Every Run is a Great Run!

AM: Kim and I met up with Bill and Jennifer at Pateetneet to run the Payson up/down run. I had high hopes of being able to do the 5-up/5-down in the same amount of time as the rest of the gang was doing the 4-up/4-down. Wrong! They went a bit faster than I thought they would and I was over 6 minutes slower overall. Obviously I'll need to work a lot harder to have any chance of winning this little game. I was also a bit irritated that I had some headwind both on the way up AND down. What's up with that?

Uphill splits: 8:10, 8:10, 7:55, 8:09, 8:38

Down: 6:45, 7:09, 7:21, 7:15, 7:11

Ave pace 7:40.

PM: Ran 4 miles easy with Paul out Eagleview direction. Also was it just me or was the blog down all morning?

Ave pace 8:36.

AM: Easy recovery with Kim. Ran our river bottoms 10K loop but with some add-on at the end to get to 7+ miles. Didn't wear the garmin today, just went off Kim's. Hopefully with taking it real easy today I'll have some zip for tomorrows planned 4.5 mile tempo run at 10K pace. I think I'll tempo the last 4.5 miles of the Speed Spaniard course.

Ave pace 9:45.

Late AM: Went to the gym and got in 10 minutes on the bike followed by core workout. The last few times on the bike I've been checking my heart rate every so often to see if it's really as hard for me to get the heart rate up on the exercise bike as I perceive it to be. What I find is that my heart rate gets up to about 110 within a minute after starting out but then just sits there and I have the hardest time getting it to move above the 110-115 range. Today I cranked just a bit harder and was able to get up to a whopping 120. I suppose the problem is that my quads are just too wimpy to really crank the pedals very aggressive as my legs get tired long before I work up much of a sweat and get the heart rate up.  So maybe counting 10 minutes of bike = 1 mile running is a bit generous. I'll have to run a 10 min mile sometime and check my heart rate to compare.

AM: Ran 3 warmup miles out to around the 1.5 mile mark of the Speedy Spaniard 10K course so I could do a 4.5 mile tempo run. It was a bit warm (for Utah, maybe not for you Arizonians), probably in the low 70s but worse than that it was quite muggy! We don't get much humidity in these parts, so on days when we do get any it feels pretty miserable. I was already sweating up a storm before I even started the tempo.

The other bummer thing was that the old reliable SF canyon wind that I was counting on to provide tailwind was non-existent, in fact there was actually a breeze from the opposite direction, giving me a headwind for the first part of the tempo run. Murphy's running laws in action! Since I've been in a bit of a slump anyway and with the heat, humidity, wind factors I didn't have great expectations and I gave myself a wide pace range (6:00-6:30) to help me resist the urge to quit the workout early.

I was indeed toward the slow range of the pace window and I did almost quit at 4 miles but was able to slop through the last .5 and complete the run.

Splits as follows:

1 - 6:11 (most of the downhill on this mile, but with slight headwind)

2 - 6:24 (very slightly downhill)

3 - 6:22 (very slightly downhill)

4 - 6:34 (I'm starting to wimp out, this mile was mostly flat but still probably slightly net downhill)

4.5 - 3:16 (6:32 pace, tried to catch the 6:30 guy but failed, glad to be done)

Ave pace 6:24

While I would have rather been around 6:15 or better for this workout, I'm still happy to have finished it out without quiting early. I'm really not sure what to expect for the Speedy Spaniard, perhaps I'll need to lower my expectations and just shoot for sub-40. I don't plan on doing any taper for the race.

I'm sure the heat and humidity played a factor, and the bottom line is that I just don't seem to typically be capable of running tempos as well in the morning as I do later in the day, but with temps in the 80's and 90's during daytime I don't think I want to do tempos then, do I?  I try doing a longer warmup in the morning and it helps, but often I find I need to run 8-10 miles before my running form starts feeling smooth and natural. Perhaps just for fun I'll try doing a noon-time or late AM tempo run sometime just for comparison.

Some morning I would also like to see if maybe Sasha can wire me up with the heart rate gizmo and pace me on one of these tempos and give me an idea if my limitations are more aerobic oriented or nervous system related. I also must confess that I still have lingering lower abdomen and groin issues that make it so I run with some degree of discomfort much of the time at any pace.

Late AM: Got in 3 more uneventful solo recovery miles at work. Ave pace 8:32.

AM: Ran easy with Kim out to gu corner then we turned around and ran the last 4 miles of the Speedy Spaniard course as a tempo run for Kim. She was fighting an upset stomach so I encouraged her to start out nice and easy and not do anything that felt too miserable. The goal pace range was 8-8:30 but once we got going she seemed to forget about the queasy stomach and ended up running each mile progressively faster than the previous one, even though the course becomes more flat as you go. We finished mile 4 at around a 7:45 pace with an 8:02 average pace overall. I think she has a real good shot at going under 50 minutes for the race.

FYI for anyone running Speedy Spaniard....I entered the course using the Course Tool. I notice the suggested pacing is much slower for the first uphill mile than I've usually run it so perhaps I may try going out easy the 1st mile and see if that gives more zip for the last 5.2. I also entered the 11 mile Payson Canyon route into the course tool starting at just below Payson Lakes and finishing at Pateetneet.

Late AM: Ran 4 easy miles out toward Lakeview and back. Just for kicks and for comparison to the exercise bike a couple of days ago I checked my pulse while running around a 9 min/mi pace. Heart rate was around 130. Compared to exercise bike at what I think is a perceived effort similar to a 9 or 10 min/mi run pace, my heart rate only gets up to 110, 120 if really start cranking the pedals.

Ave pace 8:55.

RHR 49 

AM: Ran 5 miles with Kim then a couple more solo. John A also joined us for about 4 miles, it was nice to chat with him a bit before he heads of to Oregon later today. Also today I need to hand out some big kudos to my boy Jansen and his city league baseball team the SF Red Sox. Division champs, city champs and now state champs after thrashing a Payson team last night 13-1 in the state championship game. Good job Jansen and go Red Sox!

Ave pace 9:20.

Late AM: 11 minutes on the bike then did core workout. By upping the resistance on the bike a couple of notches and keep rpms around 90 I was able to get my HR in the 120-130 range the last few minutes.

Ran with some of the SF faster group for about 11 miles then did just over 9 miles solo. We had a pretty good size group today, I started out with Hal, Kevin, Chad and another guy and high school kid from Chad's neck of the woods (Genola) whose names I don't know. After a mile or 2, the high school kid took off and we didn't see much of him after that. At about mile 5 I caught the high school kid walking but when he saw me coming he took off again. The young bucks seem to have a hard time pacing themselves wisely for a long run.

Ran with Hal and Kevin to the top of Harry's which was about the 10 mile point. I was feeling pretty good for a change so I decided to do a progression run for the next 8 miles, speeding up each mile and ending up at around my 1/2 marathon pace. Splits for the progression are as follows:

mile 11 - 6:47 (downhill mile so the pace is much faster than the effort I put into it)

mile 12 - 7:15 (also mostly downhill)

mile 13 - 7:18

mile 14 - 7:10

mile 15 - 7:02 (stopped for gu and drink after this mile)

mile 16 - 6:39

mile 17 - 6:24

Finished up with 3 easy miles. Very enjoyable run today. I'm pleased with this run, in particular I'm happy I was able to run the 6:24 on pretty much the same stretch of road where Wednesday I had trouble holding this pace over 4 miles. I felt like I could have held this pace for another mile or 2 if I had to. For whatever reason I just do a lot better on these longer runs in the morning after a 8-10 mile warmup. I most certainly must be a slow-twitch kind of guy.

RHR 52