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

I went out today with a goal of running for 45 continuous minutes after the disaster that was yesterday's long run.  So I've been reading up on McMillan Running.com and the guy uses Jack Daniel's Running Formula to calculate the proper pace that you should run to train  The online calculator says to keep my pace between 8:06 and 8:36 for easy runs.  

 For my run, I started out from my house and headed down around Snow Canyon High and meandered around  the trails before heading back home. I got home at 44:07 and called it good enough.  My presence was required in the water closet, if you know what I mean.

 I felt pretty good most of the time and managed to maintain an average pace of 8:16. Although it felt good, I sure felt like I was holding back and going extremely slow. Ha ha, there was one point though when I got on the trailhead by Snow Canyon and another lady came from Little League Drive right behind me.  I thought she might pass me, (yeah right I think now) but it bugged me to have some random person's footsteps right behind me so I let go and pushed 6:00-6:30 for 400-800 metres.  Not a good idea. I had to really start pushing then just to keep going at my pace. Oh well, it felt great while I was doing it.

 Got home and worked out on the Bowflex for 45 minutes or so. Great for toning, but not so much for gaining muscle mass.  But, it is better than nothing, I suppose.

 Oh hey, and if anybody knows how to get Five Finger shoes for less than $90, please let me know.  That's way too much for a novelty shoe if you ask me. 

I set out today with the goal of 8-10 miles.  I ran from my house up to Castle Rock (aka Death Mountain) and back.  Overall it was a pretty good run. My dad had the GPS so I had to guesstimate my pace and such and I'm pretty sure I averaged around 8:30 or so for the first 9 miles.  The last mile was after a short break and it was more of a walk/run cool-down. Overall, it took ~1:20.  I really need to work on my endurance if I'm going to get under 3:10 in the marathon.  Right now I think that 3:20-3:30 is a more realistic time for my fitness level.

Anyway,  I'm happy with myself so far this week. 

Today was a nice, easy, slow, recovery run.  McMillian's calculator says I should be running just over 9:00 per mile for recovery, but I had a hard time going that slow.  It was an ok run.  Not much more than I expected because I went to the 9:20 showing of Hellboy last night. I only slept from 12:00-5:40.  I've increased my miles already this week and I'm pretty happy about that.

 Worked out my legs and the bowflex today. That went pretty well and I watched a good episode of the X-Files.  I need to get a treadmill so I can force myself to run or at least walk on bad days. And I can entertain myself with more pirated tv shows.

Oh, and I worked for six hours.  I work at Stadium 8 and working the matinee shows is horrible.  We really have nowhere to go and sit down, and no work to do. So I basically get paid to stand around for 5 hours and work for an hour.  At least I get free movie tickets...

Well, I guess some good things have to come to an end.  I've been pushing myself pretty hard this week and really increasing my miles.  I felt like I needed to throw some speedwork in for today's workout and it didn't work out so well.  I chose to do 2 mile repeats and I only ran one continuous mile.  Perhaps I was pushing it too hard, or I am just feeling fatigue from running earlier this week. 

The first repeat felt so-so. I ran out to where my GPS said 1 mile, turned around and ran back home.  I even started to speed up and was excited with my performance. Until I got home.  Oops. I forgot that I had part of my warm-up on my watch and I actually only did 1.3 miles instead of two. Great workout, eh? It was at 5:43 pace though.  Would have been right on if I could've maintained it for two miles. Took a break and set out for the next one and barely made it a quarter of a mile before my heart started pounding and I just stopped. Walked a bit and thought over what I should do and decided to switch to a Fartlek. Tried doing that, and same results. So I ended up walking/running a bit before heading home.

 I'm starting to wear an ace bandage on my right shin for the better part of the day now.  I always get shin splints when I start increasing my miles

I'm still planning on that 15 mile run on Saturday. But I'm working tonight and tomorrow from 5:30-1:00am. We'll just have to see how that turns out.

Not a lot to say today. I didn't get off work until 2:05 A.M. and woke up at 6:00.  So I got about 3 1/2 hours of sleep before my run.  Ran up to Castle Rock and up on the Chuckawalla trailhead area for about 7 miles.  I kept up at my target pace of 8:30 for the first 3 and last 3 miles, but had to slow down up on the trails because of elevation changes and soft dirt.  I did bring a camelbak with my and two Gu packs.  Ate one at 45 minutes and the other at 60.  Drank at least 3/4 of a gallon while I was on my run holy crap.  I'd like to have water available, but not available the whole run. I can't get my body used to having water whenever I want it, as nice as it is.

