Dave's Addiction

Feeling a bit sore from the last two awesome days, so I took it easy and did three hill sprints in the middle. Whatever.

I figured I would finish out the rest week with a nice easy 14 so I ran up the canyon and back. But there was a lot of wind, so it wasn't too easy, so after mile 13 I figured I had blown the easy (again) so why not see what I can do for the last mile? 5:38 it turns out. 60 foot elevation drop, but still, not bad!

Nice TM intervals, 11.7-12.1-12.4/5-12.8/10.0/14.0 (last 2 tenths)

Fun evening 10X10 hill sprints on Quiet Meadow Lane with Trace Lund and the Boy. I figured he would come in about 10% slower than Trace, but good grief he has gotten fast. I had to really push to stay ahead of him on the first 5, then he started to drop off a bit. He will do fine in the Yeti.

Early morning mixed Threshold and Interval run. Kind of hard so soon after the hill sprints, sort of a two-a-night, but whatever. I only have easy runs now until the Yeti. I still managed to put in a 5:56 on the uphill mile, so not too bad!

Snowshoe practice for the Yeti

Easy 3 with pickups to sharpen for the race tomorrow

Funnest 5K of the year. We started with a much larger group than normal, looks like the coach gave the Salem Hills Track Team the choice of doing a speed workout yesterday or running the Yeti today. First mile was passing all the bikes and the guys who thought they could bomb it up the hill. This left two track team guys out front and three bikes or so by the end of the short flat bit at the last of the mile. (7:14, 275 feet climb)

 Mile 2 is the serious hills, I walked a lot more than I wanted to here because I thought powerwalking would be faster. I added 20 seconds to the time though and got passed by Jen Hughes. The two other guys were long gone. (11:37, 585 feet climb)

 For mile 3, less intense hills with a nice flat bit in the middle where I almost got back down to a 6 flat pace. I could see Jen off in the distance about to finish but I had to stop and tie my shoe. (8:29, 300 feet climb)

 I blazed the last .12 into the transition and Jen was still there! I slammed on the snowshoes and quickly caught her. One of the track team guys did not do the snowshoe portion, but Cody was 3:18 ahead of me at 5K finish. Jen was keeping me close so I had to push and I found a sweet spot in a trotting zone. I gradually pulled ahead of her on the 7 switchbacks and saw Cody, now less than 1:30 in front, coming down. You are mine! (16 flat pace, 1245 feet climb)

Now the descent. I quickly found a nice speed, but I was throwing snow all over my bare legs and it was very painful,until it suddenly stopped hurting. Oh well, not going to take much more than 15 minutes to get down anyway. I could smell victory though so I kept going faster and faster, achieving a 6:29 mile on snowshoes. As the human snowstorm passed the people going up, they kept telling me I was closer and closer and finally I saw him on switchback 3! Two more switchbacks and onto the flat, then he made a mistake and stumbled and I swept past him. Then I hit the last little hill, and we both crawled up it, but he crawled faster and got 10 seconds ahead of me. Finally we were at the top and in the downhill, and I started up the snowstorm again. He had seen my style though and was copying it, and even with stumbles I was only able to gain 2 seconds on him. Across the street and into the final field, in full view of the finish line, I turned on everything I had but he still beat by 5 seconds. If I had known he was going to get the Yeti head from the standing 3D Yeti cake, I would have tried much harder in the 5K!

I hate daylight savings time.I got to the gym to do my intervals, and everything seemed harder than normal. I was going to push anyway, and did pretty well - 11.7, 12.1, 12.4/5, and 12.8 but at .8 miles on the last I had to drop it to 10.2 for .1 miles, then I brought it back to 14.0. Then I realized I had taken my trail shoes, which is why it was noticeably harder. I hope.

10x10 hill sprints on Quiet Meadow Lane

 Got to 17 MPH on the 9th one!

Practicing downhill miles for the Leopards race. I found two that dropped about 100 feet each, and I got 5:19 and 5:10. Looks like I will be around 16:10 on the 5K unless I can find a way to stretch my stride a bit. Breathing was pretty easy though, maybe I can push it under 5 in the race.

Amusing little tempo run before Pi day festivities with the running club, got a 5:57 average in the flats of Orem. Looking good!

Progressive TM run from 9.1 to 11.7, then 13 and 14 with 9 and 10 thrown in there.

I was going to run up Squaw Peak Road with Bill but he decided to do it at crazytime so I ran the McDonalds triangle (just try not to grab hash browns as you pass)

 The middle is 5  miles of glorious ups and downs on the Bonneville shoreline trail, good in this case for about 1200 feet of vertical, NONE of which I walked. Ha! I am ready for the Timp Trail half now, and Mr Varga will be hard pressed to beat me this year :)

Too bad it's still 2 months away and I am actually trying to get ready for a downhill 5k next Saturday. Oops.

Hey! I got the full speed mile intervals again! Those things are hard. But I need to be peaked for that Leopards race this weekend.

11.7 - 12.1 - 12.4/5 for last .5 - 12.8/13.0 for last .2

10x10 hill sprints with an easy run around the library

Tried the Garmin 910, altitude is way off.

Did the downhill miles thing again, but got 5:15 and 5:10 so a little improvement. I still hope to break 16 on the Leopards 5K but we'll see.

To work and from work, nasty wind/nice wind

Super easy 3 on the treadmill with 14 MPH pickups, .25 to cap it, ready to take masters in the Leopards tomorrow

Nasty day for a race, half inch of slushy ice on the roadat the start. I wassure somebody was going to die at the starting line, and it felt really hard to accelerate. But I guess it wasn't because I went out at the customary 4:30 pace and kept it under 5 for the first four tenths, until it flattened out. Even with the hill in the second half mile I still got a 5:12 thanks to Carl pulling me up behind him. I got a little overtired and he started to slip ahead, but he's awesome and I was still in front of most of the track team.

At the second turn I was totally lost and it was a good thing Carl was still there or I would have gone off into who knows where. I am too busy trying to run my best to figure out where the course goes you know :) Unfortunately it was another flat to uphill bit so I had to dig again and he got way ahead. I was still in a little debt going around the corner to the final downhill at mile 1.7, so three guys who were chasing me got past. We maintained that order to the end, slipping and sliding around the final corner (had to stop almost) and when I saw that 16:12 on the clock as I came around the corner I was quite pleased, considering the ice and the fact that my flat 5k record is 17:32. Don't know how to count this one.

Ran another 2.5 slow to kill time before the awards. I blasted the Masters. Does that make me Master Blaster?

Got my thumb caught in the nail gun slide, ran a half mile yelling before pain started to fall off, no broken bones but a nasty shatter in the middle of the nail, won't be playing piano for a few weeks

10x10 hill sprints plus an attempt at a 2:08 880, got a 64 quarter and died

Most awesomest mile intervals ever! That Leopards run really put me on a new level. 11.7 - 12.1 - 12.5 - 12.8/13.0 for the last third. I need to bump the beginning to 11.8, 11.7 isn't even waking me up any more, and I should have done 13.0 for the last half. I couldn'teven feel the effects of last night's hill sprints or fast 440 either. Did I accidentally sleep for 32 hours instead of 6?

I guess those mile intervals yesterday were a little too awesome, I was really flat this morning. Ran 7.5 easy anyway, kept accelerating without realizing it, got down to 6:10 on the mile pace.

Cut the TM progression off at 25 minutes, was feeling lazy and decided to indulge.

Nice run with the guys out and back on the Murdock canal, then slightly more vigorously up and back Provo Canyon. I only wanted 15 so I turned around, they were going for their last 20+ before Boston. I feel like I should have gone the 20, not tired at all.