Every Run is a Great Run!

Slept in this morning. Was nice to lay in bed and not be rushed to get the run done in the early morning single digit cold temps! Instead we waited until around noon when Kim and I got in 5 miles to start out the new year. Afterward I added on a couple more. With the sun shining brightly and no wind it wasn't too bad at all. A nice way to start out the new year I think. Feeling a little sore from the hard tempo run yesterday but not too bad.

Ended up with close to 2500 running miles for 2007 which is probably about twice as much I've ever done before. If I stick with the schedule I've been on perhaps I'll be looking at topping 3000 miles for 2008. Looking forward to a great year!

Ran at work. First went 5 miles solo EagleView route then 5.2 miles LakeView route with Paul and Nate. Was sure nice having those guys around and getting past the injuries so they can get out on these noon-time runs at work. I'm sure they'll be in top shape in no time. Also Darin said he would like to join me on the tempo runs I usually do on Tues and Thursday or Friday. It will be interesting to see how I stack up nowadays against Darin who has always been alot faster than me. Hopefully with my training hard over winter and him taking it easy we might be at a closer level than in days past. Maybe the "King" will join us some time as well.

Kind of funny that Paul was talking about achilles tendon pain and then strangely after the run I noticed some pain in my right achilles tendon. Paul did you transfer your injury to me? Hopefullly it's nothing to worry about, I'll do the R-I-C-E treatment and hope for the best. Good news is the low hamstring tendonitis that was bugging me in December on my left side seems to be about recovered. Sure would be nice if all these aches and pains would just go away. This winter/cold running is tough on us old guys. 

Ave pace: 8:25 

Finally broke down and bagged the outside colder run for a dull treadmill warmer easy run. I guess it wasn't so bad to do the 'mill but I don't plan on making it a regular occurrence. Afterward did my usual cross-train circuit/weights workout.

My right achilles is still a bit tight but didn't bother me on the easy run. The real test will be tomorrow when I do some quicker miles at marathon pace. I'll play it by ear and hopefully not do anything stupid. I seem to be great at giving sound advice to other runners relating to injury treatment but when it comes to dealing with my own running aches/pains I sometimes turn into a bonehead.

Finally! A shorts and t-shirt weather day! Even with the gusty winds, with the 40+ degree temps and the sunshine that was out for much of the time, it made for a great opportunity for an aggressive long run. Did a 15 miler on Kuhni road with 11 miles of marathon pace in the middle. Darin was interested in joining in but got caught up in meetings so had to go it solo. 

Was pleased that with the warmer temps and nice weather euphoria that sub-7 pace felt comfortable. Except for times when I was heading straight into the wind the pace felt relatively comfortable and I think I could have held it for a few more miles. Luckily my right achilles didn't cause me any grief. Hopefully I will be able to say the same thing tomorrow.

Ave pace for the 11 miles was 6:56. Splits were 6:57, 6:57, 6:58, 6:58, 6:54, 6:58, 6:57, 6:56, 6:58, 6:56, 6:49.

Well with the nasty weather we had this morning that made it pretty much impossible to run without getting very wet and cold, Kim and I decided to cheat and wait until this evening and make it a "date night" at the gym at my work. This was the first time for Kim not running outside all winter and maybe the 2nd or 3rd time for me but for today it was definitely the right choice. We watched the movie "That Thing You Do" which just happened to be just the right length for the workout we had planned. I think it was just what we needed to help deal with the "January blues" that have been trying to sneak up on us.

Ave pace was around 8:25. Achilles is doing better. I think with a day of rest and a couple more days of easy running it will be fine.

Did a little bit of everything today. Even though my right achilles is feeling much better I wanted to still take it easy for another day so I did some cross-training (bike/weights), then got 3 miles on the treadmill. I was dumb and had forgotten my long/warm tights but Kim was kind enough to bring them in for me around noon. Better yet she hadn't got her run in yet so we went out together and got in a great out-and-back 5-miler, mostly on Kuhni Road. I say "mostly" because the first and last 1/2 mile of the run we were on snow-covered sidewalks and would have been better off with snowshoes or skis! But Kim was really in the zone today and ran most every mile I think in the 9:30-10:00 range and still was doing pretty well with the conversation. I think this was her fastest 5-miler yet so I'm excited to see what  she can do at Painters!

Did what has recently become the weekly 1/2 marathon pace tempo run at noon on Kuhni Road. Backed off the distance a bit this week and did 6 miles. Didn't have to do the whole thing alone this time as Darin C joined me for about 4 of the 6 miles.

