Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 6.3 miles. Zoo and back from HCI.

PM - 8.7 miles. Met Andrea and Redd at Highland. We warmed up 2 miles on the grass, then went down to the track.  Workout was 12 x 400m in average 68.8 seconds w/ 200m float recovery. All the reps were very consistent - fastest was 68.1 and slowest was 69.9 (the first one). We cooled down around the perimeter of the park. It was a perfect afternoon for running!

This was a good workout for me because I didn't have to press to hit the splits. I can feel the wheels coming back. The effort level was about the same as when I was running these kind of reps in 72 seconds a month or two ago.  

We also met a guy who is a 400m/800m runner. He agreed to meet me for some 200s later this week. A long sprinter would be a good addition to our training group! I need someone to chase :-) 

PS - Another epic steeplechase. 

AM - 12 miles. JAKJAF run... SHP-Tanner-Parleys-Wasatch-Zoo-SHP loop. Nothing like picking the hilliest route possible after running quarters the night before. Added on a little extra once we got back to the park (Andrea's idea - not mine!). Such a nice, pleasant morning - there wasn't even a massive wind blowing out of Parley's Canyon like usual.

PM - 4 miles. 

AM - 7.3 miles up to work.

PM - 7.5 miles. Ran down to the track and met Andrea, Allie, and (our newest blog member) Rob. Workout was 8 x 200m w/ 200m jog recovery. Rob and I took turns leading - we averaged 30.8 seconds - the fastest 200s I've run in quite some time! It felt good to get the legs turning over quicker. When the girls finished, we jogged about 10 minutes to cool down. 

Excellent post from the Track & Field Superfan about Cam Levins, high mileage, frequent racing, and achieving the "tireless state." 

AM - 4.2 miles w/ Andrea. Easy breezy. Provo City 5K tomorrow.

PM - 3 miles.

Thou Shalt Run!

What a tagline for a race... only in Provo :-)

Went down w/ Andrea and Kevin this morning. Warmed up a little over 3 miles, then did some strides. I need to start getting a better warmup for 5Ks - getting in a few minutes of threshold pace running to get my heart rate up. That's also what the caffeine pill is for, except that I forgot to take it today!

Off the start a bunch of kids sprinted out FAST! One of them, who couldn't have been more than 4 feet tall, stayed with me for about 200 yards or so. Then I was solo the rest of the way. The course is essentially the last 5K of UVM, so you go up the country club hill and then its a gradual downhill to downtown. Its an aided course, but I think a flat sea-level course would be a bit quicker.

I came through 2 miles in ~9:38 (I didn't have my watch set to auto-split and there were no markers for the 5K), then the last mile was 4:51 or 4:52. Final time just a tad over 15 minutes. Oh well.

There are a lot of upsides to marathon training, but the downside is that you get really comfortable just running "comfortably hard" all the time. You don't spend a lot of time on the other side of the red line when you are running lots of miles, long tempos, etc. That was my problem today, I just felt comfortable at 4:50 pace and mentally I didn't want to push it any harder. The workouts I have planned for the next month are going to be geared towards "re-learning" how to make it hurt. Lots of work in the Mile to 5K race pace range.

Kevin ran very strong and finished 2nd. Andrea continued her excellent streak of races and not only won in a great time (17:08) but she finished 4th overall! After she came in we waited just a little bit and there was Rachelle - who ran 19:30-something, a great PR for her! I think sub-19 is in the cards for her this year. Lots of awesome running from the blog today - Allie and James broke the record in the relay, Fritz ran a half-marathon PR (if you don't count the first half of his marathons), Emily B ran a PR and won the women's half, and Steve ran his weekly sub 2:40 marathon :-)  Seriously, I think Steve is 23 years old. Met some other bloggers for the first time - including Merri and BrandonD.

Cooled down 5 miles back to the car. Then made our way back for awards and the Cinco de Mayo festivities. Run13 did a good job with this one, I'll be back down in a couple weeks for the Memorial Day 10K.

PM - 3 miles easy w/ Andrea. Now off to see The Avengers. I am having the ultimate birthday weekend for a dorky 14 year old runner... 

AM - 10.5 miles w/ the JAKJAF crew. Nice loop from SHP to Holladay and back.

