A Lean and Hungry Look

Sugarhouse loop. Listened to This American Life and found myself laughing out loud several times, so my pace was clearly relaxed.

Fortunately, I didn't feel any residual pain from hyperextending my knee on Saturday.  That was a relief.

AHR: 155

It's Jacob's 10th birthday today, so I couldn't justify an early run because he was already up and raring to open gifts.  Brought my stuff to work and ran an easy 6 at lunch.  Same route as Friday's after-work run.  I love having access to a shower at work.

Scheduled day off.

6x3-min repeats at Sugarhouse Park with target of 5:30/mi pace with warmup and cooldown and active rest.  Splits were:

5:27/mi (171 bpm)

5:28/mi (180 bpm)

5:26/mi (179 bpm)

Potty break (had to wait for the grounds crew to unlock the restroom)

5:29/mi (171 bpm)

5:14/mi (175 bpm)

5:16/mi (180 bpm)

The last two repeats had a little downhill but no uphill, which contributed to the faster pace.  It felt good to finally hit all of my splits at or faster than my target pace (it's the first time since I started doing speed work in late March).  The best part was that I set my pace based on perceived effort as opposed to speed.  Since the 305 doesn't display pace during intervals, I've struggled to find my pace without going overboard in early repeats, then crashing later on.  Today was a needed confidence-booster that should help me make my quality days more productive going forward.

Easy pace on nice, overcast morning.  I was going to head up to the Shoreline but the legs felt a little heavy from yesterday's speed work, and I have a long run tomorrow with the second half at MP, so I took it easy.  Other than feeling a little tired from yesterday, I felt good throughout.

Ran up Emigration almost to Pinecrest.  Emigration Canyon Half was underway and it was fun to see a few friends mid-race.  Kept the pace easy all the way up, then tried for MP at the turnaround.  Splits were as follows:

Mile 8: 5:50 (163 bpm)

Mile 9: 5:54 (170 bpm)

Mile 10: 5:55 (171 bpm)

Mile 11: 5:57 (173 bpm)

Mile 12: 5:55 (176 bpm)

Mile 13: 5:42 (178 bpm)

Used final mile as cooldown.  Although my pace on the tempo section wasn't as fast as desired (target was 5:45), it was hard to hold.  I don't know if that was due to the climbing that preceded the tempo, the overall distance, the fact that I missed my long run last Saturday, or just that I'm coming along more slowly than anticipated.  I'm hoping to see some improvement over the next few weeks in my tempo pace, but overall I'm pleased with my progress.

Easy 6 on new loop.  20th E to 21st E to Parley's Canyon under freeway to Stratford to 17th E to 17th S to 16th E to Emerson to 17th E and back home through the neighborhood.  Exactly 6, so it might be a nice alternative to the Sugarhouse loop that is getting a little old.  Felt good today.

AHR 159

10x3-min intervals at Sugarhouse Park.  Target was around 5:30-5:40.  All but one or two of the intervals involved one of the two hills at the park, and every time I felt sapped by the time I reached the top.  Although it tends to hurt my splits, I still prefer to incorporate hills into my interval workouts because I think it helps me mentally when I encounter terrain in a race setting.  Enough philosophy.  Here are my splits:

1. 5:35/mi (166 bpm)

2. 5:36/mi (172 bpm)

3. 5:41/mi (175 bpm)

4. 5:56/mi (175 bpm)

5. 5:45/mi (177 bpm)

6. 5:37/mi (178 bpm)

7. 5:27/mi (175 bpm) (I think this was the first one without a hill)

8. 5:47/mi (177 bpm)

9. 5:48/mi (175 bpm)

10. 5:59/mi (174 bpm) (the long hill in the NEC of the park came about 2:00 in and wiped me out)

Looking back at my HR for the workout, I think I may have been overly cautious in my pacing.  I should have been closer to 180 bpm, especially in the final 3-4 intervals.  I was nervous that I would pop after 6 or 7 intervals, since I hadn't done more than 6 3-min intervals before today.  Although I was tired at the end, I have felt far worse in speed sessions over the past several weeks.  I had more to give, so I'll try to give more in my next interval workout.

Scheduled day off.

Took Kaela to an early violin lesson and couldn't drag myself out of bed at 4:45 in order to fit my scheduled run in before the lesson.  Fortunately, she moves to a summer schedule after this week that won't conflict with my running schedule.  The lesson went great, by the way.

