Summit junkie!

40 minutes on the elliptical and 30 minutes working my core/abs while watching football. I guess that would be Sundee Sinning x 2. I love multi-tasking.

Monday = Weights at the gym. I wasn't feeling it tonight and it took me at least 20 minutes to get going. I lifted with a friend of mine and got 50 minutes in, which wasn't enough, so when I got home I broke out my dumbbells and went for another 20 minutes.

I will be climbing Mt. Wire/Red Butte in the morning so I wanted to keep my legs fresh but still get in some cardio, so I went to the gym to run on the TM. I started off at a nice easy pace, but decided I better do some speed work since I haven't done any lately, so after a nice comfy 9:00 mile to warm up I did 8:20, 7:40, and 7:05. The last mile I dropped to a 6:40 pace for half a mile and it almost killed me. I tried to hold it, but I was hurting, so I slowed down for the last half mile. I obviously need some work.

I woke up this morning at 5:00 am and had a message from MatthewVH letting me know he was bailing on Mt. Wire this morning. I looked outside and saw 5 inches of snow, so I figured it was probably a good choice. I took my gear to work anyway hoping that Jun would want to get out and wouldn't you know it he was already planning a run.

We (me, Jun and Dustin) ran the Gully trail starting at 13th East. The trail was mostly covered in snow and slush. The conditions were not ideal, but the temperature was almost perfect. For some reason I was just not feeling it at all today. My legs were heavy, and my energy was low. We ran all the way to the Bell Canyon trail and then went all the way up to the lake and I was lagging behind Jun and Dustin, as they motored up the steep trail.

At the lake we stopped for a break and I ate about 10 snowballs that really hit the spot. So good. Kind of like a sugar free Slurpee (mild pollution flavor). Yum. I decided to turn back because I had a customer appointment that I had to get to and Jun and Dustin ran another .7 to the bridge. When I got back down to the Bell Canyon trailhead my energy was really low, probably because I waited to eat lunch, and the snowballs hadn't kicked in yet :) and my left hamstring was getting sore, so I stopped to take a break, eating more snowballs and stretching.

The run back wasn't fun. My legs felt terrible and my energy just wasn't there. I should have taken a gel or two. With about a half mile to go Jun and Dustin blew by me running fast and strong. I just didn't have it in me to keep up. At the trailhead there was this drunk guy that yelled at me "Hey dude, where is your mojo?" He had both hands in the air. Ha. If it wasn't so funny I may have dropped a few grumpy bombs at him, but instead I just agreed with him. He was right. I didn't have my mojo today. Anyway, he then went on for about 5 minutes telling us about the trophy bucks he saw down there in that there gully, and how nobody ever believes him. Good times.

Weights at the gym for 50 minutes. I worked upper body and core and had the place all to myself for the first 20 minutes. I pushed it really hard and everything feels realy good.

Up early to climb Mt. Wire before work with MatthewVH. Matt was about 20 minutes late this morning, so we decided to skip Red Butte and just hit Mt. Wire. While waiting for Matt I did see Brian, a local runner that is very fond of Matt, but he wasn't interested in chatting with me.

We started running from the start and set a pretty good pace up to where it gets really steep. It was warmer than we thought it would be, so we dumped some clothes behind a bush and then humped the steep stuff. The views of the city were stunning as usual and when we got close to the top the sun started to come up over the peaks to the east and it was pretty cool. I love Wasatch sunrises, but the wind really picked up and it was pretty cold. We hit the top just at 55 minutes and by time I got the the summit I was wishing I had my hat and gloves. We didn't stay up there long. We ran most of the way back, just stopping a few times to take in the views. This was my 6th time on the summit this year. It was a really fun morning.

So it looks like I will be doing the Halloween Half tomorrow. I will be one of the pacers. I am not quite sure yet which group I will be pacing, but it should be fun even if I will be going slow.

I was a pacer for the Halloween Half marathon yesterday. A friend of mine asked me if I wanted to do it as they had some open spots and I thought it sounded like fun, so I ended up pacing the 1:55 group. I really love this course and think that the race could be a great one, however there were several issues that they need to get worked out. First of all I waited in line for about an hour in the cold to get on the bus, and then once we were up there the race didn't start on time and there was a lot of confusion. It seemed like they didn't have enough buses because they were still arriving as the race was starting.

I actually really enjoyed running this race and had a lot of fun, but I was really frustrated because I wanted to go faster and it was tough keeping the pace at 8:47, especially on the downhill. I did get to wear a really cool pacer shirt though and that was fun. :) There were a few people that stayed with us most of the race, but for the most part most of the people either dropped off or went faster. I'm really not sure if I will do this again because I really just wanted to race. It was a lot of fun though hanging out with some of the bloggers and seeing a lot of friends, so that made it a fun morning, and I got a nice hug from Jun.

We came in 3 minutes under our pace, but the course was short. In fact, the mile markers were totally messed the whole race. The race director seemed to think that us Utahns weren't very good pacers because we weren't able to take all of this into account. Haha. I had no idea the course was short and I was going strictly off of my Garmin. I knew the mile markers were totally off. All of the pacers I talked to came in about 3 minutes early.

The worst part of the day though was having to wait in the line for the bus. They only had two buses to take everyone back to University Mall. Lame.