Clyde's Comeback!

Nice relaxing day after church. If your a golf fan you couldn't have asked for more as Tiger made a big move to force a playoff tomorrow. Man I love watching majors. He actually played better on Saturday with a sweet chip-in and a couple of eagles.

On a running note I was glad to finally get a good week in last week. I still feel totally non-racey. I hope to get a good balanced week of training in this week that will leave me as fresh and as fast as possible for WBR. I'm getting totally pumped for this weekend. It will be very cool if we win but even if we don't I'll love hanging with the guys for a weekend of gut busting memmories.

Mileage goals for the week 80-90

12.2 mile morning run around the overpass loop. Did the headphones this morning and sometimes when I do I run a little faster than I should. I didn't have the garmin on but I'm guessing it was just under 7 min pace maybe like 6:50 or something. Legs are starting to come around- the hamstrings are still pretty sore but way better than last week and other than that I'm almost 100%. So by the end of the week I should be ready to roll.

(Blue cumulus 379.8)

GOOD JOB TIGER!

8.3 miles tonight with the club. 5 mile warm-up then a 2 mile tempo and 1.3 mile cool-down. The run tonight with the club was good in theory... I just had some diet issues before the run that screwed things up. Actually the content (sushi and a bowl of Golden Grams) wasn't too bad it was the timing that was. I ate them just after 6 p.m and we ran at 8 p.m... that proved to be not enough time for the digestive system to take care of it's load. So my tempo went south about 1.6 miles into it I just stopped right before it was too late (puking) and took some deep breaths and then just finished slower. The first mile was in 5:08 and I was on pace for around a 5:20 on the second before bailing out.

Anyways a good time tonight with the group. It's fun to have everyone get together and do runs like that.

10.4 miles on the bike = 2.6 miles or easy running.

I road down there and back and it was just over 5.2 each way. I really didn't want to get on the bike after we got done but this is my plan and I have to man up to it.

(White Cumulus 349.6)

10.7 mile morning run. Over to GS then up the sand hill to powerline and up over to the water tank- then around the industrial park to finish. Well finishing the 10.7 mile run was like finishing a marathon this morning. Boy did I struggle. After a warm workout last night and then the bike ride home I must not have rehydrated very good because today after about 6 miles I was way dehydrated. It was a little warm this morning and I didn't get out until about 7:30 so those finishing miles were over 80 degrees but the main thing was just not having any fluid in my system. I got on the scale and was 145 lbs- pretty low for me considering I've been a little heavier since Ogden.

(landreth 255.9)

7.5 mile run this afternoon. GS loop extended. My thermometer said it was 104 and the newspaper website said it was 103 but I'm guessing that out on the blacktop directly under the sun it was pushing 110. For some reason today I thought about trying to be an ironman guy and go brave the heat. Sweat idea Clyde especially after this morning. Anyhow it went better than you'd think it would. I stopped at the golf course restroom and soaked my hat and shirt which evaporated within a mile. The worst part was by the end of my run the skin on the top of my shoulders felt like it was on fire and I just had dry salt all over my body. But if I could push one or two of those out a week it would make me strong...

9.5 mile run this morning. Up to the overpass then back down the trail and around GS back home around Middleton Park. This run felt a lot better than yesterdays. I've got some of the chest cramping that's been hampering my life. Hopefully as I taper off here the last part of the week things will feel better.

(Red Stratus 387.2)

3.5 miles on the grass at the Washington rec center in my 5 fingers. Right in the middle of the day so it was warm. But I knew it was only for a short time so it made things doable.

9.5 mile bike ride = 2.3 easy running miles. I road over to get a massage that I've been saving up. It was a b-day present and it's taken me a while to use it. She just kind of fluffed up the legs and everything is feeling pretty good. Then she worked on my diaphragm. It's soo tight but she did seem to loosen it up. I long for the days when I'd just go out and run and everything seemed to be working perfectly. I must be getting old or something.

