Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 8 miles. Ran a hilly loop around June Lake w/ Andrea, then added on a few more miles.
PM - 3 miles. Wanted to see how 9000 feet felt. Afterwards, I signed up for the road mile in Mammoth on July 4th, so I guess it didn't feel too bad! I'm planning on getting my butt kicked in this race, but it will be a fun way to cap off the trip.

We got to Mammoth Lakes in the afternoon... took a leisurely bike ride around the upper lakes, then skied a lap on the mountain after the lifts closed down for the day. There is a TON of snow here! 

June Lake:
 

Mammoth Crest:

AM - 7 miles. Ran UP the hill from our hotel (which is at 8900 feet). First few minutes were lung-burning!

The rest of the morning was dedicated to skiing. We skinned up to the east side of Mammoth Mountain and skied a few laps on some steeper terrain, then came back over to the main side and took a groomer back to the bottom. A little over 3K feet total. 

After a solid pool/hottub/lunch session, we did an incredibly scenic mountain bike ride on the Inyo Craters loops. 13+ miles and about 1100 feet of uphill. It was all sand, so even the flat sections were a lot of work! This area has an unreal system of forest roads and trails. 

Another shot of Mammoth Crest:

From Summer Vacation - Mammoth Lakes

Andrea riding against an incredible backdrop ...
 

AM - 3.5 miles, up the hill.
PM - 4.5 miles w/ Andrea, then 6 x 50m strides.

Today was basically a scaled-back version of yesterday. We ran, skied a fun couloir that I've been eyeing for a few days, and took an easy bike ride around town. Andrea and I have done a TON of cool stuff on this trip... in addition to running ~80 miles this week, we've skied for 8 straight days, done some great mountain bike rides, and spent a lot of time hot-tubbing! Between running/skiing/biking, I've cranked out ~30-35,000 feet of vertical in the past 9 days... but it doesn't even feel like that much because its been so much fun.

Tomorrow I'll race the mile in the morning, then we have the 9+ hr drive back to SLC.

We took out the camera for a little running photo-shoot today... easy to see why so many elites love Mammoth Lakes...

From Summer Vacation - Mammoth Lakes

From Summer Vacation - Mammoth Lakes

The skiing isn't too shabby for early July, either :-)

Lots more pics of Mammoth Lakes 

Capped off our summer vacation by jumping in the Mammoth Lakes Freedom Mile this morning before we drove back to SLC. Our vacation turned out to be quite a training camp, so I was by no means rested for this one. In fact, my legs were actually a bit dead when I was warming up... so I just wanted to have some fun and see what I could do at 8000 feet. Josh Cox and Tim Tollefson got out in front of me off the start, and I couldn't really mix it up with them. I hung behind Josh & Tim, but he put the gas pedal down at the halfway point, and I resolved to run what felt like 5K effort the rest of the way :-) I wish I had gone harder after Tim, but I had too much fun running/skiing/biking for the past 9 days to have enough in my legs to make that possible. I hope I never have to race anything longer than a mile at that altitude, that's for sure! Cooled down 5 miles w/ Andrea to take advantage of one last chance to run in Mammoth, then made the drive back in 8.5 hours.

This was a good first post-marathon race, and a great end to end the vacation. I feel super strong right now, fully recovered, and I'm totally ready to get back into summer training mode and start building the miles back up... I think the focus for this summer will be to pop a good half at Top of Utah, and then hopefully take a shot at the OTQ this fall if things continue to go well.

From Summer Vacation - Mammoth Lakes

From Summer Vacation - Mammoth Lakes

AM - 9.3 miles. Wasatch Dr from HCI, out & back. Felt good. Now back to real life and work!
PM - 7.4 miles. Up the hill to 215 & back.

