Rob Murphy

Sandy Classic 5k

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Location:

Salt Lake City,

Member Since:

Feb 11, 2010

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

I had some success in high school and college. Winner 1985 Rod Dixon Run 

Had a fair amount of success as a Masters runner for most of my 40s. 

Short-Term Running Goals:

Have fun with running, explore more trails, stay healthy.

Long-Term Running Goals:

Keep running and racing consistently for as long as I can. Find what is sustainable for me over the long run.

Personal:

I teach AP European History and other courses at Alta High School. I coached the track and cross country teams at Alta for 16 years.

Married, two kids - Abby and Andy

My Twitter  @murphy_rob

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Miles:This week: 12.50 Month: 92.75 Year: 502.72
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
224.7519.004.112.00249.86
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
12.500.000.000.0012.50

8.5 miles in the gully all by my lonesome and then 4 miles warming up and cooling down with my team.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
16.250.000.000.0016.25

First run of the summer up at Alta Ski Area with my team plus Jake and Kevin. I circled the campground 5 times. I love it up there and need to try to get up there a couple times/week.

Ann and I have been married 19 years today. We are celebrating by thoroughly cleaning the house. Tonight we will go out to dinner. We were thinking Canadian Food.

PM: 5 easy miles on the treadmill while Abby was at swim practice. 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(11)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.500.000.000.004.50

Easy run around the neighborhood plus some striders.

Knees a little achy as usual. 

I just spent a ridiculous amount of time on Coach Jay Johnson's website (coachjayjohnson.com). I think it is probably my favorite running and coaching related site. 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(1)
Race: Sandy Classic 5k (3.1 Miles) 00:18:27, Place overall: 11, Place in age division: 1
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
11.500.003.110.0014.61

Happy 4th of July!

Weird race. A humid, rainy affair with a poorly marked course. In fact, my mile split was 3:53 which is a PR for me. My final time was about 40 seconds slower than my half marathon 5k split 2 weeks ago. Why? I have no idea as I felt I was racing pretty hard and I felt pretty good.

Still won the masters though. There's always that. Of course I didn't see a single competitor I was familiar with. The key to winning seems to be running local races when a circuit race is going on a couple miles away.

Kramer got beat by Miles Batty but ran a decent workout type time. I had a good group of my guys show up, many running their first 5k. 

PM: 8 miles in 61 minutes. 91 degrees. I did my best to seek out shade. 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(7)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.250.000.000.004.25

4.25 miles on the treadmill.

Hard strength/plyo workout after. 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
10.000.000.000.0010.00

Ten miles on the wood chip at Liberty Park.

A great quote from Geoff Hollister, the first employee of Nike, who recently died of cancer...

The future will never remember what was in your bank account or what kind of car you drove. The future will remember that wild ride of life where you believed in others and left a gift behind for someone else to dream the impossible. The gift was your own life. It does not matter whether it was long or short. What did you leave behind? 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(4)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
16.250.000.000.0016.25

16.25 in 2:04 around Liberty Park.

This whole run was a struggle. I might have to re-think my plans to run a marathon in a couple weeks and go for the 10k or the half.  

I strongly object to a letter to the editor in my new issue of Outside magazine that arrived yesterday. The letter is from a woman named Marjorie Woodruff from Grand Canyon Village, AZ. Based on the hometown and the info she references, I assume she works for the National Park Service. Her letter concerns the recent crackdown by the NPS on R2R and R2R2R runners in the Grand Canyon. Here's what she writes...

On May 18, a thousand such runners came through. These people do not yield to mules or uphill hikers. They force elderly hikers and children off the trail. They leave their trash along the trail and in the bathrooms. This is the kind of nonsense I go hiking to avoid.

What a load of BS!

