Justin Park

A.M. - Normal direction 15 mile route.

A.M. - 60 minutes on the TM, all flat:

5 minutes @ 9.5 mph
5 mins @ 10.0
10 mins @ 10.5
25 mins @ 11.0
10 mins @ 11.5
5 mins with 1 @ 10.0, 1 @ 10.5, 1 @ 11.0, and 2 @ 11.5

Boost

A.M. - 15 mile loop. Slow.

P.M. - Millcreek ride (~40 miles). Breezy.

A.M. - 60 minutes on the TM:

5 minutes @ 9.5
5 mins @ 10.0
10 mins @ 10.5
30 mins @ 11.0
5 mins @ 11.5
5 mins @ 10.0

Boost

A.M. - Double 12-mile routes, one normal triangle, one reverse. Warm and breezy.

P.M. - ~41-mile ride up Big Cottonwood to Brighton and a little more. Kind of a poorer-effort ride. Had intended to go up the top of Guardsman (~50 mile ride round trip), but the heat was getting to me and my water bottles were extra low when I started the ascent toward Guardsman (after looping around Brighton). Just decided I was done and wanted to go home. Still a good ride, but a little bummed I didn't go all the way. Maybe for the better though. It was hot and I'm sure I was on the dehydrated side.

A.M. - 60 minutes on the TM:

5 minutes @ 9.5 mph, flat
5 mins @ 10.0, flat
20 mins @ 10.0 with progressive inclines; 3 mins each at 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, and 5 mins @ 3.5
5 mins @ 10.0, flat
15 mins @ 10.5, flat
5 mins @ 11.0, flat
5 mins @ 11.5, flat

A.M. - 9 very slow miles after a night with little sleep. Month end close at work is getting better, but still kicks my butt every month. In the middle of a very busy couple of days, so running (and cycling) will drop a few notches on my focus meter temporarily. Probably not ideal heading into back-to-back race weekends, but such is life.

P.M. - Short, hot, but quality ride up Little Cottonwood Canyon. First time up LCC this year. Stretched the ride around my neighborhood a little to get an even 25 miles.

P.M. - Yes, PM. After another brutal night, I missed my morning run. So I made it to the gym afterwork. Energy and legs were surprisingly good. Can't say so much for the GI system, which is often the case when I run in the afternoons. Made it as far as my bowels would let me at 11.0. Then finished up relatively easy after a short nature break. Definitely could have finished stronger if it hadn't been for the GI.

5 minutes @ 9.5, flat
5 mins @ 10.0, flat
10 mins @ 10.5, flat
27 mins @ 11.0, flat
(break)
10 mins @ 10.0 flat
3 mins @ 11.0 flat (to make it 30 mins total @ 11.0).

Just glad to have gotten a run in today.

Love the Kinvara's for the TM, but for some reason they're much noiser (slap, slap, slap!) then most of my other shoes when on the mill. I tend not to wear them much anymore because I'm afraid I bother people. The Adios Boost work great though.

A.M. - 9 miles. Was out like a light last night when my head hit the pillow. Slept great until about 3 AM and then just couldn't sleep anymore, eventhough I tried for a couple more hours. Got up and did my planned nine miles. Felt pretty good.

P.M. - Could feel the sleep thing catching up to me in the mid-afternoon, but got home and made it out on the bike around 7 PM. Wanted to go easier than normal. Ended up heading south on Wasatch this time and eventually to the top of Suncrest and back. ~30 miles. Very windy on the way out. The wind and rain progressed the further up Suncrest I went. Definitely made the ride more challenging than it normally would have been. Definitely not a pleasant/enjoyable ride, but glad to have at least gotten out.

A.M. - Easy pre-HM 35 mins on the TM:

5 minutes @ 9.0
10 mins @ 9.5
10 mins @ 10.0
5 mins @ 10.5
5 mins @ 10.0

I don't have real high expectations for tomorrow, especially after the week I've had. But I'm excited to race and assess where I'm at.

