Run Till You Drop!!

Today I knew I had to do some speed work before the Provo City Half on Saturday. I decided to warm up for about a mile and half and then get the party started.

My goal was to do 4 3 min pushes as solid as I could. In between each push I would rest for 3 min, so it was a 3 on 3 off for the entire session.

Felt great I averaged between 5 and 5:07 pace per push. I know that I still have a little speed and I did not lose all of my fitness after Boston. I got my heart rate up to 168 after each push, Pretty good so I know that I can bounce back as long as I do speed work consistently.

Bring on Provo City Half!! I need to practice this course as it is the same course as the Utah Valley Marathon except it is only the second half of the course. Whether I run fast or slow does not matter as long as I run solid and hopefully place.

Easy 4 miles on path by my house. Felt good, hopefully I am ready to roll tomorrow. I just want to make some money so I do not care if I run slow and I dont know how much my body can take as I just ran the Boston Marathon about a week and half ago.

Cereal racer for money here we come.

Today was the Provo City Half Marathon. I just decided to run this race this past monday. I saw the results this past year and so I was hoping I could run a 1:10 and still make some money.

As I got to the start of the race I met up with Mike and Matt Poulsen and we went on a 2 mile warm-up. As I was talking with them they mentioned to me that they showed up and they thought they could run easy and win money as well. It now seems that if there was a race the previous year that was slow, this year will be the opposite. Every race this year will be fast, everyone in Utah is getting faster there is not such thing as chilling in a race to make money anymore.

At the start I saw about 5 or 6 guys that could win the race, that made me nervous and I knew at that moment I was going to have to run a really solid race to place in the top 3. The reason this made my so nervous was because I just ran the Boston Marathon less than 2 weeks ago and I did not know how well my legs would hold up.

When the race started it was straight downhill  pretty steep. I felt really good for the first 5 or 6 miles and then it got much harder. It was downhill and flat up until about 7 and then it became flat for the next 3 miles. Mile 10 had a slight uphill and then it was flat for a mile and half, then a slight downhill for the last little bit. I was in third up until about mile 7 when fritz came up. He passed me and I knew I had to hold on and not give up. I was fading but when I saw my wife about mile 9 I took my gel and felt way better and got a second wind. I caught up to Fritz and then we pretty much were side by side until mile 12 then I slowly started to pick it up and ended up running a 1:07:24. My second fastest Half of my life and that was only off one speed workout since the Boston Marathon 12 days ago. Bret Hales won with a 1:05:30 and Nate who trains with Fritz and Jake  took second with a 1:07:03. 1 mile cool down with Bret Hales.

This race gave me confidence that by the end of this year I should be breaking 1:06 or getting close.

My splits were 5:07, 4:55, 5:04, 5:04, 5:02, 5:06, 5:15, 5:12, 5:12, 5:17, 5:19, 5:13, 5:05 and 4:37 last little bit.

7 easy miles going north on the trail by my house. As I look back on my half on Saturday I am really happy about my performance. If I did not run Boston that close I think I would have ran around a 1:06 high something. So that gives me confidence going into the rest of the season. Calves were a little tight today but I should feel much better later this week.

I warmed up for a few miles. Then I ran 4 by 3 min push's again, wish rest being 3 min as well.

Each push was about 5 min pace felt good.

I came to price today for work so I had to run as soon as we got to the hotel. I was going to go easy but then was pressed for time so I ran a good solid fast run.

6:27, 6:16, 6:04, 6:00, 5:57, 6:13, 5:47

Felt pretty good, legs were tired but felt pretty good after a mile or so. I tried to make it seem as easy as possible and it did. This was a confidence builder that I am getting back into race shape and that I have not lost too much fitness having the lower miles.

Easy 4 miler. My wife was in a hurry to go somewhere so I was limited on my time to run today. Next time I will need to be smarter and just run in the morning so I can go longer. Calves feel a little sore from yesterday's workout.

Easy 8 miler, Legs still feel a little heavy

I woke and went running on the paved trail by my house. I ran 3 miles for a warm up then I did 3 miles at tempo pace.

My tempo pace went from: 5:30, 5:34, 5:30

I ran easy the rest of the run. It was an awesome run it got warm then it started to rain, then was not bad when the rain stopped.  I am trying to get my body use to longer runs so I will be ready for Utah Valley Marathon in a month. I have much work to do in a month so I hope I can get where I need to be.

Ran 12 miles with Jon today. We averaged 6:33 pace, felt pretty good. Still a little chilly in the mornings as we ran about 6 in the morning.

8 miles north to the park. Felt ok, tired and no energy again today.

I ran from South Fork Canyon down to where my boss was finishing cayaking. Ran down the canyon then back up about a mile, then down again.

Felt really good today. A little headacha but not too bad.

3 miles at about 6:18 pace, 5:10 mile, last 4 were a cool down.

