faster with age

This morning I did a 20 mile bike ride. It was 11 deg. when I started but at least there was no wind [other than what you create by riding]. By the time I was finished it was quite sunny and had warmed to a balmy 28 deg. I have been trying to do one ride a week with a tempo type effort since I havn't been able to do it running. For the last 37 minutes of todays ride I kept my heart rate above 160 with the average at 162. overall average HR for the ride was154. total time was 1:16.                 Mountain bike. Mostly offroad.

PM  35 min. eliptical

This morning I didn't run until 9 o'clock. By then the sun was out good and the temp was up to 32 degrees so I decided to wear shorts for the first time this year. It got up to 40 deg. by the time I finished. It was nice. Speaking of temps,  Cache Valley recorded the lowest ever april temperature for the lower 48 states yesterday morning at -41 deg. in the mountains above Logan at Middle Sink.

 I went for 9 miles. I did 2x20 second hill sprints during the run and two 1/2s at 7 min. pace. I ran my last 3 miles at 7:44 ave. Overall pace was 8:06. Trying to gradually introduce some sub 8 min. running. My hamstring seemed  to handled it fine.

Did a bike ride this morning. I kept a fairly easy pace and went 28 miles mostly offroad.It took about 2 hours. Ave. HR 135.

There's a house with 5 dogs that always come out after me.This house is 3 miles from any other house back in on a gravel road. I can't blame them for letting the dogs run loose where they live. They always run out in front of me and I worry I'm going to hit one and crash. They keep getting more bold and last time through one of them bit me. He didn't break the skin just grabbed my pants. This morning I unclipped from my pedals before going past and I kicked two of them in the nose with my shoe. I got one of them pretty solid and he left the chase immediately. I'm not going to make it much fun for them from now on.

Went for 15 easy miles on the mountain bike HR 120. Then later went for a 2 mile easy run.

This morning I ran 8 miles at an easy pace except 2 uphills I ran harder. My hamstring is doing great. Not bothering me during my runs. My back is doing better also. I hope to start getting in a few more miles.  8:24 ave. pace this morning.

This morning I went for a 10 1/2 mi. run. Started out about 25 deg. with falling snow. I enjoy running while it's snowing as long as it's not windy. By the time I finished, the snow had quit falling and it warmed up and got a bit windy. I ran the first 5 miles mostly around 8:50 pace. I ran the next 5 mi. at 8:00 min. pace with mile 7 in 7:35 and mile 10 in 7:21.

My son decided he want's to do the 5k at the Ogden marathon so we went out and ran a mile after school. We'll have to see if he sticks with it. He has a tendency to get excited about running  for a week or and  then give up on it. It's going to be up to him if he keeps it up. I'm not going to nag him to do it. We did the mile in 9:36.

Went for a 20 mile mountain bike ride this morning. 1:19 HR 141.

This morning I did some hills. I did a 2 mile warmup followed by 3 times up and down a 1 mile 6% grade hill. I had a bit of a tailwind going down and a headwind going up.

 The hill portion went as follows

downhill 1- 6:40

uphill      2- 8:41

down     3- 6:59

up          4- 8:29

down     5- 6.40

up          6-8:10

ave. pace for 6 mi. 7:36

 The uphills were a tempo effort for me and I had only planned to do it twice but I felt better after the second than I did after the first so I went for another. My heart rate was in the mid to upper 160s on these climbs and I was supprised how comfortable it felt considering my lack of running at this effort. I have been doing some tempo effort on the bike and I think that has helped. Ave. overall pace for 9.5 miles was 7:46. My hamstring seemed to handle it wonderfully. Not even a slight sensation. I'll see how it feels tonight. My back felt good on the run but did tighten up just a little a half hour after the run. I did a little ice and then heat. It's feeling ok for now.

PM Ran 1 mile slow with my son.

This morning I did a 30 mile mountain bike ride. It was about 25 degrees and dead calm when I started. A medium steady breeze began about halfway  through the ride so I had a headwind all the way home without enjoying the tailwind during much of the first half. It took about 2 hours HR 141

After arriving at Zion Nat. Park last night I took off on a run a little before 7 AM from the campground. I ran up Zion canyon along the Pa'rus trail until it ended and then up the highway past the Grotto and partway around the base of angels landing where I turned around. I'm estimating it to be about 6 miles each way. It was such a beautiful morning as the sun started to hit the upper cliffs in the canyon. It was probably around 50 deg. to start out with a steady headwind while running up the canyon which felt nice after all the 18-25 deg. mornings the last couple of weeks. I ran up for 52 min. and back down in 45. When I went to put on my running shoes that morning, I realized I had brought two left shoes from the two pair of Saucony T3s I have. I had to wear a pair of cheap hiking shoes. They weren't terrible but I was starting to feel blisters by the turn around and got worse all the way down the canyon.

