Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 7.2 miles, hobbyjogging around. 

I wrote up a 2011 Recap on our blog... kinda fun to look back on everything we did this past year. At first I thought its going to be pretty tough to top 2011, but we get an extra day this year because of the leap year, so having 366 days to work with means we can raise the bar a little higher :-)

PM - 4 miles easy.

Went up to Brighton this afternoon to ski a little bit. We skinned up to the top of the Millicent lift twice (2140 vertical climbed) and skied the groomers back down. Its crazy how little snow there is in upper BCC. Nice to do a little cross training and skiing... its also really cool that Brighton is allowing uphill access on their property during the day... they are the only resort in Utah (that I know of) that allows people to do that.

AM - 8 miles easy.

PM - 11 miles. Warmed up 3 miles w/ Andrea on the grass at Sugarhouse, then did a 5K tempo on the track in 15:57 (5:13, 5:08, 5:01, 35). Ran 5 miles home for a cooldown.

I wanted to do something a little faster this afternoon to take advantage of the good weather and get my legs moving, but I also didn't want to push it too hard. I was originally thinking of doing some mile repeat cutdowns, but figured I might be inclined to push that kind of workout a little too fast. This workout fit the bill for what I was looking for today... faster than marathon pace, but not much faster. It felt pretty easy and that is how any workouts at this time of the year should feel - like I'm leaving a lot in the tank. 

AM - 8.6 miles up to work. Earlier than normal start this morning... bumped into Rob near Sugarhouse and ran with him for about a half-mile. Wore shorts again... I know eventually we're going to get smacked pretty hard by old man winter, so we gotta enjoy this while we can!

PM - 13 miles home... took a longer route. Nice run, legs felt great. 

AM - 11.4 miles. First JAJA run of the new year. We went through Tanner Park (creepy in the dark) up to Parley's trail and Wasatch Drive. I cut off at 8 miles and headed up to work. From up at HCI right now, you can see the smog starting to really build up in the valley. One of my co-workers said that they saw a group of bright orange and green runners with flashing lights when they were driving up here and figured it was me. At least we are noticeable!

PM - 10 miles home, nice and easy... colorful sunset. 

AM - 10.2 miles up to work, slowly.

PM - 10.2 miles home. Took a good shot from a tree branch... I'm actually quite lucky it didn't hit me directly in the eye...

The Saturday morning run is changing locations this week - to Provo! We are going to drive down and meet Rachelle and JulieC at the Tabernacle. If anyone wants to carpool, we can arrange that. Not sure what time yet - we'll figure that out by tomorrow. 

I made a Fast Running Blog group for the Olympic Trials prediction contest on Letsrun. You pick your top 10 men/women, which is really hard to do! Just remember, when trying to decide between Paul and Galen Rupp - think of this picture, and pick Paul!

AM - 19 miles. Ran to work the long way - down Holladay to 6200S, Wasatch all the way to Sunnyside, then up the hill. I really love running along the bench early in the morning... you feel like you are so far above all the lights in the valley. Kept the pace nice and easy, just enjoyed the run.

PM - 6 miles. Met up w/ Andrea near Foothill/Sunnyside, then we wandered through some neighborhoods and finished up with a lap around SHP (I'm using Rob's new abbreviation for Sugarhouse Park, and we are probably going to get insanely wealthy selling SHP bumper stickers). 

AM - 16.4 miles. Andrea and I carpooled down to Provo w/ Allie and James, and we met up w/ Rachelle, Julie C, and Cam. It was a very nice run, meandering through Provo and running on the snow along the river trail. Julie only made us run into 2 or 3 major construction roadblocks :-)

The weather was a lot nicer in Provo than SLC, so I'm very glad we went down there to run this morning. Thanks to Rachelle and Julie for setting this up! 

PM - 4 miles around the block. Cool full moon. 

AM - 11 miles. Horsepark loop w/ Andrea, then kept going for a while. The sun came out, and it actually looked wintery in the foothills. Nice morning.