Boost

  Hobbler Half Marathon - 2014  

More on this to come later. Had an 'okay' run. Not great. Felt a little flat from the get go. They changed the last ~3 miles of the course this year. I like the changes and this route is definitely faster, but the course was short by ~0.2. So I actually crossed the line in 1:10:28. The splits are a little discouraging when compared to the past 2 years. Not sure how I should interpret that. Admittedly, the fitness this year isn't quite where it was the past 2 years at this point in the year. Other excuses: Also felt really at this race both the past 2 years at this race. This time, not as much. Had a rough work week (especially Mon-Weds) that threw off my sleep and runs this week. Biked on Thursday, which probably wasn't a big deal though I generally like to be off the bike the Thurs and Fri before a Saturday race.

Good to race again though. Ogden full was my last ~2 months ago. Fritz dominated. He is looking very strong. It was good to be able to cool down with him afterwards. Kudos to Dave Taylor too who turned in a very fine race.

Timp half is this coming week, so we'll see how that goes.

P.M. - afternoon boating with the family followed by a ~40 mile Millcreek ride.

A.M. - Just under 64 minutes on the treadmill. Felt great, but thought it would be a good idea to intentionally take things easy coming off of Saturday's race:

10 minutes @ 9.0 mph, flat
~54 mins @ 9.5, flat

Boost

Hoping to get the bike out this afternoon, but the 101 degree forecast doesn't sound inviting.

P.M. - Big Cottonwood ride to Brighton (~40 miles). Felt good. Was glad the heat wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be. Canyon was lovely. Slight tailwind on the way down made for a fun fast descent.

A.M. - 15 miles. Modified the second part of the run from the usual route.

A.M. - 60 minutes on the gym TM, all flat:

5 minutes @ 9.5 mph
5 mins @ 10.0
10 mins @ 10.5
10 mins @ 11.0
Had a brief intermission here only because I wasn't paying attention when I was setting the time on the TM and only set it for 30 mins instead of 60.
15 mins @ 11.0
15 mins @ 11.5

Felt good.

Boost

P.M. - Little Cottonwood ride (~25 miles). Ran into an old buddy of mine from Deloitte, Brian, at the top of the canyon. I about fell off my bike when I saw him on a road bike. He's always been a hard core Mtn bike dude, but he's gearing up to do Saints and Sinners with some friends. Good to see/talk to him.

A.M. - 9 miles easy.

A.M. - Easy TM miles, all flat:

10 minutes @ 9.0,
10 mins @ 9.5,
10 mins @ 10.0,
4 mins alternating 30 seconds: 10.5, 10.0, 11.0, 10.0, 11.5, 10.0, 12.0, 10.0
1 min @ 10.0

Timpanogos 1/2 - 2014

So mixed feelings about this one. The good things were:
-Its always fun to take the win (although no one fast showed up).
-It was the best I've felt in a half so far this year. Definitely felt better at this one compared to the Hobbler last week. I would attribute that to a more condusive work schedule, more regular sleep partterns, and better timed workouts this week compared to last week. Generally, I feel my fitness is heading in the right direction.
-Splits for the first 8 miles were really good (for me), and they should be given that you're falling off the face of the earth down AF Canyon. I slowed considerably on the flatter miles, which I need to work on.

The big negative was that the course was very poorly marked. The last 5 miles of the course were different this year. I got lost somewhere during the 10-mile and never was able to get back on course. I ended up improvising and running my own route to get my mileage. It ended up being a smorgasbord of turns, loops, and several U-turns. It definitely threw me out of rhtym and slowed me down. During the 11th mile, which ended up being a 6:24 split, I finally made it to an aid station and literally stopped and asked them what direction I should be running. None of the 10 volunteers knew what to tell me. Pretty frustrating. I wasn't the only person who got lost either. The race organizers seemed pretty unapologetic about the whole thing. Oh well... It surprises me how often things like this happen; poorly marked courses, leaders being misled off-route, short courses. In retrospect I should have done a better job of familiarizing myself with the route.

The time is just under a minute slower than my best time at this race 2 years ago. The course was different this time, there was no Scott Keate to pull me, and last time didn't have any off-course debacles (certainly no 6:24 splits). So all things considered, I feel pretty good with the result.

