Bob's blog

Ran 16 with Mike on the Wasshington park loop. Bandy got us in trouble. Had to loop back to the car with watershed officer in tow and get in the car and restart the run on the little mountain summit.

Easy 5 before a good day of skiing.

Life (skiing) has kept me away from the blog for a while. I'm back.

Ran an easy 10 miler from JM to just above Ruth's diner and back. Goal was to run the hills nice and easy and let the legs do what they want on the way back down.

Still felt some residual soreness in the right calf. Need to spend some time with the massage ball working it out.

Started out with a 2 mile warm up. Then ran 6 x .3 mile hill repeats up a 9% grade in the Lindsay Gardens cemetary. the first few repeats were hard to maintain form but were as hard as I know how to run. the last few felt more natural but just as hard. Splits ranged from 2:25 on the first one to 2:20 on the last. 

Cooled down 2 miles. 

Warmed up 2 miles up to 11th ave. Ran tempo on 11th ave heading east then turned around and headed west down to memory grove. The split for the first 4 miles was 20:50 and the last mile brought me to 26:32 (had a set of stairs to negotiate on the last mile).

The legs felt surprisingly good after the brutal hills yesterday.

Noticed a sharp pain in my lower right calf at the end of the downhill section. Will lay off the downs for a while. Rubbed in some DMSO and gave my achilles/soleus some massage time.
 

Ran the striders 10 miler today. The day started out well. I got up at 6:00 and ate the usual prerace breakfast (oatmeal and a banana). Got to the course around 7:30 AM and was warming up around 8. I ran the first 2 miles and felt good. No residual pain in my calf.

Got to the starting line and was set on running a relaxed pace from the gun. I wanted to test out my marathon pace (5:20) and it felt really easy. From the gun Joe took off and I really didn't feel like going with him to see "what I had." I ran with Paul for the entire race except for when he pulled away from me in the 9th mile.

8 of the 10 miles on course were fine; the hills were tough but the downhills were really tough. I can usually pull away from anyone on the downs, but my calf tightened up on the first few miles and I knew I had to back off. I got a bit frustrated because my usual strength had become my weakness. By the end of mile 8 I was experiencing sharp pain shooting down my right calf and knew it was game over. Paul was catching me and he looked good. I thought he had a shot at catching Joe so I amped up the pace a bit, which felt really good, and tried to pull Paul closer to Joe so he could slingshot around me to a glorious finish. I failed him miserably when my calf totally gave out and I had to pull up on the reins and come to almost a complete stop. I limped in the remaining half mile or so (it felt like 5 miles).

Overall I am quite disappointed in my body. I had plenty of fuel in the tank but my calf gave out. This very same thing happened last spring in a 10 mile race which makes it all the more aggrivating. I don't know if this calf thing is age, diet, physiologically or anatomically related but I am getting very tired of it.

Ran an easy 4 miles in the morning. Still trying to work out the calf pain.

Ran an easy 6.5 mile loop in afternoon. Calf still in a bit of pain. Icing after each run. 

Ran an easy zoo loop today. Warmed up on the initial climb and let my legs turnover at a comfortable pace after that. took it really easy on the downhills. Calf felt much better today.

Iced upon return.

Ran a 7 mile tempo loop. Started out at JM and warmed up to 11th ave. Ran an entire 11th loop (center st, virginia, city creek captiol, city creek center st, virginia). The first half mile was building to tempo pace than I tried to hold a solid tempo for the next 6.5 miles. Total time was 36:24 for the loop. No splits...my sundial can't record them. Cooled down back to JM.

Legs felt better. A bit of calf pain in the initial miles. Pain faded with time.

Beginning to rethink marathon plan this spring. Run Ogden and risk injury or run Salt Lake and all but eliminate chances of achieving long term goals. What to do? 

Ran an easy 13 mile loop along wasatch. I let my exertion determine my pace and my goal was not to exert myself. Easier said than done when the temp is 70 degrees.

8 mile loop on wasatch. Ran with the dog and she dictated the pace (not too fast, she had a big week last week). End of the easy week. Time to train again.

Ran an easy 4 miler with the dog this morning. satrted out slowly then made 30 second surges toward the end of the run. Will run again this evening.

Ran a hilly 6 miler across the parley's footbridges pushing the boy in his stroller. He is getting heavy. Obviously had to work hard on the ups. Took the downs nice and easy.

Ran 10 x 2:00 fartlek workout.

