faster with age

     10 miles on reservoir road. Kept the pace easy. 8:46 AP

     Another 10 miles up past the reservoir this morning. I was thinking about doing a short tempo during part of the run but my legs were feeling slow so I just kept the pace easy again. I might still not be 100% recovered from last Saturday. Recovery seems to come slower as I get older. Did 5 or 6 strides of 15 to 20 seconds each during the last 2 miles. 8:28 AP overall.

     7 miles 8:48 pace.

     Went overt to Weston canyon this morning to get in some up and down hill running. I parked at the reservoir 3 miles up the canyon and ran 2 miles warmup at 8:07 pace. Then I ran the 3 miles down the canyon at 6:38 ave pace. Got a drink of water then ran the 3 back up at 7:43 pace. Then 3 back down at 6:22 pace. I actually felt better the last time down. my back was feeling a bit tight and it just took a few miles to get loosened up. Yesterday I had to dig up a 10" irrigation mainline to make a repair. The backhoe does most of the work but there is still a lot of manual digging in wet heavy clay mud that sticks to your shovel. I think that is where the back soreness came from but it feels ok now. I ran another 2 cool down miles 1 up the canyon and 1 back down to make 13 total. Then I rode my bike [that I had stashed] the 3 miles back to the top. The canyon climbs about 350 feet in those 3 miles so not too steep but a nice grade. I had a coyote run across in front of me and saw a few deer and a couple of blow snakes. Nice cool morning but it did get a little warm at the end when most of the shade was gone. Pace for the 9 mile workout was 6:54. Overall pace for all 13 was 7:15.

     The temp was 43 deg this morning when I went out to move pipe. We keep the windows open at night and it was 53 deg in the house. My back was a little sore while I was out moving wheel lines and I was going to take some ibuprofen before my run but after eating breakfast it felt a little better so I went without. I ran 10 miles at a nice slow recovery pace. I could definitely feel yesterdays workout in my legs but as long as I kept it slow it wasn't too bad. I don't usually watch my heart rate while I'm running and try to keep it in different zones but today I tried to keep it under 130. Overall pace was 8:52/mile. Heart rate 128 ave.

     Spent last night at my parents house in Sandy. Did a 10 mile run in the morning out 13th east to the park in Draper where the Draper days 5k starts. It was exactly 5 miles to the restroom and drinking fountain in the park. I made use of each and then back. I was surprised how many runners and bikers where out. I'm not used to seeing anybody on my runs.

     In the afternoon my wife and I took my brother from Texas over to watch the 4th stage of the tour of Utah. It's called the toughest stage race in the United States. It has a lot of the top racers in the world with quite a few of them fresh off the Tour De France. My brother is now in a wheelchair with MS. When he was 20 he was on the 7/11 cycling team that was the first US team to ride in the Tour De France. He and his team mate Frankie Andreu were the only 2 on the team that didn't get to go to France because they were the newest additions to the team. My brother [after being one of the top 2 junior cyclists in the country] was diagnosed with MS about that time and left the team to serve a 2 year mission. After returning he was not able to train at the same level and was not able to get back on the team. Frankie went on to ride in the tour many times including on all of Lance Armstrongs winning teams. Lance came to the same 7/11 team just after my brother was gone and just before it became the Motorolla team. It was awsome to watch and I enjoyed getting my brothers perspective on what was going on. 

     It was an 11 lap race through the streets of salt lake on a 7 1/2 mile loop so we got to see them about every 16 or 17 minutes. We spent the first half watching from Capitol circle where they were coming downhill at 40 MPH and making a right then quick left turn without slowing a bit. It gave me chills the first time they came by so fast. The support vehicles had tires skidding and squealing around the corners to keep up. It was quite a production with dozens of lead cars and support vehichles and dozens of motorcycles and a helicopter filming the lead group. About halfway through we went over to the finish line by the capitol and saw the last few laps and finish from there. It was awesome.