Suzette's Running Blog.

Ran my first day of cross country boot camp. It was really hard for me because i had gone on vacation for two weeks earlier and it just killed me. 

Ran at the track with the team. Today was a speed workout, and fairly difficult. About halfway into the workout, i began to feel really really sick. This ended up messing up my speed, and my timed mile. By the end of the workout i was wiped completely, not just because of the work i put into it but also all of the distractions i have had this week since Monday afternoon. If only anyone knew...

I went Sandboarding but in order to reach an appropriate dune, you had to hike, a lot- in the sand. The dune i went to was about 1.5 miles away. I spent roughly three hours Sandboarding. Since this is a relatively new sport, per se and not many people get the chance to practice it, there is no such thing as a lift. It's called your own two feet. The dune i chose to go to was about 200 meters high and very very steep. I ran up this hill multiple times over, as many as i could fit in, in my three hour time range i had to practice my Sandboarding. Now, to hike up this sand dune is crazy, but to run it up multiple times over, without a break except for the minute it takes you to strap on your board and go down the dune, is just down right INSANE. But hey, it's Sandboarding right? Why not? After doing all of this, it eventually became the time to head back to the parking lot. So, we started our 1.5 mile trek back to the car once again. 

Sandboarding is fun but if you mix it with running, it's even better. 

Ran with the XC team for the first part of my run and then got lost with my friend Abigail by the K-mart. Even though i was paying attention to directions today and someone had told me prior what thunderbird is, i still couldn't find the place or fountain by it. Abigail and i thought the team had taken a street right before the K-mart called Maywood, so we did. Then about halfway into that street we realized something was seriously wrong because the rest of the team was not ahead on that street and there was no bridge at the end. So, we then took a left onto 2300 East. Luckly, 2300 East meets 2000 East which has a tunnel to the other side of I-80 and since i had heard something about bridges and tunnels we decided to take it. We kept running on that road until we hit 2700 South and took a right until we hit 1500 East. Now, the intersection of 1500 East and 2700 South sounded really familiar and i believe it was mentioned in the directions we were supposed to follow so we took it and followed the normal Sugarhouse run that we normally take until we hit Sugarhouse Park where part of team had already gotten there. I must say, this was a pretty interesting run, but i really do not enjoy getting lost all the time. I think we should take a run that is a little more straightforward than having many turns and really confusing colloquial and local landmarks that i have no idea where they are located. Overall, i am willing to attempt this run once again as long as i am with someone.

Ran up at Jeremy Ranch with my XC team for a speed workout. My fastest mile time was a 6:47 and my fastest 800m was a 3:19. I would say thats pretty good for high elevation but then again i was not dying as some of my other team members were so i think i should have pushed a little bit harder. Just enough to get me really tired but not enough to get me feeling really sick. I thought this was a great workout because it really showed up how much we had progressed over the summer and gave us an idea of what our future race scores may look this fall. Overall, it was a really fun day!  

Ran the Guardsman Trail with my team in Big Cottonwood Canyon. I know i have said before that i had my heart set on certain trails like the JCC one and Emigration Canyon but now i have a new favorite. One that beats both of these trails. Its the Guardsman Trail. It's all uphill until we reach the top, really rocky, a trail run and best of all- it runs through a couple of ski resorts at high elevation. I saw The Canyons and it's lift 9990 which i hike up in the deep snow during the winter for some quality back country skiing and snowboarding! At the begining of the run, i thought to myself this is going to be a hard run but after the first mile i had passed the majority of my team and i was the third person to make it to the mile mark. Not to mention, i did start running at the end of the group... About 1.25 miles in to the run i began to see two of my team members ahead of me walking and not too long after i had to end up walking for roughly 5ft. I shortly passed them as they were having a really tough time and caught up with all the guys that had passed us when we began walking. I stayed up with them and passed all of them but Taylor for the rest of the run. On the way up, i did pass Taylor briefly but then at the next opportunity he passed me and i was not able to retrieve my spot once again. Once we reached the top and it was time to head back down, i began to pass people again. I ended up passing everyone except for Ben who ended up getting up far enough that i couldn't catch up to him. At the 6 mile mark i was begining to feel really tired from the night before since i had only had 4 hours of sleep but i decided to push harder and just get through it. After all, its just sleep. Right around the 6.5 mile mark, my coach told me he wanted me to gap the group. So i did. It actually was not as hard as i thought it was going to be. I believe that the majority of the group was 20 minutes behind in comparison to when i got there with Bill. I was so happy at the end of my run! I had actually accomplished my goal for a practice! My goal was to finish either first or second and i finished second. I was able to finish my entire run in 1:20.32. I think this season is going to be a great season for me. I can't wait to do this run again!

Ran at City Creek but i unfortunally did not get to run with my team. I instead ran with the Cottonwood team. We went out for about an hour and i didn't feel like i had actually ran enough. I had this huge guilt factor that i had to run more. The run was really easy but really painful at the same time because by the end of the run the grass had really cut up my legs and they were BURNING. I eventually figured out that they were a series of small cuts that really hurt. Overall i thought that this had been a really easy and relaxed run, but at the same time i had a hard time running with another team because i wanted to run with my team. I think i would have gotten a lot more out of the workout because there really was not much to strive for to be the best at practice. Oh well. 

Ran at Liberty Park with the team. We started off doing two laps warm-up, then we did six strides (while dodging the sprinklers) and then finished off with two laps cool down. It was a nice and very easy workout. I'm glad that it was not a speed workout because i was quite tired from the entire week.

Ran for some time at some nearby park.

Distance: UNKNOWN. 

Ran with the team up at the track for a speed workout.

It was rather hard considering i was begining to feel pretty sick while running it and i was overheating. However, i kept going because it would be considered 'slacking' if i were to sit down. All i did was push hard.

Ran with the team up at the track for a speed workout.

We started off with a one mile warm-up and then we did two mile speed changes and finished off with a one mile cooldown.

I ran my first mile at 5:02 and i didn't count the rest.

I also ran earlier this morning for a half hour.