Missed the last 3 days due to illness, also why I couldn't get any reasonable mileage in the other days this week.  Thursday I was only out of bed for maybe a total of 30 minutes, my whole body just ached horribly for the latter part of Wednesday and then all day Thursday.  Miserable.

 Friday run was a few easy miles, a mile at marathon pace, and a mile at 5k pace, plus some strides, to get my body used to running again for a race on Saturday.

I picked this race because it was actually a 5k (exactly 5k, without being too short or too long) and pretty flat for Utah (high point and low point only 25 feet apart), so I was irritated when I showed up and the start/finish had been moved by .04 miles off the course, making it 3.18.  

I did a quick 2 mile warmup and roughly half of my fingers and toes went numb (crappy gloves and Nike Zoom Streak XC3, which are very porous mesh on the top), so I quickly grabbed some glove warmers (only had one pair, so I let my feet freeze) right before the race.

I figured I could show up and run about 16:50 at altitude right now for an actual 5k given that I was forced to rest up due to illness.  However, I wasn't 100% recovered and just wasn't all that fast, so I ended up running 17:45 for 3.18 (17:19 for an actual 5k).  I have no idea what my splits were because the mile markers were seemingly randomly placed (first "1" in 6:39, second "1" in 4:22, last "1.1" in 6:44).  In any case, I won by a couple seconds shy of 3 minutes, so a win is a win.

They gave me a gift card for a free $60 massage, an all-day unlimited pass to Boondock's Fun Center (pretty awesome, right?), a big jar of gels, a box of Lance Armstrong branded honey stinger waffles (hah) and a trophy, so I guess I can't really complain.  As for my effort, it was actually a good honest effort unlike the 5ks I ran in November (a pair of even 17:30s on hilly courses in which I wasn't in that great of shape and felt unable to really push all out), so obviously I'm disappointed that this was slower after having 5 pretty solid weeks of training.  In all fairness, though, I was still sick enough that I could barely breath after about a mile or so, so I guess I'll take this one with a grain of salt and just pick another fitness tester in a couple weeks.

Eastern NSL and Bountiful loop starting by going up Orchard and then running all the way up the steep Eaglewood Drive, which felt absurdly slow today.  Legs were actually kind of sore after yesterday's 5k.  I also still felt like the flu was lingering a bit, which is getting extremely annoying.

Was at work in the lab until 9:30 the night before, didn't get to run yesterday.

For this run, did 15 miles at an average of 6:13 (1:33:16) on a treadmill.  Split 10 miles in 62:28 (just under 6:15) and then did the last 5 in 30:48 (just under 6:10).  Last couple were getting pretty hard, but it was manageable.  I had probably 2-3 miles left in me at the end, but the goal wasn't to obliterate myself, so I stopped at 15 as planned.

Oh, and I wasn't quite sure how to log this...  This was a little faster than marathon effort, but not as hard as threshold, so I just put it as marathon pace.  This particular workout, if i was maxed out by the end (I wasn't quite there) would correspond to about a 2:45 marathon on the Phoenix course, given that I'm at altitude but that running on a treadmill is akin to running on a slight (1%) decline due to several factors.  I'm still undecided as to what pace to push for at Phoenix (I really would rather not blow up in my first marathon in 4 years), but I know that I would be dissatisfied with anything slower than 2:48 or so (I need a 5 minute PR to be happy).  I have the feeling that I'll probably end up deciding to go out in 1:23 or so and just see what I can do from there.

8 miles easy, about an hour, just breaking in some new Kinvara 3s.  I've been wearing shoes under 6 oz for awhile recently and I'm sick of buying new pairs almost constantly, so I decided to try these.  First thoughts?  Holy crap, that's a lot of sole under my foot. Hah.

8 miles in a blizzard, up Lacey, around Bountiful/NSL golf area, over to the southern tip, and back down with various turn-offs, about 10 minutes per mile due to the unbelievably deep snow.  Afterwards, jogged laps in a tennis court (also super deep snow) with Holly chasing me around for half an hour, another 3 or so.  First part was super epic.  The very south-eastern tip of NSL is almost entirely unfinished construction, so the roads were unplowed.  At one point, I crested a ridgeline, running through knee-deep powder, into a very strong headwind, and the only thing I could see in the distance was the super bright white lights on the oil refineries on the west side.  All of the elements combined and I felt like I was in some sort of supernatural post-apocalyptic setting.  I don't know how to explain it, but it was pretty darn cool.

Forgot to add in earlier... one mile of jogging across campus because I was running late for something earlier in the day. 

Really didn't want to deal with the snow and the weather was bad enough to close the U of U, so I couldn't run at the gym either.  So... just jogged 2 miles with Holly.  Lame, yes, I know.

3 mile warmup, 4 x mile with about 800-1000 meter jog between (varied for me, whereas everyone else did 1000), 2 mile cooldown.  Run at Olympic Oval in Kearns on the 442 meter track.  The "miles" were done from the 1600 meter mark, but lane 1 was closed in a couple spots and blocked by speed-skating coaches in a few other spots, so it was already a full 1609, if not a couple meters more.  Add in dodging angry other track patrons (and a zamboni on one lap) and the intervals were probably a couple seconds slow.  Mine were 5:22, 5:22, 5:25, 5:24, so pretty even.  While it was hard, I had 1, maaaybe 2, left in me if I had to.  That said, I'm not used to doing stuff this fast, so I was pretty sore afterwards.

Went skiing later in the day and it just hurt like crazy. Hah. 

Started from Highland, did the first 7 with Jake, Kevin, Rob, Andrea, and Allie, then ran over to Sugarhouse Park for some laps (what was it, 5?).   I guess 5 laps makes sense considering that we were at 14.3 when we got back to Highland.  I hate ending at weird numbers like that, so I jogged the perimeter of Highland to get it up to 15.  I accidentally stopped my watch at 14.3 (1:48), but I would figure another 5 minutes or so for the slow/snowy extra bit, so probably about 1:53.  Not particularly quick, but I was sore from the workout and skiing yesterday, so it was enough to make my legs feel a bit beat and give me a light headache at the end (surprisingly similar to when I just haven't done any running of value and try to do my first long run back, but I suspect this was only because I only had a couple Sports Beans and a Clif Bar for breakfast beforehand, with the run starting at 11:30...)  What can I say?  I didn't get up until 10 and then just lay in bed on my computer for another 45 minutes. Hah.

Really frustrating.  Either getting sick again or still sick from 2 weeks ago.  Did about 1 mile, had a pounding headache and a totally sore body, so I decided not to fight it and went home to sleep for 10 hours.

Had to run across campus several times, so I literally ran.  Not really a good day of running, but whatever.

I was still feeling a little rundown and also lazy over the last few days.  Bad air quality + lingering virus that won't seem to go away 100% + surprisingly cold weather = laziness I guess.  Ran with Fritz, Kevin, Chad, and Adam for the first 10-ish (after starting a little late and having to run hard at the start to catch up as they had already taken off... hah..), and then Fritz and Kevin the rest of the way.  I think Fritz said it was 19.8 or 19.9.  My watch was at 2:16:xx (probably 40 something... had 2:17:0x, but forgot to stop my watch when we got caught at a light for 20 seconds).  Felt good up until 17.5-ish when I started to bonk.  It probably didn't help that my "breakfast" consisted of one gel and my nutrition during the run consisted of one more gel.  I gradually got dropped by Fritz and Kevin, but caught back up, until I got dropped again a couple minutes later.  At that point, I was just fighting to keep running, so I lost about a minute on them at the end.  Felt terrible afterwards, but whatever, lesson learned (how many times do I have to learn my lesson about actually getting out of bed early enough to eat breakfast before I do a long run? Hahaha...).  Bonking sucks, but I think it was more because of nutrition than fitness.  Still, today was a reminder that I should not be lazy over the remainder of my marathon training.  If I start to bonk at mile 18 when I'm doing 26.2 instead of 20, things will get a lot uglier.  As for my logging option, this effort would convert to 2:09:30 or so on the Phoenix course at lower altitude, so in all fairness, it wasn't all that far off marathon effort (based on the last few weeks sucking, I'm thinking that 6:20s will be a good goal pace for the gentle course at Phoenix).

11 miles in 1:15 with Fritz, Kevin, John, and Nate.  Legs were a little beat up from yesterday, so it was harder than it otherwise would've been.  Pace started off slow and picked up a bit a few times.  At times, it felt harder than marathon effort, but only because it wasn't all that even.  Afterward the run, I decided my legs haven't had enough of a beating this weekend, so I slammed down some Aspirin and then skied pretty hard for about 3 hours. Hah.

5 miles treadmill tempo, didn't have a lot of time before gym closed (early because of MLK day), so I hopped on and used the first mile as a "warmup" (ie, 5:52).  Did the whole thing in 27:56, pace for first 4 miles felt sustainable for somewhere between 10k and 10 miles, but of course this is a treadmill, so it's slightly fast.  Also, since I knew I only had time for 5 miles, I kicked it up in the last mile.  I believe I figured out the mystery of why 5:00-flat mile repeats on the campus gym treadmills seem so easy, even on a small incline.  Up until about 5:18 pace, each uptick made a noticeable difference in difficulty, but after this point, everything between 5:00 and 5:18 felt identical (tried to kick it up for a finishing sprint, but noticed that it didn't get any harder, so the treadmill probably just doesn't actually go faster than 11.3mph or whatever 5:18 is).  Saw James Moore at the gym and waved as he walked by my treadmill but he looked confused. Hah.

Splits: 5:52, 5:36 (11:28), 5:38 (17:06), 5:32 (22:38), 5:18 (27:56).

Marathon on a treadmill. Hah.  2:53:07, felt comfortable until about 22.  Actually, I took yesterday off to try to rest up my legs, but they were still a little beat up after my bonk-inducing 20 on Saturday, my 11 mile / skiing double on Sunday, and my 5 miles hard on Monday, so they weren't 100% going in.  The goal was to get to the point that the last few miles were pretty uncomfortable, but without beating myself up, so that I wouldn't wreck my training, and I think I accomplished that very well.  I didn't pay attention to pace much while I was running (just tried to keep it comfortable) and inadvertently ran 12 seconds off my PR from 4 years ago, which is really encouraging.  The only ill effects were that my stomach is a little beat up afterwards (very common for me since my stomach sucks) and a couple toes are marginally sore from taking the Kinvaras the longest they've ever gone.  Nutritional plan was supposed to be 4 gels (1 @ 5-6, 1 @ 10-11, 1 @ 15-16, and 1 @20-21), but I knocked one off the treadmill stand about halfway, it landed on the belt, and flew off the back.  When I tried to get someone to grab it for me about 10 minutes later, it was apparently gone (who would take a gel???), so I didn't get the last gel.  That said, I had about 300 calories from Gatorade during the run as well, so nutrition wasn't so bad.  Having the last gel would've been ideal, but I survived without it obviously (I think the finish would've been a bit more pleasant with those extra 100 calories, but w/e...).  Overall, I got exactly what I wanted out of this run, so I'm pleased.

Converting to the Phoenix course, I consider the fact that this is run at 4500', but at 0% grade (ie, equivalent of 52.8' down per mile, ie -1% grade due to lack of wind resistance).  At Phoenix, with an average elevation of 1500', a net downhill of 850', with about 100' up and 950' down, this would be worth 2:49:56.  I think I'll be happy with a sub 2:47, so basically I would only need the equivalent of 3 minutes faster than today's effort, which is absolutely doable and not bad at all.  I think a faster goal would be a good idea, but in all fairness, I haven't raced a marathon in almost 4 years and I really don't want to blow up.  I have plenty of time to go faster in the future. :)

Easy 45 minutes in NSL/Bountiful.  Legs had almost zero pep, but they also weren't that bad.  They kind of just felt a little heavy and slow, but not terribly beat up (quads were a little sore, but only marginally).  

Very easy 45, a hair under 6 miles, NSL and Bountiful, would've been happy to do more, but want to not be sore for Winter Series tomorrow (looks like I'll probably still be slightly flat after Wednesday, but oh well...).

Later (1AM), another 4 miles.  Went to a "crazy hat" party, where I demo'd a new music reactive LED hat I just built for fun a couple days ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfejrNFmgo4 .  It was pretty fun, but a girl I met up with there was not OK to drive home and needed her car in the morning to do some MD student stuff, so I drove her home in her car and then jogged back to my car (from Sugarhouse to the U).  Hah.  This was kind of awful, given that I was wearing jeans, boots, and a down jacket literally rated for arctic exploration.

Probably a hair under 2 miles for the warmup (15 minutes or so), Winter Series 5k in 17:33, 2 mile cooldown (to the 1 mile marker and back).  Considering that I ran a "trial" marathon (~10 minutes off what I would peg as about my max capacity in 5 weeks at the real race) 3 days ago and didn't get nearly enough sleep after some festivities last night, I'll take it.  My legs felt average during the race, certainly not great, but not completely destroyed, although after the race, they just felt hammered. 5k is definitely not my best distance right now.  Hah...

