running for my mind

10.5 easy miles this morning. - 4 solo and 6.5 with Tyler.

When I left my house at 5:55 the wind was blowing and it was starting to rain. It got worse and during the first mile I thought about calling it quits many times. I looked up at the clouds and said, "You can rain all you want in an hour and a half!" By mile 2 the wind had stopped and the rain was easing up. The last 5 miles were completely dry with no wind. I doubt the clouds listened to me at all, but it was a nice outcome! 

10 miles - 4 x 1 mile repeats sandwiched between a warmup and cool down. 

I went to bed last night hoping that I wouldn't wake up to a complete downpour. Luckily it was only drizzling so I headed to the track. Thankfully, Adam met me there. He ran casually around the inside of the track on the turf so it was nice to chat with him in-between each of the repeats and to run the warmup and cool down with him.

I had a goal to run the first repeat at a 6:00 min pace and then run each of the 3 following repeats about 5 seconds faster, running the last one at 5:45. I was stoked to pull this off and do even better by a couple of seconds. 

Repeat Distance Time
1 1 mile 5:54
2 1 mile 5:49
3 1 mile 5:45
4 1 mile 5:40 

10 easy miles - It was a super clear morning. Felt a little colder than what my phone said it was. Ran 1.5 solo and then 8.5 with Tyler.

11.75 miles - 1.5 warmup, 8.5 tempo, 1.75 cool down.

Adam was nice enough to join me for the majority of the tempo. It was nice to have some company on this tougher run for sure.  

Overall, I felt good on this tempo run. However, I went through some ups and downs during the run. The third mile of the tempo was actually our fastest even though it had the most uphill. I pushed it up the hill and felt good about it, but then I felt the worst during mile 4. That mile was mostly flat with a little uphill, but I did not feel great during it. My left quad felt a little odd for about a mile. Thankfully, around mile 5 I loosened back up and felt really smooth. I was only planning on doing 8 miles when I awoke, but decided to go an extra .5 because I was feeling good enough at the end. During the run I mentioned to Adam that 4 months ago I never would have believed anyone if they told me that I could do this workout successfully. Needless to say, I am stoked that I did it!

10.5 easy miles with Adam, Brayden, and Ashley.

Was fun to get out with a great group. We beat the storm by minutes and it was about 10 degrees cooler at the end of the run than the beginning. 

20 miles - almost 10 to Brayden and Ashley's house, they joined me for 6, and I finished up solo. (I knew I had to run .14 to even up my miles for the week so I did a little cool down after the 20 miles so I could count that.)

Felt good overall, which actually surprised me because of having so many miles already on my legs this week. My quads were sore from the beginning and didn't really ease up much during the run. I attribute this to cumulative fatigue from the miles I logged this week and the week before and the months stacked on that. The fatigue didn't affect me too much though. I was able to hold a good pace and even decided to give it a little kick the last 4 miles. I was happy to see my average HR was 154. Now I get to sit around the rest of today and tomorrow and relax and recover! 

Scheduled rest day

10.25 easy miles this morning. - Ran the majority of the run with Tyler and we completely beat the rain!

The inside of my right knee has been a little sore. The feeling is like a little twinge that I feel every so often when I am sitting. I only felt it for about 30 feet of the run this morning and it was when the shoulder of the road we were on had a lot more camber. I hopped on the sidewalk at that portion and didn't feel it again the rest of the run. I am going to keep icing it and watch it for a couple days to make sure it doesn't materialize into anything serious. 

11 miles (track workout) - couple mile warmup - 4 laps at the track of striders where I accelerated on the straights and slowed up on the curves - 12 x 400 repeats - few mile cool down. 

I was a little worried about this run because of the weather and I really didn't want my knee to hurt. When I went to bed last night I didn't know if it was going to be snowing, but I knew it would be windy. Luckily, it was not snowing when I left my house but the wind was still blowing strong. 

My knees and my heels were a little sore for about the first mile, but then I started to loosen up and I was stoked that my knee didn't hurt at all during the rest of the run, including the 400 meter repeats!

When I talked to Tyler yesterday about my planned workout he said to shoot for a 6:00 min pace or better even if the headwind was blowing strong down one of the straights. So that is what I planned for for the first little while. I decided to speed up a bit gradually, but I didn't want to push too hard because I knew I had 12 of these to finish. I accomplished my goal and feel really good about it. Even though they were not all the fastest splits I could have done, I feel good about them given the wind and the cold.

split      time  distance pace 

11 easy miles - ran the majority of the run with Tyler. Felt good and I was glad that my knee did not hurt at all.

12 miles - 5 at tempo

I am not too stoked about this morning’s run. I learned last year that every so often there are going to be bad days. You cannot have a perfect day everyday! Today was one of those days. It was raining pretty heavily still when I woke up so I text Adam and decided it was best to hit the treadmill. That was the mistake of the morning.

