8 miles / 8:00 avg. From work. Sunny, 43F. I knew I was running shorter today so I tried to keep the pace up. 

Splits: 9:01, 8:05, 7:50, 7:42, 7:43, 8:01, 7:58, 7:39.

WT 63.2 miles

am - 10 very easy paced miles. From work. Overcast, mid 40's temps.

pm - 5 miles on the BST from Kaysville. Slow going (12:50 avg.pace!) as the trail was a soupy amalgam of soft snow, slush, and mud.

Really nice out with pristinely clear air and warm temps. Everyday as I go about my business driving to work, running, taking out the garbage etc. I usually have a view of Antelope Island from wherever I am. Some days it looks majestic, regal, and peaceful. Other days, like on tonight's run, it looks like an evil jester; mocking my every slow foot strike as I prepare for this nonsense on the 26th...

WT 63.2 miles

5 ugly ones on the LPT. Overcast, 50F. Taking tomorrow off for rest. Hopefully go long on Saturday.

WT 68.2 miles.

24 miles / 10:12 avg. Met some bloggers this morning for a run on Antelope Island. Jun, Dorsimus, Kelli (and Scott), and Brian (non-blog?). As we got started on the run we ran into a guy named Eric, who is on the blog, but not blogging much lately. Jun and crew (some additional runners joined up, but I don't know who they were) took off at a fast pace, so it was nice to start my run off with Eric. We ran up to a weather station (I don't know the names of the trails we were on today), about 3 miles, and that's where Eric turned to go back, I continued south and ended up making an 8.5 mile loop back to the car. I hadn't seen the group yet so I figured I'd run another loop and probably run into them somewhere along the way. About 13 or 14 miles in I found them so I turned around and ran back to the parking lot with the group. Kelli was nice enough to run with me for a bit and it really helped my pace. In fact I ran the second 12 miles of the day 2 minutes faster than the first 12 miles. We spent about 15-20 minutes at the parking lot ( I had 18 miles at this point, the rest of the crew were about a mile ahead of me with 19 miles) before continuing with a six mile loop. Knowing I would be slower, I went the opposite direction and met up with those guys as they came around the other way (good suggestion Jun, thanks). I felt really good at the end. In fact my fastest mile split was the last mile at 8:22. Mile 15 was an 8:29. My slowest mile was a 12:50 for mile 21. I've learned that for me and fueling, less is more, at least in the early stages of a run. I ate two gu's today, one at mile 16 and another around mile 21. For the fifty miler, I'll probably start fueling a little earlier and hopefully avoid emptying the tank. But for today's slow 24 miles, that was all I needed. I finished strong and felt good.

Antelope Island is a GREAT place to run. The trail was relatively soft, even sandy in places, and mostly smooth with some rocky sections thrown in. A great run. Good to meet for the first time Jun, Dorsimus, and Eric. Good to see Kelli and Scott again. Kelli brought some delicious "muffin tops" for after the run, yum, thanks Kelli! I saw Jim Skaggs (Ultrajim) who is directing the Buffalo Run, but I didn't get a chance to meet him. So many runners out today, I'm sure I crossed paths with several others from FRB, but haven't met. Perfect weather conditions; overcast, 50-ish degrees. It was great to run parts of the course for the 50 miler coming up in 3 weeks. The mt101's should work well for the race. Not including the break at mile 18, I ran for a little over 4 hours. A good solid trail run. I'm also pleased to have a long run two weeks in a row. I usually take two or three weeks (or much more) in between long runs.

 WT 60 miles

Easy 8. From work. Mostly cloudy, low 40's. Today's run had RECOVERY written all over it.

WT 60 miles

Top excuses why I'm not running today:

1) It's a brilliantly sunny day, and who wants to run under those conditions.

2) Pretty busy day at work, can't get away because...

3) It's my 14th wedding anniversary so my wife and I are going to have a nice lunch together.

4) My back's been a little tweaked the last couple of days, so a little break might be good.

So there you have it. No run. I've taken a lot of days off this year. But I've been conscious of that and have tried to run bigger days when I do run. Because of this I'm way ahead of my mileage for the same time last year. Still, I'll be trying to work in more consistency as the year continues.

am - 13.1 miles / 8:32 avg. From work. Overcast, mid 40's.

pm - 7 miles / 9:02 avg. Sunset run at the bird refuge with young dog.

