I'm retired from racing. Really.

AM- 6 easy.  If soreness were on a level from 1-10 (10 being "oh-my-gosh-I-cannot-even-move-and-have-unbearable-pain-in-muscles-I-never-knew-I-had"), I would have been around 8 after Wahsatch Steeplechase.  After Logan Peak, I would say 2, maybe 3.  Not too bad.  My legs must be getting used to the downhill pounding.

AM- 7.5 easy.  Soreness only a 1.

PM- Green Canyon with Paul.  Ran 5 miles up and back at a slow pace.  The new singletrack is nice, though for some reason THERE IS WATER FLOWING IN GREEN CANYON!!!  Y'all, I've run in GC for 8 years now and this is the first time there has been actual water flowing.  And it's quite a bit, too- the singletrack crosses it 5 or 6 times.  I managed to jump it each time with minimal wetness, but Paul just waded through and ran with squishy shoes.  Easy run, just over 90 minutes.  3 years ago GC had 1 mile singletrack and 3 miles road- now it has 3.5 miles of singletrack and only .5 mile of required road running.  Me gusta.

AM- I've heard of New Year Resolutions, but is there some type of Mid-Year Resolutions?  I ask because I normally don't see anyone during my morning run, but saw NINE runners in a 2 mile stretch on Planet Walk this morning.  9 runners, all before 6 am.  Plus I saw 2 more other places, plus a group of 5 middle-school age kids setting off fireworks- again, before 6 am!?!  It was the strangest morning- every 30 seconds, we would see another runner coming towards us.  Anywho, ran 5.5 miles with Paul.  I'm tired- need more sleep.  Good thing my holiday starts tomorrow.

AM- In Idaho Falls- met Jeff Shadley and we had a nice run.  Good weather.  We ran the 4th of July 5k course, then ran over to see the VERY full Snake River, looping all over town.  Very conversational pace.  16.5 miles, 1:57:58 (7:09 avg).  Felt good, though the last few miles were a bit harder as my legs reminded me that they carried me 28 miles just 5 days ago- endurance isn't quite back yet.

PM- 3 easy with Marci.

PM- 5 miles along a lake with Tom Borschel, a trail runner extraordinaire who lives in IF.  We talked for a good hour afterwards, despite a rather windy thunderstorm.  Good to meet you, Tom.  Now I'll push for a new 5k PR tomorrow.

Today was my first non-Striders 5k in probably 3-5 years or more.  Even though I am just barely hitting peak mileage and have done minimal speedwork, I was hoping to break my high school PR of 16:53.  Given my marathon mindset, I tend to go out too slow, so wanted to do 5:05 or 5:10 first mile and hang on from there.  Warmed up with Marci and Jeff Shadley.  There were some decent runners (a bunch of HS kids, and a recent college grad who did a 27:00 8k).  The race annoyingly started 15 minutes late.

Mile 1 went out fast like I hoped, though it is definitely downhill.  I was in about 11th place at the 1/2 mile mark and about 8th at the mile- 5:10.  Perfect, though Jeff had fallen a bit behind so we couldn't trade half miles.   Mile 2 is flat, then uphill, then flat.  I was running by myself, about 10 seconds behind the lead pack.  A few guys fell off pace and I passed them, moving into 6th.  Mile 2 was 5:28- slower than I hoped even with the uphill.  I caught a young guy here and he got right behind me.  I tried to put some distance, but he wouldn't drop.  With about a half mile to go, he surged and caught another young guy just in front of us.  I did my best to reel them in, but couldn't quite make it.  Mile 3 was 5:23- slight uphill, but still a bit slow.  I felt I could maintain this pace forever, but didn't have a higher gear.  Last .11 was 32 sec (5:01 pace).  Total time was 16:35- 18 second PR, and 6th place overall.  I'm pretty happy with my time- I think with some speedwork I can take another 15-30 seconds off.  Jeff was just over 17 min.  We grabbed a water, and I felt completely recovered within a minute or two- probably a typical experience for a marathoner after a 5k.  If this were a 10k, I'm sure I would have caught at least 2 more guys.

Ran back .5 mile and saw Marci- she was thinking she would run 30 min, but shattered her old 26:00 PR with a 25:09- nice job, babe!  

Now off to food and fireworks.  Happy 4th, everyone!