Every Run is a Great Run!

AM: Nicer morning than we thought it might be so that was a nice surprise. A bit nippy around freezing but very little wind. Went 6 miles with Kim including 4 striders of 30 seconds each thrown in here and there. Since Kim went a bit too fast yesterday Coach Tom forced her to run a bit slower than usual this morning. Ave pace 10:14.

PM: Ran just over 6 miles on Kuhni road just after noon. Did 6 30 second striders somewhere around 5:20-5:30 pace. Average pace overall 7:32.

Our sweet little Tia was sick with a nasty ear ache last night. Since I'm mostly dead when I sleep and don't tend to hear any noises in the night like loud explosions, screams, sirens, etc., let alone my gentle daughters quiet sobs, as usual it ended up Kim being the one to be up throughout the night taking care of Tia.  As a result Kim and I thought it best to scratch the planned morning 3 mile run. Kim had to work today and has a way busy day and I know she hates to miss but since she is racing the 5K tomorrow I put my "coach" hat on and told her she would be fine missing today and might gain some advantage by having fresher legs tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to pacing Kim, I hope she still likes me and keeps me on as coach (and husband) after all is said and done with the race :)

Went 7 miles solo at work in the early afternoon on Kuhni road. Legs are starting to get some zip back and feeling fresher every day the last 2-3 days. Pretty much uneventful run, although I did see some cool migratory birds out in the fields and marsh. Ave pace 7:39.

Fun morning of running today. Kim and I went out at 6am and met up with the SF running group. Since Kim was running the IceBreaker 5K later she only did couple of miles while I ended up getting in 11 prior to the race. Ran with Hal and Allison for a little over 2 miles but then as I was rushed to get to the race I ended up pushing the pace a bit and running solo the last 7 or 8 miles. Most miles in the 7:40-8:00 range.

Then it was off to the Elementary to try my hand for the first time at being a pacer for Kim. I knew Kim had potential to go under 25 minutes for the 1st time ever so that was the primary goal. Backup goal was to get a PR (these may just have been my goals, not necessarily Kim's). The course is potentially fast the and the temperatures were OK for racing (40 degrees?). However, with the canyon winds being very nasty this morning I was thinking the sub-25 was probably not in the cards but I was pretty sure the PR was in the bag with all the great training Kim has gotten in lately.

As we started out we knew the wind would be pretty much directly in our face for the first half of the race. I tried best I could to stay in front of Kim enough to block the wind somewhat but I don't if it helped much as I think we weren't close enough most of the time for me to provide much wind block. We started out around 8 minute pace but it was too fast with the wind so we settled into around an 8:15 pace, finishing the first mile at 8:17. This was well off pace to finish under 25 but on pace for a PR so I felt OK. I was a little concerned because Kim seemed to already be hurting a bit after 1 mile and I didn't know if we could hold the pace for mile 2.

However as we turned the corner during mile 2 where we got the wind at our back for maybe a quarter mile it seemed to give Kim a boost that carried through the mile and we finished mile 2 in 8:15. Well off a sub-25 pace but still on pace for PR and now the wind was mostly at our back the rest of the way.

As we turned the corner for the last .8 miles and the wind squarely at our backs I decided to test the sub-8 pace waters just to see how Kim would respond. Although Kim wasn't a real happy camper at this point she took the speed increase in stride and mostly stayed by my side. The pace kept sneaking down, closer to 7:50 now with .5 miles to go. I told Kim the PR was in the bag and that sub-25 was actually a possibility. She didn't say much, just mumbled something about how she didn't really give a hoot about the sub-25 or the PR. I tried to keep the encouraging comments coming, telling her to only worry about getting to the next corner or next landmark. She responded very well and we held the 7:50 pace.

As we turned the corner where we could see the finish I knew the sub-25 was well within reach without a major collapse. I told Kim as much and encouraged her to start her final kick, which she did in impressive fashion, leaving me in the dust as she blazed her way to a superb effort and time of 24:46! Yahoo! Big congrats to you Kim you did great, great, great!!! I'm really proud of you!

Afterward I ran the 1-mile run with Tani where she did a great effort also finishing in around 10-10:30. Jansen also ran the mile and was pleased to actually be the overall winner, finishing with a time of 6:25. Tia was going to run the mile but is still recovering from a cold so she stayed home with Tyler.