I should have just battled the rain. I have only run a few times on the treadmill this year and I don’t plan to again any time soon. I feel like it is more difficult for me to run on a treadmill. Does anyone else feel that way? I overheat. I sweat until I am drenched. I just don’t feel good!

So, I had planned on doing an 8 mile tempo, but after 3 miles I knew today was not my day. I eked out nearly 5 miles before I called it and slowed up the pace. I knew I had to finish the workout so I continued to the end of mile 12.

1 - 8:27
2 - 8:27
3 - 6:56
4 - 6:53
5 - 6:53
6 - 6:49
7 - 7:00
8 - 7:40
9 - 7:49
10 - 8:00
11 - 7:59
12 - 8:26
  

12 easy miles - ran a little over 7 with Adam and the rest solo.

Was fun to get out on the roads and not think about the treadmill and yesterday's experience. It was nice to just have a chill run with Adam and chat about all kinds of things. He gets married tonight and I am excited for him and for the festivities. 

22 miles - solo run all around Murray, Millcreek, and Holladay.

I felt good overall on this run. I had a goal to not cruise the end home like last week and to just keep a pretty consistent pace and gradually get a hair faster. I feel good about my splits considering how many miles I have on my legs this week. 78.25 miles is the most I have ever run in a week. Now, I know this is not "amazing" to most on the blog, but it is a significant accomplishment for me. 

[update] As of right now I am actually on the first page of the mileage board. Didn't think that would happen. I am sure I will fall off by the day's end though. 

Scheduled rest day

goals - 10x800s - tempo - keep total miles consistent (this might change a little or look different depending on if I end up running with Landon Cooper from miles2give.org on Wednesday) 

12 easy miles - 8 miles with Tyler and the last 4 solo. We were moving pretty slow at the beginning for whatever reason. Didn't expect to walk out the door to snow!

12 miles - 2 mile warmup, 4 laps with striders on the straights to get the blood flowing a bit, 10 x 800s with 400s in between, then cool down. 

Felt pretty good overall...in hindsight. This workout shouldn't feel good during the process and it didn't really. Some were easier than others and that is always the case. I had a goal to start at about a 6:00 pace and work down from there. After 2 I decided to make a decent jump in pace because 5:55 and 5:50 felt a little easier than I wanted. I backed off the last 2 just slightly because it was starting to snow and the track was getting a little slippery. I hope this workout is a decent indicator of the shape I am in and somehow reflects that I will run swift at Ogden.

 repeat time distance pace

  [repeat 17 is not highlighted for any reason. it just copied in that way from connect.garmin]

Awesome day today. I traveled 24 miles with the guys from miles2give.org! We ran from Payson to the mouth of Provo Canyon. They are running across America to raise money for Sarcoma Caner research. Check them out. I will post to my blog on runmehappy.com soon about my experience running with them. It was quite the adventure!

10.75 miles - 2 mile warmup - 8 at tempo - .75 cool down 

I woke up at 2:00am starving! I thought I had eaten enough during that long journey yesterday, but apparently not. I ate a peanut butter and honey sandwich and a small protein drink and went back to bed. When I woke up some 4 hours later I was feeling pretty good so I went out for a run still hesitant on doing my tempo because I didn't know how it would feel after yesterday.

I actually felt really good and was happy with my times. Last week Tyler told me to focus on negative splitting my next tempo by a second or two each mile.

11.5 easy miles - ran 5.5 up to Brayden and Ashley's and then 6 with them.

I felt sufficiently worn out by the end. Tomorrow is another long(er) run. I might try and run part of the SLC Marathon route just to encourage some folks and enjoy some company so I don't have to do all 20 miles solo.

20.5 - Super fun run. I ran a good portion of the Salt Lake Marathon route. I left from my house and headed up the route backwards. I knew I would start to hit the first runners at about mile 9 or 10. I ran until about mile 10 and met up with a group that I would feel comfortable running with, but wouldn't push myself too much. I was just there for fun and for a training run. I ended up feeling great! It was fun to be in a race and have the spectators cheering. The rain was not horrible, but I could see it slowing people down a little bit. Overall, it was a great experience. I feel like it was a bit of a "dry" run for Ogden for me. I learned a few things that I was grateful I didn't learn on race day.

Scheduled rest day

Goals for the week - Hoping to keep my miles right about the same overall. They will likely be a little less because I will not have the long run in the middle of the week like I did last week. I plan on doing mile repeats on Tuesday and a tempo run on Thursday. I want to have a good solid week, but also want to make sure that I stay healthy with only 2 weeks left before I taper. 

13 miles - Roughly 5 up to Brayden and Ashley's and then 8 with them. 

Trying something a little new this week with my training so we will see how that goes. 

13 miles - 2 mile warmup, 5 laps with striders on the straights, 4 x 1 mile repeats with 800s in between, cool down miles.

