faster with age

     Went out for a run just before dark. The road was all snow covered with loose snow and more was coming down. The footing was very poor. I felt like my feet were sliding back at least an inch every time I pushed off. I ended up averaging 9:57 pace for 8 miles and felt beat at the end. I enjoy running in the snow if I don't worry about my pace although some snow conditions are a lot easier to run in.

     Ran 10 miles in the morning. The road still hadn't been plowed and the footing was still very poor. It was a lot of work just to keep my pace around 9:30. With about 4 miles to go I came across a stray dog. He was friendly and wanted to run with me but after 2 miles I was afraid he would follow me all the way home [which I didn't want]. He was a very overweight lab cross and he was really sucking wind and seemed to be struggling to keep up. He started to fall behind and I started working harder to put a gap on him. I ran the next mile at what felt like tempo pace but it was actually only 8:30. By then the gap was large enough that I guess he finally gave up and must have stopped at a dairy up the road were there are some other dogs. At least it gave me some incentive to push harder with that poor footing. I still only averaged 9:15 pace for the run. I feel bad for the dog and I wish he had some ID so I could help him get home. I'm just a softy and get attached to easily to dogs which makes it hard to get rid of a stray that comes home and we definitely don't need any more dogs. I really feel more worn out after theses runs with bad footing even though I'm running such a slow pace.

     Ran 11 miles this morning. The footing was much better and I actually had a 2 mile stretch of dry pavement. The dirt roads that I like to run had hard packed snow from some vehicle travel and was a bit slower but not even close to as bad as the soft snow surfaces I was running on last week. Overall pace was 7:54. I threw in a couple of striders in the last 2 miles. It felt so much easier than running 9:30 pace on that unstable snow last week.

     Went for 10 miles today at an easy relaxed 8:38 pace.

     I took my son to mutual and the young men were all going to run the mile for their physical fitness merit badge. I went out and ran with them in the dark.  I just stayed with the lead pack which was quickly down to 2 boys and after halfway was down to 1. I just finished up with him in 6:38. I was surprised that any of them could run that fast but he told me his coach from the high school wrestling team has them running regularly.

     My Garmin battery was dead this morning [must have left it turned on yesterday] so I went without. Just ran 4 miles and enjoyed the warmer temps [just below freezing] and the light falling snow. Very peaceful.

     Played basketball pretty hard for an hour late pm.

     I wanted to do some tempo miles today. It was -10 deg this morning and I normally don't mind running in that but I always seem to run slower when it's that cold. By 10 o'clock it was nice and sunny but still only -1. I went out at 2:30 when the temp had climbed clear to 13 deg. Still a bit cold but 23 deg warmer than this morning. I ran the first warm up mile in 7:45 then averaged 7:08 for the next 2 miles. Then I started the tempo and averaged 6:46 for the next 6 miles. Overall average for 9 miles was 6:57. I felt pretty good with the run considering I didn't think I was up to it in the first couple of miles. I think I was just a little sore from basketball last night but seemed to loosen up after 3 miles and felt good after that.

     The house thermometer read -15 deg and the car read -16 when I took my son out to catch the school bus this morning. I added a second layer on the bottom and an extra layer up top. I wore some wool gloves that were a little thicker than the light wool ones I usually wear. After about a mile my hands and feet started to get cold which never seems to happen. After about 1 1/2 miles I could feel my hands at feet quickly warming and by 2 miles my hands were too warm and I had to switch to my lightweight gloves and remove the extra layer up top. I finished with a whole lot of ice on my goatee and eyelashes but very comfortable. Today was just a short recovery run at 8:49 ave pace.

     Ran 14 miles this morning. It was 1 deg when I left which actually felt quite warm compared to yesterday's morning run which was 17 deg colder. Had to switch to my lighter gloves again at 1 1/2 miles then had to take those off after 3 miles and ran the rest of the way without. The sun never came out because of the cloud cover but there was no wind. First 6 miles I ran at 8:16 pace. Picked it up a little after that and averaged 7:40 pace for the next eight. Last mile the fastest at 7:13. Overall pace for 14 miles was 7:56. I was amazed that 1 deg could actually feel that warm. Even my garmin was very slow when changing screens yesterday.

     Went out for 11 miles in the afternoon. I felt a bit slow for some reason. May have been partly because of the large lunch I ate about 30 minutes before running. AP 8:16

     10 miles. Kept it a real easy pace. AP 8:46

     5 easy miles at 8:45 ave.

     PM  Played basketball

     Did my weekly tempo run today. I have a 2 mile section of non snow covered blacktop so I just ran back and forth on that. I did 2 miles in 7:34 and 7:13. Then since the temp was around 33 deg I took off my long pants and wore shorts for the tempo. I ran the first 4 miles of the tempo at 6:41 ave. I took about a 4 min break then ran another 4 at 6:34 pace. Average for the 8 mile tempo was 6:37 overall. Average for all 10 was 6:47. I felt sluggish in the beginning. But felt surprisingly good for the rest of the run. Must have been the switch to shorts.

