Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 20 miles, Long Run. Yeah, I've decided that long runs get bold font in addition to workouts from now on. Couldn't think of a better way to kick off the new year, and cap off my winter break training. Met the guys down in Lehi (Matt, Brandon, Mike, Chad, Toni, and Dan). A lot of the run was snowy and a bit slippery, so we kept the pace easy. Surprisingly after 10 days in AZ, I wasn't cold, so I didn't completely lose my edge. It was a nice loop w/ some good hills thrown in for good measure. Afterwards, Matt's wife had a nice breakfast spread waiting for us. Can't beat that! Happy New Year!

PM - 8 miles. 

AM - 9 miles up to work. Back to normal life.

PM - 9 miles home. 

I did a little 2012 review post on Wasatch & Beyond. I think its cool that I ended up running more miles than I drove in my jeep (and Allie will back me up, that was a very good thing for the longevity of the vehicle). Of all the nonsensical things that I keep track of, only driving to work 90 days was probably the crowning achievement. Its fun to look back at all the things we've done in the past 12 months... too much to even condense into one succinct post. I know that the turn of the calendar year is an arbitrary thing, but for a lot of reasons I'm excited right now about the year ahead. I feel that I've been building a lot of momentum for the past month and the 11 day vacation I just took was a real treat (and I definitely took advantage of that opportunity both from training and mental rejuvenation perspectives).

I have some big running goals (even by my standards) that I'll be chasing this year, but I'm more confident than ever that I'll reach them. 

AM - 9.5 miles up to work. 

PM - 8 miles home and had the pleasure of running a few of them w/ Rob! 

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, I added up our ice cream consumption for the year (we have a notepad on the fridge where you check off every carton that gets finished). I will report that our consumption dropped 9% in 2012 compared to 2011. But I will not post the total numbers because they are still far too embarrassing. 

AM - 11 miles up to work. 

PM - 5.5 miles. Down to SHP, ran a little w/ Andrea. Then we went to the gym but were too cold to go in the pool... so we just went in the hot tub for a while. 

I wrote a blog post on Recovery. Some discussion earlier this week got the wheels turning in my head and I started jotting a bunch of stuff down... thought it was worth sharing. These aren't necessarily the right things to do, its just what I do. Once I got writing, I ended up going off on a huge tangent about how I believe I went from being injury prone to injury resistant in the first place... that became a post of its own, so I'll save that for next week. Interesting stuff to think about. 

AM - 17 miles. 4+ mile warmup, 10 Mile AT Tempo in 53:19 (5:20/mile average). Splits - 5:22, 5:23, 5:23, 5:21, 5:17, 5:20, 5:20, 5:19, 5:18, 5:15. Cooled down 3 miles.

A great morning... even if was only single digits outside when we started. Fritz, Matt, Scott, Mike, and Chad came over and met Andrea and I at our place. We all ran together for ~30 minutes (yahooooo - Andrea too!!!) for our warmup, then got going rolling on my tempo loop. Matt ran awesome today, he was never more than a step behind me for the first 8.5 miles and finished the 10 just a few seconds behind me. He's got the killer instinct to get after these longer workouts, and that makes it a lot easier for me to have someone to work with. Fritz and Mike started w/ us, and Mike also jumped in for some mile repeats during the second half of tempo (it was nice to have him there at that point). I thought about extending the tempo to 11-12 miles, but figured since I hit 10 right at 5:20 pace despite the cold, that was about perfect for today. I have another week of harder workouts coming up before my mini-taper for the RnR 1/2.

A very good team effort this morning. We regrouped for the cooldown and then headed back indoors, where Andrea had eggs, bacon, sausage, and hot chocolate ready for us. Lots of fun... Chad told his story of getting shot in the chest with a rifle... so we're basically all just a bunch of wimps compared to him!

Thanks guys for a great run this morning!

Tomorrow we're planning to run from Highland High School at 8:30am. 

PM - 5 miles. 

