Slowly Getting Faster

The goal tonight was to make sure my "easy" miles stayed easy miles.  I'm not sure why I crashed at the end of the week last week but I'm suspicious that it had something to do with 5 miles at 7:50 pace followed by 10 miles at 8:30 pace followed by me thinking I could do all that and still do another 7 miles at 8:30 the next day.  With my total miles exceeding any previous weeks mileage by at least 4 miles I think I just pushed to hard and ended up killing myself.  So today I tried to keep my easy miles to between 8:40 and 9 minute miles.  I was pretty good. All except 1 of my splits were in the range, and the one outside the range was mostly downhill. I don't feel exhausted tonight but my legs are sore already, which I don't think is a good sign.  If I have to I'll limit my miles this week to match last week, rather than do an extra 4 miles as suggested by the workout plan. 

I started a little sore, which I expected after yesterday.  But it went away pretty quick, which I didn't expect based on yesterday.  I'm starting to notice that after a day off my form isn't as good and I have to work back into it. after I figured it out today I was good. The run felt good. 

I'm getting tired of running at night.  It's cold, people keep trying to hit me with their cars, and tonight it was raining off an on - a fact that only makes the coldness that much worse.  To combat these problems I decided to go to the gym and run on the treadmill.  This solution was not without problems though. To begin with, it's a treadmill and I haven't run on a treadmill for a very long time.  the second major issue is that a treadmill, or at least the treadmills at the gym I go to, will only let me run for 40 minutes before stopping - so distance is out. Finally, the treadmill is, or at least can be, very boring. 

My solution to these problems was to run hard and fast and make sure I get a good workout in if I can't get distance. I decided that the first mile should be slow so I could adapt to the treadmill experience again and after a mile I felt just fine.  So I took my speed up.  It should be noted that the treadmill was always at a 1% incline to account for the friction that is experienced on the road but lacking on a treadmill.  I ran the first mile at 8:57 pace then upped my pace to 7:47.  I held the 7:47 pace for the next 1.5. After that I dropped my pace to 8:20 for a half mile to recover and then sped back up to 7:30 for another 1.3 miles.  At the 4.3 mark I sped up again to an even 7:00 pace and maintained that until I hit 4.8 where I sped up again to 6:48 for the final .2.  The 6:48 was tough to maintain, especially after running the 7:30 and 7:00 pace, so it's a good thing I only had to do that for a short distance.  I found that running the treadmill this way was not only a great workout but that the treadmill was actually pretty fun like this.  I still wish I could go for more distance, but I'll take what I can get I guess. 

Due to the winds, which I heard were somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 mph, I couldn't run today.  Not only was road running virtually impossible but the Gym, along with most of davis county, had it's power knocked out so I couldn't even hit the treadmill.  

 Instead I did 20 minutes on the spin bike in my garage and a bunch of pushups and sit ups. If I'm going to hit 40 this week I'm going to have to put in some serious miles in the next 2 days.  

I opted for the treadmill again today.  It was already 30 degrees outside when I got time to run and it was dark.  In lieu of tripping over fallen tree branches in the dark - the result of the storm - I went to the gym. Because it was a treadmill and because I didn't get my run in yesterday I thought I should push harder than normal. I managed to do 5.1 miles in 40 minutes (7:50 avg pace). Because that is pretty flat running, even at the 1% incline, I then took the treadmill up to a 4% grade and put in another mile and a half.  At the 1 1/2 point I took it up to 5% and at 1.75 I took it up to 6%.  In the end I the machine said I did just under 500 feet vert in 2 miles. 

I feel pretty great after that run and I'm hoping to get some trail time in tomorrow if the snow isn't too deep. Maybe BST from NSL to City Creek or from Farmington to Adams Canyon.  Either way, I need to get in some miles and I would prefer that they were interesting.  

I am done with Cascadias! I haven't ran that many miles in these shoes this year and every time I run in them they hurt my feet.  I bought them because I'm a sucker for what big name ultrarunners endorse, or at least I used to be.  I've found, over the last several months, that footwear is really a personal issue. Like trying to determine whether or not you like the way something tastes. No one can tell you if a pair of shoes is good for you - or no shoes for that matter - it's just something you have to figure out as you go.  That said, Cascadias are not good for me or my feet. I tried on the Altra Lone Peaks yesterday and I liked them a lot.  I also tried on the Hookas for the first time and I liked them a lot as well. They feel like your walking on marshmallows. Whether it's the Hookas or the Lone Peaks I'll be switching trail shoes before I hit the trail again. 

My shoe bitching aside, the trail was pretty fun.  I went up the BST from City Creek to the towers on the top of the mountain.  I thought about taking the trail down into North Salt Lake and coming back but that downhill off the ridge made me think about the uphill I would just have to face latter.  Instead, I decided to turn right at that junction and just head up to the top of the mountain.  The idea was that I would just get the up hill out of the way while my legs were pretty fresh.  In retrospect I'm glad that's how I did it because my legs were tired by the end.  It was 2,229 feet of vertical gain, all of which came in the first 5 miles.

The first 3 miles is all up hill, and some of it is pretty steep. after 3 it mellows out for a while, some rolling hills, then its straight up hill to the tower. The ridge at the top was very windy, and since it's only 35-40 degrees here that meant it was also very cold. My nose and cheeks were frozen until I got off the ridge. I tried to speed up on the way down but my legs (quads) were pretty tired and my shoes were hurting my feet. I wonder what I could do with good shoes on that trial.