Rob Murphy

4.25 miles around the neighborhood. It's good to be back down to low altitude.

Jeez this has been a lame running week.

Today I learned that I suck at mountain trail racing. There isn't a single part of it that I'm good at. I'm mediocre on the steady uphills, I suck on the steep uphills, and I really suck on the downhills.

I'm really bummed at how many people passed me the second half on the downhills. Some of them didn't even look particularly fit.

On the other hand, Blake Bennion does not suck at it. He ran 2:01 to finish 8th overall and was mixing it up with some really good guys. Way to go Blake!

On a positive note, I did hit 50 miles for the week.

Oh, and the race people insisted it was "about 16 miles". My Garmin said 14.87 when I crossed the finish line and that included the extra quarter mile I ran when I took a wrong turn.

I just heard a quote from Patrick Star (I'm watching Sponge Bob) that helped me put today's race in perspective. "Then it's ok to lose, as long as you had fun doing it". It was pretty fun out there this morning.

AM: Super easy four around Sugar House Park. 

Nada. Too sore.

AM: Easy eight around Sugar House Park. Quads are still really sore.

I thought I'd jot down a few ideas about the mental fatigue, burnout, and general lack of enthusiasm that inflicts all runners from time to time and leads some to quit the sport in favor of a more sedentary lifestyle or, God forbid, CrossFit. I know this happens because of the number of people that come and go on this blog.

I've been running more or less consistently since I was in 7th grade. That's 1977 if you're interested. I have not approached the sport with the same enthusiasm for the entire time but I can honestly say that there has never been a time when being a runner wasn't a big part of my identity. At this point in my life (almost fifty), I can't even contemplate a life without running. "Runner" has become such a big part of who I am that giving up on running would seem like giving up on Rob Murphy.

However, I have experienced dozens of funks, let downs, and periods of waning enthusiasm....oops, have to go to the dentist now....more later....

OK, I'm back with no cavities! None for thirty-eight years.

I'm going to call this list "how to stick with running for a lifetime".

1. Become a little vain about your appearance but not nauseatingly so. A hatred of fat is a powerful motivator.

2. Stick with it long enough and run enough mileage so it becomes easy. Each individual run for me is easier and less of a struggle when I'm running 70 mpw as opposed to 30.

3. Pay attention to small aches and pains and do something about them.

4. We only get long term satisfaction from an activity if we pursue it the right way. You have to discover your own right way. A lame, half assed, approach to anything will soon be abandoned.

5. People who run just for health and fitness don't last as long as those who race.

6. Most of your mileage should be slow and easy.

7. When you feel a lack of motivation that lasts more than a day or two, evaluate your diet and sleep habits.

8. Always ask yourself if you can add a new element to your training. 

9. Have running friends who motivate you.

10. Don't be afraid to take a day or a year off. If you plan to run for 40 years you will not be able to maintain the same intensity forever. Don't beat yourself up for this.

12. Turn 40.

13. Read good running books. There aren't many and the best book about running from a motivational perspective hasn't been written. There are a lot of good ones, no great one.

14. Subscribe to the print edition of Running Times or Trail Runner. It's arrival in your mail box will be a motivator.

15. Cultivate a relationship with a local running store rather than buying most of your gear on line. Buying new running stuff makes you want to run.

16. Find a new running route.

18. Get into nature as much as possible even if you don't see yourself as a trail runner.

19. Keep your ego in check. Don't be afraid to race when you aren't 100% ready. It's good for you.

20. Sometimes you have to be satisfied with being 80% fit.

21. Visualization is a powerful tool. Try to spend some time re-living your best running experiences and visualizing your goals.

22. Be a running tourist. Race when you are in a new town.

Lots of smart, experienced runners on this blog. Feel free to add to the list.

Eleven miles with my team up at Alta. Beautiful and un-crowded today. Double Moose sighting again.

PM: 2.5 mile walk up to Maverick and back with Abby and Andy to get a gallon of milk and popsicles. Talked mostly about gravity, space travel, and favorite movies.

On the Alta track with 7 flying 40s.

PM: 4.25 miles in 33 minutes around the neighborhood.

Only one week of summer left. I went down to the basement to rummage through my CD's. I have a lot of CD's. CD's and books, that's what I buy. I actually have more than I can listen to and every now and then I feel guilty about neglecting old CD's so I head down to the basement with an armload of ones I've been listening to for a while and bring up a new armload. This is what I do during the summer months. Here's the ones I dredged up today...

Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash - The Replacements

The Promised Land - The Del McCrory Band

Tell Tale Signs : The Bootleg Series Vol. 3 - Bob Dylan

Especially For You - The Smithereens

Wasting Light -The Foo Fighters

American Recordings - Johnny Cash

At Folsom Prison - Johnny Cash

The Late Great Townes Van Zandt - Townes Van Zandt

Trace - Son Volt

Georgia Satellites - Georgia Sattelites

Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen

Fables of the Reconstruction - REM

Timeless - A bunch of people I like singing Hank Williams songs.

Train A Comin' - Steve Earle

Vitalogy - Pearl Jam

All Shook Down - The Replacements

Damn the Torpedoes - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Baby One More Time - Britney Spears

AM: 3 mile walk with Abby and Andy to Chick-fil-a and back for breakfast. Ran into Jake Krong on the way. If you haven't checked out his blog you should. jkrong.fastrunningblog.com  :-)

Watching the news now. The world is going to hell.

PM Workout: 87 degrees, sunny, blah!

4 mile warm-up.

5 X 800 in 2:53, 2:51, 2:47, 2:41, 2:37. Quarter mile walk/jog interval. Ran these totally by feel with no goal times. Only looked at watch when finished. The only one I strained on was #5 which kinda hurt at the end.

2 mile cool down at 8:30 pace.

AM: 10.5 miles around Sugar House. 8 minute pace which doesn't feel that slow lately for some reason.

Fun day at Snowbird with the kids. Thanks Jake. Didn't take any pictures though, so it might now have even happened.

11.25 hard gully miles with Blake, Read, Davis, and Cubby.

Good run with a good group of guys.

Blah again! Only got about 2 hours sleep last night after Ann's plane from Denver got delayed again and again and again for mechanical issues. Finally went to sleep around 1:30 am and tossed and turned until about four then went down to the basement and napped on the couch for a while. Trying to work up the energy for a run now.

PM: Five miles around Liberty Park plus six hardish, longish striders.

Long run up at Alta tomorrow morning. Back to school on Friday so last Alta run of the summer.

Also did Jay Johnson's Core H routine after. Need to do it more often.

Started up at Alta a little after 7 am this morning. Pretty chilly! Got a total of 15.75 miles. 

I also had my most up close and personal moose encounter ever. I rounded a corner on the downhill portion of the campground loop running pretty fast and was about 10 feet from an immense bull moose munching grass. He just looked at me and that's it. When I came around again he was gone.

I'll miss the Alta runs. Maybe I can squeeze in a couple more on the weekends or after school? My team looked really good today. They were running hard and having fun.

PM: 4.25 miles on the treadmill. First treadmill run in weeks. Hot tub, swim after. 

Easy run around Sandy with Abby in the am. 2.25 miles.

PM Hot Run: 4 easy miles around the neighborhood. I felt good only because of the ridiculously slow pace.

Last day of summer vacation for us Canyons School District teachers. That's right, they're making us report back on a Friday.

Four treadmill miles. 

8.25 treadmill miles.

Twelve miles around Sugar House.

I'm going to retire from serious, competative training and racing starting now. I decided that I can't be a great teacher and a great coach and a good family guy along with the hard training and racing. I'm making too many compromises. It's one thing too many at my age!

So excited to have made this decision. I feel like a weight has been lifted.

I'm still going to post here every day and race occasionally, but I'm not going to force anything or have goals. My competition goals will be channeled into my coaching.

6.25 treadmill miles. Swam a few laps and soaked for a while after.

Occasional treadmill running is really important to my success as a runner for several reasons. When I go a long period of time with no treadmill runs, my running suffers. True fact!

A follow-up on what I wrote yesterday...

Many of the great masters runners I know, or know about, either don't have demanding careers, or don't have kids, or their kids are grown.  Several of the truly great coaches I know here in Utah don't have kids. Lots of the great coaches I've known were once great runners themselves but their own running has taken a back seat to their coaching and family obligations in recent years.

It comes down to the old Bill Bowerman quote..."you can do two things well, but you can't do three things well". I think this is true for most people. I've been working hard the last few years to be a great husband/father, a great teacher/coach, and a great runner. I've just decided that one of the three has to take a back seat and it isn't going to be the first two.

