Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 9 miles. Short and to the point this morning - warmed up a mile, then right into a 6 mile MP tempo (that ended up being more of a progression run) - splits were 5:28, 5:23, 5:19, 5:16, 5:13, 5:02 (5:16/mi average). I was planning to run this a little bit slower, but once I got rolling it felt easy and the pace dropped naturally. Cooled down 2 miles. Glad to get this in, because I feel like my body is trying to fight off the sickness Andrea is trying to pass along to me, so who knows how I'll feel tomorrow.

PM - 8 miles. Double session today. Warmed up 2.5 miles, then ignored the no trespassing signs and hit the new Olympus HS track (its nice but not as soft as I hoped it would be). Workout was 12 x 400m @ 5K pace (no faster!) w/ 200m float in-between. Averaged 72.8 seconds for the reps, so I managed to keep it perfectly under control as intended. Jogged some laps the opposite way for a cooldown.

There was a method to my madness today with the double workout. The idea comes from what Renato Canova is doing with his athletes. Granted, I did a hobby-jogger version of the "special block" compared to what his guys do, but I just wanted to try it out and see how my body responds. In certain situations, it makes sense to stack the workouts back to back, and then take a day or two of very easy recovery running afterwards. Neither session today was very hard so I'm guessing I'll feel good tomorrow. If anything, the quarters were a little boring. I'm looking forward to eventually starting a weekly "track night" this spring and having groups to do workouts with.

AM - 8.5 miles up to work. Ran slow - as expected I picked up Andrea's chest congestion, but I don't feel too bad. The knee that has been bothering me a bit for the past two weeks was not even noticeable (I mean, I noticed that I had a knee... you get my drift!). I guess the double workout yesterday was what it needed to go back to normal.

PM - 11.6 miles home. Feeling a little sick/lousy, but not bad enough to run directly home. I meandered a bit through Sugar House. 

The plan for Saturday's long run is to meet at Riverton Town Park - run the 1/2 marathon course, then the 10K course. We're going to start at 7:30am. I'm guessing the run will probably break into different groups. Based on what happened the last couple times we got so many good runners together on a Saturday morning, the pace will probably end up being pretty honest.

AM - 8.8 miles. HCI/Sunnyside/Wasatch. Spent the first 3-4 miles coughing the junk out of my chest. Everyone I ran by probably thought I had just polished off a pack of cigarettes. I put about zero percent effort into that run, just going through the motions. I don't get sick very often - when I do, it usually hits me really hard for a day, then I bounce back quickly. Hopefully that will be the case this time. 

PM - 7 miles. Met Andrea at the Olympus track and we ran 2 miles together to warmup. I was originally thinking of doing a short tempo, but settled on something even easier - 12 x 200m w/ 200m jog... averaged 33.1 seconds for the reps. Not really impressive considering I picked the direction w/ a tailwind, but honestly I kinda feel like trash right now and that was about all I could manage. The workout accomplished the goal of clearing a lot more junk out of my chest. Jogged 2 miles on the artificial turf to cooldown.

Some weekend motivation. Desi Devila shared a journal entry from March 2006 with Running Times. A snippet from what she wrote:

If we will all eventually walk away disappointed, then what is the point? Why do we step out the door each day?  If only one person can be the best, are the rest of us essentially failing?  I certainly don’t have the answers, but today I’ll walk out the door with my Burns tied tight and hopes of setting the world on fire firmly engrained in my mind. Odds are I’ll never wear an Olympic medal around my neck, but maybe…just maybe, I will. With that in mind I’ll take off down the road and put in the days work.  If we don’t try we’ll never know. At least I can find out how good I can be.

AM - 21 miles. Met up with the biggest long run crew ever down at Riverton Park. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that there were ~35 people there. Obviously I'm not going to list all the names, but we had a ton of bloggers. It was a lot of fun and a great group of guys to run with this morning. We started off by running the Riverton 1/2 marathon course, which has a bunch of short, steep uphills. The first 12 miles were at ~6:30 pace, then Matt decided to string it out, so we ran the 13th mile in 5:25. Got a drink at the cars, then headed back out with a goal of going slower, but everyone remaining in the group was feeling pretty good and we ran ~6:25 pace for the next 7 miles. Fritz was willing to throw down a slightly faster last mile (5:12) with me to finish it off.