AM - 9 miles. Ran up to work. Perfect temps this morning. I was expecting it to be 100 degrees in SLC when we got back from California. This weather is feeling pretty good. Updated my personal blog yesterday w/ all the highlights from our vacation: Summer Vacation Roundup
PM - 8.4 miles. Down to Sugarhouse and ran 2 laps around the park w/ Andrea.

AM - 12 miles. Did a little tempo workout today. Ran from the HCI up Emigration Canyon to the firehouse (6 miles), then did 4 miles quicker coming back down in 20:42, then easy for the last 2 miles back to work. I only knew my start point and the four mile point of the tempo portion, so I has no idea what my pace was until the end. Felt more like ~5:30 effort, so the fact that it was actually under 5:10 pace is a good sign. 

PM - Took the mountain bikes for a spin on the Millcreek pipeline trail. No rattlesnakes!

AM - 7.7 miles. Up to work, nice and easy.
PM - 8.2 miles. Ran home, Andrea met me on her bike and rode back w/ me.

AM - 20 miles in Park City on the rail trail dirt roads. Really nice run... absolutely perfect weather, and did over 90% of the run on soft surfaces. Andrea and I crewed a water station at the 10K trail race in the morning, so biking the course was our warmup. Then after the race was over we started our run. She ran the first ~9 miles w/ me, then escorted me on the bike for the last 11 miles. Averaged 7-flat pace for the first half, then low 6:20s for the second half. Just cruise control pace on a great day. I'm hoping to do a lot of my long runs in PC this summer & fall... I don't know if the little extra altitude boost will help, but it certainly won't hurt!

AM - 11.3 miles. Its hard to beat running early on Sunday mornings... no cars, nice and peaceful. Probably my favorite time to run.
PM - 2.8 miles. A little shakeout run w/ Andrea after we went skiing.

Closed out the ski season by skiing the main chute on Mt Baldy today. Nice way to cap it off.

AM - 9.5 miles up to work, easy.
PM - 8.2 miles home.

AM - 10 miles. Did a workout at Highland/Sugarhouse this morning while it was still nice and cool outside. Ran a few miles to warmup, then did 4x200m in 33-34 secs to get the legs moving. Then did a 2-mile tempo effort on the park inner loop road in 10:11. Jogged back over to the track, ran a mile in 4:52, then 4x200m in 32-33 secs. Cooled down by jogging the perimeter loop. Felt good during the whole thing. 

PM - 7.4 miles easy on the grass at Sugarhouse w/ Andrea. 

AM - 9.5 miles easy up to work.
PM - 7.7 miles home. Today was, I believe, the 4th time in the past 10 days my department at work has had cake in the afternoon. I'm not even sure what or who the parties are for at this point! I just home they keep up this trend as I keep pushing up my mileage!

AM - 8.1 miles up to work. 

PM - 7 miles. Ran from work down to the Sugarhouse track (~5 mi), then did a quick set of reps to feel out 5K pace. Ran 6 x 300m in 53-54 seconds (100m jog in between), and then 2 x 200m in ~32 seconds. Looking forward to running Draper Days on Saturday and seeing if I can be in the mix.

AM - 8 miles. Sunnyside/Wasatch, nice and easy. 
PM - 1 mile shakeout after work.

AM - Draper Days 5K... ran 15:04 for 4th place. We had a pack of 5 (Teren, Jamal, Brandon, James, and myself) that stayed together for about a mile. Came through the 1st mile in 4:50. At that point Teren made a little surge and gapped me a bit. Jamal and Brandon stayed with him. Second mile was 4:41 (had some downhill). I didn't think I'd be able to catch any of the 3 guys in front of me, so I just tried to not slow down too much on the 3rd mile (slightly uphill). Hit the 3rd mile in 5:08. Brandon wasn;t too far ahead at that point, so I tried to throw down a kick (25), but came up just short. In hindsight, if I had changed gears about 100m earlier, I probably could have got him. Coulda-shoulda-woulda!

