Per Aspera Ad Astra

5 miles in about 32 minutes.  Hip felt pretty good.  Also did some lifting beforehand.

13 miles with Kevin, which involved some hiking and huffing and puffing up really hard trails.  Started with a nice 4000' uphill on the Desolation Trail, which is outrageously overgrown and rocky right now, which Kevin really enjoyed.  We followed that through all of Porter Fork, which is beautiful right now, but extremely technical and frequently un-runnable, which Kevin liked even more.  He commented that it would be good for working his leg speed velocity.  The plunge down Porter Fork was steep and overgrown, and Kevin thought it would be really useful specific training for when he runs a marathon that has over 20,000' of vertical descent.  The last couple miles on Porter Fork Road and Mill Creek Road were nice, but Kevin's quads were beat up by that point, so he thought that it was extra fun.  Overall, I would say that Kevin loved the outing and will be dying to get out on trails with me again in the future.

Kevin had 12.75 on his Garmin, but it was exactly a quarter mile short of the official trail mileage on one section, so I'm calling it 13 in 2:42 (my time is 5 minutes shorter than his, as I was bombing the downhills to get ahead so I could sit down for a minute and rest my hip while waiting)

At least for me, this run had nothing to do with pace and everything to do with time on feet.  I pushed my hip for nearly 3 hours on super gnarly terrain and it was very close to totally fine.  This is extraordinarily good news.  I, of course, had some ibuprofen in my system, which undoubtedly helped, but I just got a prescription from Matt Poulsen for some more long term anti-inflammatories, so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to really start building back up here.

Note to everyone on here: In all seriousness, don't run trails with me unless we've discussed what the trails consist of beforehand.  I have literally zero common sense as to what most people consider to be a "good" or "enjoyable" trail.

Started taking an NSAID prescription from Matt Poulsen.  Will see how much this helps.  Took the day off to be safe after a longer outing yesterday.

Good upper body work at the gym.

Hung out with Kevin, Fritz, Amiee, etc tonight and got to be designated driver for some of Kevin's other friends, so had a late night.  Will sleep in really late tomorrow to catch up and then see how my hip responds to some moderate mileage with the methylprednisolone in my system.  Next month will be really busy with tutoring, but I'm excited to pack in some more running.

Note that while this week is slightly lower running mileage than last week, I hiked quite a bit with my brother, who has been in town, so I actually put a moderate amount more time on my hip than I did in the previous week. 

Alta Lodge to Cardiff Pass in 23:54, with an effort that started moderate but got hard by the end, back down in 12:22 (36:16) with a pretty recklessly fast descent on lots of loose scree (aerobically easy, but ridiculously exhilarating to hurdle rocks that fast).  Next, over to the bottom of Collins (38-ish), up Germania Pass in 37-ish (1:15:20, harder effort than it otherwise would have been after trashing my poor quads on Cardiff, which also means that I crossed Little Cottonwood from West Ridge to East Ridge in ~51 minutes) down to Cecret (once again, aerobically easy, but almost recklessly fast in parts), around the front of Cecret and down the uber-rocky trail at a pace which certainly qualifies as reckless.  Around Upper Albion and most of the way back down to the bottom of Alta, where my brother had parked my car (he was up there taking photos).  Total time 9x:xx, missed some splits at the end as I just didn't care about them anymore at that point. 

In all honesty, running down the back of Germania at a quick pace, completely pain free, may have been the single happiest experience of my life.  The scenery at Alta is so overwhelming that I couldn't help but bomb the downhill with a massive smile on my face.  Matt Poulsen's prescription seems to be knocking this hip stuff out of the way short-term, and I have well developed plans to keep it away as much as possible in the long term. 

Yes, I will stay sensible while upping my mileage, but I can't wait to get back out for some more real runs! 

 A photo taken from Cecret a little while before I ran past it:

Hiked up to Donut Falls, jogged back down.  Wasn't going to run for the day, but was in a hurry to get down.  Hip felt good.