Thanks to everyone that came out... good synergy out there this morning! I love when we can get so many good good runners, working towards a common goal, out there pushing each other. 

PM - 4 miles shakeout, very easy.  

AM - 15.1 miles. Andrea and I met Rob Murphy at this house and started from there. Our original plan was to run all the way up Emigration Canyon to Little Mountain and then down to the Mountain Dell golf course (where his wife would pick us up), but by the time we got to the zoo, we realized that it was going to be a 25-30 mph headwind all the way up the canyon, so that wasn't going to be fun. Instead we cut up onto Wasatch and ran around Sugar House until Andrea stopped at a little over 10 miles. Rob and I did a few more laps in the park. It was a really nice run - great to have Andrea back out with us again!

Then we had blueberry & chocolate chip pancakes w/ Rob's family - great morning!!

PM - 4 miles shakeout after an afternoon of watching track, going to Costco, and watching football. A much needed lazy day. 

AM - 9 miles, up to work. The usual. 

PM - 11.5 miles. From work to Olympus HS (~7.5 miles), rolled into a casual 8 x 200m in 33.7 seconds average, then ~2 miles home from there. Chest congestion is still driving me nuts.

Andrea posted this thread on the forums. We're going to Mammoth Lakes at the end of July for vacation. Its going to be the ultimate week of trail running and playing in the mountains. If anyone is interested in joining us - we are 100% serious about opening this up and trying to get a group to head out there with us. We could rent a big house and really have a great time - check out Andrea's post and even if you are remotely interested, let us know.

AM - 6.5 miles. Easy morning. 

PM - 12.5 miles. Warmed up 3 miles, then 8 mile tempo run - splits were 5:14, 5:17, 5:16, 5:13, 5:16, 5:14, 5:13, 5:10 (Average pace  = 5:14 / mile). Cooled down 1.5 miles w/ Andrea, who was running by as I was finishing up. Did this run on the new extended (1.3 mile) version of the Winder Loop, where I've done my last couple tempos.

Today was one of those days where I just didn't feel like doing a workout. Everyone knows what that feels like. I tried to justify my sickness as an excuse. When I got out the door, I told myself I'd just do a short tempo and see how it felt... well, I'm glad I decided to suck it up and do the tempo, because once I started it felt nice and smooth. I got in a great rhythm right off the bat and felt like I could have kept it up quite a bit longer. Right now it feels very natural to lock into that "5:15 +/- a few seconds" pace.

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Functional path training is an interesting blog to follow. Its not necessarily about running - but some of the lessons and thoughts can most certainly be applied to our sport. I won't copy and paste the whole thing - but their recent post on "Level of Expectation" was especially good.

AM - 18.5 miles. JAJA+ run. Nice to have the group back together this morning, with Andrea and James off the injured list. Andrea dropped off at 7, James at 10... ran another mile w/ Allie, then we each headed home. Once I got home I just ran a couple extra loops around the neighborhood until I hit 2 hrs 15 mins.

Decided to stay home from work today and try to kill this chest sickness. I always feel terrible calling in sick (and rarely ever do), because I figure if I can run, then I can go to work. But considering I work in a cancer hospital, being tough isn't exactly very ethical. Andrea wisely convinced me to stay home. I should listen to her more often :-)

PM - 7 miles in the mist. I think I would go stir-crazy if I stayed home for more than one day. My big accomplishment of the day was buying some new walking shoes for my grandma w/ the New Balance gift card I won at the 5K. I figure Saucony won't care if she is rocking NB. Plus they lead the market in really plain, white leather sneakers.

250 pushups, 75 pullups today - both year to date bests. It will be a while before I beat those totals again! 

AM - 8 miles easy (64 minutes). First mile was 9:42, so it was actually quite a negative split run!

