dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

Total time of 50:03 for approximately 7.4 miles.

TLDR:  I ran a 25 minute tempo from 20-45 minutes.

Full version:  I again didn't really plan a workout for today.  As I was about to walk out the door I jokingly asked my wife: "What should I do for a workout today?"  Her response: "Nothing too hard".  So, her advice turned into a moderately hard tempo run of 25 minutes.  My goal was to not work so hard that I was super fatigued for the rest of the day.  I decided to start the tempo at the 20 minute mark of the run and then turn around at 26 minutes, giving myself 24 minutes to make it back home.  Normally I would be a little concerned about making it back 2 minutes faster since the return trip has a net uphill of approximately 180 ft based on where I turned around.  Today I wasn't concerned about that since 19 minutes of the tempo would be after I turned around.

It is normal for me to get excited before speed workouts and run the easy part of the run faster than normal.  Today was no different as I averaged 7:30 pace from my house to a power pole that I pass 1.06 miles into the run (normally on an easy run I guess that I will average about 7:45 pace).  I was conciously trying not to speed up, but I still maintained about 7:30 pace until the 20 minute mark when I started my tempo.

At the start of the tempo I was at the bottom of a hill that I had just run down, and I gained a little over 30 ft elevation while running into a headwind during the first minute of the tempo.  I then turned on Highland Blvd and started to head downhill (losing approx 109 ft elevation) with a tailwind for the next 5+ minutes until I turned around at 26:00 (approx. 1.03 miles into the tempo).  I then turned around and ran back the way I came, running uphill into a headwind.  It was no surprise that I ran back up the hill 51 seconds slower than I ran down it, cresting the hill to turn off Highland Blvd at 31:55.  I was now worried that I would not make it back to the house by 50:00 because I lost so much time running into the wind.  Thankfully, over the last 13 minutes of the tempo I had less headwind, and more tailwind.  For the next 4:25 (until 36:20) after turning off Highland Blvd (approx 0.75 miles). I was running a net downhill (losing almost 60 ft), but with one uphill segment thrown in as well that lasted for about 1:30.  The next 7:20 was almost purely uphill (approx 43:40 into the run), followed by a short downhill segment for 20ish seconds and a mostly flat last minute.  I then finished running the last 0.70 miles back to the house, arriving at 50:03.  I ran a little faster back to the house than I would have normally run because I wanted to make it back in close to 50:00.

All told, I ran about 4.03 miles for the tempo (approx 6:12 pace), with 3 miles coming during the 19 minutes after I turned around, while gaining approx. 100 ft net elevation after the turn around.  For the entire tempo I only gained a little over 20 ft elevation, so not a big change there, but there were lots of hills throughout the tempo (plus some wind), so I was actually pleased with how things went even though the average pace was not very fast.  It was also nice to not feel like I was straining very hard to run this pace as there have been some workouts in the past few months that have been around this same pace where I have felt like I was really straining.

My next order of business is to improve my top end speed for distances 400m-1 mile.  I feel like if I am going to try and run tempos like this in the 5:00-5:30 pace range at some point in the future that I need to get my top end speed a little faster.  I just need to follow through on actually doing the workouts in the near future.

Total time of 52:00

TLDR: 5 x 400 w/200 recovery, except 400 recovery after the 4th rep.  Rep times of 1:11, 1:11, 1:12, 1:12, 1:14.  Recovery times of 1:11, 1:10, 1:12, 2:17.

Full Version:  As I stated on Saturday, I have felt like I need to work on my speed over shorter distances (400-mile), so today I decided to run a workout aimed at doing that.  I ran to the track at the middle school in order to run 400 repeats.  The track is made of asphalt and was covered in leaves and branches on the back stretch, so it isn't the fastest track around here to run on, but it is the only track within a short running distance of my house so I decided it was good enough.  I have also wondered if the track measurement is actually 1/4 mile instead of 400m because of the non-traditional make-up of the track, and some course tool estimates, in addition to my own estimates running on it on an easy run a while back.  Basically, my point is that I don't know for sure if I was running 400's or some other distance that is very close to 400m.

