Slowly Getting Faster

Leg is still soar so I did another bike session.  I only managed 15 miles today because the resistance was really high.  The legs keeps getting better and better but it still hasn't made it back to good yet. 

I have 2 goals for the next year. 1) run more than 1,000 miles (which is 600+ more than I ran last year) and, 2) run or bike 6 times a week. 

I injured my leg on December 22 and haven't run a mile since.  I originally signed up for the 1/2 marathon version of this race but due to the injury downgraded to the 5k.  I would have just bagged the whole thing except it is one of two races I need to complete for the runners series so that I can run the St.George marathon this year.  

I thought I would be walking this thing because my leg/foot aren't completely healed yet.  So I opted to just go out as slow as was comfortable and see where that got me.  I started at a 9 min mile pace but within a few minutes my leg warmed up a bit and a faster pace didn't hurt.  I ended up running this race in 25:33, or 8:13 per mile. 2 of the 3 miles were even faster than an 8 minute mile. I thought this was pretty good for having a bad leg and not running for a month.

 I think my "success" here - and I am considering this a success - is due to my continued training on a stationary spin bike for the last month.  I think this allowed me to maintain, if not improve, my aerobic capacity even though I couldn't work the specific muscles required for running. 

Did 5.46 around sugarhouse park today.  I'm getting pretty sick of my leg still being sore.  It started off a sore and stiff and loosened up a bit as I got warmer.  Still, it never got to the point that I could actually jog with very good form.  I don't know what else to do but I can't wait around forever. 

 The effort this morning was a decent rest pace but after it was over I didn't feel like I had really given my cardio a good workout so I decided to hit the bike tonight.  The bike felt really good.  

I have felt sick for the last couple of days so I wasn't sure I was going to run today.  But since I have pretty much not run for the last 2 months (due to injury) I decided I should just buck up and go.  My little brother and I did 2.5 up City Creek and back.  I put in some extra distance by circling back to get him at the half way point and again at the end.  

I was mostly worried about my foot.  It hasn't hurt all week but sure enough this morning it was in hurting again. It never felt 100% but it didn't hurt very much and I was even able to run with pretty good form.  Toward the end I could feel the muscles in my foot getting tight again so I slowed down. I need to put in some slow miles again to get myself used to the distance before I try to get my speed back up.

 AP: 9:46  585 vert. 

I was sick of being injured tonight so after 20 minutes of biking on the spin bike in my garage I decided to just go for a couple mile jog and see how I felt.  It's my right leg that is injured, for some reason it is always my right leg, and initially it was tight near the ankle on the outside of the calf. That tightness mostly went away after about a half mile and then I just focused on keeping my pace slow and making sure my feet landed in proper form.

I agitated my planter facia last saturday and it has hurt all week as well.  each day over the past couple of days it has progressively felt better, and tonight it didn't hurt at all. I have noticed that my feet muscles are a bit more sore tonight than usual though.  I think it is the result of basically not running since December 22. I hope that if I take it east the next couple of days, slowly work my way back into the swing of things, I they will wake up again.  The problem with these zero drop shoes is that there is no forgiveness.  If I push too hard I will end up injured again.  So slow and steady will have to be the pace for the next few weeks.  

I went again this morning.  My leg felt pretty good.  I'm hoping that maybe later today my leg will loosen up even more and I can get back out for another couple miles. It feels really good to be running again.  

AP: 9:34  Vert: 366' 

Another 3 this afternoon.  I don't know if I should have gone again but I really wanted to and I ended up feeling good the whole time.  I did city creek (the road) this afternoon and despite the first half being uphill I was still 3 minutes faster than I was this morning. I'm going to keep taking it slow (pace wise and miles in a single run) until I'm sure I'm better. Going to try and get 5ish in tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. 

AP: 8:38  Vert: 284' 

I decided to do some off road.  I really wanted to hit either the BST that dorsimius talked about the other day or do a flag rock run.  I did neither because I realize I am still not 100% and didn't want to hurt myself again. Instead I took a single track trail up to the fire break from my house and then cut across the firebreak to Farmington canyon.  At the canyon I decide to run up the asphalt to the bridge, which turned into a run up ice and snow to the bridge. I only fell once, on black ice. Then I cut back across the firebreak, back down the single track trail, down to 300 east, across and up the steep hill on state street. My leg felt good throughout, which I am very happy about. 

 I wanted to run off road today for a couple of reasons: 1) because I haven't been able to for more than a month and I have been jonesing for the opportunity; and 2) because I recently acquired Altra Lone Peaks and I wanted to take them for a test drive. I like them a lot better than my old cascadias but I can see that they don't have a lot of forgiveness for poor form.  At one point I let my heal hit the ground (first I think) and it hit a rock.  I'm sure I did the same thing in the cascadias, but because those shoes have much more padding in the heal than the Lone Peaks I have never noticed before. I think that the requirement to maintain good form is a benefit of these shoes, but it is going to take some careful running while I get used to zero-drop on the off roads.  

AP: 11:11, Vert 934' 

I tried to go out again, but I probably shouldn't have.  My intention was to do an easy 3 but I stopped at 2.41 because I could feel my foot starting to have issues. I guess the bright side is that I stopped rather than hurt myself again.  My calves have been pretty stiff since this mornings run so they probably just needed to be rested.  Well, they get the rest of the night, if not the rest of the weekend.

AP: 9:15,  Vert: 116'

I've been wondering for a while how to get faster if I can't really push my limits in Zero Drop shoes. I'm sure the answer is I can push my limits, I just have to do it in smaller intervals than I was doing when I hurt myself.  That said, I still wanted a second road shoe; something I could go to when I wanted to do speed work that was probably not going to go so well in the zero drop Altras. I asked a very knowledgeable person, who suggested that I invest in a different type of shoe.  So that's what I did.  I love them!

I did a 3 mile loop around City Creek Canyon road and back.  I felt tired before I got out of my car but as soon as I started moving it seemed like I couldn't move slower than an 8:30 pace, and I couldn't even move that slow for very long.  I ended up doing the 3 miles in 24:02, which I thought was really good since half that run is uphill and I'm coming off an injury.  It didn't feel like I was pushing my leg hard at all.  My splits were: 8:18, 7:55, 7:45. At one point I hit 7:04 on the way back down, which is fast for me but didn't feel that fast.  

I knew I had to get a run in at lunch today if I was going to get one at all.  I need to be doing 2 a day, especially if I'm going to be doing these shorter distances, but since it is the day of love and my wife doesn't love running that isn't going to happen. I got 4 in up City Creek canyon in the Altra's.  I went a bit slower than yesterday but it was intentional.  I didn't want to push to hard and hurt myself.  Still I managed a sub 9 pace for the whole thing even with some steep hills. 

 The run around the canyon road isn't that bad but today, after going around the canyon, I cut down to memory grove and back up state street to the capital.  That hill is tough.  In fact, almost the whole run from state and north temple back to the canyon road is 6% grade or better. I need to be hitting that hill more often I think, it will prepare me for the grade on the mountain trails I hope to hit this spring/summer. The run felt great, the effort didn't feel forced.  All in all, this was a good run. 

AP: 8:49, Vert: 371 

Same route as yesterday with a little added distance at the turn around area and at the state street north temple intersection. I knew I wasn't going to get a second run in today either so I just went the 4 miles again. I made good time.  Splits were: 8:38, 8:14, 8:01, 9:01 and 1:37 for the last .19 (8:23 pace). I like that route, it has both mountain views and steep hill running all within a nice little area mostly devoid of cars. 

AP: 8:28 (20 seconds faster than yesterday per mile), Vert: 425' 

Same run as yesterday.  1 second faster per mile overall.  If it is going to stay nice I'm going to start hitting the trails. 

Same as yesterday with a little muddy trail added in.  I wasn't in the right shoes for that so I bailed on the trial and went back to the asphalt. Hitting some trail tomorrow before the asphalt though.  Should be fun. 

AP: 8:42; Vert: 470' 

Great Early AM run with MatthewVH up to Flag Rock.  I've been on that trial a lot in the past but it wasn't as nice as it is now. He is in much better shape than I am.  I struggled up some of those hills, mostly the one's made of dirt. The trail was virtually snow free, with a few short exceptions. I don't suppose that will last through the night. Matt was at the top a good 3 minutes before me. 

Map data ©2012 Google - Terms of Use

1 km

1 mi

View Details

Run #2 was up city creek with the lake to lake relay team. Just an easy 4 miles, but it wasn't really that easy after Flag Rock. Clearly I need to hit that trail more often.

Map data ©2012 Google - Terms of Use

I wanted to hit a trail again, it was so much fun on Saturday. I had to be in Salt Lake today so I went up the BST on the east side of City Creek.  I have never been up that trail before, aside from the very short adventure last week. It was very muddy all the way to the top, which slowed me down a bit.  I couldn't have run up all that fast, but I'm sure I could have moved faster than I did had it not been for the mud. I like the trail though.  

When I got to the top (by moms reservoir) I lost the BST.  I thought it turned south but from the map it looks like it keeps going up the mountain.  I'll know for next time. I was hoping to break 1,000' but I just missed it. 

Legs still stiff from Saturday but they are getting better. After I started moving I hardly noticed the stiffness. Not sure if I'm going to hit a trail tomorrow or the road, or both. I kind of want to go up either flag rock or centerville peak early and then hit the road in the afternoon.  I guess I'll play it by ear.

AP: 11:15; Vert 902'  

I'm calling this the Ensign Peak steeplechase. I started just outside of memory grove park and went up through City Creek Canyon to the canyon road, around the canyon to East Capital Drive and up East Capital to the peak. 

The trail from the base of the peak to the summit was a mess.  Completely muddy and required a lot of careful traversing just to stay on my feet.  At one point I broke off the main trail and took a side trail that I assume was created to avoid the mud.  It was good for avoiding mud but very steep, so I had to walk to the top of that.  I tried to move as fast as I could but it was still very slow.

My foot started getting tight on the way back down which worried me, so I slowed down quite a bit. My quads are still a bit tight, and have been all week.  I think they may stay that way until Saturday when they will get a rest. Foot is doing well now after I stretched it out. Rest it tonight and hit it again in the morning.

Time: 1:15:44; AP: 10:22; Vert: 1,406'

Not much time today and my legs needed a rest so I just did the City Creek loop at lunch. I went faster than a recovery run should have been I'm thinking so I need to slow down tomorrow for sure.  I don't want to push it and end up injured again. 

AP: 8:28; Vert: 397' 

Up to Flag Rock again last night with MattVH.  I stopped my watch at the peak and forgot to turn it back on so my milage time and elevation are estimates based on my total time out running and the elevation gain my watch reported for this same run last saturday. We actually went another couple hundred feet up the side of the mountain after we got to the peak so I think the elevation is probably higher than what I have listed. 

After last saturday my legs hurt.  I have been running lots of hills this week hoping that I will be in better shape for flag rock runs and I think it payed off. Last saturday I was about as slow as I was last night but I was completely exhausted.  Last night I felt great and could have kept going if there was anywhere to go and if it wasn't already pushing 11pm. I think I will hit another hill or two today.  

Flag Rock solo.  I followed the trail that continues up the mountain for a little bit and I am convinced that it cuts across the top over to the Steed Creek trail. One day I will follow it all the way and find out.  Today it was too cold. 

I made it to the top and back in 1:30:41, which is the fastest time for me so far. Plus this run got me to 30 miles again this week, which makes 2 weeks in a row of 30 miles. Next week wont break that mark, but hopefully I will be back to 40 or more miles a week soon.

AP: 12:34; Vert: 2,051' 

Not much time today but I wanted to get some hill work done.  With that in mind I went up East Capital Blvd to Ensign Downs Park.  Not quite the same vert as I have been getting with my trips up to flag rock, but I was able to push the pace on the road and get a bit more of a "workout" in.

AP: 8:57; Vert: 660'

Awesome trail run last night with MattVH.  Despite having snowed in the morning, it wasn't really an issue on this trail. I was also able to run farther than I have in the past up this trail, as opposed to needing to stop and walk, which is encouraging. Maybe by mid summer I'll be able to run the whole thing.

AP: 12:55; Vert: 1,907 

Map data ©2012 Google - Terms of Use

2 km

2 mi

View Details 

My legs felt really tired today. It might have been because I hadn't eaten anything since early in the morning, and I didn't want to eat and then immediately try to run, so I just sucked it up and ran on an empty stomach.  I'm glad I did.  About a 1/2 hour after I finished the storm blew in and it was snowing.  My time was slow but I probably needed a recovery jog anyway and I'm just happy I got some miles before it got nasty outside. 

AP: 9:03; Vert: 370' 

This was a relay race that I did with some friends and family as part of the runners series for the St. George Marathon. This was the last run I needed for the Runners Series so baring any injury I will be running St. Gorge this fall. I'm going to try and qualify for Boston but I'm not sure that is realistic at this point.

So the race. This was an awesome event!! I had a ton of fun and got to push myself, see lots of St. George, and have great time with my team. We all managed to PR our distances on this course, which is a result of training in Salt Lake and running 2,000 feet lower in St. George I think.

My first run was just over 5 miles and was on the whole an elevation drop, but it had some decent hills.  It was a very beautiful area to run.  It was essentially from the mouth of the canyon leading to Gunlock, through another little canyon area and out to Ivins. I managed 7:26 per mile which is faster than I have ever run 5 miles before. I felt good the whole way through and wonder what I will be able to do next year, if I get the opportunity again, with more consistent training.  More importantly, I'm optimistic about what I will be able to accomplish with the marathon since it will be a constant decrease in elevation the whole way. 

