What ever it takes!

30 minutes on the hotel elliptical trainer just trying to stay awake so I could sleep normal and get over jetlag.  I walked around Barcelona for 6 hours today like a zombie trying to stay awake.

I really wanted to run on the beach today, problem is my hotel is quite a ways from the beach.  I had a pretty good idea of how to get there from the hotel so I just went out and started running.  It was exactly 5 miles to the beach, I ran along it for 1/2 a mile and then ran back.  (I was planning on running 12 and gave myself a 1 mile buffer to get lost, I only got .25 miles lost)  Not as great of running here in Barcelona as I was hoping but I think it is mostly due to the location of the hotel more than the city.  I felt completely safe running the streets at 5:00 in the morning.

Pretty nice run this morning up to the Olympic Village, or whatever it's called here.  I was hoping the track might be open but the entire arena was fenced off so I ran a lap around the arena and then started running on the roads around the Village, pretty neat place to run but very steep hills.  I'm going to have to look it up but if the Marathon ended on the Track that would have been a pretty brutal last mile up to the track.

6 Slow miles around Olympic park before another really long day at work.  I'm tired, and these hills are making my legs sore.

No run, no nuthin' cause I was really really tired.

10 miles up and over Mont Juic (where the Olympic Stadium is) over to the cruise ships and back.  Nice run, a bit warm this morning.  Even though it's a very steep climb it is very peaceful up on top of the hill.

Good luck to all of you that have to wake up in 2 hours to run St. George Marathon.  I'm excited to wake up and read race reports all day tomorrow.

Quick loop around the stadium before work.  I ran really fast down the hill.

I was really happy the St. George Marathon had a live stream,  I was able to watch the incredible finish of most of you bloggers.  I really got me motivated to start training harder, and run a fast marathon. 

Congrats to everyone and their fancy new PR's

Up and over Mont Juic, and around the stadium for 1 flatish lap.  It's really hard to get motivated to run up a really steep hill every morning, but I'm sure it's all worth it.

 http://connect.garmin.com/player/231260529

7 Really steep miles up to the top of MontJuic.  Mont Juic or Jew Hill has a large Cemetery where hundreds of thousands of Jew's were buried.  Now it is tourist attrraction, and had great views of the city.  It was a bit creepy running alone up there in the dark this morning, but very peaceful.  I had to cut the run short, due to early work, and my very slow assent up the hill but it was worth it.

My wife is flying in here tomorrow so now I know some good places to go hiking with her.

8.4 miles on different roads than I have been running, but pretty much the same end result.  Lot's of hills and 8 miles.  I'm ready to go home but my wife just got here, so I need to get into Vacation mode, just 1 more day of work.

Having 2 people on completely different time zones in the same tiny little hotel room is a bad idea.  My wife wants to stay up until 1:00 am, I want to go to bet at 9:00 pm.  I slept in my running clothes last night so I could wake up and sneak out the door early. Ran 6 miles alone and then I came back to the hotel and got my wife, we went on a job, hike, site seeing tour of Mount Juic this morning.  I didn't have my garmin going for the site seeing but Britt said she felt like we actually ran 3 miles so I put down 9 total.

We moved from our hotel by the convention center to more downtown Barcelona yesterday, I decided between running and walking I went about 20 miles yesterday. 

I was pretty excited to have a change of scenery for my morning run today and headed out down towards the beach.  Very disapointed with my run this morning, a few to many Drunks and Prostitutes out at 6:00am.  Seriously, I'm out running, do I look like I have a cigarette, or want sex?  I was seriously dodging hordes of people almost the entire run, except for the part where I got myself totally lost and was running up and down dark allys trying to find the beach.  I'll take my hill climbing on Mount Juic any day over the beach from now on.  I think I'll just stick to the hotel treadmill tomorrow.

8 miles in the hotel gym. Then we walked to the Picasso museum,  pretty disappointed in that, I´m sure if I was rummaging through some old closet of mine and found a Picasso laying around I'd probably throw it out.

I've had about all I can handle with shopping and site seeing.  I'm much better off if I have work to keep me occupied. 

