faster with age

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.