My second run was 4.25 miles but it had some pretty serious hills to run.  This was a back road that meanders from St. George to Sandhollow reservoir over by Hurrican Utah. Oddly enough, the section with the steepest hills (a 10% grade on average) was the nice part of this run.  I felt like I flew right up the hill with little difficulty and my splits reflect that.  I managed the mile with that hill in 7:55.  the hardest part of this run was a dirt road that had just enough golf ball sized rocks to make the run extremely difficult.  Every step amounted to about half a step because I couldn't get my foot down to solid ground and get a grip before I pushed off. Going into this run I thought that I would be successful if I managed to keep my time below 9 minute miles.  I'm happy to report that I was able to finish the whole thing in 34:34, an average pace of 8:07 per mile. I was very happy. 

I think that a lot of my success down there can be attributed to the stationary bike in my garage, for keeping my cardio solid while my leg healed, and running Flag Rock multiple times a week for the last few weeks, which has really made my legs strong. There are pictures, which I will post later but are not uploaded at the moment.  

This was my shake-out run.  My legs didn't hurt after yesterday and they didn't feel tired when I woke up.  Plus, there is a trail out the back side of the condos we stayed at that is really cool so I wanted to hit it before I had to drive back to the cold.  It was slow, as it should be after my 9 miles at a fast pace from the day before, and it was every bit as much fun as I thought it would be.  The trail actually starts as a crappy dirt road, but after about 1.5 miles it turns into a single track trail and winds though some pretty big boulders along the ridge of a bluff. If you find yourself in St. George this is a good one to hit. 

AP: 11:40; Vert: 703' 

This run is interesting. It is exactly the same distance as yesterday's run, even down to the 100th of a mile, and roughly the same amount of elevation gain. However, I was able to complete this run today 17 minutes faster than yesterday. I did go with someone, who I thought was pushing the pace a bit, and the run today was on a paved surface as opposed to the rocky road from yesterday, but I don't think even had those 2 things been the same that I could have pushed myself yesterday to go this fast. 

I don't think its that interesting in terms of understanding anything except how my body recovers. Apparently, after a day of rest and very slow jogging I am pretty good to go again.  That's good to know. We'll see what tomorrow will bring

AP: 8:14, Vert: 768' 

I took a different route up the mountain today and ended up feeling a lot more drained. It was shorter but the elevation gain seemed a lot more drastic, though I'm not sure that's true. I did see a guy coming down just as I started going up who told me he had just attempted to get up to the rock from the north side.  He said he quit after about a half mile of post-holing up to his knees. I thought it might be a little more dry than that but I guess not. I can't wait until it is so I can make that into a loop.

I also went up from the fire break road at a different place.  It's a switchback trail that I have seen several times but have never taken.  It is a lot less rocky than my normal route but the switchbacks are pretty steep, or at least that is how they seemed to me. I made it to the rock in just over 40 minutes and immediately turned around and came back down. I made the whole trip in 1:07:49.  Not really a good pace but respectable I guess considering I haven't taken a day off since the race. 

AP: 12:47; Vert: 1,529'

I skipped work this morning so I could get a run in with Trickydick (my brother) while he is in town. This is quite the elevation change for him but despite that he did pretty good on this steep course. It always amazes me that this run ends up being somewhere between 1,700 and 2,000 feet of gain in something like 3.5-4 miles. 

I was able to run up more of the trail than I have been able to run in the past and I even got my Average Pace down a bit more than it was on my last run.  I think the day off yesterday helped. The only problem is that now I have to go to work and try not to think about how nice and sunny it is outside for the rest of the day.

AP: 12:36; Vert,  1,878'

Went back up to the rock tonight with MattVH.  The second time was much harder than the first.  Instead of felling rested and being able to run the entire trail I was beat and ended up walking a good portion of it. Still, my over all time was only 30 seconds a mile slower the second time than the first. And, after we got off the trail and steep roads I felt so good I pushed the pace a bit and got down around 7 minute miles for the last 1/2 mile or so.  

 AP: 13:02; Vert: 1,730' 

I keep posting on the wrong day.  I didn't have time to do anything today because my brother got married and that took all day.  It was probably a good thing though because my legs were a bit sore from Thursdays flag rock runs. 

This was a harder run than I expected it to be.  It was flatish, especially compared to what I have been running but my legs were worn out from Thursday's Flag Rock efforts. I was hoping to hit 40 miles this week, but after that outing I'm glad I turned back when I did. 

Oh, and P.S., road running is not nearly as much fun as the trial.  

AP: 8:43; Vert 359 

First I want to say that I did this run at the last minute.  I had planned on doing a run on the road up city creek but the weather was so nice I decided to hit a trail. Because I planned on running the road I only had road shoes, which made me sort of nervous.  I tried to run a trial in my Altra Instincts a while back and didn't really like the experience very much.  Apparently, that was due to my inexperience both with running in general and running trails in particular.  In the last month or so I have logged a lot more trail miles and today the instincts were great, even on the dirt and mud.  The only real difference I noticed is that there is slightly less protection underfoot and the traction on the snow isn't nearly as good as it is with the Lone Peaks.

I started at the trail head on 18th ave and Hilltop rd. with the goal of reaching what I assume are the twin peaks up sort of behind the U.  I have never taken this trail before and I knew that at most intersections I had to go up, if there was a directional choice.  Turns out I didn't need to do this the whole way but now I will know for next time. The up portion of the run had some mud, snow and ice on it still, not to mention the occasional small stream comming out of the snow, which I had to get around.  It was pretty fun and technical. I made it to the top of the first twin then the second, then I dropped off the top of the second comando style and hit the Bonneville Shoreline Trail and followed that back to the car.  Without the snow, ice and mud, and without the steep hills to climb, I was able to move pretty quickly even for a trail.  I managed at a couple of places to get my pace below a 7 minute mile, and sustained a 7 minute mile pace in a couple of places. 

This was supposed to be an easy run so I only went that fast when it felt good to run that fast but the rest of the time I moved at a comfortable pace.  I'm sure I could get my average pace down in the future.

AP: 12:20, Vert: 1,483' 

This was a tough run.  I did Flag Rock again but I should have probably waited another day.  I think that the trail run yesterday, my lack of nutrition this morning, the wind at my face, and my lack of sleep last night made my legs feel like lead weights.  I managed to run up the part of the trail that starts to get steep just off the fire break road then it was slow going to the top.  

At the outset I had decided that I was going to see what the trial off the north side was like.  It was still snowy and mostly just a pain in the butt. I will have to wait another month to try it again I think. That said, I finally know what that trail looks like and where it goes.  In the places that I could actually see the trail it looked really nice, although those places were few and far between. This route was initially dubbed, by the city of Farmington, as a 10k, but as it turns out it is 7.25 miles with 1,900 feet of elevation gain.  The rock isn't even the highest point. It took me a long time to navigate the back side of the mountain due to snow, my 4th mile clocked in at just over a 35 minute pace, but once I got back on dry ground it was a nice trail to the bottom. Over all, not as much fun as yesterday. 

What I learned: I need to eat before I go, even if it is just a peanut butter sandwich and I need to space out my trail runs by a day or so in order to keep my legs fresh.  That said, I'm glad I know where that trial is and what it looks like.  Now I can prepare for July. For those interested here is the course: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/157625902

I did two runs today, although the second one was a slow jog for about half of it. The first run was a lunch-time run on the BST starting at hilltop and 18th ave again.  This time I just stuck to the BST instead of trying to summit any peaks.  My original plan was to go all the way to the U, but that was cut short in favor of finding a bathroom and keeping my pants relatively clean.  For some reason I've had stomach problems all day today. I tried to keep the pace easy as I wanted this to be a sort of recovery jog and at the end I felt really good, which is why I did the second run today. 

 First run: 6.19 miles: AP: 10:33; Vert: 1,174'

The second run was with MattVH up Centerville peak.  This is a steep hill and despite starting off feeling good I got my trash kicked by VH all the way up and down this mountain. I did manage to run (or rather slowly jog) almost the entire trail (when it wasn't snow covered) which made me pretty happy.  The trip back down was a brutal quad pounding, much more serious than Flag Rock, that has left my legs feeling a bit jelly-rific. For those interested here is the link to the trail: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/158031264

Second Run: 4.92 miles (if my garmin is to be believed) AP: 14:23; Vert: 1,844 

Flag Rock run with VH. He is still killing me on those up hills. I'm hoping its because of my weekly milage and not just because I'm a wuse. 

AP: 12:32; Vert: 1,700' 

I resisted the urge to run to the track and do speed work today.  I haven't done any in a long time but I'm trying to build my base and don't want to stress the legs or feet out too much until I can comfortably run 50 or more miles a week.  I'm not there yet. 

This was the longest run I have done in several months.  I have run more miles in a single day more than once in the past couple of weeks, but I haven't run this many miles all at once in a long time. It was fairly taxing.  The wind didn't help either. It was in my face for the whole 5.25 miles out, which I think made me slower than I would have been.  I also noticed the extra push going up some of those hills on the way back, which was nice.

My original plan was to take the BST over to Centerville peak trailhead and then, if I felt up to it, run up to the top and back. That would have made the trip just over 15 miles. In retrospect I'm glad I didn't do the peak. My feet were a little sore by the time I got over there and I didn't want to push it an end up hurt.  Since the plan was to get at least 10 miles in I just turned around and came back.  One day I will run over there and conquer the mountain but not today.

The "trail" over there is pretty much a road and there were plenty of jerky motorcross bikers out kicking up dust, which pisses me off.  I flipped a couple of them off but they didn't seem to notice or care. I probably shouldn't pick fights when I'm already tired but is it really to much to ask for some common courtesy? 

AP: 10:40; Vert: 1,649' 

I did my City Creek loop today.  It's the first time I have done this route in several weeks and I was quite happy with the results.  I started off really tired but figured I could just gut out 5ish miles. Turns out my legs weren't as tired as the rest of me. I managed to finish the course in 39:03, average pace 7:55.  That's not that fast, I know, but the last time I did this I was only able to finish in 8:28 per mile. It seems the steep hill running I've been doing has paid some dividends. 

Early morning run with MattVH.  A shakeout run for him but a good effort for me.  The fastest I have ever done 5 miles prior to today is 7:52 per mile.  Today I managed to do it in 7:39 per mile. Undoubtedly this was because I had someone there keeping the pace honest rather than letting me just sleep run through the morning.  If I'm going to get my pace this fast or faster for St.George though I'm going to need to get some track work in when my base building is up to snuff in may. 

It was a long day so I didn't get out for my run until late.  I feel a bit like I'm cheating on my runs with this piddly 500' elevation gain. I need to get some steeper runs in soon. The plan this week was to cut back my miles a bit to rest.  I read that while building my mile base, I should follow a higher milage week with a little bit of a decrease in miles the next week in order to avoid injury. Last week I did 42 miles so I'm shooting for ~35 miles this week.  While I intended to cut back my miles, I didn't plan to cut back my elevation gain but that is how it has worked out so far.  

This was just an easy loop around Farmington with some faster hill splits worked in. They weren't exactly hill sprints and I did them 20 seconds hot, 20 seconds cold.  I did 20 second splits up 400 north (the cemetery road) and another 3 up State Street. They were tough, but I want to be able to move faster up those steep hills and this is the best way I know to get the speed faster.

AP: 8:54; Vert: 575'  

I forgot my watch for this one so I'm guessing at a few things, like elevation gain.  I mapped the run and it looks like it is just over 11 miles out and back.  My elevation gain on a previous run - which went about half way, to the high point, and back - was 1,100'.  Since I climbed to the high point, went down the other side and came back up to the high point again I'm assuming that my elevation gain is roughly 2,200 feet. I tried to keep track with my Nike app on my iPhone but it sucks a lot and didn't bother to actually keep track of anything. 

The route for this was the BST from Mom's Reservoir (City Creek) over to the U and back. I've wanted to do this for a long time and since the weather was good and I just submitted my bar application I figured what the heck. I was gone longer than I should have been but no one seems to care.

The trail was much better than it has been despite the snow a few days ago.  There were no muddy spots, although it was pretty rutted out by the mountain bikers tires which made it hard to run on in places.  My feet and legs aren't used to that kind of distance either, they both hurt a little now.  Not really joint pain, but sore nonetheless.

I'm guessing at my pace as well, but based on when I left and when I got back it looks like I did close to 11 minute miles. Not fast but I got the miles in I guess, and the pace felt good even on the steeper parts. 

This is the flag rock loop with an extra loop up to the rock added in.  I started by following the regular course and went down the north side.  Due to the warm temperatures it is almost completely dry and the trail is pretty fun on that side. Once I hit the fire break road, I circled back to the south trial and took it up to the top again. I went back down the north side, down the BST to Farmington Pond and then back to state street. I felt pretty fresh today, after not running yesterday, so I think that helped make this double loop happen.  I didn't think I had it in me to run back up the cemetery hill again, which is why I just looped from the fire break.  One of these days I will be able to do that in a more respectable time.  

AP: 13:37; Vert: 3,196' 

I took the BST from a bit south of Red Butte Gardens over to the pass behind the hill with U on it. I had never taken this trail and it was pretty fun. I begins by cutting up behind the new history museum and then goes a ways up the canyon before crossing over and coming back out.  Once you get back around to the front of the canyon, behind the Huntsman institute, the trail continues for a while then cuts up another canyon and around the hill that the big white U is on. It climbs up that canyon to a pass.  You can continue on from there over to City Creek or up to the twins, but today I turned around and headed back.  The pass was 5.2 miles and I planned on doing no more than 10. 

