Every Race is an Adventure!

Larry was riding his bike with James and Lee again this morning (I saw them ride past as I was waiting for my Garmin to lock in) so I ran alone. I decided on an 8 mile run down to 800 S in Orem and back. It took me a while to get going. My splits for the first four miles were 9:01, 8:53, 8:18, and 8:18. I felt like I was pushing pretty hard but just couldn't seem to get under an 8:00 pace. I decided to try some mile intervals on the way back. Maybe I could push a little harder if I knew I could rest after a mile.

I ran four 1 mile intervals on the way back, with a 1/4 mile rest in between. My splits were 7:05, 7:36, 7:27, and 7:28. The first interval was mostly heading west, which was a slight downgrade with a bit of tailwind. The other three intervals were mostly northward, which was a slight uphill, with a pretty good headwind until I got north of 800 N. I finished with about a 1/2 mile jog to cool down.

I feel good about my efforts this morning, especially during the second half.

I ran the water tank road with Larry and Wayne. The company was enjoyable as usual, and the hills were steep as usual. I made the comment that I keep thinking someday those hills will seem easy. I can't remember which of the others said, "Maybe in the Millennium." Perhaps, but somehow I suspect it will require some effort and determination even then. It was a beautiful morning and a good run with good friends.

Repeated Tuesday's run up the water tank road with Larry and Wayne.

I came so close to staying in bed this morning. We were out late Tuesday night at my nephew's 30th annual July 3rd birthday party and fireworks spectacular up in Kearns. We then drove some chairs down to my young adult daughter who was camping out at the parade route in Provo with her friends. She was going to save enough space for us, too, but that didn't work out so I got up early on July 4th and went and found us a place.

After the parade I worked all day in the heat repairing the bathroom ceiling in our camping trailer. I barely finished in time to go down to Provo again in the evening to watch the fireworks. With all the traffic we didn't get home until pretty late.

I guess my alarm went off at 5:00 am this morning and I kept pushing the snooze, but the first thing I remember is looking at the clock and seeing it was 5:36. I guess the combination of not enough sleep and working in the heat for a couple of days caught up with me. I was supposed to meet Larry and Wayne at 5:45. I came so close to just staying in bed, but I didn't run yesterday (I kept wanting to all day), and I knew it would only be hotter later, so I got dressed quickly and headed to the corner. They weren't there so I walked over to Larry's. Wayne was there but Larry hadn't come out yet. We decided we weren't in a hurry so we rang the doorbell and got him up. Both Larry and I had a hard time getting up this morning, but at the end of the run we were both glad we hadn't stayed in bed.

On July 4 I was throwing a frisbee while waiting for the fireworks to begin. While I was traversing a hillside I stepped in a small depression and rolled my left ankle. It hurt quite a bit, but I walked it off and it didn't really bother me too much. The next morning I ran the water tank hill with Larry and Wayne and don't remember it bothering me much. However, as I got up to run Friday morning it was sore enough that I decided to give it a day off to be ready for Saturday's run. At bedtime Friday night, for some reason it was really sore. I tried jogging on it a little and realized there was no way I was going 14 miles on it as planned the next morning, but thought I might go a little ways if it felt better in the morning. When I got up Saturday it was bad enough that I decided to not run on it at all. I'll take it day by day, but I hope to be able to run on it again Monday morning.

I ran the Orem loop this morning. My left ankle still hurt a little as I got up, but I decided to test it with a run anyway. I figured I could cut the run short if it bothered me too much. It turns out it didn't hurt me at all while running. I ended up not only pushing the pace a little but also extending my run by a mile. It's a high ankle sprain and I guess the position of my ankle while running doesn't impact the injured area.

I ran 7.4 miles in 58:55, an average pace of 7:58/mi. My mile splits were 8:16, 7:55, 7:50, 8:28, 8:12, 8:07, 7:14, and 2:54 for the last 0.4 (7:18/mi). I think I maintained a pretty consistent effort throughout the run, pushing a little harder the last mile or so. I think you can tell which miles were uphill with a headwind.

