Clyde's Comeback!

The plan for the day was to get a good marathon paced training run in. I wanted to run it at marathon pace no faster, and hopefully no slower. So I'm pretty happy with the outcome. Pace felt very comfortable and I think I could have did one more half. Hopefully!

Three miles warm up with Dave. A few cool down as well, some alone some with friends. Very, Very hot and muggy. Just think about your grandmas green house. Pretty much all day.

The first 6 miles or so felt a little sloppy, but by miles seven I was really feeling good and could have really pushed things. I made an effort to stop and drink at two water stations because of the heat. My splits were pretty consistant at around 5:40 other than the one mile that was a long climb (6 min or so pace) and then the two miles or so that were downhill (5:20 pace or so). The course was flat and rolling for the first 8 miles then uphill from around 9-10. Then from 10 down to 12 it is good fast downhill. The last mile was about half mile of hard uphill and half mile of flat...give or take.

Good workout. Not really a race but glad to have ran goal time.

14 miles in the a.m. A good morning run here in Torrey. Out and back 7.15, the altitude this morning was kind of hard on me. I just ran nice and easy on the way out (7:18) pace 52:06. Then on the way back I tried to do marathon pace or marathon pace effort (6:12) pace 44:13. With the altitude and hills it was hard to push it too much harder-plus I didn't want to kill myself after a harder workout on Saturday.

Glad to get the run in. Now we are off to hike Calf Creek then drive to Bryce Canyon and then back to STG. So a long day ahead.

6 mile hike up to and back from Calf Creek. A very good hike at a brisk pace, mostly in sand. If you haven't been there you should go.

1 more mile hiking at Bryce Canyon. Bryce is ok but I've never really loved the place.

When I got home I was trashed from a long day. I don't usually count other things as mileage but today of the 7 hiking miles I think I'll count 2 of them as easy miles.

13 miles this morning with Ted. He was down here for some business and we hooked up at 5:25 this morning to do a run. He wanted to do around 13 miles and we were going to leave from his room at the Ramada. I told him that I'd never done a 13 miler from the Ramada but would see what I could come up with.

We ran from there down River road to the trail that run along the river down to the Dixie Center. We stayed on that trail and looped around Bloomington Hills back to River Road. Then we hit the trail up to the Dinasor tracks and then up to Telegraph and back down past the factory stores to finish up. The distance ended up being pretty close to what the Dr. ordered.

We just ran at a relaxed/talking pace for the run. Good run this morning. Glad to be mobile after a long marathon type of day on Labor day. 

8.6 miles this morning. Did the GS extended loop. Went out early and it was nice and calm. I felt pretty good and am ready to pick it up the rest of the week after a pretty weak start. I took some "other" roads and thought it would be the same distance...but it wasn't. Later in the day I started to wonder about it and had to check it out. So instead of getting nine in this morning I only got 8.6.

11.5 miles run this afternoon. I had some things going this evening so I needed to get my run done early, and the treadmill sounded like the worst thing in the world. So I got myself pumped up and went out just before 4 p.m. It was 103 when I left and 101 when I got home. There was a small breeze in the air that made it possible to be out, but it was just flat out hot. I did the big loop run that Dave and I did last week. Then when I got to the golf course I ran up and down a couple fairways to get some water and that extended it. About 6 miles into the run I was feeling the heat and the gnome’s voice from Travelocity was running through my head (yes in an English accent) saying “Am I going to die.”

Luckily for the water on the golf course I lived. I made it home an began to drink every recovery drink I own one by one and within 4 ½ hours I started to feel better.

Glad to have pushed through the run. Looking back it wasn’t that bad- it made for a good endurance training run. Hopefully it won’t wipe me out for my runs the rest of the week.

14 miles this morning. BIG WORKOUT! After my hot dehydrating run yesterday afternoon just getting out for an early morning run was a victory. I had planned to do my 8.2-mile tempo up to water tank and down through the industrial park and back home. This is a very challenging place to do a tempo workout. The first 3.5 miles you just climb up a rocky, sandy dirt trail, and the last .5 of that is a killer hill up to the water tank.

