Run Till You Drop!!

AM- 4 Easy miles on Mt. Road I felt heavy from yesterday's 25

PM- Legs still felt heavy, on one mile up a hill I pushed it hard and hit a 6:59 it is all uphill so I was happy that I could hit that on tired legs. It gave me confidence that I can still push hard even when my legs are tired and heavy. That will come in to help me out greatly during the Boston Marathon. 8 miles on Mt. Road

AM- Met up with Bryant to run Mile repeats

We ran 2.7 as a warn up and then got started on the beast. We ran them down on the Farmington trail by Farmington Station.

1st- 5:09 Slightly downhill

2nd- 5:07 Slightly downhill

3rd- 5:06 Flat with a little uphill

4th- 5:10 All uphill

5th- 5:26 Hardest rep all Uphill much more incline I was feeling it and legs felt heavy

6th- 5:13 Slight Uphill

I know that if I ran these reps at the Pond like I usually do, I would have been around a 5:06 average or so. We did 90 sec rest in between each rep. The uphills took a lot out of me. My effort was definately there and I am getting in better and better shape.

Cool down was 2 miles

PM- Ran easy 6 miles on Mt. Road

AM- Easy 6 miler on Mt. Road

PM- Easy 8 miler on Mt. Road

Easy 14 miles in the morning down past lagoon and onto legacy parkway trail before we went to my sister in laws wedding. Legs felt really heavy going out, I was in between 7-7:45 pace every mile. Coming back was much faster around 6:30-7 pace most of the way back. I hope my legs can feel much more fresh not running twice today. We will see tomorrow as I am planning to run a part of the Strider's Half Marathon.

I ran part of the Striders Half Marathon. This week has been rough with a lot of miles and legs have started feeling heavy. My goal going into the race was to tempo anywhere from 6-10 miles, that all depending on how my legs were holding up. As the race started I went with the leaders until around 4 then I started to feel how tired my legs were. I only did 6 miles and then I turned around and picked up Spencer and ran the rest of the race with him. We still finished at a pretty good clip bouncing back and forth between 6:20 and 7:00 pace. The second half of the course was a lot like Boston. Rolling hills and getting the legs use to running the rollers with tired legs.

I am glad I ran it today. I am feeling very very good about this week's runs. I feel that I will be ready for Boston in two weeks and I am approaching it as a "Go Big or Go Home" mentality. I want to throw down another huge PR and run around a 2:20 to 2:22 at the slowest. Every Marathon I have put in more miles and I have gotten faster at each one. I hope this can be my 5th Marathon in a row that I improve.

Total for today was 15.3 Miles

Met up with Bret and Jon and ran a solid easy run. It was much faster than I was hoping but that is ok. We averaged around 6:30 or so. Legs felt alright still a little tired but feeling good.

I ran the usuall Mt. Road run. I went out fast. I hit the 4 mile mark at 26:41 averaging 6:28 pace it was downhill felt great,27 min 6:46 all up hill so I was very happy with that solid run. Which is a best on that run.

I ran about 3.5 miles and then did 200 meter hill repeats. It was very difficult as I did them on Mt. Road which is very steep in Fruit Heights. Rest was jogging back to the start of the 200 meter reps. I ran this is the Skechers Gold Go Speed 2

1st-34 2nd - 32 3rd- 32 4th- 31 5th- 31 6th- 30

At first it was hard getting dialed into the faster pace but after I did I felt great. I know that I am right where I want to be going into Boston so hopefully I show up on race day!!

Then a few miles of cool down.

Ran an easy 8 miler on Mt. Road

After work I went straight to go look at some couches we were looking to to buy. Riley called and wanted to see if I wanted to go golfing. I went home got my clubs and went and golfed. After golfing I went over to our new house with the In-laws and gave them a tour. I went to other set of In-laws to go move out fridge into our new house. By the time I got home it was 11:30 and I was really tired from the day. I was going to go 8 or so but because of the schedule I only went 6 as it was already a super late run in the dark. I felt really good. Legs feel really well rested going down in mileage this week.

