Everything Counts

11.15 miles easy through Ogden with Dave, Denver, Ken, Ben, and Jon, avg pace 7:17/mile. At one point we had Ken laughing so hard he collapsed to the ground and laid in the curb laughing...good ab workout!

10.3 miles easy on a snow-filled, hilly route, avg pace 7:16/mile.

400 METER REPS

I met Ken, Denver, Dave, and Matt at Smith's and we warmed up out to the tempo loop with a few strides and the did 12 by 400 with 90-second jogging rest. I averaged 67.8, which is 4:31 pace. Next time we do this workout I need to extend to 500 meters or do 16 reps of 400.

9 miles easy with Dave, Denver, and Jon M from the 21st street pond, avg pace 7:35/mile.

6 miles easy with Dave from my house in South Weber, avg pace 6:58/mile. Still no new baby here in the Cook house. Unless Amy goes into labor tonight, I think I may hop in the Ogden WRC 10-miler tomorrow morning. I haven't raced in over a year, and I'm apprehensive about racing right now due to lack of fitness. But I think racing tomorrow will get me going and light a fire, so it'd be good.

FAILED 10-MILE TEMPO/RACE SIMULATION

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I was going to hop in the WRC 10-miler if Amy didn't go into labor. Well, at 1:30 am, Amy woke me up and by just before 5:00 am this little cutie entered the world:

We named her Nora.

So the race was off. I didn't really plan on running, but a window of opportunity opened to get a run in and I decided to run the race route as a tempo to see where my fitness stood.

I did a 2-mile warmup and then started the tempo. The downhill really hurt! I haven't run any fast downhill since I started running again and I could tell on the steep downhill sections. I got through the first 4.25 miles at 5:20 pace (5:21, 4:56, 5:23, 5:32), but then my GI system told me I had to stop. I did a quick 0.4 mile detour to a restroom and then tried to resume the tempo. I ran the next 1.8-ish miles uphill the beastly hills at a 6:00 average, but then had to stop again as my stomach just wasn't having it. So after that I just called off the rest of the tempo and headed back. So, I didn't really learn anything about my fitness and have no clue how fast I could've run.

So, we're happy to have our new baby with us and both Mom and baby are doing well.

AM: 12 miles easy on the Riverdale Parkway with Ben, Ken, Dave, Jon, Denver, and Matt, avg pace 7:20/mile. I was very tired!

PM: 3.8 more easy miles at 7:12/mile pace. I also threw in 5x7-second hill sprints at max speed. When I got home I did core and pushups.

10 miles easy with Ben in South Ogden, avg pace 7:26/mile.

AM: AEROBIC BUILDER: 3-2-3 SANDWICH

I met up with Ken, Jason, Dave, Ben, Jon, and John at the 21st Street Pond for a builder. Ken and I wanted 8 miles worth of 5:15 pace. I knew I couldn't do 8 miles non-stop, but I thought we could maybe swing 2x4 miles at 5:15. Jason joined us for the first mile, but quickly realized he wasn't quite recovered from last week's marathon and he backed off. Just before the 3rd mile of the builder Ken was starting to fade a bit and I was very questionable on whether I could hold for another mile, so I told him to stick with me to three miles and we'd adjust to a 3-3-2 or 3-2-3. So we rested four minutes after the first three miles then ran a two-mile set that went up over the pedestrian bridge (easily the slowest/hardest mile), rested another four minutes, and then we closed with a three-mile set. So it didn't end up like I planned (2x4) but I did still get 8 miles at 5:15 and I was more concerned with pace and quantity than I was with how it was broken down.

3 miles: 5:13 5:17 5:16 (mile 2 was likely 5:14 effort as I had to slow for traffic crossing)

2 miles: 5:06 5:15

3 miles: 5:15 5:15 5:15

PM: 2.05 easy shakeout run around South Weber, 7:14/mile pace. Then I did my core and pushups. I also did a fair amount of painful foam rolling.

