"It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves"

Woke up at six and ran from my dorm down to the freeway entrance on University Avenue. Turned around and came back (6.0) then ran a loop around campus. It rained for a bit and was cold (59 degrees).

AM: Ran out to the Provo River trailhead.  Then I turned around and ran sub 7:00 for two miles or so. It's cold. I need to get up earlier to get some extra miles in.(6.25 total)

PM: Little jog around campus. My legs were tired all day, but felt wonderful once I started running.  Ran like I was on clouds and managed 7:54/mile.  I was faster, but got a nasty sideache around the beginning of mile 4 and stopped around 3.5 miles.  Really great, pleasant run. (3.85 total)

 For anybody who actually looks at my blog, is it okay if I run like this every other day for marathon training? MW will be 10 or so at once, T Th like this (morning and evening run), and Friday an easy run in preparation for a long run on Saturday. Good?

Ran from the dorms up University Parkway to University Mall.  Turned left and ran to the Papa John's in Orem. Turned around and then ran around Helaman Halls. Pretty good run, maintained 8:14ish pace the whole way. So I've cut my long run pace down by 15-30 seconds, which of course is amazing. 

Nice and easy recovery run up Canyon Road.  Ran from the dorms up the street for 30 minutes then turned around and came back.  Going up took just over 30 (it was pitch black and couldn't see my Garmin) and then I took a little break.  27 minutes to get back.  

 Averaged 8:20 going up, 7:56 coming back.

 I've got some pain in my calves. . . I need to take it really easy tomorrow in preparation for Saturday's long run.

 And if anyone has any long running routes in Provo, I really could use your help planning out a 18 miler.

Good recovery run in prep for tomorrow's run.  I woke up at 5:15 for my run, but felt absolutely exhausted.  I thought for a minute how I could make these miles up and still have enough recovery time to run 18 miles tomorrow (and hit 60 on the week), and I realized my last class ends at 11 today!  So, I went back to sleep for a total of 9 hours of sleep last night.  

 Ran after my Biology 120 class.  Six miles, which is about 50 minutes, which is from my dorm to Foothills Drive and back.  It was tiring, and I'm worried about how I'll do tomorrow.  I need to get a great night's rest.

Food wise, I really, really need to be careful what I'm eating.  One donut ONLY on Saturday after a long run.  I kinda ate two this week, which wasn't smart.  Breakfast from now on is Wheaties or Life, with two pieces of toast.  Lunch is going to be pasta or a large salad.  Dinner will be pasta or another similar, high-carb food.  One of the cafeteria stations provides pasta for lunch and dinner everyday, so I should be taking advantage of those high calories meals.

Good looong run today.  Ran all over the place and felt really good until about the 14th mile or so.  Stopped by afterwards and talked to the cross country team that's up here for a meet.

Exhaustion.

That''s all I can attribute this to. I want 70 miles this week, but I'm cutting it back to 50-60. My body is fatigued. Not enough sleep and not enough quality food. I'm going to forget this day and push back tomorrow as hard as I can. This whole week I'll push as hard as I can, and then taper. I must peak this week.

PM: Worked out for class. Ouch. This is going to be a really hard week.

100% difference from yesterday.

I woke up fully rested after 7.5 hours of good sleep, and took off up University Parkway.  The second counselor in my ward told me about some places that he runs to, so I decided to go find the Provo Cemetery.  Didn't find it, but had a great run with numerous hills and some good tempo-ing.  I feel great, and I might go out for a 3 mile jog tonight with some of my floormates.

Felt really good again today, although my sleep wasn't very good.  The idiot jocks on our floor decided to have a "music war" last night around 11:30 and woke up half of our building.  Luckily the hall adviser showed up and I think told them to turn it off.  We're making quiet hours at our next floor meeting.

 Maintained 7:56 per mile today.  I'm feeling slower each day, but I'm actually running faster.  I can't wait to see what happens when I'm fully rested and ready for the marathon.  For my run, I ran down the East side of BYU and went over to the Olympic ice arena.  Did you know that they had Olympic sites in Provo? Neither did I. 

DS Trainer 12 - Retired today after faithfully serving me for senior year track and half of XC and most of my marathon training. 600+ miles

DS Trainer - 8.0 miles

Raced the Army today ha ha. I changed my route a little bit so they could get far enough in front of me and I would have to push myself to catch them.  Probably not the best idea to beat the Army guys, but it was fun.  Somebody yelled at me "Join the Army! We need guys like you" when I passed them. 

