Everything Counts

3 miles easy.  Just a nice easy run here in Mesa to get the legs ready for tomorrow.  I threw in some strides at MP.

Well, there are probably only a few people out there who will understand when I say that although it was a 2-mnute PR in the marathon, it was a disappointing day.  For those who just want a quick summary here it is: great through 15, stomach bugs at 15, stomach causes me to slow down 16 to 18, potty stop at 18, legs never get going again.  I feel like it's the same old story and I am sick of writing it. 

Here's a longer version for those that are bored and have nothing else to do:

In the week leading up to the race I had all sorts of stuff go wrong that could've hampered my performance: I had a cold, my right glut hurt very badly after Tuesday's workout and drive (it hurt just walking), and Wednesday's run in Vegas was energy-less and my slowest run in probably 1.5 years.  But in the end, on Saturday morning none of these things were still a problem and I had high hopes for the day.

I met up with Spencer at the buses and we ran into Dave.  It was nice to be amongst familiar faces on the bus and up at the starting area.  I had a productive visit to the bathroom and another not-as-productive visit to a secret bathroom and then it was go time.  Oh, one other note was that I had a gel in the back pocket of my shorts and it somehow broke open and gel went all over my shorts and behind.  It was pretty sticky and annoying.  I told Dave and Spencer I hoped that was my only case of bad luck for the day, but turns out it was an omen.

The gun went off and I ran in a pack with Dave, Jake, and Peter.  One guy in green took the lead and I asked Jake if he recognized him, he didn't.  The first mile was slow and just sort of a warm up, but it felt harder than it should have.  After two miles or so we caught the leader and after that it was Jake, Peter, and me running together for the next several miles.  I felt sluggish early on but after the hills I felt great and thought it was going to be a good one.  Along the way Jake's dad and Andrea provided him support and he was a class act and shared his gatorade every time, which was in a very easy to drink out of bottle.  So, kudos to Jake for that, it was appreciated.

Heading into the half I celebrated (prematurely) that it was my first marathon getting through the half without a potty stop.  Then I said "knock on wood" but obviously there was no wood to knock on and I had cursed myself!  We were 1:11:17 give or take a few seconds at the half...perfect for my assault on 2:23.  I picked up mile 14, wanting to get the pace under 5:20.  But by mile 15 my stomach started churning and by 16 it was slowing me down to around 5:30 pace.  Jake and Peter noticed my slowing and sped up a few seconds creating about a 6-7 second gap that was held until I stopped at 18 to take the potty break.  I was stopped for about a minute according to my watch and then I was off again. 

But stopping after 18 miles of pounding your legs means you don't get them back.  They're gone and you just have to hold on for dear life.  I managed one more mile near 5:30 and then the bleeding started.  It's the same thing that happens every marathon with me, potty break, one more decent mile, and then 20 seconds slower per mile than before and it slowly gets slower.

By 22 I was just in stay alive and moving mode.  My legs just couldn't move properly.  It was like a fast shuffle as opposed to a running stride.  I was certain Dave was going to catch me and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it but give him a high five and send him on his way.  The fear of being passed was the only thing keeping me moving at a respectable pace.

I held on for third place after running 26.44 miles.  I was pretty dehydrated at the end, which was my fault more so than the weather's.  Sure it was hot and I am used to running in the teens, but I stopped taking water and nutrition after my pit stop.  That probably wasn't smart, but for some reason at the time I thought I could manage 8 more miles without anything. 

So after the race I was covered in salt and my clothes were very salt-stained.  I pounded a few waters, powerades, cokes, and a chocolate milk and 30 minutes later could walk again without much difficulty.

The race was extremely well organized and the after race festivities were great.  My family loved it as spectators.  The course was a good one, not super fast, but definitely faster than a flat, honest course.  On a good day you could really get rolling on this course.

You can check out my splits here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/280119498

4 miles very easy.  My legs aren't too sore, but they are weak and fatigued.

6.31 miles easy on the base perimeter road.  My legs feel quite a bit better today than yesterday, but they are still a little weak and wobbly.

8.06 miles easy.  I met Ferrier and Ken at the 21st St. Pond and we were actually able to run on the parkway this morning.  There were a few spots with snow and ice still, but the vast majority of the path is clear.  My legs felt pretty good through 7 miles, then some fatigue set in and I was ready to be done at 8 miles.

6 miles easy.  I'm itching to get training again, but I'll play it smart and keep this whole week easy.

8.13 miles easy.  I met up with Ferrier and Bryant at the Weber Track for an easy run in the light rain.  The temperature was pretty decent when it wasn't raining hard.  My legs are not sore at all anymore, but they still don't have a lot of spunk in them. 

Tomorrow I am only running 10 miles and I will do it on the Strider's 10-miler course.  My sister is running and I told her I would pace her.  I figured it'll help her out and it will force me to keep this whole week at an easy pace.

12.5 miles easy.  I paced my sister McKenzie on the Strider's WRC 10-miler today.  She did awesome!  I talked her into aiming for sub-1:12 and she didn't think that was doable.  But she reluctantly agreed.  I plugged 1:12 into the course tool here on the blog and wrote down the splits she'd need, since pace varies by almost two minutes a mile on this course.