PM - 3 miles, then a handful of drills w/ Andrea.

After running this morning Andrea and I went up to Alta - now that the lifts are closed for the season, we can ski there! :-)  We did a very mellow tour up to the Sugarloaf/Baldy saddle. Things are melting out fast, but I think we'll still get in 1 or 2 more Sundays of good skiing.

AM - 10.7 miles. Usual warmup (2.2 miles w/ accelerations) then 7.5 mile tempo run in 39:53 (5:19/mile avg). Splits - 5:18, 5:26, 5:24, 5:18, 5:21, 5:15, 5:18, 2:33. Cooled down a mile w/ Andrea, who was doing a quick shakeout run. Good run to start off the week. 

PM - 6.2 miles. Ran w/ Andrea while she was warming up for her tempo, jumped in for a little over a mile with her, then ran home.

Here's an interesting little nugget that I discovered last night - the time difference between Andrea and I in the five 5Ks we've both run in the past year: 2:07, 2:05, 2:08, 2:07, 2:06. Needless to say, we are very consistent! And if there was a handicapped race where she got a 2:06 head start on me, it would probably be a very exciting finish.

AM - 7.3 miles up to work.

PM - 7.5 miles. Ran 4.5 miles from work down to the track then did a short speed workout - 3 x (400-200-200) + 4 x 200 [30 seconds rest b/w reps, 90 seconds b/w sets]. I averaged 67.5 for the 400s and 31.8 for the 200s. Cooled down a mile with Andrea. A good session to get the legs turning over, 2 miles of total reps at Mile/3K pace. Then we went to TCBY for the 5th time in the past 2 weeks (lots of expiring Groupons). I would call tonight a success!

FYI - If anyone is interested, we're doing a longish run (15-18 miles) on Saturday at Jeremy Ranch, and then planning on breakfast at Ruth's Diner afterwards. Thinking we'll meet around 8:30am and then drive up there in as few cars as possible. If anyone wants to join, let me know. We can pick a convenient meeting spot later in the week. Ritz, Rupp, and Farah are likely to be up there as well, although no one is required to try and hang w/ them :-) 

AM - 12 miles. The usual JAKJAF crew (we're still looking for more letters to form a better word). Nice run, easy pace, and we didn't do the Tanner Park death loop like last week.

PM - 5.2 miles, horsepark loop. Saw a new, very cute puppy. Hot out!

AM - 5 miles, nice & easy.

PM - 10 miles. Met Andrea and Kevin at Highland for a track workout. The plan was cruise intervals (8-10 x 1K w/ 200m recovery) at goal half-marathon pace (I'm hoping to crack the 1:05 barrier in Duluth). We warmed up 2 miles around SHP then got going. I ended up running 8 x 1000m in 3:05 average... so right on pace. It was windy and I just didn't feel like I had my "A" game today, so I didn't feel the need to force the issue and squeeze out 10 reps. I got what I needed out of this. I've had 6 faster sessions in the last 10 days so I need to make sure I don't go over the line and put myself in a recovery hole. The three of us slowly jogged the perimeter of the park again for a cooldown.

Running 15:25 5K splits (x4!) for a non-aided 1/2 marathon seems intimidating on paper, but I feel very confident that with another month of training, I should be able to do this.

AM - 7.3 miles up to work. Andrea joined me for the first part.

PM - 5.5 miles, from work down to SHP, meeting Andrea along the way. Finished with a mile on the track -  fast on the straights, jogging the turns - so 8 x 100m in 15.0 seconds average... starting at 15.5 and working all the way down to 14.7 :-) I'm no David Rudisha... baby steps to getting faster. Then we did our form drills... trying to keep doing these multiple times per week.

Jay Johnson's post about honesty and race specificity is worth a read, especially the last couple paragraphs. 

*Meeting here at 9am tomorrow for a run on the Jeremy Ranch road. We'll probably run to East Canyon Reservoir and back.

AM - 17 miles on the Jeremy Ranch road. This is probably my favorite place in Utah to run... love it up there. There's no better place to build strength. Its just rolling hills the whole way, and since you drop about 450 feet on the way out without really realizing it, the return trip to the cars is extra fun! Andrea and I met James, Kevin, Chad, and Mark and we got started at 9am - it was surprisingly warm by that point. We had a great run - out to the end of the dirt road and then another mile or so to East Canyon Reservoir, then back. Saw a moose a few miles into the run! Casual pace for the first 16, then I ran the last mile faster (5:03), which is actually pretty good considering its an uphill mile at 6300 feet and was into a headwind.

