The sun is up, the air is fresh, the stone is old

Spent the entire day walking Paris and in the Louvre.  No time for a run.  Probably put in 15 miles anyway.

Another amazing run in Paris.  Spent the morning in the Notre Dame and the Germaine Quarter visiting bakeries and then did our run.  My sister has been running with me these three days and has been kicking butt!  We started at the apartment at Rue Temple and ran across Paris East to West around the Opera and through the Arc again (nearly killing ourselves on the huge traffic roundabout) out to the main Paris park on the West edge of the city.  This park just takes your breath away, one of those absolute perfect parks full of lakes and amazing trees.  We ran through the park around lake Inferieur and back through the city.  It got a bit interesting in the city since everybody was out now for the holiday tomorrow.  great run and amazing to be a runner and be able to cover so much of a city in so little time!

Last run before heading back to the real world.  I'm seriously going to miss this city..

8 mile hike in the Mcdougal Range, AZ, a quick side trip after Paris before heading home.  Great afternoon with some friends!

Finally time to get off my butt and start some training for Ogden.  7 mile warm up, 5X400, 5X200.  Pretty stiff from a week of about 3 hours of sleep a night, travel and a few marathons a couple of weeks ago.  But good to be home!

Finally a run at home on the trails behind my house.  I'm looking forward to some catching up in the next few days on some sleep.

Came down for the Provo Marathon today and was expecting to run the kids race with the kids after, but they decided it would be much more fun to sleep in with grandma so I ended up just driving down from Salt Lake myself.  I ended up early which never happens, so when the bus got up to the start I asked the driver if I could stay on while he did the next run down and back up.  That worked pretty good and I got 30 minutes of sleep.  Not a bad start.

I had no idea how to pace today.  It would be great to beat Ken R. time on this course last year so I wanted a 2:40.  I decided to see how the first 8 miles or so went and go from there.  There was a very tight group of four guys with Jon K and a few trailing them.  They all gapped me pretty quick in the first three miles but the legs felt great so I caught up to them and tucked into the group since there was a wind coming up the canyon.  We ran together for a couple of miles and then Jon began increasing the pace.  The two other guys fell off and the group of four guys with the BYU jerseys pulled ahead and I was alone.  Again, I had no idea how to run this, afraid I would crash any minute, but felt really strong so I decided to bank some time and stayed with the 5:50 pace.  I came through the half at 1:16:27 so pretty close to that.  Then I really felt it in the legs and would either have to stop or slow down.  I almost saw the Grim Reaper on that hill near the finish line.  Anyways, I slowed to 6:20 and felt my strength return after 4 miles.  I think stayed pretty much there all the way to the finish.  I missed the turn into the park and got an extra .2 in before I noticed there were no cones anywhere.  That always sucks and takes some focus to not let it all go to %$@.  I was just super happy to find the legs strong for another marathon and it was actually fun for the last three miles!

So have three marathons in six weeks hurt my marathon pace?  Hard to say.  I definetly have less bounce and strength, but took 10 minutes off my time last year on this course.  I recovered quick today in the middle of a marathon, which is unusual.  I'm not able to get in any quality training between marathons so it feels like I'm losing some speed.  Most important though, it's been fun, and marathoning is hard to keep fun...It will be interesting to see what Ogden is like.