Nice little 10 mile Jet Lag shaker after dropping Zach off at school this morning.  We got back from Barcelona yesterday afternoon, I really struggled staying awake last night, I went to bed at 8:00, woke up a few times in the night but for the most part slept pretty good.  I'm actually pretty good at recovering from Jet Lag.  The trick is to never sleep more than 5 hours a night anyway :) 

I think my body is telling me it's ready for some structure in training again. I've pretty much just floated through this entire year either recovering from injury or not wanting to get injured again.  But I am able to run 10 - 12 miles a day pretty easily, sub 7:00 pace is starting to feel sustainable again, and I haven't really felt pain anywhere for a couple of months now.  This isn't a real great time of year to start training for anything, cause there isn't really anything, so maybe I'll just try and throw in some intervals here and there, try to get my weight back down and then kick it hard come January 1st. to get ready for Boston.  This is the part I really struggle with, I've really enjoyed the second 1/2 of this year, just relaxing, no pressure but I think I'm ready to see what I can do with all my newly aquired experience and wisdom.

Take back what I said yesterday about jetlag, I couldn't sleep at all last night.  I forced myself to lay in bed until 4:00 then I got up and went to the gym.

Pretty hard workout for me, 2 mile warm up and then a 9 mile progressive tempo in 60 minutes, started at 7:30 pace ended at 6:15, then a 1 mile cool down in 8:00.   Nothing ground breaking but it put my body in a bit of a shock.

No comment!  just a link I found interesting in light of Lance Armstrong.

http://goo.gl/fzCDW

Since there are homeless people in Golden Gate park that have shoes in better shape than mine were I broke down and officially retired my 3rd pair of Nike Frees.  I was never a Nike fan because I thought the quality was poor, but I am so impressed with the Frees, I got over 1200 running miles out of all 3 pairs I owned, and my last ones I started wearing as just my everyday walking around shoes as well, so who knows how many miles they actually had on them.  Not to mention the 350 elliptical trainer miles this year.

So what did I replace them with? Another pair of Nike Free's of course, I decided to try the 3.0's this time.  I pretty much love them, I'm not sure why I ever wasted money on other shoes when I just always fall back to these.

I ran 10 miles on the treadmill at 8 mph then I decided to do some intervals, 10 x 160's (.1 miles) since it's easy to keep track of on the treadmill.  .1 with .1 jog in between.  I started at 12.1, 12.2 ..... up to 13 for the final one.  at about 12.7 mph I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest, but it was fun to get the legs moving like that again.  I haven't done those is a long time.

Damian Stoy is one of my local running hero's. I really envy his outlook on life.

http://wholisticrunning.com/2012/10/16/bridger-ridge-barefoot-run/

12 miles in 1:26:20  7:11 avg pace.  I was a bit sore from my sprints yesterday, I also think even though I love my new shoes the 3.0's are quite a bit more minimal than the 5.0.  I was starting to feel some soreness in my arch towards the end of the run.  Maybe I should switch it up a bit until my feet are used to the new shoes.

I'm going to throw this out for the sake of argument.

Say you were (just for example), a young cyclist in your early teens.  You were pretty good at it, won your age group at the Utah Summer games in Ceder City and decided you'd like to see how far you could go, so you join a local team enter some local races and get on the podium every race, your coach convinces you and your parents your good enough to start racing at a national level, so you do that for a while and decide you are good enough to make a career out of riding bikes, you put the rest of your life on hold, school isn't a priority, all you care about is riding your bike and your coach has convinced you that you are good enough to make a living at it.  So you turn 18, realize there is no money in cycling in the US and decide to move to Europe, you get on a plane fly to Europe meet your new team of European cyclists, go on a couple of training rides with them and quickly find out maybe your not as good as you thought you were, these guys are blowing you away.  All of a sudden all you have worked for, all that time you spent on your bike seems like a waste.  Then your new coach approaches you with the solution.  Ethically you don't agree with the solution but realize he's probably right, what do you do?  Get back on the plane, fly back home giving up all your life time dreams, or move on to the next level?

I actually rode with a guy in high school that went through that very ordeal.  He now works at Bingham Cyclery in Sunset.

If you get these running tights you can see if you're getting a stress fracture as you run.

http://www.nikeblog.com/2012/10/18/nike-exclusive-print-x-ray-tights/

Couldn't sleep last night so I went to the gym, got there just in time to catch the busses for the SoJo marathon.  I thought to myself "I wish I was running the marathon" not sure why I thought that, cause I really didn't.  Funny how we think.