The highlight of the morning was arguably the cooldown. After finishing the race at the Lone Peak HS track, I started running west on one of the roads to cooldown.  I ran into Matt Poulsen and Nate who were in the latter miles of their run and started running with them. It made for a brisk cooldown (6:00 average for 6.7 miles). Great conversation and they introduced me to the 'Big Mother' which immediately caused me to drop serveral seconds behind. Matt and Nate both look super strong right now. Matt was talking up a storm and wasn't out of breath at all. The run ended a couple miles later at Matt's house where his wife had prepared a deluxe spread of breads, fruit, juice, eggs, the works! Several other guys also trickled in. Matt was gracious enough to leave all his guests and drive me back to the HS... Such a cool guy.

P.M. - Millcreek/Little Cottonwood double canyon ride (~60 mile). Been eyeing this one for awhile and finally got the guts to attempt it. Intentionally kept the Millcreek portion real conservative. Stopped at the 7-11 at the mouth of BCC to fill up the bottles. I definitely looked/felt like a turtle going up LCC, but eventually made it to the end of the paved road. ~7,550 total vertical feet and a good confidence booster for the Ultimate Challenge ride coming up in a few weeks.

A.M. - 60 minutes on the gym TM:

5 minutes @ 9.5 mph, flat
5 mins @ 10.0, flat
50  mins @ 10.0 at the following inclines: 5 mins @ 0.5, 5 mins @ 1.0, 25 mins @ 1.5, 5 mins @ 2.0, 5 mins @ 2.5, and 5 mins @ 3.0

Still a little sore from Saturday, but not bad at all.

Boost

P.M. - Millcreek ride (~40 miles).

A.M. - 15-mile route.

Bondi 3

P.M. - Mtn biking. Twice up and down the LC Temple Quarry Trail. Lovely. I forget how much fun mountain biking is when I go a while without doing it. Nice change of pace from the Cervelo.

A.M. - 10 easy on the TM in just over 60 mins, all flat:

15 minutes @ 9.0
15 mins @ 9.5
20 mins @ 10.0
10 mins alternating 1 min each @ 11, 10, 11.5, 10, 11.5, 10, 11.5, 10, 11.5, and 10.

Boost

D-News Half Marathon

Third half marathon in less than 3 weeks. Probably not the smartest thing to do. Especially for a guy like me who has a propensity for injuries when I overdue my running. However, I wanted to be part of the atmosphere of the event, was able to get half off on the entry fee, and was planning on getting 15 miles today anyways. I figured this would be a good way to get some quality miles.

After having run a half marathon (Timpanogos) just this past Saturday (5 days ago), I knew I wouldn't be at full strength today and shouldn't have too high of expectations for myself. I resolved to try and run hard, but not take it to redline. Mainly just try and keep things smooth and even and get in a solid effort. In the end, I feel I accomplished just that.

Aside from the recent 2 half marathons, one other thing I didn't have going for me was that at work yesterday afternoon we had a "storage room organization party" which basically was ~3 hours of lifting and totting a lot of heavy file storage containers. This probably had more of a mental impact than anything. I suspected it would sap some strength and cause me to wake up with a sore back. I took 200 mg of IB last night just as a preventive measure. Fortunately, the back was perfectly fine this morning and no noticeable fatigue from last night's moving exercise. So that was good.

Woke up at 3:50 AM and left the house pretty quickly. Just openning the garage, you could feel the warm breeze out of the south and is was apparent that it was going to be a warm one. On the bus ride up Emigration, the wind looked pretty fierce. Just as my bus got to the top, there as a quick bout of light rain that quickly passed. Spent about 15 mins in the potty line and then did a light warm-up up the canyon (~1.5 miles). Pretty soon it was time to roll.

The gun went off and the big dogs including Brett, Steve S, and Jason quickly took to the front. There were 3 or 4 others right up with them too. I quickly settled next to Clyde and Steve A. I really didn't not want to push the early miles, especially the first mile too fast. I was content to let Clyde and Steve pull a few seconds ahead. I went through the first mile in 5:07. Fast, but the effort didn't feel hard and the course was really conducise to a fast split. It ended up being my fastest of the race.

