Elite Jogging For Dummies

Easy run from my house to points including Federal Heights/Univ Utah/Ft. Douglas/Research Park/Zoo/St. Mary's neighborhood and then back from below This is the Place Monument via Governor's Grove. Miles were easy and smooth. Slow, but easy and smooth. Gorgeous morning after the rain to be up in the green foothills below Emigration Canyon. Every yard looks well-manicured on a morning like this.

For anyone interested in reading about Ryan Hall's stellar performance at the London Marathon, click here.

Black Sheep workout at Red Butte/Research Park.  1 mile warm-up followed by 4 x .40 mi Brutal hills (2:16/2:06/2:07/2:06).  Then 4 x VO2 max-slaying hills (approx 200m, times were in the low 40s).  Then 4 x Brain Damaging hills up through the (new) entrance to Red Butte.

Once the disorientation subsided and some of the oxygen returned to my head, I ran another mile cool down with the group on the trail and then another 2.5 easy on my own.

A variation of Monday's route, but with more wind at the bottom of Emigration Canyon.

Run with the Radda crew. First four miles were easy. Jwood told me about having seen the movie Powder and how it changed his life forever. Anyway, since I have been somewhat sleep-deprived the last couple of days, I very nearly talked myself out of doing the tempo run. In fact, while running with Aimee Larkin shortly before the turn from Holladay Blvd onto Casto where I start the tempo run, I told her that I wasn't going to do it. I changed my mind when I turned the corner, though. When it came down to it, I didn't have any reason not to do it other than being lazy. So I ran the 3 mile Wander Lane tempo in 18:15 with splits of 6:13/5:59/6:03. Sasha's course analyzer calls this about 5:40 pace on a flat route. For a bonus, I didn't even puke a little this time. After the tempo, I ran back and hooked up with a couple of my Radda brethren and then added another mile on my own at the end.

After work, I came home and ran a quick 2 miler because it was so nice outside.

Sugarhouse loop (out on 15th E, return via 11th E).  Nice and easy except for the last three miles, which climbed more than I had planned so that I could add a little extra distance to the loop. 

Alta Club 5k. Sam and John Straley gave me the heads up on this race recently and I thought I would give it a shot. Since I'm not running Ogden Marathon and haven't been running over 15 miles recently, I thought a 5k would fit the bill for today's run.

The race is near my house, so it was a short drive to the start, northeast of the Capitol, at the start of Gravity Hill. I did a little 5 mile warm-up around the area. I saw Scott Browning while I was out there and I knew this little 5k was going to be interesting. He excels at that distance much more than me. I continued my warm-up with Sam when I saw him.

The course runs north on Bonneville Blvd ("up" Gravity Hill), past the horseshoe at the top of Memory Grove, continuing south toward 11th Ave, with a 180 turnaround about .30 before 11th Ave. Then return to the horseshoe at the top of Memory Grove/bottom of City Creek and its a glorious 1.3 mile downhill grade to the finish down beyond the gates at the entry to Memory Grove.

Both Scott and I agreed the first mile wouldn't be very fast because gravity hill is tricky, but I went out ahead from the start to see what we could do. First mile split was 5:29. Second mile acutally climbs for the first .35 or so, and then a faster return toward Memory Grove. Split was 5:20. The last "mile" was a downhill cruise to the finish and felt good. Split was 4:42, but a little shy of a mile unfortunately. Finish time was 15:32, so too bad it wasn't a full 5k, I could have been close to 16 minutes. Fun race, though.  My Garmin had 2.95, Scott's had 2.93.

Scott was 2nd in just over 16 minutes. Dude being pulled downhill by Baby Stroller was 3rd (still impressive, though). Sam was 4th, in about 16:30, I believe. John Straley was also in the top 10, I believe. All looked strong.