9.65-mile easy, trail run with Denver, avg pace 8:14/mile.

10.05 miles easy in Ogden with Ken, Ben, Dave, Denver, and Matt, avg pace 7:04/mile.

LONG RUN WITH 8-MILE PICKUP

We had a great group of guys out there this morning. We met at the 29th Street Trailhead and ran along the trails out to North Ogden and then dropped down to Ben's house. Other than a few slower miles on single track in the dark, we held a pretty good pace for the whole run. Ken, Jason, Dave, and I ran 8 miles faster from 9-16. Splits were 5:58 5:46 5:45 5:43 5:40 5:42 5:08 5:11. The first six were mostly flat with some soft rollers on dirt, the 7th mile was bombing downhill, and the last mile was a very slight uphill.

AM: 13 miles easy with the guys on the Monday Funday route, avg pace 7:15/mile. We did 5x7-second hill sprints towards the end of the run.

PM: 3.8 miles easy in South Weber, avg pace 6:42/mile. Then I did some core and pushups at home afterwards. I've gotten a bit lazy on the core and need to get back on top of it.

10 miles easy with Ben, Denver, and Dave on the Riverdale Parkway, avg pace 7:37/mile.

800-METER REPEATS

We had a large group meet at the Ogden High Track for some intervals. I ran 10 reps of 800 meters with a 400-meter jog in between.

Splits: 2:27 2:25 2:28 2:25 2:24 2:24 2:24 2:23 2:24 2:20 (Avg just barely under 2:25).

PM: 2.05 mile shakeout avg pace 7:07/mile.

10 easy, recovery miles on the trails in the dark by headlamp with Dave, avg pace 8:52/mile with 1,600 feet of elevation change (am I blogging this correctly trail runners?) It was a very enjoyable run, we saw two herds of deer, which is cool and also creepy in the dark when your headlamp suddenly illuminates ten pairs of eyes! After the run I did some upper body lifting at the gym.

7.3 miles with a monster climb to the top of the "U", avg pace 8:14/mile. No, not to the top of that "U", to the top of this "U":

LONG RUN: PROGRESSION

I met Jason at his house in Layton/Clearfield and we did a long run on the rail trail and west into Syracuse and along that pathway out there into West Point and finally climbing back up to the rail trail again back to his house. 

We ran the first 15 miles on a progression, the final four of which were uphill. First 15 miles were: 720 653 635 633 628 622 554 555 555 551 551 544 541 535 529. Then we ran the last four miles as a cooldown. Overall pace was 6:23/mile. This is my longest run in a over a year! This fat, old, out-of-shape, previously-injured body is starting to round back into form slowly...

10.25 miles easy on our Monday Funday route with Ken, Bret, Denver, Dave, Jon, and Ben, avg pace 7:00/mile.

TEMPO RUN: PROGRESSION

Another solid turnout this morning for a tempo run. Dave, Ben, Ken, Jason, Denver, Matt, Tim, and I warmed up four miles from the pond to the mouth of Ogden Canyon and then tempo-ed back to the pond. I planned on a progressive tempo. My splits were:

Mile one: 5:14 (net drop 64 feet)

Mile two: 5:11 (net drop 39 feet)

Mile three: 5:04 (net drop 24 feet)

Mile four: 4:58 (net drop 2 feet)

10 miles easy in East Ogden with some grass, some trails, and some road, avg pace 8:04/mile. After the run I did some light upper body lifting at the gym.

8 miles easy on the Riverdale Parkway with detours on the Kingfisher Loop and in Fort Buenaventura with Ken, Jon, Denver, and Dave, avg pace 7:38/mile.

6.05 miles easy at work with Dave, avg pace 6:52/mile.