PM - 10 miles. Tempo reps on the track - 2 x 5K in 16:25 (5:18, 5:15, 5:14, :38), 16:19 (5:16, 5:14, 5:11, :38). Jogged a lap in-between. Had a harder workout on the schedule for today, but since I had a good workout on Tuesday, then a big mileage day yesterday, I thought it would be wiser to not push the envelope too much. 5K reps @ MP were a good substitute - quality miles, but not overly taxing... doing these on the track is excellent practice for the monotony of the marathon.You just zone out. 

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One of my favorite blogs, Sweat Science, has moved to Runner's World. This is from Alex's first post at the new location, on a topic very relevant to those of us who live in the SLC valley: If you have the choice between running alongside a river or running alongside a four-lane highway, choose the former every time. But if you're choosing between running on a polluted day or not exercising at all, this study should tilt you in favor of lacing up the shoes.

AM - 15 miles. HCI-Sunnyside-Wasatch-Parleys. Really nice morning with no crazy wind coming out of Emigration or Parleys canyons. Half day of work, then flying to AZ. I'll be doing my afternoon run in Sedona later today!

PM - 4 miles in Sedona at sunset. Andrea biked along with me. Perfect temperatures. Looking forward to running on some dirt roads and then exploring / hiking tomorrow. 

The USA XC Champs are this weekend in St Louis. Since almost everyone who is fast either ran the marathon trials or is in one of the big indoor meets this weekend, I probably should have thought this through a little better and run the XC championships - it would have been a opportunity to cherry pick a good finish :-) ... although I think I'm probably a better road runner than cross-country runner, anyways.

AM - 12 miles. Ran from where we are staying in West Sedona to the Vultee Arch road. It was a pretty awesome run - I would describe it as taking the Jeremy Ranch road, and plopping it down in the middle of Zion National Park. Rolling hills and stunning scenery the whole way.

I didn't take a camera (I'm not an ultra-runner!)... but here's what it looked like, thanks to google images...

PM - 6 miles. Ran to the Sedona high school (which is one of the nicest sports complexes I've ever been to).  Andrea biked along w/ me for the 3.5 miles over there... then I did 10 x 200m in 31.9 seconds average. That's faster than I've been hitting the 200s lately, and its at the end of a couple more big weeks, so a good sign. 

During the day we went hiking for a few hours, then went on a nice leisurely bike ride. Fun day... I took a ton of good pictures which I'll put up in a day or two. Really enjoying Sedona so far.

Andrea took some photos while I was running at the track... pretty nice setting, huh?

AM - 11 miles. Hilly run in Sedona w/ Andrea biking along. Garmin said it was ~700 feet of elevation gain... all up and down. Really nice run.

PM - 10 miles. Ocotillo golf course loop. Unreal weather (WARM!). At 7.5 miles I crossed paths w/ Andrea and ran a few miles with her.

I made a blog post with some pictures from Sedona... what a great place - we'll be back there for sure: "Winter" in Sedona 

A couple shots... lots more on the blog link...

AM - 19.3 miles. Ran 5 miles w/ Andrea, changed shoes, got a drink, then got going on the workout - 15K Tempo in 48:35 (~5:13 / mile average). I mapped out a nice loop of about 5K from my parent's house that didn't cross any major streets, did that 3 times... breezy and 50 degrees - pretty much perfect conditions for this workout. Splits were 5:18, 5:12, 5:20, 5:15, 5:11, 5:13, 5:14, 5:12, 5:09, and 1:32 for the last 0.32 miles. Changed shoes again, then ran another 5 miles... I was hungry by the time the cooldown was over!

I was very tempted to stretch this out to 20K or a half-marathon tempo since I was in a good rhythm. But I was reading Ryan Hall's book last night and he was talking about how there is a fine line between workouts that are a fitness deposit and ones that are a withdrawal. I wanted to make sure I pulled the plug early enough to make sure it was the former.

Pleased with how this workout went considering the volume of miles I have in my legs right now. 

PM - 4 miles easy on the dirt along the canal. Andrea gave me a 30 minute leg massage this afternoon, working out all the kinks / knots / etc. I'm pretty sure I owe her some $$ for that, she did an awesome job. I'm such a baby - I handle the tempo run better than the massage... but it was definitely helpful! 

