Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 14.4 miles. Planned to meet a friend from work for an Emigration Canyon run, but he had to bail at the last minute, so I ran from the HCI to Wasatch Drive and did an out & back. My legs were a little tired this morning, so when I felt how strong the wind was blowing out of Emigration Canyon, I wanted no part of that battle and just ran on Wasatch instead.

Here's some morning stoke - Women's 1500m final. I don't want to spoil it and say who won, but the look on her face when she crossed the line was priceless. And an excellent post-race interview.

PM - 7.2 miles. We got kicked out of work at 3pm today because of the football game, so I met Andrea at Liberty Park. We did 5 laps on the woodchips, which felt great on my legs. 

AM - 11.4 miles, up to work. Got 9.5 hours of sleep last night. This afternoon we're headed up to a little cabin in the Snowbasin vicinity for the long weekend. I'll miss watching the final days of the work championships, but it will be nice to just unwind a bit. Tomorrow morning we have a solid crew meeting at the trailhead on the north side of Pineview Reservoir for a long run. I think the plan is to shuttle up and run the first 15 miles of the Ogden Marathon course then add on some extra mileage as needed, or just run around the reservoir. If you want to join, we'll meet at 7:15am.

PM - 4.5 miles. Our cabin has wifi... sweet. 

AM - 20.6 miles. Long run up in Ogden w/ Andrea, Allie, and Ken, who managed to sneak away for 15 miles even though his wife just had a baby :-) Really nice run... 15 on the roads, then the last part on a rolling singletrack trail. It was cold when we started, we all wished we had gloves!

AM - 11.1 miles. Ran the first half w/ Andrea, then found some nice hills for the second half. Nice run on the farm roads. Despite not doing any workouts this week (by design), I still feel like I got in a very solid week (~130 miles) and recovered from the race last weekend.

My sister (Jenna) was quoted in the NY Post this morning, although they spelled our last name wrong, which is probably a good thing, which you will realize when you read her quote and the title of the article :-)

PM - 4.2 miles, followed by an axe throwing competition against Andrea, which I'll have some excellent video footage of tomorrow.

Did a nice mountain bike loop this afternoon, linking Wheeler Canyon with a few of the other trails in the Snowbasin area. We also found out that the grocery store in Eden sells giant bowls of soft serve ice cream for 50 CENTS. In my mind, thats the equivalent of discovering gold.

Andrea riding towards Mt Ogden 

AM - 14.2 miles @ Snowbasin, see below...
PM - 6.3 miles easy w/ Andrea then added a little more on.

Ran the XTerra Nationals course at Snowbasin this morning. The "21K" is actually a bit over 14 miles, as I expected (its not quite realistic that linking 2 trails would come out to an exact half marathon!). Andrea ran the first loop w/ me, which is ~6 miles of rolling but rocky singletrack. I didn't necessarily love this section, and rolled my ankle several times. The second loop goes up towards Sardine Peak on a very smooth trail. Its about a 3 mile relentless climb up to the top, then comes back down on some huge switchbacks, which are also very run-able. Then you have a steady gradual climb over the last mile back to the finish. Overall, the total elevation gain is probably between 2000-2500 feet (profile and map below).

Now I have a decision to make... whether or not to actually run this race. One on hand, its a fun course and I think I could put some major hurt on people from the 7-10 mile marks, there is incredible prize money, and honestly I feel like I can win this race. But on the other hand, its 2 weeks before the Long Beach 1/2 Marathon, which is a much more important race for me. I'm not sure how many times I can go to the well this fall. The 2500 feet of downhill scares me, and I can't imagine the winning time being faster than 1:20-1:25, so its extra time on the feet.

The competitor in me wants to do this race and just crush this course, but the coach in me (who already told Andrea she probably shouldn't race it), knows I'm probably better off just saving it for Long Beach.

From September 2011

AM - 12 miles. 6 mile tempo run at Liberty Park in 32:16 (5:23 pace). Started nice and early this morning because I had to be at work by 7am, so the streak of 10-11 hour sleep nights came to an end at 3. I'm targeting 5:20-25 pace on these marathon paced tempos per Paul's advice, who told me that I can expect to drop 5-6 seconds per mile w/ the drop in altitude and wearing racing flats, which seems reasonable. The pace felt pretty easy after the first mile (wake up!) and I was tempted to go faster or extend the length of the effort, but stuck to the plan. I don't need to get ahead of myself in workouts. Consistency is the most important thing and I am holding myself to that.

