Rob Murphy

Four sluggish miles. Not much energy or enthusiasm tonight.

Fifteen miles. Up Emigration Canyon to the top of Little Mountain and down through East Canyon to I-15.

I'm happy to be able to do this run again. It's one of my favorites although I reached the top of Little Mountain about 10 minutes slower than I do when I'm fit. I can't kid myself and say I'm close to where I was a couple years ago (and maybe it's not even possible at 48?), but I'm making progress. 

Twelve miles in 1:30 circling Sugarhouse Park.

This is may annual plea for this country to make the day after the Super Bowl a national holiday. Sooner or later someone with power and authority will read my blog and make it happen. 

Another 8.25 miles on the treadmill with some faster running.

Moderate Stairmaster workout. 300 floors in 45 minutes which is apparently 6.25  miles.

Legs are just slightly wobbly now.

11.25 miles on the treadmill after work.

Long day. Arrived at work early, had an after school AP review for the young scholars, supervising a student teacher this semester and trying to fulfill a bunch of silly requirements our administration has placed on us teachers to justify their existence. These are things that they imagine improve the quality of our school but, in fact, only distract us from what we really need to do. 

Andy and I have started a new tradition of going to Beans and Brews on 27th South while Abby is at her violin lesson. The tradition is that I get a cup of coffee and Andy gets a hot chocolate and pesters me the whole time to get him a cookie as well. Every week when we are there, an old man comes in a few minutes after us and orders a cup of coffee and just stares vacantly off into space. We can't decide whether or not he comes in every night at 6:22 or just every Wednesday night at 6:22.  

My run today was good. Close to the highlight of my day. I must say, I am looking excitedly forward to the Jazz game tonight. Shouldn't have too much trouble with the Milwaukee Bucks.

Speaking of Milwaukee, Theodore Roosevelt was shot there while running for President on the Bull Moose ticket in 1912. Gave his entire speech with a bullet in his chest. Men were men back then. 

Taking the day off due to 10k race on Saturday.

5.25 miles on the treadmill.

.5 at 6 minute pace

.25 at 5.52 pace. 

AM: Easy 1.5 miles around the neighborhood before driving out to Saltair.

Race: Challenging race today. I don't think I've ever ran a race where I finished more encrusted with ice and snow. The strong headwind the last 5k was a real treat! The first 5k was actually pretty enjoyable but I lost about 90% of my motivation when I hit the turnaround. I was happy to finish second to Walter in the Masters and win $50. 

Abby, Andy, and I went to brunch afterwards at Amiee's (Lulu) house after. Lots of other folks who raced today were there as well and she had lots of bacon! 

This morning I met a group of guys at Highland High (Jake, Fritz, Kevin, Nathan Krah) for a cold run through the slush of the unplowed roads. I managed to keep my feet reasonably dry through about six miles. We ended up running 10 miles in 1:15 which was not bad considering the conditions. With my mile jog up to the school that makes a decent 11 mile run. Not bad since I'm still a bit sore from the race yesterday.

I wore my Brooks Cascadia trail shoes which was mostly a good call but they aren't as cushy and my heel hurts a little. 

Today was a good day. I took the day off of work and went skiing. Now I'm going out to dinner.

I'm coughing up greenish gunk this morning. That can't be good.

PM: Easy four around the neighborhood. 

Five miles on the treadmill.

Opened the car door today into my forehead and now I have a big gash in my head. I'm not sure why I did that.

Had coffee and hot chocolate with Andy again while Abby practiced violin.

Didn't get home from work until 5:30. Had to get Abby to swim practice at 6:00. Ann didn't get home from work until way past bedtime. So, no run today.

This week was supposed to be a big mileage week for me. 

Six point two five miles around the neighborhood plus four times one hundred and five-o yard fast striders.

Then some jumping rope. I'm a pretty good rope jumper.

Then 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups.

Now for a fun Friday evening of shuttling the kids to and from activities. 

Seven miles around Sugarhouse Park. Sunny and beautiful today with fairly clean air. It mde me think that maybe we will make it through this winter.

I was going to do another lap or two around the park but I honestly got tired of walkers going in the opposite direction telling me how awesome I was on every lap. 

Oh yeah, I registered for the Gary Bjorklund Half in June in Minnesota. It's nice to have a big race to point to. 

Eight miles in 62 minutes. Cold with eye-stinging pellet snow this morning.

This is the worst time of year sports wise. No baseball, no football, the NBA is on its All-Star break, March Madness has yet to begin. In short, no excuses not to be productive on Sunday afternoon. 

PM: 4.25 miles on the treadmill and about 20 minutes in the sauna. Lots of stretching.

I'm going up Emigration Canyon to I-80 tomorrow morning to celebrate President's Day. 

I love 3 day weekends. I love morning runs too but I'm just not that into 4 am morning runs which is pretty much what I have to do on weekdays to make my commute, drink the requisite amount of coffee, and be at work by 7.

 Fourteen miles in 1:47. Beautiful, but cold, morning and I got to "run the sun up" as Amby Burfoot likes to say. Knees a little more achy than I would have liked.

Potato pancakes and a glass of Muscle Milk after. I'm living right! 

I am second only to some guy named Jake K on the mileage board. 

As I was driving south on I-15 this morning heading to work I found myself gazing at the entrance to Little Cottonwood Canyon and wishing I was on vacation. I pictured myself waking up in my room at the cozy Alta Peruvian Lodge getting ready to eat a huge breakfast followed by a day of skiing.

But here I am at work.

Not sure what I'm going to do today workout wise. Probably some cross training.

PM: Yep, some cross training. I had a really nice afternoon as a matter of fact. Left work a little early as it was a slow day and I'm all caught up on my grading. Ann and I went for a 2 mile walk around the neighborhood.

