Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

I woke up an hour before my alarm went off, and since I couldn't get back to sleep, I decided to go for an early run. I had planned to climb on the Bonneville Shoreline trail, but since I was up too early to count on the sun for the descent I decided to run on the road. I ran up to 11th Avenue via Virginia, then down Bonneville Boulevard for two laps around the capitol before returning the way I came.

I ran the west side of City Creek again this morning, but this time I started from my house. At the ridge where the trail tops out, there are three successive peaks, each higher than the last. Today I hiked to the top of the first. (I would have run, but because the trail was so steep it was faster to walk. I'm sure plenty of runners could run it, but not me, not yet.) Average pace for the run was 8:32, but I was significantly slower on the way up (mile 4 was the slowest at 12:13). Total elevation gain was 1,503 feet.

My ankle and lower leg have been giving me a little trouble since yesterday's run. It's the same thing that happened a couple of weeks ago. What's weird is that it bothers me when I'm walking or standing around, but not when I'm running. Still, running doesn't seem to make it any better, so I'll go easy tomorrow and see what happens.

Easy run after work. From the office to Liberty Park, three laps and then back. Average 8:02 pace.

Yesterday was my first time running in Liberty Park for a while, and I remembered that I like it. So, this morning I ran over to the park, ran 4 laps and then ran home. It's much easier to keep the pace mellow and steady around the park than it is through the hills around the Avenues. Average 7:51 pace.

Because of the weather, I stayed inside this morning and ran on the treadmill for 40 minutes, using the incline to get some intensity. At a slow and steady 10:00 pace  I alternated between 5 minutes at a 1 percent grade and 5 minutes at a 10 percent grade. Instead of leveling the grade after the third 5-minute block at 10 percent, I increased the grade one percent each minute for 5 more minutes, finishing with one minute at 15 percent. I then cooled down for five minutes at 1 percent. 

A couple of days ago I think I mentioned that I like running in Liberty park. Today I decided to prove it by doing a long run there. I ran from my house to the park, ran 12 laps and then ran home.

The advantage to a long run in the park is that the drinking fountain and the 7 Eleven on the corner make it unnecessary to carry any supplies. Even so, I didn't fuel properly, which is why I ended up running 12 laps instead of my planned 15. I may do some future long runs in the park, but I doubt I'll make a habit of it.

Average pace was 7:40, which is pretty good, but I think I would have been better of doing 8:00 miles and staying out longer. Still, this is the longest run I've ever done. 

Today is a rest day, so I thought I'd reflect on my last six weeks or so as a runner.

As much as I hate to admit it, running is harder than I thought it would be. Cardiovascular system is certainly transferable--all my time on a bike over the past five years counts for something--but my legs are struggling to keep up. It's not that I was never sore as a cyclist (I was), but my body never felt quite as abused after a long ride as it does after a long run.

I'm also having a hard time figuring out the mid-run refueling thing. It's easy to carry plenty of food and water on a bike. For running, I tried using a lumbar pack with a bottle, but I hated the way it bounced around and rode up. I've since picked up a handheld bottle, which I think will be okay, but I miss jersey pockets and frame-mounted bottle cages.

It's easy to eat on a bike, too, and you can eat almost anything you want without stomach problems. In the winter, that usually meant gas-station donuts and hot chocolate. In the summer, Mt. Dew and Snickers. If I ate any of that in the middle of a run, I'm pretty sure it would wind up on the road a mile later.

And any fueling problems are exacerbated when running. Since there's absolutely no coasting, an easy run seems to burn way more calories than an easy ride. After three hours of running, I feel almost as depleted as I do after a six-hour bike ride.

Still, there's plenty to enjoy about running. For one thing, it's new to me, and I enjoy being at the bottom of the learning curve. Down here, improvement comes quickly and in large increments. Also, I enjoy the low-tech aspect. I always hated the time and money that went into maintaining a bicycle, and it seemed that no matter what I did there was always some mysterious noise or poorly adjusted component to drive me crazy. Not much can go wrong when you're running. I guess your shoes could give you blisters or something, but even an expensive pair of running shoes costs less than a set of bicycle tires and lasts at least as long.