Started out with 2 miles to warm up. Legs felt a bit rusty but ok. Started the first interval on a slight downgrade and my legs started feeling more fluid. By the 4th interval I felt like I was running fast but not hard and tried to keep that sensation going. Succeeded except for the last one...it was hard.

Cooled down 2 miles.

Ran 7 easy miles with Mike and the dog on pipeline. 

The trail is in good shape. Few mountain bikers have gotten up there to destroy the trail.

Mmmmmmmm...trail running. 

Ran my traditional mid week mid mileage run...city loop. As usual there was plenty of traffic, almost got hit in 2 different intersections and lots of sidewalk pounding. The bright side was that I am beginning to recognize local runners who blog on this site. Said hi to a few of them. Little bright spots, like seeing someone you know, in a normally dull run can really make it a more pleasant experience. 

Got through in 1:18.  Course at http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=795937

Ran a 17 miler with Mike. Did a variant on the SL marathon course.

Pace started out easy and we gradually built up to a good clip. The tempo started on guardsman way heading south, continued on 15th east to sugarhouse, around the park and up parleys way to the 4 mile point. Legs and lungs worked well together today. Was able to hit the 4 mile section in about 20 min (again, no exact slpits as my sundial is not that accurate).

Mike's foot started bugging him at the beginning of the tempo so we diverged and met at the end point. Finished the remaining few miles at a very slow pace to rest Mike's foot.

Ran on trail this morning. Started out at Burch (in Millcreek Cyn) and ran to Chruch (great way to observe the christian sabath), back to Burch, up to Elbow and back to Burch. The trail is in great shape. A few patches of snow/mud at the top of the climb toward Elbow.

Legs felt fine after yesterdays run.

After reading Paul's blog about running every day vs. skipping a day now and then I thought I would chime in. I try to run every day. My legs feel like they are in the groove if I give them that stimulus every day. When I take days off they feel sluggish, like they have not gotten to stretch out for a while. With that in mind, it is important to take easy days frequently. I run at least 3 days pre week easy and I don't let mr HR rise above the 140's (70% max). Kind of  Lydiard philosiphy.

Ran an easy zoo loop. Took the ups and flats easy and worked the pace on the downs a bit. The calf seems to be holding. No pain or lingering effects that I can detect.

I tried to run my city loop. It was not raining when I started running and it looked like I had at least a 1.5 hour window to the west. I got .5 miles from JM when the rain started. The hail started at 1 mile and at 2 miles I was ringing wet and my shoes were hard as rocks. The wind picked up at that point and was beginning to sting my eyes. I turned around at 2.5 and headed back to JM. By the time I got back, the rain had stopped and I was totally discouraged. 

I gave up on more running as I was freezing and decided that 5 miles would do instead of the planned 13. Such is life. 

Got on the stationary bike when I got home.  

Ran hill repeats in the Lindsay Gardens cemetary. 

Started with a 2 mile warm up. Started repeats at bathroom on center st. Ran up to 11th ave. Each one was .3 miles.

Repeat 6 times.

Splits ranged from 2:27 (1st) to 2:18 (last). I tried to run even splits but my body needed time to adjust to the hills. Got faster with each one.

I was happy with this workout because my splits were faster overall than the last time I did this workout and the weather was much worse. In fact, I had to close my eyes on some of them because th rain/sleet was stinging so badly. The temp was 8 degrees cooler at the top of the hill than at the bottom.

Ran an easy city loop today. The goal was to go as easy as possible but still keep form. I really want to recover from yesterdays hills before I try to push it on saturday's long run. My legs felt fine and the run went by quickly (which is rare on this loop).

I added part of the SL marathon course to extend it a bit and get used to running down hills again.

Course at:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=815519

Ran 8 easy miles on pipeline with Mike. I needed the recovery day.

It was good to see Mike running again. He looks fit and symmetric. No favoring one side or the other. The pain must be subsiding or he is tougher than nails or both.

Ran on the SL Marathon course this morning. When I was setting out bottles I saw Steve Ashbaker on the course. He looked fast.

Course at:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=820535

Legs felt fine the entire way. Worked some tempo paced running in from 7th mile to 13th mile. My stomach went sour at the end of my tempo paced running (hence the end of the tempo) and slowed me down to Marathon pace. Finished up the run at the 13.1 Salt Lake marker. Overall 2:04.

Note to self: never eat strawberries and cream oatmeal before running a long fast run. It comes up as a red pasty foam and really burns the lungs.