Per Aspera Ad Astra

Really bad day. Left calf cramped up at 0.6 miles, left quad cramped at 1 mile.  Splits were off what I wanted them to be starting with mile 2, as I just mentally wasn't in it at all after feeling so crappy less than a mile in.  Calf cleared up after a few miles, but quad was really sore the entire race, to the point that I was worried about tearing the muscle on the steep downhills between 3 and 6.  So, basically, I had to just hang on for the last 12 miles of a 13.1 mile race. Not exactly what I wanted (I was hoping for a sub 1:14), but considering that my goal 1 mile into the race shifted to just making it to the finish line without walking, it could've been worse. The good thing is that it was really easy, aerobically, thanks to the copious downhill. Obviously the cramping is probably related to running another half last weekend, so I'm going to not race back to back halves in the future.  Post race, my right leg (the one with the recent hip troubles) feels totally fine, and the left quad and calf are really sore.  I don't currently have any injury concerns, but I'm going to be really careful coming back in the next week, just because I don't want to end up with some sort of compensation-type injury.  For anyone looking for a fast half course, this is by far the fastest I've ever been on, with the second quarter of the race literally on par with Alta Peruvian 8k, and the "rolls" on the course are really really not bad at all.  I think 1:13 was a reasonable goal; I was just extremely off my game today.  Oh well.

Official result online is listed as 1:15:23, but I actually ran 1:16:23.  I forgot to put my chip on my shoe and they manually entered my times based on gun time (I started right on the line, so it would be close enough), but they apparently entered it wrong.  I've emailed the timing company, but they haven't responded.  Not sure how to get it fixed.  Regardless of time, my place is 7th either way.

Had a good lift at the gym.  Right leg fine, left leg still a little sore.  So weird.  Also, I have a really annoying blood blister on my right foot, so I'm waiting to run until everything is cleared up.

Another good lift day, but no running.  I'm going to do a month or so of base work to start my Phoenix prep, so I'm making sure I'm well rested.

Spectrum Academy Turkey Trot, after a week of not running.  I won this race last year, and it's for a good cause, so I went back, even though I haven't felt like racing or running much in the last week.  I forgot my watch and the clock was broken, not to mention that they don't post times, so I'm not entirely sure what my time was, given that several people timing it with phones said different things at the finish (I was told both 17:10 and 18:10).  I also don't even know if the distance is correct. Last year, I ran 15:25 on an obviously very short course.  Regardless, my lungs and throat felt TERRIBLE racing after not running for the past week, so it wasn't super enjoyable, but I won by 30 or 40 seconds after having 3 guys on me for half the race (made a big move at the turnaround and dropped them), and got a turkey, pair of running socks, and running hat.  Also, I like that this race actually gave me my prizes, unlike Haunted Half, who promised me some pretty sweet prizes, told me to email to get them, and then never replied to my multiple inquiries.  

Ok, yesterday was a really really awful Saturday.  Decided to run it out of my system today.  Didn't have a lot of time in AM, so did 4, easy, with Holly, but then did another 16, easy, by myself much later (9:30 PM).  AM 4 was an Aves/Fed Hill loop and I didn't even wear a watch.  PM was my place to 5th east, down to 45th south, to 7th east, along that and curving on van winkle to 9th east, stopping at wal mart for a hershey's cookies and cream bar + sprite because I was hungry, back to 39th south, to 7th east, to trolley square, to 5th east, and back home.  Pace on second run was 7:4x, which was so slow that my legs felt weird by the end.  Need to get used to putting in some more slow mileage to get true recovery on easy days.  I'm going to try to avoid doing much in the way of workouts for the next little while and just mostly focus on building a new base for at least a month, probably until January.

2.5 miles up the hill to campus gym at 8:00 pace, shoulder and arm workout, 7.5 miles home at 7:30 pace (gym to 21st south, through Sugarhouse, and back home).  I think I'm going to allow myself a little bit of miles at marathon pace and an occasional tempo surge here and there, but I'm focused on getting in base work for the remainder of the year, so there are going to be a lot of miles on the slower side of things.

