What ever it takes!

1 hour on the elliptical, 30 minutes of weights.  Probably the hardest I've worked out with weights in years.  I'm going to be sore tomorrow.  But I'll get buff. 

That's my New Years Resolution,  to get buff.

60 minutes on the elliptical, 45 minutes of weights.  For some reason the gym was extremely crowded today.  I'm not sure why,  it's just a Tuesday.

I've gained 7 lbs since I stopped running 2 weeks ago, I'm hoping it's from all the muscle I've gained lifting weights.

I decided this year was starting off very badly since I haven't logged any real running miles, and also decided that I'd rather run slow than not at all.

18 minutes on the elliptical then I got on the treadmill to give my leg a try.  I set the treadmill to 7 mph and incline to 3%.  I ended up doing a progressive incline workout, keeping the speed the same but increasing the incline 0.5% every mile so I ended up doing the last mile at 6% (which was pretty brutal)  Leg felt fine the whole time, and I felt like I got a really good workout.  If my calculations are correct that comes to 1,478' of vertical climb over the 7 miles.

7 miles in 60 minutes 8:34 avg pace.

30 minutes of weights in an even more crowded gym than yesterday.

I am now officially signed up for the BigHorn 50 Miler, I see a lot more hill workouts in my future.

My 12% hill climb will just have to wait, I got on the elliptical this morning and even it was hurting my leg so I decided to try swimming.  I haven't gone to the pool this week cause I was afraid it was going to be crowded and I hate sharing lanes, but when I got there I was the only one there, and I actually had the entire pool to myself the whole time.  

40 laps in 43 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of weights, now I'm at work way to early.

Here's kind of a funny story,   I bought some new Nike Free's and finally threw out my old Live Strongs.  Well, this morning (while swimming) I was thinking about tracking my running cadence again and realized that my Garmin Foot pod was left in my Free's that I threw away.  I'm really quite upset about it.

1 hour on the elliptical 30 minutes of weights.  This bites.

Yep, you guessed it.  1 hour on the elliptical, 30 minutes of weights.

Apparently New Years resolution people only resolved to workout Monday though Friday cause the Gym was empty, very nice.

Dido!!

So at 3:00 this morning the night light from my 4 year olds room woke me up, I got up and looked in and couldn't see him in his bed so I started looking around the house in the usual spots, bathrooms, other kids rooms, basement, but I couldn't find him anywhere.  I started freaking out and was just about to wake everyone in the house for a massive kid hunt.  I went back in his room and he was at the head of his bed curled up in a tiny little ball covered in all his blankets, pillows and stuffed animals.  The furnace must have blown his door open.

Anyway, the point of that story was that I had lots of extra time this morning. 

Went to the gym, got in the hot tub for a few minutes, it was really hard to get motivated, jumped in the pool, swam 48 laps in 55 minutes (pretty good for me) got back in the hot tub for a few more minutes, changed and went to the weight room for 50 minutes of lifting.  Felt like I got a really good workout, but I'm pretty tired now.

I just noticed I have Zero followers visiting my blog,  Geez, I stop running for 2 weeks and everyone gives up on me, you people are ruthless...

60 minutes elliptical, 45 minutes of weights.

I'm staying at the Anaheim Hilton in 2 weeks for work and just found out there is the first Annual Tinker Bell 1/2 marathon going on the same weekend I'm there.  I have never in my life gone to a race and had a hotel closer to the start line than this but the race is sold out.  I really, really need to figure out a way to get in.  I don't even want to race it, I just know that if I'm staying at the hotel and the entire hotel is full of runners I'm going to feel really bad if I can't run.   It looks really fun, it follows my normal Anaheim running route but also goes through each of the parks.

40 laps in the pool in 50 minutes, pretty slow but I was just kind of zoning out thinking about all my upcoming work trips.  I sure can think good in the pool, perhaps because there aren't any distractions, at all.

20 minutes of pretty worthless weight lifting.

60 minutes on the elliptical, 45 minutes of weights.  I lifted legs today and will probably hurt tomorrow.

If I don't run soon I will go mad.

60 minutes on the elliptical at a harder effort than normal, 30 minutes of weights.  Now I'm at the airport headed to San Francisco.

Realized I haven't been on a plane in almost 1 month, crazy.  I almost got lost driving to the airport this morning

60 minutes on the elliptical, 20 minutes of weights in the Hotel gym.  I'm going to have to try and run tomorrow, I can't workout in that stuffy, hot hotel gym all week.

How bout them Pat's...

The weather man says its going to be raining here the rest of the week and I just couldn't not run in my favorite place to run,  So I did.  I strapped on my leg brace as tight as I could get it, took 800mg of iburophen and off I went.  Down Market street to Embarcadaro, out past Pier 39, Fishermans Warf and up to the top of Fort Mason Hill so I could enjoy the view of the GoldenGate Bridg.  Stopped for about 5 minutes just to take it in, it was a beautiful morning, clear skys, no fog and a very nice temperature for running.   Very happy I went, my legs took about 1/2 a mile just to remember how to run, and I'm going to be very sore just from not using those muscles for so long but it was worth it.

It's funny how relative running speed is, I've run past a number of people in the past at around 6:30 pace and they look at me and say "I wish I could run fast"  Well today, coming back I was limping along at around at 8:30 pace and passed a guy, he looked over at me and said "boy, I wish I ran that fast"

7 miles in 57:22 8:10 avg pace

No rain this morning, but still I didn't want to tempt fate and run 2 days in a row on my leg.   Plus I had to start work early today so 60 minutes on the elliptical, 20 minutes of weights.  Followed by the worlds yummiest apple fritter.

Same route as Monday out to Fort Mason hill and back.  Everything loosened up quite nicely this morning and I actually felt pretty good.  My legs are going to take some time to get back but definitely some progress and I don't feel like such a sludge after getting a run in.

7 miles in 56:42 8:06 avg pace.  Followed by 30 minutes of weights and core.

Googlers (That's what Google employees call themselves) are in really good shape, the gym was full and everyone on the treadmills were going at a pretty good clip.  I'd work for Google if it didn't mean moving to California.  They actually offered me a Job in Zurich once (my dream place to live)  but I couldn't convince the wife to go :(

60 minutes of elliptical, 30 minutes of weights. 

Last day of conference then I get to tear it all down and start all over again next week.

Plan A, get an early flight out of here (failed, Sold out)

Plan B, go for a nice run to the Golden Gate bridge (failed, it's raining hard and I've become a panzy)

Plan C, Workout in the gym and take my normal flight (failed, my normal flight was cancelled due to it raining hard)

Alternate plan D, 60 minutes on the elliptical, 30 minutes of weights and hopefully get out of here sometime today.  (1/2 complete, still up in the air if I can get on a non-cancelled flight)

Help!  I'm trapped in San Francisco, someone rescue me!!!

60 minutes of elliptical, 30 minutes of weights

Monday I will try and run, my leg is feeling pretty much healed.

Well, that went well I thought.  Not quite the 100% I thought maybe I was but not to shabby.  My legs took a while to remember how to run, my shin was a little tender but I could tell I wasn't really hurting it.  I think tomorrow I'll swim just to be safe.

I have 3 weeks from today until I start following a training program for the Big Horn 50, I haven't put a plan together yet but I at least know when it starts :)  So 3 weeks to get completely healed, and in good enough shape to easily run 50 - 60 miles/week to start.

How bout them Pats!

8 miles in 59:55 7:30 avg pace

40 laps in the pool in 45 minutes, followed by 25 minutes of weights.  

8 miles in 59:22 7:25 avg pace.  Man I'm out of shape!

10 minutes on the elliptical then I went to the treadmill, at about 4.5 miles Riverton Paul came and started talking to me, he mentioned that I was limping pretty bad, after chatting with him for a bit I decided if it was that obvious maybe running wasn't a great idea so I went back to the elliptical for 20 more minutes.  30 minutes of weights.

Thanks for stopping me Paul.