 Worked for 8 hours afterwards.  Talk about being totally exhausted at the end of the day.

Oh, and I am a bit worried about the long term effects of almost doubling my miles in one week ha ha.  I went from 20-25 to almost 45.

I wanted to do a six mile tempo run today but once I set out, my body let me know that I was actually doing to recovery run.  Maintained a slow, but painful 9:00 for the first mile while I stretched out and then I started moving a bit better and got up to 8:30.  Still wanted to keep the pace low, though. 

Wasn't what I wanted, but what I needed.

I woke up this morning and really didn't want to run, as much as I knew I needed to.  But I remembered the 10 excuses to miss a run and knew I was right in line with some of them and pushed myself out of bed.  I felt really good, but didn't have the GPS with me so the pace is an estimate from my watch and the mile markers that I know.  The pace felt a bit faster than I would usually go so I marked it as marathon pace. So yeah, 9.5 miles on a day I didn't want to run.

8 mile tempo run today.  I woke up tired again, but still went running.  Splits:

 1.0- 8:46 nice warm-up mile right on.

2.0 - 8:04 Took it a bit faster, but still let my legs warm-up.

3.0 - 7:27 I was trying to hit 7:30 and it felt pretty good.  Just two weeks ago I normally ran at this kind of a pace.  It was easy to maintain, but I really hope these slower times are helping my running like McMillan says they will.

4.0 - 8:25 Rest mile

5.0 - 7:18 Trying to hit 7:15 but missed it by a little.  I struggled to set my pace this mile and was going all over between 6:30 and 8:00 pace.  Body now has enough water on it to overflow Hoover Dam.

6.0 - 9:35 Didn't mean to go this slow, but I took a little break and got some water, plus there was a steep hill where I gained over 300 feet.

7.0 - 6:42 Wanted it to be 6:30 but I was feeling the previous days' run.

8.0 - No time, but half of it was barefoot! Their were two different pavement methods used on my street.  One produced a nice flat surface which is good for running, whereas the other uses gravel and hurts my feet.  Barefoot running dominates.

I was feeling a little nauseous this morning and convinced myself that I didn't need to go on a run even though I felt better right when I normally start running.  So I sat around at home until I was about to have a morning nap around 10:30 and looked at this site.  Felt guilty and checked the temperature and pulled off an 8 mile run.  I did something of a tempo run yesterday, and did more of a Fartlek today. Same course, but backwards.

Warmed-up for 2 miles or so and started striding out to 5:30-6:30 pace.  It was a bit uneven pacewise, but I would stride for two lamposts and jog for three lamposts.

 Halfway through the fourth mile I had to "take care of business" and finally discovered a useful purpose for tamarisk trees, if you know what I mean. This break let my breakfast and yesterday's miles catch up to me and I dealt with quite the stomachache for the rest of the run. (Only reason I mentioned my break)

I'll be participating in an "active recovery" run tomorrow rather than a "passive recovery." This site has helped me so much.  Thank you Sasha, you are definitely my running hero. I look at your blog entries whenever I'm feeling down about my running and see what can be done if I just go out and work.

Pulled off a 16.5 mile run. I ran up through Ivins and over to Bluff Street.  I went up the marathon course four miles and turned around.  It was really hard going backwards, but once I started going on the actual course, it felt really good (around mile 12) and I started moving a lot faster.  The marathon is going to be great.

I started out the day with a nice mile warm-up and then proceeded to do 400's on my street.  I haven't done much speed work for quite some time, so it was pretty hard.  I'm working on building up to 20x400, but I could only muster out 8x400 today.  First four were under 80 seconds and the last four were under 90.  Pretty good for not doing any speedwork all summer.

 Cooled down with a 4 mile run.

Cooled down after my cooldown with a 6 mile bike ride.  Haven't rode that for a while. I was holding on for dear life where the road was bumpy because I'm not used to keeping my balance like that. Crazy fun though.