First of all, I am a veteran of two R2R2R runs in the Grand Canyon. I did it in 2010 with Jon and Cody and in 2011 with Steve Anderson. I'm skeptical of her claim that a thousand runners attempted this in a single day. Unless it was a one-time thing and some sort of semi-organized activity. I think I met a combined total of maybe 15 total fellow R2R2R runners in my two efforts. How would they even know this to begin with? You don't check in with anyone before setting out. The first time I did it I don't think I even encountered a ranger along the way.

Secondly, I object to her gross generalizations and her frequent use of "they". For every one person who is attempting a R2R2R run, I bet there are several hundred hikers in the Grand Canyon. Hikers and runners often carry the same sort of stuff. How can she tell whether trash was left by a hiker or a runner?  Clearly, hiking is an activity she engages in and approves of, and running is not. I know there are exceptions, but I never left a shred of garbage along the trail and I've never met a trail runner who was in to trashing our national parks. Of the thousands of hikers and backpackers who use the trails, how many of them need to leave some trash behind before I can lump them all together into one group and ban their activity?

I know that in my two crossings I spent a considerable amount of time yielding to mules and long lines of Japanese tourists. When it comes to yielding to "uphill hikers", sometimes I yielded to them, sometimes they yielded to me. But there was never a problem, we worked it out without any conflict. I'm not even sure why this is an issue as most of the time the trails are plenty wide enough to accommodate  both of us.

Finally, these are public lands and it is the responsibility for the National Park Service to manage them effectively. I get that. What I don't get is why this one particular activity is a problem. From a safety standpoint, I bet there are many more injuries and rescues of hikers than there are of R2R2R runners. I can't even begin to list all the stupid, damaging, and destructive things I've seen people do in national parks over the years that rangers don't seem to have a problem with.

They need to either keep it legal to run in the Grand Canyon or make it illegal (although I don't know how you outlaw running in a national park). But they need to stop all this passive aggressive crap. 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(10)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
14.000.000.000.0014.00

Great run this morning with Jake, Kramer and my XC team.

Met Jake and Kramer at 7 AM in the gully and ran the GLR then met the rest of the guys at 8 and did it again with a little extra tacked on. 13.5 miles in the gully in 1:45. Another half mile in the gym to give me an even 14. Not sure why I did that.

Good run, but I'm tired. Need to think about getting some more sleep, diet, iron, electrolytes etc... 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(3)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
1.250.000.000.001.25

I'm going to take a day off. First one in 25 days.

Got bored during Abby's swim practice so I went over to the gym and lifted. Pretty hard actually so that I might not be as fresh and chipper tomorrow for my Alta run as I otherwise would have.

Only 1.25 on the treadmill to warm-up so still pretty much a day off from running. 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
12.000.000.000.0012.00

12 miles at Alta Ski Area with my team plus Jake and Kevin.

We had our first moose sighting - a mama and a baby cruising through the campground.

My guys that are showing up consistently are really making progress.  

 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.000.000.000.007.00

Seven miles in 54 minutes. Tired legs.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
14.500.000.000.0014.50

Jeremy Ranch Road with Kramer. Rainy, almost cold at some points. FYI, the Jeremy Ranch Road is pretty treacherous when muddy. There's a lot of clay and it gets really slippery.

I saw something new today. In my years of running I've come across a lot of interesting and strange things while running but today was brand new. A team of 16 sled dogs training along the road. All of them husky's of course pulling several people on this all-terrain looking cart. Now I know what those Iditarod type dogs do for training in the summer. 

We went to the Blue Plate for breakfast after with Kramer as well and bumped into Ben Saarel and his dad. We had a great conversation about training, college recruiting, the University of Colorado, etc. The Saarel's are really good people. Typical of most runners when you think about it - taking almost as much interest in the success of others as they do in their own success.

I felt great on the run so I'm enthused about that as well. 

PM: 3 mile walk. 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
15.000.000.000.0015.00

15 miles in 1:56 - all of it on the trails up at Quinn's Junction east of Park City. What a great place to run! For much of the run I was thinking about how I live in the best place to train in the country. I was actually feeling sad for runners that don't live here.