2.5 miles from my apartment to the gym in 14:47 (2.47, but close enough).  I didn't know the distance until I got home and mapped it out.  Was really surprised that it was that long, as that meant sub-6 pace with a lot of uphill.  I was going hard (very nearly 5k effort), but it's quite hilly (over 200' net up with at least 50' of additional roll, so 250'+ uphill).  Without the hills, at the same elevation, this would equate to ~17:40 5k effort, so it's nice to see some short term fitness coming back quickly.  Hip honestly did feel slightly imbalanced, which was pretty disappointing, but it didn't hurt.

Upper body and leg work at the gym. 

Ran home, similar route.  Took the first bit easy and ran what I thought was the last mile (turned out to be last 1.15, not sure how I was off by that much on a mile marker) in 5:51.  I was really shocked that it took that long as it's downhill by 60 feet and I was working hard, so it was a relief to see that my distance was wrong and that I was actually running 5:09 pace.  Hip felt good on the way home.  Going to ice it now.

Worth noting is that the methylprednisolone is a tapered dose, so when I did the really great mountain run on Sunday, I had just taken the 2nd dose (5 pills) after having taken the 1st dose (6 pills) just 14 or 15 hours prior, on Saturday night.  Now, on day 4, my dose was just down to 3 pills and it tapers from here, so the maximum effect really should have been on the first couple days.  I'm obviously going to have to keep working hard at the PT stuff, but I'm hopeful that I'll be able to gradually increase my mileage without an issue.

Late night, around midnight.  My place to Liberty, lap around the roads on the outside (all the sprinklers were on), back.  Hip felt good, but imbalanced over the last mile.  Right foot got irritated as I wore a pair of beat up / ripped Nike LTs without socks and the outside of my foot was getting abraded by the torn spot.  Didn't wear a watch.

Need to keep working hard at PT as I seem less balanced than I did a month ago, despite essentially no pain.

Chest/triceps and legs at gym.

Ran a mile of errands plus good arm/shoulder workout.

AM: Excellent chest workout, decline pressed 205 lbs (bar + a 45 and 35 on each side).   Did some hip stuff too.

PM: 14 miles.  Just outside City Creek to Rotary Park (4.75 miles up from the gate), up the unmarked trail to Rudy's Flat, a little further to try to scout a connection to the City Creek West Ridgeline, to no avail, and then back.  Took 3 ibuprofen, hip felt somewhat imbalanced at times (especially the last 2 miles), but pain free.  Need to keep working the PT stuff, but as usual, the hip is still trending the right way.

Jogged a half mile with Kevin, who was riding a bike, to get to a bar to celebrate Spencer's birthday.  Good times were had by all. 

Also, 36 miles for the week?  I'm halfway back to being a real runner!

Off, making sure to rest the hip after the biggest mileage day in months.

Good arm/shoulder workout, then a hair over 6 miles in 43 or 44 ish minutes (didn't wear a watch, just checked my car when I started and finished.  Felt a little imbalanced (right foot is definitely still crossing the midline), but no hip pain, despite this being the longest I've gone with no pain in months without having any anti-inflammatories in my system (pretty sad, right?).  Parking lot behind field house to Guardsman to 1500 to Sugarhouse Park to 1700, through a very indirect route through some densely wooded park that I didn't previously know existed, somehow back out on 1700, even though it seemed to disappear for a few blocks, back to Guardsman, back to my car.  Not the most inspired run ever, but still encouraging.

Off, super busy.

So busy this week.

To Memory Grove to beginning of City Creek up to 11th, loop of the majority of lower Aves, back home.  With Holly, 38 minutes.

4 with Holly, and then 1 more by myself, last half mile at 5:39 pace to get my legs ready for Dart 5k on Saturday.

Warmup a little less than a mile, Dart 5k in 17:38 (5:35, 5:43, 5:46, :32).  Really honest effort.  Usually I'm disappointed that I didn't push hard enough in a 5k, but I don't feel that way today.  I took it out a little on the quick side and was working super hard by the end.  This is, of course, barely faster than May's half marathon pace, but after all the troubles I've had since then, this is still a really good result right now.  Ran the course again as a cooldown with Jake, Allie, and James.  Hip was slightly sore in the last quarter mile of the race (despite 2 ibuprofen), but I was pushing hard, so my form probably went to crap at that point.  That said, it didn't hurt in the cooldown.