PM - 4 miles. Andrea joined me for the afternoon shakeout!... which was great until she threw in a surge with a quarter mile to go :-)

Solid week. 143 miles (I count Monday - Sunday... I know I'm weird but it just seems more logical to me to count things that way)... and I've been building up continually for the past 6 weeks. Body feels good and strong - any aches I felt in December have gone away. The key now is to not start hitting the workouts too hard, but start incorporating a little more faster running.  

AM - 11.5 miles up to work. Mixed in a little fartlek workout. After ~20 minutes of easy running, I did 1-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1-1-1-1 minute efforts with 1 minute recovery (20 minutes total of faster running). Not sure of the pace... maybe like 10Kish effort? The first couple reps were flat (around SHP) and the rest were uphill. A good start to the week. Very cool-looking (and gigantic) full moon this morning.

PM - 7.8 miles. Met Andrea and we meandered through Sugar House neighborhoods.  

AM - 13 miles. Emigration Canyon run from HCI. On the way back down I decided to run what I am now calling the "zoo mile" at a faster effort (4:29). As you might expect, this mile starts near the zoo and finishes at the post office on Sunnyside. I did this about 10 days ago in 4:40. Its a 2+% gradient on that stretch, so a very aided mile... but a good way to get the legs turning over on a cold morning. 

PM - 6.2 miles. Met Andrea and we ran on Wasatch Blvd and through some Olympus Hills neighborhoods. 

Thought today's quote of the day from Letsrun was worth posting - from Utah native Patrick Smyth: "...Total immersion in any race build-up, but particularly one with the gravitas of the Olympic Trails marathon, forces one to get in touch with a few key things, not all of them cheery and inspirational. Amidst the endless miles, the underlying fatigue and general grogginess there appear occasional moments of clarity about where commitment takes you in this sport." 

I can't wait to watch the trials on Saturday.

AM - 12.6 miles. JAA/AJA/AAJ run. I'm not sure what the acronym is when James isn't there, so I'll use all the iterations. We actually ended up running a bit quicker than normal this morning. Hmmm maybe he is holding us all back? :-) After 9 miles the girls cut back down to SHP and I ran up to work, keeping the pace honest up the hill (otherwise I would have been late).

PM - 9.2 miles home.

Check Andrea's blog for details on the Saturday group run. Everyone who isn't running in the Olympic Trials is welcome to join us... sorry Paul. 

AM - 11.5 miles up to work, easy. Dressed pretty warm so I could just jog without freezing.

PM - 8.5 miles home. 

I've decided to run a spring marathon. At first I was going to hold off until the fall and just focus on the half-marathon championships, but they aren't until mid-June, and I'm already at a very good level of baseline fitness, so there is no reason why I can't do both. I emailed the BAA yesterday, and 30 minutes later I had an entry to Boston! So now a few more weeks of messing around, and then it will be time to start training seriously. Needless to say, I'm very excited. This is going to be a great opportunity for hopefully what will be a breakthrough race, and with so many bloggers making the journey out to Boston, it is going to be a lot of fun.

AM - 8 miles up to work. Slept in as late as possible today. Mixed in another little fartlek workout during the run: 10 x 1 minute w/ 1 minute recovery. They were all about 5K effort... first 5 were flat, second 5 were uphill. 

Get your picks in for the Olympic Trials prediction contest! Pick the "Fast Running Blog" group off the drop-down menu when you log in.

PM - 8.4 miles. Met Andrea after a few miles and we ran around Sugar House neighborhoods.

Looking forward to watching the trials tomorrow afternoon. I've barely been able to keep up with all the great interviews and articles this week... I love all the attention this event gives to the sport. Thought this passage I read today from Josh Cox was especially inspiring:

That’s what life is about, being faithful with your gifts and talents. Being our best, day in and day out. What would the world look like if we were all at our best? I’m not talking about “what split can you hit?” – all of us, at our best, in every area of our life, all the time. It would be astonishing. 

