Don't wanna be FAT!

Super rough night with the kiddos.  Got about 4-5 hours of sleep so I ended up sleeping in, hoping I might find time later in the day to get a run in, but it didn't happen.  

Ran from my house up 6000 S to the Rio Grande Rail Trail.  Took the Rail Trail all the way to Gentile Street in West Layton then turned around and came home.  This is the first time I have gone that far on the rail trail.  I won't do it again.  The Syracuse Trail is a lot less boring for a 20 mile run.  The workout ended up being a tough one.  I took about 7 miles to build up to a tin man pace and then I maintened a tin man pace til the end of the run. I should've started the run a lot earlier.  I started at about 8:00 and by the end it felt really hot.  I ended up getting dehydrated because I didn't carry any water with me and I let myself overheat.  I didn't take my temperature, but I think I let my core body temperature get a lot higher than I should have.  I did not feel well at all for most of the day that day.  This is also the first time I have ever had white stuff foaming from my arm pits.  I'm not sure what that means, but it had me a little nervous.  The positive part of this run is that my legs felt strong the whole way and I maintened a good pace especially for the last 13 miles.  Mile splits were:  7:09, 7:10, 6:53, 6:40, 6:37, 6:15, 6:08, 5:45, 5:35, 5:26, 5:50, 5:46, 5:45, 5:58, 6:12, 5:50, 5:45, 5:45, 5:51, 5:48.  

I was very glad when I finally got home and I downed a 32 oz powerade and about 100 more ounces of water within a couple of hours of finishing.  I also took a cold shower to get my core temperatures down.  I just hope I didn't do more damage than good with this one.  

Almost every night for the past few weeks we have had sleeping issues with the kiddos. I'm quite literally getting tired of it. Last night was no exception. I managed to get up though and after a couple of miles I woke up. Legs are still feeling really good. Mentally I'm starting to feel a little burned out between the lack of sleep and the hard workouts.  I'm excited that next week I will get to taper as it will be a big race week.  AP:  6:52.  

Couldn't get my butt out of bed this morning, so this ended up being a night run. I started it at 9:00. I never feel as good running at night and usually always have stomach issues. But, I tried to give it a go anyway.  2 mile warm-up with strides AP 6:30.  4 mile tempo 5:10, 5:13, 5:13, 5:21  this was supposed to be an 8 mile tempo but I wasn't feeling great and decided to stop after just 4 miles.  5 miles after the 4 mile tempo AP  6:18.  While running the 5 miles after my tempo run a mosquito spray tuck came driving by me spraying for mosquitos.  I held my breath for as long as I could, but inevitably ended up inhaling a lot of mosquito spray.  I'm not sure, but I'm thinking that stuff can't be good for you.  

Again I couldn't get my butt out of bed this morning so this was an evening run. It felt okay other than some heart burn. AP: 6:30

Early meeting at work this morning meant another evening run. Decided to try and do a true 8 mile aerobic builder at aerobic threshold rather than more of an 8 mile tempo at close to lactic threshold like I have been doing.  First I did a 2 mile warm-up with strides.  Target pace was 5:30 and I felt like I was holding back the whole run until the last .25 miles when I let loose.   Mile splits were:  5:26, 5:23, 5:27, 5:28, 5:25, 5:25, 5:28, 5:11.  Last .25 was in 70 seconds.  Then I did a 2.05 mile cool down.  

I felt strong and controlled.  It's good to know that I can run that pace fairly easily.  

This run was less than 12 hours after my aerobic builder last night, so I was feeling that run still. I just took it nice and easy as it was a recovery run. AP: 7:06.

I had to go on an over-night campout with the scouts and didn't get done with that until about noon and by then it was too hot to go out. I couldn't get motivated to go out that night.

Easy run.  Big race this weekend.  AP: 6:51.

I did 4 strides during the 4th mile and the 5th and 6th miles were at marathon pace (5:30, 5:25). I averaged about 6:45 pace for the other miles. I love the tapering before a big race!

Easy run to the Clinton duck pond and back.  AP:  6:47

4 miles easy around the Roy Duck Pond and Emma Russell Park. AP: 7:07.

