Trails!

AM: 8 mile on the Providence Hills loop. Uneventful due to finding a port-a-pot at just the right time. That was close. Legs were lead until after I hit the big downhill. That brought them back to life. I finished strong at 6:45 pace.

T- 59:46 (7:23) 150

PM: 5 easy miles with Jon.  Only 1 pit stop.   What a letdown.  

T-36:53 (7:23) 148

Young Ward loop with Jon this afternoon.  Easy pace warmup then we did one mile faster at 6:28 pace then I stepped it up a bit to do 3 more @ tinman pace.  I went 6:13,6:17,6:15.  I was shooting for 6:15 to 6:30 so I kept it right on the money.  It felt pretty good until the last one where I had to work.  I decided that was enough and that it would be better to save some for Saturday.  I looped back a bit to get Jon and then we ran the rest of the way together at 7:30 pace home.  Now I have to get the legs with some life back in time for the 30K.  That race is so crazy.  Long, but not quite as painful as a marathon.  We'll just have to see how it goes.

T- 1:11:30 (6:54) 158 ave (171-173 during the faster stuff)

AM: Rough night with the kids last night. Kept us up for a large chunk of the night. Got out in the morning for an easy 5. Tried to sleep during the run, but failed. 8 min pace must be fast enough to stay awake. I will try for 9 min pace next time.

PM: Easy 6 on the Landfill Loop.  Wore a watch to keep the pace slower than 7:30 overall.  It didn't take long to realize that it wouldn't be too hard to keep it that pace.

T-45:30 (7:35) 145

Ran 2.25 miles to Young Men's.  Played Volleyball for 1.5 hours then ran some more.  Wandered onto the Planet Walk.  

T-50:00  (7:41)

Easy 5.05 (to round out my weekly mileage) on Planet Walk.  Not timed.  Today is Bethany's first day of her clinical tests in Amarillo.  The grandparents fought tooth and nail over who got to watch the grandkids.  Needless to say, I didn't argue much.  The kiddies are in SLC where I will join up with them after the race on Saturday.  Good Luck Beth!  Ace it!

Striders 30K.  Final Race in the 5 race series.  1:55:03 2nd Overall

I was not looking forward to this race as it is a long race without the "glory" of a marathon.  Which makes sense since it is a marathon minus all the hard miles.  I didn't really have a time goal coming into today.  I was 2 mins down on Chad for the series and 2 mins up on Jon.  I felt pretty secure in this spot as I thought it was unlikely that Chad would bonk bad enough to let me make up the time.  You just never know though since the race is so long.  I warmed up a few easy miles with Jon as we watched the sunrise.  It was about 28 degrees at the start, but starting to warm up.  By the end, it was just perfect weather. 

We (Chad, Jon, Ben, Nate) started out very easy and chatty for a few miles until we got bored with the pace and Chad and I eased away from the group.  It stayed pretty relaxed for a few more miles, but was not easy by any means.  By mile 9 I was feeling sluggish and Chad made a 10-15 sec a mile move that was just enough to drop me.  I slowly continued to lose time to him over the next 9 miles as he was by far the strongest out there today.  I switched from hanging on to Chad to treating this as a tempo run to get ready for Ogden.  I hit some faster stuff when i could, and slowed on the rollers.  I was pretty spent by the end, but kept it together to finish strong.  I am happy with the race as it shows significant improvement over last year (duh, of course).  I am still not sure about my time goals for Ogden, but figure to be between 2:40 and 2:45. 

Good job Chad for winning the series and doing so convincingly.  Good job Jon for toughing out the sickness and securing third.  Good times.

Here are my split for those interested:

1-6:54 (long, but at 6:19 pace)

2-6:15

3-6:13

4-6:11

5-6:09

6-6:15

7-6:15

8-6:15

9-6:12 (bye bye Chad)

10-5:57 (downhill now)

11-5:49

12-5:52

13-5:56

14-6:00

15-6:14 (rolling hills again)

16-6:12

17-6:22

18-6:17

 18.6*something - 3:44 (5:46 pace)

1:55:03 (6:10) 169 ave 183 max

4+ min PR over last year

Best news of the day though, was Bethany is 3/4 the way through her test and has passed all portions until now.  Only one more day of testing!  Yeah for Beth!!