Every Race is an Adventure!

I ran 6.5 easy miles through the flat, well-lit streets of Orem this morning. Two downsides of running down into Orem are 1) crossing a couple of busy streets (800N and Center) and 2) the wind that always seems to be blowing out of Provo Canyon. The wind seemed especially strong this morning. It was also quite a bit cooler this morning, but I didn't mind that. I wore a long sleeve shirt (first time since spring) and the coolness was actually quite refreshing.

With Cory's bad foot and Tom running so many miles on Monday morning, the Monday noon run had basically been reduced to Nathan and me. I was excited today when Bill Rieske IM-ed me and asked to run with us. Then I ran into Darin in the locker room and he asked to run with us, too. I think Darin and Nathan had to hold back to stay with Bill and me, but it was a very enjoyable run as we conversed a lot and ran just over an 8:00 pace. The weather was very nice.

Wayne and I unexpectedly ended up on a "Follow the Larry" run this morning. We started by going up the big hill on 2000 N then coming back down and heading north into Lindon near the Jr. High like we often do. When we got to the hill we normally go down, Larry told us to keep going up the hill which dead ends a little farther up. Shortly after we started back Larry told us to take a left turn which led up a very long and very steep hill. It turns out he was really just kidding. He thought we knew about the big hill and would refuse. We didn't know, and didn't refuse. I think it was after we reached the top of the hill that he referred to it as the "Follow the Larry" run. He ended up combining portions of various runs and at the end of six miles we ended up back in the neighborhood. It was really kind of fun.

My legs felt surprisingly good this morning. I charged a couple of uphill sections and a couple of downhill sections (not very far each time) just because I felt like it. Granted, we weren't going very fast, and the "charges" were probably just getting up to marathon pace, but it was still fun.

I'm driving the high school car pool this week, so I got to drive my daughter and her two friends to the high school. Then Karen and I (and our golden retriever) walked my two youngest daughters to the elementary school. What a fun morning (honest...no sarcasm).

I love driving the car pool. I drove to the Jr. High for 10 consecutive years as my four oldest took their turns attending. Most years I drove everyday, some years I took turns driving with other parents. I've got a year off Jr. High to drive Sophomores to the high school this year, every third week. I'll return to the Jr. High drive next year for another 5 years for our two youngest. I've found driving my teenage kids to school is a great opportunity to get a glimpse into their social lives and get to know their friends. Sometimes I'm cool, and sometimes I just embarass my children, but at least I get to be a part of their lives just a tiny bit more.

At noon I decided to burn a little of that excess energy I felt in my legs this morning. I decided to run to Kuhni Road, where it is straight and flat, and do some "get a feel for what marathon pace feels like" miles. I've done this in previous years and found it beneficial for me. I run at marathon pace effort, not at my target marathon pace, but what I think marathon pace is going to feel like on race day. I do this without looking at my watch until the end of each mile. I then try analyze the results and see what I can draw from them.

Today I decided to run 4 miles at "marathon pace effort", with a mile warmup to get over to the road and a mile cool down to get back. My splits for the four "marathon pace effort" miles were 7:40, 8:03, 7:56, 7:59, and I averaged 8:12/mi overall for the six miles.

Now the analysis (rationalization?): My goal pace for a 3:20 marathon is 7:38/mi, so I was pleased with the first mile (7:40), but I knew that I tend to run the first mile faster in these sorts of runs, so I wasn't surprised by the remaining miles being slower (7:59/mi avg). Here are some reasons I'm still optimistic about the results:

1. This pace would still be a Boston qualifier (sub-3:30) and only a couple minutes off my PR.

2. I ran nearly 60 miles last week (high for me), including a 22.5 mile long run on Saturday. I also ran twice yesterday (11.5 total) and this was my second run today (12.1 total).

3. My legs still feel pretty good after the run. I could have pushed faster but tried to stick faithfully to "marathon pace effort", a pace I could hold for 26.2 miles. I'm confident I could have held this pace for many more miles.

4. This course was flat, St. George is net downhill.

5. Extra energy always comes from somewhere on race day. It seems to be a combination of taper, carbo loading, aid stations, excitement, and drawing energy from all the other runners and the crowd.

7. I wasn't wearing very good shoes today (the oldest pair I'm still using). I have a better lighter pair (not quite racing flats) I wear for racing.

8. I plan to run by feel this year, without looking at my watch too much, maybe only at the mile splits like today. I plan to do some more marathon pace runs in the next week or two, but today helped me feel confident that I already have a pretty good feel for what level of effort I'll need to put forth to meet my goal.

All of this analysis is probably meaningless except for the confidence it gives me to "go for it".

