Run RF

Sun out and almost 50 degrees? Yes sir. Hammys are still sore/tired from yesterday.  Ran very easy and grateful that we ended up pushing the long run to Sunday since I don't think I'd be ready tomorrow.

Shortz baby!

10.3 Nice day out, left a little later to enjoy the relative warmth.  Ran City Creek Canyon, saw a lot of people out.  Legs still a little tired/sore from Thursday, long run tomorrow.

4.3 Too nice to not run again, so I ran again.

Ah the Sunday long run, staple of any training regimen.  I met Scott and Fritz at the Mt. American Credit Union with a light drizzle in the air.  Then we set out up Wasatch, still feeling Thursday a little bit.  We talked a little bit about all the important topics, religion, drugs, porn. Helped the miles stream by.  The trail at Parley's canyon was still quite a mess so we got slowed down there, but we got into a stretch of low 6's in there.  At least Scott and I were a little off today so once we added on a little bit at the end top hit 20 we called it quits.  Today was one of those days where it was just good to get the run in, we still manages 6:37 pace feeling tired and less than ideal weather.  Great start to the week, picked up some McDonald's on the way home.  It just tastes so good at the end of a long run.

Nice run out through Sugarhouse and Liberty. Saw the Highland track team doing hill reps as I ran through. I had my first ElliptiGo spotting in Utah in Liberty Park.

Right hamstring was not feeling great yesterday, stretching and stick made it more tolerable today.  No pain but still tight, I guess? It just felt off, I'll keep on it and hopefully have it all worked out soon.  Still time for a workout, with a planned tempo during the long run on Saturday I decided to do my 4 mile tempo then the hill workout of doom today, and planning on 5 or 6 by mile on Thursday.

I have put together that one mile uphill is not an ideal warmup and will be adjusting that in the future.  My times were around the norm for the 4 mile tempo, legs felt a bit stale but got going pretty quickly.  5:54, 5:29, 5:31, 5:32 then a little over a mile easy to the start point for the hills.  Starting from I St. and S. Temple did 7 intervals climbing 900 feet in about 2.5 miles including the short rest breaks. It felt very hard, but I always remember Rule Number Zero and push through.  Then jog from the top of Terrace Hills back to the house.

Garmin Route because I think it looks cool.

11.3  Fantastic day out, almost makes me forget about the terrible prior two months...almost.  Easy run up City Creek Canyon, added a mile up there to enjoy the outdoors a little longer.  I forgot to mention I saw a guy wearing an U of Alabama winter hat dressed for 10 degrees yesterday while it was hovering near 50.  Silly southerners.

4.4  Ran again to enjoy my favorite weather of the year.

11.5 Workout in Liberty Park, two miles down then 6 by mile at HM pace with 400 jug rest then run home.  After last Thursday burning me out for the better part of a week I decided to embrace more of the fast but not hard mantra.  So I settled on miles around 5:30, on the 'crete as the grass is still thawing out.  Didn't look at my watch for the first one and ended up running 5:49 but treated it as more of a warmup.  Next five were 5:31, 5:30, 5:27, 5:29, 5:33.  I was tired but not blasted after the last one, the park climbs from 13th S to 9th S, not really noticeable when running easy but during workouts it's tough. 

On my last interval two woman with 3 dogs between them managed to occupy the entire path.  I said "come on" as I negotiated my way through them and they were like "so, whatever".  After passing through I may have called them something that rhymes with witches, the pace was too crisp to remember clearly. 

4.4 Nice run in the Aves.

Felt great so I did the extra lap in Sugarhouse.  Not too much else to say, getting pumped for long run tomorrow.

Great Scott! I have enough miles to get Back to the Future!

Here is a great example of why Garmin data is a nice tool, but not the end all/be all of distance.

Met Fritz at Shopko at 7:20 to drive down and meet the Utah Co. guys. Got a call from Scott saying it was windy down there, but barely a flutter in Sugarhouse.  We drove down to Reed's house where it was crazy windy.  So the decision was made to trek up to Riverton to do the run on the Jordan River Trail.  Mike, Scott, Reed, Dan, Fritz and I started out south and did 10 out and back to the cars in 70 minutes. 

