Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 16 miles. Purposely started out really easy and then after 5-6 miles I started to feel pretty good and by the last couple miles my legs forgot that I raced yesterday. No residual soreness, probably since I didn't push it out quite as hard on the downhills. That being said, I'm still sitting in the ice bucket right now and not taking any chances.

Lots of bloggers were mentioned in the Herald-Journal recap of the race. 

PM - 6.5 miles. Loop around the block w/ Andrea, then 5 more. Lazy day... we just didn't feel like getting in the car to do anything or go anywhere. We did manage to walk the 30 steps out to the pool and floated around for a long time :-)

AM - 13 miles up to work.

PM - 12 miles home.

Two easy, enjoyable runs today. I know everyone usually starts to look forward to fall about this time of year, but to a certain extent I'm going to miss the hot summer afternoons. Obviously everyone who knows me realizes that I tend to gravitate towards the extremes - hence the highest mileage blocks of the year during the coldest part of winter and hottest part of summer. I like the challenge of it. I guess the challenge in the perfect fall weather will simply be to run faster. 

AM - 13 miles up to work. Finally registered for the TOU marathon!

PM - 12 miles home with a little tempo effort thrown in the middle to stretch out the legs - 3 miles in 16:00 (5:24, 5:21, 5:15).

Non-running related, but this trailer for MILE... MILE & A HALF put a big smile on my face when I watched it (several times) yesterday. Brought back a lot of great memories of summer 2010... I wanna go back...

AM - 13 miles up to work. Yes, I've run the same route up to work 3 days in a row. Finally broke out one of my blinking safety lights... I've accepted that its dark in the mornings again and I don't want/need to get hit by a car.

PM - 11 miles home. And so ends the last stretch of "run as much as you want"... I actually have some mileage limits for the next 2.5 weeks :-0 With races the next two weekends, that will force me to cut it back and rest the legs. I'm excited!

AM - 8 miles up to work. First mile w/ Andrea, turned the corner and crossed paths with Fritz - he ran up to Sunnyside w/ me. Nice to have some company this morning!

You could feel the wind absolutely whipping out of Emigration and Red Butte Canyons from a mile away - Blacksmith Fork: I hope you are taking notes... 

PM - 4.5 miles down to SHP, where Andrea picked me up. Did 2 miles in 9:58 (5:04, 4:54) along the way on the usual downhill route. Almost got taken out by a school bus.

AM - 6 miles. Ran 5 around campus, did some tests at the PEAK center, then another mile back up the hill to HCI. 

PM - 2 miles shakeout. 

We have a really good wellness program thorugh the U - by participating in a few easy things, we get a massive discount on health insurance premiums (essentially making it no cost). Today I did the Bod-Pod (measures % body fat) and resting metabolic rate tests.

Last year's Bod-Pod test had me at 1.5% body fat, which was obviously way off. This year - even worse! For a machine that costs more than a brand new car, its amazing how inaccurate it is at the extremes (ie. very lean or very heavy people). They ran the test 5 times and the average was 0.1% body fat :-)  Ahhhh I think I'd be dead if that was anywhere near accurate. The Bod-Pod manufacturers like to say that the margin of error is 1-2%, but that is across groups of people... in individuals, it can be off by 5-6%... so add that 6% on for me and I think that is probably a more accurate number.

Then I did the RMR test - where you just breathe into a tube for 10 minutes. Its very boring! That one said that at rest, I burn 1728 calories per day. That seems to make sense.

Overall, the only real piece of worthwhile information I got out of these tests is that I'm ~6 pounds lighter than at this time last year... but I was already well aware of that fact - Andrea reminds me every day :-) I also tried to get them to test my cholesterol for free... no luck on that request, though. 

Ran the Wildcat Half Marathon up in Huntsville this morning as my last long workout before the TOU Marathon. Obviously running an all-out half 2 weeks out from the marathon wouldn't be advisable (and I wasn't willing to do that), especially on the heels of a very hard effort last weekend. My plan was to come through 10 miles in 54-55 minutes (a little slower than goal MP) and then pick it up over the last 5K. Objective #2 was to score some circuit points.

Woke up to a thunderstorm and it raining the whole drive up, but the weather cleared in time for the race. In fact, the sun came out right when we started and it got very warm and humid. We all looked like we had jumped in a pool at the finish line... soaked in sweat! We were all pretty gross.

For a very small race (only 70 runners!), the top end of the race was loaded. Off the start we had a good sized pack - myself, Brett Hales, Riley, Ken, Ben, and Nate. We started off at a nice comfortable effort (5:21, 5:18) until Ben decided to string it out in the 3rd mile with a 5:09. That splintered the group and after we hit mile 4 (5:18) Brett glided away the rest of us and he was quickly long gone. Fine with me - he's not doing the circuit anyways! :-)

The 5th mile (5:30) cut across a field on a jeep trail and even featured a stream crossing! Then we were back on the road heading towards Huntsville again. Mile 6 was 5:24. I had been running ~5-10 meters behind Riley for this section and that would be the case until almost 10 miles. Miles 7-8-9-10 were 5:30, 5:30, 5:27, 5:28. I was just trying to keep a nice even "marathon effort." Hit the 10 mile mark in 53:55 (~5:23/mi avg), just about exactly what I wanted and had planned.

I passed Riley just before 10 miles and then picked up the pace a bit for the last couple miles - 5:14, 5:13, 5:13, and :34 for the last tenth. My energy seemed to go up during the last 4-5 miles of the race - it took me a while to get loose and in a good rhythm this morning. Final time of 1:10:12 which was right in the effort level range I was looking for (1:10-1:11).

The course was great - long straightaways, rolling hills - a very honest course. The elevation profile reminded me a lot of Duluth (except 5000 feet higher!).

I'm pleased with the results this morning... I didn't exactly feel like a million bucks going into this one, so it was a good simulation of the second half of the marathon. I'm happy with myself for sticking to my race plan and not trying to go with Brett (he would have killed me anyways). Discipline will be important in the big race two weeks from now. 

Oh the way home, MarkP (who carpooled up with us) treated us to some soft serve cones. Perfect way to cap off the morning!

Andrea took a bunch more photos - Wildcat Half Marathon

[AM - 17 miles. 2 up, race, 2 down]

PM - 3 miles easy to shakeout the legs. Andrea biked w/ me and we talked about my taper / workout plan for the next week.