Denouement

Now that my faithful Loafer Canyon buddy is in foriegn lands, I needed to figure out what to do with myself on Mondays.  I have been running up a canyon called Loafer Canyon.  Because a long, 4.5 mile hill can tend to spread out runners you really need to run with someone you are close to, pace wise.  Running alone is not very appealing since it is dark half of the time and there have been bear and wild cat sightings. 

So, I called another friend who doesn't like Loafer (imagine that, he doesn't care for 4.5 miles uphill).  Actually, Loafer Canyon is not an ideal uphill training run because it is so steep that for me I am fighting just to stay under 10 minute pace going up, and going down is so steep in some places I don't dare risk running down hard.  So I think the Payson Canyon up and down run will start to be more frequent on my running circuit.

Back to my run today, I ran long hill repeats with my friend Mark S.  We did a gradual uphill on Spanish Fork Center street, starting at Main and ending a mile to the east.  It is very gradual except for three steeper parts.  We ran the following paces:

mile 1 7:36

mile 2 7:24

mile 3 7:38

I think this workout will be great to add to my training.  Mile repeats are nice and long and can't be faked too well.  Add a gradual hill and you get one tough workout. I will try to add more repeats to get the endurance I need.  As it was today, the third repeat was very difficult to maintain pace.  I think next time I will try to keep at around 7:35 each time, and try to add one.  I won't be in town next Monday so this workout won't be repeated until the following Monday.

Slow and easy 9:30 ave pace

Wednesday morning we were to load up the car and head off to Keystone, CO for vacation.  I thought I could wake up early and get in a long run and do a tempo run while at it.  My goal was to run 12 miles with a 3 mile fast 7:00 tempo pace. 

However, I got bad sleep the night before (tossed for the last hour I was supposed to be sleeping--I hate that). 

As I started running I calculated how much time I had and realized I would have a tough time fitting in even 10 miles.  I started in Salem and headed to Payson.  I started my tempo right after mile 5, when I was heading North East on highway 89/189 (not sure what the name is).  Unfortunately, I had the Pettiteneet Academy hill in that first mile, fortunately there was a downhill after the uphill, but the first mile took alot out of me.  7:02 first mile. I started the first mile ok, but toward the 1.5 mile mark I started to lose steam and then started to question myself.  This is why I don't like to do speed on my own.  By 1.75 miles into the tempo I had given up on the tempo run (my pace for the .75 was about 7:35/mile). 

I seem to not have the toughness to do speed on my own.  This run was so frustrating.  When giving up I consoled myself with the thought that I would try to do a 4 mile tempo run on the treadmill while in Keystone at about 7:05 pace. 

Our drive to Keystone was bad, with lots of construction and delays on I-70 and a few sprinklings of boy squeals, fights, crys, whines, from the back row.  We rented a fullsized car so the three rascals were right next to each other.  It sure makes you appreciate the minivan where all the kids can be separated. 

Keystone CO.  Temperature at run start: about 45 F!  Elevation: over 9300!

Ran 8.02 in the morning.  Even though I often run at 4500-5000 elevation, the elevation here is about double, so I decided to take it easy and walk/run if necessary this morning.  It turns out I had a nice slow morning run.  It included trails, stairs, and only some walking in the first mile or when I tried to figure out where to run next.  I ran along the base of the ski slopes.  Then I followed the Snake River on the southside on a nice dirt trail, and came back up the Snake River on the north side on a bike trail.  My pace varied quite a bit.  The last three miles were about 9:30 and I felt pretty comfortable with that even given the elevation.  Overall pace ended up being 9:59. 

Went up the ski lifts with the family (my little boys were so brave!) and we planned to hike all the way down, but it ended up being 7 miles down on the mellow graded road.  A kind Keystone worker advised us of a hike called 11-7 (probably because the elevation at the peak was 11,700.  The hike was just a gradual uphill then gradual downhill loop.  Probably 3 miles (took us 1.5 hours with the kids).  I counted it as 1.5 miles on the log.

Ran from Keystone to Dillon and back on the bike trail which follows the Snake River then the lake by Dillon (is this Dillon Lake?).  The weather was cool.  The air was thin.  This is the not so favorable running route where you go downhill the first half of the run, then go uphill to get back.  I tried to run easy the first half so that getting back at all was feasible.  Thankfully the second half of the downhill is more rolling hills, with up and down.  I planned on turning back at 6 miles but was also hoping to hit the grocery store in Dillon for a drinking fountain before turning around.  At about 5.8 miles I was concerned but the grocery store came into view at 6 miles and I got there by 6.4 miles. I didn't get whacked too bad with the grade coming back up to Keystone; generally the first half of the run was worse than the first because the expectation of the uphill back was worse than actually running the uphill.  I was able to keep my pace under 9 minute/mile, which I was pleased about.  The average pace was 8:54 for the whole thing.

Ran two miles outside.  It was cold (still in Keystone CO).  Then ran .5 on the treadmill as an additional warm up, then ran 4 miles at 7:08 pace.  At times I felt like I could go faster but my breathing was the bottleneck-it's probably the altitude.  I would think that this would translate into a 7:08 tempo pace on the roads at home (today's was easier because of treadmill but harder because of altitude, probably offsetting).  The first half of the tempo was harder than the second, and I think the second half was easier just because I knew it was half over.  I think that my competitive running psychology tends to be anxiety over fast/hard running to come.  I think tempo runs will help me to learn to be comfortable with faster paces not only physically but mentally too.