Old Man Still running

The ankle was really bad Sunday, but after 17 hours in the boot felt much better.  Got to hit the hills.  Rain/snow out this morning.  Wow, it really must be dumping up on the Squaw Peak course.  Could be an interesting event this year, no PR likely.

Treadmill.  Tough incline workout, holding onto the front.  Pushed much of it between 20-30% incline.  After that for awhile, it was amazing how easy 15% felt and how 5% felt like downhill.  The right quad is a little sore because I can tell I used it more than the other Saturday, protecting the left ankle.

Tough hilll/speed/tempo run.  First hill repeats with the dog.  One mile up, 400 feet climb, one mile down and repeat.  8:53 (up), 6:26 (down), 8:40 (up), 6:12 (down) for 30:10 total.  The dog had enough so I took her home and then went out again for a 4 mile rolling tempo run.  7:55, 7:51, 8:05, 8:55.  Had to back off the last mile, the ankle was complaining too much.  Looks like eventually I'll need to get an MRI for the ankle to see if the tendon is torn.  But for now I'll grin and bare it, use it, rest it, and hope it gets better like last year.

Plan for the weekend is to run the Orem 10K to go get that PR that the Rex Lee 10K (really 9K) cheated me out of.  The hope is to bust my PR by about two minutes.   We shall see.  In the meantime, hills, hills, and more hills to get ready for the snow run at Squaw Peak 50.

Took  yesterday off.  The ankle was really in bad pain, very discouraging.  But with 12 hours in the boot when I got up early it felt much better.  Seems like the tendon wasn't as tight.  So, I played it safe and went to the treadmill where I could manage the even surface.  It went well and wasn't a problem as long as I kept the pace slower than 8:30.  The faster pace puts much more pressure on it.  Thats OK, I can train at a slower pace if thats what it will take.

But, I didn't take it easy.   I ran at 20-21% incline at 10:00 pace for most of the time.  The treadmill says I'm climbing a little more than 100 feet per minute.   I do hang on to the front, so it is like hanging on to a rope tow, but it is a great workout to get the legs pumping up the hill and the heart gets going. I can tell I'm making good hill training progress.  It is just a bummer to be on a treatmill when the weather is so fine.   The machine thinks I climbed 6,000 feet.   Once I backed off the incline to 10% and cranked up the pace, it was amazing how easy it felt.

More treadmill hills

My goal was to PR today. I reached my goal, but still wish I would have done better...never satisfied. I knew my former PR time of 43:08 was very soft.  At Ogden with downhill aid, my 10k split was 41:24, so I knew a big improvement was possible. 

The weather was great.  I did a nice warm up and felt ready.  The ankle was behaving.  I saw two in my age group that I knew I couldn't beat, oh well.  Off we went.  I fell in behind Maryann and Michelle.   It was fun to watch them duel for a little while.  Maryann led first, then Michelle past her.  By mile 1 they started to disappear from my ability to watch. 

Mile 1: 6:14.  Good start.

Mile2: 7:05.  Bad mile.  Slight uphill and I could feel the quads complaining from all my hill work this week.  But after a turn and slight downhill came and I felt better.

Mile 3: 6:25  Finally warming up

Mile 4: 6:47  Still OK

Mile 5: 6:35  I think this mile was short.  I thought things were going great and I just started to get lazy coming in

Mile 6: 7:28   Lazy, lazy.   I had plenty in the tank for a fast sprint for the last tenth.  Almost plowed over a teenager (finished the 5K) crossing the course not looking.  I had to let out a scream in order to not collide with him.

Finish time: 42:04.   I PRed by 1:04.   Not bad.  But the PR still feels soft.  One more chance July 5th and the Freedom Run on a tougher course.  But I think more hills actually help me.  My legs just get lazy on the flats.  They need something to wake them up using different muscles.

4th in my age group, but the age groups were messed up, non-standard.  46-54.  They let the youngsters in.  Still, with 11th overall, that means there were four old guys in the top 11.  Pretty competitive. 161 finishers.

So, for 2010, so far I have PRed at 5K, 10K, 1/2 marathon (twice), full marathon (twice), and 100 miles.

Next up.  Squaw Peak 50 next Saturday in probably about 5 miles of snow.  Should be fun. No PR there, too tough.  Course PR is also unlikely wth the snow and gimpy ankle.  It will be a nice training run for Bighorn 100 in a few weeks.  Oh, also Utah Valley half thrown in before Bighorn....a quest for sub 1:30.

After returning home, I didn't rest, I went and hit the hills.  Took the dog.  At a steep hill with some ground cover, half way up, she refused to follow me.  She just turned around and started to head for home.  I've never seen her do that before.  I called for her to wait, picked her up and carried her up the steep hill.  Once on a bare dirt road she was fine.  Pretty funny.

A non-running interesting experience after the run.  I've been working on an time-intensive family history project.  15 years ago a very distant relative (now dead) sent me rare pictures of some ancestors.  Somehow those pictures got misplaced during our move to Utah 11 years ago.  I've searched many times for them.  Finally last night I did a two hour search of the house and came up empty. I was ready to give up and conclude that they were thrown out by mistake. Then, last night I had a dream reminding me of what the envelope was like that the pictures were in.  It was so clear that I woke up, now remembering clearly what I was looking for.   After my run, I searched in a couple new places that I hadn't checked.  Within ten minutes, I found the treasures!  Amazing! 

And, even more thilling, near these treasures, I found another missing treasure that has bothered me for years.  I thought I gave away this treasure by mistake 11 years ago.  But I found it!  It was a copy of a book on the pioneers I wrote.  This copy traveled on the Mormon Pioneer trek reinactment on the wagon train in 1997.  It is signed by Elders Ballard, Huntsman, Christensen, Holland, Pinnock and other digitaries who visited the wagon train.  I was thrilled to find it again.  It has been a wonderful day!