So anyways I did 3 a three-mile warm up over to GS and back to my house. Then I grabbed a drink and started the tempo. Goal was to PR on the course and finish the whole workout that included another three miles of cool down.

So I’m off… The first 3.5 I was doing 5:20 min/mile effort and was only getting rewarded with 7:15-25 min/mile pace. It was just killer and by the time I got to the top and hit the road all I wanted to do was to stop the tempo and jog back home. But I pressed on defiantly feeling the effects of last nights run in my legs. Once on the road it took a half-mile to change gears and then I was around an honest 5:30 pace down to about one mile left and then I was done. It was like I got ran over by a truck and I limped home on a 6:15 min/mile pace to finish up at 52:14 for the 8.2 - a new PR on that course (old PR was 52:49 on very fresh legs). I was happy and kind of mad because had I not totally died on the last mile I could have been 51 min’s and something. This was a very good effort under the circumstances. I had to dig deep and push most of the run. Although the overall time was like 6:24 min/mile pace on a regular road in town this effort would have been at least 5:30 or lower even with some hills.

After I finished the tempo I got another drink at home and did the 3 mile cool down (same as warm up).

Workouts like this are very hard. In fact this could have been my hardest running workout ever. I think with one or two more workouts like this I’ll be ready for a big PR at STG. I was 145 lbs after run and after drinking some PowerAde. This ties my all time low since high school.

9.1 miles tonight with the running club. We did the Entrada loop. All at nice and easy pace. I wasn't going to push it even if the other guys wanted to take off. But they didn't so we just had a good run. We did most of it in the dark- the days are getting shorter, and we may need to meet at 7 p.m.

9.2 miles this morning. I went out around 8 a.m. and the it still wasn't too hot out. I did the powerline/GS loop extended. Just a steady smooth pace. Feeling a little tired today. But the only thing I've got to do other than run today is play golf at 1:30 p.m.- I guess it will be very hot then. I hope to play as good as I did last week. However golf is a lot more unpredictable than running.

21 mile club run this morning. We meet up at the running store and did the same 20 miles that we did a few weeks ago. It’s basically the middle 20 miles of the SGM course. From where we started it was almost 4 miles to the start of the Veyo hill, and then we hit the 20 mile mark just above the running store.

We started out and I had really nothing planned for the run. The only thing was that I wanted to get around 6 miles at marathon pace. So for the first 7 miles I just run easy pace with the guys- just slow trying to get warmed up way early in the morning. Then from miles 7-9 I just tried to pick it up a little and ease into MP. The last 11 miles I decided to run at marathon effort or so. I actually thought at mile 9 that if I pushed it in I may have a shot at breaking 2 hours for the entire run even with the 7 slow miles. Things got interesting during the last few and I had to go a little harder than MP to get there but I made it.

1:59:37 for the 20 miles @ an average pace of 5:58 per mile. This ended up being a very good effort considering the very slow start.

1. 6:56

2. 6:46

3. 6:28

4. 6:51- just easy

5. 7:45- Veyo hill easy

6. 6:30

7. 6:17-starting to warm-up

8. 6:29

9. 5:59-last warm-up mile

10. 5:46

11. 5:41- It takes a couple miles to get rockin

12. 5:25

13. 5:19-snow canyon area for next few

14. 5:20

15. 5:25

16. 5:34-up Winchester Hill

17. 5:19-Time to get going if I’m going to make it

18. 5:12

19. 5:16

20. 5:06-Felt good today and finished it off

When my Garmin chimed with two miles to go I had like 10:45 or so to do it in and I almost abandoned ship thinking it wasn’t going to happen. However I put my nose to the grind stone and kicked the last two out and ended up with around 22 seconds to spare.

A great workout for me. If I can run anything like this on October 6, I’ll be in the sub 2:30 club for sure- maybe even the sub 2:27 club. Jogged one mile at the end to help the legs cool off- even though they were pretty pumped and wanted to do more I decided to be done and now it’s time to rest for the weekend.

Took a little trip down to Las Vegas for the afternoon/evening. This trip was all about the food. I had In-and-Out burger when we got down there for lunch and then a great trip to the Rio buffet-world class. It was straight from the angles. After a good hard week I'm always down for a good meal or three. We walked about 3 miles up and down the strip to show our Japanes boy the whole sha-bang. It was good to kind of walk the legs out and streach here and there. No mileage counted for the walking tonight.

