Rob Murphy

I took the day off. My legs are pretty sore and I figured that if Jake Krong can take TWO days off after a marathon that it would make sense for me to take ONE day off after a half.

Allie's comment on my race  reminded me... I raced in a new pair of shorts yesterday. I've run every race since 2008 in the same pair and thought it was time for a change mostly because my favorite old pair is getting a little gross.

I'm more happy with my race yesterday the more I think about it. My main goal for this year has been to run as fast at the Gary Bjorklund half in June as I did two years ago (1:15:56).  For most of the year that has seemed a stretch but now I know I can average 12 seconds/mile faster especially dropping down four thousand feet. As a matter of fact I think I'm going to make 1:14 my goal which would be a PR. I haven't done any threshold workouts or longer intervals yet this year and I still was able to dip under 6 minute pace yesterday.

I think I've found the right mix of training and workouts that is working for me and I'm going to continue to tweak it a little more. Not making the marathon the focus of my training is the best thing. I've been looking a lot at what worked for Kramer last cross country season and reading about the kinds of things Rupp and Salazar and all the rest do to build real speed and endurance. A lot of this is nice to do if the marathon is your focus but essential to do if shorter races are your focus. 

Today's Workout: 3.25 mile walk. 

5.25 easy treadmill miles.

Followed that with a good strength/core workout. Included 3 X 10 box jumps and some other plyos.

I feel a scratchy throat coming on. I need to dodge that bullet. Mega Vitamins and lots of sleep tonight hopefully. 

I wanted to do a morning run today but I just couldn't get out of bed. Sore, snotty, feverish today.

I plan to drug myself and get in some easy aerobic miles this afternoon. 

PM: 6 slow, cold, windy miles. Winter is back. 

Well, at least I got some miles in even if they were on the treadmill. I'm still battling a cold although I'm much better today. I'm having a hard time regulating by body temperature and even though it was 50 degrees out this afternoon, it felt more like 30 to me. So I opted for indoors.

10.25 miles at 7:20 - 7:30 pace. I still feel Saturday's race in my legs and I'm having to adjust my planned workouts. It's funny how when I put together workout plans I act like I'm 25 years old. I'll give myself a day to recover from a really hard effort and then I end up having to take three or four.

Mild squabble between two old guys at the gym. One, obviously an old Marxist, wanted to watch MSNBC while the other, obviously a tea partying Republican, favored FOX News. It got quite heated until they figured out that there are about 20 TV's - more than enough to cover every ideological extreme. Before that I thought they might resort to fisticuffs. 

Something I was not fully aware of...

 My daughter recently found out that her best friend in the neighborhood (who is LDS) is moving away and will not be attending the same middle school as her next year all because the girl's family does not like their LDS ward and so they have to move to find another one. They like everything else about our neighborhood and their kids are happy and well adjusted. This is especially sad since this is Utah and there is an LDS church every quarter mile or so. But apparently going to one of those is not an option, they have to relocate the whole family. 

Does this sort of thing happen a lot? I guess it would be good for those in the real estate business. 

PM: 6.5 easy miles that didn't feel so easy at 9 PM. Only time I could fit it in today.

AM: One mile warm-up, weights/strength training, one mile cool down.

Sad news.... the latest edition of Utah Running is out and, one again, I was not profiled. 

PM: 8.25 excellent running miles in the gully with my former stud runner Garrett Jones ( now 21 years old) who arrived home from his LDS mission in Denmark about 18 hours ago. I hope to write much more about this later.

AM: 1.25 easy around the neighborhood.

Around 9 AM I drove down to Sandy with Jake for a run in the gully. I did 11 miles in 1:24. We came across Justin Park about 5 miles into the run and he joined us. When we got back to the parking lot Jake and Justin went for a couple more miles in the lower gully and I went into the gym and did a couple more on the treadmill.

I cant get my chest congestion and snottiness to go away. I really feel it on the uphills.