Training for a Belt Buckle

I was sad that everyone had so much fun running Painter's yesterday, so made my own half marathon today.

This was the first unofficial Queen's Penguin Trail Half Marathon.  Ran from my house to the start of the trail and then ran the entire distance of the trail. I found out it really ends at 12300 South and was at 6.3 miles, so ran a couple of blocks on the road until my turnaround time.

I have to admit it - Sasha's advice (actually 'following Sasha's advice') has really increased my endurance.

Total race time 2:28:58. I followed a process of walking 1 minute out of every 10 minutes. I never really pushed - because I want to do another 20+ miles tomorrow - and kept being very pleasantly surprised at my mile times.

Avg: 11:22  Max 6:51

11:55/11:44/11:19/11:22/11:21/11:27

11:25/11:05/11:19/11:03/11:35/11:01/11:00

OK - this is kind of freaky.  I just checked all my half marathon times and my 'training run' was a PR by 1 second.  2009 just might be a great year for jungle running.

Leslie, Odee and I went up to Park City this morning and ran the Jeremy Ranch Road from Jeremy Ranch over to Emigration Canyon (7.3 miles). Odee and I headed up the road for a bit, but he was worrying about his mom, so we turned around and met up with Leslie.  She had already run 5 miles this morning and was starting to get a bit tired, so I ran ahead and got the car and came back to meet them.  They were only a little more than a mile back when I finally found them.  

The plan was for Leslie to go to Wild Oats and pick up lunch for us and then come back and meet me while I got in more mileage. She assured me it would be all downhill once we got back on pavement. SHE LIED!  There was 2 miles of uphill with the last half mile looking worse than Veyo.  I crossed under the freeway and was about a mile down the frontage road when she found me.

Oh yeah - it was a balmy 8 degrees when we started running.  Luckily it warmed up to 32 degrees by the time we finished.

Naptime now - then onto the treadmill later.

PM - 2.25 miles walking on the treadmill to get my minimum mileage goal for the day.

Rest Day today.  My legs are feeling good - but it has been 8 days since I took a day off and I know my body needs one after the past 2 days of intense mileage.  Besides, this way I can admire the sunburn on my face from yesterday.

Balmy 16 degrees when I left - up to 19 degrees when I finished.  Lots of ice crystals on the road from the inversion fog.

I did hill repeats today.  First hill was about 1/3 of a mile long with a block long steep section. 3 repeats on that hill.  Then I ran the hill from Creek Road to 13th East (a little steeper) 2 times. One more long uphill on the was home plus some small ones in between.  Felt a little pulling behind the left knee at 6.5, but it eased up after a few minutes - so think it is okay.

Geesh - I ate healthy yesterday and my weight went up 3 pounds!

Treadmill time.  1 mile warmup.  4 miles at 6.0 mph. 1 mile cooldown.

5 miles on the treadmill. Finished a book called Living Successfully With Screwed-Up People. I wish I had read it years ago - but I probably wasn't ready to handle the message back then.

Ran & walked 4.8 miles to Leslie's house this morning.  It is almost all uphill - so walked the bad uphills.

We drove up to Park  and did 4.4 miles on slushy sloppy trails. Saw a neat fox that I took some pictures of will my camera phone.

Ran home from Leslies house - another 4.8 miles. I thought the downhills would be easy - but there was a stiff headwind from the southwest. I felt like I was walking - but was actually doing between 10.5 and 12 mph.

I'm tired.

Later - I forgot to mention that Leslie and I decided to run the Grand Slam this year since I was already doing Ogden, Park City and St. George and had been thinking of doing Utah Valley. Once she mentioned that Utah Valley was one of the official marathons - it was a no brainer.