 There is a lot of climbing and descending in Red Butte and I didn't have a lot of time left so I cut down around the new amphitheater, along the marked BST, back in front of the natural history museum and back to my car.  I enjoyed running a trail that I haven't run before. My legs felt fine the whole time and it seems like my speed has improved, even over the 10 miles I did during the middle of last week.  I am a little concerned that my feet hurt.  It's not the muscles or tendons but the skin on the bottom of my feet, under my big toe knuckle (does that make sense?) that seems to get rubbed raw on these longer runs.  By the time I made it back to my car it didn't hurt that much, but while I was trying to make my way down the canyon it hurt more than I would have liked.  Not enough to make me stop, but enough to let me know it was there. My hope is that if I continue to run longer miles it will toughen up and go away.  

I am supposed to be getting miles in for the purpose of building my base so I can start marathon training.  The problem I'm having, if it is in fact a problem, is that I can't seem to motivate myself to run on the road.  I can move faster on the road, and I will at some point need some specific training on the road for long miles, but I feel like maybe I should be doing some of that now.  But the road is so boring and the trails are so much fun that I'm having a hard time hitting the black top.  Anyone have any info on this? Should I force more miles on the concrete?

AP: 10:21; Vert: 1,798' 

I didn't have to be in salt lake until later today so I decided to run Centerville Peak again. This is the hardest trail I've run.  It's roughly 1,700 feet of climbing in 2.3 miles with no downhill mixed in and no flat spots. Once you hit the top it's pretty smooth, and the trail is not as grueling.  I decided that I would follow the trial up the ridge for a while and just see how nice the trail is and if I could run until I hit snow.  The trail is nice and I'm sure I could have gone that far but I ran out of time. Soon I will go all the way to Skyline Drive. 

AP: 12:17; Vert: 2,076 

I wanted to run from the capital, up the BST and over to the twins.  I ended up about a mile and a half short of the twins because I ran out of time. I was able to run the entire trail though.  My slowest mile was 13:59, which is substantially better than my slowest mile was yesterday and better than my slowest mile going up flag rock. It's not quite as steep but it isn't exactly flat either. I was tired today as well, which left me wondering how much of this would be a walk.  I'm very pleased with the results. I'll have to do it again when I have enough time to get all the way there. 

AP: 10:35 

Shirt less running today.  Not sure I'm in good enough shape to pull of the Anton Krupicka look just yet, but it was hot so I went for it.  It felt pretty good and I look forward to doing it again many more times over the course of the summer.

 I took the BST west from City Creek today over to North Salt Lake.  It was pretty fun and I was able to run the whole way, no hill walking at all. Some of the hills still felt steep, but a lot of the hills that used to be steep are not bad at all any more. I intended to just do 7 or 8 but when I hit the radio station, or whatever it is, I decided I should just drop down to NSL since I was already right there.  Hopefully it won't be too detrimental for my running plans tomorrow. I'm going to try and get in some good vert. 

AP: 10:24, Vert: 2,261'

This run wasn't as long or as vertically challenging as I wanted it to be. Time constraints caused me to cut it a bit short. Next time I need to leave the house earlier so I can make the whole course. 

The plan was to run up the south trail to Flag Rock, take the north trail down, follow the BST over to farmington canyon, cut through the canyon and climb back up to the upper BST that Dorsimus runs, take that accross to Baer canyon and the do the whole thing in reverse coming back.  If I had the time to follow that route it would have given me something like 4,000' of gain today.  As it is, my legs are sore so it's probably good I ran out of time.  

I followed the out course all the way over to where the BST drops into the upper neighborhoods in North Farmington or Fruit Heights (not sure what city it is at that point).  I realized that I wasn't going to make it to Baer since I was running out of time so I turned around and came back.  I didn't have enough time to climb back up to flag rock so I just took the paved road back home.

I felt pretty sluggish today, probably from yesterday's run.  I enjoyed the run but I just couldn't move very fast, or so it seemed.  I'm not sure what fast is on this course yet so who knows I guess.  I have decided a couple of things over the past week though.  The first thing is that I'm going to start counting the number of times I reach flag rock, alla Anton Krupicka and Green Mountain. According to a story I read yesterday, between January 2010 and Western States that same year he summited Green Mountain, roughly 3,000' of gain, 176 times.  While Flag Rock isn't nearly that steep it is about the same number of miles.  Maybe if I can make my goal to reach a ridiculous number of runs up the Rock before the run in July I too will be able to run fast on race day.  It seems that if you want to be able to run fast in these ultra type events, which I'm not quite ready for yet, you need to spend a good deal of your time running up really steep trails. Which brings me to the second thing I decided.  

Before the summer is out, I want to run 10,000' of vert in a single run. This is going to take some training to get ready for, as I ran a mere 4,900 in the past 2 days and feel exhausted at this point. Nevertheless, if I can reach that goal I will be on track for getting myself in the kind of shape I want to be in; competitive shape. I believe, based on some calculations I worked out, that I can achieve this right here.  I can get roughly that much elevation gain if I start at Chevron, run up the north side of Flag Rock, run across to Centerville Peak, take that trail to Skyline Drive, and follow the whole thing back in reverse including running back up flag rock. That will be about 25 miles, but it will also be 10,000' of gain.  

AP: 12:57; Flag Rock Ascent: #1; Vert, 2,722' 

Avenue Twins from the Capital.  I felt like crap today.  Not sure what it is although I think it's related to something I ate last night. Stomach not feeling well most of the way up and all the way down.  Still, not too shabby of a time for not feeling good. 1:45:54 seconds, average of 11:09 per mile. Last time I went this way I managed 30 seconds a mile faster, but I was 2 miles shorter and those are the miles up to and back from the top of the peaks. So, all in all I think this was a good training effort even if I did/do feel like crap.  I hope this is gone tomorrow. 

This is not a good training run.  I received some bad news today and decided that I should take it out on the trail.  I also decided I should hit a trail I haven't done but have wanted to do for a while, Baer Canyon.  I knew going into this run that it was a steep run and the most of the run would actually probably be a walk, but what I didn't know is that the trail is beyond technical, it is ridiculous.

 It was pretty rocky heading up to the second stream crossing but it was still runnable in most places.  If you make it past the second stream crossing without soaking your feet, which I managed on the way up but not on the way back down, then the trail is even decent from that point up to the third stream crossing.  Both the second and the third stream crossings were fairly treacherous. Once you make it across the third stream crossing the trail is decent for about 200 feet then it pretty much just turns and goes straight up the mountain. Not only is it very steep at that point but the trail is over grown and very rocky. There are places that the grade isn't too bad but I still couldn't run just because of the conditions of the trail. I wanted to take this all the way to Skyline Drive but I lost the trail at 2.6 miles in and decided to turn back rather than keep post holing my way through the snow while I searched for it. My Garmin said that the elevation gain was 2,600+ until I turned off the the auto correct; then it said the elevation gain was closer to 2,900.  I split the difference at 2,700 because it seemed steeper than that and because the auto correct assigns an elevation to a location based on a geodetic reading that has been actually taken by someone.  Since I very seriously doubt anyone has been up that trail with the equipment necessary to take that reading I figured it was reasonable to assume that the auto correct was probably not 100% correct. 

I don't think I will be doing that trail again any time soon.  It seems like I can get all the elevation training I need on much better trails that will actually allow me to push my limits rather than carefully walk.  

No running today because I didn't have enough time and I seem to have tweeked my back.  I hope the back tweek goes away soon, I don't want another extended down time. 

Finally over my back pain MattVH and I took a trip up to Flag Rock.  We actually did the loop which was pretty sweet.  I like the north side trail quite a bit.  It's a pretty run through the trees.  I felt dead on the way up and had to stop and walk in a couple of places.  I think it was a combination of things. First, I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast except some licorice and candy nut clusters.  I thought that the cheap energy that these things provide would be enough to get me through but I was mistaken. Lesson learned.  I need to eat something substantial 3-4 hours before a run.  

The second problem today was not really a problem, just not something I realized until after the run was over. This route starts off by climbing 500' in a mile and a half.  The majority of the climb is up a pretty steep road. My fastest time up that steep mile and a half before today was about 30 seconds slower than we climbed it today. So I pushed up the first steep hill and then I was dead after that. Next time, space out the effort.

 I think I have a sort of mental block with that hill as well. I know its steep and I know its going to be hard and so I psych myself out on the hill either pushing to hard to just get it over, or going to slow and feeling like its a grind the whole way up.  Not sure how to fix this except maybe running it more so that it gets easier and isn't such a mental grind. 

once I hit the peak I felt dead but the trail down the back side is nice and smooth and pretty steep so I just let gravity do its thing.  With a few pit stops we were down in no time. I need to hit this more often.

The elevation on the actual loop is about 75' shy of 2,000', but I jogged up state street at the end of the run with my watch off.  It's about 200' elevation gain in a 1/4 mile so I counted 2,000 feet. I was able to jog all the way up state street and it felt relatively effortless. I didn't ever even contemplate walking, which is a first for my trips up that hill. I think it says something about the effect of hill training on the mountain as opposed to hill training on the road. 

AP: 13:07 

Class was canceled this morning so I thought I would take the opportunity to try and improve on my pathetic performance last night. I think I improved but my watch died about half way through so I don't know for sure.  I was on the peak in 49 minutes and I started my watch at my house instead of the bottom of the hill which tacks on a little bit more distance. I was also able to run almost the whole thing, even the countless switchbacks up to the top. So I think it was an improvement but I have no empirical data to support that claim. It was definitely better to get out while it was still cool outside. 

Matt VH and I did the Flag Rock loop in reverse today.  It was a refreshing change and much faster. As it turns out, the south to north approach is much more technical (i.e. rocky) than the other way around.  This slows you down quite a bit on the climbs.  The other way is a little bit steeper (528' rise per mile north to south as opposed to ~450' rise south to north) but you don't really notice it because the trail is so much nicer.  We made good time to the top - I got there in 43 minutes which is 6 minutes faster than yesterday and 16 minutes faster than monday. Matt was a few minutes behind due to a product delivery. 

From the top it was a quick cruise down the mountain and back to the start.  I felt so good once we got to the top I felt like I was flying down the mountain. Once we got back to the road and down the steep hills we pushed the pace a little bit and I ended up breaking a 6 minute mile for about a 1/4 mile, even reaching a 5 minute pace at one point. In the end, we made this trip 6 minutes faster than the other way around. I think this might become the standard route.  

I've got a perfect record going this week for trips up to flag rock and I wasn't going to let a little snow and rain ruin that.  As soon as the sun came out at 5pm I was lobbying my wife for the chance to get out there.  Due to operator error my Garmin report is basically useless so it's a good thing I did this route yesterday so I know the elevation gain and mileage. The one thing the Garmin can still tell me is my elapsed time, which today is 1:23:02 seconds. That's 2 minutes faster than yesterday but slower than I know I can do this route. The upper bench and the rest of the trail, all the way to the rock, was covered in 1-2 inches of snow.  It made the up hill a bit slippery but not bad.  However, the downhill was much slower than it otherwise would have been. Without snow I think I could take another couple minutes off this time. 

Painful toward the end but fun nonetheless. North to south double up to flag rock.  1st round with Matt VH and Dorsimus, second lap alone. More to come after a shower and some rest. 

The initial plan was to incorporate Flag Rock into this run, but that was only because I thought the distance was much shorter. As it turns out, not only is it long but it has some decent elevation gain as well. VH beat me up the hills - as he does every time - but my ego aside it was a good run.  Somehow I need to get faster up those hills though. 

2:01:55; 11:48 average pace 

Since I'm planning on running a marathon in St. George I figured I better start getting my pace dialed in.  After this run I think I would rather do this in the morning and something fun and mountainesc in the evening or afternoon.  

I did 5 miles as a 1 mile warm up then 4 x 1/2 mile @ MP (which I plan on being just under 7:00 per mile) with 1/4 mile recovery in between and 1 mile cool down. My splits for the 1/2's were 3:31, 3:27, 3:29, 3:30 (Average 6:59 pace). The pace felt good but I don't think I could sustain it for more than a mile or 2 at a time.  I need to work up to that before October. Many more of these types of runs to come I think. 

The real joy in this run was the progress I've made.  I last tried a speed workout on December 22 and ended up injuring myself bad enough that I was unable to run again for another month and a half. Today I think I could have done a few more splits if there was time. Not only that, but in December my fastest pace was a 7:15 average, which felt like everything I had.  Now in order to go 6:59 I have to dial back my speed so I don't over shoot the mark. There is something to be said for all the trails I've been running in the past couple of months I think.  If I can keep it up and get my pace dialed in I think I can beat a 3hr marathon time in October.  

I decided to try a trail I haven't run before.  I'm not sure I will run this trail in the same way again. It was slow due mostly to the technical terrain. It would be a good way to run to City Creek Canyon though, as the trail goes up over the mountain instead of across the BST.  The trail up and over is steep but not horrible in terms of rockyness, and if you took it this way into the canyon it would provide a lot more elevation gain on the way back. 

On the down side, I think I strained a muscle in my quad.  It was pretty sore most of the way back.  I may have to take another day off to make sure it heals.  

1:19:09; AP: 11:15 

Two things learned tonight.  First, I have a strained quad muscle and should have rested another couple of days.  Second, I am getting stronger even with a bum leg. 

My leg felt fine this morning and seeing all these posts about people doing awesome runs has made it hard to sit it out the last couple of days.  So when I woke up and everything was good I figured I needed to get at it again.  I originally planned on doing something like 5 miles.  Turns out I should have planned on doing 3. At the 2.5 mile mark I didn't want to turn around so I just kept pushing.  The leg felt fine so I didn't think anything of it. At the 3.5 mile mark the leg was sore and I was now an extra mile away from where I started. It was slow coming back.

When I got back I looked up the symptoms to my pain.  A couple sports medicine web sites all say the same thing: strained quad.  Turns out you should follow standard protocol to treat this, i.e. RICE, but you should also come back very slowly to make sure it isn't still hurt.  I should have looked it up before attempting to run 7 miles today. 