Overall place is an estimate right now, FYI... 

13 miles in NSL/Bountiful in 1:35-ish.  Very snowy, started as the storm was petering out, but most of the roads I was on were reasonably well plowed, so it didn't slow me down much.  A couple miles from the finish, while running on Orchard Drive, a cop stopped me and threatened to give me a ticket for running in the street (in an area with no sidewalks).  Pretty sure I wasn't breaking the law, given that Utah State Code allows for pedestrians to be in the street when there's no sidewalk (or if there is a sidewalk and it's not "practicable", which seems like intentionally vague terminology).  He also told me that I needed to stick to running on a treadmill in winter, as running outside in cold weather is unsafe.  I guess he thought I was his son or something? #Abuseofpower.

Treadmill.  1 mile warmup, 10 miles in 61:21 (0 to 2.5 at a little faster than marathon pace, 6:15, 2.5 to 3.0 in a surge, about 5:45 pace, 3.0 to 5.8 in a little faster than marathon pace, 6:15, 5.8 to 6.8 in a surge, about 5:45 pace, 6.8 to 8.5 at 6:15, 8.5 to 9.0 at surge, 5:45, 9.0 to 9.5 at 6:15 and 9.5 to 10.0 at 5:30 pace), 1 mile cooldown.  The goal was to force a pace slightly faster than marathon pace to be a recovery pace, in an effort to make marathon pace as comfortable as possible.  I had plenty more miles in my legs, but today wasn't supposed to be all-out as I'm going to do a very hard tempo workout in a couple days that I need to be ready for.  I probably have time for 3 more really hard workouts before the marathon after this week's (one next week, one the following week, and one the week before the marathon if I throw it in on Monday, ie, like 12 days before the race), so at some point I'm going to push for a long run kind of like this, maybe 18 miles mostly at about MP, but with a total of 3-4 miles of tempo mixed in.  I think my current fitness could use something like that workout-wise, so maybe I'll push for it next week.

Lazy, just jogged a mile with Holly.

1 mile warmup, 3 x 3 mile tempo on treadmill with 2 minutes rest between in 17:13, 17:07, 16:56.  Last mile of the 2nd one was hard, got to that typical state of "how in the world am I going to do a 3rd one?", and then pounded out the last one by counting down every 30 seconds until the expected finish time over the final 10 minutes.  I killed it and hit the paces I wanted and it killed me right back in the process, so I would say it was very successful.  I'm right at where I was in this workout a little over 3 years ago (also on a treadmill at the same gym) while I was training up for a marathon that never happened (got my one stress fracture of my life a month out), but I'm doing it with a little bit less 5k speed, so that ought to translate to a faster marathon (my goal was 2:42 then, which was probably slightly overly ambitious), but it gives me confidence towards definitely benig able to run a mid 2:40s time now.

Jog with Holly.  Lazy.

Started at 9PM, wore a huge reflective triangle, 200 lumen headlamp, flashing red LED blinker, reflective ankle strips, and reflective gloves, so I was basically a moving traffic barrel.  Down Beck Street to Downtown.  Hit the 5 mile split in :36, felt absurdly easy, which is a good sign, and I had been running quite a bit out of my way to avoid black ice (slipped and slammed about 3 minutes in), so it was even slightly long for the split, probably by a minute or so.  Kept going, hit downtown, looped around and came back up Main.  Followed Main up Columbus and then all the way up the hill and onto the trail that connects to the upper neighborhood.  Planned to go up and over the radio towers, but quickly realized that was a terrible idea due to snow, so I figured I would stick on the trail into the mine and pop down a mining road.  Getting in there, I realized that wasn't happening.  Snow was way too deep, could barely run and I was losing time like crazy.  Also, I got about a quarter mile away from a spot where I suddenly recalled seeing a super ominous cave with bones outside of it a summer or two ago, so my animal instincts kicked in and I high-tailed it back off the trail and up to the nearest road (gated community at the top of Capital Hill).  Ran back down the hill, down to 300 W (instead of taking Victory Road, which is insanely dumb to run on at night), then came back up Beck.  Total time of 2:26.  Figured I averaged about 7:00 pace on the road (last 5 mile split was :34 and it still felt really easy), but I lost about 15 minutes off my pace in the snow on the trail (it was packed in for maybe 2/3 of the way, but still bad footing and slow and horrible for the other 1/3 to the point that I was probably going 11 minute pace for a mile or two in there).  Not the most inspired run ever, mostly due to being pretty tired the whole time (long run starting at 9PM is stupid...), but I'm glad that I got it in as I'll be skiing for most of tomorrow and there's no way I'm putting in 20 miles afterwards.

Skied for nearly 7 hours and then hung out with people afterwards until Midnight.  Skiing isn't such a bad leg workout, right?  Not really the mileage I imagined for this week, but I got in the key days.

Lazy, oops.

9 miles, TM.  Opening mile of 6:50, then alternating between roughly MP and tempo, starting on the slow side of each and progressing faster.

1: 6:50

2. 5:55

3. 6:27

4. 5:52

5. 6:22

6. 5:48

7. 6:18

8. 5:45

9. 6:15

This wasn't intended as my main workout of the week, or it would have been longer (main workout will be on Wednesday).  Rather this was just a run that would force me to recover at marathon pace (I'm really trying to make MP feel as easy as possible over the last few weeks of training).  It wasn't really all that hard, which is good.

62 minutes, mostly in the ballpark of 7:00 pace, but threw in a half mile surge somewhere in the middle and also did the last 1.25 in 7:22 (40 ft of uphill over the last quarter mile).  I got absurdly lost in Foxboro NSL to the point that I was going North for about a mile thinking I was going South. Hah.  I guess that's what happens when you go out for a run on very winding roads starting at almost midnight.

 In other news, today is one of those days that just makes me incredibly thankful for running.  My labwork is going really well lately, but my personal life has felt like a bit of a roller coaster of late.  While I am good at being in a relationship, I am terrible at playing the whole pre-relationship courting game.  Every time that I think I finally understand the psychology of women, it isn't long until I realize that I'm completely clueless.  It's nice to be able to use running to clear my head...

17 miles TM, mostly marathon pace-ish (6:22 to 6:27, never slower, which averages to about 6:20 equivalent on a Phoenix-type course) with 2.5 miles of surges built in (6:00 to 6:07 pace).  Most of the surges were quarter miles with one half mile at 6:00 mixed in for good measure.  Overall, this was quite hard.  My right pinky toe blistered up, which hurt, and my legs just didn't quite feel like they were at 100% (maybe Monday's workout was still slightly in them?).  I wanted 18 and I expected it to be "hard", but I ended up doing 17 and it was "very hard" (the type of workout where I'm literally muttering not so nice stuff under my breath over the last couple miles, and I think more than 1 more mile would have annihilated me).  I also only had a total of a .75 miles of surges after 13 or so (right at 13 for a quarter, another quarter at 15.5, then the last quarter) and each one of those felt crazy hard.  I think I could handle as much as 20 like this on fresh legs, but I would guess that it would feel about as hard as running the marathon itself.  I do think that 20 miles with 2.5-3 miles mixed in at 20-25s per mile under marathon pace should actually be nearly as hard as the marathon itself (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this), so the fact that I was close to that today probably shouldn't be discouraging.  Overall, I felt pretty close to a train-wreck afterwards (light headache, slow-moving, and generally sore), but a good dinner cleared it up for the most part.  I may do another one of these next week as it seems like I've pinpointed another type of run that can help my fitness dramatically.  That said, I have 3.5 weeks until the race and I still feel really fresh (mostly due to laziness over the last month), so I'll probably work hard up until ~7 days out and just get in as much quality as I can before then.

Stupid stuff going on.  No time or energy to get out the door.

Extremely frustrating week on all levels.  Don't normally let myself get stressed out about stuff, but I can't always help it.

Warmup+cooldown totaling a little under 3 miles, 10k in 37:07.

My goal coming in was to run about 36-flat.  I figured a 36 flat at altitude would be a good performance for me right now.  With that in mind, I knew I would need to run 5:48s.  I've struggled a lot in 10ks in the past, so I decided the only smart plan would be to run really even.  I realized that the weather would be slightly more annoying on the way back, but really underestimated it.  I hit the turnaround in 18:03 really easily with all my miles between 5:46 and 5:52 and thought I had it in the bag.  However, as soon as I turned around, I instantly entered survival mode.  I had a more generous tailwind than I had realized on the way out and as soon as I was going the other way, it became a nasty headwind.  I was constantly getting tons of stinging snow in my eyes and the wind was really strong, so my pace immediately dropped to 6:05 to 6:10.  Physically, I was fine and never really got out of tempo mode until the last .22, but with the wind and snow, I just couldn't quite work it at any point. Mile 4 was somewhere in that range, and despite not being super exerted, I was struggling to push hard in mile 5, dropping to a 6:15.  Realizing that I was being kind of a sissy, I picked it back up to 6:03 in mile 6 and then ran 5:39 pace for the last .22.  Effort wise, I averaged a HR of 174 (really consistent throughout the race other than the first and last quarters), so I really wasn't killing it (last time I did VO2/metabolic testing, a few years ago, my tempo effort was 177-179, so I was probably just in tempo mode the entire time).

Seeing where I finished in the field (one spot behind a guy who ran 2:39 and 2:40 last year, one spot ahead of a woman who ran 2:49 last year, and 2 spots ahead of a guy who ran 2:44 last year), I guess I'm where I need to be.  Also, it appears that mostly everyone was in the ballpark of 2 minutes of their 10k PR and running at or slightly slower than half marathon pace, so I guess I'll take it.

6 miles by myself at 6:58 pace on a hilly route in NSL/Bountiful with 300 feet of climb, wanted more, but no time.  Jogged another 2 miles with my pooch Holly.

Wasn't paying attention to time the night before, so I accidentally stayed up until 3:00 am playing piano (somehow I practiced for 3 hours before I realized where the time had gone?!?).  I ended up sleeping in until 11 on Sunday (sorry for missing the group run, everyone), but needed to practice piano (I'm making this a daily part of my life again, despite how busy I am) and give Holly some play time.  I went running, but didn't have much time as I had to get over near campus to tutor in the afternoon.  After tutoring, I was in the lab for a good 5 hours (not common for me on Sundays) taking care of a few odds and ends in addition to getting a surgery done, so I didn't get home until very late.  Oof...

I was going to put off my first workout of the week until tomorrow and just do 8-10 miles of whatever today on a treadmill, but after 1 mile of what would've been the equivalent of warm-up pace for a tempo (a bit under 7:00), I realized that I felt great and decided to do the 10 mile tempo today.  Reset the treadmill and locked in at 5:52 pace.  Over the next 10, I did a bit at 5:49, but mostly at 5:52, until somehow I had enough left to drop the last mile in 5:36 for a total of 58:29 (5:51 average).  Out of curiosity, I wore my HR monitor and found that, for whatever reason, it took a little while to increase up to my tempo HR range (literally almost 2 miles, despite sub-6 miling) even though I would've thought the effort was about the same the entire time.  Despite this long build-up (didn't break 170 until a mile and a quarter), I averaged 1 BPM higher heart rate than I did in the 10k on Saturday (176 to 175), so I was actually working harder than I did in the 10k race for most of the workout (was sitting as high as 181 after mile 8 with tempo pace and got up to 186 in the last mile).  Besides the fact that I'm a classic workout warrior, I think that this is because I have a hard time pushing myself all out in short stuff on the road, whereas I simply force a fast pace that I know I'm capable of in treadmill workouts, which requires me to either hold the pace or fly off the back. :)   In any case, it's obviously a bit easier to run on the treadmill than in a snowstorm, but I split 10k in 36:23 today (compared to 37:08 at the race), feeling like I was working hard, but confident about my ability to hold it, and continued on with another 3.8 at a slightly faster average pace.  This was a major mental boost to me.  Even if treadmill pace isn't totally accurate, I definitively proved to myself that I'm in better shape than I showed on Saturday based on my ability to hold a higher cardiac effort for 50+% longer than I did in the race.

By the way, does anyone see why I went without a Garmin for awhile?  All I do is think about numbers when I have one. Hah. 

Got home late, could still feel yesterday's workout in my legs a little, was lazy.

11.25 miles according to mapmyrun, 11 according to my Garmin, 81 minutes, pretty hilly (700' gain according to MMR, haven't plugged in Garmin to see its overinflated stat of that yet... hah...).  My building on campus to Kevin's, with him through the aves to City Creek, up to the 1.5 marker, back down, around capital hill, down, back up 2nd avenue, he ended at his house, and I went back to my building.