That’s what makes this weekend special; 130 of the best marathoners in America attempting to deliver their absolute best over 26.2 miles. When my friend Amby from Runner’s World says to my coach, ‘I think it's great that Josh is so focused on the Trials, but you've got to wonder what the point is.’ I say, going all-in is exactly the point, not just for this race but in anything in life. Honing your craft and stacking your chips for months, years, and even decades, to shove them all out on the line, hoping that one day their sum will deliver a magical performance – this is the dreamer’s dream, no matter the profession. Not hedging your bets, not having plan B’s; bleeding, clawing, and scraping to keep your dreams alive when the critics, pundits, and just about everyone else is telling you to give up. Life is full of folks telling you no, you can’t, you’re not qualified, you should move on. For every dreamer there are a hundred critics. For everyone pursuing their dreams there are a hundred cynics. But I learned something long ago; those who have abandoned their own dreams will try to convince you to abandon yours. Don’t listen. 

Here's the whole thing he wrote. 

AM - 25 miles. Biggest Saturday crew yet this morning - Andrea, Allie, Emily J, Rob, Fritz, Bryan, Cam, Dan, Matt, Scott, Steve, and Adam (who was dressed in a neon green that blows away any of the bright gear I own!). A long run with a group like this is an absolutely awesome way to kick off the day... the time just flies by! I ran up to Tanner Park from home, met everyone, and we got going. We did a 16 mile loop down to the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon, then back along Wasatch Blvd. I added on a little more w/ Dan, Scott, and Fritz, and then ran home from there to get an even twenty-five.

PM - 3 miles shakeout. Went for a little jog to get loose. Surprisingly felt no kinks after the longest run I've done in a while.

The trials were fun to watch, as everyone who watched knows! So cool to see some great performances on both sides. Meb running with the flag in the final stretch (in Sketchers!) was probably the highlight for me. So heartbreaking for Ritz... he really fought hard in those last couple miles. All the women ran tough - I was impressed that Kara was able to maintain contact and stay close after Shalane and Desi broke away. Like Andrea said, she is probably used to hanging on by a thread with Shalane in workouts! We are sending strong marathon teams to London.

Congrats to Paul - 2:20 and change... second straight olympic trials... he is definitely an inspiration to us. 

AM - 10 miles. An easy loop around Holladay w/ Andrea... nice to run with her today, since she dropped me a tenth of a mile into the run yesterday :-) Really pleasant run on a warm morning! This is January? 

PM - 5 miles with a quick stop at Walgreens to run an errand. Legs felt very snappy - good sign after running 25 yesterday morning. 

Everyone knows I am loyal to Saucony, but yesterday Meb Keflezighi and Tom Brady proved that sometimes you can't go wrong with Sketchers and Uggs!

Our latest project - I have to be honest and admit that Andrea did well over 90% of this...

AM - 10.3 miles up to work. Another fartlek workout... warmed up ~20 minutes, then did 10 x 1 minute (1 minute float recovery)... ran about a mile easy, then did another set of 5 x 1 minute. By that point the roads were starting to get slippery so I figured that was good enough for this morning. The first set was on flat roads, second set was uphill. The goal is to make suffering on uphills such a regular occurrence that I don't notice the Newton Hills in Boston. 

PM - 15 miles home. Only had to work a 1/2 day so I was out of there at noon - right when the snowstorm was hitting pretty hard. First 7 miles were character-building, then the sun came out and it was a beautiful afternoon. The highlight of the run was watching the kids kamikaze down the sledding hill (which had a dusting of snow over grass) at Sugar House.

Why you should stay active. 

AM - 10 miles. HCI/Sunnyside/Wasatch. A little chilly!

PM - 12 miles. Emigration Canyon run w/ some downhill tempo on the way back down. On the way up it just felt way too easy, and as soon as I turned around I found out why, as I felt the wrath of the up-canyon headwind. Did 4 miles tempo on the way down in 20:33 (roughly from the firehouse to the post office). Enough to get some turnover, but not beat my legs up too much. Nice to run the canyon in daylight for once. On that note, the days are getting noticeably longer.

