Rob Murphy

Some of the hardest "easy" miles I ever ran today.

The family was in the mood for a quick late Summer getaway so we deove up to Logan on Saturday and stayed in the spiffy Baugh Motel. This is an old school 1950s style motor court with all the rooms on ground level, a really nice pool with a 10 foot deep end (certainly used to have a diving board before lawsuits brought an end to that era). Of course, Abby and Andy spent almost the entire time in the pool along with Steve Anderson's kids who came over to visit.

Steve and I ran 18 miles this morning along the BST up to Logan Canyon and then up the Logan River Trail and back. New run for me so I really enjoyed it. Got back to the motel 10 minutes before the breakfast closed, downed a pile of french toast, eggs, and sausage. Then spent about two hours in the pool after convincing Steve to skip church and bring his girls over for some more swimming. Glad I could be such a positive influence.

Drove home via the Golden Spike National Monument so we could do some train/history stuff.

Nice eleven mile run mostly on the trails in the Dimple Dell Gully. I guess I'm a trail runner this week. It got hot pretty quick this morning.

Some fairly easy miles on the treadmill. 1:11.

Awesome twelve mile trail run at Alta. Took the Albion Base route back down which is much steeper than the Summer Road route.Then did 2 x 1/4 mile back up at a very hard effort which amounted to about 10 minute pace. Good Grand Canyon prep for the quads.

8.5 miles on the treadmill in 60 minutes.

12.5 miles around Sugarhouse Park in 1:29.

This will be a fairly high mileage week for me and I'm feeling ok generally. I don't have any aches or pains, but I'm definitely lacking that feeling of speed in my legs right now. Possibly the lingering effects of Des News and two marathons and three half marathons since late April..

I've got three remaining events this year. The Pocatello Half over Labor Day weekend, the USATF Masters marathon championships at Twin Cities on Oct 2nd (one day after I turn 47), and my second annual Grand Canyon R2R2R three weeks after Twin Cities.I need to balance the right amount of mileage and the right mix of workouts with plenty of recovery time.

Goals: Pocatello - 1: 16, Twin Cities - 2:38, R2R2R - Finish

I might retire after that.

Nine miles in 64 minutes in City Creek Canyon. I was forced by a busy morning schedule to run at 3 PM so it was 95 degrees. Not really a fun run.

I'm hoping to come up with an idea for a fun, cool, long run tomorrow morning.