The Renegade

Nice slow run with Jack, Paul, and Damon up to USU, and back on the canal trail. Felt pretty tired so I'm glad we went slow. Did some strides after. 

AM: 2 easy miles around the Woodruff neighborhood, felt good.

PM: Mile reps at Willow Park, same place we did'em last year. Went pretty well, I'll just put my splits out there first off: 6:09, 6:00, 6:04, 5:40. Started out pretty relaxed and used the same effort level for all of them. They really didn't feel too bad. The only one that really hurt was the last one, but I was prepared to go fast for it. I even changed into my flats, so I was ready to go H.A.M. They were done on a basis of one every ten minutes, so we had about 4 minutes of recovery between each, thought about just doing straight ten minute miles for (JK). 2 mile cooldown, and then about a half mile worth of strides. 

Getting ready for the Aggie Invite tommorrow by helping set up the course, with a little run-through too. Can't wait to race and see how much faster I can run this season. 

NOT a good day for me. I don't have a lot to say other than I felt really strong for the first half of the race and then my "heart problem" started acting up right at the top of the course (its still a flatter course), and I got passed for the rest of the race after that. Hopefully I can get to the bottom of this, and hopefully this won't happed in a race again, at least. Good job to everyone else who ran it and did well.

Met up with Jack, Damon, and Paul at Jack's house (near Old Maine) and then breakfast after. I ran with them for the first few miles up to Gibbons Park at a pretty slow pace, and I felt good so ditched them an looped through the River Heights park and eventually back to the house. 7:57 average, but I was probable 7:15 average once I started running alone. This definitley helped me take out my woes about yesterday and that not all hope is lost. I'm eager to give racing another shot next week at Pre-Region in Salt Lake and then redeem myself on the USU course on last time at Cache-Box.

Pretty good workout today. It's Labor Day so no school, and we didn't hold practice so I had to workout on my own. Warmed up two miles to the river trail, and did a four mile tempo, with some good music blasting in my ears, and that definitely helped. Ran 6:33, 6:30, 6:16, 6:18, so I'm happy with that. Had the heart thing happen at 3.5, I'll admit, and I had to stop and recover, but then I ran the next half mile strong, and I really don't know what would've been more beneficial, but I wanted to finish fast and not fatigued. So yeah that was great. Cooled down 2 miles after and then did some strides (on the road) by my house. 

River trail pre-meet today, super relaxed with the guys. Didn't go under 8 minute pace once. Feeling fresh for Pre-Region!

First a mile warmup. So, I am definitely satisfied with this race seeing that my heart didn't fail like on Friday! That was the hilliest course as far as the amount of up and down there is that I have ever ran. It was insane. There were two regions here, ours, and the one with Park City, Stansbury, Grantsville, and Tooele. I think our team took second to Stansbury, so that was cool. Austin beat me by quite a bit. That kid is a freak, I can't believe it's his first season ever. Jack unfortunately had a charliehorse at the 2 mile mark and didn't finish, so that was too bad. The start goes for about 200m and then you have to run through a beach volleyball court, which is okay, Bob Firman has 200m of that so its good practice. For the entire first mile, we had a pack of SIX Logan guys running together, with Jack a ways up ahead. That was awesome, we planned to, and I think it worked out. Well probably try that for every meet. Austi. Got away from me with about 800 left, and then I slowly reeled in Ben Lomonds top runner, Nate, and I caught him on the last big hill, but then about 20 seconds later he blew past me and three other guys on the straight. I shoulda waited but whatev. Great race! Strata shortened the distance it said 2.85 on my watch with 6:01 average but the time is still the same. I think because I started more conservatively is the reason why I didn't blow up, I'll just have to remember that. I think once we come back here in 5 weeks, everyone on the team can run low 17s at slowest, and we'll have a team set for a great day at state! 2 mile cooldown, and then two more miles in town, which didn't feel too good after a animal style burger and fries from in-n-out

Addition: GAP says it would've been ~16:30 if the course was flat

I missed practice to go to the doctor's office and get a heart monitor put on, then I got dropped off by my wonderful mother at First Dam to go on a recovery run up Logan Canyon. I felt like crap going up, but then after turning arouund I was able to produce a couple 6:30's, so pretty good run. The monitor was annoying as heck, and started falling off because of all my sweat. 7:37 average. Did a good job at loosening up the legs. 

