What ever it takes!

6:00 am.  5 Mile easy recovery run with Nelle.  8:10 pace.  Very nice morning, light breeze with ocational rain sprinkles. 

Watching the Tour De France, poor Lance.  I blame his team.

5:00 am, 8 Miles of General Aerobic followed by 10 x 100's.  I was planning on running on the treadmill for 2 miles until the sun came out and then hitting the trail, but it's so convenient sometimes to just stay on the treadmill.  I tried to keep a pace where my HR would stay at or below 145, I started at about a 7:20 pace for 1 mile and then went to a 7:00 pace.  Held that for 5 miles my HR stayed about 142 for most of the run but the last 2 miles it was between 145 - 150 so I kept slowing the pace to get it back down.

Took a quick water break at 8 miles and then came back and hit some hard repeats.  Started at 4:30 pace for the first one and slowly worked up to a 4:15 pace for my last.  I think I actually did 11 repeats, for some reason math doesn't add up correctly all the time when your pushing hard.

11:45 am.  4 Mile Recovery run for lunch.  Yummm.  Here is a fun game on an otherwise boring recovery run.  Pick a heart rate and try to keep it there at the same pace.  I choose 130 as my target at an 8:00 min/mil pace.  Started out around 125 for 2 miles then it got up close to 129.  I would mess around with different breathing methods, different stride lengths and incline and decline on the treadmill.  I did hit 132 a few times but was able to bring it down pretty easy by changing things up a little.  It's suprising how you can  control your heartrate by changing your thoughts or music.

5:00 am 15 Miles.  I wanted to give today a little bit harder effort, for 2 reasons.  I felt like the last few days I ran pretty easy, and I had to catch an 8:30 flight to Irvine CA.  My goal was to average a 6:45 pace over the entire run, which isn't so hard on the Treadmill, but the trail can be a little more difficult. 

I started out on the Treadmill for the first 5 miles waiting for day light,  Did that in 33:30.  6:42 pace.  Then I went out to the trail for the remaining 10.  I had to pretty much run the length of the trail out and back twice.  Was averaging about 6:40 for the first 7 miles but I started bonking a little bit the last 3, struggled really hard to keep it below 7:00 pace for that last 3.  I think it had something to do with the sun coming out and temps going up a little.  Ended up averaging 6:45 exactly for the 10 so if I do the math right I beat my goal by about 2 seconds/mile.  Yea.

At the Airport on my way to Irvine right now, anyone know good places to run there?  I saw there was some Laguna Park about 8 miles away with mountain bike trails may get a taxi to take me there and try it out if I have the time.

Avg HR 158

Max HR 169

6:00 am, An awesome morning recovery run here in Southern California.  I don't understand why more people don't live here.  Oh wait they do.

Followed a bike trail from my hotel out to Newport beach, my Garmin battery died about 1 mile into it so I didn't have anything to pace off of.  I was trying for 8:00 min/mil but I felt to good down here with all this oxygen and I'm sure I was much closer to 7:20's.

I wasn't going to take my clucky phone running with me but decided I should since I'm in a new place and never know what to expect.  I'm glad I did cause I ran into this guy just walking up the trail 10 feet from me.  He didn't even care I was there, pretty neat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-omdbMv-78

5:30 am. 14 Miles.  Well no Bobcats today fairly uneventful.  Today was considerably warmer than yesterday and more humid here in So. Cal..  I followed the same trail from the hotel down to the bay, but this time instead of turning around I continued on the road out around the bay.  The signs kept saying "loop" but I never saw anything that looked like it looped.  This road looks like a pretty popular training route for some pretty hardcore looking Tri-atheletes and runners.  I was going to post my Garmin run but my Macbook has a design flaw, I can't have my EVDO card and Garmin plugged in at the same time.  Anyway, 14 miles in 1:35.

6:49 min/mil average.  Didn't bring my HR strap with me but wish I would have.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/40608648

5:30 am. 10 Mile General Aerobic.  Back in Utah, did my normal 10 mile trail run out and around Smiths.  Very nice cool morning for a run, glad to be back. 

Avg Pace 7:21

Avg HR. 146

Max HR. 165 (coming up the hill home)

Added my cool Newport beach run to yesterdays post.

5:30 am.  Met with Ryan in the Cabelas parking lot, he actually beat me there so I figured he must have been really excited to run 20.  Ran down to the Legacy center out center street to the Lake back to Willowpark on the river trail continued around Thanksgiving point back up the horrible hill to Cabelas. 

Very nice first 1/2 of the run before the sun, but after about mile 12 it got warm, probably the hottest run I've done all year.  No comments people down in Arizona and St. George.

20 miles in 2:21.  7:06 avg. pace I think is what it said.

I think I convinced Ryan to run Deseret News Marathon next week as a training run, so I'll see you there.