Every Run is a Great Run!

Six easy at work including 10 x 10s hill sprints.  No watch.

Not a good run today.  Got bogged down with work issues and didn't get out the door until around noon when it was getting a bit warm.  

Plan was for 5 x 1K @ 5K pace with 90s rests, but I just wasn't into it all.  Finally bagged the workout half way thru the 3rd repeat and death marched it back home the long way to get in 7 miles.  Guess I need to get more used to the heat or get out the door earlier when it's cool.

8:11/158 

Ran 3.5 in the early morning near home then later in the morning ran 8.5 watch-free at work.  

Since I was doing a 10K time trial and I knew the weather was going to be cool today I decided to sleep in a bit and didn't get out to run until around 8:30.

Temps were dandy for a good tempo run around mid-40's.  Only downside was wind from the NW which ended up being a head wind for most of my faster miles.

Plan was for 10K at HMP effort based on heart rate.  For me that means HR needs to stay mostly in the 175-185 range and I was hoping that would mean something under 7 min miles. The course I ran on was slightly downhill but with the head wind it probably made this close to a flat run.

Noticed the first couple miles I was having a hard time not going too fast, this is good and usually means I'll be able to finish strong.  Felt pretty good for 5 miles but the head wind got a lot worse on mile 6 and I struggled to keep the pace as my HR got into the redline zone (190 for me).  Gutted it out and finished last .2 strong and feel positive about the run.

Overall: 10K - 42:37, pace 6:53, ave/max HR 180/190

Splits/ave pace/HR: 6:53/166, 6:56/175, 6:55/180, 6:53/185, 6:49/186, 6:52/189, 1:20 (6:41 pace)/190 

Got up bright & early with Kim and ran with the bright moon.  Ran between 3 and 4 with Kim then she headed toward home and I finished out a 13 mile progression run. Gradually increased the speed so that I hit MP effort by about mile 7 and HMP effort the last 3 miles.  Felt good in the cool crisp temps probably around 40 degrees.

8:10/155 

Six easy at work with no watch.  Did 8 x 10s hill sprints towards the end.

Early morning run in the cool air.  Ran just over 3 with Kim then the rest solo.  Wanted to get some faster miles in if I felt good, but didn't want the pressure of trying to do some specific workout. So just did some variable distance fartlek intervals, anywhere from 400m to 2K.  Ended up getting around 3.5 miles of tempo around 10K pace. Felt pretty good most of the run.

8:09/154. 

Six easy at work with no watch.

Warmed up just over 3 miles with Kim then did some tempo miles in the HM to 10K pace range (ended up around 6:50 ave pace).  Then met back up with Kim for about 5 more miles.  

Wedding bells for boy #2 tomorrow. Party time! 

Six relaxing miles around the streets of Manti. Then we got boy #2 Tyler married off to his sweet Chelsey. Great day!

Ten easy miles on a beautiful May morning. Ran mostly with Kim with a little bit on my own at the end.  Did 6 x 10s hill sprints in the middle.  Looking forward to taper this week then Ogden HM on Saturday.

9:00/140 

Got out the door just after 7am. The canyon winds were way crazy but luckily towards the south end of the tree-lined road and on the river trail it wasn't too bad so I did most my faster stuff in that area.

Final tune-up run prior to the Saturday race. After 3 mile warmup & strides I did 3 x 1 mile @ 10K pace with 3 min jog rests. Not supposed to be a particularly hard workout, just some miles to help stay sharp and focused and help the legs remember pace and not think they can slack just because it's taper time.

Enjoyed the run today and especially the faster miles.  6:42, 6:39, 6:36.  I felt good, I felt great, I felt wonderful.  Now just try to keep the taper madness at bay.

7:46/156 

Four easy miles at work with 4 strides towards the end.

Had some good & some bad in this race.  My main goal was sub 1:30 (didn't do it :( ) with backup goal to get a 45-49 AD personal PR (did it :) ).  

The weather/temps were near ideal, occasionally a bit of head wind but pretty close to perfect so I thought sub 1:30 should have been doable without killing myself.  But I'm finding that as I get older and with all my "itis-s" I've accumulated over the years with my tendencies to over-train it's just a lot harder to have those super-duper races.

