PV = nRT

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.