Craig's Running Blog

This was a slight alternate to my usual 5.5 mile loop. I found that starting at my house and ending at the bottom of the hill below my house (rather than at my house again) is a great way to get some more slight downhill training at the end. Everything felt good. I'm going to plateau at approx. 35 miles this week and probably hold that weekly mileage through the end of the year.

Did a hill workout and pushed it pretty good coming back. 5 miles. Not a huge deal, but it felt right.

I came back and had a message on my phone from Mexico. They had some problem with their video encoding I had to look at, so I didn't have time for any stretching. Drag.

Did the same run as Monday. It was a little wet and cool out, but it's not getting cold enough yet for ice. Good thing. Worked it pretty good on the downhill and ended up with a total pace of 6:36 over 5.1 miles.

The weather Saturday is going to be crap, so I don't know about the run. I'm thinking about doing it with Locomotion 'cause a friend of mine is providing hydration. But I hate most of their runs and I would much rather hit the trails. 

Slept in this morning until 6:15, so I had to make the decision of running a quick one in the morning or waiting until the evening. Knowing that work can extend itself into the evening sometimes, I decided morning would be my best option. So I ended up cutting about a mile off the run. I will make up for it tomorrow when I do my Friday afternoon trail run.

I somehow got out of work today at 4:00, and made it home by 4:30. I can usually do that on Fridays, and this was no exception. I had a party to go to at 7:00, so I knew I had to be done with the run by 6:00.

The weather was unusually warm, with a strong south wind blowing. This time of year, that usually means storm within 24 hours. I took off at an easy pace, up to the Orson Smith trail head on Highland Drive (in Draper). I went up the new connector trail to the Bonneville Shoreline trail. On my way up, I felt the familiar sharp pains in both achilles tendons, so I backed off and tried not to run on my toes up the hills. Perhaps I have been running too many hills this week? Hills seem to aggravate the issue- especially when I run exclusively on my toes up the hills.

I did a modified shoreline loop, and returned back the way I came. I would have run longer if I wasn't planning on running tomorrow at 7am with locomotion. That's one of the downers about scheduled group runs- it can confine your other runs.

I made it back home about 5:45 and thought it would be better to mow the lawn one last time this year. The shower could wait.

We met at 7am this morning at Wheeler Farm. After all these years running in Salt Lake, I haven't ever run around Wheeler Farm before. I found the loop to be short, but very enjoyable. As we started out, we did our first loop arond Wheeler Farm. I learned that the 5k that is run there on the first Saturday in November is a trail 5k that does 2 loops around the park. Sounds like my kind of race- except for the 5k. I was talking to some other runners about how horrible I am at the 5k distance. In fact- the pace I ran during my only 5k this year was exactly the same as my Provo River 1/2 Marathon pace. That says something about my lacking speed, or good endurance (or both).

After the initial 1.5 miles, we took off on the roads. Dominique showed up a few minutes late, so she was waiting at the parking lot. We took off together at an easy pace, passing most of the loco club members. This time there were 2 runners that made smart remarks as we ran by, which is pretty typical. It irritates Dominique, and I can't say I like it either.

Andrea was providing hydration for the run, and Bill was there to help out and say "hi". Alicia also showed, but she didn't run either due to an abdominal strain. We talked a bit about starting our winter training in 2 weeks. It sounds like both Andrea and Bill have been taking some time off since the marathon.

We asked Bill about his thoughts on consistent (6 days a week running). He didn't say it was a bad idea, but he did offer an interesting insight. When we say that people who run 6 days a week don't get injured, that's because people that do get injured are no longer able to run that often whilst injured. So it is accurate to say that runners who run nearly every day aren't injured, but what happens when they do get hurt? Just some more light on the subject. Personally, I am feeling really good now that I'm running consistently and averaging 35 miles a week. I am going to keep it up and gradually edge the mileage up.