Every Race is an Adventure!

I ran an extended Lindon loop this morning, going into P.G. a ways and adding a loop at the end, making it 8 miles instead of just over 6. I ran it in 1:05:50 (8:13/mi). My splits were 9:24, 7:57, 8:07, 7:28, 8:30, 8:41, 7:43, and 7:57. I maintained a pretty steady effort. The faster splits were downhill miles, the slower ones uphill. I didn't feel like I had a lot of energy this morning but tried to maintain my effort level anyway. Whenever I felt myself dragging a little I would accelerate for 5 to 10 seconds then drop back a little and try to maintain a slightly faster pace than I had been. It seemed to help.

I was half tempted to go run the Speedy Spaniard 10K this morning. Instead I settled for running my own 10K. It was cheaper and there was no travel time. I warmed up over to the start of the neighborhood 5K course and then ran the course twice.

I tried to hold a pretty good pace, but not race pace. At 7:40/mi, it was more of a fast marathon pace for me. The course is basically downhill, flat, then uphill and ends where it starts. My (rough) splits were 7:13, 7:50, 7:50, 7:25, 7:41, 8:03.
 

We camped at the Lagoon Campground last night in preparation for our Novell day at Lagoon. We have an old 1985 trailer I bought from my neighbor years ago and that we have used very little. It lacks an air conditioner, but with slightly cooler temperatures and a good fan we slept pretty well.

There is a jogging/bike trail that passes right next to the campground. I asked the camp staff about it and they said they thought it went 4 or 5 miles up to the canyon. I followed it towards Lagoon and entered the "Lagoon Trail" which passes behind the park. I saw some buffalo and elk and went passed the loading area for Rattle Snake Rapids. I was a little disappointed when I got a 1/2 mile up the trail and it came out onto a city street and apparently ended. I couldn't find anywhere that it continued so I turned back. Once I got back to the campground I followed the trail the other direction...for maybe 1/4 mile until it also came out onto State St. and apparently ended. I may have missed the trail continuation on either end but, if not, this is a pretty short trail. Anyway, I continued following State St. for a while and then turned back.

All in all it was a pretty enjoyable run, although I didn't push very hard. I knew I had a full day of walking around the amusement park ahead of me. I ended up running 5.1 miles at an average pace of 9:11/mi. 

We left Lagoon a little early because of rain. We went back to the trailer and stayed up late playing games, watching a movie, and eating Jiffy Pop popcorn. It was a lot of fun, but I wimped out in the morning and slept in before enjoying breakfast with my family then loading up and checking out by 11:00am.

We actually only had our two youngest daughters (9 and 11) with us at Lagoon. Our 18, 20, and 22 year old children were too old to be interested in going to Lagoon (and one of them is in Florida this week). Our 15 year old daughter is at EFY at UNLV. We're driving to Las Vegas on Friday (tomorrow) to pick up her and her friend early on Saturday morning and bring them home. We're dropping our two youngest at my parents in Nephi on the way down for an overnighter with Grandma and Grandpa and will pick them up on the way back home.

I plan to get a good run in tomorrow morning before we leave. We're supposed to pick our daughter up at 7:00 am on Saturday, so I don't know if I'll be able to squeeze a run in, definitely not a long run. I guess you'll never know, because "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

I didn't run yesterday and don't know how much time I'll have to run tomorrow so I did my long run today. I left at 5:45am and ran alone from my house up to Vivian Park in Provo Canyon and back.The weather was great. I actually got a little chilly (it felt good) early in the run with the headwind as I was heading up the canyon. I didn't hit sunshine until after mile 13 and it never did get really hot before the end of the run...only up to around 70.

I completed the 18.25 mile run in 2:43:23 (8:57/mi). This does not include a couple of bathroom stops, but does include a few quick water stops. I didn't take any gels on this run like I normally do, but still felt pretty strong at the end. The best part is that I don't seem to have any blisters, chafing, or other aches or pains to speak of, other than just tired legs.

My mile splits were 9:56, 9:00, 8:55, 9:04, 0.28 mi in 2:28 (8:54/mi), 9:07, 9:26, 9:44, 9:31, 0.97 mi in 8:51 (9:08/mi), 8:53, 8:20, 8:34, 8:47, 0.91 mi in 7:37 (8:21/mi), 8:32, 9:16, 8:53, 7:42, and 0.09 mi in 0:44 (8:08/mi).

With about a mile to go I noticed that my average pace to that point was 9:01. I decided I wanted to break a 9:00/mi average. Having already run 17 miles, I knew I might have to beat a 9:00 pace the last mile by at least 34 seconds to drop the average to 8:59. I had a pretty good downhill stretch and I managed to run 7:42/mi and drop the overall average to 8:57. I realize this is a snail's pace to many on this blog, and a few seconds doesn't make a big difference, but this little victory at the end of a long run still felt good to me.