Going out 3 took 19 min and coming back 3 miles took 21 min that is the fastest 6 miler on Mt. Road ever I think.

Well this is prob my funniest post yet.

Today was a long day, I did not sleep much last night thinking about moving to our new house today. I woke up and started packing and boxing everything up. Help arrived at 11 to help us move it took a little less than an hour for us to load everything onto a trailer. We unloaded for about 35 min or so. It was so nice to have gottten everything in and received help. My step father in law helped me go to west valley to pick up couches and then bring them to our new house. After we brought those home I went and got a double cheeseburger with bacon.

I thought well since I ate I will wait 30 min or so then go do mile reps. We just moved so it was my first time going to run on the track at Clearfield high. I was not too worried about track being open as bountiful and Davis were open almost all the time. I got there and the gates were all locked, so I had to jump the fence.

The Goal was to do 4 Mile reps at 4:40 pace with 3 min rest in between each. I knew going into it that after just eating, there was a slim chance I was actually going to hit the correct time.

Well I was wrong and that was a bad decsion. I started to run and felt fine. As I got closer to the track my stomach started to bother me a little bit. I did my first mile and it hurt a ton and my time was a slow 4:49. I was shooting for a 4:40 and was way off! I hit my split for a lap and half then slowed and never made back up the time. After the first rep, I started to look for the bathroom I found one but it was locked!!! I was thinking oh no this is not good. I decided to do my second rep as my 3 min was about up. Same thing first lap and some was on then I faded a ton and stomach did not feel good at all. After this rep I needed to go really bad. I saw a trash can and decided I do not have a choice, I lifted my self up and went in the big can. As the 3 min came to an end I went and ran the 3rd and 4th reps slowing on each of those as well. First part of the 3rd I felt great after the bathroom but then it started to bother me again.

1st rep 4:49, 2nd rep was 4:52, 3rd was 4:55, 4th was 4:56

My times were slow and that was frustrating but I gave it all I could with having moved all day, and having just ate shortly before the run. The one plus was that I was not breathing super hard and my legs were not completely sore or dead after. So I know that if I had people to run with and did not eat I prob would have been around 4:45 or 4:50 for most of them.

Total mileage was 7.5

I ran on the trail by my house down to the in- laws in Kaysville. I feel very grateful  to have this trail so close, it is much better than running on the road in Fruit Heights. The only downfall of running on the path is the temptation to hurdle every cross bar at the cross walks.

I ran North on the trail by our house for a few miles. It had a slight uphill but I felt great.

I averaged about 6:45 pace. I feel very ready for Boston and my legs are getting anxious to race as they feel so fresh.

I met up with Bryant to do our last race pace tempo.

We warmed up for 3 miles and then ran 4 strides to get loosened up. Thte 1st mile was 5:27, 2nd was 5:17, last was 5:22. I was happy to average about 5:22 and felt great. We ran a 3 mile cool down and then called it a day and now we are done with speed until the BIG RACE.

I ran 4 miles as my body felt weird little aches and pains are scarring me.

I ran 4 miles easy around Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

5 miles with Strides. I ran pretty slow to save as much energy as possible for the race on Monday.

Today was the race I have been looking forward to for a long time.... The Boston Marathon

I had the goal of running a 2:22 or so going into the race. My training has been pretty good for the most part and I hit my highest mileage as I hit 97 miles a week a few weeks ago. I have been feeling pretty good and motivated to run well.

I woke up the morning of the race walked down to the hotel lobby and ate my oatmeal as I waited for the van to take me to a drop off point. As I arrived at the drop off point it was crazy. They were checking all of our bags and we all had to have a guy go around our bodies with a medal detector wand. I got on the bus and went to athlete village. At this point I was getting very excited but nervous for the big run. I went to the skechers house that was close to the start, talked to a few other skechers runners and used the restroom. I ended up leaving my clothes with them as they said they could ship them to me as I had not bag drop for my stuff.

