Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 7 miles in Park City on somewhat snowy roads. It was 8 degrees outside!

Then we went skiing, which surprisingly didn't make Andrea hurt. We want to do a couple inbounds days before XMas and get our legs back under us before hitting the backcountry this year. I learned a couple things while skiing today...

1) During the two winters I lived in Vail, where it was cold beyond cold, I developed a high tolerance to really brisk temperatures. I have now officially lost that edge, especially after last "winter." I was freezing today!
2) Andrea has definitely surpassed me as the better skier. 
3) My favorite months for skiing are still March - June! 

PM - 7 miles on much less slippery roads in SLC. 

This week I'm going to drop back the intensity (just one quality mid-week workout) and let the volume climb up a bit.

AM - 9.5 miles up to work. I was really going all-out trying to make sure I didn't hit a patch of ice and slip... so I ended up averaging about 8:30 pace.

PM - 9.5 miles home. I hate running in the dark in the evenings, so I beelined it home and then just added the extra miles on the rollerblade loop.

If you missed it over the weekend, Conner and Kramer took 12th and 16th at the Foot Locker Cross Country National Championships. They are both underclassmen and are already among the top runners in the country. Conner wrote up a great recap and put up some photos. Maybe Kramer will post something too if Coach Murphy makes that his last assignment of the season. But if you get a chance, give those two guys a shout, because their races are probably the most impressive running anyone on the blog has done this year.

For those planning ahead, this long run meeting spot for this Saturday (12/15) will be the 6200S park and ride (8:00am). We'll do some variation of the Wasatch/Zoo run. Its a good one, plenty of rolling hills. Can we get a bigger turnout than this past weekend?

AM - 11.5 miles up to work. 

PM - 8.5 miles home. Almost ran straight into Andrea who was out running b/c her doctor gave her the wrong appointment time, then wouldn't see her. Jerk. Poor girl has been struggling for half the year and this is how he treats her. Unbelievable. I am so mad. 

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This guy holds a lot of records. I can't decide what the most impressive one is... I can't even narrow it down to my Top 20!

Saucony is looking for more wear testers.

AM - 18 miles. AT Reps: 4-3-2-1 miles + 4 x 1/4 mile (1/4 mi jog b/w all reps). 3.5 warmup, 1.75 cooldown to make it a clean 18. 

Splits: 21:43 (5:30, 5:29, 5:23, 5:21), 16:08 (5:20, 5:28, 5:20), 10:42 (5:15, 5:27), 5:12, 73, 76, 73, 73.

The wind woke me up a little after 4am and I laid there debating modifying the workout for a while, then finally decided to just get out of bed and go get it done. Gusty wind (up to 45mph this morning) is more of a mental challenge than anything else. I knew the workout would be a little slower than I was planning so I didn't pay attention to the watch and just ran it based on perceived effort (probably would have been a good session to use a HRM). I figure races aren't run in a bubble (well, indoor races are) so I didn't really have any excuses. Plus it was really warm outside for this time of year in the morning. Average pace for the whole run w/ warmup/cooldown/recoveries was 6:03, and I did the whole thing continuous, so this workout doubled as an almost long run.

PM - 6 miles easy. 

And just so I don't look back and say "why was this workout so slow?"... 

AM - 10 miles up to work, zombie shuffle.

PM - 6 miles down to SHP and a little extra on the grass. 

Woke up to emails and texts asking me if I saw Bruce and Bon Jovi singing duets last night. How in the world did I miss such an important night in American history?!?! Instead I was hula-hooping against Fritz and Kevin. Gotta get my priorities lined back up! 

AM - 10 miles up to work.

PM - 7.5 miles. Down to SHP w/ a 2 mile DH effort (5:11, 5:00) and then cruised into 8 x 200m on the track in ~34 seconds. Jogged some more laps until Andrea got there. 

The school shooting today was just a couple miles from where my Aunt lives in CT and my Dad and I ran the turkey trot over Thanksgiving. Its such a small, peaceful town. So sad.

AM - 21 miles. Woke up to quite a bit more snow than I expected would come down last night! About 6-8 inches up on the bench where we started. Met up with the subset of our long run group that was willing to get out in the elements - down from 30+ last week to only 7 today: Fritz, Kevin, Collin, Matt, Brandon, and Mike. Kept the pace easier today because the roads were really slushy and there wasn't much of a shoulder. It was a lot of fun just to get in a nice relaxed long run w/ the guys. Average ~6:50 pace and no one fell or got hit by a car... so a very successful morning. Brandon tried to string out the group w/ a little surge late in the run but no one took the bait :-)  I'm really impressed by how well everyone is running.

Andrea, Amiee, Allie, and James were kind enough to have a great hot breakfast prepared for all of us when we finished down at our place.

Fun morning... I'm definitely looking forward to 10 days of running in Phoenix over the holidays, though :-)

PM - 4.5 miles. Had to take Andrea out to play in the snow. We ran 2 laps around the horsepark and then I ran home from there. 

Tomorrow we're running from Highland High School at 8:30am, if anyone wants to join.