What ever it takes!

5 miles with Nellie,  Nice morning but I'm sure sick of hurting somewhere all the time.  I bought one of those knee bands but that didn't help at all.

They paved 1/2 of my dirt trail running route this last week, which I guess is OK but I really enjoyed running on the dirt. It will be really nice when they are completely done, maybe I can start taking all of my kids with me on my runs while they ride bikes.

Hardest cardio workout I've done in almost 6 months, not very impressive really but it felt very hard.  3 mile warmup 5 mile tempo at 6:30 - 6:20 pace then 2 mile cool down.  I'm about 10 lbs over my normal in shape weight and 15 lbs above where I would like to be.  So today I start operation loose 15 lbs.

4 miles on the treadmill and then 6 miles outside.  The treadmill miles were actually more enjoyable than being outside this morning, kind of hot, kind of muggy, and really buggy, plus for some reason I felt like I was running in mud the whole time,  some days I just need the treadmill belt to pull my feet faster.

Next week we are going up to Wyoming on vacation for Rodeo Weekend, Yeehaa!  I'm looking forward to it though, it's cooler and very beautiful in the mornings for nice long runs out in the country.

10 miles on the newly paved "Murdock canal trail". I'm not sure why it's called that cause when there was a canal there it was called Bull River but now it's buried anyway.

I was up late last night watching fireworks with the only one of my kids that made it that long, so I slept in a bit this morning.  Decided to take a break from running, 20 minutes on the elliptical followed by about 45 minutes of weights.

If they strip Lance Armstrongs Tour De France titles from him who are they going to give them too?  Every person he beat has already admitted to doping.  

This video pretty much sums up my training for the last few months.

I twisted my ankle pretty good last night playing soccer on a wet field wearing Nike Free's.  Same leg as my knee and hip injury.  I'm pretty much being held together by neoprene and spandex.  Maybe a shin splint and a pulled IT band and my quest will be complete.

36 laps in the pool followed by 45 minutes of weights.

I sure like riding my bike when I do it, it's just logistically so much harder to do than running. Couldn't find anyone to go with me this morning so I went alone. I saw Carina getting ready to run and thought about changing plans and running with her posse but was already set for a bike ride. Rode from my house up to Tibblefork and back, I swear it's easier to run up that canyon than ride, I feel guilty every time I pass a runner, like I'm cheating or something. Anyway, nice ride now I'm going to veg out and watch the Tour.

10 miles on the Murdock canal trail,  I scared the begeezees out of some girl as I ran up behind her and said "good morning", she in turn screamed really loud and scared the begeezees out of me.

I can't seem to get out of ultra training mode, I try to run faster but my legs just don't want to do it.  My knee was still bothering me for the first 4 miles, then it got better.

No run today, I had to drive my doggie all the way to Layton this morning so Grandma and Grandpa can baby sit her while we go to Wyoming.  I probably wont run tomorrow either since we are leaving early.  But then after that I plan on running lots.

Well, I thought we'd be driving all day today but I left work early yesterday and we ended up driving up to Wyoming last night instead.  We got to Sheridan at 12:30am, I went directly to bed and woke up like clockwork at 5:00am, so I did what I do at 5:00am and went running.  Very nice morning, 65ish degrees I pretty much ran the entire Sheridan City trail system 10.5 miles then circled back and picked up my wife for a 3.5 mile run.  She is going to try and run her 5K PR on Friday at the annual Sneakers and Spurs 5K, put on by the same folks that do the BigHorn 50.  I'm in no shape to try and run a fast 5K so I will either pace her, or run with my 10 year old if I can convince him to run it.

Pretty happy getting in 14 today, I'm going to try and get some decent miles in this vacation week.  I really don't have anything else to do but run.

I kind of thought the whole Chi Running thing was a fad, until I met this guy at the Big Horn 50.   Pretty interesting stuff.

Ran out Big Goose road this morning, great little 2 lane country road that runs next to the river all the way out to the Big Horn mountains.  Perfect morning, and saw lots of wildlife, the non threatening kind.  I took my 10 year old with me, he rode Grandmas mountain bike, and Grandpa Bob decided to tag along as well so I had a little entourage with me, actually how many people are needed to make an entourage?  Anyway, really nice run, I sure wish I lived in a place where I could walk out my front door and have this type of running route every morning.  My average pace going out to 7 miles was around 8:00, when I got back I noticed that my average overall was 7:29, so that means I actually averaged 7:00 coming back, which I'm quite surprised with cause I didn't try that much harder, I think it probably is a net uphill going out and down coming back though.  It seems to just be rolly both ways.