We recently watched "Hello, Dolly!" with our kids and the music from the song "Dancing" kept going through my head this morning..."And one two three, one two three, one two three. Look I'm dancing!" This kept me moving along. Other lyrics include: "Well my heart is about to burst, My head is about to pop, And now that I'm dancing who cares if I ever stop!" and "Whatever you do for gosh shakes keep breathing!" and "One-two-three. One-two-three. One-two. And now that we're dancing, Who cares if we ever stop." It may be a little dated, but this is a high energy song that I may add to my old running song favorites "Theme from Rocky" and "Chariots of Fire".

I was expecting the big hills of the water tank road this morning, but Larry had decided he wanted to do some speed work at the track, which consisted of 4 - 1/2 mile intervals with 1/4 mile rest in between. My times for the 1/2 mile intervals were 3:05, 3:17, 3:16, and 3:04. After the first interval I realized I had gone too fast and wouldn't be able to hold that for all four. Larry also reminded me that the last interval would have to be my fastest (a goal we have). I ran the second and third intervals at a saner pace, hoping I would have enough left to beat 3:05 on the last interval. As you can see, I barely made it.

This wasn't the workout I had planned for this morning, and I'm not sure how much benefit I got from it, but it was fun. That should count for something. The old neighborhood group (of which Larry and I are currently the only active runners) had the tradition of doing these track intervals once a week during the summer/fall for many years, gradually moving from 4 to 8 repeats and trying to get faster each week, but the tradition has died over the past couple of years. I like doing them because the slower and faster runners can all get a good workout and still be with each other a lot of the time (warm up, rest periods, and cool down).

I should mention that Wayne doesn't live in our neighborhood, but has recently been coming on Tuesdays and Thursdays to run with Larry and me. This was his first experience with these intervals. He didn't know what to expect and I'm not sure he had as much fun as I did.

I ran Lake View with Tom at noon. It was hot, humid, and smoky. I don't get to run with Tom much or I might not have gone out at all. I didn't feel like going very fast and I felt like we were doing 9:00 miles, but we ended up averaging 7:57/mi overall, 8:08/mi out and 7:46/mi back.

I ran the Lindon loop with Larry and Wayne at an easy pace. It seemed pretty humid this morning. At mile 3 I decided to insert a little fartlek and ran 0.75 miles @ 6:29/mi. I also ran the last 0.4 @ 7:31/mi. Overall, I ran 6.15 miles in 54:00 (8:47/mi), but this included stopping a few times to make sure Larry's dog Ozzie was staying with us.

As we sometimes do, we took a detour to see some point of interest. This morning we ran past Wayne's daughter's new house where Larry's crew had recently installed the sprinkler system. I enjoy runs when there's more to the run than just running.

I ran up Provo Canyon with Larry and Wayne. We left home at 5:30am and started up the canyon about 5:45am. I'm sure glad we did. The weather was great for most of the run but was getting into the upper 70's by the time we finished.

We didn't see many runners on the way up, but shortly after we passed Bridal Veil Falls an old guy (probably about our age) passed us. Wayne and I looked at each other and it didn't take us long to decide to leave Larry (his toes and hip have been bothering him, he's going to the doctor on Tuesday) and go get this guy. There was a pretty strong head wind this morning, and our mile splits up to that point had been pretty slow: 9:48, 9:18, 9:36, 9:54. We ended up catching and passing him pretty easily. The next mile was 8:30 followed by 5:32 for the last 0.77 (7:13/mi) into Vivian Park.

Larry turned back at this point and Wayne and I continued on up South Fork until we got to 8 miles, about a mile past South Fork Park. Our mile splits were 9:23, 8:42, and 1:48 for 0.25 (7:19/mi). Given the steepness of the hills, I feel okay about those times. We were working pretty hard.

Back down to Vivian our splits were 7:48, 5:10, and 2:55 for 0.22 (13:28/mi). Does anyone else suspect a GPS glitch here? If you add the times and divide by the distance I think the resulting average pace of 7:09/mi is closer to what we actually ran.

We stopped for water twice on the way back down from Vivian. It was starting to get warm, and we were getting tired. The mile splits were 7:45, 7:20, 7:21, 1:08 for 0.16 (6:57/mi), 7:13, 5:10 for 0.72 (7:12/mi), and 6:13 for 0.88 (7:02/mi).

