Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 12 miles. Usual-ish Sunday run w/ Fritz, Josh, Nate, Collin, and Adam. Pretty nice (cold) morning.

Went for an afternoon ski tour, similar to what we did on New Year's Day. I'm really excited about the prospects of skiing more this winter / spring (and hopefully summer too). We've been thinking about some of the places we'd like to go this year - definitely want to bring longer ski days and backpacking trips back into the mix if Andrea's body cooperates (which it will!). We have a lot of cool stuff planned for the spring and summer already. When life revolves around running a little bit less, that can actually lead to much better running (assuming the fire to train really hard at the appropriate times burns hot... and that's not a problem!). 

A few photos from today. Valley smog = gone!

AM - 6 miles.

PM - 8 miles.

AM - 12 miles. AT Reps: 3-2-1 miles (1/4 mi easy) - 16:00 (5:21, 5:22, 5:17), 10:29 (5:15, 5:14), 5:07. Then another faster quarter mile before heading home. 3.5 up, ~2 down, joining Andrea for a bit. Only about 80% of the workout volume I wanted this morning and the paces were slower than I was aiming for. But for the first early morning workout since November 17th (wow!), I'll grade this as a solid "Whatever+".

PM - 3 miles.

Another reason why Alta is the best.

AM - 10 miles. First 4 w/ Andrea. Nice morning with a little bit of snow on the ground... and warmer temps!

PM - 4 miles.

Cherry Blossom announced that they are hosting the USA 10 Mile Championship in April. This is a race I've wanted to run for a while, especially since I have a lot of friends in the area and owe them a visit. Now that it's the USA Championship it makes sense to finally swing the trip to DC. This actually fits perfectly into what I'm trying to accomplish in terms of training / racing this spring. I like this option better than the 15K Champs (Gate River) due to timing and travel logistics.

AM - 7 miles. Treadmill. 3 up, 4 mile AT Progression (1%) - 5:30, 5:20, 5:10, 5:00. Then hit the "cooldown" button which almost immediately went to 3.2 mph and I walked for 4 minutes. Too many black ice spots on the roads this morning to do anything faster outside.

PM - 6 miles. Treadmill. 3 up, 3 mile AT Progression (1%) - 5:30, 5:20, 5:10. Another cooldown button walk-a-thon to cap it off. Too much fun this morning to pass up a chance to do this again. This time my iPod was dead, adding to the excitement.

If Canova posted on FRB, he would probably call this the worst special block he's ever seen :-)

AM - 8 miles. First 4 w/ Andrea.

PM - 6 miles + strides.

We booked flights for the trip to DC and Cherryl Blossom 10 Miler last night. That escalated quickly.

USATF-Utah Press Release with the 2014 schedule and links to updated scoring / rules.

AM - 23 miles. Long Run. Started at HHS w/ Fritz, Nate, James, Josh, Collin, and Rob. Did a nice wandering Holladay loop for the first 15 miles. At that point we switched gears and I paced Josh for his two mile fast finish (5:39, 5:39), back to normal pace for a few minutes w/ Josh and Fritz, and then did 3 faster miles heading back towards home (5:14, 5:19, 5:18). Finished up w/ a couple miles around the neighborhood because it was so freaking nice out!!!

I'm trying to live in the 85-95 mpw range this winter, and since this run puts me at 93 for the week, tomorrow is a mandatory day off. Hopefully the 10-20" of snow forecasted comes through and we get a big powder day!