I am one with the levee and the levee with me

AM - 21 minutes out, 21 back in about 7:10 pace. The snow was already plowed, so it was easy running. I love the guys that do the plowing.... I'm sure they're not getting paid enough.

PM - Ran home form work... I measured the course today on gmap, 7.3 miles. Average pace of 7:13, and pretty uneventful.

AM - 4 easy miles at 7:16 pace. I headed upstream on the trail this time for a little variety. I've been feeling some of that old PF in my feet again, only this time in random twinges. Very strange, but I'm trying to take care of it. The slower paces should help.

Hopefully, I'll be able to squeeze my tempo run in tonight.  

PM - I got held up at a meeting, and the tempo didn't work out. Instead I got an easy 5.8 miles towards the canyon in Springville. The roads were fairly dry, which was a nice change. Average pace was about 7:20/mile.

AM - I did my tempo on the indoor track. I may be getting a cold... at least it feels like it in my legs, they're pretty sore. I don't think I've increased my mileage enough to account for the soreness. I've wondered if my body responds well to higher mileage--when I was in high school, my mile PR came on 45 mpw, but the next season in XC I had difficulty improving off 60 mpw. I went most of the season running no better than 16:49 5k until the last week when I cut back.

Anyway, the run was successful overall, although it was more difficult to maintain pace today. Total time was 22:17, same as the last tempo. Here's the mile breakdown:

1 - 5:34.5

2 - 5-34.5 (11:09)

3 - 5:36 (16:45)

4 - 5:32 (22:17)

PM - Ran home from work again today. The muscles are still sore, so I worked on them with a rolling pin. I didn't have my watch with me, so I'm estimating 7:20 pace. It's liberating to run without the watch sometimes.

AM - 6 easy miles after class today. It was snowing pretty good by the time I got out, that may keep me from running home from work today. State Street between Provo and Springville is dangerous at best, I don't like the idea of running it during slick conditions. Total time 43:34

Anyway, if I can't get in a second run today it won't kill me, but I can probably squeeze in a few more tonight. Using the rolling pin on my legs was awesome, they felt a lot better today. Tomorrow I'm planning on a mile time trial, we'll see if I can't run a PR in the morning.

I ran my mile time trial today, which didn't go as well as hoped. I wanted to run as close to 4:30 as possible, preferrably under, but had to settle for 4:38.

I went out too conservatively with a 55 first lap (68.75 quarter pace), sped up a little on the second (54, 1:49), slowed down a lot on the third (57, 2:41), I can't remember the split on the fourth, but it must have been slow because I ended up at 4:38 (58.5 avg on the last two laps). Bleh.

Wow, I must have slowed a lot there at the end. I hadn't realized it before now. Anyway, I think the biggest problem is that my legs aren't used to the faster pace. My miles aren't going to be increasing much from here, so I think it's time to up the intensity.

Afterwards, I pouted for about 6 minutes of rest time, then added a few more reps:

4x321.8m (1 lap) w/ 1:30 rest: 52.2, 52.5, 50.3, 51.2 (51.6 avg)

1:30 rest

4x200m w/ :50 rest: 31's across

During my cool down I ran into Sasha, who reassured me that the TT wasn't as bad as I thought. We talked about the upcoming Del Sol relay and about his kids' running, who are all stinkin' fast, by the way. They'll all be world class marathoners soon.

15 miles around Springville and Mapleton, total time 1:43:53. The run felt really good today, my body seems to be adapting to the long run a little better. So far, this is my highest mileage week of all time, I celebrated with a long nap this afternoon.