Didn't get out the door until a little after midnight.  Pretty late to go for a run, but it was very peaceful outside tonight and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  First 2 miles were way up into the aves, nearly to the very top, then popped down to 11th.  Went above Shriner's, through the gated community, down the trail to the dry creek trailhead, down to the hospital, by huntsman and through the parking lot to research park, down Wakara, along foothill, through campus, by the gym, along university, and back through the lower aves.  Effort was easy and pretty consistent, but due to lots and lots of hills (over 800' of uphill, starting with a 500+' pure uphill, then getting a few hundred more), pace varied a lot.  Slowest mile was 9:4x, fastest was 6:37.

Back was tight, didn't want to flare my hip, so I just spent a long time stretching instead of running.  I only wanted to hit 70-75 this week, and I'm well on track for that, so I can afford the day off.

12 miles, 7 on treadmill just to be able to put in an even effort without hills or wind.  2.5 miles up to campus gym (quite uphill) at 7:15 pace.  Felt like roughly marathon effort with all of that uphill.  Hopped on a treadmill at the gym, ran the first 6 miles at somewhere in the ball park of sea level marathon pace (6:15, which I almost certainly can't hold for 26.2 right now, but will be a little slower than goal MP come March), then finished with a 5:44 (mostly around 5:50, but kicked in the last little bit faster).  Jogged home at the most leisurely effort imaginable, averaging just under 9:00/mile down hill.  Now that's what I call a nice easy cool down.  This is my one harder effort run for the week, and I'm holding myself to that.  Like I said, no workouts for now!

I know I said I wasn't going to race over the rest of the year, but Jake talked me into running the 5k at the Saltair Half.  I already had to go to Salt Lake Running tonight and they had packet pick up and registration there.  I browsed through the list and saw that only about 10 men were signed up for the 5k, wish cash going 3 deep and I was already planning on heading over there to spectate the half, so I just gave in and signed up.  Andrea was the only other 5ker that I've heard of, so as long as I don't have to push all out to get the top cash spot, I won't.  If I could jog it in in 20 minutes, I'd be more than happy to do that, as I'm planning on at least another 10 miles afterwards.

I didn't get out to run until 11:30 tonight.  I don't know why I keep running so late, but I guess that once the sun goes down, I have no reason to get out earlier and keep putting it off until pretty late.  I've been just been writing and editing this week, so I've been largely working at home and not needing to get up early, which has meant getting away with pretty late runs.  I got outside for tonight's run in short shorts, a tech shirt, thin gloves, and a windbreaker, and immediately felt super cold.  I saw a sign that said 35F partway through the run and figured I was just being a wimp, but I checked the weather when I got home and found that it was actually 27 with a windchill of 19, which is actually pretty cold for wearing so little.  Anyway, I did a little over 4 miles looping down to 7th east up to Liberty Park (but not in it) and then back home.  Pace was casual, roughly a 7:30 average.

I really should get to bed right away with the race in the morning (fortunately, not until 9:30), but I've been reading an excellent book by Richard Dawkins, and I don't suspect I'll be able to sleep before knocking out another chapter.

Ran the 5k at the Salt Air half. I was planning on running no harder than necessary to win, and that's what I did.  While driving up, I was bummed when I saw Chris Rushing running along the course, putting in what looked like a rather hard effort warmup.  I hadn't seen his name on the list yesterday, but figured he had just signed up that morning and knew that I would have virtually no chance of beating him if he was in shape.  As it turns out, he did sign up that morning, but accidentally started the half marathon instead of the 5k.  He apparently didn't realize he was in the wrong race until he was the only one to turn around at the halfway point, so he just ran it in and decided not to do the 5k right away afterwards.