300 floors (6.25 miles) on the Stairmaster in 41 minutes plus one mile on the another bizarre machine.

I've come to the realization that a typical week for me needs to be five days of running, one day of cross training, and probably a rest day. Maybe one or two of the running days can be doubles. 

I was checking out the Quantcast data on people who view my blog every month. Basically my blog is seen by religious people who like to travel 

Nice, steady treadmill run after work. 10.25 miles. Kept it around 7:10 to 7:20 pace most of the way.

Here's something interesting. In my U.S. history classes we are in the early 20th century now - a time period dominated by Theodore Roosevelt. Whenever I teach a subject, I try to come up with something interesting that makes people who lived long ago seem more human to high school kids in 2013. Today we talked about the most tragic day in TR's life, February 14th, 1884. On that day his young wife Alice gave birth to their first child and died later that day due to complications from the delivery. To make matters worth, TR's mother died that exact same day in the same house of typhoid fever. Roosevelt was devastated by this and gave his infant daughter, whom he named Alice, to his sister to care for and he moved to the Dakota Territory and purchased a cattle ranch. For several years he lived in relative isolation while he recovered from this tragedy.

If you all want to see something pretty powerful and moving you can google "theodore roosevelt diary entry day wife died" to see what he wrote in his diary that evening. You might cry if you are the sensitive type.

My students found it doubly sad that this occurred on Valentine's Day. But I had to tell them that I'm pretty sure Valentine's Day was a 20th Century invention of the floral and greeting card industries to make us feel like jerks if we don't by their products. 

I just looked it up. Valentines Day is older that I thought. I still maintain that your wife and mother dying on the same day in the same house cannot be made worse by occurring on Valentines Day. 

Finally, an early morning run before work. 4 miles plus some fast striders. Felt good.

5.25 miles with 4 x 1/4 mile at a little faster than 6 minute pace.

It looks like maybe the really heavy snow might hold off until after today's 15k at 10 am.

So my daughter Abby is taking part in this Kiwanis Club community service/citizenship/essay type thing. After thinking about it for a while, we decided that she could volunteer at a nursing home near our house. Ann and the kids know this place pretty well as they bake cookies every year and take them to the old folks there at Christmas time. So Ann took Abby there to volunteer - keeping people company, helping out during "game time", that kind of thing. She has to do 15 hours for this Kiwanis Club contest.

Anyway, the activities director at the nursing home said that before Abby could volunteer she would have to submit to an FBI background check! You know, actually go down to the police station and get fingerprinted and all that. 

Did I mention she's twelve?

So we took her to another nursing home where they were overjoyed to have her and put her to work right away. 

No race report today. I hitched a ride with Jake out to Saltair for the SLTC 15K this morning. When we got there we went for a one mile "warm-up" but the conditions made it impossible to get warm. I'd say 30 mph winds whipping off the lake along with white-out type horizontal snow that was the ice pellet type that stings your eyes. Add to this the lightening and thunder snow and you have quite a delightful package.

So we called the game and went to the gym to do a treadmill workout. If you ever want to feel inferior you can run next to Jake Krong on a treadmill. You know, running at 12 mph and wanting to carry on a conversation like he's on a cool down jog.

I did run 9.3 miles on the treadmill in 63 minutes with a warm-up and a cool-down jog. 63 minutes is about what I would have raced today so I'm OK with that. 

67.25 miles for the week. Not bad. I feel like I'm holding together pretty well. I felt good this morning and I would have run a decent race. I held 5:50 pace on the treadmill for a while without too much trouble. Good news. 

Sunday afternoon cardio festival.

1.25 miles on the treadmill  just warming up.

300 floors on the stair master in 39:27. Apparently this is 6.25 miles. This was pretty hard - Based on my breathing about like a tempo run.

1 mile cool down on the treadmill.

Watched the Daytona 500 while I was working out. Part of me was pulling for Danica Patrick but part of me was also glad she dropped from 3rd place to 8th place on the last lap. Because if men can't win the Daytona 500 what's left for us? I mean women are already earning about 60% of the college degrees in the U.S. and will clearly be ruling the world in a generation or so so it's nice if they can leave us NASCAR for a little while longer.

Cold, 7.25 miles around Sugarhouse at 5 am. Nice. Maybe a full moon?

It's hard for me to get out that early but it gets easier once I get on a roll.  

PM: 5.25 miles on the treadmill (started out at my usual 10 minute pace and worked down to 6:30 pace at the end) plus some light core work and strength training.  

One thing that has become non-negotiable is that I have to begin every run with about 1.25 miles at 10 minute pace before my body really wants to run. It takes a little patience but it's worth it.

I had a busy day and I slept through the snooze alarm this morning so I wasn't able to get out for a run until 5:45 this afternoon - maybe my least favorite time to run because it's the time I'd rather be relaxing with the family. Also I'm often tired and sluggish feeling in the late afternoon. It turned out to be a good run though. 9.25 miles in 1:09 around Sugarhouse and its environs.

I signed Andy up for this book club for first and second graders at The King's English bookshop here in Salt Lake. There are only two other kids in the group, both second grade girls. This month's book was Attack of the Shark-Headed Zombie. They met today to discuss the finer points of the book and while Andy was impressed with the reading ability of the two girls in the group, he blew them away with his observations about the shark-headed zombie and zombies in general.

Next month is a book about the Titanic. This will give him a chance to renew his Titanic obsession from last year. 

10.25 miles on the treadmill. I was feeling pretty good and began to push it up to close to six minute pace. But then I backed it back down to a little slower than seven minute pace - reminding myself that I'm still mostly in weight loss and general aerobic conditioning mode. 

Nice to feel good consistently though and to have to hold myself back.