9.2 miles this morning. Just an easy run to get the week going. I'm a little sore from Saturdays workout. Nothing too bad but sore enough that I didn't want to do a tempo or hill workout this morning. No real mileage goals for the week. Just to run what seems comfortable and to stay healthy. I think everyone at my house is on the verg of catching a cold...so we'll try and fight that off too.

8.2 miles tonight. It's funny how 94 degrees seems pretty nice out. That's what it was this evening when I went out and it didn't feel too bad. I ran the industrial park loop. I'm fighting off a cold so just not feeling that great.

9.2 mile run this morning. Same run as Moday morning. I had three tempo runs planned this week, but if I don't start feeling better I may just end up doing one on Saturday. Head cold with all the add ons.

5.1 mile run this eveing. Just a short little run too keep things loose. Up to the powerline and back.

15.8 mile run this morning. Up by 4 a.m and out of the house by 4:30... This was a easy/tempo run. Goal was to get 6 miles of MP tempo in. I left the house and ran down past Costco and around new road by Formaster. Then back past Summit and out through the fields into Washington and then back home. My wife made her famous "Little Pizzas" last night and they did a number on my tummy this morning. I had to hit two stops along the way.

I did about a 4 mile warm-up and then 4 straight miles of MP tempo from Formaster around hill and down past Summit and just into the fields. Then it was time for a potty stop. After the stop I ran up out of the fields and through Washington and hit the last two miles of MP back up around my house. Then did a short cool down.

Pretty good run other than the potty problems...Now to start what could end up being a very long day.

3.2 mile on the treadmill this evening. Just a few to keep the blood flowing.

10.6 mile run early this morning. I went a little of everywhere this morning. Up into GS and down into Washington...then back up past Best Buy and around to the house. Time was a little short so I pushed it a little more than I wanted to for an easy run.

For some reason this morning all I could think about was Alf...Remember the T.V. show from the 80's. I used to love that show when I was a kid.

Let's see if anyone can top that for the most random/forgoten 80's T.V. show.

3.4 more miles on the treadmill tonight.

8 mile morning run up around GS and back home. I was feeling pretty slow and tierd this morning so I just kept it that way and slugged around my loop.

8 more miles up to powerline and then GS. Feeling pretty trashed. I hope through the night that I refreash the system and be ready to do a long run in the morning.

20 mile morning club run. We did the same run as last week...Not ideal, but this worked better for everyone. To start with when I got to the running store to meet the guys I realized that I had left my Garmin home so...

I didn't know for sure where I was the whole run. From what I can gather today should have been just about as fast as last week or at least within two min's. We started out a lot faster for the first 6-7 miles than last week. Steve and Dustin were running with me at that point and from what they said our splits were faster. Then I started to ease into marathon pace just like last week between miles 8-10. For the final 10 miles I know I wasn't as fast as last week (5:20) pace but felt like I was much faster than 5:40 pace. I pushed against a headwind most of the run and by then end it started to become very frustrating.

Today would have been a bad day to have the STGM. PR's would have been hard to come by with the wind. So everyone pray it's not windy in three weeks. I was totally ready to be done at the end and unlike last week and couldn't have kept the pace much longer.

Glad that I got a good workout in but it hurt today, and I'm ready for a day off.

9 mile morning run up past GS onto the trail and back around into Middleton. I rediscovered how fun it was running with my ipod while I was running up the trail doing the Air Guitar to Santana’s “Mother’s Daughter.” I won’t say what I was doing to Michael Jackson’s “Bad” all this while still running up the dirt trail. It was nice and I had fun, plus the weather was pure amazing. 63 degrees when I left the house. I can’t get my hopes up too early… but it would be nice if fall was moving in. Running in that kind of weather makes me actually feel like a runner again and not a Survivor trying to stay alive. I think I’m going to start my drop into the marathon. I had 100 mpw last week and I think I’ll do 90 this week and 80 the following week, and then that leaves the week of the STGM. I think I’ll do around 50 or 60 that week with the race. I can’t believe it’s coming so fast. After all the guys ran TOU last week it really woke me up that my next marathon is just around the corner. I guess I better get serious about things.