In hindsight I should have been paying more attention to my actual splits and less to the Garmin as I think down the canyon the watch glitched a bit and measured about .1 long for the race.  

Mile 11 also really did me in, all that trail weaving around, up/down, under the road, etc. stuff really got to me mentally and got me off pace by 20-30 seconds.  But for some reason I was still thinking if I ran the last 2 miles under 7 min I was on track for sub 1:30. I was pretty bummed when I got to mile 13 and could tell there was no way to get the sub 1:30 even with 6:15-6:30 pace effort the last little bit.

Split info with actual pace from Garmin and goal pace in ( ):

Mile 1 - 7:01 (6:50 hill came earlier than expected) 

Mile 2 - 7:03 (7:20 less hill than expected)

Mile 3 - 7:01 (6:55 feeling like I ran first 2 miles a tad faster than planned so back off a bit)

Mile 4 - 7:02 (7:00 getting excited for some good downhill)

Mile 5 - 6:38 (6:40)

Mile 6 - 6:47 (6:40 no sure what happened here, thought I was on pace. Had a strange bout of momentary dizziness sometime around here, thought things could get real ugly but then it went away and I felt pretty good for a while)

Mile 7 - 6:52 (7:00 Garmin glitching thru these miles I think)

Mile 8 - 6:46 (6:40)

Mile 9 -  6:26 (6:25)

Mile 10 - 6:36 (6:35)

Mile 11 - 7:01 (6:40 - I really blew it here, starting to hurt and all the zig/zip/up/down action of running on trail vs. roads throws me way off mentally, I nearly decide to pack it  in and jog it in but was able to somewhat overcome the mental issues and pass a couple of runners)

Mile 12 - 6:56 (6:55 pleased I was able to get some mental focus back for this very painful mile)

Mile 13 - 6:59 (7:00)

Too little too late at the end, forgot to stop the watch so not sure on last little bit but I know the Garmin was giving me paces in the 6:15-6:30 range as I tried in vain to shave some seconds and get closer to 1:30.

All in all an OK race, I've had plenty better but also plenty worse. Now I hope I can recover enough the next 3 weeks to be ready for UVM 1/2 and give sub-1:30 another try.  

Anyone have an opinion whether UVM 1/2 is faster or slower than Ogden 1/2?  I'm thinking they're probably pretty close.

Good to see a few folks from the blog and impressed to see a number of very stellar performances.

Big congrats to Kim for finishing marathon #1 of 4 (Grand Slam) in one piece and in being smart and mostly treating it as a training run and not pushing the pace! 

Still sore enough from the race I thought it best to not run. Went to the gym instead and did a variety of cross-training stuff for about an hour.

Ran 8 easy miles on a comfortably cool sunny morning. Felt better than I was expecting with not much soreness left in the legs from the race. 

8:42/146 

Six easy in the early AM.  Felt a bit sluggish.

8:53/141 

Easy 8 mile early this morning. Felt pretty good other than old itis's that never go away.

8:44/146 

Six easy mostly with Kimi.   Did 6 x 10s hill sort-of-sprints in the middle.  Still a bit sluggish and a little stomach weirdness going on like I get sometimes that can turn into an ulcer, it's the stupid Ibuprofen that does it.

Ran 5 or 6 with Kim then some solo. Still feel like a slug.

Easy run down in Manti. Ran a little over 2 with Kim then some more solo. Did 8 x 10s hill sprints in the middle.  Felt better than Saturday but still a bit sluggish in the mile-high altitude.

Gotta say it was quite the beautiful morning.  Just wish it didn't take so long for me to feel fully recovered from races.

8:50/140

Figured it was about time to try some faster running and get some idea where I'm at.  Did 3 mile warmup with some strides then 3 x 1 mile repeats with .25 mile jog rests.  Decided to not worry about pace but just do what felt right/safe and see if it's in the range I was hoping for (6:30-6:45).  

Good news was that I felt better than I expected with miles all in the goal range. So maybe I am mostly recovered from the race.  After taking a breather and another mile or so of  easy stuff I sped up the last mile and ran it just under 7:00.

Overall: 7:39/164