AM - 10 miles. Up early this morning to get in the run before a 7am flight back to SLC. It was 55 degrees in Phoenix at 3:58AM when I started - hard to beat that! A lot easier to get out of bed and out the door when you can just throw on a pair of shorts and hit the road on a nice warm morning. Ran the Ocotillo golf course loop, dodging sprinklers.

PM - 10 miles, easy. 

AM - 11.5 miles. JAJA Wednesday. A very nice run as usual. On the last little push up to HCI it actually started snowing!

PM - 9.7 miles home. 

Track Thursday! Tomorrow - 5:30PM, Olympus HS. Nothing crazy, just some short reps (200-400m) @ 5K pace. You can squeeze through the fence at the south end of the track at the parking lot where the baseball fields used to be ( Map )

AM - 10.5 miles. 10K Tempo in 32:36 (5:15/mi average). Splits - 5:25, 5:21, 5:14, 5:10, 5:16, 5:07, 1:03. Warmed up and cooled down a little over 2 miles each. I purposely tried to dial it back a bit (especially off the start) this morning... I don't want to start trying to make each workout better than the previous one. Right now I'm at the point where I could do that - but there is still a lot of work to be done between now and Boston, so I need to make sure I keep things at the right effort level.

Track workout this afternoon... supercompensation day! 

PM - 9 miles. Met Adam (ACorn) and Andrea at the track and we warmed up together. Workout was 4 x 200m, 8 x 400m, 4 x 200m. Didn't try to crush it - just wanted to get in some 3K/5K pace work. Averaged 34 seconds for the first set of 200s, then 71.1 seconds for the 400s, and 33 seconds for the last set of 200s. Recovery was a 200m jog b/w reps. Adam and I ran 2+ miles for a cooldown. Really great to have some company on the track tonight! 400s were a little quicker than when I did the AM/PM double 2 weeks ago but the effort felt the same, so that's a good sign.

When I got home, Andrea had the ice bucket prepared for me so I could give my feet a good, cold soak. What a sweetheart! :-) 

AM - 11.5 miles up to work, easy jog. It took 2 weeks, but I think I finally have completely kicked the chest congestion out of my system... and I got in a lot of quality workouts during the time I was sick.

For anyone that doesn't already know, there will be a gigantic group meeting for a long run at JulieC's house tomorrow (7:30am, details on her blog). On Sunday, AdamRW and I are meeting at Highland High School at 8am for an easy 10-12 miles. Anyone is welcome to join us.

Some "local" running stoke - interview w/ Eric Houle of SUU. I like his response about what guys like Cam Levins bring to the table - in terms of getting their teammates to rise to a new level:

Anytime any program can get someone to blow up, in a positive way, and achieve great things, it inspires everyone around them. All of the sudden, the focus is “Is it possible?” and yes, it is possible. They see it happen in front of their eyes. They know, yes, the work they’re putting in and the things they believe they can achieve are happening. They can do them. And that’s what (Baumgartner and Levins) bring to our program. I think they bring inspiration, I think they bring belief — that the program does have — but now (their teammates) see and realize.

In many ways I think this blog has the same type of effect for a lot of us.

Talent and hard work are big parts of the equation - but those two things will only take you as far as what you believe you are capable of doing. Every one of us probably has the potential to be better than we think we can be... you just gotta believe your ceiling is a lot higher.

PM - 8.5 miles home.  

AM - 25 miles. Drove down to JulieC's house w/ Andrea, Allie, and Fritz... we were on time despite sleeping through our alarm and waking up 45 seconds before it was time to leave.

Met up with the big group... probably two dozen or so... and we were off! First couple miles were colder than expected (my toes were numb) and then it started to warm up once the sun came over the mountains. I really liked running down in this area - you are surrounded by amazing views of Lone Peak, Box Elder, and Timp the whole time. Its really a stunning place if you love the mountains.

