Per Aspera Ad Astra

Canyons, with Holly.  Started by running up some annoyingly steep ski slopes to get up to Mid Mountain, and then ran some miles on and around that, and then ran back down the annoying ski slopes, jumping on "Holly's Trail" for a bit.  Great running up there.

Had a pretty annoying cold for a few days and was super busy with a conference this weekend, so I basically didn't run much this week.  2 miles with .5 to 1.5 in 5:25.

Woke up at 7:30, took the dog out, and jogged to the Racing with Passion 5k.  Race was at 8 AM, on the same course as Gravity Hill, where I had a bad race and ran 18:22 (18:19 on my watch?) in July, but still won.  This version was more competitive and I ran 17:44 (17:41 on my watch?) but got 4th.  I'm not sure why Runner Card timed events are always several seconds off what my watch gives me, whereas most others are spot on.

Anyway, Nathan Hornok appeared to be the fastest person there before the start, but some 17 year old Ethiopian kid in basketball shorts shot off the line and had a 10 second gap on everyone by a quarter mile in.  A couple people were right behind me and I figured that Hornok and the Ethiopian were gone, so I focused on them.  My stomach was a little upset and I was thinking about how annoying Gravity Hill was when I suddenly threw up halfway through the race, so I didn't push too hard, but ran hard enough to keep from getting swollowed up.  About a mile in, everyone beind me was gone except a really scrawny high schooler, and I saw the Ethiopian start to slow after being passed by Hornok.  Mile 1 was 6:01 with a lot of uphill and no downhill, but didn't feel super hard.

I figured the kid behind me would fade as most younger teenagers do in races and that maybe I could catch the Ethiopian kid since he appeared to be slowing, but the kid behind me suddenly made a huge increase in speed and shot past me.  Going up the rest of the hill to 11th, I kept my distance from the Ethiopian while the other kid crept closer to him.  I wasn't feeling super fantastic, so I just kept biding my time and didn't try to go with the younger kid.  I hit the top of the hill, turned around, and hit mile 2 in 5:50 (almost exactly net flat, but with a lot of both up and down).

Mile 3, both the kids were battling up ahead, which caused the Ethiopian to pick it back up as I was finally starting to close, so he maintained his 20 seconds in front, with the other kid finally getting the best of him.  Split was 5:19 on the nice gradual downhill, but it didn't eat up any gap.

Finished in 17:41 on my watch (3.12 miles), officially 17:44.  Not sure how that happens as I was on the front of the line and started my watch immediately.  Oh well, doesn't really matter.  It's a lot better than the last time on this course without having done much real training, and better than the 17:41 I ran at the pancake flat Dart 5k a few weeks ago, despite this race feeling considerably less taxing and being on a course that is ~15 seconds slower.  Still, it's a long way off where I was before getting injured, so I've got some work to do.

After this, I went to the Utah Bioengineering Conference until about 2:45, where I sat through some podium presentations and then presented a poster.  I left before the awards ceremony, and headed up to Alta for the Downhill Dash.

My stomach was finally settled down for the Downhill Dash, but I was really nervous about destroying my hip.  Oh well, figured I'd have some fun and back off if it started to hurt.  I thought sub-27 sounded reasonable, because, while it's super downhill (1500' or so?  Stupid Garmin isn't being recognized by my computer and will only show elevation data in Garmin Connect), it does start at like 8500', which is pretty high up, James told me I should be trying to run in the 24s, which sounded absurd.  Apparently, the course really is that fast.

We took off at a hair under 5:00 pace and held it most of the way.  James took off really fast like usual and I thought I'd reel him in like at Dart, but he's an outstanding downhill runner, so after about a mile in, I never got within 10seconds until the very end.  Kevin took off even faster than James, but I watched him get reeled in by James and they had a nice duel for most of the race.  I had a good duel with Rob Murphy and, after I finally caught him, we passed each other 3 or 4 times in the 4th mile until I finally pulled away.  All of my splits were right around 5-flat, but once again, I can't load them until I get on a work computer on Monday (my laptop side panel is slightly damaged and sometimes a little screwy).  Around 4 miles, I realized that, while I wasn't feeling very good (feet were on fire, quads felt like death), I was slightly gaining on Kevin.  James had seemingly gotten the best of him, but I was slowly creeping up on him.  I was about 12s behind him with a quarter mile to go and decided to make a big move.  By the finish, I cut it down to 1s, but ran out of distance and finished right behind him, 24:54 to 24:55.  I knew that if I passed him much earlier, he'd outkick me, so I was hoping to catch him by surprise right before the line, but it wasn't to be.  Officially, I ran 4.97 miles in 24:55 (5:01/mile), but according to my Garmin, I did 4.98 in 24:53 (4:59.8/mile), which I am more than happy to claim.  I wasn't at the front of the line at the start (gun-timed, not chip, so I lost a second or two there).  Also, I was at the back of the faster group for most of the race until I passed Rob, so I was really nervous about cutting into the road and getting hit by a car and I didn't run the tangents as well as some of the people in front of me.  Anyway, I think my Garmin allows me to say that I ran "sub-5" pace for 5 miles. :)  Everything about the performances here is absurd anyway, so I might as well claim that last little bit of ridiculousness. Hah.

