Little Buddha

Played basketball this morning, then was going to ride my bike to work, but I had a flat tire, bummer. I was already late, so I just took the car. Hope to get in some miles tonight.

Hot 4 mile run this evening. I went up the La Verkin twist half way then back down. Did another easy mile with Jansen while he was practicing riding his bike up to my in-laws and back.

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Awesome workout tonight. Funny how things work, going into the workout I was dreading running mile repeats and I about had Sunny turn the car around, because it was also getting dark and where I was going to be running there isn't much room on the shoulder of the road. I thought maybe just bag the workout and get an earlier start tomorrow, but then I thought well we're already out this far, might as well go through with things.

Anyway, Sunny drove me out to Anderson Junction and then I did a 2 mile warm-up down Mills Lane. Then began the workout, which called for 5x 1 mile, with 3:00 min recovery. The goal pace was to be around my LT pace which would be around 6:00 min. However, I got a little carried away and most of these miles were downhill, which is an area I need to improve on. Learning how to run faster on the downhill sections of a race, especially the second half of the marathon course.

1-5:44- Good downhill at the start, and then a short little hill climb, then back to downhill

2-5:29- All gradual downhill, had to jump off the road once to dodge a truck

3-5:50- Downhill, then a little uphill coming into Toquerville

4-5:48- A little bit of uphill coming out of Toquerville, then flat to gradual downhill. Had to dodge quite a few cars on this mile.

5-5:31 Flat start, then very steep downhill and very narrow road.

As you can see my splits were kind of all over the place, but each mile was unique. I'm going to try this workout again in a few weeks, now that I've established a baseline.

Easy 2 mile jog home, up the hill into La Verkin, then down 300 West

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Rode bike to work today. We had a big assembly about wearing a helmet when riding your bike and of course, today was the day I didn't have my helmet and every student that came into my classroom had something to say to me. I just said "Hey I'm not planning on crashing today."

5 easy miles tonight. Ran over to the bridge and back, then did the La Verkin 5K loop with Sunny. It was nice she was able to get out and get a run in, she has taken a few weeks off and been kind of sick with allergies.

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La Verkin 5K loop with Jarren in the stroller.  Ran just over 28 minutes, which was about 2 minutes faster than last night when I went out with Sunny.

Well, this was not a spectacular performance or anything. However, I was satisfied with my effort, especially considering my current fitness level and training (or lack of). I ran this race in 2006 and ended up taking a wrong turn around mile 11.5, so this year the main goal was to first run the correct route. The second goal was to push the first 10K hard and then just see how long I could hold on. I really didn't have any time goals going in and I figured if I ran a PR that would be a bonus, but not something I would be focusing on or upset with if I didn't hit a PR.

At the start Bill and I met up with Michelle, Josse, and Marcie. I told Michelle I would try to help her out some if I could. Once the gun went off it was really weird, Mike Vick took off, but nobody else really jetted out of there. I was really surprised because I figured for sure there would be some faster people or at least some younger runners going out hard, like most races. Anyway, I just decided to stick to my plan and try to hit around 5:40's

1-5:33

2-5:43 Just Michelle and I in 2nd and 3rd place. At this point I realize my Garmin is off on where they have the miles marked. Anyway, I should have just started taking splits from their mile markers, but I didn't. So pretty much the whole race my mile splits were different from the marked course.

3-5:47 (17:04) in 2006 I was 16:33 at 3 miles, so I'm already thinking that today will be slower. I picked up the pace a little on Michelle, but figure she'll catch up before long

4-5:42

5-5:51 Still holding on to 2nd place overall

6-5:59 (34:27) Around this time the two bandits show up and I just let them go by. Start feeling a little stomach cramp

7-6:05 A small hill, and starting to heat up

8-5:53 This mile felt pretty good

9-6:06

10-6:22 Legs are dead by now and the hip has started to tighten up, 2nd place overall runner from Wasatch Running Center passes me, and Michelle is closing fast.

11-6:35 I put it into relax mode and encourage Michelle to go after it. Kind of funny I look at the back of her singlet and think. Yep! I just got chicked.

12-6:39 Managed to make the correct turn this year and coasted through the neighborhood. I even stopped at a guy's house and cooled off in his sprinklers.

13-6:10 Didn't push it too hard to the finish and just worked on keeping the hip in check.

Anyway, I figured I was 6th overall, and the 5th male finisher. However, I didn't know that two of the guys were bandits and didn't finish, so that bumped me up to 3rd overall for the males with a time of 1:18:19 (5:58 pace). I know all you fast guys are saying 1:18:19 and you got third? All I have to say to you guys is thank you for running either Top of Utah Half or the Park City Marathon. For my efforts I did receive a nice plaque and $50 gift certificate to Runner's Corner. However, I still feel like Shawn Crawford did the other day when the two runners in the 200m got disqualified and he ended up with a medal.

Bill had a PR which was great and he ended up taking 3rd in his division and Marcie took 1st in her division. So St. George was represented nicely.

In conclusion, I was glad I went up and did the race, I really didn't know what to expect and now I have a better idea where I'm at and what I need to work on in preparation for the marathon.

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