Airport Loop. The goal today was to run it in 59 mins. That is a medium effort. I was able to stay on pace the whole way and finish with a 58:37. My body is starting to tune-in to the pace that I tell it without having to rely on the watch as much. If I compare todays run to Aug 1 and the effort needed to run a 62 min run, today's run was probably 20% easier even with a time 3 minutes faster. All that made a lot more sense in my head than it does written down.
I loved saturdays run in the canyon so much I had to do it again...only faster. I ran the Logan River trail up 36 mins to my turn around point and then took the Mill Hollow turn off coming down (same as Sat.) I felt really good going up, but the pounding coming down was not nice to me. It also started raining fairly hard coming down making the trail slick as it was covered in leaves. Overall a great run.
5 mile loop by house including the ~1 mile of river trail by golf course. Ran during a break in the rain so it was pretty sweet weather. My legs are a little sore from the hills yesterday so decided to do 5 med-easy miles. I worked to stay ahead of the 7:30 guy and had no problems.
Tough workout for me this morning. It was raining quite hard so I knew I would get soaked. I did a 5-mile out and back course twice. I started out with a 7:30 mile warm-up.
5:45 mile (target pace was 6) (2:50)(2:55) halfs.
1 mile in 8:00
5:53 Mile (2:55)(2:58)
1 mile in 7:55 (5 miles in 35:10)
1 mile in 7:50
5:58 Mile (3:00)(2:58)
1 mile in 8:30
6:02 Mile (2:55)(3:07)
1 mile in 8:06 (5 miles in 36:28) (10 miles in 71:38)
I don't know what happened on the last fast half mile as I must have lost focus. I feel like this effort was about 95% of my max on the hard miles. My goal pace for the 5K and 10K races is to be just under 6 min mile pace so this workout was to get used to that speed.
Airport Loop. It is one run that we suspected was shorter than the 8 miles that we thought it was. It was 7.8 according to Google Earth. I measured all of our other runs to see how consistent they were to my bike measurements and all the rest were exactly on so I can safely say that this run is now accurate. Of course it depends on the lines I run but I am not that picky. We modified the course to be exactly 8 miles so we had to go out and set a new course PR.
Dan and I chased the 7 min guy and did pretty good staying ahead of him the whole way. He got 5 seconds ahead of us by mile 7 so we pushed hard to show him who is boss. I might have got carried away as the last mile was a 6:20 mile. It sure did feel good though.
Combined Portions of the Fence Run and the Gossner run to make it 7.1 miles. Dan and I did an easy 5 min warm-up at 7:30 pace then did a 3 mile tempo at 6:30 pace. The last 3+ miles were done at 7:30-8:00 pace. The tempo hurt that last mile, but I feel much better about myself after doing it. I had a lot of muscle fatigue (latic acid maybe) in my legs that slowed me down.
Airport Loop (accurate) Goal for the run was to stay ahead of the 7:30 guy and that was accomplished. I was feeling a bit tired from yesterdays tempo so my HR was a tad high for the pace (med effort).
I was pretty busy today (as usual for fridays) so I ran 5 when I could. I was hanging around the 7:00 min/mile pace without thinking about it. I did the "Golden Mile" splits in 6:20 and 6:25 (roughly 7 min/miles).
Afterward, I tore down a huge branch off the huge tree in the backyard. The wind broke the branch back in Aug but it was still attached but hanging to the ground. The tree had dried up enough finally to twist and pull it down. I managed to not hurt myself too bad (minor hand injury is all).
Ran on the River Trail with Paul, Jon, and James. I need to run with them this winter to stay motivated. It was a nice and easy run as we were able to talk with no problems. I am not positive the distace we ran but it was probably between 5.5 and 6 miles. Afterward, I continued down the canyon to the Hydro Park? and ran that trail back up to upper second dam and back down on the river trail. The second portion was roughly 4.5 miles with a steep uphill section with the rest flat. There was a tunnel cut through the rock I had to go through that was maybe 50-100 yards long. It was to low of a ceiling and I had to walk hunched over through it.
Great morning, a little cold though. It was nice to meet Paul, James, and Jon (I feel like I am back in the Bible or something).
Today's run was pretty good as we set out to beat the 7:30 guy. We had no problems and didn't need to speed up at the end to take him.
Total Time: 68:05
Ave HR 159
Note: From now on my fast/slow mile threshold is 7:30 miles.
Evening Run:
House to Logan High Track and back. Did 4x200 meter sprints. They were between 33 and 35 seconds (90% of max). It was hard to tell in the dark my exact splits. I jogged 200 meters inbetween each one. 3 miles to and from with 1 mile on track total. The three miles were at 8:00 pace.
I am feeling the effects of the 200 meter sprints last night. My quads were the worst at first with my left hamspring tightening up midway through the run. We focused on beating the 7:30 guy while still getting in some quality speed. We did 2x1 Min fartlek @ 5:30-6:00 pace. Then we did .5 mile in 3:05. The rest was 7:30-8:00 pace. The wind was a challenge and is a scary preview to a Cache Valley winter.
Started at 7:20-7:30 pace and bumped it up to about 6:45-7:00 pace finishing with a 7:05 overall pace. I felt tired the first mile and then loosened up and ran well.
Ran to Rec center(1.5 mi) to run with Paul and James. We did the River Heights Loop (4mi)and then I ran home. James told me about a 5K on saturday here in town that I would like to do. I want to see where I am with my speed as I feel like I have none with all these training runs at a speed much slower than 5K pace. Time to test myself.
Hospital Loop plus a bit to see the Extreme Makeover home Edition house's progress. It is coming along nicely. the roofers were hard at work finishing their job and a bunch of volunteers were hustling around everywhere.
