Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 15 miles easy along the canal. No signs of the Chandler flasher. No residual effects from yesterday's workout, either. I was originally planning to run w/ Derek D today, but he had to get going at 4am and I needed a solid 10+ hours of sleep :-)

PM - 8 miles. Ocotillo loop. It started to rain during the last mile. Guess that's a sign that its about time to go home to Utah.

AM - 15 miles. Warmed up 5 miles w/ a half-mile at MP to get the blood moving before the workout: 10K LT Tempo in 30:52 (4:58/mi avg). Splits - 5:00, 5:02, 5:04, 4:58, 4:55, 4:55, 0:58. Cooled down 4 miles.

A good workout to cap off the Arizona microcycle. I figured anything under 31:30 would be a sign that I didn't overdo it this past week. The third mile felt harder for some reason and then I found my groove. I'm feeling really good right now. Still a lot of work to be done, but I'm starting to get on a roll and my confidence is building. This was actually only the second time I've broken 31 minutes for 10K (not counting half-marathon splits).

The take-home from this workout is that it will be especially important to try and run the first 2 miles of the upcoming half-marathon no faster than 10:05-10:10, then start dropping the pace. A little early patience goes a long way.

PM - 7 miles. Grass park loops. Now just to bang out my last set of pushups to hit 30,000 for the year, and then I swear I'm not doing anything else in 2012.

Derek sent me the poster for this year's Mountain to Fountain 15K. I'm sad I'll be missing the 2013 edition (its the week after the PHX marathon). One of my favorite races of 2012...

AM - 20 miles, Long Run. Yeah, I've decided that long runs get bold font in addition to workouts from now on. Couldn't think of a better way to kick off the new year, and cap off my winter break training. Met the guys down in Lehi (Matt, Brandon, Mike, Chad, Toni, and Dan). A lot of the run was snowy and a bit slippery, so we kept the pace easy. Surprisingly after 10 days in AZ, I wasn't cold, so I didn't completely lose my edge. It was a nice loop w/ some good hills thrown in for good measure. Afterwards, Matt's wife had a nice breakfast spread waiting for us. Can't beat that! Happy New Year!

PM - 8 miles. 

AM - 9 miles up to work. Back to normal life.

PM - 9 miles home. 

I did a little 2012 review post on Wasatch & Beyond. I think its cool that I ended up running more miles than I drove in my jeep (and Allie will back me up, that was a very good thing for the longevity of the vehicle). Of all the nonsensical things that I keep track of, only driving to work 90 days was probably the crowning achievement. Its fun to look back at all the things we've done in the past 12 months... too much to even condense into one succinct post. I know that the turn of the calendar year is an arbitrary thing, but for a lot of reasons I'm excited right now about the year ahead. I feel that I've been building a lot of momentum for the past month and the 11 day vacation I just took was a real treat (and I definitely took advantage of that opportunity both from training and mental rejuvenation perspectives).

I have some big running goals (even by my standards) that I'll be chasing this year, but I'm more confident than ever that I'll reach them. 

AM - 9.5 miles up to work. 

PM - 8 miles home and had the pleasure of running a few of them w/ Rob! 

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, I added up our ice cream consumption for the year (we have a notepad on the fridge where you check off every carton that gets finished). I will report that our consumption dropped 9% in 2012 compared to 2011. But I will not post the total numbers because they are still far too embarrassing. 

AM - 11 miles up to work. 

PM - 5.5 miles. Down to SHP, ran a little w/ Andrea. Then we went to the gym but were too cold to go in the pool... so we just went in the hot tub for a while. 

I wrote a blog post on Recovery. Some discussion earlier this week got the wheels turning in my head and I started jotting a bunch of stuff down... thought it was worth sharing. These aren't necessarily the right things to do, its just what I do. Once I got writing, I ended up going off on a huge tangent about how I believe I went from being injury prone to injury resistant in the first place... that became a post of its own, so I'll save that for next week. Interesting stuff to think about. 

AM - 17 miles. 4+ mile warmup, 10 Mile AT Tempo in 53:19 (5:20/mile average). Splits - 5:22, 5:23, 5:23, 5:21, 5:17, 5:20, 5:20, 5:19, 5:18, 5:15. Cooled down 3 miles.

A great morning... even if was only single digits outside when we started. Fritz, Matt, Scott, Mike, and Chad came over and met Andrea and I at our place. We all ran together for ~30 minutes (yahooooo - Andrea too!!!) for our warmup, then got going rolling on my tempo loop. Matt ran awesome today, he was never more than a step behind me for the first 8.5 miles and finished the 10 just a few seconds behind me. He's got the killer instinct to get after these longer workouts, and that makes it a lot easier for me to have someone to work with. Fritz and Mike started w/ us, and Mike also jumped in for some mile repeats during the second half of tempo (it was nice to have him there at that point). I thought about extending the tempo to 11-12 miles, but figured since I hit 10 right at 5:20 pace despite the cold, that was about perfect for today. I have another week of harder workouts coming up before my mini-taper for the RnR 1/2.

A very good team effort this morning. We regrouped for the cooldown and then headed back indoors, where Andrea had eggs, bacon, sausage, and hot chocolate ready for us. Lots of fun... Chad told his story of getting shot in the chest with a rifle... so we're basically all just a bunch of wimps compared to him!

Thanks guys for a great run this morning!

Tomorrow we're planning to run from Highland High School at 8:30am. 

PM - 5 miles.