Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 11.1 miles. Ran the first half w/ Andrea, then found some nice hills for the second half. Nice run on the farm roads. Despite not doing any workouts this week (by design), I still feel like I got in a very solid week (~130 miles) and recovered from the race last weekend.

My sister (Jenna) was quoted in the NY Post this morning, although they spelled our last name wrong, which is probably a good thing, which you will realize when you read her quote and the title of the article :-)

PM - 4.2 miles, followed by an axe throwing competition against Andrea, which I'll have some excellent video footage of tomorrow.

Did a nice mountain bike loop this afternoon, linking Wheeler Canyon with a few of the other trails in the Snowbasin area. We also found out that the grocery store in Eden sells giant bowls of soft serve ice cream for 50 CENTS. In my mind, thats the equivalent of discovering gold.

Andrea riding towards Mt Ogden 

AM - 14.2 miles @ Snowbasin, see below...
PM - 6.3 miles easy w/ Andrea then added a little more on.

Ran the XTerra Nationals course at Snowbasin this morning. The "21K" is actually a bit over 14 miles, as I expected (its not quite realistic that linking 2 trails would come out to an exact half marathon!). Andrea ran the first loop w/ me, which is ~6 miles of rolling but rocky singletrack. I didn't necessarily love this section, and rolled my ankle several times. The second loop goes up towards Sardine Peak on a very smooth trail. Its about a 3 mile relentless climb up to the top, then comes back down on some huge switchbacks, which are also very run-able. Then you have a steady gradual climb over the last mile back to the finish. Overall, the total elevation gain is probably between 2000-2500 feet (profile and map below).

Now I have a decision to make... whether or not to actually run this race. One on hand, its a fun course and I think I could put some major hurt on people from the 7-10 mile marks, there is incredible prize money, and honestly I feel like I can win this race. But on the other hand, its 2 weeks before the Long Beach 1/2 Marathon, which is a much more important race for me. I'm not sure how many times I can go to the well this fall. The 2500 feet of downhill scares me, and I can't imagine the winning time being faster than 1:20-1:25, so its extra time on the feet.

The competitor in me wants to do this race and just crush this course, but the coach in me (who already told Andrea she probably shouldn't race it), knows I'm probably better off just saving it for Long Beach.

From September 2011

AM - 12 miles. 6 mile tempo run at Liberty Park in 32:16 (5:23 pace). Started nice and early this morning because I had to be at work by 7am, so the streak of 10-11 hour sleep nights came to an end at 3. I'm targeting 5:20-25 pace on these marathon paced tempos per Paul's advice, who told me that I can expect to drop 5-6 seconds per mile w/ the drop in altitude and wearing racing flats, which seems reasonable. The pace felt pretty easy after the first mile (wake up!) and I was tempted to go faster or extend the length of the effort, but stuck to the plan. I don't need to get ahead of myself in workouts. Consistency is the most important thing and I am holding myself to that.

PM - 9.8 miles. A little quicker than normal for the first 8.5, then saw Andrea and ran an easy mile with her. 

AM - 11.2 miles. Went to Liberty Park w/ Andrea and helped pace her tempo run. We warmed up 2 miles, then did a 5.5 mile tempo @ ~6:13 pace. I ran up to work from there... the shortest route from Liberty Park to my office is only 3.7 miles, but it climbs 750 feet! Being a pacer for elite women would be a really sweet job.

PM - 8.3 miles, down to Sugarhouse and did a lap w/ Andrea. 

AM - 15.1 miles, up to work. Ran about an hour w/ Andrea and Allie. SUPER WINDY this morning, especially once I started heading up the hill on Sunnyside. Holy moly it was like running against a wall! Hope all of you running TOU get that wind next weekend! :-) Hit 4000 miles for the year this morning... I'm 99.9% sure I've never run more than 3500 miles in a year before... and even that might be pushing it.

PM - 7.2 miles home. 

AM - 10.5 miles. Track workout at Highland. Warmed up 3 miles and then did 2x200m in ~35 seconds. That was kind of slow, so I decided I was just going to do whatever my legs gave me and not press hard on the reps. The workout was 10 x 600m w/ 200m jog. I averaged just under 1:51 and all the reps were less than 1 second off the average. I didn't try to pick up the pace on the last couple (or even in the last 100-150m of the individual reps), just ran an even effort through the whole workout. So very consistent but not very fast. I'll blame that on getting a mandatory flu shot yesterday afternoon at work :-)

PM - 7.5 miles while getting the windshield replaced on my jeep.

Hard to believe 9/11 was TEN YEARS ago! Senior year, XC team... what a crew...

AM - 24 miles at Jeremy Ranch. Andrea and I ran out (9 mi) & back to the East Canyon Reservoir, and she added on an extra mile to get 19. From there, I kept going along the I-80 frontage road to the Spring Creek trailhead, and a spot that I knew would be great for soaking our legs in a cold stream afterwards. Picked up the pace a bit on the last 5 miles and felt really good. We soaked in the freezing cold water for ~15 minutes, which was heavenly recovery.

I think Andrea is going to give the marathon a shot this fall and go for the OTQ, so that is what we talked about the entire run. I really believe she can do it. The question is whether to run Philly with me or go to CIM a few weeks later. As I told her, whether we both make it or not, just the fact that we are having this conversation says a ton about how far we have come in the past year.

The benefit of having Andrea drive the last 5 miles of the run alongside me... a moving aid station!