30 minutes on the hotel gym elliptical then I decided to go take a nice easy run around Downtown Disney. 

Last year at this conference I was arguably in the best shape of my life and I ran the LA 13.1 series 1/2 marathon at Venice beach.  This year the conference is 2 weeks later and I was kind of sad that I couldn't go run again, so when I found out there was a 1/2 marathon right in Disney I couldn't resist.  Well, it could be a huge mistake for a number of reasons.

1. Maybe the title "Tinkerbell" 1/2 marathon should have given it away but I went to the expo last night and it turns out that out of the 12,000, (twelve thousand) participants, 900 are male, and judging from the people at the expo I would guess a large number of those 900 are questionable.

2. The lady I bought the bid from on Craigs list had never ran a 1/2 marathon before and thought her pace was about 14min/mile.  So my bib number is 10074 out of 12,000.  So I'm in coral E, the last coral.  I measured it this morning, it is .45 mile from coral E to the start line, so unless I can persuade someone to let me cut I'm guessing at least a 45 minute wait before I can start weaving in and out of 10,000 people.

3. I was kind of thinking I'd run a 7:00/mile pace but after this mornings run anything under 7:30 seemed to aggravate my leg, so I'll shoot for a 1:40:00.  Faster if I can get up closer to the start.

Oh Well!. it never was really about running a race, I just thought it sounded fun to run since I'm right here and the start line is closer to my hotel than any other race I actually went for.  On the plus side the medals are really cool, probably the neatest finishing medals I've ever seen.  And besides, it's Disney the happiest place on earth.  How could anything go wrong?

Humm!  Well that was interesting to say the least.  I’m probably going to be shunned from the world wide running community after this one.

Got up at 4:30 showered, ate oatmeal made from my single serving coffee maker in my hotel room and walked 5 minutes to the start of the race.  I meandered up as far as I could but when I got to the B coral the security was very thorough and I found out that men were not even allowed in Coral A and B, which was fine, so I hopped into Coral C and went to the front.  There were about 20 other guys so it seemed this was the official start line of the un-official mens race.  It was very organized, not surprising since Disney is the master of crowd control.  Waited for about 30 minutes and the race started, Coral A went, Coral B moved forward and every 5 minutes they let the next coral go.  So I was exactly 10 minutes behind the official start.  The C coral started of much like any other race, a bunch of people sprinting ahead going way to fast, including me, even though it was on the only uphill of the entire course.  This went on for about 400 meters, then we hit a wall, not “the wall” a wall of 4000 Tinkerbells.  For the next 4 miles it was pretty much what I guessed it would be, a lot of swerving and maneuvering up and around bushes, sidewalks and spectators.  The pace went from 5:30 pace to 10:00 pace.

The first 5 miles were very entertaining though, we went into Disneyland, made a full loop around the park and then across to California adventure.  All of the Characters were out and it’s the first race I have ever done where people stopped and were actually standing in line to get their picture taken.  Kind of weird.  I settled into a 7:30ish pace and was pretty content with that since that’s what I told myself I would do yesterday.   We left the parks and went out onto the roads, which wasn’t nearly as fun but at least there was more room and I wasn’t having to dodge people all over the place.  Just ran and enjoyed myself, gave a lot of high fives and just enjoyed that my leg wasn’t hurting and I was actually getting a good workout in for the first time in 2 months.

Around mile 9 I passed a girl who told me I was the 3^rd place male.  I’m not sure how she knew that unless she was at the start of A coral and was only “duded” twice.  I sped up a bit, I knew there was a Peter Pan ahead of me from C coral, right after that some guy came out of no where and passed me.  That was the first time I got a sense of ‘this is a race’ in me, I quickly jumped on his tail and followed him for a while.  He was clomping and breathing quite a lot so at mile 10 I decided to turn this into a 5K race and I took off.  He held on pretty good we went back into California adventure and had a lot of weaving to do but I could hear him right behind me.  We actually passed 3 guys so I’m not sure where that 3^rd one came from.  At mile 12 I got a side cramp but just told myself to get through it.  I pushed pretty hard, down the home stretch a couple of my co-workers were watching so I high fived them and took off.  I lost that guy at that point.

I’m pretty sure I was the first place male,  but I don’t know that for sure since it was so crazy at the start, there is a chance someone from one of the corals behind was faster, and there is also a chance there was someone that snuck into Coral A or B that didn’t have to weave in and out.  I know one of the Hobbits from Lord of the Rings was in Coral A as a guest celebrity and I don’t remember ever passing him.  You’d think I’d notice a hobbit running.

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

Update,  The results are already officially posted.  I actually ended up taking 16th overall, 7th in the men.  That actually makes me feel better that I didn't win and screw something up.  The actual overall winner of the race was a male that started in coral D with a chip time of 1:25:36.  And the guy I thought I beat had a chip time 2 minutes faster than me so he started back in the middle of Coral C.  Wacky, Wacky.  Oh well, it was fun.

Now off to work.

60 minutes on the elliptical, 30 minutes of weights in the hotel gym.  It was a perfect morning yet again for a run but I decided to give myself a day or 2 break.  Shin feels good today, but my calves and quads are sore.

45 minutes on the elliptical then my co-worker came to the gym and got on the treadmill, I asked if he'd rather go outside and run the Downtown Disney loop.  He said yes, so we did.

Leg hurt, I should have worn my brace.

Busy busy work day.  30 minutes on the Elliptical, slow run around Disney.

30 minutes on the elliptical and then 3 Downtown Disney loops. 

It really sucks to run with this much pain but I just had to go clear my head this morning.  My job is really starting to wear on me,  3 weeks straight with 1 day off, 15 hour days, I haven't talked to my wife or kids for more that 10 minutes total since I got here and my work just isn't as fun as it used to be.  The glamour is over I guess, really not sure what to do, I have other job offers but truthfully I'm not sure I'd be much happier with them. 

Wouldn't it be nice to just move to to Switzerland and hike in the Alps every day,  I want that job.

30 minutes on the elliptical, 5 miles around Disney, 1 full loop, 1 Downtown Disney loop.  

I sure can't figure out what makes my legs hurt some days and not others,  yesterday every step was pure agony, today it felt pretty good, and the thing is I never know until I take the first step running.  I can walk on it all day long, and I do.

I woke up way to early this morning.  I know this cause when I went to the 24 hour Hotel gym this morning, it wasn't open yet  So I went running instead.

8 miles, 2 big loops 1 Downtown Disney loop.

30 minutes of weights

GO!!  Patriots!

Well Crud.  I really thought this was going to be my comeback week.  Set out to run 7 miles this morning but at 2.5 my leg because completely un-runnable.  I hobbled back to the hotel and finished up with 30 minutes on the elliptical.

Lame

Well, it seems unfortunately that my ability to run is directly proportional to the amount of ibuprofen I take.  Yesterday I took none and couldn't run, today I took some and could.  About 100mg/mile seems to be a good formula.

Wow! What a crazy night. Usually I get so hung up on missing my workout the next morning that I don't enjoy these parties and end up leaving early so I can get to bed and run the next morning.  This time though I just told all my Co-workers I was going to skip running to have fun, and I'm glad I did.

Intel Booked out all of Disneyland last night just for the conference attendees, Food and drinks everywhere, not all but most of the good rides were open, and best of all there were no lines for anything.  Every ride we went on was just walk up and ride.  During the fireworks one of my Co-Workers and I decided to go on Indiana Jones instead of watch fireworks.  We were the only ones on the entire ride and they just let up keep going around and around without getting out of our seats.  And then, not only did they rent out the entire park at 11:00pm the Goo Goo Dolls played on stage right outside the entrance to It's a Small World.  I wasn't planning on staying for the whole concert but they are a really really good live band.  So anyway, I didn't get to bed until after 1:00, I can't even remember the last time I stayed up that late, and I didn't run.