Another lesson learned today - don't start doing all the variations of the Arrested Development Chicken Dances while running uphill at altitude. You'll loose your breath, guaranteed! :-) 

Then we went to Ruth's and got some big omelets. Fantastic day. We'll be repeating this one next Saturday for sure. 

PM - 4.5 miles, horsepark loop. 

AM - 7 miles easy.

PM - 3 miles + drills + grilling steaks. 

Another awesome, beautiful, warm day up at Alta. We skied an aesthetic, fun line off the east side of Mt Baldy. Anytime I get to set a bootpack staircase up a chute, I'm a happy guy!

I put up a bunch more photos on Wasatch & Beyond. Here's a few... 

From May 13 Skiing

I wore my shorty shorts in honor of Jun's double crossing of Zion NP yesterday!

AM - 12.5 miles. I had a way too early meeting at work this morning, so I had to start my workout a lot earlier than I would have preferred to! Warmed up 2 miles, then eased into a 10 mile progression run - Splits: 5:38, 5:32, 5:25, 5:20, 5:20, 5:18, 5:16, 5:13, 5:11, 5:06 (53:20 total, Avg pace = 5:20 / mile). Cooled down a half-mile then scurried up to work.  Good aerobic effort to start off the week. It was weird to actually run in the dark... I've gotten used to the constant daylight over the past couple weeks. I come off these Sundays in the mountains all charged up - there is just something about getting up in the alpine that energizes me.

PM - 6 miles. 2 miles around SHP, to the track and right into 8 x 200m (hot/cold) in 31.6 seconds average, then another 2 miles around the park. 

Then I locked every set of keys to my jeep inside the jeep as soon as I got home. Awesome. 

AM - 10 miles up to work. I looped around a bit extra by Red Butte because I had some extra time and there was a nice cool breeze. Felt good this morning.

PM - 6.4 miles. Down to SHP, second half of the run w/ Andrea. 

AM - 10.5 miles. We interrupted the regularly scheduled easy group run for a track workout. Everyone still showed up except for Fritz, who is running a marathon in 72 hours, so he was excused. He did run by at the end to check up on us. Workout was 8 x 800m + 4 x 200m (200m jog b/w all reps). Averaged 2:26 (2:25.97 - gotta round it up!) for the 800s and 31.8 for the 200s. We had to do some sprinkler dodging on the warmup, during the workout itself, and on the cooldown. Its that time of the year. Overall another solid but unspectacular session. I felt very much in control - the splits were exactly what I was targeting for today. Hopefully after a couple more weeks of putting together these building blocks, I'll be ready for a breakthrough in June.

PM - 5 miles shakeout, easy. 

*Today's WSJ article on Abdi is a must read. Every paragraph is quotable! 

FYI - Jeremy Ranch run again this Saturday - meet here at 8:00am. Check back on Friday to confirm that time, though. We'll run b/w 15-18 miles again, then refuel at Ruth's. Or go outlet shopping with Redd.

AM - 13 miles. Holladay "Ahhhh the bread at Great Harvest smells so good... do you think Top-It is open at 6:30?" loop w/ Andrea... split off after 7.5 miles and then up to work. The hill up to HCI isn't getting any smaller.

PM - 4.5 miles.

AM - 7.3 miles up to work.

PM - 7.5 miles. Down to the track and 8 x 200m in 30.7 seconds average. Eased into it, but the last one was 29.0, probably my fastest 200 since high school. Starting to find those other gears. Andrea talked me down from doing a harder workout... probably a good move.

Jeremy Ranch longish run tomorrow - 8am.

AM - 17 miles at Jeremy Ranch. The crew of usual suspects - Andrea, Allie, James, Kevin, and Mark. Another perfect day up there and very enjoyable run. First 15 miles were easy, then I dropped it down to MP for the last 2 miles (5:16, 5:16), although on that road, 5:16s are much faster than marathon effort. I opted not to do a really fast finishing mile today since I did my 200s a bit faster than normal yesterday and wanted to make sure I didn't put any additional stress on my achilles tendons. 