AM - 20 miles. Long Run, easy effort (~6:50 pace), with a couple good hills thrown in the second half. I always enjoy the Sunday group runs from Highland HS. Andrea and I met up w/ Fritz, Allie, James, Adam, and Adam. We did a 5 miles loop, then another 5 mile loop, then Adam(RW) and I did a lap around SHP. That got me to 12, and I ran the last 8 solo back home. Felt good... wanted to get in another 20 miler since I'm not going to do another LR next weekend, and I have a race the weekend after that. So I won't go 20+ again until I start my specific phase in a couple weeks. 

PM - 4 miles. 

AM - 11 miles up to work.

PM - 6 miles down to SHP. Last 2 w/ Andrea. Four days in a row running w/ her... that hasn't happened since last July! 

As a follow up to my recovery post from Friday, I wrote another one about how I think I was able to get to the point where I can run so much consistently and not fall apart. Here's the link: How I went from injury prone to injury resistant. 

AM - 14 miles. LT Reps: 6 x 1 Mile in 4:58.3 average. Splits - 4:59.3, 4:59.2, 4:57.3, 5:00.2, 4:57.7, 4:56.2. 3+ up/down. Recovery was 0.3 mi back to the start.

Same workout I did about a month ago (12-6-2012), almost 6 seconds faster per mile today (average was 5:04 that morning). I spent too much time fiddling with my gloves during the 4th rep! This is a good benchmark workout for me to repeat every 4-5 weeks during a training cycle. The improvement was expected, obviously, as I ran a 10K at this pace last Monday. Solid effort - the goal is to knock out several good sessions this week, no great ones. 

PM - 6 miles easy. 

We had a USATF meeting last night. Its time for everyone to get their 2013 membership! The Utah LDR Circuit, as of right now, is as follows...

9-Feb      SLC Winter Series 10K
6-Apr      Striders Winter Series Half Marathon
1-Jun       Holladay Mile
8-Jun       Utah Valley Marathon + Half Marathon
4-Jul         Murray Fun Days 5K
20-Jul      Draper Days 5K
24-Jul      Deseret News 10K
TBD         Alta Peruvian 8K
24-Aug    Top of Utah Half Marathon
31-Aug    Wildcat Half Marathon
15-Sep    Top of Utah Marathon 

One or two more races may be added. We are aiming to have the schedule 100% finalized before the first race on February 9th. 

AM - 11 miles up to work, easy.

PM - 5.5 miles down to the gym. Hot tub. Then saw Rob dragging Andy across the street like a mother lion, to keep him safe from cars. 

Complexification. Today's Workout. Ryan Vail video. Andrea's review. Inversion is going away. And Science of Sport once again nails it. That's all I got.

AM - 15 miles. 3 mile warmup. Combo Workout: 4 mile AT Tempo in 21:27 (5:22/mi avg) + 6 x 1/2 Mile in 2:26.5 avg + 2 mile AT Tempo in 10:38 (5:19/mi avg). Rest was 1/4 mi b/w segments/reps. Cooled down until I hit 15 miles. [Splits - 5:28, 5:24, 5:16, 5:19 - 2:30, 2:23, 2:27, 2:24, 2:27, 2:27 - 5:18, 5:20]

Heat wave! It felt like... I don't know, a hundred degrees outside? But also very windy. I really need an east/west loop for the days when the south wind is cranking like that (20-30mph). Didn't feel fantastic this morning, but got in some quality miles nonetheless. My legs are sort of locked into that 5-flat pace (as the first 1/2 mi indicated!... although that one was also 100% into the wind so it felt like I was going uphill).

PM - 5 miles. Had to go pickup a friend from the airport, so didn't get out until about 3" of snow was already covering the roads. Fun snow run!!!

Some circuit updates - the Alta Peruvian 8K will be September 7th. It will be the 20th annual race... but also, the FINAL year of this event. I heard Frank Shorter once ran this race, anyone know if that's true?

The schedule I posted a few days ago might have one or two additions - Hot Pursuit 5K in October and Tour de Run in July. I should know for sure very soon and will get the final version of the schedule posted on the USATF website. 