Anyways, I'm rambling now. I guess that's what happens on a day off. Back on the trails tomorrow, weather permitting.

I took the day off from work today to spend time with Catherine, so while she was out for her long run, I took advantage of the beautiful weather and went for a run on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. I ran a loop from my house, climbing up via Dry Creek and descending into City Creek Canyon. Conditions ranged from dry to muddy to snow packed, but other than a few sections where the mud forced me to walk, the entire trail was runable.

The route had less climbing than I thought it would and it turned out to be shorter and faster than expected. And it will be even faster when the trails are dry. I'm lucky to have it in my neighborhood, and I suspect I'll be spending plenty of time up there this year.

Total vertical: 1,648 ft

Average Pace: 8:23/mile

I enjoyed yesterday's run enough that I decided to run the BST again this morning. I ran the exact same route as yesterday, but in reverse, climbing out of City Creek and descending Dry Creek. Because the wet parts of the trail had all day yesterday to dry (and the parts that didn't dry had all night to freeze), conditions were better today than they were yesterday.

Somehow, my Garmin decided that the route in reverse was 0.17 miles longer and had an extra 16 feet of climbing. It's possible that running on different sides of the road and choosing different lines on the trail accounts for the discrepancy, but I can more likely attribute it to GPS error. So it probably doesn't matter too much that I was 2 seconds per mile faster today than I was yesterday.

Having run the trail both ways now, I'm not sure which I prefer. But running from City Creek seems to hit you a lot harder up front with the climbing than running from Dry Creek.

Easy run for just over an hour on the treadmill. I had planned to hit the trails one more time this morning, but it rained yesterday and I assumed the trails would be muddy. They were probably fine, though. Maybe tomorrow.

I decided to hit the trails one more time before the weekend. This time I ran up the west side of City Creek canyon, I topped out at the second peak past the ridge, higher than I've ever run before, just as the sun was coming over the mountains. The climb still hurts, and I'm still running slowly up the hill (and walking the last two pitches), but I'm stronger every time.

Total vertical: 1,725 feet

Average pace: 8:30/mile 

I was going to go for a short jog, but my right leg has been a little sore so I decided to take a rest day before my long run on Saturday.

My plan was to run the Canals Loop I saw on Crockett's blog, about 25 mellow miles through the southwest part of Salt Lake Valley. Catherine decided that instead of running in Liberty Park, she would come with me, run a 12 mile out-and-back, and meet me at the car.
From the weather reports I knew to expect worse weather than we've had for the past few days, but the last report I saw said high 30s/low 40s with some rain and snow. That seemed manageable, so I wasn't concerned when we hit the canal roads in the rain. And for the first 4 miles, it was very pleasant. I enjoyed running through the fields on the dirt road, and the rain kept me nice and cool.

Unfortunately, at some point during my fifth mile the rain started turning to snow, and before long it was really coming down hard. It didn't take long for my fingers to be frozen and worthless, and my clothes were too soaked to keep me warm. Catherine called and said she wanted to turn around, which seemed like a great idea to me, so I turned around and ran as hard as I could till I met up with her at about mile 6.

By that point it was clear that we weren't going to make it back to our car on our own, so Catherine called her sister for a bailout ride and I knocked on the door of the nearest house. Fortunately for us, the woman who let answered had just returned from her own cold and wet run, so she let us hang out inside and warm up until our rescue arrived.

I'm disappointed to have come up so short on my mileage, but no single workout can make or break your fitness. Sometimes it's necessary to simply take what you can get and then move on. Nine miles are better than none.

Rest day.

I didn't have time to run this morning, so I got out for a quick lunch run at Liberty Park. I ran four laps on the cinder track--you could probably call it interval work.

Lap 1 - 8:32 (5:52/mile)
Lap 2 - 10:52 (7:27/mile)
Lap 3 - 8:39 (5:56/mile)
Lap 4 - 10:49 (7:25/mile)
The hard intervals should have been shorter and faster or longer and slower, and I probably should have gone slower on the recovery intervals, too. My original plan was to run two two-lap intervals at a 6:15 pace, but I went out to hard and decided to go with it. I went out even too harder (don't bother calling me on that grammar) on the second hard interval, and I actually gave up at just over a mile. But after about 5 seconds of jogging I felt enough like a slacker to pick it up and finish the lap.

