Little Buddha

Started teaching a 3 week summer school session this morning, not something I was really looking forward to, a few months ago when I committed to doing it I thought it would be alright, but now that it is here it is stressing me out.  Went out and ran 7 easy miles tonight, went down by Spanish Gardens in La Verkin.  I came home to pick up Sunny to go run a few more miles, but she had already left, so I took off trying to find her.  I ended up running a few more miles, but never found where she had went.  My wife dogged me and run up to her parents and back a good 1.5 mile run for her.  My legs still feel tired for the race and the run on Saturday.

An easy 4 this morning over to the Middle School and back. I worked with the scouts tonight on their Personal Fitness Merit Badge.  We did a one mile run for time.  It was pretty easy pacing them along, but also rewarding to see them all improve their times from 2 weeks ago.

Killer hot this afternoon at 5:00 when I took off.  I did a run out to my new school and back.  My son Jordan was kind enough to ride along and supplied me with some water when I needed it.  I might run another 2 miles later tonight with Sunny.  My legs have still not felt fully recovered from this past weekend.  I'm sad Steve Ashbaker won't be running on our WBR team, but Steve Olsen is a great replacement he has been running pretty strong lately.

4 mile this morning, it was hard getting started, but the last 3 were decent.  We leave for Salt Lake after work this afternoon.

Started the morning off with an easy 3 mile run in Murray, then met up with Sasha and Steve Olsen and took off in VanGoGo on our way the The Wasatch Back!  We picked up Chris and made our way to Logan.  Sasha was right on pace driving the van and we made it there in plenty of time, after a short team meeting and some instructions we made our way to the start.

Sasha had the first leg and I had the second, so I did a mile warm-up at the park, I guess I was just a little excited, but I wanted to be ready for my leg.  The weather was pretty warm at 5:00 pm, around 95 so I didn't need much of a warm-up, but I just wanted to loosen up the legs.

Anyway, I guess I better get the worst news of this race over with.  So far the guys on the team have been really positive in their posts, but I really set our team back from the beginning by making a wrong turn on my first leg.   I was trying to close a gap on a BYU runner when he took a wrong turn and I followed him, the mistake cost us some time as I ended up running an additional .9 of a mile in 95 degree weather at the end of a hard leg.  I really was feeling pretty good with my leg, until the confusion of the wrong turn.

mile 1- 5:59 maybe a little fast, we were in 3rd after our first leg, so I wanted to maintain that as best I could, knowing BYU was on our tail.  (They took a wrong turn the first leg also)

mile 2- 6:22 starting to feel the heat

mile 3- 6:29 a little shade on this leg, and some water from the team helped, but the BYU runner caught me on this leg and went on by.  Still I was closing in on Runner's Corner

mile 4- 6:39 this mile felt hard, as I was really feeling the heat, but I did pass Runner's Corner and maintained my distance with BYU

mile 5-7:07 a decent hill climb in the beginning of this leg.  I felt like I really attacked the hill and ran strong up it and all the way to main street.

mile 6-6:46 this is where my Wasatch Back experience became very bad. After crossing the main highway with the confusion of traffic and police officers directing traffic I saw the BYU runner take a left turn, I wasn't completely sure if that was the right way, I even stopped and asked a guy walking his dog if that was the right way and he said yeah just follow him.  Big mistake! 

mile 7:06 Upset, Where am I going? I hate myself? I continued pushing along, as the BYU guy kept taking rights and lefts. I had my Garmin on and soon realized we were off the course, I tried to pick up the pace, finally BYU's van spotted their runner and got him back to main street, luckily I wasn't far behind so I tried to chase him down main street to the exchange

.62 3:49- Finally done with this mess. 

7.62 miles- 6:36 average, about 30 seconds slower per mile, than predicted.

Looking back now, I was a fool.  It was a simple leg, I should have just ignored the BYU runner and stayed on Main Street, but sometimes in the middle of a race when all your energy is focused on running and the race and the guy ahead of your, you lose focus.  Still it should have happened, and once again I apologized to my teammates.

I did another mile cool-down running water on Cody's and Paul's legs.

After the disappoint of my first leg, I was pretty pumped for my second leg, plus the fact it was only an easy 3 miles. It didn't turn out to be quite as easy as described but still a nice leg at midnight.

mile 1- 6:04 took off fast

mile 2- 6:15 a little hill climb here, which slowed me just a bit, plus the altitude which I noticed a little more on this leg.

mile 3- 6:13 felt pretty good

339ft .23

Overall 3.06 miles 18:55 6:11 average, better but still not good enough.

At this point in the race, we are in third place and pretty much aware of the fact that Weber and BYU are going to be really hard to catch. However, everyone is continuing to have a great time and all the guys are running hard. I think this is what I enjoyed most about this experience was watching all the great runners in our van. I've been around Sasha a little, and run quite a few with Steve Olsen, but it was really nice getting to know Cody, Paul, and Chris better. Chris ran all his legs really strong, considering his injury. Paul is just awesome, and Cody ran all his legs faster than predicted. I really think he had a great performance for our team.

After my second leg it was time, for some rest and food. We made it to the next major exchange and was able to get some Fazoli's which was great even in the middle of the night. After that we drove to a state park, where we were able to crash for about an hour.

We had to be up around 5:00 am to get ready for our last legs.

My last leg went pretty good. It was fun being able to finally pass other teams. In my leg alone I think I was able to pass about 20 to 25 teams.

mile 1- 6:31 My first mile here was a little slow. It took me awhile to warm-up the legs

mile 2- 6:32 Still struggling a little to get going.

mile 3-6:25

mile 4-6:12

mile 5-6:44 a good hill climb to finish this leg.

.3- 1:46

5.30 miles 34:14 average mile 6:28. Still ran too slow. I've got plenty of work to do over the summer. After feeling pretty good about running after the summer games last weekend, now I'm back to wondering where I'm really at???

After my last leg it was all enjoyment. I had a nice breakfast in Heber at the last major exchange. It was also fun I saw some of my friends from La Verkin, they had a team that had started early Friday morning, I was glad to see they were still going and excited.

When we got to Park City it was fun to see the finish, even though I thought it was going to be in a lot bigger area, not in the middle of main street downtown, but it was still nice. I was able to meet up with Sunny no problem.

The last part of the race was meeting up with James and running through the finish line together as a team. After the race we took a few pictures, but everybody kind of took off, including my family. I am looking forward to talking more with Clyde and hearing all the stories from van 2.

Overall, my experience was good and I'm already looking forward to do more of these types of races. Of course I was upset with the wrong turn, but I felt my other legs were decent. I was happy with our team taking third, it would have been nice to have been closer to Weber State and BYU, but both teams had some really incredible runners. In fact, it was kind of fun I saw a few guys from BYU that I ran with when I was a junior and they were freshman Chad Durham and Matt Adams. After the relay I drove back to Salt Lake and took an hour nap, then took Sunny and the boys to Lagoon until 11:00 pm made for a long day.