Rob Murphy

Body forced me to rest. 

Walked 4 miles around Sugarhouse Park.

am: 9 miles in the Dimple Dell Gully. Call it a fartlek since I was constantly changing pace running with different groups of my runners. I kept backtracking and looping around so that my kids wouldn't know where or when to expect me. I ran with the girls a lot today mostly because they are more fired up and motivated for the season than my boys.

Went to the gym after and lifted for about 45 minutes.

pm: 5.75 miles in 44 minutes around the U of U and East High track while Abby was at swim practice.

The whole world was conspiring against my running today...

My work, Ann's work, swimming lessons, visiting mother-in-law. I'm lucky I got anything in at all.

7.5 miles in 55 minutes. At least I avoided the goose egg.

12.25 miles in 1:38:00 at Alta/Snowbird. Good run. Legs are hammered right now.

I did my normal run from the base of Alta Ski Area up to Albion Basin and around 6 times. Tacked a little extra on by running down the trail to Alf's and then up the road to Snowbird and back. I really could have used a pair of trail shoes today. My Nike Lunarflys were definitely challenged on the rocky trails.

As a bonus, I saw five mooses including a calf. Two of the mooses were in the campground and were very tame. They didn't startle at all when I ran just a few feet from them. That's generally not a good idea when dealing with two bulls, but I was running downhill in pretty dense woods and didn't see them until I was pretty much on top of them. Also saw a few deer and about a thousand prairie dogs.

On the way home we (the whole family usually goes up to Alta on Wednesday) stopped at Lone Star Taqueria in Sandy which, according to Sunset Magazine, has the best fish tacos in the West. I believe it. In fact, if I were to make a list of the top 10 things I like about Utah, fish tacos from Lone Star would be up there pretty high.

Easy recovery run. I'll probably take it easy tomorrow also - racing Saturday at the Minuteman 5k.

I had a great time today at the Minuteman 5k. Everything was great with the exception of the race itself. Since this was a USATF circuit race with a decent amount of prize money, all the fast guys in Utah showed up, at least in the Masters division - Dennis Simonaitis, Steve Anderson, Neal Gassman, Bill Cobler, John Erickson -jeez, doesn't anybody ever take a vacation?

As you can see above, the race turned out to be substantially short. Apparently the police motorcycle pacer didn't know the course and took a wrong turn.With my current lack of 5k fitness I would have been better off had he added distance.

Anyway, from the beginning I could tell by my breathing that the fitness just wasn't there. I ran with Steve and Neal for the first mile which

 I hit in 5:36. Steve pulled ahead on mile 2 and I tucked in behind Neal. I have never beat Neal in a 5k, so I figured this was a sound strategy. Neal ran a 14:08 5000 at the University of Illinois back in the 80s which is one or two seconds faster than me. Those who know me know that was a lie - about me, not Neal. It was on the second mile that the course SNAFU occured, but I hit my Garmin on the real two mile which was 11:12. A 5:38 mile, not bad. Still running right off Neal's shoulder.

"Mile" three (actually .86) was where disaster struck. Stephanie Talley caught me. She's one of the best local women and the wife of Corbin Talley, one of my high school coaching rivals at Davis High School. We turned onto the last half mile back towards the stadium for the finish, which was all uphill and I just mentally lost it. I just stuck with Stephanie into the finish. Covered the last .86 in  5:14 which is 6:07 pace! Finished in 16:27. Would have run 17:50 for the full 5k. I ran 18:03 in this race last year. That's something I suppose.

Of course Dennis (the best 45-49 guy in the U.S.) beat me as well as Steve. Neal got me by about 10 seconds. If I hadn't been such a pogue I could have hung with Neal.So I finished second in my age group and 4th in the masters division.

Tho dog tag medals were cool, all the Utah National Guard rock climbing stuff, helocopters, 155 mm Howitzers etc. were cool for the kids. Lots of good food and good conversation at the finish. Steve Anderson, who is a pilot for Frontier Airlines, had to jet off to Mexico almost as soon as the race finished, but his achilles seems better judging by the 5:08 pace he averaged.

Heading out now for an additional 10 to 15 miles.

PM: OK, I erased a little of the shame from this morning. Not so much for my time, but for my refusal to compete with more intensity. 10 miles in 1:12:16 (7:14)