Speed only kills if you don't have it!

AM-  Decided to do my first track workout of the year this morning, and it was nothing blazing, but a good start to the summer.  I have a goal to hit the track once a week, unlike last year where I hit about 6 times the whole year.  I warmed up by running to the AF HS track and then did a 8x400m workout with 200m recoveries.  The HS was hopping with every kind of sport so I had a audience while running.  I ended up running in the 3rd lane most of the time because the first two lanes were getting watered pretty good, so that probably added a couple of seconds to each interval.  Legs felt dead from Saturday too.  Here was the breakdown: 1:15, 1:15, 1:17, 1:16, 1:15, 1:16, 1:15, 1:13.  It was a fairly conservative workout and my heart rate for each interval was around 180bpm.  I did a lot of working on form because it felt so weird to run faster than 5:30 pace.  I cooled down on the run home.  7 miles total 53:00.

(Omni- 472 miles)

AM-  Woke up this morning and ran an easy run up Alpine hwy to the mouth of AF canyon. I came back on the Highland trail, passed Lone Peak and the Temple. Beautiful morning to run. 7:15 ave pace for the run. I felt sluggish at first and then stayed pretty relaxed after a couple of miles.

PM-  Went out again for some more miles.  It was very windy and it was like standing still going into the wind, and like someone pushing you from behind going with the wind. I did a loop up around the Temple and then grabbed the VVFs and went to the park to do some strides.  7:39 pace for the run.

(Kayano- 180 miles)

(VFF- 3 miles)

I ran over to the AF track to do another workout.  It was chilly and very windy.  I did a 16x200m workout with 200m recoveries.  After I got all warmed up and did my first two intervals Timo came out and we stood and talked and froze for 45 minutes.  I had to warm up all over again and it took me a while to get going.   The wind was pretty tough and made me run a bit slower.  I hate running into a hard wind, but I know it makes you tough so I sucked it up and did the workout.  I cooled down the same way I warmed up by running home the long way.  Glad to get my 2nd workout under my belt.  I might go out later for a few miles if the weather isn't too nasty.  8.5 miles in 1:02:00 for the run.  I averaged 35s for my first 8 and 33s for my second 8, not bad for not doing any speed forever, and doing intervals on such a windy morning.

(Omni- 481 miles) 

I met Timo at 26.2 and we went on an easy recovery run around west American Fork.  Honestly I wasn't sure where we were at times, somewhere out in the farm land.  After the run, and a BS session about running, I added two more miles with 6x100 strides in the VFFs at the park Nice day today, and it was fun to finally run with someone again.  7:51 average pace.

(Kayano- 187 miles)

(VFF- 4 miles)

Slept in a nit because I was so tired.  It is nice that I can do that right now.  I ran a loop into east AF and west PG.  I kept the pace nice and easy and felt relaxed.  I grabbed the VFFs and ran to the park across from my church to do 4x100m strides on the grass, and I felt even better after that.  45:00 for the run (7:30 ave pace). 

 (2130- 82 miles)

(VFF- 5 miles)

Hopefully I will feel decent in my 10 miler tomorrow.  I really don't know what to expect or how much gas I'll have in the tank.  I haven't raced in a long time so this will at least give me a decent idea of where my fitness is and where it needs to go.

Well I took my time getting to the Riverwoods this morning because it was a Curt race and I knew the first bus wouldn't leave when it said it would. Butted in line with Michelle and Josse to get our numbers. On the way up our bus stopped at Timp park so people could use the bathroom, I had already went. I was annoyed by the stop and just wanted to get to the start .The bus ride took forever and it was freezing at the starting line. I did a 2 mile warm up, mostly with Josse and Michelle.

I wasn't in race mode since I hadn't done one in so long. I figured I would just hang back on the first couple of miles and see what was going on and how I felt. No pressure for this race.

There were a couple of people that took off pretty fast, including Michelle, but I wasn't worried. I was mostly using this run to estimate my fitness and to get a good workout for WBR. I hung around two guys in the lead pack for the first 3 miles. Those are the fastest miles of the race where you can really cook if you want to. I wanted to hang back though, so I did.

At Vivian park I could tell that my competition was wavering and stayed right on there butts until mile 4, then took the lead over. From there to the finish was like a long tempo run and I just watched the lead bikers speed up and slow down in front of while we all dodged the mass amounts of people on the trail. One of the lead bikers took a spill around mile seven, I don't think he got hurt, but it was rather funny! He looked back to see where I was, after they had been dinking around, and I surprised him being so close and he pulled his handle bars in the same direction as his head and went down. Other than that it was, me, myself, and I out on a tempo run. At times I got a little lazy in my pace but still averaged 5:40s for the run. Not bad for crappy training and no racing, I felt great the whole time! Here are the splits for all you split fanatics out there.

1- 5:34 Just hanging around and enjoying the ease of this mile

2- 5:34 The guy from Cali leading would surge everytime me and the other guy caught him, rather annoying

3- 5:34 (how is that for consistency!) Slow for those first three miles, but I wasn't worried about the first three miles.

4- 5:43 Took over the lead eventhough I really didn't want to yet.

5- 5:45 Just trying to relax and enjoy myself, but wondered who was coming behind me still.

6- 5:35 Feeling good. Asked for water at aid station and ended up throwing Gatorade down the front of me.

7- 5:43 Feeling lazy, got a good chuckle out of the biker going down.

8- 5:47 Still being lazy and a little uphill, got more bugs in the eyes than anything!

9- 5:47 Put in it cruise control for good, couldn't see anyone coming up on me. Dodged a lot of people. 3rd mile in a row with super bad tangents!

10- 5:36 Smelling the barn but no need to push.

It was fun to win one to start my season off on a good note. Thanks everyone else for running different races this weekend so I could have a fun race all by myself!

I did a 3 mile cool down, some with Kent, Michelle, and Josse, all of who ran great races. People didn't believe me that my training has been weak lately, maybe they will look at the blog and see for themselves. I plan on getting it going now.

Side note on my time. When I came across the line the timers yelled out my time 56:42, I caught 56:43, being a bit slow to stop my watch. On the results they put 57:02 or something like that. I went to see what had happed to my time because 56 sounds better than 57. They couldn't figure it out and kept saying that they wouldn't have missed me since I was the first runner. Turns out they had a little girl pushing the space bar and she didn't do it when I came across, so they pushed it late and never went back to fix my time when they printed the results. I don't think they knew my time and didn't bother asking. I told them to fix it if they remembered so Sasha could better critique my run!:) Sasha could fix it anyway if it really mattered.

61 miles this week, (that is more like it), three workouts, and a race win made for a good week. Next week my goals are similar as far as mileage. WBR should be a lot of fun!

  (Omni- 483 miles) (Fastwitch -77 miles)