Afterwards we soaked out legs in the freezing cold stream, which was awesome for recovery purposes, then went to Ruth's for a delicious breakfast. Great morning! 

PM - 4 miles.

Great running at Ogden today - very happy to see so many friends and bloggers have fantastic races!

AM - 9 miles, lots of loops on the grass at the horsepark.

PM - 4 miles.

We decided to nix the ski plans for today, since it wouldn't have been good for Andrea's hamstring. So I spent the day cleaning / organizing gear, lounging by the pool (plotting adventures), and then we went bowling. Rolled 302 for 2 games (149-153), slightly better than the 295 from last month. At this rate I'll be a pretty good bowler by 2018.

Here's the full results of the bowling showdown. The take-home points are that the Murphys are a very strong bowling family, Fritz is unstoppable the day after a marathon, and when Allie hits the wall in bowling, it goes downhill fast :-)

Fiddy - 82 - 97
Allie - 83 - 37
Redd -  100 - 101
Jake - 149 - 153
Andrea - 85 - 119
Fritz - 160 - 155
LuluWalls - 97 - 81

And the Murphys (on the bumper lane!)...

Abby - 127 - 86
Andy - 90 - 105
Anne - 123 - 144
Rob - 138 - 131 

No mountain pictures today, but a couple hours of this is good for the soul too...

AM - 11 miles. Threshold efforts of 3-2-1 miles with 1/4 mile jog in between. My garmin deleted the workout, but luckily I can remember splits pretty well - 15:27, 9:56, 4:52. Close enough, its not like the watch is 100% accurate anyways. More about the effort level on this workout... its a twist on the old standard "15-10-5 minute" we would do in college. Keeping the rest short is the key on this one. I felt good and was going to extend the workout but decided that I met the goal for the morning so there was no point in pushing it too hard... especially after a solid bowling performance yesterday. I saw Andrea just after I finished the last effort and I ran a few miles with her for a cooldown.

PM - 7 miles. Met Andrea at SHP and did a bunch of easy laps on the grass. 

AM - 8.5 miles. Warmed up 3 miles straight into a 4 mile tempo in 21:05 (5:18, 5:20, 5:16, 5:11), cooled down 1.5 briskly back home. 

PM - 8.5 miles. Ran 3 laps around the perimeter of SHP on the grass, down to the track and bopped through 8 x 200m in 32.7 seconds average (not pushing it too hard, and keeping the recovery 200 at a decent clip), the jogged around some more on the grass until I hit an hour... all continuous. The 200s were just to stretch out my legs and go through the full range of motion.

AM - 13.3 miles. JAJAK group run, easy pace, refreshing aerobic miles on a perfect cool morning. I split off and up to work after about 9 miles, then looped around up by HCI until it was time to go inside.

PM - 7.3 miles home, extra easy. 

AM - 9 miles. Warmed up ~3 miles around SHP, then to the track for 4 x 1200m (400m jog) + 8 x 100m (on the straightaways, jogging the turns). Wanted to find the rhythm for Saturday's 10K on the 12s, and just run fast & relaxed on the 100s (and not aggravate my achilles). Splits were 3:43, 3:42, 3:42, 3:42, and all the 100s were ~15.5 seconds. Jogged around for 10 more minutes and called it a morning.

The 3 people on the track that were crawling around doing crazy stuff with dumbbells looked like they were working a lot harder than me. I'll take cruise intervals any day over whatever they were doing!

PM - 6.2 miles easy. 

AM - 8 miles up to work, slowly.

PM - 4.5 miles. Then some yardwork. I dislike yardwork, and I despise pine cones. But now the outside looks nice and pretty. Gotta keep up with all the old people who live near us and spend their entire day pretending they are the groundskeepers at Augusta National.

I got a flood of text messages last night - the 4x800m relay record at my high school finally went down 11 years after my team set the mark. Granted, it wasn't a super fast time (8:17 - we had 2 guys who never broke 2:10, and myself and another guy would split 1:57s), but the guys yesterday shaved 6 seconds off the record, so I'm really happy for them. Its good to see records go down and new names up on the board. Amsterdam HS has never been a distance powerhouse (I took the 1600m record from 4:27 to 4:17 and the 3200m from 9:49 to 9:16 during my senior year), but they are starting to emerge as a strong track program again - they have a 15 year old who just ran 47.8 for the 400m. If that kid starts doing some mileage, my records will be toast! :-)

The old guard...