     My son was out of school and it was the last day of the duck hunt so we went down on the river and did a little hunting. While we were down there I slipped going down a steep part of the river bank. I didn't fall but I caught myself awkwardly and felt a little tweak in my back. The same little tweak that has meant problems several other times. It felt ok shortly afterward but gradually got worse as the day went on. I decided I had better skip my run.

     Was planning a 15 miler but my back was still a little sore. I headed out but it was not feeling good at all so I quit after 1/2 mile and decided I was doing more harm than good. It's a good thing I quit because it felt much worse after the run than it did before.

     Back was still a little sore today so I decided not to risk making it worse by running again with painter 1/2 mar coming up this weekend. I had to skip Saturdays long run which would have been my second run of 13 miles or more in preparation for the race. I guess I'll have to settle for one at 14 miles last weekend. I went for a 20 mile bike ride to avoid a forth day of nothing. It was a nice ride all on snow with warmer temps up around 32 deg. I seem to have a habit of getting injured going into races.

     My back was feeling a bit better and I thought I would be able to do a run but after lifting a stuck snowmobile it got feeling worse and I decided to bag another run. I started a high dosage of ibuprofen today.

     My back was feeling better [probably the ibuprofen] so I decided to try a run. It loosened up and felt better after the first 1/4 and felt good for the run. I hadn't started with a plan other than just see how it felt. I went 7 miles total and felt like going farther but ended there and played it safe. I did a few striders in the 5th and 6th miles and ran the 7th mile in 6:39. Overall ave pace was 7:37. My back is still feeling good this evening which gives me confidence that I will be able to do Painter's 1/2 this Saturday. I skipped basketball tonight just to play it safe.

     Ran 5 miles today without ibuprofen and my back felt good. I just ran an easy 8:23 pace and was glad to get in a second run before the race after missing 5 days including what would have been my last long run Sat. No run tomorrow and I should be good to go Sat.

          We were really looking forward to the trip down to St George to get a break from our cold winter weather so it was a little disappointing when the forecast was for possible rain and snow and temps in the 30s not to mention the possibility of bad roads the whole way. We were getting heavy snow when we left on Friday and we narrowly made it over Sardine canyon [which was terrible and is a whole other story] only to hear on the radio that it had been closed just as we got to the other side. The rest of the drive was no problem at all. The temp for the race was around 35 deg and overcast but no wind or rain so quite nice racing conditions. 

     My main goal was to beat my last years time of 1:29:00. I was hoping I could go under 1:28 but my training hasn't been the greatest [although better than last years]. I took off and just tried to keep it somewhat comfortable. I hit the first couple of slight uphill miles in the 6:30s and the next couple slight downhill in 6:19 and 6:28. The 5th mile climbs the entire way beginning with a steep climb for about 100 yards. I hit that mile in 6:46 and was still feeling great. Things really didn't feel bad at all until the next big hill that starts near the end of mile 8 and then climbs for all but the the tail end of mile 9. I didn't remember this hill lasting so long and kept thinking we were coming to the end of it but as we turned each corner it just kept going up. I just tried to keep a good pace and not loose too much time. At just before mile 11 the course comes back to the bike path where you are now running back against a lot of runners. At this point I was running just behind the lead female runner and a couple of other guys. She was getting a lot of cheers from the runners going the other way. I wasn't feeling all that great anymore [probably due to my lack of mileage lately] and I didn't see anyone around that looked near my age group. I knew I was going to more than  exceed my expectations so I was content to just hang out where I was. The finish line was a welcome sight and as I was coming to the line they were readying the tape for the female winner to break through. I wasn't quite sure what to do so I just ran up onto the finishing mat all the way to the edge and stopped to stay out of the way while she ran through. My time ended up 1:25:24 [6:31 AP] which I was thrilled with. It is only 18 sec slower than my PR at Top of Utah 1/2. This is an unaided loop course with a lot of hills so much slower course than TOU.

     Splits:

1 -6:34

2 -6:38

3 -6:19

4 -6:28

5 -6:46  almost all uphill

6 -6:19  all downhill

7 -6:28

8 -6:36 Level until near the end climbs steep

9 -6:47 Climbs all the way with short steep drop at the end

10-6:29

11-6:37 slight uphill until the end

12-6:35

13-6:31

13.1-5:35 pace

     I took first in my age group for the second year in a row and 25th overall. They said they had 2,000 sign up for the race which met the limit and was way up from last year. This was probably my last race in that age group [as I will soon be moving into the 50+ category] but I think I could make a good argument that it was my best race to date.

     I ran 5 miles today on soft snow with very poor footing. 9:10 pace was about all I could manage. Everything is feeling good from the race and I'm sure I would have felt fine running the last 2 days but since I don't have any races in the near future I just decided to take a bit of a break. I'll probably keep things pretty easy the next few weeks.

     Played basketball for an hour.

     Ran another 5 miles today. The temp had dropped a lot and the snow and ice on the road had frozen up solid. Much better footing than yesterday. I wore my screw shoes both days but they didn't help much yesterday. Today they worked great. I still just kept it easy at 8:48 pace.

     The roads today were about 1/2 snow and ice and 1/2 clear. Just went for another easy 5 1/2 at 8:44 pace.

     Just kept it real easy again today. 5 miles at 8:54 AP. More  pavement was exposed today. Only about 1/4 of run was on ice and snow.