Philippians 4:13

Our last morning in Yellowstone National Park, what a great mini-vacation!  Went to Church at the Madison Junction Ampitheater...now that is the best sanctuary I have ever been in!  Mt. Haynes as the backdrop with the Gibbons and Firehole Rivers forming the Madison with a herd of elk and bison in the background!  Experience God in all His glory!

After getting home and getting the camper taken care of, I went out around 5pm for a good run after a couple of good days off.  6.35M in 43:15 for a nice paced run in very warm temps.  Ran to Community Park for a couple of loops then back home through Tauphaus Park.  Good to get the legs going again. 

4:30am...7.3M in 59 minutes, the second half with Andrea.  Ugh, back to these early morning runs!  (Defyance)

6.75M in 51 minutes easy running with Pat on a warm and windy day.  Just nice and easy with some good conversation.  (Ride 2010)

4:15am...8M very easy in 1:05:30 on a pleasant morning.  Just a normal early morning run.  (Defyance)

4.5M at lunch on a hot day (80 degrees) and very windy (30mph with 40mph gusts) crosswind that made it hard to run in a straight line!  32:11 total time for the run in between meetings.  (Ride 2010)

4:30am...8M through SRL in 1:01:30.  Cooler morning but no wind.  Feeling old today on my 42nd birthday.  (Defyance)

Nice run at lunch today on the desert in great weather.  2.25M easy with my coworker Ron (who is training to run the Provo Half on Aug 7) then after turning around I did a few fartleks to pick up the pace then circle around to check on Ron.  I did 3x3 minutes of high knee pickups then burned home the last 1/4 mile to finish 5 miles in 38:40.  Ron did great and finished 4.65 miles in the same time.  (Ride 2010)

4:15am...6.75 very slow miles this morning.  Stayed up a bit late so I was a little tired so this morning I don't think I really woke up until mile 4!  Did I mention this was a very slow run?  (Defyance)

6.5M in 43:40 on a beautiful day at lunch.  Ran mostly in the 6:45 range but with a few pickup and 6 barefoot strides at the end for 0.3M.  Overall a nice comfortable run.  (Ride 2010)

Anothe good article on Runningtimes.com, this time on proper form:  http://www.runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=20120

4:30am...out the door early for my run so we can get the house ready today for my wife's birthday party.  10M in 1:21 through SRL, down Sunnyside and through the neighborhood a little.  Started slow, ended faster (sub-7:00 pace) so a nice progression once I woke up!  

Busy day but going to have a fun party with good friends, good food, a band in the backyard and lots of BEER!  

Now, that was a party!  Lots of great food, friend's to help roast Kami on her fabulous 40th, floated the keg and drained lots of Hard lemonade and bottles of wine and the band played great music til they couldn't see anymore!  Lots of fun dancing (ok some, many of our participants were bumps on a log and wouldn't dance) to 70's/80's/90's music.  We even had a visit from the IF Police to quiet down (which we had already done at 10pm and the cop recognized it and laughed it off!).  Then up to 1am talking with old friends!

Andrea wouldn't let me sleep in and dragged me to a local half marathon in Ririe Idaho early this morning...4 hours of sleep and copious amounts of beer do NOT enhance race performance, but they didn't drag me down that bad either!

About 60 people in the race, no other fast guy so I knew this was going to be a solo race.  Ran this one last year in 1:15:42 at the end of a 100 mile week, this time at the end of an 85 mile week and big party.  Started at Kelly Canyon then down the hill and on the flats of the farm land to Ririe.   Start the race by fueling first with a PowerBar Gel  then head to the starting line. This race starts very fast, then a climb at 4 miles and flat the rest of the way. 

First 2 miles averaging 4:55 then rolled into a 5:55-6:10 pace for the rest of the run on a cloudy, warmish and pretty windy (at times) day.  I hit the 5K mark in 15:55 and the 10K mark in 34:30 (second 5K includes a good hill and a cobbled dirt road).  Mile 6 was on a cobbly dirt road along the river which slowed me down a bit.   I ran nice and controlled but I tried to push on little sleep and was feeling mostly good through 11 miles at which point I really had to concentrate on form. 

1st overall in 1:16:36 (second place was 1:33!) to finish less than 1 minute slower than last year.  Not bad for jumping into another half marathon at the last minute for an easy win (second in a row this summer) and a good effort.  

It is now time to clean up the house and get the camper ready for our time on the Selway River!