This run felt harder than it should have for some reason. I was able to hit the pace I wanted but it felt as hard or even harder than last weeks 8-miler. Oh well I guess that's just how it goes some days.

On the bright side my right achilles didn't bother at any point of the run and afterward as I went to ice it I realized after a minute I was actually icing the wrong leg! So I guess if the pain is decreased to the point I can't remember which achilles has the problem it must be just about recovered. This makes me happy.

Ave pace 6:40. Splits were 6:39, 6:43, 6:36, 6:40, 6:42, 6:38.

Dull 8 miles on the treadmill. Darn winter storms keep making things difficult. At least I had my good buddies Paul and Nate on either side of me at the gym at work. Thing is for whatever reason when running by someone on the treadmill it just doesn't generate the conversation like running on the roads so we didn't do much chatting. Guess part of it was that there was a movie going. I'd seen bits and pieces of the movie they were showing about a dozen times over the last couple of years at the gym so it wasn't helping the boredom factor at all. I can't remember the name of it but it's a Western with Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan. Blah.

Did the first AM run I've done for quite a while. Although it was plenty cold, lucky for me the SF winds were being kind and since I was dressed for anything I was relatively comfortable. Kim had considered going with me but with having done a fairly grueling 11-miler yesterday and then not sleeping well at all last night it was wise for her to try to get a little extra rest prior to the busyThursday work schedule. Didn't see a single other runner which is pretty rare for SF.

I broke in some new mid-distance racing flats (Adidas adizero RC) for the first time today. They felt great I'm excited to try them out down at Painters.

Late AM did a bit of treadmill and crosstraining worth 3.5 miles.

Noon long run mostly on Kuhni road including 7 mile tempo in the middle at marathon pace (around 7s). Originally thought of doing 8 miles at MP but I couldn't seem to get in the groove today. Also the wind picked up on the way back making the last couple fast miles kind of miserable.  Ended up freezing my fanny off my the end of the run. The ll-miler I did last week at around the same pace felt much nicer than the 7-miler today. Oh well I guess you take the bad with good.

Ave pace 6:57 for the MP miles.

Morning run in the fog with the SF running crew. At least the wind wasn't blowing and temps weren't too bad for January. This is was Kim's first time out running with this group and she was nervous about being able to keep up since most everyone runs a little faster pace than she usually does. However I thought she did great and kept up very well with the group including Kay, Carolyn, Kelly, Steve and Neldon. Since my legs were kind of hammered from the faster long run yesterday I held back and ran with this group for a little over halfway when Kim went back up heartbreak hill to head home. I then ran with Hal Amos and John Allan (JohnA on the blog) the rest of the way. We could never quite catch up to the other fellow speedster bloggers that were there today including Josse, Amber and Ali. 

Noon run with Paul, Nate and Will. We did the 6.2 mile version of the LakeView course which was mostly good except for the 1/2 mile at the beginning and end where we had to tromp thru a few inches or powdery snow. I was just saying a silent prayer the whole time along the lines of "please no injuries...please no injuries...". At the moment it appears the prayers were answered as I seemed to survive the run with no obvious new aches and pains. It was nice to run in the sun with good company. We even kept up a pretty good pace for an easy run, around 7:50 average. I think it would have been around 7:40-7:45 without the mile in the powder.

Really starting to look forward to Painters. Looks like the weather will be great. Time to think of time goals I suppose. Currently I'm thinking Gold = sub-1:25, Silver = sub-1:28, Bronze = sub-1:30. The gold goal might be a bit in dream land but what the heck, we all gotta dream sometimes, right?

Late AM run on the treadmill. Threw in 5-6 striders just to break up the monotony.  Man I'll be happy to get January out of the way. Looks like the next 2 days are going to be pretty bitter cold around these parts. But from the latest report it does look like things will be pretty nice down in St. George.  Those sunny 50's are looking pretty toasty right about now.

Did a final tune-up/mini-tempo run today. Thought it was going to be ugly cold but it was actually quite pleasant I thought. The sun was shining brightly and there was no wind. The weather report says 18 degrees but it felt a lot warmer than that to me. Thought I better give the new Adidas racers another go before the race and get a couple of miles at something close to goal race pace. The shoes felt good I think I like them better than my other flats.  Did 2 miles in the middle of the run at 6:40 and 6:36 pace. Felt fairly easy like it should if this is indeed my 1/2 marathon pace.