AM - 10 miles up to work, it took me 89 minutes! Rocky IV style. I don't trust the cars, so I basically just ran where the sidewalks would be, and the snow was deep! Andrea even woke up early and ran the first couple miles with me. I never carry my phone, but today I did so I could take a picture... and I fell twice trying to get it, so enjoy this really blurry photo of Andrea running in the snow...

PM - 7.5 miles. Hannah (our friend who did a med school rotation out here in the fall) was in town for 24 hours to interview for residency at the U, so she drove my jeep up to campus this morning, and then I drove it home. I decided to run first, and did an hour up on campus and around the zoo area. I think the conditions were worse than this morning. The jeep performed exceptionally on the snowy roads, though. 

AM - 12 miles. The original plan for today was a 10-15K progression run. That got changed when winter storm Galdolf came in stronger than expected... all the roads are still covered in snow. Yesterday Rob approached me w/ the idea of running a 2 mile trial at the olympic oval with Kramer Morton, who finished 16th at the Foot Locker National XC Championships last month. I was all-in for that. We had a good crew meet at the oval - Andrea, Matt, Scott, Mike, Toni, Kevin, Collin, and Rob w/ his high school kids. Abby Murphy even joined us!

The oval was very crowded and we realized two things right away: 1) Don't go there at 8am (gotta go at 6am on the weekends if you are doing a faster workout) and 2) The 2-mile time trial wasn't happening due to the congestion. There was some skating event going on and it was a bottleneck on either end of the track. So we had to improvise.

Coach Rob suggested we change the plan to 4 x Mile, so that's what we did.  They were actually 1600s, but w/ all the weaving around, I guarantee every one was well over a mile long. I was going from lane 1 to 4 and back several times on every rep. Kramer and I ran 4:51, 4:50, 4:50, 4:50. I would set the pace and Kramer would hang behind me until 200m to go, when he would even up and it was obvious that he could blow me away with his kick whenever he wanted to. But he was nice and didn't do that. On the last rep, Rob told us to come through 1200m slower and then accelerate on the last 400m. We came through in ~3:46 and I ran 64 for the last lap, with Kramer just ahead of me on that one. 

On a day like today, any quality efforts you can put in is a bonus. I wish we had been able to run the duece, because my legs felt ready to really rip it. I feel ready for next weekend, that's for sure. It was fun to run w/ Kramer... I hope I get to do workouts with him more this spring, because he has some incredible speed and can really make me work over shorter distances. The best part of the workout was that Scott was right behind us on every rep. He's back! I also got in trouble for cutting off the zamboni. Whatever!

Andrea took a few pictures... 

PM - 8 miles.

AM - 18 miles. Got started at the crack of 11:30am for an easy recovery "long" run w/ Andrea, Allie, Rob, Kevin, and Collin. We ran 7 w/ the girls and then started doing loops around SHP. Bumped into Bill Cobler and he joined us for a bit and ran part of the way home w/ me. Very nice morning afternoon... sunny and relatively warm out. No soreness/tiredness at all from the indoor track workout yesterday, which bodes well for the week ahead!

PM - 4 miles easy. I was thinking about taking the evening off, but then I saw that the weather service was issuing a frostbite warning, so that made it a no-brainer to get outside for a shakeout. It was still a balmy 3 degrees outside. 

Super-Inversion is on the way. By the way, that weather blog that I linked is really interesting to follow if you live in Utah.

AM - 9 miles up to work.

PM - 5.5 miles down to the gym, met Andrea there for an intense hot tub workout. I broke my streak of not punching cars... wish I had stronger fists and could have shattered that knucklehead's window.

Here's the website you want to bookmark for the 2013 circuit.

AM - 12 miles. 3.5 mi warmup, 7.5 mile AT Tempo in 40:17 (5:22/mi avg). Splits - 5:21, 5:28, 5:28, 5:25, 5:28, 5:20, 5:12, 2:34. Cooled down a mile. And it was truly a cooldown, because I was quite warm and sweaty by the end. I probably had too many clothes on, but that's better than being under layered.

