The Renegade

AM: 5 miles semi-easy at just before 7. The first half of the run was still in complete darkness. I figured out a perfect 5 mile loop down 10th West to Icon and then on the River Trail and back by Willow Park and Woodruff. Kinda windy but in tights and long sleeves I warmed up fast. I say semi-easy (I was sort of pushing it) but the pace was 6:57. I think it's just harder to run at the same pace in the morning, I'll keep that in mind. In the last mile I almost got hit by some idiot pulling into their driveway. I was wearing a lightup neon reflective vest and running on the sidewalk so they had no excuse other than they were not looking. Always look! Lol. 

PM: 4 miles easy looping from campus down to the canal trail, up Old Main then to ARC to lift. It was hailing when I got out of class but it stopped and got pretty nice just in time to run. I didn't feel tired really my form just felt kinda weird, happens sometimes. Lifted probably harder then I have since I started again, hopefully I won't be super sore tomorrow. After that I ran the half mile on Aggie Bullevard back to my car and I found out what it feels like to run with no arms, lol. 7:03 ap. The plan for tomorrow is 6-8x800 so pumped for that.

AM: 2 miles 7:19 ap at 6 am. Was pretty dang cold, and dark. 

PM: Was going to do 6-800 on the track.... walked out of class and it was pouring rain with thunder and lightning, so I headed to the ARC to do it on the treadmill. Closest parking spot was was down the hill by the spectrum so that was fun running with my bag up the hill in the rain. Got in there and warmed up a mile, switched shoes, and started the workout. I had to figure out a somewhat complicated system to track distance and recovery but I got it down by 800 #2. I had the incline on .5%. First two were a little slower than 2:40, then 3-8 were 2:40 right on the dot. They felt pretty hard but it seemed like I recovered well, (2:45-3:00 rests with a 300 jog, and 100m running start for the reps: there was a virtual track on a screen) so I decided to do two more. My awesome playlist probably helped too. Last two were 2:39 and 2:35, so safe to say this was 2:40 average. I hope I could have done similarly on a track in good conditions. Cooled down just back to my car because I was already over on distance. 

Good run up Green Canyon. It felt a little chilly before I started and looked like a storm was brewing but it cleared out. In the first half mile didn't feel too great but I ended up averaging even faster than the last couple times on the climb. Higher up it was muddy and slippery so I had to be careful. It was really cool at the top though, there was a bit of snow on the ground and a bunch on the mountain sides, Nobody was up there except me and birds, I took a moment to enjoy the peace than headed down. Almost slipped moving off the trail for a mountain biker but other than that I stayed on two feet. At the same time I paused my watch and didn't unpause it for about a mile but whatev. The sun was shining all the way down so that was cool. My watch said 7:25 ap which means it was a little faster than that since some of the descent is missing so yay for me! 

P.S. Congrats to all who ran in the Utah HS State Championships today, it doesn't feel like long at all since I was running that course.

Today I attempted the 6 tempo, same place as last week, and it went pretty well! It was colder than normal, around 35-40 degrees, but luckily Lundstrom is far enough off to the side that there are no nasty Logan Canyon winds, just a sout blowing breeze that wasn't too much of a problem. Warmed up a mile, did a few drills for once, and made decision to take off my tights, good thing I did because I would have regretted wearing them. Started off and I didn't feel as good as last time so first mile was a 6:11 (I didn't have lap splits enabled on my watch so I only knew my current pace). Next four miles were all between 6:15-6:19, then I started to feel a bit tired but pushed it more, nothing too crazy and finished with a 6:09. Awesome controlled effort, my form felt a little weird today but that's just me lol. Cooled down a mile which did not feel good. Average pace was 6:15 for the workout. I'm a believer in stupidly simple aerobic work like this because it's worked for me so I think I'll keep training this way for the most part.

Easy run today, basically the same River Trail loop as Monday. Waited till 3 to run, and it was like 60 degrees but it felt hot lol. I felt pretty good actually. 6:48 ap. Now time to rest up for a huge run tomorrow, the 15.5 Logan-Green Canyon Loop, same one I did before Ragnar.

Did the old Wind Caves loop with Paul, Great stuff! My watch band broked right before we left so I just put it in my pack. It ended up getting paused after 6 miles though so I ended uploading Paul's GPS file on Strava, which is really the same thing. It was super cold and windy when we started at 9 but after a few miles I warmed up and we were past the headwind. Beautiful weather not a cloud in the sky. We hit Guinavah and then made our way to the wind caves trail, dreading what was coming, but it ended up not being that bad. (Wind Caves trail to the ridge line ranges from 500-900 feet per mile for 3 miles) We did minute run minute hike in the second half which was a good method. We got up in better time than I did with Strand. About 2.5 miles up there was a giant grey hobo spider in the middle of trail and I freaked out lol. Then we got on the Preston Valley Trail which was completely shaded and ran into some mud and snow which was sketchy so we went slow, and we saw some hunters. When we hit Green Canyon we started crusing and I still felt good, definitely better than last time. When we started up the Shoreline Trail we met this cool guy named Michael Scott who just got done running, and we might go running together sometime so that's cool. Still felt great all the way back to First Dam, so great run! 9:30 ap as opposed to the 9:52 with Strand. 3,100 feet of vert. Solid day.