Old Man Still running

Not much soreness left over from the marathon, little right hamstring and left quad.   Calves came out great. 

Still disappointed in my race but can't shoot down the effort. It just made me feel old. As I look at my past road races, even Across the Years 48-hour run, I see an interesting pattern.  No matter how fast or slow I start, after two hours of running I slow to over eight minute miles, closer to nine-minute miles.  It has just got to be not enough long fast tempo runs.  Oh well, I'd rather train to maintain 10-12-minute miles for a very long distance.

The results were posted.  I was the top runner from Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain.  Should be happy about that, and in the top 15 from Utah County and none of those 15 are even close to my age.

Time to get back to work.  Focus now is on Bighorn 100 which is a little over three weeks away.  It may be the snow course used in '08 which still had just as much climbing but was faster because it has more dirt road.  I liked that course.

So, before that, I have Squaw Peak 50, which will be a revised course, easier and hotter. and the next week after that I entered Utah Valley Half.  Last year I won my age group there which was nice.  It won't happen this year.  Dan Kerns who placed 3rd at Ogden Marathon is in it.  He had a 1:27 half split.  I can't even begin to touch that.  Keith Barton is also in it. Keith will be running SP50, his first 50, so we'll see if he can recover in a week.  I've never beat either of these guys, so it should be competitive this year.

Hit the treadmill.  Hills.  6 x 9:00 x 15-18%.  Then ran 5 outdoors.  Plan to run some at lunchtime.

Hills on the treadmill.  Five miles with incline up to 25%.  Machine thinks I climbed 4,000 feet.  Then did a four-mile tempo road run on JRP as the sun rose.  Legs feel almost totally recovered from the marathon.

p.m. ran up and down Rose Canyon Road in Herriman

Ran up and down Rose Canyon during lunch again.   Pushed harder, got the six miles done six minutes faster today.

Went on an easy-paced run/hike up Yellow Fork up on top of the ridges, below the snow line above Herriman.  It was a beautiful afternoon.  I spooked a couple deer.   I followed a faint trail out onto a ridge and when it went away, followed game trails down.  It was great to be up there.  The higher you get, the single-track trails have water flowing down them, but it looks like things are starting to dry out.

Went at ran the 10K in Orem put on by Run 13. I PRed in it last year, so I wanted to try again.  It is a very fair course, not downhill, some uphills.  I was shooting to break 42 but didn't quite make it, but I was still pleased because during the last mile it felt like I had plenty of energy and speed in the tank.  Gene Moreland won the age group as usual.  I've never beat him, but I'm getting closer.  Also Lorzeno, who turns 50 next month always beats me but this time I came within 100 yards.  I'm getting very close.  

My splits were: 6:31, 7:15 (hill), 6:48, 6:54, 6:55, 7:09 (hill), 6:56 (last .2)   Pretty consistent. I finished 33 seconds off my PR.  16th out of about 180 runners.

The problem with Run 13 races, is they take over 1 hour to hand out the awards, so slow.  When I saw in the results that I placed, I groaned because I would have to stay around to get my medal.

I next went to run on the altered Squaw Peak 50 course on the BoSho Trail from Rock Creek to Spring Canyon and back.  Believe it or not, I've never run that section of the trail.  Well, except for a small section that I used to hike and play on as a boy, above my grandparents house in the mid-60s.  No BoSho trail then, just some motorcycle trails, and a trail that led up to the Y.  Back then there was a big stone cross near there that was called Easter Cross. Its long gone now.  No nice Y trailhead then and the houses were much further down the foothills.  Lots of memories as I ran by there.  I remember looking down watching them build Deseret Towers. So it was about 45 years since I've been up there.

As I ran between Provo and Springville, I remembered that in 1980 after my mission, at BYU I started running for a few months.  If you ran 150 miles during the first half of 1980, you got a T-shirt in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Church.  My longest run was a run down 9th East and along State Street to Springville and back, about 10 miles.  I was so proud of that long run and I thought it was very, very far, that few people could do it.  Well, it took me 23 years to beat that distance.  So lots of memories on this run as I looked down at BYU. 

I saw RD John Bozung out on the trail checking things out.  I'm glad I ran it.  I took two wrong turns.   I'll give my feedback to John.  They are taking a faint upper single track section between Provo and Springville.  I blew by the turn on the way out.   On the way back I took a wrong trail near the Y trailhead.