Don't wanna be FAT!

9 miles easy. I was still feeling a bit sluggish. I'm not sure what it is but both this morning and Saturday morning I didn't feel quite right. Hopefully that feeling subsides before Saturday. AP: 7:30

2.38 warm up, 10x1k (1:15 walking rest), 3.75 cool down. Target was to do 10-12x1k@3:10. Ran on the roads which made it difficult to get in a rhythm because all of them had slight downhill and/or slight uphill.  I also ran in my trainers rather than flats because I didn't want to be too sore from them.  Next time I do this workout I think I will go to the 21st street pond and do them in my trainers.  I averaged 3:12.3

1k spits:  3:15, 3:24, 3:13, 3:18, 3:09, 3:09, 3:08, 3:10, 3:11, 3:06  

Not a great workout, but not bad.  The good news is that I didn't have that sluggish feeling I've had on my last couple of runs.  My legs feel good too.  

I really enjoyed looking at the moon as I ran this morning, it was beautiful. Nice easy run. AP:  7:16.  

One interesting note is that my first mile was faster than my second mile this morning which never happens.  It might have been because I had about a 200 meter race with a dog during the first mile.  At least I'm going to give the dog the benifit of the doubt and assume he wanted to race and it wasn't that he wanted my femur bone for a snack.  Luckily I won the race so I'll never know which one it really was.  

Nice and easy run.  Did 4 strides towards the end of the run just to get the legs rolling for a minute.  I'm excited to race on Saturday!

I was actually giddy on this run. Being down in beautiful St. George running in clean, warm air just felt awesome. I really wanted to keep running. But decided just to keep it short as I really wanted to have a good race the next day. I ran from my parents house in Coral Canyon across Telegraph Road onto the road across from the Coral Canyon golf course that goes to the dump.  If you go up this road for about a 1/2 mile then turn off onto a dirt road it takes you to a pathway that goes down the gorge there.  Help me out Southern Utah guys I don't know the name of that pathway.  But, I took that and for just a little ways and then turned around and headed back.  I really wanted to keep going though because that running down that gorge is just absoluletely beautiful.  AP:  7:04.  

Great race to everyone! I was thrilled with a 3rd place finish against such tough competition. I did about a 2.5 mile warm-up then some strides.  My goal for the race was to run under 1:11 so I didn't want to go out any faster than 5:20-5:25 effort knowing the first couple of miles were uphill I was okay with them being around 5:30.  I just want to disclose that my watch measures each mile about .015 short, so as I list these mile splits my miles were actually about 1-2 seconds slower than the time listed.  Mile 1 5:31,  I ran this mile with Dave Olson the leaders already had a decent gap on us.  I thought there were about 9 ahead of us.  Mile 2 5:27, The gap kept getting bigger.  I thought Dave was feeling okay but somewhere near the end of this mile he dropped back from me.  Mile 3 5:23,  I was running right where I wanted to be and I was feeling great, but my I was starting to lose patience.  Mile 4 5:12  this had some downhill in it so I wasn't too worried about it being a bit fast.  I think 2 guys dropped out of the race at this point.  I'm not sure what they were doing.  The gap on the group behind Bryant was getting pretty large at this point and I was starting to worry that I wasn't going to be able to catch any of them but I was working on catching up to Matt.  Mile 5 5:13 this was a good mile I passed Matt probably about 1/2 through this mile and I don't think the gap got any bigger betweem me and the pack.  Mile 6 5:27 this was a tough uphill mile  I felt like I handled it pretty well though.  Mile 7 5:28  despite being a little slow I felt like I was closing the gap.  Mile 8 4:52 this had the huge downhill it, but I still probably ran this mile too fast I probably would have been better off at the end had I ran it a bit slower.  According to my watch I reached 3:20 mile pace going down the steep hill. I made up huge ground though on this mile though and passed Dave Holt (I'm not going to lie I feel a bit of a healthy family rivalry there) at the end of that mile.  There was just a little bit of a gap between Clyde and I at this point and a another little gap between Clyde and Mike, and I felt like Ben was within range at this point.  I knew that Bryant was long gone by now and I really had no aspirations of catching him.  Mile 9 5:04 I passed Clyde early in this mile but I was not closing the gap very quickly on Mike at this point.  He had a really strong mile there as did Ben.  Mile 10 5:12 I was still running well but I could feel myself running out of gas.  I passed Mike somewhere in this mile but I could feel his presence and knew he was close to me for the next 1.5 miles or so.  At the end of this mile I kind of gave up on catching Ben and made the decision to just try and hold on the best I could and try and take 3rd.  Mile 11 5:21 I was just doing my best to hold on.  Mile 12 5:17 still holding on for dear life.  Mile 13 5:14 Finished a little stronger than I thought I was going to be able to based on how I was feeling at Mile 11.  It was a tough but fun course and overall I was really pleased with my race.   I thought it was lame that I didn't get a prize (besides a plaque) for taking 3rd overall for as big a race as it is I was at least expecting like a $50 gift certificate or some socks or something.  I think it is a great starting point.   I won't be happy if I don't run a lot faster in a few months.  I cooled down about 3.5 miles after the race.

The highlight of the day was watching my 3 yr old Mitchell run the tough kids 1/2 mile race.  He was so excited to run it and he did so well.  He ran the whole entire way.  He was the only one that was under 4 years old in his race and he took 6th out of 24 kids and he only got beat by 5 and 6 year olds.  His time was 4:48.1.  I was so proud of him!