AM - 9.1 miles, from the house to LPT out and back. Post rain, overcast, some light drizzle, 46F, light winds, some sun peeking through...very nice conditions for a run.

PM - 4 miles with the dogs on the hilly fire break road (or, Bonneville Shoreline Trail). Mostly cloudy, 60 + degrees. Just a real easy, mellow jog with lots of stops for the dogs at creeks, and for ATV's.

Well I waited until after work to run in hopes the rain would stop. When I started the run it was overcast with intermitent light rain. I could see little patches of blue in the western sky. Most of the second half of the run was in the sun, and 56 degrees temp.

I was relieved to find that my legs were recovered, they've been stiff and heavy for the last three days, but today they felt great. This is my second 70 mile week in a row/in my life actually. I'm pleased that I held up without anything breaking. It was touch and go for a couple of days there though. I think what really helped is that I've been sleeping really well, 7 or 8 hours a night. I still get woken up once or twice to let animals outside, but I always fall immediately back into a deep sleep. It's been years since I slept like this. Apparently, adaptation puts me to sleep. Another thing that made the increase in miles possible was that I ran most of those miles much slower than my usual pace.

Cutting back a bit over the next two weeks to make room for the Ogden Half on the 16th.

 

 

1:00 PM. Bluff trail. Mostly cloudy, 58F, light winds.

Eh...feeling unmotivated today. This too shall pass.

1:12:58/8:35

5:25 AM. Overcast, 56F. From house to LPT out and back.

"When life hands you insomnia, make lemona...er, I mean, get up and go run."

Early lunch run on the Bluff trail. Sunny, 67F, SW wind 13-ish mph.

I'm ready for some taper time.

1:09:05/8:38

Late lunch run. Fire break rd. Lots of hills, sun, and cooling breezes.

Most likely not running today. Swamped at work. Burned out. Brain's fried. Excuses, excuses. I got a million of 'em.

Hopefully get a good medium long workout done tommorrow AM.

5:40 AM. Clear, 40F, wind free. Fairground/Glovers Lane loop.

First run in a couple of weeks that felt good. I guess my cut back on the mileage this week helped. Since I'm not very experienced with this kind of training, I was feeling down all week because it seemed like I was never going to feel good running again. I guess the higher mileage weeks just really wore me down and hopefully with another easy week I'll be feeling super come race day. If todays run is any indication, I should be able to reach my time goal for the half next Saturday!

1:52:56/8:37

3 PM. Clear, 67F, light wind out of the NW. Short run on the LPT.

Wasn't going to run today but needed to burn off some steam.

4 mile tempo run at my 2010 goal marathon pace.

0 miles - warmup

Tempo:  7:42, 7:34, 7:54 (had to do a 180 to head back), 7:40.

0 miles - cooldown.

30:50/7:43

Late lunch on the Bluff trail. High thin clouds, 70F, light breeze.

This was one of those runs that couldn't end soon enough. Gotta take the good with the bad.

5:30 AM. Clear, 56F. From the house to LPT out and back.

Just trying to rest up and stay injury free for Saturday.

Lunch. Easy six on the Bluff Trail. Sunny, 50F, wind NWN 8 or so mph.

Took 5 miles to warm up.

Lunch. Hill work on the fire break road. Breezes kept me cool.

My next workout will be a big group run on Saturday...in Ogden...I'm planning a 13.1 mile tempo...

...GULP...

My alarm went off at 3:00 AM. I got about 4 hours of broken sleep but I felt fine because it was race day and I had no choice but to get moving. NOW I'm tired! Anyway, met my sis in law at her house and she drove us to Ogden. This was her first half and she did really good. I left her at about the halfway point and she maintained the pace we had been running the whole way through. Her time was 1:52:30-ish.  The busses got us to the starting line with more than an hour and a half till starting time. I think next time I'll bring a throw away camp chair so I can take a nap while waiting. What a beautiful morning in Eden! I think that's the town where the race started.

My time of 1:48:41 is based on my Garmin, which showed a distance of 13.2 miles. I'll post my official/chip time when it becomes available.

Mile 1 - 8:54 -  Pretty slow, but I wanted to be extra cautious, and this is where the only real hill is, and the first mile was my warm up. I started in about the right place because I just slowly passed people, pretty much throughout the race.

Mile 2 - 8:37 - getting warmer. I shed my winter hat at this point.

Mile 3 - 8:18 - This is about what I needed to average for the run to reach my goal of breaking 1:50 for the half, so I knew I needed to make up some time. No big deal, I had 10 miles left to make it up.

Mile 4 - 8:19 - Shed the gloves at this point. I think we entered the canyon somewhere in this mile. So far so good.

Mile 5 - 7:58 - Yep, we're in the canyon now, good downhill action, and a friendly tailwind to boot.