PM - 9.8 miles. A little quicker than normal for the first 8.5, then saw Andrea and ran an easy mile with her. 

AM - 11.2 miles. Went to Liberty Park w/ Andrea and helped pace her tempo run. We warmed up 2 miles, then did a 5.5 mile tempo @ ~6:13 pace. I ran up to work from there... the shortest route from Liberty Park to my office is only 3.7 miles, but it climbs 750 feet! Being a pacer for elite women would be a really sweet job.

PM - 8.3 miles, down to Sugarhouse and did a lap w/ Andrea. 

AM - 15.1 miles, up to work. Ran about an hour w/ Andrea and Allie. SUPER WINDY this morning, especially once I started heading up the hill on Sunnyside. Holy moly it was like running against a wall! Hope all of you running TOU get that wind next weekend! :-) Hit 4000 miles for the year this morning... I'm 99.9% sure I've never run more than 3500 miles in a year before... and even that might be pushing it.

PM - 7.2 miles home. 

AM - 10.5 miles. Track workout at Highland. Warmed up 3 miles and then did 2x200m in ~35 seconds. That was kind of slow, so I decided I was just going to do whatever my legs gave me and not press hard on the reps. The workout was 10 x 600m w/ 200m jog. I averaged just under 1:51 and all the reps were less than 1 second off the average. I didn't try to pick up the pace on the last couple (or even in the last 100-150m of the individual reps), just ran an even effort through the whole workout. So very consistent but not very fast. I'll blame that on getting a mandatory flu shot yesterday afternoon at work :-)

PM - 7.5 miles while getting the windshield replaced on my jeep.

Hard to believe 9/11 was TEN YEARS ago! Senior year, XC team... what a crew...

AM - 24 miles at Jeremy Ranch. Andrea and I ran out (9 mi) & back to the East Canyon Reservoir, and she added on an extra mile to get 19. From there, I kept going along the I-80 frontage road to the Spring Creek trailhead, and a spot that I knew would be great for soaking our legs in a cold stream afterwards. Picked up the pace a bit on the last 5 miles and felt really good. We soaked in the freezing cold water for ~15 minutes, which was heavenly recovery.

I think Andrea is going to give the marathon a shot this fall and go for the OTQ, so that is what we talked about the entire run. I really believe she can do it. The question is whether to run Philly with me or go to CIM a few weeks later. As I told her, whether we both make it or not, just the fact that we are having this conversation says a ton about how far we have come in the past year.

The benefit of having Andrea drive the last 5 miles of the run alongside me... a moving aid station! 

AM - 10.5 miles slow & easy.
PM - 5.6 miles.

Got a ton of household cleaning, yard work, car stuff, and other odds & ends accomplished this weekend. About 20 things knocked off the "to do" list.  We also finally got some photos printed to go in frames that we bought a long time ago. While looking through some older pics, I found this one of Andrea and I from a couple years ago when we first met... most people wouldn't suspect this, but at that time, I actually had longer hair than she did! And she is going to kill me for posting this...

AM - 15 miles, up to work. Ran about 8 w/ Andrea.
PM - 5 miles, down to Sugarhouse and rolled into 4x200m on the track in 31-32 seconds

AM - 12 miles. Tempo Run at Liberty Park: 8 miles in 42:42 (5:20 average pace). During the first mile I was thinking "this is too early, we need to start doing these in the afternoons"... but after 5-10 minutes I got into a really nice rhythm and the rest of the workout felt very smooth. Pace was a little quicker than last week, exactly where I want to be on these runs.

Over the weekend I read Adam Goucher's new book - Running the Edge.  Its not what you'd expect from a typical running book, but I thought it was really good. Might be worth checking out if you are looking for something to read. Here is my review.

PM - 8.3 miles. 

AM - 14.8 miles, up to work, slow & easy.
PM - 7.3 miles easy. Ran a couple w/ Andrea.

AM - 10 miles. Easy run on Sunnyside / Wasatch Drive. Had a little more pop in my legs compared to yesterday.

PM - 9 miles. Track session (same as May 25 but w/ a couple extra 200s thrown in at the beginning and end). Workout was 2-2-4-4-8-4-8-4-8-4-4-2-2 w/ 200m jog b/w reps. Splits were 33 seconds for the 200s, 70-71 seconds for the 400s, and averaged 2:26 for the 800s.

