Create.

6 miles on the JRP, AP 7:38

6 miles on the JRP, AP 8:38

2 miles with Smo, AP 8:58

4 miles by my lonesome, AP 7:55

2 miles with Ry and Smo, AP 9:23

2 miles with Smo, AP 8:57

4 miles by my lonesome, AP 8:20

10.13 miles, AP 8:33 (Sophia joined us for the first two miles and then it was me, Ry, JohnnyV and Josh). :)

I have L*O*V*E*D running with Smo these last handful of days. Her goal is to run 2 miles per day, 5-6 days a week for a little while. Sasha spoke with her at a recent track meet and was kind enough to send us some additional information that I believe will help her. This is totally in Sophia's hands. I know her, and when she really wants something she is able to see the big picture really well and put in the work. She dreams of running in college ... specifically she would LOVE to run for Oregon. She knows that she will need to put in a lot of work to have a shot but is going for it.

I am definitely going to be Sophia's biggest fan but I am also going to monitor her and make sure she does not do too much. She is little and I constantly need to remind her to SLOW down on our morning runs. I also need to remind her to eat more and to go to sleep earlier. The one thing I do not have to do is get her up in the morning for a run. I told her that was up to her ... if she didn't get up then I was going to let her sleep. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't putting pressure on her. True to form she is up every morning around 6:00 a.m. ready to run. That girl is something else! :)

Beautiful Corner Canyon with Ry :)

mountain biking: 60 minutes

trail running: 30 minutes

Hey, quick question: Does anyone know what you call a man who never passes gas in public?

Answer: A private tutor!!!!! :) :) :) (Get it??? "Toot"-er!!!!)

Here's to a good week everyone! :)

STINK!!! Set my alarm for 5:30 p.m. instead of 5:30 a.m. and had no Sophia to wake me up for a run because she had a meet on this evening (which she ended up doing amazing at). :)

2 miles easy with Smo

5 miles by myself with 5 x 800s in the middle (3:26, 3:26, 3:22, 3:20, 3:16)

8 miles: 6 with Ry, 2 with Smo

7 miles (5 miles, AP 7:31 by my lonesome, 2 easy with Smo)

14 miles (long run for the week: 9 with Ry and 5 by my lonesome, AP 8:21)

Really missed my 2 miles with Smo today. Tomorrow is the All County Championship meet for her and we decided for her to rest (she wanted to run but was having some aches in her left calf muscles so I made her rest just to be safe). I think it paid off because she had an AWESOME meet. (See tomorrow or her race report.)

TODAY, however, was the All County Championship meet for the twins (they separate the meet into two days: 6-10 year olds today, 11-18 year olds tomorrow).

The twins did FANTASTIC!!!

Livvy ended up doing better than she was expecting and placed in the top 50% on all her races which was AWESOME!!

Sherm took one first and two seconds. If we could talk him into training the way Sophia does he would be unstoppable (of course, I am slightly biased). :)

50 meters, 1st place (7.62 sec)

100 meters, 2nd place (14.3 sec)

200 meters, 2nd place (30.61 sec)

8 miles, AP 8:15, with JohnnyV and Josh on the JRP before Smo's track meet. Great company!!! SO FUN TO RUN INTO KATHIE AND KIMMIE ON THE TRAIL!!! :)

Sophia KILLED it today in the All County Championship meet!!! She set a personal best in both of her races and looked AWESOME. :) :) :) To read her report look here http://sophia.fastrunningblog.com/blog-All-County-Championship-Meet/07-13-2013.html .

Smo's results:

The mile/1600 meters, 1st place (6:21.3)

800 meters, 1st place (2:51.58)

It's really fun to watch her in the mile because often times they combine the 11-14 year olds and get it done in one swoop. When they do that Sophia looks SO tiny. Not only is she 11, but she is a small 11. I think it is because she is so tiny that the crowd loves her so much. Today not only did she take first for her age group but the only girl that beat her was a 14 year old. She passed up another 14 year old in the very last second. My heart was beating so fast!!! :) :) :)

So here's the crazy thing: I've been looking online at how fast an 11 year old girl should run a mile. On several sites the break down percentiles for 12 year olds (Sophia is 11 and 4 months). All of them same about the same thing, here is an insert:

RUNNING TIMES FOR GIRLS

On average, girls tend to run slightly slower than boys of the same age. A 12-year-old girl will fall in the top half of her peer group if she's able to complete her mile run in 11 minutes, which is more than two minutes slower than the median time of her male counterparts. For a girl to fall into the 75th percentile and achieve a time that could be considered truly good, she needs to run the mile in nine minutes and 15 seconds. The time gap between boys and girls narrows as the runners get closer to the top percentile. For a girl to be in the 100th percentile of her peer group she needs to run the mile in six minutes and 22 seconds, which is less than a half minute slower than the top tier of boys.