Once the actual 5k started, 2 kids took off rather hard, one looking more serious, and the other wearing basketball shorts.  I tailed them by a second or two and we hit the quarter mile at hair over 5:00 pace, at which point the kid in basketball shorts started to slow down.  The other kid and I passed basketball shorts guy and I tucked in right behind him.  We split the mile in an easy 5:40.  I continued to let him dictate the pace and just sat a step behind him until 1.25, when I noticed that we had slowed to 6:15 pace, with a tail-wind, and I pulled up along side him.  My original plan was to go at 2 to 2.5 miles, so as not to leave it to a sprint, but when I chatted with him about the upcoming headwind after the turnaround and noticed that he was already breahthing heavily, I decided to take off at the halfway point.  When we turned around, I sprinted for about 10 seconds into the wind to see what he would do, and he immediately fell off, so i picked it up just enough to gap him about 20 seconds in the remainder of the mile and then eased off.  Mile 2 was 5:57, which meant that I ran the 2nd half at about 5:44 into a strong headwind, probably the hardest effort portion of the race.  At mile 2, I realized that I easily had it won, so I backed off and jogged in a very comfortable 6:09 3rd mile, with a slightly sub-6 last .07 (I had 3.07 total on my Garmin, and the markers were definitely not accurate).

Anyway, other than the rather quick sprint start, that felt extremely easy.  I just wanted to win, and I did.  Of course, I feel bad for Chris Rushing, as he ran faster than my winning time, even after realizing halfway through that he wasn't even in the right race.  The timer had him at 17:24, but I could have sworn that he told me he was sub-17, so I have no idea.  In any case, I wouldn't have won had he been in the right race, but I'll still take it.  Right after the race, I picked up my skis from having their edges sharpened, a chip filled, and the bottoms waxed, which cost $45, so the $50 went to a good cause. :)  Oh, and I picked up a pair of Type A6 with the prototype A7 sole from Andrea, courtesy of Jake, right before the race.  I put them on, jogged to the start, raced in them, and loved them.  Thanks Jake!  I'll make sure to do some damage to them!

Maybe 3/4 of a mile before the race, a little over 2 afterwards.  Later in the day, 5.5 up and down City Creek with Holly at very slow (8:30) pace and then another 3.5 on my own at 6:50 pace.  Did 14.25 of the 15 in the new shoes from Jake and I'm really liking them.

10.12 at 7:30 pace.  7 laps of Liberty Park on the woodchips with Fritz, Jake, Nate Krah, Josh, James, and Allie (for the first couple laps).  I have to admit that I was insanely bored by lap 5. Haha.  Hip felt slightly off by mile 8 or 9, but that's pretty typical and no worse than something that would've resolved itself with stretching for 10-20 seconds if I had needed to go further.  All in all, I felt kind of sluggish today, mostly due to finally getting some decent mileage in for only the 2nd week in 6 months last week.

Also, this is AWESOME: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24953910

8 with Holly.  My place to Memory Grove to City Creek, ran about tempo effort from the bottom of city creek to 5-way in 28:29 with a bit of slush, snow, and mud, but mostly decent conditions (no shortcuts on the route... main trail... I don't recall my fastest time up that, but I want to say that it's 27:xx, and I feel that 26:xx is probably possible right now if just racing this particular section hard), back down the trail and down to the Terrace Hills trailhead, down to 11th, over to B, down to 9th, over to A, down to 4th, and home.  66 flat for 7.9 miles with 1469' gain, and since I called 10.1 "10 miles" yesterday, I get to call 7.9 "8 miles" today.

Late night 11.5, starting at 11:30 PM!  Did the first 6 at average 6:56 pace, then did 4 in 6:15, 6:20, 6:09, 6:14, then backed off and did the last 1.5 at 8:30 pace.  Started at my place, ran up to 9th East, ran to 27th South, up to Highland.  Did the 4 miles of faster pace from roughly 80 and Highland to 4th South and 2nd East.  That portion is net downhill by just over 100', but my route had a significant amount of roll, so it wasn't all fun and games.  Anyway, I went back up into the Aves and then did a ltitle extra loop in the bottom few blocks to get it to end on a half mile increment.

Skiing AM, working PM, running late PM, starting at 11 PM, mostly in pouring rain.  Actually wasn't too bad.  Went to 9th East, to 27th South, to Highland, and back, with a couple extra blocks at the end.  7:40-ish average pace, so nice and easy.  

