dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

I kept the mileage lower today, in part because I want to keep the weeks mileage lower in order to do well at the autumn classic this Saturday, and also to make sure that my leg is fine after it was feeling kind of odd yesterday.  The leg felt great during the entire run, as well as afterwards, and I hope that I might not need to worry about it so much any more.  Anyhow, I started off fast today.  For some reason I just took off, and I went through 1 mile in 6:53.  I followed this up with a 6:10 mile and then a half mile in 2:53.  I didn't feel like I was pushing it at all, but when I turned around at 2.5 miles I decided to make an effort to slow down.  I then hit about 6:30 pace for the next while, before speeding up again with about a half mile to go to finish 5 miles in 32:07.  I then went out for 3 miles with Kimia on the bike, and finally slowed down a bit more to finish 8 miles with a total time of 56:04.

I ran with Sasha this morning and we did a tempo of sorts. We started by going out at 6:00 pace for a quarter, followed by a faster quarter. We then slowed down to 6:00 pace again for another quarter, with another fast quarter following. We did this for the whole 5 mile tempo. The only "slow" quarter that we got off of 6:00 pace by more than 1 second was at the turn-around halfway through and we did that quarter in 1:34. Our splits for the fast quarters are:

1:15, 1:15, 1:14, 1:16, 1:14, 1:17, 1:16, 1:17, 1:18, 1:15.

Sasha asked me to back off the pace a little during the second half, as he could no longer hold 5:00 pace, which explains the slowdown during the second half. During the last quarter I told him to slap my hand, and he made a big effort to catch me in order to do it. He then faded slightly over the last 150m as he used everything trying to catch up. I finished in 27:40 (5:32 per mile), with Sasha at 27:41. The early quarters actually felt easy to me, however the finishing quarters did not. I probably could have held 5:00 pace on the fast quarters over the second half of the tempo if I was not pacing Sasha, but I would have had to work a lot harder for it than at the beginning.  Finished 10.5 miles with a total time of 1:10:40

PM: I ran with the Springville Cross Country team again.  I ran part of a hill workout with them as well as their warm-up and cool-down.  I ended up getting in about 4 more miles.  The guys all started out really fast on their first repeat, and all but one of them faded pretty badly by the time the fifth and last repeat had been completed.  Not by coincidence, the one guy who did not fade is the fastest runner on the team.

Now that I am done with everything for today I have to say that today was one of the most tiring days I have ever had.

I ran this morning with Sasha and Josse for a few miles and then headed back early. Even though I got up at 4:45am to run, I didn't have time to get in more miles because I had to get over to Springville Junior High, where I am doing my student teaching. So, I just ran 7 miles before heading home so that I could eat breakfast and then leave. I had to bike to the Junior High because I don't have a car to use every day, and by the time I got to the school I was beat.  For some reason biking takes a lot more out of me than running does.  Maybe I just push myself harder.  Added on top of this is the fact that I didn't get much sleep despite getting to bed by 10:15 last night.  After school let out I biked over to Springville High so that I could run with their Cross Country team, after which I biked back home.

All in all, I ended up with 7 miles running this morning in 56:49, as well as 4 miles this afternoon in just under 30 minutes.  I also had about 18 miles biking when it is all added up.  In the past I have never counted biking miles towards my total mileage, as I have never biked more than a few miles a day.  My original plan was to not count them this time around either, however I have now decided that biking miles count.  I am tired.  I will add an extra 6 miles for the day for the 18 miles biking.

I ran 5.25 miles with the Cross Country team this afternoon in 39:44.  After this I came home and ran 2 more miles while Kimia rode the bike with me.

I only ran 3 miles with the Springville Cross Country team today as a taper for the race tomorrow.  Nothing spectacular.

I am not too happy with the race today.  I was wanting to place in the top 10 overall and hopefully in the top 5.  I didn't start off any harder than I normally do, and I was in a good position through about 1.5 miles and then the wheels just fell off the bus and I faded pretty bad.  I still only finished 36 seconds out of 10th place, but there were a lot of people that I have beaten before that beat me soundly (the worst was Reagan Frey who beat me by 32 seconds and I beat him by 1:07 at the Pioneer Day 10k).  It was the worst feeling as my legs just felt like lead, and other guys slowly gained more and more ground on me and the guys behind me slowly passed me one at a time.  Now I just need to start getting ready for St. George.