Pretty good run today.  I went out and ran around Ivins. Start at my house and run to Pioneer Parkway, then up Ivins Main Street, turn right on Snow Canyon Parkway and follow the trail back to Pioneer Parkway and then home.  I was pretty sore from yesterday, but I just started going.  It was going to be a easy to slow run, but after the first mile in 7:30 and still feeling pretty good, I decided to try and push it the rest of the way.  Stayed under 8:00 probably the whole way (no GPS, only watch) So good run.  It's amazing how quickly you can lose your speed when you start training with long runs at slower paces.  7:30 used to be my slow pace when I went on long runs (7 miles max)

Oh boy, I was sore today.  I still was able to do five miles though.  I thought about running an additional 3 during my run, but when I finally got home I decided against it.  I'm going to take it easy the rest of the day.  Hopefully a little rest will allow me to be in much better condition tomorrow.

Wow. Today sucked. I'm still feeling pain and soreness from Monday's 400s and I had a hard time falling asleep last night so I was pretty tired, even after taking yesterday off.  Just an extremely slow 3 miles today. I'm going to go out and try for 16 tomorrow.  Hopefully I can get some good rest and be ready.

Ouch. This sure didn't feel that good.  Ran from my house up the marathon trail to the Ledges and back. 18 miles. Walked for at least 30 minutes, which sucked.  But at least I completed it and didn't give up.

I did 6x800 today.  I was surprised by how well they felt compared to the 400s last week.  I did make a mistake though, my cat really, really wanted to come outside in the front yard, so I let her out after the 800s and washed my car.  Then I went on my cool-down, even though I had already cooled down and the temperature and jumped ten degrees.  It was hot and humid and I reluctantly stopped a few times.  Oh well.  Good workout today.

Pretty good run today. I ran the loop around Snow Canyon Parkway and Pioneer Parkway which is about 9.5 miles.  I did take two short breaks, but I was pushing my normal pace, so I wasn't very disappointed with those.  Overall, it felt really good and I did my best to maintain 7:30ish pace, but probably averaged more around 7:45. 

This is a good start to a new phase of training.You know, obviously this is my first marathon, and I feel like I'm reaching out in the dark trying to figure out how best to train for it.  But that's what this is; it's a learning experience.  With every passing month I'm changing my running schedule up and making it better and becoming a better runner.  And I have many more years (and hopefully marathons) to really push the pace and become a great runner.

I went for a long recovery run In God's Country.   I drove up to the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve and ran around on their trails for about 9 miles or so.  The soft sand and constant elevation changes led to an extremely slow overall pace.  But it was a good recovery run.  26 miles on the week so far! I'm going to hit 50 if I can stay healthy this week.

Today's run started out as a 3-4 mile tempo run.  I set out planning on making the tempo run last for at least 3 of my 7 miles, and then I would evaluate how I felt at the end of the third mile and possibly do a fourth.  I made it to the end of the second tempo mile and lost it.  My body isn't used to pushing itself so hard for so long right now, and I've put a lot of miles on my legs the past couple of days.  Splits for the two tempo miles are

 1- 6:45

2 - 6:59

 They were both inside my pace zone.  When I hit mile four (first mile after I stopped) my hamstrings tightened up and I struggled to continue running.  I ended up walking over a half mile, trying every hundred meters or so to start running again.  The fatigue is setting in, and I've got to get enough sleep tonight to recooperate.  Saturday will be my last long run in Saint George, so I want to make it a good one.

Easy three mile run today to stretch my legs.  I worked out last night and stayed out until 11:30.  Yeah, I'm not doing that again.  Tomorrow I'm going at least 18, but pushing towards 20.  We'll see what happens.

Ha ha ha! I did it! I started getting a little scared last night because I realized I had this massive run today. I even woke up at 4:20 and then again at 5:20 because I could not sleep.  I was sore and still a little worried about being able to complete this, but I did it!  

 First off, Powerbar energy drinks suck.  Big time.  My mom got some for free because they were past their expiration date at Foot Locker.  Maybe that was the problem, but it is sick, and made me more thirsty.  So I called my mom and luckily she brought me some real water around mile 16.  My mom dominates so flippin much.

 I ran from my house up to Ivins Main street and out to snow canyon parkway.  Two miles up and back on Bluff street, and turned right around and came back the same way.  Ha ha, I choked on my water while running on Bluff street, and somebody passed me while I was coughing.  Yeah. I proceeded to give him a clinic on how to run hills.