AM: 2.25 miles warming up with the Alta cross country team.

PM: Went for a 4 mile walk while Andy was at baseball practice around the neighborhood next to Whittier Elementary here in Salt Lake City.

First day of school tomorrow. On A days I'll have three U.S. History classes with an average of 40 students/class. I won't let those ridiculously high numbers prevent me from skilfully individualizing instruction to meet the unique needs of each learner nor will I let it prevent me from forming a meaningful relationship with each child.

No running. Rough day!

Two miles of jogging at the meet.

Conner broke Kramer's course record from last year by seven seconds.

AM: Walked the dog around the block. Went to work.

PM: One mile at practice warming up with the team, Andy's baseball game got rained out, hung around downtown Sugar House with the fam, went to Best Friends Animal Society to pet the kittens and puppies and listen to the kids whine about getting one, Central Book Exchange, Barnes and Noble for a cup of coffee, and the farmers market for a clump of basil.

Exhausting!

I'm planning on a real run tomorrow.

Got a pretty cool book today in the mail . Marty Liquori's Guide for the Elite Runner co-written with John L. Parker. Written in 1980, so a little dated, but mostly good, solid advice. Strong opinions too which I like.

Liquori was a stud. Seriously fierce competitor.

AM: I had an early morning cross country practice down at the school. My kids ran really well today while I held the stopwatch and drank coffee.

Went to Liberty Park after and ran 5.25 miles. Beautiful fallish day.

PM: Two mile walk.

AM: Took the boy and the dog on a nice-long-walk. About 3 miles.

PM: I walked 2 more miles with Ann and ran an easy 4. Oh yeah... and one more mile with Abby at the end of her run.

This gives me 10 miles of traveling by foot today. I also went grocery shopping and took the kids to church for the 2014 Sunday School Kick-off Extravaganza.

AM: Four miles at 6 am XC practice. All seven of my varsity boys showed up. Dedication!

Fourteen hours at work. No running. Back to School Night here at Alta High.

6.25 treadmill miles while my kids were gully running.

5.25 miles at AM cross country practice. The kids are looking better everyday!

PM: Took Andy to baseball practice at Lindsey Gardens up in The Avenues and I went for a four mile walk with about a miles worth of easy running. Did a fascinating jaunt through the Salt Lake Cemetary where I was able to tour the graves of Utah and Mormon royalty, many of whom have huge obelisk, Washington Monument type grave markers. Makes them easy to locate. You think "that one must be important" and, sure enough, Joseph Fielding Smith surrounded by his platoon of "loving wives". I found Joseph F. Smith, Hyrum Smith, David O. McKay, Gordon Hinkley, and Wilford Woodruff. 

I also drove south on 700 East to I-80 without hitting a single red light. Maybe my greatest accomplishment today.

I ran the Gully Longer Run during my lunch/conference period. It felt good to do that.

American Fork Grass Relays today and I'm thrilled with how my team did. My girls ran over 5 minutes faster than last year's Alta team and my boys ran 54:38 (10 mile relay, 5 legs of 2 miles each w/30 hay bales to jump) which is the fastest Alta time ever at this meet. We finished 7th overall, up from 10th last year. As an example of how fast Utah XC is getting, our time today would have won this meet in 03, 04, 05, 06, 07 and been 2nd in 01 and 08.

TOP 10 ALTA GRASS RELAYS TIMES

1. Kramer Morton - 10:03 (2013)

2. Kramer Morton - 10:17 (2012)

3. Jacob Debry - 10:32 (2014)

4. Garrett Jones - 10:33 (2009)

5. Braydon Lavery - 10:40 (2013)

6. Davis McDermott - 10:48 (2014)

7. Blake Bennion - 10:58 (2014)

8. Read Hadfield - 11:04 (2014)

9. Tyler Ross - 11:14 (2011)

10. Ashton Arndt - 11:16 (2014)

We also beat every team in our region easily, including both Bingham and Copper Hills, who both beat us last week at Highland.

11 miles up on the Jeremy Ranch Road while Ann and the kids hiked, harassed cows, and looked at dead snakes in the road. The last two were mostly Andy. Gread dinner on the patio at Ruth's after. Perfect day weather wise and every other way.

Exchanged some emails with Pat Tyson last night. That man is good for the soul if you're a runner or a coach. Such an inspirational optimist!