Pretty crummy workout today, plan was to do a 12 mile progressive tempo but at mile 6 I got a side cramp I just couldn't shake.  Took a bathroom break, but still couldn't get running normal again.  Ran 3 more miles and just gave up.  I don't usually cut my workouts short but I just didn't feel like running another 3 miles was worth it.

Tried to make up for Saturdays failed progressive run, I started getting a side cramp again but was able to work through it today.  Started at 8:00 pace ended at 6:00 pace for an average 7:01, go figure.  12 miles in 1:24:15.

Here is a chart showing who the runner up to Lance Armstrong was in every major finish since 1998.  If they have an asterick next to their name they have been caught doping to some extent.  Every Tour De France winner since 1996 has since been proven a doper.  It's pretty sad.  I'm not sure how they can strip Lance of his titles and not everyone else.

Who would have guessed that there is a huge group of guys that run around in the dark at 6:30 pace every morning.  Crazy!  I met with Scott Keate and his posse this morning, just 2 miles from my house.  You'll have to go to his blog to get the full list of names but I'll give it a shot.  Scott, Reed, Dan, Toni, Matt, Me and 3 others.  It started out cold and threatening rain but it turned into a perfect morning for a run.  My headlamp had dead batteries so it was good I was running with 8 other guys all with bright lights and suspenders, it gave me motivation to stay with them.   At about mile 5 we started running uphill into the wind and I started dieing a bit, I thought maybe I'm not at this groups level yet, but then at the top of the hill they told me they were going hard and that wasn't normal.  I felt a tiny bit better.

Great fun run, thanks guys for letting me crash your running party.  I'll definitely be there again.  I need to be if I'm going to be in shape for Boston.

Nothing really wrong with me, I just felt like I needed a break from running today.  I do need to start eating better cause my stomach was the main reason running didn't appeal to me.

1 hour on the elliptical followed by weights.  I saw the snow plows out this morning and they must have been doing a great job cause there wasn't a single bit of snow on the roads that I could see.

Pretty fantastic run on the treadmill today.  That's right all you treadmill haters FANTASTIC.  Yesterdays day off seemed to be a good decision, I woke up this morning feeling well rested, started my run slow like normal but then I started noticing that no matter what I threw at myself my body responded.  Did a 1 hour progression run 8.8 miles, took a quick treadmill reset/water break and then I decided to throw down a 5K.  Started conservative at 9.5Mph for the first quarter felt good bumped it up to 10 for a quarter then decided to settle into a 5:42 pace 10.5Mph.  I hit mile 1 in 6:00 flat, mile 2 in 11:42, bumped it up to 10.7 for a quarter, that's when I finally started getting the sick to my stomach feeling,  slowed it back down to 10.2 for 1/2 a mile and then ran the last .35 at 11Mph to try and get under 18 minutes.  Pretty sure the timer hit 18:01 at 3.1 miles so I didn't quite hit it but close enough.

I'm probably going to hurt tomorrow but I was pretty happy getting an 18 minute 5K in.  I haven't done that in a very long time.  I've actually never ran an official 5K that fast.  I'm pretty sure the only PR I have that isn't on a treadmill is my 1/2 marathon.  I'll have to work on that.

Just remembered, my 50Mile PR isn't on a treadmill.  I wont be working on that.

Looks like Greg Lamond wants in on the action now.

8 mile in 1:03:00 followed by weights.

I'm taking the day off to volunteer in my sons kindergarden class today, I'm going to read "Piggy Pie"  last year I dressed up like a witch to read it to his pre-school class, I think that scared him deeply cause he really doesn't want me to come today.  I told him I wont dress up as a witch, but I'll still use my witch voice.

I looked it up yesterday and I have 3 weeks of vacation time I need to use between now and the end of the year.  Looking at the calender that pretty much means if I'm not out of town on work I can take the rest of the year off.  Not sure my boss will actually let that happen but it's a nice thought.  Also, I'm interviewing for a new job next week, it's still a travel job but it's a home office job too, which means if I'm not traveling I can be at home instead of an office.  That would be really nice for my running schedule.

