my makeup may be flaking

Lifted today

AM 60 mins pool running

PM 8.5

PM 9 miles

Did weights at the PT center today:

Hamstrings,Quads,Leg Press (eccentric plus bilateral)

Plank (10.5 mins)

Bridge with leg raise

Fire hydrant with theraband

Back hyperextension 3*15 45lbs

AM 5.5

PM 8.5

AM 40 mins pool run.

PM My shoreline trail loop, actually felt good. I'm getting it back!

Weight Routine:

Hamstrings 3*15 @ 90lbs

Quads 3*15 @ 115,115,120

One legged eccentric leg press 3*15 @ 165,170,170

Abductors 3*15 @ 85

Adductors 3*15 @ 85

Calfraises (2,2,3)*(9*15)

Plank 3*(1:30,1,1)

Back 3*12 @ 45 pounds

Internal/External Rotation 3*15 @ 20 pounds (both legs)

Ran to school in the morning.

PM Ran through the mountain, actually between Mt Wire and Promontory Point, to Ruths Diner up Emigration Canyon. This trail was like a roller coaster, which I decided was good because that point is to beat up my legs. Why? It is a secret. So nyah...Ran down Emigration Canyon and back to school.

AM 30mins pool running.

Ran the first 7.5 miles of the SLC half. Felt pretty bad quite honestly, but my knee felt good enough that I decided to sign up.

AM 8.5 miles

PM Ran to Sunnyside from School. There was a track meet at East high, so I ran from Foothill to Guardsman twice (and ran back up in between). I managed a 3:31 and a 3:34 despite a vicious wind picking up during the second one. The distance is .71 miles or there about, but it is downhill (equivalent to about 5:20 pace).

Two loops of sugarhouse Park in 22:08 (10:59.11:09).

Legs feel very meh.

Bwahahahahaha!

That's really all I could think during this race. I came in thinking that I would run 1:13 to 1:16 and I knew that a sub 1:14 would make me very happy.

Sometimes the reverse taper works well for me and sometimes it is hell. This whole week my legs have been really feeling it and that manifested itself today big time. Big time.

I planned to take it out "easy" the first couple of miles and I did. At least, I thought I did. But I somehow hit the mile in 4:52, yes it was downhill but I was right there with Teren running side by side with him. I even felt like I had another gear that I could go to if I needed, but that I really should wait.

As soon as we reached the second mile mark and the race started to go steeply down, my legs started to burn. Just burn! I slowed down a little so that I was only at 15:30 at 3 miles. Ha! But I could tell right then I was in for a long day. I was still on 1:07 pace but I started thinking that 1:15 would be good. I just tried to keep my turning going as I got passed first by Riley Cook, then the marathoners, then Steve Anderson and Walter then Justin Park then Brian Summers. At no point did I really feel comfortable, it  was like the last 11 miles of a marathon...on a bad day, but I soldiered on knowing that I could still finish about where I predicted I would.

On State Street I got passed by Rob Murphy, with whom I'd planned to run before the race, and he seemed to be having difficulties of his own (see his report). On the worst of days, I will still put up a fight all the way to the finish and I managed to motor away from him in the last mile.

And then there was the lifting:

I didn't do adductors today, they just had no strength. I did do fire hydrant with a theraband as well as bilateral leg press. I also did my four way knee stabilizer exercise.

Also calf raises, plank, quads, hammies, adductors, back, internal/external rotation and one-legged bridging.

In the afternoon I went to the track and did a lap in 72, thn did 7 laps of in and out 200s (the 200s were in about 32-33 seconds).

Did weights and Plyos afterwards.

AM Two loop Liberty Park

PM Ran to Sugarhouse Park two loops hard with 5 mins jogging in between, (10:33,10:32). Pretty solid effort all things considered. My legs did not feel great before or after,but during the felt fine. It should be noted that at some point of both loops I had a tailwind, so the workout doesn't count for record purposes.

Ran back to school and met Allie for lifting and core work.

Made the most fantastic pizza today. Spinach, feta, artichoke, asparagus, tomato, roasted garlic and bruschetta with a base of minced garlic and grapeseed oil.

AM Ran to school

PM Two loops of Sugarhouse Park from my office.

This was supposed to be a liminal workout. I love those. I was going to retire my Asics Hyperspeeds from long tempo runs and at the same time debut a new hard "ten miler". Well, turns out I only had one of my hyperspeeds sitting in my office, how does that happen?

My options were: One hyperspeed and one barefoot, my Zoom Waffles, the most beaten pair of asics 2100s in existence, another pair of asics 2100s with the heels cut off and a pair of worn down mizuno Waveriders. I decided to go with the waveriders. I also decided to run in the morning so that it would be cold...so that I would have a reason to wear tights...so that my knee wouldn't be too cold. It makes sense.

Anyway, like all of my tempo loops, it's a beast. At the pace I was going, it's 14seconds per mile slow on average.

 Segment #1 is 4km. I start at my office, cut through campus to foothill(500S) and follow it up to Sunnyside, then I run up Sunnyside to the Zoo. The 4k mark is right before the second entrance to the parking lot. I hit this mark at 15:34 feeling good. This was an adjusted pace of 5:41.