****************

Maybe I am being just a silly momma but DANG I am in awe of my Smo!!!!! (I know I sound like I am bragging, and I am not trying to sound that way, but I can't help myself!!!)

6 miles, AP 8:56

Afternoon run with Ry on the JRP. Way too hot, but GREAT company! :)

7 miles (2.3 miles with Smo and 5 by my lonesome).

All easy miles except 5 x hill repeats in the middle. Hill was a designated .25 mile section, roughly 4% grade, that I repeated at half marathon to 5K pace.

Happy Tuesday, All. :)

7 miles

-With Ry: 5 miles, AP 8:24

-With Smo: 2 miles, AP 8:40

* As Ry and I got home Sophers was on the porch waiting to run. She is so stinkin' cute!!! :)

8 mile, AP 8:24

* 6 with Ry on the JRP, AP 8:26

* 2 with Smo - Smith's loop, AP 8:16

Late afternoon: Plyo with Smo

3 miles with Ry and Smo, AP 8:43 (the plan was to keep it slower than a 9 min. pace but Smo took off in the last mile)

1 additional mile with Ry

3.5 treadmill miles inside - trying to wake up the rest of my kids so they could help me move some furniture around. It didn't work!!! (3 miles: AP 7:36, 2% incline then .5 mile cool down)

Happy Thursday, All. :)

5 miles with Ry with Smo joining us for the last 2, AP 8:37

16 miles, AP 8:23

* 8 miles with Ry, AP 8:46

* 6 miles by my lonesome, AP 7:48

* 2 mile with Smo, AP 8:44

It's hot out there!!! :)

5 miles, AP 8:33, with Ry up 13th and into Murray, lots of hills. :)

2.3 miles with Smo, AP 8:31

ST: Plyo and core with the kids --

Teena: 3 sets

Rylee: 2 1/2 sets

Payton: 2 sets

Smo: 3 sets

Sherm: 3 sets

Liv: Cheerleader (couldn't talk her into it -- maybe next time). :)

_______________________________________________________

1 set included:

Push-ups x 10

Crunches or sit-ups x 10

Bicycles x 20 (each leg)

Mountain climbers x 20 (each leg)

Counter-movement jumps x 10

Agility quick feet x 20 seconds

Scissors x 30 seconds

Double leg down holds (less than 6 inches from ground) x 30 seconds

Half up twists x 20 (each side)

Plank x 1 minute

6.65 miles total

* 3.15 miles, AP 8:35 with Ry

* 2 miles, AP 8:52 with Smo

*1.5 miles with Smo and Sherm - one mile at about a 10 minute pace and then 5 x 100 meter sprints with jog/walk between

** Smo and Sherm were hilarious with the sprints. They would give me quite the head start and still beat me. It was CRAZY!!!! Why have my legs gotten so old????? :)

Super fun morning! :)

* 3 miles with Ry, Smo, Christine, Ben, Marina and Kilia on the JRP. We told Sophia and Kilia to lead the way but to keep us right around a 9 minute pace. They did a FANTASTIC job and brought us in with an average pace of 8:54.

Background: We met Christine, Ben and their daughters through the USATF meets. Kilia is 10 and competes in the same distances Soph does but in the age group younger, Soph is 11. Both Kilia and Soph are the State and Region champ of their respective division in the USATF youth circuit for the 1500 meters and have become good friends. Marina is Kilia's slightly older sister and also a talented runner who competes in Soph's age division. They are all such great girls and we have been talking about getting them together to train. We finally did it. And it was AWESOME!! Hope this was the first of many training runs with them.

* 3 miles by my lonesome, AP 7:29. The first 1/3 of a mile was uphill (which I pushed) making the remainder feel harder than usual at this pace. Oh well. :)

* 1 mile with Sherm and Liv! YES!!! We got Liv out for a run this morning. :) :) :)

* Upon arriving home with Sherm and Liv I asked Smo if she would be willing to pace me for one quick 800 meters. I couldn't keep up with her the last 100 meters as she has a kick that I am unable to match. I came in at 3:05.

