Trails!

*** Top of Utah Half Marathon Article *********

AM: Feeling pretty sore still from TOU.  My knee isn't hurting too bad, just tight leg muscles.  I have been using the stick every two hours or so and it hurts, but I think it is helping.  I ran nice and slow starting out and then by two miles I was hitting 7:30.  I ran the landfill loop and added a quarter mile. 

48:53 (6.25 mi) (7:50) 146

PM:  Ran on the river trail with Jon, Paul and Dan.  Easy pace.  Lots of chatting.

67:44 (8.5 mi) (7:59) 155

Providence hills into Providence canyon.  Hit the hills pretty hard and took it easier on the flats.  Was sub 6 pace on much of the downhill.  My whole family is sick and I am on the verge but doing ok so far so I am hoping for the best. 

Total Time: 1:15:52 (7:24) 161 ave 

AM: Well, the whole house has a cold and no one slept well last night.  It was pretty miserable.  I was planning on a Big workout today, but thought I had better not.  I ran the planet walk easy with no watch.  It felt pretty miserable.  I hope I am feeling better later to get more miles in.

PM: I was feeling a bit better in the afternoon so I took Jaxon in the stroller for a run.  Slow pace != easy pace.  I guess my form must be awful as 8:30 pace was equivalent to 7:30 without the stroller.  I am sure sickness is a factor too. 5 miles in 42:47 149 ave HR

Big workout day.  AKA Tempo run death march.  I ran from my house (starting at 5:10am) to the TOU course and jumped on it going backwards.  I did 5 miles warmup (7:24, 7:05, 7:06, 7:04, 6:50).  That brought me to about mile 18 of the course (on the HWY).  I then proceeded to attempt to run tinman tempo pace (6:20-6:30)  2.5 miles up the course then the whole 7.5 miles home.  I went: 6:30, 6:40, 6:29(half up then turned around), 6:22, 6:27,6:49, 6:46, 6:35, 6:31, 6:24

I am happy with the results as I am still sick (but getting better) and felt weak.  The 6:40's were uphill so not a big deal.  The 6:30's should have been faster, but it was all I could do today.  I am still worried about crashing in St George like I did in Ogden, so the more workouts I can do like this for the next 3 weeks the better.

Total Time: 1:41:00 (6:44) 164 ave (tempo miles in 168-175 range)

Ran over to the planet walk via the aquatic center and lo and behold, I ran into Paul. He was doing the landfill loop so I tagged along. I was dragging butt today and was only planning on 5-6 so it was nice to get some company to push me to do a bit more. It is always easier to run with someone than by yourself. Easy pace. No watch, but Paul did say we hit at least one 7:30 mile so we probably averaged 8.

***

I literally copied a page out of Paul's blog today.  I just saw his posting about his mileage increase over this year and the correlation to his improvement and decided to copy it to give me a quick glance of where I have come from in the short amount of time I have been training.  Great Idea Paul.  I think we all should do this as it is an eye opener.  (I wish the blog automatically did this but no big deal).

As you can see, doing some actual running sure helps out the times.  What was I thinking in 2005 "training" for a marathon running 50-90 mile months?  No wonder it was a survival just to finish.  That difficult experience took 6 months to forget before I actually decided to run for real.  Now it's the year of PR's and one more chance to blow past the 2:50 and the 2:40 barriers at the St. George Marathon.

I sacrificed my morning run with the guys to go to a golf tournament this morning.  My golf game has sure suffered this year with all the time running and not playing.  I was able to figure it out again and by the back nine was contributing to the team much more.  It was a lot of fun and I am glad I went. 

I put off my run until the evening to let it cool off a bit.  I decided to duplicate a run I did in April that was about 21 miles.  I left my house and headed up to the river trail via the canal trail.  I decided to make this run more of a aerobic run and not do tempo.  I was feeling decent all the way up and decided to turn around at 10.25 miles (right before G. M. Campground).  I was averaging 7:35 to that point which I was proud of.  Right about the turnaround, I suddenly felt really weak/hungry and was worried about it.  I figured that since it was downhill most of the way home  I would be ok.  The rest of the run quickly turned into a survival.  I was seriously considering calling for a ride, but talked myself out of it.  It was just one of those runs that turn into a nightmare.  I felt awful and considered myself lucky I made it home safe.  I was struggling to maintain 8 min miles for most of the return trip.  I guess the only upside is I still somehow managed to beat the 8:00 mile guy and I beat my pace from April by 5 seconds a mile too.  It must of been from going up the canyon too fast.  Glad that is over.  I feel better now that I have eaten a big meal.

T-2:43:46 (7:59) 153