running for my mind

10 easy miles 

I stuck to about an 8:00 pace. The quad hurt the entire time, but it didn't kill. It felt a little better going uphill. Tyler told me to surge a couple of times going uphill to see how that felt and it felt fine. Any incline uphill seemed to make it feel better. Downhill maybe hurt a little more than flat, but not much more. Going to ice it throughout the day and take it easy. I plan on logging 10 miles tomorrow and Friday and then maybe 18-20 on Saturday. It will still be a strong week despite this quad issue. Then I can take the rest of Saturday off and all of Sunday. Hopefully I will be feeling a lot better by then. 

10 easy miles - 

I was surprised by how good my quad felt this morning. After a few miles I almost couldn't feel any pain at all. I decided that I better stick with the plan and take it easy though. By the end I was feeling great and even picked up the pace a little. I am still going to take tomorrow and Saturday a little easier than normal so I can make sure that this thing is completely healed.

11 easier miles

I was feeling pretty good on this run. Not 100% in the quad, but close to it. I started out thinking I would do about an 8:00 pace and gradually get faster. I continued to feel good so I just kept going. Decided to go an extra mile just for fun. I was sick of the 10s. :)

18 miles

I met up with Josh at Sugarhouse Park and ran up to Wasatch and over to the U and back. It was a fun run. It was nice to get to know Josh and have someone to run with. I also liked running somewhere new. Like everyone on the blog, I have a routine that consists of about the same routes so it was nice to mix it up. 

The first half included some decent hills as we climbed to Wasatch. It climbed 572 ft in 5.74 miles (according to Garmin data). Josh and I had talked about holding about a 7:45 average for the run so I was pleased that it ended up being a little faster. Josh is a solid runner and he pushed me so it was nice. 

The quad felt good. I could feel it a little at the beginning, but at about mile 8 Josh asked about it and I couldn't feel it at all. 

8 easy miles with Tyler

Tapering feels good!

6 miles - final track tuesday

Today was my final track workout before Ogden. I had planned on doing 10 x 200s just to really get the legs moving. I only ended up doing 4 but still feel good about it. My times were:

1 - 00:29
2 - 00:29
3 - 00:28
4 - 00:31

One of the reasons that I pulled the plug after 4 was that a gym class came down to the track to run there 1 mile fitness test. On my 4th repeat I had to weave through a couple of the kids (which is not overly enjoyable at that pace). I also was feeling a little light headed. At this point in my training, running 6 more repeats could only cause me a problem in my quad or cause some other injury. I feel good about my training overall and don't want to jeopardize it now.

6.5 miles - Was a nice cool morning. A little cooler than yesterday. Ran 6.5 miles with Ben. It was fun to run with and get to know him more. He is a good dude and a stud at triathlons. We will hopefully be training for Boston together next year, pending my qualification at Ogden in a week and a half. 

Taper week is feeling good. I think I will slow up my pace a little bit for the rest of the week so I can let my legs fully recover.

6 easy miles

My quads and hamstrings are still really sore from the 200s on Tuesday and from tapering in general. I wanted to keep this run slower so I averaged a 8:00 min pace. My legs started to loosen up a bit after a couple of miles, but were still sore. Hopefully I am feeling a lot better by the start of next week. 

6 easy with Tyler. - Feeling a little more loose than yesterday. Legs still sore though.

Today was my last day of work. I am officially unemployed and looking for a job. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks 

4 easy pushing Grey in the stroller.

2 - that's it, that's all

I have a lot on my mind as I think about tomorrow's race. I am not going to lie, I am quite nervous. I have put a lot of time and effort into my training. I feel like I really couldn't have prepared better physically. It is now a mental game. I hope I can find someone at the start of the race that is looking to run about a 2:55 that I can run with. I feel like some support is going to be crucial to my success. I think I physically could run with Josh or Chad as they are shooting for 2:50, but I don't know if mentally I could pull it off. 

I look forward to tomorrow and want to wish everyone good luck as they run to hit their goals.

May our legs be strong and swift, our heads be clear, and may the wind be ever at our backs!

Well, I don't really know what to say other than yesterday was not my day. I can try and come up with some contributing factors, but it all comes down to a roll of the dice on race day and it didn't pan out. 

I hung out with Josh at the start for about an hour. The weather was actually nice at this point and I thought that it was going to be a great day. I felt great. I was excited for a light drizzle. The night before my dad called to say good luck and I told him that I would be happy if the rain was like it was at the Salt Lake Marathon. However, I told him that I would not be too stoked if it was raining hard enough for the rain drops to bounce back off of the road. Unfortunately the rain was in the form of the latter for a good portion of the race. 

My goal was to hit a 6:45 pace through the first half. Then I could take the slight climb a little easier if I needed to and then pick up the pace if I felt good at the dam and down the canyon. I felt great up until about mile 10. For some reason in there I just started to notice that I was breathing a little harder than I thought I should be at this point in the race. I decided to not push the 6:45 pace and just back off a little until after the hill at mile 14.

Those few miles were tough on me mentally. I was having a hard time understanding why it was so difficult at this point. It just didn't make sense to me at the time. I had been worried about the hill because I had heard that it was relatively nasty, but it turned out to be a pretty easy climb. I had planned on slowing down quite a bit for it to reserve energy for after so that is what I did.

