A Lean and Hungry Look

H-Rock run with Maja.  Gorgeous view, as usual, but the 21st South hill never gets any easier.

Pace: 7:31

AHR: 152 bpm.

We stayed at my parents' place (in Murray) last night for a movie night and sleepover for the kids, so I got up early and ran to my house, let Maja out, then ran back to Murray.  I tried a new fuel source out on this run--Generation UCAN (16 oz before the run, nothing but water during the run)--and it seemed to do a pretty good job of maintaining steady energy.  I'll have to try it a few more times to make sure it works, but it seems promising if I can avoid using gels.

Pace: 7:14

AHR: 150

Easy effort with Brooke around U campus.  Happy 4th!

Our July 4th was jam-packed and I didn't get to bed until 12:30.  I woke up feeling like I'd been run over by a truck, so I skipped today's workout and went to bed early in hopes of being able to do my speed work tomorrow.

Quarter-mile repeats at Liberty Park.  1.5-mile warmup in the Vibrams on the woodchip path, followed by some strides in the DS Trainers, then did 9 intervals with 75 sec active recovery between each.  Splits were as follows:

1: 74 sec (4:58/mi) (AHR 159/MHR 172)

2: 78 sec (5:12/mi) (172/178)

3: 75 sec (5:01/mi) (163/178)

4: 76 sec (5:04/mi) (173/180)

5: 79 sec (5:18/mi) (174/182)

6: 79 sec (5:18/mi) (173/180)

7: 75 sec (5:01/mi) (171/181)

8: 77 sec (5:07/mi) (174/181)

9: 79 sec (5:19/mi) (174/182)

1.5-mile cooldown in Vibrams.

Easy 8 at Bear Lake.  I actually felt like crap for the first 4 but worked out whatever was slowing me down and finished pretty strong.

Long hill repeats at Bear Lake.  2-mile warmup, then did 8 repeats of a 1/4-mile modest hill, jogging down between each.  Pace ranged between 5:15 and 5:30 on the repeats.  2-mile cooldown.

Still at Bear Lake.  I ran to the north shore and along the flat road to the turnaround point, then headed back.  At the 11-mile marker, I picked up the pace and finished with a 5:54.

After a crazy weekend, I woke up feeling like I had a non-alcoholic hangover and missed my run.  I was grumpy all day as a result.

Nice and easy jaunt around Highland Park loop (8 miles), then dropped Maja off at home and did my 4-mile loop across the U campus to finish up.  I slept on the couch last night after falling asleep during a movie, and my back is killing me.  It's the same spot (where my back and pelvis meet on the lower left side) that has bothered me over the past month or so.  I need to spend more quality time with the Miracle Ball and stretch my hamstrings throughout the day.

Variation of my U campus loop today--I went down past the East track, then north along 13th East to 300 South, then up to University Street, then through President's Circle and over to North Campus Drive, then up to Wasatch, through the med school campus and Research Park.  The distance was coming up a little short, so I turned right instead of left on Chipeta and took Foothill down to the 21st East light, where I re-entered the neighborhood and headed home.

Maja was dragging from Mile 1 today--I don't know what was going on.  It kept the pace very slow, though (7:46 avg).  Fortunately, my lower back pain was much less than yesterday.

As my alarm went off this morning, I realized that I haven't done any marathon pace work yet in this training cycle.  With that in mind, I decided to scrap my plan to do mile repeats this morning and just go out for an easy 10 so that I'll be fresh for some MP work in the second half of Saturday's 22-miler.

I left the dog home today because she felt like a millstone around my waist yesterday after about mile 1.  I'll have Jacob (my 12 YO) take her out for a short run today so she doesn't get too depressed.

Easy effort around Sugarhouse Park loop.  Avg pace was 7:28 (my first mile seems to be very slow lately--I must be getting old).

