Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 11.5 miles. Ran 6.7 w/ Andrea, then added on some more. Nice, easy run on another beautiful morning. Running on the snow covered grass park was the highlight. Feeling pretty good after the harder effort yesterday afternoon. 

We watched the NYC Marathon before heading out. Awesome race. The lesson to be learned from Mary Keitany: don't go out too hard! But the real story was Geoffrey Mutai running a negative split 2:05:05... holy moly! Course records in every world major race (Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, NYC) in 2011... I don't think "raising the bar" even begins to describe what has happened in the marathon world this year. 

Nice run by Meb K, too. If Sasha has proven that a 2:30 marathon can be run in Crocs, Meb has now proven that a 2:09 marathon can be run in Sketchers. I think both are impressive! :-) 

PM - 2.7 miles shakeout. 

AM - 7.5 miles. To Sugarhouse Park w/ Andrea, then up to work. Our typical easy morning lately.

PM - 5.5 miles. Down to the track, then did 4x200m + 2x100m. My legs felt like they had a ton of "pop" so I had to hold myself back and try not to run too fast. That is a good problem to have! 

Turkey Trot Tune-Up 5K - Saturday November 12 - 9:30am - Highland High School Track
It looks like the weather is going to take a turn for the worse starting this weekend... so right now we're just going to say "weather permitting." Hopefully it will be decent on Saturday morning. If you plan to come, either leave a comment or shoot me (or Andrea) an email. That way if for some reason its a downpour and we need to change the time or something like that, we'll be able to make sure we get in touch with everyone. 

AM - 7.5 miles up to work. 

PM - 4 miles around campus, finishing up at the orthopedic center where Andrea was getting a massage. 

Mileage reduction = increased blogging activity. Here's a couple I've written recently: 1) Thoughts on running footwear and 2) Why we run short track reps during marathon training

AM - 4 miles, easy shakeout run on campus. 

PM - 13 miles. Last Chance Workout!  2 x 5 miles, starting at marathon pace and then stepping it down... one mile warmup, two strides, then got rolling...

First 5 miles in 26:02 - 5:17, 5:15, 5:16, 5:12, 5:02. Ran by feel and didn't look at my watch too much. The effort felt very sustainable.

1 mile recovery in 6:45 (I only really needed a fraction of this, but I wanted to replicate the same workout from May 31st, 10 days out from Utah Valley) 

Second 5 miles in 25:42 - 5:11, 5:11, 5:10, 5:09, 5:01. I told myself I was not allowed to run under 5:10 until the last mile, and pretty much stuck to that. I was in a great rhythm for the first 4.5 miles, and then only picked it up over the last half-mile. 

Cooled down a mile w/ Andrea.

Honestly, I felt like I was holding back the entire time on this workout. I got what I needed out of it, but I'm saving the real big effort for 10 days from now. 

I saw the list of athletes running Philly today. Its a fantastic field, and should be a great, very competitive race. The apparent contenders include:

-Kenyan guy with PRs of 1:04 / 2:16
-Ethiopian guy with PRs of 1:03 / 2:17
-Winners of the 2011 Hartford and Baltimore marathons (both ran 2:21 in those races)
-13:26 / 28:30 / 1:03 guy making his marathon debut
-Former 3:43 1500m guy and USA World XC team member
-About 7-8 guys who have run 1:07/1:08 for the half-marathon or low/mid 2:20s for the marathon 

Now I have to just contain my excitement for a little bit longer!

AM - 6.5 miles. Another nice JAJA run through Sugarhouse neighborhoods. My legs felt really good, which means I did the workout at the right effort level yesterday.

PM - 4 miles. Ran a couple loops around Sugarhouse park, then finished on the track with 8 x 100m (16-17 seconds). Just strided out on the straights and ran the turns easy.

We are still planning to do the free Turkey Trot Tune-Up 5K on Saturday morning at the Highland track. The weather looks like its going to be off & on gross all day, and we need to get the workout in no matter what, so we're just going to do it rain or shine or snow or ice or sleet or rainbows. If anyone is planning to come that hasn't told us yet, let us know so we make sure we have enough chocolate milk! New Time = 9:00am

FYI - Saucony is looking for wear testers for women's size 8 and men's size 10. They want people averaging at least 40 miles / week. You can email them and ask for an application: Weartest@Saucony.com

AM - 4.4 miles, easy horsepark loop w/ Andrea. 

PM - 2.5 miles. Ran on the track and incorporated 4x100m, 2x200m, 2x100m... just at 5K pace to stretch the legs out. It was basically the easiest fartlek run EVER :-)

Andrea scraped the little bit of remaining snow/ice off the far turn (by the creek) so no one should slip and injure themselves tomorrow. 

Track 5K, 9am tomorrow. No field events this time. Unless Andrea and Allie decide to square off in the triple jump.

Here's a blast from the past of when I threw the javelin and got beat by a 71 year old woman. 

AM - 7.5 miles. Turkey Trot Tune-Up 5K at the Highland Track. Another fun morning... we had seven runners (and three spectators) this time. Luckily the rain held off, although I think everyone would agree that the wind was pretty tough to deal with.

I decided to just go out at 5K goal pace and see how it felt. First mile was 4:48. My legs felt really good, and sensing that Fritz was behind me for the first couple laps definitely helped. But the wind on the backstretch (actually for about a 150m stretch) really slowed things down, so after 5 laps I decided to scale back the effort. I knew it wasn't going to be a PR day (James thought the 15+ mph winds cost us about 20+ seconds, and he is REALLY good at math, so I'll take his word on that), so there was no point in going all-out with next weekend's race being slightly more important :-)

Second mile was 4:58, the third was 5:04, then 36 seconds for the last 200m (DNK - did not kick!). Finishing time was 15:26.4. 

The somewhat official results were...

Jake 15:26.4
Fritz    16:38.1
James 16:47.5
Andrea 17:58.0
Bryan 18:07.2
Chad 18:58.8
Sandy 19:09.8 

Allie was awesome enough to be the official starter and photographer again. We need to get her a gun to start the race next time. Here is a slideshow of the photos...

They can also be found here. 

Not nearly my fastest 5K, but I got what I needed out of this run - a harder effort that will help me stay sharp, and will make marathon pace feel so much easier and sustainable. It is interesting to hear people's opinions regarding the "short race before a longer race" strategy. Some are strongly opposed to it, feeling that it takes something away from the target race. I think that if you can't recover from a 5K in a day, then you aren't in good enough shape to run a good marathon anyways. I've done it before every half-marathon/marathon this year, and so far the results have been good.

Next year I really want to attack the 5K distance and significantly bring down my PR. But right now my heart is 100% in the marathon, and its the only distance I really care about being able to crush at this point. I hope this upcoming week just flies by! 

PM - 3 miles shakeout. Went to the movies this afternoon... saw Footloose... I feel like that high school had a disproportionate number of exceptional dancers compared to the average school.  It did not remind me of my high school experience at all! :-)