Fartlek Friday. I went to practice thinking we were doing a regular 4 mile threshold. Instead, we did a long endurance fartlek that we've done before, it really is one of the best highly aerobic workouts. It was by time, with 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1, and equal rests after each hard segment. The first time I tried this it was a harder version with two five minute segments so this was a little easier. We started at Merlin Olsen and got all the way up to the trail head by the highway in Logan Canyon. Paul stayed with me the entire time with not too much extra effort, and Keith started to straggle behind. It wasn't too hot outside, so that was nice, partly because we had a half day. Only started to struggle a little over halfway back. The whole run, counting warmup and coold down was 7:10 average for ten miles so I'm happy with that.  

I took the ACT this morning so I missed the team breakfast run. Ran the deer fence and Providence canyon as an evening run. Started off feeling okay, the I hit the real vert after mile 3, and that made me feel like crap. Providence has like 200+ feet of elevation gain per mile, so I was running at like 10 minute pace. Then on the way down I felt good. I had music the whole time to keep me motivated. Ran all the way down and back through the Deer Fence non-stop. Usually in the past I've taken breaks at some point on the stretch of trail, but this just shows that I'm alot stornger aerobically than I was then. Closed with some 7 flats, so I'm happy with that. Great long run. 

Mile repeats today, same drill as last time, same place, but with an extra 800m tagged on. Splits were 6:05, 6:03, 6:06, 5:57, 2:35 (for 800). This time I wore my trainers (Pegs) for the first one which made me feel really slow, so then I just changed into my flats after that. We had a nice pack going for most of these. Stayed in front of Austin for every one, which was surprising.  So I guess you could say I felt decent, I just need to strengthen my left leg a little more by doing calf raises on a step. But yeah, I felt really smooth. The 800 tag didn't feel smooth just because of how fast it was, but it would've if my leg was stronger. Good three mile cooldown, including strides. 

Good little pre-meet run on the river trail. It had been raining all day and so it was cool out, great for a run. The last time I did that run with that weather, it was with Mark Summers in late May, the second day of my cross country training process. That feels like an eternity ago. Crazy. Cache-Bod tomorrow, I'm actually excited that the weather won't be perfect, it'll be cool at least, but also worse conditions just gets me excited.

So this was somewhat emotional for me seeing that it's my last time racing on the course I've raced on most. I'm just thankful that it was a PR, and a big one, even if it's not as fast as I envisioned running on it my senior year, ideally, in my mind in the past, I would have liked for my final time to be low 17's or faster, but I'm still sacrificing racing well during the season so I can race amazing in the post regular season (Region and State). The weather was really bad that morning, but then it got better later, and it didn't rain at all during the meet. Got in a mile and a half warmup with the varsity guys and then we were on the line soon. I didn't worry too much about getting out fast, so I didn't psych myself out before it started. The gun went off, and 300m in, 6 of the Logan guys were in the very back of the pack. I looked behind me and I was super surprised at how little of a buffer zone there was between me and last place. But I stuck right behind Austin and we started moving up together. Stuck behind all the way through the two mile mark. They had to change the course up so it didn't hit the soft dirt (now mud) part. Befpre I get too far, Mile 1 was a 5:34, which is most likely the fastest I've ever started a cross country race. Mile 2 was 5:47, but we hadn't been passed up by anybody, only moved up. At the 2 mile mark, Austin started to pull away, and picked people off, and I picked them off eventually too. Even passed two Mt. Crest guys, and I guess I felt cool doing that because it means I could be on the varsity squad of a decent 5A team. Anyways, I got behind this Bear River kid I had never seen before, and tried to pass him but never did, he pulled away in the last straight. Did pass a Box Elder kid. Mile 3 was 5:47, last .1 was 4:50 pace. That's the first time this season that my watch has picked up a full 5K. This course is longer than it was at Aggie, which made me even happier when I found out I PR"d by nearly 30 seconds. Austin passed about 3 more people after he dropped me and ran 17:35. So I guess I would have run about that if this was the same course on a dry day. The final curve on the grass was terribly soggy, and it got my socks soaked in a matter of seconds. But yeah, I guess I'm good with that, I was just really sad that it's my last Cache-Box (with the same weather conditions as my first, ironically) and my last race on this course. I guess I was pretty dissapointed that I didn't medal, because I always thought I would medal at Cache-Box. The team didn't do well, we got dead last, but we had some tough races, and Jack was ordered to hold back a little on this race so he doesn't get a butt cramp. Average pace was 5:40. That's the same pace that I want to run at state in 5 weeks. I believe with all my heart that I can do it, I've got a lot more speedwork ahead, and I havn't dropped any mileage since the season started. Once I get my speed on and drop my mileage, that goal of sub 17:00 at state is going to be CRUSHED, MARK MY WORDS. 