Even though only about 40 runners did the 5K I notice even if I would have raced I still would have only been perhaps 2nd in my AD as the speedster Carl H would have whooped me. I think I may have been able to give John A a run for the money however. This will have to wait until next time.

All-in-all it was a great morning of running and spending quality time with family and friends.

So this week the plan is to continue with the base building with some hills and fartlek/striders thrown in. We'll build on last weeks workout by adding in either more intervals and/or longer time/distance per interval.

Shooting for 65-75 miles this week.

Current pace zones (note: I've tweaked Kim's paces quicker a bit based off the 5K last week):

Kim: 1MP = 7:20-7:30, 3KP = 7:40-7:55, 5KP = 7:55-8:15, 10KP = 8:15-8:35, HMP = 8:40-8:55, MP = 8:55-9:15, BP = 9:20-10:30, RP = 10:30-12:00

Tom: 1MP = 5:15-5:25, 3KP = 5:35-5:45, 5KP = 5:50-6:00, 10KP = 6:00-6:15, HMP = 6:20-6:40, MP = 6:40-6:55, BP = 7:10-8:00, RP = 8:00-9:10.

Tentative plan for this week:

Mon: AM 3-6 miles with Kim @ RP, PM 6 @ BP. Dork drills: Stiff-legged run 2x20s, Running no arms 2x20s

Tue: Hills: AM 5-6 with Kim @ RP, PM 6-7 @ RP w/ 8x45s hill reps @ 1MP w/2-minute active recoveries.(6 reps for Kim).

Wed: AM 0-6 with Kim @ RP, PM 6 @ BP. Core workout.

Thu: Fartlek: AM 5-6 with Kim @ RP, PM 6 @ BP w/ 8x45s striders "sprinkled in" (6 for Kim) @ 1MP

Fri: AM 0-6 with Kim @ RP, PM 6 @ BP. Core workout.

Sat: AM 9 miles @ BP, 8-10 miles @ RP with Kim.

AM: Nice easy 4.35 mile run with Kim around the river bottoms short route. Looks like this week we finally get temps well above freezing for the entire week! Is it time to put the longs away for good yet? I sure hope so! Of course here in SF we always have the morning winds to deal with. Today for excitement we observed nature (since it was actually light outside) and also did some dork drills (stiff-legged running and no-arms). Ave pace 9:58.

Noon: Ran the Eagleview 10K loop route solo in the sun. Ave pace 7:29.

AM: Did some easy running plus some hill repeats with Kim totaling just over 6 miles. Beautiful morning for a run, the wind wasn't too bad and it was just a pretty day to be out. Nice that it's getting warmer and also lighter earlier. Kim did well with hill repeats (6 x 45s, w/ 2 min. recovery), on her blog she said they were 45 minute repeats but we weren't quite that crazy!

Late AM: Did my 2nd run earlier than usual to enjoy the cool temps. Jogged 2 miles over to Eagleview area and then did a similar workout as the one Kim did this morning, albeit with 8 repeats instead of 6. Dang those hills really make me pooped. Overall ave pace 8:50. Not sure exactly on the hill repeats pace as the garmin isn't so reliable over this short of distance. Probably a bit faster than 5K pace.

AM: Ran the river bottoms with Kim 4.35 miles. We attempted to sleep in a bit longer than usual but our biological alarm clocks would have nothing of it and we both woke up a bit after 5. Laid around for a little bit attempting to fall back to sleep but finally gave up and went out on the run. Another beautiful morning, a bit windy but not so bad if you run the wind-friendly routes. Ave pace was relaxed today, I think just over 10 min pace. Kim got in a couple more miles after I stopped. 

Noon: Good size group today for the run for a change. Did the 10K Eagleview loop with Nate, Darin, and Steven K. Will also joined for a mile. Ave pace 7:33.

Well we had a bit of rough night last night as Tia was sick through the night and today. In particular Kim didn't get much sleep at all between having a late church meeting that went well past 10 and her being the one to usually take care of Tia (since I'm mostly dead when I sleep). So the bottom line was that we had to scratch the morning run.