My goal for the workout was to try and hit 1:15 pace per repeat.  I was a little worried that this would be unsustainable so I set two goals for myself.  The basic goal was to run a minimum of 4 repeats.  If I started to struggle I would end the workout at whatever point after 4 repeats where I was unable to maintain pace to a reasonable degree.  The optimal goal was for me to run 8 repeats.  My suspicion was that I would end up running somewhere between 4-8 repeats but not actually hit either endpoint.  I decided to run 200m recovery because I wanted an active recovery and I thought that 400m would be too long, while 200m was pretty convenient in terms of knowing where my start and end points were (no marks on the track itself, but there were big cracks in the pavement at the approximate 200m and 400m marks).

After I got to the park near the track I first went to the bathroom and then ran a lap on the track with a 100m surge to try and figure out what effort to run at to hit 1:15 400 pace.  Once I started the workout I used a running clock so I don't have exact splits, but I started the first 400 repeat at the 15:20 mark of the run.  I ended up starting out too fast at the beginning of the first 400, but it didn't seem abnormally hard and I felt relaxed so I ended up deciding to just keep that effort up.  I finished the first rep in 1:11, followed by an equal recovery of 1:11.  The second rep also felt good, and I finished it in 1:11 again (1:10 recovery).  Starting with the third rep things started to feel hard and I finished this rep in 1:12 (1:12 recovery).  The fourth rep felt much harder, but I was happy that I was able to run another 1:12.

At this point I knew that a major slow down was coming for any additional reps, so I decided to run a 400m recovery with the goal of trying to run 2 more reps afterwards.  This recovery ended up lasting 2:17 (1:14, 1:03 for the 200m segments).  Unfortunately my legs still felt pretty fatigued at the start of this rep, however I was pleased that I was able to keep up a solid pace for the first 200m (approx 35.5 seconds).  Over the last 200m the wheels started to fall off and I struggled to maintain focus.  I ended up finishing the fifth rep in 1:14 (approx. 38.5 for the last 200m).  At this point I didn't feel like running any additional reps would be beneficial, so I ran my final cooldown 200m in 1:18 to get back to the start line and I ended the workout, having run approx. 2 miles total (counting recovery) in 13:08.

At this point I still had over 23.5 minutes left in my run, so I just ran easy, winding around some of the streets of Alpine until I finished the run at the house in 52:00.  My legs still felt fatigued even while running close to 8:00 pace at the end of the run (I timed the last 0.5 to the house in 3:55).  I am hoping that workouts like this and some continued consistency will lead to improvements over the next few months as I try and see what I am capable of.

Total time of 54:00

TLDR:  2 x 0.6 miles hard in 4:48 and 4:53 (uphill).  1 mile hard downhill in 4:30.

Full Version:  For today's run I wanted to build off of the idea that I need to build strength/speed, specifically at distances 400m-1mile.  I have also felt like I need to learn to utilize my quads more when running, so I decided to run uphill repeats on the same stretch of road where I ran an all out uphill mile a few weeks ago.  I felt like a mile was too long for the repeats, so I ran the repeats on the 0.6 mile stretch (approx. 313 ft elevation gain) starting where the road turns to go up towards the rodeo grounds, and ending at the parking lot to the national forest.  My original plan was to run 3 of these repeats, however after running 2 of them I felt like I should practice running fast too, rather than just running hard at a slow pace, so I ran a hard downhill mile (approx. 416 ft elevation loss) on the same stretch of road (I was also curious to see how fast I could "fall" down the mountain as I knew that the grade was so steep that I would be unable to actually run all out without more practice running downhill).

I made it to my starting point in a little over 15:30, and I jogged around a little more until I hit 16:00 so that I could have an even starting time.  The first rep started off well, and my quads were burning within the first 30 seconds because of the steepness of the grade.  My breathing quickly caught up and acted as a limiting factor.  There were a few times when I attempted to surge in order to keep the pace faster and avoid getting complacent.  Each time I did so my quads reminded me why I had slowed down to begin with, but I was happy to at least attempt to increase the pace even if it was not sustainable.  I finished the first rep in 4:48 (average 8:00 pace) and immediately turned around to go back to the starting line.

I made it back to the start line a little before 25:30, and I estimate that I averaged about 7:35 pace during my recovery as I ran back down the mountain.  I jogged a few seconds more and started the second rep right at 25:30.  I don't feel like I started the second rep as strongly as I started the first (still feeling a little fatigued from the first rep), and I feel like that is where the majority of the slowdown between reps came from.  After the first minute or so I feel like things were pretty equal.  I attempted to surge a couple times during this rep like I did during the first, and near the end I also tried to focus more on sustaining a strong pace without the surges.  I finished this rep in 4:53 (8:08 pace).