Easy run. Lap and a half at Emma Russell Park and back home. Threw in some strides during the first part of the 2nd mile. It might just be me feeling paranoid cause I get that way before a big race, but I haven't felt very good this week. Usually my legs have an antsy ready to race feeling in them when I have tapered as much as I have this week, but I'm not feeling that.  We'll see how things go.  I'm not real happy with the Skyline race director.  Since clear back in May he has been saying that there is a $500 course record bonus.  Well at the beginning of this week sent out an e-mail saying the starting line is changing which is adding on at leas 1/2 mile to the old course, but we still have to beat the old course record and now just today he is saying that the $500 course record is going to have to be split between the men and the women so they will only give $250 course record bonus to each.  It's frustrating because this race has been a big focus for me since May because there was a potential of winning $1,000 (1st place gets $500) now just days before the race they go and make it a lot more difficult to accomplish by adding the 1/2 mile and then just the day before say sorry if you get the now much more difficult course record you only get 1/2 as much as we promised.  It's kind of a bunch of crap, but I guess I shouldn't raise too much of a stink unless I win it and come close to the old course record without getting it.  I do understand that winning it is going to be extremely difficult in and of itself.  On a positive side I am looking forward to running a trail race.  This is a beautiful trail race and it's been a long time since I raced on the trails.   

Turns out I shouldn't have been worried about the changes made and the changes in the course record bonus, because there was no way I was going to beat Nathan Peters anyway.  Put simply he was just a lot better than me, at least on the trails.  In order to have been able to compete with him I would've needed to put in a lot more time on the trails in July than I did.  But, I raced on the roads every weekend in July so I wasn't well prepared for this trail race.  

The way I saw this race it was divided into 5 sections as summarized below:

Section 1: Climb from North Fork Park to the saddle just at the base of Ben Lomand Peak.  About 6.5 miles.  About 3,000ft elevation gain from 5,800 feet to 8,800 feet.  I wanted to control the pace for this section and was hoping to average about 9:30 pace (that is what I figured I needed to run for that section to get the course record). So I went to the lead from the start.  Nathan Peters was right behind me with Matt Moncur right behind him.  Mile splits were 7:44, 9:53, 8:53 (accidently hit my split so this was only .91 miles) , 9:54, 9:19, 9:58, 8:11 (this was half downhill).  I was just a little slow going up this part but I was fine with it.  It took a little more effort than I was hoping it would though to run that fast up that.  Another problem with these trail races is that it is really hard to get into a good rythm.  

Section 2:  Descent from the saddle to the North Ogden Divide.  About 6.5 miles.  About 2,600ft elevation loss.  Nathan and Matt both passed me at the saddle as I stopped at the add station just for 15 seconds to get some endurolyte tablets.  I passed Matt pretty quickly and was content to sit on Nathan going down.  I almost passed him about half way down because I was hoping to average 6:00 going down and we were going a little slower than that but I decided against that and decided to try and let myself recover after the difficult climb.  Mile splits for this section were:  6:07, 5:59, 6:28, 6:53, 5:49, 6:28 (started the next climb in part of this mile).  Not a bad section.  We dropped Matt on this Section and he was no where to be seen. 

Section 3:  Climb from top of North Ogden Divide to the top of Skyline trail.  About 3 miles.  About 2,100ft elevation gain.  This is the toughest section of the  race even though it's only 3 miles because it is so steep.  I planned on averaging about 14 minute pace up this but knew I needed to go faster than that at this point because we were behind my target pace.  I was through the aid station on top of the Divide a lot faster than Nathan so I got a little bit of a lead on him, but he caught back up to me in a hurry and went flighing by me.  This is where Nathan won the race.  He killed this climb.  Gaining around 5 minutes on me in just 3 miles.  It was quite impressive.  I was pretty lame up this part I stopped and hiked many times.  In hindsite I spent too much of my climbing energy on the first climb and should have run that first section slower.  My splits for this section were:  13:30, 12:25, 10:40. 

Section 4:  Descent from the top of Skyline trail down to Wind Surfer Beach.  About 6.5 miles.  About 3,000ft elevation loss. By the time I reached the top of the Skyline Trail, I had given up on winning the race.  Nathan had a huge lead on me and was looking very strong.  I had a huge lead on Matt at that point so I made a decesion to just try and get through the last two sections of the race as easily as possible and still take 2nd place.  I was no longer worried about winning the race or running a certain time.  So I just tried to cruise at an easy pace so that I could hopefully save a little bit and be able to recover for TOU 1/2 Marathon that's coming up this Saturday.  So I felt pretty good going down this section until about a 1 miles left than I started hurting.  I was fatigued enough that I wasn't picking my feet up enough and tripped several times but was fortunate enough to only fall down once.  Luckily I just got a couple of minor scrapes and it wasn't a big deal.  I was carrying a 10oz hand bottle which saved my hand from getting ripped up.  I lost 3 more minutes on Nathan on this section but Matt wasn't anywhere near me so I was okay with that.  Splits were:  6:10, 6:12, 6:40, 7:23, 6:20, 6:13, 7:07 (this had part of the next section in it).  