Was able to get out about 11am at work and get in 10 miles. My legs felt really good today and I actually quite enjoyed the fartlek workout and the feeling of running fast (fast for me anyways). Got in 8 45 seconds repeats during the middle miles, spaced roughly a 1/2 mile apart but felt like I could have done more. Although I don't think the garmin is very reliable over 45 second intervals I thought I'd log the data anyway just for comparison purposes for future workouts. Looks I averaged around .15 miles distance for each repeat, mostly in the 5:15-5:30 pace range. Split paces were 5:35, 5:27, 5:31, 5:22, 5:19, 5:26, 5:07, 5:16.

Ave overall pace for the 10 miles 7:41.

Gotta keep it quick today. Headed to St. George shortly. Got in 6 miles with Kim around 9:50 pace. Then got not quite 3 more solo, 8:55 pace. Felt pretty good while running with Kim but then legs turned to lead on the solo miles. Eventful moments today included a goat and a horse who appeared to be good friends running laps around their field, and popcorn popping on some kind of tree. Oh and of course the wind blew.

Beautiful weather day this morning, a bit chilly at the start but no wind and after the sun came out it was near perfect for a good long run. Met up with the SF group and got in about 7 miles with Kim and a few others, then I went the rest of the way with the speedy guy group that started out with half dozen or so guys but ended up mostly me and Hal and Kevin. Had a reunion with my old long-lost running buddy Harry (as in "Harry's Hill"). I haven't run Harry's for about 8-9 months and it seemed tougher than it should have been, but I did manage to hold a sub-9 pace which I think is better than what I ever used to do in years gone by. I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty of Harry in the weeks/months to come. 

I'm hoping the SGM folks didn't burn me yet again. I have an email from a couple months ago saying that I have a guaranteed 'in' for the race this year but yet I don't see mine or Kim's name on the lottery list. We've both decided to not only work our fanny's off in training but also work our fanny's to find a way to get us both into the marathon.

Ave pace: 8:29.

Happy Mother's Day to all the bloggers who perform Mommy duties of any kind!

After 3 weeks of pretty good training and miles we were thinking of making this week a reduced mileage / rest week. However we're both feeling pretty good so the current plan is 1 more week similar to last week and then we'll probably take a rest week next week and finish it off running the Scandinavian 5K on the 24th down in my good 'ol home town of Ephraim.

Current pace zones:

Kim: 1MP = 7:20-7:30, 3KP = 7:40-7:55, 5KP = 7:55-8:15, 10KP = 8:15-8:35, HMP = 8:40-8:55, MP = 8:55-9:15, BP = 9:20-10:30, RP = 10:30-12:00

Tom: 1MP = 5:15-5:25, 3KP = 5:35-5:45, 5KP = 5:50-6:00, 10KP = 6:00-6:15, HMP = 6:20-6:40, MP = 6:40-6:55, BP = 7:10-8:00, RP = 8:00-9:10.

Tentative plan for this week:

Mon: AM 3-6 miles with Kim @ RP, PM 7 @ BP. Dork drills.

Tue: Hills: AM 5-6 with Kim @ RP, PM 6-7 @ RP w/ 8x1-min hill reps @ 1MP w/2-minute active recoveries.(6 reps for Kim).

Wed: AM 0-6 with Kim @ RP, PM 7 @ BP. Core workout.

Thu: Fartlek: AM 5-6 with Kim @ RP, PM 7 @ BP w/ 8x1-min striders "sprinkled in" (6 for Kim) @ 1MP

Fri: AM 0-6 with Kim @ RP, PM 7 @ BP. Core workout.

Sat: AM 10 miles @ BP, 5-10 miles @ RP. I'll be doing this run while at father-son campout near Birdseye. Kim will be running a 'casual' 5K at Thanksgiving Point in an attempt to win an entry into SG marathon. Good luck Kim!

Kim and I exercised our Monday option of bagging the morning together run if we have good reason and getting it done separately later in the day. As we lied there in bed listening to the monsoon-like sounding wind and rain it was a pretty easy choice. Only thing is we didn't get to do our dork drills together. Darn (sarcasm). I've about decided the dork drills are useless and silly (and dorky of course), so perhaps Coach Tom will banish them from the workout schedule.

Got in 10 miles at work on Kuhni Road and a different road I haven't run on before since Kuhni's is partially closed. Ended up by the sewer treatment plant. Oh yummy! What delightful odors were enjoyed by all. Had to run solo today as I went out earlier than usual to meet work/schedule demands.

Most miles in the 7:30-8:00 range but with a few at the beginning and end slower to raise the average pace to 8:02.