Otherwise, it was a somewhat slow and painful run.  It's starting to get a lot colder here, and I'm not used to it at all.

 20 miles tomorrow.

DS Trainer - 15.6 miles

Yeah! *pumps arms in air*

I am so happy to get this run out of the way! I woke up at 5:30 and started running around 6.  I added this route under the course tool if you want to see it ("20 miler around Provo").

I had two major problems though.  It was much colder then I was expecting it to be, which kept me from really moving until about mile 15 when the sun finally came up.  And then when I put my sunglasses on just past University Parkway, my directions fell out of my pocket. Uh oh. I got to Utah Lake and had to stop and call my roommate to find out where I should go and then had to just figure it out as I went.  Turned out to be much better.  I'm thinking it would have been 21 miles at least if I had went the planned route.

Took 2:55 which is 5 minutes faster then my last 20 miler three-four weeks ago.  I figure I'll do better at SGM because I'll be better rested and the cold won't play such a big role in slowing me down. 

 w00t!

DS Trainer 13 -  35.85

Nice and easy recovery jog. I should call this "Death Monday" or the Monday after a long run. I learned my lesson last week and so I wasn't expecting much out of my legs.  There are some lingering pains (shin splints, knee problems, and two hurting big toes) that I want to have all fixed up by the time the marathon rolls around.  These are going to be two fun weeks.

 Speaking of my big toes, they actually look bruised where they connect to my foot.  I'm afraid that probably isn't a very good sign.  There is some ice in our little mini-fridge (it better have frozen overnight) that I'm going to use on it. Hopefully that will fix the problem.  However, it might be due to my new shoes. I could have gone up a half size for my new shoes, but in the store, I felt that extra space would hurt rather than help.  There is just under a full thumb of space between my big toe and the end of the shoe, but I'm still having problems with it.  I'll just have to wait and see. Can't throw away a $100 investment.

DS Trainer 13 - 40.05

Ten mile run today.  I ran the standard circle around campus, but instead of turning at University Parkway, I continued up to the MTC and to the top of Timp View Drive.  I tempoed for 3.5 miles on Timp View averaging about 6:30-6:45 per mile.  I haven't really incorporated many quality speed workouts in my training, which was a mistake.  Someday I'll figure this out.

 DS Trainer 13 - 50.05

Short recovery run. I was feeling more tired than usual today, and just wandered around the suburbs east of campus.  8:23 min/mile pace which is fine for today.

I had to run a mile around the track at my "regular" pace for one of my classes. Yeah. I got bored and sped up to a bit faster pace for my second lap. Came in around 7:12 with 6.66 miles. Jogged back to my dorm and ended with 6.81

 DS Trainer 13 - 56.86

I completely forgot what I had planned on doing today, if I even planned it out. So I decided to run 7-8 miles with 2 marathon pace miles and 1 regular pace. It worked out very well. I was able to maintain the pace, and the hardest part was finding how fast 7:17 min/mile is.

I didn't get the splits for each mile, but my average mile paces for each 2 mile increment are 7:22 and 7:26. I was rested for a half mile after, but got down around LES and there was a huge group of people, so I unconsciously sped up. That is either going to make my marathon amazing or kill me.

GEL-Frantic - 457.0

Wow. That sucked.

 I have no idea what happened, but I died after mile 7 today. Today was supposed to be my last long run over 10 miles, but I only got about 9.5, and 1.5 of that was walking.  I mean, I went out fast to see how my body would handle it during the marathon, but it's not like I was running sub-7:00. Body's just tired I guess.

First three miles - 7:30 min/mile. Tried to have a rest mile (8:18) and then speed up again for two more miles but just couldn't.  Maintained about 8:32 the rest of the way (except for an extended walking period). This cannot happen during the marathon. I have to rest next week and get my body at 100%

Today was a beautiful day.

My jogging class was going running today, so I was able to sleep in. I started my run at 11:25 and it was sprinkling a little bit, beautiful. I went out two miles (7:48 avg pace) when my back started hurting, took a break,  and realized I probably needed to push it to threshold if I wanted to make it to class on time.  So I did. My body flew down the street and back to class. It was beautiful.

I kept up a very good pace until I got to my group and then had to wait for them to take roll and everything, so 5-8 minute break. My professor said we could go and I took off, pushing 6:00 for half a mile.  I needed to drop my gloves off at my dorm and when I got back outside, everyone else was just getting to where my dorm was. Kept pushing it up University Parkway hill and down a bit the other side.  I averaged 6:32 for the four miles of tempo which is the best I ever had.  It helped that there was a kid that caught up to me when I toned it back who was going about 6:45 mile pace. 

 I averaged 7:08 back to the SFH and my dorm. It was beautiful weather and I was wearing my awesome Fast Running Blog shirt. I think that works like a placebo and makes me unconsciously run faster.

 Afterwards I lifted in the weight room for about an hour. Upper body only. Abs will be on wednesday and I'm going to talk to the teacher about having to work out next week.

DS Trainer 13 - 74. 56

Resting today. I didn't realize I should only be running 25-28 miles this week in tapering and did too many yesterday. 

Short run. As I'm decreasing the volume, I'm increasing the pace, but I'm afraid I'm pushing it a bit too much. I just let my body go and tried to ignore my watch, set my own pace. Kept it really good for the first  5 miles or so, then took off going down University Parkway. I guess I could call it marathon prep because of the hills.

 Average pace - 7:50

Time - 47:48

I'm going to try and get another kid on my floor to come with me tomorrow and help me pace myself.

DS Trainer 13 - 80.66

No run. Woke up and decided I'd rather run 5 tomorrow and 6-7 on Friday.

I really didn't feel good this morning, which is surprising looking at my low mileage for the week.  Perhaps that's the problem?

I ran up to the Temple, around it twice, and back home.  Tomorrow will be a 7-8 mile jog up Timp View drive and back I'm guessing. So you can stalk me if you please.

 Marathon in 8 days! I'm hoping for 3:20 today. I think the age divisions are 13-17 and 18-24(26?) but if it is 13-18, I think I can win my division.  The fastest kid is 3:18 from previous years and I'm planning on just destroying my body and pushing it into Saint George.Mind over body and such. I'll have to see how that pans out ha ha.

 DS Trainer 13 - 85.16

That felt good, but was moderately hard. I forgot to start my watch again when I had to wait for a crosswalk so the distance is off a bit. But, I did pull off BQ marathon pace almost the whole way.

 I cannot wait for next Saturday. Very optimistic goal is BQ, 3:10, which would require perfect weather and perfect legs from me. My more conservative goal is under 3:30. I'm pretty sure I can make that.

The final week. I cannot wait to see how this goes! I also can't wait to start training hard again. This taper has got me down, but I realize the necessity of it lasting so long, at least until I get up to 13-15 miles a day.

I've been looking at last year's results for the marathon, and I know that I could win my age division if I can go out and feel good. The adrenaline and people will give me that boost I need to maintain a quick pace.  If not first, I know I will get in the top 8 for sure, which means I at least get a plaque!

I'm not sure what to do this week though, so any suggestions would be appreciated. I've been thinking and here's what I'm planning

Monday - 6 miles

Tuesday 3 miles

Wednesday 4x400 @ Fun, but fast pace

Thursday and Friday - off

Saturday - 26.2 @ however fast my body will let me go.

As far as getting down to Saint George, I'm hoping my parents will come pick me up. . . I don't want to ride the shuttle.

Good run up Timpview Hills. (New route name. Goes from my dorm up University Parkway around the MTC onto Timp View Drive and then down Foothill Drive to Canyon road.) 

I noticed yesterday that my legs really aren't getting that extra "oomph" and feeling better from my taper. I think I've been pushing it too hard. So today I let my body just run and refrained from pushing myself any harder. 8:04 min/mile average.

I'm working on the mind game, so if you see some guy running around Provo in the morning saying to himself "I will conquer." "I know I can do it." et al. don't freak out.  I will be posting stuff in my room that will pump me up even more this week and convince my mind.

 PM: Lifted for weight training. Only upper body and long sets of 15+ with reduced weight.

Nice and easy 4.5 miles up and around the Temple.

My right ankle started hurting pretty badly about a quarter mile from my dorm on the way back.  The pain kept increasing and I had to walk a little way home. I'm thinking it's because of my old shoes, so those won't be used again for a while.  I'm icing and wearing a bandage today, I'm not taking any risks.

Avg pace for 2 mile splits -

8:18 min/mile (uphill)

7:52 min/mile (downhill)