On the plus side, this run was up Farmington Canyon right in the heat of the day.  I know that doesn't sound like a plus, but the route as well as the conditions made me realize something: I am getting stronger.  6 month ago I tried to run this and it was everything I had just to get to the firebreak road from the pond. Today that section of the run didn't seem bad at all.  Not once did I consider stopping, even in the 80 degree heat. In fact, the only real slow part of this run was the last 1/4 mile of black top before it turns to dirt. I think that is the steepest part of that whole road. Once I hit dirt the grade seemed to decrease a bit and the running was a touch easier.  I think I'm going to run all the way to francis peak when my leg heals, which is something I hadn't thought I could accomplish. The breeze down the canyon was nice too, helped with the temperature.  However, even before I got high enough for the breeze to kick in the heat didn't seem that daunting.  I did drink 3 liters of water this morning before going so maybe that's why.

At any rate, I'm now out again for 72 hours - the website recommended amount of time to rest. And following that I guess I will be running flat and short for a week or so to make sure there is no injury.  Bummer. Better than not running I guess.  

Its been more than 72 hours so I thought I would see if the leg had healed.  It didn't take long to figure out it hadn't.  While I could have kept going, I figured I better stop so I wouldn't aggravate it again. I'm going to wait till monday and try again.  Looks like my plans for 26 miles next weekend aren't going to work out. Bummer.  

Took the leg out for a test drive this morning.  Everything went okay. I'm going to do 5 more tonight I think, and if everything checks out then I'm going up to Flag Rock tomorrow. 

I didn't get the 5 mile test run in last night so I went early this morning. Everything went okay so I'm back to trails tomorrow.  Hoping to try the marathon distance to Francis peak and back in a couple weeks. 

Flag Rock Loop north to south.  A celebration run because today I finished law school. I was as fast as I was last time I did this route, which says something I think, but it didn't feel as good as it used to, which definitely says something.  2 weeks off is a killer.  Now it's time to get the serious training going in preparation for all the fun of summer. 

AP: 11:38, 2,146' vert 

I went up flag rock again from the north.  When I hit the rock I decided I would see where the trail going up goes.  There is a trail sign that says that the trail connects with Steed Creek but it is a lie.  I took the trail for a while, not sure exactly how far but it was at least a mile.  The route is clear for about 1/4 mile then it is marked with orange flags.  The orange flags cut up the mountain into some areas that have clearly been changed since the flags were hung.  There is a lot of fallen trees and the trail itself is mostly disguised by the fallen logs and overgrowth.  I lost any sign of the trail at the point I turned around.  There is another trail up there that says it goes over to hornet creek.  I doubt that it is clear either, but it looks like it cuts across the side of the mountain instead of trying to climb over the top so maybe I'll take that next time.  It would be awesome if there was a way to get from flag rock to steed creek at 6,000 feet.  

 I ran into one of the trail maintenance guys on my way down from flag rock and I asked him about the trail.  He said it was a proposed trail but it hadn't been finished yet.  They are apparently having a hard time keeping up with the overgrowth on flag rock trail at this point and haven't had time to expand their operation up the mountain.  Anyone running wasatch that needs to spend some time doing trail work, Farmington has plenty of it for you. 

 3000' vert., very slow.  

Early morning flag rock run with MattVH. I was slow, he was fast. My average pace for this route today was a full 2 minutes per mile slower than it was 2 days ago. Overall, this took 13 minutes longer than my average time.  I would feel bad about that but this is the third time in three days that I've done this route, and yesterday I tacked on an extra 1,000 feet of elevation gain. I've got to get my legs back up to speed so I'll try again either tonight or tomorrow, or both. 

AP: 13:45, 1,854' vert 

If the course doesn't change from last year, this is the course for the flag rock run.  I ran it today to set a bench mark for the training I will be doing over the next couple of months.  My starting point is 1:27:31.  I would like to get that down to 1:17 or faster before July 14th. I don't know if that is reasonable or not, but I would be willing to bet that last years winner was faster than 12:10 per mile. 

It was hot today, I shouldn't have run it during the middle of the day but that was the time I had available.  I'm planning on making the loop gain tomorrow morning before it gets hot, though probably not the exact course as I did today. I'm also pretty sure it's steeper going from south to north.  The lack of any switchbacks until the last half mile means you're pretty much running up for the first 3 miles.  I might be wrong.  One of these days I'm going to run to the rock and rest my watch so I can see which way has more gain. At any rate, the north to south approach is much nicer than the other way around, but since south to north is the race I guess that's what I should focus on. 

Mount Griffith with my brother as my graduation present.  It was pretty steep and at a pretty high elevation but I felt good most of the way up.  I didn't feel the effects of the elevation until after 10,500 feet. One day I will come back and run the whole trail all the way to Mount Charleston.

3:04:46; 4,017 vertical feet.  

I went out today around 3pm.  I don't know why I thought this was a good idea but it clearly wasn't. when I left the house it was 86 degrees.  That is the hottest temperature I've run through in quite some time, so that was bad enough.  But it got worse because the temperature hadn't finished climbing.  It was 88 by the time I got back. The heat coupled with the sun beating down on me and the trail, and trail reflecting that heat back up into my face, made it almost unbearable.  I know 88 isn't that hot in the grande scheme of things, but I wasn't ready for it today.  

My initial plan was to run the loop but after talking myself into pushing to the top I decided that the best course of action would be to just go back the shortest route.  I was already out of water and it was hot. So I dropped back down the south side and took the short cut down to 200 south and back to the school where I had parked my car.

The days of running this route in the middle of the day are gone.  Time to start getting out early before it gets hot.  

Flag Rock run with MattVH.  This is my fastest time so far-which is the good news-but it still isn't fast enough-which is the bad news. I made it to the rock in 46 minutes, which is as fast as I've ever done it I think.  There were a couple of trail crew guys on the rock when I got up there so I stopped to ask them a few questions about the run last year.  Turns out that the fastest time last year was 1:05.  That is ridiculous! I ran it in 1:20:57 today.  After reviewing my Garmin data I can see a couple places that I slowed down today that I wouldn't have slowed down on race day, so I think I could take a few minutes off that time right now if I pushed. That said, it is going to require a lot of work between now and July 14 to get the time down around 1:05 but I think it's possible. 

This run started out slow but ended up fast.  Some of the slow was because I was still a bit tired and some of it was because MattVH wasn't feeling it today.  I was almost 40 seconds slower on the first mile, 1 minute 8 seconds slower on the second mile, 6 seconds slower on the third mile, and 1 minute 16 seconds slower on the fourth mile.  The fourth mile was all on me.  I just wasn't as fast up those switchbacks today, which was alright because this wasn't intended to be a fast run.  My plan when I woke up this morning was just try and get the hills in and don't slow down too much.  So I guess this was on track. 

I reached the peak in 48 minutes and 38 seconds, which is 2 minutes and 20 seconds slower than yesterday.  But when I got up there and realized I was only 2 minutes off my time yesterday I wondered if I could push the rest of the way and get back around the same time.  Turns out I could.  Mile 5 today was 26 seconds faster than yesterday, mile 6 was 1 minute 17 seconds faster than yesterday, and mile 7 was 33 seconds faster than yesterday.  I got back to the start in 1:21:34, which was only 36 seconds slower than yesterdays time after starting out with more than a 2 minute deficit.  Not too shabby.  

I realized yesterday that there were a few places on the second half that I was slower than I needed to be and I think that is where I made up the difference.  Instead of slowing down at the bottom of the trail I pushed up to the BST connector.  Instead of slowing down once I hit the grass at the pond I pushed the pace.  I think there were a few places that with a little more mental discipline I could push harder and get another 30 seconds or a minute at my current fitness level.  If I had been as fast going up today as I was yesterday I would have taken almost 2 minutes off my PR.  I'm a bit more optimistic about my ability to get my time down to 1:05 after today.  

I was tired this morning.  The alarm went off and I rolled over and slept for another 10 minutes.  It's harder to get up when I know I am running alone.  If it wasn't for the heat I would have just gone back to bed and done this later in the day.  But it is too hot for that at this point. 

My delay in waking up meant I didn't have enough time to get all the way to flag rock.  I got to the start line of the race course and realized that I was going to have to run it at least as fast as I did yesterday in order to be home on time.   But like I said at the outset, I was very tired and, consequently, that wasn't going to happen.  I opted instead for a shorter easier route.  Wanting to get some of the hills in still I decided I would head up cemetery hill and cut across the fire break to farmington canyon, come down the canyon, go through the pond, cut across the lagoon trail and back to my car.  Turns out that is a little over 6 miles, according to Gmap-pedometer. I forgot my watch.  I'm too type A about my running to be forgetting my watch. 

I tried to just keep the pace.  I figured that today should be a recovery run because the last two days have been decent efforts. I managed to do the course in just over 10 minute miles, which I think is a good recovery run pace. I think tomorrow I might try a double loop on the race course up to Flag Rock.  hopefully I wont be as tired then.  

Yesterday I thought I would do a double loop on the Flag Rock Race course.  Last night I found out that we were tending a bunch of little girls over night and my wife needed me to watch them so she could go get a hair cut.  Consequently, my plans were not to be. Instead I just did a single loop, which in the end was probably the best because I was done by the end.  My exhaustion had me a little frustrated, because I couldn't figure out why I was so tired.  I slept well last night, I ate before I ran today.  I didn't get up as early (thanks to the little girls), so what gives?  As it turns out, the reason for my exhaustion was my speed up to the top.  While my overall time was 2 minutes slower than my fastest time on this route, I beat my time to the top by about 10 seconds. Most of that speed came in the third mile, a mile that is usually an 18 minute mile because there is just under 800' of elevation gain in that mile.  Today I managed to get that mile done in 16:57, 1 minute and 9 seconds faster than my fastest time.  I lost most of that back on the final switchbacks up to the top, but I am pretty happy with that speed. My first and second miles were faster too, but the speed difference isn't quite as dramatic. In the end, today was a good sign for my goal of 1:05 by july 14. 

I got the call the night before from Matt VH for a trip up Farmington canyon.  We have talked about this run for a while but I hurt my leg so it was put on hold. We started at Farmington Pond at the bottom of the canyon just after 6am.  It was touch chilly outside at that hour but not too bad.  I opted to leave my long sleeve shirt in the car rather than have to carry it with me.  The road feels steep for the first mile or so- the paved part- but as soon as it transitions to dirt it mellows out a lot. We climbed 3,500 feet over the first 7 miles but it didn't feel like it at all. However, the higher we climbed the colder it got.  The sun hadn't made it's way into the canyon yet so we were jogging in shadows.  The river cutting its way down the middle of the canyon must have made the wind much colder than it otherwise would have been.  By the time we got to the junction that splits up the Francis peak or over to Bountiful I was frozen.  Bad choice on the shirt I guess. So we sat in the sunlight on a rock for a minute while I took the rocks out of my shoe and eye-balled the peak that was still another 4 miles and 2,000 vertical feet away.  

About 1/4 mile past that junction the road climbs higher than the river and it was immediately warmer, if not down right pleasant.   The road is also smoother at that point for reasons I'm uncertain about. So we ran together for a while, up past the pine trees until we reached the tree line. The road on this last section is also quite a bit steeper than the road on the first 7 miles and it didn't take long for VH to put a gap on me.  I wouldn't see him again until the top. He beat me there by a good 5-10 minutes and even ran down the back side a bit to make sure he got 13 miles for the run up.  By the time I got there I didn't have that kind of energy in me so I just stopped and stretched and drank some water. 

The downhill trek was much faster than the uphill.  We made it to the top in 2:53:00 and we made it back down in just under 2 hours. Obviously, a lot of that was due to gravity. We just took the breaks off and let it do it's thing.  At first it felt good and before we knew it, we were running a 7 minute mile down that road.  After a couple of quad pounding miles though it didn't feel quite as good. By the junction I was tired and had more rocks in my shoe so I stopped to remove them while VH continued moving. After I got the rocks out and caught up to him we made our way to Sunset camp ground hoping for water so I could refill my bottles.  Turns out the campground has been shut down and the water was turned off.  Oh crap.  Another 5 miles to go and no water.

The road at that point is substantially more rocky as well, so the breaks off and just cruise approach was not working quite as well. By the time we hit black top I was spent.  The furthest I have run since my last marathon in 2006 is 13.1 miles.  I'm not used to this distance and my body was letting me know it.  Once on the black top I took the breaks off again and let gravity drag me to my car. I thought it would be less painful if it was over with sooner.  I reached the cars a minute or 2 before matt but I was in much worse shape than him.  When I got there I collapsed on into my car; when he got there he took off his pack and proceeded to jog around on the grass until he hit 26 miles.  Clearly I haven't been running this type of distance enough to be in as good of shape as he is. So now that is the goal.  Make this a regular run on the weekend until going 26 miles is not a big deal. 

A day later I am surprised at how good I feel.  Absolutely no joint pain just some minor muscle soreness.  I slept like a baby last night but got right out of bed this morning and was able to mover around like I hadn't done anything yesterday.  I've run 3 marathons prior to this and I never felt that way after any of those. More consistent training is part of it I'm sure, but I think that the big difference comes from running with proper form.  I can't wait to test my legs out next week.  

Last night I thought this would be a flag rock run.  30 seconds into this run I realized that I wasn't going to make it.  My legs were tired and very stiff.  Usually after a harder run my legs will be stiff for about half a mile but today they were stiff and very slow for the first 2 miles.  It usually takes me about 22 minutes to do the first two miles of the flag rock course, today it took 24+ minutes. Consequently I decided to just run the firebreak road loop, a much flatter route. It was still pretty slow but I figured this is a recovery run.  If Geoffrey Mutai runs a 4:50 race pace and an 8:00 recovery run pace it must be ok for me to want to run a 7:00 race pace and a 10:31 recovery pace, right? 