A little Olympic Trials stat geeking... In Paul's trials recap, he posted the mile-by-mile splits. I thought it was pretty interesting, so I converted it into an excel spreadsheet and made some graphs that visually show some of the carnage. Here's the blog link, and you can download the spreadsheet there as well: Stats from the men's Olympic Trials Marathon 

AM - 10.8 miles, JAJA run. Compared to yesterday, it was almost HOT outside this morning. We had a nice run, keeping the pace nice and easy. After 8 miles I split off and headed up the hill to work. Free breakfast today, so life is good! :-)

PM - 10.3 miles home. Easy pace... just jogging. Light rain, but not too cold.  I'm supposed to get some bloodwork done at 4pm tomorrow - I thought about this on my run and realized there is no way I can make it that long without eating! I think I'm going to have to convince the clinic to let them draw the blood up at my hospital. It all goes to the same place anyways.

Yesterday I posted some splits from the men's marathon trials. I don't want to be gender-biased, so here's some graphs from the women's race: Stats from the Women's Olympic Trials Marathon 

AM - 11.5 miles up to work. Kept the pace really easy... I think its safe to label it as jogging. If I had gone any faster I would have overheated anyways... the sign at the school on 17th east said 48 degrees. Feels like spring - although it looks like Alta is going to get 4-5 feet of snow b/w now and Sunday, so for the first time this winter I'm actually a bit excited to go skiing.

PM - 10.3 miles home, met Andrea for a few miles along the way. 

OT blogging week continues!... Some of our favorite post-Olympic trials blogs and stories

AM - 11 miles up to work on another warm April morning. In the middle of the run I threw in a little 2 mile tempo @ MP (5:25, 5:16) on the flat section between 3300S and SHP. The other night I slept on my right knee in a weird way, so I've been babying it the last couple days... I did the tempo "test" to see how it would feel. It was fine. The only time I feel anything weird is going uphill for a long time (ie. the second half of every run to work), so I'll stick to the flats for the next couple of days.

PM - 10 miles home. Making Bill Rodgers proud this week. 

I had a full battery of blood work done yesterday - here are the results relating to iron (which I was most interested in getting baseline data for before I start this next cycle of marathon training):

The reference ranges are not for normal adults, but rather some data I found for elite marathon runners (from David Martin and Peter Coe's textbook). So, as expected, I'm where I want to be. An interesting fact is that in cycling, if your hematocrit is over 50%, you are automatically suspended. So you can either take PEDs, or just train really hard and get the same results :-) 

All my other tests came back in normal ranges. My cholesterol is a little higher than I would like it to be (darn genetics - it runs in the family, but its something that I need to keep tabs on). TSH is perfectly normal. My bilirubin was elevated, but what can you expect when you have run 600 miles in the past month? - the body is under stress and RBCs are getting destroyed all the time. I'll see the doctor on Monday, so it will be interesting to talk to him about all these tests and what he thinks they mean. In the meantime, I'll break out my physiology textbooks over the weekend.

AM - 16 miles. Andrea and I picked up Emily B, then went up to Bountiful and ran the Legacy Parkway Trail w/ Kam, Tara, Allie, James, Mark, Cam, and Andy. The weather wasn't too bad - rainy and windy at times, but not too cold. On the way back I threw in a 3 mile MP tempo in 15:22 (5:11, 5:08, 5:03). Obviously faster than marathon pace, but I'll chalk that up to the nice tailwind. This was exactly what I wanted today - just a medium-long run with some tempo. After running 154 miles in the past 7 days, I didn't really need another 20+ miler today.

After the run we went over to Kam's house for breakfast. His wife made us hot chocolate and delicious belgian waffles!  Hard to beat a morning like this on such a dreary day - a great group run, conversations, and a fun time hanging out afterwards.

PM - 4 miles in about 2" of slush on the roads. I was getting too comfortable laying around on the couch, so I decided to get in some character building miles. It was kind of fun once I got out there. Then we went up to The Pie w/ Rob Murphy and family and ate a bunch of pizza! 