We were off and she went out FAST, probably too fast.  But she was pushing the pace, not me.  We were almost two minutes up on 1:12 pace halfway through.  Then the hill section hit and she kept questioning if she could keep going.  I kept trying to keep her motivated and told her to keep plugging away at it.  She stayed strong and although we lost some time on the hills she was still in position to hit the sub 1:12 with three miles to go.  She lost a little more time on miles 8 and 9 and got passed by a girl dropping her to 5th place.  With one mile to go she needed a 7:15 to get under 1:12.  I lied and told her she needed sub-7:00 to get her going...I know mean of me.  She got moving and closed the gap on 4th place but couldn't quite get her.  She finished 5th in 1:11:20 and was 12 minutes faster than two years ago when she ran this course.  She was way happy and the run was great for me, just over 7:00 pace.  My legs felt great and I think I'm ready to get back to training again next week.

AM: 12 miles easy.  We had a great group this morning; I met up with Ken, Ferrier, Bryant, and Jace for a run on the Riverdale Parkway at 5:45.  The weather was pretty comfortable this morning and the parkway is nice and clear now.  Another week or so and it will even be ready for tempo efforts I think.

PM: 4 miles easy on the base perimeter road.  I was going to throw in some strides at the end but on the first one my hip oddly started hurting with the faster pace. I'm not sure where that came from, it hasn't hurt at all at anytime that I can remember.  I will have to keep an eye on that.  I can't feel it at all when running slower than 6:00 pace.  We'll see if I can manage aerobic building pace tomorrow or if it will impede me.

AEROBIC BUILDER: FARTLEK

This morning was an early one.  I met Bryant at 21st Street Flying J at 5:15 AM to do an aerobic builder.  Bryant is flying out to Orlando this morning so we had to do it earlier than usual.  We did the workout fartlek-style alternating miles between 5:40 and 5:15 pace.  Actual splits were: 5:37 5:14 5:39 5:13 5:37 5:15 5:41 5:08 5:40

I am happy with the workout, it's my first hard workout since the marathon and I could tell cardio-wise it'd been awhile since I'd gone hard.  My legs felt good, fresh.  I had a pain in my left hip yesterday afternoon that I was worried about.  It didn't seem to bother me this morning, though when I ran the 5:08 mile it felt like it was close to the pace where it was going to start bothering me a bit.  We'll see what happens and I will keep a close eye on it.

12 miles easy.  I met up with Ferrier, Hales, and Ken for a run through downtown and central Ogden.  We kept a pretty brisk pace, but it felt pretty good.  Beautiful morning and great company for a run.

AM: 3/4 MILE REPEATS

Well for the first time in quite awhile I wasn't able to hit the workout I wrote up for myself.  It probably has to do with trying to hit times I was hitting a month ago, or in other words I essentially underestimated the loss of fitness after a two-week taper and one-week recovery.  But, the workout was still decent and I'll take it.  The goal was 8 by 0.75 miles in 3:36 (4:48 pace) with a 2-minute jog for rest.  After the first two were harder than I thought they'd be I changed the rest to 2-minute inactive rest.  Then after falling off pace on the 5th and 6th intervals I dropped the distance down to 0.5 and did three more repeats.  So, total distance was still same but instead of 8x0.75 it ended up being 6x0.75 and 3x0.5.  I finished off the workout with 2x200 meters to get some fast turnover.

Splits:

6x0.75 - 3:38 3:37 3:38 3:36 3:41 3:42

3x0.5 - 2:23 2:22 2:22

2x200 meters - 29.25 and 28.5

PM: Shakeout run. 4.47 miles pushing the kids in the double stroller and running with Amy. 

8.65 miles easy.  I met up with Ken in South Ogden (maybe I can slowly get these guys to meet me further south over time).  We looped down to the Nature Park loop and then out by the toll road and back along Combe.  Awesome weather this morning.

QUALITY LONG RUN

We had a great group this morning and great weather.  I met up with Ken, Hales, Jace, and Steve for a long run.  We warmed up four miles (I guess 6:18 and 6:00 count as warmup?) and then did 13 miles at a 5:41-42 average.  Total pace for the 18.5 miles was 5:55.

AM: 12 miles easy with Ken and Ferrier on the Riverdale Parkway.

Lunch: 5.25 miles easy on base perimeter road.

TEMPO RUN

I had a good workout this morning.  We had a good crew this morning for a hard workout: Ken, Jace, Hales, and Bryant.  We met at the Dee Events Center parking lot and headed to South Ogden toward our old "college tempo loop".  We warmed up just over 3 miles including strides and a half mile at 6:00 pace.  We are started the workout together, but everyone ended up doing something different in the end.  I did 5.5 miles in 28:34 or 5:11 average pace.

12.25 miles easy with Ken on the base perimeter road.

AM: I planned on running 20x400 meters this morning, but with STRONG winds and snow I decided to move the workout to later in the day.  So, instead I did a quick 4 miles easy out in the weather and called it good.