Yes, it's true.  I have not worked out at all in 3 day's. Not because of injury, because my job is kickin' my butt.  Packed up Anaheim Thursday night, finished at 10:00pm woke up at 5:00 am Friday and flew to Vegas and starting working as soon as we got here.  The gym is paid for as part of our hotel room but they have the stupidest gym hours I have ever seen.  6:00 am - 8:00 pm.  Pretty much worthless to me since we start work at 7:00 am and work till 7:00 pm every day.  So this morning I woke up and ran my last August route around the WYNN golfcourse.

3 loops around the Wynn Golf Course.  Felt probably the best I have felt in 2 months. 

Tomorrow I start following an actual schedule.  I'm just going to follow a regular marathon schedule but instead of increasing speed I'm going to increase mileage.

And we're off!!  First day of my schedule and I'll have to say it went quite well.  Plan was 9 miles at 7:45 pace but I kept catching myself slipping into the sub 7:00 range and had to tell myself to slowdown. Good sign since I've been in such a slump.

9 miles 1:07:49  7:32 avg pace.

Felt really good, took an ice bath back in the hotel room.  The Palazzo has the best ice bath tubs I've ever stayed at.

Woke up early to get a longer run in, put on the only running clothes I brought this trip, shorts and short sleeve running shirt.  Went downstairs and outside to find a cold, wet, windy morning.  Thought seriously about going with Plan B, then I realized I didn't have a Plan B, so I started running.  Wasn't to terrible, I was soaking wet and my hands were cold but I just kept thinking how much better it was than last time I was in Vegas when it was 95 degrees at 4:30 am.

Plan was 5 Golf course loops, on loop #3 I caught up with my co-worker Jeff whom I was very surprised to see out in the rain and cold.  He told me he really didn't want to run in the rain but knew I'd be out there so he didn't have an excuse.  I'm sure glad I didn't wimp out. I ran 1 mile with him but he was running very slow so I eventually left him to finish my run.

12 miles in 1:32:00 7:40 avg pace.  Probably was closer to 7:20 but the 1 mile run with Jeff took the average down quickly.

Paste this formula in your Firefox Google search.  I've heard it doesn't work in IE but I wouldn't know.

sqrt(cos(x))*cos(300x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(6-x^2) -sqrt(6-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5

I'm going to really try and take full advantage of these easy days on the schedule.  I tried to keep my pace right at 8:00 the whole time.  Felt really good, chilly this morning but nice.

They had a crane on the sidewalk this morning so I couldn't do my full loop I had to backtrack and start running the other way each time I got to the crane.

6 miles in 47:54 7:59 avg pace

I've never ran a trail race before so maybe I'm just totally missing something here but running a 9:00/mile pace for 50 miles doesn't sound all that hard, and at that pace I'm pretty sure I can keep food down.

Warning!!  The following video is entirely inappropriate.

Today was a great indicator of how out of shape I have become,  I was out kind of late last night watching the Bare Naked Ladies (the band) which by the way is a great live band.  Never really thought much of them before, but they put on a really fun show.  So anyway, we decided to start work later today due to the party last night which gave me time to go to the gym this morning instead of running outside.  It was a very nice gym but way to warm and stuffy.

Plan was to run a 10 mile progressive run but 3 miles into it I realized I was suckin' air pretty bad for the speed I was going and I wasn't going to be able to progress much more.  Settled for just a steady 7:00 pace for the rest of the run.  Ended up a bit below 7:00 average for the whole run, and felt like I worked really hard.  I guess it's all perspective, I need to forget what I used to be able to do and just be happy I felt like I got a good workout today.

10 miles in 1:11:00  7:05 avg pace.

Well that was the furthest I've ran since before Christmas.  Met the whole FRB group at Julie C's house this morning, and boy did she have it organized.  Maps, painted arrows along the route and pancake breakfast at the finish.

I invited Ryan Jonson to come with me this morning and I'm glad I did,  we ran the first 6 miles with the fast guys, Jake, Fritz, Scott, Walter and company but then they started going sub 7:00 pace, I looked at Ryan and said I didn't think I could go 20 at that pace, he agreed to slow down with me and we pretty much ended up running the rest of the way alone.  We did catch up with the group at the "eternal fountain" in Alpine but they were rested and ready to go by the time we got there so it was pretty much a hello, goodbye.

I had to stop into McDonalds for a quick stop at mile 17, but overall I felt pretty good, my injured led never did act up,  I'm sore just from running that far but overall it went well.  Pretty good way to end my first official training week.

Thanks so much to Julie for putting this together, it was a lot of fun.

20.61 miles in 2:28:07 7:11 avg pace.

Well I've just made a fine mess of myself.  I haven't weighed myself in a while cause I was scared, and today I found out it was for good reason.  I've gained 15 lbs since Christmas, and can barely run a 7:00 pace.

8 miles on the ol' treadmill at Lifetime in 58:00  7:15 avg pace.

I know it will all come back, but dang.  How did I let myself go so bad?

Pretty nice little run this morning, I am Mr. Mom for the week, my wife is going back to school to be a teacher (no I'm not sure why) anyway her mom has been living with us since the first of the year taking care of the kids while my wife does student teaching, but she needed to go back to Wyoming for the week to take care of stuff at home so I took the week off to run the house.  What a job, I tell you.

The plan was to drop Zach off at pre-school and then go to the gym but I had a last minute thought that that was real stupid when it was a perfectly good day outside,  so at 9:05 on the dot, like a good parent does I dropped Zach off at the school wearing really dorky running clothes and then took off from there,  ran the hard way, up the hill out of the neighborhood down to the highway and followed what will be the new bike path, but its still dirt into Alpine and then back.  My watch was dead so I had to estimate distance but I think it was over 13 but not quite 14.

Nice run, I just ran slow and easy and tried to run on dirt as much as possible, I would guess 9 of the miles were on dirt.

Now off to pick Zach back up.

Decided to go to the gym today so I could get some weights in even though it was a perfect day outside. 

Not to stereotype but the type of people at the gym at 9:30 is considerably 'different' than the 5:30 crew.

6 easy miles in 46:30 7:45 avg pace with a 2% incline.

For some reason 3 hours isn't enough time to drop Zach off, get to the gym, run 11 miles and get the oil changed in my car.  So I only ran 10 and barely made it back in time to pick Zach back up.  Boy, this mom stuff is hard.

10 miles in 1:14:30 7:27 avg pace

What an awesome spring like day for a run.  Dropped Zach off at school and just ran the dirt roads around the neighborhood.  Schedule called for an easy 6 but it was to nice of a day to turn around at 3 so I kept going.  Started out a bit chilly in my shorts and T-shirt but about 2 miles into it everything felt perfect.

I tried to keep the pace right at 8:00 the whole way so I could still call it a recovery run.

Needed a longer run today, I sent Ryan a text last night to see if he was up for a early long run, he said he was up for a later not so long run, so I decided to get an early start get some miles in and then meet up with him.  I ran from my house down to Thanksgiving point and back to the Maverik for an extra 4, I could have got 5 in and should have but o'well.  Met Ryan and we set off at a pretty slow pace, his foot is still causing him pain.  We ran down Main Street Lehi and noticed a runner up ahead, I told Ryan we should try and catch him so we sped up,  as we went on I realized this runner was pretty darn fast cause we were doing close to 6:15 pace and not making up much ground.  Eventually he stopped at a park for a drink and we caught him.  Turned out it was Jeff L from the blog, which I had actually kind of suspected ahead of time due to the speed and the area we were in.  Jeff joined us for about 3 miles out to Willow Park and then split off cause he was already done for the day.  Nice to meet Jeff officially.

Finished off running the JRP trail back to Maverik, Only got 16 instead of the intended 17 but I'm OK with it.

Now off to go GeoCaching with the boys, I've been promising them for weeks and the weather is nice for at least another 3 hours hopefully.

16.1 miles in 2:04:19 7:43 avg pace.

Somewhere into my 16 mile run on Saturday I found my legs again, I think running with Ryan really helped.  Just running next to people with a really smooth stride helps a lot.

First resemblance of speed work in quite some time, when I started this morning I didn't think it would even happen, now my left hip is acting up.  It sucks getting old or whatever I'm getting.

