Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 13.1 miles. Started at SHP w/ AdamRW, Allie, and James. Nice snowy/slushy run... luckily its Sunday morning, so not many cars out, and we could just run in the middle of the roads. James stopped at 5 and the rest of us ran up to the fieldhouse at the U (where Allie dropped out to meet James, who had driven up there - very complicated logistics!). Then Adam and I did a loop up on campus and back down to Sugar House.

PM - 4 miles shakeout... the usual. Lazy Sunday... just lounged all day (after sleeping 10+ hours last night).

Big week in the books. This upcoming week will be a planned volume cut-down. I'll try to get in a few quality workouts including the 15K on Saturday. Since the 5K, I've put in weeks of 137, 141, and 150 miles - all while slowly increasing the quantity and quality of faster miles. I like the 3 weeks up, 1 week down - that seems to work well for me. I did the same thing in January (3 weeks at ~140 and then a cut-down at ~110 w/ a race). Although since I have 2 more important races in March, there is no way I'll hit this kind of mileage again this spring. I'm typing this out to keep myself accountable. The base is solid - now I have 8 weeks to fine tune.

AM - 5 miles w/ Andrea... easy morning! Some of the roads were very slippery. We ran an extended version of horsepark loop, through the snow. Big workout on tap for the afternoon...

PM - 10 miles. Ugh, the afternoon didn't go as planned. Decided on doing 3 x 3 miles at @ MP or a little faster. Warmed up, then did the first rep in 15:44 (5:15, 5:14, 5:15). Legs felt great but my stomach went into knots during the recovery jog. As soon as I started the second rep I had to stop within 5 seconds - it wasn't happening, and if I forced it, things were gonna get ugly (you know what I mean). So I jogged home, barely made it, used the restroom, then by that point the workout was shot, so I just jogged around the block for a few miles and called it a day. Now I feel like I took the day off.

AM - 10.3 miles. Warmed up 2.2 miles, then went into a 7 mile tempo/progression run - splits were 5:27, 5:25, 5:20, 5:17, 5:17, 5:11, 5:04 (Average pace = 5:17 / mile). Jogged home a little over a mile for a cool down. Stomach still wasn't 100%, but it was wayyyy better than yesterday afternoon. I guess I must have eaten something that didn't jive well.

Normally in the case of injury/illness, or just plain fatigue, I wouldn't necessarily say its the best idea to come back and do a quality effort the next morning after an aborted workout. But none of those really applied to why I cut the run short yesterday, and my legs felt like they were just getting warmed up, so I didn't see why I shouldn't do something of substance this morning.

In the afternoons its easier to hit 5:15ish pace right off the start, but early in the mornings I really need to do the tempos as more of a progression run and start slower, as it takes me a few miles to get completely warmed up and into a rhythm. 

PM - 7.8 miles, Holladay loop. 

AM - 10 miles... FJRAIJTAZ run. Yes, Fritz joined the usual Wednesday crew this morning. I'm not sure if that's the acronym we'll stick with, but it works for today. He claims his "real" name actually starts with a J. We had a nice run - it was warm out this morning. This winter has been too easy. I can only think of like one or two days that were even cold. Andrea's feet are getting a lot better, so that makes me really happy... and James' body doesn't seem to be falling apart - so hopefully soon everyone will be at 100% on the health-meter!

PM - 9 miles. Warmed up 2.5 miles w/ ACorn at the track. Workout was 5 x 1000m w/ 200m recovery jog - 3:04, 3:05, 3:03, 3:01, 2:57. Rob Murphy jumped in the last 600m of the last rep with me. I broke him in the last 100 meters :-) The three of us ran a couple laps around the park to cool down, dodging the cyclists.

Really happy with how easy this felt. I was originally planning to take 400m b/w reps, but after the first one it was clear I didn't really need it, so I jumped right into the second rep after 200m and kept the recovery shorter throughout. I haven't done many of these kinds of threshold intervals in a while. Now a couple easy days before the 15K on Saturday.