Then after fueling up we headed north for the workout portion of the run, five miles into the wind at 6:00 pace then whatever we could muster coming back.  Fritz and Scott took off and Mike and I worked our way back up to them to get some of the wind break.  Fritz and Scott did a lion's share of the work while Mike and I helped out when we could.  Ended up running 5 miles out in 28:18 (5:42, 5:44, 5:38, 5:36, 5:38). Took a short break then headed back, my legs were extra sore the first mile and Fritz and Scott ended putting a few seconds on me in the three miles out hard.  My splits were 5:22, 5:25, 5:25 then we eased back and while it felt like 7+ minute pace ended up running 6:11, Mike caught back up with about 1/2 mile to go and we started picking the pace back up and the last mile was 5:45 with the last half a lot closer to 5:00 pace. So the last five was run in 28:08. Great workout and couldn't have done it without everyone there, not time to have some pizza and beer and watch some basketball.

9.5  First run of the year on the shoreline trail. Still needs a few days to completely thaw out but it was a good run. Went really slow and easy after blasting my legs yesterday.

I also ate a whole pizza yesterday, half for lunch and half for dinner. I feel like a true American.

3.3 To my friends house and back.

Super nice out, so I ended up running three miles into City Creek before turning around. Felt pretty good, but my quads are still a bit tired from Saturday.

4.3 Nice shakeout run to get the day going right.

8 Workout, was thinking two by four miles but the legs said one was enough for today.  Ran up to Popperton Park jogged around the Footie Pitch to get to two miles then started my four mile tempo course.  I really wanted to focus on making the first mile faster than normal, ended up running 21:52 (5:40, 5:20, 5:33. 5:09). Happy with the performance, but the legs were still feeling Saturday. Especially noticed some weakness in the left leg that lead to the early end.  I think I'll do some fartlek stuff on Thursday and then Canyonlands on Saturday.  Saw Mike during the run, but was a wee bit too tired to say a proper hello.

Just saw my Boston Bib number #676, hopefully I can beat this by 500+ spots thanks to running with a lot of fast people here.

12.1 Sugarhouse and Liberty run, fantastic out. 

4.5 Nice run in the aves. Followed the old maxim "Sun's out, guns out"

10.5 City Creek run with 10 1 minute pickups thrown in. Feeling tired but it's all about recovery now. Oh science discovered the God particle (Higgs Boson) today, that little particle that gives everything in the universe mass.

4.5 Easy aves run, while on 11th by the graveyard I saw two motorcycle cops giving someone a ticket.  At I got to Terrace Hills a pizza delivery guy rips out onto 11th, I give him the slow down sign to try to help him out.  In return he revs the engine even more, I don't know if he got pinched but I hope he got punished for his meekrobish behavior.

Gorgeous day out, did Sugarhouse and Liberty. Pretty tough going the last few miles climbing back home.  But feeling good about Canyonlands half tomorrow.  And I'm entitled to two(!) free beers after the race.

Good race, quads felt tired second half. Fell apart a bit outside of the canyon. More to come once I get home. PR baby!

Got up early and took care of business then ran over to the busses, got stopped by Fritz, Scott and Brandon as they were finishing getting ready.  We got bussed up to the start and then proceeded to hang out for an hour and a half.  Wind started blowing a little more by the start of the race.  Chatted with a bunch of people at the start line and then the gun went off.  Fell off a cliff at the start, but made sure to stay back from the fastest guys.  Then after a few miles started working my past a few people.  I was gaining on Scott until Fritz came back to him and they took off right around mile 6.  So I sat in sixth place till the finish, my quads started getting fatigued again as usual, but throwing water on them seemed to help for about a half mile.  The hill of the race came right around 9.5 which was very painful.  After that it was pretty boring, went under the road then ran into town.  That seemed to take forever, those last miles outside of the canyon were tough.  I tried to pick it up going into the chute to make sure I got under 73, but the legs just didn't have much left and ended up running 73 flat.

