Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 17 miles. Early morning run on the country roads in Heber and Midway with Rob M. Quiet, cool, really nice morning. Then I went for a short walk with my parents and jogged another 3 minutes w/ Andrea.

PM - 5.3 miles

Some pics from the weekend so far...

From August 2012 Parents Visit

AM - 12 miles. First 7 easy, then 3 mile tempo in 14:59 (gradual downhill towards Heber on 1200S), then 2 more easy. Sort of an unplanned faster segment... Felt pretty relaxed and not too hard, despite wearing my heavy shoes :-) Splits - 5:02, 5:03, 4:53. PM - 7.5 miles easy... my Mom biked along with me... very enjoyable conversation and the run flew by. We spent the day up at Mirror Lake and Trial Lake. I caught a fish on my very first cast and then got skunked for the next 5 hours! Fun time... although it was FREEZING up there! Always bring a down jacket to the Uintas if you are skinny. I introduced my family to the Maverik $1 adventure cones on the way back :-)

AM - 12.5 miles. The old guys went fly fishing this morning so I slept in, then did my "pre-TOU 1/2" tune-up workout. Started with 5.5 mi warmup, then did 3 x 1 mile (1/2 mi jog), finished with a 3 mi cooldown. The faster miles were on the same stretch I did the tempo yesterday - downhill on 1200S in Heber. Splits were 4:35, 4:32, 4:30. Purely a neuromuscular session to get the legs used to turning over quicker. I still have no idea what to expect this weekend, but that actually makes it a bit more fun and exciting.

Ate lunch at Tarahumara in Midway on Rob's recommendation... great food! I usually am not a big fan of eating out, so if I think a place is worth mentioning, it must be pretty good. 

PM - 7 miles. EASY jogging while Andrea rode the bike.

PM2 - Bowled a 132/103 double. Not really too impressive!

AM - 12.5 miles up to work, slow slow slow.

PM - 3 miles around the block. I was going to actually take the afternoon off, but I just felt tight after sitting at my desk and needed to shake the legs out a bit before rolling out and stretching. Definitely my shortest run in a long time.

Spent some time this afternoon showing my family around SLC. We went up to the observation deck on top of the Temple Square administrative building, which is a really cool place to see the whole city.

Some Uintas pics from earlier in the week... there is no water left in Trial Lake!

AM - 9 miles up to work. Slow and easy again... bottling it up for the weekend.

PM - 5.5 miles down to SHP, where Andrea picked me up. Threw in 6 x 1/4 mile (1/4 mi jog) along the way... I'm not going to get into the business of trusting the Garmin for quarter-mile splits, but just for the sake of record keeping the splits were 73, 73, 74, 70, 68, 69. Roughly half-marathon effort. Essentially the easiest "workout" ever :-)

Couple good links from Runner's World yesterday. I liked Nancy Clark's quote in their article about healthy eating - “You don’t have to have a perfect diet to have a good diet. If 90 percent is quality and 10 percent is whatever, that’s fine.” I agree with that! I know it probably seems like I go by solely on ice cream and diet dew, but that actually isn't the case. I like that 90/10 idea... maybe its more like 80/20 for me, but whatever!

The other one I thought I'd share is an interview with Pete Magill - who is an absolute STUD masters runner (sub 15 5Ks at 50+ years old). He's making his marathon debut at Twin Cities in October. The whole interview is definitely worth a quick read, but this was my favorite part...

Why now for your first attempt at the distance?

PM: I could give you an idealistic answer about climbing every mountain. But the truth is, after six national masters cross country titles, and numerous American age-group records, I get tired of people suggesting I’m not a real distance runner because I haven’t run a marathon. The chairman of U.S. Masters Long Distance Running holds this belief. Even the magazine I write for, Running Times—maybe you’ve heard of it?—last year didn’t include me in its age-group rankings, even though I had the fastest 50-plus 5K and 10K times ever for an American in the age division. I consider it my duty to show we 5K/10K and cross country runners can run marathons if we choose to. I’m really tired of my neighbor, who’s run 5:30 or 6:00 for the marathon, telling me that if I trained harder I could do marathons. 

AM - 6 miles, easy.

PM - 2 miles even easier. Shake out jog from Scott's house to the mouth of Providence Canyon and back.

TOU 1/2 tomorrow morning. Last year my goals were to run 1:05-something and win the race. I met one of those objectives. So I think I'll keep the targets the same for this time around. 

Here are some pre-race thoughts that I want to get down now, so my race report isn't 10 pages long... and some of this is for my own benefit - it helps me look at things objectively.

