El Burro Blanco

6 miles in the morning.  The bridge x 1 with the kids and then into Hidden Valley and back.  Nothing fancy but actually warm enough this morning to not wear warm pants for the run.

Nice 6 miles in the afternoon with kids.  We went out towards Little Valley Park and then came back.  We decided to call this one Washback.  I am having the kids name the runs now so we don't get confused on where to go.

3 miles in the morning over towards Hidden Valley Park and back.  A little on the chilly side again.  I lifted weights this morning instead of running more miles.  I am glad I did.

Big workout this afternoon with the kids.  We did a 3 mile warm up towards The Spectrum and back and then did a ladder workout on the track.  We did 1 min. hard, 1 min. easy all the way up towards 5 minutes and then came back.  We did this workout earlier in the season and it was a bruiser for most of the kids.  I kept everything under 5:30/mile to get a decent workout in.  The kids did amazing with this workout.  They were tired but pushed through.  We did a little bit of a cool down to help the legs a little.

2.20 miles in the morning.  I didn't go a full 3 miles this morning so I ended up doing some core exercises for a while.  Cold out.

6.40 miles in the afternoon.  We went for a run out in the desert on the dirt trails.  It was rolling and lots of fun for the kids.  I only lost 2 of them and had to go back to find them.  A couple more days until the half.  We will see how it goes.

3 miles in the morning with the kids.

4 miles in the afternoon with some of the kids which included 8x100m strides at the end.  Nothing fancy.  Still excited for Saturday's race.

3 easy miles this afternoon with the kids over towards Hidden Valley.  Excited about tomorrow's race.  Hopefully the weather holds out.

I wanted to end the year with a good half and I was really optimistic going into this race.  I was really shooting for 1:12-1:13 due to the course conditions.  It is a hilly course and not that fast.  I drove down with Katey and Norah this morning and welcomed the hour time change which gave me an extra hour.  I got my packet and then got to the starting line.  I knew I would be lucky to be top 10 due to all of the competition.  Kyle Perry, Brad Osguthorpe, Seth Pilkington, an Ethiopian and a couple other All-American collegiate runners were looking at me like I was fresh meat.  The weather was overcast and the wind started to pick up a bit.

I met up with Steve Shepherd and Steve Cuttika once the race started.  The wind really picked up and we continued together with the 3 of us taking turns blocking the wind up until mile 4.  Steve Shepherd and I took off and were together for about another mile and a half and then he put about 100 meters on me.  I looked at my watch and it felt like I was doing sub-5:30 pace but I was barely hitting 6:00 pace.  I decided to just run and use today as a $50 training run.  The wind was really blowing.  It was a true headwind of about 30-40 mph.  Absolutely yucky to run in.  I kept Steve in sight but with about 2.5 miles to go Steve Cuttika caught up to me and passed me.  I was ready to be done by then so I kept the legs moving and finished about a minute and a half behind Steve Shepherd. 

I was happy to be done but a little irked because I knew I could have stayed with Steve Shepherd.  I guess my "lean" body does not slice through the wind.  It was a decent run but wish the conditions could have been better.

I still have the Footlocker race in 2 weeks.  That should officially be my last race of the year.