WT 57.1 miles

5.5 miles / pretty darn easy pace! From work. Sunny, 60F.

WT 57.6 miles

So this is interesting to me. Last year at this point I had accumulated 491.25 miles, this year 540.5. So I'm 49.25 miles ahead of last year. Also, the first 10 days of March 2010 totaled 85.2 miles, this year I'm blazing ahead with 85.6 miles. Lol!

8.2 miles / Super easy pace. From work. Super nice weather. I just haven't felt human these last two days. Perhaps I'm a dancer.

WT 65.3 miles

pm note: My quantcast number, which usually hovers around 40 people, shot up to over 400 today. Obviously something's messed up. Anyone else ever experience this?

26.2 miles / extremely easy, ultra-trail running pace. Antelope Island. Mostly over cast, temps in the 50's. I wanted to try and get some miles out of my very tired legs. I think I succeeded. I did an 8 mile loop back to my car and drank water, ate some banana, grabbed my hand held water bottle and went out for a second loop, which included the the climb I had missed last week on the switch backs. Once on top I took the single track that heads west (elephant head?) once the trail veered south for a bit I took a couple of minutes soaking in the rare view and utter silence of the west side of the island. This was around 15 miles. Then headed back getting to the car again at just over 22 miles. I was considering calling it a day at that point, but after a few minutes I decided I felt good enough for a few more. Plus it was an opportunity to switch from the rockridges to the mt101 and experience the contrast between the two shoe models. I've determined that the rockridges are the way for me to go for the buffalo run. The 101's are a great minimal shoe, but I can only handle 30 miles in them. I'm just not that efficient of a runner yet. Plus I need to lose another 10 pounds and that would help. Even though this run wasn't quite as far as I was originally hoping to go today, I think it was a good training run because I went into it already very tired, especially my legs. The whole run felt hard today, and that's good. Plus it's three weeks in a row that I got a long run in. I plan to take it very easy the next two weeks before the race. 

WT - 68 miles

10 miles / 8:52 avg. From work. Some sun, 60F.

WT - 70 miles

10 miles / 8:10 avg. From work. Slightly sunny, 39F. Feels good to feel good again.

Splits: 8:30, 8:12, 8:02, 8:14, 8:21, 8:14, 8:16, 8:13, 7:55, 7:45.

WT - 54.4 miles

12 miles / very easy pace. From house. Not one of those joyous runs.

WT - 32 miles

Easy 8 / From work. Overcast, 50F.

WT -  40 miles

Tapering. Wondering what I was thinking when I registered for this race. :-)

8.2 miles / easy. From work. Sunny, a little wind out of the south, 49F.

WT 38.2

3 hours of sleep last night. Weather going to crap. I can feel myself waffling already...

I don't know my official time yet, I think it was 10:10:something. Met my goals for my first 50 miler: 1) I finished, and 2) I finished between 10 and 12 hours. Thankfully it was closer to 10 hours. I won't bore you with the minutiae, suffice it to say my prowess for slowness continues to degrade me. But I'm not at all disappointed with the day. I got a good long run in, which will benefit my overall training, and I made a goal and saw it through. I also had a lot of fun. Chatted with Jun and Kelli before the start, and saw Dorsimus on the course as he was running his 50k, met Lily for the first time, she was volunteering at the white bay aid station, and of course got to see Ultrajim do his thing. He puts on a great race!

About a 1/4 mile from the finish Kelli cheered me on, which was a nice boost. Then in the distance I saw (and heard) Lysa (on the blog) and her husband Scott, and of all people, my wife, all cheering me in! It was an awesome surprise and it really put a nice finishing touch to my day to have them there. Thank you so much Lysa - and thanks for the thoughtful gift, of which I am currently imbibing at this very moment. :-)

I keep a paper log at home of my running, and it was really weird to log the number "50" for the miles...

WT 66.2 miles

I forgot to mention at the finish I threw in a little heel click, in honor of Nevels. Thanks for the inspiration bro.