Ran a 6 mile warm up in 44:45 started feeling better around mile 3.  Then I did 3 X 1 mile repeats, no fancy pyramids, or diamonds or rombusus, just plain old repeats with 1/2 mile rest.  I wasn't quite sure I could even run a 6 minute mile but decided to give it a try, ran the first one fairly handily and considered trying the next 2 faster but then I decided there is really no point in me running faster than 6 min/mile for my current race goal.  So I ran all 3 at 6 min pace (actually the last one in 5:55 just to get done 5 seconds sooner),

Partially annoyed with how hard it was, partially thrilled I could even run that pace at all after how I've felt lately.

Expected to need to shovel snow this morning so I set my alarm for 3:45,  woke up at 3:42.  There was no snow to be shoveled so I got an early start.  Wasn't really sure how far I was going to run, the schedule called for 14 but I just decided to go as far as I could in 2 hours, when I started I didn't know if that meant 14,15 or 16.

Started out slow and progressively got a little faster, fiddled around with my speed and stride until I found an "I can run like this forever" pace, which seemed to be around 7:40.  My left hip has been bothering me so I paid close attention to that, it seems that I am still favoring my right leg even though it doesn't really hurt anymore so in return my left leg is doing more work, my left hip and left foot were getting tired.  I tried really hard to just run normal but anytime my mind wondered I noticed I'd go back favoring my right leg.

Anyway, good run!  Glad I had time for a couple extra miles.

16 miles in 2:03:00 7:42 avg pace.

I had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction this morning, I won't go into detail but it altered my workout a bit.  It wasn't a bad thing though, I feel great now after a swim I'm almost excited to run tomorrow on my fresh new legs.

32 laps in the pool, 30 minutes of weights.

When I first started running I used to try and average 10 min/mile because it was easier to do the math in my head, I always thought I should run 6 min/mile pace cause the math would be just as easy.  Well I never really got to the point where I just ran 6 min/mile on an average training run so now my new favorite pace is 7:30.  The math is pretty easy, not as easy as 6 but easy.

I started practicing drinking water on my longer runs,  I used to never have a water bottle with me but I've started just so I can practice and get used to it.  I take 2 gulps every 15 minutes, which comes out to about 8 oz per hour.  Added Emergen-C to it this morning. 

14 miles in 1:45:00 7:30 avg pace.  I threw in a couple 6:30's for fun since my legs felt good.

Here is my pacing plan so far for the BigHorn 50.  It is open for comment, criticism, or pure viewing pleasure.

I'm glad I didn't have a long run planned today, woke up to a 2' snow drift in my driveway, after 45 minutes of shoveling I tried to get my Mazda 6 up the hill and got stuck.  Eventually got it back in the garage and convinced my wife it was more important for me to have the 4 wheel drive today than her since she can walk 200 yards to school.  So I got to the gym about 1 hour later than normal, did an easy little 6 mile run but threw in 5 X ~100 m sprints in the final mile just to get the legs moving.  6 miles is all I really had on tap for the day anyway, and the snow shoveling probably counted for strength training of some sort so I'm not really put out any.

6 miles in 46:40 7:46 avg pace.

Set my alarm for 3:00 am, woke up at 2:50.  Why?  Is it time for D-News marathon already?  Nope, the myth, the legend Jeff Shadley was in town and I heard a rumor of an early long run, 2 words that just get me out of bed and my heart pumpin!  Jeff was staying at Rob Murphys house and brought along 2 really fast looking kids  Caleb and Gray from Idaho.  Met with them at 4:00 and went on the historic guided tour of Sugar House area, up to the Zoo, down the D-News course for a while and around about places I never new existed.

Really great run, I feel bad for bailing out on Ryan but I enjoy the early stuff and thought it would be fun to run with new people.

Very bad choice of shoes, I wore my Free TR winters thinking the roads would be icy, I've never ran that far in them and my feet really hurt, also my Hip started acting up around mile 12 coming back down the hill, but after a quick pitstop at Rob's house it felt fine after that.

Came home and got in the hot tub with the kids, we played Double Dog Triple Dare get out of the hot tub, go make snow angels and then get back in.  I actually think it helped with recovery.

18.2 miles in 1:17ish  7:49ish.

Woke up feeling pretty crummy, hip hurt and it feels like I'm coming down with a cold so I decided to just do my scheduled 10 miles on the elliptical trainer.  At the 1 hour reset I noticed Riverton Paul and Adrian (who is training for the Riverton 1/2) on the treadmills 3 rows behind me so I decided to go finish off with them.  Adrian was doing a 4 mile tempo run so I told her I would run with her for part of it.  I ran about 3 miles at her tempo pace and then decided I was feeling good and started doing my own little tempo run, 2 miles at about 6:15 pace.  Now I probably went and screwed up my hip even worse, but my stuffy head feels much better, especially after sitting in the steam room for 20 minutes.

When will I ever learn?????

5 miles in 36:55  7:23 avg pace

My wife is on a Co-ed indoor soccer league, and her team is pretty awful, probably the worst record in the league.  Anyway, I always give her a hard time about how bad her team is and she tells me how hard it is.  So last night they were short some players and needed a sub for their last game and I said I'd like to try it out.  I haven't played soccer since I was 8 years old but I figured I could out run everyone else out there.  So anyway I played, I kind of hogged the field cause I was having so much fun and didn't want to stop running, I'm more of a just keep running type guy and sitting on the side line seemed boring.  It was about how I'd thought it would be, I had the endurance to play the whole time but when ever I got the ball I didn't have much control.  I actually took more shots than anyone else on the team, but the other team had a really good goalie so I didn't make any.  I had a lot of fun, we lost 10 - 1 and this morning when I woke up every injury I've had over the last 5 years were re-exposed.  I could barely walk from the bed to the bathroom and realized that my 14 mile run was probably a bad idea.

So.  32 laps in the pool, followed by lots of weights.  Adductor, and Abductor to help my hip.

Today is going to be difficult, I forgot my wallet, my iPhone, and my TI-85.

Feeling pretty rough still, this cold is just annoying, at least I hope it's just a cold and feeling this achy everywhere isn't normal.   Wanted to get my run in no matter what, I did 10 minutes on the elliptical just to loosen up and then 12 miles in 1:34:00.  The run didn't feel bad after I got going, but I didn't have a whole lot of energy to speed up.

Check out this new shoe,  The Lunargrand Wingtip.

Feeling 100% better than yesterday so it must have just been some bug wiping my out.  I went through 3 treadmills today cause they kept stalling out on me so times and probably distance is estimated a bit but probably close

14 miles in 1:45 7:30 avg pace.

Nice swim this morning, felt really relaxed and the laps seemed to go by really fast.

48 laps in exactly 60 minutes, followed by some weights.

Great run this morning, slow by design.  I ran 4 miles to Ryans house at about a 9:00/mile pace, I was really enjoying running slow on a nice clear cool morning.  Saw about 3 shooting stars and the moon was lighting the dirt trail nicely.   Got to Ryan's and told him I wanted to go slow, he said great.  Apparently my slow is slower than his slow but I just stayed with him, it was still an easy pace about 1 min/mile slower than our normal average.  We ran behind Smiths, up to the top of Sun Crest,  I was actually very happy with how easy going up hill seemed and felt that I wasn't in as bad of shape as I'd thought I was.  Coming back down was a different story, even though I could have ran fast I felt like I was going to blow my hip out so I had to take it down and find a nice controlled pace or I new I wouldn't be walking normal the rest of the week.

Ryan ran past his house about 1.5 more miles with me and then turned around, I made the grueling 2 mile climb up to my house alone.  But I was very happy that I had just run 20 miles and still felt I had gas in the tank.  I probably could have gone another slow 5 miles but we've got a busy day in the Rohde Residence today.

21 miles in 2:52:30  8:15 avg pace.  Not to shabby with the slow start and 1000' climb.

Honk if you hate Daylight savings!!!  Benjamin Franklin obviously wasn't a runner.

