Hurt so good.

Slept in an extra half hour today so I ended up running solo. Started my run from Smith's off of 42nd. Ran 3 miles up to Skyline and Woodland, proceeded into a 4 mile marathon paced tempo down woodland and oldpost. Cooled down 2 miles around the hospital.

Well I think I have successfully nailed a solid microcycle and maybe even increased some fitness for the marathon on Saturday. I am hoping and praying that the work that I have put in will show in the race on Saturday. The weather is looking to be nice. Starting in the upper 40s and finishing in the low 60s. Should have no excuses.

Splits-5:22; 5:28; 5:29; 5:21

pace 6:23 min/miles

Nice and casual this morning with Denver and Matty. Weather was spot on this morning with a little chill and cloud cover, maybe I will luck out and the weather will be the same Saturday. 

avg pace 7:49 min/miles

Solid showing at the pond this morning. Jared, Jason, Ken, Riley and I. 

Headed 4 miles up to the canyon

2 mile pickup @ MP(5:29;5:26)

2 mile cooldown

Crazy weird this morning. Before we started our run we were waiting for Ken to show up. This guy comes off of 21st street and starts shining a flashlight at us from a distance and slowly starts making his way towards us and doesn't say anything. Ken finally showed and the guy starts walking towards Ken's truck and starts staring at Ken. I ask the guy if he needed help with anything then out of nowhere he pulls a knife out and starts pointing it at Ken and is saying stuff then puts the knife to his own neck. Ken called the cops and the guy is slowing walking away from us still pointing the knife. Well 10 minutes later about quarter mile up the road we see 4 cops and the dude pinned to the asphault in handcuffs. Guy was tripped out on some good stuff thats for sure. Man I love Ogden! 

Easy out and back on the canal rd in the heat of the day. 

Easy out and about north Ogden. 3X100 meter strides

Solid outing today. First race that I have gone under 2:30 in the Marathon other than St. George Marathon.  Will write more when I get home. 

Okay so brief race report. Going into this race was probably my best build up going into any marathon so I had high hopes that I would do well. 

Race started out and the 5 Kenyans and Anthony, Bryant went out blazing fast! Nate Krah, Mike Nelson and I hit 5:24 and we couldn't even see the lead group. Had to gone out sub 5 or close to it. Nate, Mike and I worked together thru 6-7 miles which is when I had to use the unfortunate pit stop. For some reason  the system took awhile to wake up probably do to the 3:00 am wake up time. At this point I still had a solid time going and wasn't to upset. Looking at it I had lost maybe 40 seconds for the entire race and maybe one position placement which I still would've been out of the money. Came out of the bathroom and could see Nate ahead and just focused on him. Around mile 8 I passed a Kenyan that dropped out of the race already I wanted to encourage him but I really didn't feel bad for him at all and was hoping that more would drop but none did. I came in around the half point around 1:13:20 or so. Legs were feeling good still, had some pop. Still was averaging around 5:30 pace. Well came up to mile 15-17 and a steady headwind came. Seems like every time I have ran this race I get that headwind. Slowed the pace just a tad  and maybe lost 10-20 second per mile for those 3 miles. We had a slight headwind for the rest of the race but it wasn't to terrible. Just had to run and deal with it. Around mile 20 I finally caught Nate and we worked together for about 2 miles. I got a slight gap on him and managed to hold him off by 10-20 seconds. Overall I felt pretty good the entire race. I can tell that the workouts that we had done benefited tremendously and if I can stay healthy during the summer I think a fall marathon is going to be a good one.