PV = nRT

river trail 7:33 average pace

2.76 miles @ 7'25"

first dam to river trail then to single track and back. 37:08, must be about 7:11 pace. moving faster than I thought I was.

I was really looking forward to watching the Paul-Sean showdown at the freedom run, but Sean had to pull out, so I just showed up to harass the local bloggers and see some other friends at the finish. They started the race way late, I got bored so ran up the course to see what was going on, met Paul WAY out in front of everyone (no one even in sight behind him) just east of 165, turned around and ran with him for a quarter mile to make sure he crossed the highway safely, then turned around and was pleasantly surprised to see Joe Furse in about 4th place, so turned around and ran with him a bit, then just cruised back to the finish and joined Joe for his cool down. Finally met blogger Dave from Preston, he took second in my age group, nice job! The local bloggers all did great, wish I could have run the race, as it is one of my favorites, but I am still nursing the foot and leg so keeping the miles low.

After the race I shuttled Cody Paul and Joe back to the start and we also picked up some stray running hitchhiker  heading back up the canyon to his car.

my blog is boring. my quantcast numbers are dropping off so fast they may go into the negatives soon. 

still experimenting with running in flats, per the advice I got from Dan Lieberman at Harvard, the idea of course being that modern high end running shoes cause running injuries due to the inherent flaws in their designs, they don't prevent them. The advantages of flats are obvious: light, flexible, low heel, makes running easy rather than fighting rigid heavy shoe coffins that have no movement. Whether I can sustain this at high mileage I don't know. But I sure like running in a 6 ounce  brooks T4 more than a 14 ounce asics nimbus.

Bumped my tempo run distance up a tad maintaining the same pace. Didn't get out til 10:30 in the morning and it was getting hot, but it didn't really bother me. felt good and foot is giving me no problems in this mileage range.

one mile warmup 7:30

3.25 mile tempo 6:33

0.6 miles cooldown 8:03

it was a vibram five finger day. coordinated my bright red five fingers with my red halo bandana, I looked very cool if I do say so myself. Made a loop from USU down to the USU track and back taking advantage of all the open grass and park strips I could find. Carol Rowe, Paul Wolf and Tom Griggs were at the track doing speedwork so I stopped to show off my five fingers. They probably just thought I have gone nuts. 3 miles @ 7:26

threw caution to the wind and upped to 7, river trail to spring hollow. foot a little sore at the end, but I iced it fast. I really like these 790 trail flats Jason and Paul got me on to- I find it easier to negotiate the single track in them than in built up trail shoes like the montrail, because I get more response from the terrain and can adapt faster to avoid ankle turns. 7 miles in 54:50.

sore spot on shin flared up a tad after my 7 miler yesterday... so just did an easy 3 in the five fingers. I think I am going to have to start incorporating some cross training or water running to supplement these low miles to get my CV fitness up. Then again I am enjoying the lazy summer.  I am thinking Carslbad marathon in January as a possible target race if my leg holds up. 3.05 @ 7:36

tried to run some consistent one mile cruise intervals on the streets, shooting for 6:10,  with 2.5 minute recoveries. but the heat (got out late), lack of training, and lack of smarts (ran first mile, uphill, too fast) brought me down.

1 mile warmup 7:47

1 mile @ 6:08

1 mile @6:14

0.8 miles @ 6:16 (couldn't finish off the last 0.2 miles on this one).

1 mile @ 6:20 fading fast

1 mile cooldown

getting a bit of cold feet on minimalist shoe running... compromised with the mizuno precision on the street, five miles from my house to road to entrance to Millville canyon and back (that's Millville not Nibley...). compression socks, shin wrap, ice...

7:30 pace

PM- went rock climbing up Logan Canyon with my lab students and oldest son.

1.4 mile warmup five fingers

8 x 400 intervals, 80 seconds each

1.3 mile cool down five fingers

5 easy

2.75 at Tony Grove lake. then I hiked 9 miles RT to white pine lake with the fam

came back from camping. tired.

evening- ran 4 x 1 mile cruise intervals in the dark (10 PM). running deaf and in the dark = stupid. couldnt even see my watch so just ran by feel but hit the lap button on the GPS for splits knoiwing about where the miles were. here is what the watch said when I got home:

1 mile warmup 7:56

1 mile 6:15 pace
1.06 miles 6:21 pace
1.03 miles 6:17 pace
1.12 miles 6:20 pace

1 mile cooldown 8:27

oh well.

6 @ 8:05

river trail to SHCG 7:51

1.4 mile warmup five fingers
7 x 600 intervals in T4s with 200 recoveries: 2:05, 2:03, 2:03, 2:04, 2:05, 2:06, 2:08

1.4 mile cool down five fingers

decided to check out the Sumac trail Cody tipped me off too. Never knew it existed, strange since my aunt and uncle live on Sumac, one of the last houses on the Logan River, 0.1 miles before the trail.  Now I have a great fuel/water/bathroom stop for long runs from my home to RT when I can get my leg healed again since I can get across from there.

6.24 miles @ 7:46 from my aunts house to 2nd dam and back. Stopped off to say hi to my aunt and uncle. My aunt mentioned she and my dad and the rest of the family used to use the same Sumac trail in the 1930s and 40s to get to the canal and Logan River from their old house at about 350 South 100 east, a block from the Logan river, north of the bridge they just rebuilt to expand the road. I believe they used to float that canal and the Logan river back to the house. That old house is still there, it is the red house to the right in this google street view.. My dad used to tell us a lot of stories of swimming in and floating the canal and Logan river. Kind of makes the canal disaster even sadder given it's rich history. I imagine that entire Sumac drive area was completely undeveloped back then as well.