Sadly this was a Threshold tempo run based on how I felt at the end.  My hip held up very well, I would say I'm definitely at the tail end of recovery.  3 mile warm up then a progressive tempo run in 32:15  6:27 avg pace, last mile in 6:10. then a 2 mile cool down.

I was going to run 12 but my stomach was giving me problems after the tempo so I called it good at 10.

Busy, busy next 4 weeks, I'm really not sure how running is going to fit in, but I'll somehow make it work.

1 step forward, 2 steps back.  Apparently I wasn't ready for yesterday's tempo run, my hip hurt too much to run today, I tried twice.  So Elliptical for me followed by weights.

Wow!  So busy today I forgot to log my morning run.

13 miles in around 1:45:00

48 laps in < 60 minutes.  Followed by weights.

Thursday night I just got smacked with a nasty stomach flu.  Still pretty rough, but I managed to make it to the gym and do the elliptical this morning before working for probably the next 48 hours straight.

1 hour on the Hotel Gym Elliptical,  I've said this before, but Salt Lake City is a really weird downtown.  Especially at night.

Work is kicking my butt this week, 14 hour work days every day.  Next week will be better.  This is when it sucks to be Salary!

Finally hell week is over,  that was a seriously demanding conference.  Hours were 7:00am to 10:00pm every day, I took the day off, slept in until 5:45 sat in the Hottub, took Zach to school and then ran the Bull River trail out around Smiths and back.  They are getting real close to having the new trail from my house up to Alpine done and I love it so far.  I actually wish they would just keep it dirt.  Got home, picked Zach back up, found some Tom and Jerry and took a nap.  I plan on using this weekend to catch up on some much needed rest.

Ahh!  Spring.    Ran 12 easy miles with Ryan from his house around Alpine and back.  We are two sorry gimpy old men.  A whole week off from running didn't seem to help my hip at all.

48 laps, in the pool.  Followed by weights and core stuff. 

Today I have to do something I really didn't want to do.  I'm going to have to let Walter know I cant pace the Riverton Half this weekend.  I thought for sure I'd be well enough by now but I'm not getting any better.

And just for the record, it's not my fault I never see a Doctor.  I'm seldom in town and when I am I can't get a hold of a Doctor.  I've been trying to make an appointment and all the doctors are too busy or just "out".     Well, at least the 2 I've tried.

No comment!

Let me start by saying,  I'm very mad at my wife right now.  She is a licensed massage therapist but hasn't really been working for about 9 years since we started having children, now she is going back to school to become a teacher. But....., she still works on friends, neighbors, and occationally me, if it's my birthday or something.  Anyway, I've been complaining about this hip thing for about a month now (a year if my last year injury was the same, which now I think it was) last night it was so bad I couldn't walk and I kept waking up in my sleep from the pain, so I begged my wife to take a look at me.  She pushed me, bent me, contorted me and within 10 minutes said.  Oh, it's your Iliopsoas, we were taught to test for that.  'Really?' so I went to Doctor Google, did a search for Iliopsoas (with the help of Britt) and found Iliopsoas Tendinitis.  The cure for this is, of course, rest, stretching, ice, and Active release massage therapy.  With a disclaimer "if you do not believe in hurting your patient, even for good, send them to someone who does"  Lucky for my, my wife has no qualms about hurting me, so I asked her to fix me.  I won't lie, it hurt like a, well it hurt really really bad.  Like to the point I thought I was going to puke.  She did that for about 10 minutes, then I spent the rest of the evening with an ice pack.

Anyway, slept though the night, woke up this morning and walked almost normal to get ready for the gym.  Decided not to push my luck and still did the elliptical this morning but I tell you it is a world of difference today.  I can walk normal, get out of my car normal, it's simply amazing.

Good news, I'm about 99% certain it's not a stress fracture, about 75% certain it wasn't a stress fracture last year either.  Bad news, I've been dealing with this pain way longer than necessary.

1:30 on the Elliptical.  I've actually been enjoying my ellipticalling this week.  I got some video books on my iPad for a certification that I'm working on and watching them while working out makes both much more enjoyable.  If I were watching them in bed I'd just fall asleep, and if I were ellipticalling without them it would seem like eternity.  So it's been a happy compromise.  I get to keep some sort of fitness while expanding my mind.

I finally saw a doctor today, it only took me 4 months but I did it.  He confirmed what my wife had figured out and told me I have an inflamed iliopsoas bursa sack.  (that just sounds gross)  He told me he could fix it with either a shot, or try some oral steroids for a week and see if that helps.  I've never taken anything other than ibuprophen so I was a little skitish and I don't like shots but I'm willing to try anything at this point, I opted for the oral.  The doctor says if this works I should be able to run again within a week. 

What a nice day to run outside,  to bad for me I ellipticaled inside.  

Actually though, I've feeling very optimistic today.  I'm very excited to find out my injury is possibly curable short term.  Pretty annoyed I went a whole year thinking I had stress fractures in every bone in my legs.  I haven't actually learned what bursitis is besides just an inflamed Bursa sack, but why? what causes it? other than over use.  And why does it hurt so freakin bad.

14 miles with Ryan in 1:45:28  7:32 avg pace.  It's probably good I dropped out of my pacing duties today.  13.1 in 1:38 and I don't know if I could have gone much faster.  I was still hurting.  But hey, at least I finally ran again.  Congrats to everyone who did Riverton today, pretty warm windy day.

15 minutes on the elliptical, then 1 hour on the treadmill.  It hurt, and I was slow, but I'm glad I did it.  Now off to my Annual trip to China.  Nǐ hǎo

Oh, and LifeTime now has WiFi so I can stream Pandora, and XM.

45 minutes on the hotel gym elliptical to try and keep myself awake longer

Well, it's my birthday and I'm in China for the 4th year in a row.  I would have liked to run 39 miles today but 8.5 was about all I had in me.  Last year I followed a trail that just dead ended and I had to turn around.  This year I followed that trail but saw another runner on the other side of the road going somewhere new, so I crossed the road and followed him.  I knew there was a place called the Olympic Mountain Park but I never had figured out how to get in there, well this guys showed me the way so I had a nice little run around the gardens and then pretty much circled around the entire Olympic Venue here in Beijing.

It was a nice run, I get lots of weird looks from locals but I never feel threatened by any means.

Wow!  It took me 4 years to figure it out, but now this is one of my favorite placed to run. I went further into the Olympic Mountain park and there was a track base trail that ran the entire perimeter of the park.  Great park, with waterfalls flower gardens and streams. it even has dirt hiking trails that I'll have to explore later.  Anyway, great great run this morning, I'm very excited I found this.

I'm so excited I found this little oasis in an otherwise dread full place.  Great run this morning, minus the pain, but just being out running is so great.  I got yelled at by some little old Chinese lady that I was running the wrong way but it would have tacked on an extra 5K to turn around at that point.

I took a few pictures to show how great this place is.

dropbox.com/sh/qjx1hn8mtye0rnx/jSkcxqFzGk/mp1.jpg

dropbox.com/sh/rl5cx1euk30l5x2/n-8akmvTR6/mp2.jpg

Wow!  Sittin' in my hotel room looking out the window I can't even see across the street through the famous Beijing smog. We have been lucky so far but this morning is awful.  I really shouldn't run in that crud but I really can't conceive heading to the dungeon gym.

Maybe I should just sit in my room and watch the Masters.

A good rainstorm cleared out the smog so this morning was very nice for a run.  I ran 3 painful miles alone, looped back to the hotel and picked up Jeff my Co-Worker and took him to the Olympic Mountain Park.  By that time I was loosened up and started feeling really good, when we got to the park I asked how far he wanted to run, he said 3, well we had already gone 1 just getting there.  I looked at the map and saw a 3K loop, so we did that and back to the hotel for a total of 4 for him 7 for me.

Really nice run, I'm hoping to do the 10K loop tomorrow.

