What ever it takes!

Wow!  I am not OK.  Being sick in a foreign country really sucks.  I was up all night coughing and just trying to breath.  I'm not sure if its the air or what.  I was planning on running long today but when I started to run I felt sick and achy so I stopped.

30 minutes on the stairmaster 120 Flights

60 minutes walking on the treadmill at 9% incline.  4 miles in 1 hour.  That was actually a really hard workout.

So I know this isn't the forum for this but it's the only forum I have. 

I was out to dinner with my Co-Worker and his wife who is native to Beijing the other night and we were talking, at the time it seemed like normal cultural chit chat but after thinking more about it I am very disturbed by the whole thing.  I'll try to make this short and to the point but I was telling them they should come to America sometime, maybe for a work trip to Salt Lake, she told me she is afraid of America because "everyone has guns" I told her I didn't have guns and there is nothing to worry about.  Anyway, I started thinking about this more.  Here is a person that lives in a country where the Air is unfit to breath, Water is unfit to drink, people smuggle in baby formula for their children because the milk is dangerous, most meat products are tainted with some bacteria, a Chinese company just bought out a US pork distributor for 4.3 Billion dollars because their pork crop is all bad so they need to import it from America, and 1000's of babies are being aborted or just left to die every day because it is not legal to have more than 1 child per family, and she is afraid of guns in America.  I'm not even sure where else to go with this but the whole thing is very disturbing.  I don't want to get into Gun rights, or Abortion on this blog but seriously we are so lucky to live in America.  And that's all I have to say about that.

Still feeling sick today but not nearly as bad as yesterday.  Got up early and went to the hotel gym, at 4:30 there is no one there and the air conditioning isn't on yet so it was pretty warm.  I just found a "I can run like this for a really long time" pace and went with it.  I Face Timed with my wife and kids while running for about 30 minutes, and then I watched the Water Boy and then just kind of spaced out for the rest of the time.  Felt pretty OK, the humidity makes slow seem really hard, being semi-sick doesn't help either.  Once again these runs are more about just time on my feet than speed.  Definitely not ideal training for what I'm about to do in 2 weeks but I'm doing what I can.

18 miles in 2:32:??

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PM.

30 minutes on the elliptical followed by weights.

I think I'm at my breaking point, physically and mentally.  I am so sick of this place and really need to go home, just 3 more days hope I can make it.  The 24 hour hotel gym has been my only refuge.

12 miles in 1:40:00.

Fastrunning blog doesn't seem to want to count this run on my weekly mileage.  It must know that I'm training for non-real running.

Here is a picture from yesterday at the BigHorn 50 Start.

12 miles in 1:36:00.  I actually felt really good this morning.  Probably the most natural I've felt in a long time, no real aches or pains and everything felt smooth.  Pretty happy about that.

I really can't figure out why my miles don't add up on the mileage board.  This may be my only chance to be on the top of the list and this blog is taking that from me.  Sure I'm a cheater living in the future but how does it know that?

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PM.

156 floor on the stairmaster in 30 minutes followed by weights. 

In 24 hours from right now I should be sitting on a plane on my way home.  So happy!  Good news, I think I'm finally over JetLag, bad news I get to deal with it all over again.  I've pretty much been in a constant jeglag for 2 months, I've been coming back and forth every 2 weeks which is just about the time it takes to completely get used to the time change.  

My run started out kind of tired this morning but I got into it pretty quick and it actaully felt really good.  Pretty happy these 12 milers are actually getting easier and I don't really have much fatigue from the day before.  I'll probably take the next 2 days off due to travel.

I was going over my race plan for next week.  I compared my calculator to the top 3 finishers from last year and it is almost dead on to what splits they ran it in, so I think the tool is a good reference.  I noticed something fairly interesting going over my splits from last year.  I ran the first 18 miles about 7 minutes faster than plan, the last 18 miles about 15 minutes slower than plan (with the rattlesnake incident) so the interesting thing was that the middle 14 miles I gave up almost 1 whole hour, I was surprised by that cause I'd assumed I wasted too much time at the 2 main aid stations.  Looking at the profile map it's no surprise that that middle stretch is the hardest, 3000' climb in 14 miles but the calculator takes that into account.  So, what this tells me it that I suck at going uphill.  Pretty sure I can't fix that problem in the next week but it's a good thing to know in the back of my mind while I'm trudging up hill suckin air.

http://goo.gl/bFrgH

Last night I got done working fairly early and went outside the hotel for the 1st time since I got here.  Walked around, bought a bunch of useless trinkets, took pictures of the live scorpions and cochroaches on sticks at the roadside food stands and then decided I hadn't missed anything by never leaving my hotel room.

