dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

Nothing special to report except that I slept a lot, and church was good (note: I didn't sleep in church).

I ran with a bunch of people today.  There were six of us.  We ran out 3 miles and then back, but we continued on the river trail for about 2 more miles before coming back to Sasha's house.  We finished in 1:22:09.  The distance is approximate since we could not see the marks on the trail due to the snow.

I ran 10 miles this morning in 1:15:22.  Same group as yesterday, minus Chauncey.  We turned around after 3.5 miles and then came back with Daniel.  Then, we continued on the trail to the final turnaround of the uneventful half before heading back to Sasha's house. 

After I got back I did a standing long jump test in Sasha's basement and a stair sprint while I waited for the lock to the car to unfreeze.  My best jump was 88 inches (7'4").  I have jumped 92" in the past, but after a run it just wasn't in me.  My best stair sprint was 2.7 seconds.  I think that a lot of the variation in this is due to how quickly people can get started once they hear the start signal.

nothing different to report from yesterday except we finished the run a bit quicker today.  We finished 10 miles in 1:14:05.  We also threw an 800 in the middle of the run in 2:46.

I ran with Sasha and Mary Ann this morning.  We ran out to the lake and back. 

On the way out we ran a hard 1000 just a little over 2 miles into the run.  The goal was to run a 3:10 and we started out hitting the first 200 in 37s followed by a 38 to make it to the quarter in 1:15.  This was followed by another 37 to hit 600 in 1:52.  Around this point we started hitting some patches on the trail that had snow on them and it was necessary to stutter step a bit in order to jump over them or run through them.  This actually prompted me to speed up because I was trying harder not to slow down.  The half mile marker was covered by snow so I don't know the split, but I finished the 1000 between 3:03-3:04 so the last quarter was done between 1:11 and 1:12.  Sasha came in at 3:05-3:06, and Mary Ann, who was just supposed to pick up the pace a little, got excited and ran a 3:28.

We finished the run in 1:13:31 for 10.1 miles.  I have noticed that we are slowly picking up the pace on our easy runs in the morning.  For a while we were going no faster than 1:18-1:20 for 10 miles, and now we are hitting in the 1:16 range consistently and going faster on some days.  We hit our first mile in 7:48 this morning, which is unheard of for us.  I don't mind it as I feel pretty good, so we'll see if it helps us at all. 

I ran with Sasha, Mary Ann, Daniel, and Bryce this morning.  Bryce was our new addition for the day as we is friends with Mary Ann and he decided to come down.  We ran out to the 7 mile turn-around and then came back and continued on the trail to the turn-around for the uneventful half before finishing at Sasha's house in 1:18:41 for 10 miles.  We threw in a few accelerations in the middle of the run as well.

On a side note, Sasha gave us the new racing jerseys today.  They will debut tomorrow at the Salt Lake City race series 5k.  The logo for the blog and for the St. George Running Center are much bigger on the new jerseys than on the old ones.

Going into the race today I did not know fully what to expect because I have not truly raced a 5k since August, and the only other 5k between then and now was not all out, and was run on the Provo river trail in icy conditions. I have been feeling good lately so I expected to run well, I just was not sure how well.

Anyhow, we did a warm-up running the entire race course plus a little extra. After this I stretched out for a bit and then took of my pants and coat and ran a few strides to finish getting ready for the race to start. My main competition at the race was comprised of two of the Salt Lake Running Company's runners, Seth Wold (who is on the blog) and BJ Christenson.

When the race started BJ, Seth and I took off, and within a very short period of time we had dropped every other runner in the field. BJ led, with Seth following, while I took the rear. There was a crossing headwind that affected us for most of the race, so we ran in a line and drafted off of one another rather then running together. I think that BJ was actually going out hard in order to help Seth out and to let Seth sit on him, because he is not in his top shape right now. Anyhow, we hit the mile mark in 4:59. Shortly before the turn-around Seth took off and shot past BJ. I followed, and it turned into a two man race. I did not catch my split at the turn-around because I was focusing more on not letting Seth get away from me than I was about the time (Sasha was close enough that he caught my split for me, it was a 7:50). We made it to the 2 mile mark in 10:03 (5:04 mile). I have decided that BJ must have been slowing down the first half of that mile before Seth took off, because the pace during the second half of that mile was considerably harder than during the first. During the third mile I was still pushing hard trying to stay with Seth, who was not making it easy on me. However, I did have enough left to make a move with half a mile left, and as I slowly moved past Seth he gave me a pat on the back, said "good job" and slowed down. So, I do not know what was going on there, but I was alone from there to the finish. With a half mile left my watch read 13:09, and I closed with two consecutive 1:13 quarters to finish the race in 15:35.

After I finished I waited for Sasha to come in, and without stopping our watches we began a 10k tempo run, running the race course twice with another of the runners named Jason (he ran for Weber State back in the day). We started the tempo at 18:20 on our watches, so I had a break of 2:45 before starting. Even with the break I was hurting some at the beginning of the tempo, so we chatted some and warmed into it with a couple miles at 6:19 and 6:15. We then got a little more serious and we sped up. We finished the first half of the tempo at 37:23 (19:03 for 5k) and slowly picked up the pace after that. We ran the second half of the tempo in 17:36 to finish with a 54:59 for 15k (52:14 if I don't count the time standing around).

After this we ran over to where they were doing the awards, and I finished up my mileage later on in the afternoon running for what I will count as 2.7 miles in 21:44 while Mary Ann was getting her new shoes that she won for winning the women's race, and running 4 miles at home in 29:55 as well as running a mile with Kimia in about 12:30 (I will count this mile as .5 due to the speed).  This gives me 20 miles for the day.