That afternoon we did the 5 mile round trip angels landing hike.It was my wife and sons first time and it was a bit scary but they loved it. Back in January the day after the Painters 1/2 we tried the hike and made it to the top of Walters Wiggles and couldn't go any farther because of snow and ice. In fact Walters Wiggles was ice packed and we barely made it up that. The last time I hiked it I was about 15 yrs old [about 33 years ago] and they didn"t have any of the chains except about 200 feet. I don't even recall seeing any other people back then. We only ran into a couple of other hikers in Jan. when we did it but now it's got a lot of people. It was still great. My feet were quite sore by the end of the day after running in bad shoes and then the steep downhill second half of the hike but I loved every minute and the weather was fantastic. In the 70s.

Spent another full day at Zions park. We did a few shorter hikes and didn't get away from the park until about 6 PM. We had a great time. We didn't get home until about 2 AM.

Today I didn't run until noon. The temperature was close to 70 deg. which I thought would feel nice.I guess I'm not used to it yet because it felt very hot. It seemed odd running around the lake with it still 3/4 covered in ice and a few lingering snow drifts while I'm sweating like crazy in the heat. I think I enjoy running in 30-40 deg. better as long as it's not windy. I went 11 miles at 8:24 pace with two 30 sec. hill sprints on two steep hills during the run.

I went for a 20 mile mountain bike ride today with a very bad wind. It took 1:38 which is probably the slowest I have ever done this loop.

Afternoon I did 1 mile with my son then one more myself.

This morning I went for a nice 10 mile run. It was around 20 deg. when I left and about 35 when I got back with no wind. I had to take my sweatshirt off and tie it around my waist after 2 mi. Just took it all easy at an overall pace of 8:26. The ice was all gone from the lake after all the wind yesterday and the loons were back on the lake. I love hearing the sound of their call while I run. I guess it's kind of a springtime thing. Ive been seeing a lot of other waterfowl on my runs including anywhere from 4 to 7 swans on my irrigation pond. I love this time of year.

PM ran 1 mile with my son then another myself. He has been getting bad stomach cramps on about half of his runs.

Went for a 20 mile mountain bike ride this morning. nice day. I rode pretty hard the whole way with an ave. HR of 151. It took 1:14. Did a 1 mile cooldown run after.

PM 2 miles easy my son didn't want to come with me today.

Beautiful morning. Started out at 35 deg. and about 45 when I finished with no wind. I just ran 5 miles at an easy pace. I plan to do a few more later on.

PM Ran 1 mile with my son and 3 more myself easy. My son got stomach cramps so bad he had to walk 4 times. He has tried eating nothing or eating a little but we can't figure out any pattern for when he gets them or not. It seems to be a problem on about half of his runs

This morning I went for a 15 mile mountain bike ride. It was a nice morning in the fourties to start and the sixties to finish. It was calm to begin with and started to get a bit of a wind the last 5 miles. Head wind of course but I lucked out by getting home just before the wind got really bad. Total time was 1:03.

My lovely wife got me a Garmin for my birthday this past weekend. Yippee! I ran with it for the first time this morning and I think I am going to love this thing. I am still learning new things about it.

I went for 11 miles this morning and kept it easy with most miles 8:30 to 8:40. I can't believe the temerature was 11 deg. this morning and May starts next week. It was actually nice though .The sun is coming up earlier and there was no wind.

 I was planning to run the half down at the Ogden marathon next month but just found out they are all filled up. It might be just as well. I wasn't going to be very ready anyway and just planned to use it as a training run. My hamstring tendonitis has taken longer than I expected to recover from and I've hardly done any tempo work or even MP miles. I may still sign up for the 5k anyway. My son really want's to do it.

PM Ran 1 mile with my son in 9:15 and then 1 more mile myself.

This mornings 25 deg. seemed nice after yesterdays 11. No wind. I went for a 20 mile mountain bike ride. Used the new Garmin on the ride. I really liked the biking mode to keep it seperate from running. I can see my pace in miles per hour rather than min. per mile. The new 405 doesn't have multi sport options from what I have read. The currant MPH seemed to be very acurate to me. Yeserday while running, the currant pace seemed to be off a lot of the time. I'll have to put it on my road bike and compare it to my bike computer which I know is quite accurate. It's nice to have something on my mt. bike because I much prefer riding the dirt roads around and rarely seeing a vehicle to riding the highway on my road bike. I started looking around at a lot of new routes I can now run. In the past I have usually just run 2 different routes because thats all I have measured out.