Woke up early and managed to sneak in a quick 8 mile run at the gym before heading to the airport.  My hotel contact was nice enough to hook me up with a hotel limo to the airport, very nice.

8 miles in 1:04:50

Question. I know it's totally cool to run all paleo with no watch or shoes.  But if someone were to want to spend $500 on a new GPS watch does anyone have any experience with the Suunto Ambit?  I'm a little afraid to move away from Garmin cause I like the web interface so much but the Suunto looks like a pretty sweet watch.

Well, the only real amazing thing about my run this morning were the views.  I've decided to not even try and fight jet lag. I'm just going to sleep when I'm tired and run when I'm not for a few days.  Actually slept pretty good from about 11:00pm to 3:00am but when I woke up I was wide awake so I headed out the door for a little early morning adventure.  Ran from my house north around the point of the mountain and then up the Draper side of SunCrest,  it was very beautiful this morning, a little warm until I started up the hill then it cooled down nicely.  Took my sweet time going up the hill, actually took my sweet time going down the hill too, came down the Alpine Highland side and then home on Bull River trail.  My stomach was pretty jacked up from travel but the new Draper 7-11 helped me get through that.

19 miles in 2:50, not even sure what pace that is, not sure I even want to figure it out, but I had a really nice little morning just getting back to reality.

Today didn't really go as planned, I had every intention of running 20 miles today but coming down Suncrest yesterday really beat up my Quads pretty bad.  I walked for about 1/2 a mile trying to loosen up and just couldn't so I walked back home grabbed the doggie and just went for an easy trail jog.  5 miles with Nellie, when I got home Britt was getting ready to go out for her, 'long' run getting ready for her 30k next week.   So we drove down to the Bull River trail head and ran out 3 and back for a total of 6.  She wanted me to run the 30K with her instead of the 50M.  I'm really glad I'm not, pretty sure I would go crazy, we can't run together.

I slept in, crazy I never do that.  I think my body is telling me something.

I didn't actually plan for this week to be such a taper but I'm just more concerned with getting myself to the start line feeling good on Saturday than anything.  I'm still not sleeping through the night so I just went to the gym this morning with the intention of running and lifting weights.  I got out of the car and did a mental health check and actually thought "wow, I don't hurt anywhere" once I started running though I could still feel some fatigue in my Quads from Suncrest, I decided to just elliptical it instead of damage myself any more.  Did that for 50 minutes and then weights.

I'm really at a loss as to where I am physically right now, running slow everywhere doesn't give you a good indication.  I know I can run for a long time but how fast is another story.  My goal for Saturday is simply do better than I did last year.  I really want to win an engraved river rock (age division prize) which even with my last years time I should do since I'm old now.  A top 10 finish is my A goal, but at this point I just really have no idea what to expect.

Nice 30 mile bike ride with my trader friends up Provo Canyon to Vivian Park, and then up South Fork.  I love that my friend used to just kill me going uphills and I was always the one suckin wind trying to follow.  I beat him to the top by about 10 minutes this morning.  Love it!  Perfect morning for a bike ride too, a little windy but still nice.

Whenever I pass runners while I'm on my bike I always think 2 things.  1. That looks really hard, do I look that bad when I'm running?  2. I should really be running, biking feels like I'm cheating.

5 easy miles around Sheridan Wyoming this morning, we drove up last night to get an extra day.

Really rough week at work, they laid off 36 people in our office Tuesday,  for some reason they spared my department though.

4 miles around Sheridan. 

Not to be a downer, but if I hadn't taken 3 days off of work and spent all that gas money to drive up here for this race I would probably drop out.  My hamstring, and foot were really hurting this morning and I have no idea why, they have both been pretty good the last month so I'm not sure what happened this week.  I guess we'll see what happens, I may ask if they will let me move to the 30K and run with my wife, or I may just go and destroy myself like I tend to do.

