BC

AM 10 miles.  I wanted to do more but was limited on time.  I signed up for a massage thinking I would have about 2 hours of wait time but it was 45- 1 hour only wait.  So I ran from the clinic up South Temple to Virginia St and up to Third Ave.  Down Third ave to Memory grove rd and up to City Creek Gate for a quick drink.  I then went up the canyon 1.25 miles and back down going passed the capitol and returning to the clinic via State to South Temple and back up to 3rd East.  I then had a good massage, in fact the therapist offered to meet me before my race Saturday for a quick loosen up and get the blood flowing session and said he would wait for me to give a post race massage as well.  Sounds good, free massage who could pass that up.

Easy 5 miles at Sugar House Park,  Did the team warm up lap measured 1 K and did their cool down lap.

AM 6 miles with XC team from zoo trail head to Red Butte gate and back.  Good pace.

PM 8 miles WA team speed work, normal warm up then 10X200 at 37 avg cool down around the park.

Did a hike this morning with the XC team up Guardsman and over to Desolation Lake and down the canyon to Mill B in Big Cottonwood canyon.  I lost my GPS at 8.4, but I think the hike was a little over 10 miles total.

Ran in the evening 6 miles on JRT.

AM 6 miles at Liberty Park with XC team.  One lap warm up and then two laps at a tempo pace, 3 miles avg pace 6:20, doing the fireman drill with seven guys in the group.  One lap cool down.

PM 6 miles easy pace at JRT.

AM park city marathon  5 th overall and 1st in age group. 2:53:08.  Things went as planned stay with the lead group and push after mile 16.  The race started very slow we had a group of six through mile 3-4.  Nathan H. picked it up a little the next stretch and our group changed to three.  Nathan, Ben and Me.  I was content to sit on Ben for the next six miles and Nathan gap us by about 15 seconds.  As we hit the Highway that goes to Kamas things started to change.  Dave Spence came up on us and I sensed him feeling nervous about letting Nathan go.  He asked if I knew what he could do, Nathan had told me earlier in the race that he was fit to run a 2:30 in the valley, (I told him PC was a different thing though-- Dirt trail, elevation, climb for over 15 miles from the start and the finish is rolling at best, not the down hill last 8 as they claim) So I told Spence he could hit 2:34 or so today.  Our group was over Spence started to reel in Nathan, and Ben tryed to go with him.  Now it was all singles for the remainder of the race.  Just before 11 Steve Olson passed me this told me I had slowed down.  Another runner passed again at about mile 13.  I was now in sixth overall.  I tryed to stay even but the grade of the next 3 miles just keep slowing me down.  Took a Gel at mile 14 and figured it would take effect by the 16 where I planned to push.  It did.  I passed the guy who passed me around 13 back around mile 18 and started to pick things up.  Was hitting some 6:10 to 6:15 miles.  Now I was in the slower half marathon runners I don't like this part but it does give you other things you need to focus on, like not running them over.  I always stay on your left or right and they seem to always move opposite to what you wanted.  Anyway not a problem.  The last part of the course is winding so you can't really see who is right in front of you and when you can you don't know if they are halfs or in the full.  So I push but half hearted not knowing if someone is right ahead of me.  Turned out that Steve slowed the last 3 miles but I never saw him he finished exactly a minute ahead of me.  Overall a nice training run for the real marathons, I don't count this as a real marathon, it is not certified and is usually short or long, today it was short.  I was 3 minutes and 28 seconds faster than last year, a new PC marathon PR.  It would have got me a 2nd overall last year.  Not sore much so I will run tonight and start some real training. 

PM ran 7 miles around SHP 8:00 avg