After the first 4.5 easy miles (when we couldn't let the "old guy" pass us) we pushed the rest of the run pretty hard. After averaging 9:39/mi for the first 4 miles, we averaged 7:40/mi for the last 12 miles, nearly two minutes per mile faster.The total run was 16.0 miles in 2:10:38 (8:10/mi).

Maybe the best part of this run was actually seeing Wayne get tired. I saw him tired at the end of the Hobble Creek Half last year, but I've never seen him this tired during a training run before. I guess he really is mortal.

Boy, it sure seemed warm this morning, even though I started my run at 5:21am instead of the normal 5:45am. I also had a really hard time getting my legs moving this morning. I ran alone up into Lindon and then back along the canal road. It took me 3 miles before I could get under a 10:00 pace. Of course, the first 3 miles were mostly uphill, but even coming back along the canal road I struggled to barely get under a 9:00 pace. I ran 6.2 miles overall, average pace 9:31/mi. I'm pretty sure I was still feeling the effects of the long hard run with Wayne on Saturday. I could feel it in my legs all weekend. I don't know how else to explain averaging 8:10/mi for 16 miles (7:40/mi for 12 of those miles) on Saturday and then struggling to average 9:30/mi this morning.

At lunch time I decided to try running again. I wasn't sure if anyone else would be running today, and they weren't. I ended up running Eagles View alone. I ran the 5 miles in 42:45 (8:33/mi average; 8:52/mi up, 8:14/mi back). It wasn't quite as hot as some recent days (upper 80's instead of 90's), and a little overcast, but it was still plenty hot. My pace during this run was about a minute per mile faster than this morning, but still not very fast.

I like to think of days like today as mental conditioning days. It's hot, there's nobody to run with, my legs are tired and my mind and body are trying very hard to convince me not to run. When the runner in me wins out and I run anyway (which isn't always the case) I think it builds a mental strength and endurance that shows itself in other areas of my life when things get hard. I was just telling my sister-in-law (who is staying with us this week) this morning as we were talking about running, that I have an imaginary chalkboard in my mind. Every time I want to quit (slow down, stop, not run), and I don't, I put an imaginary tally mark on the "I Won" side of the board. It's silly I know, especially since I can't ever remember putting a tally mark on the "I Lost" side of the board. Maybe that's why it is so helpful to my confidence and self-esteem. In my mind's eye I have various tally marks on the "I Won" side, and few if any marks on the "I Lost" side. Even though I ran slow today, I did get out twice and finished the runs, and earned a couple of new tally marks.

We went to the track again this morning. Kent actually came this morning when he heard we were going to the track. He hasn't run at all since the St. George marathon last year, but he loves the track workout so he came. It was Wayne's first time at the track last week and he was back for more. I'm not convinced it helps as much as a good tempo run, but I do enjoy it, too, and it's a nice break from the routine. We haven't had four runners out together in the morning for a long time. Actually, Larry's wife Jolene came along but didn't do the intervals with us. Having some company today sure beat running alone yesterday.

We only did four 1/2 mile intervals again this morning, but will start adding more. My times were 3:02, 3:09, 3:17, and 3:00. After struggling to get my legs moving yesterday, it felt good to be able to move along at a faster pace.

I wasn't sure whether to log this run for yesterday or today, but since it was just after midnight, I'll log it for today. I was up late last night and just before I was going to go to bed I heard our wind chimes on the front porch. I stepped out. The wind was blowing strongly through the trees and blowing a light mist from our sprinklers. The night seemed to be calling to me and I got the urge to go for a midnight run. Karen was up late with her sister who is staying with us, and I wasn't really sleepy (I had a brief nap after dinner), so I headed out.

I decided to head to the high school track to reduce the danger of getting hit by traffic or stepping on something in the dark. There was a light near one end of the track, and it was just light enough to make out the white lines against the black track on the dark end of the track. On the way over I had enjoyed listening to the wind and the crickets. The sprinklers were on in the center of the track so that's what I heard there, and some pennants flapping in the wind. The wind and the mist from the sprinklers kept things relatively cool, but it was still a little warm. I only got one direct hit from the sprinklers near the end, and it felt good.

