Elite Jogging For Dummies

The air is so bad out right now that I knew I had to run indoors, but I knew I couldn't run more than 6 miles on the treadmill without going out of my mind.  So my compromise plan was to run two miles from home to the gym, run on the treadmill for five miles, and run home.  The run to the gym was easy and the transition to gettting on the treadmill was easy.  I have a little pocket of soreness in my left hamstring from Saturday's race, so I didn't want to push it too hard, but I knew I would get a little bored if I didn't keep it somewhat spicy.  So I ran progressively quicker miles 6:52/6:45/6:35/6:30/6:22, adding 1% incline every other mile. The running itself felt fine, but I am not accustomed to the treadmill experience.  So much of life is like a treadmill already, I prefer actual movement when I run. The hardest part of the morning was when I got off the treadmill, suited back up for the run home, headed out the gym door, and experienced a kind of vertigo from suddenly moving while running after five miles of being stationary.  This lasted almost a mile.  

Black sheep workout in the Avenues.  We ran the usual 1 min on 1 min off from I Street to the Capitol.  Then easy down to 4th Ave, where we began the hideous "up and overs" (easy on the flat numbered streets, hard on the uphill lettered streets).  I felt slightly better than a couple of months ago when we ran this workout.  Then we cruised down from 11th Ave through the cemetary down to 4th Ave for a long surge to Virginia.  I added another couple of miles for cooldown. 

Woke up to snow!  Nice to see something different.  Since I figured that most of what was falling from the sky was smoggy particulates, I ran to the gym and ran 5 miles on the treadmill, then ran home.  Treadmill miles were 6:55/6:36/6:27/6:18/6:00.  Less post-treadmill vertigo while running home today than on Monday. 

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.  

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. 

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.