Per Aspera Ad Astra

Didn't intend to take the day off, but I had to work on lab stuff extremely late, to the point where I only got 2 hours of sleep.  Not ideal, but it happens.  I suppose this wasn't the worst day to miss after having that 87 mile week, which is my biggest since before the hip flared back up at the beginning of May.  I feel really fresh, despite finally getting some consistent mileage going again, and I think actually going really easy a couple times a week is helping substantially with active recovery.  Still, one day off occasionally won't kill me.

8 miles, treadmill, since it was 5 degrees with a windchill of -5 when I got out to run.  I'm going on 2 hours of sleep, so I wasn't up to the cold weather.  Did 7 of the miles at 6:40 pace, and 1 at 6:10 pace.

A little over 7 miles with fellow grad student Koren and her friend Megan.  Ran at 5:30 AM.  I have to say... it felt great to get some mileage out of the way that early.  They're training for Salt Lake Marathon and I'm trying to make sure I keep a couple runs a week pretty slow, so I said I'd so some easy mileage with them.  Today was East High to 3rd West to South Temple to 13th East, back to East.  Pace was about 8:40, so it was a nice mellow (very early) start to the day.  I got in my New Balance 1010s last night (trail minimums amp) and decided to try them out this morning, given that half of the sidewalks are iced over like trails. The felt OK.  Calling them a minimalist shoe is kind of ridiculous.  There's a ton of shoe there, but they actually gripped the snow and ice really well, which is uncommon among lighter (sub 8 oz) trail shoes.

PM: Was planning on another run, but didn't have time.  Bummer.

Last really busy day with my research proposal.  Just got in 6 miles tonight.  Ran 2 downhill miles in 6:02 and 5:58 on the way back.  Looking forward to getting some real mileage going again after the presentation tomorrow!

No watch, Garmin was dead.  About 7 miles, no idea how long it took  I figure I was going a hair over 7:00 pace.  I was planning on running again later, but I was generally exhausted this week after spending nearly every waking hour preparing for my Research Proposal Presentation/Examination, so I didn't.  Both my document and presentation passed unanimously with no required revisions and I'm finally all but dissertation, so I'm really pleased about that.  Having one week of lower mileage won't kill me, but I have to be careful to cap it at this.  Every other week in my build-up needs to be better than this.

AM: Ski Day #7 for the 2013/2014 season.  I'm going to ski a lot this next week.

PM: First workout for Phoenix.  I realized after last week that I felt super comfortable with 80+ miles in a week, so I figured I'd start workouts a couple weeks earlier than initially planned.  This was a little on the short side for a workout, but the paces were solid and I felt really good about it.

Tonight was 2.5 miles uphill to the gym (6:45 pace, probably a hair harder than marathon effort, in horrendous air), then 8 miles on a treadmill hard (first 7 at 5:46, ie half marathon pace, last 1 at 5:21), then 2.5 miles home, very easy (8:30 pace).

The 7 at 5:46 felt hard but smooth, although the 5:21 finisher was very hard.  One of my key workouts last build was a 10 mile treadmill tempo at 5:51 pace on the exact same treadmill, and I'm already in better shape than that in my first workout of the season, so that's a really good sign.

I'm not sure if it was the Saucony Jake Krong Pro Model shoes I was wearing or the King Crimson I was rocking out to in my headphones.  Without a doubt, King Crimson is the greatest rock band of all time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmwiqBJOzBg

Lunch time to early PM: Skied at Snowbird.  Had a rather bad crash in the double black chutes in Silver Fox that tweaked a muscle on the outside of my calf in my left leg (probably the Soleus?)  Fortunately, while it was noticeable while running, it didn't affect my ability to run.

Later PM: Went out for a run with Holly.  A mile in, the salt in the roads must have been bugging her paws, as she suddenly refused continued running.  It took a little while to get her back home, as she would stop every 30 seconds or so.  Poor girl. :(  Anyway, I dropped her off at home and went back out for a few laps of Liberty.  In the process, I nearly got run over by a cop in an intersection in which I had the right of way (he gunned it after making eye contact with me, while I was already in the intersection, despite him having a stop sign and me not having one).  A little later, I got to witness another cop further polluting this ridiculously terrible air during two of my laps.  He was just sitting there apparently texting or playing a cell phone game, idling away and dumping more garbage into the air.  I was going slowly, so he was idling there for at least 12 minutes, despite the law prohibiting idling for more than 2.  Great work, guys.  Way to set the bar high.  Fortunately, I reported both officers.  Unfortunately, absolutely nothing will be done.

In case you can't tell, I was pretty annoyed for the entire 2nd portion of the run after nearly getting run over.  

Obviously, this week sucked, but I had incredibly important things going on in the lab, so I'm OK with that.  I'll pick it back up this week, but given how much I'm planning on skiing this week, I doubt it'll be all that monstrous.

Oh, and congrats to Zach Bitter for running 100 miles in 11:47 today.  7:04/mile for 100 miles is really freaking impressive.