Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 13 miles. Woke up around the 20K mark of the marathon (we correctly guessed that nothing would happen in the first hour), watched the second half of the race, then went back to sleep for a bit. Andrea and I met Allie at Liberty Park later in the morning... ran a little over 6 miles with the girls, then home from there. Lots more great track to watch this afternoon... 1500m semis, steeplechase, and the 100m!

PM - 5.2 miles easy to cap off an easy, lazy day. 

Recap of the 10K with quotes from the athletes. My favorite is from Alberto Salazar: "Back thirty years ago there weren't as many East Africans, but there still a lot of very good ones and they weren't any better than the best Europeans and Americans. I don't believe all of a sudden they were genetically better. I think a lot was psychological. I think Americans and Europeans just gave up. Another big problem I believe was there's too many people who use the excuse of drugs, that anyone who runs fast is on drugs. The second you start thinking that as a coach or as an athlete you're basically saying you're not good enough to compete with other people unless you cheat. What I've always told our guys is 'Don't believe all that bull. Those are the losers that say that.' Rather than trying to change their own training to get better they use that as excuse and it's a defeatist attitude. A lot of the mindset for us was 'We can beat these guys. We've just got to train smart.'" 

AM - 12 miles up to work.

PM - 11 miles home with a 10K tempo run in the middle. I made a route that simulates the TOU marathon relatively well - first 3 miles are downhill, next mile has 2 good hills in it and is net uphill, then the last 2 miles are pretty much flat. I tried to run on what felt like marathon effort and didn't look at my splits until it was over. Ended up being 32:54 for 10K (5:17/mi avg). Splits - 5:14, 5:09, 5:10, 5:33, 5:23, 5:19, 1:05. Pretty funny that 5:17 pace is still locked into my legs after countless tempo runs at that pace all spring leading up to Boston. Now I just need to find a way to do that for 4X the distance in 5.5 weeks!

Great Olympics action yesterday. Shalane and Kara did pretty well. Kara has really impressed me both at the trials and the Olympics... she really hangs in there and fights, ever after she gets dropped. Bolt was sensational. Hate to see Gatlin nip out Tyson Gay, though. Felt bad for him. I can't (well, I can, but I hate it) believe NBC gives Gatlin such a free pass for being a drug cheat. Interesting that the Algerian 1500m guy is going home. Those were some good 1500m semis - Centro is looking smooth and tactically he does everything right. Same thing with Nick Willis. The finals will be really exciting.

I'll take a few days off from posting anything about Galen Rupp... after this... John Canzano's article in the Oregonian is a must-read. 

Bolt vs Phelps? :-) 

AM - 10.5 miles up to work, slowly.

PM - 12 miles home, hotly. 

AM - 13 miles. Warmed up 2 miles, 10 mile tempo run in 54:29 (5:27/mi avg), 1 mile cooldown w/ Andrea. Back to the old "home" tempo loop - haven't done any workouts there since around Memorial Day! The goal was ~55 minutes and stay very relaxed. This is slower than I did a lot of tempos in the spring, but that was my plan. CIM is almost 4 months away - I don't need to be running at goal marathon pace right now. Cranking out 5:15 pace runs looks good on paper, but I'm not sure it would really be of any benefit at this point. In fact it would probably be counter-productive. As I was telling some of the guys on the last long run, I want to come into the TOU Marathon feeling like my fitness is at about 85% - in good aerobic shape, but also leaving plenty of room for improvement between TOU and CIM. I don't want to feel "peaked" in September and then just be hanging on the rest of the year. Hopefully a little patience now will go a long way.

Splits - 5:38, 5:37, 5:29, 5:24, 5:25, 5:22, 5:19, 5:23, 5:25, 5:26. Miles 6 & 7 got a little quicker, so rather than keep dropping it down and hammering 5:05s to finish it out, I backed off. It actually felt really good to make the end of the run easier.

AM - 15.5 miles up to work. Felt pretty good.