Every once in a while Sports Illustrated (well, Tim Layden) has a great piece on distance running. This article on Galen Rupp and Mo Farah is a must-read. I love the 200m repeats in 25 seconds in Park City... jeez... that'll get your lungs burning! And it says they'll be back in PC this summer, so we'll definitely be over there every weekend stalking those guys as they buildup towards the Olympics :-)

AM - 7.3 miles up to work, easy pace. No watch, but I suspect it was faster than usual - I think this new addition of daylight helps me wake up quicker on the morning runs!

PM - 9 miles home. 

Last night after the track workout I met a guy who "sold" me a pair of Icelantic Shaman skis that have only been skied on once... mint condition. I put sold in quotes because he was pretty much giving them away - I could easily re-sell them for double/triple what I paid on ebay in 30 minutes today if I wanted to. I've been looking to pick up a pair of these specific skis for about a year, and ended up paying about 1/3 of what I expected to... sweet deal. The good thing about this dry winter is that skiers are panicking and unloading all their excess gear! My gain for next season!

AM - 6 miles w/ Andrea, easy pace.

PM - 4.2 miles. Did a loop around SHP, went down to the track and did 6 x 200m (on/off) in ~35 seconds each, then jogged around a bit more. 

Looks like tomorrow is going to be pretty windy. I guess we couldn't really expect the weather to be perfect for all three winter series races. The more pressing issue for me is what shoes to wear!?!? Figuring that out will be my primary objective for the evening.

The final installment of the "winter" series out at the SaltAir this morning - between the WIND and the fact that this one was a 15K, the overall turnout seemed to be a lot lower... but we had a big crew from the blog representing.

Originally my plan for this race was to hit 10K in ~32 minutes, and then try to hammer the last 5K. But when my jeep was getting tossed all over I-80 on the drive over this morning, I realized that negative split plan wasn't going to happen. The wind (according to NOAA's station at the airport) was consistently 20-30mph from the NW with gusts around 40mph. And that means major headwind on the second half of the course. So I changed my strategy to "go out quicker and hang on."

My garmin decided to erase all the data when I plugged it into my computer, but I can piece together most of the splits. I ran the first 7.5K in ~23:32. All of the splits were either 5:02 or 5:03 for the first 5 miles. Pretty consistent. After the 180 turnaround we hit the hurricane, and the pace slowed down. I ended up running the second half of the race in 24:32, so I was bleeding 10-15 seconds per mile with the headwind. The splits were something like 5:18, 5:25 (totally lost focus!), 5:11, 5:14. I was very content to just average marathon pace on the way back. Finished in 48:04 (Average pace = 5:09/mile). 

As far as I can tell from looking at old results, the course record was 48:37, so I came in 33 seconds under that time, in less than ideal conditions. Last year at this race I ran 50:29 and was thrilled with that time... its cool how the spectrum of what I think is "fast" has shifted so much in the past year. 

A good effort this morning - I'm happy with how it felt, and putting it into context of the accumulated workouts and volume of training, its another indicator that everything is moving in the right direction.

The 15K in Arizona on March 11th is going to be a great test for me. Considering the competition I'll be facing there, I'm thinking I can run 2+ minutes faster than today.

Good running today by the rest of the guys - Fritz ran low 50s, Walter had a really good season debut (in his crayola shoes!), and Rob ran another strong race.

Warmed up 2 miles w/ Rob and Walter... then cooled down 6+ miles with a big group - Andrea, Fritz, Kevin, Bill, Walter, and then we found Josse and added on a bit more. Nice to meet JD and Tina after the race as well. 

Tomorrow (Sunday) we'll meet at Highland High @ 7:30am for an easy group run around Sugar House.

PM - An easy 3 mile shakeout run. Does more for getting the kinks out than an hour of stretching would ever do for me :-)  Got the grill fired back up for dinner - I think we put it away for all of 2 months.