Left at 8:30, got home at 10:00.  Wanted to run, but too busy. :(

Progression from a little under 7 to a little over 6.  Didn't have time to do more.  I'm so busy it's ridiculous.

Weekends are great...  Have time to do decent mileage.  Emigration Canyon with Kevin and Fritz.  Mostly about 7:30 pace on the way up, which felt fast, until the hair pin turns, at which point I lost a little distance when they kept the same pace and I started running 7:45s.  I'm not strong on climbs right now (fortunately this doesn't matter in Phoenix), so the way up felt harder than marathon effort.  Ran down with them running mostly about 6:20s, which is in the ballpark of what I'll be running at Phoenix.  Actually, with a little over a mile to go, I felt Kevin and Fritz pushing the pace, so I told them to take off (apparently they dropped to sub-6), whereas I finished up in 6:18s.  Getting dropped twice isn't fun, but I just have to remind myself that these guys are faster than me, so it's OK.  Emigration is a steeper downhill than Phoenix's course, but it's at much higher altitude, so overall, I would say that today's run was basically 8 at harder than marathon effort and then 8 at marathon effort.  I originally planned for more, but just didn't want to kill myself.  I think I'm going to do a really easy 18 on Monday by myself.  Several people have said this probably isn't the best idea, but I do recover fast and it's 12 days out from the race, so I'm not really worried about it hurting my race physically, whereas mentally it should be helpful.

This week was, once again, really low mileage-wise, but today's run is good in terms of getting in a good effort for a pretty long period of time and Monday's workout was exactly what I needed, so the quality is still there.  I'll get in one more longer day and then just do some shorter marathon pace stuff and easy runs.  I'm definitely not as fit as I could be, but I'm also definitely more marathon ready than I had been in the past, thanks to actually doing good workouts.  I'm still debating what the best pacing plan is, but I will definitely not go out any faster than 1:23 in Phoenix and I'm thinking that maybe 1:24 would be better (a negative split would be great, if possible).  I haven't run a marathon in a few years, so I might as well have the first one back not be a horrific trainwreck. :)

Got in a couple hours of hiking afterwards with Holly, her twin sister Nala, and Nala's owners: 

A little over 10 miles with Kevin.  Started at his house, ran up to Virginia, up to 11th, along the aves to drop into City Creek, up to the 2 mile mark, back down, around by capital hill, and then back up 2nd.  Legs felt a little hammered today (thanks to a hard 16 yesterday, followed by a few hours of hiking, and then some skiing earlier today), but they still were OK to run.  I won't have a car this week, for a good chunk of the week, thanks to having to have my head gasket and timing belt replaced (head gasket is starting to go bad and leaking oil into my coolant, timing belt is getting done while the engine is open), so I'll probably actually get reasonable mileage just out of the sheer necessity of having to run to get places.

My building on campus to my home (car in the shop all week), 8.5 in 61, also had to do about .5 miles worth of running to catch a couples buses/trax.  It is lame not having a car for a few days.

Got in a few miles of running by having catch buses/trax on time (across campus twice, from my apartment to a stop, and then from a stop back to my apartment).  I actually had to run 2 of the miles at tempo effort, which was a real blast wearing normal clothing. Haha.  Got home at 7:30 and since this week is supposed to be helping me recover for next weekend's marathon (especially after my legs got hammered with a hard 16, a moderate 10, skiing, and hiking all within 36 hours over the weekend), I decided not to run more.  I had been debating another long run early this week, but I have apparently had 12 runs of 15 or more (11 or 16 or more, and 10 of 17 or more) in this specific build (last 12 or 13 weeks), so I'm just going to trust in that rather than beating myself up.  Even if my mileage hasn't been great, my long runs have been pretty consistent.

9 miles, home to work, not quite the most direct route.  Hobie Call style, as I was wearing the equivalent of a weight vest (backpack with jeans, shirt, shoes, winter jacket, wallet, keys, cell phone, etc).

Later, another hard 1.4 miles of uphill tempo to catch the bus. Hah. 

1 mile to and from bus stops in the AM (real run coming later).

Next, 1 mile jog to the gym and then 5 miles on the indoor field house track with Kevin in 34:xx.

Finally, half mile back home from a bus stop.   None of those extra bits of jogging probably do much for me, but they do all add up.

1 mile to/from bus stops.  Get my car back in a few hours, which will be nice.

winter series 15k plus a slight bit extra.  didn't race, just ran casually at a little over 7:00 pace.

9.5 @ ~7:20 average.  Legs were a little beat after skiing hard and then standing on a bus in ski gear for 2.5+ hours yesterday.  Time to rest up!

Taking today off, intentionally!  Marathon on Saturday.

4 easy AM miles with Holly, just to keep some running in my legs and be continue to be used to running in the morning (8AM for this run, will go around 7 tomorrow).

Also, I just saw this, which is absolutely hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MVIyq-kGL5Y 

Woke up feeling super sick.  Awesome...

In Phoenix.  Throat still super sore.  First 2 miles against the wind in 7:00 and 6:30, then a 6:10 with the wind, and then backed off (6:50, then 6:58 pace for the last half).  Didn't feel so great, but also didn't feel as bad as expected.

To and from the expo.  6:49, 6:20, then easy jog on the way back (7:30s or so).

Phoenix Marathon in chip time of 2:50:00.1 (and a watch time of 2:49:59.x).  How annoying is that?  Haha.  Can't complain about a PR, but man that .1 hurts. :)

Pre-race thoughts: Uneventful.  Ate 1000 calories worth of powerade, nature valley bars, and bananas between 4:30 and 5:30 for the 6:30 start (I think this was a great decision, as my energy was spot-on the whole race), but feeling pretty darn sick still.  My throat was super jacked up and I had a hard time talking, but I was OK energy-wise.

Splits and thoughts (all Garmin splits, race splits were a little longer, total of 26.36 instead of 26.21, running all the tangents pretty much perfectly):

1 - 6:19, downhill,

2 - 6:18, downhill.

3 - 6:24 mostly downhill, with a little uphill.

4 - 6:18, downhill. 

5 -  6:32, all uphill, should've run more like 6:40 to save energy, felt a little forced.  Accel gel right before 5 mile mark so I could suck down water afterwards, a bit of a mistake, as it has almost no sodium.

6 - 6:40, all uphill, slightly steeper.

7 - 6:16, part of the best 2 miles of downhill of the race.

8 - 6:16, same.

9 - 6:27 No major climbs or drops from here that seemed to play a huge part. 

10 - 6:22

11 - 6:25.  Mentally noted on this mile that I wasn't sure how things would pan out.  I felt reasonably relaxed, but wasn't confident that I wouldn't blow up, especially with those 6:16s in there. Powerbar gel with lots of sodium.  Legs were slightly feeling it already, so this was good.

12 - 6:30.  Decided this would be a good pace to settle at.  I realized that I was about .07 miles ahead of the markers, split-wise, at this point, but just running 6:30s in to the end would get me a sub-2:50.

13 - 6:31, hit halfway in 1:24:0x on my watch, 1:24:30 officially.  

14 - 6:30.

15 - 6:31.  A little after 15 miles, I realized that I could hang on and not blow up.  Another powerbar gel with lots of sodium.  Keeping the legs in the same place they had been since 11.  Starting to feel a little bit hot (training in sub-30 degrees is probably not ideal for a race that got into the 60s).

16 -  6:24.  Little injection of pace.  Caught back up to a guy who had recently passed me and he hung on my shoulder from here until 23.  I thought it was mentally helpful to have someone right there for so long.

17 -  6:24.  Another pretty decent one.

18 -  6:25.  Same.

19 - 6:29, as 6:24-6:25 was getting hard.  Another powerbar gel, calves and quads both starting to feel it a bit.

20 - 6:32.  Took a little while for the gel to hit, wasn't so pleasant.  Getting pretty darn hot.

21 - 6:24. Realizing that I was now .12 miles ahead of the flags, I had to push to hit a sub-2:50, even though my watch splits were perfectly fine.  Frustrating.

22 - 6:26.  Still pushing, perhaps should've hung onto 6:30s slightly longer, hurting.

23 - 6:31.  One more powerbar gel, things were starting to hurt a lot.  Dude on my shoulder dropped off.

24 - 6:42.  Wasn't sure what happened, but I think it may have had to do with my fellow competitor dropping off here.  I didn't sense that I had slowed down and thought my garmin was just a little off at the start of the mile (sometimes it yo-yos on current split pace for 30 seconds or so before it settles, once starting a new mile), but I was just hurting a lot.  Starting to cramp, was frustrated that I hadn't taken a powerbar gel instead of an accel gel at mile 5, because just a little extra sodium would've helped.  I was sweating profusely and very salty.

25 - 6:42.  Just hanging on, cramping...

26 - 6:31.  Realizing I had to push really hard to hit a sub-2:50, now that I was a frustrating .15 miles ahead of the flags, split-wise.  Cramping, but not caring.

26.21 - 1:21 (6:28 pace).  26.21 garmin split of 2:49:10.

26.36 - :49 (5:26 pace), legs were annihilated, but I realized I had to sprint all out to get under 2:50.  Final of 2:49:59:xx on watch, 2:50:00.1 on chip.  UGH!!!

Legs were pretty toasted at the finish, so after waiting for Bill and Spencer to finish, I drank a couple chocolate milks and hopped in an ice bath for 10 minutes.  It hurt like mad for the first minute everything went numb, but it was so worth it when everything got feeling back (much less pain from then until now, 5-6 hours later).  Interestingly, my voice was completely destroyed and when talking to anyone, I'd have to repeat myself a few times for them to understand what I was saying.  On top of that, my sinuses are trashed and I think I'm getting an ear infection, but it was worth it.  It's hard to say, but I honestly don't think being sick slowed me down much.  Maybe everything would've felt a little easier without being sick, but I really don't think it affected my time more than 2-3 minutes at the absolute max, based on how I felt on a number of runs in my last few weeks of training.  My 2:53:07 TM marathon would've predicted a 2:49 low here and this felt harder, but my pace was perfectly controlled there and the weather was hotter here after mile 15 or so, so it's not a perfect comparison.

Overall, I ran pretty smart and within myself.  One more shot of salt probably would've taken care of the cramping, which cost me some time from 23 to the finish, so in the future, I'll spend the $1.19 for another gel rather than using some freebie I have sitting around the kitchen.  I think this is probably the most perfectly executed marathon+ distance run I have ever run given my ability on that particular day (off the top of my head, this was my 15th marathon finish and 35th finish of a race of marathon or longer, as I used to race way way way too much).  I think a little more salt would've given me a finish time between 40 and 60 seconds faster, but we're talking hitting 99.5% of race-day potential, so that seems really good to me.  I only think that one of my mile splits was too fast (5 on the steep uphill), but that probably didn't make much of a difference.  The first half was easier, so a 60 second positive split seems like an even effort to me.  This was honestly a pretty uneventful race for me, which is always a good thing in a marathon.  I would argue that my 2:52:55 back in MN in 2009 is probably marginally stronger, given that this course was really easy and that one was really hard, but a PR is a PR no matter how you slice it.

Everyone I knew from Utah, and otherwise, rocked it.  I loved that Jake won and the 2nd place finisher wore a singlet that said "Team Jake".  Almost seems pre-destined as to how 1 and 2 played out. :)  Riley took 3rd, Utah Valley guys did great, and it was nice to see Spencer hit a 3:05 debut off of injury-marred training.  Bill, my old high school MN XC teammate who I've been staying with down here, barely trained for this, his marathon debut, (3 long runs of 16, 17, and a moronic 22 at 6:30, his ultimate best case MP goal pace 9 days before the race).  In addition, he was the last starter, as he apparently slashed the living daylights out of his legs on barbed wire off the side of the course while trying to go to the bathroom in the dark right before the start, and it took 10 minutes for his calves to stop bleeding.  He took it out as I expected (sub-6 for the first 4 miles, despite having an absolute best case goal of 2:50) and had to fight massive blowups the entire time, but came in at 2:55 (gun time of 3:05... haha...), having to pass almost the entire field of runners to get up to 20th place based on chip.  If he learns how to train and race, he'll be really really quick.

1 mile jogging to my car after work (had a horrible parking spot)

Same as Tuesday, got stuck in a terrible lot a mile from my building, jogged to my car after work.