Going to watch Tani compete in the Hershey's track meet today so decided to get the entire workout done this morning. Went about 3 miles with Kim then headed down to the bottoms to do hill repeats. Since Kim was feeling a twinge in the achilles yesterday and since she's running a 5K race/tempo-run on Saturday, Coach Tom suggested it would be wise for her to forego the hills this week. If she's feeling fine tomorrow we may do a few 1-min striders.

Did 8 1-min hill repeats with 2-min active recovery in between. These hill repeats are always tough and I thought I may have to run and find a bush toward the end of the repeats for an unplanned potty break but luckily it didn't come to that. Not sure on pace, garmin was all over the place again as it seems to always be on the hill repeats. Probably around 5K pace. Average pace for the entire run around 9 min.

UPDATE: Wanted to mention that Tani did awesome at the Hershey's track meet!! She made it to the semi-finals in the 50m and 100m dash and also to the finals in the 4x100m relay. I think the relay team ended up getting 4th. Not too bad I think! Luckily Tani takes more after her mom's side as far as running ability and overall athleticism. Most our other kids take after my side which wasn't blessed with great athletic prowess. I think Tani is our first runner to make it past the 1st round for this track meet. That's the great thing about distance running is that even if you're a generally lousy athlete you can still do pretty well with decent training and discipline.

Also while at the track meet I ran from the track a couple blocks to the van and over to the fountains to fill up our water bottles a couple of times, I think good enough for another .75 miles to push the total to double-digits for the day.

AM: Ran just over 4 miles with Kim, then she got in a couple more solo. Another beautiful May morning, looks like we'll have nice days for the next while. Super! Kim was feeling pretty spry so we did 6 1-min striders scattered throughout the run. Most were in the 7-7:30 pace range but I think the last one was under 7. Ave pace around 9:50.

Noon: Ran the 10K Lakeview loop with Paul. Darin also joined us for about the last couple of miles. I tacked a bit more on to the end solo to end up at 7 miles. Ave pace 7:43.

AM: Had a real nice morning relaxed run with Kim. Absolutely beautiful morning, maybe the first we've had in the 50s and no wind. Ran what has become our standard 4.35 mile river bottoms loop and then Kim got in a bit more afterward. Didn't get much sleep last night, between watching the Jazz game which went until around 11:30 (DANG why did they lose!!??), then staying until after midnight so we could sign Kim and Tyler up as volunteers at first chance for WBR, we probably only got 5 hours of sleep. But hopefully we'll be OK at work with being too snoozy. Ave pace between 9:45-10:00.

Late AM: I quite enjoyed my timed fartlek workout today. It was a tad warm and windy but once again I thought it was quite invigorating to pretend to be a speedster, albeit in short 1-min. bursts with ample rest time in between (3 minutes). I did still run during the "rests" around 8:15-8:45 pace. I was pleased the intervals felt easier to me than last week even though I went further and rested the same. I feel like I could have done a handful more at near the same pace. I know Sasha would probably say I would be better served going back to the longer/slower tempo runs like I was doing before or building up to higher mileage, but dang-it! I really like doing the faster/shorter stuff sometimes so I'm going to indulge for a few more weeks anyway. Just pray that I don't hurt myself.

Except for the 1st repeat, all were in the 5:05-5:30 range, around .18-.20 miles. Paces were 5:46, 5:27, 5:28, 5:23, 5:22, 5:22, 5:12, 5:08.

Overall average pace - 7:33.

AM: Nice run around river bottoms short loop 4.35 miles with Kim. Another nice day, albeit a bit windy, but no complaints. Didn't pay attention to pace, probably in the 9:45-10:00 range.

Late AM: Lakeview 10K route easy run. Legs feeling a bit weary from the fartlek run yesterday so decided to keep the pace slow, well into the recovery pace range. Ave pace 8:40.

Good luck to everyone racing tomorrow!

Well unfortunately Kim wasn't able to score the SGM entry golden ticket today at the Running with Angels 5K at Thanksgiving Point. She had submitted an inspiring story on overcoming adversity, but the eventual winner also was well deserving with her story, having overcome being hit by a van while running the Ogden Marathon last year. OH, and she was also pregnant with twins at the time. How ya gonna beat THAT! But we haven't given up the SGM entry quest just yet as there are still other giveaway races and charity entries to explore.