It started raining hard right at the finish, and I jogged across the road to get into a van for a ride back up and my legs instantly started to seize up.  My quads and hamstrings were spasming for the entire ride back (5 minute pace is not normal for me...), so it was nice to chill out in the hot tub for a bit.  Steve Anderson and I had a conversation about ultramarathon training and racing with Jeremy Howlett (owner of Altra shoes and ultrarunner) and I probably spoke my mind too much about why running 100 miles is generally a really stupid idea (even though I plan to do it again in the future eventually!) and how typical ultramarathon training is not a good way to train, etc, so he got out of the hot tub pretty quickly.  Hah.  Sorry!

Anyway, after the race I found out that I had taken 3rd in the poster competition at the conference, so that was pretty cool.  I guess I'll be getting $50 for that when I got into work on Monday.  Nice!

According to the FRB calculator, 24:55 at the 8k is worth about 17:27 at a flat SLC 5k.  My 17:41 or 17:44 in the AM is, according to my calculations, 15 seconds slower than flat at the same altitude (and 32 seconds slower than flat at sea level), so Sasha would apparently give the two races almost equivalent marks.  Personally, I felt that I worked a lot harder in the 8k, but it's possible that it just felt harder than it otherwise would have because I had already raced earlier in the day.  I didn't feel that my first race had affected the 8k, but who knows!

In any case, today, the day after the race, my legs are pretty beat up, but I'll head out for a shakeout run pretty soon and see if I can get them feeling a little better.

Oh, and while nearly every muscle in my legs got beat up by the Downhill Dash, my hip (granted, with ibuprofen as a preventative measure), was completely fine after both races.  Definitely a good sign!  I'm going to see if I can start upping my mileage now, as 19 mile weeks aren't really doing much for my fitness.

DOWNHILL DASH SPLITS:

First mile mark (.99 miles): 5:04.1

Second mile mark (.98 miles): 4:56.6

Third mile mark (1.00 miles): 5:03.4

Fouth mile Mark (.98 miles): 4:55.9

3.95 to 4.95 (auto 1 mile split): 4:46.3 (picked it up a lot trying to nip Kevin)

4.95 to 4.98: 6.8 seconds (3:48 pace? Hah...  Probably not super accurate)

So, I guess I was just above 5:00 pace the first 4 miles and really picked it up in the last mile.  My pace was about 15 seconds faster, so I guess that's how I was able to close down almost the full 12 second lap.  According to my elevation profile from my watch, the first mile wasn't as steep as the rest, with the remaining miles all being pretty similar.  Last mile was a slightly more downhill, but not much.

Took a few days off after Alta Peruvian, legs felt terrible and feet had bad blisters.

Easy road run with Holly, a hair over 7:00 pace.  Quads still felt beat up near the end of the run.

City Creek.  Easy.  Legs feeling decent again finally, although my hip was a little off after taking the week completely off of PT exercises (was just letting everything rest).  Apparently I need to do my exercises even if I'm not running.

City Creek and Bosho with Holly.  She wasn't loving the heat.  Hip felt better again after a few days of PT stuff.

This was the week from hell.  Had to help a bunch of kids prep for their ACT on the 21st and had a few other crazy things going on, so there was just no time to run.

My building to JCC to 5-way down the bobsled (ridiculously fun to run), back along 11th and through fed heights.

Passed 11 bikes in the first mile of dry creek and had to push it to get the last guy, who didn't want to be passed, so I just ended up working hard the entire run.

Alta Lodge to Twin Lakes Pass to Solitude, back up the road to Brighton, to Lake Mary, to Lake Katherine (the long way, not the shortcut), to Katherine's Pass, to Sunset Peak/Sunset Pass, to Point Supreme in Alta, down the meandering road to upper Albion, to Cecret Lake, up Sugarloaf to Sugarloaf Pass, back into Mineral Basin a good chunk of the way towards Hidden Peak.  I decided to turn around and not do the whole Snowbird part when incoming weather and clouds started to look nasty (unfortunately had dropped in elevation a fair amount on the way towards Hidden Peak before starting the uphill towards it, so I had to make up for all of the descent), so I went back over Sugarloaf and then over Germania Pass and down through Collins Gulch to Goldminer's Daughter and back to the lodge rather than cresting Hidden Peak and going down Peruvian and back up the canyon. It had rained a bit when I was at the bottom of Brighton and then it actually snowed on me, extremely lightly (very tiny granules), on Sunset Peak.  When I got to the bottom of Alta, the rain started getting kind of nasty for a bit, so I'm glad that I took the shorter route down and cut 2 miles off what I planned.  Hip wasn't quite 100%, but it was still really good in my longest run in quite a few months.  Took a hair over 3 hours to complete, as I was climbing a massive amount (about 6500' of both gain and loss), going very easy, taking pictures along the way, and just enjoying myself.