I'm excited to PR and see some of the results of this training cycle.  But I felt like I could have gone faster if my quads didn't poop out.  But on the plus side I ran a half marathon faster than I ever have at altitude on a rolling course with a headwind.  So probably could have been sub 71 back at sea level.

Splits: 5:13, 5:32, 5:28, 5:23, 5:34, 5:31, 5:37, 5:39, 5:38, 5:43, 5:41, :48.

6.1 Easy run in the aves. Legs were pretty demolished yesterday so I took it off.  They felt much better today.  Hopefully I'll get somewhere between 80-90 miles in this week.

6.4 Up to school, back from school and then around the aves.  

One funny thing from the race, a guy was wearing Born to Run sandals.  And said he was going to run the race in an hour.  He blew up hard.

7.1 Easy run around Liberty, the place I feel the race most is in my knees.  I think I'll end up working out Thursday in Liberty so I can have access to a softer surface. Something like 2 by 3 mile tempo or some such.

6.3 Another easy run around the aves. Feeling ok, starting to bounce back.

8.5 Nice run in the drizzle, it felt wonderful to get in some easy miles on the woodchips in Liberty. Knees coming back, but not 100% yet.

10.5  Took yesterday off, and ended up in the fieldhouse where my knees were still feeling a little crusty.  I eventually got in a groove and threw in 8 striders that took more out of me than they should.

I have to admit I was getting a little worried about how I was recovering after the half.  My legs only really started coming back to me the second half of yesterday's run.  And I hadn't run a mile under 7:20 since the race.  So I made sure to be ready for the run today, and ready to ease off if it got to be too much.

We had a nice crew ready to go this morning, Mike and Scott up for Utah county.  Fritz, Jake and I from the normal crew.  Rob Murphy, Adam H, and Jon Kotter rolling up as it was time to head out.  The first part of the run was 11ish warmup down to Hollah!-day and back.  Only a few miles were over 7 minute pace, but either my legs were numb from the cold or they were feeling good.  We got back to the cars and everyone took care of their business then we headed into Sugarhouse to start the fun part of the run. 

It was about 6 laps to get us up to 20 over the rolling hills.  Jon took off like a bat out of hell not telling us how far he planned to go (3 miles) and Fritz went with him.  I stayed back with Jake, Scott and Mike for the first lap.  I did the first three miles hard (5:21, 5:34, 5:24) then eased back planning to do one one off for the rest of the run.  My easy miles ended up being a little slower than MP with my hard miles a little under so it made for a nice change of pace workout (6:08, 5:28, 5:57, 5:34, 5:59).  It was pretty surprising how good the "easy" miles felt.  And how my legs responded overall.  I hit mile 8 right at the top of Rose Hill and finished with Jake.  Then we all got rounded up and did an easy lap.  Still managed 7 flat pace, which felt like a shuffle after the last 8 miles.  Ended up with 21 in the books at 6:28 AP, great run after the not too great week I had running wise.

Also, probably one of the sickest plays I have ever seen. While it may have ruined my bracket it was a spectacular game with FGCU upsetting Georgetown.  FGCU has existed for 11 years, had a D1 team for 6 and are only in the second year of postseason eligibility.  Pretty unreal, those white boys can ball!

Boston Packet came in the mail today!

Met up with Collin, Fritz and Oliver (2nd at Canyonlands) at Highland to put in some miles this morning.  Fritz wanted to do at least 18, so I sucked it up and grabbed some chomp blocks.  Collin turned around right around 5 and the three of us carried on.  Got to the mouth of BCC and headed up Wasatch back to Highland.  I felt surprisingly good, and the fact that the second half wasn't at tempo effort helped a lot.  I put in over 40 miles in two days, in two runs.  While finishing up climbing the hill at the I-80 underpass Fritz and I both discussed if we were running 140 a week this would be a typical day (though likely broken up).  It's good to know I can handle this stuff as I have plans for 110-120 mile weeks this summer.