10 miles with 8 at HMP effort.  Drove 2 miles from my house into Emigration and parked the car.  It was cold up there--probably in the low 40's.  Should have brought arm warmers and light gloves.  Oops.  Ran 4 miles up with last 2 miles at a target HR of no higher than 173.  I was slightly higher than that even though the splits were only 7:00 (172 bpm) and 7:33 (174 bpm).  Effort didn't feel hard, but HR was high.  I don't know why.  At turnaround point, I rested, walked, and stretched for 5-7 minutes before starting the fast downhill section.  Target was to stay under 5:55.  Splits were as follows:

Mile 5: 5:45 (167 bpm)

Mile 6: 5:48 (174 bpm)

Mile 7: 5:53 (175 bpm)

Mile 8: 5:46 (177 bpm)

Mile 9: 5:36 (179 bpm)

Mile 10: 5:21 (181 bpm)

I felt much better than on my Emigration run last Saturday.  The brisk temperature may have contributed to that, along with the fact that my ipod worked this time.  I prefer not to race with music, but it seems to help me pull a little more out of myself on some of my harder training runs, so I'll probably keep doing it, at least until I feel like I can hit my targets consistently without the help of music.  The effort felt good.

I started out planning to do my scheduled long run (12 miles with 10 at MP), but after my first mile of tempo I could tell that another 9 at tempo wasn't in the cards, so I turned it into a 6-mile recovery run instead.  Yesterday's tempo run was great but probably took more out of me than I realized.  I'll have to do my long run early tomorrow instead.

Plan was to do 1-mile warmup, then 6 at HMP, then 1-mile cooldown.  Drove to Liberty Park so my pace would be honest.  Unfortunately, it was a little too honest for me--the pace was much slower than the effort felt.  On top of that, I was only able to handle 4 miles before popping.  Not sure what was going on, but my heart rate was way higher than it should have been for the target pace (5:55), and the actual pace was far slower than my target.  I have to admit that I questioned the accuracy of the Garmin today.  (I did update the device software over the weekend and initially had a problem with it.)  Compared to past interval workouts at Liberty Park, it seemed like each of today's mile splits came about 0.1-0.2 later than I was expecting.  It was probably just because I was going slower than the effort felt, though.  At any rate, here are the tempo splits:

Mile 2: 6:00 (167 bpm) (I expected a split of 5:40-5:45)

Mile 3: 6:13 (178 bpm--way too high if the split is correct)

Mile 4: 6:11 (180 bpm)

Mile 5: 6:08 (181 bpm)

With my HR so high and my splits so much slower than my target, I decided to cut the tempo short and cool down.  Maybe I'll have to do Wednesday's tempo somewhere else where I know the mile markers so I can figure out whether I was just off today or whether the problem was the Garmin.

Planned day off.

Ran 3 miles up Emigration at a comfortable pace, stopped and stretched for a few minutes, then turned around and did the remaining 3 at what was supposed to be half-marathon pace, but ended up being more like 5k pace.  Splits were as follows:

Mile 4: 5:29 (167 bpm)

Mile 5: 5:26 (180 bpm)

Mile 6: 5:22 (182 bpm)

In the last mile I felt myself going anaerobic, so I backed off a little.  Tired but not wiped out afterward.  Good warmup for WBR on Friday.

Easy 3 without Garmin, just enough to keep loose for Wasatch Back tomorrow.

Trading Paces (#449) was 3rd in the mixed category.  Results don't show overall place, but I think we were around the 13th fastest time once the all-male teams are factored in.  Our team roster was as follows:

Runner 1: Lisa Madsen

Runner 2: Heather Mastakas

Runner 3: Jed Burton

Runner 4: Angie Welder

Runner 5: Lori Allen

Runner 6: Patrick Bodnar

Runner 7: Bobbi Heaney

Runner 8: Andrew Bybee

Runner 9: Jake Thompson

Runner 10: Ryan Bybee

Runner 11: John Moore

Runner 12: Alli Thompson

Leg 3 (4:30 p.m.)

Temperature was in mid-80's, but after the cool spring we've had, this was my first in warm weather, and my heart rate was ridiculously high, especially in light of the slow pace.  Splits were horrendous:

Mile 1: 6:20 (175 bpm)

Mile 2: 6:27 (181)

Mile 3: 6:36 (183)

Mile 4: 7:13 (181) (had a pretty nasty side stich hit me out of the blue--I never get them--so I slowed down in order to have better control over my breathing)

Mile 5: 7:20 (181)

Final 0.6: 6:59/mi (185)

I hadn't felt this awful on a run in years.  The terrain was relatively flat with a slight rise, but there was a headwind most of the way and the temperature just killed me.  I also realized that I hadn't eaten lunch, which may have also contributed to my problems.  Disappointing way to start the race, as my target pace for the leg was between 6:00 and 6:10.

Wasatch Back Relay: Leg 15 (11:30 p.m.)