 Great run until about 18 miles.  I started getting tired and just had to keep on telling myself to keep on going.  I regret that I did stop a few times, but it was half as much as last week (15 minutes).  That was my goal and I made it.  Last week in Saint George, so next week is going to be amazing.

Ugh. I had to go take a physics test this morning, and so I didn't have time to run. I'm going to try and go about 10 miles tonight, but I'm still feeling Saturday's run. It's going to be hard to get more miles than that this week, especially with going to BYU. The altitude is going to suck for a while.

PM: Ran with the Snow Canyon Cross Country team. We did a 20 minute fartlek. Run fast for 30 seconds and then jog for a minute or so. The heat was killing me, not to mention the fatigue from Saturday's run, but I still just did it for fun. It's fun to see everybody again.

Then I ran a 4 mile cooldown with Hayden. He paced me and we talked about running and stuff. Pretty good, because I probably wouldn't have ran much more if he hadn't suggested it. Tomorrow I'm going to try and pull off my 10 mile regular day. We'll see how it goes on half the regular rest time.

Yuck. I had to take two tests this morning and didn't go running until 10. It was nasty hot outside and I'm still tired from last week.  Nutrition and sleep weren't that great yesterday either.  So I struggled to even pull off 5.  This week is crappy compared to last week.  Really a bad time to have a huge cut in my miles.

About time.  I got up at 4:30 this morning so I could actually run without the heat.  I went on my Ivins loop for the last time.  9.5 miles in 1:20.  I went in 1:12 last week, but I've still got a little lingering fatigue, so hopefully that subsides over the rest of the day.  Good run in the dark.

I drove up to BYU this morning. (Another 4:30 am day) And we had stuff all day long until I went to sleep.  So no run today.

Wow. 9 miles around BYU campus and up to the temple.  I don't really know where to run around here. And I despise having to run on the sidewalk all the time. But wow.  My body got used to the elevation really quickly somehow.  I was running and had no problems with my breathing; in fact, I ran faster than usual.  Maintained 8:11 for the first 7 miles or so and then accidentally pressed the lap button and got 7:45 for my last two miles.  That's really good for my body.

 The funny thing is that I was walking across campus in a hurry to get to my dorm this afternoon and I was having a hard time breathing and talking.  Kinda weird, but this altitude should make my marathon even better.

Hills. Hills. Hills.

 That was the first 8 miles of my run. And with the changed altitude, and the fact that they were extremely long (Temple Hill to Rock Canyon) made me really slow.  Urban running is going to take some getting used to. I basically wandered around adding miles on. Fun.

 Oh and I think I saw the women's cross country team. Wow. Talk about the 20 hottest girls in the school. In short shorts. All together in one spot. w00t. I also saw Thatcher

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)

I had to sleep in this morning and go running for my jogging class.  Just a little jog from the SFH and around campus and then a half mile cool-down in the SFH. I love the banked turns.

I was trying to keep it slower, but my body's new "slow" seems to be 7:40 min/mile. I'm not mad about that, I just feel like I should be running slower now.There were some faster VO2 max portions too. I walked back to Helaman with a cute girl in my class, and had to rush back to make it to my weight training class.

Other than some lingering pain in my shins I will be 100% by Saturday. I cannot wait.

I might go mess around on the track tomorrow and do those 4x400s I talked about on Sunday.

 DS Trainer 13 - 107.81

Wow.  This was an absolutely amazing experience and I am hooked on running marathons now. 

I woke up at 4:30 and was shaking like crazy.  I guess I was just worried about what was going to happen.  Had some oatmeal and then my dad and I left to pick up his friend and go to the buses. 

I was still scared about what was to come until the race started.  Luckily I had my warm-ups on because it was cold and rainy at the starting line (and for the entire race). I thought I was going to freeze if I took my stuff off, but it actually felt good, like the weather in Provo.  I never had any harmful effects from the wind, and I think that the weather helped me more than hurt.  I was just disappointed that people not native to Saint George didn't get to see how beautiful the course really is.

There were so many people there and it took about six minutes before I crossed the starting line.  I should have gone up and started with the elite runners instead of back in the pack. 