First real run since Phoenix Marathon 8 days ago.  Running sick did a number on my body and seems to have set me up for a long recovery process.  Legs still felt hammered from about 2 miles in today.  Did a group run with Jake, Fritz, Nate, and Rossy south from Highland High.  They wanted 10, I wanted a little less.  After 4 miles or so, they did a 1 mile-ish loop around some park, so I skipped this mile in favor of stretching out my legs.  We had averaged low 7 up to this point, but picked it up afterwards with a 6:5x and then a 6:44, at which point, my legs had had enough.  That one mile in 6:44 (17 seconds/mile slower than what I averaged in the marathon 8 days ago) felt like 5k/10k effort after 6 miles of running, which was a little scary.  Hah.  The group seemed to want to keep running sub-7s, which I had no interest in whatsoever, so I let them take off and dropped my pace to 7:45 for the last 2.5 miles.  There are days to push and days to just listen to your body, and today was definitely the latter.  I hit 8.5 miles in 62 flat and had to sit down for a few minutes to rest my trashed quads and calves.  I didn't expect to feel great today, but I was a little surprised at just how bad I felt.  I guess I've never simply taken 8 days off after a marathon before, so I think having had an active recovery would've been helpful.  That said, the major factor here was probably just being sick.  I was still feeling it in my sinuses yesterday, 7 days after the marathon and 10 days after first getting sick, but I think running today finally cleared everything out for the most part.  At the very least, it can only get better from here. :)

3 miles really easy as part of a date, red butte area trails.  Legs felt great compared to yesterday except that I slipped in mud and bashed my knee on a rock, which was actually quite painful.

 Super easy, with the pooch.  73  degrees, she didn't really want to run.

Workout with Bill Mennel, who is in town at his parents' condo up at Solitude.  2 mile jog up city creek, 2 miles down hard in 10:02 (5:02, 5:00).  2 mile jog up, 2 mile down hard in 10:06 (5:02, 5:04).  Felt good, but getting sore in the last hard mile.  1 mile cooldown.   Made this specific for Running of the Leopards next week, but it was about 1% steeper downhill, so a little faster.

Easy run with Holly, just recovering from the previous day's workout.  Keeping mileage light until after the 5k next weekend.

1 mile up city creek jog, 1 mile down (average 3.5% decline) in 4:49, 1 mile jog back up, 1 mile down in 4:50, 1 mile jog back up, 1 mile down in 4:50, 2 mile cooldown.  Have been keeping mileage super low to be fresh for Saturday's Running of the Leopards, but got in another specific workout for it (albeit on a 3.5% decline rather than the 2% of the race).  The rest was pretty long, so I'm not sure how good of a predictor this would be for the 5k, but these are really fast times for me regardless, so I think I should be ready for a pretty solid performance.

Warmup with some strides, Running of the Leopards in 16:44, 3 mile cooldown.

Race felt pretty meh to be honest.  Those mile repeats were still in my calves and I just "didn't have it".  In any case, this is only 10 seconds off my PR in slick conditions (probably not much of a factor) on a course that, despite what people will say, is only 12 seconds faster than a flat sea level track according to the Jack Daniels calculator.

Splits:

1 - 5:24 (took it out in about 5:15 pace, settled into that effort, looking to split 5:15 at the mile, only to realize that it flattened out and then went slightly up at the end of the first mile).

2 - 5:35 (got really lazy at the start of this mile, saw I averaged 5:55 pace for the first minute of it and then had to pick back up).  This is the mile that killed what could've been a PR

3 - 5:12 (too little too late)

.11 - :33 (realized I wouldn't hit a PR, bummed)

Effort wise, it never really felt that hard.  I wanted to push it harder, but after a mile or so, my calves just weren't super happy.  In any case, this is the fastest time I've run in just about 4 years, so I guess that's good.  Even adjusted 12 seconds back, this would've been a 16:56, which would've still been my fastest since 2009, so I'll take it for now.

Today's run was 9.3 miles in 65:xx, half with Fritz, Kevin, and some Westminster guy named Oliver.   They all wanted to do 18, but as a loop, so I just went out with them to Cottonwood area and then turned around.  Pace was pretty consistent after a high-7 first mile (right under 7 most of the way).  Legs still feel a little heavy, but I think it's mostly a byproduct of having had no good quality purely aerobic based runs in 3 weeks.

I've had 3 extremely easy weeks, so it's time to start training for real again. This week will have to bridge me back into the mileage (not to mention that work is going to be pretty darn busy this week), but I need to hit at least 40-45 or so, more if it feels right.  I'll definitely have to get in something around 15-18 this upcoming weekend (but by myself so I can run it slowly and not get dragged along at MP).

Ran up the hill to the lab for work from my new place in 16:30-ish, ran back home later right on 6:00 pace.  Probably not quite tempo effort, but close enough.

With Holly.  3 miles hard, on trail (first trail run of any value since quite awhile back), from the City Creek canyon road up to 5-way in 26:54.  I don't know that I've ever run this under 32 before (granted, haven't done it in awhile or ever with reasonable fitness).  I followed the same path that Steeplechase does (ie, none of the shortcuts).  Came back down but in the meadow I took a game trail down on the Northeast side and followed up the canyon for a little while before crossing the creek and coming back down the road.  The uphill was run hard enough that I actually broke Holly on an uphill for probably the first time ever.  She was off leash and it took her ~20 seconds longer than me to get to the highest point.  On the way down, she was only willing to go a very easy pace, so I guess I tired her out pretty well. :)

Easy, city creek trails with Katy and the pooch Holly.

Off!

5 miles with Holly, mixed in 2 hard miles of climbing, which she didn't really like.  Over the last mile, she kept stopping behind me.  Poor pooch needs a haircut so she can deal with the increasing temperatures!

My apartment at 4th and D to B, up to 11th, down the city creek road, onto the BOSHO trail, up to the 5-way (long route, no shortcuts), to the Jewish Community Center, all at about marathon effort in 60:xx (~8 miles, but with lots and lots of climb, hitting the downhill miles at just over 6:00).  Daniels tables calculate this as an equivalent pace of 6:30 if the course were flat, but that's not even factoring in all of the sharp hairpin turns, the rocks all over the trail, or the altitude, so it was a high quality effort.  Hit the bottom and was nervous about my ability to hold the same effort on the way back in my first long run in a month, but fortunately I ran into Mark Lehmkuhle, who was going really easy, so I jogged slowly with him back to the 5-way (3.5-ish miles) before he turned around.  I kept it easy from the 5-way down to the road (mostly around 7:00 pace on what was mostly just a series of pretty steep downhills).  From here, I ran down into Memory Grove and ran it in marathon effort from here (6:15s down the paved path towards the capitol).  I could tell that this was my first long run in a month - after 100 minutes or so, I just felt a little off energetically (despite eating 400 calories worth of cookies while running) and like I was close to getting a headache for the last few miles, but I was encouraged by my ability to still hold MP when I wasn't feeling great at the end.  And, it was only 16 miles, but with a ton of vertical mixed in (nearly 3000' by the end of the run), so it was definitely a "better" long run than just going out for a 16 mile slog with almost 10 at MP.

I'm thinking about meeting up with some folks for another similar length trail run tomorrow, but it will be really slow.  Nothing wrong with that. 

Very easy casual run with Joe Dean.  My apt to memory grove to city creek to the very top of the road (last quarter mile sucked with a lot of snow) and back.  Easy pace, nice to just put another relatively long run in the legs.

1.5 miles up city creek: 

 5.6 miles up city creek:

Afterwards, took Holly to Memory Grove/City Creek for 2 hours of swimming / playing. 

Oh, and I signed up for Utah Valley Marathon today, so that's officially on the schedule in a little over 2 months. 

With Holly, 4th/D to B, up to 11th, down to city creek, up a few miles (on the trail), down Memory Grove, back up 4th.  Easy on the way up, MP for 3 of the 4 miles on the way back (Holly was sick of running fast after that and started dragging).  Started sprinkling with 1.5 to go and raining hard with .5 to go.  Definitely felt a little painful on my bare chest. Hah.

9 miles with Holly.  First mile easy (including the climb up Rattlesnake Gulch to Pipeline, at a 20% grade), then 3.5 out at marathon effort and 3.5 back at marathon effort, followed by 1 more easy mile (mostly just back down Rattlesnake Gulch).  Note that I say "marathon effort" as I was actually not going marathon pace.  All of the "MP" miles were at a hair over 6000' on a rocky trail that, while generally flat, had a lot of bumps, mini-hills, and tight turns, leading marathon effort to net me only 7:02 pace, compared to 6:20 or so that I'm shooting to hit at Utah Valley.  It may not quite have been quite MP effort, but it was close enough, so w/e.

Got home, jogged a mile to and from the grocery store. 

First, a commute run: 3 miles up to campus (longer way than normal, because I hate partial miles).  Because I'm crazy and have a super thick/stiff new pair of raw jeans to soften up, I wore them while running.  Also, wearing a backpack with wallet/phone/keys/running shorts/watch for my run later.  No watch, wanted it to be easy, which is hard to do on a several mile uphill when you pay attention to pace.

Next: 9 miles home via shoreline.  My building up to JCC, up dry creek, to the 5 way, down to city creek meadow the non-shortcut way, down to city creek, through memory grove, back up 4th.  Ran easy to JCC (.7), then tempoed moderately hard to the 5-way (a little under 4 miles with a lot of uphill) in 28:13.  The fastest time I had ever heard of was Adrian Shipley's 28:40 last year and I ran this wearing a backpack full of a several pound pear of super heavyweight jeans, wallet, keys, phone, etc (at least 5 pounds).  Adrian wasn't training for 10k stuff when he ran that 28:40, but it was right around the time he ran sub-4 hours for the very slow Bonneville Shoreline Marathon, putting him in very elite local Utah trail territory (the Speedgoat 50k record holder before Kilian showed up just barely broke 4 hours at Shoreline in a few tries, same with Karl Meltzer).  In any case, I'm really happy about how fluid that 28:13 felt and I think I can run sub-27 if I'm not wearing a backpack and I'm pushing all out.  After that, I picked up the effort and got down to city creek in 45:33 total (I think Adrian hit 48:xx last year).  Along the way, I hit a fastest split of 5:33 (downhill, but on quite rocky trail), so I was going hard.  Shortly before the end of the trail, it's too steep downhill to tempo, so I started into marathon effort.  This netted me 6:02 pace through Memory Grove and honestly didnt' even quite feel as hard as it should have.  It's not common that 6 flat feels easy for me, so I'm not sure what happened there.  Anyway, I hit 4th and jogged in easy from there to my apartment.

Afterwards, I went back to Memory Grove with Holly so she could play with other dogs and swim in the creek and jogged about a mile with her.

Today was definitely super encouraging and I swear I will have no miles at even marathon effort tomorrow... all easy...

Holly was at doggy daycare and I have a lot to do tonight, so I figured I would just drive home, get in some miles and pick her up near the end of the run (her daycare is 3 miles from my apartment).  I started at my place, ran down to the bottom of the Aves, hopped on 4th, took that to 80, moved over to 3rd, went under the highway, and took that to Baird (3600-ish), hitting an average of just under 7:00 against a slight headwind until then (felt easy, although my legs weren't super happy after yesterday's hard effort).  I took Baird to State, and when I turned on State, I suddenly had a slight tailwind, so I ran 6:35 average until I picked up Holly.   I took State to 2100 (where a very obese woman screamed out her car window at me for being in the crosswalk while she was trying to turn across me, despite me having the walk sign), up to Main, down to Holly's daycare at 1500-ish, where I picked her up (first 9.25 in about 63-flat).  It was relatively hot and humid, so Holly didn't really want to run fast and we averaged about 7:40 for the little bit more than 3 miles to get home.  The pace was aerobically pretty easy the whole way, although I suppose I probably didn't need to do 12.5 miles on sore legs.  I'll probably run a little less tomorrow.

Easy 71 minutes, southwest of downtown through the industrial areas, over to liberty wells, lapped liberty park, back west a bit, and then back up to the aves.

Mostly on Bonneville Shoreline, starting at Red Butte area.  Was a couple minutes late to meet up with Mark, so I figured he had left and I should just catch up, so I ran to dry creek without seeing him.  I realized that he was probably just late himself, so I doubled back until I found him.  We ran up to the 5-way together, I ran continued on down to city creek, went up the canyon a little way for a restroom, and then doubled back the same way, except that I took the steep shortcut out of the meadow above the canyon to run the same course as the Shoreline Marathon, which is apparently next weekend (and which I'm thinking about doing, more just casually than anything).  Anyway, I stuck to the road once I popped out at JCC and hit 6:20 pace for a mile near the end.  Otherwise, pace was pretty easy.

Skied for 2 hours later in the evening.  Last day of night skiing at Brighton, got up from 7 to 9 PM.  Skied pretty hard and had a blast, but was completely exhausted by the time I got home.  Not a bad Saturday. :)

 Very easy out and back, to and in city creek with Holly.  Not flat, but still, a hair over 8min pace.  Legs were tired after yesterday (17.5 miles with tons of climb, then two hours of hard effort skiing).  Going to sleep a lot tonight.

Treadmill, 12 miles.   First 9 miles at 6:22, next 2 miles at 5:56, last mile at 5:33.  Last mile was pretty ridiculously hard. :)  Nice to get things going again marathon pace / tempo wise.