Segment #2 is to join the Des News course at about mile 15.5 and follow Wasatch Drive until it ends. During this section fatigue crept into my legs. You then turn on thunderbird and start running along foothill. I felt very much like I did on Saturday and my pace was about the same. Segment 2 ends after you cross Kensington. I did 21:50 for those 6km which is 5:50 pace adjusted.

Segment #3. Just continue down foot hill. You have to cross the street twice, first at Sunnyside and again when Approaching the Stadium. The 14km mark is directly between Transformers in the Parking lot of Rice Eccles. I lost some impetus here because the downhill was hard on my legs and I was facing a head wind. (Which had probably helped me quite a lot in the first segment). I only managed 15:12 for these 4km which is 6:10 adjusted pace.

Segment #4 Now turn the corner and run along 1300 East then down South Temple. I was starting to feel ok on this section again, probably because I had gone so slow on the previous part. I only went down South Temple to 900East so although grade was daunting I only had to endure it for four blocks. That's right at 900 east I turned around and ran straight uphill back to my office. This was really a test of my aerobic capacity and I felt like I did ok. I did the entire final section in 15:33 (also about 4k).

Total time 68:10

Did my rollercoaster trail run with Allie. We then ran up to Emigration then back down to my office. I did the last 5miles or so at an uptempo pace. I felt surprisingly good on this run. Total time was 3:00:59. We were 1:50 at the top of little mountain.

AM Two loops Sugarhouse from my office

PM Warmup in the fieldhouse and around campus.

Ran from 1300East to 700East on South temple (.9miles) in 4:23

Then I ran back up and ran from 1300East to 600East(1.06miles) in 5:02 (split 4:13 at 700 East). That's 4:45 mile pace (5:11 adjusted pace). Didn't feel especially hard. I was just trying to get my legs under me on the steeper part.

Then ran back to the fieldhouse, did a bunch of plyometrics and lifted.

3 by mile on the Highland High Track with 1:30 rest. My thinking was 5:15-5:20 especially given the steady wind.

Did 5:02,5:19,5:16. The 5:02 had me a little worried, my calves were already tired to start the workout and felt pretty dead after that one. I decided that it was all about effort though and just finished it out.

While I was running there was a dad running on the track with his two kids. He was constantly yelling at his daughter to go faster to the point that she was almost crying. It made me slightly annoyed. One of the reasons the dad was yelling was because he had headphones in. I don't understand why you would listen to music when running with your kids for a mile on the track.

Ran back to school and had to stop a couple of times because of my knee. The ol' knee is still not a fan of running extended periods of time without tights.

Afterwards did some lifting and core with Allie.

In the morning ran in Nike Free's for the first time. Not much to report about them for now. My calves were tired after wearing them,but they've been tired all week.

In the evening did a staple workout of mine:2700S loop as hard as I can. Managed 59:08 (29:40,29:28). That actually represents a significant slowdown as the second half is downhill. This was my second best time on the course I believe, but it was far behind the best time. I actually ran the first half slightly faster than before but I lost a lot of time on the final climb along 1900S. This was 5:52 pace overall with an adjusted pace of 5:40. Certainly this gives me some confidence in my ability at the half but I'm still a few weeks away from a really good time.

Easy run.

A quirky little race. Featuring lots of girlscouts and people dressed as Cookies. If you beat the cookie you win a free hat. You also win a free box of girlscout cookies as a prize. And ALSO there are two races (2k and 5k) and they encouraged everyone to do both.

I had somewhat high hopes entering this race. I wanted a fast 2k and a meh 5k. The weather was kind of cold though and there was no way that I was going to run a fast 2k without a decent warmup. I was also a little thrown off because there was no Allie to challenge me. I did happen to see Lily in her first race post injury. It's defintely more fun than going to a race y yourself.

Anyway first up was the 2k and I was certainly not adequately warmed up. There were a lot of kids sprinting next to me for the first couple hundred meters or so. Then there was a 15 year old in spikes who followed me up until about 400. After that I started to open a bigger and bigger lead. I was 3:14 at the 180 degree turnaround and then did my best to fight my way through everyone coming the other way. I tried to make it hurt twoards the end and finished in 6:22 (which is about 5:07 pace). Didn't feel like I really accomplished anything other than tiring myself out for the 5k.

The 5k seemed to start almost immediately afterwards, except this time there were a lot more people. I started out much slower this time and had more people chasing me at the start. Mr Thin Mint pursued me until 500m in and then fell back. I was very quickly all by myself and suddenly lost focus. I reached the turnaround at 8:25 and realized I was going to have to close hard in order to break my prerace goal of 16:30. I pushed all the way back down but I had to weave in and out of people once again (really not too bad). In the last kilometer I bagan to regret my choice of racing shoes as my calves were very tired and I seemed to have no drive left in my legs.

Afterwards Allie and I went to the field house and she biked while I ran for an hour. Then we lifted/stood around chatting.

This little race gets a thumbs up from me.