Here are my mile splits.  I hit the half at 1:36 and thought I was looking for a negative split to qualify for Boston, but the second half was 1:48. Maybe I went out too fast, but I think I got caught up in the race and when some FRB members passed me, I sped up to stay with them for a half mile.  I think that doomed by sub 3:20 time. I still took second in my age division (15-18) and second in the Spectrum Silver Shoe, losing to the 14 year old who got 3:08.

 1 - 7:20 - Running on the shoulder and sometimes the dirt. I passed hundreds of people here.

2- 7:17

3 - 7:08 - Passed my three friends that were running too.  I ended up beating them by half an hour.

4 - 6:56 - I found my weight training teacher and ran with her and her friend until Veyo Hill. It helped me so much to have someone running with me.

5 - 7:04

6 - 6:47

7 - 6:53

8 - 7:43 - Veyo Hill. My training lacked any emphasis on hills and as you can see, it took 4-5 miles to recover.  I still took it hard and fast and left my teacher behind.

9 - 7:51

10 - 7:42 - Somewhere around here I noticed a guy was running with me.  I started talking to him and we ended up pushing each other the next 8 miles.  I saw him at the end of the race and he wanted my phone number, gave me a big hug, and had his wife take a picture of us.

11 - 7:51

12 - 7:42

13 - 7:24

14 - 7:29

15 - 7:00

16 - 6:48

17 - 7:14

18 - 7:52 - Death.  Some FRB guys passed me right here. I still felt really good and was hitting good splits so I thought I could speed up with them.  Horrible idea.  Maybe I was just burning out anyway, but this was the point I will remember losing it.

19 - 9:20

20 - 8:26

21 - 7:57

22 - 9:01

23 - 9:05

24 - 7:35 - My weight training teacher and her friend caught back up to me here. I stuck with them for the mile going into Saint George and then hit the wall.

25 - 10:13 - Yuck. I walked a lot of this mile.  The last two miles seemed like they would never end, but I knew I had only this little bit left to go.

26 - 8:28

26.2 - 1:48 - Sprinted into the chute w00t. 

DS Trainer 13 -  134.01

Yuck. I hate hobbling around campus like a handicap.  I stretched out pretty good in weight training and tried running around a little on the way back to my dorm.  I've heard it's a pretty funny sight to watch.  Depending on what comes up, I will probably go walk around the track and try getting my body to run.  The pain is so annoying, but definitely worth it.

 I also bought Advanced Marathoning from the FRB store and got Daniels' Running Formula from the HBLL.  I'm looking at what other marathons I could get into sometime next year, and I'm super excited to try and break 3:10, or maybe even 3:00 if I work hard enough.

Do they have a rehab system for running addiction? I need it. Now.

I still am suffering from major post-marathon pain, as I believe many others of you are.  I want to go out and just stretch the legs, run a bit, but I've decided that I need to wait. I need to let my body rest so I can start performing at my best as soon as possible, without injury. 

Looking ahead to future races . . . There are two good looking marathons in Utah next summer I could do. I should be leaving on my mission in early August so that's my deadline to run another one  (or two), otherwise I would try and run Top of Utah.  I'm deciding between the Ogden Marathon and Salt Lake Deseret News Marathon. Which is better? More people? Faster course? More scenic course?

Slow, easy run for my jogging class.  We were supposed to Fartlek, but I just kept a regular pace.  We went down University Avenue and over to the Provo River Trail for 4.16 miles.

Splits:

1 - 8:23

2 - 7:57

3 - 9:37

4 - 8:15

.16 - 8:22 min/mile pace

I had some major quad pain in mile 3 and walked for a bit.  I'm struggling to maintain a good pace, but that should clear up as the month progresses. 
I think I'm going to take tomorrow off and then run on Friday.  

Rest again today. It's going to be hard to get my body up out of bed at 5 again next week. Cold too.

I've been reading Daniels' Running Formula and I'll try to have a very good, specific training program prepared by the time I feel like actually training again.

I'm going to "jog" 5-6 miles tomorrow morning. I would say I'm at 90% today, and hope to be back up to 100% by then. Just  a little soreness left.

Slow, easy run today. I thought I would be recovered more by today, but it hurt more than Wednesday's run.  Just 3.55 miles around campus in an amazing fast time of 32:02. That's 9:00 min/mile! I'm happy that I can run this soon after the marathon though.

