A.M. Big workout. It was fairly cold, probably below freezing. Cold enough for me to wear a long sleeved shirt, a jacket, and tights. Ran at 6:10 AM with Jeff. He is still not 100% so he went only 10 easy. Started at 9:00 pace, fairly quickly progressed to around 7:00. Went to the end of Sasha House 10 Miler, then came back to the Provo River Trail gate by the lake (6.22 in 45:25, 7:18.1 avg). Then started the 7.5 tempo. Felt unmotivated - it was dark and cold, I had a lot of clothes on, and there were leaves on the ground. Decided to be a slacker and run 5:50-6:00 pace. Hit the first mile in 5:46, 14:25 at 2.5. Turned around, the sun came up, I started to pick up the pace. Noticed that my face began to develop its usual grimace. Focused on redirecting the grimace energy into the legs. It worked very well. Ran the next 2.5 (slight down) in 14:07, and closed with 2.5 in 14:09 (slight up), last mile in 5:36, hard but without excessive strain. Total time for 7.5 was 42:41, 5:41.47 avg. Cooled down to the house, 1.38 in 10:06, 7:19.13 avg. Total time for 15.1 was 1:38:12, 6:30.2 avg. P.M. Busy afternoon. Got my run in, though. Drove Zhu to Jiffy Lube to get the oil changed. Ran from there 0.8 in 5:20 (6:40 pace) to Jenny's tumbling recital. Afterwards ran 1.74 to the house with Jenny in 15:32. Then took a single stroller, Julia and Benjamin to retrieve Zhu. Julia ran just the first mile in 10:14. Benjamin ran all the way. He said after the first quarter that he had one horse neighing. Then in the next quarter mile his number of neighing horses gradually increased from 1 to 7. I told him to hold his horses until Julia was in the stroller. Once she was done, Benjamin let his horses loose gradually increasing the pace from 8:00 to around 6:40 at the end. Total time for 2.25 was 19:24. Afterwards we drove to Murdock Travel where I tried in vain to redeem my gift certificates from St. George. I was not particularly impressed with the agents ability to find the best price on a flight. After I had told him I was interested in the best price, he found a flight for $485 SLC to Memphis and back. I had already done my homework, and knew this was not the best price even adding the travel agency overhead into the sum, and I also knew which airline did. I gave him some tips. He was able to find a flight for $385. However, they could not redeem the certificates right away because they were too old, so they were going to wait to call St. George City to see if they would still pay for them. This is something I do not understand. Murdock Travel is a sponsor of the race. Why should St. George City be paying for the certificates? Do they mean to say that they get the publicity without paying a buck, and then attempt to make a profit off the top finishers on top of it? Added another 0.3 running errands between the church and home.
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