Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 11 miles
PM - 4.5 miles

Typical easy Sunday runs. We had a really nice afternoon hiking around Arches NP w/ Andrea's parents. Went out to Delicate Arch, then did a cool ranger-guided tour through the Fiery Furnace. Fun day.

AM - 16 miles. Beautiful morning in Moab. Andrea and I ran out to Ken's Lake. We did the first 9 easy, then used some gradual downhill and did 4.5 miles at her tempo pace (~6:15). At that point she split off and I went into the same hard mile that I did at the end of the long run on Saturday. Today I ran it in 4:37 (Saturday was 4:45). At this rate, if I stayed down here a few more days I'd be running 4:10 by the end of the week! :-)

PM - 3 miles in Price, quick shakeout on the drive home.

Spent the day exploring around Fisher Towers and Onion Creek Narrows... 

AM - 10.8 miles, up to work. 
PM - 8.2 miles, down to Sugarhouse and did 2 laps w/ Andrea.

*Oct 1st, 5000m on the track, probably 9am, probably Highland High School. If you're interested let me know. We'll have some rudimentary timing and prizes. Andrea and I figured it would be fun to turn our pre-Long Beach time trial into something a little more fun. The only thing I'll guarantee is that this will be the flattest and most accurate 5K you'll run this year! Afterwards we'll probably go out to breakfast or something.

AM - 11.5 miles. Workout at Liberty Park: 6 x 1 Mile. Averaged 4:54 (fastest was 4:52 and slowest was 4:57). This was a tough one to start before 6am! For these next two weeks the focus is primarily on some faster workouts to sharpen up for Long Beach, then we'll move back to the marathon-paced stuff.

PM - 7.3 miles, ran home from work. I looked up the last time I did mile repeats in my log (before joining this blog)... it was one of my first workouts of the year, just before the SLC Winter 15K. That day I did 4 x Mile in 5:30. So... there's been some improvement over the past 6 months!

AM - 10.8 miles, up to work, easy. Nearly got taken out by a car that just blasted through a stop sign. I hope they got wherever they were going 2 seconds faster. I also hope that they had their radio turned up loud because the woman driving would not have liked what I yelled at her!

PM - 7.3 miles, ran home. 

AM - 9.6 miles, up to work. The 8 minute guy kicked my butt this morning. 

PM - 3 miles. Rode my bike home and then did a quick shakeout run. Then we went to The Pie. Great night.  

"Technically" this wasn't a sanctioned race, but its a PR so I figured I'd make it a race report...

The plan for this morning was 5-6 miles at half-marathon effort. I decided to do it on the track, and then convinced myself that running 10K would be a good mental challenge. Ran up to the Highland track from home, and scoped out my competition:

• Old guy in lane 7, doing pushups every 200m
• Blue shirt guy in lane 4
• Obese guy walking around the infield

I did a bunch of strides and then got going. Thinking that 5:00 pace at sea level is worth about 5:05-ish up here, I just wanted to run ~76 second laps.

The pace felt very easy. First 3 miles (actually 1600s) were 5:06, 5:06, 5:06 (all within 0.2 seconds of each other). 5K was ~15:57. I kept the same effort but gradually got a bit quicker as I got into a nice rhythm. Next 3 miles were 5:03, 5:02, 5:01. With a lap to go, I knew it wouldn't take much to beat my college 10K PR. Last 400m was 69s. Second 5K was 15:37. Total time was 31:34.3.

After I finished, I wasn't all that winded, so I went straight into a set of  6 x 200m in 31 seconds. 

Now, the key this morning was that I really didn't run anywhere near all-out. I would say this was maybe a 90% effort, max. I think I could probably go sub-31 right now, which is a great sign. Two weeks until Long Beach... if the weather (ie. wind) cooperates, I think I'm ready for a really good race.

First run in my Saucony Type A4s. Great shoe. A bit different than the A3... might not be a marathon shoe, but its going to be my go-to 5K/10K flat now, and I am thinking I might wear it for the half-marathon as well. 

PM - 3 mile shakeout. In the afternoon, we went for a hike up at Brighton w/ Andrea's parents... colors are starting to change...