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

I didn't have a lot of energy today to get up and run, because our two year old son kept my wife and I up all night, because of sickness.  He had a 102 fever and was losing is voice.  My wife and I seriously only got about 3 hours of sleep.  We took him to the doctor at 9am this morning and he has a rapid respiratory infection, and has to use a Nebulizer every 4 hours.  If it doesn't get better by tomorrow the Clinic wants us to take him back, because their concerned with his breathing.

 I did run today though at 6:40am with the dog for 6.5 at a 7:19 pace.  Then I ran little faster to get some marathon pace miles in  (6:31, 6:27, 6:07) for being tired the first one was hard but than the last two seemed easy.

I ran the race course that I will be running Saturday this morning.  What's nice it starts at our University Football Stadium. and ends there.  The gym is right next door where I can take a shower and go to work.  I get in free because I'm an University State employee, which is nice because I don't have to drive all the way home take a shower then go to work.

Back to the run....
I took the first two uphill miles easy (which I'll probably do in the race 6:54, 6:54) then I started to pick it up (5:47, 5:24, 5:47) and the last uphill mile at 6:08.  After that I ran 4 cool down miles (6:44, 6:57,6:30,6:58).  Its a fun route except for the first two uphill miles and the last uphill mile.  

Total 10.05 miles at a 6:25 pace in 1:04

This might be the fastest all run it than the actual race, because I might have to work from 9pm Friday night to 7am Saturday morning, and the race starts at 8am Saturday morning.  We have to bring down everyone of our computer systems at our University for a power upgrade, which has never been done before, so I'm thinking it's going to take time to bring them down and up, and I'm sure there will be issues.  I'm hoping this won't take all night, but if it does I'll be doing the race on tired dead legs.  

 14 - 16 miler tomorrow on Pocatello marathon course (early, dayoff).
 

Today I got up at 5am to ride to the Pocatello Marathon course. I got 3 hours of sleep last night because of our next door neighbors lighting fireworks till 2am. I can't remember the last time when I woke up this tired and no energy it was awful.

My pastor, sister-in-law, cousin and his friend were also going with me. We were all running the course, because they are also doing the marathon. This will be my pastor's first marathon, and my sister-in-laws second marathon, my cousin's first marathon, and his friend is actually doing the TOU marathon and he's done three marathon's with his best time at 3:25. Now they were going to run at a 9-10 minute mile pace so I won't be running with them because I wanted to do some marathon pace miles on my new Ohana Ascis Racers which I only had 17 miles on. I want these to be my marathon shoe so I needed to test them on a long training run. They fit so good where the DS Trainers are really tight on me. 

I really ran with little effort. I was amazed how easy the 17 mile run was at a finishing pace of 6:29 ( I cooled-down the last three miles). Was it the new shoes? Muscle memory from running the course so much? The fact that I was dead tired and no energy before we started? I was thinking I wish the marathon could have been this morning. Sometimes I think your running is all in sync and everything comes together. I've had several runs like this lately.

Splits

1. 6:40 (warming up)
2. 6:21
3. 6:22 (feeling good)
4. 6:12 (was easy but want to stay consistent around 6:30)
5. 6.22 (too easy)
6. 6:14 (little effort still)
7. 6:21
8. 6:21 (still feeling no effort needed at this pace)
9. 7:45 (Alert Brown Code, good thing I carried toilet paper)
10. 6:08 (easy)
11. 6:09 (easy but still need to drop pace to be consistent)
12. 6:22
13  6:17
14. 6:28 (still easy pace)
15  6: 42 (Start cool down up major hill)
16. 6:44
17. 6:45

Totals 17.22 miles at 6:29 in 1:51.

Easy run today, 8 miles with the dog and 2 by myself at a 7:35 pace overall.  My hip was hurting a little when I woke up.  Because last night I was vacuuming my truck to get ready to go camping all next week and I leaned my hip on a bolt sticking straight up.  It actually developed into a good bruise and it hurts a little. I was going to take this run easy anyway.  I wanted to do 10 x 100 strides afterwards, but the time was too late.

I ran 6.37 miles today only, at a 6:56 pace. I wanted to be somewhat fresh for tomorrow's race since I have to work all night. I may get done to at least get 3 hours of sleep I'm hoping.. Normally I would run longer, but I wanted my body to be more rested. I did do 10 x 100 strides after the run just to get a little speed in before tomorrow's race.

I really don't know how I'll do, it depends if I can get some rest today. The course to the race is very hilly which really doesn't bother me at all. It will be fun. No prize money for the winner or anything, Pocatello doesn't do that with any of the races. I'm definitely going to wear my Mizuno Idaten racing flats to make my feet feel light.

This race was fun and memorable. First off I had to work all night . Our staff had to power off every system, router, and device in our Computer Center so rewiring could be done in our Computer Center. I did get two hours of sleep from 2am to 4am during the rewiring, power phase, then we powered everything up and got done at 7:10 (to power everything up and make sure everything is working takes quite a bit of time!). I raced home got my bib number and headed up to the start of the race which was at 8am. This left me no time for a warm-up.

The first mile I felt tired and sluggish, and my legs felt like bricks (1 mile 6:36p). The first 2 miles are very hard uphill miles so being tired and running this course definitely wasn't to my advantage. The next mile, "still feeling like I was dead on my feet", I was in second place at (6:42p). Now mile three is one that I've ran a lot in my training, and I enjoy running because of the rolling hills. I past the guy that was in first place here (5:47p). I knew I would eventually caught him because he shot out like a cannon the first 2 miles and ran too fast, but I still wasn't that confident that I would, because I didn't feel in a groove at all. Now the 4th mile is downhill for almost half a mile, and the rest of the half is flat (5:20p). I was feeling better on this mile, but still not in a groove. In fact my wife drove by me and told me I was a minute ahead of the guy in second (so I thought I was in first place, more about that later). The last two miles are a gradual uphill and I did those in 5:53, and 6:14.  I didn't really push the last two miles as hard as I could have I just floated along thinking that a vault zero soda with caffeine sounded good.  I probably should have tried to push  hard, but I was worried about injury with being tired and not having a warm-up.  Also according to my Garmin  the race was 6 miles rather than 6.2 so it was 200m short according to my garmin.

Now I thought I finished first at 36:35, but there was another runner that finished in 32:59. The funny thing is I never saw this runner through the whole race ahead of me. But runners behind me told me that he turned up the wrong road. He turned up the shorter road before the big hills, Alvin Ricken Rd. rather than American Rd. so he basically ran a shorter route. This road that he turned down will come out at the same place as the other road and allow you to get back on the race course again, but like I said it's a shorter road and the wrong race route. I bet it cuts off at least half a mile or longer on the course. I didn't complain to the race director, but other runners did. I would have if it wasn't just a fun run and no real price for the winner. But this explains why I never saw the runner.

Later that day I ran another 9.8 miles.