My racing season just opened up/changed quite a bit as I failed to renew my USATF membership on time this year and won't be eligible for the circuit. Too bad since I think I could have finished second in the masters standings this year. 

On a positive note, it looks like the U.S.A is not going to yield first place in the obesity race to Mexico without a fight. Twinkies returned to the shelves at Walmart today after a one year absence. I was saddened to read this week that Mexico had surpassed us as the #1 fatty nation. I don't like being #2. Thee return of twinkies is a small step in the right direction.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(10)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
1.000.000.000.001.00

AM: Three mile walk around the neighborhood with Ann.

One mile testing shoes for Jake.

Abby and I went to see 42 today, the Jackie Robinson movie, at the dollar movies. She was really into it. 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(4)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.000.000.000.008.00

Eight gully miles in 1:02.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.000.000.000.006.00

Six easy miles plus some striders.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(6)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
16.000.000.000.0016.00

Sixteen mountainous miles up at Alta.

Marathon training you know. One week. Time to get serious about training! 

 PM: Took Andy to Jump Around Utah. I bounced a lot. Should count as some kind of cross training or plyometric workout. 

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Comments(3)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.000.000.000.006.00

AM: 4 mile walk around Sugarhouse during practice.

PM: 6 easy treadmill miles with a couple half miles at 5:50 pace. 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.000.000.000.008.00

Eight miles on the treadmill. Worked up to "marathon pace" the last couple miles. Short swim after.

Andy and I are going to the Bee's game tonight. It is the 20th anniversary  of the movie The Sandlot which was filmed here in Salt Lake. They are going to have several of the kids from the movie there who are now in their early 30s and they are going to show the movie after the game.

Sadly, Wendy Peffercorn will not be there. 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
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Race: Draper Days 5k (3.11 Miles) 00:17:34, Place overall: 18, Place in age division: 1
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
3.250.001.002.006.25

Today I reluctantly ran the Draper Days 5k and surprisingly ran my best 5k in almost two years. 17:34 with nice, consistent splits and a decent kick. Went out fast but not reckless, never got passed, and passed several runners over the last mile. This is the first time I have run Draper Days - surprising because it's a mainstay on the USATF Circuit and always has one of the fastest fields around.

 This is a big confidence boost for me going into Des News on Wednesday. 

All hail the bower of the beet! I drank beet juice before the race after reading about its performance enhancing benefits for the past couple years. All that I am I owe to beet juice and hard training. 

Late AM: 2.25 mile walk. Hot! 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(17)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
1.000.000.000.001.00

AM: Walked four miles. Two with Abby. Gave myself credit for one mile.

PM: Short swim at the gym and some hot tubbing. My kind of workout. 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
3.502.000.000.005.50

4.5 miles on the treadmill. 2 at 6:15 pace. One mile in the gully.

Short swim and soak afterwards. This could become a routine! 

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Comments(3)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
2.250.000.000.002.25

I would like to recommend a kindle e-book on Amazon called The 27th Mile. All proceeds go to victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. Only $4.99.

2 miles and some striders. More walking than I would have liked around the park at cross country practice. 

My Deseret News Times...

2002 - 38:39

2003 - 38:55

2004 - 37:57

2005 - 34:43

2006 - 35:37

2007 - 35:54

2008 - 35:40

2009 - 2:52:26

2010 - 34:46

2011 - 2:50:12

2012 - 33:27 (Believe it!) 

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Comments(6)
Race: Deseret News Marathon (17 Miles) 01:49:00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
1.0017.000.000.0018.00

Today I ran the Deseret News Marathon and dropped out at mile 17. I was in 6th place coming out of the canyon but my right knee was hurting pretty bad and I didn't want to run 9 miles on it. I was at 1:49 when I quit at 17 miles.

My first ever DNF. I'm bummed about that but I'm happy I will be able to run and race again soon. 

