Craig's Running Blog

I looked at the temperature today (68) and I couldn't help but go for a trail run. This could very well be the last day I get out this year, judging by the cold front coming in early this week.

I took some detours on some new trails, and ended up at Ghost Falls. I was a little sore in the ankles by the end of the run after the 11 miles yesterday. I guess I'm just not used to 8-10 mile days yet. I'll get there.

This was an easy run with a small group of 5. We went around Murray Park and the surrounding streets. Stopped by the new smoothie shop and got free samples off of them. Good stuff.

I didn't sleep well last night, but it's funny how that never seems to affect my run negatively the next morning. If I sleep poorly for a longer period of time, then I notice it in the run. But 1 night of light sleep never hurts me.

Did the 5 mile loop, and I did some nice strides at the end. It was obviously cooler this morning, but still at 40 degrees. Not bad at all.

I was talking with Mark about Boston. I guess he has already registered and has tickets. He wants to split a room to save costs, so I suppose I'll have to register and run it. I've wanted to do it at some point, but I wasn't planning on it this year. It will be something to look forward to in 4 months.

Cold morning! I knew I would take off from work early today, so I decided it would be warm enough at 4:00 to do a trail run. I was right (barely). It was only like 40 degrees when I took off at 4, and by the time I was getting home at 5:30, it was getting dark and even colder.

This was the usual trail loop. Nothing spectacular, but it felt good. I picked it up halfway through and did some marathon pace on the trail itself. That got kind of technical after a while, so I had to slow down.

We met up with Bill at 7:00am for an easy 10 miler up in Bountiful. I figured it would be a good opportunity to get some extra miles in. Knowing it would be cold, I dressed for it... but I was still freezing at the end.

I got a ride up with Andrea. The 4 of us weren't expecting many others, but we ended up having a pretty big group: Andrea, Johnny, Alicia, Jason R, Renan, Dominique, Gordon, Lona, Traci, and Bill.

Bill contributed some fresh bread and honey afterwards, along with the usual warm refuel drink. That was very nice. He also mentioned that we would be meeting and doing the same run Dec 25 and Jan 1. I'm sure I won't make Dec 25, but Jan 1 is a possibility.

Slept in a little this morning, but I still got out at 7:00. I decided to do the porter rockwell/pipleline paved trails rather than pepperwood. The flat paved trails would let me work on my speed, while the pepperwood loop is a beast of a climb and doesn't allow for that.

The pace was fast, the threshold 4x800s were good. 5:00 - 5:30 pace. I didn't have my Garmin, but I could tell that I was getting it down to 5:00/mile at times.

It was really strange. I saw this apparently homeless lady carrying a bench on a wheelbarrow along the pipeline trail where it crosses 1300 East. I watched her for a minute from across the street before approaching her. She turned to look at me, and that's when I could tell she was probably homeless. She looked Danish too- like someone I would have seen on my mission. I asked her if she needed any help, and she didn't respond. I was unsure at that point if I was in a dream or not, and I got that really weird feeling that you get when you have a surreal experience. I took off running on my route, but faster... as if the dream was going to catch up to me and eat me alive. I would have been freaked out if it was Halloween.

Met with the group up in Farmington. We took the road out to the bird refuge and back. It wasn't quite as cold as Thursday, but still pretty cold.

Bill had us do a mile tempo going out and a repeat mile on the way back. It wasn't too bad, but I was tired at the end.