Being a little less than a month away from the Salt Lake Marathon, I decidedto try running two half marathons today while pushing the pace. The goal of this workout is to keep a good pace through the first half-marathon and continue this pace through the first half of the second half-marathon before going all out on that last six-and-a-half miles. In the morning, I went on the first 13.1-mile run in which I ran to Big Cottonwood Park, two laps around the softball complex, to Sugarhouse Park by way of 2000 East (i.e., along the Salt Lake Marathon course), then one lap around the inter loop of the park before heading back home. It took me 1:35:48 (7:18 per-mile pace) to complete this first half-marathon. In the afternoon, I repeated this run in a time of 1:49:12 (8:18 per-mile pace). For the first-half of this repeat everything was going well and I was on pace to finish around 1:30; however, my body started giving out during the second half; that is, while running against the wind I started to have stomach problems, my right knee locked-up periodically, and my back became real sore. In short, that last six miles was a nightmare. This is only the fourth time and the first time since March 15, 2008 that I tried this type of workout. The keyword is “tried,” because the first two times I failed to even complete it due to becoming sick on my way back from Sugarhouse Park on the second half. In addition, I have never completed this workout with the second 13.1 miles being faster than the first, which is the ultimate objective. Today was also the repeat of the brutal day nine (i.e., week 3, day 3) of the Push-up Challenge. I was able to accomplish 133 push-ups, but it again took over six sets to complete these push-ups. My sets consisted of 22, 29, 20, 20, a max out of 22, and an extra set of 20 push-ups. I was only a single push-up short on set two (compared to four push-ups short last week) and six push-ups short on the max set (compared to being four short on this max set last week). Consequently, I’m extremely disappointed with only improving by one push-up; therefore, I will three-peat week three of the Push-Up Challenge (looking ahead to week four, I’m not even close to being able to attempt 40 push-ups). In addition, I was able to get in 200 sit-ups and 5 metronomes. | 