What ever it takes!

Last day in Paradise.  I fly out to New York this afternoon so I wanted to get one last long run along the beach in.  No more barefoot running though, that gave me bad blisters.  I wanted it to be cool this morning from the rain storms yesterday, no such luck, all the rain storm did was make it very very humid.  The humidity really took it out of me today, but that was OK I just wanted a slow longer run anyway.

Ran all the way to the end of the trail, which is just over 4.5 miles so I had to run up along the boat docks for another 1/2 mile to get to an even 5, turned around and decided maybe running on the beach was at least a little cooler from the breeze, which it was but the sand makes it much slower running.  So I ran in the sand for about 1 mile and then went back to the trail and took a drink at the park.  All my beach and drink detours added .15 miles to the run. 

10.15 miles in 1:19:45  7:52 pace.  I was keeping it pretty steady at 8:00 the entire way but then ran the last mile in 6:30 just cause its fun to run fast past people :).

Central Park tomorrow, hope it's cooler there.

I'll be the first to admit, I have a crazy life.  How do I wake up one morning running on the beach getting a tan by the ocean, and then be eating a thin crust pizza slice in Time Square for dinner?  The only thing that keeps my life normalized is running.  No matter where I am I can always wake up and do one thing that's consistant.  

What a difference 20 degrees and 30% humidity makes, started from my hotel (Marriott Marquis) in Times Square, ran up Broadway to the park (about 1 mile) and then ran the "long" inner loop  about 5 miles.  When I got back to the corner of Central Park and Broadway I decided 7 miles wasn't enough so I did one more "short loop" and then back.  For just over 9 miles.

In Miami I sometimes struggled to keep an 8 min/mile pace,  this morning I kept looking down and seeing sub 7:00's for the same perceived effort.  I kept telling myself to slowdown, I guess being on the same road that some of the fastest marathoners in the world have raced on makes me want to run fast.   I decided 7:15 is where I wanted to be for this mornings run, slower on the uphills faster on the downs.  On one of the longer downhill sections I decided to push the pace and bit and see how it felt,  my hip felt a little bit twingy at 6:15 pace so I backed off, I'm not quite ready to push it that hard yet. 

Ended up with ~9 miles, (GPS doesn't work until I get to the park) in ~ 1:06.  7:20 avg pace after dealing with traffic coming back down Broadway.  Oh! that was the other huge difference, it gets very light here at 5:00 am.

Who'd of thought I could do a 50 mile week after not really running for almost 12 weeks.  Crazy!  Biking and swimming paid off.

Bad news, my Hip was bothering me last night after my little downhill sprint in the park yesterday.  I hope I didn't break anything.

I pretty much have the day off of work today, which is lame.  I could have either flown home from Miami for 1 day or come straight here.  I decided I didn't want to sit on the plane that long just to turn around and come back, now I'm thinking I should have just for the airline miles.  Today would have been a great day to run in Central park since I have all day but I decided I needed a break.  Well I woke up at 5:30 with nothing to do so I went to the Hotel Gym.  They have a super cool video spin bike which is just a regular spin bike with a virtual spin class which you can pick your workouts from.  I decided to do the 1 hour interval class.  It was just like being in a real spin class but that video guy never got tired.  Cheater.  It was a really good workout and the screen said I went 18 miles, which seemed about accurate.

Now a whole day off in New York by myself.  And they hotel doesn't have Verses so no Tour De France.  Humm!  I'm pretty lonely can you tell???

P.M. 30 minutes on the elliptical and 30 minutes of weights.

I slept in this morning and didn't get out the door until 6:00, I was kind of shocked that there were hardly any cars or people out.  Then I realized, Oh!  I'm probably the only person in the entire Country that has to work today.  Well, I'm sure some people have to work today, but not many.

Beautiful morning in the park, good temperature but the humidity was a bit stifling.  There was a lady I saw from a distance running with her dog and a baby jogger, when I got closer I saw inside the baby jogger and it wasn't a baby at all, it was another dog.  I thought, now that's a good pet owner, take your dog for a jog in the park even if it's to old or crippled to run itself.

Same Central Park I did last Saturday, once around the long loop, once around the short.  My watch is on the charger now, but I think it was like 9 miles in 1:07.  7:30 avg pace.