At Snowbird, up Gad to Hidden Peak, down Peruvian and then back over.  Calling the up "tempo" effort because I was completely exhausted by the top.  Had 2 ibuprofen in me and hip felt great, even with the long downhill that got quite steep in a couple spots.

Sick chest workout.  My recent max on decline press was 1x205 and I felt like I was getting stuck ever since I hit 200 again.  In this lift, after an extra 2 rest days, I hit 3 x 210 with relative ease, so I will almost definitely hit 215 or even 220 next time.  No running, just ran the last 4 days and it's not smart for me to jump back into daily running so quickly.

Best run in months.  9 miles in 55:xx on a treadmill so I could stop whenever necessary if my hip bugged me (I was running without anti-inflammatories for more than 6 miles for the first time in months).  It never did.  First 3 at 6:18 pace (roughly MP if in shape), then the 4th mile at 6:00 pace (tempo-ish pace), then miles 5 and 6 at 6:18 again, then 7 and 8 at 6:00 pace.  Finally, 8 to 8.7 at 6:18 and then 8.7 to 9 at 5:00 pace.  Felt really good to rip out a fast run.  This is a long cry from the workouts I was doing before I ran 1:15, but it felt easier than I expected and I could have carried on with the 6:18s for awhile longer.  That said, the goal isn't to really kill any workouts right now, but to just continue to get healthy and strong, so I stopped at my pre-determined maximum allowed distance.  I've been more consistent with my PT exercises recently and it's really noticeable, which is great.

With Holly in Mill Creek.  Canyon road, Terraces Road, Terraces Trail to Elbow Fork, across the street, Pipeline to Burch Hollow trailhead, back up the canyon road.  Roughly marathon effort, which is 2+ min/mile slower up there with all of the climb (low point almost exactly 6000', high point of 7300', with some roll along the way) and the difficulty of the Terraces Trail (narrow, fallen logs to hurdle, steep rocky spots, tons of sharp turns).  Pretty fun run.

From field house to president's circle and then 9.6 with James (campus to 27th south, up to 2000, back along 21st and then foothill, through upper campus, and back down).  9.8 total in 63:39 with a lot of climb for a road run, so a pretty hard effort considering my poor current fitness.  Also, mapmyrun lists it as 10.04, so we must have done a REALLY good job of cutting corners.  I took ibuprofen, but I'm starting to think that I don't need it much anymore.  In any case, my hip didn't hurt and only felt marginally off balance at one point in the first half of the run (good for the 2nd half).

Low point of 4428', high point of 4849' with some roll, and yet MapMyRun manages to claim 387' of gain?  Even the high point minus the low point is more than that, discountint all roll.  Try more like 500'+.

Anyway, this was a good run, roughly similar effort to my pretty hard run on Monday.  I'll take tomorrow off and then I think I'm going to race a trail 15k on Saturday.  I have 2 hours to decide and sign up, so I better get on that...

Sapper Joe 15k in 1:21:45 (annoyingly, officially 1:22:45 on their website... wish my garmin would connect to the PC so I could get that corrected), going on 2 hours and 40 minutes of sleep (was out late, went to bed at 2, got up at 4:40 to make it to the 6AM start at Camp Williams in Riverton).  Old course record was 1:28:xx and I had the rather confident idea that I could run 1:20 and easily win after looking at the course profile:

 2284' of climb in 10.93 miles isn't that bad, right?  I guess I didn't really look carefully enough to see that the portions of climb between 3.2 and 4.0 were a 25% grade...