I'll try flag rock again tomorrow.  

Very slow flag rock run.  Legs still on the mend from the 25 on Sunday. Got faster and feeling better toward the end.  can't say the same for my running mate. 

I felt like crap on this run. I planned on going up to flag rock but 2 minutes into this run I realized that wasn't going to happen. I couldn't figure out why I was so tired.  It was more than just physical tired, it was all-the-way-to-the-bone tired.  I could barely talk myself into turning up the cemetery road to climb up to the firebreak.  by the time I made it there I realized something was wrong and took the short cut back down.  

After I got home and sat on my but for a bit I decided to shower and get ready for the day.  In the process of that I weighed myself and discovered that I had lost a bunch of weight over the week.  That put to rest my concerns that I was maybe getting sick.  I think the problem is that I ran more distance this week than I have in years, and I didn't eat accordingly.  While my overall milage is just over 40 this week, one of those runs was 25 miles and most of the rest of them were 7+.  I decided I should take the rest of the weekend to eat and recover before venturing out again.  No reason to push it and end up hurt, or worse than that hating running.

I wanted to get a good run in today but I didn't want to kill myself.  I would like to be running Farmington canyon up to Francis peak weekly by July so I figure I need to start making my every day runs closer to 10 miles, rather than 7. If I can average 10-15 miles during the week then I can surely pull out a 25 on the weekend - provided I'm eating enough.  With that in mind I thought I would head up the canyon to the campground via the road, come back down the trail that cuts down the middle of the canyon, cut across the firebreak to the flag rock trail and then go up and over that from north to south. 

I wasn't feeling that great when I woke up this morning but 2 miles into this run I was glad I had pushed myself out the door. The canyon is beautiful in the morning, with the sun streaking down the valley and a slight chill in the air. The road was abnormally busy today.  I saw some campers making their way down the paved part of the road, a guy with ropes (rock climber I'm assuming) going up, and I even passed a couple of guys trying to run the canyon. They said they were new to running uphill and it showed.  I tried to pass on some encouragement and kept moving.  

I made it to the campground in just over an hour and then set out to find the trail back down.  I was concerned that it would not be visible since the campground has been closed for a year and has clearly not been maintained at all.  I found a sign by an overgrown trail and started down.  I remember hiking up this trail several years ago and it was pretty decent then.  It has been neglected for some time now and I had to do a bit of bushwhacking to get started. Once I got passed the waterfall the trail cleared up a bit and I was able to move a little faster.  I was surprised at how fast I made it back down the canyon from the camp ground.  From the spot where the trail goes up the canyon and road turns from pavement to gravel it is about 4 miles.  The trail coming back down was 2.

Once I hit the firebreak I walked for a minute to get some nutrition in my stomach.  If I was still going to climb up to flag rock I was going to need some more energy.  By the time I hit the trail to turn up I was beat.  I thought about calling it off and just heading back down the firebreak home but decided that I had set out to go over flag rock so that is what I was going to do.  It was slow going, maybe the slowest it's ever been. It took me over 30 minutes just to climb the less than 2 mile section of trail to the rock.  

When I got to the top I ran into a guy I haven't seen in years (Rick Wesche). I had heard he was thinking about running the race in July but until today I hadn't seen him on the trail.  He had just made it up a few seconds before I got there so we stopped to chat for a minute.  I then set out and he followed me back down the trail. once we got back to the firebreak we jogged for a bit together chatting about life until I turned to head home.  It was good to catch up with him.

All in all this run was pretty awesome, even if it was tiring.  It took me 2:42:36 to make the whole trek, a time I'm sure I can cut down with some practice. If nothing else, this is a great training run for the trail half in Moab in November.  

Flag rock with VH.  I was slow going out today because I was stiff from yesterdays run but I made it around the loop in 1:25, which is a pretty good time for being slow. It helped that my wife was going to kill me if I didn't make it back pretty close to 7:30.  Nothing like a little motivation to get the legs moving. 

I didn't go this morning and I didn't go yesterday.  I've been beat lately.  Not sure what is going on.  Maybe calorie deficient, maybe something else, I don't know.  If it is calories, I need to figure out how to eat enough healthy food to keep my energy levels up.  I don't want to just make up the difference with crap.  You can't fuel the machine with garbage, right? 

At any rate, I was getting grouchy - or so my wife told me - so I went for a run.  I've noticed the last few times I've been out that I am slow.  I'm not turtle slow, but I'm not fast either.  I know, because I have read and been told over and over again, that to get fast you have to use your fast twitch muscles.  Typically, this is done on a track with some 200's or something.  I don't have a track and I'm not that keen on running on flat surfaces.  I decided that I should do something that I've seen Kilian Jornet do in this video. As I understand it, the purpose of this type of a run is to make you faster up hill by firing all the fast twitch muscles.  The advantage of this, as opposed to running on a track, is that it simulates the type of running that I plan to be doing on the same surface.  

So, I found a hill pretty close to my house that is pretty steep and sandy.  It's 80 feet of gain in .05 of a mile. My plan was to do 5 sprints up the hill and see how I felt at that point.  I didn't make it. The first attempt I went out as fast as I could, legs straining, lungs burning, heart beating out of my chest.  For all my efforts I made it about half way up, 47 feet, in 36 seconds which is an 18 minute mile.  That was my fastest attempt. I stopped at 47 feet because my legs literally couldn't go any farther.  I also timed my downhill time, as that is just as important in trail running as the uphill portion and equally as hard on the legs. I'm better at the down than the up but I'm not as fast as some people I know.  My downhill was pretty consistent at about 15.5 minutes per mile. The rest of my uphill runs were as follows: 39', 29 seconds; 40', 29 seconds.  Instead of 5 I got 3, and that was all my legs had in them.

I climbed back to the top of the hill, which is actually the firebreak road, and sat down to take the rocks out of my shoes. That's the downside of running in sand I guess.  Then I figured that I should put in some more relaxed miles to cool down.  Even though the course is pretty even across the top, I was faster after the sprints than before them, even with the tired legs.  I felt a bit like I was floating.  My splits on the way back, which again is up and down hill but almost exactly the same as it was on the first part of the run, was minutes faster on ever mile. I'm taking that as a good sign. 

So I've decided I'm going to add this in to my runs on a regular basis.  I'll see if I can get a mile or more in sprinting up that hill in a single session.  That will be the goal.

According to Brad Hudson, hill sprints should be added into your runs regularly so I'm assuming it will be alright as long as I get 2+ miles in before the hill sprints and some sort of cool down after.  

I wanted to do hill sprints again, the aftermath was so good last night.  I decided I needed to do flag rock though so the plan was flag rock, north to south, and hill repeats at the end of that, then finish out the loop with the last 2 miles of trail.  By the time I got to the hill sprint area it was dark, so I bagged it, finished out the trail and came home.  Hopefully I can pick them up tomorrow. 

I have pictures from this run but I don't know how to upload them to this blog.  If anyone can tell me the secret I'll gladly start posting them.  

Still feeling tired.  I thought that after a few miles I would start to feel good and could get going faster but it never happened.  I'm not sure what is going on but I need to snap out of this funk soon. 

I spent the weekend in Bryce with my family.  I wanted to get a couple of runs in because it is so pretty here.  However, being that I was with the family, it was not very easy to accomplish.  Certain people get upset when I spend my time running instead of spending time with them.  So to compromise, on this day at least, I ran to the camp entrance to get an envelope to pay the fee for the campsite and back a couple of times, carried my 3 year old up the 400' climb out of the canyon, and ran back down to help get everyone else up.  

 The good news is that it felt good to run even at 8,000 feet. 

I got up early this morning, despite being awake for long hours the night before, and got out for a run. I wanted to traverse a good portion of the park, at least the frequently seen and traveled section of the park.  I started at Sunset Point, ran down Navajo trail, up peekaboo trail, and out to Bryce point.  Then I took the rim trail back to camp.  I was pretty tired when I finished but it was a beautiful run.  I had to stop multiple times on the peekaboo/bryce point trails for horses, which was annoying but oh well. 

It didn't feel very fast, which was disheartening.  I think that maybe some of my problem is that I am not meeting my own expectations for myself at this point in terms of my running.  

I ran twice today.  The first was a trail run on the BST from Kaysville going north.  The second was a time trial on the track at bountiful high school.  

I wanted to get 7 miles in this morning and I wanted that to be trail miles, but I wasn't up for steep.  Turns out this section of the BST is perfect for what I wanted.  The trail is a gradual climb of about 400 feet up to the trail, then pretty much levels off, with some minor ups and downs, for the rest of the miles.  It's also nice because there are people on the trail.  While running is a solitary sport, it is nice to see people on occasion. I felt like I was moving pretty good but when I got back my time was slower than I wanted it to be.  This, along with the rest of my concerns, prompted me to squeeze in the second outing today.

For several weeks I have felt stagnate.  Like I am not really getting any faster or any better at climbing hills. I recognize that the problem is that my expectations of myself  are probably too high, I still need to feel like I am moving in a positive direction.  A while ago I voiced my concerns over speed to a fellow FRBer and he told me to run some time trials.  He predicted what my splits would be before I did them and he was right on the money.  I did a 100, 400, 800, and mile.  My splits were: 16.3 seconds, 1:25.6, 3:14, and 6:59. Apparently, if I'm going to get fast I need to be running more consistent miles, working up to 10 a day and 20 on the weekend (at least), and I need to mix in more speed in the middle of those runs. So, I guess that is what I'll be doing.  The plan is, every other day do something more flat, like the BST in kaysville, and mix in some speed.  Then, on the other days, run something steeper to keep my climbing legs working.  We'll see how this works out.  Hopefully it will get me to where I want to be one day. 

I woke up this morning planning on running Flag Rock but I was stiff in places I haven't been in a while.  I'm pretty sure that speed muscles and hill climbing muscles are not entirely the same muscles. The last time I felt this way was after a speed workout, and that time I did go and run up a mountain the next day and ended up pulling my quad and being on the injured reserve for the next 2 weeks.  So with that in mind, I decided to run on relatively flat ground (i.e. the road) around town. I'm trying to stick to ~7 miles a day so that's what I did.  

I ran down state street, up to the canyon, down through the pond, along lagoon trail, over to harmons, down the legacy trail, up Glovers lane, and back to home.  It ended up being 7.75 miles and I did it in just over an hour.  An average of 8:43 per mile.  It was a comfortable pace even with sore legs.  

I was sick all week and I have been overwhelmed with bar study for the past few weeks so my miles haven't really been consistent.  I've sort of fallen off the wagon I suppose.  So today I decided to get back on with some speed work.  This seemed like a good idea given the limited amount of time I had to do anything.  So, I found a nice little track on the west side of farmington and warmed up with a half mile.  Then I did 5x200 with 200 jogging recovery and some stretching in between.  Splits were: 48, 45, 42, 43, 41.  Not as fast as I would like but my legs were oddly sore so I didn't force the issue. I finished with a half mile cool down. 

So much for getting back on track.  I thought I would try to get in 7 miles up by bountiful peak, as it was the coolest place within a reasonable driving distance at 3pm today.  I know there is a trail that cuts down from the road to farmington flats so I thought I would go explore that.  About 3/4 of a mile in I landed funny trying to cross a stream and heard a pop.  The next thing I know my ankle is swelling.  I managed the 3/4 of a mile walk back out without much pain but after I sat down it really set in.  

Turns out it's just swollen and sprained and I will have to stay off it for a couple of weeks.  So much for my good showing at the flag rock run.  Hopefully I'll still be able to run it but it wont be very fast. 

I can't believe how many days of this last year I have spent injured.  Ever since I started trying to run seriously I have continually injured myself.  It began last December, after running for almost 3 months with 30ish miles a week, I injure my foot trying to run too fast for too long. That little learning experience takes me off the road and puts me on the couch for a month and a half.

Then, a few months after I get back, I try to do some speed work again and end up injuring my quad.  That takes me out for another couple weeks.  

After my 25 mile run back in May, I was drained and needed more rest than I gave myself.  My milage dropped off and I had trouble motivating myself.  Not really an injury but still time taken out from this new pursuit due to my inability to deal with my new expectations.

Finally, on June 18th I sprain my ankle.  Not just a little roll, but a full on pop and broken bone. I have not run since. Probably wont run until the month mark has passed.  

It's getting discouraging.  Am I over doing it?  Are my expectations of improvement unreasonable and causing me harm?  Should I slow down and give it more time?  I don't know, but I'm sick of being on the sideline.  

Yesterday marked 6 weeks since I sprained my ankle. It's still a little swollen and, depending on what I'm doing with it, still a little painful. After consulting with family members in the medical field, I decided to go see another doctor. What I learned was not good news.

Turns out I have a chronically torn AFTL. That means that the AFTL didn't heal itself while the rest of the ligaments where healing over the past month and a half. I'm left with a few options: 1) physical therapy which will take months to complete (completely destroying my hopes of racing much this year); 2) a very painful and expensive shot which has only a 70% chance of actually fixing things; or 3) leave it alone, which will either amount to ignoring the problem and always having a weak ankle, developing a scar ball which will mean that any running will eventually cause injury in other places, or it could just heal itself over time.  I'm going with the physical therapy.  At this point, I hope I can get in good enough shape to run the trail half in Moab in November.  Fingers crossed.  

Good News! I went to PT today for the fist time and was told that I can start slowly running tonight. I was also told that I can participate in the St. George Marathon. I won't get the time I wanted, but at least I wont be sidelined. I start tonight with some walk/run sets to test out the ankle. If it doesn't hurt I can proceed to increase slow miles. The therapist said that he thinks I will be able to pick up the pace and put in more miles within a few weeks time. Fingers crossed. 

PM: 3.18 miles; 12:36 per mile avg.