With Holly.  To city creek, up the single track towards the radio towers, but not all the way there, down the front side, through downtown, back home.  Pace was casual (only got down to ~6:50, even on the steep downhills).  Fortunately, yesterday didn't really beat me up and after "only" doing 28 miles in the last 3 days, I'm feeling pretty rested again.

AM run!  To Kevin's, to Liberty, 3 x mile @ Kevin's sea level MP with .4-ish mile jog rest, back up 7th, back home.  Repeats were 5:40 (faster than it was supposed to be), 5:48, 5:48 for Kevin, but I was apparently saving a non-negligible amount of distance by running on the inside, so mine were about 3 seconds longer as I kept going until my Garmin clicked off a mile.  My legs could still feel the hard effort from Monday and running out the door literally 15 minutes after waking up, without eating, probably wasn't helpful, so this felt a little harder than it normally would.  It wasn't like racing by any means, but I didn't really feel relaxed, especially on the first one.  Oh well, still nice to put some fast miles in the legs.

I'm 99% sure I'm going to run Bonneville Shoreline Trail Marathon on Saturday, so I'm going to take it easy over the next 2 days to make sure I'm rested up.  I'm going to try to run it in such a fashion that doesn't beat up my legs too badly, but I still need to be ready to go for a 4+ hour difficult trail run.

8 miles.  East up the aves towards the U, got off at S, crossed to 1200E, criss-crossed over to Liberty, ran a lap plus a little extra to go use the bathroom in the middle, then back over to 200E, back up to the Aves, back over to E, and then back home.  6:45 pace with 400+' of climb, which would be low-mid 6:30 on flat (without altitude conversion), so roughly marathon effort.  In all actuality, it felt pretty easy, which was good.  I was sweating a fair amount despite low-mid 50s weather when I finally got out the door at 7:45 PM, but felt really relaxed.

Bosho trail marathon tomorrow!

Bonneville Shoreline Trail Marathon, 2nd place, 7th fastest runner in the history of the race (9th fastest performance, as Karl Meltzer has finished faster than my time in 3 of his 8 starts).

I wasn't expecting to run well here.  I haven't done much trail running since last summer, and I haven't run anything over 3 hours in ages.  Only 5 people here had ever broken 4 hours, and of the 3 that did it last year, 1st was the Speedgoat 50k record holder (before Kilian came out here) and a 2:35 marathoner (Kevin Shilling, 3:52).  2nd place was my good friend Adrian Shipley, a sub-32 10k who was in really peak form had been training 110-120 mile weeks for some time (3:59).  3rd I don't know much about, but his name comes up a lot in local trail running (Mick Jurynek, also 3:59).  In any case, I had beaten some of Adrian's trail splits recently, but don't have the huge mileage in my system, so I figured that 4:05 was the absolute best I could possibly run, and that was if everything aligned perfectly.  It never does for me on trails, so I figured anything under 4:15 was a pipedream.

Anyway, I got out to the race with like 1 minute to spare (after having to use the bathroom 4 times this morning, thanks to eating an entire pizza last night), and when the race started, I shot off the front.  Last year, the top guys had crushed the starting bit, so I was a little confused when I had 30 seconds on everyone within a half mile, but decided to just go with it.  I didn't really enjoy the rockiness of the Red Butte loop, but had 60-90 seconds on everyone when I came back by the start at 4.25 miles (1st aid) in 35:xx (lots and lots of techy climb already).  I cruised through and decided I was probably going a little hard, so I backed off slightly, but maintained a solid lead over everyone for a few miles.  I hit Dry Creek Trailhead at about 42 minutes or so, and kept my lead until eventual winner Ben Lewis caught me on "Uncle F...er", an unbelievably steep climb that goes for about a half mile at 40% grade.  Everyone hikes it, as running is slower than walking on something that steep, but he was clearly stronger on the uphills and just hiked away from me.  I could see a couple guys a little bit back down the trail, but nobody else wanted to make a move.

I kept the pace up while running down the ridgeline to the 5-way (opposite of the Steeplechase course) and came out into the meadow still in 2nd, with 3rd place (Drew something) pretty close behind.  I had to refill my water and wash an exploded gel packet off my hands, so he left the station a second before me.  I sat on him for a bit and we ran about 6:20 pace from the meadow down to city creek, which felt extremely comfortable and easy.  When we started going uphill to the towers on the west side of city creek, he gradually started pulling away, but never got more than about a minute or two in front of me.   Cresting the radio towers peak, I could see that I was maintaining my distance from him, after he had somewhat decisively started gapping me, so I figured that he would eventually slow and I would catch him.

After dropping into the North Salt Lake Meadow, we took the obnoxiously difficult trail back up to the ridgline on the east side of the meadow, at which point I realized I was maybe gaining just a slight bit (probably just a couple seconds per mile, but enough that I could probably eventually catch him).  Coming up to the ridgeline, I eased off slightly on the effort and ran pretty smoothly until I got to the super steep plunge back into City Creek (better part of a mile, 40% grade).  I was pretty nervous about this plunge thrashing my quads, but I seemed to hold up OK.

I got down to City Creek, coasted the trail to the bottom, and was still gradually gaining on Drew, hitting the trailhead back to the meadow at 2:58.  I had figured that if I hit here in sub-3, I'd have a slight chance at a sub-4 if everything felt exceptional, but really didn't expect to get here in under 3:10, so I was pleased with my split.  However, I could see Kevin Shilling (last year's winner) getting closer to me.  At this point, knowing that he is an exceptional climber, I figured he would catch me, but I also figured that I could re-pass Drew to at least stay on the podium.  With that in mind, it wasn't a surprise when Kevin caught me on the steep climb back up to the meadow.  However, he never really pulled ahead of me, so after refilling our bottles (gatorade this time, as I had just recently finished my 6th and final gel and figured I'd need the calories), we pushed each other to catch Drew.  We finally got him a minute or two out from the aid station, and Kevin finally started to pull away on the steep climb back up to the main trail.

As soon as we got into some rollers, I immediately came back up on Kevin, where I stayed until we started going up to the 5-way.  At this point, I decided to just push it hard, so I put about 30 seconds on him going up to the 5-way, and then realized that I could probably hold him off on the rolling downhills to the finish, so I just started pushing hard from there.  My legs still felt great, so I figured I'd go for broke and try to catch Ben.  However, I never ended up coming up on him (he apparently pushed even harder and probably put another 2 minutes on me after the aid station) despite hammering sub-6:10 pace for most of mile 24 (still techy, but pretty downhill, with similar effort on the more rolling miles).  I figured that I needed to be off the Dry Creek trail with 6-7 minutes to spare if I was going to hit a sub-4 at this point, so when I got off with just over 6 minutes, I figured that I had a slight chance to make it in at 3:59:xx.  However, the story of the day was that I'm a poor climber right now, so I struggled up the last climb and couldn't quite close fast enough.

I finished in 4:00:26, 6 minutes behind Ben, having put 10 minutes on Kevin, and ~15 on Drew in the last 5-6 miles.

Ben became the 6th guy to enter the exclusive sub-4 hour club (which also includes Karl Meltzer, from a few years back, the first sub-4, Christian Johnson, 2 years ago, and Kevin, Adrian, and Mick from last year) while I became the closest to have missed out.  I was obviously a bit disappointed that I couldn't find another 27 seconds in a 4 hour race, but I ran a really exceptional race with almost no error, given my current fitness, so I'll take it.

I guess trail is easier on the legs than asphalt, as my legs feel really good afterwards, no worse than after a standard several hour long run.

Despite this really strong performance out on the trails, I am certainly still focused on road running.  I'm probably going to get in off the wait list for Speedgoat 50k in July, but I'll treat it similarly to this race - very far from a focus, but I'll still be happy to run well.  Despite the fact that I fully expected a massive blow-up today and I managed to prevent it, I should say that I more-than-fully expect a super massive blow-up at Speedgoat.  Bosho is a really hard course, especially for road guys, but Speedgoat, with its new course, boasting 12k' of gain on extremely technical trails, over 31 miles, is probably the most monstrously difficult trail race, course-wise, aside from the Hardrock 100.  I'm not planning much specificity for it, so it will undoubtedly hurt. :)   

In any case, I'm going to relax with some tasty drinks and a lot of ice cream for the rest of the day, and soak in the feeling of finally having run, essentially, my first perfect performance in a long race on trails, after 6 years of trail racing.

Nutrition during the race:

6 Powerbar Gels, 110 calories a piece, lots of sodium.

40 ounces of water

10 ounces of gatorade (somehow managed to not drink all that much, so I guess the cool weather must have helped).

For distance: GPS put it at 26-mid, but I'm always suspicious that it's slightly short in the more heavily wooded sections with tons of sharp turns between city creek and the U (plus some other people had it slightly longer), so I'm going to call it 27.  It's generally considered to be slightly long, so this is in line with the general consensus.

Easy shakeout, legs are apparently moderately sore after all (who would have thought?), but I just felt good out there tonight.  It feels like something changed in me yesterday.  I only went out for 5 miles at 7+ pace tonight, but I just felt a supreme confidence about my running that I've never felt before.  I'm feeling extremely motivated and ready to throw down some big workouts.  I'm really excited to count down the weeks until Utah Valley, as I know I'm going to knock my recent marathon PR out of the park.

Oh, and I'm calling it right now that I'm going to be coming home from BOSHO next year with Karl Meltzer's course record.  I'm going to be stronger, fitter, and I know that it's within my reach after another solid year of putting the work in.  Karl's record is stout, but I want it and I'm going to have it.

Easy run with Holly after doing some skiing earlier in the day.  Legs still in recovery mode, probably will need one more easy/short day.  Still not even sure what to say about the whole Boston thing except that it really sucks and it makes me sick to think that someone would bomb such a positive event.

9 miles, mostly easy, except 1 mile (the 6th one) at marathon effort.  Up to the U, to Sunnyside, lapped research park, and back.  Didn't actually get out the door until 11 tonight, so it was freezing cold and super windy.  It sucked at the time, but I'm glad that it wasn't more pleasant, because I probably would've run farther out if it had been.  My legs just felt a little stiff and tired during the last 10 minutes or so, so I'm glad that I finished when I did.  My marathon effort mile was mostly coming down foothill and partially on 1300 east, so I had a bit of an angled tailwind for 80% of it and a bit of an angled headwind for the last 20%.  Still, the downhill carried me nicely and I somehow split a 5:59 mile with ease.  Everything else was slow (maybe a 6:55 next fastest mile with a 7:58 slowest mile running up foothill into a headwind).  Very tired now, time for bed...

11 miles, easy, 79 minutes.  My place in the aves to 3rd east to 33rd south, to 7th east, back to my place.  Cold (mid 30s) and quite windy, not super fun, but legs are feeling better everyday after the marathon, so I'll take it.

17 miles in 1:46:40, treadmill.  First 4 on one treadmill with a fan behind me, felt super easy (essentially treadmill + tailwind), but at about 3.8, the belt started slightly skipping, so I hopped on another with a fan in front of me after 4 miles, which felt only marginally harder, but noticeably so.  First 8 miles at average 6:20 (~MP), alternating 6:18 and 6:22, next 2 at 6:00 flat (just a hair slower than tempo), next 3 alternating 6:18 and 6:22, 1 at 6:00 flat, and then 3 more alternating 6:18 and 6:22.  Really freaking hard workout, but I probably had 2 or 3 miles worth of MP left before the wheels would have come exploding off, and even on mile 17, I felt in control.  What makes me happiest about this is that it came 5 days after the BOSHO Trail Marathon race.  I had felt like that race wasn't quite at the same effort level as a road marathon since it's hard to gauge effort perfectly with all the varying grades and footings, and it took until yesterday for my legs to feel pretty normal again, but today, they felt great.  Yesterday, I felt like doing a long workout today would be a gamble, but I definitely made the right call.  If I can hit 5 more super clutch workouts like this before Utah Valley, keeping my average mileage at roughly 80mpw and, most importantly, not beating myself up, I will be ready to rock.  I will go pretty easy tomorrow and then do a long run Saturday.

After skiing at Brighton, 7 miles easy, with Holly, to, in, and from City Creek.  About 3 miles worth on trails.  Legs felt pretty good after yesterday's workout, but I had a pretty typical altitude reaction (not feeling all that great, energetically) while running after spending time at 10,000'.

18 miles.  2.99 miles to get to Jordan River Parkway, 6.01 miles down the path, and then back the same way  First 9 mostly around 7:10, with one 6:45 thrown in (mile 8, just shy of marathon pace at altitude, sort of by acciden).  On the way back, I split 6:29, 6:23, 6:21, 6:19, 6:21, 6:21 for my miles on the parkway (10,11,12,13,14,15).  The intent was to run about 6:35-6:40 for altitude adjusted marathon pace, but I kind of just got into a groove faster than that, so they wound up more on the tempo side of the tempo / MP continuum.  Hence, I've logged mile 8 as MP and the 6 miles between 9 and 15 as 2/3 tempo, 1/3 MP (4 tempo, 2 MP, since there's no in between pace on here).  Did the last 3 back in 21:1x, all uphill, but not feeling hard.  Legs felt great for the whole 18 miles, although a pretty heavy rain (with a slight bit of hail at one point) opened up a few times (maybe 3 times for about 10 minutes each time), once at the start, once near the middle, and once near the end of the hard miles.  Not super fun in super short shorts and a technical heat gear muscle shirt, but I dealt with it.  Nutrition was one gel right before the turnaround, no water, no anything else.  Pretty cold out, so I was OK without hydrating.