Next day edit: okay, maybe just a little minutiae...

I started cramping up pretty badly about half way through. My knees and ITB, on both sides but mostly my right leg. I briefly entertained the idea of a DNF at this point because I knew that this would be painful for the remaining 25 miles. But I've had experience running long with this pain before, and decided to just keep plugging along. A DNF was never a question after that.

I ended up running with a girl for the first 33 miles, to the Ranch aid station. It was awesome, kind of like having a pacer. She really helped me get through the first 20 miles back to White Bay, then we swapped pacing duties out to the Ranch. She was having some stomach issues about mile 28. I got to the ranch just ahead of her, ate some noodles and pbj and was ready to leave when she got in. She had great family support along the way, and she was picking up a pacer at this aid station, so I chose to continue on without her. Turns out her stomach issues became severe and she was vomiting and dropped out. I had no idea until I ran into one of her friends at the finish.

I had just one drop bag, at Lower Fraery (?). Fortunately, my pacer buddy let me drop my hat and gloves in her bag at elephant head after we got through the split rock loop. As we ran past the parking lot after leaving white bay (mile 20 ish), I ran over to my car and dropped my jacket. I was thankful for that jacket in the cold windy run through split rock. At lower fraery, I changed from my sweaty black long sleeve shirt to a dry white long sleeve shirt. I also exchanged my eyeglasses for a pair of sunglasses. By the time I got back to fraery it was cloudy again so I changed back to my eyeglasses.

I didn't bring my headlamp. I figured it would be light in less than an hour after the start, so I just had to make sure and not get separated from people on the climb up to elephant head. Fortunately it was plenty light by the time I got there for the out and back section.

I didn't carry any gu's with me. After a couple of hours I realized I hadn't eaten anything yet. My pacer pal gave me a roctane which helped a lot. At elephant head on the way back, I had some pbj and took a couple of gu's with me for later. Throughout the day I ate 4 gu's, 7 or so "quarters" of pbj, a cup of ramen, a couple of banana halfs, a chocolate chip cookie, one potato chip, and a boiled potato. I really liked the pbj's, great running food. I drank a whole bunch of water throughout the day, and a couple of bottle fulls of whatever the drink was they had at the aid stations. I also mixed in a couple of emergen-c's throughout the day.

I'm not pleased with how my legs performed. I think it slowed me down significantly over the 50 miles. However, I'm really pleased that I had no breathing - lung issues, and my energy level was pretty high throughout the day. The last ten miles were extremely slow as I stopped several times to try and stretch, and took many walking breaks.

I got as close as I ever want to get to a buffalo around mile 46 right before the last aid station. There was a herd of 5 crossing the running path. I ended up walking calmly and slowly between them, two on my right and three on my left. One of the buffalo on my right stopped and took note of me, turning my direction and snorting a couple of times. I'm not familiar enough with buffalo to know if this was some kind of a challenge/warning, or if it was just trying to encourage me on my effort to finish the race. Either way, I was glad to get beyond them.

More fun facts: my fastest mile was mile 10 @ 9:18, my slowest was mile 28 @ 16:43 (lower fraery aid/drop bag stuff).

My garmin still has two bars on the batter life indicator, so there's still 2 - 3 hrs of battery life after over 10 hours for the race. This garmin is 2 1/2 years old. I take great pride in the fact that I read the owners manual when I bought this watch, and have followed the battery recharging instructions as written.

4.5 miles / easy. From work. Post 50 miler test run. Aside from some general fatigue, a weak left quad and right achilles (chronic), I felt good.

WT 62.7 miles

Day off. Surfing a wave of fatigue today.

PM edit:

The Treadmill Avoidance Project (TAP) has been a rousing success. Even though there will still be days of inclement weather before Summer, I feel confident in my ability to avoid the TM. For the record, I did not set foot on the TM once throughout the Winter. As a result, my TM at home has become a repository of all ambiguous and misplaced household items, whose future use is indeterminate, in addition to being a "safe place" for the cats to hang out.

8.6 miles / easy pace (that didn't actually feel all that easy). Sunny, 55F, a welcome cooling wind out of the West (10-ish mph).

WT 63.1 miles