Our group of a dozen or so guys slowly got whittled down as the run went on. Started easy and built into it. Averaged just over 6:45 pace for the first 14 miles, then we (Fritz, Scott, and Walter) got moving a bit faster on the gradual downhill back to Julie's house. Every mile got a little faster, peaking with the 20th mile in 4:52. Then Scott, Fritz, and I backed it off and went out for a "cool down" loop which ended up being 5 hilly miles at ~6:00 pace for me... everything feels easier after you've run a sub 5 mile. The average pace for the last 11 miles was 5:52. Total time was 2:39 for 25 miles. I felt stronger as the run went on, and might have kept going past 25 if Andrea hadn't yelled "stop running!" at me :-)

Thanks Julie for setting this all up today... and thanks for the yummy breakfast afterwards! Great to see all of you - and thanks for the push, guys. Its so much easier to get these quality long runs in with a group like this. A lot of bloggers are going to be running fantastic races this spring - its awesome to see everyone running so strong!

PM - 4 miles shakeout around the neighborhood. As usual, no watch... feeling very good. 

AM - 13.1 miles. Started at SHP w/ AdamRW, Allie, and James. Nice snowy/slushy run... luckily its Sunday morning, so not many cars out, and we could just run in the middle of the roads. James stopped at 5 and the rest of us ran up to the fieldhouse at the U (where Allie dropped out to meet James, who had driven up there - very complicated logistics!). Then Adam and I did a loop up on campus and back down to Sugar House.

PM - 4 miles shakeout... the usual. Lazy Sunday... just lounged all day (after sleeping 10+ hours last night).

Big week in the books. This upcoming week will be a planned volume cut-down. I'll try to get in a few quality workouts including the 15K on Saturday. Since the 5K, I've put in weeks of 137, 141, and 150 miles - all while slowly increasing the quantity and quality of faster miles. I like the 3 weeks up, 1 week down - that seems to work well for me. I did the same thing in January (3 weeks at ~140 and then a cut-down at ~110 w/ a race). Although since I have 2 more important races in March, there is no way I'll hit this kind of mileage again this spring. I'm typing this out to keep myself accountable. The base is solid - now I have 8 weeks to fine tune.

AM - 5 miles w/ Andrea... easy morning! Some of the roads were very slippery. We ran an extended version of horsepark loop, through the snow. Big workout on tap for the afternoon...

PM - 10 miles. Ugh, the afternoon didn't go as planned. Decided on doing 3 x 3 miles at @ MP or a little faster. Warmed up, then did the first rep in 15:44 (5:15, 5:14, 5:15). Legs felt great but my stomach went into knots during the recovery jog. As soon as I started the second rep I had to stop within 5 seconds - it wasn't happening, and if I forced it, things were gonna get ugly (you know what I mean). So I jogged home, barely made it, used the restroom, then by that point the workout was shot, so I just jogged around the block for a few miles and called it a day. Now I feel like I took the day off.

AM - 10.3 miles. Warmed up 2.2 miles, then went into a 7 mile tempo/progression run - splits were 5:27, 5:25, 5:20, 5:17, 5:17, 5:11, 5:04 (Average pace = 5:17 / mile). Jogged home a little over a mile for a cool down. Stomach still wasn't 100%, but it was wayyyy better than yesterday afternoon. I guess I must have eaten something that didn't jive well.

Normally in the case of injury/illness, or just plain fatigue, I wouldn't necessarily say its the best idea to come back and do a quality effort the next morning after an aborted workout. But none of those really applied to why I cut the run short yesterday, and my legs felt like they were just getting warmed up, so I didn't see why I shouldn't do something of substance this morning.

In the afternoons its easier to hit 5:15ish pace right off the start, but early in the mornings I really need to do the tempos as more of a progression run and start slower, as it takes me a few miles to get completely warmed up and into a rhythm. 

PM - 7.8 miles, Holladay loop. 

AM - 10 miles... FJRAIJTAZ run. Yes, Fritz joined the usual Wednesday crew this morning. I'm not sure if that's the acronym we'll stick with, but it works for today. He claims his "real" name actually starts with a J. We had a nice run - it was warm out this morning. This winter has been too easy. I can only think of like one or two days that were even cold. Andrea's feet are getting a lot better, so that makes me really happy... and James' body doesn't seem to be falling apart - so hopefully soon everyone will be at 100% on the health-meter!

