faster with age

     10 easy 8:16 AP heavy legs

20 mile mt bike in the morning.

At 3:00 in the afternoon I was in North Logan and was told it would be 45 min before my tractors starter motor [which was being rebuilt] would be finished. So I went a few miles up the road to the Skyview track to run a few since it would take more than 45 min to drive home and back. I didn't have running clothes but was wearing cargo shorts and a cotton t-shirt. The temp in the car read 96 deg. It smelled like cooking rubber or plastic while I ran. Not sure if it was the rubber coating on the track or the astro turf. Luckily there was a running drinking fountain and I stopped and soaked my shirt after every 2 miles and got a drink. I got in 6 total.

     Ran 7 miles. 5 at 7:42 ave. Then 2 miles of fartlek running 1/4 faster 1/4 slower. Averaged around 6 min pace on faster and 7:21 on recoveries. 6:42 ave for fartleks. 7:25 overall for 7.

     20 miles mt bike.

     This was my 4th straight year running this race. It's one of my favorites. In my 5 years of running races, every race I have done has been a course PR except for this race last year where I was 11 seconds slower than 2008. I kind of blamed it on the fact that '08 had the normal tailwind [for this race] and '09 had none. This year I really wanted to beat that time [59:32 from '08] and thought maybe I could go under 59 min. The weather was perfect for racing with temps in the low 50s and no wind at the start. I went out and was hitting about the pace I wanted for the first 4 miles. Up until this point there had been no tailwind and in fact a bit of a slight headwind at times. The 5th and 6th miles are where the substantial tailwind usually kicks in and I was planning on a couple of faster miles through here but today It just turned into a stronger headwind. I felt pretty good on the big hill that's the last part of mile 7 and the first of mile 8 and I just tried to stay relaxed and save something for the last 2 miles after the climb. At the intersection the light turned red with nobody directing traffic yet. Another guy and I ran out to cross in front of the stopped cars,who started going about then, and we had to do a bit of dodging. I felt better on the last 2 miles than I have in previous years and came in at 59:00. I was hoping the chip time might have me under 59 thinking I may have stopped my watch a split second late at the finish or early at the start but Milliseconds timing only posted the gun times and no chip times. I was only about 3 seconds back from crossing the start mat after the gun so it's not a big deal but I'd be ticked if I was one of the people that started 30seconds or more back. Maybe they'll have it fixed in the next couple days and I could still have my sub 59. My splits were:

1-6:06

2-6:17

3-6:16

4-6:20

5-6:22

6-6:21

7-6:38 beginning of hill

8-6:32 finish hill then flat.

9-6:14

.32-5:38 pace

     I was pretty happy with the 32 second pr even with the headwind versus tailwind on my old pr.

     Enjoyed the pre-race BBQ at Scotts house last night and enjoy some good food and good company and the chance to meet some bloggers I hadn't before.