The PT told me that pain should be my guide.  If it hurts stop. Then he gave me program that was supposed to help get me back into running.  He gave it to me with the caveat that I probably wouldn't need to go quite as slow as it recommended.  The plan called for 40 minutes spaced into run/walk intervals.  4 minutes walking followed by 1 minute running. He told me that I should complete this workout as stated, then if I felt alright I could take it up a notch and do 2 minutes running. But he also started this conversation with that caveat.....

I stuck with the plan for the first 20 minutes. At that point I had run 4 times and had no pain.  The terrain was flat and I was antsy so I upped the running time from 1 minute to 2.  That didn't last long either. In fact, I did that only once.  Then I upped it to 3 minutes running and 2 minutes walking. I felt great, even in the afternoon heat. So nice to be out running again. I never had any pain even at 3 minutes.  We'll see if it is stiff at all in the morning.  If not I plan on doing it again tomorrow, starting at 3 minutes running and seeing where that gets me. 

The therapist told me I had to stay off trails and uneven ground until after October 6th so I wont be doing anything crazy for a while. But if my ankle heals well I plan on running as much steep asphalt as I can between now and October.  Preferably at elevation.  If anyone has any suggestions for where I might do that I would greatly appreciate the input.

Did the PT workout again only with less walking time.  I started with 2 minute walk and 3 minute run and worked my way down to no walk.  Felt good the whole time.  It's pretty hot out there right now, which I think is good because I need the heat training. Although I want to go back out tonight I probably should hold off until tomorrow just to make sure everything is ok.  Doubles coming soon though. 

The next iteration of ankle recovery running. Since the last two days I've been able to increase my time spent running up to 20 minutes I figured I would just try running for 40 minutes today and see what happened. It went well. Pain only once, and I think that was because my form got sloppy. I walked for a minute and started running again and there was no more pain.  

It was slow but at least it was a consistent run, mostly.

Avg. Pace: 9:22, flat 

So it appears that I'm doing pretty good. I went to PT this morning and the therapist told me not to come back. I'm at 80%+ function on the bad leg, and he usually only keeps people until they have reached 80%. He gave me some exercises and sent me on my way. With that in mind I decided to try a 5 mile run. I wanted to get it in while it was still kind of cool outside. I started at 9:50 and it was already 80 degrees. I also decided, for some reason, to try and run a more hilly course. I hadn't had anything to eat all morning so I took a GU shot and set off.

The course I took is not nearly as hilly as I was running prior to the injury but I felt dead.  The hills were brutal and even the regular, flatter parts didn't feel easy. I'm hoping its a combination of the heat and the lack of proper nutrition. I could have run this in sub 8's back in May or early June. I think some of it is the lack of running over the past few months as well. I've done 16 miles since Friday, which is 16 more than I've done in more than a month and a half. 

The way I figure it, I've got to get myself to the point that I'm running close to 20 on the weekend by the first week of September.  The plan is to get to 6 tomorrow and run that for the rest of the week.  Then next week go to 7, then 8, then 9, and 10 a day by the first week in September.  That's probably pretty lofty, and I might miss the mark a bit, but at least if I'm close I will feel ready to finish 26 by October 6.  

There was no pain in ankle today. 

First attempt at 6 miles. It went pretty well.  My legs were very tired by the time it was over.  It's crazy how much fitness I seem to have lost in the month and a half I had to take off. My average pace for the run was close to 9:20 per mile, which is really slow.  It also didn't really feel good/natural until the last mile or so. Hopefully I can get my stride back soon. 

There were some hills but I'm not sure what the elevation gain was.  I took the lagoon trail on a meandering loop over to Glover's Lane then down the Legacy trail, up to the pond, down the canyon road and back to the start of the Lagoon trail. Not a ton of vert but a little.  

In keeping with yesterday's performance, this one was slow. A bit faster than yesterday but still pretty slow.  9:14 avg pace today instead of 9:20. Hopefully that is a good sign.  Legs still exhausted by the time I finished. 

This run was a bit more difficult.  I started at the junction of state street and 200 east in Farmington and ran up the canyon to the firebreak road. From there I cut back down and took what has become my typical route through lagoon trail, across the frontage road, up to 200 east and back to where I started. There is some vert on this route, probably close to 400 feet (I haven't synced my watch yet to check).  This is some pretty mild vertical gain compared to what I was doing in May.  I hoped that I would be able to get there without it killing me.  It was not easy but it was not as hard as I expected it to be either. I ran all the way to the road and averaged sub 12 for that mile. Legs still pretty sore after the run, but my ankle is fine. 

I ran into Woody Whitlock on Lagoon Trail. For those that are unfamiliar with this guy, he is an 80 year old marathoner who ran more 20 mile races last year than I have run in my entire life. From the time he turned 70 he has run 22 marathons.  Pretty impressive.  And he is a local guy, lives just down the street from me. Its good to see him out there, it gives me hope. 

I wanted to do 12 yesterday but I went hiking with my daughter instead. Family time is important. So I went today and did 10.  I'm glad I stopped at 10, not quite ready for 12 yet. The good news is that I'm not ready for 12 just because I haven't had that many miles recently, not because the injury was acting up. After 10 I was spent, but not any more than I was when I ran 6 on Tuesday. At mile 7 I felt a little tired but mostly fine. So this week I will take it up to 7 a day and see how that goes. My pace was slower than I would like it to be, but not too bad considering. 

Today's 7 was harder than yesterday's 10. I suppose that's because I wasn't fresh today. It may also have had something to do with starting this run up Farmington Canyon to the gate at the bridge. I chose this route because I wanted to get some hill work in and because I realized yesterday that getting to 7 miles would either mean meandering through the neighborhood or tacking on an extra mile some place.  So that some place was up the canyon. To be honest, the canyon part of the run wasn't that bad, it was mile 5.5-7.6 that was tough.  By then I was tired, my legs were tired, and it was getting hot. I got the 7 for the day though, so mission accomplished. 

I decided to do yesterdays loop in reverse today.  I figured that this would give me two advantages.  First, I would be able to warm up on flat ground rather than running up hill.  Second, I would be able to run up the canyon at mile 6, which is pretty close to what happens in the marathon. Turns out I was faster today than yesterday.  The reason for this, I think, is that the downhill mile and a half out of the canyon is the last section of the run so mentally I'm able to take the breaks off and push myself.  When the canyon downhill is the first part of the run, I feel like I need to keep something in the tank for the remaining 5 miles of the run. 

I need to work on cadence a bit on the flat land though.  While its alright if I just finish the marathon in under 4 at this point, I would also like to give myself a shot at beating my PR of 3:38. 

I'm not very fond of Park City. Partially because the people all seem a bit pretentious, but mostly because they don't have any place to poop on the city trails. When I found myself there today at 4:30 for a run i tried to focus on the fact that it was 85 degrees instead of the fact that I was going to inevitably have to poop in plain view of the public eye. 5 miles into the run my focus was very much on the public eye problem. Long story short, don't stop to admire the Olympic statue about a half mile south of the hotel park city until there has been time for biodegradation to run its course.

7 miles @ 10:09 per mile. I think that's an ok pace considering the time it took to find a public monument to deficate by and the fact that it's a couple thousand feet higher than Farmington.

Same course as 2 days ago but 12 seconds a mile faster today. While that is a good sign, the best part is that a good portion of this run didn't feel labored. I'm not sure if it's a result of everything coming together, the altitude run yesterday, the change of shoes today, or a combination of everything but I'm glad it happened. There are a few parts of this course that are decent uphills and that kept me above 9 minute miles today but my first 3 miles were all sub 9, which hasn't happened since my injury, and my last mile out of the canyon even hit a sub 7 for a little bit. 

I forgot why I love Altra Instincts so much but switching back to them today reminded me.  despite the fact that they are heavier than the Kinavara's I have been wearing, my stride feels so much more natural in these shoes. I feel like I'm lighter, even though I am actually a bit heavier. I think I'll make these my regular shoe again for a while and see if I can keep the love affair going.

9:14 avg pace 

14 slowly to finish off the week. I say slowly but it was actually a decent pace in relation to my speed of late. 9:50 average, with some steep canyon climbing in the middle that really slowed me down. I can say with authority that I am not ready for 26 at this point.  The first 9-10 miles felt great but the last 4 were more of a forced effort.  I think if I had brought some GU along it would have been better though.  I was pretty hungry at mile 8 but didn't have anything to eat. Luckily, my 1 20oz water bottle kept me in fluid for the whole 14. 

I'm pretty happy with that elevation profile as well.  It's much harder to get hill running in when you can't go off road and it's good to see an elevation gain over 2,000 feet. All in all, I would say this has been a productive running week.  

This was not a good morning.  To start with, I spent an hour in the bathroom pre-run, which is a long time even for me. When I was finally able to leave I still felt like crap.  I decided I needed to get my miles in anyway so out the door I went.  It took me 5 miles to find my stride and feel good about my run.  The first 5 miles were a mixture of slow jogging due to leg muscle pain from Saturday's effort and stopping to stretch to try and avoid injury.  The last 4 miles felt really good and if I had more time I may have kept going.  Fortunately I didn't because now I'm very tired and barely able to function.  I think I'm coming down with something.  I should probably go home and sleep it off. 

I feel much better today.  All day yesterday I was convinced that I was getting sick.  Then last night, I went with my wife's family to McDonald's and ended up eating about 2,000 calories worth of food and drink.  Suddenly I felt much better.  I knew I hadn't been getting enough calories over the past few days but I didn't realize that it was that bad. I have been so focused on trying to fuel the machine with healthy food that I neglected to fuel the machine completely. According to my heart rate monitor I burned over 2,000 calories on Saturday and I replaced only 2/3 of that throughout the day.  I've just got to resort to eating crap to get my calories I guess.  Unless someone can tell me how to eat enough healthy food to get there? 

I did the same 9 mile route today that I did yesterday. It's pretty flat so after a mile, recognizing that I was feeling alright, I decided to run a 4 mile tempo starting at mile 3.  The goal was to keep my pace under 8:30.  Not a monumental task, but considering my times of late have been closer to 9:30 than 8:30 I thought it was a good place to start. I managed to keep my splits between 8:20 and 8:30, with most of them in the 8:25 range. 

Tomorrow I think I'll give the speed some rest but try and put some more hills into the workout.  See if I can get my climbing legs back a bit.  I'm registered for the Moab trail half marathon in November and I'm thinking maybe I'll start running Centerville peak up to the skyline road a couple of times a week after St. George is over. So, to get ready for that I'll start climbing asphalt here. we'll see how it goes.  

9 with 2 of that up the canyon.  Legs not feeling it today so the whole thing was slow.  Almost 20 minutes slower than yesterday's 9 miles. 

Not very fast today.  I thought I might try and squeeze in another tempo but my legs were not feeling it.  I think the distance is getting to them.  I'm not used to running 9 miles, let alone running 9 miles 4 days in a row.  I think I will stick with this distance next week rather than try and bump my daily miles to 10.  If I can get comfortable with the 9, and can get some more tempos and speed work in, then I will bump to 10 the following week. Maybe. 

Trying to finish the week strong.  I need to figure out how to fit 6 days of running into a week.  I would have broke 60 miles this week had I managed that. Still, I set out this morning with a goal of 16 miles.  But after about 9 I thought it would be a shame not to just push for that extra 2 and get double my daily mileage. I managed 13.1 in 2 hours and 18 in 2:48 so I think I can get 26 in close to 3:30 with a few more weeks of training. It will help that the last 8 or so miles will all be downhill at close to 2500 feet elevation.  I just need to get my legs used to the distance first. I think next week I'll keep to the 9 a day and try to fit 6 days in.  

The first half felt great, second half was more of a mental effort, last 3 more of a physical effort.  

Today was supposed to be an easy 9, just to warm the legs back up.  It started really slowly, but after about 2 miles I was feeling pretty good.  I decided that I should do a bit of a tempo, just see how far I could push a sub 8:30 mile. After keeping my pace below 8:25 for 5 miles I decided I should cool down for the last 2.  Hopefully I feel as good tomorrow when I go for the hills. 

I changed shoes today in an effort to keep my feet fresh. I'm not sure it helped. I used to like these Kinavara's quite a bit but since my injury nothing is as comfortable as my instincts.  Right our the gate today my legs were sore.  It started with a slight soreness that progressed into more soreness as the run went on.  By mile 5 my legs had finally warmed up.  This is something I have experienced in the past with these shoes but I have never had this trouble with the Instincts. I think having a bit of a heel on these shoes makes the canyon decent a bit easier though as I don't have to focus so much on keeping my form perfect. 

Today's run was tedious.  It started slow because my legs were sore and tired.  It never got fast.  It took until mile 5 to finally work all the stiffness out but even at that point I didn't really have it in me to move very fast. As a result, I tried to make this a recovery run.  We'll see how well that worked out tomorrow. 

I noticed a few ankle issues on a couple of turns. I need to baby it a little still.  I hope this is gone by mid October.  

I didn't get out of bed this morning and I had a job interview before lunch so I had to "sneak" my run in between the job interview and going to my current job. As a result, my run was in Salt Lake, so I went up City Creek again. I haven't been up there in a long time. I managed to finish with an average pace of 9:14, which isn't great but is pretty good considering I was at an average pace of 10 when I turned around. Miles 7, 8, & 9 were sub 8 pace, which is obviously partially due to the fact that they were downhill.  Still, there were some even sections that I pushed the pace on trying to keep it below 8. Felt pretty good and I'm glad I got it in. 

I didn't want to do a long run today because I'm planning on going for 20 tomorrow. I did want to get something in though, so I can start teaching my body to run 6 days a week.  The problem with this plan is that if I'm only going a few miles I feel like I should run quickly.  As a result, I did these 4 miles in a average 7:41 pace with my slowest mile being 7:59 and my fastest being 7:23. I hope that doesn't kill my legs for tomorrow.  