I surprised myself this morning. Tyler keeps telling me that my block is a mental block and not physical. he told me to run all of these repeats sub 5:40 and try and get 5:20 for the last one. I didn't get the 5:20 at the end, but I still feel really good. These were the 4 fastest miles I have ever run. A couple months ago I had a huge mental block at the 6:00 mile. I have now knocked down that wall for good!

repeat  time distance avg pace

14 easy miles solo.

This was an interesting run for me. I didn't feel 100%, and by 100% I mean the kind of feeling I should feel this deep in my training. I don't expect to feel spry right now, but I had some weird aches this morning. Most likely they can all be attributed to yesterday's mile repeats. Around 6.5 my left quad started hurting. It was not an unfamiliar pain so I kept on going and just concentrated on not using my quads too much. Incidentally, my quad loosened up and I didn't feel it anymore.

However, both my hips started to get a little achy. I had some left hip pain back in January that lasted a while, but I have not felt anything in the hip area for some time. Once again, I think the hip aches were due to yesterday's repeats. Around mile 12 my hips were feeling a little better but were still sore. I came to a little downhill and let gravity take control for a bit. I was doing a 6:11 when I looked at my watch. That was only about .1 of a mile and then it flattened out again. By the time I hit the flat my hips felt great and I finished out the run. Sometimes a little speed cures things I guess.
 

13 miles - 2 mile warmup - 9 mile tempo - 2 mile cool down.

I planned on doing 9-10 miles at tempo this morning at a little faster pace than my previous tempo runs. I have been really trying to determine what my potential is for Ogden, so I thought this run could help nail down a race strategy.

The first 2 miles of tempo were uphill headed east on 6200 S. so I planned on running those close to 6:50s. I felt good after those and all the way until mile 7. Right at the end of 6 there was a little climb and my legs were feeling it. They got all tingly on me and it was an odd feeling. So, I backed off just a hair on 7 and 8 and they also had a couple slight rollers. I was feeling a little better by 9 so I held a decent pace as that mile was nearly flat with an ever so slight down.

Overall, I feel good about this run. I think I learned some things. I know my nutrition was not great this morning. I didn't have a great dinner. I think I was okay on hydration, but probably could have had some more liquid in me. I think I will shoot for a similar tempo run next Thursday and then I will have a good idea of my strategy for Ogden. 

Average pace for the tempo - 6:36.96 

15 casual miles

I graduate from law school today.

It's a good day!

22 miles - not that fun solo.

Overall I felt great. Had some little nags here and there but I attribute those to the amount of miles this week. 90 miles in 6 days without any 2-a-days beats me up a little.

I will add splits and more info after I upload the data.

Scheduled rest day. 

I am excited to start my last week of training before tapering off. 

14 easy miles

This week is my last big week of training before I start my taper before the Ogden Marathon. I am excited to be wrapping up this training cycle. I have noticed one, of many, thing different this cycle, I have not gotten burned out like I did last summer. With that said, I am starting to get a little burned out now and I figured out why. Running alone takes its toll on me.

Last summer I trained completely solo. I don't think I did one run from May until September with someone else. This cycle has been almost the opposite. I have only had to run a couple of days a week max by myself. Since January I have ran with someone almost every day. Some days I ran only a few of my miles with someone, but at least I was not logging all of my miles alone.

All last week, I ran solo. By my 22 miler on Saturday I was a little tired of running by myself. I will likely run this week completely solo as well because Adam and Brayden are out of town and Tyler is crazy busy at work. It is not a huge deal to run solo, but I definitely found out what makes me get burned out a whole lot faster.  

10 miles - 2 mile warmup - 10 x 1/4 mile repeats - cool down.

I was a little cautious with this run because I started to have a slight pain in my quad after yesterday's run. It is on the inside of my quad on the right leg. It is a little over half-way up my quad. Yesterday it hurt during the day, which was pretty unusual. I did a decent job of rolling it out last night before bed and it felt pretty good this morning.

So, I headed out the door and stuck to the roads instead of heading to the track. I decided I was just going to do 1/4 mile repeats at some pace faster than marathon pace and see how the quad felt. About .5 of a mile into the run I could feel the pain in the quad, but it was not bad. I felt the pain when I would pull my leg to take a step. There was zero pain on impact or when I was weight bearing on my right leg. I decided to do the first repeat at about 6:15 and it felt fine. It actually felt a little better to run faster. So, I did 9 more repeats and they all fell somewhere between 5:00 and 6:00 depending on the terrain.

On the 9th repeat I could start to feel that the quad was getting more aggravated so I decided 10 repeats would be sufficient for the day and I headed home. I am a little hesitant with the quad now and don't know exactly what is going on with it. I think it is just an over-use injury and it will go away soon. I am going to ice it up today and take tomorrow really easy. Luckily this is happening right at the time I need to taper anyway.  

[does anyone know why my monthly view counter doesn't work? it is not a big deal but it stopped working over a month ago. i messaged sasha but never heard back]