Oh, and hip felt slightly testy before the run, but it feels better after running, which is good.

Note to self if looking this up on Garmin: Pit-stop at Smith's bathroom at a little less than 7 miles required resetting of Garmin due to lost satellites, so the data is in 2 separate files (plus a hair extra from before I realized that it wasn't logging mileage pre-reset).

Was supposed to meet Josh and Nate for a lunch time run, but screwed up the starting location and missed them.  Winds were pretty out of control up above campus, so I guess I won't mind doing the majority of my running for the day on a treadmill later.  Anyway, I ran up to Red Butte arboretum (instead of amphitheater), then realized maybe they were at the arboretum, so ran back and forth a couple times, didn't see them, and ran back to the lab.  Running against the wind, what felt like an easy 7:30 pace turned out to be 10:30, and running with the wind, what felt like easy 7:30 minute pace was 6:40.  Pretty wild.  By my calculations, that puts the wind at around 30 mph!

Later, I did 7 miles the gym since it was even windier outside than earlier, to the point that I had a difficult time crossing the street from my building on campus to my car in the lot across the street when I went home at 7PM.  Went home and ate a lot of food, which made me feel sluggish for the first few miles, but after 3 miles, I got bored and decided to do a few miles at marathon pace.  I did the next 3 at 6:15, and then did the last mile in 5:23.  The 6:15s felt really really fluid.

I'm going to eat a lot less junk food during this training cycle.  I was significantly skinnier in 2009 when I was running lots of short distance PRs, so I'm going to focus on getting back there.  I figure 10 pounds should do it and, given that I'm nowhere as muscular as I was in 2009 when I weighed 160, I think 150-153 will be the sweet spot.  The old me might have put up sick stats in the bench and shoulder presses, but he was always going to have a hard time running a sub-2:40 looking like this:

Too bad upper body mass doesn't help with the marathon.  :(

Heavy wind seemingly gusting in all directions.  8 miles, down to 9th and 21st, and back, 7:15 pace.  Garmin was screwy in the aves again.  For whatever reason, it has a hard time connecting near my apartment (can take several minutes), and then when I started, right after turning the first corner, it stopped adding distance for about 45 seconds.  When it reconnected, rather than adding on mileage from when it lost the satellites, it just picked up as though I had been standing still for 45 seconds and dropped over a tenth of a mile.  Dumb.  I should eventually get a better model.  Wouldn't mind one that tells me elevation live.

Skiing early afternoon until close at Snowbird.

Got a Jamba Juice smoothie on the way home, then went home, let Holly out, and ran 22 miles immediately thereafter.  2:40, about on the nose, so about 7:16 pace, which felt easy and in control (although running for nearly 3 hours after skiing is still tiring on the legs).  Anyway, I ran from my place to Jordan River Parkway, along the winding path to 4500 south, along that to 1100 east (without a sidewalk in a few places, which was extremely annoying), along that and then up the forced turn around brickyard to 1300 east, to highland, to 21st south, to 9th east (which I've seemed to love running this past week), up to South Temple and back home, looping down to B to get the distance up to a clean 22.  I had gels at miles 11, 15, and 18, so I didn't feel like i was going to crash at any point, unlike on a few of my other recent long runs (about a month or a month and a half back, I did both an 18 and a 19 miler on an empty stomach with no gels, and felt pretty awful over the last few miles).  In any case, 81 miles for the week is the biggest I've gotten in since April, which is definitely something to be excited about, not to mention that I also skied twice and lifted weights three times this week as well, making it a pretty massive week of physical activity.  I did not feel any soreness or tightness in my hip whatsoever at any point during the run tonight, so that's also something to be excited about.  Ok, time to write for a little while on my proposal for grad school, and then relax.

10 miles easy with Holly.  To Liberty Park, 4 loops, a little extra out and back, to get the mileage to even out, and then back home.  8:10 pace, super super chill run; I felt like going very easy and Holly didn't want to go faster than 8:00 or so, so it worked out.  Saw Allie biking at Liberty Park again!