I apologize if this entry is too long...but nobody told you you had to read it. :)

I ran Eagles View with Nathan and Tom at noon today. The weather, the company, and the conversation were all very enjoyable. According to my watch I ran the 5.2 miles in 41:06 (7:54/mi), 21:21 out (8:13/mi) and 19:45 back (7:35/mi). Nathan started pushing the last mile or so and finished well ahead of me. Tom was intentionally holding back, to save his legs for his run tomorrow if I remember right, and finished a little behind me. Running I think took second place to just enjoying ourselves today. Getting in some good marathon pace miles was a nice side benefit.

I ran the water tank road with Larry and Wayne this morning. I was ready early this morning so I put in an easy mile before meeting up with them. We normally try to get from home to the top in just under 30 minutes. We pushed a little harder today and I got to the top in 28:50. We've done it faster, but it was still a pretty good run. Wayne started pulling away going up the first of the five hills. I decided to stay with Larry until hill three and then try to catch Wayne. I caught him and ran with him for a bit near the end of hill four. I then pushed hard up hill five and beat him to the top by a few seconds. We took it easy coming back down the dirt road. I couldn't resist pushing again down my favorite hill from 400 E. to Main on 1600 North. I held back a little because I didn't want to risk pulling something, and still managed a 6:21 pace for that half mile. I've really been enjoying my runs this week and my legs are feeling pretty good (knock on wood).

Keeping with my training pattern this year, I wasn't quite sure what to run this morning even as I was walking out the door. I knew I didn't want to go more than 5 or 6 miles since I plan on doing a long run tomorrow (although I haven't got that planned either).

I finally decided to run up and down the 1/2 mile stretch between Main St. and 400 E. on 1600 North. I figure it roughly approximates some of the downhill in St. George. So I alternated a 1/2 mile uphill and a 1/2 mile downhill. I originally planned on five round trips, but ended up deciding to do six.

I tried to just run at an easy to moderate marathon pace effort consistently, whether going up or down. I tried to pretty much ignore the pace and run by feel based on effort. The paces I ran for each 1/2 mile uphill and downhill section were:

Uphill	Downhill
11:32	8:11
9:49	7:46
9:07	7:44
9:19	7:37
9:03	7:39
9:07	6:55

The first round trip was an easy warm up. The numbers for the remaining repeats correctly reflect that I felt better as I got warmed up. The 7:37 and 7:39 paces on the downhill are right at my target 7:38 pace for St. George. On the last downhill all I did was focus a little more by waltzing (counting 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3 in my head, along with a little mind music), not really trying to push harder physically, and managed to speed up considerably. My legs still feel really good (again, knock on wood). I'm really looking forward to St. George. Like for most races I run, I'm eager and curious to discover what's in me, and see how well I do pulling it all out and leaving it on the road (metaphorically, hopefully not physically).

 Well, Larry came through with a great plan for a long run this morning. We started at Suncrest Market in the Suncrest Community on the top of Traverse Ridge (the mountain that separates Salt Lake County and Utah County) and ended back in the neighborhood at Larry's house in Orem. On this 18 mile Draper to Orem run we passed through Highland and Alpine, past Lone Peak High School (where we had stashed water by the seminary building around mile 9), then got on the canal road and followed it through Cedar Hills, Pleasant Grove, and Lindon, and then got off near Oak Canyon Jr. High and ran down into Orem and home.

We left home at 5:30am and started running about 6:07am. It was pretty dark with no moon but it was light enough to see okay. The shoulder was really narrow as we started down Suncrest Drive, and we were a little nervous about traffic, but then we noticed that Larry's dog Ozzie was running on the other side of a fence on the hillside next to the road. It turns out there is a sidewalk there so we hopped the short fence and ran safely on the sidewalk down this scary section.

By the time we hit Highland and Alpine it was light enough to see. We enjoyed running through these beautiful cities talking about various things we saw. Larry is a sprinkler contractor and Wayne is a plumbing contractor so they know the valley a lot better than I do. (I just sit in front of my computer all day.) In fact, we passed a new LDS church in Highland where Larry's crew had recently installed the sprinkler system.

A couple of miles from the end we saw a group of around 30 young women running towards us on the canal road. A short time later 3 of them passed us going back the same way we were going. Larry asked them if they were from BYU (yes) and how far they were going (5 miles). We don't generally get passed much on our runs, but we figured since they were elite runners  25-30 years younger than us and going less than 1/3 as far, we wouldn't let it bruise our egos too much.

We ran the 18 miles in 2:45:54 (9:12/mi). This includes a couple of stops for the dog to get a drink of water, and a bathroom stop for me. After my bathroom stop (around mile 13.5) I had to push a little to catch back up to Larry and Wayne. I averaged 7:47/mi for the 3/4 mile it took me to catch them. It felt pretty good. I could have done the run at a faster pace, but this was a long easy run. I didn't want to overdo it and risk injury this close to St. George.

The weather wasn't too cool at the start nor too warm at the end. I really enjoyed the weather, the scenery, and the company. He planned our 22.5 mile run from Midway to the mouth of Provo Canyon last week, and I really enjoyed that run, too. I think I'll look to Larry for all of my new training route planning needs.