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Strider's Winter Series 5k

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Location:

Salt Lake City,UT,USA

Member Since:

Jul 23, 2006

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Local Elite

Running Accomplishments:

5k 16:16 / 10k 33:12 / half marathon 1:12:28/ marathon 2:32:59/ 100 miles: 34 hours, nine minutes (Wasatch 100).


Short-Term Running Goals:

Compress six months of marathon training into six weeks.

Long-Term Running Goals:

Stay curious.

Personal:

I'm an attorney in Salt Lake City. Married to Heather. We have two little boys.


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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
213.158.5020.101.400.00243.15
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
6.252.500.000.000.008.75

Radda Run.  At about mile 4, I picked it up into a 2 mile tempo surge.  Miles were on rolling hills.  I didn't get the split for the first, second was 5:45.  Then about 3/4 mile easy, followed by .5 surge at 5:35 pace with a gradual climb.  

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
9.250.000.000.000.009.25

Easy, sleepy miles over most of my Bonneville Golf Course loop, except for the actual golf course part--too much snow! There's now way I'm going to complain about that given the recent lack of air quality and the shoddy skiing. 

Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
14.000.000.000.000.0014.00

I left home at 5:35, running a 3 mile route meet up with the group at 9th/9th at 6am.  We then ran a 9.5 mile route. We ran through downtown, then ran the first surge all the way up Memory Grove to the bottom of City Creek Canyon.  Easy from there up to 11th Ave/B Street.  Then the big push up to the fire station on 11th Ave.  Casey K. and I were both going anaerobic by the end of this one mile push.  Didn't get a split; didn't need one.  My gasping for air was all I needed to know it was a decent effort.  

 Then easy most of the way back until Casey decided to go hard with about 1/3 mile left, and we finished with a hard but fun push at the end that left us all laughing.  After a hot chocolate milk and a banana, I ran home 1.5 miles.
 

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
9.750.000.000.000.009.75

Zoo / Golf course loop.  Easy pace.  I thought I would feel a little more spry following some rest and a massage this weekend, but I actually felt a little sluggish. 

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
4.500.002.801.400.008.70

Black Sheep Workout at Liberty Park. I coached today's effort.  With the weather warmer today, I thought it would be safe to try to work on core speed.  Started with a 1.4 mile warm-up loop, followed by 5 x 100-110m strides.  The workout itself included three loops around the park.  The first one was broken into 8 segments of about 200-300m each that we ran at a hard pace; what I've called VO2 max pace here.  Recovery was about 30-45 seconds of rest.  Then we ran two loops of 4 segments each, at threshold pace, same recovery.  These were hard. We all had problems holding the form in the last 30-40 meters of each interval.  This was a hard workout today, but necessary to get the feel of fast turnover again.  Two more loops for cooldown.

Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
9.250.000.000.000.009.25

Easy miles from 15th/15th. 

Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
8.250.000.000.000.008.25

Radda run. The pace was generally easy; topping out in the 6:35-6:40 range. Added some strides at the end.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
8.500.000.000.000.008.50

Bonneville Golf Course loop.Warm enough again to wear shorts.Very little snow on the first fairway. This seems horribly wrong. There should be a foot of snow--it's early February. On the other hand, at least it's not 8 degrees out like it was during most of January.

How about this: While I was running on 19th E., someone had their sprinklers on. Excellent call. I always say wait until the end of February to start watering the yard regularly, but I guess it's never too early to start! This desert won't blossom on it's own!

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Race: Strider's Winter Series 5k (3.1 Miles) 00:17:55, Place overall: 10, Place in age division: 3
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
10.250.003.100.000.0013.35

Strider's Winter Series 5k.  I arrived at about 8:10 am, enough time to check in and get in a 4.75mi warmup before the race.  I ran the course, and I'm still debating whether that was  good idea, but I think it was.  With substantial climbs throughout the first two miles and just as substantial (and steep) descents, it was a wacky  course to say the least.  Paul Peterson's elevation profiles tell at least part of the story. Looking back, I believe the course must have been designed with the purpose of showcasing Ogden's trophy homes, because I can't figure out any other reason why you would design a 5k route like that. 