Pretty decent recovery run. It was still nice and cool and overcast, so that was great. It was actually quite pretty. Ran from the school to to the Nature Park, grazed Cliffside, went through a park in the Island area that coach said we could do repeats at, then went to the top of canal and turned around. 7:44 average. 

Great tempo today. The sun was out but it was still pretty cool. we ran it at the usual local place, "River-Prov", and I ran the four mile course at my fastest I ever have by a second per mile (6:27) Paul ran with me the whole time, he was feeling really good. Ran 6:36, 6:37, 6:28, 6:04.  I was super surprised when I saw that we closed with a 6:04, I knew that we picked it up, but I didn't know that it was by that much. Anyways, I felt decent, It'll be nice when I start seeing a noticable improvement on this tempo, probably when I sorta start to taper. 

BEST RUN EVER! We started at like 7 from a team members house where we would have breakfast after. Ran with Paul, and Todd and Aidan. His house is in the island area, so it was a great place to run from. We got on the Canal Trail, than went up the university up the big hill with the wind at out backs, ran all the way past Lundstrom, took another canal trail up to Green Canyon, turned around at the second parking lot, got on Bonneville, took a left and trespassed on the Highline Trail (by now it was just Paul and I), got to the end of that, turned around and ran straight back to Hayden's house. At this point I had 12 miles on my watch. Ate a light breakfast, and decided to run a mile and a half to Merlin Olsen Park and watch so TOU Marathon action, did some more running around there, and ended up getting almost 16 miles! And the whole time I felt awesome, I don't know what drug I was high on. The first 12 miles were run without one little stop. 7:34 average, which I usually don't get on shorter runs. This has gotta be the best run I've ever been on. Since I'm now at 50 miles this wee, I think I run 40 next week to even it out, and be somewhat fresh for Bob Firman, because if there is any regular season meet to do really good at, it's that one. Pumped for next Saturday!

So today we were supposed to take a bus to Mantua to do a four-mile tempo, but the driver didn't come in time and a lot of people needed to be back early, so we did 800 repeats at Black-Hawk park. We did a half mile warmup (I would have liked to go a mile) For the varsity group, (pretty sparse today, just me, Damon, and Davis, and two girls, Anna and Olivia), we did 7 of them. At least I had two other guys with me, they ran most of them right with me. Group A (varsity) had 2 minute rests, while everybody else had like 3 or 4 minutes rests, so our workout was far tougher than the JV kids. We ran the first one pretty controlled in 2:51, and the next two at the same effort level, both 2:50. Turned it up slightly for the next two and ran 2:47 and 2:46. That 5th repeat was probable the worst, because I took it easier and just ran with the other two on the next one, ran 2:55. For the last rep, I decided I would go basically all out and try to simulate the end of a race, and I ran 2:33, so pretty fast for me, seeing that a year ago that pace would be 9 seconds faster (per mile) than my mile PR. It didn't even seem like it hurt too much, but maybe it's because I was in the zone. Strava says my average was 5:35 mile pace, so 2:47.  I don't think I mentioned that it was pretty dang hot today. Well it was, and I'm already missing the last weeks cool weather. I did about a mile cool down, so todays mileage was a little low, but I'll make up for it. Goal is 40 this week anyway.