Good to get in some work at 5K pace, although right now I'm not sure my 5K pace is much faster than my 1/2 marathon pace. We'll find out in a few weeks.  

AM - 14.8 miles, up to work. Felt surprisingly decent. Andrea's parents are in town, so we're headed to Moab this afternoon until Monday night. Tomorrow we're going to do our long run on the Hurrah Pass road, which I am very excited about.

PM - 7 miles. We hit the storm of all storms on the drive down to Moab. Most lightning I have ever seen. No lie, some of the strikes were hitting the ground 75 yards from the road. You could see all the sparks fly up when it hit the ground! It was intense. Once we got down here, there was a slight break in the storm (I don't mind the rain, but was terrified of going out in the lightning) so I got out for a quick run while Andrea and her parents went grocery shopping. I trust her to bring back lots of ice cream. There's no way we're running Hurrah Pass tomorrow... the road will be a mess, so we'll have to stick to the bike path for the long run. 

AM - 22 miles. Long run on the roads in Spanish Valley and Moab. Ran the first 20 miles w/ Andrea, and we picked it up to her marathon pace (6:17) for the last 3 miles. Then I went right into a fast mile (4:45) and then finished it up with an easier mile. The whole run had about 1100 feet of elevation gain, so it was another strength-builder.

PM - Hiked around in red rock land... iced my feet really good, and soaked in a hot tub. An excellent day!

AM - 11 miles
PM - 4.5 miles

Typical easy Sunday runs. We had a really nice afternoon hiking around Arches NP w/ Andrea's parents. Went out to Delicate Arch, then did a cool ranger-guided tour through the Fiery Furnace. Fun day.

AM - 16 miles. Beautiful morning in Moab. Andrea and I ran out to Ken's Lake. We did the first 9 easy, then used some gradual downhill and did 4.5 miles at her tempo pace (~6:15). At that point she split off and I went into the same hard mile that I did at the end of the long run on Saturday. Today I ran it in 4:37 (Saturday was 4:45). At this rate, if I stayed down here a few more days I'd be running 4:10 by the end of the week! :-)

PM - 3 miles in Price, quick shakeout on the drive home.

Spent the day exploring around Fisher Towers and Onion Creek Narrows... 

AM - 10.8 miles, up to work. 
PM - 8.2 miles, down to Sugarhouse and did 2 laps w/ Andrea.

*Oct 1st, 5000m on the track, probably 9am, probably Highland High School. If you're interested let me know. We'll have some rudimentary timing and prizes. Andrea and I figured it would be fun to turn our pre-Long Beach time trial into something a little more fun. The only thing I'll guarantee is that this will be the flattest and most accurate 5K you'll run this year! Afterwards we'll probably go out to breakfast or something.

AM - 11.5 miles. Workout at Liberty Park: 6 x 1 Mile. Averaged 4:54 (fastest was 4:52 and slowest was 4:57). This was a tough one to start before 6am! For these next two weeks the focus is primarily on some faster workouts to sharpen up for Long Beach, then we'll move back to the marathon-paced stuff.

PM - 7.3 miles, ran home from work. I looked up the last time I did mile repeats in my log (before joining this blog)... it was one of my first workouts of the year, just before the SLC Winter 15K. That day I did 4 x Mile in 5:30. So... there's been some improvement over the past 6 months!

AM - 10.8 miles, up to work, easy. Nearly got taken out by a car that just blasted through a stop sign. I hope they got wherever they were going 2 seconds faster. I also hope that they had their radio turned up loud because the woman driving would not have liked what I yelled at her!

PM - 7.3 miles, ran home. 

AM - 9.6 miles, up to work. The 8 minute guy kicked my butt this morning. 

PM - 3 miles. Rode my bike home and then did a quick shakeout run. Then we went to The Pie. Great night.  

"Technically" this wasn't a sanctioned race, but its a PR so I figured I'd make it a race report...

The plan for this morning was 5-6 miles at half-marathon effort. I decided to do it on the track, and then convinced myself that running 10K would be a good mental challenge. Ran up to the Highland track from home, and scoped out my competition:

• Old guy in lane 7, doing pushups every 200m
• Blue shirt guy in lane 4
• Obese guy walking around the infield

I did a bunch of strides and then got going. Thinking that 5:00 pace at sea level is worth about 5:05-ish up here, I just wanted to run ~76 second laps.

