El Burro Blanco

8 easy miles in the morning over into Santa Clara.  Felt nice.

4 miles in the afternoon.  I finished at my parent's house and then hopped in the pool.  Felt great.

12 miles this morning from the high school over to Staheli Farm and back.  I had to get creative with my VPB this morning which made the run quite eventful.  Not wanting to get that crazy with the mileage.  Looking forward to a good workout in the morning.  Couldn't run this afternoon due to the meet.

Nice workout this morning with Dave and sort of Clyde.  3 mile warm up and 2  mile cool down.  The workout plan was a brisk 8 mile progression run.  We did 2 miles around 6:20, 2 miles at Tinman (6:00), and then 4 miles at 5:26, 5:29, 5:27, and 5:28.  The last 4 miles were not how I wanted to finish but my legs felt like peanut butter.  I was feeling the effects of last Saturday's race.  Maybe to soon for some speed work.  Oh well.  

I did an easy 5 miles with the girls today.  It was nice to talk a little race strategy with them and also help with some mental aspects of running.  They are doing well right now.  Hopefully we can keep things rolling.

8 miles in the morning.

5.3 miles in the afternoon.

I ran 5 miles early this morning and then did another 3 miles with some of the kids.  It was fun chatting with them for a little bit.

Speed workout this afternoon with the kids.  We did some 200s with really focusing on using it as if we were sprinting at the end of a race.  Did 12 x 200m with 200m recovery.  Cooled down a little bit with some of the team as well.  Nothing fancy but a solid workout for the kids.

I got a day off of work due to doing the Red Rock Relay with some buddies of mine from high school and some of their family members.  We didn't have the fastest team but it was still a lot of fun.  I was scheduled to do legs #7, 19, and 31.  All of them are up hill or long so I knew my splits probably wouldn't be mind boggling.  I also have been getting over a head cold so I was curious to see how that would do.

The race starts up at Brian Head (over 10,000 ft. elevation) and runs down through Cedar over into Enterprise and then down the marathon course.  It winds through St. George and then goes through Hurricane and LaVerkin all the way to the finish near the entrance of Zion National Park.  Absolutely breath taking.  I was excited to do this because I knew it would be a great workout for me.

My first leg started at close to 10,000 ft. elevation and was straight up the hill.  It started just before Duck Creek Village and went up to Navajo Lake.  The total mileage was 5.85 miles.  I had a lovely head wind to deal with the entire time but pushed through it and averaged 6:33/mile.  It felt like I had 100 lb. bricks sitting on my chest due to the elevation.  Really enjoyed having people honk as I went by.  I did a little bit of a cool down after wards.  I ended up starting this run at about 4:30pm.

We went to the next major exchange in Cedar and grabbed some dinner.  We maybe got an hours worth of sleep and then we went over to the start of our 2nd leg.  The car is slowly starting to stink bad.

I started my second leg around 12:30am.  I had 8.3 miles from Newcastle to Enterprise.  I was really tired from the lack of sleep but was optimistic to see how it would go.  I talked to a volunteer at the exchange and he said that there were about 6 or so cattle guards to watch out for on the run.  That is exactly what I wanted to hear when it is pitch black and I am trying to do well on the run.  

The run was long with a little bit of up hill.  I literally had to stop and walk over all of the cattle guards.  I thought about doing a steeplechase jump to get over them but quickly decided against that.  It wasn't worth it.  I ended up hitting 5:39/mile which I was happy with.  Nothing spectacular but got the job done.  I almost lost my dinner but luckily survived without no harm done.  

After our van got done with all of our runners we went over to the Washington City Rec. Center and napped for about 2 hours.  Some of my buddies went to take a shower and I found a lawn chair and immediately crashed on the spot.  This all occurred at 5:30am in the morning.  I woke up and started getting ready for my 3rd leg.  It started at the Rec. Center and then climbed up to Coral Canyon along Telegraph and then went all the way up to the Chevron by the highway.  I was running on 3 hours of sleep and not feeling 100%.  I ended up averaging 6:03/mile for the 5.25 miles.  The up hill is starting to get old.  The weather is also slowly starting to get hotter.  Saw the Bull at the gas station and talked to him for a little bit.

I thought I was done but we had a guy drop off the team last week so a few of us needed to pick up those extra legs.  Yeah!  I ended up doing a fourth leg which was the second to last leg which was 6.7 miles from Virgin along the highway to just before entering Rockville.  I took my shirt off for this one because the temperature was brutally hot.  My body and mind kept telling me to stop and I just kept telling both my body and mind, "Sorry!"  I tried to keep it nice and steady for the gradual up hill climb and finished with a 5:57/mile average.  Not to shabby considering I was pretty much running on empty at this point.  I finished this leg and was extremely dehydrated and dizzy.  My teammates brought me a cold rag to put on my head and also a lot of fluids.  I felt better once I got this taken care of.

Once again I thought I was done for the day but my good friend had 7.5 miles left to finish the relay.  It climbed all the way into Zion and the heat was really bad.  I did just over 4 miles of jogging with to finish the race while dumping water on him and carrying fluids for him.  He ran through the pain and finished with the rest of the team.  I was happy to run with him because it made sure my legs didn't tighten up. 

We finished the race as a team just over 27 total hours.  It was a long journey but I was glad I did it.  A lot of the women on our team are doing the marathon for the first time in a couple weeks so it was fun answering questions that they had.  Had a lot of fun with old and new friends.   Got a big lunch after wards because I only had granola bars, beef and rice, and lots of Powerade and water for the entire relay.  I was famished!

Really happy with how I ran.  By far some of the toughest legs on the entire course and decent times with over 31 miles in two days on 3 hours of not so great rest.  Nice finish to the week.  I will probably hit the course next week for 14-16 miles and then just maintain everything until the race.  Still pretty optimistic with what I can do.  We will have to see!