Elite Jogging For Dummies

Three easy miles in the neighborhood to stretch the legs after driving home from the lake. 

Plan was to run 8 due to early commitments, but ran a little longer once I found Josh, Megan, and Amy out on Virginia Street. 

Black Sheep workout.  I warmed up solo on the track and then ran 1.3 with the group on the road, followed by a mile of speed changes on the track. Then we ran 6 x 1000m.  Goal was to run 80 second quarters and we mostly hit that; Josh was faster on a couple of them.  Times were 3:22/3:20/3:20/3:19/3:21/3:19.  Cooled down 1200m and then went home to relieve Heather of baby duty so she could go run. She is now training for The Other Half. 

From home, I ran to the bottom of Dry Creek and then south on the Shoreline Trail to Red Butte Canyon (up and down) and then on the Zoo trailhead.  I ran home on the roads via This is the Place, Research Park, Fort Douglas, Federal Heights.  Pace was so slow on the way out (though plenty of climbing too) and it took me about 7 miles to feel warmed up, but then it was pretty good.

Hooked up with Aimee Larkin at Radda at 5:45 for a couple of miles before meeting the rest of the group at 6am for the canal route/mansion tour. Johanna Neilson is in town and she joined us for a bit, though she's injured and couldn't go far.  She's getting pretty mean on the bike and swim though from what I hear.  Anyway, I ran slowly again today, just no bounce in the legs.  I do have a massage planned for tonight, that may loosen things up a bit. 

Easy loop through the U and the Avenues. Legs feel less dead after the massage.

This race could be described as a complete disaster, but it ended up being ok, all things considered. In short, Adam W. and I started the race two minutes late, at the very very very back of the pack--in dead last place. We were still taking off our warm-up gear when the race started, two or three minutes before the projected "7 toi 7:30 am" start. It took forever to weave through the bodies to get to a point where, after about 2 miles, we could run comfortably. Even though the first two miles have loads of downhill, my splits were hovering around 6 minutes, a testament to how much slow running I was doing.

It was frustrating at first, knowing that my hopes for a strong finish were pretty much up in smoke, so I concentrated on changing my attitude about the race., I decided just to run hard and make up as much ground as possible, but not kill myself trying to do it. After making this mental adjustment, the race when much better. I saw where all the leaders were at on the Bridal Veil turnaround and it looked hopeless that I would catch anyone in the top 10. But I kept up the pace, tracked down a few runners, and ended up finishing 7th overall. My actual time was 1:15:20 (having started my watch at the exit from the Vivian Park parking lot) for 13.22 (on my watch). My official time was 1:17:20. I felt fresh at the end and I feel like I could have run sub 1:14 today, if I had bothered to line up at the starting line on time! The upshot is that I that my legs aren't trashed and I get to try again at Hobble Creek in a couple of weeks. Live and learn!!

Another upshot is that I enjoyed hanging out with Adam, who treated me to a trash-bin ice bath after the run. Much better than the tub. Ahhhh . . . ice bath.