Section 5:  Rollers along Pineview Resevoir to finish line at Eden Park.  about 4 miles.  Elevation was about the same at the finish as at the start of this section.  Any hopes of being able to just cruise and easily finish and save some for my race next week disappeared and just finishing this race at a slow pace was very difficult.  I just haven't done any hill training except for back in June when I did some trail runs on Saturdays.  I just tried to keep running through this section without stopping knowing I was about there.  Splits were:  7:30, 7:40, 7:15, and 4:54 (.73 miles).  

Total time was 3:31:54.  2 years ago I ran it in 3:35:41 and it was 1/2 mile further this year than it was 2 years ago so I improved by about 7 minutes which is good and while I am hurting and my hopes of saving some energy for the TOU 1/2 didn't work out real well, I am not hurting near as much as I was 2 years ago where I couldn't walk after the race.  Nathan Peters finished in 3:19:57 so he beat me by about 13 minutes but I still consider a good race for myself considering the improvement from 2 years ago.  

It is a really neat race with a lot of awesome views and a lot of great people.  For me it is much more of an adventure than your typical road marathon.  I'm not sure if I'll do it again though for the next several years.  I think I will stick to the roads for a few more years.  

I felt a lot better than I thought I would with this being my first run back after Saturday's mountain run. I was expecting to run this at a snail pace, but running felt better than walking around has. The only thing that is still real sore are my hips, but they are feeling a lot better with each day. AP:  6:43.  

Penny woke me up a little earlier than I had hoped to wake up, and Alisha had already been up with her a couple of times, so she got to come on my run with me.  I really think that that little girl does not want any more brothers or sisters.  Not a bad run. I felt stronger the further I went. Stroller miles AP:  7:32.  

Another bad night's rest. The kiddos are tag teaming it trying to kill me and Alisha off. All 3 of them were up at different times through the night. I believe that lack of sleep is ultimately going to be my downfall.  I went twelve miles on my typical Hooper loop this morning.  I decided to do strides just to get something quicker in since I haven't done any speed work over the last couple weeks.  So I did 1 stride each mile on the mile markers from mile marker 2 to 11 for a total of 10 strides.  My legs are feeling pretty decent.  It will be interesting to see how Saturday goes.  AP:  6:43.  

I ran 9 really easy miles.  I didn't want to do a complete taper because I did that for my race last week and I didn't want to have two taper weeks in a row.  So I did kind of a 1/2 taper week leading up to tomorrow's race.  Look forward to seeing many of you up in Logan tomorrow!  AP:  7:11 (I should get a slurpy for that!)

I didn't really know what to expect coming into this race after having run the Skyline Marathon just last Saturday.  I honestly would have been happy with 6th place.  My main goal today was to pick up some circuit points.  But, as the week went on I was surprised at how fast my legs were recovering and by yesterday I was convinced that I was recovered and could run a solid race.

I woke up at 3:40 so I could leave my house at 4:00.  So it was another early Saturday morning.  I've had a lot of those this summer.  I warmed up 3.75 miles and did 4 strides for a a total of 4 miles before the race.  I was very please with the weather as I had thought we were going to get dumped on.  I saw a lot of familiar faces at the start line and was amazed at the amount of elites that were there.  My target pace for the first 6 miles was 5:00-5:05.  Jason went out quick from the gun and I packed it up with Jake and Fritz for the first several miles Fritz and I caught up to Jason at about 5 I believe and I was feeling good so I just tried to keep it rolling.  I actually felt better from miles 5-9 than I did for miles 1-4 which I thought was odd.  I could tell by the sounds that I was slowly building a gap, but when we turned at the Maverick to go up the Millville hills I turned to look back and swore under my breath when I saw that Fritz and Jake weren't as far back as I had hoped.  I tried to work the hill hard but when we had to turn up again off of what I thought was the final straightaway, that killed me mentally.  Jake eventually caught me at the crest of the hill.  I stayed with him for maybe a whole 10 meters and then turned and said good race and then gave up on winning and tried to concentrate on holding off Fritz.  I barely managed to hold off Fritz in the end and held on for 2nd place.

