Rob Murphy

I hate to waste a perfectly good Sunday, but I had to rest today. Mostly because of my slightly hurting achilles. I iced it three times and that seemed to help. I did an easy jog around the block in the afternoon and felt no pain.

Came up with a new and pretty damn challenging 13.06 mile route from Alta High today. I'll call it an even half-marathon. The run is a 50-50 mix of road and trail, and very hilly. Here are my splits... 1:34:28 (7:16 pace)

7:53, 7:21, 7:05, 7:02, 7:25, 6:53, 6:38, 8:05 (uphill, loose sand!) 7:44, 7:29, 5:48, 7:19, 7:36.

Garrett Jones joined me. I think it was good for him even if it's not ideal mile training this time of year. I meant to come up with a name for this run (we name our regular routes), but forgot. Maybe "extreme gully". I'll run it by Garrett.

AM Workout: One mile easy on TM. One mile on elliptical. Fairly intense strength workout at gym. 

PM Workout: 6 miles on TM in 45 minutes

Very good run today. I would call it a 60 minute fartlek on the treadmill. 10 miles in 65 minutes counting the cool down. Varied the pace every two to four minutes ranging from 8:30 pace down to the mid 5:30s.

This is a workout that I do often enough so that it's a good barometer on my fitness. I have been able to accomplish it before, but it felt significantly easier this time. So I'm pretty fired up. I'm on spring break now (one of the benefits of teaching - spring break your whole life!) and the family and I are going to hit the road for the next few days. So I'll be doing the Steve Anderson deal - running in a different town each day. I found a 5k in Durango, Colorado that I might try to do Saturday morning since I'll be missing the Striders Half.

I got a very good warm and fuzzy feeling today while on the treadmill. I'm very thankful for this sport and the way I'm able to run still and all the good people I've met through it over the last thirty-two years. I ran my first cross country race in 1977 and heve never stopped. Happy running everyone!

First day of April and the first day of Spring Break, so naturally it snowed all day and there are several inches on the ground. I especially enjoyed the granular snow pellets stinging my eyes this morning. I did twelve miles in Sugarhouse Park averaging 7:44/mile.

Took the day off. Checked into the Best Western in Durango, Colorado in the afternoon. Played around in the hotel "fitness center" for a while. Riding the train with the kids tomorrow.

10.75 miles in Durango. Very nice run up the Animas River through town. Mile six to mile eight in 11:40. We are a couple thousand feet higher than in Salt Lake and I really felt it on the hard two miles I threw in in the middle of the run.

Rode the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gage RR for most of the day. Really beautiful scenery. Andy and Abby loved it.

PM: 5.75 miles around Durango. Toured Fort Lewis State College, Rim Drive etc.