The goal for this morning was to get in a solid, but not taxing, aerobic effort. I thought this might finally be the workout that would get shifted to the treadmill (my tempo loop still has a lot of ice spots), but yesterday I noticed that the stretch of road on 1700E b/w 21st and 33rd was pretty clear, so I just ran back and forth there. Took it easy on the 180 degree turns and had to be very conscious of any slippery painted spots on the roads. And then the last 1.5 miles was a bit downhill back home, hence the faster pace. I normally wouldn't do that but I wanted to get a little quicker turnover at the end and didn't want to pull a muscle, so I considered it a fair tradeoff since the windchill was probably below zero.  

PM - 4 miles easy. 

This is a cool dataset - showing the improvement in the depth of American long distance running from 2005-2012. Hope to see this trend continue.

AM - 10 miles up to work, easy jog.

PM - 4.5 miles down to SHP. 

Lost in the shuffle of all this Lance nonsense is a great interview w/ Alan Webb...

You know I’m trying to get the best out of myself. And if you aren’t really getting the results you want, you can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result.

I think a lesson I’ve learned is that when you do get frustrated and have setbacks, it makes you ask the question, “Do I really want to do this? Is this something I like to do?” And I’ve realized that I just love the sport – I love doing it.

If you are going to do go down, you gotta go down fighting. Don’t just give up. That’s what it’s all about in the end.

I feel privileged to be even allowed to hang around (this training group). The dynamic with these guys is better than I could have imagined. Everyone here is very driven – everyone knows how to work hard – but these guys are really smart guys – smart form a training standpoint of knowing when to push and not to – and they can keep you accountable. 

That last quote is exactly how I've been feeling about our "weekend workout" group over the past couple months.

I also want to share this interview with Scott Wietecha. I know him from Saucony... we met at the 1/2 champs in Duluth last summer and have become internet friends. So creepy, I know. Anyways, he ran 2:18 and was the 2nd American at Houston a couple days ago. 

AM - 10 miles. 3 mi warmup, 6 x 1/2 Mile in 2:29, 2:28, 2:28, 2:28, 2:30, 2:20. Full recovery (1/2 mi back to the start) in between. 1.5 mi cooldown. Just keeping the engine primed. Slightly faster than HM pace on the first 5 (hard to go much slower given the immense amount of recovery), then finished a little quicker on the last rep.  

PM - 4 miles easy. Getting smoggier outside. 

There's a giveaway for a free entry to the SLC Winter Series 10K on the USATF-Utah Facebook pace.

***Lance Warning - Don't read if you are sick of this***

I was thinking about the Lance/Oprah interview puppet show that is going to air tonight, and while trying to jot down my thoughts, Rick Reilly posted an article that sums it up best (and who ever agrees with Rick Reilly?!?!). Steve Magness also offers some perspective on what it was like to actually work with Lance. Like Steve, I want to believe that amazing things can happen in athletics without the use of PEDs.

I feel embarrassed that I was duped by this guy. Back in the day, I was a Lance fanatic. I painted "GO LANCE" on my car every summer, watched every stage (live in the morning, highlights at night), and spent A LOT of time and energy (especially in college) defending him against doubters and accusers. I fully believed in him. As time went on after the 7 TdFs and more evidence came out over the years, it started to seem a little too good to be true, and I began to think that if anyone was smart enough to beat the system and get away with it, that person was probably Lance. I still wanted to trust him, though... he was a hero to so many people, and while that doesn't justify cheating, there is something to be said for the inspiration / hope he (and the foundation) provided.

But that doesn't absolve him. I'm not even talking about the doping. Anyone who knows me understands how passionately anti-cheating I am. I hate it. All the cyclists were cheating then... whatever. And lying about it. Whatever. It happens in other sports too. It would be naive to think otherwise.