During the 1st warmup mile I felt some real weird pains that I've never noticed before and started stressing a tad. Luckily they went away after a bit, I think I'll just chalk it up to one of those weird things that happen during final taper before a big race. It's been so long since I've done a full-blown taper like I'm doing this week I'm not sure how I'll react as we approach the weekend. Hopefully I don't go bonkers with the running withdrawl and pre-race nerves. I think my body really does need a bit of a break with some lower mile weeks. I plan on keeping next week pretty easy also.

Noon easy 3 mile run outside. Doesn't hardly seem worth the effort to get all bundled up just to go 3 miles but I didn't want to do the treadmill and they were all in use anyway. I would complain about the cold but I out of respect for those runners like Brent who had to go this morning when it was REALLY cold and dark I'll refrain from any griping. Legs feeling good & ready to race.

Wow I guess that Sasha science stuff really works! I didn't think there was much of any chance of me getting close to the 1:25 time Sasha had predicted for me, but with a number of factors coming together today in a positive way (weather, lower elevation, taper, racing flats, race day "magic", etc.), I was able to finally have the blowout PR race I've been waiting for and even exceed Sasha's expectations! Although I must qualify my time by admitting that the race was a little short distance-wise by somewhere from .1 to .2 miles. I measured 12.99 on my Garmin but it seemed most people I talked to were measuring close to 12.9. So I suppose you add in another minute or so and my time is a bit closer to Sasha's prediction.

The weird thing is that I think I ran the first 1/2 of the race too slow. I was in a nearly euphoric state the whole race and never really got tired. I finally decided to race the last 3 miles like a 5K and ended up with close to my best 5K time ever but even then I wasn't really breathing too heavily, I just couldn't get my legs to go any faster than about 6:10 pace. Looks like I need to do more tempo runs at that pace.

I can't really remember a whole lot of details of every mile for this race. I just kind of felt "in the zone" the whole time and I remember passing about 20 guys over the course of the race. It was great to be able to give Kim a high five during the portion of the race when it backtracks and if the timing is just right you get to see some of the mid-pack and back-pack runners. Kim had a blowout PR also and will be posting her race report shortly (she's in the shower cleaning up at the moment). I was able to backtrack and run in with Kim the last 1/2 mile or so. Sasha had beat me to her though and was putting her through the Sasha end-of-race torture treatment. I whispered to her at the time that it was OK to be cursing/hating Sasha at that moment and she could forgive him later :)

Splits as follows (based off the Garmin, not off the whacked out mile markers):

1 - 6:35

2 - 6:37

3 - 6:25

4 - 6:30

5 - 6:35

6 - 6:06 (not sure what got into me on this mile)

7 - 6:31

8 - 6:25

9 - 6:28

10 - 6:15

11 - 6:23

12 - 6:14

13 - 6:10

Ave pace: 6:25

Special thanks to Kim and everyone else on the blog for all the help and encouragement over that last year. If anyone would have told me a year ago or even 6 months ago that at this time my 1/2 marathon pace was what my 5K pace used to be only months ago I would have thought they were bonkers! Special thanks to Sasha. I think maybe it's about time to make another donation to the blog!

One other note....the FRB was certainly well represented in this race. Out of the top 10 or 20 places I know a large percentage of them were bloggers. Kudos to all the great runners on the blog, you are all incredibly inspiring.

Late morning treadmill run and crosstrain (weights/circuit-train) workout at the gym at work. Kim was able to join me today so that was a nice bonus!  I was a good boy today and stayed true to my plan this week of continuing to give my body a break and not jumping right back into 10 mile days.  Also just easy runs this week, no tempos until next week at the soonest (if I blog it I have to stick to it, right?). My body seems to really be happy about me doing the taper last week.

Very pleased to be feeling pretty good after the race. I wasn't sure how I would do with the new lightweight racing shoes pounding out 13 miles at faster than usual pace. But fortunately I seem to have survived fine. No noticeable soreness above the knee on either leg, a little soreness in the calves, ankles (mostly on right side) and shins but nothing that feels injury-ish. I may try 8 miles tomorrow.

Sure wish I could identify the secret of dialing up the runners-high/endorphine/euphoria thing that I had going for me during the race. I pretty much do about the same routine every race and sometimes things are good and sometimes not. I actually slept pretty lousy all last week and had plenty of stress from work. Hard to figure out the secrets to the highs and lows of running.

Noon run at work. Did the hilly 7 peaks out-and-back route. Legs felt OK as far as post-race soreness but not a whole lot of zip, especially up the hills. Ave pace 8:50.

