faster with age

     Ran 8 miles this morning. I was still feeling Saturdays run a bit so I just ran as slow as it took for the pace to feel easy. Some early miles were as slow as 9 1/2 min pace. Some later at 8 1/2 pace. Pretty morning with the lake so calm the reflection of the trees and mountains was like a mirror. It would have made a nice picture. Ave pace 8:55.

     PM 2 miles after dark.

     I had a busy morning and wasn't able to get out until after noon with temps approaching 90.  I went for 32 miles on the mountain bike about half on pavement and half on dirt. I took an extra water bottle and pushed the pace pretty good. The heat doesn't get you as bad on a bike because you're creating your own wind. I had one three mile climb though where there was just enough wind at my back to make no breeze at all. I had so much sweat dripping from my helmet and forehead that in seemed like it was raining on my quads as I pedaled. felt good to go back down into the breeze. 

     PM    Ran 6 miles late. Finished at 11:30. Ran fairly easy pace first 3 miles then did 4 x 35-45 second pickups then 1/4 mile at 5:40 pace on the way back. Overall pace was 8:05. Very dark night with no moon.

     Ran an easy 5.5 miles with a few striders thrown in. 8:19 ave. pace.  I was planning a short easy run yesterday also but never made it out. I decided rather than do another late run, I'd go for the extra sleep. I'm running the Des News 10k tomorrow so it was a good day to take off from running.

     I went down to salt lake Thursday afternoon and the temperature was over 100 deg. I spent the night at my parents house in Sandy and when I got up at 4 AM the temp was 78 deg. I'm used to Our Cache valley mornings in the 50s. After I got to the race I  warmed up for 1.6 miles. I got lined up about 5 min before the race was supposed to start and I was just dripping sweat already in the middle of the big crowd of bodies. The race started about 10 min late and it felt so good to finally get going and get some air moving as some space was finally created between runners. The first 2 miles have the most downhill and I hit those in 5:52 and 5:53. My 3rd mile was 6:20. There was some uphill on this mile but also enough downhill that it shouldn't have been this slow. Mile 4 was 6:15. Mile 5 was 6:11. During mile 6 the race turns east and goes uphill the last 5 blocks. On this part I was feeling pretty good and passed several other people. This mile was 6:24 and my last .2 [.22 according to my Garmin] I ran at 5:57 pace. This was my first 10k so it was a pr. I'm pretty happy with how it went but I think I could have kept miles 3,4,and 5 all under 6:10 which would have kept me under 38 min. I ran into some other Cache Valley bloggers after the race Jon, Cody, and Scott. I talked to Mark  and met Adam. It was a fun race and I'd like to try it again [especially if it were 10 deg cooler]. After watching some of the first marathoners come in I ran 3.2 back up to the start to get my car. I was surprised how fresh I felt running back to the car and figured I must not have run the race quite as hard as I could have.

     I didn't get to bed last night until after 1am and after being up since 4 am I was extra tire and slept in until 7:30 this morning. Then I had to move pipe so I didn't get out on my run until after 10 o'clock and the temp was already to 78 and climbing. Same temp as yesterday but it feels a lot warmer when the sun is up high. I felt surprisingly good this morning. Felt no sign that I had even raced the day before. I was getting pretty thirsty in the heat and was looking forward to the water stash I have 4 miles out. I got there and my water was completely empty. I guess I had forgotten to get back up to refill it. Oh well I have another one 6 miles out and was really looking forward to that one. I got there and it was empty also. I must be losing my memory. I usually remember when these need to be refilled. Now I'm really thirsty and the temp is probably around 86 or 87 and I've got 6 miles to go to get home. I felt real good and felt like running faster but wanted to keep it somewhat of a recovery run. I didn't feel quite so good though the last couple miles [probably from becoming dehydrated]. Overall pace for 12 miles was 8:12.

     PM   Rode 10 miles on my road bike. Pushed the pace pretty good.