My goal in this race was to stay mentally tougher than I was a couple of weeks ago, and run sub-18 minutes at all costs.  The pace was fast from the start, with a very strong pack of runners  leading the way out of the Dee Events Center parking lot.  Of course, this is as close as I would get to the front pack, as I settled into the third chase group at about 1km mark.  First mile was 5:42, not too bad considering the climb, but I knew the worst was yet to come.  The second mile has a couple of long climbs, which I tolerated well and made up a little ground and a place or two. On the descents that followed, I just tried to keep my form together and lean forward, let gravity do the work.  The mile 2 split, which comes right at the top of another hill, was 6:11.  The third mile is slightly more forgiving, but has a longish descent where maintaining a fast pace is difficult.  The last .35 mi or so are run back to the Dee Events center parking lot, and around to the finish.  I held pretty strong, finishing the final 1.1 in 6:02 (I missed my 3mi split)--10th overall, in 17:55.

 You can read the entries from others, but the bloggers had a great race overall. Bob Thompson was 2nd behind Corbin Talley and Paul Peterson--making a comeback with a vengeance--was 3rd.  Sasha was 5th, I believe, but I may be wrong.  Ted had a good race as well. It was fun to put some faces with the blogs and we all put in some cool down miles at the end of the race.  After the awards, I ran another 3.25 through the trophy homes.

 I feel good about this race because it made me realize I'm not very far off of where I was on my better 5k performances last year, at least in terms of effort.  If I can concentrate on continuing to develop speed, I think I can improve my 5k PR.
 

 



 

Comments(5)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
6.250.000.000.000.006.25

"Easy" miles that were not very easy on the Research Park/Fort Douglas loop.   I just wanted to move the legs a little after racing.  

Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
8.500.000.000.000.008.50

Bonneville Golf Course loop.  It was very slick out, with lots of black ice throughout the run; makng for a very slow morning.  I very nearly spilled a couple of times, and busted out some sweet dance moves trying to keep my balance.  I was awating for applause, cheers, or at least some name-calling from people in their cars and homes, but heard none (I was wearing my iPod). The air was clear, however, and I enjoyed the mountain views with some new snow.  

Pace was, in a word, slow.  

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
4.500.003.000.000.007.50

I had an early meeting this morning, so I had to skip the Black Sheep workout and do my own thing before heading into work.  From home, I warmed up through Federal Heights and over to the University.  I ran an interval at 5k pace from the golf course to the Legacy Bridge.  Then I dropped down into campus where they had demolished a dormitory and built a parking lot. I'm usually against that kind of thing, but this parking lot is a great place to run at 6am: great surface, traffic-free, and well-lit.  I ran 6 x 100m or so strides.  The meat of the workout was 10x repeats at about a 2% grade in the parking lot. Each repeat was about 45-50 seconds and left my lungs hurting. The area was just steep enough to provide some resistance, but not steep enough that I couldn't run fast.  Cooled down back home, but threw in some surges to make sure I wouldn't be late. 

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
10.300.000.000.000.0010.30

Six miles this morning, easy: Avenues to Capitol Hill.. I'm going to try to get in a few more after work.

I read today that there is a documentary in the works that follows several of the U.S.'s best distance runners (Meb, Dathan, Culpepper, et al) through to the US XC Championships (the race Nick got to watch last week). Here's a little trailer for the show--slightly on the cheesy side, but kinda cool.

Continuing with that theme, here is a good segment on youtube with the highlights from the USATF XC Championships 

After work, I went over to the gym and ran 4 easy miles on the treadmill: 7:30/7:00/6:53/6:53.

Comments(3)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
6.502.000.000.000.008.50

Radda Run. First 4.5 were easy and conversational. Then I did a 2 mile tempo run along Wander Lane, which is generally flat with a slight uphill grade (I was running north) and it has enough rollers to keep your attention. I botched the timing and ran based on the pace information from my footpod. I was at 5:45-5:55 pace throughout. It put me in the mindset I wanted to be in: uncomfortable but in control. After about .30 of easy running, I did a series of pickups from streetlight to streetlight, concentrating on form and turnover. Then easy for the last mile back to Radda.


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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
0.000.000.000.000.000.00

No running. The cold that I felt coming on all week hit me on Thursday afternoon. I knew my body needed full rest.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
8.500.000.000.000.008.50

On some runs, you feel like you have all the energy in the world and could run forever.  This was not one of those runs. I woke up this morning feeling much better, but not good enough to go meet up with any running friends early.  By noon, my energy was pretty good and the congestion had subsided considerably so I thought it was ok to go run.  The first few miles were awful; slow and uncomfortable.  After a long bio break at the Top Stop at about halfway, I felt somewhat better, but still lethargic.  I phoned in the rest of the run, except for the last .7, which I ran at a decent pace because it was downhill and I was almost home. 

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
6.000.000.000.000.006.00

The weather was outstanding and I felt better today, so I decided to check out the conditions on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.  The conditions were muddy.  Felt like I was wearing a pair  of Sasha's ankle weights for much of the run. Still, it was a gorgeous day for an easy run with a little climbing. 