For the next 2-3 miles I trailed shortly behind Steve. Clyde was maybe 5-7 seconds up. There was definitely a headwind. Gusty at times. It certainly was making us work harder. Still, I wasn't pushing to hard. Just tried to run comfortably and let the wind do its thing. Splits 2-4 where 5:18, 5:20, and 5:30. Was a little concerned that the split times were climbing pretty quickly, but I wasn't going to worry about it. The wind and the rollers were definitely playing a factor. It was also quite warm, though at no point during the race was I particularly bothered by the heat.

Somewhere during about mile 4, I pull ahead of Steve. Clyde is still maintaining a steady gap of a few seconds on me. There is another younger guy who is slowly coming back to us. I eventually pass the young fella around Ruth's' Diner. Legs and lungs are feeling strong. I'm running just 'good' but not fantastic. I could probably go faster, but not much more so. I was content to maintain the same gap behind Clyde for a while longer. Mile 5 is 5:32. Definitely some rolling terrain and modestly strong headwind. In my mind I'm thinking today is probably going to end up 1:11 something. Maybe 1:10'ish if I can get something good rolling.

We hit the six mile just before exiting the canyon. About 6.3'ish I take my Gu. As you go by the zoo, there's a modest incline. I pull up along Clyde and start chatting with him. The headwinds are mostly non-existent at this point. I feel the Gu kicking in and next 2 miles are probably when I feel the best/strongest throughout the race. Mile 6 and 7 are both 5:24. I pull a little ahead of Clyde, but he sticks with me for a while. I definitely could have gone faster here, but I was intentionally slowing here a bit thinking to myself that I wanted to save some gas for the later miles.

During 8, you round right onto Foothill Blvd. My pace slows a little bit, but I'm still feeling fairly good. I stop hearing Clyde's breathing behind me. Mile 8 is 5:33.

Okay, less than 10K to go. Most of mile 9 is sceaming down past the U and Rice Eccles. By the stadium, I spot Brian Sommers watching the race. I ask him why he's not running and he's says something about breaking his ribs(?). Later, I also see him down at Liberty Park. The course turns north onto 13th. Mile 9 is 5:15.

10 starts on a slight incline, the a big dip and an up toward South Temple. The rollingness slows my pace and I was refusing to push very hard up the hills. Mile 10 is a 5:33.

Now on a nice straght gradual stretch down South Temple. I wanted to try and get a nice pace going the rest of the way, but my body seemed to have different ideas. Again, I was never pushing the redline, but I didn't/couldn't muster much speed. In retrospect, I wish I would have tried to push harder these last few miles. I think my splits could have been a little faster.

On a tangent thought, on these downhill half marathons, maintaining a decent speed for the last few miles has really been a challenge for me. It seems like that's been the case many years. Even 2012, my best year. That year, it wasn't until mid-August that I seemed to start doing a better job holding a more repectable pace to the end. Today, may have been a good day to try and practice that (i.e. really try and push hard at the end). But conversely, maybe its a good thing I didn't. At some point, if I want to improve, I need to do something that's going to help me build speed for the late stages of races. I think I view myself as a guy with a good aerobic base, but when it comes time to go over threshold, I really have a hard time holding it for any length of time. Given my training routines, I know I shouldn't be surprised by this.

Miles 11-13 end up being 5:27, 5:29, and 5:43. 1:09 for the last 0.19.

After crossing the line and getting some water. Clyde finished not too far behind and we cooled down for ~2.8 on the chipped trail around the park.

I think I ended up finishing 4th overall (Brett was 1st, Steve 2nd, and Jason 3rd). I haven't see the results yet though to confirm that. For a while, I was disallusioned that I had finished about 1:09:45'ish . I should have looked at my watch, because it turns out the race clock had started about 2 minutes late. Oh well... I'll take the 1:11 and change today. Nothing spectacular, but mission accomplished for the day.