Best morning for a run since I got to China, perfect temperature, no smog and my leg felt relatively good.  I had done the 5K loop twice the 3K loop once and wanted to do the 10K loop today at Mountain Park.  I ran 2 miles waiting for the Park to open at 6, and then started.  There was a guy running pretty fast in front of me that I tried to keep with, he was running about 6:45 pace, I kept with him until the 10K path left the 5K at about 2, then I slowed way down.  This park has the trails marked extremely well, and has .5 K markers for all 3 loops.   The 10K took me across a freeway to a place I'd never seen before, the fact that there is a full 10K loop means that this park is at least as big as Central Park and I think a much better running route.  Not as many hills, but there are some.  

Very happy I found this place, now the thought of coming back here every year is not as depressing.  I doubt I will run tomorrow since we need to head to the airport at 6:00am, then I get to go run my 2nd favorite running trail.  Saywer Camp trail in San Mateo.

Pretty depressed today, I'm Jetlaged first of all, but I'm in San Mateo and close to my favorite running trail but this morning when I woke got up I was very tired and my Hip was hurting pretty bad from the long flight yesterday.  So I just went down and did the elliptical trainer.  

Maybe next year I'll be flying to Boston today.

7 miles on my favorite running trail in the world.  So amazing.

I'm glad I'm not doing Boston this year, if St. George was to hot for me, Boston would kill me.

4 painful miles on Sawyer camp trail before my flight home.

1 hour on the elliptical at LifeTime. 

I haven't had a full night sleep in over 2 weeks.  Anyone need to hire a Sr. Network Engineer??

Humm, somehow I missed a day.  O'Well, 8 miles on the treadmill, it hurt for 4 miles, didn't feel very good for the next 4 miles but then when it was done I felt great about it.

Going to get a cordizone shot today, I hope it helps.

#1 reason I think I'd be a pretty good ultra runner,  I'm a complete idiot.  No offense Ultra runners.

1 year ago I posted on my blog that I should go get a cordisone shot in my hip, well I finally got one yesterday.  He put in a local pain reliever shot first, and then the steroid.  He said if the pain reliever worked within 6 hours that meant the diagnosis was correct and then it was just a matter of whether or not he got the cordisone in the correct spot.  Almost miraculously about 3 hours later I was completely pain free, it was almost strange, the first time my hip hadn't hurt in over 1 year.  So I planed to go on a nice run this morning.  This morning I woke up waited for the first sign of light and slipped on my fancy new Minimus trail shoes and off I went. Hip was a little tender, but runnable for sure.

Got done with my run about 7:30 and then at 9:00 I headed down to the elementary school, my wife signed me up to volunteer for the school Try-athlon.  I got placed on the running course.  Perfect!!  I decided my job would be pacer/cheerleader/fallen kid med support for 30 different classes, Preschool - 6th grade.  The course was around the Baseball and Soccer field, I ran a lap and measured it at .14 miles per loop,  each class minus the Pre-School and Kindergarden ran for 10 minutes each, goal was to see how many laps they could do in the allotted time.  2 kids did 10 laps,  I added a special fasted 1st lap prize,  Fastest first lap was 37 seconds by a 6th grader, 42 seconds was the fastest girl time, she was in 5th.

I started out with every class, and was also the official timer, so I stopped somewhere in the final lap so I could pull the kids off the course and stop the clock, so I had about 2-3 minutes rest after every 4 loops average due to the 5 minutes on the smaller kids.  My goal at first was to run 30 laps for an extra 4 miles or so for the day, well I got a little over zealous and kind of went nuts. At lap 58 I took a 30 minute lunch break, went home and changed out of my jeans and into proper running clothes.  After lunch got to 100 laps, and then the very next class was my oldest kid, so I of course had to run with him,  Well then I was at 107 laps, did the math and realized 115 would give me about 16 miles, and a full marathon for the day.  So I of course had to do it.

Anyway, a very un-conventional 26 miles run, but excellent Ultra training, I was pretty much on my feet for 7 hours straight, mostly running. I have no way to actually know real time or pace since my Garmin Battery died at around 20 laps.  But 26.3 miles on 100% gravel or grass for the day.  I would almost put this in a catagory nuttier than my treadmill marathon, especially since I just started running normal again, well today!!!

7.5 very slow miles with Ryan before a busy day of soccer.   I'm sure Ryan is pretty sick of my slowness lately.  He puts up with me though.  Plan was 10, Changed to 8, settled for 7.5.

 1/2 of my weekly mileage I did yesterday.  That's sweet.

Not a great run, I didn't really hurt just didn't have much energy, and I ate way to much junk yesterday so I had stomach issues.  For me, any run is a good run though.

Someone put up a barbwire fence across my trail since last Friday so I had to do a little cross country running through rattle snake country to get around it.   Planned for 10 miles but I was behind schedule so I had to take a shortcut home.

Plan was 6 miles on the treadmill then 6 miles on the River trail when the light came out.  Got on the treadmill, made it about .02 miles and realized it was going to be 6 miles of pure torture, so I went and changed into a swimming suit and swam 32 laps instead.  Then I decided to stick to plan A.5 and ran the Rivertrail for 6.  Some girl came out of nowhere in front of me and made me feel slow, so I caught up to her.  Found out her name is Julie Gomez, and she is on the blog, I don't think I've ever talked to her on the blog before though.  It was fun talking to her for a bit then she was done and I went off alone.

I'm really in a state of confusion right now, basically I have no idea what the heck I'm doing.  It's foolish to think I can get ready for a 50 mile run in less than 8 weeks, any other distance race would just make me feel bad cause I'm so much slower than I used to be.  I travel to much to get into Biking.  So I'm basically just a lost sole.  When I started running my only goal was to loose weight and get in shape so I could play with my kids and they wouldn't be embarrased to be seen with me.  Well now I'm in great shape but I hurt so bad all the time I still can't play with them.  So seriously what am I doing?????

I dusted off the ol' bike last night, took it for a spin around the neighborhood to see if all the shifters still worked and the tires held air.  It all checked out so I threw in in my car.

I wanted to find the group of guys I rode with last year, went to the normal meeting spot at 5:45 thinking they met at 6:00, I looked through some old text messages and realized we used to meet at 5:30, so either I'd already missed them, or they don't meet anymore, so I just went off on my own.  I always forget how much I enjoy riding bikes, it seems so hard to get all the equipment ready compared to running but once I do it I love it.   Started up Big Cottonwood canyon and then took off through the neighborhood east of Wasatch Blvd, headed south and ended up back on Wasatch, headed up Little Cottonwood for a ways but the headwind was miserable so I took the turn at the Y and headed back to Wasatch,  followed that until I hit 10 miles, decided 20 was good enough for my first ride out and just backtracked back.  Felt really good, I've lost some fitness but the best part is, my Hip and Shin's don't hurt at all.  It felt great, beautiful morning for a ride.  I think I'll be on the bike a bit more the upcoming weeks.

I was planning on running today then last night I got a text from one of the guys in the cycling group saying they still meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I quickly changed my plans.    The group was small but we still had fun, we did almost the exact route I did yesterday with a few more additions, like climbing up Dimple Dell road back up to Wasatch, that one hurt, my legs were jelloy.  I was quite happy to see that I was still pretty much the strongest rider despite not being on a bike for almost a year, and these guys are pretty tough, they do LotoJa every year and are training or the Rockwell Relay right now so that made me feel good.  They probably hate me showing up on my cheap $900 bike and saying, well I can't run, I guess I'll ride this dumb bike, and then out ride them.

Tomorrow I run. Oh and I talked to my Doctor, he is going to refer me to someone who does Ultrasound guided injections for one last try at a cordizone shot.  If that doesn't work I heard them say they will send me off to a beautiful ranch in Montana where I can sit in a pasture and eat grass the rest of me life.

1 hour on the elliptical, 30 minutes of weights.

16.3 miles with Ryan on our normal West Lehi route, ran on lots of the Thanksgiving 1/2 route but I'm guessing we were about 15 minutes ahead of Jake.  A police officer asked if we were the first ones through at the mile 12 sign, I told him if we were we wouldn't be able to answer the question.