Mile 6 - 8:21 - I am being extra cautious in this race. I have a fear of going out too fast and blowing up at the end. I just want to make my goal and feel good throughout the entire run. So far, I've not forced my pace at all and am just kind of rolling down the hill. I had been running with sis in law up until this point. I felt pretty comfortable and starting thinking about the time I still needed to make up to reach my goal so I picked it up a little.

Mile 7 - 7:53 - Gravity assist.

Mile 8 - 8:00 - I like mile 8 because that leaves only 5 miles and it's easy to wrap my feeble little mind around that.

Mile 9 - 8:04 - Just comfortably moving along. Leap frogging with the same 4 or 5 runners at this point.

Mile 10 - 8:03 - Passing some runners now. I do feel a little worked as this is the fastest 10 miler I've ever done at 1:22:27. No worries, I've got some mileage base to lean on. In the past this wasn't the case, I'd be running slower and would be derailing by now.

Mile 11 - 8:04 - Such a beautiful canyon and morning!

Mile 12 - 8:22 - Gee, do you think we're out of the canyon and running on the flat part of the course now? How could you tell? I kind of enjoyed this section on the parkway, it was a nice change, and I could hear the crowds in town at this point.

Mile 13 - 8:16 - Even though the race was almost done, I didn't push too hard. I knew I had my goal and was just trying to stay even and soak in the crowd atmosphere a little.

.2 Mile - 1:33 (7:42 pace) - a little kick right at the finish.

What a great course and well organized event. I can see why it sold out so quick this year.

Well. I have to say that I'm not a fast runner, but this really is a great improvement over my "past" running life. Fast running blog has made a huge difference in the way I currently train and think about running in general. THANKS FAST RUNNING BLOG! Thanks to all of you readers and bloggers.

Now with the half behind me, I'm looking forward to training for the TOU Marathon this Fall.

Complete and utter rest today. (Except for the mowing of the lawn, the washing of the dishes and the shopping of the food). 

I loved reading the race reports from yesterday. Runners are a special breed...

Early lunch run. Not early enough. I don't know what the temp was when I started, but it was 84 degrees when I got back.

I was going to run this morning but got woken up several times throughout the night. At 3:00 AM I was listening to the sound of a dog urinating on the wood floor in the kitchen...so I had to get up and clean that up. It's been a while since I last had to clean up dog urine in the house, I've really missed it.

Hot lunch on the Bluff trail, 84 or so degrees, good times. Easy(easy,easy,easy) 8 miles. Another 5:30 alarm slept through.

6:00 AM -  9 miles from the house to LPT out and back. Cloudy, light, 65F, some light rain for a bit.

My legs have been tired all week, today was no exception.

1:00 PM - 5 easy one mile loops on the boardwalk at the nature preserve. Sunny, 71 degrees and 10 mph breezes to cool me down. It's funny how in the winter even a 1 mph headwind will make me angry, but when it's hot outside almost any wind is a relief.

Like an old car in need of a tune up, with an 1/8th tank of sediment, rolling on square wheels.

Got out for an early lunch (10:30 AM) on the Bluff trail. Sun, 75F, light breeze.

Comparing todays run to yesterdays is like night and day; yesterday being nightmarish, today being all day-glo and happiness.

Got my 50 miles this week so I'm going to take a much needed day off tommorrow, which means only 5 days running this week (I took Sunday off also),  so I can rest, and so I can get back on my Sunday through Friday running schedule for the Summer.

10:00 AM. Faiground/Glovers lane loop. Rain soaked run.

Felt best since last Saturday's half...phew!

Ran at 11:00 AM on the legacy park trailway. Mostly sunny, 68 degrees, light breeze, and a whole lotta people, the most I've ever seen on the parkway trail. Mostly bikers, maybe a half a dozen runners. I'm sure the smart runners got out early this morning before it warmed up.

Was finally able to run at my normal pace again. After 5 miles I did 10x1 minute w/1 min.easy @7:15-7:45 pace. During the easy minutes though I slowed down so much that my average pace for the run wasn't enhanced by the effort. Still good to move the legs a little faster, get the heart beating a little harder.

6:00 AM. Clear, 55 degrees, breezy. 11 miles from the house to LPT out, came back on the cattle road. Such a nice morning outside! Ran easy pace.

If the fates allow, I'll run a short one later...

Thanks, Fates. Got out around 2:00 PM. Mostly sunny, 79 degrees, windy, and a little thunder where the clouds were bunching up against the mountains to the East. 5.5 miles at an 8:50 pace doing one mile loops on the boardwalk at the nature preserve.

Momma told me there'd be days like this...

Two eights don't make a wrong.

7:00 AM. Clear 65F. From house to LPT out and back. 

10 miles slow and easy, on tired, heavy legs.

Working, mowing, cooking, eating, sleeping.

5:47 AM. Clear, 64 degrees, 67% humidity, no wind really. Fairground/Glovers Lane/LPT loop.

Moving slow this morning. Maybe I can blame it on the fact that I got eight hours of sleep over the last 2 nights combined...yeah, that's it.