Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

AM - 5 miles on the Planet Walk. Calf is almost 100%, but got a little tight halfway through the run. Didn't wear watch.

(Adrenaline blue: 382 miles)

PM - 6.5 miles on Landfill Loop, plus a block with the dog. Gorgeous day, nice to be outside.

(Triax: 147 miles)

In other news, the Pack win an ugly one to move to 5-1. Nasty play by the offense, even nastier play by the refs, and by far the worst play by Washington. A win is a win though.

AM - Providence Loop, easy. 7:17/mile average pace.

(1120: 322 miles)

PM - Canal Trail out-and-back, 6.5 miles. 6:54/mile average pace. Culpepper and Hall are shaking in their boots now that I can beat the 7-minute guy again.

(Adrenaline blue: 389 miles)

semi-Big Workout today. It was "only" 12 miles total, since I am not really recovered from the marathon yet, but was still enough to work me over. The workout was a fartlek: 10x2-minutes @ CV pace (roughly 5:05/mile on flat terrain) with 1-minute recovery jog between intervals. Afterwards, 10x20-second strides @ 3k-5k pace with 40 seconds recovery.

Logan and Cody joined me, which was really nice. It's so much better doing hard workouts with other people. Plus, I could draft off Logan. :-).

Since the NY course is so hilly, wimpy track workouts are out of the question. Rather, I elected to hit the road and the rolling hills of the North Logan-USU-Boulevard Loop. The first 5 intervals had a lot of uphill, but then the last half of the set flattened out and had some gradual downhill as well. I used my Garmin to record distance and pace for the fartlek intervals, but ran them mostly by feel.

Interval	Distance	Pace
1	0.40	5:04/mile
2	0.39	5:11/mile
3	0.39	5:10/mile
4	0.38	5:20/mile
5	0.39	5:06/mile
6	0.41	4:59/mile
7	0.40	5:05/mile
8	0.39	5:11/mile
9	0.39	5:06/mile
10	0.41	4:57/mile

In general, the faster intervals had more downhill, and the slower intervals had more uphill. I like this course because it's fairly challenging. Not as hard as my Millville Hill Loop, but still good. I was feeling pretty beat down halfway through, but fortunately had Logan to keep pushing me. Once we got to the top of the course, the terrain got a bit easier, but both calves really tightened up and got a fairly sore. I still have a ways to go on the recovery.

The last thing I wanted to do after the fartlek was 10 strides, but the three of us grunted our way through it. Thanks guys for a good workout. 6:37/mile average pace for the whole run.

(Triax: 160 miles)

noon - 5 easy miles to the Planet Walk from work. Didn't wear watch.

(Adrenaline blue: 394 miles)

PM - 7 miles on the River Trail. Got rained and sleeted on, and hit the snow line at only 5000'. Time to wax up the skis. 7:30/mile average pace.

(Hardrock: 103 miles)

Kind of funny side story for today: I was listening to a podcast interview by TheFinalSprint.com with Peter Gilmore this afternoon at work, and I was caught a little off-guard when my name got dropped in the middle of the interview. This is not totally random, as I write for the website, and they have been publicizing my OTQ, but still kind of freaky to me. Then Gilmore proceeded to call me a chump and said that he was going to beat me up in the parking lot after Trials. No not really. Actually the context was more like, "One of our staff writers just qualified for Trials with a pretty slow time compared to you. Do you have any tips for him and guys like him on how to stick with it, get sponsors, and become as good as you?" It was interesting.

Gilmore is definitely one of those guys that I can try to emulate, along with Brian Sell. He was not blazing fast when he started, but has worked extraordinarily hard and has taken some hard knocks along the way, but things have turned out well for him. Gilmore and Sell are definitely guys I will be rooting for at trials because of that.

The podcast is here, by the way.

noon - easy 5.5 miles on the Landfill Loop. Didn't wear watch. My left calf is finally close to 100%.

(1120: 328 miles)

PM - easy 6.5 miles on Canal Trail out-and-back. 7:03/mile average pace.

(Triax: 166 miles)

noon - easy run from work on the Planet Walk. It was surprisingly warm out today. Kept the pace as slow as I could; didn't wear watch.

(Adrenaline blue: 399 miles)

PM - easy 7.5-mile run on the Providence Loop. I tried to run as slow as I could today, which turned out to be 7:11/mile average pace. It felt like 9-minute pace. This is a good sign. Everything is feeling very smooth, and I think I'm just about recovered.

(1120: 335 miles)

What a cold, rainy awful day today. For those who need it, here is today's motivational photo:

Now get out there and get your miles in.

PM - I ended up lucking out on the weather. We drove to Ogden in the early afternoon, where I met Logan and James. The plan was a 15-mile progression run on rolling hills. Logan picked the perfect course; it was VERY rolling. We started near 7-minute pace and worked our way down to 6-minute pace by the end. This was my longest run since St. George, but it felt okay. Weather was perfect too: cool, not raining, and not windy. 6:28/mile average pace.

(Triax: 181 miles)

Afterward, Stacy and I continued down to SLC, where I picked up some shoes and equipment at Wasatch Running, and then we went to the USATF LDR Dinner at the Alta Club. I had not been to any of the USATF dinners before, and was glad I went this time. The people were fun, the food was good, and pretty much everyone won several drawing prizes. I won a SLC 5K tech shirt (which is actually pretty nice), and (yet) another night stay at the Alta Peruvian Lodge. We now have accumulated 3 free nights at the Peruvian. Now all I need is some powder.