Psalm 91:1 NKJV He who dwells in the secret place

No running today.  Today at church my work phone called and I had to leave Church to repair a hard drive that received a bad block and was detached from one of the disk mirrors.  But we have Church tonight so at least I will be able to have a useful day.

8 hours of sleep last night Great!

Last night I got over 8 hours of sleep and felt fresh and energized today. I've been really busy at work and its going to continue for the next two weeks, but I'll survive.

This morning when I woke up there was snow on the ground and it was sprinkling outside, but there was no wind. It really wasn't that cold at 27 degrees. I decided to do a 8 mile run and run the first four at a relaxed pace and then finish the last four at a medium tempo pace.

I did the first four at a slight uphill at a 65% aerobic pace (7:25, 7:02, 7:11, 6:44) then on the first two downhill miles I ran (6:13, 6:14) then the last two miles on a completely flat stretch (6:08, 5:59). It's funny that I ran the last two flat course miles faster than the downhill miles. But the effort felt harder than it should (maybe I've overtrained a bit).

Totals: 8.32 miles at an overall 6:37 pace in 55:12 minute.

Evening:

I wasn't going to run, but I'm addicted and just couldn't keep myself from running, but I will taper and cut the miles. It was just an easy run 3.3 miles at a 7:08 pace right after work. I was so busy today and the rest of the week. This Friday i'm leaving work early to spend two days with my family in Boise at my Daughter's soccer tournament.

This morning the weather was 15 degrees with no wind and it didn't feel cold at all. I got 8 hours of sleep last night and felt fresh. I ran the 10 miles in 1:06 which is way too fast than I wanted to run. But I felt good today, and the run really felt like I was running an easy pace (I guess I must have ate some good wheaties last night). I finished the run with 10.3 miles at an overall 6:40 pace in 1:08. This will be my only run today to continue to cutback for the taper week (if I can contain myself from running after work).

I have a full day at work today, and then have to pick my daughter up from soccer practice after work at 6pm. I really don't have a busy night after work so my rest should be able to continue.

I'm really hoping the weather in Salt Lake City is good for the marathon. No headwind on the course.

Evening

Well I said I wasn't going to run, but I did run one mile to go get my car from Les Schwab. My wife and I drove over there and she took me back to work and our car was done about 30 minutes later.  I had the tires rotated and the breaks checked (their about 30 to 40 percent left), and everything looks good for traveling to Boise this weekend.  I did the mile at an easy 7:26 pace.

Another night of 8 hours of sleep. I felt really refreshed again this morning. Temperature was 21 degrees with a 9mph SW wind.

I did a couple of warm-up miles to start my run this morning. After that I thought I would do a little speed play, so I did one tempo mile at 5:51, then the next two miles I did 400m fartleks (6:13,6:09). Now these are the total pace for the mile not the fartlek portion, during the fartlek portion I was running between a 5:30 - 5:40 pace. Then I did another 800m fartlek on the next mile (6:15, had some uphill in this mile). Then I did another tempo mile 5:59. The last two miles at a moderate pace (6:29, 6:38). Overall I did 10.2 miles at an overall 6:29 pace in 1:06.

The effort felt a little harder than it should have which is not good going into the SLC Marathon. But I'll give it everything I have in SLC and if I hit the wall at the end at least I'll know what I need to work on. Adam and I are just going to have to stay focused and nail those miles. I've been looking at the SLC course with the course tool and the second half is where we will really need to be strong.

 I got 7 hours of sleep last night and didn't really sleep the best, but I didn't feel too bad waking up.  The temperature outside was 25 degrees with a 15 mph wind blowing Southwest.

I decided to do some uphill and downhill miles and just run easy today.  I ran 10.2 miles at a 6:49 pace in 1:09.   I really wanted to let my legs relax since I pushed a little harder the last couple of days.  It started snowing a little bit but not hard during the run.  I ran a couple of downhill miles in (6:14, and 6:27) and that was not really doing feel like I was putting any effort into it.  The uphill was good work, and I had a nice view crossing the bridge over the interstate to I-15.

Tomorrow I might do 13 miles and copy Adam RW and run 5-6 at MP pace to see how I feel one week away from SLC Marathon.  I wish I could do this on the course.

This morning I had to get up early and do my run, because I had to take my son to the early learning screening where they test the child's eyes, ears, speech etc.

The temperature was 26 degrees which wasn't bad at all with some wind blowing. I did manage to get 7 hours of sleep last night but it wasn't very good sleep so I was tired when I woke up.

I wanted to run 13 miles and at least get 4 marathon pace miles in for the run.   I really didn't feel that energic.

Mile 1: 7:16 Warmup.

Mile 2: 6:46 Warmup - just getting loose.

Mile 3: 6:40 Felt pretty easy, but my mind was tired.

Mile 4: 6:28 Trying to get a feel for how I want to approach this run. Every mile on this course is either flat or a 0.5 to 1% uphill so it's a pancake.

Mile 5: 6:25 Slight uphill and was getting into a rythm.

Mile 6: 6:29 Slight Uphill mostly flat, running out of the city area which seemed to drop the temperature about 7 degrees.

Mile 7: 6:31 There was a train stuck at the crossing so I had to stop and turn around and alter my course. This wasn't an issue I figured out I could get the same feel going a different route.

Mile 8: 5:56 Starting the MP miles on a flat course. Felt okay but could have felt easier.

Mile 9: 5:56 Same as above, seems like my effort was harder than it should have been.

Mile 10: 5:48 Still trying to find a groove and it seemed I hit another gear, but again not as easy as I want.

Mile 11 5:43 Still on a flat course and the effort again seemed hard, but I was using positive thinking trying to keep my mind and thoughts positive.

Mile 12 6:14 I thought I hit 5 MP miles but recognized this was the 5 mp mile so I had to pick it up for the last 800m's of this mile. How foolish can you be.

Mile 13 6:19 Cool-down mile. I know running at this pace really isn't the best cool down mile but it felt so easy with little effort.

I guess this was a decent run... I wish my MP miles felt easier. But I need to believe in myself next week and go into the race with a positive outlook and know I will perform well. Being negative only shoots your confidence down. I'll make Fast Running Blogs look good.

I'm excited that the weather this week has allowed me to get some faster training runs in so that a bonus for future races.

8.2 miles today at an overall 6:43 pace 55:19 in Boise, Idaho. Back to the soccer field.... I ran the run 4 miles from our hotel and then 4 miles back.  The 4 miles going was a slight uphill and the 4 miles back was downhill.  I ran on  South Cole Rd.  and West Overland by the interstate.  The run was at a very easy pace nothing hard.

Well so far my daughter's team lost both soccer games where it just unbelievable because they had a chance to win them both very easy.  They missed open goal shots.  They shot high.  They shot goals off the post.  They lost both games by one goal.  Now we have one more game tomorrow at 8am then it's a 3 hour trip back home.