10 miles, starting late (11:30).  Had a date at 7, and didn't get to run beforehand, got home at 9:30-ish, and since it was already dark, I lazed around for a good 2 hours before getting out the door. Hah.  Route was my place to 9th east to 27th south to 5th east, and back.  I felt really fluid tonight (going as easy as I did yesterday certainly didn't hurt), so after a really easy feeling 7:22 first mile with about 80 feet of drop and 75 feet of gain and the next 4 miles at 6:40 average pace, with a net downhill of 135' in those 4 miles, still feeling really easy, I decided to throw in a few miles on the harder end of what marathon pace should be.  Mile 6 was 6:18 (30' down, 15' up), and mile 7 was 6:12 pace for the first 1/3 of a mile before my watch died (+/- 5 feet, no noticeable hills), and mile 8 was similar to mile 7.  Of course, based on the altitude, marathon effort would be roughly 17 seconds per mile faster at sea level.  IE, marathon effort 6:15s up here are more like 5:58s at sea level, which would be my ultimate goal pace at Phoenix if my training goes extraordinarily well in the next 3 1/2 months.  Anyway, after mile 8, I jogged the last 2 miles back uphill to the Aves at 7:30-8:00 pace.  Throwing around a few miles on the faster end of MP here and there in base phase seems like a good plan.  It's not taxing with just a few miles, so it doesn't decrease my ability to get in decent mileage, but it also keeps me in touch with the pace I want to be racing at in March.

Lunch time, mostly with Josh, Shoreline Trail.  Garmin has 7.2, but it didn't connect until I was almost at the Trax, so it was more like 7.5.

Late PM: 6 miles.  Was going to do all of the first 5.5 with Holly, but she was tired after spending the day playing with her friends at doggy daycare, so she started dragging quickly, even at 8:00 pace.  I dropped her off at home after 3 miles and finished the 5.5 by myself.  After that, some drunken loser had parked in my apartment complex's driveway, preventing cars from getting out, so I jogged over to the grocery store and back for another half mile (OK, in all fairness, I was going to go on foot either way, but I'm still annoyed that someone would block in 15-20 cars from getting out of our lot).  I called to have it towed, but unfortunately they moved it before getting their car towed and having to pay a fine (after blocking everyone in for 45 minutes).  Bummer, especially considering that they took off extremely erratically, swerving around while driving way over the limit on the wrong side of the street, so then I just called them in for an almost certain DUI.

Big fat zero.  Didn't finish working until 5:30 AM, which kind of negated the whole running thing.

Slept in until noon after not going to bed until 6-ish (was up very late finishing a research proposal).  I'm not celebrating Thanksgiving until tomorrow, so I skied in the afternoon, then went out for a run at 7 PM.  I celebrated everyone's favorite USA holiday of Black Friday Eve (who really even calls it Thanksgiving anymore?) by donning my 'Murican Flag running shorts and going for an 18.5 mile run past the crowds at Best Buy, Walmart, Target, City Creek Mall, and more! Hurray for wasting money on cheap junk!

17.2 by myself, then cooled down 1.3 more with Holly.  Route was my place to 9th East to 45th South to State to 21st South to 300 West to South Temple, back home.  First 17.2 was at about 6:52 pace and felt pretty easy.  I didn't drink anything, but had a gel at mile 12.  After that, I picked up Holly and did a tiny 1.3 mile loop in the Aves at something like 8:45 pace.  I don't remember exactly, but it was very slow.  I did the whole run in my Air Krongs and they were good.  My feet were maybe ever so slightly sore at the end, but it was 18.5 miles in super light flats, so that's not unexpected.

Celebrated Thanksgiving with my boss and his family, then went for a late night (11 PM) 11 mile easy run (7:38 average pace).  Ran to 13th East, to 27th South, to Highland, to 21st South, to 9th East, and back home.  Nice and chill.