 8 miles today ran to My wife's parents house in Kaysville. Felt ok today but still not great. No energy today, sore throat, headache, and chills.

I was going to do a long run this week but Riley got me a comped entry into the Ogden Marathon. I decided to use the Marathon as a solid training run as I struggle to hold a good pace for very long on a training run. My goal going into the race was to run around the first half at race pace so 5:30 then slow down the second half to 6:30 or 7 min pace.

My splits were

5:36, 5:35, 5:28, 5:23, 5:22, 5:23, 5:29, 5:28, 5:33, 5:41, 5:53, 5:42, 5:57,

6:05, 6:31, 6:23, 6:29, 6:01, 6:26, 6:22, 6:19, 5:59, 5:58, 6:11, 6:18, 6:22 and 2:02 last little bit.

My overall time was 2:67. On my watch I had 2:36. The reason for this is that I had to stop to go the bathroom at about mile 12. I knew that the Marathon was going to be a training run so I did not do my normal routine for dinner. I ate pasta my wife made and that mixed with my sickness this past week made today more difficult.

As the race started I felt good and ran with Steve, Bryant and Jace for a little while. Around mile 5 or so I thought I had to go the bathroom, and the feeling came again. I knew that I was going to have to stop or bad things would happen. I slowed down my pace and tried to get it to go away but no luck so I had to stop. Got a cramp in my shoulder during the race as well, first time I have got one of those during a race. Being sick and feeling tired got to me.

I hope I can get into better shape and do more quality runs before Utah Valley so I can run well. But today I feel was a great trainign run and I accomplished what I set out to do.

I averaged 5:55 for the entire run today so I was pleased.

Easy 8 miler on trail going north.

Felt great for having run 26.2 this past Saturday. Legs feel a little tired but not bad at all compared to the marathons where I run all out.

I ran 8 miles with my baby Jamillie in the stroller. Felt pretty good, prob ran 7-7:20 pace.

Legs are coming back to life. Left calf was a little tight but not too bad.

Easy 10 miler on trail by my house       

Easy 10 miler

Easy 8 miler, tried to keep it slow as we are running a 15 mile tempo tomorrow. We are running a good portion of the Top of Utah Marathon course so I hope it helps.

Spencer down in Draper organized an outstanding run this morning. There were about 16 people that showed up. The goal for the run was to do 3 or 4 warm up and then do a pregression run after that. Doinf 5 miles about 6 min pace, 5 miles at 5:45 pace, then 5 miles at 5:30 pace.

When I looked at the workout I did not know if I could accomplish this task. For the first reason, I ran 26.2 miles last week and I dont know if my legs are fully back. I feel they are but hard to tell until I do another long run. The other reason being that 15 miles at those paces is pretty fast but it is downhill which makes it a lot easier.

My splits were

6:40, 6:27, 6:38, 6:00, 5:51, 6:03, 5:59, 5:44, 5:44, 5:52, 5:30, 5:42, 5:34, 5:35, 5:23, 5:29, 5:27, 5:27, 7:43, 7:40, 6:54

Avg 6:04 entire run so not bad. It was a good solid run. I got gapped with about 4 miles left and Mike, Matt,  and Ben took off and I could not catch them. Every single one of them are in great shape. I could see any of those guys winning the Marathon. I have a ton of work to do and it might be to late to bust out a fast Marathon but we will see in a few weeks. Im very happy with todays workout, it gave my confidence even though I got beat by many people.

Easy 10 miler up North on the trail by my house

Legs feel heavy from Saturdays long run. I averaged around 7:20 pace. Tried to keep it chill and recover we will see if that works.

I ran the 8 mile tempo course this morning with Jon. Warm up was 3 miles then we got started. Todays run was early at 5:50 and it was very humid. My legs were not recovered from saturdays run so they did not feel fresh so the tempo was not super productive but still got it in the bag.

My splits were 5:33, 5:44, 5:43, 5:49, 5:58, 5:55, 5:57, 5:41 to average 5:47 pace.

Cool down was 2 miles.

Today's run felt ok still feeling tired. I ran pushing the stroller, I ran with Jon so that made the run more exciting to talk and not think about running as much.

AM- I met up with Bret and we did mile reps. Warm up was 3 miles. My goal was to do 6 around 5:10 pace and slowly get faster. I ran faster than I thought I was going to. The first few were rough but once I got into a decent rythem it was not that bad. My splits were:

5:06, 5:03, 5:02, 5:02, 4:58, 4:57

I was very pleased with this workout as I have been very tired lately and legs have felt sore and heavy.

Cool down was 3 miles.

PM- Easy 3 miles with my buddy Brad in Midway, it was difficult as I got a massage around 12 earlier today. My legs were still bruised I think.

I ran 13 miles and felt horrible. I got a massage yesterday and my legs still feel super heavy and sore.