Some cool pics from the run, although only the first half, as my battery died at Katherine's Pass:

It kind of blows my mind that you can see all of this within about half of a 16 mile trail run.  The even crazier thing is that 2nd half of the run was even cooler...

If I'm healthy enough to get in 16 miles of very challenging trails without any real issues from  my hip, I think I'm healthy enough to start training for real again.  I'm going to be in Seattle from Wednesday to Saturday for a conference, but I'll still be able to get some good running in while I'm there.

Suddenly the ball is rolling again.  12 miles on BOSHO.  JCC to 5-way, down to the water tower above the meadow, down the short steep turnoff into the meadow, lap the meadow, back up the normal way.  Saw Nate Krah coming the opposite way a little before the 5-way on the way out, but I was rocking out to my headphones, so I just said "hi" and kept going.  91 minutes.  Felt like I was actually going pretty fast a lot of the time (reflected in the mid-7 pace with lots and lots of climb), but it was in control.  I actually don't think I've lost a terrible amount of fitness, which is nice.

9.25 miles with Holly (Little Water to Crest down Crest Connector to Mid Mountain, back up the access road to Crest, back down Old Red Pine Road Trail), also jogged between SMBB and MEB a couple times, so I'm calling it 10 for the day.  Finally got my Garmin replaced and used it today.  Really happy that the battery doesn't die after an hour, even when not connected to satellites.

13 miles in Seattle with Mike Gee.  First 9 at ~8:00 pace, last 4 he started to blow up (this was his longest run in like 10 years), finished at high 8 average.  Hah.  Still fun, although I have no idea where we were at basically any point other than near water the entire time. Hah.

10 miles along the waterfront paths in Seattle.  There were a lot of sharp turns, tiny rollers, and other people to dodge, so it was hard to get a rhythm going, but I did the first 9 miles at tempo effort and then did the last mile as a cooldown.  The first mile was 6:13, but I suspect it was a little bit long due to running between very tall buildings making my pace jump around a ton.  The rest of the tempo portion was at an average 6:02 pace, with the last 3 miles a hair faster than the rest, all a bit under 6.  So yeah, 9 miles in 54:30, but probably more like 54:20.  Felt good to run hard and the pace wasn't super terrible considering that I was mostly just running hard without much of a rhythm.  I haven't taken any ibuprofen to run in a few days and my hip has been pretty close to fine.  I felt a very minor flareup around mile 6, but after about a minute it was gone and never came back.

I'm actually really pleased with this run in hindsight.  I haven't done virtually anything of any value, fitness-wise since May, I've put on 5 pounds of upper body muscle, and if my legs were rested (ie, not after running 61 miles in 5 days after only having broken 35 in a week once in 4+ months), I could probably still bust out a 1:18 half, or there-abouts.  I consider this a win and I'm really excited to see what I'll be able to do when I get back in shape.

Ok, time to go party it up with some undergrad friends that I haven't seen in 4 1/2 years!

10 miles easy (72 minutes) in Seattle.  I went the opposite direction from yesterday on the water front, through a pretty industrial region, across the West Seattle connecting bridge, and south through Delridge before heading back the same way...    The last few days have been great: academics until 5 or 6, a good run, and then partying with my colleagues from undergrad and grad school - as well as some of the world's brightest biomedical engineers - in the late evening.  Tonight we went to a thousand-plus person party at the Experience Music Project Museum, which was a total blast.  Will be back in SLC tomorrow.  It's kind of a bummer to leave such a vibrant city to head back to Salt Lake, but I'm looking forward to the upcoming ski season, so I can deal with it.

Took the day off!  Was traveling and had already broken 70 for the week, which is a ridiculous uptick from anything I've done recently!  Rest isn't always bad. :)  Feeling healthy and ready to get super fit!

Easy 8 with Holly (my place to 5th East to I-80 and back, 7:30 pace), legs are still slightly feeling the workout from Thursday, so I think I'm going to wait a week before I do another.  Saw Allie riding a bike through Liberty Park near the end of the run.

Late afternoon campus loop + loop to and through sugarhouse.  Kind of tired today... probably doesn't help that I stayed up super late reading a good novel and didn't get enough sleep.  Also, it was 82 degrees out and I felt like I was baking.  Definitely a sign that I'm ready for winter. :)