After I finished the second rep I ran around some of the trails at the entrance to the national forest until my watch hit 35:00 (recovery of a little over 4:30).  I then stopped my watch and walked over to the start point for the downhill mile.  I rested for another minute or two before starting the mile.  The mile did not feel as hard as the 0.6 mile repeats, but I could still feel the fatigue in my legs from the uphill repeats as I ran down the hill.  My feet were getting shoved to the fronts of my shoes, making me wish that I had tied my shoes differently.  I could also tell that I don't have lots of recent downhill running experience as running down the hill felt uncomfortable to the point that I felt like I was unable to utilize the elevation loss adequately.  Once I hit the 0.6 mile mark (split time of 2:38, average pace of 4:23) the grade levels off a little, only dropping about 100 ft over the last 0.4 (compared to over 300 ft during the first 0.6).  It was at this point that I started to really feel my legs burn as I finally had to start working harder to maintain the pace I was running at.  I ended up hitting the mile mark at 4:30 (1:52 last 0.4, average split pace of 4:40), making this the fastest mile that I have run since the beginning of the Des News 10k back in 2010 (I think I split sub 9:00 for the first 2 miles that day), although I may have run a mile faster on the treadmill back in early 2011... I'll have to check.  Maybe if I keep at it I will be able to break 4:30 for a legit (flat road or track) mile someday as I never made the effort to do so when I was younger.

After finishing this mile I kept the effort easy for the last 14:30 of the run until I reached the house in 54:00.  My legs felt pretty fatigued during the cooldown.  I'm hoping that this will provide a good stimulus for improvement moving forward.  At some point once I finish building up to my initial goal base mileage (1:20:00 per run M-F plus a long run) I may also start running 3 hard workouts per week instead of 2.

Total time of 55:00

TLDR: 2 x 10 min hard, 2 x 2 min hard, 1 x 1 min hard

Full Version:  Since I worked primarily on shorter speedwork last week I decided to give this workout a little longer focus while still trying to implement a little bit of a faster stimulus.  After a 10 minute warm up I ran 2 x 10 minutes hard, with a 5 minute recovery between reps.  The first rep likely had a net downhill, but the section of road I ran on was arguably the flattest road that I have run any longer speedwork on in the past 6 months since I started training regularly again.  During the recovery I ended up running up a fairly large hill.  I started the next 10 minute rep shortly before I reached the top of the hill, and I had a mixture of uphill and downhill during this rep.

Following a second 5 minute recovery I started my first 2 minute rep on slightly rolling terrain with a fairly negligible net elevation change as far as I could tell.  I then ran a 4 minute recovery before running another 2 minute interval.  This rep had a lot of downhill, which wasn't ideal, but it was where I happened to be when the time hit.  I then ran a final 4 minute recovery (I arrived at the house near the end of this recovery in 51:37 and turned back around to finish the run) before running 1 minute hard, ending this interval at the 53:00 mark of the run before running back to the house and arriving right at 55:00.

Overall it seemed like a good workout.  I didn't feel like I was ever red lining during the workout which was good.  I did wonder if I should have pushed the pace a little more during the second 10 minute rep, and at times during the shorter reps, but overall I feel like it was hard enough to provide a good stimulus.

Edit:  I measured the course I ran on the course tool and it came out to 7.86 miles.  I think this is the longest run I have done since August of last year when I got lost while running in Prescott, AZ.  I tried to measure how far I ran on the intervals with limited success.  I am guessing that I ran about 1.65 miles for each of the 10 minute intervals (close to 6:00 pace), but that could vary by a fair amount.  I was surprised to find out that the first 10:00 interval actually had a net uphill gradient although very small.  I think I ran .19 miles for the 1:00 interval (I was able to measure that one fairly accurately), and maybe 0.34 for the first 2:00 interval.  Measurement for this one is very approximate as I couldn't remember accurately where I started and stopped.  Same goes for the second 2:00 interval which I am estimating at around 0.39.

Approximately 8 miles in 55:00

TLDR: 3 x 1 mile in 5:06.5, 5:48, 5:42

Full Version:  I drove to the track at Lone Peak High School this morning to run a speed workout.  I have been curious lately to see what I can run a mile in.  I would like to be able to break 5:00 for the mile in the near future as I have not done so in a long time.  My plan was to run a mile all out to try and do just that.  I warmed up for about 2 miles prior to running the mile.  During my warm-up I ran 3 x 100m strides to try and get a feel for 5:00 pace.  I felt like I had trouble figuring out what the correct effort should be, and after running the third stride I was also feeling kind of tired, so I extended my warm-up by two laps in order to try and relax a little more before the start.