It probably wasn't the most effective workout, but it felt good to get out of the office on such a beautiful day.

I'm afraid I might have shin splints, and I should probably taper for next week's Buffalo Run 50K, so I'm taking things easy this week. Today I got up early and ran easy on the treadmill before lifting some weights. If the weather keeps getting nicer, I'll be able to start running shirtless, and I don't want to be unprepared :)

I did another short, easy run today. From my house to Liberty Park, two laps around the cinder track and then back home. Average pace 7:30.

Another day at Liberty Park. I ran to and from the park, plus two laps on the cinder track. I held an easy pace to and from the park, and ran both laps at 6:12. That was supposed to be a tempo pace, but I felt pretty cooked by the end of the second lap and decided to skip the third, which makes me think that the pace was faster than tempo. I determined the pace by plugging my 15K time into one of those online pace calculators, but I should probably go more by feel. After all, I know what tempo feels like. Then again, 6:12 was my 15K pace a few weeks ago, so maybe I just had a bad morning.

No running today, but it wasn't a rest day. I've been taking things easy because I've been worried about my shin, so today I went to the gym on my lunch break and spent 45 minutes watching basketball on the elliptical. (That is, I was on the elliptical and watching basketball on TV. I wasn't watching people play basketball on an elliptical machine. I'm not even sure how that would workout.)

If past experience is a reliable guide, my calves should be pretty sore tomorrow. But my legs feel pretty good right now.

A friend of mine called me last night about getting back on the bike. It sounds like his team could use a climber on their roster. I used to fit that description, and I still could if I wanted to. I thought I was ready to move on from competitive cycling, but apparently it doesn't take much to make me second guess. I was never afraid of stress fractures on my bike.  

This morning I ran up to the Dry Creek trailhead and took the BST over to City Creek Canyon. From there I ran the BST up the west side of the canyon before dropping down to Ensign Peak and continuing past the capitol and home. It's funny how little average pace actually means on a run like this. According to my Garmin, I averaged just under 8:30 per mile, but it's unlikely that I was ever actually running at that pace.

The run got off to a slow start. My head wasn't feeling as clear as I'd like it to, and my stomach felt a little rebellious. I decided to push on, hoping that I'd feel better as I ran, and while I didn't ever feel 100 percent, I did feel well enough to enjoy the run. In fact, I think I ran faster between Dry Creek and City Creek than I ever have before, although I think that was more because of the improved conditions (there was only a brief muddy section) than because of my improved fitness.

Of course, while I was faster on the first part of the trail, I was considerably slower on the second part. When I go up the west side of City Creek for my morning run, I can run up the 1.2 mile, 700 foot climb in less than 12 minutes. Today I shuffled up it in 14:14. But from the top is was almost entirely downhill back to the house, and I finished with just under 15 miles in just over 2 hours.

Total vertical: 2,600 ft

Average pace: 8:29/mile

Today is a rest day. After my run yesterday morning, my legs felt pretty trashed in the evening, but today they just feel a little stiff and heavy. They should feel much better after an easy run to shake them out tomorrow.

I hardly ever remember my dreams, but I remembered one this morning. Unfortunately, I had forgotten most of it by the time I finished my run. Now all I remember is that it involved binge eating, a neurotic AT ski guide, a bizarro marine corps, and an unbeatable Nigerian hockey time. Sounds like a good time.

Easy run this morning. To and from Liberty Park plus three laps on the cinder track.

Average pace - 7:39/mile 

Anyone who checks this blog regularly has probably noticed a new theme in the past few weeks--running hills.

I was self coached for the beginning of my cycling career. The first year I did plenty of made-up workouts in which I would go as hard as I could for x minutes, rest, and repeat. Primitive interval work, really. My go-to workouts were 3x10 minute intervals and 60 seconds all out, 30 seconds off for 30 minutes or until incapacitation, whichever came first (for the record, incapacitation always came first).

