What ever it takes!

30 minutes on the elliptical trainer, 30 minutes of weights. 

Going on 17 straight days of work.  4 more to go.  I need a vacation!!!

And I'm off,  12 weeks to St. George.  Sasha told me I should drop out and not run any races the rest of the year.  I value Sasha's advice a lot, and think he knows infinitely more about running that I do, But..... St. George just means to much to me right now.  I've been waiting to run it for 3 years now, it's the race I envision even when I'm training for something else.  I agree, with only 12 weeks to get in marathon shape I may end up with a disappointing performance and want to give up running forever, but that is a risk I'm willing to take.  So sorry Sasha, thanks for the advice but I'm goin' for it... 

Plan today was 10 miles with strides,  I wanted to just find a pace that I felt I could run 10 miles at, not to easy but not hurt myself.  I thought 7:00 avg seemed like a good goal.  Ran the Hudson River trail because I like the flat, it feels like I'm running a track and can judge my effort better than the Central Park hills.  I found 6:40 pace right away and liked how it felt so I decided to hold it there.  Couldn't have had more even splits if I were on a treadmill,  every mile I looked down was like 6:39, 6:41, 6:40.  It felt good and I was really enjoying it.  Stopped at the 5 mile turn around (Harlem Peir Park) for a quick drink, I drank to much though cause I ran the second 1/2 with a side cramp the whole way.  Didn't let it slow me down though.  Around mile 7 the 6:40 pace started to feel like work but I pushed through it and never let my self slow down.

Wow!  Just saw the HR.  Looks like I need to work on that.  Honestly, I think the heat and humidity have alot to do with it.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace		Avg HR	Max HR
1	6:51	6:51		155	173
2	13:30	6:39		158	162
3	19:58	6:28		166	169
4	26:39	6:41		168	171
5	33:21	6:42		169	173
6	39:55	6:34		166	171
7	46:32	6:37		171	175
8	53:10	6:38		173	176
9	59:50	6:40		172	174
10	1:06:44	6:54		170	175
Total	1:06:44	6:40		168	176

 My work is paying for my Wife to fly in to see me for the rest of the week.  I'm pretty excited about it cause I really need my laundry done, and frankly, I don't know how to do it.  JK, I went and did it last night. But I really am very excited for her to come, she has never been to Manhattan so I had the hotel upgrade me to a sweet suite on the 41st floor over looking the Hudson river.  I could have got the Time Square view, but those rooms are way to noisy at night.  Pretty excited to take her running in the park tomorrow.

Wow!  It is hot and humid.  Worse than any day down in Miami last week.  Pretty suffocating and miserable.  I was up late last night walking around the City with Britt,  We walked up 5th Ave, through the Park and then back on Broadway.  Just so she could get her directions down since she is sightseeing alone today while I work.

I woke up at 4:50 so I could get an early start, out the door at 5:05, ran the 7 mile long inner park loop and then back to the hotel to pick up Britt.  7.5 in 55:22  7:22 avg pace.   Perfect timing Britt had just arrived in the hotel lobby, I told her it was very hot and she wasn't sure she could go the planned 6 miles.  We started out slow,  she kept wanting to speed up but I told her to pace herself so we could make the whole reservoir loop.  I tried to keep us at around 8:30 pace, she kept getting mad that we were getting passed by people so I'd go faster and start to drop her, so then I'd slow down.  I'm not exactly sure what she wanted, she's not a great partner runner, plus she listens to music the whole time so anytime I tried to talk to her she can't hear me anyway.  Still had a good time, we made it around the reservoir without stopping, 4 miles, then she decided she needed to walk a bit.  I went off ahead and ran a little over 1/2 a mile and then back to meet her to add a bit and keep from walking.  After I caught back to her she decided she was able to run the rest of the way back to the hotel.

Good, run.  I was very excited to share my Central Park route with Britt.  I'm not so sure she enjoyed it so much, it really was quite a miserably muggy day for running.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace
1	7:22	7:22
2	14:48	7:26
3	21:59	7:11
4	29:10	7:11
5	36:37	7:27
6	43:46	7:09
7	51:13	7:27
8	59:33	8:20
9	1:08:13	8:40
10	1:16:50	8:37
11	1:25:07	8:17
12	1:32:53	7:46
13	1:41:12	8:19
13.5	1:44:44	8:55
Total	1:45:07	7:48

Just a warning to anyone out there that may want to go running with my wife.  She is the worst running partner in the world.  She listens to her music the whole time, and runs like 20 yards behind me, when ever I slow down for her to catch up she just slows down more and gets mad at me for not running fast enough.

We ran down to the Hudson River trail, but mixed it up a bit and ran the other direction than my normal route,  (towards the Statue of Liberty) at the 2 mile mark I told Britt to run 5 more minutes and then turn around and I would catch up to her, well her music was so loud that she didn't hear me say turn around, so I ran out ahead to 3 1/2 so I could get 7 in and then turned around, 1/2 a mile back Britt was still coming towards me, when I got to her she said she was tired and needed to walk.  So we walked out to the peir to look at the Statue of Liberty then I realized it was already 7:00 and we were 3 miles from the hotel and I had to be to work at 7:30.  I left her my phone and sprinted back, made it just in time.  Now I'm not sure what the rush was, nothing is really happening at work but the anxiety was to much.