Decided I wanted a change of scenery this morning, watching the fireworks from my hotel room window last night gave me the idea to go run the Hudson River bike trail.  I've never done it before but have had a number of people tell me to try it.  got an earlier start 5:30 found the trail right at the Intrepid Aircraft carrier museum and started heading up the river,  I had no idea how far it went but knew it hooked up with Central Park somewhere along the way so that was the initial plan, but the trail kept going and going, I wanted to see how far it went but when I hit the 6 mile mark I decided I'd had enough and 12 miles was probably pushing my still recovering hip so I turned around.

Pretty nice trail, nice and flat and a nice breeze coming off the river.  It was more like running through a land fill a lot of the way with all the garbage left over from firework goers last night.  But other than the stench and trash a very nice run :)

12 miles in 1:30:12  7:31 avg pace.

Kept waking up all night wondering if it was time to go run.  Not sure why I was so excited to go run cause when time finally came I sure didn't feel like it any more.  Legs started out pretty stiff, and I was just all around tired.  Took about 5 miles into my 8 mile run to get in to it.  Plan was to just run an easy pace 8 around the long inner Park circle.  Started out as planned then when I got to the far side of the park I started feeling frisky.  There is a pretty large up hill that cyclists tend to struggle going up, I made it a goal to start passing as many of the straggling cyclist as possible.  I ended up only passing 2 but it was fun anyway.  After that a guy came off of one of the trails about 100 M ahead of me running a pretty good clip so I made it my goal to use him as a rabbit, chased him for about a mile, finally caught him, talked to him for a few seconds and then off I went.  When I got to the turn off I realized I was only going to be 7 miles so I cut across the park on some walking path and met back up with the main road.  Was planning on taking the final loop nice and slow but I sensed that I was now the Rabbit.  I could hear footsteps coming up behind me going up a slight hill.  I looked back and it was some guy who obviously made it his goal to have me for breakfast. (figuratively) I picked up the pace to about 6:00 going uphill and to my surprise he stayed with me, at the top of the hill he started to pass me.  I thought to myself  "come on guy, do you really want to do this?"  He did.  We started going downhill at that point so I hit my 5:35 button (surprised I still had one) after that the poor guy didn't stand a change.  I just started rollin' and never looked back.  I was quite happy to get an un-expected speed workout in and happy to find I still have some kick in my legs.

Now it's time for me to go catch some breakfast.  In the Concierge lounge.

8.5 miles in 1:03:30

I did the Hudson River trail again today because I wanted to try and do some sort of tempo run to evaluate my fitness.  Plus I'm running a 5K race in Wyoming in my wifes hometown next week which 1 year ago I told her I would win it this year.  It will actually be the first 5K I have ever raced.  Strange huh?  Well I have no idea what my 5K speed is, truthfully I have no idea what any pace is at this point.  So I wanted to run a short 2 mile tempo just to see what I could do.  Plan was to just try and go under 12:00 for the 2 miles, I was kind of thinking 5:45 pace in the back of my head.  So I ran down to the trail, ran out to the 5 mile point at 7:05 average pace, turned around got a drink of water, ran 1 mile in 7:30 to try and cool down.  Then I hit the gas, found 5:45 and tried to hang on, did the first 1/4 in 85 which was good, probably to good,  I knew at that point I wasn't going to be able to hold it, next 1/4 in 87 then I just lost it, all but gave up and slowed way down.  Despite feeling sorry for myself for not being able to keep the pace I decided I might as well still get a workout out of it.  So I found 6:20 pace and just kind of stayed there for a while but slowly over the 2 kept getting slower and slower.  2 mile tempo in 12:45  6:22 avg.  Stopped, got a drink and ran the last 2 miles back to the hotel slow feeling bad for myself.  It was awfully humid which I'm sure had something to do with it, but truth is I'm just not in the shape I wish I was, but hey, really what can I expect after 12 weeks off.

I guess I wont be winning the 5K next week.

10 miles in 1:10:55  7:05 avg.

I really like my job, until it interferes with my running.   DS3 went down 3 times last night, I literally did not sleep.  Sometimes you say that because you lay in bed without being able to go to sleep.  Nope, I was actually sitting in front of a computer in a cold dungeon of a telephone room all night long.  Went up to my room at 5:30 am, took a shower, changed my clothes, had a banana and redbull for breakfast and now I'm back in front of a computer screen watching pretty graphs.  So no run!!  Probably for the best, that's when I tend to get injured, when my body is physically drained from working to many hours.

