relentless forward progress

Warning: wordy post. Had to get some of this down for reference ;).

 Last longish run. I got rained on and it was fabulous. Marathon is in 12 days...

After how i felt at Utah Valley in June i decided to experiment a bit this time. I believe I felt flat because I cut it back too much during the taper. This taper will be shorter, the volume will not be cut as much, and the intensity will not increase. I won't be running faster than race pace on the few workouts left and most of the runs will be easier.

I know this is weird and some may not agree and that's ok :). I figure i have had a hell of a cycle that was built off of the Utah valley cycle that was foiled by the 20 mph head wind. I am in unknown territory for me, I have had my best races this fall and am in the best shape of my life. It was my decision to toss the schedule and it's worked very well. If this taper works too then great, if not then I learned something for next time. :) The important thing is that I have learned to listen to my body much better by not having my daily run be dictated by a spreadsheet or paper. Not knocking it at all, it just wasn't working for me anymore. It was making me feel boxed in.

I am a believer that for me the static philosophy is not the best way. My training has to be ever changing, experimenting, incorporating new things each time to hopefully keep from plateauing as long as i can. I am not 25 (unfortunately lol), and I want to maximize what I can do in the short term while trying to be smart and take risks at the same time (crazy person balance).

Thanks so very much to my great friends Scott, Dan, Matt, Reed, and Curtis for pushing, inspiring and advising me. You guys are all class, choice people and it has been a pleasure. You're all going to kick some major butt! This has been the very best year of running and this cycle for St. George has been just great. Training for and running Boston is going to be quite an experience I'm sure. Looking forward to the miles!

Very sore piriformis made me cross train a bit today. 5 mile hills of doom on the elliptical followed by 4 miles of very easy (7:30) running.

2 mile warmup, 8 mile progressive 6:30 - 5:45, 2 mile cooldown easy. Piriformis still took some time to loosen up. I may see the chiro tomorrow depending on how the run goes in the morning.

6:30 avg

Fun cold run up the canyon this morning with the early crew. Arm sleeve weather and you could see your breath. It's hard to believe we were running these shirtless just a couple weeks ago. Stopped on the way up for a quick adjust with Dan and when we got up to the tunnel the others were lurking in the shadows and tried to scare us lol. This made me start a push the rest of the way up, but I backed it off because of the tempo last night. Everyone is looking great for next week. I just need to get the inflammation down in my hip/butt area. No more doubles, time for do no harm mode. 

Fun and easy cruise around Highland this morning with Scott, Matt, and Dan. Felt much better today. This run flew by, we had a great discussion on "the fire", and some other good stuff. 7:10

Ran the waffle run hosted by Runners Corner this morning. Started and finished at the soccer park so I tacked an extra 6 on the 9 mile loop. It was a fun morning. I ran this route so much better than earlier this year. My watch was off the prongs last night so it died after a couple miles so I have no idea on time but it was fun to just run and gauge everything off effort. I pushed the hilly section and the flat back to the car. Fun run. Very tasty breakfast! 1 week to go.