Anyway, the race took off and some hairy ultra-running looking dude without a shirt blasted off the front.  I decided that he looked serious, so I went with it and pushed hard from the gun.  I hit the first mile (with 200' net uphill) in 6 high, about 10 seconds back and he just kept pushing.  By mile 2, I was about 20 seconds back thanks to another 400' of climb and by mile 3, I was 30 seconds back (both very uphill and slow, 8+ pace).  This wasn't good, but he seemed to have a slightly awkward cadence on the climbs, so I figured I could catch him on the absurdly steep climb that I saw looming ahead.  He set a punishing pace on the downhill rollers leading up to the big impending climb, so I gained no time leading up to it.  Going up the climb, I maxed myself out but couldn't gain any ground.  Mile 4 took 14:59 (not a typo) and involved mostly hands on knees powerhiking.  Fun.  I don't know what to say about this except that it massively sucked.  After this death climb, we had some nice net downhill (with steep grunts mixed in) rollers up until 5.5 miles.  I had been laser focused on trying to keep up with this guy without completely burning myself out for the first 5.5 miles, but when I hit 5.5 and realized that virtually all of the uphill was gone, I decided to just focus even harder, go for broke, and try to catch this guy.  My watch said 8:00 flat pace average for the mile split so far at 5.5 and by 6, my mile split read 6:35.  That means 5.5 to 6 was 5:10 pace, but I wasn't gaining.  I figured if I kept hammering, I'd catch him, so I ran mile 7 in 5:11, but managed to lose ground on him.  At that point, I started to get a side stitch (really uncommon for me), so I only hit mile 8 in 5:36.  Mile 9, I drifted off pace a bit to 5:44.  Mile 10, I picked the focus back up and closed from about 45 seconds back to 30 seconds back, hitting a 5:42 with one very irritating extended uphill mixed in.  However, I was never going to be able to pick up 30 seconds in the last mile or so and had already pushed myself to the max, so I stayed about 30 seconds back until I mistakenly missed the last turn, tacked on another 40 or so seconds, and roughly doubled his winning margin (final pace of 5:37/mile for the last .96 with more fun uphill).  In all fairness, the turn wasn't marked, but it was just the opposite of the starting section, so I probably should have recognized it.

In any case, I finished in 1:21:4x and realized my heel was in agony due to a massive blood blister (funny how you don't notice these things when pushing super hard).  I'm guessing my overused shoes probably aren't helping:

 Without the missed turn, I would have been about 1:21 flat, having thought that 1:20 was the best case scenario on what I thought was an easier course.  In other words, I met or probably even slightly exceeded my expectations for what I could run here today and really couldn't have done much better.  The winner was simply better.

I chatted with the winner and found out he was Nephi Tyler, who ran a 4:01 mile and 3:43 1500 in 2005 while at the U in their last year of men's track, having since dipped under 15 in the 5k a handful of times.  While chatting with him, Amiee came in to win the women's race (and maybe even break the course record???).

Anyway, Nephi is a sick runner, so while my limited abilities probably translate better to trails than his (and more than anything, I will push and punish my body more than virtually anyone in these shorter trail races), sticking 30 seconds back of him for most of the race is a huge win for me.  I was super focused and basically in a state of complete agony for virtually the entire race after about a mile in, so I know it was a solid effort. :)  I think that I'll be able to knock some serious time off when in shape, so when I run this again next year (which I'm definitely going to do), I think 1:15 or 1:16 would be a good 'A' goal to shoot for.

Ok, time to nap for a couple hours. 

Birthday.  Recovering from race.  Didn't run!

Top of Mill Creek Canyon up Old Red Pine Road Trail to Ridgeline, down into Canyons, down the Wasatch Ridge Trail Connector to Mid Mountain Trail, back up, back along Little Water, but took a wrong turn by accident and ran 1/3 of a mile down the trail to the Big Water Trail Connection instead of the parking lot and had to backtrack.  Good run with Holly.

7 mile tempo on a treadmill in 41:14.  First 6.5 miles at 5:56 pace, last .5  in 2:40 (5:20 average pace).  I'm not super strong right now, obviously, so it was a really hard effort to up the pace when I already felt like I was starting to get into "just hang on" mode.  Nice to push that hard every once in awhile.  No NSAIDS or anything like that, hip felt good.

Had a couple hours off of exercising and then went back and lifted, an activity which has become harder to fit in recently.

Memory Grove + Avenues loop with Holly, very easy effort.  Did a chest workout at the gym afterwards.

Very easy pace run with Holly in the Avenues, didn't have time for more unfortunately.

Loop of Aves/Fed Heights with Holly.  Easy.