The weather was cold and windy.
Still held 7:23 mi ave but it felt easy so I am categorizing this as an easy run.
Red Ribbon 5K (Hyde Park) (3 Miles) 00:17:14, Place overall: 1, Place in age division: 1
Slow miles
Fast miles
Total Distance
7.50
3.00
10.50
17:14 1st Place overall.
Ran the Red Ribbon Race this morning. I had just heard about it on Thursday and the race was closed to registration so, I came this morning and they said that I could run, but I wouldn't get any prizes or the t-shirt...but it would be free. Whatever, so I ran. I ran it with James and Dan. The race was 600 people between the mile race and the "5k" but most were kids. I figured it would come down to Dan, James and myself for the win. My goal was to break 18:00 for the 5K. The course ended up being short(3mi) so this is my new PR for 3 miles. After a short 1/2 mile warmup the race got started (30 degrees max- it was cold). I started out at what felt like a really slow pace as the first 1/2 mile is uphill. I held back as much as I could, but was still leading a pack of 3-5 guys. After the hill crested, I settled into about a 6:00 pace and held that for a while. Just after the mile point, I could tell Dan and the High School kid running with us were getting tired so I worked for the next half mile to distance myself a bit. I am now all alone (never been in this position before) and I am not sure the pace I was going. It felt like I slowed down a bit. James was catching me and get to within 5-10 feet of me with 3/4 mile left so I decided it is time to go. I worked that 1/2 mile and put some distance between me and him and then costed into the finish with a 5-6 second win over James and a ~45 second lead on Dan. Both Dan and myself PR'd as we have not ran a short race in a long time (maybe ever for Dan). If we figure 35 seconds for the .1 I still made my 18:00 5K time by 10 seconds and that is all that matters to me. Great Race.
1 mile cool-down then left to meet up with Paul, James, Dave, and Ben to run 6 miles. We ran some trail up right hand fork in Logan Canyon. Hunting season just started so there were a few hunters out. The trail was mostly mud and we were caked in it by the end. The trail had a pretty good climb the whole way (to the turn-around).
I felt lousy today. My body is tired from the mileage increase and the race over the weekend. I had trouble breathing and my joints hurt. I think I will be better tomorrow.
Ran to Rec center to run with Paul and James. We did a loop where we ran 2-3 miles on the TOU marathon course. We did some miles around 7:00 others closer to 7:30-7:45. I did some 7:00 miles running to and from the Rec center to meet them. Weather was perfect for running and made me want to do more. I felt much better today than yesterday.
Didn't have much time today so I had to make up for quantity with quality. Mother nature didn't like my plan so I suffered. I ran the 5 mile River Trail out and back run with 1 mile repeated to make the run 6. I started out with a 7:30 mile warmup. I then did a mile in 6:15, a recovery mile in 7:45, a fast mile in 6:15, followed by two 7:30 miles to finish. I was originally trying for 6:30 pace on the two tempo miles, but it was dark and snowing so I had a hard time determining my pace until I was done with the mile. I was pleasantly suprised that I was 15 seconds fast so I tried to do the same for the second tempo mile and I did. I was completely drenched by the third mile and my legs got pretty cold, but I am glad I ran.
Total Time: 42:45
Ave HR: 161
Max HR: 180 (that seems high as during the tempo miles I checked my HR and I was closer to 170-175 the whole time. It must have spiked for a short period of time)
Ran to Rec center to run with Jon and Paul real easy. Running home, I pushed it a bit to around 7:00 mile pace because I was cold and wanted to get home before my hands got numb.
Total Time: 57:50
Ave Hr: 145
Today I wanted to run the Canyonlands Half Marathon course in Moab so I had my Dad drop me off up the canyon near the start. I say near, because I couldn't find it driving up the canyon in the dark. I decided to start at mile marker 13 so that I would get 17 miles or so back to the hotel. My goal was to run 7:00 miles and shoot for a 1:31-ish half-marathon pace. I wanted a long tempo run to see where my fitness was at.
I started out WAY too fast as it was cold and slightly downhill and I was trying to warm-up and settle into my pace. About a 2-1/4 miles into it, I found the official start line (15:00 on watch) so here I go. I did pretty sweet from then on with regard to my pace. I was right on 7:00 miles the entire canyon. That was a beautiful canyon to run through as the sun comes up. Not much of a shoulder to run on, but very few cars to contend with. I felt good through ten miles, but from then on I had to fight to stay on pace. I started to slip a bit (5-10 seconds off each mile). I came out of the canyon in exactly 1:31 total time (13 miles). I ran on highway 191 to 500W and followed that south to 400 N and ran east to the park at the end of the road. I didn't care about the pace as much once I left the canyon and ran closer to 7:30's. My time at the finish line was 1:46:25 (15.2 miles ~7:00 miles ave). (1:31:25 half-marathon). I stopped at the park for a drink but the water was turned off. I then continued at an easy pace back to the hotel. I measured this on Google Earth to be 1.4 miles in 10:45 sec.
Overall, this was a great workout for me as it simulated marathon pace over a measured course. I did not have the forsight to bring GU or stash water on the course and that really affected me. I didn't sweat that much as it was cool, but I know that dehydration and fuel was a major factor in the run. My muscles and joints also hurt around the same point too.
Ran a new course today with Dan. It is the Yesco-Green Canyon Out and back run. It is mostly uphill the first half and downhill the last half. There is also a ~500 ft elevation gain over the first half. It was nice to get off the boring dirt roads by work and climb some hills. My legs were still a little sore but they loosened up quickly.
Time Up: 36:00
Time Down: 32:45
Total Time: 68:45 (7:24 Miles)
Ave HR: 161