PM  My son and I ran 1 mi. in 9:52 and then I ran 3 more around 9:30

I did some hills this morning on a 1 mile 6% hill. the temp was in the fourties and a little wind to start with. I warmed up for 3 mi. at about 8:45 pace. then I began my hills. I had a little tailwind going down the hill and a little head wind till about 3/4 mile back up when the wind got bad. By the time I was headed up the second time the wind got terrible. It must have been 25 or 30 MPH. There were tumbleweeds blowing much faster than I was running downhill. The uphill going into that wind had to make it the hardest I have worked in a run in quite a while. Here are the splits on the hill portion.

Mi. 1 downhill     6:27

mi. 2 uphill          8:33  Headwind started to get bad 3/4 up

mi. 3 downhill     6:27

mi.4 uphill          9:15   The headwind was terrible

mi.5 downhill     6:24

mi. 6 uphill         9:23 The wind was even worse. I worked the hardest on this mile.

I can't imagine working this hard for a 9:23 mile. I had to just forget about pace and keep telling myself what a good workout I was getting. 1 mi. cooldown

 average pace on hills 7:46

 PM.   Ran 1 mi. with my wife then 1 more myself easy.

I was planning to ride my bike this morning but when I got up it was snowing hard a real wet snow. The dirt roads I ride on get very muddy and the highway didn't seem like a good idea with poor visability so I went for an easy recovery run instead. My hamstring felt great after yesterdays workout that was harder than I have been able to do for a while. I felt nothing at all from it last night or this morning or during yesterdays run. After 5 long months of babying it I hope I'm finally past it to where I can start doing a few harder runs now and then, and get ready to race again. I did 5 miles all over 9:00 min. pace.

PM  Ran 1 mile with my son then 1 more myself easy pace.

This morning I went for a ride on my road bike for the first time this year. The dirt roads I mountain bike on were too muddy. It was 27 deg. and calm when I left home but I started to get a slight tailwind just before the turnaround. which then became a headwind that got steadily stronger and slowed me way down. I don't mind headwinds to much as long as I get the benefit of the tailwind going the other way unlike this morning..

I mounted my Garmin to the handlebars and compared it to my bike computer. The current MPH was amazingly close. Usually the same. sometimes within  0.1 MPH and never more than 0.2. The average MPH at the end was identical at 16.5. The currant pace given by the Garmin while running dosen't seem very accurate. The extra speed on the bike must make the difference. As far as total distance, the Garmin read .09 shorter than the bike computer. I guess thats not to bad after 23 miles.

Total  time 1:23 ave. HR 144

PM  Ran 2 mi. with my son then 2 more myself.

This morning was nice. started out at 27 deg. but sunny and calm. Quickly warmed up.

Did 1 mile with my son. Then did 8 miles with miles 5,6,7 ave 7:30 pace. Mile 7 in 6:59. .25 in 1:30 overall ave. pace 8:13. Nothing from hamstring. We'll see how it does tonight and tommorrow.

Gorgeous morning for a run. I'm afraid we probably won't get to many like this before it gets hot. Went for 13 miles on dirt road . Hilly route. 8:39 ave. pace.

Another perfect morning.No wind and 50 -60 deg. I did a mountain bike ride this morning on dirt roads. I was suprised how fast I was going without a lot of effort. I did an 18.6 mile loop in 1:13:18 ave. 15 mph. which was pretty good considering all the hills and loose gravel in spots.Then went another 1.5 mi. to make it an even  20. Then ran 2 mi. easy pace.

PM Ran 1 mile with my son . He is having a lot of trouble with side stiches on over half of our runs. Today he didn't eat or drink anything after school and it was worse than ever. I've had him try different breathing methods but nothing seems to help. He is getting discouraged. After that I ran 3 more miles myself with 1x100 meter strider during last mile.

Last night I started to get a pain behind my knee. I have felt it slightly a few times over the past week or two. It felt a little better this morning but I decided not to run. Intead I did a fifteen mile mt. bike ride. I didn't use cleets because the upstroke seemed to aggrivate it a little.Riding just pedaling the downstroke didn't seem to aggravate it at all. Just when my back and hamstring have stopped giving me trouble something new comes along. I sure hope it turns out to be not a big deal.

PM  I ran 1 mile with my son in 9:27. Today he ate some ice cream about 1/2 hour before we went. That seemed to help with his cramping. He felt a little of one coming on a couple of times but it never got too bad. It's still sore behind my knee mostly when I straighten it all the way. But it actually felt a little better after running. I hope to be able to run tomorrow but unless it feels real good I'll probably have to skip another run.