Why Not?

Moving Day!!! Erica and I have moved everything to our new home in Heber. It was exhausting and pretty time consuming, but we've got everything in t he house and we're starting to set everything up now. The house is great, and has a fenced backyard for the Sammy Dog so that she can run around all the time.

6 miles in the PM.   Dog tired.

This will be a backoff week -- somewhere in the 50's. Then we'll ramp up to 75-80 for the next 3-4 weeks before the next step. For the first time in a while, my shins and knees are sore. I'm not sure if it's from the tempo downhill or from moving heavy boxes, beds, etc. Either way, I'm due for some easier days.

6 total

Legs still sore and tired. Ran for 60 minutes, the last 20 minutes quite a bit faster. The weather was great, and I found some new dirt roads to run. I felt okay at the end of the run as the rain started to fall.  Workout either tomorrow or Wed. Have to decide if I am going to race on Saturday at the Draper Trail Days or not.... 

9 total

2x1 mile:

The first one was a bit into the wind: 5:01. The second one was a clock malfunction on my part, so I don't know the time. I'd guess a little slower than the first -- maybe in the 5:05 range.

B-ball game later at night.

Steve

Lunch Run:  2.5 miles easy with Sammy -- felt great and I beat the rain.

PM: I did not beat the rain. 10 trail miles in a mud bog at Dutch Hollow Trails. My legs felt great, and the weather didn't bother me too much. At least it was almost 50 degrees, so I wasn't freezing. Just lots of mud.

12.5 total.

Steve

I realized that my back off week was going to equal my other weeks, so I'm going to take a couple days easy and then race Draper Trail Days 15 mile on Sat. for my LR.

5 easy today and will do the same tomorrow. 

Out

4 miles easy. 15 mile race / Long Run tomorrow.

Felt pretty good today.

Draper Trails Day 15 Mile Race.

My wife wanted to do a trail race, so I signed up for the 15 thinking I could get in a good workout and a long run all in one. My original plan was to run 2 hours today, so I figured I'd race the 15 miles and then add on whatever distance was necessary to reach two hours. How plans change....

The first three plus miles of the race were uphill. And I mean UP hill. The trail kept winding up a canyon, up and up and up. I didn't have a watch on and there were no mile markers, but I'd guess I was running 10:00 pace at best. Maybe even closer to 12:00 pace at times. To say the least, it was a b****.

The next 2-3 miles were down hill on a dirt road. I took the lead here and ran pretty hard downhill (yeah my legs are still feeling that). Anyway, here I probably ran closer to 5:15-5:30 pace for a couple miles. Note: This was the only easy part of the race.

After the 6 mile loop, the course was out 4.5 and then back. These 4.5 were very difficult. Tough footing, lots of hills, lots of turns. No fun. Anyway, at least I didn't have a watch. I almost got lost a few times, but made it out to the 15 mile turnaround and headed back. The last 4.5 I honestly jogged easy. My legs were hurting and I was winning by about 10 minutes. I had no idea what my time was or how long I had been running at this point -- no watch. Up and down back through the trails dodging oncoming runners and I made it back to the finish. I was guessing I'd be over 7:30 pace, so I was figuring about 1:55ish for the time. I was excited only that I would be close to 2 hours.

Then I crossed the finish line in 2:06. Almost 8:30 pace. Yikes. I can't say enough about the difficulty of the course. I didn't have a bad day. In fact, I ran some parts extremely hard. At least I got my 2 hours in.

Oh, and I'll never run that 15 mile again.

Steve