What ever it takes!

No run today, went down to the hotel gym for 45 minutes just to get the blood moving and stretch out a little bit before a busy work day.  Then I went outside and it was warmish and no traffic on this Sunday morning.  I totally should have gone for a run.  Oh well.

5:00 am.  Early work morning so I had to wake up early after another terrible night sleep. Ran the abridged Tour De Paris this morning, out around the Arc De Triumph, down to the river and back to the Louvre and back to the hotel.

7 miles in 46:12  6:36 avg pace.  It's very difficult to keep a pace under 7:00 running through the city, even at 5:00 in the morning.  Probably good for interval training though, stoping and starting at every intersection. 

5:00 am, Well I'm finally on Paris time I think, got a full night sleep last night, that must mean its time to go home.  Woke up early to get my run in but then I started reading FRB posts and before I knew it I was behind schedule.  I thought this blog was suppose to help me run more, not less.  I guess that will teach me to be the first one to post on one of Allies' races. 

Just ran in autopilot mode this morning, wore headphones this morning and listened to music.  It was a very nice morning not to cold, not to hot, a little bit muddy by the river but not bad.  Another long day sitting at a desk in a crowed IT room watching bits move, fun fun.

8 miles in 56:00.  7:00/mile pace exactly. 

5:00 am.  So there was absolute mayhem in the streets of Paris last night, it snowed all day and there was a least 1 inch of snow accumulated on the streets.  People were abandoning their cars, taxis refused to take people places,  just crazy, we took the subway down to the Christmas shops on the Champs Elysees last night and it was a huge icy slushy mess, no shovels in France apparently.    So last night I pretty much decided my chances of running today weren't looking promising but at 4:00 am some wrong number from Provo called me and woke me up, I threw on some clothes and went downstairs to see what the roads looked like, to my dismay they just looked wet, no ice that I could see.  Knowing that I would feel bad I didn't run all day if I didn't go I went back up to my room and changed in to running clothes and off I went.  Well turns out the 20 feet in front of my hotel was the only non-icy spot in Paris.  The rest of the run was pretty much what I had feared, icy, chunky, mess.  I just went really slow, I was just wearing my Nike Free's not the best traction shoes in the world but it wasn't terrible, I never really felt out of control.

Ran to the Arc De Triumph made a circle around it and down the Champs Elysees, some delivery guy on a motor scooter making a left turn totally wiped out in the middle of the Champs Elysees, I ran out and helped him pick his scooter backup and pick up random pieces that had fallen off, I think we determined he was OK, he could have told me he was bleeding on the inside, both arms and legs were broken and he was having a hard time breathing and I wouldn't have know better, but anyway, he jumped back on his scooter and scooted away.

Ran back to the hotel,  6 miles in 45 minutes.  7:30/avg pace.  It actually felt really nice to slow it down, I should do it more often.  Now off to work, finally the last day, I am so ready to go home tomorrow. 

Home at last, woke up at  4:30 am Paris time to get one last run in, I wanted to try and get a longer run in for my last run in Paris, but I would have been better off wearing ice skates, it was really slippery and dangerous so I had to go really slow, I ended up running down the middle of the street most of the time betting taxi drivers were safer than black ice,  Humm, it's a toss up.   I realized I hadn't seem the miniture statue of Liberty and figured I should probably go see it so I could say I saw all the common tourist sites.  Ran back to the hotel, downed a quick breakfast and headed for the train station to the Airport,  Got home for the most part on time,  I have been awake for 20 hours straight so far, hope I can get a good night sleep cause I'm planning a long run tomorrow morning with Ryan to try and get back on schedule.

 9 miles in 50 something, 7:10 avg pace. 

I made plans with Ryan to go running outside this morning to try and get over Jetlag, last night on my way home from the Airport it was rainy snow mix and I texted Ryan and said I didn't want to run in the rain and snow, he concurred and we decided to just carpool to Life Time and run there.  Met at 5:30 and went to the gym, turns out it probably would have been a great morning for an outdoor run but oh well.

We did a nice progressive run starting at around 6:40 pace for 3 miles and then started bumping up the speed .1 mph every 5 minutes, at 9.5 miles in 1 hour at the treadmill reset we took it easy for another 1.5 miles and then tried to sprint out the last 1.  Set the treadmill at 5 min/mile pace but my heart rate immediately shot up and I felt like I was going to pass out after about 1/4 mile and had to slow it down.  I'll blame it on jetlag, it was a very uncomfortable feeling which I haven't really felt before.

Anyway, felt good to get the legs moving this morning and hopefully get back on Utah time.

12 miles in 1:15:38  6:18 avg pace.

So, I'm not exactly sure what happened in Paris, if it's wind burn or acid rain but my face is totally red and peeling.  I look like Mike Tyson hit me in the face, all red around the eyes.  My 3 year old asked me if my eyes were bleeding.  Really odd.