Little Buddha

Home tonight from Colorado and did just an easy 4 miles, not really in the mood to run this evening, even though I did get a new pair of shoes on my trip, so that made the run a little more exciting.

Did a mile warm-up on the track this morning, then 6.5 mile run did the Jacob Hamblin loop- to the house then up past the Santa Clara Cemetary then back on Pioneer Parkway through Ivins. Felt good this morning and glad to get in the miles. Just jogged an easy 2 miles tonight.

I did the Subway hike today up in Zion with Gary, Steve & Jennifer and Jennifer's mother. The hike was a lot of fun, but really a workout, we had about 4 different times that we had to use a rope to repell down at different spots, then we had to swim in a few spots because of the deep water. Overall, the hike took about 10 hours and by the time I got home last night I was pretty tired. We probably could have done the hike a lot

faster, but we were just taking our time and enjoying the day.

Did 6.5 miles this morning down to Sunbrook golf course, then over to Dixie Drive and back through Stonebrook.

Did a 20 mile run today with the club from above Leeds down to Middleton (Clyde's house). Everyone ran well and it was a good route had some good uphill then nice downhill to finish with. I felt good during most of the run, picked it up some the last 4.5 miles coming back into town. Body felt pretty good, a little sore and tired after the run and from earlier in the week. This afternoon we all went swimming over at the Sand Hollow pool, swam for probably 3 hours, so I'll add another two miles on for cross-training.

Just did an easy 6.5 miles tonight, felt pretty tired for much of the day, think it was a combination from having company all weekend, running a 20 miler on Saturday and doing a tough hike last week in Zion. Start back to school on Wednesday however, I spent most of the day there today.

Did 4 miles easy up through the desert reserve, then came back to the school and did 3 miles easy up through the park.

Did 2.5 mile warm-up out on trail behind SCHS, then did 4x800 (I was going to do 7, but I was really hurting for some reason.)

1-2:44

2-2:42

3-2:46

4-2:45

Did a mile cool-down

Did about 3 miles around the course at the high school meet in Cedar City. The kids ran ok, for their first meet. Brandon took 3rd in the boys race and looked pretty strong. When I got back to St. George tonight, I went over and ran at the park and waited for the guys in the club to show up. I did 4 miles around and near the park.

Good workout this morning, felt good and more excited about running. Did .5 mile warm-up, then we did 8 Little League hill repeats with longer loops on the 4th and 8th repeat. After running with the team I did another 3 miles for a cooldown. Did an easy 4 miles tonight down the La Verkin twist.

Did around 18 miles this morning with the club. The first 10 to 12 felt pretty good, but once I hit main street and coming up diagonal I was hurting, got a little dizzy at the end and all I could think about was eating something. However, I was glad to get in the miles and finish off the week with two better days of training. Ran another mile this afternoon, it was a rather interesting run. We were out boating at Sand Hollow when my sister-in-laws boat quit working out in the middle of the lake, after many failed attempts to restart the boat we finally drifted to the east side of the lake. I then swam to shore and jogged a mile to inform the rest of our party why we hadn't even come back to get them.

Easy 3.5 miles this morning before first day of school. This afternoon I did 6x800 Yasso 800s. I really struggled through this workout, I think a lot of it was from doing it in the heat of the day, I went out at 3:00 pm, some of the high school kids that didn't come in the morning were doing some flying 40s on the track, so I decided to go ahead and do my 800 workout.

1-2:49

2-2:54

3-2:56

4-2:52

5-2:56

6-2:49

Like I mentioned these times were quite a bit slower than some of the workouts I've done recently, but I was glad I did finish the workout and got the miles in.

Did the Oil Can loop, plus one loop around Castle Rock so it was a 7 mile run once added in a short warm-up and cool-down. Once again, pretty hard to go out right at 3:00 pm when it is still so blasted hot, but I made it through the workout. Went out again tonight after scouts for an easy 3 miles around La Verkin went down 300 West then up and across 100 South

Pulled myself out of bed this morning and came over and ran some 800 repeats with the team. The workout felt really good and I could tell a huge difference doing the 800s in the morning on the grass, compared to in the afternoon on the track.

1-2:40

2-2:36

3-2:32

4-2:32

5-2:31

6-2:29

7-2:29

I think these might have been just a bit short of an 800 we did them on grass with a little downhill at the start, and some uphill at the finish. Also did .5 warm-up and 2 mile cooldown.

Did some more 800s tonight with another group of high school runs. We ran right after school and I just paced them through 5x 800s which were at a pretty easy pace for me. With the warm-up and cool-down I got in another 5 miles.

Did 4 miles at 5:00pm ran up to Hurricane Middle School then back home-15:59 out and 14:20 back. Meet with the club tonight, everyone was there and Bruce Rea came again which was good. Did a nice loop out past the Dixie Center out to the Flying J and up Bingham road came back through Bloomington Hills, Overall the run took 1:21 Clyde figured it was about 11.1 miles, picked up the pace pretty good from the Dixie Center back to the park.

Easy 3.5 miles this morning. Easy 4.5 miles this evening down through Confluence Park in La Verkin

Nice run with Steve and Clyde from Bowling Alley out around Sand Hollow Res. Jogged two more miles at the cross country meet.

Did two Castle Rock loops

1-5:06

2-5:10

Pretty hot after school and I have been feeling pretty tired and sick today, went to Mesquite this afternoon and played a round of golf with my brother-in-law

Still feeling pretty tired for some reason, but did force myself to do 2 miles this morning before work. Another very hot afternoon in St. George, ran .5 warm-up, then 5.5 miles out to Ivins turn off and back to the school, then a .5 cool-down.

Really good workout this morning did 4x1 mile repeats on the high school course.