...and the new blood (they have much nicer uniforms now!)...
 

Today was the beginning of my "6 races in 22 days" stretch. I ran this one last year (31:55), and today I was aiming to hit around 31-flat (5:00 pace), as I really needed a solid longer LT workout to prep for the upcoming 1/2 marathon in Duluth... and those are tough to do in a non-race setting.

I warmed up ~3 miles and decided I was OK to wear my lighter flats (I've had some minor achilles tightness over the past week, so I've been playing it safe and wearing shoes with more heel). The race started about 10 minutes late which wasn't ideal, but it wasn't a big deal either. I didn't see anyone I recognized (ie. Teren or John) so I thought I might be running solo.

After the gun went off a tall, skinny guy got right up in the front with me. I didn't know who he was, but I could tell he was legit because I'm pretty sure he wasn't even breathing. Turns out it was Kyle Perry, former NCAA champion who now runs for New Balance. The thing about racing in the Provo area is that you never know when a former NCAA champ from BYU is going to randomly jump into a low key road race!

First two miles was 5:02 and 5:10. Kyle and I were running together. That second mile is always a bit slower as it climbs uphill ever so gradually. You get that little bit of downhill back on the third mile, which was 4:49. I probably fell back about 4-5 seconds during that mile. The next two miles were 4:55 and 4:57. Kyle really opened up the gap here and I kind of lost sight of him (as we were now running with the 5K people). So I ran 14:40 for these 3 miles and fell back about 100 meters. Unbelievable. When I hit the 5 mile mark I did that math in my head and was sort of peeved off and threw in the towel. The sixth mile was 5:03, then 1:09 for the final stretch. Chip time had me at 31:06. Kyle finished in ~30:51, a new course record.

The Orem HS track is conveniently located a 1/2 mile from the finish line of this race, so I immediately jogged over there to finish my workout (cheering on Melody along the way - she looked so strong and fast!). Did 12 x 200m on the track in just under 33 seconds average. Then jogged back over for awards and chatted with Melody and Kyle for a while.

I basically did exactly what I wanted to do today (except win the race). But that's OK - I ran 50 seconds faster than last year. And my next 10K is going to be on the track at sea-level in two weeks, so I should be able to run significantly faster. Overall this capped off a solid week of training (4 quality days) and my highest volume week since March. Next week I'll start tapering back for the rest of the upcoming races. 

Some other highlights...

-Melody ran awesome, a huge 10K PR and course record. And her shoes are really cool... but I won't mention what they are b/c they aren't Saucony :-)

-Kyle's family drove alongside in their car cheering the whole way and playing music. At ~2 miles his sister-in-law yelled out "We're just cheering for Kyle more because we're related to him... but you're both awesome!" Only in Utah County are people 100X nicer than anywhere else, and STILL they felt the need to justify why they weren't being even nicer. I love it! When she said that, I just started laughing... in the middle of the race... just what I needed to be doing.

-It wasn't really warm enough for cold treats this morning, but those creamies popsicles still always hit the spot! 

-This is a 10K PR for me. I've run faster 10K splits in longer races, but for a just a 10K race, I've never gone quicker. The fact that it was an non-aided time at altitude is good.

PM - 12 miles. 20 minutes turned into 80 thanks to Mr. Springsteen and his friends from the E-Street band. If you listen to this and it doesn't make you want to run through the jungle, check your pulse and make sure you are alive :-)

AM - 17 miles. Its borderline of whether I can even call this a morning run, since I didn't get started until after 11am. I was planning on running Jeremy Ranch today, but when I woke up (after sleeping for nearly 11 hours... yep!) I saw that it was snowing in Park City and didn't feel like dealing with that. So I did a major kitchen/bathroom cleaning spree (which should count as cross training), then headed out when a weather window appeared to open, although I still ended up getting caught in a few cold rain showers. Ran one of my favorite loops - down to the base of Big Cottonwood Canyon via Holladay Blvd and then back home along Wasatch Blvd. Kept the pace super easy the whole time, just wanted ~2 hrs on my feet and some good hills. No fast finish today... I did enough fast running yesterday. 