 I need to go buy some cold weather gear, but I'm not sure what I should really get.  It gets way colder here than it ever did in Saint George. I thought it would be freezing this morning and I overdressed, adding to the pain already in my legs. Hopefully I can get my parents to take me shopping for cold weather running clothes and they can subsidize it.

I went running with my jogging class today. It was nice because it let me wait until the sun had come up and warmed it a little. I couldn't maintain the pace that I wanted to, but in fact went much faster.  Perhaps I've reached a new level of fitness?

Average of about 7:30 min/mile, with a high of 9:38 because I didn't stop my watch while waiting to cross the street.

Finished off my run with 4 laps around the indoor track, striding out for the straight portions.  I should have done 100 meters, but forgot that the indoor track is only 65 metres or so on the straights.

Ouch. I planned on doing an hour-long run this morning, last night.  After looking at the weather forecast, I was totally psyched and ready to go find out what sub-freezing temperatures feel like.  When I woke up (5:22) I felt like crap from working out my legs yesterday and just didn't feel like running.  I said my morning prayers, of course asking to be motivated to push myself to the best of my ability and to be safe. I got up to get ready and pondered if I really should go, or just wait until tomorrow, finally deciding to go back to bed, my body was too sore for a good run.  But, after five minutes in bed, my body let me know that it wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon. Good thing I said my prayers this morning, eh?

Got seven miles in going up Timp View Drive.  They were tough, and I had to continually push myself to even continue running. Average pace of 8:28 min/mile.  I didn't maintain the same pace for much of my run, but I feel like I maintained the same intensity for most of it.

I'm having weird problems with my knee.  It hurts pretty badly and I'm going to take it easy tomorrow and then take Thursday off. I'm going to a Silverstein and Chiodos concert at the Salt Air on Wednesday, my very first real concert, and I don't know what my sleep will be like.

 DS Trainer 13 - 155.43

Woke up this morning and felt sore, and not like going running. I went back to sleep and barely made it to class.  Post-marathon training sucks.

 I went to the BYU weight room and rode the elliptical bike for about an hour. 20 minutes biking =1 mile running right? That was hard, but it was hard without stressing my legs.  Good workout.  I just have to mention that I was completely drenched in sweat when I was finished.  There were no fans nearby, and it was . . . way cool, I thought. 

I tried to run on the treadmill for two to three miles after, but I just can't do it.  I ran for about 30 seconds and then decided to stop. I always feel like I'm going to fall off the front by running too fast or fall off the back.  I'm going to work on my treadmillophobia this winter though.

Yuck. Nothing to call home about today. Felt like going straight back to sleep when the alarm went off, but found myself outside 15 minutes later. I feel like crap. I can't run. I have no motivation to run. I don't want to get out of bed. Maybe it's the cold, or maybe just the doldrums of post marathon training.

To fix the problem, I'm going to get more sleep. That's the biggest priority right now. More sleep will hopefully equal better, and more, miles.  I have a big test in biology coming up today, but once that is out of the way I'm having a nap.

  DS Trainer 13 - 160.91

Great run today! I'm finally feeling better today.  I slept in (thank heavens, I didn't fall asleep until after midnight) because I had jogging class today.  I started out 30 minutes before class and went up Canyon Rd. for 13 minutes.  Turned around and pushed it up to threshold pace until I got to class.  I had to have a little break while we took roll and talked about what we were doing today; something I wasn't happy about, but it all worked out fine.  Then I kept up the tempo to the BYU Intramural fields and pushed it going around the perimeter.  I hit my goal of 25 minutes of tempoing, then stopped, took off my shoes, and cooled down for one lap.  

Amazing.

The cool, wet mud on my feet felt beautiful. Hopefully my blisters have healed enough that I don't get some crazy infection.  While I was running I saw a bunch of white things on the field, that I thought were shoes. Weird.  As I got closer I saw that they were actually birds! Ha ha, I ran right through the middle of them, scattering them all over the place.  Definitely summarized the awesomeness of today's run. 

I did 6 striders also.  Not sure about the distance, but they were good and fast.  Worked out my legs in weight training and had some great pasta, a BLT, and a nice chicken salad for lunch.

I'm playing soccer tonight too, so I need to go easy on my legs tomorrow.

