Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 10.5 miles. Started easy and then gradually picked it up throughout the run... miles 9 and 10 were 5:21 (down) and 5:13 (flat).

PM - 4 miles w/ ANDREA. Best run in a long time :-) 

AM - 11.5 miles. Zoo / Wasatch Drive / Random wandering around Research Park.

PM - 30 minutes pool running w/ Andrea. 

AM - 11.5 miles up to work. 

PM - 6 miles. Down to the track, 6 x 200m in ~33 seconds + 4 x 100m strides. Slowly but surely, the legs are coming back. Stride is still a little choppy when running faster. The sunset was pretty spectacular.

Red-eye flight to JFK tonight. 

PM - 13 miles at a brisk pace in CT. Hilly run and a bit tired from the traveling... Flew into JFK at 6am, met my Dad and drove to Brooklyn to pick up my mom (who flew in a few days ago) and sister... then got some breakfast and drove up to Connecticut. Finally got out to run around 1pm... finished up and then hauled firewood for a while. Exhausted now! :-)

AM - 8 miles. The Newtown Turkey Trot is close to my Aunt's house so I decided to run this as my first harder workout of the new training cycle. Tough course - a big climb in the first mile, then flying back down the hill, and rollers for the second half of the course. 

My goal was 16:00, which although its not a very fast time for me, considering what I've been doing lately, it seemed sort of ambitious. I jogged 3 miles and did zero strides to warmup. Off the start about 6 high school guys went out hard. I caught all but one a little before the 1 mile mark, which I hit in 5:18. The kid out front had a decent gap on me. Second mile was 4:51, where my Mom said "Don't pull your hamstring!" I just maintained the effort on the third mile, which was around 5:02. Pretty good effort and my hamstring felt good. Now I just need to be able to run a faster average pace for 10 more miles by late January. Shouldn't be a problem :-)

As soon as I finished I ran back along the course to find my Dad. He got food poisoning a week ago while traveling, felt terrible yesterday, yet still woke up this morning and said "Alright, I'm racing today!" Love it. I was able to run the last half-mile w/ him... that was definitely one of my running highlights of 2012. Its been a long time since we ran a race together. Both of my parents are planning on running the PHX 1/2 in March if I run the marathon.

For my second place finish, I won a gigantic trophy (which I'm donating to my sister's apartment) and an even BIGGER pumpkin pie. 

PM - 7 miles before dinner on a beautiful, sunny day.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!! 

AM - 11 miles. To avoid the narrow shouldered roads and relentless hills around my aunt's house, my parents and I drove over to a local park which connects to a dirt rail trail. It was a nice run, all on soft surfaces. First half on the rail trail, then ran a bunch of loops around the lake trail.

PM - 10 miles. I had to take my sister's friend down to the train station so I stopped on the way back to basically do the same run as this morning. Pace was a little quicker and I finished the last mile in 5:33 just as the sun was setting. Now, thanksgiving dinner round two.

AM - 15 miles. Easy paced run on a tough, hilly route. Webb Mountain X 3. Pretty wiped by the end. Long day of travel back to SLC on tap.

Had a really great time w/ the family this week... Nonstop action and fun... We're on day #4 and my sister hasn't even gotten mad at me once yet... Andrea can attest to the fact that is something of a miracle!