Fritz dominated the marathon with a ~2:26.  Josh E had a good race given the conditions (3rd). Cotter (2nd) looked pretty beat up. The heat and wind definitely impacted the halfers, but even more so for the marathon folks.

P.M. - Big Cottonwood ride to Brighton (~40 miles).

A.M. - 60 minutes easy on the TM, all flat:

30 mins @ 9.0
30 mins @ 9.5

Boost

A.M. - Long run in the UC with Clyde, Matt, Nate, Jeff, Chad, and a couple others (sorry terrible with names). Utah, Salt Lake, and Washington County bloggers represented! Picked up Clyde in Draper at little after 5 and drove down to Nate's in American Fork. Matt and Nate were planning on doing a long run with tempo that involved some easy miles to start, then 3 marathon pace (~5:30), ~8 moderate (~6:15-6:30), and another 3 MP. Clyde and I weren't too keen about joining them for the tempo sections having just come off the half marathon on Thursday, but we decided to assess how we felt when we got there. My body was feeling good today. No real soreness to speak of, just heaviness in the legs and the usual post race energy levels.

The route was a big loop that headed west under the freeway then out to about Thanksgiving point and back south through Lehi, then back. First 6 miles were at chill pace. The group took a couple quick potty breaks. When it came time to tempo, Clyde and I decided to give it a whirl since it was only 3 miles. I took back seat and held on with them through about 1.25. I felt like I was working pretty hard from the start. Then I fell back a few seconds. Maintained about a 6 second gap through about 1.5 then Clyde backed off and him and I ran together. Felt stronger during the 3rd mile, which had a little more down. Finished maybe 10-12 seconds back from Nate and Matt which I'll take this day. I think Clyde and I averaged ~5:33 for that section. The next 8 miles were at a conversational working pace. Stopped at the (Lehi?) high school for one last potty stop. At 17, it was tempo time #2 for Matt and Nate. Clyde and I wished them well and him and I continued through the end at about the same pace. I think the last 11 were at around 6:22 ish.

Very fun morning. Nice temps. Happy with today's effort. It was definitely more quality than I otherwise would have gotten had I just done my own Saturday morning long run. Grateful to the UC group for letting Clyde and I crash their party this morning. Nate and Matt are looking like juggernauts right now, so everyone better watch out!

It was great to have Clyde to run with. Him and I were ready to put in about the same level of effort this morning. He's going to be ready to kill it at SGM.

P.M. - Awesome 65.5 mile double canyon ride: Big Cottonwood-Guardsman Pass/Little Cottonwood. ~9,250 of vertical.

A.M. - 60 minutes on the gym TM:

5 minutes @ 9.5, flat
5 mins @ 10.0, flat
50 mins @ 10.0 with progressive inclines; 5 mins @ 0.5, 5 mins @ 1.0, 20 mins @ 1.5, 5 mins @ 2.0, 5 mins @ 2.5, 10 mins @ 3.0.

A.M.2. - Took the day off work today to go boating with the family at East Canyon. Rode my bike up there to meet them (via Wasatch, Emigration, Little & Big Mountains). Good ride. I beat them to the entrance gate, so I turned around and rode toward them to get a few extra miles. Ended up with ~50.5 total. Glad to get the ride in early so I didn't get caught in the rain. We got several good hours of boating (and I got to ski finally) before the rain forced us off.

Run-bike-ski-quality time with the fam.... Days don't get much better than that!

A.M. - Standard 15-mile route. Normal direction in rain.

A.M. - 60 minutes on the TM, all flat:

5 minutes @ 9.5 mph
5 mins @ 10.0
10 mins @ 10.5
35 mins @ 11.0
5 mins @ 11.5

Boost

P.M. - Millcreek ride (~40 miles). Good ride, but a windy one.

A.M. - 15 hard fought miles. Easy pace run, but my tummy was off and I was dragging. Was one of those where you're just wanting for it to be done. Beautiful weather and temps though.

Bondi

P.M. - Mountain biking. 2 times up and down the Little Cottonwood Temple Quarry Trail (~19 miles).