Chasing my Dreams

Beautiful morning running around Mantua Reservoir. Did almost six miles by myself, then joined up with Tom and did about 6 miles with him, and then I did the last six miles on my own, because Tom wasn't running quite as fast as I wanted to. The last couple of miles were pretty mentally challenging, but physically I still felt pretty good. I averaged 6:25s, and I am happy with the effort considering Mantua is at 5200 feet, so there was a small amount of an altitude factor. I also tested out some Generation UCan superstarch, which I was pretty pleased with.

Went out this afternoon with some pretty nice weather, it was a little breezy at some points though. That also helped keep me cool though. My legs felt pretty weird the first few miles and I tried to stay pretty relaxed, I focused on going a little negative over the second half of the run. With about 2.5 miles left, my left IT band got really tight for a minute or so, and then it didn't bother me again, which was weird. Overall things felt fairly good today considering it was a Monday. 6:22 average

Took things pretty easy, I also had to poop, so that kind of killed some momentum as well. Luckily there was a porta potty fairly close when I needed it. 6:40 average

I did not feel as good today as I would have liked. For the first three miles or so my head kind of hurt, which was really weird. On the long uphill I just wasn't really feeling it. I wanted to run a little bit at half marathon pace, so I did a mile at 5:44 pace, but it didn't feel as easy as it should have either. I'm hoping with some easy miles over the next two days I'll be ready to role for Saturday. 6:26 average

Mixed it up with the route today, ran some of it on 12th, then went down to the island and ran the canyon road trail to first dam and back. The wind was pretty crazy by first dam down in the island, I was barely moving. I tried to keep things fairly easy today. My legs felt pretty good, yet my heart rate was still up.

I took today pretty dang easy. It was pretty windy at 6AM in Logan, which slowed things down as well. I just ran really easy, and then I did 4x30second strides afterwards.

Today was kind of a bummer because they cancelled the Winter Race Circuit Half Marathon due to inclement weather. So I waited around until about 9 in the morning, when the rain toko a break. I went out for a pretty quality long run to Gentile and back on the Small Road, and then a typical tour through West Point. I felt good today, and was able to average 6:14s. I wasn't exactly sure of the distance while runing, but I figured it was between 18 and 18.5. It was a fairly therapeutic run as well.

The glutes were a little sore for the first mile and a half or so. I did a little exploring up in Hyde Park and Bogus Hollow. There is some dirt to run on, which is exciting. The climb up there was pretty good though so that kind of killed my average. I was also against the wind all the way back, but I still felt like I was holding a good pace.

Ran with Erich this morning. It's nice every once and a while to run with someone different and get some different conversations. My legs felt pretty good today considering that I didn't stretch or foam roll at all yesterday.

Ran in the afternoon with Tom through the island and up the canyon a ways. It was stinking hot, and I was pretty dehydrated by the end of the run. I felt pretty good for the first few miles, but the heat and the gradual uphill really zapped the energy out of me. The inside of my right knee started to bother me in the run as well. I have no idea why though.

Today was not the run I imagined it to be. First things first, it was pretty warm for 9 in the morning, which wasn't the most fun. Second was my legs didn't have it on the hills. Third, my knee was still bothering me like it did yesterday. I don't know what is wrong with it, but will probably take tomorrow pretty easy. I also got off of my planned course because I tried to make up a new route.

Shoot I've neglected my training log the last couple of days. This day was mostly cross training for me. I biked pretty hard for an hour. I went up Green Canyon as far as I could until I ran into snow. After the ride I ran a mile to test out my knee, and I could still feel it some.

Tom and I ran early in the morning out to Smithfield High and back, and then I did more as well. It was pretty chilly. My knee felt fine for the first few miles and then started to bother me some. However, my right lower inner leg started to bother me some, and it almost felt like I had pulled something. I could run through it, but we'll see how smart that ended up being. 6:47 average, so not a super fast run. My homemade cornstarch version of UCAN worked great though.

Easy four miles on grass mostly testing out how my legs felt.

A mile of running to and from the fieldhouse. Mostly cross training on the elliptical

Just strength training

Ran with Tom testing things out. The run wasn't fast, and my lower leg didn't hurt much, however my knee bothered me quite a bit

Hard cross training on the elliptical and a mile to and from the arc

90 minutes biking through cache valley

Felt great to get in a solid run, 6:10 average. My knee felt pretty good, but my lower leg was still bothering me. I have a hard time believing it is an actual injury

It was perfect running weather today, and I felt really good other than my nagging pains. I felt them over the first mile and a half or so, and then it was very dull for the most part until the last half mile or so, and then my knee started to hurt again. I really have no idea what is wrong, but it feels good to run. 6:24ish average I think.

Did a 6 mile tempo of sorts with Tom practicing marathon pace/30k pace. We did the first 3 miles right at 6:10 pace and then Tom started to fall off of the pace, and I was feeling good without my legs hurting, so I went ahead and picked things up a little. 5:52 pace for the second 3 miles. 

6:50 pace, happy to be running.

Some easy miles at 7 minute pace and then some strides to get ready for tomorrows race.

Got in a good warmup with Tom, and we were ready to go on the starting line. We basically led from the get go. We were clicking away 6:20 somethings. 8 or 9 miles in I distanced myself from Tom and started to pick things up more. Not too long after I started passing all of the half marathon runners, which was kind of annoying. The aid stations were also awful at giving out water, and as a result I took in like one cup of water in the whole race. With probably 4 miles left I heard the half people cheering for someone behind me, which was super confusing. Matthew Wolpert had started 3 minutes after the gun and was catching me. I ran with him for a good mile or two and then he pulled away the last mile and a half. My legs started to lock up the last 3 miles and I knew he had already beat me, so I didn't have much of a fight. I learned a lot about properly fueling for these longer races as well. Tom and I did a mile cooldown at like 10:30 pace, and we couldn't run any faster.