Almost everybody on the blog ran great races today. My buddy Bret jetted in from Atlanta last night at 10 pm, slept a couple hours and then ran a PR for the half marathon.

I won't be running marathons anymore. I don't like them and I generally don't do well in them. I enjoy racing 5ks, 10ks, 15ks, half-marathons, and I also enjoy 50 mile trail runs. But I don't like marathons. I know much of my problem is mental. I was running well for a long time today (just under 1:22 for the half) but I was struggling to have a single positive thought. Maybe I could struggle to overcome this, but why when there are so many races I do enjoy running? 

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Comments(22)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
1.000.000.000.001.00

Four miles walking around Sugarhouse/HH track during practice.

I'm very sore today. 

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Comments(7)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

Another zero.

Question for you parents. Would you rather your high school age kid be "well rounded" and competent at a lot of different interests and activities or would you rather they develop an obsession with one thing that they pursue to the point of true excellence?

I'm just pondering the difference between the runners that I coach. 

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Comments(9)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
2.000.000.000.002.00

AM: Three mile walk with a few minutes of jogging.

PM: Three more miles of walk-jogging.

Might do an easy treadmill run tomorrow. 

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Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.500.000.000.004.50

4.5 miles in 37 minutes mostly around the HH track. Knee hurt, muscles sore. Grrrrr.....

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.250.000.000.007.25

Easy run in the gully with Jake and Kramer.

Back to what I was wondering out loud about a couple days ago...

When I think back on my years coaching at Alta High, it occurs to me that the runners who have the greatest amount of success are the ones with the fewest options and the fewest conflicts. Many of the runners I have coached come from fairly wealthy families and with that wealth comes the opportunity for lots of fun. Lengthy vacations, the house boat at Lake Powell, the "cabin" in the mountains, the cruise to __________ - these things might be lots of fun but they almost always lead to a SLOW RUNNER.

It's also common for kids to be committed to too many activities. If you expect your kid to be an SBO, play an instrument, sing in the choir, try out for the school play, earn his Eagle Scout, attend every church camp, and drag hand carts around Wyoming, then you also have to expect that his progress as a runner might be impeded. 

"But if my son doesn't earn his Eagle, we will be forever stigmatized and we won't be able to show our faces in public for years"!

I would submit to you that running a sub 15 minute 5k and winning a state championship takes at least as much relentless dedication and sacrifice as earning an Eagle Scout award and that if it comes down to a choice between the two and your son wants to focus on running, you should respect that. Plus, he actually has to run the race and do the training himself. His mother can't do it for him. Running, if done the right way, can build more character than scouting.

Understand that I'm not saying that it always, or even usually, comes down to a choice between the two. But if it does...

It basically boils down to this. If you give a sixteen year old the choice between the cruise, the trip to Disneyland, the week at Lake Powell, or a week of hard cross country workouts, cross country is usually going to loose. On the other hand, if the kid doesn't have the first options to begin with, he just might win a state championship and a full scholarship.

Show me a kid that achieves great things in running and I'll show you a kid who sacrificed a lot of options or never had those options in the first place. 

My point is, kids can have too many options. 

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Comments(23)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
2.000.000.000.002.00

AM: 3 mile walk.

Had my cross country team over to the house for breakfast after. Lots of fun. 

PM: 2 mile jog 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
13.000.000.000.0013.00

13 miles up at Alta. Felt good to be up there but I'm definitely not recovered. Coming down from Albion Basin was rough.

Jake and Kramer ran 15. It's really helping Kramer to have a training partner.

I'm heading over to Boulder tomorrow for a coaching clinic this weekend with Jay Johnson (coachjayjohnson.com). I've never been to Boulder and there's nothing I like more than a weekend hanging out with running geeks and gurus in the Mecca of distance running. 

Three new Dos Equis "Most interesting man in the world" lines...

He once parallel parked a train.

His two cents is worth thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents.

It has never been "his bad". 

 

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Comments(8)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
224.7519.004.112.00249.86
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
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