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
10.750.000.000.000.0010.75

Decided to sleep in a little bit, woke up at 6:20. Had to shovel some snow when I got out the door. I ran a funky loop past the law school and through the middle of campus, up through Federal Heights, and over to 11th Ave. While running east the snow was not bad at all; but while running west, I was really getting a lot of wind and snow in my face. Not a great morning to be out very long while still recovering from a cold, so I cut it a little short. I plan to get in a few more miles this evening.

Video interview with Ed Eyestone here. (I haven't watched it yet; mainly posting this link to remind myself . . .)

In the evening, added 4.25 more; running a nice route up around the capitol; easy pace; legs felt fresh.

Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
7.502.001.500.000.0011.00

Black sheep workout in the St. Mary's neighborhood above Wasatch Blvd.  This is the same workout I ran with the group in the fall, only longer. After a 1.25 warmup; we ran 6x steep hill repeat (40-45 secs).  Then 6 x steeper hill repeats on a different street. These were lung burners, Casey's specialty.  Then 6 x half n' half loops.  These are about 500 meter loops that are half flat and half uphill. The form felt good on the flat; always a struggle to hold the speed moving into the hills.  But that's what I need.  We cooled down back to Wasatch blvd.  The group headed back to our Foothill Village meeting spot, but I continued up into Bonneville Golf course for some more easy running, followed by 6x strides of about 60-100m.

Added another 3.5 tonight, up through the campus at the U.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
9.600.000.000.000.009.60

Zoo/Golf Course loop, easy, under a gorgeous sunrise.  Last night I downloaded a few podcasts on thefinalsprint.com and I listened to a couple of them on the run.  Last night, I listened to an interview with Alan Culpepper.  Today, I listened to interviews with Todd Williams and Billy Mills.  I loved that movie "Running Brave" when I was a kid. 

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
6.502.000.000.000.008.50

Radda Run. This was my first outing with the Garmin 305, which arrived yesterday (purchased through the Fast Running Blog Store). Yes, I finally had enough of the Suunto t6 and have jumped onto the GPS bandwagon. (I feel a little guilty getting a new one when Clyde just destroyed his, but what can you do?)

I spent a little bit of time last night sorting through the features, which I was pretty impressed with. It is much more oriented toward running performance than the Suunto. The Suunto's strength is in the training effect analysis, but on a daily basis what matters more to me is accurate pace and distance information. I found that the Suunto's foot pod system was unreliable over time.

I like the size of the display on the Garmin, so I can see lots of data at once. I found that the pace information does not necessarily adjust in real time (unlike the Suunto), which is probably a function of waiting for satellite info, but on the other hand maybe I just wasn't speeding up as quickly as I thought.

I had the AutoLap set for 1 mile splits, and after 4 easy miles with the group, I did a two mile tempo run on Wander Lane. I started the run a little after the beep went off and I went through the hillier first mile in 6:07. The second mile has some rollers too, but it was 5:58. I felt like the effort was right even if the times were a little slow. I blew timing the tempo on this last week and reported faster splits, but I don't think they were faster. The GPS doesn't lie, which is why I got it. I'm ready to add another tempo mile to this workout, the only problem is that the half mile preceding my start point is pretty steep, not a great place to take off from, and the roads at the end aren't much better. I'll have to figure that out.



Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
6.000.000.000.000.006.00

Snow!! Lots of heavy, wet snow. The new snow made a nice running surface, but there was plenty of slush after the snow plows rolled through the neighborhood.  Just meandered around the Avenues and Federal Heights, very easy.

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Race: Strider's Winter Series 10k (6.2 Miles) 00:37:15, Place overall: 9, Place in age division: 2
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
10.500.006.200.000.0016.70

Strider's Series 10k. Perhaps a better name is Sadist's Series 10k.  The first half was very ugly, the second half was generally fast.

It was cold on arrival at 8am; just 22 degrees according to my car. Warmed up 4 miles around the neighborhoods near Dee Events Center. I avoided running the course during the warm up. I was already familiar with the first couple of miles and I didn't want to know what lay beyond that. From Paul's profile, I only knew that it would be ugly. 