Miserable run.

After what felt like a death-march 18 mile run on Saturday I decided to take it easier this week.  I've still got 4 weeks before the marathon, including this one, so if I back it off a bit this week I will still have 3 solid weeks of decent mileage before taper time. So, instead of the 10 I planned on doing this morning, but couldn't talk myself into getting out of bed for, I ran an easy 8 tonight.

I took a route I haven't run yet just because I was bored with the one I had been running.  My regular route is nice because there is a lot of flat straight sections (easy on the ankle) and no traffic because it's all city trails.  Tonight incorporated a bit of the road but it didn't bother me as much as I thought it might. There was one place where a farmer cultivating his hay and causing quite a bit of dust, but other than that it was fine. 

In the spirit of keeping it easy this week I decided not to look at my watch.  Old habits die hard and I peaked twice.  Regardless, I managed to keep the pace comfortable and sustainable.  Avg 9:53.  According to the McMillan calculator I'm supposed to be between 9:09 and 9:50 per mile for recovery jogs (for what that's worth). I was at 9:44 until I finished my jog by running up State Street back to my house.  That slowed me down quite a bit. I may do a Yasso 800 workout in the next couple of weeks and just see where my actual predicted time is at, but that will have to wait a week or two.  

Same idea as yesterday.  Average pace (9:29) was a bit quicker but not because I was trying to make it so. Different route for the first half, which was nice. 

I've been in a funk this week.  Last Saturday's run was so grueling that my motivation was shot. As a result I hardly ran at all this week.  I think part of the problem is calorie deficiency. I can't seem to get enough to eat in a day to keep on top of my calories. This is odd because I'm eating all the time. The other problem is my PF has been acting up.  It started with some mild agitation but then grew into a real issue. I think I agitated it by ramping up my miles too fast after my injury.

I set out today to try and get out of that funk. It started yesterday really, because I ate and drank a lot of calories in an effort to get past the fatigue. Today I opted for a different shoe for my jog, hoping it would make my PF pain go away.  It did.  

I have had these old Asics in my closet for a long time.  They are actually brand new but never used.  They are the typical double the drop from heel to toe type of shoe and feel a bit like jogging with a block of wood strapped to the bottom of my feet.  I couldn't feel the road at all. However, I also couldn't feel my PF and when I was done with my run, 5.58 miles in the morning, it didn't hurt at all either. The Asics are hard on the feet in other ways though.  They always rub funny on the inside of my heel, and the drop makes the mechanics of the whole thing feel very awkward. Nevertheless, I will have to use them off and on for a while I think, in order to keep training while my PF gives me issues.

After that run I decided I wanted to do more.  I felt like my general ambivalence had subsided and my passion had taken back over. I've wanted to do some Yasso 800's for a while, just so I would know where I stand with the Marathon.  I've never really done them so it was a bit of an experiment.  I thought the plan was to run the 800 then rest, while still moving, for the same period of time it took to run the 800.  Turns out I was supposed to be resting by jogging. Oh well, next time. I got 5 x 800 done in an average time of 3:36.  If that holds true, I will be able to run the marathon in 3:36:00, which would be faster than my previous time by 2 minutes.  Not a huge accomplishment but its something. Of course, I'm supposed to ramp the workout up to 10 x 800 and use that average time, so I guess I won't know for a couple more weeks. At any rate, the 3:36 is encouraging, and if I can get back after it maybe I can get that time down even further by race day.  

I should start by apologizing for the length of this post.  After my run today I discovered something I thought was very interesting and wanted to spell it out in detail.  For those not interested in the differences between types of running shoes feel free to stop reading.  For those wondering if you should buy some Altra's, keep reading.   

It's amazing what a difference 3.2 ounces makes. I've owned a pair of Asics GT 2160's for almost a year now but I have never worn them, until yesterday.  My plantar fasciitis (PF) issues made it so that it was getting hard to run.  As I said yesterday, I'm almost certain they were caused by ramping up my miles too fast after my injury. I went from zero miles a week to 50 miles a week pretty quick, and I did almost all of it in my Zero Drop Altra Instincts. In order to remedy the problem I started running in the Asics because the PF issues seemed to go away when I wore these shoes. 

That was yesterday. Today I discovered, or more accurately perhaps rediscovered, why I no longer wear traditional running shoes. Before I went on my run I felt great.  I full of energy and ready to get out there. 30 seconds into my run I felt fatigued and wondered if I would be able to push through the miles I needed. I decided when I finished I would run a comparison of my shoes and see if that had something to do with it. As it turns out, the differences in these shoes are amazing and almost certainly the reason my run was so difficult. 

To begin with lets talk about the weight of my shoes. My Altra Instincts weigh in at 8.8 ounces. My Saucony Kinvara's are 7.7 ounces.  Even my Altra Lone Peak trail shoes and my Saucony Peregrine trail shoes weigh in at 9.9 ounces, and these have a rock reflection plate built in to the sole.  By contrast, the Asics weigh 12 ounces. 12 OUNCES!!!! That is ridiculous! The added weight makes it feel like I'm running with bricks tied to my feet, even though it is only 3.2 ounces. On top of that, the weight makes it harder to maintain proper form and results in pain in places that I have not experienced pain in a long time, like my knees for example. 

I'm convinced that most of the 12 ounces comes from the absurd amount of rubber on the sole.  This, in turn, has another detrimental effect. In my Instincts or even my Kinvara's I feel the road beneath my feet. It's not a painful thing, it's more of a connected thing.  I feel like I'm actually part of the run, like its a dance that requires skill, precision, and some level of involvement.  I feel like I'm interacting with the road rather than just moving over the top of it.  The same is true with my trail shoes when I am on the dirt. But in the Asics I can't feel any of that.  Aside from all zen of running experience, this also has a detrimental effect on my physical well being. Without being able to feel the road I am much less able to control my form.  The inevitable result of running like this is sloppiness which will, in turn, lead to injury. 

Finally, there is the heal-to-toe drop of these shoes. My Instincts have zero, which is what I prefer.  It feels more natural and absent injury I think I could run all day in these shoes. My Kinvara's have a 4 millimeter drop, which is pretty minimal.  My trail running shoes break down the same way, zero for the Lone Peak and 4 mm for the Peregrine's. The Asics, on the other hand, have a 12 mm drop, which is the standard drop for running shoes. This is the reason, or at least one of the reasons, my PF doesn't hurt when I wear these shoes.  There is so much support that my feet are hardly doing anything. But that is also the negative aspect of these shoes. My feet aren't doing anything, which is good while my PF is injured, but will end up hurting my training in the long run should I continue to wear these shoes.

I did the first 5.39 miles today in the Asics with an average pace of 9:15 per mile and total elevation gain of 454 feet.  Almost all of that elevation gain came in the last .3 when I ran up state street to my house. I then switched to my Instincts, because my PF wasn't hurting, and ran up the canyon.  In the first 1.5 miles there is 500 feet of elevation gain and then a pounding downhill run back to the start.  I managed this in 9:55 per mile. So, on a relatively flat course in the Asics I was only 40 seconds a mile faster than in my Instincts running up and down steep hills. The moral of the story, if running is always a grueling task that you have to continually force yourself to slog through, maybe the problem is your shoes. 

Easy pace 6 around the neighborhood. wearing the big 2160's still because they're good on the PF. 

I found out how to fix the PF pain yesterday.  Two words, kinesio tape. I tried it yesterday with the 2160's and my PF's felt great.  So this morning I decided to try the Yasso 800's again with the tape on. I'm very happy to report that my PF feels just fine, even after a hard workout.

I think I might make this a standard part of my workout, even when I switch back to trails.  The speed work feels good and is kind of fun. I managed to get my average 800 time down to 3:25, with the fastest 800 being 3:19 and the slowest 3:55.  I think I could take a bit more off that time too. I may try for a second short 5 mile outing this afternoon. 

8 on the JRP.  Taking it easy so I can push it with some Yasso 800's in the AM.

Yasso 800's on the Bountiful High track. I really like this workout.  It's hard, but at the end I feel so good. And it's fun to see how hard I can push myself. I got my average time down to 3:21 today, 4 seconds per 800 faster than Tuesday. My fastest was 3:16 and my slowest was 3:26, so I was more consistent today than I was on Tuesday as well. It will be interesting to see what I can do next Tuesday when I try again. 

6 easy in the horrible asics. 

I started this with the expectation of doing 10 miles at marathon pace with a mile of warm up and cool down.  At this point, I figured that marathon pace was between 7:40 and 8:00. My first mile was slow but everything felt alright so I took the breaks off. 

I started out too fast.  Maybe that's why the wheels came off at the end. I only made 8 of the 10 miles before I was forced to slow back down.  I didn't get injured or anything, I just had no gas left in the tank. My splits were 7:35, 7:45, 7:44, 7:51, 7:53, 7:40, 7:44, and 7:58.  I had a hard time keeping my pace slow enough for the first few miles, then I had a hard time keeping it fast enough. I decided at mile 6 I should take it easy for a mile and evaluate everything. Make sure I wasn't going to injure myself.  Everything checked out so I sped back up.  The last few miles of the tempo were hard and the very last planned mile didn't happen because I couldn't get myself moving fast enough to stay anywhere near my pace.  

I'm clearly not dialed in at all. Hopefully, this kind of a workout will translate into faster times everywhere though. We'll see.

5 easy around the neighborhood to shake out the legs after yesterdays effort. 

Drove to Bountiful for the Yasso 800 workout and realized I forgot my watch.  After I drove back home to get it I didn't want to go to Bountiful again so I did a speed workout around town.  I did 1 mile warm up, then 3 at tempo pace, then 2 easy and 1 more at tempo.  Tempo splits were 7:33; 7:30; 7:35; 7:44. Average pace for the whole run was 7:55 per mile, which is much faster than it usually is for the Yasso workout.  Maybe I'll switch to this one of the two days a week. 

AM: 7.4 around town.  Pretty flat course.  When this marathon is over I'm going to have to start hitting the hills again. 

PM: 5.2 up City Creek.

Yasso 800's w/ Matt VH. 8x800. I felt tired today. Not as fast. Avg lap pace = 3:29.4

No run today because I felt sick. I probably should have pushed through a few miles. As it stands I watched a documentary on the Appalachian Trail. Now I want to attempt an FKT. The record is 47 days. If a person could get themselves in good enough shape to run 50 miles a day it could be done in 44 days. How does one get in that kind of shape? I'm relatively young so it's possible, right?

I wanted to do 18 today so I could get at least 50 this week.  That might have been a bit ambitious considering I was sick yesterday. I may try to go out for 5 more tonight if time allows. Even for as short as it was this was not as quick as I would have liked. I did 12 last week at an average pace of 8:09, but 13 today at an average pace of 8:34.  Maybe it's because I went later in the day, maybe it's because I was sick yesterday, maybe it's because I planned on doing more until I got tired then just felt defeated.  Whatever it was it needs to go away.  

On the plus side, I found a perfect 13.1 mile loop that I can take in the future.  

I think my problem Saturday was illness.  I did just under 10 this morning at an easy pace and managed 8:38 per mile, just 4 seconds per mile slower than my attempted hard effort on Saturday.  Tomorrow is track day so I guess I'll reserve judgment until I see how that goes. 

9x 800's on the track.  I needed to be home earlier today so I didn't do these the same as I have in the past.  Instead of resting for the same length of time it took me to run the 800 I just rested for one 400 meter lap.  This meant that my rest time was a full minute shorter than it usually is between sets, which in turn meant that my lap times were slower. Still, it's probably a more accurate reflection of my fitness level. 

I managed an average 3:29 lap time, which is about where I was last thursday.  The good news there is that last thursday was probably as slow as it was because I was sick.  I'll try again this thursday and see where I'm at. 

Easy 9 to Centerville and back to rest the legs for tomorrows track day. 

Sick! Thanks wife.

still sick

20 miles around the neighborhood. Last long run before St. George. Farmington, Centerville, Bountiful, Centerville Farmington. I felt good until about mile 13, then I was tired until mile 17, then I felt good again until about mile 19.

I'm hoping the good news here is that, according to the elevation profile, mile 10-20 today was all uphill, albeit very gradual. St. George is uphill early, but then down hill from mile 11 to 26.  I imagine the pounding on the legs isn't going to be pleasant, but I may be able to move faster with an elevation decrease over those last miles.

Plus, the overall elevation drops from 5500 at mile 11 to 2500 at the end of the race, so by mile 17 I will be well below the elevation here in Farmington. That will probably also help.  

The major take away I guess is that I'm not going to break any major records, I'm just hoping for a PR - which would be anything faster than a 3:38:00. 

10 easy around town. 

Slow track day today with MVH. I was going for 6x800 at MP but managed to get 4 before I was spent. I'm done until Saturday I think.

the worst part about not running on a day when I'm not sick and other wise feel good is that I have all this extra energy and no appropriate outlet. The people sitting around me are going to shun me before the day is over.

When I signed up for this race, back in October of last year with the Runners Series, my plan was to try and run it in 3:05:00 so I could qualify for Boston.  In retrospect, I can see that was a pretty ambitious goal.  I have run 3 marathons in my life prior to this one.  Every one of them has been St. George. My fastest time came in 2006 when I ran a 3:38:09. So, essentially I wanted to take 33 minutes off my best time.  This was my A goal. 

 In June I realized that the A goal was out.  I sprained my ankle trail running and couldn't run until the first week of August. 6 weeks of no running meant there was no way I would hit 3:05 for the marathon.  Oh well, time for a plan B.  Plan B was to run a 3:20:00 or better.  I don't have a good reason for this number other than I thought it would demonstrate a greater level of fitness than I demonstrated in 2006. As a backup plan, just in case, I decided I would at least try and PR, if even by a minute. That was plan C.