Paced the Halloween Half Marathon today, I ended up dressing up as really the only  option I had, Lance Armstrong. Picked myself up a Radio Shack Jersey last night and when I explained to the Walgreens Pharmacist what I was going to be he gladly handed over a whole handful of syringes.  Really the 2 most important items in a Lance Armstrong costume.  The rest of the gear I already had on hand.

Found out I got to pace with Justin Park, I was very excited about this cause I've always wanted to run with him, but every time Ive tried in the past I couldn't keep up :)   I'll just say he is awesome, a real class act, and his Bangle Tiger outfit was pretty cool too.

Picked up my bib # last night, layed everything out, drove to the finish line and jogged the 3 miles to University mall for the Buses, when I got there I realized I had no bib to get on the bus, I figured I left it in my car but didn't think I could run another 6 miles round trip to get it and make it back in time, so I got yelled at by the race directors wife but still managed to sweet talk my way on. 

It was very cold at the top, and the 2 hour wait was pretty painful, especially since despite the fact the race was twice as big this year, the tent was the same size.  Standing room only, it basically felt like a gigantic Tokyo Elevator.

Race started, I was happy to find the girl I paced 1:40 last year was wanting to run 1:30 this year.  Unfortunately I didn't update my jokes from last year, so she had to hear all the same ones.  The course started 2 miles down the canyon from previous years, taking out 2 really steep quad pounding miles, they made it up the same way Provo River 1/2 does it up and down the canyon by Bridalvail falls.

Anyway, I'm not going to spend a lot of time, but we had a really great group of guys running 1:30, I had 5 people come thank me at the end which was very nice.  Justin was really awesome to run with and I hope I can do it again sometime.  I sure do like pacing, it's so nice to feel how a race should probably feel like.  Steady the whole way.  We did a very good job if I do say so myself, maybe 30 seconds fast through 6 miles is all but it was nice to have extra towards the end so we could slow down at aid stations.  I actually didn't take anything from aid stations, I've never done that before.

Course markers were all over the place, but the final distance showed up on my watch as 13.05, in 1:29:49.  Not to shabby, I of course don't have an official time cause of my bib incident, but Justin and I came in close to the same, he was being very anal about hitting it exact so he all but stopped the last 50 yards to make up the extra 10 seconds :)

Got back to my car, no bib, got back home, no bib.  The conspiracy theorist in my thinks my wife hid it trying to keep me from running today, I have looked everywhere and can't find that thing.  O'well.  I had a great time today.  Thanks Walter and Thanks Justin.

Mile	Pace Band	Actual Time
1	6:19	6:33
2	6:19	6:29
3	6:31	6:33
4	7:17	7:04
5	7:12	6:58
6	7:00	6:56
7	7:21	7:21
8	7:08	7:04
9	6:52	6:46
10	6:44	6:43
11	6:52	6:48
12	6:52	6:57
13	6:52	7:10
13.1	:41	:25 (.05)

A little bit sore from Saturday, not terrible but enough to make me think running wouldn't be enjoyable.  1 hour on the elliptical followed by weights.

8 miles easy, then 2 mile progression 6:20 avg pace.  I think I can maintain 6:18 for a good while.  I just may try and find out, maybe the day before Thanksgiving.

Met with Smooth, Rachelle, RAD, and Chad, and 2 others that were with Smooth at Willow Park this morning.  I got there 40 minutes too early so I just ran up to the Jr. High school and ran laps around the track while I waited.  I got 3 miles in went back to my car and still had 15 minutes left so I started running again but then Chad pulled up so I turned around and waited with him.

Very nice morning, chilly but nice.  I was glad I had my free pair of gloves that I got in my Big Cottonwood Marathon bag with me or my hands would have froze.

Rachelle, Rachel, Chad and I started out together, ran out to the lake, over the bridge, through the spooky forest and then Chad started running ahead, I was torn.  I liked running slow with the Rachelles but it seemed more manly to go off and run fast with Chad.  I wasn't in a real manly mood but I said thanks for inviting me to the Rachelles and took off to catch Chad, we started a pretty good little marathon pace tempo run right at 6:20 pace, it felt fine but all of a sudden my heart went crazy and wouldn't stop beating.  I had to stop and let it slow down and told Chad to go ahead.  After my heart calmed down I continued my tempo run and caught Chad with about 1 mile to the end.   He was working me hard, we ended up running the last .5 at about 5:45 pace.  I think.

Nice run, I had fun, thanks everyone.