Work will win when wishy washy wishing won't

A great start to the day and the week.  Tom and I went down through the river bottoms to avoid the wind.  When we come back up out of the river bottoms we hit right into the canyon wind.  We look up over the lower parts of south east Spanish Fork and into the mouth of the canyon where the wind originates.  They are in the process of building 9 huge windmills right up there.  It is pretty cool to see them.  They are not your old Holland type of windmills, but a new sleek white type.  They are very majestic.  It will be neat when they are in working order.  My point is...if they are building 9 huge windmills in this area, it must a windy place.  Just so you don't think any of us who run here are making things more exciting when we talk about the wind.

And now....to the dry pack cannery. 

I guess Tom and I did some fartleks this morning.  I don't think that sounds very lady-like, but oh well!  It's kind of fun to get into more than just running.  He is really helping me learn a lot.  I am excited to see where it can take me.  This morning it took me down to the river bottoms where we could avoid the wind and have a good hill for the fartlek workout.  We were suppose to do 4 30 second relaxed sprint paced uphills with a 2 minute cool down between.  On the second one the person who was watching the time, (I won't mention his name), timed it for 60 seconds instead of 30 by mistake!  So we counted that as 2.  I can see how these workouts are going to be beneficial to me!  I hope, hope, hope I get into the St. George Marathon!  I guess the time is approaching that we will find out.  I hope that since a lot of us had bad luck getting into the Moab half that we will all have good luck to get into SGM.

Tom didn't need a 2-a-day run today, so we chose to try to get a few extra Zs this morning. I went out at about 9:00 a.m. It was nice to run in the sunshine.

Mile one: Started out at a 9:15 pace and it was feeling good. I decided I would try to keep all my miles no faster than 9:00 and no slower than 9:30. End of mile one, ave pace 9:16.

Mile two: I was doing good to stay in my pace. I always have a hard time doing that when I am alone because I get bored and start to speed up. Up ahead of me I saw a tall, skinny person with short hair turn onto the road I was on. I thought it might be my tall, skinny, short haired friend so I started going a bit faster to catch up. As I caught up I saw that it was a tall, skinny, short haired person, but it was of the male variety, not the female. So now I either had to fall behind again...(NOT!), hang out with him...(NOT!) or keep up the speedier pace and chick him! (YUP!) I kept up the pace and he must have turned somewhere, because I never saw him again. I did a turn around to head back instead of going down into the river bottoms. After I had passed him and couldn't see him, I slowed it down. That mile ended up at 8:53.

At mile three I had to stop and stretch a little. I was feeling quite a bit of tightening in my lower, back left leg. It felt good after a stretch and the rest of the miles are as follows...

9:09 9:29 9:12 9:25

Lots of walkers out at that time of day. Not many runners though. The walkers are always bundled up so much. I was passing people while I was wearing shorts and short sleeves. They were in full body wear, one even had big, fluffy, white earmuffs on! I gave her the benefit of the doubt and assumed she is visiting from Arizona or Maui!

Speaking of short sleeves. The only reason I miss my under armor is because I now get some rubbing under my arms against the seams. What do I do for that? Vaseline? Bandaids?

Sorry, I guess I got a little chatty today. I didn't have anyone to talk to while I was running, so I've gotta do my talking now.

Tom and I were all geared up in our minds to wake up to snow this morning. We heard the wind and rain in the night, but woke up to a beautiful, mild morning. Sorry to those of you who didn't get that. I was a good little student this morning and followed the right pace for my workout, which was the lower end of base pace. I have a hard time doing that alone because I get bored, but it was a nice little run today with Tom to chat with. We threw in 4 different 30 second striders.

Fun letter from our missionary this morning! He said this past week he has been able to experience more cultural experiences than any other time on the mission. He went to an old castle and tried on samuri, (sp?), armor. He went to a families house and ate fish uterus with eggs in it. (He had a brand new elder with him that got to enjoy some strange foods, good way to start off two years in Japan!) He ended up at some weird chanting session for some other religion that he was happy to get out of. He said the spirit definitely wasn't in that place. We get to talk to him on Mother's Day! Yeah!! For those of you who aren't LDS, the missionaries are out for 2 years and we only talk to them on Christmas and Mother's Day. Other than that it is only through letters and email. So we LOVE those two holidays even more than we did before he left!

Pre-race morning: Ran 2 miles to wake the legs and brain up. I was very happy to get a better rest than I was expecting. Thank goodness for antibiotics and pain relievers for a cute little daughter with a nasty ear infection!
I was in charge of the fruit for the race, so I took it up there at about 7:20 to cut it up. Was graciously helped by John A's daughter who jumped in and cut 50 lbs of bananas into thirds! Thanks Emily!

There were about 40 running the 5K and about 100 running the mile. Tom was willing to give up killing himself on this race and sticking with me to pace me. This is the first time I've had someone to keep me motivated throughout the race and I know it helped me out a lot. I think I may have wimped out here and there if I would have been alone. The wind showed up just as ordered! Blasting right down the canyon and into our faces! I love wind! It is good, it is great, it is wonderful! (I'm sure you are convinced with my love for the wind!)

Mile one: (8:17) Mile two: (8:15) Mile three: (7:51) Last point one: (.23)

Tom did very good at motivating and keeping me going without making me feel like punching him. It was good to have him there to remind me to breath and relax. It's funny how you can forget those kinds of things.

Anyway, I was hoping to get my 25:44 PR closer to 25 even. When all is said and done my new 5K PR is 24:46!

After the 5K I helped my little neighbor girl make it through the 1 mile. I would have ran it with my 7 year old if she would have felt better. Tom ran with our 10 year old, Tani. Our 13 year old, Jansen ran it on his own.

Mile results: Jansen #1 overall! (6:25) Not bad for running once a year. (Each Icebreaker fun run.) However, I think he may be seriously thinking of doing a little more running. He has great potential. Tani ended up 5th in her age group. Unfortunately there were a lot in her age group to compete against. She ran it somewhere between 10:00 and 10:30. Again, not bad for running once a year.

After awards and prize drawings Tom took the kids home while I ran home. He had already ran a bunch of miles this morning so he didn't need anymore.