Elite Jogging For Dummies

My wife Heather and I ran out and back on the Jeremy Ranch road starting at about 9am. It was fairly warm at the start and continued to warm up on the run. Still cooler than if we had run in the valley at that late hour, however.

Starting from 15th and 15th, I ran one mile solo and then looped back and met up with the group. There was some attrition at Foothill due to the lingering affects of the Spudman Tri this weekend. The rest of us continued on toward HCI, returning via the trail in Miller Park. These were not fast miles today; only in the 7 minute range at the fastest, but my legs didn't want to give much more this morning.

Speedwork at East High, 5:35 am. I had to get to work early, so I couldn't join the whole Black Sheep workout today. I started early and overlapped with them a bit toward the end of my workout. They were doing 12 x 400.

I started with a 1.3 mile warm-up through the neighborhood. Got back to the track and ran 4 x 100 meter strides w/100 easy jog.

Started the workout with 4 x 800 meters. My target was 2:40-2:45, which I only barely managed, running 2:46 a couple of times. I didn't feel great. I ran 400 meter recovery jogs between each.

Then ran 1 x 1 mile in 5:30. This felt better than all of the 800's.

Then two more 800's: These were better: 2:40/2:45.

I then ran 2 x 400 with the Black Sheep in 77 each with 200 meter recoveries. These felt easy. Josh Steffen was out with the Black Sheep today and he was helping to push the pace.

Then a mile cooldown.

I felt slower than I should have today and didn't nail my splits like I would have liked. I did have some problems with my watch, but I am usually able to stick to my splits more intuitively and keep things consistent. Strange workout for that reason.

I skipped a run on the Pipeline trail with a few folks so I could sleep in for a few extra minutes and save some driving time.

So, I was out the door at 6:15. It was nice and cool for the first time in what feels like months. Looked like we got some more rain overnight.

I ran down 4th Ave to the base of Memory Grove, looped back up 1st Ave, down 6th East to Liberty Park. I ran 3 loops on the 1.4 mile wood chip path at a very comfortable 7:30 pace. It's somewhat monotonous, but that path is very soft and gives plenty of shade. Then returned home via 6th East to the Aves.

Starting from 11th Ave & B Street, I headed toward City Creek Canyon with Brian Kamm and his son, Connor Kamm. Connor was a track and cross country standout at Skyline High and is on his way to run at Williams College in Massachusetts this fall.

Connor and I ran an easy pace up City Creek, with Brian a bit behind us. The conditions were excellent and the climbs toward the top felt modest. We turned around at the top of Rotary Park.

For the six mile descent down the canyon, I wanted to stay under 6:10 pace, and we did that, averaging closer to 6:00-6:05. The miles felt easy and I suppose I could have pushed harder, but this is just the the start of my downhill training so no need to blow out the quads on this run.

After finishing at the cars, we jogged back and picked up Brian about .4 behind us and ran him in.

From Cucina, JWood and I ran up through Federal Heights past the JCC and up onto the Shoreline trail. We turned left and ran up into Red Butte Canyon just as the sun was rising and it was spectacular. Descended down the road in Red Butte, into Research Park and circled back through Fort Douglas, the Legacy Bridge, and back through Federal Heights. My Suunto is being serviced, so no specific pace information today, but it was a very moderately paced easy day run.

Originally, I thought it was just going to be me and Sam, but it ended up that a group of six of us met at 5:45 and headed up to run the rail trail in Park City. We dropped beverages on the way at the Silver Summit junction (miles 5/13.5) and headed to the trail head in PC. As anyone who has run the rail trail can tell you, it's difficulty lies in the fact that you have a gradual, almost imperceptible loss of elevation on the way out, and then what seems like one long slow climb back to the finish on the way back.

Our miles were generally in the 7:30-7:35 range. When a couple of us stopped for a drink at Silver Summit, Adam Wende powered on ahead, so he ended up getting 21.0 by adding a few extra minutes to his run. He's getting ready for TOU and he looks strong. He was telling me about how he has a spreadsheet for all of his runs since '97 and he displays the results as a circular graph showing how far around the world he has traveled if you add the miles end to end. It's something like 24,000 miles, and I think that's landed him somewhere in the middle of the ocean right at the moment.

I finished my 19 in 2:31 and the last couple of miles were fairly strong and I felt decent during this run. Sam was also really strong; he's getting ready to run the Jupiter Peak Steeplechase this next weekend. We had no wind which can be deadly on that route, and the weather was mild.

In the evening, Heather and I met over at Sam's and a group of us headed up to Albion Basin for a hike up to Catherine's Pass for a picnic dinner. We got up there around 8pm, and got to see the sunset and some amazing electrical storms in the distance.

On our hike down in the dark, lit by our headlamps and a 3/4 moon, we heard coyotes wailing like mad and that was cool.

A few minutes later, we came across a couple of moose that were about 50 yards or so off the trail from us. It was dark enough that you only knew they were there because of the way their eyes glow up when caught in the light of the headlamp. We were fine, but decided to give them a wide berth and we hiked up on to a ridge to avoid them. It was fun.