Overall, a good week for having just run a 4 hour race the day before this week started, especially considering that 62 of the 73 came in the last 5 days.

 The original plan was for 13 miles mostly on trails with Holly.  However, it was too hot out and there wasn't enough water to be had, so I shortened her run to 8.  She wasn't interested in running fast today, and I didn't really care one way or the other, so it was very easy.  I dropped her off, and then went back out for another 5, all on roads.  Went a little harder,  but still easy, just a hair over 7.  It was nearly 70 degrees and I didn't have any water for myself, so I was pretty darn thirsty when I finished.

14 miles, 1:40.  My place to South Temple to 5th East, down to the end of the road at 4500, which apparently was exactly 7.00 miles as I hit the intersection, and back.  Did mile 13 (a slight bit uphill) in 6:35, the rest mostly just a bit over 7:00.

2 x easy run, counts as interval training, right? :)

In all seriousness, I didn't have much time to run today.  I had enough time for an easy 5 with Holly around 6:30 PM (39 minutes), to, from, and a bit in city creek.

After that, didn't have time to run until 11:30, when I did 6 (46 minutes) in Aves / U.  Up 4th to cemetery, a sort of cemetery loop, had to come back halfway to get out up on 11th (was getting fenced into the cemetery at nearly midnight! hah...), then above Shriner's, up into the gated community, down the path to dry creek, out through JCC, back winding around north campus to south temple, and then back home.  Had a fair amount of climb and some slow early miles, but did the last one at 6:17 pace (net downhill, but with substantial climbs going from 2nd ave to 3rd ave and later from 3rd ave to 4th ave).

Better get to bed now... 

Left work via car, picked up Holly from daycare, dropped her off at home, and then ran 2.6 miles up to the track at the U (kind of humorous given that I work literally one building away from the track).  Workout was 4 miles, 3 minutes jog rest, 3 miles, 2 minutes jog rest, 2 miles, 1 minute jog rest, 1 mile, then of course the 2.6 miles home.  I wasn't sure whether I was going to do 4,3,2,1 with slightly increasing speed or 10 right at 6:00 pace, but quickly decided on the former, as it was quite windy and I felt that it would be hard to keep myself mentally engaged and right on pace the entire time by myself if I just did 10 hard miles straight.  So yeah, the goal was to do the first 4 miles at about 6:00 pace and then kick down a few seconds per mile each interval after that.  I hit it spot on and had a little more than I expected at the end.

Splits were:

4 miles - 24:01 (6:00 pace)

*3 minutes jog rest* 

3 miles - 17:52 (5:57 pace)

*2 minutes jog rest* 

2 miles - 11:46 (5:53 pace)

*1 minute jog rest*

1 mile - 5:37

I really didn't think I would end up having anything faster than 5:45 in me at the end, so I was pleased.

Workout was hard, but not extreme.  I was in control and it really didn't feel crazy except on the last lap of the 2 mile (pulled out an 86 after a bunch of 88-89s) and the 2nd half of the mile (85, 86, 85, 81).

The cooldown on the way home wasn't really fun, but it probably helped shake out my legs.  I don't usually do several mile cooldowns, but I intentionally planned the run this way to force a longer shakeout.  

Oh, and this is clearly shaping out to be one of my best weeks of the marathon build.  It was planned this way, with the intent of running somewhere in the ballpark of 90-95 miles this week, and I appear to be on track.  Legs have been feeling good and responding, in general, quite well to the increased load over the last few weeks, so I'm getting more and more excited to have another marathon coming up in June.

11 miles, quite easy (1:30, granted, with 1000'+ climb, and mostly on trail), all of it with Holly (her longest run in quite some time, if I'm not mistaken).

My place to Memory Grove, up to City Creek, up on the trail to the watershed boundary (ie, the end of the trail), back down, back to my apartment, up D to the cemetery, and back.  Garmin was acting up quite a bit and lost connectivity repeatedly on the trail over a 15 minute span on the way back.  It would frequently drop out for ~10 seconds, add on to my pace while counting time but not distance, and when it reconnected, it wouldn't seem to add even a straight-line worth of the missing distance, as it usually does.  At one point, on what was probably my highest effort mile of the run (still easy-moderate effort), the Garmin claimed I completed a mile in over 8:00 despite a net downhill of ~300' (ie pretty nice downhill).  When I got into a clearer area with less tree branches overhead and the Garmin stopped being stupid, I backed off, had a less steep mile, and ran 7:2x (very easy pace).  So yeah, ridiculous.  I think it's safe to say the 10.7 it gave me was more like 11 low, so while I'd normally try to go out of my way to get a complete mile, today I didn't.

Had no real plan except that I wanted to do 10 tonight.  Ended up running to the 700 side of liberty (a bit over 2 miles), lapping it a little over 4 times to end up on the 500 side (a little under 6), and then running home from there (2-ish).   1 mile easy, downhill, in 6:50-ish, then 7 miles at average 6:17 pace (a flat / very slightly net downhill mile to Liberty, then looping around the park a hair more than 4 times), then 2 miles easy, back, uphill, at 7:40 average.  Pace was a hair faster than goal marathon pace for sea level or at altitude with copious downhill, so it was somewhere between half marathon and marathon pace, a little closer to the tempo side of things.  Effort felt smooth and relaxed, but hard enough to tax me a bit.  Still, legs felt fresh and solid, despite this being a pretty big week for me.  Wore my awesome new American flag shorts, shoes, and nothing else, and got cat-called 6 times in the last 2 miles after my iPod died.  Ahh, Friday nights...

Oh, and got in a couple miles of hiking earlier in the day (Arapeen to the Living Room and back), while carrying a bunch of food in a cooler, which was surprisingly tiring. 

20 miles with Sasha Pachev, Chad Robinson, and Steve Ashbaker.  We did the first 2 miles at about 8:00 pace with a few of Sasha's younger kids, who are pretty fast (Jojo had a nice kick at the end).  After that, we went 9 miles up Provo Canyon, hitting mid 7s pace, gradually getting a little faster.  We turned around at mile 11 of the run, ran 12 still pretty easy (6:50 ish on the downhill), and then ran a bunch of faster miles.  From 13 to 18, gentle downhill, slight head/crosswind we hit as fast as 5:57 and no slower than 6:20 (~6:10 average), and then I really started to feel the big mileage in my week.  Mile 19 was mostly flat, but net slightly uphill, which I hit in 6:33, and then mile 20, with tons of uphill, was a massive struggle and I barely hung on to sub-7 pace.  It looks like a blow-up, pace-wise, but more than anything, it was a product of increasing grades.  I should mention that Steve and Sasha took off at mile 18, whereas Chad, who had picked it up around 11 rather than 12 and gapped us, was behind after about 16.  Overall, this is about what I expected from myself today.  The last couple miles were quite difficult as a result of all the mileage in my legs, but I managed to hang on somewhat well.

Now it's time to have an easier week.  Still on the fence, but I'll probably race Provo River half on Saturday. 

14 miles of mostly singletrack trails with Chuck Konopa in ~2:15 (watch died with 2 miles to go).  We took it easy and hiked all of the steep uphills, which there were a lot of.  My place to his house to City Creek to Dude Peak Trail (.6 miles at a 40% average grade) to the ridgeline, most of the way up, down the 2nd to last offshoot, down into Bountiful, back through NSL to Bosho, up to the towers, down the front side gravel road, through the neighborhood, and back to my place through memory grove.  My garmin won't connect to my computer anymore (actually, it won't even charge properly half the time), so I can't get its reading for altitude, but Chuck's altimeter put the peak of the run at 63xx' atop a massively rolling ridgeline, with a low point of 43xx' at the bottom of Memory Grove and another pretty big climb out of North Salt Lake to the towers, not to mention all sorts of other rolls and ups and downs elsewhere.  Just counting point to point major climbs, it's high 3000s for vert, with all the rolls, it's got to be at least 4500'.  Not bad for someone who is basically a road dude at this point. :)  In any case, the pace was anywhere from 6:40 on a downhill mile to 16-ish on the mile that included the Dude Peak Climb, and actually that 16-ish mile was tough, while the 6:40 was conversational. Hah.

I've hit 151 in the last 11 days and today was the first day in this training cycle that my legs just felt pretty tired (even after sleeping a ridiculous 12 hours last night), so I'm going to be very careful over the next few days.

To liberty park, 1.25 laps (looped one quarter of it after the full lap), back to the aves, up to smith's, and back home.  Very lazy effort, barely under 8:00 pace.  Haven't had a day this short and easy in 2 weeks (since the recovery from BOSHO), so it seemed smart to allow some recovery.

Lunchtime: 4.5 miles. Drove to work in the morning, realized that if I gave up my parking spot to go home for lunch, there probably wouldn't be one when I got back (tons of closed spots... ugh...), so I jogged home and back to work to eat and let Holly outside.

Pm: Another 5.5 miles with Holly.  To, in, and from City Creek on roads.  Easy pace.

10 miles @ MP, treadmill.  Actually felt terrible for the first 4 miles or so.  It wasn't that the pace was too hot, but I got some weird sort of motion sickness from watching TV or something.  Fortunately, it went away and the last 6 miles just felt super relaxed and easy.  I could tell that I was moving fast, but it just felt effortless today.  I guess 2 short easy days in a row really makes a difference.  Did the first 9.7 at 6:18 pace and then couldn't resist the temptation of kicking the last .3 at 5:00 pace.  I finally signed up for Provo City half yesterday, so this was really encouraging given a race coming up.  With two more easy days, I should be ready to nab a nice new PR on Saturday.

11 miles, 79 minutes, easy.  Aves to Liberty, most of a loop, then out the other side, down a ways into south salt lake, back, back around liberty, and back home (slightly more complicated to end at an even mileage, but no-one really cares, myself included. hah...)

3.5 miles with Holly at very easy (8:00 pace) and then some pre-race strides.

Provo City Half Marathon in 1:15:33.  Massive PR (previous PR was 1:22:06 from SLC half in 2010), felt extremely smooth and just all around fantastic today, with energy left in the tank at the end.

Got up at 4:00, had two bananas, a capri sun, and some powerade.  After letting Holly out and using the bathroom twice myself, I drove down to Provo around 4:30, getting there at 5:20, with just enough time to get my packet and get on a bus.  We got up to the start line an hour early, despite being one of the last couple buses, so I got to hang out in the cold for what felt like forever.  I used the bathroom two more times (that Cafe Rio from last night apparently didn't mix well with my lactose intolerance), warmed up by lightly jogging about 2 miles (estimate, no Garmin), and then finally got started.

My Garmin won't connect to my computer anymore for some stupid reason, so I don't have every single mile split, but I remember quite a few of them.

1: 5:46 - Really comfortable, the most downhill mile.

2: 5:47 - Once again, really comfortable, also quite downhill.

3: 5:49-ish - No longer quite so downhill, but still really comfortable.

4: 5:42 - Not as downhill as the first 2 miles, but I guess I had started to pick it up. 

4 - 6.2 - Still comfortable.  Had planned on just ensuring that everything was below 6, but everything stayed in the 5:40s rather comfortably.

6.21 Split - 35:48.  My PR is 35:07 from Des News '09, so this made me nervous.  Still, felt totally fine.

7 & 8 - Still in the 5:40s, surprisingly still not really hurting at all.

8 Split - 46:12, as I recall.

9 & 10, still in the 5:40s, starting to realize that I could hang onto this pace the entire time, which was really exciting.

10 Split - 57:48.  4-ish minute PR en route?  Even if I haven't run a 10 miler since 2008, wow.  Super stoked.

11: 5:52.  This mile had tons of roll and a really long climb, so I was OK with this being my slowest mile by 3 seconds.  Calves were just starting to feel slightly sore, but everything was very rhythmic and smooth.  Still felt totally relaxed.

12: 5:39.  Lots of juice left, time to hammer.  Basically almost net flat, but cranked out my fastest mile.

13: 5:40. Pushing it in.  Really excited about the prospect of sub-76.

Last .13 (Garmin had 13.13): 34 seconds, massive kick.  4:22 pace.  So much energy left.  Ridiculous.  Could've hammered out another 5 miles at sub-5:50 if I had to.

