I am one with the levee and the levee with me

7 am - Uneventful 7 miles - 7:00/mile average. Ran into Ted and Sasha again, but could only run about 5 minutes with them before turning back. I really enjoy running with them, their enthusiasm is extremely contagious.

The foot was a little sore today, but I think it should be okay in the long run. Tomorrow I'll try sitting in the steam room for 10 minutes before the run to warm it up a little. That should make a big difference for these morning runs. Otherwise, I'll just keep my mileage steady this week and give it some rest.

I start to get excited when the 50 minute runs begin feeling easy. I got done today and had to think hard to make sure I'd gone the full 7. You get over that early training hump where even the easy days are fatiguing, and you suddenly feel like major improvements are looming just ahead. That's how I felt today, and it's exhilerating!

As a side note, I went back and measured my tempo run from Saturday with gmap-pedometer.com, and it looks like my tempo run may have been more like 3.1 miles, making my pace closer to 5:40/mile. I don't know how accurate the program is, but that sounds a little more reasonable to me. I would have guessed 5:45 pace myself, so I was disappointed Saturday when the watch showed 5:55 pace.

The sauna/steam room idea worked pretty well this morning, my muscles were warm and loose by the time I hit the road. The feet felt great - I'll be pulling out of this one injury free.

Went towards the mountain, up 900 E and past the temple towards Rock Canyon and on to 1450 E this morning for some good hills. After a two-mile warmup, I went up the first hill at about 7:00/mile, the next downhill at 5:30 pace, turned around back up the hill in 6:10 pace, then down from Rock Canyon to Canyon Rd. by the stadium in 5:10 - 5:15 pace. I'm not sure how to classify each segment, but the uphills felt like VO2 max work and the rest more of a threshold pace.

The racing daydreams are beginning - you know, the ones where you see yourself smashing world records and destroying talented fields with ease. My first planned race is the indoor BYU Invite in early January, where I hope to take down my 3000m pr. (It's a conversion of my 3200m pr, estimating 9:15 3000m equivalent.) My 3200m and 800m pr's are my weakest, being run after 1600m races, and a pr would be a nice way to start the season. :)

7 am - Very easy 7.1 miles (51:33) down the Provo River trail. I'll try slapping some ice on my feet tonight, the left one was a little sore today. But overall, it was relaxing to get out on a relaxed run in the rain after a difficult 4-hour final yesterday. At the end of the test, I decided I'd rather have run a marathon - it would have taken less time and not hurt as much.

Relaxed steady run down Provo River - 46:41 - 6:40 pace.

Iced the feet last night and they felt great during the run but are a little tight now. If they don't start improving soon, I may have to do a little cross training over the break. Finals are almost done and Miki and I will be headed to Boise and then to Washington over the weekend. Kennewick has a lot of soft trails that I hope will help with the PF.

Even though the weather was great this morning, the trails had some nasty ice sheets in places. I just about died, which is always exciting. We're supposed to get some snow tonight, so tomorrow's tempo run  may have to be done on the indoor track, which is some weird distance like 230 meters or so. I hope the trails are clear tomorrow - that's a lot of laps to count!

4 mile tempo on BYU indoor track - 22:33

Mile splits:

5:33

5:45 (11:18)

5:47 (17:05)

5:28 (22:33)

I was relieved to discover that the track is only 5 laps to a mile on the inside lane. They have this sign over the track that says "Short track 1 mile = 7 1/7 laps, Long track 1 mile - 5 laps." I don't know where this short track is, but there is no way that inside lane is 7 laps to a mile. Or else my easy pace is really 9.5 minutes/mile.

But I have mixed feelings about the run. I don't know why I get psyched out by 4 miles, but I still have it stuck in my brain that it's a long ways for a tempo run. The first mile felt incredibly easy - I actually found myself wondering if the inside lane really was 7 laps/mile. In any case, I think that I should be averaging 5:33 - 5:35 for each mile for future tempo runs.

But on a positive note, I'm happy with the direction things are headed. With more miles and training, my goals should come within reach by spring.

Easy 12 miles here in Washington. We hit a major blizzard coming through the mountains, about 4 inches of snow on the roads by the time we got out. But the one thing I have not missed about the Tri-cities is the wind. 15 mph winds today made the 6 miles out not much fun.... but things felt good anyway.