The sun better come out tomorrow so I can wear my USA flag split shorts! 

PM - 5.5 miles.

Ended up hitting more miles than anticipated this week... but the quality of the workouts didn't suffer at all. I've had a nice progressive buildup since Boston - 62, 81, 99, 108, 117, 131... on my run last night I had a feeling in my legs (and mind) that is hard to describe but when you get it, you know good things are coming. Its time to catch fire. 

AM - 13.5 miles. Slept in forever again and when I saw the sun shining through the windows, there was only one place to head - Jeremy Ranch - knowing I'll be traveling the next 3 weekends and I won't get to run up there for a while. About 5 miles into the run I saw Rob M coming the other way, so I ran back with him, then added on a few more. I'm glad I ran into him, good company and conversation, and I think he is convinced that this is the place to be all summer. Between weekend runs in PC and the planned midweek evening trail runs at Alta, its going to be a lot of fun (and a lot of high altitude!). The road itself is in the best condition I've ever seen it, because Morgan County must have cleaned all the rocks off their half of the road during the past week. Its nice and smooth all the way.

Afterwards I soaked my legs in the freezing creek while a bunch of fighter jets flew overhead. It was really cool.

PM - 4 miles. Then burgers and badminton with the Murphy clan. 2016 Olympics, here we come!

AM - 8 miles. Warmed up 2 miles w/ some strides, then 5 mile tempo in 26:16 (5:15/mi avg). Splits - 5:21, 5:20, 5:14, 5:12, 5:09. One mile jog home. Didn't sleep well last night, so I waking up early wasn't fun, but two easy days in a row left my legs feeling pretty good.

PM - 8.5 miles. A nice steady run, mostly on gravel and grass... beautiful, warm evening and I felt like I could just cruise along forever. Decided against doing anything faster this afternoon. I noticed today that I didn't notice my achilles at all this morning - I think its about 99.4% of normal now, so I'm not playing roulette with it. Giving it a good soak in the ice tub as I type this entry.

Seriously, how cool is this? A lot of $$$ is probably spent following Kilian Jornet w/ a helicopter... worth every penny! Radical SkiMo footage.

AM - 9 miles. Warmed up 2 miles around SHP, then to the track and strides. Workout was 12 x 400m (200m jog) + 8 x 150m. Target paces were 5K goal/dream pace for the quarters, and just fast/relaxed on the 150s. Averaged 68.9 seconds for the 400s and 22.9 seconds for the 150s. Just to prove that I can keep the standard deviation low, here are the actual splits - 69.9, 69.1, 68.8, 69.3, 69.2, 69.0, 68.5, 69.1, 68.9, 68.3, 68.3, 67.9, 23.0, 23.1, 22.9, 22.7, 22.8, 23.0, 23.0, 22.7. Jogged some backwards laps in lane 8 for a cooldown.

Allie and James sighting on the drive up to work - they looked like they are only a few weeks away from being married. 

PM - 8.3 miles. I had no set plans for this afternoon other than to do something cool. The Kilian video released yesterday got my mountain juices flowing, so I put my rando skis in my car this morning "just in case" I decided to take the afternoon off from running and go ski something... but Rob M sent me an email this morning suggesting we go run at Jeremy Ranch after work, and that offer is just too good to pass up. We met up there around 5pm and ran out a little past Mormon Flat and back... good conversation and the miles just flew by. Afterwards we iced down in the creek for 15-20 minutes. Man, that cold water recharges my legs, and running through those hills out there recharges my soul. Great day!

AM - 6 miles, slow jog.

PM - 4.5 miles. Jogged around on the grass at SHP for 30 minutes, then went down to the track  and spiked up for a quick speed session - 2 x (150m, 100m) + 2 x 200m with full recovery (~75-85 seconds b/w each one). Just wanted to practice running fast without tripping over my feet (easier said than done). Splits were 21.1, 13.6, 20.8, 13.4, 28.1, 29.1. That's quite a bit faster than I am used to moving my legs!

This paragraph on accumulation from Functional Path Training is worth a read. It was posted last week, but I thought its worth sharing. Very applicable for many of us - keep the big picture in mind.