I dropped Oliver off after his longest run of the year and went to Barnes & Noble to pick up some books for my flight on Friday.  Looking in the running section there were about 10 copies of Born to Run with the covers facing the customer and one copy of Running with the Buffaloes so you can only see the spine, because people are stupid.  So I put Running with the Buffaloes in front of the Born to Run books to help support one of the best running books ever written.

Feeling surprisingly good after two long runs, today was just nice and easy with an option for a second loop of Sugarhouse if I was feeling up to it.  Tomorrow is a planned workout so only the one run today.

My training advice today is how to run/race hills.  The key to beating someone on a hill isn't running really hard up the hill, it's recovering quickly and throwing in a surge after you crest the hill.  It's pretty impossible to respond to immediately and helps open a nice gap that discourages people from moving back up to you.

11.6  Last lonesome workout in SLC for a while.  With two long runs this past weekend and another planned for Friday I wanted to do put in a good effort without killing myself.  So I decided on 4 by 1.5 miles on the dirt path in Liberty.  The dirt path is a little slower, but much easier on the legs.  I jogged 2 miles to the park then got right into with 800 meter rest in between.  My first mile for the four loops were 8:39 (5:48,2:51), 8:25 (5:40, 2:45), 8:35 (5:34, 3:01), 8:16 (5:28, 2:48), the third interval was a little long, effort felt the same.  I felt like I was working pretty hard without excessively beating myself up too much.  Which is where I want to be three weeks out from Boston.

Nice interview with Ryan Hall talking about mileage progression. I think it's important to restrict mileage in High School to foster long term development, running too much just puts a damper on long term development and causes early burn out.  Seventy miles would be the max, especially when the longest race run is 5k.  Even in college the first two years should be spent carefully bringing along someone to that magical 100mpw total.  That kind of mileage is really only necessary to race 10k+.

Ryan Hall Interview

6.1 Run around City Creek, then immediately dove into some candy because I'm starving.

10.3  Easy run up in City Creek, starting to feel the last few days on the legs.  Luckily today and tomorrow are recovery for Friday's long run.

6.1  One of my roommates was out of town the last week, he is very loud and uncourteous.  He returned last night and today invited a bunch of random people over in the afternoon.  So the great weather and awful company meant head out for another run.  Legs felt tired for the first mile but quickly got their act together.  Great day out, and I remembered seeing a guy in Liberty with 2 half liter bottles on a fuel belt running laps.  Passing an everlasting spring 1.5 miles.

Easy run down through Sugarhouse and Liberty, gotta be ready to long run with Jake and Fritz way too early tomorrow morning.

Early, though not by Scott's standards, run up Emigration.  Fritz and I are both going out of town this weekend so we knocked out our last long run today, and of course Jake is always up for a run.  Went well we went about 3.5 miles up the canyon then came back on Wasatch and through Tanner Park to hit some of the death hills.  Everything on the way back came in around 6:00 pace, which less the hills felt great.  Last 7 days add up to 116.5 miles, which is a non beer related record.  I feel strong and am excited for Boston in a 2.5 weeks.  But tonight I head out to Florida to start some humidity training so I'm ready to kick all the Utah guys butts back east.

Red eye flight to Detroit, four hour layover in DTW, then 2.5 hour flight to Florida. Got in at the same time as my brother then changed into my running clothes and gave my bags to him. I started the run our place and he took a cab. Oxygen is pretty awesome, and ended up running 12 in 1:15. Two eventful occurrences in the run, around 3 miles encountered a large group of bros and brosephinas. They were impressed by my speed, and implored me to go faster, a little over six was fast enough. Then about a mile out from our place I was quickly catching up a slow runner who avoided three dudes. When they saw me coming they politely got out of the way of the guy running sub6 pace. Also I was dressed like a badass with my compressin socks amd Ragnar shirt. It's awesome to be here with my family and more than a few beers.