This was my first attempt at training (as opposed to just riding), and I got much faster. But not as fast as I did the next year, in which I didn't do a single timed interval. Instead, I went nuts in the hills and mountains around Utah County. My go-to climbs were Squaw Peak, the Alpine Loop, and Creamery on 9th, a brutally steep stair-step climb from the creamery to Rock Canyon Park. (Fun fact: the Creamery on 9th is where my wife and I went on our first date. She doesn't remember it.) I would climb the Alpine Loop in about 45 minutes, Squaw Peak in about 25 minutes, and the creamery in about 8 minutes. I rode each climb several times per week and spent the rest of the time racing or putting in mellow miles around the valley.

Riding those three climbs all out, I built anaerobic strength (the creamery), developed my threshold (Squaw Peak), and put in plenty of quality tempo miles (Alpine Loop). Throw in at least one race per week and I had my speed covered, too. It was a nearly perfect plan, and it showed in my results. The best part was that there was no structure--I didn't really understand the principles that made my training work. I was just having fun.

Not understanding my training proved to be my downfall, however. The next year I tried to replicate the training that had worked for me the year before, but without understanding why it worked, I got things wrong and wound up burned out, overtrained, and much slower.

After a disappointing season, I found a coach and worked with him for the next two seasons. And for the most part, I was successful with him. I won races, I received my category 1 upgrade, and I earned a chance to ride with my team in the Tour of Utah. But each year I found myself mentally fried by the end of the season, and my performance suffered noticeably.

With my coach, the approach was very scientific. When I was training myself, I rode with a stopwatch or nothing at all. With my coach, I relied heavily on a power meter and an HRM. By myself, the terrain and perceived exertion determined my intervals. With my coach, every minute of every workout was prescribed before I headed out the door. In fact, in two years of coaching I think I only got to go out and go nuts in the mountains once or twice.

Interestingly, although I got into great shape with my coach, I never felt as good or climbed as fast as I did when I was self coached. I'm not sure if that's because I gained a couple of pounds, because I didn't practice my climbing, or because I lost power. But whatever the real story was, I never felt like I did when I was self coached. I think it's because all the structure of coaching made training feel a lot less like fun and a lot more like . . . well, training.

Anyways, I can't remember what point I was trying to make. I think it was to say that this year, I'm going to focus on getting out and having fun in the mountains while trying not to worry too much about intervals and training plans. Or something to that effect.

Squaw Peak was always my testpiece. My times to the top were a fairly reliable indicator of where my fitness stood and how I could expect to perform in a race. I think I'll try to use the climb up the west side of City Creek Canyon in the same way. The "offical" interval starts at the switchback where the trail leaves the canyon and finishes at the saddle on the ridge. It's 1.2 miles long and climbs somewhere between 600 and 700 feet (Garmin altitude measurements have been fairly inconsistent). Someday I'd like to be able to climb it in 10 minutes, although I'm not sure how realistic that is. Today I climbed it twice: once in 13:04 and once in 12:49. For now I'd better just worry about breaking 12 minutes and call it good.

Average pace - 8:12/mile

Total vertical - 1,902 feet 

Today was another easy run at Liberty Park. To and from, plus three laps on the cinder track. Catherine got up early this morning and ran when I did. The timing worked out well, and we both arrived back at the house at the same time.  

I went to the gym with Catherine and ran on the treadmill this evening. I ran five miles at a mellow pace, except for three quarter-mile bursts at a 5:30 pace

The Buffalo Run 50K is tomorrow. I think I'll take today off.

This was my longest run ever by about 10 miles and nearly 2 hours, and I'm feeling it right now. We stopped by Catherine's parents' house in Bountiful on the way to the race, and I missed the freeway on ramp, a mistake I compounded by not doubling back, and as a result we made it to the race ten minutes before the start. I was lucky enough to make it to the bathroom and still get to the start with a minute to spare.
I tried to stay near the front from the beginning, but I didn't want to dig too deep too soon. A few runners broke away early on and I didn't think about chasing them. Some of the other runners in the lead group gapped me and I thought about chasing, but I decided to let them go, too. It turned out to be a smart move, because I caught and passed most of them on the climb to the first feed zone.