7 easy miles around Sheridan this morning, now we're off to run the Sneakers and Spurs 5K. I'm going to run with Bradin my 10 year old. We're shooting for 28:00, is that good for a 10 year old? Furthest he's ran is 2 before today.

26:36 official time for Bradin

23:32 for Britt

I'm really glad we set an obtainable goal for his first race, he's totally stoked now and wants to go run more races.

Plan was 18, considered running 20 until I saw that it was 72 degrees at 5:00am so I reverted back to the 18 plan. Ran out Big Goose road again with my father in law riding bike support. It's really nice to have someone there handing you water any time you need. Really muggy and buggy this morning, it kind of wiped me out, I was going to try some sort of tempo run on the way back but It was just to stinking hot. I came to Wyoming to get away for the heat but apparently you can't escape it.

Big day today, the Rodeo Finals YeeHaa! This town is so funny the entire town shuts down for the rodeo, even the YMCA is closed for rodeo festivities.

So that's what a tempo run feels like huh?  Decided to go out of my comfort zone today, I ran the first 6 miles just to the point where I was breathing harder than normal and I had to concentrate more than normal, at the turn around I stopped for a quick drink and stretch and then pushed myself as much as I could handle.  It was hot and humid again but I'm just going to have to come to the realization that my marathon pace is between 6:40 and 6:50. the sooner I come to grips with it the sooner I can start getting faster again.  If I can actually hold a 6:40 for 2 hours 55 minutes that's good enough for now.  Anyway, I tried to hold at 6:40ish some of the uphills I had to really push it to just stay below 7:00 but the downhills I was pushing 6:00 so it evened out.  At mile 11 I slowed down and took it easy the last mile back to the house.

There was a crop duster spraying mosquito repellent out Big Goose road this morning,  made it less buggy, but more chemically.  I'm kind of done with vacation and ready to get back home.

14 nice comfortable mile in perfect running conditions.  A huge thunder storm came through last night dropping the temperatures to a perfect 60 degrees.  Lots of Deer out this morning.  This is the kind of running I expected to have the entire vacation.

Easy run around Sheridan, heading out of town today to go hiking in the Bighorns then home tomorrow.

4 awful miles in Cowly Wyoming before heading home.  I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes so I turned around and called it quits.

I've been really wanting to ride my bike lately watching the Tour so I made plans to meet my friend at work this morning for a ride.  We rode from the office out around the Zoo and back on Wasatch.  I saw Jake running up the Wasatch by the Zoo, I yelled "Hey Jake"  I could tell he was thinking "Oh great, another one of those doper cyclists,  Maybe if I just wave and smile he'll leave me alone" :)

Another bike ride up American Fork Canyon this morning.  I passed Scott Keate and Dan Varga on my way up, they were running up Timp Highway, I then passed them again 1/2 way up the Canyon on my way back down.  Those guys are animals.  

I then came back and played soccer with my wife and kids and some other neighborhood folks.  I really suck at soccer, I'll stick to running in a straight line.

My fat out of shape self, and my fat out of shape dog went for a slow easy run on the trails around home.  Nice morning!

OK, I'm going to do it.  I'm going down to Des News signup today and registering.  I really like that you can procrastinate till the absolute last minute and still get into this race.  I'm in no way any shape to be doing anything amazing I just want to go soak in the atmosphere and feel like a runner again so the plan is just to go talk to people and have a fun time.

1 mile warmup, then a 3 mile run at 6:30 pace just to test the joints and make sure I don't have pain at that pace, I actually don't remember the last time I went into a race without some pain so that's a definite plus that I feel really good for once. The Hip may be a bit tight but I'll just stretch and ice it good tonight and it should be fine.

Slowest Marathon I've done in 3 years, even slower than my epic blowup in St. George.  Am I angry or upset?  Absolutely not,  accomplished all my goals for today, have fun, chat with bloggers and get back to work in time for my meetings.

I was really up in the air on whether I should run this or not, I haven't done any marathon specific training since last fall, and I'm about 15 lbs overweight but when I saw what a large FRB presence there was going to be I decided yesterday to go register.  I saw that Jeff Loveless was shooting for a 2:57 which seemed dandy to me so I told him yesterday I would like to run with him.  I ran into a plethora of bloggers at the start line, Steve Anderson, Marlin, James, Sasha, Allie, Fritz (as he got out of his Cadillac Escalade limo 2 minutes before the start (JK).  The time flew, it was a bit warm for being up on a mountain but felt great while waiting.  5 minutes before the start Jeff found me so we were on target for our plan to run together.  I told him we should just shoot for around 6:20 for the first 3 downhill miles and make sure our legs didn't get distroyed.  We pretty much stuck to the plan, maybe a little faster but if felt comfortable and we just chatted the first 5 miles, at Little Mountain the uphill bothered my knee and I slowed down,  I didn't want to be responsible for Jeff not running a good time and told him he could leave me, so he did.  I took it easy up the hill, on purpose and just tried to keep an even effort, I could tell that even the slower pace coming down my legs were hurting already, which probably means you should just blow down the first part since it hurts no matter what.  Oh, I forgot at mile 4 Allie and a pretty serious group of Wastach runners blew past us, Jeff told me to go catch them I did but they were way to intense for me that early in the race so I slowed back down to Jeff.

