Fly me to the moon...

Ran with the group this morning in the frozen tundra.  The temperature was 7 degrees this morning and the water that was standing in the tunnels was now iced over.  I ran 3 miles with Sasha, Mary Ann and Jeff, and then turned around.  My time was 49:57 (8:19/mile) for the 6 miles which was adjusted for the slow walks through the icy tunnels.

Slept in today and didn't get out to run later.  I did shovel 3 driveways and several sidewalks though.  I think I got a pretty good workout from that.

Early morning run with Sasha and Mary Ann.  There was quite a bit of fog this morning and lots of snow on the trail.  It was a bit eerie and cool this morning after we got out far enough on the trail and away from the city lights.  We ran 6 in a time of 58:26 (9:44/mile) with Sasha's time slightly faster due to a VPB stop.

It was surprisingly cold this morning.  The forecast was for much warmer weather, but the morning temp was 9 degrees.  I don't think the forecasted low has ever been correct since I've lived in Utah.  I underdressed a little so I was a little cold but not too bad.  I ran 3 with Sasha, Mary Ann, and Jeff and then turned around for a total of 6 in 49:09 (8:11/mile).  The trail wasn't too bad so we were able to go faster.  Last I saw the forecast was for snow this evening.  We'll see if that actually happens.

Well there was a little bit of snow on the ground this morning, but it only amounted to about a centimeter.  It was just enough to be annoying and slippery with the warmer temps.  It also did a nice job of covering all of the icy slick spots.  You didn't know they were there until your feet started going backwards or you slipped.  On a positive note, the drains under the train tracks were fixed so there was no standing water/ice to contend with.  I ran 3 with Sasha, Mary Ann and Jeff and then turned around.  It was interesting looking at our tracks in the snow on the way back.  We were the only ones out there so there was no confusion with other footprints, and it gave me the chance to study the tracks a bit (for lack of anything else to do).  From what I could tell, I have the worst mechanics in my stride.  My left foot is pretty parallel with my body at footstrike, but I turn my right foot out.  Mine was the most pronounced in that way.  Sasha's footsrike was next, but he turned both feet out about equally.  They weren't as pronounced as my right foot, but worse than Mary Ann and Jeff.  She and Jeff tied for the most neutral footstrike.  Mary Ann turned out her right foot more, but Jeff turned out his left foot.  As far as stride length was concerned, mine was the longest, but the other three were hard to tell.  It was interesting.  Total time for the 6 was 50:50 (8:28/mile).

I ran in the morning with Sasha and Jeff.  I didn't bother to time it because we stopped so many times setting up the course for the race and shoveling snow and ice under the 820 N bridge.  We set up the 5K turnaround point and then I headed home while Jeff and Sasha set up the rest of the marks for the 10K.

I had a quick breakfast, relaxed a little and then headed over to the race.  I ran over the Exchange park for a warmup.  There was a fairly good turnout for a January race in the snow with the temps in the single digits.  We all started at once next to the firestation.  My plan was to push it hard on the dry spots and slow down for the snow and ice along the trail.  I didn't get a good start and got behind some slower runners, but I got around them about 50 meters into the race and took off.  I caught up to Sasha, Jeff, and Nick, but they were going pretty fast and there was no way I was staying with them.  We hit our first icy patch, and I fell back a ways.  They hit the first mile in 5:06 while my first mile was 5:48.  The first mile included the tunnel under the 820 N bridge that we had worked on in the morning, and the thought was that it would be the worst place.  It wasn't even close.  The second mile was almost all on ice or snow with a couple of water jumps under the train bridges and a skating rink leading up to and under the I-15 bridge.  My second mile including the turnaround and all the icy fun was 6:52.  I had to stop and walk or shuffle/slide a few times.  I picked it up the third mile on the dry spots and ended up with a 6:12.  I had around 31s for the last 0.1 and finished with a time of 19:24 (6:15/mile).  I thought it was pretty good considering the conditions.  I probably could have gone faster, but I wasn't going to catch Jeff who finish almost 3 minutes ahead of me, and the next guy came in around 26:00.  I was safely in 2nd place and didn't feel the need to kill myself.  I was impressed with Jeff's time in the 5K and Nick's time (33:18) in the 10K considering the conditions.  I ran a little bit of cooldown, helped cleanup some and headed home.