Felt really good, Ryan pushed me pretty hard compared to what I've been used to and my hip held up fine.  Other signs of low mileage started showing through but a pretty good run.  7:30 avg I think Ryan told me.  My watch died.

30 minutes on the elliptical trainer and then 6 miles on the JRP.  I felt pretty good this morning, very nice morning for a run.

I had all my Cycling gear ready to go this morning, but when I woke up it was all windy and rainy.  Well I was in no mood to get all wet so I changed plans and went swimming instead.

48 laps in about 60.

55 degrees is the perfect running temperature, I want to live where it is 55 degrees every morning.  Oh!  That's Anaheim and I don't want to live there, humm what a dilemma.

Anyway, I slept in this morning and told work I'd be late just so I could run my dirt trail route, ran from my house up to Highland on the dirt trail and back.  Averaged about 8:00 pace which I'm torn about, I think that is the pace I should be training at for my race in 7 weeks, but it's very discouraging that it is actually the pace that I feel most comfortable at right now.  I'm going in for an Ultrasound guided cordizone shot today, I have high hopes that this will actually help since the first non guided shot got me at least running a couple times a week again.

If anyone is looking for a nice bike I found this in my search, the frame is ugly and I would probably get a new one but just the components on this bike are worth way more than they are asking for the whole bike.  These are the new electronic Dura Ace, pretty sweet deal if you want a high end bike.

http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/motobecane/lechamp_cf_team_di2_xi.htm

Crazy Story!

 I went to the doctor for my ultra-sound guided injection into my hip, I really liked this doctor, he has done multiple ulta-marathons and said he was actually the teacher of my other 2 doctors so I had a lot of confidence in him just going in.  We talked a lot about running, he asked me all my history, which makes this blog great, I can give him exact details for 3 years back.  Anyway, I hopped up on the ultra-sound table, asked if it was a boy or a girl, he said it's always a boy :) then he pulled out the K-Y.  Anyway, he shot the heck out of me, at least 6 different various really long needles, on one of the shots he told me it was really close to the Femeral Nerve and if I needed to sneeze let him know first.  He told me I wouldn't be able to use my leg normal for a while, I asked if I could go on a bike ride this morning and he said, yes, the local anesthetic only lasted 6 hours.  He finally finished poking me, I just off the table and realized I couldn't feel my left leg at all, no pain but not great for walking.  I managed to get to my car and drive home, leg didn't work the rest of the night.  I woke up at 1:00 and seemed to be able to walk so I decided to continue as planned.

Drove to work, got out, got on the bike and realized my left leg couldn't peddle at all, weirdest thing, if I tried to stand up and peddle I could not do it, it didn't hurt at all my leg would literally not move.  Weirdest thing, I could ride sitting down but my left leg basically just worked like a pendulum.  I was about to call it quits but didn't have anything else to do so I met the group told them I wanted the less hilly loop since I can't stand up so we did the Hoogle Zoo loop, I was afraid of Sunnyside but figured if I couldn't make it I'd turn around and just take Foothill back.  Anyway, I made it the full loop, I was by far the weakest link in the group today but pretty happy I did a 25 mile ride with 1 leg.  Well maybe not happy, but amazed.

Oh, and Jake, I did the Zoo mile in 3:00 flat, with 1 leg!  Take that.

Forgot to mention, this doctor doesn't think it's Bursidis.  He thinks I have nerve damage and said he is only doing this to get me through the race and not to think it is a fix.

Hip feels really good today but I decided to give it one more day off and try for a long run with Ryan tomorrow.  

36 Laps in the pool

Lifted weights afterward.  There is some Bad Ass tattooed chick that has started going to Lifetime every morning lately, she seriously just sets the treadmill to 9.0 - 9.2  and cranks out 6:30 miles for at least an hour or more every morning.  I went and talked to her this morning and asked what she was training for.  She said "Oh!  I don't run races,  I just like to run"  Serious, you come run a 1:25 1/2 every morning and don't do races.  She said she is a forest fire fighter and doesn't have time to run in the summer.  I told her she should try and do the Provo River 1/2 since I don't think it sells out very quick.  I also told her about the blog but didn't catch her name.  I'll try and find out.

Ran with Ryan today, I had high hopes that today would be a good run, my hip was feeling great this morning and I felt good, but as soon as we started I could tell it was going to be a long run, stride was way off, hip wasn't really hurting but I had range of motion issues.  We had a really strong tail wind for the first 1/2 of the run, turned around at the Jordan River Parkway and ran the rest back is a really strong headwind.  at mile 10 I remember thinking my hip had finally loosened up, at mile 14 I had a full body breakdown and knew I wouldn't be able to finish 18 today.  We ran into Dan Varga, Reed, and someone else, I would have liked to go with them since they were headed the same way but I knew I wouldn't be able to keep their pace so I didn't even try.

Pretty bummed I fell apart so bad, I'm sure a lot of that has to do with the lack of actual running miles I've been doing.  Cross training just doesn't simulate long runs.

30 minutes on the elliptical waiting for light and then 6 miles on the JRP.  Focused on "gliding" while I ran to try and minimize impact.  Actually felt pretty good this morning, hip always starts out stiff but gets better as I move.  Crazy week this week, I'm off to Brazil on Wednesday.

Went to meet my bike group at 5:30 and no one showed up, so I just decided to go it alone.  Did the Big Cottonwood, to Little Cottonwood, Wasatch to DimpleDell loop.  Freezing cold this morning.  I looked forward to uphills just to get warm.

On the way back I passed the group so they started a whole hour late today, probably waiting for it to get warmer.

I made a pace chart for the BigHorn50,  Not sure how accurate it is, it's meant to be more of a guideline.  Google Docs is really stupid cause you can't lock cells like in excel.  It's either all or nothing, so if anyone happens to go look at it please only change the goal time.

Pretty fun little run this morning, I decided to hit the trails up behind my house and do a little exploring.  I've never been back there before mainly because of the big signs all over that say "No Trespassing, no Hiking, no Mountain Biking, Violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law"  but this morning I wasn't going to let a little ol' sign get me down.  I mean, really, what is the punishment for trail running?  Besides the obvious foot blisters and road rash.

I found a great 4x4 road that I feel simulated what Bighorn will be like, steep, rocky, and very secluded.  I was hoping it would go further, I thought I might be able to come out at the flight park or SunCrest or something neat.  But it dead ended about 3 miles up and I didn't want to bush wack so I turned back.  On the way back I noticed a white truck opening the gate at "the sign" and didn't want to test my luck so I hightailed it up a very steep hill into the upper part of our neighborhood.  Wanting to go further I found another dirt trail that eventually did take me to the hangglide park.  I stopped a minute, took in some great views and headed home.

It was a perfect morning, and perfect run.  My hip is actaully feeling very good, I think the injection is starting to do something finally.  There is no way I could run 50 miles in the Minimus shoes though, the rocks really started bothering the bottom of my feet.

In the crown room waiting for my 20 hour flight to Brazil now.

There is a really nice path that runs along the river here in Sao Paulo, the map shows it being 16km long,  I've been really wanting to try running on it since I was here last December, well my Co-Workers and I walked and walked yesterday trying to figure out how to get to it, turns out there are only 2 places to access it both at train stations, and you have to have a bike to go on it.  What kind of trail only allows bikes?  What is it the Alta of trails.  So anyway, I don't really see anywhere else to run in this crazy town so I went to the hot humid hotel gym this morning.  8 miles in 63 minutes, leg was sore but completely runable.

1 hour 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer, I will try and get my long run in tomorrow, my leg just wasn't up to it today.