AM - 5.2 miles of running / ice skating. It was probably the worst running I've had since the last couple miles of the Philly marathon, mainly b/c my stomach was killing me. Lesson learned - only eat 1/2 as much pizza at The Pie as you think you should :-)

Skied all day up at Brighton. A couple feet of new snow is now covering up most of the rocks and branches. Finally! Andrea skied circles around me all day and made me look like a total amateur. Great to be up in the mountains, though. And my ski legs will come back eventually.

PM - 6.7 miles.

AM - 6.1 miles. Easy run from home. This is a scheduled lower mileage week. I don't feel like I need it right now, but unfortunately I'm smart enough to know that gains are made in recovery, and I need to give my body a chance to absorb the work I've done over the last month. Boston is 12 weeks from now, so its a good time to back off a bit and let the batteries get fully charged for the first cycle of marathon training. This week will be a major test for me mentally - probably a lot harder than just banging out 20+ mile days.

PM - 8.5 miles. Warmed up one mile and then went straight into a 5 mile MP tempo on a nice, flat, no-traffic loop close to home that I measured out yesterday that will now be known as the Winder Loop. Its just over a mile and perfect for shorter tempos. Splits were 5:18, 5:20, 5:18, 5:13, 5:05. Every lap the snow seemed to be coming down harder, and that made it was pretty fun! Cooled down 2.5 miles back home. For whatever reason, I really enjoyed this run. I think its just that I know I'm starting to gear up for another marathon again, and that makes me excited.

AM - 7.3 miles up to work. Slushy, slippery... wet shoes.

PM - 7.3 miles home. Dry shoes.

AM - 10.3 miles. Ran w/ Bryan from the HCI - Sunnyside/Wasatch out & back. Gotta get him on the blog so he can be on our team for Boston. He's gonna be ready to PR this spring. Legs felt good... I'll do a short, light workout this afternoon when its nice and warm out.

PM - 7 miles. Warmed up a mile, then went right into the workout - 10 x 1/4 mile w/ 1/4 jog recovery. Average for the quarters was 69.4 seconds, and I kept the "jog" at ~6:20 pace. I did this on the same loop from my tempo run on Monday. Today was the first time I changed the settings on my Garmin 110 since I took it out of the box last summer - I used the auto-split every 0.25 miles setting instead of the standard 1.0 mile setting. Pretty useful for days when I can't get on the track. Breathing felt a little off because I haven't done any running at this pace in a while, but my legs felt nice and snappy. I'm reaping the benefits of the down week.

I've been saying this forever - don't wear high heels! :-)  

AM - 7.3 miles up to work. 

PM - 7.3 miles home. Lightly misting. Some younger girls playing in their yard on 1700E yelled out "hey - there's the orange guy!" 

Blue Kinvaras surpassed the 1000 mile mark today... still going strong! 

Andrea has a co-worker visiting from Brazil, and she has never seen real mountains, so we are going to take her up to Alta on Saturday afternoon to snowshoe around a bit. Anyone is welcome to join us - we'll try to meet around 1-1:30pm and then carpool up. It probably won't be very difficult hiking, being that she is from sea-level and has never really even been in cold weather before. But the weather looks good, and its always nice to hike up towards Twin Lakes or Catherine's Pass and look back at Superior and LCC. Hard to beat this view...

AM - 7.1 miles. Ran the first 4 miles easy, then did 11 x 30 seconds @ 5K pace with 60-90 seconds between efforts. I was shooting for ~8 reps, but completely lost count of how many I'd done about halfway through. It was too early in the day for math.

The first "big" marathon (other than the OT) of the year was today (or yesterday, or whatever day it is over there) in Dubai. Four guys you've probably never heard of ran 2:04. Yowzers. I liked this quote from Letsrun, about the winner: "From 39km to 42km, the guy ran an 8:29 split. That's 9:03 3,200 pace. Think about that for a minute."

PM - 3 miles shakeout. Headed to the Brad Paisley concert now.

