Craig's Running Blog

Ah- good to be back home. I took the trail out through Draper, and was glad to see about an inch of good snow on the ground. Temperature was a nice, even 25. I had enough time to do a full 7 mile loop, and felt great after about 2 miles. I wish it didn't take so long to warm up.

Just a nice, easy 6 miles with the group. We started up at the temple in Bountiful and headed south along the road. Went 3 miles and came back. We kept together pretty well.

There was some discussion at the end of the run among us about resolutions and keeping the weight off. I went home and talked to my wife about it, and she has agreed to cut out most (if not all) sugar and nutrasweet from our family diet. We've been taking steps to get there, but now she's on board- and that's obviously important because she thinks of the meals a cooks.

Evening run with the group. We are back to doing hills on Wednesday evenings in Taylorsville on the bluffs next to the river. This was a low turnout- only 5 of us. I felt like I was doing the first 2 hills (out of 6) without having properly warmed up. The achilles were aching a bit. No worries- we did some sprints and I felt good after that.

This was also a landmark day because we switched schools for Kristian and put him in Kindergarten in the elementary school that Zoe attends. He was going to afternoon Montessori. So now he attends morning school at the same time as Zoe, and I am responsible for getting them there on time. That means even earlier mornings if I want to get a run in.

I tried going out on the porter rockwell and pipeline trails this morning, but they were still too icy. I got out about a mile, then switched to main roads. I ended up going east a few blocks toward the mountain and did my hill route. The main roads were good, but some of the side roads were pretty iced over. Hopefully the storm this weekend will bring warmer temperatures initially (melting the ice), and then the plows will do a better job clearing the snow during and after the storm. The roads and trails haven't been clear since that storm that hit us Christmas Eve, when the plowing staff was low.

I also got word today that we secured the Ragnar Relay van for the Moab 1/2 Marathon in March. We have 7 of us riding down in it: Dominique, myself, Andrea, Johnny, Alicia, Cortney, and Jason (Jasro). I don't know Cortney too well (Alicia's husband), but the others are all people I run with at least once a week. It should be a good time.

Rough morning. I was planning on doing a few extra miles, but the ice was really bad due to warmer weather. The thermometer said 45 degrees, which was fine. But the snow and ice was melting everywhere, leaving the ground slick. I fell once, but caught myself multiple times. I had to really slow it down due to the slick factor.

We all met in Kearns at 7am, but that's when the snow hit. It was warm when I was up at 5:30, but the temperature dropped to freezing and the snow started coming down hard. We all decided to go to the olympic oval nearby, which was a good choice. I had never been there, but it's a nice indoor track which surrounds the ice. There are a few areas where the lanes are narrowed down to 3, but it wasn't ever crowded to the point where I was stuck behind someone.

We did a mile warmup and then 4x1600 tempo with 1 mile recovery in between each one. Finished with a mile cooldown. Since the track length is 440 instead of 400, we actually did 11 miles instead of 10. Bonus.