By start time, the weather had warmed a bit and I went with shorts, long sleeve shirt, gloves, and headband.  It was the right call for me. Fortunately, the pace at the start was reasonable.  No one seemed to have any illusions about trying to make a big early move.  It was a solid pack of lead runners up ahead of me and I tucked in behind Dennis Simonaitis.  The first mile had one notable climb coming out of the Dee Events Center parking lot, and then some flat.  Split was 6:01.  The first big climb begins early in the second mile. I felt pretty good on the climb, but kept it conservative. Opened up a little on the downhill. Split was 5:54.  The third mile climbed and climbed. Split was 6:40.  I lost sight of the leaders and focused on Dennis up ahead of me.  I thought maybe I had a chance to catch him, until I realized that he was just executing a strategy; when the course began to descend, he took off like a shot and started hunting down runners on his way to 5th.  Well done. With Dennis gone, I focused on Lion Gallegos.  The fourth and fifth miles are actually great; a very runnable downhill grade on long, relatively straight roads. Fourth mile was 5:33. 

At the end of the fifth mile my split was 5:25.  At that point, the I was gaining on Lion as the Dee Events Center also came into view.  Unfortunately, Lion followed some kid who was not in the race into the Dee Events Center parking lot.  There was a cop right there at the turn and the cop didn't even say anything. When I got to the turn, I saw the course marker arrow pointing east (uphill), but Lion was running north. I stopped briefly, asked the cop if Lion was going the right way or if I was supposed to be running uphill and the Cop kind of shrugged and said the race goes uphill and didn't know why "that guy" (Lion) was going that way.  (Well . . . maybe it's because you didn't correct him, officer?)  So I yelled to Lion and waved him back on to the course, having taken over his place in the mean time.  I debated whether it would be more sportsmanlike simply to wait for him to catch up to me than to keep running, but I was at the bottom of this hill and I just wanted to keep running.  It's not like the race victory was on the line, but I did question whether I was making the right call.   

The rest of the race was uneventful, except that I managed to continue running in control and feeling pretty good.  Last mile, with the climb, was 5:47.  My Garmin 305 calculated the distance at 6.35.  I know others had measurements between 6.25 and 6.3 as well. I guess I blew running the tangents. 

Overall, not a bad day of racing for me.  I am still racing a tier below the top runners (many of whom are our fellow bloggers), but I am glad to be competing against them and I look forward to improving.  My effort overall was a little better than in the 5k.  I felt more in control of my race today; probably because the 5k doesn't give you the chance to do anything but hurt. The hills were not fun, but everyone had to run the same course so no one had it any easier than anyone else. 

It was also another strong showing for the Wasatch Racing Team and the Fast Running Bloggers, a few more of whom I got to meet today.  Congrats to everyone.

Comments(7)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
7.000.000.000.000.007.00

Easy seven mile shakeout up through Research Park. Legs felt pretty decent.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
10.000.000.000.000.0010.00

Woke up to more snow! So, I shoveled the walk and driveway for my pre-run warmup.  I ran the  Zoo/Golf Course loop, primarily to check the GPS mileage with the Garmin 305.  I ran the most standard version of this route, and the final result was 9.98, which is longer than the 9.75 I was getting the Suunto.

 The roads were in decent shape mostly, but there were a few very slick spots and I did my usual dancing to try to stay up.  I had my iPod on shuffle this morning, and it played a couple of old REM songs with fitting titles: "Fall On Me" and "Stumble".  Once again, I'm sure I provided some nice entertainment for passing motorists. 

 

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
4.500.003.500.000.008.00

Workout with the Black Sheep crew.  Jan designed today's workout and his selections reminded me of this weekend's 10k with its emphasis on climbing. We met at 15th/15th and warmed up down to Gilmer Drive. Part A was 4 x .55 mi loops that starts with gradual climb for about 300m, then climbs steadily for about 300m, and then flattens out for the last 200m.  Josh Steffen and I ran these very closely.  He's training for Boston and is in very good shape. The times were descending, but not by much:  3:10/3:08/3:07/3:06.  I got a little dose of going anaerobic.  For Part B, we ran did some easy running before running 4 x .25 repeats up a long hill between 1300 E. and 1500 E. Again, the times were descending but not by much. 87/87/86/84.  For part C, we ran up to 1500 E. and did another set of hill repeats on the little street that parallels Miller Park.  These are 200m hills.  Times were 45/37/37/36. There is a nice grunt climb in the last 50m of this hill that made me feel like I was pulling about four different muscle groups on the last repeat.  Then a cooldown back to 15th/15th.  We managed to finish the workout before the snow started to fly, which is a good thing because it's really coming down out there right now.  


 

Comments(4)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
10.250.000.000.000.0010.25

It was just 17 degrees when I went out this morning with plenty of snow on the ground. I guess that means its still winter.  I ran the Zoo/Golf Course loop and added a couple of small spurs to see a few different streets.  

Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesCrosstraining milesTotal Miles
213.158.5020.101.400.00243.15
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