 For the first time ever since I started running I actually planned what I wanted to accomplish for the splits.  I knew that the first 7 miles was downhill, that it started at an elevation higher than Salt Lake, and that I would need to save my legs for the second half of the race.  With that in mind, I decided to try and run an 8:30 pace for the first half and a 7:50-7:30 pace for the second half.  

I managed to maintain something close to that plan for about 2 miles. By mile 4 I was running much faster than planned. Mile 3 was 7:51 and mile 4 was 7:34.  I tried to correct the pace but it seemed like I wasn't moving.  Consequently, I reached the 10K split in 49:37 (7:59 per mile).  In retrospect, I think this was a substantial part of my undoing.

All the climbing over the next 5 miles resulted in my half split being 1:47:02 (8:10 pace).  By the time I hit the halfway I felt a little tired but I knew the downhill was all that was left. at mile 15 I really took the breaks off and ran a 7:12 mile.  Mile 16 was 7:14. I was cruising but it was taking a toll on my legs.  

At some point I figured that I needed to hit mile 20 in about a 2:40:00 pace in order to finish around 3:20.  Turns out that is just bad math. I actually needed to hit 20 in 2:32 but it didn't matter.  I wasn't going to make 3:20:00 either way.  I hit 20 miles just as the clock hit 2:40 and I was a couple minutes behind the gun at the start.  But at that point I had developed what felt like a pretty large blister on the bottom of the ball of my left foot.  I've never had that happen before.  Each step felt like I was stepping on bubble wrap with the added anxiety of knowing that it would probably hurt more if it popped. By mile 21 my hamstrings, both of them, as well as my quads, were getting very tight. It was all I could do to maintain a 9 minute pace. As a result, mile 22 through 26 were all at least 30 seconds to a minute slower than every mile I had run previously. The last 3 miles were brutal but I managed to keep the pace below 10 minutes.  I got a look at the clock at mile 24 and started to worry that I wouldn't even make my C goal.  That concern pushed me a little harder, but it was all I could do to make myself keep running. At mile 25.2 the clock said I had about 9 minutes to beat 3:38.  It wasn't looking good. I tried to push a little harder and as I crossed the finish line the clock hit 3:38:00.  A lady directly to the left of me collapsed about 2 feet from the finish and had to be carried across the line by her running partner and a paramedic. At least I didn't feel that bad. 

I had forgotten that I was a few minutes behind the clock due to the large number of people at the starting line.  This was a pleasant surprise when I went to the wand tent and had them give me my official time. Turns out all the pushing I did for the first 18-19 miles paid off.  I finished in 3:36:08. That's good enough for a PR by 2:01.

I learned a couple of stratigic things running this race that will be helpful in the future.  

First, stick to your splits.  Had I maintained 8:30 through the first half I think I would have had enough in my legs for the second half.

Second, drink gatorade earlier. I started drinking gatorade at mile 18 when my stomach felt sloshy.  I knew that meant I didn't have enough salt to absorb the water so I switched from water. had I done that at mile 7 or earlier I may have had enough potassium to keep my legs from cramping. 

Third, know what pace you are ready to run.  I don't know if I will pay that much attention to this in the future because, honestly, it was a ton of fun to push myself for the first 18-19, even with the pain over the last 6. But all the same, I think I could have run this at an 8:30 pace and been just fine today instead of limping and sore.

 Finally, I need another month to train.  I really feel like had I not sprained my ankle and had that extra 6 weeks I could have been ready to run a sub 3:20, if not faster.  even just another month I feel like would have made me much faster than I was. 

I think I have to run this again next year.  I really wanted my focus to start shifting to trail races more than anything else, but I feel like I have to beat this marathon.  By beat I mean run a sub 3:00:00 and get into boston. This year I learned that I can definitely do it given the right preparation.  Hopefully next year I will prove it.  

This trail doesn't have a lot of elevation gain so I thought it would be a good one to try the ankle out on.  It went well. 

I wanted to run Saturday and then again on Sunday but I helped my sister move Saturday (which meant I moved my sister while her husband stood by and watched) and I was still sore on Sunday. So today I'm officially back at it. 

I wanted to hit a trail but couldn't bring myself to get out of bed early, so I had to get an after work run in.  The easiest trail to hit was the BST from City Creek.  I took it toward the Avenue Twins but didn't actually ascend them.  I wanted to get at least 9 miles in, and when I got to the base of the twins I was only at 3.5.  So I climbed up to the trail toward black mountain and then headed in that direction.  I've never been up that section of trail before but I liked it. Temp wasn't too hot or too cold and the trail isn't too beat up yet so the run was pretty fun.  

I was amazed that the hills weren't harder than they ended up being.  I haven't run on trails since June but I have increased my weekly mileage.  I guess that has helped because I was able to run up all the hills with the exception of one stop on the steep hill up toward the twins. I think I'm going to mix in trails with my street running so I can keep my mileage high and my speed work up but still get hill training in.  Hopefully that will be a recipe for success.   

Very slow track workout.  This was supposed to be 8x800 but quickly devolved into me just jogging around the track.  I guess that's what happens when you try a early morning run on 5 hours of sleep and less than 12 hours since the last workout. 

I'm going to have a hard time making my mileage this week.  So far I've missed Wednesday and didn't go as far as I should have today. 

The BST east of City Creek is a nice run though.  A little harder today than Monday but still runnable the whole way.  

Same as yesterday. 

10 on the BST from kaysville up to the start of the climb up to chinscraper and back. It started slow and I felt sluggish but by the end I was moving pretty well. I got my pace down to 10:56 per mile from almost 13.  The trail is pretty smooth and the rolling hills keep it interesting.  I might have to make this my morning route for a while. 

I almost came face to face with a dear.  Just south of Adams canyon I heard some noise in the brush that sounded like a log or rock rolling down the hill.  I didn't stop to wait for it to fall on me, which turned out to be a good choice. A few seconds later, a mother and baby dear bounded out of the scrub oak and right across the trail where I was when I first heard the noise. They were moving so fast I doubt they would have been able to change course had I stopped. It was pretty cools to see though.  

Started late tonight.  Despite my best intentions, I've had a hard time getting out the door in the early AM since the marathon. Trail running in the dark just isn't as much fun or as fast as I want it to be. I'm guessing my elevation and my average pace because I forgot to charge my watch battery before I left for work. My run was only 6, instead of 10, because it was getting dark by the time I started and I didn't really want to run the whole thing in the dark. 

 ~11:50  avg pace. The darkness really slows a person down. 

Ever since the marathon I've found it hard to get my run in. I've determined that part of this problem is that I want to run trails but I don't really want to run them in the dark.  This means that I have to wait until daylight, which is when I have to work.  In order to get my mileage in consistently I'm going to have to revert to what I was doing for marathon training and just supplement that with trail runs on the weekend or days that I don't have to work. 

With that in mind, and new shoes on my feet, I set out this morning at 5:40 with the goal of getting 10 miles.  On the road 10 miles is pretty easy and almost nothing should deter me from that goal.  added to the small list of things that will make me cut the run short is large amounts of snowfall. It snowed quite a bit in Farmington this morning.  The good news is that it wasn't snowing very hard when I started my run, and it wasn't snowing at all in centerville. It was dumping buckets of big white flakes by the time I got back to Chase Lane though, so I cut the last 1 1/2 miles off the run so I could get out of the weather.  The cold must have made me move pretty fast too because the I did the whole 8.8 in a 8:21 pace, which is much quicker than I wanted to do it. Hopefully it wont be snowing tomorrow. 

Blah.  missed the morning alarm somehow and had to get the run in during the afternoon.  stomach wasn't really up to it and neither was my energy level.  I didn't get far before I ran out of time and had to head back.  

I have to start getting up in the morning if I'm going to keep my training consistent.  

It was tough, especially on a Saturday, but I dragged myself out of bed this morning so I could get some miles in before my daughters birthday party this afternoon. It's getting cold outside but I think that is making me run faster.  I did this same course multiple times leading up to St. George but I couldn't seem to get my pace much faster than a 9 minute mile.  In the last 3 days I've run this course 2 times and both times my pace was 8:21. And that felt slow. Maybe the key to really getting my pace down is to train through the winter so I run faster? 

 I ran to centerville and back with a quick pit stop at McDonalds to use their bathroom.  It's nice of them to have a heated restroom at the halfway point of this route.   

The plan today was to get up at 5 and get in 8-10 before work. I was stopped by my wife before I got out the door and had to postpone the run. Plan B was to get out this afternoon and hit a trail. I like the BST in City Creek but it's been getting old. I've run it a lot, especially to the east. Because I didn't have enough time to drive someplace interesting I decided to just run the BST to the west, up to Ensign peak. When I got to the place up City Creek Canyon that the trail forks and heads up to the peak I decided I would just keep going up the trail that heads up the canyon.  I have never been on this trail, despite having seen it many times. 

Turns out, the trail is pretty nice.  It's not too steep because it follows the road up the canyon, just about 20-50 feet higher on the hill. Because mountain bikers aren't allowed past the turn, most of it is smooth and some of it is semi flat. This makes it a great trail to get some off road speed work in. Because I was exploring on the trip up the trail, the speed work idea didn't occur to me until I was headed back down. The only downside to this trail is that it isn't very long.  3.3 miles from start to end. It stops at an outhouse a few miles up the canyon.  I was hoping it went all the way to the top.

I decided to try the Lone Peaks again today.  My plantar fascia problem has prevented me from wearing Altra for a while.  The Lone Peaks felt pretty good today though.  I'll have to start breaking them out more for these runs.

Avg Pace:10:01 per mile; Elevation Gain: 734. 

Same route as yesterday. I wanted to see if I could do it faster, now that I no longer need to explore it. I was almost 4 minutes faster today with an average pace of 9:31, down from 10:01 yesterday. My miles going up were still slower than I would like, but only one of them was above a 10 minute mile. Also, I managed to take a minute off my time on both mile 2 & 3 which I think is probably a good sign.  I plan to hit this trail more often so I can get my trail speed legs up to snuff. 

I love this race. It's really more an adventure run than a traditional race. Lots of trail running but also boulder jumping and in wetter years a run through a river. I did this last year and finished in 2:38:??. This year I took 26 minutes off my time. I could have gone faster I think but there are a few places the trail bottlenecks and I ended up standing around waiting for people to move so I could keep going. Next year I'll shoot for 2 hours I guess.

I decided to rest for a week after the half-marathon to give my legs and my plantar fascia a chance to rest.  The hope was a week of doing nothing would allow everything to heal.  It is still sore in the morning and I'm sick of sitting on my but. I'm going to have to go out tomorrow, rain or snow. 

I think I've finally shaken the funk I was in. It seemed like, after the marathon training cycle and then trying to keep some training up for the moab run, I was just spent. On top of that, my foot hurt.  All of this culminated in me not wanting to run anywhere. I decided after the moab half to just take it easy for a week and then see where I was.  At the end of that week I was still not ready to go out. Last night I dreamed I was running on a trail, in a race, and that my time was awesome. Because I've never had a running dream before I took that as a sign it was time to get going again. 

I probably over did it. I decided I wanted to run on dirt, not the road.  I headed up to the firebreak from my house and then down the firebreak to Farmington Canyon. At the canyon I turned up the road and followed it to the end of the pavement. I decided to go up the trial to sunset campground and then back down the road. The trail is pretty nice for not being used much. That is, until you get past the water falls. The upper 1/2 mile or so is snowy and overgrown. But the bottom 1.5 miles is a pretty nice run.

they are apparently going to be opening that canyon back up pretty soon. they had a bunch of heavy equipment on the road and they had clearly been digging out and reinforcing the collapsed section. Sucks that I will soon have to share the canyon with cars again. 

the last 1.5 miles or so were rough.  I wasn't ready for the climb + the distance after 2 weeks off. I wish I could say this was preparation for the Moab 55K but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to make that work.  

4 am wake up for an early morning run up Lake Mountain with Matt VH, Scott W, Jun and Faceless Ghost. The trail/road was a lot steeper than I thought it was going to be. I soon fell to the back of the pack and slowly trotted my way up.  Matt VH would have been far ahead of me if he didn't always need to stop and move product. I was thankful for the company.  The view on top was excellent and the run down wasn't too bad either.   

I can't believe how wrecked I am after Lake Mountain on Tuesday! I also can't believe that I am in that bad of shape after only taking 2 weeks off. I thought I would be able to hang, which I wasn't, and then I thought I would be sore but ok, which was also not really true.  I had a hard time walking all day yesterday and woke up stiff again today.  I decided I should push through the stiffness and just get a few miles in before gorging myself this afternoon. 

A few days ago I contemplated either signing up for the turkey leg 5k in Ftown or just bandit running it. When I woke up this morning it was pretty clear that neither of those would be good options.  I wouldn't be able to go fast enough to make it worth paying for and my hobble jog was going to look pretty silly with the other runners.  So I just did 6 on the road around the neighborhood. Although stiff I started out ok. 8 minute mile for the first mile, but it is slightly downhill. Every mile after that was slower and my last mile was 9:36.

My next scheduled race is a 5K in St. George in January. Part of the runners series. I thought I would be done with the Marathon after this year and start focusing on trails more. After running the race though, I've decided that I have to keep at it until I beat it.  And by beat it I mean at least get a sub 3 hour time.

So, the plan. Hopefully typing out for the world to see will help keep me honest. I need to run 6 days a week and get my weekly milage back up to 50-60 over the next month. Then I need to start mixing in track workouts to get my speed up. I would really like to break 21 minutes in January, something I've never done before. It would be even better if I could break 20 minutes. Hopefully with some consistency I can make that happen soon.