Long recovery run by myself today, in the heat. It felt super long, longer than just nine miles. I guess having people to run with makes a big difference. I ran in my old Pegasus since they have less miles on them than my newer ones, so it only made sense. Ordered a pair of Hoka One One Cliftons, so we'll see how I like those. Felt kinda tired, but actually not too bad, so I'll take it. I did a loop that lead me through the river trail, up to Providence, and eventually through Denzil Stuart, over by Cliffside, and back to the school down Center. Avg. pace 7:34, so good medium effort. No more runs like this until after Bob Firman, I'm taking thursday and friday as true recovery days after tomorrows shorter tempo.

Tempo on the canal trail, 3 miles. Warmup was 1.5 miles up there, and we started pretty soon after. It was hot today. Right before the varsity group started off this old man with a pony tail came out from his yard and told us we can't be there. He was just kind of mad because some of us were standing part way on his yard. Anyways, we started and I didn't feel too bad. We started fast, 6:13, because Austin and Elliot turned it up after a half mile. Turns out, it wasn't too fast, because I ran 6:12 and then 6:13, so I kept it even the whole time. Austin and Elliot finished it about 10 seconds ahead of me, and they both said they felt good, presumably better than I felt, because I didn't feel amazing, just because of how much faster I went. Pretty good workout though, it was hot today. We've got a super easy day tomorrow, and then we leave for Boise on Friday, and we'll run the course for our shakeout. Super pumped! I've just gotta make sure I ice a ton because my shin hasn't felt too good for the last few days. 

Easy run around willow park and back to the school, and my shin hurt like heck. I iced after and that made it feel a bit better. When I got home from practice I saw that my new shoes (hokas) had arrived so I took them for a little spin around the block and they are promising. :)

AM: 1 mile easy before leaving to Boise. Left leg still hurt a lot. 

PM: Ran the course easy at like 3 in the afternoon, it was super hot, not at all like last year. Then we did some strides on the final 180 degree right turn onto the final straightaway, I had a hard time getting around it, but I wasn't wearing spikes. Leg still hurt until warmed up.

I was really hoping and expecting to do well today. But I'll just accept today for what it was and move on. The gun went of. And I went out hard, I was in the lead pack around the first turn. I moved back mostly in the first half mile, and then Austin and Elliot caught up to me. I stayed with them for a bit, then they pulled away, but I was still feeling good. Felt good up the hill the first time around. On the second lap at the end of the beach my heart "palpitation" came out of nowhere and I knew my race had gone to the dogs, but because this was my last time at Bob Firman, I wanted to finish. The hill really sucked, and I just got passed by a bunch of guys until the end. Maybe if I hadn't given up when I felt that I would have run better. I think that maybe if I hadn't gone out so fast and stuck behind my teammates, that wouldn't have happened. I'll remember that. I may have to take a couple days off next week because the leg problem that ended my season last year is creeping up big time. Funny because this was exactly the same week that it started happening last year. Jack did really well, he got 5th place with 16:25!

This is elliptical mileage, it all is this week.

6xK simulation on the elliptical. (The mileage is all guesswork) 15 minute warmup, and then 3:40 hard with 2:00 easy six times. This got pretty hard, I was surprised how much I could make myself hurt on a cross training machine. 15 minute cooldown. I actually got on a treadmill after and did a "stride" at 6 minute pace. I don't know if that was a good idea, but I could actually run it, although maybe it's because I had just gotten off the elliptical. It sucked not doing these with my team up Logan Canyon. :( But, #PositiveCam haha

Easy hour on elliptical.