My legs were just too tired and I never got my pace back down below a 7:00 after the hill. I met up with Hugh at the dam (he was on his bike). I told him that I needed a couple miles at 6:30 to get my average back down. At this point I thought there was still a chance. But, a half a mile in the canyon I knew my legs just couldn't do it. The canyon turned out to not be as steep as I thought it was. I wish it was steeper. I feel like downhill is one of my strengths.

I didn't feel good in the canyon and I tried to stop for 5-10 seconds to shake out my legs here and there. Those brief stops helped and I would get a few hundred meters of sub-7:00 before slowing up again. I know my hydration and my nutrition was solid so I just couldn't figure it out.

I still finished with a PR and I am happy about that. I am frustrated and disappointed that I trained as hard as I did and for as long as I did and this was the result though. The weather conditions were tough. It was a tough race for me and I will have to qualify for Boston another time. 

I spoke with Tyler after the race and he told me that a 3:10 in those conditions is still something to be proud of. He said that I needed to remember that I likely took over 32,000 steps during the race and with soaked shoes, that is a lot of extra weight. I weighed my shoes and socks when I got home and they weighed in at about a 1/2 a pound more a piece than my dry pair. So, if I think of it that way, each one of my legs had to lift an additional 8,250 pounds by the end of the race. It is not a surprise that I got a little tired early. I wish I hadn't. I wish that this was a victory post of me saying how stoked I am to have gone sub-3:00 but it is not. 

So, back to the drawing board. I don't think my training will change much. I don't think I could have been more prepared physically. Another few months of hard training will only make me stronger, faster, and more mentally prepared. I will attack another 26.2 and I will be at Boston 2014!

Well, I think I ran a little angrily this morning. I rested a few days since the marathon, but needed to get out there to just feel my feet on the ground again. I made a commitment to not worry about my pace and not look at my watch and to only go 3 miles. 

Right of the bat I knew I was going fast. I was angry. I was upset that I had not accomplished my goal in the marathon. I didn't care I was going too fast because it was only going to be 3 miles. I ended up averaging sub-7:00. It hurt. It also felt really good. 

We are headed to St. George today for the weekend. I decided to get in about 6 miles before we hopped in the car. I once again didn't look at my watch but took it a little easier than yesterday. Still averaged a 7:43 though. 

Ok. So, I guess I am back at running now. After last Friday's run I hopped in the car and headed to St. George. I had packed some running stuff, but ended up not pulling it out of my bag. I talked to Tyler on the way down and we decided that it was in my best interest to take a few more days off. When I ran Friday morning my left hamstring hurt just a little and both of my calves were pretty sore. That could have been the product of running too fast on Thursday and Friday, but it was definitely a little leftover aching from the marathon as well. 

St. George was fun. We went on some walks, hung by the pool, and played countless games of shuffleboard, a true gentleman's sport! 

I ran 6 miles this morning trying to keep it at about 8:00 pace. My calves were a little sore by the end and are still a little tight now. I think they will feel better after a few days of running and loosening them back up. I am going to avoid any speed workouts this week and maybe get a short one in next week before I head to Boise for the 1/2 ironman. The rest of this week is going to be pretty chill. Try and do about 6 tomorrow and Friday and then maybe a 10 or so on Saturday. I am actually flying to DC Friday night so we will see what happens Saturday morning. I want to do a morning run by the monuments.

Normally I hardly ever travel, but the end of this month and beginning of June are pretty busy. Last weekend in St. George. This weekend in DC. Next weekend in Boise. One weekend of nothing and then Ragnar Wasatch Back on the 21st and 22nd. 

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	47:47.7	6.00	7:58
1	8:00.2	1.00	8:00
2	7:57.8	1.00	7:58
3	7:58.7	1.00	7:59
4	7:59.6	1.00	8:00
5	7:53.5	1.00	7:53
6	7:57.9	1.00	7:59

 

6 easy miles

Headed out this afternoon after a solid 4.5 hours of studying. Was nice to have a little break from the computer.

Did my typical 6 mile loop from my house. Felt good overall, but my lower calves started to tighten up on me again. Not as bad as yesterday though so that is a good sign. I wanted to stick close to an 8:00 pace again. Somewhere between 7:49 and 7:55 felt really comfortable so I just stuck with that. I included a few really short striders, or Murphy's as Josh likes to call them, in the last mile just for fun.

7.15 easy with Brayden this morning. 

It was a good run overall. Felt more loose in my calves which is a great sign. I hopped in the hot tub last night and gave my calves a good massage with the jets. I think that helped a lot. I felt like I was breathing a little harder than yesterday, but was not too concerned about it. After mile 3 I felt better. Incidentally, mile 3 has the most uphill (little over 100 ft in 3/4 mile) and we picked up the pace a bit at the same time so I think that is why I noticed that I was breathing a little harder.

Headed to DC tonight and I am going to meet up with a buddy that lives there for a morning run. Should be fun. Headed back Sunday morning so it is a quick trip just for a wedding on Saturday afternoon and evening.