Sock tans

AM:

Cemetery run. Felt good until about the 6th mile. Stayed with Bill, Eleanor and Jakob. We started out slow but brought the pace down. My quads hurt. When we got back into Sugarhouse I was really tired, but we added to get to 10. The last mile was really slow.

PM:

Ran 4 miles with Emmaline from my house.

Today practice was at Wheeler Farm. We did the big loop warmup then strides on the grass. Then we went over to the smaller loop and did a fartlek, 2 minutes on 1 minute off, 1 minute on 1 minute off5 times. I ran with Bill for most of it, I kept up until the 5th set. On that set I was trying to stay close though. Felt better about this workout than some of the other fartleks that I've done. Then we cooled down with a big loop and more to get to 10.5 (I forgot that I started my garmin late in the fartlek workout because I was still setting it up when we started, so I was a half mile behind according to my garmin, added more but then realized that I didn't need to. Oh well.)

Today was just a recovery run. We did Shriners run and change the route on the way back to go up by legacy bridge and come back down to foothill and Sunnyside, then added to get to 8. Felt pretty good, didn't push the pace at all and averaged 8:11.

AM:

Morning practice at Sugarhouse. We did the course, then strides and cool down to 4.

PM:

Race! Did warmup with the girls then later with Eleanor and it all totaled 3.25. My legs were a bit tired and I was hungry but whatever. 

I didn't have great position going up the first hill right at the start, it narrowed right before and slowed down and I had a hard time moving up. The hill was slow even though I was trying to pass people. Finally passed along the road at the top, had to do short speed changes to move up. Going down the hill I passed a few, downhill is one of my strengths I think. Then getting close to state hill I flashed back to state last year where I tripped and hurt my knee, which was my breaking point at state, and told myself I was not going to break today. Going up state hill I feel I could have worked harder a few passed me there. Going down I recovered a bit and then around the pond stayed about the same. Going up poker hill was the hardest part, I slipped a bit right there and a few passed me. Bill told me at the top I was close to Mary and sure enough I saw her, I couldn't believe it. Obviously she wasn't having a good race but it kept my spirits up. It took me a bit to recover after that and it wasn't until the downhill that I started to feel good enough to push again. Then the small uphill was again difficult. But I worked through it and pushed all along the pond. Coming at the end of the pond I was struggling, across the bridge and really struggled to get myself moving. I picked it up a bit though. Then I started to kick where I told myself I wa going to start kicking which was where we made our final turn. I passed a girl, my kick was slow and steady. The girl sprinted past me right at the last second so that was disappointing. But overall I'm happy with it it's my best on the course, best this season, and best this early in the season (I think.) I stayed mentally tough and worked through it when I wanted to quit.

Cooled down with Bill, Eleanor and Chris. 

Ow. My Calves. They're dying. Wearing spikes for the first time in months is probably what did it. They hurt so bad, I didn't do the mile of speed changes we were supposed to do. I ran to Liberty and then we ran over to the granite track I think it was, and then that's when I split from the group and went up to 7th and back to liberty. Added a bit at liberty to get to 8. Last Summer practice :(

Nice little run with Bill, Chris, Eleanor and Garek. Okay little was the wrong word. LONG. This was the longest run I have done EVER. Previously it was 15. We did rail trail, my first time doing that as well. So we got in elevation training and a long run all in one run. I felt fine until about the 10 mile mark, where I started to get tired. I started to fall off, but didn't let them get too far until about the 12 mile mark, where I stopped for the first time. My legs were tired and I just wanted to walk for a sec. After about a minute I started to run again. Stopped once again around mile 15 cause I was tired. Got to 16 then Bill added a half mile with me to get me to my weekly mileage. Man I'm tired now, but it was a good run. I didn't walk as much as I thought I would, twice is much better than I expected :) and each were only for a minute. My pace was probably way slow by the end, but while I was with the group we were averaging 7:30, for 10 miles of it. Guess the downhill helped with that. It turns out the group had actually picked up the pace when I fell off. So I'm hoping I stayed somewhat the same for at least some of it. Glad I did it, but now it's nap time.