I started the mile, and still had trouble figuring out what pace to run at.  I hit the 400 meter mark in about 76.5 and was concerned because the effort did not feel as easy as I thought it would.  I tried to pick up the pace on the second lap and did speed up a little, but was only able to run a 74.5 (2:31 at 800).  I tried to maintain this effort for the third lap but I was starting to hurt a little despite the slower than anticipated start and I could only run a 77 (3:48 for 1200).  I knew that running a 72 for the last 409 meters was not going to happen, but for some reason I thought that I could run that pace for 400 and I tried to speed up in an effort to run an extended kick.  I felt like I was working harder, and I thought I was speeding up so when I crossed the 1600 meter mark in approximately 5:05 (another 77) I was a little surprised.  I stopped my watch right as I hit the mile mark to finish in 5:06.5.

I then ran 4 laps recovery in 7:37, which was a little longer than I had originally planned (plan was about 5:00) before running the first of two tempo miles.  I started this mile with a goal pace of 90 seconds per lap to start with the plan to speed up a little based on how I felt after that first lap.  I ended up running a 5:48 (90, 85, 86, 85, with 2 sec diff for the last 9 m).  I then ran 4 more recovery laps in approximately 7:32 before running the final mile in 5:42 (84, 87, 83, 86, +2 sec).  After the final tempo mile I finished by running 4 more recovery laps, plus a little extra to make up the differential between metric and imperial distance so that I would have a total of 8 miles for the run.

So, all told I was not disappointed with how things went.  The two tempo miles felt easier than I was expecting, but the all out mile was a little slower than I was hoping for (but realistically was probably more in line with the workouts I have performed recently).  I feel like I need to work on learning how to really kick at the end of time trials/races as I frequently am hesitant to really hurt and run all out at the end of these efforts.

Total time of 58:00

5 x 15-20 seconds hard during the run

My original plan was to run 2 x 0.5 miles at about 5:30 pace, but I felt more tired yesterday that expected (I accidentally ran farther than planned too, finishing yesterdays run in 60:49) so I decided to make todays "workout" more relaxed.

I am running the Orem turkey trot on Thursday, and I am excited for that.  It will be the first race that I have run since the summer of 2013.  I am mentioning the race now because I have a goal for the race to really focus on pushing myself hard during the last 1-2 minutes of the race (maybe start kicking once I make the second to last turn?), and to kick hard.  I want to tie up if possible before I hit the line.  I feel like I frequently struggle to really push myself hard at the end of max efforts, so I want to rectify that on Thursday.

First race for me since 2013.  It felt good to dip my toes back into the racing scene.

I decided last week to run this race as I have been feeling pretty good in training recently and I wanted to test myself to see where my fitness is at.  My expectations based upon recent workouts was that I had 22:30-22:40 fitness in me, and that there was a possibility that I could go faster.  Deep down I told myself that I would like to run sub 22:00, but I didn't think that it was likely when considering some of my recent workouts, and my inability to run sub 6:00 pace on 20-25 minute tempo runs over rolling terrain.

I warmed up for 2 miles, and ran a few strides before the race started.  When the gun went off I shot to the front, surprised that no one else was in front of me.  It didn't take long before Dave Taylor and another guy both went by me.  The pace felt unsustainable so I tried to relax and drop back into the pack.  This worked pretty well for me over the rest of the first mile as I felt relaxed despite being at the front of the race.  The pack and I passed both Dave and the other leader shortly before the mile mark.  I hit the official mile mark in 5:17 feeling relaxed, which shocked me considering that just last Saturday I was only able to run 5:06.5 for an all out mile on the track (I found out afterwards that the mile marker was short).

During the second mile the pack stayed together initially until shortly before the 1.5 mile mark one runner made a move and gapped the rest of the pack.  Dustin Bybee started to move up shortly thereafter, and misjudging my ability to maintain pace for 4 miles I made the decision to try and go with him.  I stayed with Dustin initially and hit the official 2 mile marker (also short?) in 10:40 (5:23).  Unfortunately by this point in time I was starting to feel the pace and by 2.25 miles Dustin had gapped me.