Overall, I'm happy with this. I need to get that killer instinct in these shorter races. I finished with way too much left in the tank. In races like these, I think you always have an extra gear or two, but its hard to let yourself hurt enough to go there. Marathon training and racing is so much more methodical.  I'm going to run a handful of other shorter races this summer while I continue to build my mileage back up... they are great VO2 max workouts.

Warmup was 3 miles on the course w/ Andrea... Cooldown was 6 miles w/ Andrea, Emily, and Bill.

Next weekend we are going to Tennessee, so I'll take a shot at breaking 15 minutes at a race down there if the humidity and southern cooking doesn't kill me! 

PM -  4.4 miles easy. Nice and hot out. Heard we missed some fireworks after the race at the awards ceremony... sheesh... kinda glad I didn't win any money today and didn't stick around for that.

From Random July 2011

AM - 19 miles. Long run on the Jeremy Ranch road. What a great place to run! I feel like I already hit the jackpot in my search for dirt roads that are over 6000 feet. Nice gradual rolling hills on hardpack dirt. This is going to be a staple long run location. I also finally broke down and got a Garmin watch (specifically for these longer runs and trail runs). Ran the first 10 miles w/ Andrea at 7:00 pace, then picked it up a bit for the next 7 miles (6:18) while she biked with me. Threw in a fast mile for #18 (4:51) and then an easy mile to cap it off. Total run was 2:06:19. Perfect morning... started at 8am and it stayed relatively cool.

PM - 3 miles shakeout.  

AM - 11.5 miles up to work via Parleys Trail / Wasatch Drive. Kept the pace intentionally very slow this morning.

PM - 9 miles. Ran home... clouds cooled it off a bit and it felt pretty good outside. 

AM - 14 miles. Emigration Canyon. Ran up steady, then 5 miles down faster in 25:33 (5:16, 5:13, 5:10, 5:07, 4:48). The goal today was simply to work on form... running "soft" on my toes and turning my legs over quick w/out expending too much energy. The first 4 miles were easy at that pace, so I picked it up a bit to finish off the workout. This week I'm just trying to get in some solid mileage, but also trying to have some pop in my legs for the 5K in Tennessee this weekend.

PM - 4.5 miles super easy on the wood chips at Liberty Park. 

AM - 10.5 miles up to work, very easy.

PM - 8 miles. Down to Sugarhouse, met Andrea, and did a couple laps on the grass. 

AM - 7.5 miles up to work. Another perfect, cool morning. I hope I don't jinx it, but the weather has been amazing ever since winter ended in early June.

If you haven't seen the Letsrun series on RoJo's trip to Kenya, post #4 is worth a read.

PM - 6.5 miles. Ran down to the Highland track and did my typical "Thursday before a race" tune up... 4 x 300m in 52 seconds, then 4 x 200m in 32-33 seconds. 

AM - 7.5 miles up to work.

PM - 4.4 miles. Running downtown from work, where Andrea picks me up on the way to the airport.  Traveling the rest of the day to Knoxville. The heat index there is supposed to be over 100 tomorrow. Good luck to everyone racing Des News (and other races) this weekend!

AM - 15 miles. We were supposed to run a 5K in Knoxville this morning... but we were also supposed to get here at 9pm last night. Due to who knows what issues the airlines were having, we sat in Denver's airport for an extra 6+ hours, and didn't get to Andrea's house and to sleep until almost 4am. Yesterday was a long, slightly annoying day. So, even though I was still feeling pretty good, I didn't see the point in racing on 90 minutes of sleep. No point in wearing myself out. Instead I decided to just make today an easy run... ran the first 5 miles w/ Andrea, then 10 more solo. It is so HUMID here! I was dripping sweat about 2 minutes into the run and didn't stop sweating until about a half hour after I finished running. Despite the humidity, it felt good to run all the nonstop rolling hills through the countryside... I love this type of terrain.

Slightly disappointed that we didn't get to race, because I really felt that a sub 15 was in the cards, despite logging a lot of mileage this week. 