I was thinking on my run about all of the things I have to be thankful for.  There are many: I have many wonderful opportunities in life, I'm healthy and able to run, I have a wonderful family that supports me, I live in a place that allows me to enjoy the outdoors, and much more.  However, one thing sticks out to me, and I hope it's something that those of you who read this will keep in mind this holiday season.  What I am most thankful for lately is my honesty and integrity regarding my beliefs.

For the first ten years of my life, my parents were pretty anti-theistic and for good reason.  Something unbelievably tragic happened to one of my parents as a youth, something that no-one should ever have to go through, and it happened in the name of Jesus Christ.  Nevertheless, when I was roughly ten, my mother became an Evangelical Christian, which meant that my entire family ended up "accepting" the doctrine of Christianity.  I was a good kid growing up; I wanted to honor my parents, and because I knew them to be excellent people, I wanted to obey them.  However, this came at a cost.

While I professed a Christian faith, deep down, my young rational mind could not fully accept my religion.  How could I trust in a god that intentionally degraded women and told them to remain silent in church (1st Corinthians 14:34)?  How could I trust in a god whose believers were purportedly not chosen on merit, but rather on the blind luck of being born into family that followed the right rituals (your odds of being a Christian are astronomically higher if born to Christian parents)?  How could I trust in a god who requires the murder of an entire town if one member of that town didn't believe in him (Deuteronomy 13:13-19)?  How could I trust in a god who requires the murder of anyone that works on a Sunday (Exodus 31:15)?  How could I trust in a god that condoned not just slavery, but of selling women into sex slavery (Exodus 21:7)?  How could I trust in a god that purportedly created me with doubts and yet will banish me to hell for my disbelief?  As an aside, don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to proselytize.  I'm just trying to give an idea as to where I was coming from.

Unfortunately, these thoughts led to a feeling of shame while growing up.  My friends at church professed their faith, but I knew at my core that I could never accept this belief system.  Being a non-believer is inherently "dirty".  As George Bush Sr said, "No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.… I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists."  As a recent study demonstrated, North Americans are more inclined to suspect atheists than rapists for theft.  So, not wanting to be looked down upon and not wanting to disappoint my friends and family, I continued to lie to myself and others about my deepest feelings.

However, once I entered graduate school, things began to change for me.  While I was being mentored by some of the smartest individuals in the world, I came to realize that reason and rational thought are concepts to be cherished, not to be looked down upon, and finally, I became willing to admit that I am, and always have been a non-believer.

Since this admission, I have become truly happy with my life.  I no longer possess a sense of internal conflict and shame; in fact, my life has become considerably more meaningful.  Knowing that I have one chance to truly make a difference for humanity makes me all the more inclined to work hard to improve the lives of others through my scientific research.  Knowing that the world came about through an evolution over the course of billions of years makes it all the more remarkable and breathtaking.  Knowing that I may be considered an untrustworthy person due to my values of sincerity, intellectual integrity, reason, and rational thought is no longer a concern.  Knowing that not all of those that I previously knew would currently accept me is no longer a concern.  My happiness is simply more important.

The best thing in all of this is that my family has undergone a similar trajectory.  They are no longer theistic or anti-theistic, but just good people that dedicate their lives to improving the world.  Even if they were still evangelicals, I realize now that they were never defined by this; as good people, their love has always been unconditional and they would always have accepted me regardless of my beliefs.

This holiday season, I am thankful for being able to be radically honest with myself and others as to what I believe.  I most certainly do not have the universe figured out, but I am truly happy about being able to admit that.  Life is a special thing and I'm thankful for what I have in mine right now.  I'm not sure exactly why I've chosen to post this here, but I suppose it's because of the fact that I've read a lot of cool personal details about a lot of the other local runners in Utah on here and just felt like sharing some things about me.  My goal is not to offend, so I sincerely hope I have not done so.  Ok, off to bed now...

Afternoon: A couple hours of skiing at Snowbird, which was a blast.  PM: 9 miles very easy (8:00 pace) with Holly.  Ran to 9th East, then to I-80 and back home.