Fly on the Wall

1 mile warm up.

2 Fatigue Fighter Intervals.

1 mile cool down.

 FFI #1-   0.25 mile, 5:45-168 bpm max;  100m recovery;  0.75 mile, 6:25-169bpm ave;  200m recovery;   1.25 miles, 6:45-170bpm ave;  0.57 mile recovery.  DOWN WIND

FFI #2-  0.26 mile, 174bpm max;  100m recovery;  0.75 mile, 6:38-172bpm ave;  200m recovery;  1.25 miles, 6:56-170bpm ave.  Head Wind

 This was a tough workout!  I would have liked to been faster on the 2nd set but strugled.  Not sure why but I didn't eat as well as I should have at breakfast, didn't sleep well last night (dog woke me up several times), head wind...?

Four miles EZ pace with 6x100m fast strides.

1 mile warm up, 9:14-129bpm.  4 at 1/2 mary pace, 6:47-168bpm.  0.8 cool down

Pace miles splits:

1   6:46-161bpm 

2   6:47-169bpm 

3   6:46-171bpm

4   6:46-173bpm 

I kept my pace close to goal (6:46) but I was working too hard and I was getting tired as can be seen with my rising heart rate.  I cant imagine keeping this pace for 13.1, especially with some of the little hills at Painters.  Hmmmmmm.....

NEW PICTURE at left.  It's our white Christmas of a few years ago.  The mountains are shades of gray and the valley floor is white.  Went spent xmas camping in Death Valley.  I know what your thinking but don't worry, Santa found us.

4 EZ miles with EZ conversation.  A very nice run.

It was the dark of night when I drug my sorry butt out of my nice warm bed.... I suited up in some toasty tights, related running apparel, and my headlamp; ate a gel for breakfast; and jogged a warm-up mile to the starting line of Our Lady of Lourdes' 20th Annual Leprechaun Lope 5K. It was dark and chilly but it wasn't crowded. It seems I was the only one to show up 3 months early for this race. But my training plan called for racing a 5k and that's what I was going to do, even if there weren't any in this part of the valley on this day.

The race starts just east of the capitol and runs around City Creek and then back down to end in Memory Grove. I lined up in the very front, right on the starting line, or at least somewhere near where it will be in 3 months. The voices in my head yelled "go" and I was off. This course starts with a short but steepish incline followed by a mile of gentle incline, then a half mile of a bit steeper incline. After the turnaround it's all down hill to the finish. I started strong and took the lead. I held the lead for the whole race to finish 1st in my age group, 1st masters runner, 1st male, and 1st overall. Unfortunately I was also last in my age group, last masters runner, last male runner, and last overall. Here are my splits:
mile 1 - 6:46-171bpm uphill.
mile 2 - 6:41-171bpm steeper uphill followed by steeper downhill.
mile 3 - 5:58-175bpm bombing downhill.
mile .1- 5:46-177bpm

And now the punchline, my final Garmin time was 20:00! Exactly the same as my 5k PR and exactly they same as Huans' Garmin time at his Turkey Trot.  I still haven't run a sub 20 5k. Hoping that I hit the stop button a second too late, I tried to check the official results but they won't be posted for another 3 months!

Note: I'm not sure if this course is faster or slower than a flat 5k. On an out and back course I don't think you can recover speed lost going uphill when going downhill. However this course has a net elevation loss, so it very well could be faster than flat.