Tomorrow will be my first race in 13 months! Yikes! I'm certainly a little nervous and very excited. I don't know what to expect. But I do want a positive experience out of it, so I plan a conservative start. My fitness is ok, but I'm skeptical I have the stamina and endurance for a really fast time. I would be happy with anything under 1:12 and thrilled with 1:10, especially since this is my rust-buster! Everyone who's running I will see you up there tomorrow!

OGDEN WRC HALF MARATHON

Well first race in over a year is finally in the books! Man it felt so good to finally race again. I'm grateful to be back at it and healthy. I tried to keep my expectations in check for today. It's only been four months since I resumed training and although I've had some good workouts, I was worried about my stamina/endurance. I've hit short tempos in the 5:15 range but nothing close to 13 miles!

I came up with a range of 1:10-1:12 and hoped to hit that, but full disclosure in the back of my mind I thought on a perfect day I could maybe, just maybe hit a 1:09. But I tried not to think about that and I certainly didn't want to try and force that.

At the start we knew it was essentially a four-man race up front with Fritz, Mike, and Dave joining me. I stuck to my conservative start for the first mile hitting a 5:20 on the mile that has the most elevation drop of the whole race (NOTE: They changed the course a bit, moving the start line up the canyon a mile so it corresponds exactly with the first half of the Ogden Marathon, but after mile 8 they had us go onto a paved trail along the road that was very rolling and probably slower than the road would've been. So essentially they gave us probably 20 seconds by switching start line, but then took some back by making us hit the path. Overall, this new course is faster though I'd think). Fritz took a lead with some mystery kid, while Mike and I ran side by side for the first two miles. Mile 2 was 5:24, so still conservative.

Here's picture taken by OnlyinOgden of the race start:

Toward the end of mile 2 Fritz was coming back a bit and Mike and I weren't really pushing the pace, by mile 3 we had caught and passed Fritz. It was obvious it just wasn't Fritz's day; he's at the end of a long marathon block with tons of volume and workouts and his legs just weren't fresh (He'll be just fine though once he tapers for a marathon). Mile 3 was 5:09.

I could hear Mike's footsteps just behind me through mile 4 or 5 and then they slowly faded away. So, I knew I had at least a little bit of a lead. Mile 4 was 5:08 and Mile 5 5:09.

Here's Mike and me in either mile 3 or 4, not certain which:

Right around the same spot on the course:

Not too much else to report for the rest of the race, I mainly tried to keep a good pace as I knew there were excellent runners still just behind me. At Mile 6 I did a mental check and evaluated how I felt. Breathing was good, legs felt good, and I felt I could keep this effort for quite a bit longer. At mile 8 you turn and the downhill is over and you hit the path and the rolling hills. Mile 6 5:09 Mile 7 5:12 Mile 8 5:15.

Mile 11 was particularly brutal on the path with a gradual climb and then a very steep bombing down; I couldn't help but look at the road at this point and yearn for it! Mile 9 5:20 Mile 10 5:17 Mile 11 5:27.

During mile 12 I got a side-stitch but nothing bad enough to slow me down. At this point I just really wanted to get to the finish. Mile 12 was 5:19 and Mile 13 5:18 with 5:18 pace for final tenth as well. I was happy to cross that line with my first race back under my belt and even happier it was a win.

Finish photo by GOAL Foundation:

After the race Dave, Fritz, Mike, and I did a cool down on the trails around the lake. It was fun seeing so many familiar faces that I haven't seen in awhile. 

So, the comeback is going well (as good as I could hope really up to this point). But I still have a ways to go! I want a huge year and I want to take a crack at an OTQ. But I'm nowhere near fit enough yet for that, so it's back to work!

AM: 12 miles easy in South Ogden with Denver, Dave, Jon, Ken, and Ben avg pace 7:30/mile.

PM: 3.4 miles easy in South Weber, avg pace 6:50/mile.

10.3 miles easy with Dave and Ben on Monday Funday route on a Tuesday, avg pace 7:18/mile. After the run Dave and I did some light upper body lifting.