So frustrating, I got a room key from our customers hotel room since they stay in the nice hotel and make us "vendors" stay in the looser hotel down the street so that I could use the nicer gym.  Well this gym has really strange hours, 6 am to 10 pm Wednesday - Saturday and open 24 hours Sunday - Tuesday, so I was all ready this morning to wake up at 4:00 am and go get a really long run in.  Well I woke up at 3:30, got ready, stretched and walked over to the hotel when I got there there was a huge party going on on the pool deck which leads to the gym so all the doors were locked unless you went to the Party that had been going on all night.  I went and asked if there was another way to the gym and they told me it wouldn't open until 7:00.  I argued and said it says 24 hours on Sunday, they said well this is still Saturday night, I asked them how it could be open 24 hours on Sunday if it doesn't open until 7:00 am, this question was apparently lost in translation.  So I came back to my junky hotel gym and it is literally just a guest room with 2 treadmills in it.  I thought it would be rude to start running at 4:00am with guestrooms on either side so I went back to bed until 5:45.  Got a little over 1 hour in on the hot humid guestroom treadmill, I was really glad I didn't try to run for 3 hours on it.

Couldn't sleep last night, thought about going to the gym at 3:00 but then decided against it, right about then I went to sleep.  Woke back up at 4:30 went to the gym, ran really slow cause it's really hot and miserable in the gym, did that for 2 hours and then I decided I better go find out why 1/2 my network was down.  Network is down cause they turn the power off at night in Brazil for some reason, I should have ran another hour.  Or slept.

1 hour on the elliptical, 30 minutes of weights, and a really long day of work ahead.

Pretty happy with my run this morning, I was planning on running 20 but I actaully got a good night sleep last night and woke up later than planned.  2 hour progressive run on the treadmill. 

We are finishing up some loose ends at work today and then trying to fly to Rio for a bit.  Should be fun, but the locals are telling us how dangerous it is there so that takes some of the excitement away.  If all I do is hike to the Christ statue and walk on the beach I'll be happy.

Wow!  Life doesn't get much better.  Don't let my wife know I had 1 fun day this week.

 Flights from Sao Paulo to Rio leave every hour and are pretty cheap, even for last minute so we jumped on a plane last night and flew on up.  I timed it, from plan take off to the taxi dropping us off at the front door of the Hotel was only 1 hour, pretty sweet.  This morning I woke up at 4:00 went up to the hotel gym, I did 30 minutes on the elliptical, then 1 hour 24 minutes on the treadmill.  at around 6:15 it started getting light outside and I saw runners.  I was dieing to go run on the beach but wanted to get 10 miles on the treadmill first, then I went to the beach.  Ran on the bike trail to the end of Cococabana beach and back for 3 miles, then I noticed my co-worker running in the sand, so I took my shoes and socks off and ran after him, caught up with him and ran another 1.5 miles with him in the sand and waves.  Then we jumped in the ocean for some body surfing.  Pretty amazing day so far and it's only 8:00am.  Now we are headed to the Christ Statue and then back to catch our flight home.

A 70 mile week, with international travel, not to shabby.  Got home from Brazil last night and called Ryan to see if he was up for an early long run, he's always in.  We started out at a nice 7:30 pace, settled into a 7:30 pace, finished at about a 7:30 pace and averaged about a 7:30 pace.  20 miles in 2:31 I think Mr. Garmin said.

My leg is feeling great, I'm planning on still doing my 50 miler with absolutely no expectation what so ever, I think that's the main key, no pressure.

Going to try for a pretty big mileage week next week and see how it goes.  Just slow easy long miles, hopefully work cooperates.

Now I'm going to read Ogden Race reports.

6 easy miles with the pup on an absolutely perfect morning.  

The idea this morning was to get some sort of Tempo run in so I decided to hit the LifeTime treadmill, did a 2 mile warm up and then started my progressive tempo, my tempo run started at a pace that I used to consider my recovery pace and ended at a speed that I also used to consider my recover pace. I did that for 4 miles and realized I just wasn't enjoying life at all so I hit the stop button at 6 and finished outside on the JRP for another slow, enjoyable 6.  It was pretty chilly this morning.

I would like to try and get a lunch time run in but not sure that will happen.

5 miles on the treadmill, 7 miles on the JRP.  Much warmer than yesterday and way buggier.

I'm not exactly sure what I thought a slow 30 miler would feel like, but that sucked :).  I had a few plans for today, Plan A 18 in the morning 12 in the afternoon, Plan B 18 mile run to work 18 mile run home from work (I decided I didn't want to get stranded at work and not want to run home)  Plan C, just wake up early and get it over with.  Plan C worked best for me since I wake up at 3:30 pretty regularly.  So I got up and just started runnin' ran from my house up Timpanogos highway, up American Fork canyon until my Garmin said 15 miles and then turned around.  I was actually going to run 32 miles but a few un-expected bathroom breaks put be behind schedule so I was about 1/2 mile sort of Tiblefork Resevoir when I turned around.

Great morning, perfect temperatures, I really lucked out, I was scared coming down the canyon that when I got out of the canyon it was going to be sunny and hot, but right about then the clouds came and started raining on me which was great.  I actually had a head wind going down which was un-expected but felt good.

I did a few things different this morning, I hardly ever run with fuel, and I have never carried water but this morning I wanted to practice fueling while running so I took enough gels and power blocks to eat every 5 miles, and I carried a small running water bottle that I filled at every opportunity.  Seemed to work out OK, I remember the thought of that 20 mile gel made me sick but I choked it down and managed to keep everything I ate down so that's a good sign.

Anyway, I'm happy with the run.  I had 4 of these runs scheduled in my training plan, I'll be lucky to get 2.  It was hard but not nearly as horrible as St. George was.  Now I'm at work sitting in a cubicle all day, I'm probably going to cramp up.

30 miles in 4:07:17 so no speed records set, but that wasn't really the goal.

Boy, I'm pretty hammered today.  Legs actually felt really good this morning for having just run 30 miles yesterday, but overall I'm just pretty fatigued.   Nice morning for a run, pretty chilly at first but then it felt nice.

12 miles on dirt trails in my minimus trail shoes, my feet hurt now.

I took this picture in Rio last week, anyone want to meet here for a track workout?

11 easy miles in cushy shoes on gravel roads.  I got wet!

Nice early run with Ryan around our standard loop, averaged 7:27 pace for the entire run, which I'm almost positive is a faster average pace than I've ran any distance for at least the last 5 months.  Felt good after finishing an almost 100 mile week followed by a long drive with the family down to Disneyland.  I have to work, they get to play.

2 small loops and 1 big loop around Disneyland park this morning.  Tomorrow I will need to run out to the trail instead, the Disney loop seems to take forever.

My fast long run on Saturday seemed to beat me up a bit, my hip was complaining this morning.

Ran along the Santa Ana River trail this morning, formally known as the Bunny trail, now known as the Bug/Possum/Racoon trail.  I wanted to get a longer run in today but had an early work start so I was cut short.  At the 6 mile turn around I noticed I was behind schedule so I did a bit of a 6 mile Tempo run back to the hotel.  Averaged around 6:40 pace going back, which is very fast for me lately.  Everything felt really good this morning, when I got back to the hotel I had a sweat mark on my shirt that looked just like Mickey Mouse, my wife found that amusing.

Perfect morning for a run, Anaheim has by far the best morning temps for a run every day no matter what time of year.

I like the River Trail better than loops around Disney but the bug factor turned me away today.  2 big loops + 1 small loop for a total of 8.5.  Lots of runners out today, you can tell when a Google conference is happening, that is one fit company.  I bet they have fitness day once a week.  They had a 5K for Google employees this morning but I wasn't invited cause I have to work :(

2 easy loops around Disney now trying to get packed up for a fun long drive home.  Bye Bye Mickey.

OK, now I'm at a computer.

I had so much fun on this run 10 days ago I decided to do it again, I even convinced Ryan it was a fun run (Sucker)  Even though I drove all the way home from Disneyland yesterday I decided today was my do or die day, 2 weeks until my race and I needed to get one more long run in.  Ryan didn't want to start until 5:00 this morning, and he didn't want to run a full 30+ miles either so I started at 4:15 from my house, ran 4 miles to his and was early so I ran another 1 while waiting until 5:00.