PM - 5 miles easy. Spent the day on a boat (First time trying to water ski, I couldn't even get up!... Andrea is awesome at it so it was fun watching her). Did a little shakeout run (on some major hills) before dinner.

AM - 2.8 miles. Weird morning. Felt awesome when I woke up (my resting heart rate has been 36 BPM the last 2 mornings, where its usually around 39). Andrea and I were just about 20 minutes into our run, going really easy, when I took a step, felt something shoot up from my butt up through my back, and instantly I felt like I had no strength in my back/core. Knowing discretion is the better part of valor, I just stopped and walked back while Andrea ran back home and came to pick me up w/ a car. I have no idea what brought this on... its definitely not an overuse injury. I think I just took a weird step and hit it just wrong. My theory is that I probably jerked some muscles in my back around while trying to waterski yesterday. I learned my lesson... its hard to do those kinds of things (especially some new type of movement pattern) when you are pushing the mileage. Gotta be careful. The rest of today will probably be a rest day, which I haven't had in a very long time, so maybe its a good thing?

Anyone ever experienced something like this before? A shooting pain just coming out of nowhere?

PM - 1 mile jog... it didn't feel right so I bagged it, then bagged up a ton of ice and froze down my back. 

No running today. My last day completely off was in September 2010. I rode the bike w/ Andrea while she ran, and then we went white water rafting (which surprisingly didn't really bother my back too much). 

AM - 13 miles. Woke up and felt quite a bit better, so decided to at least try and jog around the block... and just kept going. Ran 10 w/ Andrea then added on 3 more. We kept the pace super easy (~8 min / mile), but I felt fine, so that was really encouraging. I'm not doing any faster running this week, just easy jogging until I feel 100% again. Running today was FUN!... I was on the verge of a mental breakdown last night so it felt great to be back out on the roads!

PM - 6 miles easy. Picked up the pace a little at the end and felt ok. My back is feeling a lot better than yesterday, and even better this afternoon than this morning. I think Sunday's incident was just a muscle spasm. Heading back to SLC first thing tomorrow morning... goodbye humidity! :-)

AM - 8 miles. Had to get this one in early (at 4am) before flying from Knoxville back to SLC. Back is feeling even better than yesterday, although being on airplanes for the past 7 hours didn't really aid the recovery process. 

PM - 8.9 miles easy. Ran down to Sugarhouse, met Andrea, ran some loops on the grass... the usual routine. 

AM - 9.2 miles up to work. Another noticeable improvement in how my back feel this morning. Almost back to normal.

PM - 7 miles easy breezy. 

AM - 11.4 miles up to work via Parleys Trail / Wasatch. My back felt great. Couple more days of easy paced runs and I think it will be 100%.

PM - 7 miles. Ran from work to the parking area for Parley's trail above Tanner Park. Now we're in Park City for the weekend... got 2 nights at the Westgate condos at the Canyons in exchange for going to a 1 hr seminar / tour tomorrow afternoon. Pretty good deal! 

AM - 20 miles on the Jeremy Ranch road. Ran 14 w/ Andrea, then 6 more. Averaged just under 7 min pace for the entire thing. It was cloudy and cool this morning... really nice running weather. Other than the cows that try to create a blockade on the road, this is my favorite place to do long runs. The total elevation gain/loss for the 20 miles is ~800 feet, pretty much rolling the whole way.

PM - 4 miles. Up a dirt road at the Canyons... serious climb for an afternoon shakeout! 

From Random July 2011

Being stalked by cows... 

AM - 15 miles on the bike paths that run between the Canyons and Park City. Ran a little over an hour, then picked up Andrea and went back out. Nice run... cool morning.

PM - Did some mountain biking... rode a big loop in Park City... 22+ miles w/ 2600 ft of climbing. Its funny how I can run a trail like that a lot faster than I can bike it!

Put up a bunch of pics on my blog: Park City Weekend