Anyway, after Jeff left me I turned on music and just tried to have fun and not hurt, felt good but my legs did hurt from the lack of miles I've put in lately, at mile 13 the sun came out, I thought Oh great a 13 miles death march, then a mile later a gift from the heavens, rain!!  Ahh! such a wonderful thing, the rain and clouds made it perfect temps the rest of the race,  I just kind of plowed along, there was a guy on a Felt Bike and Felt Jersey that must have been cheering someone right behind me cause he kept passing me and then stopping at each mile marker and telling me good job,  I told him I felt like he was my personal cheer leader.  I slowed down at each aid station and savored the water, I smiled at all the people and high fived all the kids and just tried to tell myself it was all just for a good workout and feel like I was a runner once again.  At mile 17 the virtual 3 hour pacer dropped me, even though I pretty much knew a sub 3:00 wasn't happening at 13. 

The best part was that after mile 20 instead of what I'm normally used to, getting passed, I started passing people, it was amazing to actually feel like I was stronger at the end, even though splits would say different.  The few block on the parade route was fun, I gave lots of little kids high fives, it reminded me of a marathon sign I once saw "Worst Parade Ever" I think that about sums up Marathon watching for my wife.

Anyway, I had a fun day, now I get to work the rest of the day, my company is an "International" company, so we don't get Pioneer day off. 

This is exactly how I would run every marathon from now on (from a feel, standpoint) but next time I hope to be in much better shape so the time is better.  I may post splits later but I'm kind of embarrassed by some of them.

Great job to all the other Bloggers, sorry Jeff for not being able to stay with you.  You looked great.

P.S. I have a couple of watches for sale if anyone is interested.

Here are my splits for what it's worth.

6:24, 6:15, 6:14, 6:28, 6:32, 7:12, 8:09, 7:26, 6:38, 7:03, 6:47, 6:56, 6:55, 7:00, 7:00, 7:12, 7:10, 7:31, 7:14, 7:19, 7:54, 6:59, 7:27, 7:19, 7:20, 7:43, 1:50

I'm in pretty darn good shape after just running Des News yesterday, I can actually go up, and down stairs.  Not saying I'm not sore, but I've been a lot worse off, probably means I didn't push very hard, which is true.  I do have a soccer scrimmage with my kids soccer team tonight, that should be fun.

30 minutes on the elliptical, 15 minutes of weights, 15 minutes of pool and hot tub stretching.  I'm good to go.

Why is it 2 days later that always seems to hurt the worst.  Pretty sore this morning, my little parents against kids soccer game last night probably didn't help all that much.  The Kids beat us 5 - 4 or something like that, punk kids.

I woke up late, and my gas light came on as soon as I got in the car so I got a late start at the gym, just decided to swim today.  24 laps.

1 hour on the elliptical, 30 minutes of weights.  Hopefully today is the last day of legs soreness.

While all y'all were out running races this morning, I went Golfing, first time golfing in probably 5 years.  I decided to participate in the Stake Golf tournament this morning, I better stick to running from now on.  5 1/5 hours to play 18 holes.  I can  run a full Marathon in the time it took to play second 9 holes of golf.

5 easy miles with the puppy this morning. Something at work is bothering me lately so it made me run fast than normal.

My flight got into New York last night at midnight so I didn't get to bed until 1:00am.  Woke up at 6:00 and decided traffic would be annoying running to the park so I ran on the treadmill.  6 miles progressive run just to wake up.

Ran from the hotel up Broadway to Central Park.  Pretty muggy but about 10 degrees cooler than I was planning so not horrible.  Someone must have forgot to tell me it was tempo Tuesday,  I hardly ever get passed when running in Central Park but people were flying past me right and left, and most of them girls.  Maybe I'm just slow, for some reason my knee really bothers me when going uphill but not flat or downhill.

1 mile to the Park, 1 big loop (6 miles) 1 little loop (1.5 miles) and 1 mile back to the hotel.  I thought the small loop was longer, maybe there is a middle loop I forgot about.