I'm retired from racing. Really.

AM- 6 easy miles.  Ran the front 9.  Rather dark out.  I got the living bejeevees scared out of me when I unknowingly got within about 20 feet of a deer sleeping in some brush.  He woke up and noisily darted out of there.  Made my heart rate peak at about 850, I think.

PM- 11 miles with Cody and Paul.  Good run.  Easy pace, 1:26:32.  Although Cody and Paul have a new strategy of not stopping when I have a potty break, making me have to work hard to catch up.  It evens things out a bit so I won't beat them by too much like normal.

Adrenaline- 434, 768- 101

HELP NEEDED- I will be running races in Park City on Aug 9 and Sept 6.  I am looking for a place I can crash the night before both races, either in Park City or somewhere in SLC that is near Parley's canyon.  I have my own sleeping bag and I don't snore.  Any leads?

AM- Ran the back 9 plus 1-4.  Dark.  One shooting star, no deer.  6 miles.

PM- 8 miles with the jogging stroller, 5 with Cody and his kids.  Very slow.  70 min, 8:45 pace.

Adrenaline- 440, 767- 369

AM- 6 miles on landfill loop, very warm and dark.  At one point I found myself running alongside a skunk, 10 feet away with his tail held high.  I'm just glad I was in the middle of the road rather than the right side.  Watched the sliver of the moon rise over the mountains.  Q:  I'm trying to think of the best words to describe when I ran.  What is earlier than "the butt crack of dawn"? :)

PM- Big Workout.  Stacy was kind enough to let Paul join me even though their son was born earlier today.  Congrats!  Anyways, I warmed up 2.5 miles to Paul's house, then another mile with him.  We did a 7 mile tinman tempo (Paul only did 6)- pace was supposed to be 6:10-6:15 in normal temps, so I was hoping to be ~6:20 with the 90 deg heat.  Yup, it was hot, though not as bad as last week.  Ran First Dam 10k course- splits were 6:11, 6:14, 6:18, 5:54, 6:07, 6:08, then 5:56 last mile by myself (6:07 avg for the series).  First 3 miles were slight uphill, last 3 were slight downhill.  Last mile was hard by myself but I really pushed it on the last quarter even though I was getting very light headed.  We were also talking the whole way, so that was a good sign.  1 mile cooldown with Paul, then I ran to LHS track and did 1.5 miles with 6x100m strides.  Ran 2 more miles home with 2 more strides.  Total time 1:39:51 for 15 miles, 6:39 avg for the run (smoking!).  Very tired but good workout.  I couldn't have done it without Paul- huge help for him to pull me along.  Plus, with the heat and tired legs I thought we were tempo-ing at 6:30 pace, so to be doing faster than that was great.  Like Paul said, if we did the same effort in the cool morning we would probably average 5:50-5:55 pace!

52 miles for the first 3 days this week!  Wow.  Now 2 easy days then a 10k on Saturday. 

768- 116, Adrenaline- 446

AM- 6 miles, 1 shooting star. Need to eat more food- after about 2 months of always weighing between 137-141, my weight has now dropped to 134-136 for the past week.

PM- 7 slow miles with the jogging stroller, Cody, and his stroller.  94 deg.  58:30.

Adrenaline- 452, 767- 376

PM- It was SOOOO nice to sleep in today.  6 mile run in the hot evening with the jogging stroller, 3 miles with Paul.  Stopped by his house to see Seth- cute baby with lots of brown hair.  Easy run.  Should be a fun 10k tomorrow.

I ran about 76 miles the first 2 weeks of month combined as I was taking a mini break and recovering from my trail marathon.  The last 3 weeks, though, I averaged 14 miles a day.  Projected to a month, that would give me 376 miles, which I believe would be an alltime high (ran 337 last Aug).  And I have 386 miles planned for next month.  Wow.

Adrenaline- 458

AM- 4 easy miles as warm up for my race today.  Now off to the race!

Race- drove over the Garland with Paul, Cody, and Walter for this nice race- $5 entry for the non-competitive division (i.e. no award or t-shirt, which is fine with me).  2 mile warmup.  The course is a nice out and back with one hill- down and then up (it is a highway underpass, mile 1 is right at the bottom).  Headwind on the way out, not noticeable on the way back.  Nice winding course through farm fields.  Last year I ran a 36:17 and was hoping to be 34:30-35:00 this year. 

Started out pretty fast- 5:23, then 6:01 for mile 2 (slowed a bit plus the uphill), 6:17 for the 1.1 to the turnaround (5:42 pace).  Went through the turnaround with Walter about 15 seconds ahead and with Paul right behind me- he and I had been talking off and on most of the way out.  I tried to really work it on the way back- 5:50 for the 1.1 (27 seconds faster than on the way out- 5:18 pace, which dropped Paul), then a 5:36.  Finally caught Walter with about 1.5 miles to go (he was running strong and I wasn't sure if I would get him), though he hung within about 10 seconds of me.  Pushed it on the last mile and ran 5:29, pretty good supposing there was the uphill.  34:37 for the race, Walter was about 13 seconds behind and Paul snuck under 35:00.  Cody was about 2 minutes back, for a 1-4 FRB sweep. 

After the race and 4 mile cooldown, we went for the $3 breakfast but they told us it was free- yes!  Pancakes, hash browns, eggs, yummy ham, and real OJ.  Then the raffle- everyone won something except Paul- poor guy!

I was very happy with the race today.  It's a big improvement over last year and is a good indication that my fitness is where I hoped it was.  Paul estimates the course is about 30 seconds slower than a flat SLC 10k (between the headwind and hill), so Sasha's predictor gives me a 32:52 Des News 10k and a 2:31:07 at St. George- just about right where I hope to be.  Nice course, good time, running with friends, free breakfast, raffle win- great way to start a Saturday!  Also, my 5k splits were 17:41 and 16:56, the latter of which is only 3 seconds off my old 5k PR.  Maybe I should try to officially break that soon.

768- 120, Tangent 2- 40