 / / Saucony Rides #2: 0

Single: Got up at 5:45am but didn’t get out the door until closer to 7am. For these longs runs I like to make sure “I’m empty” before I head out. I knew I wanted to go long today but I tossed around the idea of doing some at MP. After checking the weather and seeing wind chills in the single digits, I decided to just go out and shoot for 7:00 pace. I started off a little slow but for the most part tried to keep all the miles within 30 seconds of target; my slowest mile 7:43 my fastest mile 6:29. At the turnaround I was about 2-3 minutes off of the 7:00 pace so the return was a little quicker. The course was to the 4-mile mark and run the SLCM course to the 14-mile mark. I came back mostly the same way without the additional loop of SH. Last night I slept about 6hrs, but I took a nap for the first time in a long time. Also, for the first day since returning from Chicago I didn't go into lab. I needed the day off after the last two weeks of stress. That and my boss gave me some bad news about the lab. Due to the government cutbacks on domestic spending (especially education and research) the lab is most likely going to have to down-size and cut-back on our use of resources. This doesn’t directly affect me as I have my own salary support but it will have an overall affect on the lab which may affect how long it takes me to progress to the next step in my career. That being said I’m fairly optimistic that we’ll get through this but it is still hard to believe that a chair of the department is having a hard time getting funding. It is however the trend since the current budget cuts have stifled the NIH and U.S. progress on the global field of scientific development, in my opinion… Enough of my political rant. Mi: 21 Avg: 6:59 HR: 153

AM: Mi: Avg: HR:

PM: Mi: Avg: HR:

Asics DS-Trainer #1: 33 / / Asics DS-Trainer #2: 0 / / Saucony Rides #1: 0 / / Saucony Rides #2: 0 / / NB825 455