Pretty tough run this morning, not cause I'm out of shape or wasn't ready, but because it was just a pretty tough course.  Ran the entire perimeter of Central Park, pretty much a gradual downhill all the way out and a really steep climb all the way back.  Go figure that!! The cobble stone side walks really beat up the legs and feet.  Was disappointed when I finished the loop and saw that it was only 6 miles, I wanted 14 miles today so I new I'd have to run the entire inner long loop.  Those rolling hills really start to take it out of you!  The hills aren't as steep as hills in Utah but the way they keep rolling really makes it tough. 

They were setting up for what looked like a 10K race in the park today.  My first sign there was a race is a taxi pulled up in front of me coming up 5th Ave and 3 elite Kenyans jumped out.   You can always tell the elite Africans cause they always have on their way too over sized Asics warm-up suits and carrying an extra pair of running shoes by the laces.

Pretty much ran the entire race course, which was cool cause I felt like I was winning.  I was the first one through all the aid stations and was pretty much the only one on the road. No one was cheering for me though. 

Anyway, I was pretty glad to just be done with the loop when I finished and didn't really feel like trying to figure out how to get an extra mile out of it so I just ran back to the hotel and called it good at ~13. 

13 miles in 1:35  7:18 avg pace.  I looked at my watch for distance, but never really let it influence how fast I went.  Just kind of ran the whole time at a "comfortable" pace.

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

Going on 17 straight days of work.  4 more to go.  I need a vacation!!!

And I'm off,  12 weeks to St. George.  Sasha told me I should drop out and not run any races the rest of the year.  I value Sasha's advice a lot, and think he knows infinitely more about running that I do, But..... St. George just means to much to me right now.  I've been waiting to run it for 3 years now, it's the race I envision even when I'm training for something else.  I agree, with only 12 weeks to get in marathon shape I may end up with a disappointing performance and want to give up running forever, but that is a risk I'm willing to take.  So sorry Sasha, thanks for the advice but I'm goin' for it... 

Plan today was 10 miles with strides,  I wanted to just find a pace that I felt I could run 10 miles at, not to easy but not hurt myself.  I thought 7:00 avg seemed like a good goal.  Ran the Hudson River trail because I like the flat, it feels like I'm running a track and can judge my effort better than the Central Park hills.  I found 6:40 pace right away and liked how it felt so I decided to hold it there.  Couldn't have had more even splits if I were on a treadmill,  every mile I looked down was like 6:39, 6:41, 6:40.  It felt good and I was really enjoying it.  Stopped at the 5 mile turn around (Harlem Peir Park) for a quick drink, I drank to much though cause I ran the second 1/2 with a side cramp the whole way.  Didn't let it slow me down though.  Around mile 7 the 6:40 pace started to feel like work but I pushed through it and never let my self slow down.

Wow!  Just saw the HR.  Looks like I need to work on that.  Honestly, I think the heat and humidity have alot to do with it.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace		Avg HR	Max HR
1	6:51	6:51		155	173
2	13:30	6:39		158	162
3	19:58	6:28		166	169
4	26:39	6:41		168	171
5	33:21	6:42		169	173
6	39:55	6:34		166	171
7	46:32	6:37		171	175
8	53:10	6:38		173	176
9	59:50	6:40		172	174
10	1:06:44	6:54		170	175
Total	1:06:44	6:40		168	176

 My work is paying for my Wife to fly in to see me for the rest of the week.  I'm pretty excited about it cause I really need my laundry done, and frankly, I don't know how to do it.  JK, I went and did it last night. But I really am very excited for her to come, she has never been to Manhattan so I had the hotel upgrade me to a sweet suite on the 41st floor over looking the Hudson river.  I could have got the Time Square view, but those rooms are way to noisy at night.  Pretty excited to take her running in the park tomorrow.

Wow!  It is hot and humid.  Worse than any day down in Miami last week.  Pretty suffocating and miserable.  I was up late last night walking around the City with Britt,  We walked up 5th Ave, through the Park and then back on Broadway.  Just so she could get her directions down since she is sightseeing alone today while I work.

I woke up at 4:50 so I could get an early start, out the door at 5:05, ran the 7 mile long inner park loop and then back to the hotel to pick up Britt.  7.5 in 55:22  7:22 avg pace.   Perfect timing Britt had just arrived in the hotel lobby, I told her it was very hot and she wasn't sure she could go the planned 6 miles.  We started out slow,  she kept wanting to speed up but I told her to pace herself so we could make the whole reservoir loop.  I tried to keep us at around 8:30 pace, she kept getting mad that we were getting passed by people so I'd go faster and start to drop her, so then I'd slow down.  I'm not exactly sure what she wanted, she's not a great partner runner, plus she listens to music the whole time so anytime I tried to talk to her she can't hear me anyway.  Still had a good time, we made it around the reservoir without stopping, 4 miles, then she decided she needed to walk a bit.  I went off ahead and ran a little over 1/2 a mile and then back to meet her to add a bit and keep from walking.  After I caught back to her she decided she was able to run the rest of the way back to the hotel.