Lance took the lying to the extreme though - going on the offensive, filing lawsuits against people who were actually telling the truth, using his foundation as a shield, targeting specific people and attacking their finances and character. Examples 1 - 2 - 3... I can go on with these links. He sold out his teammates, friends, and coaches... while making millions and millions of dollars in the process. He didn't just cheat and lie, he was a HUGE jerk about it too (and "jerk" is not the word I want to use there, I'm keeping it family safe). He's coming clean now because he has no choice - the whistleblower suit could potentially bankrupt him, and he wants to keep competing in triathlons. He isn't doing this to clean up athletics. If that was his motive, he could have made an impact a long time ago.

I don't know what angle he'll play tonight. Maybe he'll actually show some remorse? I hope that regardless of how this plays out, he is not allowed to compete in sanctioned running events again. I would feel a little cheated if I was standing on the starting line of a race and he was there too, because its been proven (through his own actions) that he simply doesn't have the integrity to be a good role model and ambassador for the sport of running. He can do other things to make a positive difference in the world, but not through athletics anymore.

Plus, he dated one of the Olsen twins. Which one? Hopefully we'll never know...

AM - 8 miles easy. 

Flying to AZ after work today. I'll be in Phoenix and San Diego for 7 of the next 9 days... couldn't have planned this any better! :-)

AM - 8 miles, Ocotillo loop. Then did strides w/ no shirt on. I love being in the sun again!

Went to the expo, picked up my stuff. I'm bib #207, which means I'm seeded 7th. Some good guys in the field, a couple OTQers. I'm excited. 

PM - 2 miles with a couple accelerations to shake out the nerves.

Pre-Race
My parents dropped me off at the PF Chang's restaurant on Mill Ave in Tempe around 6:30am (that was the staging area for the elite race). Warmed up 3.5 miles including a half-mile at 5:15 pace and some shorter accelerations.

Course
This is a loop course that starts and finishes on the ASU campus, with most of the race up in Scottsdale. The first 10 miles have a gradual uphill gradient, and then you come back down in to Tempe in the last 5K. A very fair course and deceptive due to the gradual elevation gains. I told Andrea beforehand that my ideal pacing would be to hit 10 miles in ~50:30 and then run 15:15 for the last 5K, so I was determined not to go out too fast.

Race
We started right on time at 7:50am. I tried to stay out of trouble as we ran about 150 meters and then made a sharp left turn on to University Ave. I saw my parents around a half-mile into the race and I was in 8th place at that point. I felt like I was jogging at marathon pace yet still hit the first mile in 4:54. 

Some guys went out too fast as I suspected, and even though I purposely backed off the pace over the next two miles (4:59, 5:02) I moved up to 5th place by the time we hit 5K (15:27). Glenn Randall (remember him from Boston?) was just up ahead but the top three guys were considerably further up. I saw Derek and Allison just as I was passing Glenn around mile #4 (4:58) and then set my sights on the next guy, and caught him by the 5 mile mark (5:10 - noticeably uphill, but it was a good opportunity to move up to 3rd place). Now I knew I was on the podium, but the two guys ahead of me (Scott MacPherson and Danny Mercado) had a big gap. Mile #6 was 4:57 (very encouraging!) and I hit 10K in 31:13 (I love a good palindrome split).

I was down 25 seconds to Danny at this point. He seemed really far off but I just kept telling myself - keep it consistent until 10, and then you never know what might happen. So I just plugged along the gradual uphill for the next 4 miles (5:12, 5:05, 5:05, 5:06) and I could tell that Danny was slowly coming back to me. I felt like I could have thrown in a surge ~9 miles and caught him, but I wanted to wait until mile 10 as planned to make my move. I split 10 miles in 50:33 (although the clock on the road said 50:20, so I thought I had a PR in the bag because of that). Then I made a move on the downhill. I was 8 seconds back from second place at 10 miles, and made up that gap in the next 2 minutes. By 10.5 miles I felt like I already had good gap on Danny. Mile #11 was 4:53. Then I went into "finish this d@mn race and no miles over 5:00!" mode and ran 4:59, 4:55, :34 to close it out in 2nd place, 1:05:55. My last 5K was 15:22. At 12.5 we merged w/ the "mini marathon" (walkers) which made the final stretch a bit of a fiasco. Otherwise, the course was well marked, turns were obvious, and having a bike alongside me for the last ~5 miles was very helpful. Amidst all the people, I did hear my parents yelling for me close to the finish.