I turned the corner onto Center street just before 2.5 miles and really started to struggle over the next half mile as there was a solid headwind (maybe 10-12 mph?) that I had to run into (on the first loop I was able to draft off other runners so the wind didn't really affect me early on).  As I ran on Center street I could tell that the pack (4 guys) was catching back up to me, and by about 2.75 miles they had caught me and proceeded to quickly leave me behind.

I hit the official 3 mile mark in 16:29 (5:49... ouch!  Not sure what it would have been with correct measurements), and realized that my chances at breaking the 22:00 barrier were slipping away unless I picked up the pace over the last mile.  Just past the 3 mile mark one of the runners in the pack stepped off the course as he was just there to get in a workout, putting me in 6th place where I ultimately finished.

The pack finally started to stretch out at this point but all three of the remaining runners continued to pull away from me.  I tried to focus on maintaining my own pace that way I could hopefully stop the gap from growing.  Coming into the race I had a goal of kicking hard to finish the race as I feel like I frequently give up a little bit mentally when it comes time to kick.  I was thinking about this as I turned onto 400 South for the last time with a half mile to go in the race, and I decided to start my kick as I made the final turn with about 400 meters left in the race.  At that point I really started to push.  I wanted to feel my legs give out on me a little, and with maybe 200 meters left I started to feel that.  I realized that not only was the gap between me and 5 place no longer getting bigger, but I was actually starting to close on him a little (he still beat me by about 10 seconds, but I will take the little victories wherever I can get them).  I continued to push the pace towards the finish as I really wanted to make sure that I got under the 22:00 barrier.

I crossed the line with a time of 21:54.7 and to be honest wasn't really sure what to think.  I finished 30-40 seconds faster than I thought I was capable of running, and I was exstatic that I had run so well, but wished that I could have held on a little better during the third mile.  Thinking on things now I am really pleased with the progress that I have made over the last few months.  To be in the mix running with "fast" guys again is invigorating, and it leaves me hungry for more.  I am pleased that I was able to run a strong final mile despite the mile 3 slowdown, and I am excited to see what even greater fitness brings me in the future.

I won a turkey for winning my age group, so that was nice.  Hopefully next year I will be able to contend for the overall win rather than the age group win.

Total time of 1:00:17, running a little over 8.5 miles based upon course tool estimations

TLDR:  5 x 5 minutes hard with 3 minutes recovery

Full Version:  I hadn't run a speed workout since the race last Thursday, and it felt like it was about time to run something faster again.  I ran a 10 minute warm up, running uphill (frequently I like to start running downhill until I get warmed up, but I decided to switch things up today).  I have felt good running the last couple days, so I was surprised to start off much slower than normal, hitting my half mile mark in 4:40, and my mile mark in 8:56 (the uphill was part but not all of the issue).  This made me rethink my decision to run a harder workout today as I suspected that maybe less than optimal sleep the last couple days was leaving me more tired than normal.  I ended up deciding that since I was just planning to run by feel it shouldn't be a problem to complete the workout.

I started my first 5 minute rep at the crest of the hill I was running up, running 5 minutes hard followed by 3 minutes easy from the 10-50 minute mark of the run.  The first rep started downhill, but flattened out shortly thereafter until the 4:00 mark when I started running down a steep hill for the last 1:00.  The second rep was mostly downhill for the first 2:40 and mostly uphill for the last 2:20.  The third rep was mostly flat for the first 2:30, followed by super steep downhill for about 1:30, and more gradual downhill for the last 1:00.  The fourth rep was mostly flat throughout although there was a slight uphill grade during the last 1:40.  The last rep was either flat or mild uphill throughout.

After I finished the final rep I finished running back to the house, arriving at the 51:51 mark of the run (I have previously estimated this loop to be 7.39 miles long, so this gives me a 7:01 average pace up to this point, only 14 seconds slower than two weeks ago when I ran a speed workout on the same loop).  I then turned around and ran down past a different 0.5 mile marker from the house down to the corner of Grove Dr. and 200 N before turning around and running back home, arriving in 1:00:17.  Of the last 8:26 I ran after arriving at home, I ran the 0.5 mile out and back in 7:09, plus an additional 1:17 to make it to the corner and back to the 0.5 mile mark (I measured this stretch on the course tool at approximatley 0.18 miles).  This gives me approximately 8.57 miles total for the run based upon all of the measurements that I have taken at different points in time.