Good, run.  I was very excited to share my Central Park route with Britt.  I'm not so sure she enjoyed it so much, it really was quite a miserably muggy day for running.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace
1	7:22	7:22
2	14:48	7:26
3	21:59	7:11
4	29:10	7:11
5	36:37	7:27
6	43:46	7:09
7	51:13	7:27
8	59:33	8:20
9	1:08:13	8:40
10	1:16:50	8:37
11	1:25:07	8:17
12	1:32:53	7:46
13	1:41:12	8:19
13.5	1:44:44	8:55
Total	1:45:07	7:48

Just a warning to anyone out there that may want to go running with my wife.  She is the worst running partner in the world.  She listens to her music the whole time, and runs like 20 yards behind me, when ever I slow down for her to catch up she just slows down more and gets mad at me for not running fast enough.

We ran down to the Hudson River trail, but mixed it up a bit and ran the other direction than my normal route,  (towards the Statue of Liberty) at the 2 mile mark I told Britt to run 5 more minutes and then turn around and I would catch up to her, well her music was so loud that she didn't hear me say turn around, so I ran out ahead to 3 1/2 so I could get 7 in and then turned around, 1/2 a mile back Britt was still coming towards me, when I got to her she said she was tired and needed to walk.  So we walked out to the peir to look at the Statue of Liberty then I realized it was already 7:00 and we were 3 miles from the hotel and I had to be to work at 7:30.  I left her my phone and sprinted back, made it just in time.  Now I'm not sure what the rush was, nothing is really happening at work but the anxiety was to much.

Not sure how I'm going to get my run in tomorrow, we have an 8:00am flight back to Billings Montana, then a 2 hour drive to Sheridan.  So ready to be done with work,  I've worked 3 weeks straight,  21 days without a day off.  That's to much.

Paris, Lauterbrunnen Switzerland, Gimmiwald Switzerland, Washington DC, San Francisco, Anaheim, Miami Beach, Bejing China, Central Park

8 Quick miles on the hotel treadmill before our flight home.  We are doing a local 5K tomorrow, I'm not expecting to much out of it.  I'm a wreck.

So I'm in Sheridan Wyoming, never heard of it have you?  This is the small hometown my wife grew up in, closest "big city" is Billings Montana.  This week in Sheridan is Rodeo Week, pretty much the biggest thing that ever happens here, shops close down, there is a huge parade and a 5K, and then to finish it off the NRCA rodeo series.  The other interesting thing about Sheridan is a lot of really rich people move here to get away from it all, the owner of Mars Candy lives here, the owner of Purina.  So there are some big sponsors for a little home town shin dig.

I ran this 5K with my wife 2 years ago and it was what you would expect from a small home town 5K in Wyoming, this year however M&M, Oakly sunglasses, and the same people that put together the Big Horn 100 that was 2 weeks ago sponsor the race.  So there were some good prizes and pretty much every High school cross country team from Wyoming was here.

I went for an easy 5 miler this morning and ran down and followed the route just to get it figured out, had stomach issues, and leg cramping issues during my morning run and knew today was not going to be pretty.

Anyway, I gotta go to the parade.  Long story short, I got a 5K PR, because I've never raced a 5K before, bad news I've ran faster 5K's 10 miles into a 18 mile training run before.  So not a great day.  Oh Well.

******************************************

Now, short story long.  This was really Britt's race,  she has been training for this the past month.  She wanted to do good in front of her old High School friends, when I told her I wasn't feeling very good this morning she told me to just run with her instead.  I told her I would go out fast and then if I fell apart I'd wait for her, well, I did fall apart but I didn't wait for her, once you're in race mode you just kind of have to go.  I lined up front with about 30 high school kids, the first 500M is down main street slightly downhill and very fast.  I told myself to not try and go out with the track kids, but once the gun...s went off I couldn't help but go fast,  I looked down and saw that we were at sub 5:00 pace.  I thought Oh No!  This is bad, I slowed down a little but was still going way to fast, at the 1/2 mile mark I realized I was about ready to loose my banana all over the road and had to slow way down.  Thought about waiting for Britt at that point but decided to just try and find my comfort pace, I never did, I felt sick the entire race, at mile 2 the first place girl passed me, I got behind her and ran with her the rest of the way.  I thought I didn't want to get chicked but I'd wait until the final sprint down main street to pass her.  Well turns out she had a faster kick than me and beat me by about 2 seconds.  I don't think she even knew she was competing with anyone :)  I finished and turned around and started running back the course to find Britt, I only had to go 500M and she was turning the corner onto main street.  I was really surprised to find her that quick.  I paced her in, she was looking really strong and having a great time.  I split off right before the finish line and some guys came up and tried to push me back onto the road, they said "you're almost there, you can do it"  That was my favorite part of the day, I was like 10 feet from the finish and they thought I'd just given up.

