Per Aspera Ad Astra

12 miles.  First 6.5 with Holly, last 5.5 by myself.  Didn't wear a watch, but I took it easy.  AP was just a hair under 8:00 based on checking the clock right before I left and right after I got back.  My place to NW corner of Liberty, along the mulch path, out at 13th, to 17th, to 6th East, back to Liberty, 2/3 of a loop on the mulch counter clockwise, back along 5th / E.  Holly didn't seem to be enjoying it too much, so I dropped her off at home and went back out.  My place, along 4th Ave to Virginia to 11th, to Bonneville Blvd, to the hairpin, along the Memory Grove path, and then back up 4th.  Legs were kind of tired over the last few miles.  I was nervous that it was going to rain hard, but it held to an off-and-on sprinkle for the enitre run.  Also, I'm apparently getting quite good at guessing distances.  I was trying to figure out how far I was going during the run, without a watch, and decided I must be right on the money at 12 miles.  Figured it out afterwards, and it turned out to be 11.99.  Nice.

Lunch time: Attended Dr James Moore's successful dissertation defense. Congrats to Fiddy.

PM: 11.5 miles, 6:42 AP, 500' of gain.  Worked super late, then had to deal with some stupid stuff that kept me from running until 1 AM.  I really need to get out earlier, but at least I really felt in the zone tonight.  Didn't wear a watch, but based on looking at the clock before and after, my 11.5 miles was run at ~6:42 AP (77 minutes).  Not bad considering that I didn't feel like I picked it up at all until the last couple miles.

My place to up to South Temple/13th, then down to 27th South, then down to 5th East, then back up to home.

Not flat:

5PM: 6 miles, mostly with James.  Around campus.  Loop was complicated:

I was planning to double, but I opted to have super fresh legs for my workout tomorrow instead!

.4 mile warmup then 10 miles of tempo in 4/3/2/1 with 3/2/1 minutes rest, then 2.4 mile cooldown.  I guess I'm just going to throw out a lot of random thoughts about this workout and otherwise.

As I often do, I ran on a treadmill, at least until the cooldown, which was outdoors.  For someone of my abilities, the altitude at my gym, 4700', is almost exactly enough to make a 10-13 mile tempo run on a treadmill equal in pace to a flat run on track on a still day at sea level, so I run my workouts on a treadmill sometimes to prepare myself for lower elevation racing I feel better and race faster when my muscles have memory for a specific pace at a specific effort.  If today's was a pure 10 mile run in 57:06, it'd have been worth 57:21 on a flat windless track at sea level with similar temperature.  On a flat track at altitude, it'd have been worth 59:26, ie 14 seconds per mile slower.

In any case, the workout went really well.

4 miles: 23:31

3 minutes rest

3 miles: 17:15

2 minutes rest

2 miles: 11:06

1 minute rest

1 mile: 5:15

I made a point to not start insanely fast, but to finish as fast as possible.  This make the workout a little interesting.  From about mile 6 on, I was working pretty hard, and the last two reps were pretty tough.  Starting the 10th mile after only 1 minute of rest felt cruel, and I was hurting almost instantly.  5:15 after 9 fast miles is tough, even on a treadmill.

Most importantly, I get to move my legs 14 seconds per mile more quickly than I would've on a track here, which is important.  I need a lot of fast work to prepare properly for St George.  Of course, the gentle finish of that race allows people to coast in really well even if they're dying (unlike, say, Des News, which will brutalize you with that uphill on Foothill... man, am I never racing that race...), but I need to be used to running really fast for a long time if I want to run a really fast time there (ideally, under 2:35, so I have a sub-6 pace conversion according to Daniels).

I did an almost identical workout with more rest on the same treadmill last season, so comparing the numbers, I see that I'm pretty close to where I was at in late January last year.  That time, I started faster, but finished the last two about the same, with more rest.  Splits then were 22:58, 17:00, 11:05, 5:16.  I would say that workout was similar, maybe overall ever-so-slightly stronger, but I was several weeks farther into the cycle.  Also, I intentionally started conservatively today, and in hindsight, probably could've hit those same times from January if I had gone for it.  I'll be more aggressive next time.

Now, one more thought for overall development...  Talking with James on our run yesterday, I've decided that my in-season consistency isn't enough.  I need to not take 4 months off in the future if I really want to get fast.  I need overall year-in-year-out consistency.  I of course need short off seasons, but they need to only be a few weeks or a month tops.  If I'm going to get to sub-70 and sub-2:30 on fair courses, I need to be serious all year, not just when I have a race coming up.  I'm really going to try hard to commit to this idea in the future.

Had a lot to deal with tonight, didn't get to run.  By the time it was possible, I just didnt' want to go, as I was exhausted.  Oh well.  Will still hit 70 this week easily.

Was in Sugarhouse for a haircut at 6, so I ran this loop afterwards:

AP was mid-7s with 750' of climb.  I felt a little tired - from my workout 2 days ago, I suspect - but I should be normal tomorrow.  With that in mind, I probably should've run more like 8:00 pace, but whatever.  Those hills in the path around the Tanner area were kind of a surprise as I've never run on that path before.  I didn't really intend to make it so hilly, but just kind of decided mid run to go up to Wasatch, without actually realizing that Wasatch is more than 500' higher than Highland High.  It would be really interesting to see how people performed if someone put on, say, a half marathon on a loop something like this.  I'm not sure that I could race this kind of loop well at all...

  Stupid Garmin is apparently broken and won't turn on at all, so that's annoying.  Edit: it appears to be working again???  It wouldn't charge and wouldn't turn on for a day, but I tried again today and it's charging up nicely.  I'm guessing it won't have long to live, but I'm glad to have some more life from it.

Going to do something pretty long tomorrow.  Should be fun.

Well, that sucked.  Was going to do a longer run (20-22), but I didn't deal well with the heat today (I was probably a pound or two dehydrated when I started), so I cut it down to 17.2 miles.  I knew by mile 2.5 that it was going to be a long day.  It was 92 when I started, and the humidity next to the JRP made things worse.  I brought a 20 oz water bottle with the intention of refilling it, but the fountain I planned to fill it from at mile 9.5-ish was broken.  I had already run out at like mile 7, and didn't get to fill it again until 12.5, at which point I felt like a zombie, and had to spend a fair amount of time sitting on a curb drinking / just sitting there just to feel OK again.  The last miles were very unpleasant, as even with some water back in me, I was just sapped.  I didn't bring my Garmin, so I'm not sure how long I stopped, but not factoring the stop out of my time, AP would've been about 8:20.  Yeah, really ugly.  I suspect the actual moving pace was more like 8:00, as I hit virtually every single light today, in addition to the 5+ minutes I was stopped for.  I planned on going easy, but I definitely slowed a lot at the end.  Finished the run 6 pounds lighter than I started, even after supposedly rehydrating. Anyway, here was the route: