You've got to want it to win it

This morning I ran 5 miles, up to Wasatch and then above the zoo and down Sunnyside back to my house.

In the afternoon we did the "Trax" run down 11th Avenue.  We stayed on City Creek all the way out to the capitol this time though.  Then I ran back up South Temple and finished on campus with 9.

Today was my least favorite workout... ever!  We warmed up the usual above the track route, then met on the bailiff for our strides and drills.  And then changed shoes for the workout, if you can really call it that... It was 12 sets of a 50 meter high knee skip up a hill, then 100 meter jog, then 200 meter threshold, then 100 meter jog, then 100 meter sprint, then 2 minute recovery before starting the next set.  To help keep it interesting, every 2 sets we traded one person from each group.  When Becky and I were in the same group we ran together, but other than that I was sorta on my own.  The 200s were all between 40 and 43.  For cooldown we dropped our shoes off at the lockerroom, then I ran up through the dorms and then onto Shoreline towards the museum.  I ran up to the fence over by This is the Place, then took the other trail back down and then another trail to make a loop finishing back at the museum, then back to the lockerroom.  Both times I passed the museum there were some people on the trail wanting me to stop and take a survey... Umm no, I'm running, goodbye...  Back at the training room I did a 15 minute ice bath.

This afternoon we started the run as a team.  Bekah, Amanda, Becky and I led for a while, but then they were going ridiculously fast... I was going 7:10s and didn't want to push any more to hang with them.  We ran down Foothill and then 2300e to 2100s, then down to 1500e.  At Bonneville gully I did 2 and a half laps, then stopped at Sunnyside for a drink before running back up to campus on Sunnyside and Foothill.  I finished at 10 for the day, and then stretched really well before getting a massage from Tim.

This morning at lifting my knee hurt, so afterwards I went and saw Hanah in the training room.  I did stem and ice on that.

In the afternoon I got taped before practice, we were doing hills and threshold up at Red Butte.  We warmed up there and then did strides and drills on the trail.  We were just south of the outdoor theater by some parking lot.  We did the thresholds from there.  We started with two sets of two 500s, with 10 seconds rest after the first in each set and then 40 seconds rest after the second one.  I was with Becky, and my times were 1:53, 1:55, 1:52, 1:52.  Then we crossed the river over towards Red Butte and did hills there.  Kep was nice enough not to make us do that first steep hill, but the rest was still challenging.  Here we had six 400s with 3 minutes recovery.  The 400 mark ended up being by the second green gate on the trail by the new museum.  Becky and I did the first two together, I hit 1:34 and 1:32, then AuraLea joined us for the rest of them.  My times on those were 1:32, 1:32, 1:31, 1:32.  I was so happy upon finishing the last one to realize that there was a drinking fountain right there at the finish!  (Hanah was by the start with water bottles the whole time).  We ran back down and then over to our thresholds spot.  My times on the last four were 2:00 (relaxed too much after the harder effort on the hills), then 1:52, 1:52, 1:56.  I felt like this was a good workout, and could feel very fatigued afterwards. For my cooldown I needed 3.5 to get to 12, so I ran south on the trail and past the museum.  Not to far after passing that, I saw a GOPHER SNAKE!!! On the trail!!  Good thing I was running to the side of the trail so I wouldn't step on it!  It was alive this time (I saw a dead one on campus during the summer...).  I kept running, and then did my loop same as the one I had done the other day for cooldown.  Afterwards in the training room I did some knee rehab and then a 14 minute ice bath.

This morning I ran a slow 9 miler...  I am so sore from doing Bulgarian Split Squats at lifting!  I couldn't go faster than 9:30s when I started, but eventually made it up to about 8 minute pace.  I ran along 1500e to Sugarhouse, then up to 1700e and then down Parkway to Alden.  I weaved through the streets until I made it to 3300s and then I turned and ran down to 900e.  I ran to 1700s and back up to 1400e, then home.  I am not counting this in my mileage, but after I finished I went to Highland Park Elementary to volunteer with Hilary at their jog-a-thon :)  

Today is Nikki's birthday!  So we ran her choice of route, which was TRAX!! :)  It was 6 miles down 11th Avenue and Memory Grove to the Library Trax station.  I was too sore to do strides when we got back to campus, but I did drills and stretched for a while.

This morning we went to the Rail Trail for our long run because there are mile markers and we were doing a 4 mile Kenyan run.  Becky and I were doing 12 miles, so we started ours at the 5 mile mark.  The way out was slightly uphill, so our first mile ended up being 7:58, but after turning around to the decline and picking up the pace, our next one was a 7:13!  A bit much, but we just went with it.  The next one was a 6:57, and then one after that a 6:43.  We took a few minutes to stretch after that before running the last 3 miles.