I'm retired from racing. Really.

AM- 6.  PM- 8. 

Passed the 1000 mile mark for the year with today's run.  Fastest ever- in the past 3 years, I hit 1000 on July 11, May 17, and May 13, respectively.  I guess that's a good sign.  10 days earlier this year than ever before.  And I'm just getting into my normal mileage which I plan to maintain all summer.  Now if only all this snow will melt so I can run the Bear course...

AM- 8.

PM- BW in Ogden.  I started on the canal just north of Weber HS and ran east/south.  The trail was a bit hillier than I expected.  I did 4 miles warmup, then started my 9 mile tinman tempo.  Unfortunately, less than a mile into my tempo, the canal road was blocked.  I was forced to choose between a dirt road or a paved road... so I followed the dirt road up the mountain.  The road soon became a singletrack headed up Coldwater Canyon (one canyon south of North Ogden pass).  Coldwater Canyon is steep.  Very steep.  And technical.  I was huffing and puffing for about 3/4 mile up, then forced to walk due to the grade.  It became unrunnable, then almost unwalkable- kind of a "hold on to the branches so you don't fall backwards" type of climb.  I climbed 1080 feet in .9 mile at 16:48 pace, which is pretty dang fast for that much climbing (23% avg grade, though easily 30+% at the top).  At that point it wasn't worth going up more at such a slow pace into the snow, so I turned around and ran down in 8:35 (yes, that's how technical and steep it was).  Once I returned to the canal, I went south for another 2 miles at tempo pace (around 6:30, which was 6:10 effort plus a bunch of hills and some switchbacks).  I turned around exactly where BST started in Ogden- I'll have to go run that sometime.  I tempo-ed back, skipping my mountain climb, averaging 6:20's for the next 5 miles.  Then 3 miles cooldown with a few strides.  16 miles, 2:04:25 (7:46 avg) with 2000 ft climbing.  Avg pace is 7:04 if you exclude my detour.

Overall a great run.  Definitely the most tired I have been after a BW all year, so it was a good workout.  Essentially a 7 mile tempo with 1 mile super-hard hill climb and 1 mile super-technical descent thrown in the middle.  Fun times.  Now I need a nap!

On a related note, I stopped by Striders and they hooked me up with a Salomon repair kit for my XT Wings.  I'm still ticked the laces broke and am questioning the wisdom of wearing them on long races when you can't easily replace the laces.  Great, great shoes, except I hate the laces. 

PM- I planned to be in bed by 9:30 pm.  Instead, I didn't start my run till after 10 pm.  I wussed out due to rain/wind and went to the gym for 7 miles at 7:30 pace.  It's now after 11 pm.  My alarm clock goes off in 5 hours.  Unfortunately, this may be the closest I've ever come to being the last person out of the gym and the first person in the next morning at 4:30 am.  Ugh.  I'm exhausted.

AM- I swear my head hadn't even hit my pillow last night before my alarm clock went off this morning.  Ugh.  Very hard to get out of bed, then slogged through 8.5 miles.  At least I got the miles in.  Gonna be a long day.

PM- What a great run.  I drove to Green Canyon in the middle of a May snowstorm.  I had 3 shirts so was plenty warm, except for my legs.  It alternated sunny, windy, and snowy the first 30 minutes, then just turned snowy.  Very snowy.  I'd say close to an inch fell just during my run.  The singletrack was genarally passable the whole way to past the yurt, but was VERY, VERY muddy, sloppy, puddly, and wet.  Slow on the way up- around 9 minute miles with lots of sliding.  The way down was a mini-workout and was an absolute blast- stretches of 5:15 pace, and a few 6:00 miles.  Avg 6:15 for the way down.  I had a few interesting experiences- for the first time ever, I had to slow down on the way down because the trail was so muddy that I couldn't hold to curves at full speed without flying off the trail!  And my legs had icicles form on the hairs, which kind of tickles when they shake and hit each other.  The snow/wind wasn't quite as bad as Saturday, but was semi-blinding once in a while.  Added 1 mile at the end, then had to brush a fair amount of snow off my car- in May!  9 miles, 1:10:37, lots of fun and muddy legs.

AM- 7.75 easy.  I'll round mileage down this time (not often anyone does that!).  Trying to hold off a cold, caused by my lack of sleep.  Plan to catch up this weekend, then during my upcoming vacation to Disneyland.

AM- Cody had a great idea to run part of the Poky 50 course today, and Luke Nelson was kind enough to volunteer to be our tour guide, along with his dog, Pedro.  We started near the start of Poky 50, though added a hair of singletrack at the start.  The course is awesome and is in relatively great shape, minus a bit of snow and mud at the higher elevations.  I loved the whole thing, especially the monster hill climb near mile 9- one of those "hike straight up the mountain, trails-be-darned" kind of things.  We also added a 5 mile singletrack at the end.  I felt good, though my legs were a bit tired by the end with the mileage.  No physical problems.  Beautiful course, good trail, and it was very nice to be able to talk with Luke and have him guide us- we definitely would have struggled finding our way, otherwise.  Cody didn't feel great, but still ran strong.  It gets me very excited for the race in 3 weeks.  And I was amazed by the plethora of trails in Pocatello- trail runners there are lucky people.  Good run.  21 miles in 3:28 (9:48 pace) with somewhere between 5000-5500 ft gain and 5650-6150 loss, is my guess.  Thanks for the company, Cody and Luke.

High mileage for the year, and I feel good.  Next week should be 92-95-ish miles.