I had planned on running up at Father/Son camp near Birdseye. The boys and I did go up last night with plans of staying overnight, but it ended up there were lots of schedule conflicts in the ward and not many fathers and sons showed up, and those who were there were mostly very young kids, none of my boys friends were able to make it. So after dinner, games, and fireside activities my boys consulted with me and decided we would have better father-son bonding opportunities if we went home early and watched the Jazz (who unfortunately seemed to be thinking more about camping or something other than playing B-Ball).

One of the other nice things about not staying overnight at the camp is it allowed me to go and run with Kim in the 5K. Before the race I got up early and ran 10 miles solo around 7:30-8:00 pace. The rest of the miles came piecemeal, before-during-and-after the 5K. Most of the last 9 miles were in the 8-10 pace range with a couple of miles under 8-min during the 5K.

This week will be a recovery week with slightly reduced mileage and not as many reps on the hill repeats. We'll finish off the week with a 5K race down in Ephraim at the Scandinavian Days Festival. No time goals for the 5K since this is not a PR type course, a bit hilly and at elevation (around 5500 ft.). So I'm thinking the main goals are just to race well, have fun, and see if maybe we can learn something new about mental toughness during the last mile. I think I'll just ride on Terry oldBean's coattails for as long as I can. Maybe I'll try Sasha's new grunting/moaning strategy and see if that helps and to freak Terry out and whoever else is nearby.

I'll be shooting for 50-60 miles this week. Kim is feeling pretty good so she'll keep her mileage around the 35-40 range for now.

Current pace zones:

Kim: 1MP = 7:20-7:30, 3KP = 7:40-7:55, 5KP = 7:55-8:15, 10KP = 8:15-8:35, HMP = 8:40-8:55, MP = 8:55-9:15, BP = 9:20-10:30, RP = 10:30-12:00

Tom: 1MP = 5:15-5:25, 3KP = 5:35-5:45, 5KP = 5:50-6:00, 10KP = 6:00-6:15, HMP = 6:20-6:40, MP = 6:40-6:55, BP = 7:10-8:00, RP = 8:00-9:10.

Tentative plan for this week:

Mon: AM 5-6 miles with Kim @ RP, PM 5 miles @ BP. No dork drills as they've been banned forever. But looks like temps will be in the 90's so my PM run might be a good heat-training run.

Tue: Hills: AM 5-6 miles with Kim @ RP including 5x75-second hill reps @ 3K pace with 2.5 minute rests (4 reps for Kim). PM 5 miles @ RP.

Wed: AM 5 miles @ BP. Late AM couples massage for Kim and I (the most anticipated "workout" of the week!). Coach Tom thinks perhaps a monthly massage should be added to the workout regiment, seems like a good replacement for the dork drills.

Thu: AM 5-6 miles with Kim @ RP, PM 7 miles @ BP.

Fri: 5-6 miles @ RP.

Sat: 8-12 miles including 5K race. Other miles @ RP.

AM: Looks like we get a taste of mid-summer type running weather for the next couple of days. Ran the 6 mile river bottoms loop with Kim, probably close to 60 degrees. Supposed to be in the 90's for highs the next day or 2. We've been trying to refrain from firing up the air conditioner but after a miserable hot night last night with not great sleep (especially for Kim) we decided to break down and do whatever it takes to sleep in comfort tonight. Ave pace 10:05.

Late AM: Talked Paul and Nate into running a little earlier than usual to beat the heat. However slavedriver Nate made us do the EagleView route and go up the nasty hill twice. Luckily all 3 of us had run just a few hours earlier so nobody turned it into a race and we just kept the pace mostly easy. Ave pace 8:17.

AM: 6.4 miles with Kim which included 5x75s hill repeats with 2 1/2 minute rests. Legs felt really good and juiced today, hope this holds out through to the weekend for the 5K. Ave pace 9:41

Late AM: Kuhni road 5.2 mile run at work. Nice and easy. Ave pace 8:32

AM: Luckily we were able to beat the rain this morning and get the run in. Only 5 for me today as this week is a recovery week and the mileage will be down a bit from the past 4 or 5 weeks. Today's run was a story problem run to test our math skills. Kim went out about 5 minutes before me at around a 9:30 pace, then I went out at around 7:30 pace. So how long would it take me to catch her? Well I never bothered to do the actual math but it turns out I caught her between miles 2 & 3. Still pretty warm this morning but I guess that changes for the next few days.  A little breezy on the last couple of miles but coming from the NW instead of from the typical SF canyon direction.