PM - 9 miles. Warmed up 2.5 miles w/ ACorn at the track. Workout was 5 x 1000m w/ 200m recovery jog - 3:04, 3:05, 3:03, 3:01, 2:57. Rob Murphy jumped in the last 600m of the last rep with me. I broke him in the last 100 meters :-) The three of us ran a couple laps around the park to cool down, dodging the cyclists.

Really happy with how easy this felt. I was originally planning to take 400m b/w reps, but after the first one it was clear I didn't really need it, so I jumped right into the second rep after 200m and kept the recovery shorter throughout. I haven't done many of these kinds of threshold intervals in a while. Now a couple easy days before the 15K on Saturday.

Every once in a while Sports Illustrated (well, Tim Layden) has a great piece on distance running. This article on Galen Rupp and Mo Farah is a must-read. I love the 200m repeats in 25 seconds in Park City... jeez... that'll get your lungs burning! And it says they'll be back in PC this summer, so we'll definitely be over there every weekend stalking those guys as they buildup towards the Olympics :-)

AM - 7.3 miles up to work, easy pace. No watch, but I suspect it was faster than usual - I think this new addition of daylight helps me wake up quicker on the morning runs!

PM - 9 miles home. 

Last night after the track workout I met a guy who "sold" me a pair of Icelantic Shaman skis that have only been skied on once... mint condition. I put sold in quotes because he was pretty much giving them away - I could easily re-sell them for double/triple what I paid on ebay in 30 minutes today if I wanted to. I've been looking to pick up a pair of these specific skis for about a year, and ended up paying about 1/3 of what I expected to... sweet deal. The good thing about this dry winter is that skiers are panicking and unloading all their excess gear! My gain for next season!

AM - 6 miles w/ Andrea, easy pace.

PM - 4.2 miles. Did a loop around SHP, went down to the track and did 6 x 200m (on/off) in ~35 seconds each, then jogged around a bit more. 

Looks like tomorrow is going to be pretty windy. I guess we couldn't really expect the weather to be perfect for all three winter series races. The more pressing issue for me is what shoes to wear!?!? Figuring that out will be my primary objective for the evening.

The final installment of the "winter" series out at the SaltAir this morning - between the WIND and the fact that this one was a 15K, the overall turnout seemed to be a lot lower... but we had a big crew from the blog representing.

Originally my plan for this race was to hit 10K in ~32 minutes, and then try to hammer the last 5K. But when my jeep was getting tossed all over I-80 on the drive over this morning, I realized that negative split plan wasn't going to happen. The wind (according to NOAA's station at the airport) was consistently 20-30mph from the NW with gusts around 40mph. And that means major headwind on the second half of the course. So I changed my strategy to "go out quicker and hang on."

My garmin decided to erase all the data when I plugged it into my computer, but I can piece together most of the splits. I ran the first 7.5K in ~23:32. All of the splits were either 5:02 or 5:03 for the first 5 miles. Pretty consistent. After the 180 turnaround we hit the hurricane, and the pace slowed down. I ended up running the second half of the race in 24:32, so I was bleeding 10-15 seconds per mile with the headwind. The splits were something like 5:18, 5:25 (totally lost focus!), 5:11, 5:14. I was very content to just average marathon pace on the way back. Finished in 48:04 (Average pace = 5:09/mile). 

As far as I can tell from looking at old results, the course record was 48:37, so I came in 33 seconds under that time, in less than ideal conditions. Last year at this race I ran 50:29 and was thrilled with that time... its cool how the spectrum of what I think is "fast" has shifted so much in the past year. 

A good effort this morning - I'm happy with how it felt, and putting it into context of the accumulated workouts and volume of training, its another indicator that everything is moving in the right direction.

The 15K in Arizona on March 11th is going to be a great test for me. Considering the competition I'll be facing there, I'm thinking I can run 2+ minutes faster than today.

