faster with age

I ran 15 miles up past the reservoir and down the canal road. It was hot so I dunked my shirt in the water a couple of times. Overall pace was 8:18.

I was to busy to get out in the morning and didn't get out until 1:00 pm. I went on the mountain bike for 20 miles. I took a road I don't usually ride for about 4 miles of it. It is quite hilly which would be nice but it had just been graded and had very loose sand and gravel that slowed me way down in fact I nearly didn't make it up a couple of the hills without walking. The ride took an hour and a half. It was 92 degrees. I took a water bottle that was half ice when I left. After an hour in that heat the water was almost too hot to want to drink. I wasn't able to make it out for a run later.

I did a 5.5 mile run this morning with some fartlec thrown in. I did 1/4 at 5:50 pace and another 1/4 at 6:10 pace and 1/2 at 6:12 pace. Overall pace for the run was 7:57. I wanted to pick up the pace a bit before the 15k I'm running on friday. I'm not sure if I'll run anymore tonight. I still haven't gotten a new computer so my blogging has become a bit erratic.

I went 15 miles on the mountain bike this morning. I didn't push to hard having a race tommorrow. It took 1:01. Later I went for an easy 2 mile run. Didn't take a watch.

    Last year I did this race in 1:04:14. I figured I wouldn't have any trouble beating that and thought possibly I could go under an hour. Last night I came down with some kind of bug in my lower GI track [ my wife had it for a couple days]. It was worse this morning and required numerous bathroom stops that unfortunatly didn't seem to help.

After a 1 1/2 mile warmup I started the race with a 6:05 mile. My guts were churning and my next 2 miles slowed to 6:25 and 6:27. I had hopes of keeping my pace near or under 6:20 so I picked up the pace a bit and my shoelace came undone. I stopped at an aid station that was 75 yards before the 4th mile marker and tied it. When I stopped my garmin said I was at 6:18 pace for that mile. By the time I tied it and ran the final yards I finished that mile in 6:31. I only lost 13 seconds. No big deal. Near the end of mile 5, I spotted a guy from my age group that runs a lot of races here in Cache valley. He has beat me handily in the past including last year at this race by 4 1/2 minutes. I hadn't seen him since mile 3 and figured beating him was out of the question, now he was 45 seconds ahead, still a long way. I ran miles 5 and 6 both in 6:17 and closed the gap to about 25 seconds. The last quarter mile of mile 7 starts a steep climb that goes on through the first quarter of mile 8. I did these two in 6:38 and 6:40 and I was now 15 seconds back. Now the 13 seconds lost tying my shoe seamed like a bigger deal. I couldn't seam to close the gap any more.  I normally have a good last mile but only did 6:23 for mile 9. He widened the gap a bit during that mile. I ran my last .3 at 5:42 pace but he got me by  21 seconds. Maybe next time.  Here are my splits

1- 6:05                                                                                                                  

2- 6:25

3- 6:27

4- 6:31   tying shoelace would have been 6:18

5- 6:17

6- 6:17

7- 6:38   last 1/4 mile steep uphill

8- 6:40   first 1/4 mile steep uphill

9- 6:23

.31- 1:44  [5:42 pace]

     My guts felt terrible afterward but I felt pretty good about the race. I went under an hour at 59:32 /6:23 pace and was second in my age group to the guy I was trying to catch. I beat my last years time by  4:43.

1.2 mile cooldown

     This morning I went for 12 miles. Just took it easy even walked a couple of times. Overall pace was 9:14. I felt like I had plenty of energy but some muscle soreness from the race yesterday. The all out sprint I had with a 20 year old at the finish line yesterday probably didn't help.