This is probably one of the funnest, most well organized 5K's ever, 3.1 miles on the dot according to my watch, and about 10,000 people cheering you on coming down the final stretch.  Granted, they are all there for the parade not the race but still very fun.  

Britt was trying for a sub 24:00 and ended up at 23:35, a 4 minute PR for her, so awesome job to her, soon she will be the runner in the family.  I really wish I could have been feeling better, but I really wasn't expecting much, too much work, too much travel, and too much fatigue the last few weeks.

Great bonding moment with my 9 year old this morning, last night I was trying to figure out how to get my long run in today.  There is a country road "Big Goose Rd" that goes from Sheridan out to the Big Horn mountains that is pretty flat and runs by a stream the whole way.  I was a little worried about where to get water if needed so I came up with the great idea to have my 9 year old ride bike support.  I was about to drive out to Walmart and buy a cheap bike for him when we looked over and realized he was probably big enough to ride Grandmas bike with the seat all the way down, tested it out and sure enough he fit.  Lucky he is a tall 9 year old. 

So this morning I woke Bradin up at 5:00am (what a trooper) and off we went.  He is a great running partner, talks the whole time, askes me everything about what a professional bike rider would do in this situation. :)  The time just flew by,  we went pretty slow going out,  Averaging about 7:45 min/mil.  Plan was 17 miles today but we were behind schedule so I decided to cut it short and turn around at 7.5.  Coming back we had the sun in our face, but it was much faster,  we picked up the pace about 1 min/mile, if I would have known the return was so much faster I would have gone the extra 2 miles.

Great run with Bradin, on an absolutely perfect morning.  15 miles in 1:51:03  7:24 avg.

Now off to get some father in law bonding.  He is taking me to the lake to go Kyaking.  Should be fun.

Run out Big Goose with Bradin again this morning.  Slow going out and then I tried to pick it up a bit coming back.  I've really gotten slow, I need to figure out where my speed went. 

5 miles of a somewhat tempo run.  Now off to go camping in Red Lodge Montana.

11.5 in 1:23:15  7:14 avg.

12 miles, 6 out and back along the main highway into Red Lodge Montana, pretty hot here, I thought we were suppose to be in the mountains but it was 70 degrees at 5:30 am. 

I was running along and the sun came out and I wished I would have brought sunglasses with me.  Not more than a minute after thinking that I looked down and there was a brand new pair of sun glasses laying on the side of the road.  I think tomorrow I'll wish for a big bag of money.

I've decided that I'm not recovering properly from my 12 mile runs so this morning I went out planning to take it really easy. Started running down the main highway away from Redlodge.  After about 1 mile I decided I really didn't like running down the side of the highway and wanted to find a new route, right then I saw a dirt road with a sign that said 3 miles "that way" to some ranch.. I thought perfect that will give me a total of 8 out and back so I followed that road.  Turned out to be an excellent choice, the most absolutely perfect secluded dirt road you could imagine, open fields, a beautiful sunrise and perfect temperatures.  It actually reminded me of running in Switzerland,  very, very slow pace but I really enjoyed every minute of my run.

8 mile in 1:08  ~8:30 avg pace.

We drove from Redlodge Montana down to Britt's Grandma's house in Cowley Wyoming yesterday.  Spent the day visiting Grandparents, fun fun..  We (Britt) wanted to get an early start out of town this morning so we could get back home.  I wanted to do 10 miles this morning but for some reason it didn't get light until about 5:10 and I really didn't know where I was going and didn't want to run in the dark.  I just started running out some dirt road, almost all the roads in Cowley are dirt, had no idea where the road went, how far it went but it was a great road, kind of rolling hills the whole way, on a nicely graded dirt road.  Ran towards the sunrise for 30 minutes which came to 4.25 miles then turned around and went back for a total of 8.5.  Still pretty easy pace today but not as slow as yesterday, tomorrow I think I'm going to do some old fashion treadmill running to see if I'm as out of shape as I think I am or if the unfamiliar running conditions I've been running the past 3 weeks have something to do with it.

