Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

Planet Walk plus a block with the dog, easy. No watch. Legs feel okay after yesterday. No soreness, but they are tired.

(Adrenaline blue: 327 miles)

I thought yesterday was an outstanding performance by bloggers in the half marathon. By my count, we had 2 people under 1:10, 10 people under 1:20, 16 people under 1:30, and 19 people under 1:40. Not to mention the PC marathoners. I have probably missed some performances in there. Now can you imagine if we get everyone to run the same half marathon the same day? The race director's head will spin, wondering how their race got so fast!

AM - ran the canal loop (6.5 miles) with Seth Wold and Vance Twitchell. The USU guys took it easy on me. 7:17/mile average pace. Did a mile with the dog afterward.

(1120: 226 miles)

PM - River Trail (8.5 miles) with Jon, Cody, and Dan. 7:59/mile average pace.

(Cascadia: 330 miles)

Big Workout today. Sort of. I did a 9-mile tinman tempo (15.5 miles total for the run) on the Millville Hill Loop, plus 4x200m barefoot strides in the grass at the end. My tempo pace was about 10 seconds slower per mile than usual (or more), mainly due to still being a bit tired from Saturday. I decided to back off and complete the entire tempo at a reduced pace, rather than try to force things and risk blowing up. I have another workout Thursday, so today should help that rather than hurt it. By the time I got to the end of the tempo, I found a good rhythm, and was pretty satisfied with the workout. It was a good endurance-builder. The barefoot strides felt pretty good afterward too.

Mile	Split	Comment
1	6:11	uphill
2	6:02	rolling
3	6:13	uphill
4	6:44	big uphill
5	6:03	flat/rolling
6	5:55	little bit uphill, then downhill
7	5:53	all downhill
8	5:58	flat
9	5:55	flat

200's were pretty mellow. I hit 37-38 for all of them. The grass was nice and soggy, but not too cold. 6:34/mile average pace for the entire run.

(Triax: 32 miles)

AM - Logan Loop, plus a mile with the dog. 9 miles total. Easy pace. 7:29/mile average pace.

(1120: 235 miles)

PM - Out-and-back to First Dam via the canal trail 7.25 miles total. 6:57/mile average pace.

(Adrenaline blue: 334 miles)

I did a little bit different of a workout today to keep things fresh. I ran from my house to the canal trail to the Bonneville Trail to Green Canyon, and up Green Canyon a couple miles, and then back the same way. The rule today was that I had to surge up every uphill, so sort of a hill fartlek. Obviously this got tough up Green Canyon, since it was all uphill, but it was a bit more fun on the rolling BST. Coming down Green Canyon I hit 6-minute pace. After I got off the BST on the way back, I did about 3 tinman miles at 6-minute pace as well. 7:05/mile average pace for the entire run.

(Hardrock: 50 miles) 

AM - landfill loop via planet walk with Cody. Easy pace. 7:39/mile average pace.

(1120: 243 miles)

PM - went up Center Street to Providence via River Heights, down 100 N to Golf Course Rd, and back to my house on Main. I don't have a name for that loop, hence the long description. Started out slow and sluggish, but hit low-6 pace on the last half and ended up feeling very good. 6:50/mile average pace.

(Adrenaline blue: 340 miles)

That gives me 431 miles for the month, a new all-time high, and first time over 400. My previous high was around 370, back in 2004. Looking back at my mileage from previous years and comparing to this year, I am doing about twice the volume per week this year on average. And it's much more consistent. More fun facts: of my first 8 marathons from 2002-2005, 6 were over 2:40 (including a 2:47 at TOU), and the other two were both 2:35. My half marathon PR through 2005 was 1:14. Looking at these trends, and then around the Blog at guys like Cody, Logan, Clyde, and others, a pretty obvious fact emerges: you get faster by running more, doing it with quality, and doing it consistently. Inconsistent training yields underperformance, at least in the marathon.

Big Workout today. This morning I ran with Jon's ATK club, which is a great deal because they have caches of water and gatorade every 3 miles, plus bagels and other goodies at the end. James, Dan, and Logan mooched on too. We met at the end of Hollow Road (Mile 17 of the TOU course), and shuttled up Blacksmith Fork Canyon to Mile 3 of the TOU course. From there we ran up to the top of the canyon to the start and Hardware Ranch, took a drink/potty break, and started running down.

After a potty break at Hyrum Park (TOU Half and Freedom Run start lines), Logan and I began a marathon-pace tempo back to the cars. I never felt great at any point of the tempo, but did feel strong enough to keep truckin'. I think that is a result of the 100-mile weeks. I don't have a ton of spring in my steps, but my endurance is very high. Toward the bottom we got a slight tailwind, but nowhere near what we experienced last week. It also started to get warmer out. We stopped once during the tempo, about 7 miles into it, to take some water and gatorade, but other than that it was continuous. Average pace for the tempo was 5:17/mile. If I can do that for all of St. George, that would be good. Average pace for the entire run was 6:11/mile, a new PR for a 20-mile training run. My quads got rocked good by the downhill, but that is what I needed. They need to adapt in order to kill it during the last half of St. George.

Nice progression run today. Splits are below.

Mile	Split	Comment
1	7:48	uphill
2	7:38	uphill
3	7:20	uphill
4	6:54	up and little, then down
5	6:52	downhill
6	6:43	downhill
7	6:45	downhill
8	6:37	downhill
9	6:33	downhill
10	6:20	downhill
11	6:02	downhill; started tempo last 0.2
12	5:18	tempo; downhill
13	5:20	tempo; downhill
14	5:17	tempo; downhill
15	5:17	tempo; downhill
16	5:13	tempo; downhill
17	5:16	tempo; downhill
18	5:19	tempo; hollow rd; stopped for water
19	5:12	tempo; hollow rd
20	5:51	tinman tempo; hollow rd
20.25	5:48/mile pace	tinman tempo; hollow rd

103 miles this week. With two big weeks in a row, next week will be "down" a little bit, probably low to mid-90s. I like to do three-week cycles of two big weeks followed by one moderate week. This usually correlates to my race schedule so that the race is on a moderate week. My favorite race in the Utah, the Alta Peruvian Downhill Dash, is next Saturday.

(Triax: 52 miles)