Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 3.5 miles, up the hill.
PM - 4.5 miles w/ Andrea, then 6 x 50m strides.

Today was basically a scaled-back version of yesterday. We ran, skied a fun couloir that I've been eyeing for a few days, and took an easy bike ride around town. Andrea and I have done a TON of cool stuff on this trip... in addition to running ~80 miles this week, we've skied for 8 straight days, done some great mountain bike rides, and spent a lot of time hot-tubbing! Between running/skiing/biking, I've cranked out ~30-35,000 feet of vertical in the past 9 days... but it doesn't even feel like that much because its been so much fun.

Tomorrow I'll race the mile in the morning, then we have the 9+ hr drive back to SLC.

We took out the camera for a little running photo-shoot today... easy to see why so many elites love Mammoth Lakes...

From Summer Vacation - Mammoth Lakes

From Summer Vacation - Mammoth Lakes

The skiing isn't too shabby for early July, either :-)

Lots more pics of Mammoth Lakes 

Capped off our summer vacation by jumping in the Mammoth Lakes Freedom Mile this morning before we drove back to SLC. Our vacation turned out to be quite a training camp, so I was by no means rested for this one. In fact, my legs were actually a bit dead when I was warming up... so I just wanted to have some fun and see what I could do at 8000 feet. Josh Cox and Tim Tollefson got out in front of me off the start, and I couldn't really mix it up with them. I hung behind Josh & Tim, but he put the gas pedal down at the halfway point, and I resolved to run what felt like 5K effort the rest of the way :-) I wish I had gone harder after Tim, but I had too much fun running/skiing/biking for the past 9 days to have enough in my legs to make that possible. I hope I never have to race anything longer than a mile at that altitude, that's for sure! Cooled down 5 miles w/ Andrea to take advantage of one last chance to run in Mammoth, then made the drive back in 8.5 hours.

This was a good first post-marathon race, and a great end to end the vacation. I feel super strong right now, fully recovered, and I'm totally ready to get back into summer training mode and start building the miles back up... I think the focus for this summer will be to pop a good half at Top of Utah, and then hopefully take a shot at the OTQ this fall if things continue to go well.

From Summer Vacation - Mammoth Lakes

From Summer Vacation - Mammoth Lakes

AM - 9.3 miles. Wasatch Dr from HCI, out & back. Felt good. Now back to real life and work!
PM - 7.4 miles. Up the hill to 215 & back.

AM - 9 miles. Ran up to work. Perfect temps this morning. I was expecting it to be 100 degrees in SLC when we got back from California. This weather is feeling pretty good. Updated my personal blog yesterday w/ all the highlights from our vacation: Summer Vacation Roundup
PM - 8.4 miles. Down to Sugarhouse and ran 2 laps around the park w/ Andrea.

AM - 12 miles. Did a little tempo workout today. Ran from the HCI up Emigration Canyon to the firehouse (6 miles), then did 4 miles quicker coming back down in 20:42, then easy for the last 2 miles back to work. I only knew my start point and the four mile point of the tempo portion, so I has no idea what my pace was until the end. Felt more like ~5:30 effort, so the fact that it was actually under 5:10 pace is a good sign. 

PM - Took the mountain bikes for a spin on the Millcreek pipeline trail. No rattlesnakes!

AM - 7.7 miles. Up to work, nice and easy.
PM - 8.2 miles. Ran home, Andrea met me on her bike and rode back w/ me.

AM - 20 miles in Park City on the rail trail dirt roads. Really nice run... absolutely perfect weather, and did over 90% of the run on soft surfaces. Andrea and I crewed a water station at the 10K trail race in the morning, so biking the course was our warmup. Then after the race was over we started our run. She ran the first ~9 miles w/ me, then escorted me on the bike for the last 11 miles. Averaged 7-flat pace for the first half, then low 6:20s for the second half. Just cruise control pace on a great day. I'm hoping to do a lot of my long runs in PC this summer & fall... I don't know if the little extra altitude boost will help, but it certainly won't hurt!