When I got back I asked Britt's Uncle how far that road went, he told me it would have taken me all the way to Billings.  So like 50 miles, humm, Wyoming has some great long run locations.  I can't find anything like that around here, long straight rollers with absolutely 0 cars for 50 miles, maybe I need to move to Wyoming.

Glad to be home, I haven't slept in my own bed in 4 weeks.

8.5 miles in 1:03  7:27 avg pace.

The past 4 weeks I have pretty much been living the runners dream, running on the beach in Miami, around Central Park and along the Hudson River in New York and then down endless country dirt roads in Montana.  Yet somehow getting on the ol' front row 3rd treadmill from the right at Lifetime this morning was really quite enjoyable,  I have literally put thousands of miles on that one treadmill and somehow when I get on it my body just knows it's time to get down to business and run.  No distractions, no cars, no people in the way, it's all about the numbers.

Very pleased with my workout this morning, I just wanted to do my bread and butter run, 10 mile progressive run and evaluate where my fitness was.  Since I've pretty much ran a completely different route and terrain the last month I never really had a good base to go off of and evaluate my fitness.  Felt good the entire run, heart rate never did get away from me and my legs held it together pretty good.   I think my cardio fitness is in decent shape, I just need to start getting some longer runs in and get my legs back.  Speed seemed OK,  I'm sure that is something that will gradually just come back with the miles.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace		Avg HR	Max HR
1	7:25	7:25		135	166
2	14:32	7:07		139	142
3	21:29	6:57		143	146
4	28:18	6:49		147	149
5	34:58	6:40		150	151
6	41:28	6:30		153	155
7	47:50	6:22		155	157
8	54:05	6:15		155	157
9	59:51	5:46		159	164
10	1:06:49	6:58		148	154
Total	1:06:54	6:39		148	164

Very happy with today's run.  Met Ryan at Maverik, first time we've ran together in 7 weeks.  I really needed that, we seem to be able to push each other at exactly the right times, and seem to be at the same level all the time.  He then turns around and kicks my butt at every race though, so that must mean he's just taking it easy on me on our training runs.

I was thinking we'd be doing well just to average 7:30 pace for the 18 miles today, so was really happy with how well I held up for my first long run in months. Hip felt good, legs are a bit sore but that's to be expected after an 18 miler.  We started out slower and progressively sped up over the entire run.  Probably averaged under 7:00 pace for the last 6.

18 miles in 2:09:21  7:11 avg pace.

68 miles for the week, first time I've been on the first mileage board page in a long long time.

My poor dog Nellie has been at Grandma's for the past 3 weeks and hasn't been able to get out for a walk so this morning I decided to take advantage of a perfect morning and take her for a quick little run.  4 mile loop around the dirt roads of Traverse Mountain, very slow 9:00 avg pace.  Legs are pretty sore from yesterdays run.

Ouch!  I'm going to feel that tomorrow.  I wanted to accomplish a couple of things this morning.  Find out what my downhill, with a tailwind pace should be for next weekend, and beat my legs up a little bit with time to recover.  I definately accomplished the beat my legs up part.  Not sure I know what pace I can run downhill for 13 miles though.  4 miles at that pace about killed me.  I would like to go out at 5:30 - 5:45 just to give myself a chance for a 1:15 if I'm feeling good but really I'm thinking I'll be pretty lucky to be 1:18.

Started from my work and ran up Big Cottonwood canyon  5 miles, took it kind of easy  going up, partially on purpose, partially cause it was really hard, turned around at 5 and pounded back down.  The top had some very steep sections where I hit sub 5:00 pace a couple of times but I felt really un-stable and thought I was going to fall on my face so I had to slow down a bit.  I've decided I'm 10 - 15 lbs top heavy, my legs could handle the pressure much easier if I was about 15 lbs lighter I'm sure.

Good workout, I might go for a bike ride tomorrow instead of run.  We''ll see how I feel later tonight.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace
1	8:10	8:10
2	16:53	8:43
3	25:34	8:41
4	34:25	8:51
5	43:46	9:21
6	49:03	5:17
7	54:35	5:32
8	1:00:11	5:36
9	1:05:54	5:43
10	1:12:28	6:34
Total	1:12:20	7:14

During my injury recovery I really learned to love cycling again, I used to ride bikes quite a bit until I had a very bad wreck in LoToJa and quit riding completely.  I turned down a ride last Saturday cause I had an 18 miler planned with Ryan, this morning I had a 14 on the schedule but really wanted to ride my bike.  I had quite the internal argument with myself last night about weather I should ride or run.  I finally realized the the fact I was having to argue with myself over something like that meant that I have serious issues.  The only reason I was even considering running is so I could put miles on the mileage board.  So this morning I went for a nice bike ride by myself.

