A Lean and Hungry Look

After losing more than a week to a mean cold/respiratory infection, I did 3 easy miles on the treadmill.  Other than blowing the power near the end (these old houses don't seem to like sub-7 speed on the treadmill), it was fine.

In anticipation of beginning my Boston training next week, I thought it might make sense to actually drag myself out of bed and get a few miles in this morning.  Based on the fact that the run felt awful from about mile 2 on, the respiratory infection seems to have sucked the life out of me.  My legs felt like they weighed about 100 lbs each and the 4 miles felt like 20.  At least I have plenty of room for improvement as I move into my training regimen.

On a more positive note, I haven't felt any arch pain over the past two runs.  I realize that they were very short and easy runs, though, and that I need to keep an eye on things as I start putting some miles in.

After yesterday's death march, I had a hard time dragging myself out of bed this morning.  Fortunately, it felt much, much better.  I still found myself coughing for an hour or so following the run, but I didn't feel the heaviness in the legs or the overall fatigue that made yesterday's outing so unpleasant.  I'll try upping the mileage a little tomorrow to see if I can handle it.

At the tail end of the run, I bumped into Taylor Scalley and his friend Doug and we made tentative plans for a trail run on Saturday.  Sounds fun!

Another rough week in terms of mileage.  Here's hoping the commencement of my Boston regimen on Monday will help me get out more next week.

Headed across U campus, up to 11th Ave, over to fire station, back up past Popperton to Shoreline, then through U housing (detoured from Shoreline due to oil spill cleanup at Red Butte) and home.  Gorgeous day for a run.  Maja did well today.

The weather was so great that I decided to take Eli out in the jogger on my lunch hour instead of going out early.  I was in shorts and short sleeves and Eli just had a sweater on.  We headed out to Sugar House Park and had a great time together.  Maja (the dog) was clearly not pleased when I took Eli and left her at home, but I can only deal with so much extra company to which I'm attached when I run.

Sloppy but enjoyable jaunt across U campus up to the fire station on 11th Ave and back.  Maja was a pretty good sport about splashing around in the slush.  Pace was pretty slow, mostly because I was worried about slipping.  It felt relaxing and comfortable from start to finish.

Missed the early run, so I tried running on the treadmill after putting the kids to bed.  We had installed a flat-screen at eye level in front of the treadmill, so I thought I might possibly be able to stomach 6 or 7 without going crazy.  Unfortunately, the treadmill thinks I'm too fat or something, because it would shut down after about 1/2 mile (the power switch would get tripped).  In the end, I got too frustrated to keep powering the thing back up every 3 minutes or so, and I called it a night.

I've blown the circuit breaker before while running on the treadmill, usually when I dip into the sub-7 pace range, but this is a new problem.  The thing desperately needs to be serviced, but I'm not sure I'm up for dumping a few hundred bucks into it at the moment (after fixing my daughter's viola, my son's saxophone, my car, my wife's car (new tires and alignment--don't ask), our furnace, replacing a toilet, and having a plumber clean out the drum trap for our shower, all in the past 6 weeks).  It works fine for my wife, who uses it every day, so I'll just buck up and run outside.

Took my stuff to work and did the City Creek run as soon as I could break free.  I was in a hurry to get home, so I stepped up the pace a bit in both directions, but especially on the way down.  No Garmin, but my guess is that my last 3 were roughly 6:20, 5:50, and 5:20.

After today's run, I need a new category for "Miles that should have felt easy but did not."  I went out with Brooke and we kept an easy pace to 3.5 (up to Wasatch and south until we hit the first Parley's Crossing bridge).  Brooke took Maja and turned around at that point and I continued on to my usual turnaround point near Millstream Lane.  It kind of felt miserable the whole way back, obviously due to the fact that I had run hard just over 12 hours earlier and am not in great shape yet.  In fact, the last 5 miles felt a lot like the 3rd Wasatch Back leg always feels.  Oh, well, at least I managed to get some miles in!

Missed my early run (AGAIN), so I brought my gear to work and ran over lunch around Holladay (Haven Lane route).  After Saturday's death march, today's run felt light and easy.  A good thing, too--when the weather isn't great and life is busy, it's too easy to skip workouts when they feel like crap.  The real test will be to see whether I can haul myself out of bed in the morning and do some hills or speed while my wife and kids are fast asleep (school's out for the holidays, so the rest of the family is on a different schedule than I am).  Here's hoping!

We stayed in Park City last night, so I got up early to drive home and take Maja out for a run, but the roads were so horrendous that I didn't get back soon enough.  Fortunately, my day allowed for a lunchtime run, which was lovely.  For future reference, the Haven Lane loop can be lengthened to 7 by running to the end of Walker Lane, then continuing on Cottonwood Lane and around to 23rd East instead of going back on Haven.  It was slushly and sloppy out there, but I'll take that any day over inversion air.

Ran home from work (went in for a couple of hours in the morning) and nearly froze to death along the way.