Post Race
The first priority after finishing was to find my parents and get them some wristbands for the VIP area, so they could chill out and take advantage of the breakfast buffet while I went out for a cool down. I find that if you finish on the podium, you can usually ask for that kind of stuff and get it. Bryce Peterson (who many of you know) was there to watch... he and Glenn joined me for another 3.5 miles. Then we had some breakfast / lunch... lots of free food :-) We chatted with Connie Teague for a while... she finish 3rd in the 1/2 at 1:16-high, a nice PR. Her running is very similar to Andrea's and she has the same goal (OTQ).

Eventually it was time for awards, which RnR makes a big deal. Frank Shorter was there to hand them out! I got flowers from Frank Shorter! How can you beat that? Picked up a decent chunk of change for my efforts as well.

Most of the athletes on the stage had extensive NCAA All-American / Olympic Trials biographies, so they had no idea what to say about me... the announcer had no clue who I was. That actually made me happy - I beat some very established runners with impressive resumes and credentials that (for now) far exceed mine. I was actually seeded 8th (once Scott entered the race), so this makes me very confident that I'm on the right track. Fast times are good, but racing well against competition is important too. Its nice when you can do both. I ran a smart race today - I stuck to my plan and almost hit my first 10 mile/ last 5K goal splits right on. Not a PR, but close... anytime you break 1:06 on an honest course you chalk that up as a good day, because its not an easy thing to do (trust me!).

 
I always race well down here in Phoenix, and I also tend to race well when my parents are in attendance. So I'm hoping that streak continues in 6 weeks for the marathon!

Top 10 Results (the second place female is 42 years old!)

Thanks for all the support everyone. It motivates me, and means a lot.

[Splits: 4:54, 4:59, 5:02, 4:58, 5:10, 4:57, 5:12, 5:05, 5:05, 5:06, 4:53, 4:59, 4:55, :34 (5K 15:27, 10K 31:33, 10 Mi 50:33)]. 3.5+ mi up/down, call it 20 miles total.

PM - 2 mile shakeout in ~18 minutes. First mile was close to 10 minutes and that's how I know I ran it right this morning. 

AM - 12 miles. Ocotillo + grass park loops. Walked for a while before I started slowly shuffling, and eventually picked up the pace all the way to what might be considered "jogging". It took about 5-6 miles to get all the kinks out, and then I started to feel normal again. Nice to be out in the sunshine. Back to SLC later today.

PM - 4 slow miles in the smog. 

AM - 8 miles up to work. Averaged 9:10 pace with a first mile of 10:30!

Got to work an hour early for a meeting that was cancelled. I could have run an extra 3-4 miles in that hour at the pace I was moving:-)

PM - 8 miles home. Had one or two miles slip under the 8 minute barrier. 

AM - 11 miles up to work, very easy again.

PM - 4.5 miles down to SHP, met Andrea along the way. 

I was looking at my race log and I've now run 10 half-marathons in the past two years. Here they are in time order...

1:05:40, 1:05:45, 1:05:55, 1:06:02, 1:06:03, 1:10:12, 1:10:52, 1:10:58, 1:12:36, 1:15:50 

Quite a dropoff after #5. I'm hoping to keep that 4 minute gap! :-)

AM - 10 miles. Another easy run. Roads started to ice up towards the end. Good timing, as I'm headed to San Diego for the rest of the week.

Spoke too soon about that "good timing"... got to the airport just as my flight got delayed, then later cancelled. Then the flight I was re-booked on eventually got cancelled as well. Nice use of five hours. I decided waiting on standby for the 5pm was a waste of time and I went home to run. I'm going to try and get on the 10pm flight later.

PM - 11 miles in the neighborhood. Andrea joined me for a couple laps around the tempo loop, and I finished by doing a bunch of 8-15 second strides/accelerations over the last 2.5 miles. 