Ave pace: 7:40. Felt harder than it should have. I'll blame it on the wind, tired AM legs, and the hill repeats from yesterday.

Late AM: Couples massage!!!! Looking forward to this. Sounds a whole lot better than going for a 2nd run in the rain.

AM: Well today was one of those Soggy Bottom Boy runs as Kim and I had a delightful jaunt in the rain. Ran the river bottoms 6-mile loop. Ave pace 9:52.

Late AM: So I guess it is a double-rain run day. Went 7 miles on Kuhni road in the drizzle. Actually it wasn't bad at all as shortly into the run I got in one of those zones where I just feel good and the running feels effortless.  I noticed my pace kept dipping out of the easy range down into marathon pace territory so I had to keep reminding myself that I'm running a 5K Saturday and I should save the effort for then. Just hope I feel as good then as I did today. Was it the massage yesterday? Or just a good ol' dose of endorphines? Whatever the case it just felt pretty dandy. Ave pace 7:25.

Also while I was running I was thinking about Sasha's blog yesterday where he talked about his running form and how in pictures it looks like he's overstriding but in reality he's whipping the legs forward and back while in the air so that when the foot strikes it does so with force and springiness with forward momentum.  I've read about how elite runners run this way and heard descriptions before but until I read Sasha's explanation I don't think I really fully grasped the concept in a way that was concrete enough to be helpful in my running. So anyway I was making a few minor changes in my stride today to try to add a bit of this "springiness". I liked the way it felt, seemed to allow me to noticeably speed up with not much more effort and without feeling that much different from my default stride.

Nice relaxing morning run around the river bottoms with Kim. No rain, no wind, a little nippy (high 30's?) but just fine after the first mile or so. Ave pace 9:59.

This is all I'll be running today since it's a recovery/rest week for me and we have the 5K tomorrow. Hope I feel good for the race. I've decided that although I will still wear the garmin for data collection I'm going to ignore it for the race and run entirely by feel (or perhaps run entirely by Terry) and see what happens. Should be fun. I realized a few days ago that this will be the first "official" 5K I've run in about 6 months. Looking forward to seeing family and friends down in Ephraim and Manti. Also happy birthday to Jansen (14 yrs) tomorrow!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JANSEN!  FOURTEEN YEARS OLD TODAY! 

This was a horrible race for me. Worst race of the year by far. No way to sugar coat it other than I'll do what Terry did and post my adjusted time instead of official time since the race was about .10 long according to all garmin reports and with noticing they added an extra zigzag to the race compared to other years.

So what happened? For whatever reason I always have lousy races in Ephraim, I can't seem to figure out how to race well there. Manti is just down the road 7 miles at about the same elevation and I do fine there but I seem cursed in Ephraim.

I did get some preliminary signals before the race that it might not be that day. 1) Haven't slept very well this week (although Kim has slept even worse but gave a PR effort today. Way to go KIM!!!). 2) Something I ate last night (I think it was the Wendy's chili) gave me upset stomach through the night. 3) During my pre-race warmup during mile 2 I got the flutter-bug blurred vision thing that usually means I'm going to get nauseated if I run very fast. 4) Also having to scrape ice off the windshield in late May is just plain WRONG! I know I can't blame this last one for poor running but perhaps it made me a bit grumpy. Actually the weather ended up being near perfect for racing.

OK so the plan was to mostly ignore the garmin and run by feel and/or try to keep up with Terry for as long as I could. Bad plan. Terry took off like a rocket. I stayed close behind for about the first quarter but the "run by feel" signals were all screaming "THIS IS WAY TOO FAST FOR YOU FOR A 5K TODAY". Checking the pace at this point I noticed we are running 5:30 pace. Since this is my mile pace I figured this was bad. If Terry was being strategic in trying to dump me early he was quite successful as I backed off to a pace that my body was telling me I could handle for 3.1 miles. Unfortunately today that pace was around 6:20. UGH! That should be closer to my 1/2 marathon pace than 5K pace. Oh well what do you do, this same thing happens sometimes on my training tempo runs where I just don't have it on certain days. Any time I tried to speed up I would get a wave of nausea and that horrible feeling like if you don't slow down you will HAVE to visit the bushes shortly for an unplanned/unwanted potty break.

