Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 12.8 miles. Nice easy run around Holladay, down to 6200S and looped back. Weather was surprisingly not too bad (especially since 145" of snow fell between 4 and 5am this morning.. haha I think a snowcat drove into the weather station!). Another double digit night for sleep hours - didn't get started until 10am again.

This has been another great week of running. I bounced back quicker from the 15K even faster than I thought I would, got in a nice long run on Monday, then quality days on Thursday and yesterday, all while keeping the overall volume at a high level. The whole winter has gone well, but I feel especially fortunate now that it seems that all the little aches have completely gone away. I have 100% health going into these last couple weeks of hard workouts. 

PM - 6 miles, horsepark loops. Finally heard from Andrea, she made it to Brazil in one piece, and is still in one piece. She only sent me one picture, but its a good one... check out that track location! :-) ....

AM - 10 miles, up to work. It snowed twice during the run for a grand total of about 35 snowflakes. 

PM - 10.5 miles home with some extra loops on the grass in SHP. 

AM - 10 miles. 10K Tempo in 32:23 (5:13/mile avg). Splits - 5:14, 5:24, 5:15, 5:09, 5:14, 5:06, 1:01. Another deposit in the workout bank. I started re-reading Once a Runner (for the 20th time) over the past two nights... that book makes it really easy to get in the right mindset for harder efforts... in fact it makes it fun!

PM - 9.5 miles. So, maybe one workout a day is fun, but I have to admit that getting mentally prepared for #2 is a little more difficult. But such decisions were made long ago, when I decided to run a spring marathon, right? Anyways - warmed up by running 3 miles around SHP then went down to the track. 3 x 1600m in 4:54, 4:56, 4:55 (400m jog), then 8 x 200m in 33.0 avg (200m jog). I was thinking of doing another 1600 rep, but then thought about how I commended Melody and Rachelle for knowing when to pull the plug on their workouts today, and figured maybe I should take my own advice :-)  Without Andrea around, it takes more effort to come to such logical conclusions. In any case, a good workout... I got what I wanted out of it - some LT miles and some turnover work - and I stopped while I was still at a point where I was feeling good.

AM - 13.1 miles up to work. Met Fritz on my way up at SHP and we ran 5+ miles together before he turned off to the gym and I headed up the hill.

PM - 7.3 miles home. I love when its warm out, but the west slabs of Mt Olympus are snow-covered. It has to be one of the most stunning "urban" views in the world. 

Since everyone ordered OAR (the book, not the band) yesterday, I figured I should post Chapter 17: Breaking Down to further fuel the fire. This chapter is always worth a read, even out of context of the rest of the book... the whole thing is quotable...

Cassidy sought no euphoric interludes. They came, when they did, quite naturally and he was content to enjoy them privately. He ran not for crypto-religious reasons, but to win races, to cover ground fast. Not only to be better than his fellows, but better than himself. To be faster by a tenth of a second, by an inch, by two feet or two yards than he had been the week or year before. He sought to conquer the physical limitations placed upon him by a three-dimensional world (and if Time is the fourth dimension, that too was his province). If he could conquer the weakness, the cowardice in himself, he would not worry about the rest;it would come. Training was a rite of purification; from it came speed, strength. Racing was a rite of death; from it came knowledge. Such rites demand, if they are to be meaningful at all, a certain amount of time spent precisely on the Red Line, where you can lean over the manicured putting green at the edge of the precipice and see exactly nothing.

AM - 8 miles. Warmed up 3 miles around SHP, then went down to the track and did a 5K Threshold Tempo in 15:33 (4:58, 4:59, 5:00, 35). Cooled down 2 miles. I definitely misunderestimated how dark it was going to be at the track this morning (despite the fact that I run outside every single day at that time). 

PM - 8 miles. Ran 30 minutes easy on the grass at SHP, then grabbed my spikes and went back down to the track. Rob was there, and he shared some wisdom with me: "Spikes are spikes, you just buy them because they look cool." Well, mine look cool. Spiked up for the first time in about 4 years and ran 8 x 400m in 67.9 average (200m jog). Jogged around for a bit to cool down.

Today was definitely a deposit (not withdrawal!) day. I don't even feel like I did anything. But that's good because I need to save up some energy for a long tempo run on Saturday. All afternoon I kept coming up with ways to modify the afternoon workout to make it more challenging, but eventually I realized I was being stupid and the whole point was just to get in a little speed and make sure the spikes felt good. In the end, mission accomplished.

I guess I'll add my first impressions of the Endorphin LD3. Super light, the toe-box has more room than the spikes I used to wear (Zoom Kennedy). In fact you could probably get away wearing socks with them, although I am strongly against socks w/ spikes! The upper hugs the foot perfectly and there are absolutely no seams (so perfect for wearing without socks). I think they'll be good for 5K/10K.

AM - 8.2 miles, easy jog up to work.

PM - 8.2 miles, marginally faster jog home. 

AM - 19.5 miles. Today was my big 26.2K Tempo Run (16.3 miles)... the metric marathon. Obviously this is taken right from the Hanson's playbook. I did this out at the airport-saltair frontage road. It was kinda windy (~10-12mph from E/SE), so a cross/tail wind when heading west, and a pretty tough headwind when heading back west. It definitely took a lot more effort (and focus) running into the wind, and it also prevented me from turning this into a 26.2K time trial, which is actually a good thing. The goal for this workout was a consistent MP effort on legs that are nowhere near tapered yet.

I ran 1:26:59 (5:20/mile average) for the tempo. Splits were: 5:18, 5:19, 5:21, 5:16, 5:20, 5:20, 5:26, 5:27, 5:26, 5:25, 5:17, 5:17, 5:24, 5:24, 5:17, 5:16, 1:26. The ones in italics were into the headwind. Warmed up 1.5, cooled down 1.7. This is the longest tempo run I've ever done... physically it wasn't that bad- it was more of a mental challenge to stay focused when running solo for that long.

From the 15K until today, this is probably the best two week stretch of running I've ever done. That alone doesn't really mean anything, but put into the overall context of my training this winter, and the fact that I'm starting to feel my best right now despite the workload (its not breaking me down, and I'm finishing every workout feeling like I could do more), my confidence is very high going into these last couple weeks before Boston. 

Last night I got the idea to make a mountain dew (de-carbonated) based electrolyte drink (I added in Hammer electrolyte tablets). I tired it out today, and it was a delicious explosion of sugar/caffeine/salt. However on my cooldown I threw up in my mouth a little bit, but I think it was more due to the fact that I got a whiff of dead animals (or whatever terrible smelling things they keep near the salt lake). I'll have to think about this more... I'm not even sure what my fluids situation is for Boston at this point (how many bottles, etc). If I can make a concoction w/ Mtn Dew, it has enough sugar that I wouldn't have to worry about taking any gels (the ideal sitaution for me). But that's only if I can get a bottle every 5K or so. Hopefully their coordinator will get back to me this week with more details.

I'm hoping to use these wash bottles in Boston. They work pretty well...
 

This is how I stashed bottles out on the course. Chicken wire looped onto the bottle - easy to grab on the run. I duct taped them to the ground so they wouldn't blow away in the wind. I did this same method at UVM last year. It works great if you have hand-eye coordination. At UVM I missed 3 of my 6 bottles! Today I only missed 1 out of 4 and that was only because the wind blew it over.
 

PM - 4 miles easy around the block. I wonder what my neighbors (who only see me running on weekends in the afternoon) think of me? They've probably never seen me move faster than 8 minute pace :-)