Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 22 miles. Up early to watch the marathon, back to sleep for a couple hours, then drove up to Jeremy Ranch for the long run. Pretty much the same thing as last week but a few minutes faster. Out & back to the East Canyon road, grabbed my bottle and gel, then out & back to the Morgan Country gate. The hardest part about doing 22 this way is that you hit the end of the run at 21 miles, so you have to mentally get past the desire to stop and do one more 1/2 mile out & back. I do this on purpose to make myself suffer a bit :-)

Lots of fast looking (ie. skinny and scantily clad) runners out there this morning. Put down 12 oz of Gatorade and 1 gel during the run - I feel like my stomach is getting better at handling it... and I'm actually looking forward to the point in the run where I get some sugar!

How about Meb?! Good quotes from him on Letsrun's recap.

PM - 4 mile jog. 

AM - 10.5 miles up to work. The 8-minute guy put the smackdown on me this morning.

PM - 12 miles home. 

I think this is my favorite picture from the Olympics...

AM - 14 miles up to work.

PM - 10.5 miles home. Was able to coordinate w/ AdamRW (the buildings we work in are about 400m apart) for the run commute. Having some company in the afternoon just makes the miles fly by! 

I haven't read Waterlogged yet (has anyone?)... iRunFar posted a good Q&A w/ Tim Noakes that I found pretty interesting. Its on the reading list.

AM - 14 miles. 2 mile warmup, 11 mile tempo in 60:16 (5:29/mi average), 1 mile cooldown. Pretty much the same thing as last week - I was targeting 60-61 minutes, so right on the money. Right about the 9 mile mark, I came around the corner and Andrea was there on her bike... a nice surprise! So I had some company (and was able to take some sips of Gatorade) for the last couple miles. Splits - 5:39, 5:39, 5:30, 5:29, 5:33, 5:22, 5:23, 5:26, 5:24, 5:25, 5:26. Another nice controlled effort. Although maybe a little too relaxed for the first 2 miles... I need to remember that this isn't the women's 1500m Olympic final... you can't just totally jog :-)

An hour is about the perfect length for a tempo run, mentally. 

PM - 10 miles. Really easy, just a pure mental health run. Had a stressful end of the day and lots of loops on the grass around the horsepark did the trick of resetting my head.

AM - 10.7 miles up to work.

PM - 11 miles home with some efforts thrown in - 3 miles in 15:13 (5:12, 5:02, 4:59; same route as last Thursday)... couple miles steady, then 1 mile in 4:51 (Home Depot mile). 

I have a co-worker who is looking for a Wasatch 100 pacer - Brighton to the finish. Originally I was going to help her out, but I can't really do it since its a week before TOU. If any of you trail folks are looking to get out there, or know someone who might be interested, let me know.

AM - 15 miles up to work. Had to give it an honest effort in the last mile once I realized what time it was and that I had a meeting at 8am. Scrambled into the building, took a super-quick shower (good thing I don't have to dry my hair)... and none of the MDs showed up for the meeting... FRIDAY!!!

My parents are driving up from Arizona today and my aunt/uncle are on their way here from California. They'll all be here for the next week... they rented a place in the Heber Valley... so we'll be spending some time up in the Uintas, etc. I'm headed out that way this afternoon until Wednesday. Really looking forward to some time in cool air and cold water!

PM - 7.3 miles home

I got my bloodwork done yesterday (follow up to the last time I did this back in January). Despite the increased workload (volume and intensity) I've put on my body, everything actually looks better. The big thing I was interested in was my iron level, and while they were very good to begin with, my ferritin is now over 100. Thyroid stuff was perfect, kidney function (another thing I worry about w/ the high mileage in hot weather) was also better than in January. So... I guess I'm doing OK. I figured as much, but its still nice to have some concrete numbers to back that up.

 
(Reference ranges are from elite male marathon runners)

AM - 12 miles. 3 up, 10K Tempo in 32:31 (5:14/mile avg), 3 down. Did this workout a little east of Heber on the roads - the elevation ~6000 feet made it a little tougher than I expected. I was thinking ~32 flat would be a good time for this workout, but then I remembered that workouts at 6K are harder than easy long runs at 6K! I like how all the "blocks" out here are almost exactly 1 mile long. Zig-zagged back and forth so the miles alternated b/w gradual downhill and flat/uphill as you can tell by the splits. The first half-mile had a good amount of downhill - I didn't go out too fast and fall apart :-) Andrea biked with me so that made the run pretty nice. Now off for a fun day w/ the family.

Splits - 5:02, 5:25, 5:17, 5:09, 5:06, 5:24, 1:07.

PM - 6 miles