Surge - 517.2

Ohana Racer - 248.1

Speedstar - 339.05

I ran with the Springville Cross Country team today. They only ran 4.5 miles so I ran that with them and then finished up alone for a total of 10 miles. I ran the first 7 miles at about 7:30 pace, however I ran the last few miles at about 7:00 pace because I was coming downhill to come back to the school. I finished my run in 1:13:24. I also rode my bike to and from school today for a total of 18 miles, so I will count that as 6 running miles.

I ran with the team again today.  We ran a 1.5 mile warm-up, after which we ran an interval workout (800, 800, 400, 800, 800, 400, 400).  I just stayed with the team on all of the intervals, so they were not too fast.  The intervals were also kind of slow because we were running on grass and a dirt trail that weaves and turns, thus slowing us down.  My splits for the intervals are 2:41, 2:36, 1:11, 2:43, 2:41, 1:16, 1:16.  After we were all finished, I ran more to finish with a total of 10 miles.  I also rode my bike too and from school again, giving me another 6 running miles (18 miles on the bike).

I felt pretty sluggish this morning, in part due to lack of sleep last night, and also because of all the biking lately. I ran with a big group of people. The rest did a speed workout, but I turned around early so that I could get to school on time. I will run more this afternoon.

pm: I ran 5 miles this afternoon with a couple of guys on the cross country team. I challenged the guys to see how slowly they could run the second half of their workout. They didn't do too bad, running the second half of their workout 16 seconds faster than the first half even though it was downhill the entire way back. After that, I rode my bike home giving me 9 miles biking for the day as I got a ride to school in the morning (thus 3 miles running equivalent for the day).

I was supposed to run with Sasha this morning, but the schedule lately has really been getting to me and I couldn't wake up.  On the plus side, I got 9.5 hours sleep last night because of it.  Instead, I just got all of my miles in after school instead of doing half in the morning.  Kimia also has Thursdays off, so I was able to take the car to school today which was nice.  I ran 5 miles with the team and then 5 miles afterwards.  I finished the first 5 miles faster, as we threw a couple surges in during the run, while the last 5 miles were relaxed and slow.  Total time 1:14:00 for 10 miles.

I was sick all day, and I felt like garbage, so I cut my run short.  I only ran 5 miles.  I also got a ride to school today, so I only biked home for an equivalent of 3 more miles (9 total).

I was asked a couple of days ago to run this, as they had a runner get hurt.  It was a real low key thing and I mainly just had fun with it.  I ran the second leg of the marathon relay, and each runner ran about 5.2 miles.  Our first runner came in with a time just under 42 minutes.  We were in 16th place after his leg, approximately 8.5 minutes out of first.  I then took the baton and by the time I had finished my leg I was in first place and in the lead by 1:54 over the second place runner.  The funniest thing is that I didn't even pass the guy in second until I had already passed the 4 mile mark.  After that, our team promptly fell out of first.  We finished 4th overall with a time of 3:13:XX.  The winning time was about 2:56:00.  I just thought that it was funny that I could have run the race alone and I could have won it by a considerable margin over the winning relay team.  After the race I ran more to finish with 17 miles for the day.  I was still sick when I ran the race this morning, and I think that I did surprisingly well considering that I wasn't feeling all that great.