I decided on a 3 or 4 mile tempo run at the track. During the third mile I decided to go four. I was hoping for mile splits between 7:00 and 7:15, and felt like I ran close to that level of effort, but I think the strong wind hampered my efforts (even though I know it was helping me half the time since I was running in a circle). Actually, my Garmin said I was running between 6:50/mi and 7:10/mi, but it also registered around 1.08 miles per 1600 meters, and its really only 0.994 miles. My 1600 meter splits were 7:34, 7:42, 7:39, 7:18.

I enjoyed the run, and I enjoyed sleeping in a little this morning.

At noon I ran Lake View with Tom. I guess we sort of ran with Will and his buddy. We started at the same time but they stayed in front of us until they took a detour to the fountain at the park (Tom and I were both packing water), and then I guess they headed back. We didn't see them again until we got back to the fitness center. They were already inside stretching.

Neither Tom nor I felt like going very fast. It was hot with the temperature in the mid-90's. We still managed to finish the 5.2 miles in 41:54 (8:03/mi). I'm not sure I enjoyed the running all that much, but it was nice talking with Tom as we ran.

Ran the water tank road with Larry and Wayne. Wayne pushed pretty hard today. I've put in a few extra miles this week and my legs didn't feel up to it so I didn't go with him. It still required some pretty good effort. It's never easy going up those hills. It was warm this morning so the cool breeze at the top was a nice reward.

I ran up Provo Canyon with Wayne this morning. Larry dressed to run and met us but his toes were really hurting so he decided not to do the long run today. Tuesday his doctor diagnosed his condition as Morton's neuroma. I hope he can recover quickly.

Wayne's newer Garmin measured our distance as 12.3 miles. Mine only registered 12.09 miles and warned about a poor GPS signal quite a bit this morning. We ran it in 1:40:24 (8:09/mi by Wayne's watch, 8:18/mi by mine). Splits up were 9:06, 8:30, 8:38, 8:46, 8:23, 8:17, and 1:18 for 0.17 mi (7:35/mi). Splits down were 2:40 for 0.22 (12:04), 8:39, 8:24, 7:45, 0:47 for 0.10 (7:38/mi), 7:45, 7:20, 4:03 for 0.59 (6:52/mi). As I mention, the GPS was a little flaky on some of these numbers.

Neither Wayne nor I felt much like pushing as hard this week as we did last week. Even though we were slower than last week, we were both actually a little surprised that we ran as fast as we did and were quite satisfied with the run. We started running at 5:45am, and the best part may have been that it never really got hot before we finished.

I ran an extended Lindon loop this morning, going into P.G. a ways and adding a loop at the end, making it 8 miles instead of just over 6. I ran it in 1:05:50 (8:13/mi). My splits were 9:24, 7:57, 8:07, 7:28, 8:30, 8:41, 7:43, and 7:57. I maintained a pretty steady effort. The faster splits were downhill miles, the slower ones uphill. I didn't feel like I had a lot of energy this morning but tried to maintain my effort level anyway. Whenever I felt myself dragging a little I would accelerate for 5 to 10 seconds then drop back a little and try to maintain a slightly faster pace than I had been. It seemed to help.

I was half tempted to go run the Speedy Spaniard 10K this morning. Instead I settled for running my own 10K. It was cheaper and there was no travel time. I warmed up over to the start of the neighborhood 5K course and then ran the course twice.

I tried to hold a pretty good pace, but not race pace. At 7:40/mi, it was more of a fast marathon pace for me. The course is basically downhill, flat, then uphill and ends where it starts. My (rough) splits were 7:13, 7:50, 7:50, 7:25, 7:41, 8:03.
 

We camped at the Lagoon Campground last night in preparation for our Novell day at Lagoon. We have an old 1985 trailer I bought from my neighbor years ago and that we have used very little. It lacks an air conditioner, but with slightly cooler temperatures and a good fan we slept pretty well.

There is a jogging/bike trail that passes right next to the campground. I asked the camp staff about it and they said they thought it went 4 or 5 miles up to the canyon. I followed it towards Lagoon and entered the "Lagoon Trail" which passes behind the park. I saw some buffalo and elk and went passed the loading area for Rattle Snake Rapids. I was a little disappointed when I got a 1/2 mile up the trail and it came out onto a city street and apparently ended. I couldn't find anywhere that it continued so I turned back. Once I got back to the campground I followed the trail the other direction...for maybe 1/4 mile until it also came out onto State St. and apparently ended. I may have missed the trail continuation on either end but, if not, this is a pretty short trail. Anyway, I continued following State St. for a while and then turned back.