Including the Ogden Marathon, I have run 7 races since the Ogden Marathon.  In 6 out the 7 I have taken 2nd place.  The one exception being a 1st place finish in the Ute Stamped Fun Run in Nephi so that one doesn't really count.  There seems to be some invisible barrier that I can't seem to bust through.  No not really all of the guys that have beaten me are very legitimate runners and I haven't felt bad about a single one of those 2nd place finishes.  

After leading for much of the race I really would have liked to win today, but I really feel blessed to have taken 2nd in such a deep field especially coming off of a very difficult marathon last week.  Although, I must say that I believe that the trail races are easier to recover from than the road marathons.  It has been a lot of fun to be running at a high level again.  I just hope I can continue for a while longer before having any serious injuries.

Miles splits: (Disclosure this was using the auto lap on my watch and my watch usually measures miles about .02 miles short)

5:08, 4:58, 5:03, 5:00, 4:52, 4:51, 4:49, 5:01, 5:02, 5:02, 5:04, 5:36, 5:08.  So while those show a little faster than what they really were, it is pretty clear by looking at them where I lost the race.  

Hats off to Jake he ran smart and solid like always.  

Cooled down 2.1 miles with Jake, Fritz, Jason, and Coyle.  

This ended up being an evening run because the night before when we were driving home from my parents home Mitchell, my 4 year old, asked if we could sleep out in our back yard.  So spontaneously we through up our tent at about 9:00 p.m. Sunday night and slept in the tent.  I didn't wake up to do my run because I didn't want to wake up Mitchell.  It was way worth it though.  I will be sad when he no longer wants to do stuff like that with me.  Also, we had our first real talk about girls.  It was just him telling me who he thought were the cutest girls in his primary class, but it's a start :).  So I did my run at about 7:00 p.m.  I took Penny with me to try and get her to go to sleep.  It worked she was out by the first mile mark, but then she woke up at mile 10 all happy and ready to play.  So it ended up backfiring because she just got a good nap in and then was ready to be up all night.  The run itself wasn't bad.  I was still feeling the race but that was to be expected.  Stoller miles AP:  7:14.  

I don't know what the deal was but I felt a lot worse this morning then I did last night on my run.  It may have been that 12 hours wasn't a very long time in between runs.  It took me until the 6th mile to get a sub 7 split.  AP:  7:06

I was planning on doing a tempo run this morning, but as I was warming up I just wasn't feeling recovered still so I opted to go easy today.   So my only hard workout of the week will be Saturday when I run the Hooper Tomato Days 5k.  AP:  7:11.  

I ran up into Roy today instead of doing my typical route through Hooper and Clinton.  With all the traffic and bowed roads and slanted sidewalks it made me grateful to live in Hooper and to be able to run the route I typically run on farm roads that aren't busy and the pathways that are pretty.  

I'm finally starting to feel recovered.  I was running under 7:00 pace by mile 4 today.  AP:  6:54.  

In other news I was a little disappointed to see when I went to register for the Hooper Tomato Days 5k that they changed the course this year.  The new course will be nice and most of it is part of my normal route that  I run almost everyday, but I won't be able to compare my time to the last couple of years.  Also, the new course won't be flat as a pancake like the old course (although I wouldn't call it hilly either).  

Nice easy run today.  AP:  6:55

Ran over to the park on my normal route so it was about 6 miles then got my number and timing chip.  Then ran the course then added on another couple miles then did strides.

Ran the race solo from the gun to the finish.  I was trying to push it as hard as I could because this was my only hard workout this week.  I didn't push as hard in the 3rd miles as I would have liked to.  I let myself slack off because I had a big lead.  I kind of wish Ben would have shown up to push me through that last mile.  2nd place was some hot shot high school kid that I later found out was Fremont Highs top guy.  The first thing he said to me after finishing was I guess I shouldn't have run 6.5 miles before the race.  I told him I had run 11.5.  Despite me telling him good race multiple times, he never did tell me good race.  Kids like that are fun to beat!  Traci Fife was also in the race he is a very solid masters runner.  He won STG twice and was giving me tips on our cool down.  I did 2.5 miles of cool down with him and the high school kid.  Splits today were 4:58, 5:00, 5:11, :44.  

The best part of the morning was running the kids race with Mitchell and then running back and finishing with Payson and Alisha.  The kids race was just barely under 1/2 mile (I had .47)  Mitchell ran it in 4:37.  He never stopped to walk.  It is great to see both his and Payson's determination!