I gave a talk in church today. I think it went pretty well. It was about 'loving thy neighbor'

Surge - 539.95

Ohana Racer - 261.1

Speedstar - 368.05

I was fried after today. I honestly felt like I feel after I do a hard 20 mile run, kind of like the 20 miler with a 15 mile tempo thrown in it up south fork canyon that I did with Sasha a while back. I had to go to BYU in the morning and by the time I got out of there I was going to be late getting back to Springville Junior High so I really had to bust my butt on my bike riding there. By the time that I got there my legs already felt fried. Then, just 2 hours later I went to Cross Country practice at the high school and we did 12x400m repeats. We took the first one really slow as a warm up, and we did it in 83. We then ran 73, 74 and 72. These were all on the grass, so they were slower. My guess is that the grass probably added about 3 seconds. We then did 4 repeats on the track. I ran 68, 69, 68, and 73 (coach wales asked everyone to slow down on this one). Then, 4 more on the grass in 73, 73, 71, 68. So, not a shabby workout. I could have gone faster if I was trying harder, but I didn't want to go too hard because my legs were already fried. After practice was over I ran more to get a total mileage of 10 for the day, then I rode the bike home for a total of 6 miles from biking (18 total)

I ran 10 miles today in 1:16:00, 6.5 of them with the team.  I also rode the bike too and from work for 6 more running miles (18 total).  I took it a little easier today, and I felt alright.

This mornings run was nice and easy. I finished 7.25 miles in 1:02:32. Sasha and I did have a little bit of excitement for the morning, as Sasha tripped over a bump in the trail which knocked the wind out of him pretty good when he came down, and later on we ran by a bush (or tree, I couldn't tell) that was shaking somewhat violently. I thought it was an animal, and Sasha thought it was a homeless man, yet it ended up being nothing but the wind swirling around hard enough to move the bush all over the place. Later on in the morning when I was leaving for school I realized that I had a flat tire, so I had to get a ride from Kimia. Hopefully I can get that fixed today. Anyhow, that kills my biking miles for the day, but I am still going to run later this afternoon, which should make up for it.

I ran with the cross country team this afternoon. I ended up with about 5 more miles. We ran up towards the canyon, and then ran hill repeats up in the canyon before coming back down.

I ran over and watched the Junior High cross country meet this afternoon.  Afterwards I finished up my run alone, getting in 10 miles total in just over 1:18:00

This morning I ran a little bit with one of my PE classes and I got in just over 1 mile in that class. After school I ran over to the high school as my bike still has a flat tire. After I got there, I ran 3.75 miles with the team, running 2 loops of a course around their school. We took the first loop easy, and went through about 1.75 miles in 13:59. We then took the second loop hard and I just stayed with the top guy on the team so that I could push him. We made it through the finish in 10:06 for approximately 2 miles. This is according to the Garmin that one of the kids was wearing. I think that he might have measured the second loop a bit long, but I am not completely sure. After we finished this, I ran a short cool down before finishing up 12 miles for the afternoon with a total time of 1:25:39. My legs felt really alive this afternoon. I think it was because I haven't ridden the bike since Tuesday, as I noticed the flat on Wednesday morning and haven't fixed it yet.

Probably one of my least favorite runs over the last while. The intention was to run about 6:00 pace for 14-15 miles. I ran 5:41, 5:31 for the first 2 miles and felt great, however after 2 miles I started having stomach cramps. I ended up taking 3 vpb's and could have taken a fourth except there was no toilet paper at the bathroom I stopped at, so I ended up just waiting for the cramps to die down a bit then started running again. I think it was a bad reaction to the food I cooked last night. I accidentally put 2 tablespoons of red pepper into pasta sauce I was making instead of 2 teaspoons and I think that my stomach just didn't agree with me. Anyhow, I was so frustrated and annoyed at the discomfort and mild pain that I just called it a day after 11.1 miles. I finished in 1:07:38.

Surge - 578.3

Ohana Racer - 261.1

Speedstar - 396.05 

I ran 6x600 with the team this afternoon in 1:53, 1:51, 1:58, 2:02, 2:04, 1:51.  Coach Wales wanted the kids to keep it slower otherwise all of the repeats would have been at least as fast as the first 2.  He started assigning kids to lead the team after that to prevent the kids from going too fast.  He let them speed up again for the last one.  I then finished up 10 miles after we were done.

I also got in 18 miles biking for an equivalent of 6 running miles. 

I ran about 5 miles with the team today, then 5 miles alone.  My legs felt pretty alive today and I finished the 10 miles in under 1:12:00.