Plan was to run up Emigration and over the top of Little Mountain until I hit 11 miles, then to work in 8 miles of MP once I got back to the top of Little Mountain and started descending the canyon.  The effort was pretty relaxed on the way up.  As planned, I started my MP effort at mile 13.  I felt fine for the first two miles, but the pace felt much slower than the effort, which is never a good sign.  Split looked like this:

Mile 14:  5:43 AHR 164 MHR 169

Mile 15: 5:48 (168/172)

Mile 16: 5:58 (167/174)

Mile 17: 6:01 (168/172)

Miile 18: 6:32 (166/172)

Mile 19: 6:48 (156/162) (I had popped by this point and was just trying to get home)

Mile 20: 6:14 (162/167)

Mile 21: 6:38 (159/168)

I'm not sure what the problem was, but I have a few ideas:

1. I ate a lot of junk during the week, including Little Caesar's pizza and cake and ice cream last night (for Eli's 3rd birthday).

2. I didn't drink enough water (I only had two Amphipod flasks).

3. I didn't start fueling early enough (I brought one EFS flask--400 calories--but didn't take anything until mile 13, then again at about mile 16, and it didn't sit well).

4. I haven't done enough MP work.

5. I haven't done enough MP work during long runs.

6. I haven't done enough downhill work (I've consciously tried to do more of my speedwork on flat and rolling surfaces to avoid the cheating effect of having fast but aided interval times).

In any event, I know I have a long way to go before I'm ready for St. George, and I know a lot of things I need to work on and do differently in the weeks to come.

Easy effort with Maja on U campus.  My quads were screaming at me for the first couple of miles after Saturday's long run (which was promptly followed by a 5-hour drive to Idaho) and I felt lousy until about 3.5.  Fortunately, the last 1.5 felt back to normal.  I have Youth Conference tomorrow through Thursday, so that should be interesting.  Good thing this is a step-back week on my mileage.

Missed my run because I was up late getting ready for Youth Conference and had to be ready to go by 7.

In the mountains between Vernal and Flaming Gorge for Youth Conference.  I ran with Jake and Alli Thompson to the top of the nearest peak.  We climbed from 8800 to 10200 over 4.5 miles.  Spectacular views, lung-searing climbs.  What a way to start the day!

Still in the mountains.  I hesitate to call the effort easy, because it was at nearly 9000 feet and involved some fairly sturdy climbing at a pretty strong pace, but it wasn't exactly race pace.  I must not have paid enough attention on the way out, because I thought the route was nearly flat.  I learned otherwise in a very painful way almost the entire distance back.

Missed my run again because I had to be in the office by 6 a.m. to start making up for lost time while I was at Youth Conference.

Slept in a bit and got punished for my sloth by the heat.  I took Maja for the first 8 miles and dropped her off, then finished the last 4 without her.  Other than 3 potty stops in the first 3 miles (a new record--fortunately I came prepared with a sufficient number of doggie bags), she held up pretty well.

Happy July 25th.  After being gone 3 days last week and planning to be gone on Friday of this week, I had to work today.  After getting up at 7 to put up flags around the neighborhood, I headed in to the office.  To make it feel less like I was working on a holiday, I took off at lunch and ran up City Creek.  I passed 5 cyclists and 3 runners (it can't feel good to get passed on a bike by someone on foot, even if it is uphill).  Fortunately, it was overcast and not too oppressively hot.

Had to get in to the office early (two closings next week to prepare for), so I had to skip my run.  Work is overrated.

After missing my past several speed sessions for one reason or another, I was pretty anxious about this one, and I woke up at 4:30 (my alarm was set for 5:00) and never really settled down.  The plan was 8x1-mile repeats with 5 min active recovery between each. I decided to do them in Emigration again, alternating between uphill and downhill intervals.  After the customary warmup of a little under 2 miles, I started the pain and suffering in the dark.  Splits were as follows:

1: UP 6:31 (AHR 170/MHR 178)

2: DOWN 5:22 (167/176)

3: UP 6:33 (176/180)

4: DOWN 5:26 (172/176)

5: UP 6:32 (175/178)

6: DOWN 5:26 (169/175)

7: UP 6:35 (173/179) (passed two cyclists)

8: DOWN 5:12 (171/176)

Cooled down back to the house.  I felt pretty worn out by the end and probably should have come prepared with some fuel and hydration.  Nevertheless, I was pretty pleased when I uploaded the data from my Garmin and saw how consistent the splits were.  My climbing speed continues to leave something to be desired, but it stayed consistent throughout the workout, so I'm happy about that.  I probably could have pushed the pace a little more on the downhill segments, but I didn't want to blow up.