Lunch: 400 METER REPEATS

I did 20 by 400 meters in 1:09 average (4:36 mile pace).  I did a cut down on the rest after every four repeats.  So rest was 1:30 for first four, then 1:25, 1:20, 1:15, and 1:10 for the last four.  I thought this workout would feel a lot easier than it did.  It wasn't super hard, but I thought it'd be rather easy and it wasn't. 

I wanted to compare it to previous 400 workouts I've done recently, but then realized looking back at my log that I haven't done 400 repeats since I did 31 of them on my birthday last May!  I used to do 400s all the time.  I will have to make sure I don't go 10 months before doing them again this time around.

9.32 miles easy. I ran from my house and looped into Uintah and back. I got caught in some fierce wind and snow the last two miles, but before that it was a pleasant run.

LONG RUN

I met up with Ken at 5:00 am to get our long run started.  He had to be home by 7:30 for kid duty.  Ken ran the first two hours with me and then I added on another half hour for a total of 2:30.  I did a tempo from 18 to 22, the splits were 5:42 (uphill) 5:18 (downhill) 5:22 (rolling hills) and 5:16 (rolling hills).  I feel pretty good about this run.

This is a new weekly mileage lifetime PR for me too!  Pretty soon I may even hit a 90-mile week, which not too long ago sounded ridiculous to me.

AM: 13.1 miles easy.  I ran on the base perimeter road this morning and the first 5 miles into the canyon wind was brutally cold.  But coming back I felt like I was flying despite an easy effort due to the tailwind.  Great run to start the week.

Lunch: 5.25 miles easy on base perimeter.  Still windy, but not nearly as cold.

AEROBIC BUILDER: REPEATS

I met up with Jace (nye.fastrunningblog.com) at 5:45 at Flying J on 21st Street to do our workout.  The plan was to run 4-mile repeats at aerobic builder pace.  The goal was 3 repeats if we could swing it, but at least two and then see where we stand on the third.  We did a decent warmup with two strides and then got started.  The first set went well without any hiccups.  Unfortunately, my stomach hated me this morning and was mean to me and we had to stop during the second set and again right after the second set was over.  My stomach was still hurting and Jace said he was ok with only doing two miles for the third set.  So, we settled on two miles and I wasn't sure my stomach would even allow me to do that; it was really a bad day (my stomach still feels sick, hopefully I'm not actually getting sick).  So, overall ten miles of aerobic building pace.  It didn't go extremely smoothly but still got the job done and I think we'll both benefit from the workout immensely.

Splits:

4-miles: 525 520 519 519

3:30 rest

4-miles: 520 520 518 521

about 5:00-ish rest

2-miles: 528 527 (slight uphill on these two)

Funny sidenote: I keep my car key and my emergency toilet paper both in my back zipper pocket.  Well, when we got back to the cars I realized my key was missing.  So Jace had to drive me back out to try and find it, luckily I had a pretty good idea (it must've fallen out when I pulled the toilet paper out of the pocket) of where it might be.  I mean I basically had an X marks the spot, well not quite an X but you get the idea.  We found it very easily; which was a relief.

AM: 8.25 miles easy on the base perimeter road.

PM: 4.11 miles easy running with Amy and pushing kids in double jogging stroller.

2,400 METER REPEATS

I had a really solid workout this morning.  I ran these on the perimeter road on the East side of base hoping the canyon wind would be mostly only a crosswind.  But it ended up still being either mostly a headwind or tailwind on the first two so I ran the last two back toward the South to ensure only crosswind.  So, numbers one and two were opposites of each other on the same stretch of road.  The first one was with tailwind and the second with headwind. Three and four were mostly crosswind.  All were flat except the fourth was flat with a 50 meter downhill section.  I took 2:30 jogging rest in between each at around 8:00-8:15 pace.  My goal was to average 4:55 on these.

Splits:

1- 7:17 (4:53 pace)

2- 7:38 (5:07 pace)

3- 7:17 (4:53 pace)

4- 7:12 (4:50 pace)

As you can see the wind really slowed number two down.  The first one felt the easiest and that was because the tailwind helped me more than I realized.  But the effort on the last three all felt similar.

7 miles easy on the base perimeter.

QUALITY LONG RUN

I met up with Bryant and Jace at Smith's on 12th Street, dropped a car off and then drove to the trailhead on 29th Street.  We ran the trails from there to Rainbow Gardens then up the other side and continued on trails/canal dirt road until Weber High School and then made our way back South again to 12th Street.  We had a good push for 12 miles and it ended up being sort of a progression run though we didn't plan it that way, Bryant just felt good and pushed the pace and Jace and I were ok with that.  Splits for 12 miles of quality: 6:06 5:56 5:57 5:47 5:40 5:42 (switched from trail to road here) 5:21 5:36 5:32 5:27 5:29 and 5:19.

Ben van Beekum drove by us at the end and stopped and chatted with us at the finish of the run at Smith's.  He's doing well and trying to get back running again after his surgery.  We're excited to hopefully get him back running with us here soon!

Beautiful weather this morning for a run!  And perfectly clear trails in March!  You gotta love that.