I'll just chalk this one up to a bad day and look forward to next time. My mileage base has been great so I'm pretty sure I haven't lost THAT much fitness the last month while I've been focusing on base building and not many tempo runs. We'll see what happens at Heart of Holladay next month.

Congrats to Kim and Terry who both had great races with Kim giving yet another PR effort. This after a week of very bad sleep, no taper, and eating a kid's burger at Wendy's the night before. Guess maybe next time I better trade the chili for the kid's burger.

Hey if anyone has any other thoughts/ideas/comments on what may have gone wrong for me today I'm all ears.

When I heard the rain falling this morning I was not exactly so eager to get out for the 20-miler in the rain. But thanks to Kim's encouragement I finally got my fanny out of bed and got out and got it done. Actually ended up being quite a nice run, the rain never really got bad and there was no wind so I'm glad we got it done. We did the long run today instead of Saturday since we didn't run long last week, holiday today so we had the time, and this weekend Kim and I and Darin & Lori Cable will be participating in the Utah County version of the AmazingRace (like the reality show not like a running race).  Our team The Four Fartleks looks to be pretty competitive, I think we'll be tough to beat!

Went 8 miles with Kim ave pace 10:08. Then we parted ways and I went 12 more solo at ave pace of 7:52.  

Legs feeling fine after the crummy 5K Saturday. Also the chest congestion and cough is about gone.

AM: Nice easy 4.35 mile recovery run on a breezy morning. Went about 4 with Kim before parting ways so she could get a few extra miles in. Feeling pretty good after the 20-miler yesterday. Ave pace 10:05. 

PM: Went with Paul, Nate, Bill and Will out toward Lakeview. They let me go with them even though I only have 3 letters in my name instead of 4. I had said beforehand I was only going 4 miles (I knew at least some of them would be going longer) at 8 min/mi pace or slower. I was proud of myself for resisting the peer pressure and the urge to go longer and/or faster. This may be the 1st time I've ever stuck to my guns. Paul momentarily succumbed to the temptings to go longer but then he repented (with help from his non-running-friendly breakfast) and after we parted ways for a bit he turned around and caught me for the last mile. Both runs today felt very relaxing and therapeutic. Just what my legs needed I think. Ave pace 8:22.

AM: Warmed up for a couple of miles then it was time for hill repeats. Kim and I were joined by JohnA today as we have been wanting to "share the pain" of the hill repeats and John is always a good glutton for punishment. John and I did 8 x 90s repeats with rests of around 2 1/2 minutes (Kim did 6 repeats as per Coach Tom's orders, I'm sure she would have done 8 if I would have let her). These longer hill repeats are pretty tough but it helped to have John there right on my tail and breathing down my neck the whole time. It didn't help that we had some wind in our faces during most of the repeats. I think John was sandbagging a bit and not going all out since I think it was his first time doing this type of workout this year. Hopefully he can join us again in the coming weeks. Ave pace 9:20.

PM: Went part way out with Nate and Paul towards the lake before turning back early and getting in 4.5 miles. I think those guys ended up with 6.2. Legs are pretty hammered from the hills this morning so I took it real easy. Ave pace 8:42.

AM: Ran 4.5 with Kim around the river bottoms on a beautiful, slightly brisk morning. Kim got in a bit more afterward. Ave pace 9:55.

Late AM: Ran 7 miles solo on Kuhni road. Kind of a blah run. Windy. Was glad to get it over with. Not very "spiritualicious" (the word I stole from Paul Thomas). Paul maybe you can come up with a word to describe these kind of duddy runs. Ave pace 7:51.

AM: Ran just over 6 with Kim mostly around the river bottoms. We threw in 6 90s intervals along the way just for fun. Kim was really moving smooth and speedy on these intervals, especially the last 2. I can see that eventually she just might have a sub-7min pace 5K in her. Ave pace 9:42.

Late AM: 7 miles at work on Kuhni Road. Did some timed intervals starting at about 1.5 miles, 8 x 90s bursts with 180s jog rest in between. Kept the pace mostly in the 5:30-5:45 range. Looks like I covered around .27 miles per interval. Felt pretty good today, didn't feel like I had to kill myself to hit this pace range. Ave pace per each interval was 5:42, 5:43, 5:37, 5:35, 5:37, 5:36, 5:43, 5:29. Overall average pace for the 7 miles 7:30.