I went to the start line and moved my way through the pack and tried to get as close as I could to the from of the A Wave. I saw Bryant Jensen and we talked about how we wanted to go out slow together and then slowly move up. Well from the gun Bryant took off fast so I was like oh crap no running buddy. I guess I am on my own so I did the dumb thing and went out fast as well, the first few miles were downhill. I saw Bryant up until around mile 14, I was hoping he would drop and we could work together but he stayed a good solid distance in front of me the whole run. I felt great the first half of the race it felt super easy and comfortable.

My splits were close but not right on as my watch GPS was a little short some miles.

Spllits 5:07, 5:10, 5:11, 5:12, 5:20, 5:15, 5:14, 5:17, 5:14, 5:28, 5:31, 5:24, 5:24,

5:26, 5:36, 5:24, 5:57, 6:05, 5:53, 6:11, 6:41, 5:54, 6:11, 6:11, 6:21, 6:17, 6:15 pace last little bit.

At the Halfway point I came through way to fast. I should have came through around 1:10 1:11 instead I came through about 1:09:45. The first half is flat and rolling down so it throws off your cadence for sure changing paces. I felt great and was thinking if I can hold this I will kill this course. As I talked to many people going into this race they kept saying how the hills are nothing if you are from Utah. So, I assumed the hills would not be that bad. As I hit around 13 or 14th mile and started to feel the hills my legs turned to jello and it was hard to keep a consistent pace. The rolling hills are hard to stay solid and I did not run hills at the end of long runs, which is what I should have ton to train for this course.I kept looking at my watch and it was dropping more and more and I was thinking of crap this is going to be real bad. Around mile 18 or so I started to cramp, which has never happened in a race. My right quad and right clalf got really tight and I was thinking if I stop I will not get going again. So I slowed the pace and tried to hold on for dear life the rest of the run.

I have learned many lessons from this frustrating and bad run.

1st- Go out slower to save more energy for later in the race. BE PATIENT... I suck at this

2nd- I might start taking salt tablets so I do not cramp, usually I cramp after I finish

3rd- Train hills at the end of a long run so my legs are use to hills when they are tired

4th- Practice on rolling hills as this is what Boston is, hard to keep cadence consistent

5th- I cant base my race off of others, I need to run my race and my race only

Overall it was a good experience even though I did not run as fast as I would have hoped. I am going to keep working hard as I know that I have not reached my peak for the Marathon as of yet.

Today was the first time since the Boston Marathon that I ran. It felt good for the first hundred feet then my left quad was tight and sore the rest of the run. I think it will be a few more days until I am fully recovered from the Beast of Boston. In track in College if I ran a race I was not happy about in the 1500, then I would make myself suffer in the 800 an hour or so later so I had to run in pain. As I was not pleased with my Boston Performance I might make myself suffer more pain. If I am recovered by Wednesday I might run the Provo City Half Marathon next week on May 3rd. I may not go all out but I would like to run solid and go top three. The other reason to run that race is so that I get a feel for Provo Canyon as I will be racing the Utah Valley Marathon in June down the same canyon.

Easy 4 miles on th trail by my house. Legs felt pretty good first half mile then left quad became tight again. I feel that one or two more days of rest and super easy runs I will be back on my feel ready to train like never before!!!

Ran 6 miles on the path by my house. Felt good for the first few miles then my left quad became tight and sore again. It is only a matter of time before I am good to go again. Fully recovered that is.

Easy 4 miler on the Path by my house. Today was the first run since the Boston Marathon that I did not feel any pain, tightness, soreness. I feel that I am almost completely recovered .

It was nice to run into Robbie while running today. I did a few pick ups felt good no issues. Feeling ready and excited to race this weekend.

I ran from Gordon Street in Layton to my wife's house in Kaysville, felt great first half then I had to go the bathroom so it made the run horrible, I had to stop multiple times so I did not go the bathroom in my shorts.