Again, I got in 18 miles biking, for a 6 mile running equivalent. 

I met at 5:15am this morning and ran 7 miles with Sasha, Tyler, and Derek. We finished in a little over 55:00. In the afternoon I ran another 4.5 miles with the team to finish with 11.5 miles for the day.

I only got 16 miles biking in today, and I am giving myself a 5 mile equivalent on this one. It would have been 18 miles like usual except I got hit by a motorcycle about 2 miles from the house and I had to call Kimia to come pick me up. I was lucky. I was riding on a small residential street with no shoulder, and I saw that there was construction up ahead of me. I didn't want to wait for it, so I decided to turn left. I moved into the middle of the lane so that no one would try to pass me. Glancing back I did not see anyone, and I started to slow down so that I could turn. Two cars were passing by, and as the second car passed I started to turn. All of a sudden I hear a horn and a motorcycle comes flying out of nowhere from behind me. I jumped off the bike as the motorcycle hit it and it fell to the ground. I was lucky that I didn't get hit at all.
I was not too happy when the driver of the motorcycle stopped just long enough to make sure that his bike wasn't damaged and then drove off leaving me with a messed up bike that I couldn't ride. The guy on the motorcycle was also driving way too fast, and he shouldn't have been trying to pass me when I was in the middle of the lane. My problem was that I did not signal. Usually I do, but since I did not see him behind me when I glanced back (probably because he was way behind me driving too fast) I didn't bother to signal as I thought that there was no need to signal if no one was there.
Anyhow, I can count myself lucky that I am not hurt at all, and that my bike will be fine without needing any repairs that will cost me any money to fix ( I just need to straighten the handlebars and fix the brakes). I was also not planning on riding it for a while since St. George is coming up soon, so I can take my time fixing the bike as well.

I ran 3.5 miles with the team today, and then ran 6.5 miles alone afterwards.  I kept it quick again, finishing in 46:26 for the last 6.5 miles.

For some reason I have had the hardest time motivating myself the last 2 days. Normally I look forward to running every day, yet these last couple of days I have kind of needed to force myself to run. It might be an issue of just being mentally tired from the student teaching and all the work that it entails, as well as being physically tired from all of the running and biking. I am not sure, but it just doesn't seem normal that I am needing to force myself out the door. Today I only ran 5.5 miles because of it finishing in 42:50. I figured that the cutback today would be ok as I am running St. George next Saturday, and this will be the start of my taper. Hopefully taking a lighter day will help me get that drive back that I have been lacking the last couple of days.

I ran with Sasha and James this morning. After just over 5.5 miles we said goodbye to James and then started the 5 mile tempo. We started off with a 1:28 quarter, and then sped up, going through the first mile in 5:36. We hit the second mile in 5:28 (11:04 for 2 miles) and made it to the turnaround in 13:51 (2:47 for .5 miles). We pretty much held this same pace for the next 1.75 miles averaging about 5:30 pace. We hit the 4 mile mark in 22:06. At this point I told Sasha that I was going to take off with .75 left, and after going through one last quarter in 1:23, I finished the run hitting the last three quarters in 1:16, 1:16, 1:15 for a total time of 27:16 for 5 miles. Sasha came in at 27:36. We then ran back to Sasha's house to finish up with 12 miles.

Surge - 610.3

Ohana Racer - 261.1

Speedstar - 423.05 

I ran 6 miles with the team today. One of the guys wants to run a marathon in December and he is a Junior in High School. I don't really like the idea of it, but he says that his dad wants to run it with him. I just think he is too young. After finishing with the team I ran 4 more miles alone.

I ran with the team again.  They were doing 800 and 400 repeats.  I ran a few of them with the team, but only ran 100m hard on each repeat.  I ran the 800 in 3:01 followed by 3x400 in 1:17, 1:23, 1:18.  After that I watched the rest of their repeats and then ran a little more to finish with 6 miles for the day.  My original plan was to run 8 miles, but I ran the repeats a little harder than I was planning, so I decided to cut back the mileage.