AM - 13.5 miles. 2 up, 10 mile AT tempo in 53:29 (5:21 / mile avg), 1.5 down.

Almost a failed workout. Got into SD after midnight and only was able to get a few hours of sleep. Woke up pretty tired and it was pouring rain outside. I almost bailed a half mile into the tempo, but after 2 slower miles ~5:30 I got into a good rhythm out of nowhere and the rest of the run felt good. Mostly ran the loop on Harbor Island over and over... No traffic there. Happy to get this one in. Hopefully the conference I'm at wont be too boring!

PM - 8.5 miles. Still raining (all day!). I double checked to make sure I wasn't in Seattle. No sign of the space needle. Ran around the harbor, to Petco Park, etc. Just exploring around.

AM - 8 miles easy. Ran around the harbor again. At ~5 miles I got a weird cramp type feeling in my right quad, turned around and it wasn't loosening up back to normal, so I just decided there was no sense in pushing through. Stopped at 8 and walked back to my hotel. The pouring rain had transitioned to a light drizzle by that point so it was actually a relatively pleasant walk, minus the occasional fish smell.

AM - 8 miles around the harbor. Stayed close to my hotel just in case I needed to stop. Not exactly the 25 miler at Balboa Park that I had planned for today. Quad feels better but I'm still a little worried. This is a bad time to have something flare up, because the next 3 weeks are arguably the most important. I'd rather have something come up a week before a marathon rather than a month out, when there is still a lot of work to be done. But, I can't change anything... Just have to take what my body gives me and make sure I'm very objective about what I do the next couple days.

PM - It took all day to get back home from San Diego. We started out descent to SLC, and then the airport closed! So we had to land in Provo and sat there on the runway for like 3.5 hours. They didn't even have people working at the Provo airport to de-ice the plane. I'm pretty burnt on traveling after these last couple days. 

AM - 8 miles up to work in the snow. I think the road conditions were actually worse than the big storm from a few weeks ago. I passed about a dozen cars going up Wakara.

PM - 30 minutes pool running. 

It was a big weekend for really fast running. Galen Rupp ran a 3:50 mile! (#5 all-time indoors). Mary Cain broke the high school record for the mile (by 6 seconds!!! 4:32!!!). Duane Solomon (Saucony) broke the 600m American Record. Over at the Dubai Marathon, 5 guys broke 2:05 in the same race. And the field for London was released... a PR of 2:05:15 would get you seeded 10th there.

AM - 8 miles up to work. Andrea joined me for the first couple miles. We agreed that we've never used our trail shoes as much as we have this winter so far. At least they are good for something!

PM - 30 minutes pool running w/ Andrea. 

I'm going to continue w/ running to work (easily) in the mornings and then taking the bus down to the gym and getting in the pool in the afternoons for the whole week. I think we've figured out the etiology of how I (probably) strained my quad, and what to do about it. For a variety of reasons (which I supposed I could get into later when I have more time), I'm not going to do any cross-training that isn't running-motion specific. I'm also not going to just take a bunch of time off, because if I've learned anything from Andrea's struggles, its that a muscle that heals in the wrong position leads to way bigger problems than a muscle that heals a little bit slower. I'm just going to skip a handful of workouts / long runs, and maybe skip racing the 10K next weekend, but I think I can get back to full health without a gigantic loss of fitness if I follow the semi-conservative route.

AM - 8 miles around our neighborhood in the snow.

Then I drove to work, because I was out of food and clean clothes. Bad idea. It took 75 minutes to get here - I've gotten here faster running through a foot of snow! Its been snowing pretty consistently since about the week before Christmas, you would think drivers would have figured out how to handle these conditions by now. Nope, lets just crash into things all over the place!

PM - 30 minutes pool running. Afterwards I realized the stairs leading into the pool were a good place to do calf dips/raises, so I did a bunch of those. Guess that should be added to the pool routine from now on. 

AM - 10.5 miles up to work.

PM - 2 miles w/ some accelerations + 15 minutes pool running. 

I almost forgot (good thing for Facebook)... today is Jesse James' birthday!