I think I've recommitted to this a few times before on the blog, but with just over two months to go before SG, I'm going to try to limit my sugar intake and focus on eating more healthy foods and cutting out junk wherever possible.  Even if I don't lose any more weight, I want to hit the starting line knowing that I've fueled properly and shown some discipline for a sufficient amount of time to feel confident that I've respected the distance and given myself the best opportunity possible to run a solid race.

Easy effort with Maja around Highland Park loop.  It felt short after yesterday's interval session.

Because I'm headed out of town for a quick overnighter after lunch, I decided to do my long run this morning.  The plan was to do 24, but for some reason my alarm didn't go off at 4:45 and I didn't wake up until 6:00.  I couldn't justify getting to the office much later than 9:00 or 9:30, so I cut the distance short.

I ran up Emigration over the top and down one mile, then turned around.  Back at the top of Little Mountain, I took one more Shot Blok (I had taken 2 between miles 7-8) and used the restroom. I wasn't sure whether I felt up to MP work on the downhill, so I decided to ease into a little faster pace and see how it felt.  Fortunately, it felt easy and relaxed as I transitioned to higher turnover in the first mile, so I kept it up, with a goal of doing 8 at roughly MP, then using the final mile as cooldown.  Splits looked like this:

Mile 12: 6:08 (AHR 154/MHR 168)

Mile 13: 5:41 (161/165)

Mile 14: 5:51 (166/171)

Mile 15: 5:55 (165/170) [felt myself starting to slow, so I consciously worked harder in the following mile]

Mile 16: 5:47 (171/175)

Mile 17: 5:50 (174/178)

Mile 18: 5:54 (174/177)

Mile 19: 5:56 (176/181)

Cooldown mile was 6:56.

Given that my first attempt to work in MP two weeks during a long run failed (I only lasted 4 miles and popped) and the fact that I did a big workout on Wednesday, I consider this morning's effort a success.  A few things to note:

1. I didn't use the Generation UCAN product before the run.  Not sure I like it or buy into its claims of providing sustained energy for two hours if you take it 30 min before a run.  Maybe it's worth trying as a mid-workout fuel source.

2. I bought two 10.5-oz bottles for the Amphipod belt and filled them with Camelbak's imitation of the Nuun tablet mixture.  I also took 2 8-oz bottles with water.  Didn't start taking the Camelback stuff until mile 12, but I only had 6-8 oz left by the time I finished.  When I did my 22-miler, I only had the 2 8-oz bottles, and I may have been a little dehydrated.

3. Love the Shot Bloks for the texture, flavor (Cran-Raspberry today), and digestibility, but  they are too hard to open and eat on the run (and I took them on the easy portion of the run--can't imagine being able to chew them and breathe while running at MP).  Still need to find a fuel source that works as well for me as Enervitene did (before it got taken off the U.S. market).  EFS was terrible and I still hate all forms of gel.

4. Nearly two hours post-run, I feel surprisingly good.  Fortunately, Brooke had replenished the Ovaltine supply at home, so I was able to refuel quickly with a tall glass.  Chocolate milk is the bomb.com for recovery.

5. I need more MP work in my long runs.  The mental training required to sustain a hard effort for a long period of time strikes me as being just as important as the physical aspect.  I felt a little mentally weak at times today, so I need to work on that over the next 4-6 weeks.

6. I know it's cheating, but I weighed myself before getting into the shower (without having eaten anything).  Thanks to water loss, I tipped the scales at 151.2.  It doesn't count, but it did help me feel like my sub-150 goal may still be achievable.