Finished feeling absolutely elated to have run a massive PR and faster than expected (anything under 1:18 would've been a good sign for Utah Valley Marathon in 5 weeks IMO, and my goal was sub 1:17).  Not only was it faster than expected, but it was a lot easier than expected.  If I had known that I was capable of this fast and willing to push it from the gun (ie, been willing to wreck myself), I could've probably taken a minute off, but for now, I'm very happy to be a 1:15 half marathoner.

Cooldown - 3-ish miles, some with James, and then some more by myself.  Didn't wear Garmin, so estimate.  I'm calling the total of 5-ish between the up and down 4.9 miles so my week won't end on a fraction of a mile (I hate this. hah.)

With Holly.  Actually felt pretty darn good today, despite yesterday's race being in my legs.  I was a little stiff for the first mile or so, but after that, I honestly didn't feel any different than normal.  I promised myself that I would keep the run as short as necessary to ensure that I was getting a good recovery, but before I knew it, I was up at the city creek watershed boundary with Holly.  Having been 4.6 miles out at the turnaround, and still feeling good at a bit short of 9 miles before making my final turn onto 4th ave, I decided to do a tiny bit extra near the end of the run to get the run up to 10 (I seriously hate ending on an incomplete mile), so I did a slight loop through the top of downtown. :)  Run was extremely easy, so I literally took 1:27 to run 10 miles.  Granted, it was mostly on trail (7 of it, with 6 on singletrack) and had 1000'+ gain, but still, it was really casual.  I've come to realize recently that doing a run this easy is just exactly what the body needs sometimes.  My legs feel pretty much flushed out from anything lingering from yesterday, and, while I'll wait until probably Thursday to run another workout, I just feel hungry and ready for more high-quality, intelligent, and fun training.

Easy effort 14, my places in the aves to 5th East to 45th South and back.  1:42.  Legs were relatively tired over the last couple miles, but overall good for having raced 2 days ago.  I'm not planning on going past 75-ish this week, so after already popping out 24 in the first 2 days and with a longer workout planned for later in the week, I'll probably take 2 shorter days between tomorrow and Friday.

5 miles @ ~ 8:15 pace.  Just 2 1/2 weeks of big training left, and need to make sure that I don't overdo anything.  It was raining and humid, which just felt weird. Hah.

9 with Kevin, and then 2 more by myself.  A hair over 7:00 pace.

1 mile to Kevin's house and then 9 miles more with Kevin.  From his place up N, up to 11th, to City Creek, up the trail to the Shoreline turnoff, along BOSHO to the radio towers access road (right below the towers), down that, through the gated neighborhood, down to the capital, down State, and back home.  10.03 miles (on GPS, which I trust over mapmyrun, which says 10.23) in 80 flat with a lot of single track (not always very smooth), which was equivalent to more like 7:00-flat effort on average for a more generic flat road run.

Pre-run: Well, this is not what I wanted to have happen with 2 1/2 weeks left to train hard for Utah Valley, but my hip just got slightly flared up in the past few days and now my lower back (back right side, above the hip) is pretty tight.  I haven't had any pain whatsoever in my back or hip, but the tightness is obviously problematic.  I'm going to go in for a deep tissue massage today and, if that doesn't work, I'll see a chiropractor on Monday.  This is a very bad time to back off the mileage and I think I'll still be OK to run on it, but I don't know that it would be wise to do the workout I had planned for this evening.  We'll see after the massage I guess... 

3:00 update...  It's loosened up somewhat already, which is nice.  Let's hope the massage will take care of it the rest of the way!

Run: Got a massage and actually felt about 75% better.  Decided that most of my running should be on trails for the next few days to avoid pounding, so I went up to Mill Creek Canyon with Holly.  A bit of a warmup, then ran up Church Fork Road.  Started my watch again at the big yellow trail gate and ran Grandeur in 38:44.  Effort felt pretty casual and my hip didn't really bug me at all.  The one thing that made it non-casual was the fact that the weather started to get pretty bad about halfway up.  I really wanted to see what type of time I would run on an average day right now, otherwise, I'd have turned around with a mile to go when it started all out hailing (keep in mind I was wearing 1" inseam shorts and a very light singlet).  I was focused on getting to the top (with the mindset of "it's all easy and downhill from the top", not really thinking about the fact that crazy winds and hail hurt whether you're going up or down).  Got to the top in 38:44 without really pushing it effort wise (honestly a hair easier than a typical tempo effort), didn't even pause for a second, as the last few minutes up were extremely painful weather-wise, turned around, and started running down.  Of course, the trail was very slick at this point, so I couldn't run down fast without risking slipping and injuring myself.  The thought of dying in the spectacularly terrible storm up there crossed my mind a few times (say, if Holly suddenly refused to run and I couldn't make her continue, if I tripped and broke a leg, etc, basically if anything happened that prevented me from running and therefore not freezing as much, I was pretty sure that the consequences would be pretty bad).  I was in pretty rough shape by the time I got to the more sheltered part of the trail, about a mile from the top, but the weather let up with about a mile to go, at which point I started to notice my hip a little (steep downhills seem more aggravating than anything, and grandeur is, on average, at a grade of mid to upper teens, percent-wise), so I just jogged it in.  Now that I'm done, everything feels pretty good, but still a little bit off.  Still, it's much much better than earlier today.  As for climbing stats, the FKT for my route is 33:40.  I think I could do a sub-36 pushing it race-effort right now, but I almost certainly could not get sub-35 at this point and I'm really developing some respect for that time.  Still, I'm going to put in a few high efforts up this mountain this summer and try to see if I can get my legs into at least sub-35 shape before the summer is over.  Oh, and I'm relatively certain that Holly is the fastest dog ever up the mountain (none of the other guys running sub-40 do it with dogs), and she was off leash the whole way, so she didn't get an unfair advantage of being dragged up. :)

Going forward, I am going to be exceedingly cautious with my hip, but I'm optimistic that it's already getting better and won't prevent me from getting in a little over 2 more weeks of good training.  I'll probably do a flatter trail run in Mill Creek tomorrow (Pipeline?), and just take it from there.

Well, my season is probably over.  Hip essentially died on today's run.  Ran a lot of uphill (most of the way up city creek from my apartment) and it felt irritated but consistent.  Within a mile of downhill, it was done, except that I was 5.5 miles from home.  Definitely walked a fair amount on the way back and the running was borderline excruciating.  Yes, it was a poor choice to go out and try 13 miles today, but in reality, it didn't matter.  My season was trashed before I laced up my shoes today.  The damage had already been done and today just confirmed the problem.  Utah Valley is almost definitely out of the picture, even if I feel healthy, just for the main reason that I need to rehab this properly and get it behind me before I risk additional damage.

As a scientist, I'm not the type of person that attributes any explanations of dreams or subconscious feeling to the supernatural - in fact, I find such reasoning to be illogical and irresponsible.  However, I do think that dreams are a good reflection of the needs and status of the human body, even in allegorical form.  The human brain has an extremely good capacity to understand its body's state on a subconscious level, with this understanding sometimes showing up in dreams.  Ever since last summer, I've had a bit of uneasiness about this hip thing and have kind of just always sensed that it probably wasn't 100% better, even when it wouldn't bug me for months at a time under a heavy training load.  The thought crossed my mind a few times that I might be building my fitness on a poor foundation, which could crumble at any point.  Just a few nights ago, right after sensing just a light bit of tightness in my right hip, glute, and back, I had a dream about selling a house.  I had built the house myself in my dream, but just when I was about to start displaying it for sale, I realized that I had built it on a poor foundation and it was starting to crumble.  At the end of the day, all my hard work went to waste when I had to tear it down and build it again.  I woke up and realized that this directly paralleled my current running state.  I've put a lot of smart training and careful building into my fitness and wouldn't change anything I've done over the last 2 months, but I built everything on a weak foundation.  That has come back to haunt me and now I have no choice but to fix the foundation and re-build from there, even though I was just about to be ready to display my fitness at the Utah Valley Marathon.  It is quite remarkable that the human body has reached the point in which our brains have this sort of intuition.   I have come to trust mine in most non-running scenarios, and the time has come for me to apply that same logic to my running.  I might not want to listen to it, but I know that it is correct.  Intuition kept all of my ancestors alive for long enough to keep our lineage going over countless milennia, and it's about time that I start trusting my intuition and doing the right thing for my body, even if it means sacrificing what could be a huge PR and having to completely rebuild.  In reality, I don't even really have a choice, as continuing to train hard at this point would likely leave me severely injured and unable to race well at any point in the near to relatively distant future.

The unfortunate reality with running is that we, as runners, have the tendency to try to push ourselves through injuries and many of us can greatly decrease our long term potential by causing serious and lasting damage, going against our intuition with the desire of rapid and potentially unrealistic improvement.  I aim to not let this happen to me in this situation.  I'm going to be smart, listen to my body, and rehab this properly.  I'll probably still try to get my sports med doctor to give me a shot of cortisone (he's not a fan of this) to keep the inflammation and pain at bay while rehabbing it, but I'm not going to enter a state of heavy training again until I'm confident that I will not be likely to have another flare-up of this injury.

The desire to train intelligently and reach the next level has never been higher for me than it currently is.  While it is frustrating to have this desire and be unable to act on it, I will let this continue to build until I am ready to train hard again, at which point I will focus all of my intensity and energy into finally running the sort of marathon that I feel capable of running.

Hip is the same today that it was last night, ie quite unhappy.

Going to start paying attention to my weight (156.8 this morning) to ensure that I don't allow it to increase during the off season.  In fact, if I could get it down to more like an even 150, that would probably be ideal.

Hip felt OK thanks to a shot of cortisone on Wednesday, but glute felt terrrrrible.

I wouldn't call this "racing", except that I won (note, running at about marathon pace for a 5k), so I'm kind of obligated to do so.  My hip/glute area is still completely messed up, so I wouldn't have run at all today, but they were giving away an entry to St George, and I got screwed over by their lottery yet again, so I had to show up.  This race was giving it to the entrant who had the most inspirational story about wanting to run St George.  I figured that my story about having such a serious long term illness that I was 40 pounds overweight and unable to run more than 3 miles at a time 2 years ago, and then getting back into shape to run PRs at every distance from half marathon to 100 miles in the last year would be good enough, but apparently it wasn't.  I realized from the super cheesy name, that the organizers probably wouldn't be focused on putting together a well-thought out event, but this was honestly one of the most poorly organized races I've ever seen.  For example, they had 800+ people running and only 3 or 4 portal potties, not to mention the absolute disaster that was the parking situation (it took me 20 minutes to drive the last quarter of a mile and park).  Additionally, while the course was visually nice (in Thanksgiving Point Gardens), they made us run through a super slick tenth of a mile mud field in a huge downpour after mile 1, and then the last 2 miles featured endless 90-180 degree tight turns, all on bricks.  In any case, my hip actually felt pretty awful, but I realized that anything not involving walking the race would win, so I took it out at a light pace and just covered what others were doing.  I jogged with a couple guys for the first mile, after which one guy fell off.  I had a nice conversation with the guy who got 2nd for most of the 2nd mile, and then he fell off, so I jogged it in to finish in 19:10.  They had approximately 1000 entries to work with (I registered a little later, but paid $30 to run), but gave me a 10 cent medal that didn't say anything about time, place, or the race name for winning, so that was lame.  I won the race by about 30 seconds, but didn't get the St George spot (apparently wanting to run this race for FIVE YEARS and trying to make it the capstone of my comeback year, after dropping 40 pounds and getting into the best shape of my life isn't an inspiring enough story, not to mention that winning the race giving away the spot apparently counts for nothing), so I'm disappointed that I wasted the time and money to go run this morning.  Oh well... 

6 PM update: my right glute is so frozen up that I can barely walk.  I'm finding myself extremely irritated that I wasted my time on this race today. 

Weight is actually dropping, although I think it's mostly just my metabolism slowing down due to almost no physical activity over the past week and a half.  Still, at least I'm not putting anything on during my down time.  Ideally, I would think that I shouldn't be racing higher than 150, but I always just let myself eat whatever junk I want in heavy training, so it usually stays pretty stable instead of dropping to where it should.

Regarding the hip/glute, it hasn't really been making progress, so I'm seeing the sports MD again today to get an xray.  If that doesn't show anything, I'll be back in MN in a few weeks, where my parents' insurance covers all sorts of things that would cost a literal fortune out here on student insurance (good thing I'm not 26 until August, so I have a few more months of coverage!).  Just an MRI, which is pretty basic and would be super helpful with diagnosis, would cost me $500 out here, but is completely free in MN, so I'm obviously willing to wait a couple weeks if I don't get all the answers today.