All in all it was a pretty enjoyable run, although I didn't push very hard. I knew I had a full day of walking around the amusement park ahead of me. I ended up running 5.1 miles at an average pace of 9:11/mi. 

We left Lagoon a little early because of rain. We went back to the trailer and stayed up late playing games, watching a movie, and eating Jiffy Pop popcorn. It was a lot of fun, but I wimped out in the morning and slept in before enjoying breakfast with my family then loading up and checking out by 11:00am.

We actually only had our two youngest daughters (9 and 11) with us at Lagoon. Our 18, 20, and 22 year old children were too old to be interested in going to Lagoon (and one of them is in Florida this week). Our 15 year old daughter is at EFY at UNLV. We're driving to Las Vegas on Friday (tomorrow) to pick up her and her friend early on Saturday morning and bring them home. We're dropping our two youngest at my parents in Nephi on the way down for an overnighter with Grandma and Grandpa and will pick them up on the way back home.

I plan to get a good run in tomorrow morning before we leave. We're supposed to pick our daughter up at 7:00 am on Saturday, so I don't know if I'll be able to squeeze a run in, definitely not a long run. I guess you'll never know, because "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

I didn't run yesterday and don't know how much time I'll have to run tomorrow so I did my long run today. I left at 5:45am and ran alone from my house up to Vivian Park in Provo Canyon and back.The weather was great. I actually got a little chilly (it felt good) early in the run with the headwind as I was heading up the canyon. I didn't hit sunshine until after mile 13 and it never did get really hot before the end of the run...only up to around 70.

I completed the 18.25 mile run in 2:43:23 (8:57/mi). This does not include a couple of bathroom stops, but does include a few quick water stops. I didn't take any gels on this run like I normally do, but still felt pretty strong at the end. The best part is that I don't seem to have any blisters, chafing, or other aches or pains to speak of, other than just tired legs.

My mile splits were 9:56, 9:00, 8:55, 9:04, 0.28 mi in 2:28 (8:54/mi), 9:07, 9:26, 9:44, 9:31, 0.97 mi in 8:51 (9:08/mi), 8:53, 8:20, 8:34, 8:47, 0.91 mi in 7:37 (8:21/mi), 8:32, 9:16, 8:53, 7:42, and 0.09 mi in 0:44 (8:08/mi).

With about a mile to go I noticed that my average pace to that point was 9:01. I decided I wanted to break a 9:00/mi average. Having already run 17 miles, I knew I might have to beat a 9:00 pace the last mile by at least 34 seconds to drop the average to 8:59. I had a pretty good downhill stretch and I managed to run 7:42/mi and drop the overall average to 8:57. I realize this is a snail's pace to many on this blog, and a few seconds doesn't make a big difference, but this little victory at the end of a long run still felt good to me.

I ran an extended Orem loop this morning, 8.26 miles in 1:09:19 (8:24/mi). Mile splits were 9:09, 8:53, 8:12, 7:56, 8:12, 8:40, 8:23, 7:56, 0.26 mi in 2:00 (7:50/mi). I miss my morning running buddies, but I guess running alone builds character...kind of like digging holes.

It was great to run with Nathan at noon today. Cory is backing off running to try and get his foot healed. He was in the fitness center and we missed him coming out with us. It was a nice day today, but it was a little hot with the temperature around 90'. I knew the pace would be pretty fast running with Nathan. We ran out together until the big hill and then Nathan easily pulled away. He waited at the top for me and we ran back together until the second overpass. From there he gradually pulled away and finished well ahead of me.

My watch (my everyday Timex Ironman, no Garmin today) fell out of my locker and reset when it hit the floor, so I don't have my exact time. I remember it being around 38:00 for the 5 miles (7:36/mi) so I'll just go with that.

I did some 1/2 mile repeats with Larry and Wayne this morning. I could tell right away it wasn't going to be a fast morning. My legs had no zip. My 1/2 mile splits were 3:20, 3:23, 3:20, 3:18, and 3:09.