PM - 10 miles home. Threw in a 3 mile tempo in 15:10 (5:08, 5:02, 5:00). First half of the tempo route from Monday (the downhill part). Just cruising. Not as hot today so it felt easier. 

AMAZING Men's 800m finals just went down at the Olympics - best 800m of all-time, and I don't think there is ANY disputing that! I won't post the results - but just find a way to watch it later if you didn't see it live.

FYI - the new Utah marathon in October, which has been added to the circuit, has a $20 off promotion going on right now. So the 5K is only $15 to register. If you sign up, use the code "BESTLEGS" ... I also made a team (Fast Running Blog) that anyone can join. I'm not sure if there is any point to being on a team, but it will be fun if there is a team competition and we kick some butt. [I'm not getting a kickback by posting this, I just figured $35 was crazy for a 5K, but $15 is quite reasonable!]

AM - 11 miles up to work. 

PM - 10 miles home. 

So now I can post something about Rudisha, right?! HOLY FREAKING SMOKES!!! That was simply brilliant running. I feel lucky to have seen it live. Science of Sport has an interesting recap and analysis. Cool to see Usain Bolt complete the double again, too. Today's action will be good - Women's 1500m and 5000m finals. Really pulling for Morgan Uceny! Dibaba will be going for another 5K/10K double and legend status.

I decided a few days ago to jump in the Dash for Donation "5K" in Sugar House Park - close to home and for a really good cause... I ran on the team that Rachelle's family had put together.

My plan for the morning was to put in a solid effort during the race, then add on another tempo run on the track where I'd practice drinking while running at marathon pace. Ran 4 miles up to the park for a warmup and was feeling a bit tired from another big week of miles and 3 tempo runs in the past 5 days. I started thinking that I might be lucky to even run MP during the race!

There was a big turnout and the race started about 15 minutes late... no big deal. Once we got going I actually felt surprisingly good. There wasn't any competition after the first 100 meters, so it was a solo effort. The course was 2 laps around SHP, then some extra... it was a bit long... I hate to say that... but I run in SHP enough to know how far 5K is, and they added a bonus 0.2 for us today :-) Everyone knows what this loop looks like except BAM, so here's the course profile:

I hit the first mile in 4:57. Needless to say that was a surprise and I didn't feel like it was very tough. Miles 2 and 3 were 5:02 and 4:55. During the second mile I started to lap the field (most of whom were walking) so I did a lot of weaving! The final stretch was 1:26, so obviously not 0.1, because that usually takes me less than 30 seconds in a 5K... and I was moving pretty good.

So my 3 mile split was 14:54, which I was really happy about. With the rolling hills, I figure that 3 miles in SHP is about approximately equivalent to what you can run for a full 5K on the track. Averaging sub-5 pace in SHP is usually pretty tough to do.

After finishing the race I jogged over to the Highland HS track and started the second part of the workout - 5K at marathon pace taking a drink of gatorade every other lap. Andrea came over with me and handed me bottles. I figured that I need to practice drinking while moving at race pace. I could eat a sandwich at 7:00 pace on long runs, but I need to be able to process fluids while running significantly faster than that. I did the 5K tempo in 16:45 (5:23, 5:24, 5:19, 38). 

When that was finally done we headed back over to the post-race area and had to choose between the 8 different types of ice cream novelties that were offered. I went with a Drumstick and was very satisfied with that choice!

We hung out with Rachelle (she finished 2nd place overall) and her family for a bit, then I ran 3.5 miles home.

Overall a good confidence booster this morning. I've been feeling very good about the TOU Marathon, but I've been unsure of how the TOU 1/2 is going to feel... whether I can take a reasonable shot at running as fast as I did last year. Now I think sub 1:06 might be in the cards again.

Andrea took a bunch of pictures...

Start of the race with crazy heel-striker guy on the right. He was ahead of me until 100m and they he came to a complete stop...

Coming into the finish area...

And then onto the post-race track workout... 

More photos here: Dash for Donation. Andrea is getting pretty good with her new camera!

[AM - 14 miles total]

PM - 7 miles after a fun Weber River tubing adventure with Andrea and Allie!