The pace felt very easy. First 3 miles (actually 1600s) were 5:06, 5:06, 5:06 (all within 0.2 seconds of each other). 5K was ~15:57. I kept the same effort but gradually got a bit quicker as I got into a nice rhythm. Next 3 miles were 5:03, 5:02, 5:01. With a lap to go, I knew it wouldn't take much to beat my college 10K PR. Last 400m was 69s. Second 5K was 15:37. Total time was 31:34.3.

After I finished, I wasn't all that winded, so I went straight into a set of  6 x 200m in 31 seconds. 

Now, the key this morning was that I really didn't run anywhere near all-out. I would say this was maybe a 90% effort, max. I think I could probably go sub-31 right now, which is a great sign. Two weeks until Long Beach... if the weather (ie. wind) cooperates, I think I'm ready for a really good race.

First run in my Saucony Type A4s. Great shoe. A bit different than the A3... might not be a marathon shoe, but its going to be my go-to 5K/10K flat now, and I am thinking I might wear it for the half-marathon as well. 

PM - 3 mile shakeout. In the afternoon, we went for a hike up at Brighton w/ Andrea's parents... colors are starting to change...

AM - 11.1 miles, easy around the neighborhoods... 6 w/ Andrea.

PM - 3 miles shakeout.

117 miles for the week, after weeks of 134, 142, and 141.  The main thing is that my workouts have been very solid in addition to the volume. Nice, consistent progress. I'm going to back it off a bit for the next 2 weeks, hopefully run well at Long Beach, and then do a cycle of very marathon-specific training before Philly.

Great day in sports... a new marathon world record, a very strong comeback race for Paula Radcliffe, and the Bills beat the Patriots! I loved this picture of Patrick Makau in Berlin after the race...

AM - 13.4 miles, up to work. 8.5 w/ Andrea. 

PM - 4.4 miles, down to Sugarhouse. 

*OktoberFAST 5K: We'll start the race at 9am on Saturday (Oct 1) at the Highland High School track. If you are planning to come, send me an email / private message w/ your name, age, and a seed time. We need to know how many people to expect. If we have a volunteer to start a timer, we can use my laptop and a stopwatch as a backup. If we don't have any volunteers, it might end up being more of a time trial (and I'll try to finish quickly and get the times for everyone behind me). Supposedly Saucony is sending us race bibs.

AM - 7.5 miles

PM - 7 miles. Track session: Warmed up 2 miles + 2x200m (34,34). Workout was 1600-1200-800-400 (400m b/w reps). Targeted 5K pace for the 16/12, then stepped it down a little for the 8/4. Splits were 4:46, 3:35, 2:21, 65. Then I added on another 2x200m in 32, 31. Overall I felt pretty good and think that if I run with even a decent amount of mental fortitude, I can dip under 15:00 this Saturday. 

AM - 13 miles, up to work. About 7 w/ Andrea. My legs felt really good this morning.

PM - 4.4 miles, down to Sugarhouse. 

I'm a little peeved about this whole Canyons-Solitude tram idea. To try and justify it on grounds of reducing traffic in BCC is ridiculous! Nobody in their right mind would drive all the way over to Park City, take two lifts to the top of the Canyons, then a tram to BCC, then another lift or two to the top of Solitude. Best case scenario, you'd be skiing by 11am! The real problem is that this would set a precedent and open the flood gates for other ski areas to expand into Twin Lakes Pass, Grizzly Gulch, and White Pine. Ugh. 

Andrew McLean will surely be leading the charge (or at least helping spread non-biased information) on this one. His recent posts: Wasatch Conflict Primer and The Canyons Tram and Ted Wilson are worth reading if you're interested in what is going on.

AM - 7.3 miles, up to work.

PM - 2.5 miles w/ 4x200 on the grass at Sugarhouse. 

*Last chance... OktoberFAST 5K on Saturday morning... email me if you wanna run by tomorrow night. It will be pretty low key but should be fun. Good chance to run fast and meet some fellow bloggers. 

AM - 6 miles on campus. Easy McBreezy. The "down" week has already worked its magic in terms of getting rid of any little aches and stuff like that. I hold up to the bigger mileage really well, but it will be nice to go into my last cycle of marathon training (after Long Beach) feeling good and fresh, because that will be a challenging 3-4 weeks!

PM - 2 miles, shakeout.

Look what Saucony sent today... awesome... who wants the #1 seed?

Good luck to everyone running St George tomorrow! Negative splits!!!