Every Run is a Great Run!

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.