Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 10 miles. Originally planned on going to Jeremy Ranch today for something a little longer, but nixed that plan last night. I don't want to get too greedy. My "target" summer race is TOU 1/2, but the Draper/Des News double is also very important, so I didn't want to push my luck and risk aggravating the hamstring after back to back quality days. Kept the pace slow and the course very flat this morning. The bonus is that I got to run FOUR MILES with Andrea!!! :-)

Came back and saw the news about Tyson Gay. Makes me sad. I've always really like him. Man, is anyone doing this clean? I doubt it will happen, but eventually one of these guys needs to totally come clean, name names, and blow up the whole infrastructure of cheating.

PM - 4 miles w/ Andrea (bike). 

AM - 10 miles. Easy horsepark loops.

PM - 10 miles. Easy horsepark loops. 

I'm considering starting to race with a Garmin, because I'd really like to earn one of these in the fall...

AM - 11 miles. 4 x 1 mile on Wasatch Blvd in 4:42, 4:42, 4:42, 4:37. In 2011, Andrea and I would use this as a sharpening workout. Haven't done this in a long time. My form felt awful/choppy on the beginning (fast/very downhill) portion of the first three reps, but then I started to figure it out on the last one and smoothed it out a bit. Thought about adding a 5th and trying to dip under 4:30, but that might have been too much for my hamstring to handle. The times seem fast but they're not really too impressive, the gradient is ~1.5%...

PM - 4 miles w/ Andrea (bike). 

AM - 13 miles. Up at Alta w/ Rob and the team. Kramer and I did 8 campground loops this week, which means next time we'll probably have to bump it up to double digits... especially since Rob ran more than us. The wildflowers are really starting to go off in Albion Basin... its just a fantastic place to be running right now.

And on the topic of Alta, this year is the 20th and final Peruvian 8K. The entry form just went up on the USATF circuit schedule. Good quad mashing training for St George, etc!

PM - 4 miles w/ Andrea (bike).

AM - 5 miles. Four laps around the SHP road loop w/ the Alta guys, and we threw in 6 x 30 seconds fast. I was able to hang w/ Kramer for the fast efforts, which is actually pretty good for me. I haven't gotten the wheels turning over that quickly in a long time, and the hamstring was able to handle it.

PM - 4 miles w/ Andrea (Run!). 

I listened to this podcast w/ Tim Noakes a couple days ago. A bit dated, but highly recommended. At the very least, Noakes makes you think a little harder about some topics that we take for granted.

AM - 6 miles. Some horsepark loops and then a short ~LT effort on the tempo loop: half-mile in 2:26.

PM - 1 mile. Short shakeout w/ Andrea + some strides. 

Big race week coming up... Draper/Des in the next couple days, and if those go well (ie. no injury issues) I'm considering running the Snow King Hill Climb next weekend while we're in JH. 

Always one of the more competitive 5Ks in Utah, Draper Days did not disappoint this morning. The start was madness (funnel the crowd after 15 meters, see below) and it was a minor miracle that no one took a fall. Good thing we weren't wearing spikes or it might have gotten bloody.

I tried to stay up on Teren's shoulder during the first mile, but in reality we were running as a fluid pack of at least 5 - Teren, Josh, Riley, Tomy, and myself (not sure if anyone else was close early on. Hit the mile in 4:47, right about where I expected. I tried to string it out a little bit and take the lead in the second mile, but my mini-surge only lasted for a short time before the guys were right back on me. Josh and Teren started to pull away just a little as we hit the two mile mark (4:45, and 9:32 at 2 miles). Riley was a few strides ahead, and it sort of stayed that way all the way to the finish. Last mile was 5:02, and ~35 for the last tenth. I finished 4th place in 15:09.  Josh won, followed by Teren (both under 15) and Riley was a few seconds ahead of me. Scott and Kramer finished 5th and 6th. Good running by a lot of the people on the blog.

This was one of my better 5Ks in a while. I'm never going to be remotely satisfied when I finish off the podium, but I'm moving in the right direction, and its not like I lost to a bunch of scrubs! :-) Two years ago I ran 15:04 here, but the course was short that year, so this was a much better performance. Today's race exactly ties my "altitude 5K PR", which I ran on the track in 2011 a week before running my half-marathon PR. So that's good. I ran a little more mileage than I probably needed to this week, so a couple more really light days should leave me even fresher for the Des News 10K on Wednesday, which is going to be absolutely stacked. I'm excited.

Ran a nice cooldown with a bunch of the guys afterwards. Always fun to get to do that. And Andrea ran today, continuing her comeback, which makes me very happy.

I like this course. A perfect loop, with a slight (yet challenging) incline from ~2-2.7. 

AM - 11 miles.
PM - 4 miles w/ Andrea (bike).