Dang! Close but no cigar as far as the RaceAllNight/AmazingRace competition went. Later I'll post a link to Kim's personal blog which includes pictures and her perspective.

Summary: Our fine 4 person (2 couples) team The Four Fartleks actually led the race at the halfway point. But as Kim lamented...."it's nice to lead at halftime but it's the score at the end of the game that matters". Due to a few glitches, some beyond our control and some not, we did not win the competition, but rather finished 50 points behind ending up in 4th or 5th place.

This was much more strenuous than I anticipated. Perhaps doing a 2-a-day including 8 x 90s timed fartleks yesterday wasn't so smart. I'm counting it as 6 miles running because I know we ran at least that much. But with all the cross-training we did what with climbing, riding, biking, wallyball, etc, it feels more like I ran 15-20 miles.

So round 1 of the race began around 5pm yesterday and finished just before 2am. During that time we did the following:

Went down 100 ft. water slide at 7 peaks.

Ate a shrimp taco at Bajios

Downed a quart of Coldstone Creamery Ice Cream between the 4 of us.

Went bowling in Payson.

Went to Noahs in PG and played wallyball and billiards

Went to "School of Rock" type music school in AF and learned how to play "Smoke on the Water" as team/band.

Went to a car dealership in Lindon and test drove a Jeep Cherokee to Purple turtle and Discovery Park. Pictures required.

Toured a ParadeOfHomes model home valued at 2.5 million dollars looking for little papers with RaceAllNight logos.

When to a history museum in Lehi. Had to solve a DaVinci Code / National Treasure type riddle (Answer = "Find boy weapon maker and ask for the other green meat") which culminated in us eating dried grasshoppers.

Played arcade games at Trafalga

Went to UVSC and searched in the dark for stuff hidden in Owlz baseball stadium.

Went to Sundance resort and bike/hiked to theater. Composed team limerick.

Went to BYU and rode pairs-bicycles around campus looking for stuff to take pictures of (sure glad the Cables are BYU alum or we would have been toast for this one)

Went to Center street and ran up and down the street trying to solve a "code" based on words from statue placques.

Wow! that's alot of stuff and that was just the halfway point. Like I mentioned we lead at this point. So we attempted to sleep from about 2-4:30 with minimal success (great WBR training eh!!!). Then we hit the roads again at 5am until 2pm for round 2. Here is what we did today:

Hiked to the Y

Canoed on Provo river down by Utah Lake (this is where we really lost our edge as there was a sign we had to locate that had fallen down causing us to waste around 40 minutes!. This caused us to be 1 event shy of the points we would have need to gain the victory. BUMMER! Oh well Every race is an adventure and things don't always go as planned.)

Spent $2 dollars at a garage sale to buy a team mascot (stuffed leopard)

Hit some balls at driving range at Cedar Hills golf course.

Back to Noah's again for more wallyball/billiards

Went to a pearl store in Lehi, learned how to tell the difference between real/fake pearls.

Rafted down the Provo river above Vivian park in rubber rafts.

Went to Krishna temple in SF and walked llamas around an obstacle course.

Went fishing at trout farm in Spring Lake

Went to Lavender Farms in Mona, had to identify Lavendar fragrance among 6 different vials of perfume, then climbed rock walls and did paddle boats.

Ate more ice cream at Red Barn in Santaquin.

Went to Art Museum in Springville and had to identify various features of works of art.

Went to Provo Library and had to do research related to Utah Valley and complete test/survey.

Dang this is where we ran out of time. We made a futile attempt with what little time remained (had to return to base by 1:59pm or face penalty) to squeeze in one more event at Sprint store. But alas our "old age" caught up to us and we were not up to the teenager-minded task which was to each send a big long text message to the store clerk. Had to bag this event, thus losing 75 points and thus losing the competition.

Oh well....what the heck! We had a BLAST!!!! This was one of the funnest things I think we've done for quite a while, felt like teenagers again (albeit with a big dose of body aches and pains)! Had a bit of a WBR feel to it and it's got me looking forward to the relay. Thanks Kim, Cables, and Bowman's who pretty much single-handedly put on the race in classy fashion.