My training has been quite a bit different this summer than in 2011. Last summer I was doing consistent speed workouts throughout July/August, raced a decent amount, and came into TOU 1/2 tapered and sharp. I didn't have an "A+" day, and Paul ran a really nice race to beat me soundly, but it was still a great cap to the summer and launched me on the path to run 1:05:45 at Long Beach in October. [2011 TOU 1/2 Report]

This summer I've basically just been logging lots of miles, kept things very unstructured for most of the time, having fun and not thinking too hard about running - rather than think about it - I've just been doing it, listening to what the body says feels right. I think I accomplished what I set out to do during these months. Mentally and physically I feel really good. Only in the past 2-3 weeks has some real intensity been added back into the mix. I was looking over my log last night... while I knew that my overall volume of running has been higher this summer, I didn't quite realize the extent of what I've done recently - 145, 160, 156, 158, 155 the last 5 weeks (I don't feel like I've been running that much, though!). My overall volume is up ~65% in the 10 days before the race this year compared to last year, so not much of a taper this year (but that is somewhat by design, as the TOU Marathon is only 3 weeks away and I can't really cut back too much yet)...

Looking at those numbers got me curious about how much volume I did leading up to other "target" half-marathons (and I threw in the PHX 15K because that was my competitive tune-up race before Boston). Clearly, I cut back a lot more leading up to 2011 TOU 1/2, Long Beach, and Duluth...

This last month leading up to tomorrow has been most similar (again, in terms of volume) to the Phoenix race, where I ran really well (one of my top races all-time), but still about 10-15% higher. Luckily I have a very extravagant spreadsheet with lots of data that pumps out all kinds of tables and graphs with only a few clicks...

Great morning at one of my all-time favorite races... got the win and ran what I feel like was a pretty respectable time considering my recent training (more detail on yesterday's entry: pre-race thoughts). I feel like I am setting myself up to run a good marathon in 3 weeks. And I'm not tied for last place (with zero points) on the circuit anymore :-)

I rode up to the start with Adam and Scott (who was kind enough to let us crash at his place last night). It was chilly up in the staging area - a good sign! I hope its equally cool, if not downright cold, for the marathon. Adam, Clyde and I ran a few miles to warmup, I did some strides, and it was time to roll.

About 4 guys (Riley, Ben, Ken) were with me off the start, but after about a 1/2 mile I could feel that I had put a bit of a gap on everyone and couldn't here anymore footsteps behind me. Now it was a 12.5 mile solo time trial.

Down the canyon I just tried to keep an even effort. I wore my cheap Timex watch instead of the Garmin, because this race has 100% accurate mile markers and I really wanted to try and run on feel and what felt like a sustainable effort level. I didn't get out of the gate at a sub 4:50 clip like last year, which was smart. But without anyone to push me (ie. Paul right on my shoulder) the pace was a little slower in the first half of the course. That was fine with me. After the 5 mile mark the famous tailwind made an appearance, and during the mile #7 it was very noticeable and nice. Afterwards I asked the race directors to be sure to arrange that same wind for the marathon. 

My splits from this year and 2011 are below... as you can see - I was about 20 seconds slower in the first 6 miles of the race this year, but then ran nearly identical splits the rest of the way (which is actually pretty cool). Running 1:06 by yourself (especially on the second half of that course) is not an easy task so I'm happy with what I did today. It felt very good to cross the finish line first this time around.

Mile     2011 2012  Net +/-
1 4:48 4:54 +6
2 4:58 4:57 +5
3 5:03 5:04 +6
4 4:55 5:01 +12
5 4:51 4:55 +16
6 4:56 4:59 +19
7 4:53 4:53 +19
8 4:59 4:59 +19
9 5:05 5:05 +19
10 5:06 5:06 +19
11 5:14 5:13 +18
12 5:25 5:26 +19
13 4:58 5:00 +21
13.1 0:28 0:28 +21
Finish 1:05:40 1:06:03

Andrea and my parents were at mile 7, 10.5, and 13. It was great to have their support out there because its an otherwise very lonely (albeit scenic, wonderful, and somewhat challenging) course. That hill from 10.5 to 12 is a tough grind. 

So overall I'm pleased with the performance and where this tells me I'm at. My legs didn't have that "snappy / springy" feel - but there is no way I could have expected them to. I feel very strong, though, and that is what will really matter over 26.2. I'm confident I will round into even better racing form over the next couple weeks.

Somewhere out there... 

Top 5 dudes...

With the family after the race... we need to teach Jesse to look at the camera...

I even was able to get my picture taken with high school superstar Conner Mantz... I'm glad I don't run cross-country and don't have to race him! :-)

Lots of great running by the blog today. Way to go everyone! Andrea took a lot of photos and was able to get some finish line shots: 2012 Top of Utah Half Marathon

[AM - 17 miles total - 2+ up, 13 race, 2+ down]

PM - 4 miles easy. Andrea biked along w/ me. We realized partway through the run that this was the first time I ever won a half-marathon.