Offer still stands - if anyone wants to head up to Alta for some snow fun tomorrow afternoon (~1:30PM), let me know. 

First race of the year this morning out at the Saltair Palace. Great weather for a January race... it was pretty warm by the 10am start time.

Warmed up with Rob, did a few 30 second efforts, then we were off. Fritz and I ran together for the first mile. We had a nice tailwind and hit the mile in 4:46. Then Fritz dropped off a bit, and once we hit the turnaround (and headwind) I backed the pace off to more of a threshold effort. I felt like I had a few more gears in my legs, but just didn't mentally feel like suffering. I'm a baby!

Next two miles were 5:00 and 5:01. Last 0.1 was 31 seconds. Finish time of 15:20. I looked back at all the old results posted online from the winter series, and this ties the fastest time run on this course. I should have listened to Andrea and pushed the last bit a little harder! Fritz ran well and finished in 15:50.

Cooled down 6+ miles w/ Emily B, Devra, Allie, and James. A nice showing for the blog today - top 3 guys, Rob winning the masters race, Emily and Allie going 3-4 in the women's race. And Devra winning was great too - she's not on the blog but we run w/ her enough that she is still part of the crew!

This was a good first race of the year for me. Very controlled effort - I'm in a good place right now as I start the buildup towards Boston. Way, way, way ahead of where I was at this point last year.

Won a $100 New Balance gift card for my efforts (although I can't wear New Balance stuff... haha). And this was also apparently the RRCA state championship - so I'm the Utah State 5K champion, and I have a coaster to prove it! :-)

Fun morning. Andrea took a bunch of pictures. Here's her full gallery: SLC Track Club 5K ... Allie's pics from the finish are especially good.

PM - Busy afternoon! Came home, wrote this race report, then went to TCBY and met up with Allie, James, and Andrea's co-worker from Brazil. We filled up on Fro-Yo, then went up to Alta for the afternoon. They all snowshoed and I played around on my rando skis. Really nice to be up in the mountains on a beautiful afternoon. I have some good pictures and will post them tomorrow. Once we finally got down the canyon (traffic was a mess so we stopped at Snowbird for a while and got some hot chocolate), I got out for a 4 mile shakeout run and it felt good to stretch out my legs.

AM - 21 miles. Started from SHP w/ Fritz, Allie, and James. Ran south to Cottonwood Complex, at which point Fritz and I broke away (sorry JA - we didn't necessarily mean to bail on you!) and ran back via Wasatch. After 19 miles I turned home and Fritz ran to the gym. Averaged ~6:15 pace for the last 12 miles, so a pretty good clip for a casual Sunday run. Felt good as I usually do after running the 5K yesterday.

Pictures from snowshoeing yesterday 

PM - 5 miles shakeout, easy breezy. 

AM - 8.6 miles up to work, slowly.

PM - 11.2 miles home. Nice outside. 

You might have seen in the news over the weekend that there was an avalanche fatality in Big Cottonwood Canyon. We saw the rescue helicopters flying around while at Alta on Saturday, and a patroller filled me on the news. It wasn't until we got home that the name of the victim was released... Alecs Barton (KSL article). While I didn't know him personally, Andrea and I did run into him one day last February while touring in Beartrap Fork (our recap of that day). It was one of the "perfect" days where every photo we shot was good enough to go on the cover of a ski magazine. When we crossed paths with Alecs, I could sense his excitement and enthusiasm (you immediately could tell he was a great guy), and he wanted to shoot some photos of me skiing down towards some low clouds in BCC. He sent me several photos that night like the one below of me skiing:

These kind of tragedies hit home especially hard when you know who the person was. It sucks. Backcountry skiing is very scary this year. We are taking no chances - and pretty much just waiting until the spring (and after Boston) to do any real serious BC skiing. 

AM - 10 miles up to work, easy pace. 

PM - 10 miles home.

January roundup - 589 miles run, 3050 perfect pushups, 610 perfect pullups (more pullups than miles!), averaged 8.5 hours of sleep per night, and drove my car to work 4 times. Good start to the year.