7 mile this afternoon. We had some family stuff going on tonight so I did my run around 5 p.m. Normally it would be way too hot but the temp is cooling off a little and it was pretty nice- like 95 or something at my house.

I'm pretty sore and wore out from fighting the wind and the course at the same time on Saturday. It really took it out of me. I think that will be my last 20 miler. This Saturday I will do around 17 with maybe 5 miles at temp pace. But for the most part I think I need to start resting my body up. Last weekend made two Saturdays straight that I went and pushed out 10+ miles at marathon or faster (5:20) pace last week. I need to recover. It's getting to be close to that time when you say "the hay is in the barn."

9..2 mile morning run. I felt really trashed when I first woke up and my left lower calf is hurting or the tendon I can't tell. Anyways I didn't want to go out but made myself. I wore the heart rate today just to see if anything crazy was going on. There wasn't... I had a resting HR before the run of 38 and an Avg. of 139 bpm on a 7:17 min/mile avg- for the run. I really haven't watched it too close know if I may be feeling some problems, but once I got out this morning I felt pretty good. I may just do a couple tonight and then try a tempo run in the morning. But if I'm still feeling like drama I'll for go the tempo and just do more easy miles.

4.2 miles tonight. My left calf/tendon was way sore tonight. When I stated off I was running with a limp. I ran over to the golf course and did 1.2 miles of barefoot to try and bring things back to square one. It felt good and by the time I put my shoes on the pain was gone. Then I just ran back home.

I iced it good before bed and hope to get rid of this pain that I don't know why has taken over my left leg. While running I was almost yelling out loud "Why am I hurt?" I didn't do anything that would cause an injury- the only thing that I can think of was running the course on Saturday with the tempo and fighting the wind. Who knows!

13.1 mile morning run. Well I iced my leg and took 4 IB's last night and this morning it felt a lot better. Still tender but no sharp pain. I'll just have to watch it if I do any tempo miles. This morning was nice. I did have my garmin for distance only. For pace I just tried to relax and enjoy the morning as the sun was coming up. What a nice time of year. The tempature is just amazing and around here when the weather is nice everything is nice.

4 more miles on the treadmill. I know this sounds crazy but the treadmill sounded fun tonight. Plus I knew it was only going to be short.

13.1 mile morning run today. The same run as yeasterday morning. Up to powerline over to top of Middleton trail, down to golf course then back up trail to powerline and back home. My left leg feels pretty good. I'm still a little worried to push the pace- will try it Saturday morning for a few. I just ran easy this morning. It felt a lot smoother than yeasterday but it ended up being slower 7:45 min/mile pace and today 7:57 min/mile pace. It didn't matter, I was never running against the clock. Now we take off to Moab for the rest of the weekend. I'll try and get a run in there tonight and then hook something fun up for Friday and Saturday. Saturday there is a 50 mile trail race from the mountain down to Moab. I am going to try and run the last 17-20 on Saturday morning as a training run- if the race director will let me. I think his name is Chris Martinez (anyone know him). It's called the Moiab Alpine to Slickrock 50 Mile- www.mas50.com. It looks way fun and if the STGM wasn't just around the corner I'd be really tempted to jump in the whole race. Well I'm already tempted but I know it would be a dumb move.

4 miles here in More miles around the golf course. This is the 4th year we have come here in September. Very, very nice! Good to get away from STG for a while.

7.5 mile run this morning. Went up in the canyon behind the golf course. Dirt trail run. Had to cross the stream 6 times. I only stayed dry one time out of six. That made the shoes not so lite on the way back. I hit one mile of tempo 5:22, but got sick of it with the water logged, and muddy shoes.

6 miles tonight. I'm trying to get my body out of sore mode. For the last week or so everything has hurt and running anything faster than 7 min pace feels hard. Anyways the run tonight was nice. I left the condo and ran on Sunset Dr. here in Moab. Tomorrow morning I'm doing a run up in the canyon's and will finish on some flat paved. So if I can feel good I'll hit some good tempo for five or so miles.

