Per Aspera Ad Astra

Ok, yesterday was a really really awful Saturday.  Decided to run it out of my system today.  Didn't have a lot of time in AM, so did 4, easy, with Holly, but then did another 16, easy, by myself much later (9:30 PM).  AM 4 was an Aves/Fed Hill loop and I didn't even wear a watch.  PM was my place to 5th east, down to 45th south, to 7th east, along that and curving on van winkle to 9th east, stopping at wal mart for a hershey's cookies and cream bar + sprite because I was hungry, back to 39th south, to 7th east, to trolley square, to 5th east, and back home.  Pace on second run was 7:4x, which was so slow that my legs felt weird by the end.  Need to get used to putting in some more slow mileage to get true recovery on easy days.  I'm going to try to avoid doing much in the way of workouts for the next little while and just mostly focus on building a new base for at least a month, probably until January.

2.5 miles up the hill to campus gym at 8:00 pace, shoulder and arm workout, 7.5 miles home at 7:30 pace (gym to 21st south, through Sugarhouse, and back home).  I think I'm going to allow myself a little bit of miles at marathon pace and an occasional tempo surge here and there, but I'm focused on getting in base work for the remainder of the year, so there are going to be a lot of miles on the slower side of things.

Didn't get out the door until a little after midnight.  Pretty late to go for a run, but it was very peaceful outside tonight and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  First 2 miles were way up into the aves, nearly to the very top, then popped down to 11th.  Went above Shriner's, through the gated community, down the trail to the dry creek trailhead, down to the hospital, by huntsman and through the parking lot to research park, down Wakara, along foothill, through campus, by the gym, along university, and back through the lower aves.  Effort was easy and pretty consistent, but due to lots and lots of hills (over 800' of uphill, starting with a 500+' pure uphill, then getting a few hundred more), pace varied a lot.  Slowest mile was 9:4x, fastest was 6:37.

Back was tight, didn't want to flare my hip, so I just spent a long time stretching instead of running.  I only wanted to hit 70-75 this week, and I'm well on track for that, so I can afford the day off.

12 miles, 7 on treadmill just to be able to put in an even effort without hills or wind.  2.5 miles up to campus gym (quite uphill) at 7:15 pace.  Felt like roughly marathon effort with all of that uphill.  Hopped on a treadmill at the gym, ran the first 6 miles at somewhere in the ball park of sea level marathon pace (6:15, which I almost certainly can't hold for 26.2 right now, but will be a little slower than goal MP come March), then finished with a 5:44 (mostly around 5:50, but kicked in the last little bit faster).  Jogged home at the most leisurely effort imaginable, averaging just under 9:00/mile down hill.  Now that's what I call a nice easy cool down.  This is my one harder effort run for the week, and I'm holding myself to that.  Like I said, no workouts for now!

I know I said I wasn't going to race over the rest of the year, but Jake talked me into running the 5k at the Saltair Half.  I already had to go to Salt Lake Running tonight and they had packet pick up and registration there.  I browsed through the list and saw that only about 10 men were signed up for the 5k, wish cash going 3 deep and I was already planning on heading over there to spectate the half, so I just gave in and signed up.  Andrea was the only other 5ker that I've heard of, so as long as I don't have to push all out to get the top cash spot, I won't.  If I could jog it in in 20 minutes, I'd be more than happy to do that, as I'm planning on at least another 10 miles afterwards.

I didn't get out to run until 11:30 tonight.  I don't know why I keep running so late, but I guess that once the sun goes down, I have no reason to get out earlier and keep putting it off until pretty late.  I've been just been writing and editing this week, so I've been largely working at home and not needing to get up early, which has meant getting away with pretty late runs.  I got outside for tonight's run in short shorts, a tech shirt, thin gloves, and a windbreaker, and immediately felt super cold.  I saw a sign that said 35F partway through the run and figured I was just being a wimp, but I checked the weather when I got home and found that it was actually 27 with a windchill of 19, which is actually pretty cold for wearing so little.  Anyway, I did a little over 4 miles looping down to 7th east up to Liberty Park (but not in it) and then back home.  Pace was casual, roughly a 7:30 average.

I really should get to bed right away with the race in the morning (fortunately, not until 9:30), but I've been reading an excellent book by Richard Dawkins, and I don't suspect I'll be able to sleep before knocking out another chapter.

Ran the 5k at the Salt Air half. I was planning on running no harder than necessary to win, and that's what I did.  While driving up, I was bummed when I saw Chris Rushing running along the course, putting in what looked like a rather hard effort warmup.  I hadn't seen his name on the list yesterday, but figured he had just signed up that morning and knew that I would have virtually no chance of beating him if he was in shape.  As it turns out, he did sign up that morning, but accidentally started the half marathon instead of the 5k.  He apparently didn't realize he was in the wrong race until he was the only one to turn around at the halfway point, so he just ran it in and decided not to do the 5k right away afterwards.

Once the actual 5k started, 2 kids took off rather hard, one looking more serious, and the other wearing basketball shorts.  I tailed them by a second or two and we hit the quarter mile at hair over 5:00 pace, at which point the kid in basketball shorts started to slow down.  The other kid and I passed basketball shorts guy and I tucked in right behind him.  We split the mile in an easy 5:40.  I continued to let him dictate the pace and just sat a step behind him until 1.25, when I noticed that we had slowed to 6:15 pace, with a tail-wind, and I pulled up along side him.  My original plan was to go at 2 to 2.5 miles, so as not to leave it to a sprint, but when I chatted with him about the upcoming headwind after the turnaround and noticed that he was already breahthing heavily, I decided to take off at the halfway point.  When we turned around, I sprinted for about 10 seconds into the wind to see what he would do, and he immediately fell off, so i picked it up just enough to gap him about 20 seconds in the remainder of the mile and then eased off.  Mile 2 was 5:57, which meant that I ran the 2nd half at about 5:44 into a strong headwind, probably the hardest effort portion of the race.  At mile 2, I realized that I easily had it won, so I backed off and jogged in a very comfortable 6:09 3rd mile, with a slightly sub-6 last .07 (I had 3.07 total on my Garmin, and the markers were definitely not accurate).

Anyway, other than the rather quick sprint start, that felt extremely easy.  I just wanted to win, and I did.  Of course, I feel bad for Chris Rushing, as he ran faster than my winning time, even after realizing halfway through that he wasn't even in the right race.  The timer had him at 17:24, but I could have sworn that he told me he was sub-17, so I have no idea.  In any case, I wouldn't have won had he been in the right race, but I'll still take it.  Right after the race, I picked up my skis from having their edges sharpened, a chip filled, and the bottoms waxed, which cost $45, so the $50 went to a good cause. :)  Oh, and I picked up a pair of Type A6 with the prototype A7 sole from Andrea, courtesy of Jake, right before the race.  I put them on, jogged to the start, raced in them, and loved them.  Thanks Jake!  I'll make sure to do some damage to them!

Maybe 3/4 of a mile before the race, a little over 2 afterwards.  Later in the day, 5.5 up and down City Creek with Holly at very slow (8:30) pace and then another 3.5 on my own at 6:50 pace.  Did 14.25 of the 15 in the new shoes from Jake and I'm really liking them.