What ever it takes!

I felt really guilty for not running yesterday so this morning when I got up I looked outside and saw that the reflection off of the snow made it almost daylight outside.  Threw on my winter running clothes that were still sitting out from yesterday and did a really nice easy run in about 1" of fresh power out along the Murdock Trail and back.

Came back and sat in the hot tub for a bit, now I feel like a million bucks.  

I'm going to try for another big week, but different.  We are headed up to Wyoming this week when school gets out, I'm not sure if that will help or hinder the running.  As long as it's not -20 it should be good for running. 

Pretty aggressive progressive tempo run this morning.  I decided the 18 miles/day wasn't a real good idea, my hip has a slight twinge to it which is scaring me a bit.

Started out at 7:00 pace bumping it up each mile, hit maximum velocity around 5:50 pace. 

12 miles in  1:16:30  6:22 avg pace.  

8 mile avg was closer to 6:10 pace, but figuring out that math with the progression is way to difficult.

I'm looking to buy a roof top carrier for our trip to Wyoming.  Any feedback on Thule vs. Yakima? 

My wife is a teacher at the Elementary school, so the school shooting has been a main topic the last few days, she has to go through trainings of what to do in the situation.  She says she would totally stand between the gunman and her students, which I believe cause she's like that.  I told my two older kids if that ever happens at their school to just start running as fast as they can home.  Not sure if that's what the school would want them to do but it's what I want them to do.

My hip was probably runnable, and probably would have loosened up after a mile or so but I didn't think there was really any reason to risk it.

I remember the specific workout that hurt my hip the first time, I was doing 1 mile repeats and the next day it was really bothering me, I kept running on it and it turned into an almost 1 year long of misery.  I don't want to go through that again.  It's really frustrating that the first good speed workout I have in a while and I get hurt again, I thought that progressive tempos would be saver than repeats cause I was working into them.   I must have a running form problem at faster speeds I should probably get evaluated on.  

We opened up our bigger Christmas presents (as in size) last night so we wouldn't have to pack them up to Wyoming.  My wife got me a stationary bike trainer.  The kind where I just put my road bike on it and ride.  I was pretty excited about it and just planned to workout downstairs this morning.  Somehow even though it's on the other side of the house from the bedroom my wife said it was really loud and woke her up so that's annoying.  I guess if I want to workout at home I'll have to go out in the Garage.

Anyway, I actually got a really good workout, judging by the amount of sweat on my shirt when I got done.  about 1 hour 10 minutes on the trainer, now I have to pack up the car for our road trip.  I've never had to do that before, usually I work and my wife packs, there is no way I'm going to get it right. 

Felt really good to run again after taking 3 days off.  We got to the in-laws house at 1:00 am Thursday morning and I was just way too tired from driving to run yesterday.  

I dug up my Temporary YMCA punch pass and still had 1 punch on it so I woke up early and went to the Y.  12 miles on the treadmill in 1:22.  I'm pretty sure the entire cardio room is slanted on a negative downhill cause it seems exceptionally easy, even putting the treadmill at 1% incline.  Oh well, that's OK it makes up for the treadmills in Prague. 

My wife decided she wants to run the 30K Bighorn ultra in June (not that 30K is an ultra) so I guess that means I'm going to sign up for the 50M again.  She wanted me to run the 30K with her but I told her I couldn't run that slow for 18 miles and would just run the 50 and catch up with her :)  I'm almost positive I can beat my last years time as long as I can keep from falling and bruising my ribs every 5 miles. 

9 very slow, very cold miles running around Sheridan this morning, the bank said 10 degrees.  I'm not sure why some Gyms think they don't need to open until 7:00am on Saturdays. People have needs at 5:00 am, don't they know?

We may go run the Jingle run down main street this morning if I can pry the iPods out of my kids hands. 

*****Jingle Bell 5K*****

Very strange, un-organized run but fun.  The registration fee  was a Toy for Toys for Santa so we decided to have the whole family run, including Grandma.  The run was advertised as a 2 mile run so we figured even Zach (5) could run it with Grandma.  We got to the Foot of the Bighorn shop, where the Bighorn Ultra is organized from in June and there were quite a few Highschool kids from the cross country team there, the Cross Country coach showed up and offered to make it a timed event, and also make it a 5K for those who wanted to run 5K instead of just 2.  I decided to go for 5K and let the rest of my family just do the 2 mile, the 5K was just the 2 mile loop with a smaller loop added on.  I went out with the Highschoolers, it was a bit crazy cause there were no traffic cops, we had to stop for red lights, or at least jump over and around cars, I thought for sure someone was going to die.  At the first left turn I was in 4th place, I don't know the street names of Sheridan enough to know the course exactly, but I knew enough to know they didn't turn where they were suppose to, I yelled at them but they didn't listen, so I followed them anyway cause I thought it would be unfair to get ahead of them.  We went out and finally looped back to catch the correct course, it was about .2 miles long and when we got back on track we were just barely in front of my 5 year old and Mother in law, but still in the lead cause apparently everyone followed us, except my mother in law who lives in Sheridan and knew the correct course :)  The fastest of the high school kids took off at that point, I was still in 4th, then at the next left turn the kid right in front of me missed the turn again and kept running straight, which was odd cause I could see the second place kid still and he went the correct way so I'm not sure why he kept going, we looped around up main street, I was now in 3rd, when we passed the 2 mile finish the kid in front of me stopped, apparently he only wanted to run 2 miles.  Now I was in second but could no longer see the first place kid.  They yelled out 12:45 for my time with I thought was slow but with the extra .2 added probably not bad.  The second time around I took the correct route, was running all by myself but actually started feeling better than I did the first loop.  Ran as fast as I could came in 2nd place for the 5K 3.32 miles in 19:55.  I came in behind most my family, Bradin and Ethan had almost the same time 18:55 for 2 miles but apparently Bradin took the extended route, and Ethan ran the correct route.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, Zach and Grandma finished in 22:?? with an awesome sprint finish.  What a cool kid! 

Truthfully, probably my best 5K effort I've ever done in a non-treadmill 5K.  To bad is was long and crazy.