Temperature was about 55, terrain was gently rolling with a slight overall rise.  This leg felt great.  I put in a solid effort but it didn't feel nearly as hard as the first leg, and the pace was closer to my target.  Splits were as follows:

Mile 1: 5:55 (167 bpm)

Mile 2: 6:04 (177)

Mile 3: 6:05 (178)

Mile 4: 6:06 (177)

Mile 5: 6:06 (177)

Pace was still a little slower than I would have liked, but this was an exhilarating run, just as the nighttime run always is for me at WBR.  I took two wrong turns, so my overall distance was 5.07 instead of 4.9.

Wasatch Back Relay: Leg 27 (7:45 a.m.)

This leg had some steep uphill and downhill and was pretty challenging overall.  Beautiful scenery, though.  As usual, I got less than an hour of sleep, so I wasn't running on a full tank, but I was pretty pleased with my performance under the conditions.  Splits were:

Mile 1: 5:47 (downhill) (165 bpm)

Mile 2: 6:07 (flat) (174)

Mile 3: 6:19 (flat until the end, where the climb began) (171)

Mile 4: 7:38 (steep climb) (174)

Mile 5: 7:34 (up and down) (176)

Mile 6: 6:50 (174)

Mile 7: 6:43 (173)

Last 0.9: 6:20/mi (downhill) (173)

I think my overall pace would have been between 6:20 and 6:30 under better conditions, but I wasn't disappointed under the circumstances.

The makeup of my teams changes every year, but we had several returning runners this year (Andrew and Ryan Bybee, Angie Welder, Patrick Bodnar and I were third-timers; Jake and Alli Thompson and Heather Mastakas were second-timers; Bobbi Heaney, Lori Allen, and John Moore were first-timers to both our team and the race; and Lisa Madsen ran with us for the first time after running it several times with other teams).  Team dynamics were great and everyone performed close to and in several cases better than our projections.  The only disappointment was in a botched exchange at 24.  Somehow we got confused in Van #1 and slept at Exchange 25 and left Alli waiting at 24 for 10-15 minutes while we threw everything in the van and went back.  We were about 13 minutes out of second place when the dust settled, and our mistake may have been the difference.  For future reference, 18+6=24, not 25.

I was a little disappointed in my personal performance, but it gave me an idea of where my weaknesses are and should help focus my training for the rest of the summer as I start looking toward St. George.

 I was planning to get up early for 10 miles with some tempo, but had a rough night with one of the kids and didn't crawl out of bed early enough.  Took the two older kids on a hike to Grandeur Peak (from Church Fork in Millcreek Canyon) and had a great time.  I was going to try to run later in the evening, but ended up having to work on the house (had some water problems in the garage that had to be addressed) all afternoon and evening.  By the time we finished, it was about 9:00 p.m. and I was exhausted.

Easy 6 (21st East Loop).  Very little residual tightness from WBR, feeling pretty good.

AHR: 151 bpm

Allergies were out of control today, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to manage a run.  Decided to try it anyway, so I ran an easy 6-mile loop after work that began at Sugarhouse Park.  I didn't feel great, but the heat didn't bother me quite as much as it did at WBR last Friday.

AHR: 154 bpm

Ran home from work.  Another afternoon run in the heat.  Allergies still bugging me but not quite as bad as yesterday.

AHR: 154 bpm

Ran to work with backpack on.  It wasn't too heavy, but it still bugged me.  Took it easy all the way in.  Legs felt tired.  I'll probably take tomorrow off before doing some tempo on Saturday.

AHR: 155 bpm

Planned day off.

Easy 6 around 21st East loop.  Left Garmin at home and focused on loosening up the legs after Saturday's Grandeur Peak hike and a few days off from running.

12x2-minute repeats at 5k pace (goal of around 5:20/mi).  I did these at Sugarhouse Park, and the wide swings in pace are due primarily to the hills at the park--the very fast ones included downhill and the very slow ones included uphill.  Even so, I was pretty inconsistent today.

1-mile warmup

1. 5:03/mi (165 bpm)

2. 5:12/mi (171)

3. 5:45/mi (174 bpm) (started at the bottom of the long hill on the southwest side)

4. 5:38/mi (171) (hill on northeast side)

5. 5:06/mi (170)

6. 5:17/mi (172)

7. 5:30/mi (177)

8. 5:33/mi (173)

9. 5:07/mi (170)

10. 5:37/mi (171)

11. 5:02/mi (171)

12. 5:41/mi (177)

Roughly 1-mile cooldown.

Average pace for intervals: 5:22/mi

I was surprised that my HR stayed as low as it did.  That's a good sign.  My legs were pretty tired, though, particularly on the intervals that included climbing.  On my last few runs I've felt something a little weird in my right knee, mainly in the tendon on the outside but also just inside the patella.  It's hard to explain but it's as though I feel the tendon moving around.  No pain at all, but probably something to watch.