my makeup may be flaking

Didn't feel great at the start of my long run, I was a little sore from yesterday. I had planned in advance to run the last four miles fast and I was feeling pretty good by the time that point arrived. I ran three miles in 6:10 pace and then finished off with a 5:39. The 6:10s felt pretty good, but I felt like my right leg was working alot harder than my left. The 5:39 could have been faster but it was quite hard. I'm really just trying to do this to improve miles 14-22 of the marathon.

Pretty easy progressive shakeout run. Started slow ended very fast.

Went to Sugarhouse park and ran three loops. I'm so glad to be back running there again. Running there in the snow is just zero fun. For the second run in a row I had to shed a layer. It was also very windy, probably signaling another big temperature change. Three signs that spring is coming at some point. We may go back to Winter again before that though.

On my run today I was thinking about how my form might deteriorate a little as I push my mileage back up again. I'll have to see how I go of course, but I know that I really start to feel a strain when I get into the nineties. Given the number of races that I'm doing, I'll probably be able to test this out. 

Felt pretty good on my run this evening. Did three loops of Liberty Park and was able to speed up quite a bit the last 800m.

I had a weird tightness in my leg this morning that went away as I started to run. Some ligament that extends down the front of my leg was complaining when I brought my left foot back as if it was being hyperextended. It went away once I had started running and gone about 100meters though. I ran to Sugarhouse park and did two loops "fast" which turned out to be 11:32,11:27 or about 5:45 mile pace. It felt ok, but my legs were definitely quite fatigued. I then thought some and I realized that I had run 28.5 miles in a 24hour period. So that explains it.

PM I ran along the Shoreline trail a little. I felt a little pain in my heel for a couple minutes during the run. When I was done I found my arch was a little sore. Definitely still need to be icing and taking advil until it's totally better, but I'm not worried. I felt OK after 37 miles in two days, but my legs were certainly a little tired.

I ran up 1300S to the Hogle Zoo and then ran a 5K that approximated the running of the leopards course. Just went straight into it while running and managed 5:26,5:28,5:06 to give me 16 minutes for three miles and then I basically kept running as if nothing had happened, it was that easy. That last mile is FLYING, my effort was really not that hard and I definitely could have kept going for a while.

Just my normal premeet 7 mile loop. I still call it a premeet in my head when really its a prerace, but whatever. I felt very energetic at the start which surprised me, but then as the run went on I started to feel the fatigue in my legs. With an easy run this morning and no run this evening I should be ready for another hard effort tomorrow.

Had nice weather today, figured out early on that it would be shorts weather. Warmed up with Seth and Bryce. Seth was already warm due to his 9 miles already run that morning so we went a little faster than normal, but I'm not sure how much of a difference that made.

When I finished my warmup my legs felt fatigued. I thought that I'd be able to put out a good effort but that I was not about to do anything special. I was right.

We started out pretty slow. I wasn't interested in doing that so I decided that the front pack was at least going to run my pace so I went to the front and ran 5:36 for the first mile. I stole a glance behind me and saw that I had whittled it down...Seth, Jeff, Steve, Sasha, Fritz, and Bryce were hanging on behind me. Steve went to the front and picked up the pace a little. I felt that the surges were too fast for me but I went with them anyway. Finally Jeff made a move and got a gap with Seth. Steve, Fritz and I worked our way back up to them and we passed the 3 mile point together. Then Jeff and Seth surged again and I didn't even try to match them. I was hoping that Steve and Fritz would drop off and I'd be able to catch them. They did indeed fall off the pace but Fritz was still running much faster than me and continuously pulled away. I remain a few seconds behind Steve and just couldn't pull him back the rest of the way and I think he actually pulled away more towards the end.

Mile	Split	Cumulative	Pace
1	5:36	5:36	5:36
2	5:26	11:02	5:31
3	5:30	16:32	5:31
4	5:40	22:12	5:33
5	5:43	27:55	5:35
6	5:39	33:34	5:36
7	5:40	39:15	5:36
8	5:45	45:00	5:37
9	5:42	50:42	5:38
9.32	1:44	52:26	5:38

So from the splits we can see that I slowed down by about 10-15 seconds a mile when I let the leaders go. I was kind of cramping up during the middle part of the race but it went I away in mile 6, after that fatigue took over instead. The cramping usually happens if I go out too fast, but generally it doesn't last.

I cooled down with Allie afterwards for three miles. She was worried I was going to go too fast but she was close to dropping me! I was tired, which pleased me because it made me feel like I gave it all today, unlike last week. This race was also a good sign in terms of the progress I've made recently. I was 1:25 faster than last year and I beat several people that beat me then. There were some 4-5minute swings in fact, which is a pattern I've been seeing starting in October. I also confirmed what I thought about not being 20 second worse than Jeff over 10K, that race was an aberration.

In the afternoon, I ran 5.5 miles in Liberty Park.