* 1/2 cool down mile

Total: 8 miles

6 miles with Ry on the JRP, AP 8:49

3 miles with Smo on the JRP, AP 8:46

1 mile with Sherm and Liv in the neighborhood, AP 10:11

Total: 10 miles

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Thought:

I think I am going to swap things up with Sherm. Instead of doing one mile in the morning with a couple of sprints, I think we will start doing something like this instead:

1. dynamic stretching/active warm-up

2. sprints

3. plyometrics and/or standard resistance training

4. 200-400 meter cool down.

As I was running with him this morning I began thinking how stupid I was being. He is a sprinter, he is built to sprint, he LOVES running sprints, plyo and strength training. Why am I not helping him train to reach his potential? Maybe it is because I am comfortable with distance and scared of speed. But everything in him is a sprinter.

True, I am not a sprinter BUT I do know a lot about the human body and I can research some stuff to at least get him on the path he wants to be on. Then when the time is right I can call in outside help to fine-tune. :)

Happy Thursday, All. :)

Fun morning. :)

2 miles with Smo, AP 8:36

1 mile on the TM while waiting for Livvy to get ready, AP 7:30

1 mile with Livvy and Smo, AP 10:46

2 miles on the TM while waiting for Sherm to get ready, AP 7:30

Workout with Sherm:

- 400 meter jog

- dynamic stretching/warm-up: high knees, butt kickers, alternate bounding, skipping, carioca.

- sprints: 4 x 100, 1 x 50 meters

- plyo: [(see below) Smo joined us]

Depth jumps: 3 x 3

Drop jumps: 3 x 3

SL hops: 3 x 5 bilaterally

Split jumps: 2 x 3 bilaterally

Box jumps: 3 x 3, 12"

* I think this was a good starting point for the plyo workout. We will hang our hats on this for a week or two and make sure his body responds well. All plyo was done on the grass. Sherm LOVED this workout. Kicking myself for not starting workouts like these a long time ago. What was I thinking? :)

Total: 6.53 miles

So glad I had such great company this morning for my long run:

Miles 1- 6 with Ry, Josh, Christine and Ben on the JRP

(At mile 6 Ry and Christine turned around and went back to get Sophia/Smo and Kilia)

Miles 7-12 with Josh and Ben, we picked up the pace and were running high 7s to 8:20s

Miles 13, 14 and 15 met back up with everyone plus three :) (Me, Ry, Ben, Josh, Smo and Kilia -- Christine and Marina rode along on their bikes). Smo and Kilia led the pack and had us run 8:30s (us older folks were hoping they were going to run high 8s. Wrong. :)

Miles 16 with Ben and Josh

Mile 17 with Ben

Mile 18 by my lonesome

******

I had one gu and 12 ounces of gatorade and some water. Thought that would be enough but felt very light-headed and slow the last couple of miles.

So glad I had such great company. :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend. :)

*******

I ran almost the exact same miles I ran last week but this week I did it in 6 days instead of 7. Right on. :)

*******

Later:

Supervised the twins' workout then did yoga with Smo, Sherm and Liv

3 miles with Sophia, AP 8:47

Yassos by my lonesome: 6 x 800 with 400 meter jog between then .75 cool down. (3:20, 3:20, 3:20, 3:20, 3:20, 3:10)

800 meter jog with Sherm and Livvy

Plyo with Sherm and Sophers. Sherm wanted to do more with the box today so the majority was done using it with the goal of 75 jumps total.

Depth jumps for vertical distance

Depth jumps for horizontal distance

Single leg push offs, bilateral

Lateral box jumps, bilateral

Front barrier jumps

Tuck jumps

Alternating Bounding

3 miles with Ry, Sophers, Christine, Ben, Marina and Kilia. Nice and easy: We told the girls that they had to hold a conversation the whole time and if they couldn't they were going too fast. I think we were running about 9:30s.

6 miles by my lonesome (5 with AP 7:56 and then 1 cool down)

Watched/oversaw the twins' workout (no way I felt like sprinting ... too weaksauce this morning).

Around the World Core with all my kiddos (Rylee, Payton, Sophers, Livvy and Sherm). :)

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=486

Good times!!! :) :) :)

7.1 miles with Ry, AP 8:23

3.65 miles with Sophers, AP 9:29

I am super lucky to have such awesome running partners.

Slight pain, maybe a 2/10, in my R calf. I think it is from the plyo workouts. I'm not worried about it but will keep it in mind and do some STM on it today. :)

Happy Wednesday, All.

* The last couple of days have been really fun. Rylee is playing in a basketball tournament locally (which is nice since her last couple of tournaments have been in Oregon and Vegas). They are 3-0 so far. Woot woot! :)