Drove to work and then headed up to Wasatch Blvd, I was going to just make a big loop but started riding up Little Cottonwood canyon and decided it would be cooler, less traffic and much prettier to ride up to Snowbird.  It was a very difficult climb, there were times where I thought to myself I could be running up this hill faster than this, but it was very enjoyable, kept my HR up for at least a solid hour.  This ride was worth at least a 14 mile run.  Legs are a bit jelloy now, I may go out for a short lunch time run just to get the legs moving.

22.5 miles in 1:40

*****************************************

Afternoon run, for some reason I thought a nice "easy" 6 miler for lunch sounded like a great idea.  Asked Ryan what his running plans were and he needed 6 so that sounded perfect.  I convinced him to go run outside instead of the Gym,  we headed out from the office under I215 to the CottonBottom, thought about stopping for Garlic Burgers and then headed down Highland drive, ran out 3 miles, thought I was going to die of heat exhaustion, begged some lady for some water and then headed back.  Net incline all the way back and brutally hot.  A mix between my downhill sprint yesterday,  my Snowbird hill climb bike ride this morning, and the heat was just to much.  Time to take it easy for a couple of days. 

8 easy recovery miles on the treadmill on some still sore legs.   Rolled out, then stretched with weights, stretched in the hot tub, stretched in the pool.  I'm about 2 inches taller now but feel really good.

8 miles in 57:25 7:10 avg pace.

4 miles on the treadmill while waiting for the light, ran 5 X strides in the last mile at < 5:00 pace.  Talked to Riverton Paul for about 10 minutes, he is still alive and looks great.

4 miles in 29:10, 7:17 avg pace

Went out to the JRP trail and ran 3 slow miles out and back for a total of 6.  Very nice morning, cool temps.  I hope it's this nice and cool Saturday morning.

6 miles in 47:45,  ~8:00 avg pace

Legs were a little more stiff than I'd like them to be 2 days before a race, I'll try swimming tomorrow.

2 weeks ago on my flight coming home from New York I helped a lady lift her bag into the over head bin, doing so I pulled a neck muscle, you know the one, where you can't move your head back and forth quite right for a couple of days.  Well for some reason it decided to start acting up again last night from giving my 4 year old a shoulder ride, so I had a terrible nights sleep trying to find a comfortable position for my head.  I was quite happy when it was finally time to wake up this morning.  The airlines should make a rule that if you can lift your own bag into the overhead bin you need to check it.

Plan was to swim, so I swam, easy 1600 meters.  Swimming unlike biking and running is something you forget how to do if you haven't done it for a while,  it took me about 6 laps before I got the rhythm right.

Good news, my legs feel totally sore free, probably the best my legs have ever felt the day before a race,  hopefully my neck problem isn't an issue, luckily I don't run on my neck.  I've also had stomach problems lately when I try to run fast, not sure why but the acid really builds up and makes me sick.  I'll just have to watch what I eat really closely today.

I’ve spent some time thinking about how I feel about this race and how I performed and have come to the conclusion that I’m thrilled with how I did.  My goal was a 1:15 but that was a completely arbitrary number that I pulled out of the air and I really had nothing to back up being able to do that.  Second goal was a PR, so hey that’s always nice to meet some goal, beat my ½ Marathon PR by almost 1 minute.

Slept OK last night, better than staying in a hotel somewhere with the entire family in the room, so having the race 10 miles up the road from my house was very nice.   Woke up at 3:00 am got ready, drove to Ryan Jonson’s house to meet him at 4:00, but I showed up 30 minutes early,  I Sat in his front yard stretching and jogging up and down the street for 30 minutes while I waited.

We drove to the buses got on what must have been an early bus cause it was the nice LaBus with nice seats,  The start area was kind of a mess, didn’t seem big enough for everyone there, I only got one shot at the Porta Potty, that worried me a little bit but I actually ended up OK.

The race was suppose to start promptly at 5:40 am, 5:40 came along and they announced that we still were waiting on a few busses.  Lot’s of grumbles from the crowd, I actually don’t mind waiting around a bit, plus it was still pretty dark at 5:40 so I think the road could have been dangerous in the dark, the only thing I was upset about was that I didn’t go to the bathroom one last time while waiting, but when your lined up on the front row you don’t really want to leave.

