Everything Counts

30 minutes easy on the bike at the gym.  Quads and hammies are sore, but the calves feel surprisingly good.  I slept in my compression sleeves Saturday night and it worked wonders on the calves.  My knee hurts quite a bit though and that is a concern.

25 minutes on the bike at the gym.  Then I tried to get a short run in but my knee started hurting and I had to turn around early.

1.74 miles @ 6:59 pace.  Ended with 8-minute ab workout.

25 minutes on the bike at the gym.  I tried another run to test the knee out.  Today was better than yesterday, but it still hurts a bit.  I ran the last mile in 5:42 to test out how it felt going faster.  It actually hurt a bit less going fast.  Followed the run up with 10.5 minutes of abs.

3.13 miles @ 6:10 pace.

4 miles easy @ 6:09 pace.  Met Ken for a lunchtime run on base.  The knee hurt for the first half mile, then seemed to warm up.  It was still a bit bothersome, but not so bad as to prevent running.  Finished up with 10.5 minutes of abs.

Leg 5 of the Wasatch Back Relay.  I wasn't sure if I was even going to be able to run.  My knee has been hurting a lot this week.  But I made a commitment to my team to run and I love running with my old teammates (it's like a Weber Track Reunion), so I decided to give it a try.

Going into the leg we were in 2nd place as a team and about 3.5 minutes behind the BYU team for first.  I got anxious and wanted to make up time, so I got after it quickly.  The leg is basically up a mountain, you run up Avon Pass.  You gain over 1200 feet in just under 8 miles.  I was a bit too fast at the start and slowed a bit at the end, but overall a very solid time for running over a mountain pass on a rocky dirt road.  And in the end I cut two minutes out of the BYU lead! Sweet.  Here are my splits from the garmin.

5:51 5:46 6:04 5:58 6:08 6:23 6:59 and 6:06 pace for last .93  Mile 7 gained over 300 feet and was really difficult on me.

The knee hurt the first mile and then warmed up and/or went numb, either way I was able to finish.

Leg 17 of Wasatch Back Relay.  I had a rough night leading up to my second leg.  I had the runs bigtime and my stomach was not being kind to me.  I had to use the potty at five exchanges in a row before my run.  By the time I started running my stomach was really upset and I had sideaches and stomach cramps less than a mile in.  Again, the knee hurt in the first mile and then went away.  Usually my night runs are great at Ragnar, but this was easily my weakest effort this year.  Time was 23:26 for 4.22 miles.  Elevation was 133 gain and 18 loss according to my garmin.  Splits were: 5:34 5:25 5:40 5:35 and 5:18 pace for final .22

Leg 29 of Wasatch Back Relay.  The knee hurt pretty bad now before I even started.  The stomach was still churning and I was now up to 12 stops to the potty in like 13-14 hours.  The knee killed the first mile and only hurt the rest of the way on this one.  I will have to cross train for most of next week and get this knee to heal.  Distance was 2.88 miles with a slight downhill.  Splits were 5:15 5:08 and 5:21 pace for last .88.  Total time was 15:05.

Overall I think we took second place with a team time of 19:49:xx for 197.5 miles or a 6:01 average I think.  Total sleep was one hour almost exactly...not bad!

My teammates were Ken Richardson, Jed Johanson, Bret Ferrier, Trent Hooper, Ben Van Beekum, Kevin Dickey, Braden Perry, Bryant Jensen, Brett Lechtenberg, Steve Shepherd, and Trevor Ricks.