Giddyup

Morning run up Eagle w/ T, J, D & B.  Then a nice b loop by myself.

Got in another afternoon run to go drop off a car.

I'll take a 5 for this morning - forgot to start the G.  Hope I'm not overdoing it for Pocatello this Sat!

Ran the Pocatello marathon this weekend with a friend going for his BQ.  Got up Friday night around 5 just in time to hit the "expo" for check in and our sweet Pocatello marathon race schwag including a backpack and a literal sack of potatoes (& hashbrowns).  The backpack came with a luggage tag attached that had your name & race info already on it - kind of a good idea I thought for organization and return of morning clothes at the finish line.  Given the race course's U-turn design, both the start and the finish line were not too far from the hotel.  This was also nice so the morning shuttle was only about 15 or 20 minutes.  Got up early, checked off all pre-race rituals, took in a bottle of no-xplode, ibuprophen, optygen, gummy bears, fruit bar & ensure.  Hung around the start for maybe an hour.  There were fewer runners than I thought there would be - only about 400 or less.  Was quite a beautiful start - sun still had a little time to come up and with good cloud cover, the clouds far to the east were illuminating orange then the orange faded to blue coming west.  The course goes down a canyon road for a good 12 miles with one small out & back the comes into the town of Inkom a few rollers.  By the time you're at 14 or 15 miles, the downhill is essentially over.  Race organizers run a 1/2 marathon, 10k & 5k at the same time but hold the starts until later in the day.  Consequently, coming through Inkom, we passed all the 1/2ers waiting for their race to start who all cheered the marathon runners.  Then again at 20 miles we passed all the 10kers waiting for their race to start who also cheered on all the marathon runners. The 5k, however, started right before I was getting to their start line so suddenly the course right in front of me flooded with all the 5k runners.  As I was really enjoying the course at this point running in probably 9th place, it was a little bothersome to suddenly have all the 5kers now to dodge & pass.  May have made me a little quicker the last few miles trying to clear through them.  I felt like I was running very conservative for the whole 1st half.  I was Mr. friendly guy again everytime I came up on someone which I hope wasn't too annoying.  But it actually seems to give me a good idea of how hard I'm pushing when I talk to someone - or even feel like doing so.  I wanted to stay close-ish to my friend running for his BQ and we crossed the half about a minute or 2 apart.  After that the course flattened and I felt I still needed to be careful as the day was getting warm.  I just tried to run steady and I even walked most of the aid stations.  Started picking off a few runners here & there and no one was passing me.  Didn't really think too much about racing or position until I saw I was reeling in a small group of 4 runners.  Eventually passed all 4 and maybe 2 more who really bonked before the finish. After the finish went back to run in with a friend but unfortunately he started throwing up at about 18 so we just walked in the last 2 miles.  Good race in all - family quite liked the finish area at the park.

I'll take a 3 for this morning.  Just nice & easy...didn't take my G but just ran the shoreline from the park up to the shoreline & out to the main road then back down.  D & E were out as well.

Got out tonight for some Yasso 800 while C was @ TKD.  Only had time for 5 but they still hurt real good:

2:44

2:46

2:52

2:56

2:49

2:49.4 average

That 4th one I really felt like I was dogging it.  Heart rate monitor is broken, won't read to Garmin...frustrating as that would really be my best way of comparing these from one workout to the next. 

Even though today's 21 miles wasn't all "running" exactly, I will still take it.  I paced a friend in his 3rd Wasatch 100 and after his DNF last year, he was really motivated for a good race. Went from Big Mountain to Big Water at the top of Millcreek canyon.  Was a great run.  Very fortunate to have cool temperatures though Big Mtn section which is always the hottest section of the race.  We had a great big group of runners & pacers too which made it pretty fun.  Took less than 7 hours which is a big improvement over the last time I paced him in '07.  Stayed @ Millcreek to see all friends in & out.  Then snuck up to Brighton at 2am to see everyone in & out again.  Everyone made it except one whose stomach would not come around and also started having some athsma effects.  Everyone finished in great time.  What a great race.  I CANNOT wait for the registration to open again for 2011, I'm putting in for sure.

Easy evening run - ran Fort Rockwell loop.  Took it really easy, felt great.  Low HR (got G working).  Felt like motoring the 3rd mile but then took it easy again after that.

Run up to T's then a modified B loop w/ T, D & B.  Need some new gear, have really worn out my trail shoes.  

Great run this am - got a ride up to Brighton, started at just after 6am.  Ran down Big Cottonwood Canyon then home via Wasatch Blvd.  Had one friend which made the time go by pretty quickly.  Finally got my HRM working, was 142 avg HR out of the cyn, then 144 average by the end of the run.  Ran 25.26 miles at which point walked in for a cool down & hit 26 right at my driveway.  Then had to run to pickup my car after.  Legs really were feeling all the downhill from the beginning by the end of the run.  We weren't pushing the pace by any means, but both of us could really feel the burn in our quads by the time we were hitting the 20's.  A good reminder to not do too much damage @ SG in the first couple downhill sections before the halfway point.  Nice to have the heavy lifting behind me.  Hopefully get in a good taper with maybe some more yasso's and shorter, quicker runs.

Short, modified bridge loop this am.  Seems like everyone likes this new route that is just a little bit shorter.  Took it really easy this am for 2 reasons - soreness from last Saturday is just now subsiding, also wanted to see a baseline HR for a usual effort on this routine morning run.  Legs felt good, one sore spot on outside of left quad and also on right hammy.  Avg HR 123.

Sure hope I didn't screw up with my run last sat - IT bands are quite tender.  Ran up to flag football tonight then back home and they are none too happy about that.  Any speedwork I had planned may be tabled in favor of slow, low HR miles.

Super easy run this am - shoreline to aqueduct road.  Got stood up - ok though, I just took it slow & low.

3 mile track workout early @ Juan Diego.  Then Ghost/Clark's loop up in Corner Canyon.  Great group out, me, T, D, E, DB, MB, + I at the end.

Morning bridge loop - me, T & J.  Did a couple extra loops in the bottom of CC.  Last mile down the road was 5:21 - I can only hope for anything like that this sat, even just one would be great.  Hope the temperatures don't sabotage the day!

Late evening run - stopped by the WRC tonight and picked up a new singlet to bring me good luck on Sat...had to try it out of course, along with the rest of my planned gear for Sat.  Much mixed thoughts on preparedness for Sat...ran 1st mile kind of hard, noticed a small presence of wheeziness, will have to remember inhaler for race.  2nd mile was just sightseeing - super easy.  3rd mile was downhill and after dogging it for a little, dialed up the pace to push the 4th mile. 4th mile was 5:49 w/Avg HR @ about 161.  Higher than I would prefer to be sure, but in the past I have killed myself on this exact same stretch of road to eek under 6 mins usually hitting over 170HR the few times I actually had my HR monitor for the section.  Have no illusions of holding this pace @ SG - should probably have started doing HR training sometime ago.  

Late evening run around Las Palmas