7.8 mile run this morning up over the hill and around GS. One of the best runs I've had for a long time- maybe this year. My legs are feeling prime but the cramps in my diaphragm have really be an pain. I started out slow going up the trail and for the first 3 or so miles I could feel the pain from the cramping but then it kind just went away and for the first time in forever I was running with no worries.

I'll have to make sure I get a good warm-up in before each one of my legs this weekend. My total mileage is pretty short for the whole race so a couple mile warm-up or so shouldn't be a big issue and it should aid me in running cramp free or with less than if I had no warm-up.

(Blue Stratus 393.3)

4 mile run this morning with the guys here in Orem again. We are now heading up to Logan to start our WBR weekend extravaganza.

3.1 miles durning my first leg in 22:00

 1.6 miles of warm-up before the leg

The first leg looks pretty nasty on paper and then once we go there it looked just as scary in person. You start down in a hole or deep valley and it just goes straight up or looks like it. However as I started to climb it leveled out for a short portion of the first mile- not very long but just enough to give the legs a short break from the uphill action. When I started I was really hesitant to go into full race mode because of my diaphragm. I was feeling good but thought as soon as I pushed the pace at all it would start hurting (the good news is it never did the whole weekend). But it made me run a little tentatively, maybe like 90% effort just to be safe kind of feeling. So I worked up the hill and really enjoyed the first leg running it at 22:00- just 13 seconds slower than Sasha's predicted time. Then at the had of I dropped the baton bracelet durning the hand off to Jeff M. OOPS! Good first day of the race. Or Van was the 2nd van and had Dave H, Logan F, Seth W, Taylor P, Adam W, Myself, and a driver named Jake (Seth's brother-in-law). All great guys and I had a great weekend with them. The other van had Sasha, Jeff M, Jeff S, Tyler, Hayden, and Walter.

1.6 miles total for the day of warm-up and cool down- not so good in that area

5.2 miles on my second leg in 31:49. I got the stick at at 4:29 a.m or so. This leg climbs up for 2-3 miles and then kind of is flat/ mini rollers for the last part. I ran this fairly good. I felt like I got out good and was able to work the climb up. Then once it was leveler up by the lake I was trying to get a good race going. But we had some food at the last major exchange and it wasn't sitting very good. Plus traffic was soo tight that it took so much time to travel durning our off time that I didn't any rest at all yet. So I'm not doing very good and (like times of the past) I start dry heaving durning the last 2 miles of this run. I never spew my guts out but it sure would have felt better if I would have. Now we make our way through the traffic again up to Heber City to the last major exchange. My stomach is in such a mess that I opt not to eat anything here and I just want to lay down and sleep. So I roll out the bag and get a short 45 min's of powerful sleep. Now the sun is up and it's a beautiful morning. Nice and cool, green everywhere, hot air balloons, and mountains to run over. We start our leg and make our way through Heber to Midway and to the base of YHGTBKM and Ragnar. We have fun while Adam and Seth run those two legs, and it was just a really relaxing time... other than the fact that I had one more leg left and felt DONE. I really didn't want to run my last leg because I was soo drained I couldn't fathom trying to run let alone hitting some race pace miles. But Logan came rolling down the mountain and handed it off to me and now was the time.

5.1 miles on my last leg in 28:26, start time is 10:25 a.m. Pretty much all right in Park City. It starts on the base of the mountain and flows down out of town to a park by the freeway. Basically all gradual downhill until the last mile where you hit a dirt trail and climb up out of the creek area and run over to the park. It is pretty sad that I pushed as hard as I could on this leg and only hit an avg. of 5:34 pace and I avg. 5:34 pace for the marathon last fall. But I was spent and just glad to be done.

Well to conclude: A great trip! WBR isn't easy to say the least. Every leg is very demanding and will leave you scratching your head as to why it was so slow. But that's what makes it fun... now that it's all over of. We had a lot of laughs in our van and some great personal performances. Dave knocking out 45 kills in one leg, Seth running Ragnar with a PR and new record, Adam making YHGTBKM look like child's play, Taylor with his blazing fast tennis ball shoes, Logan pounding out everything and always being so positive, and me just chillin letting those guys make me laugh. Just Making Memories!

(SS 106.7)