Elite Jogging For Dummies

No running. Swam 900m at Steiner. It's been a few weeks since I've been swimming and I thought I might have lost what little technique I have picked up this summer, but I swam well (for me) and it felt great. 

AM: Didn't have a route in mind when I left the house this morning. I soon found myself wandering higher and higher up into the Avenues until I was on the Shoreline trail, headed for the meadow. I ran a couple of loops around the meadow, and then wandered down through Capitol Park toward City Creek where I ran just a bit into the canyon before turning back down Memory Grove and toward home. Lots of slow climbing today, probably 1000 feet. But it was a really nice morning. No major effects from the half marathon, just a little quad soreness. Calves are fine.

 PM: I ran home from work, added a bit to make it 3 miles.
 

Looked at the lunar eclipse at about 4:15 or so. An hour later, I was on the road running up to Red Butte to catch up with the Black Sheep. My legs told me I wasn't quite ready to go all out today, so I did what amounted to a fartlek workout, a healthy mix of paces over different distances, with lots of slow running. I did about 1/4 of the group workout. I ran home afterward. Not much intensity today, but some good recovery miles.

One more thing, I just learned that I managed to get myself an entry into St. George.  That probably changes my plans for the coming weeks.
 

AM: Golf Course Loop via This is the Place.  Great morning for a run.  It's taking longer for it to get light out now, which I like.  Well, I like it until January anyway. 

 I'm looking forward to gearing up for St. George.  Since I was planning on running NY until yesterday (which would have given me another month of training), I feel like I don't have a whole lot of time to prepare.  But I think I'm pretty close to where I was at last year and with a few tweaks I hope I can run a little faster than last year.  Beginning this week last year I ran four consecutive 80+ miles weeks before St. George and it's going to take that kind of work and more to perform well this year.  That's not much compared to some of you maniacs, but it's plenty for me. I am beyond busy and it will be even tougher to get in the miles this year, but I'm going to give it a try.  If it's just not coming together for some reason, I can go back to the NY plan, but I'm not going to think about that.  I'm just going to try to stay focused on St. George for the next 37 days.

Most Thursday's I run with the Radda gang, but I had limited time this morning and wanted to try to get as munch bang for my buck as possible, which meant skipping the 15 minute drive.

The plan was to run 5 x 1 mile in City Creek Canyon and Memory Grove; 2 uphill miles, three downhill ones, each with .5 of easy running between. Warmed up 3.5 miles from home up to Virginia St and 11th Ave down to City Creek Canyon. First mile up City Creek is tough, its a long slow climb and I was still warming up. Time was 6:43. After an easy .5, started another long slow climb, even tougher in some sections, 6:37. Then another .5 of easy running. At about the 3 mile mark in the canyon, I saw this large, very fast and extremely quiet "thing" dart across the road in front of me about 200 meters. It was like a streaking blur. I have seen mountain lion tracks in that very spot in the winter and I'm pretty sure that's what it had to be. Deer are stealthy, but not that fast, nor that quiet. It didn't bother me much, I know their nature is to keep away from people unless provoked and I don't think he had much to fear from the 8 min pace I was holding at that moment.

For the first two downhill miles, I wanted to stay between 5:30 and 5:35, and I did just that. The miles were 5:35 and 5:30, respectively. Both of these miles felt smooth and easy as far as form goes, though my quads were still singing Saturday's tune a little bit, so I decided to back off on the last repeat and just hold it at 6 min pace down Memory Grove. Cooled down to home via 4th Ave. Not a Big Workout, but a useful one.

PM:  Ran home from work, 3.1 miles

Shoreline Trail to Red Butte Canyon. A few drops of rain in the air and a stunning sky made this a really relaxing and enjoyable easy run.  

 For tomorrow, I think I'm going to run up Emigration Canyon and try to watch some of the SL Half Marathon racers coming down the canyon.  Maybe I'll jump in with the middle of the pack and cruise down to spice things up a little.  Good luck to those that are racing the half, I hope to see you tomorrow.
 

My two goals this morning were to run 20 miles and watch some of the Salt Lake Half Marathon.  I was on the road by about 6 am.  Ten miles later, I was  up to the Pinecrest junction at top of Emigration Canyon at about 7:20.  I knew the race started at 7am, but I didn't know exactly when I might see the leaders.  Realizing that Iwas at about mile 6, I knew it would be a while so I turned around and started running back down the canyon, keeping an easy and steady 7min pace.  At Ruth's Diner (mile 9.5 into the race) there was an aid station, I caught up with some runners waiting for the relay handoff, including Brad Phippen, who was running a relay with Darryl.  I chatted with him for a minute, and with Tek Kilgore who was manning the aid station.  I was 14.5 into my own run at this point and should have stopped my watch, but didn't.  A few minutes later, here comes Sasha blazing down the canyon with a police escort.  He was all alone.  Coming through the aid station he looked extremely focused.  About a mniute later, Darryl and Mike Kirk came cruising down, followed closely by Neal Gassman.  I decided to start my run again, hoping I would see Adam RW soon.  A few minutes down the road, he came up behind me and I gave him some encouragement.  That was pretty much it for the half marathoners.  Other than one other relay guy, I literally saw no one else between Ruths and the bottom of the canyon. 

I would have liked to run to the finish to say hi to everyone, but I had to get home. I'm heading up to Park City to help a friend move into a new house, and then I'm going to work. Just doing my part to put the "labor" back in Labor Day Weekend.