running for my mind

6 miles - Met up with Jake and tested a few pair of Sauconys. It was fun to notice and feel the difference between shoes. After he took off to meet some other people, I ran another three miles to make it 6 total.

Legs felt really good and I averaged just under 7:30. Going to do a workout tomorrow of some quarter mile pickups on a 6 mile loop. I am excited for that workout and need to figure out before then how fast I want the quarter miles to be. Because I am not focusing on really getting faster at this point in my training, I will likely shoot for about a 6:00 pace for each of them.

6.5 miles - 2 mile warmup, 6 quarter mile repeats with quarter mile rests, cool down back home.

Met up with Scott and Brayden for this run. It was nice to have company for some repeats. We ran a loop through the Holladay area. I had originally planned on keeping the repeats around a 6:00 pace, as I noted yesterday, but when we ran the first one it just felt perfect at 5:30.

We stayed consist with 5 repeats that were all between 81 and 83 seconds. We pushed the last one a little bit and started out a little faster and I progressively picked up the pace and clocked a 70 sec, roughly a 4:40 pace.

My legs felt great and I was pleased that the 5:30s felt easy. I figure if I keep up my "time off" running the next couple of months with some speed work like today tossed in every now and then I will be ready to ramp up for Boston when the time is right.

6.75

49:13

7:19 average

Ran a modified loop through Holladay this morning solo. Didn't really focus on my pace much and just ran to enjoy it. I don't have splits because I am still wearing my mom's Garmin while I wait for mine to ship. I have thought about syncing hers to my account, but then I don't know if there is a way to deactivate it from my account and get it back on her account. Anyone tried this before?

I know my first mile was in the 7:50s. Mile two was in the 7:40s and I progressively got quicker with the last few right around 7:00 or quicker.

I am just going to play tomorrow by ear and see how I feel. If I wake up and don't feel like running, I will take the day off. We might stay up in Park City Friday night. If so, I will do a longer fun Saturday morning up in Summit County. Maybe I will run on the mid-mountain trail to mix things up.

5.15 miles

40:20.22

7:50 average

I was contemplating taking this morning off for no real reason at all, but Scott text me last night and wanted to do a short run. So, I met him at his house at 6 and we ran some rolling hills. Always nice to finish a run before the sun comes up.

My quads were feeling the hills a little bit. Nothing serious at all. Maybe just some lingering tension from the repeats on Tuesday.

10 miles

1:11.42

7:10 average

Met up with Josh and Scott and ran on the Jordan River Pkwy trail. We had planned on starting around a 7:45 and progressing faster from that down to 6:45-7:00.

The first little while was pretty cold and it took me a couple miles to feel like I was hitting a rhythm. I felt like I was breathing with a lot more effort than needed until about mile 3. Josh and I talked about how it takes until 3-4 miles to really feel dialed in and in a groove. I guess that was the problem with the first few miles. After that, I felt great. The pace came with little effort. Mile 8 was 7:07 and then we turned it up just a bit and finished 9 at 6:31 and 10 at 6:25. Always feels good to finish with stuff left in the tank.

4 easy miles. I wasn't going to run at all today. I purposely ran a little longer and harder yesterday knowing that we were spending last night at Deer Valley. However, the last couple of days have been mentally taxing, so I decided to get out for a quick 4 miles before we had family pictures. 

If you have followed my blog this year, you may remember when my wife and I took our daughter to Jackson in the winter for a last minute photo shoot. Well, we found out today that she is on the cover of the new Pottery Barn Kids catalog. Kind of cool.