Elite Jogging For Dummies

I ran with Josh this morning, via the TiTP loop that takes us down to 20th East. It was good to be out moving the legs. 

I left the house at 5:45 and ran up to the U and met up with the Black Sheep. We ran John Straley's painful flowerpot hill workout. I know that something that includes the word "flowerpot" can't be that bad, but trust me, it is. Basically, it involves running as hard as possible up the middle of campus multiple times. It made me think of a possible first name and middle name for a baby girl,  "Anna Robic."  I ran home with Josh post-workout, easy.

Ok, December 3rd, still running in shorts. I wore gloves and a headband too, but they were probably not even that necessary.   I ran the U/Avenues/Ensign loop. Abdominal pain has returned--feels like some kind of tear that I keep aggravating. 

I cut the run short this morning because of continued pain in my abdomen. It doesn't seem to be getting much better, probably needs some real rest.

Rest day to give the abdomen a break.

This morning was the second annual Holladay Holiday Ten Miler, hosted by my buddy Sam. It's a ten mile tour of the depths of Holladay--styled as a "race" but it's mostly in name only.  Sam had marked the course well, which is good because it's not easy to follow if you don't know the area.  The person that gets the most lost receives a boomerang as the reward. 

We had a group of at least 25-30 which made for quite a pack from the start. It was a lot of "slap and tickle" to use Josh's phrase for the first few miles.  After a while, the group started to make sub groups.  Cody Draper was in town from Logan and he joined Josh and I up front.  I don't have the splits handy but I bet we were averaging 6:20 for the last half of the race. So it was a nice little "workout" but more importantly a lot of fun.  At the bottom of Sam's street, I suggested that we do the final "kick" to the finish backward, which meant Josh, Cody and me were backpedaling at top speed. I don't know who crossed the finish line first, I was laughing too hard.

 The race was great but my abdomen hurt most of the second half of the race and I didn't run much of a cooldown after the race for that reason. i think i'm going to take at least three days off and see if that makes a difference. I'll try to swim and see if that does any good.