cheryl

I spent about 50 minutes on the treadmill, doing fast one minutes, then recovery minutes.  It was very fun.

The running group met at Bingham.  After a warm-up, in which I learned about Melanie's career running track at BYU, which was very interesting, we ran some 800's on the track.  My times were:  3:38; 3:32; 3:33; and 3:29.  We then ran our tried and true 2 mile loop, from the back of the school parking lot to Temple View, Bonanza and then Prospector.  The time was 15:04, which was a 7:39 avg.  Then back to the track for a mile.  We took  it fairly easy the first three laps, then hit it on the fourth.  Time was 7:19.  So I tried to not kill myself today, and felt I succeeded somewhat, although I was still quite tired after.  I think that's more from getting up much earlier than I wanted than from the actually workout.  Later, I did some biking, concentrating on hill repeats.

I met the biking group at 6:00.  Last week, Debbie was on her mountain bike and got way behind.  I let her use my road bike today,and I used Michael's, and she was able to keep up and even finished before me.  It's amazing what a difference a good bike makes.  I don't think anyone really believes it until they experience it.  Anway, that was fun to do.  Later I did hill sprints on a treadmill.  That is never fun, but I'm always glad I did them "when they're done."

This was a run I've been wanting to do for a while--up the Suncrest road.  Whenever I've seen this particular road, it has intrigued me, wondering what it would be like to run up.  So today was the day.  We met at 5:30, explored the neighborhoods around there, then at 6:00 started our long trek up.  I just kept thinking, keep things easy and relaxed, just complete the workout.  There were parts of it where I thought we were crazy for doing this, but overall I didn't really hate it like maybe I thought I would.  I was very happy to see what I considered to be the summit, by the information center.  However, Jameson told me he and Peggy went a little higher and it was a lot steeper there.  I heard later that that was probably the real summit.  It was amazing to watch Peggy and Jameson pull away from the rest of us, I think they get the award for best climbers (I've been watching a lot of the Tour de France lately).  I would call them the "mountain goats" of our group (that is a compliment).  Anyway, I was glad to complete the run without too much damage.  The pace up was 11:25.  I obviously need to work on downhill running, because on the way down, I was afraid of falling or possibly twisting an ankle that I put on the brakes too much.  My pace there was 7:58.  On a more gradual downhill I would be able to pace faster, but not on a 10% grade.  Overall, it was a good run, I would like to try it again sometime.  Everyone who ran up, good job, I think we deserve something special for taking on such a tough run.

So after several days of feeling tired and sluggish, today I felt great.  I felt like I could have run Suncrest again, I barely felt sore or tired from that run.  Why did I feel so good?  I figured it out--I finally got some sleep!!  I've been up every morning between 4:30 and 5:30 this week.  Today I slept until about 8:00.  That extra time does make a difference. I had a good run running  sprints on the treadmill, and then did hill sprints on the bike.  Later I went to the new Harry Potter movie.  I'm not really into Harry Potter, but I think I'm finally going to start reading the books, just so I can understand better what it's all about.

I started out by running a recreational 5K down at Parkway Palisades and the Parkway Trail.  I went in thinking being in the 22's would be great, 23 would still be  really good, 24 Ok, 25 not so good, and so on.  I'm hoping the course was long because I only hit a 25:38.  Or maybe it was the 81 degree temperature.  Whatever it was, I was glad I did the run because I haven't done a lot of racing lately, but I was disappointed in my time.  Oh well, we just keep plugging along anyway.

Then I started feeling like I definitely needed more miles, so I spent about an hour on my treadmill from 10pm to 11pm.  I ran slow and easy.  It all felt really good.