Good running today by the rest of the guys - Fritz ran low 50s, Walter had a really good season debut (in his crayola shoes!), and Rob ran another strong race.

Warmed up 2 miles w/ Rob and Walter... then cooled down 6+ miles with a big group - Andrea, Fritz, Kevin, Bill, Walter, and then we found Josse and added on a bit more. Nice to meet JD and Tina after the race as well. 

Tomorrow (Sunday) we'll meet at Highland High @ 7:30am for an easy group run around Sugar House.

PM - An easy 3 mile shakeout run. Does more for getting the kinks out than an hour of stretching would ever do for me :-)  Got the grill fired back up for dinner - I think we put it away for all of 2 months. 

AM - 16 miles. Andrea and I met Fritz, ACorn, and AdamRW at SHP and the 5 of us did a loop (~13 miles) around Holladay. I ran home from there. Nice run - good company and conversations. Got what I wanted today... a medium-long run at an easy pace. I'll probably wait until Tuesday before doing anything faster to make sure I'm 100% recovered from yesterday's race.

PM - 5 miles very easy. Its soooo nice outside! 

If you haven't seen Adam's message forum post about the NIH budget, check it out and consider signing the petition. 

AM - 10.3 miles up to work, really easy.

PM - 8 miles. Ran down to the track and cruised into 12 x 200m in just under 35 seconds average, just boppin' along. Someday that is going to be 5K pace - hopefully this year! Andrea was there running around so I drove home with her instead of running home.  

We watched a fantastic documentary yesterday called Man On A Mission. Its about Brother Colm O'Connell and St. Patrick's High School in Kenya. Eamonn Coghlan travels there to learn about the program. As you may or may not know, the school is a factory for producing world champion athletes. I found it very interesting - the culture is so much different than ours. At one point Eamonn asks a young runner how often he trains - the runner is almost embarrassed to admit that at that point, he is only training twice a day. And watch how slow they do their easy runs, too :-) The whole thing is 55 minutes, and totally worth watching from start to finish.

AM - 9 miles. 5 mile tempo in 26:19 (5:16 / mile). Splits - 5:14, 5:25, 5:18, 5:11, 5:11. The plan today is to do the AM/PM double workout, but now that its sleeting and gross outside, I'm sort of wishing I just got up earlier and did one longer workout this morning. I'll just see what the weather ends up being this afternoon and make the call later. The little bit of extra sleep was probably what I needed more than anything.

PM - 9 miles. 8 x 800m in 2:26 w/ 200m float recovery. All of the reps were within a half-second of each other, very consistent... just some cruise intervals at threshold pace. Didn't feel hard at all. The weather was great... it always seems worse up at my building, but then again - I work 600 feet above the rest of the city. The Highland track just had one 20m patch of slush that was slowly turning to ice towards the end of the workout. Warmed up 2 miles w/ Andrea, Tina, her husband Nate, and their dog. Cooled down about 2 miles by jogging Kenyan style on the grass. 

AM - 11.5 miles. JAJAF run and then up to work from there. Legs felt decent after yesterday's double dipper (no soreness), but they didn't feel springy. The group opened up a 15 yard gap on me in the first 30 seconds of the run that took me about 3/4 of a mile to close. I don't think anyone noticed I was dragging off the back at the beginning. Whew - that would have been embarrassing!

PM - 7.3 miles home. The first mile was windy, I could smell the salt in the air. Then it started dumping snow. I did not not enjoy this run! My head got very cold. 

February totals - 563 miles, 3100 perfect pushups, 670 perfect pullups. Solid month... lots of good workouts. I actually ran slightly more miles per day than January, but the percentage of quality/fast miles went up a lot. Averaged just under 8.5 hours of sleep. Drove my car to work a lot more this month (12 times).

A handful of us are going to do an Emigration Canyon long run on Saturday. We'll meet here (Eastside Elementary School - 3300S and I-215) at 8am sharp, then shuttle up to Mountain Dell Golf Course. The shortest distance back is 16.7 miles (route map). There are a few places we can add on some extra miles for those looking to get 20 miles or so.

Happy Leap Year!