Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 10 miles w/ Andrea (bike). Horsepark and tempo loops. Knee felt best on flat pavement. Its still a little swollen from the fall, but almost back to normal size. I spent most of the day yesterday with my leg elevated and an ice pack wrapped around the kneecap. That's pretty much all I have planned for today as well. Boring way to spend the majority of the weekend (especially compared to last weekend in Jackson) but what can you do? At least the Kindle is getting a workout!

PM - 5 miles w/ Andrea (bike). 

AM - 11 miles. Met the team at the JRP. Rob asked me to pace Kramer through a progression run today. I agreed (last week), figuring it would be a good "lead in" to my other workouts for the week. After the fall on Saturday, I was unsure of how my knee would hold up to this, and that made me a little nervous but I decided to give it a go anyways and help Kramer out. The idea was to do a warmup mile, then drop to 6:50 pace and take it down ~15 seconds per mile, finishing around 5:00 pace or faster. It didn't quite go as planned... the first half was fine and then we turned around into a 15 mph headwind, just enough to make it brutal when its hot out. Once we got under 5:45 pace Kramer was having a harder time so we ended up bagging it early. I ended up with 4 miles in the AT spectrum - 5:45, 5:31, 5:21, 5:25. Knee wasn't great but it wasn't worse. Lots of ice today. Sweat was a little salty so gotta clean up the diet!

PM - 11 miles. Horsepark loops. 

Rob's planned morning workout...

And our failed attempt to do it...
 

AM - 13 miles. LT Reps: 5 x 1 mile in 4:50, 4:55, 4:54, 4:52, 4:52. Tempo Loop. 3 up, 4 down. A little quick on the first rep... I purposely slowed down on the next two but they were still faster than usual (note to self #1: 4:58-5:05 isn't the range for this workout anymore), then finished up well without straining. I think I was so conscious of running with perfect form to make sure I didn't compensate for my knee that it made everything a lot easier (note to self #2: better mechanics = faster pace).

PM - 5 miles. Knee felt good, so I'm confident that I can run at Alta tomorrow without messing it up.

A-ROD!

AM - 15 miles. The "standard" Wednesday run at Alta has really been a treat this summer. Today was no exception. Perfect weather, great group to run with. Hard to beat. Kramer and I ran 15, similar to last week. Rob probably ran close to that, and a lot of the guys are getting these runs up to 10-13 miles. My sense is that everyone is seeing the benefit of these higher-altitude runs. I know I am! Or at the very least, everyone is willing to put in a good effort for some chocolate milk afterwards :-)

PM - 5 miles w/ Andrea (bike). 

Started reading David Epstein's new book (The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance). Lots of hype surrounding this book at the moment, and for good reason... its fascinating and well-written. Really enjoying it. 

AM - 12 miles. 4 mile LT Tempo in 19:44 (4:56/mi avg). Splits - 4:51, 4:58, 4:58, 4:56. Tempo loop. 4 up/down. Felt a little tired from the last couple days, so I started off quick by design to get myself focused right away. Target range was 19:40-20:00. Anything faster would be too hard of an effort. My 5K split was ~15:16, so not far off what I was running all-out a couple weeks ago. You'd think I can finally get this 15:XX monkey off my back now, right? I'll have a good opportunity at the Dart Challenge next weekend (fast, flat course, sign up!).

PM - 6 miles w/ Andrea (bike). 

AM - 12 miles. Easy breezy horsepark loops. First 3 miles w/ Andrea.

PM - 4 miles w/ Andrea (bike). 

World Champs start tomorrow! 

I ran this race in 2011, running ~5:45 pace for the 8.9 mile "15K" course. This year I was actually aiming to go a bit slower; just get a good workout without wearing myself out. I've upped the mileage and intensity (on purpose) over the past two weeks, so I wanted this to be a fun cap to the mini-cycle. I thought I saw Ken Richardson in the parking lot and figured I'd probably end up running with him, but then he wasn't there at the start (turns out he missed the gun and started late). Some other guy I didn't know (John Tribbia, I learned afterwards) started off ahead of me at a good clip, so I just went with him. I was more than willing to do my share of leading the race, and tried to move ahead 2-3 times during the first two miles, but every time he surged back ahead. Apparently he got the (outdated) memo that I'm not a threat in the latter stages of a race and was fine letting me run on his shoulder? :-)

Anyways, I didn't want to get into a game of surging so I just hung back a bit for the first half of the race. John would extend the lead a little on the downhills, then I would catch back up on the flats/ups. Around the halfway point you go up a long (~1.5 mile) hill on somewhat narrow singletrack. We went REALLY slow up this hill compared to how I ran it last time. I was getting anxious to get moving but just rolled with it because I saw no major benefit in pushing it. I decided to just wait until we went down the twisty/technical trail on the other side before taking the lead once and for all. After the downhill (where I didn't fall!) we hit the 7 mile mark and I decided it was time to get moving. There was a short, steep hill right around 7.25 mi and I knew the terrain opened up afterwards (more runnable) so I sprinted up the hill and that was that. Picked up the pace a bit as the trail turned back into a jeep road. Cruised in and ended up averaging~6:00 pace for the whole thing (definitely at least a full 15K this time with the course changes) so pretty much right where I wanted to be. Good workout, fun course, and great day with friends.

I highly recommend checking out this race series. Its always fun to go up to Park City and the race organizers do a great job.

Rob and ESPECIALLY Amiee ran well. That really made the day for me. Rob also wanted me to point out that I needed to run a trail race to finally win something. I'll show him! :-)

More photos. 

Splits - 5:42, 5:41, 6:12, 5:46, 6:19, 6:58, 5:46, 6:03, 5:27, 2:20. Had 0.5 for the last stretch so my auto-splits were clicking a little short. 

AM - 13 miles (2 up, race, 2 down)
PM - 6 miles on the PC rail trail (2 w/ Andrea).