Elite Jogging For Dummies

Five easy miles pushing Jack up to Fort Douglas and back.

I didn't have a lot of real soreness from Saturday's race, which is a good thing. I do have plenty of general fatigue in the legs, though, and I felt that this morning. I ran very slowly on the Golf Course loop, adding a little extra up Emigration Canyon. Total of 11.25 miles. A massage is sounding good about now.

 PM:  I ran home from work, via the 3.75 mile westside route.
 

AM: I had a chance to stretch out a little bit last night and I felt better running this morning. However, I didn't have enough in my legs to run a full workout. So I did some fartlek on the Shoreline Trail and up in Red Butte Canyon, eleven miles total. The surges felt good, but the run was mostly easy pace. I'll shoot to run the workout on Thursday. PM: Drove to Liberty Park

PM: After letting my car sit in the parking garage at work for two days, I drove up to Liberty Park at about 6:30 and ran 4 miles, bobbing and weaving through the park and nearby neighborhoods. The sky looked like it was going to dump buckets of rain, but it ended up not happening. . . at least while I was running.

AM: I met up with Josh and Megan at 5:30. I had an early meeting so I had to run a little earlier today. We did a nice loop around the U, Federal Heights, Ensign, and over to the Capitol. Nice temperatures, though a little muggy. Eleven miles for the run, ~ 1:30.

By the way, I watched Sammy Wanjiru win the Olympic marathon on the NBC Olympics site the other night. They have an encore video that is about an hour and a half long. Wanjiru is 5' 4" and 112 pounds. The runner from Ethiopia who took third appeared to be about half a foot shorter. I had to ask myself ... if that is the ideal size profile, what business do I have thinking the marathon is the event for me? I should probably be throwing the shot put or something.

 PM:  I ran home from work, via the west downtown route. The AST Dew Extreme Sports ExtremeExtravaganzapalooza is going on by the Delta Center and I got to see, well, hear mostly, some supercross bikes flying through the course.  That mixed things up at the end of the day. Four miles total.

Met up with Josh at 5:30 this morning for the workout. We warmed up two miles, heading up to the U. The plan was ten miles of tempo, gradually accelerating from Tinman pace, to marathon pace, and beyond. We ran the same route I did last Tuesday, only this week there were no 2 minute jogging breaks between sets to provide any relief--just ten miles of running. We started the tempo near the VA. The first mile had a little descent and then some climbing up 900 South, past Guardsman. I was concerned when the first split was 6:23, as it seemed we were working harder than this. The second mile smoothed out a bit and had a little descent on 20th E., 6:10. That's right on Tinman pace. We continued the nice descent for mile three, 5:50--but it still seemed we were working pretty hard. Mile four was flat and then we had to climb out of the gully, 6:06. Mile 5 was flat again on 20th E, heading south between 27th So and 33rd South, 6:04. So, five miles in ~30:33.

We picked things up in the second half, which was encouraging. We ran out to 3900 South and our 180 degree turnaround, 5:53 for mile 6. We're now heading north. Mile 7 was 5:46, just 5k to go. 5:50 for mile 8. Then 5:53 for mile 9. The last mile was tough, as it includes a nasty climb up 15th East, but managed a 5:50 which shows a little surge at the end to finish the workout. Total of 29:12 for the last five miles.  Finished the ten miles in 59:45, so we managed to break an hour. Then we jogged back home, four miles easy.

I can't say I felt "fresh" for this workout in the least. My legs are pretty tired and I'm looking forward to not running this afternoon and running easy tomorrow. The important thing, of course, is that the workout is done. Josh is running super strong, by the way. He'll do great at SGM.

Out the door at about 6am this morning for an easy nine mile run around the U, Ensign, Memory Grove. The temperatures were cool, but nice for running. 

PM: I ran three miles with Heather and Jack before going out to dinner to celebrate Heather's birthday.

Josh and I drove up to Foothill Sbux and met up with a big group of runners for a 5:30 am start. Most of the group ran an 8 mile loop.  After circling back to Foothill, Josh, Lisa and I headed up Emigration Canyon with a few of Lisa's friends. We ran up just past the Sun and Moon Cafe, nearly to the turnaround at Pinecrest. We took it very easy the whole run and there were many stops along the way. On the way down the canyon, the pace got mildly spicy, but we never cracked 6:30 pace for very long. We had a few surges in there which felt good, but that was about it. Overall, Josh, Lisa and I all finished feeling pretty good and no worse for the wear after this run.