Not sure how I'm going to get my run in tomorrow, we have an 8:00am flight back to Billings Montana, then a 2 hour drive to Sheridan.  So ready to be done with work,  I've worked 3 weeks straight,  21 days without a day off.  That's to much.

Paris, Lauterbrunnen Switzerland, Gimmiwald Switzerland, Washington DC, San Francisco, Anaheim, Miami Beach, Bejing China, Central Park

8 Quick miles on the hotel treadmill before our flight home.  We are doing a local 5K tomorrow, I'm not expecting to much out of it.  I'm a wreck.

So I'm in Sheridan Wyoming, never heard of it have you?  This is the small hometown my wife grew up in, closest "big city" is Billings Montana.  This week in Sheridan is Rodeo Week, pretty much the biggest thing that ever happens here, shops close down, there is a huge parade and a 5K, and then to finish it off the NRCA rodeo series.  The other interesting thing about Sheridan is a lot of really rich people move here to get away from it all, the owner of Mars Candy lives here, the owner of Purina.  So there are some big sponsors for a little home town shin dig.

I ran this 5K with my wife 2 years ago and it was what you would expect from a small home town 5K in Wyoming, this year however M&M, Oakly sunglasses, and the same people that put together the Big Horn 100 that was 2 weeks ago sponsor the race.  So there were some good prizes and pretty much every High school cross country team from Wyoming was here.

I went for an easy 5 miler this morning and ran down and followed the route just to get it figured out, had stomach issues, and leg cramping issues during my morning run and knew today was not going to be pretty.

Anyway, I gotta go to the parade.  Long story short, I got a 5K PR, because I've never raced a 5K before, bad news I've ran faster 5K's 10 miles into a 18 mile training run before.  So not a great day.  Oh Well.

******************************************

Now, short story long.  This was really Britt's race,  she has been training for this the past month.  She wanted to do good in front of her old High School friends, when I told her I wasn't feeling very good this morning she told me to just run with her instead.  I told her I would go out fast and then if I fell apart I'd wait for her, well, I did fall apart but I didn't wait for her, once you're in race mode you just kind of have to go.  I lined up front with about 30 high school kids, the first 500M is down main street slightly downhill and very fast.  I told myself to not try and go out with the track kids, but once the gun...s went off I couldn't help but go fast,  I looked down and saw that we were at sub 5:00 pace.  I thought Oh No!  This is bad, I slowed down a little but was still going way to fast, at the 1/2 mile mark I realized I was about ready to loose my banana all over the road and had to slow way down.  Thought about waiting for Britt at that point but decided to just try and find my comfort pace, I never did, I felt sick the entire race, at mile 2 the first place girl passed me, I got behind her and ran with her the rest of the way.  I thought I didn't want to get chicked but I'd wait until the final sprint down main street to pass her.  Well turns out she had a faster kick than me and beat me by about 2 seconds.  I don't think she even knew she was competing with anyone :)  I finished and turned around and started running back the course to find Britt, I only had to go 500M and she was turning the corner onto main street.  I was really surprised to find her that quick.  I paced her in, she was looking really strong and having a great time.  I split off right before the finish line and some guys came up and tried to push me back onto the road, they said "you're almost there, you can do it"  That was my favorite part of the day, I was like 10 feet from the finish and they thought I'd just given up.

This is probably one of the funnest, most well organized 5K's ever, 3.1 miles on the dot according to my watch, and about 10,000 people cheering you on coming down the final stretch.  Granted, they are all there for the parade not the race but still very fun.  

Britt was trying for a sub 24:00 and ended up at 23:35, a 4 minute PR for her, so awesome job to her, soon she will be the runner in the family.  I really wish I could have been feeling better, but I really wasn't expecting much, too much work, too much travel, and too much fatigue the last few weeks.

Great bonding moment with my 9 year old this morning, last night I was trying to figure out how to get my long run in today.  There is a country road "Big Goose Rd" that goes from Sheridan out to the Big Horn mountains that is pretty flat and runs by a stream the whole way.  I was a little worried about where to get water if needed so I came up with the great idea to have my 9 year old ride bike support.  I was about to drive out to Walmart and buy a cheap bike for him when we looked over and realized he was probably big enough to ride Grandmas bike with the seat all the way down, tested it out and sure enough he fit.  Lucky he is a tall 9 year old. 

So this morning I woke Bradin up at 5:00am (what a trooper) and off we went.  He is a great running partner, talks the whole time, askes me everything about what a professional bike rider would do in this situation. :)  The time just flew by,  we went pretty slow going out,  Averaging about 7:45 min/mil.  Plan was 17 miles today but we were behind schedule so I decided to cut it short and turn around at 7.5.  Coming back we had the sun in our face, but it was much faster,  we picked up the pace about 1 min/mile, if I would have known the return was so much faster I would have gone the extra 2 miles.

Great run with Bradin, on an absolutely perfect morning.  15 miles in 1:51:03  7:24 avg.

Now off to get some father in law bonding.  He is taking me to the lake to go Kyaking.  Should be fun.