1-6:00 first repeat felt good, but body was still not quite warmed up

2-5:42 from the start I already felt a lot faster and pushed the pace pretty good, raced past two people walking their dogs and one tired to bite at me, fortunately I was going fast enough he missed and the owner pulled him back closer to him.

3-5:39 felt really good on this one.

4-5:33 shorter rest between the 3rd and 4th repeat, so I thought the time would be quite a bit slower, but I surprised myself by running my fastest time of the workout. Felt really good and pushed Brandon throughout most of the last one, he did out kick me once we hit the track, but it was close.

Did a mile cool-down. This afternoon I will do some more repeats at a slower pace with some of the younger kids. Did a few more mile repeats this afternoon pacing a few of the girls on the team.

1-6:22

2-6:45

3-6:52

Ran 4 easy miles after school with the team, down to the golf course and then back to the school. Tonight meet with the club and ran up over the hill to Red Hills Parkway then over to Snow Canyon Parkway and back on the trail and Diagonal Street, nice run tonight around 7 miles and pretty comfortable, relaxed pace. Everybody is tapering off for the Hobble Creek Half this Saturday.

Did 3.5 easy miles this morning.

Hobble Creek Half Marathon. Good race placed 14th overall and set a new PR. Was really excited to start the race and felt really good this morning, partly because it was my birthday. Anyway, was a little disappointed in how long it took the organizers to get people to the starting line and actually get the race going. I managed to get out at a decent pace and was really focusing on pushing the first half and seeing how long I could hold a faster pace, I guess that is a little different race strategy than I usually use. I usually tend to be more conservative in the beginning then pick it up toward the end.

1-5:30 feeling good

2-5:30 (11:00) still feeling good and surprised at the pace

3-5:32-(16:33) really happy that I have been right on the same pace for 3 miles.

4-5:10-(21:44) might have been a bit short, but I also do remember putting in a little surge on this mile

5-5:55-(27:39) running close to Steve Olsen and Andy

6-5:28-(33:07) continue to push the pace and closing in on Steve Olsen, put a little distance on Andy and an older runner.

Come through the 10K at 34:15 which really surprised me. Fastest 10K I have ran since college.

7-6:04 (39:12) still feeling pretty good I have now caught Steve and have passed him

8-5:32 (44:45) focus on surging again and pushing the pace

9-5:59 (50:44)

10-6:28 (57:12) a little hill and slowing down, mentally not racing just going through the motions, the overall second place woman Paula Morrison comes up on my side and we run together for a while

11-5:48 (1:03:00) I wake up again and remember to keep pushing. I also pass a younger guy wearing blue and glance back and see Steve Olsen on my tail.

Somewhere around 11.5 Steve and I start running side by side, closely following Paula, it was at this point we can see some runners ahead running from a different directions. Steve gets my attention and says "I think we took a wrong turn" I was like great, actually I was really, really upset in fact I am still ticked about it. Anyway we arrive at mile marker 12 in 4:48-(1:07:49)

Very upset I completely shut down mentally and just coast it in to the finish very mad at myself, really put no effort into a kick and finish about 11 seconds behind Steve Olsen with a time of 1:15:00.

Later we talked with the race directors and figured we might have gained at the most a minute, so they added a minute to our time, plus a 30 second penalty. Steve and I were fine with that since we finished 4th and 5th in our age division and hadn't passed anybody or gotten passed by anybody, actually two guys passed me at the end, but that was more due to my lack of effort than anything else.

So officially I ran 1:16:29 still a two minute PR, but the actual distance I cut short was .18 of a mile, so figure my time was really right around 1:16:00. I guess more important than anything was the fact I was able to run at a faster pace and I really feel like things are coming along for me. I am feeling more and more confident with my goal of running under 2:50 for St. George. It has just been an enjoyable year so far, getting back into shape and seeing the improvement from a 1:37 half marathon back in January to where I'm at now. I think a lot of it has been the support of the St. George Running Club, those guys have really been great and have helped me a lot, it was fun running with them this weekend. Clyde ran really strong as expected, but both Steve and Bill really surprised me. Steve hasn't raced since March and he came out and ran great and Bill had a new PR I believe while running with a sore calf. I am looking forward to the team getting in another good month of training and then all of us having successful races at St. George. I have also really enjoyed having this blog, to record my workouts and get feedback and encouragement, this has been much better than the old runner's journal I had trouble writing in.

Ran the Jacob Hamblin loop up through the cemetery, through Ivins and back to the school. Body feeling a little sore from Saturday's race.

4 easy miles after school with the team, ran up to the softball fields and back. Did 5 miles easy tonight over to Hurricane High School and back. Traded in the Minivan tonight for a 2004 Ford Explorer, looks like I'll have to budget running gear and races around a car payment, but it is all good.

Just 3 easy miles this morning. Went out on my prep around 2:00 pm and did 6.5, boy was it hot out, stopped twice for water. Heading up to Cedar City in a little bit for a cross country meet. Ran about 2 miles around the course in Cedar, it was a smaller race only 3 schools, but most of our kids showed some good improvement, we are still having kids deciding to do cross country, so we keep getting new kids, we have an especially young team this year, both boys and girls, but we have few younger runners that have really picked it up the last few weeks and with some decent training could surprise some people this year.

Did a fartlek workout on the trail behind the school out to Ivins and back. Alternated running 400s at a faster pace, verse slower. Did 8 fast and 8 slow, with 2.5 easy miles in the middle of the workout. Ran with the club tonight Bill, Steve, and Steve Olsen showed up, did a loop out through Bloomington out past the Southgate golf course and then back in on the bike path. I felt pretty wore out on the run, I think it was from doing the workout right after, however I was glad to get the miles in today about 10 tonight.