Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 19 mile long run. Started from HHS w/ Josh, Rob, Fritz, and Nate. Tanner / Zoo death hills and then up Emigration Canyon about a half-mile past Ruth's until we hit 10 miles, then turned around and ran the next 7+ miles down the canyon to SHP and then a loop around the park at 5:42/mi pace (all w/ Josh and most w/ Fritz/Nate). Finished with a faster mile on the track (4:59 for 1600m) and a few cooldown laps. 6:34 avg pace for the run. Good variety on this one (ie. plenty of climbing).

Went up LCC in the afternoon and found some leftover (from Thursday!) powder off the shoulder of Patsy Marley. Then a slush run-out back to the jeep. Followed by a long soak in the Peruvian Lodge hot tub. A tank top type of day.

AM - 8 miles.

PM - 4 miles w/ Andrea.

USATF Utah circuit update. Two new races added to the schedule.

AM - 13 miles. 8 + 4 x 5 minute efforts (3 min easy). Avg segment paces were 5:10, 5:02, 5:04, 5:02, 5:00 per mile. Original plan was LT / 10K-10K / 5K-5K effort, but it ended up being more like HM / 10K effort. Didn't really put the gas pedal down like I had intended to. Started snowing as soon as I went outside, but luckily it wasn't sticking to the roads. I almost went to the indoor track, which might have made this a slightly faster session, but I just didn't feel like driving out there and back.

PM - 4 miles w/ Andrea. Stopped at a half-mile to play with puppies. Highlight of the day.

In sad news, someone stole my orange running jacket that I've been wearing for almost 4 years this morning! I wore it on the warmup, then tied it to the stop sign by Fritz's sister's house (as I often do). It was gone when I came by on the cooldown. Had the be the bus stop kids who make fun of me all the time. Those 10 year old bullies won't cut me any slack!!!

AM - 9 miles.

PM - 6 miles (4 w/ Andrea) + 8 x 100m strides.

I got offered a spot on Powerbar's Team Elite. It doesn't seem like it will create any conflict of interest w/ Saucony, so I'll likely accept. Which also means I need to accept the fact that I need to not just give up candy for lent, but probably forever, as we'll have quite a stockpile of nutritional products!

AM - 13 miles. LT Efforts: 2 x 20 minutes (2 min jog). Average pace was 5:06/mile for both segments, with a bit of a trigger finish on the second one. Tempo loop. 2.5 up, 2.5 down.

Not a huge improvement over the last time I did this, but an improvement nonetheless (~3 sec/mile). I probably should have waited another day or two for this session (heart rate has been a little too low this week), but I'm headed to San Diego for a couple days (work meeting) and I thought it would be unfair to do this at sea level. Kristen gave me an awesome list of places to run from my hotel in Del Mar, like here. So I'll get a couple nice days of sunshine running along the coast, then start a new block of workouts next week.

PM - 7 miles. Mostly on trails in Torrey Pines beach / park. Longer than a typical post-workout shakeout but google this area and you'll understand why :-)

AM - 6 miles on the bike path near my hotel (which conveniently had a dirt section for horses). The eight-minute guy dominated me... he's better acclimated to the low elevation.

PM - 9 miles. Meandered around the Torrey Pines trails. Other than the GIANT hill at the park entrance, it was really enjoyable. Gorgeous evening.

AM - 18 mile long run. Mostly along the Pacific Coast Highway. Average pace = 6:07/mile for the whole run. Finished with 3 AT miles (16:07). Felt great, but was smart enough to not stretch this out any further even though it would have been easy to tack on 4-5 more miles today. Got what I needed, and faster recovery is crucial because next week is going to take me way out of my comfort zone.

The route had three 200+ foot climbs, and I was moving quickly up them... that's the advantage of sea level.

PS - the fastest guy on this blog, Conner Mantz, won the 5000m indoor national championship yesterday (14:24)!