Well, no fracture!  There appeared to be a crack on the xray, but the doctor said the pain wasn't extreme enough for it to be a stress fracture, so he and the radiologist decided it was probably just an artifact from a blood vessel.  Thoughts are that it is either a tendonopathy or a low-grade muscle tear, with only a slight possibility of fracture or the last alternative, the rather scary torn labrum / related bone on bone grinding in the joint problem (my younger brother just had surgery for this and it sounds awful).  With all of this in mind, tendonopathy is probably most likely since that's what it was in a similar region last year, but the argument against that would be that cortisone was super helpful last year, but not all that helpful this year.  Who knows.

Getting an MRI should diagnose things pretty well, but getting it done in Utah would cost about $500 given how bad student insurance is.  With that in mind, I'm going to get one when I'm home in MN in a couple weeks.

In any event, for now, I think that rest is gradually making things better finally.  As of a few days ago, I wouldn't have agreed with that statement ("racing" on Saturday probably caused a flareup), but in the last 72 hours, things have gotten quite a bit better.  In fact, I didn't even think about my hip/glute while walking around at work today, which is encouraging.  On top of that, I got out for a 90 minute walk with Holly tonight and the pain never got past mild.  When I was going downhill at the end, I could tell that I wasn't all that far from a worsening of the pain, but fortunately, it didn't happen.

I'm going to go see a supposedly amazing massage therapist whenever he can fit me in, so it will be interesting to see what someone really good can do for this.  For both muscle tear and tendon stuff, it should be at least somewhat helpful.

Went skiing at Snowbird. 

Interestingly, like previously, skiing seemed to strengthen my hip and it felt really good afterwards.  I decided to just see how my hip felt on a short run, so I took Holly up to Mill Creek.  I ran 2 miles up Bowman Fork, up to the first nice view point, and knowing that downhill has been worse, opted to walk down to avoid any pain or problems.  My hip felt mildly painful, but not bad and didn't flare up afterwards, other than the inside of the quad, which was a bit sore afterwards just due to the obvious muscular imbalance.

More fun skiing at Snowbird, sporting my Murica shorts today. Hah.  Waiting on getting some sick shots of that...

No running today, but I'm optimistic that I'll be able to get back into training within a couple weeks as things are getting better.  In fact, I wasn't even sore today after my huge 2 miles yesterday!  Yes, the excitement is a little bit sarcastic, but it's still a good thing.

 Got in with massage  therapist Joanne Payne today.  Super super helpful, goodly recommended.  Made huge progress.  More on this  in a bit.

Still not running yet, but got in a 7 mile hike with absolutely zero pain.  I see this as a great sign, considering that a 1 mile walk was painful ~2 weeks ago.  I'm being extremely cautious to avoid any problems in the future.

Cardiff Fork, Big Cottonwood.  Started at the highway and went most of the way to the pass and back, turning around when the snow got annoying, which wasn't until most of the way up.  Took a few ibuprofen to be safe and then headed up BCC.  My hip felt moderately imbalanced, but not really painful beyond about a 2/10 at any point, which is encouraging.  I took walking breaks and walked at least 1 mile of this distance just to ensure that I wasn't overstressing it, but this is still by far the best run I've managed in 3+ weeks.  I also brought a camera along to make sure that I would take some breaks.  Most importantly, downhills were really not annoying at all, which was a huge change from a few weeks ago.  Here's a few shots I took during the run:

4 miles relatively hard.  My aerobic system feels terrible after running somewhere in the ballpark of 10 or 15 miles in the last month thanks to the hip injury, so today (admittedly, on a very rolling course back in Minnesota) that was about 6:20 pace. :(  I'm going in for MRIs in an hour, so I figured I'd stress the system a little bit beforehand.  I ran with 2 ibuprofen in my system and it felt imbalanced, but not exactly painful.  Similarly to Sunday's run, I could feel the imbalance almost immediately, but after a minute or two, it didn't get worse past that point.  I can tell that my only problem, fitness-wise, right now, is just that I haven't really done much in a month.  Other than my hip, my legs feel strong and if I could just hit a couple moderate effort runs to re-shock the system, I'd be back in decent shape quickly. 

Regarding Sunday's longer effort (if you can call it that for 7 miles), I was more sore than normal on Monday/Tuesday, so I obviously overdid it on Sunday, but honestly, I don't care.  That run was awesome and I wanted some mountain time before coming back to the midwest. 

Based on the results of the MRIs today, we'll decide how to best go forward.  If I had to guess, I'd expect that they're not going to see anything on the MRI and that I basically just have some imbalances to take care of, but we'll see. 

This makes me feel a little better about today's run:

1 more mile at the PT.

Spectated Allie and James' relay race, and then jogged a mile of the cooldown with people on the track, barefoot.  No pain.

I figured that a good way to keep my mileage low would be to go hard.  Did 1.5 at a hair faster than the recent half marathon pace and it felt pretty hard (8:28).  No pain, just felt ever so slightly imbalanced.

I've been doing a lot of PT exercises.  After running today, I started into some upper leg and back workouts at the gym to try to strengthen all of the imbalanced stuff.  Squats, leg press, some back stuff that I don't know the specific name for, abs, etc, all at pretty light weight to keep from overstressing.  Also am getting bored with not having any current fitness goals other than rehabbing the injury, so I decided to gain back a little upper body definition.  Did some basic chest and shoulder stuff, which will undoubtedly leave me sore for a couple days since I haven't really lifted in a few years.  I was really into lifting at the start of grad school, but fell out of it.  I honestly wouldn't mind getting my old stronger body back, just with some extra running fitness.  I eat a lot better when I'm lifting, so why not?  I'm sure I'll fall out of it again when I get back to 80+mpw, but I'll have some fun for now. 

More weightlifting.  Sore from the leg stuff, so just upper body today!

Went rafting with Kevin and some others in the afternoon, gym was closed, so not much of anything.

Upper body lifting, 1 mile at 5:30.  Felt pretty taxing. :(

I have a specific set of physical tests I have to pass before I'm allowed to return to training and I'm getting much closer to passing them (they have to do with the stability of my hip, upper legs, and back).  Another 2 weeks of hard work ought to be enough if I'm on the ball about my PT stuff.

Lots of leg weights and some upper body stuff.  Somehow already a decent bit stronger than just a week ago.  I guess the muscular strength that used to exist can come back relatively quickly.  Let's hope the running comes back quickly when I get to do that again for real. :)

A bunch of leg stuff at gym.  No running today.

Some lifting and then did 2 miles in 12:27.  Hip felt good and I really wanted to do a lot more, but I forced myself to be sensible and stopped after 2.

Upper body and leg work.

Upper body work.

Leg work and then 3 miles in 6:40, 5:59, 5:31.  Felt slightly imbalanced, but no pain.  Longest run in a few weeks and longest pain free run in roughly 2 months.  Pretty sad, but it's progress.  5:31 pace feels really fast right now.  Can't wait to get back in shape...

Feel like more days of super short (1 to 2) running will help with strengthening.  Did .5 slow in 3:30 and then 1 fast in 5:14.  Running faster vs slower makes no difference for my hip, it seems, so I might as well keep the pace honest if I'm barely running.

Leg stuff and upper body also.  Maybe 10 miles this upcoming week? :P  Going to be a slooooow build. 

Upper body in gym, then partied hard with Kevin. Hah.  Right leg is passing pt tests.  Now just need left leg to do so.

City Creek, all on trails.  Felt good during the run, a little off afterwards, but still the best it has felt in like 2 months.

Just a short little bit on a treadmill.  Keeping with doing most of my mileage fast, did the first .5 in 3:07 and then did a mile in 5:09.  Hip felt strong.

A bunch of weightlifting also. 

Quick upper body workout, no run.

2 miles in 12 something.  Did a really intense upper leg workout beforehand, so my legs are actually really fried tonight.  Still feeling like I'm having a hard time specifically strengthening this stupid hip, but I guess it's feeling better with the minimal mileage I'm running on it, so it's still getting better.  Who knows how long it will take to be running normally... hopefully not all that long!

I signed up for this race nearly two months ago, right after not getting into St George Marathon via the lottery, in an attempt to win a spot at St George.  I had a fresh injury, but thought it would go away much faster than it has.  By the time the race rolled around, I was one of only 2 people in the lottery for the marathon spot and honestly hoping I wouldn't get it, as early Fall is just seeming too early to run a good marathon at this point.  I am in horrendous shape right now after 2 months of having an injured hip that is finally coming around, but saw that the times last year were slow, so I figured I'd just try to run as competitively as possible without setting my injury back.

 (slightly net downhill, but a good bit of climb along the way for a 5k, so slower than just a basic flat course)

Jogged over to the start of the Gravity Hill 5k.  Stomach was feeling messed up this morning (probably should've woken up early enough to eat beforehand), so I went to the bathroom a couple times beforehand.  Started out and fell right in behind Susannah Hurst (U of U XC/Track runner with 16:34 PR, same as mine).  We stayed pretty close at a modest pace for the hilly first 2 miles, never getting more than 1 or 2 seconds apart.  My stomach was bugging me and my rhythm was off, not to mention that I'm never confident about my hip anymore, so I was content to just let her do the work.  I tested the waters a little bit with a non-commital pass at about 1 mile, but she reacted immediately, so I just sat back.  1.5 miles in, my stomach suddenly started to bug me like crazy and I threw up slightly, which is never fun halfway through a race.  Fortunately, it didn't slow me down and that was enough to settle my stomach, so I stayed right behind her.  We crossed 2 miles around 12:15 or 12:20, so while the course was really hilly up to that point, it wasn't all that quick.  Realizing that a) my hip was still feeling good and b) that she could probably outkick me if I waited too long, I started to throw it into overdrive at about 2.25 miles.  I passed her and, after 6:10-ish pace for the first 2 miles, I closed the last 1.1 at 5:20 pace, which was enough to hold off her finishing sprint by about 5 seconds.  I thought I had run a few seconds faster than I did (watch and finish line confirmed this), but official result is 18:21.  I guess it doesn't matter since the time is so slow.  I ran a few miles of cool down with Susannah to get up to 7 total for the day without any hip pain!!!  Winning and not getting chicked was good, but not having my hip explode on me was a lot better.  I'm feeling encouraged going forward that I'll be able to train for real pretty shortly.

 (Big overstride while running fast, one of the things I'm supposed to fix, according to the PT... Oops...)

Went for a 6 mile hike to and from Dog Lake with Holly and her sister Nala afterwards.  Hip was a little tender on the downhill, but I iced when I got home and it has been fine since then.

Lots of leg work in addition to some upper body work. 

Later... easy 4 miles, threw in a 5:40 mile on a nice gradual downhill.  Hip felt good, but still iced afterwards, which I've been doing daily recently.  Feeling extremely hungry to get training again, so I just need to be sensible for a few more weeks while this resolves itself 100%.  I think I'm going to shoot for a fast fall half and take my time on subjecting myself to the beating of another full marathon.

Running around the Avenues with Holly.  4th/D to B to 11th to K to 4th to 4th/D.  Just a little bit tonight.  Really want to be able to do more soon... Starting to feel really fired up to train...

Squats and upper body at gym.

To Des News finish line, around Liberty Park once, and back.  Hip was a little irritated by the downhill on the way there, but OK on the loop and on the way back.

Spent some time up on BOSHO trail.  Hip didn't feel great on the last mile (downhill).  Did some hip/glute work at the gym afterwards.  It was 98 degrees when I went running and I didn't see a single person on the trail until the last half mile.

Very specific gluteus medius stuff at the gym and a good upper body workout.

Went up to Snowbird with my brother, who I just picked up from the airport.  Watched Sage, Anton, and a few other guys finish Speedgoat, and then went for a run.  Started at Alta (lower Albion parking lot, above the Collins area), ran on the trail up to Alf's, then took the winding trail on the East side of the main ridge, up to Cecret Area, up to the top of Collins, then over Germania, down into Mineral Basin, up to the Peruvian Tunnel, through the tunnel, and up to Hidden Peak.  We took the tram down (Brennan was hating the altitude at this point and I don't trust my hip for downhills as much as uphills), and then I jogged up to my car at Alta to bring it back down.

7.9x miles total, well over 3k' gain.  Nice and slow (I carried Brennan's DSLR in a backpack for him and he frequently wanted to stop to take photos).

Solid upper body workout at the gym.  My decline press max is 40 pounds more than it was a month ago.  Strength is coming back fast!

After that, went over to East High track and did 3 miles starting around marathon pace and working faster from there.  I didn't wear a watch, so I have no idea of the pace, but I imagine I averaged around 6:00 flat.  Hip felt good.  Looking forward to being able to do long tempo workouts again in the future rather than this 3 mile nonsense. 

Went to the salt flats with my brother later.  Holly had a lot of fun.

Hiked some miles with my brother Brennan at Alta.  We were up close to dark, so we ran the last mile back downhill. Did some weights earlier in the day.

A lot of leg weights and a little bit of upper body.

Similar to Monday.  Got in a mile of running while hiking with Brennan near sunset.  Also had a great day of lifting... Got my decline press back up to 200 pounds.

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.