19.7 mile run. Well my maping skills were off just a little today. Last night I planned on doing around a 14 mile run that started with around 7-8 out on a dirt trail and then finished with around 6 on the paved road.

So around 12 miles I finally get to the paved road after climing up a steep canyon for 8.5 miles. When I got to the paved road that ran back to the condo I hit 4 miles of 5:35 min/mile pace and then slowed down to and easy 6:00 min/mile pace the last three or so. After I shut it down I was suprised to see how easy the 6 min/mile pace felt.

I was really ready to be done at the end. No water the whole run. I did have a GU that I took at mile 8 but without anything to wash it down. It was a really cool run in some of the Moab Outback, I just wish I would have had a better plan of what was going to happen. The 19.7 miles took 2:35 to do and that is with to good tempo miles at the end. The first 8-9 miles were just up, up, and up rocky trails. Most of it I was working to hit 10 min/mile pace. Kind of wore me out. Then it dropped off  a very steep and rocky road that wasn't any faster.

Like I said it was just few more than I had planned or wanted to do, but it was a fun trail run.

Just relaxing today in Moab. We will have to drive home at around 6 or 7 p.m. that will take about four and a half hours...so I will be getting home late. It rained here ALL night last night. I think that storm soaked the southern part of the state- finally. The La Sal mountains behind Moab were covered in snow this morning. Snow! I guess summer is starting to die off. We'll get the best weather of the year in St. George from now until the first part of December. Then it gets a little cool for about two months, then good again until May.

9.2 mile morning run. Felt a little sluggish this morning for the first four miles or so then started to come around. It was a great morning to run. The trails I run on had been washed clean with all the rain over the weekend and it made for a good run. The air feels clean and crisp, you gotta love it.

5 mile loop this evening. Felt very good tonight. Everything that has been messing with me was gone and with the cool air I had a good run. GS Loop.

9.2 same old morning run. Nothing too cool going on this morning. 52 out today on the run! We went from not getting to the 60's for an overnight low to going down to the 50's. Feels good. I'm guessing the morning of the marathon it will be pretty cold with the way it has cooled off and with it being as late into October as it could be.

Now I'm off to Torrey for five days to do some muzzle loader deer hunting. I haven't hunted for about five years and am pretty pumped just to get out in the moutains and have some fun.

7.1 mile run this afternoon in Torrey. I went out for five miles but took a loop that was a little longer. Felt good after sitting in the car all the way up here.

Wow! That's all I can say about this run-Wow! We hunted all morning and got home around noon and I got some lunch and then got ready for the run. I've dreamed about doing this run for a few years and today just kind of did it by default. I can't do it justice with any written description. Just think of starting at 6,800 and climbing to around 8,600 in the first 7 miles then running the rest of the run without a trail, road, or any other type of path. I just cross country/ explored up and down canyons on a reckless hunt to "do this run." A lot of hill's and crazy stuff. Not the smartest thing I've ever done but it got the blood pumping thats for sure.

Ended up at around 7,100 ft but it wasn't just a climb up and then slide down type run.

Anyways pace was slow other than the last mile at 5:20 once I finally got back to town. I felt great the whole run and the horses were doing what they do...

7.1 mile run this morning. Same run as I did Tuesday. From the house up into Sand Creek and down the waterline road. Did the last three at MP. Feeling pretty good. Hunting is going o.k- but still no big bucks. I'm just happy being out.

I won't count this as miles, but I hiked my butt off tonight hunting. 5 miles up and down at around 9.300 ft.

10.5 mile run at noon. We have been hunting up a storm. Lots of little buck and close too. But I've been holding out for a PR deer this year. We'll see what happens with that....

Got home and did the Teasdale-Torrey loop. 10. 5 miles in 1:09:32. A steady pace and around four miles at MP.

The rest of the weekend will be mostly all hunting so my run on Saturday might not be much if any.

6.5 mile run today around noon. We hunted all morning and I ended up getting a little 2-point buck. I was going to wait for a big one but today was the last day I could hunt. We will go out tonight and we'll see some big ones with my luck. Anyways it was fun and took the morning taking care of it.

The run sucked. The first 2 miles I was hidden down in a canyon but as soon as I rounded the turn I hit a bad headwind and it killed me on the way back to the house.