Dave's Addiction

8 EZ to the gym, found Franz on the way back and ran some pickups with him, nice .25 max pickup at the end

Excellent hill workout on the McDonalds BST route this morning, moderate run to the base, then threshold effort all along the trail. BST splits were 7:52. 8:51, 7:52. and 7:46, hills, rocks and twisties notwithstanding. A darn fine performance. I blew by two high school kids on one of the uphills like they were going the other direction. Still feeling good on the warmdown so I did a 5:18 pace for .4 miles. Calling it VO2 max but it wasn't. Why am I so much faster after the buttkicking than before? Ready for annoying nephew round one this weekend at Big Springs.

EZ7 around town and the gym,also 5X10 hill sprints and a 770 smoothly increasing screamer at the end, down to 4:20 pace

EZ8 around the town, these were really easy and clustered mostly in the 7:15-7:20 zone. Not sure why, but I felt better today than after any other run in the last month so it looks like my body thinks 50 is the new 40 now. So I'll stick in the low 50s for a few weeks, then look at moving up to the 60s for St George training in August and Sep.

I felt even better today than I did yesterday, didn't think that was possible. In fact I don't think I have felt this good in years. So I added a VO2max mile and .75 EZ on top of the normal prerace 5K to make for what was still a negligible workout - 1 hill sprint, 1 flat pickup, 1 TM mile at 5:04, and a 64 440 (also TM)

Both me and my A game are coming to Big Springs tomorrow, the nephew better be ready :)

The race so nice I ran it twice. I started off easy but it didn't matter, I was leading by10 meters at the bottom of the little hill. I quickly slowed  down on the climb and almost immediately was passed by a bunch of people, including my dang nephew who I so wanted to beat. And Seth strode by everybody like he was in a completely different race with more downhill. Good grief. Crossing the big meadow I managed to keep the nephew in range but I had to walk momentarily and he did not. I fell back to 10th place or so by the water stop in the second meadow, but my climbing legs were getting happier so I was barely walking at all. Uphill splits not too bad, 8:22, 9:08 and 9:29 OK maybe a little trouble there on the last big climb but the best was yet to come.

I was alone like usual at the top so I went into downhill monster mode right away, hoping to make up at least a little time and not get totally smoked by the little butthead. I got 5:48 on the first mile down, so decent. Then at the top of the big meadow I caught sight of him just leaving in front of Amber, totally phoning it in! Only 40 seconds in front with a little over a half mile to go. I cranked the downhill machine into 5th gear and upped the turnover, and as the pace fell through 4:30 I could see that I was visibly gaining on them. I blew by Amber at a 4 flat just after the little meadow and came around a corner and there he was, not 20 meters in front. No freeking way!! I immediately slammed it to the firewall and blasted him with a 3:45 surge, but he was not going to let me get it that easily. With less than a tenth to the park we Mario Karted at ridiculous speed. I knew that if I could jump the rail at the end of the trail before he did that I had him because nobody smokes me on downhill grass ever.

I did it! I was 6 feet in front - he's toast. I went to max speed + and to my horror I could hear him catching me! We were already at a 3:20 and dropping but I tried to eke out just a little more - no dice. I thought I was going to tumble into the finish as we passed through 19 MPH but fortunately we ran out of course before he caught me and I beat him by like two feet. Totally awesome finish. To top it off I got a 20 second PR on the course and broke my 1 mile record by 9 seconds, 4:46 for the last mile.

I am so toast at Freedom 5k next week :)

I ran the course again to cool down and did course cleanup.  46 minutes is much easier than 36.