Kim was able to join me a bit before noon for 6 miles on Kuhni road after which I did 4 more miles solo. Thanks Kim for joining me, the 6 miles were much more enjoyable than the 4. 

Legs feeling a little better every day but I still plan on resisting the urge to push it on any runs until next week.

Ave pace: 9:13

AM run with Kim in the "foggy foggy dew". Kind of eerie in the dark with the fog but NO WIND and not too terribly cold so ended up being a nice morning run.

Late AM went to the gym for run and crosstrain. Tried out the spiffy new treadmills, not to shabby as far as treadmills go. More cushion than the old ones, but not planning on making a habit of it as I generally despise all treadmills, especially after the India trip last August. Did a few striders just to remind the legs about faster running. Ave pace: 8:00

Also for the 2nd time this week I watched the gym movie of the week which happened to be that great running classic "Forrest Gump".  At least this time I caught more of the 1st half of the movie where Monday it was the last half.  Looking forward to going to "Spirit of the Marathon" movie tonight with Kim and some of the running dudes from the WBR team. Also did some weights/circuit-training.   

Another delightful January morning run. This time we were blessed to have the wonderful SF canyon winds to keep us company. Ran just over half the miles solo then went the rest with Kim. At least we're into the final week of this miserable month of January.

Kim and I went to the "Spirit  of the Marathon" special feature movie last night. I thought it was OK but for me for some reason it just didn't quite capture what I consider the "spirit" of the marathon to be. Kim suggested that maybe a person just has to go out and run a marathon or 2 to really capture the true spirit.

This weekend Kim and I had a quick little getaway Friday and Saturday up in SLC without any kiddies. We had a great time. Caught the Jazz game last night vs. Sacramento. We actually had seats that were NOT in the nosebleed section for a change.

This morning we went for a run on the Jordan River trail since it was right next to our hotel. This was the first time either of us had run on this trail so it was nice for a change of pace and the weather was quite nice as well for this time of year. Lots of sun which we've been enjoying throughout the day. We thought we might see a lot of runners but we hardly saw anyone at all. Just a couple of joggers toward the very end of our run and a couple of guys walking dogs.

Next week it's back to the full-blown training schedule.

AM solo run at work on Kuhni road. Went earlier than usual to beat the storm. Temps were mild but the wind was pretty horrendous. Legs feeling pretty good. Ave pace 8:10.

Headed to the gym around 11:30 with intentions of doing a run including 4 miles of 10K tempo (6:15 pace) on the treadmill because I figured Kuhni road would be to icy/sloppy to try to run fast on. But on the way to the gym I noticed the sun was pretty bright and the roads looked like they were clearing up nicely so I decided to give Kuhni road a shot.

Fortunutely the roads were pretty good and the bright sun was also nice on the face. Unfortunately something was wrong with me today and after 2 miles of warmup and 1.5 miles of 6:15 pace I got some pretty severe stomach pains and nausea and I had to bag the tempo run altogether. Not sure if it was something I ate or what but at any rate it just wasn't working for me today. Ended up just running an mostly easy run toward the fast end of my easy pace range. Also did a bit of circuit/weight training.

Ave pace for entire run: 7:20.

My stupid high-hamstring tendon-butt-itis is acting up a bit lately. Hope it doesn't start giving me big troubles again. I'll stick with easy runs for the next few days.

Late AM treadmill run. Most miles were in the 7:30-7:45 pace range.

They are doing fitness evaluations at the gym this week. Gary the gym manager had told me earlier in the week it was OK for Kim to come in with me and have a couple things checked.  Kim is probably too modest to mention it on her blog but I wanted to brag her up a bit and report that her body fat measured in the low teens! Pretty impressive I think! She's also lost 5-10 pounds since stepping up the running and is looking pretty lean and mean! Also her 168 cholesterol put my 189 to shame. Sorry if I've embarrased you Kimi but I just felt like bragging on your behalf a bit today.

AM run with Kim in the chilly but thankfully not windy morning air. Actually was a nice morning as far as January mornings go. We met up with some of the SF/Scenic gang and ran with them for a bit. I plan on doing some more at work later. Tried some of Brent's suggested hamstring ball exercises. Felt pretty uncoordinated but I do think it could be helpful for the tendon-bumitis so I might do these a few times a week. Thanks for the suggestion Brent. Actually the hamstrings were feeling pretty good today so that made me happy.

Late AM workout at the gym. Treadmill and circuit/weights workout.

Finally we made it to Jan 31. To January all I can say is goodbye and good riddance! Looking forward to a (hopefully) more sunny and slightly warmer February.