Eventually, I wound up running with two others up the big switchbacks on the south end of the course, and I decided to stay with them because the pace felt comfortable. Just before returning to the second feed zone, one of the runners pulled out because of an injury. The other continued straight through the feed zone while I stopped to eat a gel and drink a few glasses of Coke, but I caught back up with him a mile or two later, and shortly after that I pulled away on a small climb.

I was feeling pretty good at that point, but as I approached lap 2 I didn't realize I was supposed to drop down to the start before starting my second lap. So, I continued straight ahead. I was still felling great at the second feed zone until the volunteers started congratulating me on leading the 50K and I started to suspect something was wrong. Shortly after that the real leader past me and I figured out where I had gone wrong.

At that point, I pretty much lost the will to run. I figured I would be DQed, and I was afraid everyone would think I had tried to cheat by cutting the course, so I decided to start walking until my wife, who was running the 25K, caught up with me, at which point I would finish my run with her.

But as I walked I decided I would try to finish the course. Instead of crossing the line, I would turn around at the feed zone, run back up the climb I had missed at the start of the second lap, and then run right back down to the finish, thereby covering the entire 50K course, although not exactly in the traditional sequence. I hoped that if I did that, the race directors would consider my time official and all would be well.

Of course, as I already mentioned, by then I had lost the will to run, and my legs were killing me, so the final miles were a miserable mix of walking and shuffling. Miserable enough that I considered not rerunning the part of the course I had skipped. But my brother-in-law was waiting for me near the finish, and he was willing to run back up the hill with me, so I turned around and ran back up before limping back to the finish. I think I ran back down the hill at the end slower than I ran up it at the beginning.

Anyways, I crossed the line with an official time of 4:32:37, and although it was a little out of order, I did end up running the entire course. (And I made a point of telling the race director and anyone else who would listen what I did and why, because I would hate for anyone to think my race was anything but on the level.) I wound up first in the 20-29 age group and sixth overall. My race was far from flawless, but whatever the official results, I think it was a pretty respectable first (mini) ultra.

Rest day today. Catherine and I took Tigger for a short walk on the trails behind the university this evening. My legs are pretty sore after yesterday's race.

My legs haven't been this sore for a long time. But sitting around doesn't seem to help me feel better any faster, so I went out for a short, easy run this morning before work. After about half a mile my ankles and calves loosened up enough for me to manage a legitimate running stride, and from that point all I had to worry about was how much my quads hurt. All the downhill on Saturday really did a number on me. Anyways, I expect to be feeling significantly better tomorrow and I hope to be ready for some real running no later than this weekend.  

Average pace - 8:36/mile

I bought my iPod Shuffle two years ago, and I still think it's one of the greatest inventions ever. Every time I rode my bike I clipped my Shuffle to the left side of my jersey, just above my hip. That way, I could easily reach the buttons and the headphone cable ran cleanly from the Shuffle to the center of my body and up to my ears.

When I started running, I realized that the Shuffle would bounce to much when I clipped it to my shirt, so I started clipping it to my waistband on the left side of my shorts. It was an adequate solution, but it always annoyed me that the headphone cable came out of the Shuffle away from the center of my body and therefore had to double back across the Shuffle before reaching my ears.

It took me until today to realize that the solution is to clip my Shuffle to the right side of my shorts instead of the left. Imagine that.

I had an appointment that interfered with running this morning and the wind messed up the air this evening, so I settled for some easy miles on the treadmill. My legs feel much better than they did yesterday, and I feel pretty good overall. I'm tempted to hit the trails tomorrow, but I'll probably give myself one more day to recover, although I do think I'll up the mileage tomorrow.

To and from Liberty Park, plus three laps on the cinder track. It was snowing this morning, and I was underdressed. My legs felt heavy and slow, but not sore. I'm trying to decided if that means that I need more recovery or that I need to throw in some intensity to shake my legs out.

Average pace - 8:15/mile