A full fledged five finger workout, first time running intervals in them on the track. decided to test them out with 200s

1.9 mile warmup USU to track at 7:33

8 x 200 on the track: 36, 41, 40, 39, 38, 37, 35, 38 seconds

1.97 mile cool down 8:20 pace

Five fingers worked well on the track at interval pace. No problem running 40 second 200s. Calves are sore though.

After that I met with blogger Steve Piccolo who was visiting USU and showed him around a bit. I also filled a big helium balloon for his cute little daughter.

I wasn't going to run this today, as I haven't trained and am still nursing a bum leg, but I received my brand new FRB singlet in the mail Thursday and I was just itching to try it out. That, and I knew Jon and Cody were going to be coming down, and my old mission buddy from Riverton runs every year, so I called him at 4PM friday  and he got me signed in with 15 minutes to spare. And then I also figured, I'm 47 years old, and you can only run the days of 47 race one time when you're 47. And my son was marching in the Mountain Crest Marching Band, headlined as a marquee attraction, and third position in the parade, (yeah, see this link) and I didn't want to miss that, so it all made sense to run.

I've run this race several times so I knew how fast it is and figured even with the lack of training I could probably pull of a sub 38 to re-qualify for the "A" wave at next year's Bolder Boulder. Got to the start line kind of late, not really any time for a warm-up but oh well. Found Cody and Jon and some other bloggers- easy now that I finally have my singlet, ha ha ha, I am pretty proud of my new look (see new picture).

OK, so I lined up with my friend Mark, Cody, Jon, Adam, and then Sasha joined us, it was nice to meet Sasha finally, he had his five fingers on of course. I was kind of intimidated in that company, but having run this race I know not to get caught back in the pack at the narrow start so held my ground and hugged the right outside edge behind Cody and tried to keep a low profile.  I didn't bother to keep track of my splits, just ran fast on the downhills and tried to survive on the flats and uphills with my lack of training. The last push back up to Liberty was pretty tough as I was out of gas from lack of training, but I made it, pulling off a 37:19 giving me exactly 6:00 pace (averaged over the course).

I ended up third in my age group, and would have been number two if I had run ONE SECOND faster (NOTE- JUST SAW OFFICIAL RESULTS- ACTUALLY I TIED FOR 3RD, 2ND WAS ACTUALLY 11 SECONDS AHEAD OF US).   Adam, Cody and Jon did absolutely phenomenal as usual and local blogger Dave Scott from Preston turned in a very impressive time as well. Got some pictures of the group at the finish. Would have run a cool-down, but I suffered a HUGE blood blister on my right big toe into the forefoot, I guess the shoes weren't laced tight enough for the downhills, or the compression socks I wore for my stress fracture just don't do the blister control that smartwool does. So I met my daughter, drove to the parade route, and filmed the mountain crest marching band, then limped on home.

Overall I am glad I ran, it was really ideal weather for this race, much cooler than some previous years. I figure with training and a taper and a healed leg I can knock this down to 36:30 next year, I'll set that as my goal.

I was supposed to run a small local 5K race here today, but after my impetuous decision to run the DN 10K yesterday, I woke up in no shape to run anything, in fact I could barely move, and the blisters on the bottom of my feet hurt bad. So I got up and went back to bed. Then in the evening I decided I would take a crack at training for the TOU 1/2, which means i need to get serious about ramping up the miles fast, so I ran a very easy 8.5 from first dam to Spring Hollow campground via river trail. Overall pace was 8:49, I thought I was running faster than that but nursing my feet and with very sore quads and calves I guess I subconsciosuly slowed down a lot. Probably a good thing. then I took a page from Jon's book and drank two glasses of chocolate milk for recovery after icing my leg. The blisters are going to be a problem I can tell. My guess is they are a result of the fact that i ran those downhills yesterday on my forefeet, I don't do any heel striking anymore, and the stupid race yesterday was just too steep to be landing like that. oh well. 

5.5 miles first dam to river trail and just a short section up single track. 7:30 pace. 

interval workout, bumping up 200 meters a week, did 600s last week so 6 x 800 this week. goal time ~2:50 ish
2 mile warmup to trackin the five fingers. ran the gauntlet of sprinklers in the cemetary. They use more water inteh cenetart per day than I use on my lawn all summer.
interval 1: 2:52 not bad
interval 2: 2:52 very consistent
interval 3: 2:52, and got stung by a stupid wasp that flew up inside my shorts, he stung me on my upper thigh, man that hurt, stupid wasp, I hate those stupid things. What did I do to deserve that?
interval 4: wasp venom taking hold... pain... 2:57
interval 5: starting to recover from wasp bite, 2:56
interval 6, still 2:56. tired. and red bite and welt. stupid wasp.

0.75 miles back to lab. I did this on an empty stomach as I had a doctor appt. afterward for a physical. Hungry and tired.

OK, need to drop those times down to a consistent 2:50 before I step up to 1000 meters...

the usual, river trail to SHCG and back. 29:15 up, 27:47 down. average 8:09

tempo run. I'll call it a SMW (small-medium workout)
1.15 mile warmup @ 8:00

4.35 mile continuous tempo. splits are:
1 mile, 6:42 pace
1.05 mile, 6:42 pace
1.07 miles 6:56 pace , over the new bridge on 100 east, through the construction, up the river heights hill, slowed me down
1.0 miles 6:34 pace
0.23 miles, 6:20 pace
averages out to 6:42 pace over the run, little slower than I would have liked but I can live with it.

1.1 mile cooldown 8:17 pace

route

short FFF workout- that is a "five finger fun" workout. around USU quads, through the cemetary,  stayed on grass as much as possible.