Lined up with Ryan.   The only “fast” person that anyone really recognized was Justin Park (I think that’s his name, he ended up winning), the gun went off about 6:00 am I would guess, I didn’t have my watch set to time.  I figured from the race report of the American Fork ½ that there would be people taking off at sub 5:00 pace but everyone was going pretty slow, I know cause I was in second position at about ¼ mile.  There were 6 of us in the lead group and everyone was very chatty, that bothered me cause I was thinking how hard it was to even breath and these guys were chatting about the weather.  Justin and another guy finally split away and took the lead, Ryan and 2 other guys started a little group of 3, and I created my own group of 1 about 50 yards behind them.

I was actually hitting my splits right around how I had thought I should,  5:30 – 5:40 pace,  kept questioning if that was the right pace, didn’t really know if I should go faster and try to catch up to Ryan, or go slower and save myself a little bit.  But all and all I felt OK, breathing was a little heavy but I was hanging in there.  I was really enjoying the canyon but kept telling myself it was going to get bad out of the canyon, at around mile 7 I passed one of the guys from the pack of 3, we chatted some, kept alternating position but eventually he fell back.  That gave me a little bit of confidence to know that I had actually passed someone,  this put me in 5^th overall, I seriously questioned being able to hold that position for 5 more miles but kept pushing through.  Once I reached the bottom of the canyon I could tell the heat would be an issue.  Heat over all other things is my nemesis, every race I’ve every done I just completely crash as soon as the sun comes up.  I’m not sure what I need to do to get over that, I’ve struggled with heat exhaustion as long as I can remember, whether it’s riding bikes, running or what ever.  Anyway, it got hot, and humid.  Then I got to the trail by the Golf course, I had no idea there were up hills on this course, I should have rode it on my bike or something.  That first hill, I seriously thought I was going to collapse, my calf started to tighten up and I realized then that 1:15 wasn’t going to happen even though I was still on pace to do so.

I switched from race mode to survival mode at around 8.5,  I was planning on this happening around the 10 mile mark but I was still happy I pushed through as hard as I did for that long.  I don’t remember a whole lot threw here, I passed a few of the full Marathon people, and passed 1 person that I thought was maybe one of the guys ahead of me but I couldn’t remember.  At 11.5 I got passed by someone, I tried to keep up but he had kicked into a different gear, and then at 12 a friend of his met him and paced him the rest of the way, I didn’t have a chance.

Turned the corner at 13 feeling pretty dead, but my wife tells me I always look slow coming down the home stretch so I decided to speed up and bit and put on a show for the kids, ran all the way across the street to high five my kids (they love that) and then I was done.

So the only thing I’m really mad about this race about is that somehow they really jacked up the timing, Ryan and I weren’t even on the printed result sheet so we went and complained, They had manually written my number down in 5^th place but didn’t have Ryan at all (he finished 3^rd overall at 1:13:59)  eventually they said they found both of our names in the computer with chip times (1:16:51 for me) but they weren’t on the official results sheet.  They tried to give Ryan’s 3^rd place prize away to someone else, but he went and complained and they fixed it, they did end up giving my age group plaque to someone else and told me they would make me a new one and send it to me.  I’m not sure how they made such a mess of it,  I only new 3 people, Me, Ryan, and Allie and somehow all of our results got messed up.  Allie took 3^rd overall but they tried to give it to someone else.  I think she was angry and left before all that anyway.

All and all, a good race, not quite as “easy” as I had imagined, I wish I would have ran the last 7 miles earlier cause I wasn’t expecting all those hills and turns at all.  Based on the fact I have been out with a stress fracture all summer and only been running for 4 weeks I’m very pleased with the result.  Who would have thought I could come back and get a PR that soon after recovering from a stress fracture.  Pretty sure I have a 1:15 in me but I don’t have any other races set until St. George Marathon due to work conflicts with all the other races coming up.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace
1	5:26	5:26
2	11:09	5:43
3	17:00	5:51
4	22:44	5:44
5	28:08	5:24
6	33:33	5:25
7	39:04	5:31
8	44:47	5:43
9	51:08	6:21
10	57:26	6:18
11	1:03:37	6:11
12	1:10:10	6:33
13	1:16:24	6:14
13.1	1:16:52	5:28
Total	1:16:52	5:53

 

Ouch!!