Every Run is a Great Run!

Nice early morning run in St George as Kim and I are down for a very quick "work" trip. Kim's PF was threatening so she decided to not push her luck but take a rest day instead.

Great morning for a run, temps in the low 50's and lots of red & green landscape. Did out and back run towards Snow Canyon and back. I really enjoyed the run.  I don't usually notice the 2500 ft elevation difference when we run down here but today I could tell a difference with how easy the pace felt.

Did a progression run finishing the last 4 miles in the MP to HMP range.

7:57/154 

Six mile recovery run.  Ran first 4 with Kim then headed back towards home while she finished a 10-miler.  Did 9 x 10s hill sprints up Heartbreak Hill.

8:51/134 

Staying up in SLC for a couple days with the girls for spring break.  Ran 9 miles early mostly on the JRP.  In the middle did 6 x 2 min @ 5K pace with 2 min rests.  

8:05/154 

Ran with Kim around the streets of downtown SLC and up/down City Creek canyon. We were happy the weather decided to take a break this morning and not pour down rain upon us. 

Home from SLC now but still off work so I slept in a bit. Today I did a repeat of the 4-mile time trial track workout I did 5 weeks ago.

The point of this workout is not to hit any certain pace but go more off of heart rate and try to keep it in the half marathon range (175-185 for me).  Of course the hope/expectation during a training cycle is that the pace goes down for the same effort each time you do the time trial every 4 or 5 weeks while preparing for a half marathon race.

Wasn't sure how things would go since I had a bit of upset stomach and GI issues yesterday (bad fish at Denny's perhaps??).  Luckily I felt pretty good and was able to cut off nearly 30 seconds compared to 5 weeks ago keeping my HR in a similar range. Looks like I pretty much locked into 6:55 pace and stuck there until the last lap when I picked it up a tad.

5 weeks ago: 28:03 (7:01 pace) ave HR 182

Today: 27:37 (6:54 pace) ave HR 181 max 189

mile pace/aveHR: 6:55/170, 6:55/181, 6:55/186, 6:52/187

Got in 13 mile recovery run on a beautiful spring morning.  Not much wind which was nice for a change.  Ran mostly with Kim and Doug and also Kelly joined for a while. No watch today so not sure on pace, probably right around 9 min/mi.

Time for a rest week next week with 10K race to finish things out next Saturday.