I feel like I should say something, I'm just not sure what.  Story of my year I suppose, doing racing injured just cause I'm too cheap to give up the entry fee.  This one was a little bit different though cause my wife is the one that wanted to come run the 30K her first trail run and first distance further than 13.1 miles.  At packet pickup I asked them if I could switch to the 30K with my wife but they told me no.  So I went into the 50M with an exit strategy, never a good plan.  Problem is I didn't even make it to my exit point (32 miles) where my in-laws and kids were waiting.  I made it to mile 21 aid station and realized it was much easier to run back 4 than forward 11 so I ended up running back to Footbridge aid station, helped take down the aid station and drove back down with a worker.  I made it to the finish line just in time to run the last 200m with my wife.  She did awesome, found a new friend and says she loves trail running.  Anything to get her to be a runner is a good thing.

Anyway, I don't care too much.  I could have hobbled for 30 miles and probably finished in 12 - 14 hours but I had no desire to do that.

OK, today I regret not finishing just to finish.  I hurt like I ran the full 50 so I might as well have the metal to go with the pain.  I think that's the difference between Ultra runners and road runners, I gave up because I didn't think I could achieve my goals, listening to most the runners today their only goal is to finish.  Maybe that's a healthier way to view things.

Today we went and looked at retirement property in Sheridan, I could definately see myself retiring here, such a beautiful place.  I'm not quite in the market for buying property but someday.

After the major run soreness has left my legs, my glute/hamstring is still obviously very messed up, at least I know I wasn't just being a wimp. 

Looks like I'm going to be a bike rider for a while cause running isn't an option.

Back to work today, this is my first day back in the office since the big layoff last week, should be interesting to see how things go.  So far I'm the only one in the office.

Yesterday I brought my gym bag to work with the intent of bike commuting today, well last night I thought about how fun it would be to ride home at 4:00 in 100 degree heat and changed my mind.  So instead I drove to work with my bike in the back seat and just went for a really slow short ride out along Wasatch and back.  Felt pretty good on the way out, when I turned around I found out why, there was about a 20mph headwind coming back.

16 miles in just under 1 hour.

45 minutes on the elliptical trainer, 30 minutes of weights.

Very nice bike ride from my office out around the zoo and back on Wasatch.  Pretty chilly at first but once I got going I was fine.  I'm glad I have biking I can still do, my pulled glute hurts a little bit going up hill but at least I can do it.  Running seems out of the question for a while.

Full Alpine loop with the neighborhood biker gang,  didn't know there was a group that went on bike rides but now I do, good to know.  I held my own OK, but that was the longest ride I've been on in a long time and my legs were jello by the end.

Bike loop around west Lehi/Saratoga Springs, pretty easy flat course except for that pesky headwind the entire way.  Go figure.  I need to start running again soon but I don't think I'm quite ready yet.  I really need to balance injury risk with performance next time around.  I think I'll start a alternating bike/run schedule once I give my self the OK to start running again.

20 mile Lehi loop with the neighbors. 

I'm really getting frustrated, my injury is not getting any better.  It doesn't ever hurt on the bike but it does the rest of the day  :(

I was planning on going to the gym this morning and trying a short slow run but when I woke up I had an e-mail from my neighbor wanting to go on a bike ride so I decided that sounded more enjoyable.  Rode up American Fork Canyon to Tibble fork reservoir then back home through Alpine.  Very nice morning.

I'm officially a cyclist now, I setup a Strava account so I can compare my awesomeness to all the other cyclist in Utah.

23 mile Zoo loop from my office with a Co-Worker. 

For some reason I have found it much easier to find people to go on 5:30am bike rides than I ever did running.

I woke up this morning and decided to try running out thinking maybe I was just being a wimp.  Nope, I literally can not run, my left leg just wont even let me make a running motion.  I can walk, no uphill very good, and I can bike, but running is out of the question :(

22 mile loop around West Lehi and Saratoga Springs.  Took it easy just in case there is a long hard group ride of some sort tomorrow.

Did my Lehi Loop followed by up and over Suncrest.  My bike partner was having a rough day, flat tire, and flat legs.