I skipped my morning run with Larry and Wayne because I wanted to help Karen and the girls get off to camp this morning. I saw Larry and Wayne both as they started and as they ended their run, and I missed being with them. I wanted to hear about Wayne's experience at the Teton Dam Marathon on Saturday (he doesn't blog...but he should). I did hear that it was a very hard marathon. I think he said the overall winner was barely under 3:00. His goal was under 4:00 and he finished in 3:45. He's come back from his sever health problems over the winter very quickly.
I finally headed out for a solo run at around 8:00am. I decided to go longer today as I'll be tapering later in the week for the relay. I ended up running from my house up to Bridal Veil Falls, almost exactly 7 miles one way. My splits on the way up were 8:27, 8:34, 8:05, 8:14, 8:10, 8:47, and 9:05. I averaged 8:19 for the first 0.8 miles on the trip back then started a 3 mile uptempo run starting at the start of the Army National Guard's 2 mile run that is just after the rise out of Nunn's Park (says, "Hooah" on the start line). My splits were 6:56, 7:19 (some uphill), and 7:20. The third mile would have been faster but I stopped to pick up some toys that some toddlers had been dropping from their strollers. I had passed two young mothers going the other direction, each pushing a stroller. I saw the first toy and kept going, but then saw another one 20-30 yards farther along the trail. I decided to double back and return them to their presumed owners. On the way back I found a third that had just recently been dropped. As I caught them and presented the toys I noticed they had plenty more they could have dropped. I thought of Hansel and Gretel dropping breadcrumbs but quickly decided the mothers didn't look like witches so I returned the toys and resumed my run. My average for that mile had dropped to 7:33 (I think) at the point I resumed but I managed to pull it back down to 7:20 by the end. The 3.5 miles from there, up the hill on 800 N and back home, were very hard for me (8:51, 8:48, 8:53, 9:33/mi for last 0.5 miles. I was pretty tired and it was getting pretty hot (around 80 degrees). The overall average pace for the 14.3 miles was 8:19/mi.
The forecast highs for the relay are 92 on Friday and 96 on Saturday. I think today's run was good mental preparation for running tired in the heat. At least during the relay I'll have my van mates giving me plenty of water to drink and cool down with. I can't believe it's relay week again already. It's going to be awesome!
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