I went out with two kids on my floor this morning.  I asked who wanted to be the pace setter, and he absolutely took off! We're talking like 6:45 pace.  I wasn't physically or mentally prepared to run that fast today, as I was just planning on an easy run.  Kept it going at a pretty high intensity for most of the run.  Ran around campus up 9th East and around the Provo Temple, then back the same way.  Almost died up Temple Hill, and then finally died when we got back down to University Avenue. I was not ready for this today, but it was good to run with other people. 

Splits:

1 - 8:14

2 - 7:45

3 - 8:02

4 - 7:35

5 - 7:39

6 - 8:18

My knee has been killing me for the past couple of days, so I slept in and went to the weight room after lunch.  I rode the elliptical bike for 45 minutes keeping my heart rate above 150, mostly above 160 and worked hard.  Then I got on the treadmill for 5 minutes to see how my knee would respond to running.  It felt fine, but now my tibialis anterior is starting to hurt.  One pain to another.  That's the story of my running life.

 So my knee started hurting after the marathon, and I figure that it was just from that.  But then I started thinking about it during long, painful walks across campus and I realized that I probably hit it on a cabinet at the cafeteria.  The people who work there always forget to shut the cabinets and I bump my knee cap into them when I get my morning Wheaties.  The pain is on the interior side of my kneecap and it does not feel good.  Any pressure on it makes it feel worse.  I'm really hoping that a little rest will fix it, but I don't know what's going to happen.  I mean it can't be that bad if I have run on it can it?

DS Trainer 13 - 174.66

I'm kinda depressed after riding the elliptical bike for an hour; it just isn't fun at all.My knee is getting somewhat better, but I'm afraid of running on it and going back to square one.  I guess i should be happy that I at least went and got some aerobic exercise. 

 I'm not going to try and run until Monday. Hopefully I'll actually be able to run and start back into a good training schedule by then. I can't wait to start working hard and increasing my speed.

After not running for most of last week, I felt sluggish and out of tune today. Good news is that my knee doesn't hurt very bad (it only really hurt one day, but I was trying to be careful) but bad news is that my right ankle hurts a bit. I will be wearing the wrap around it and probably taking tomorrow off.

 Then hopefully I can get back into a groove and work towards some winter maintenance stuff. I would like to start building a base back up, and then progressing to working on my speed in January and February while it's really cold outside and I'm rejected to the indoor track.  Hopefully I can teach myself how to run on a treadmill too.

 By the way, this shoe tracker is amazing, because I always forget to update the mileage on my posts.

Crazy fast today. I went for my jogging class again.  A mile and a quarter warm-up to the Fieldhouse and on the track.  Did a loop around campus past the MTC and LES, which is roughly 4 miles.  Cooled down for about .6 miles on the track and then ran back to the dorm for a grand total of 6!

 I ended up averaging 7:30, with a fast mile of 6:55 downhill and a slow mile of 8:04 warming up. But the warm-up mile was indoors, so my Garmin was having some issues recording it. I took off much too fast and ended up just taking it.  Hurt by the time I was finished, but it was good nonetheless.

 I saw one of my friends at the MTC today. That was nice. I could very well never see him again. Which makes it even better that I thought he was someone other than he was. How embarrassing is that to call him the wrong name? I now have at least five friends in the MTC. It's crazy.

Beautiful run up University Parkway, past the MTC, and up Timp View Drive and back. I haven't ran continuously for this long for a bit, and it hurt a bit, but felt good.  

My current goal is to get back up to 50 miles a week by December so I am going to try and hit 30-35 next week, then 40, 45, 50.  It shouldn't be very tough, but I need to get used to waking up early again. Thank heavens for daylight savings time.

Eight-ish today. I found out that my all of my roommate's brothers are runners, so I made him come out with me for half an hour. I let him set the pace, and we went at about 10 min/mile. I had to speed up at the end to make it to class on time, and then set my own pace for the next 5 miles or so. I averaged about 7:30 pace, and felt pretty good for the majority of my run. The hill going t up 9th East kills me everytime though. 

 Worked out lower body in my weight training class afterwards.  Not fun to lift directly following running.

 My FHE family played capture the flag tonight. It was tons of fun, and I got some sprinting work in. Ha ha, I never get picked first in games, but I did after everybody saw me running/sprinting around. That made me feel good. We won the first game, but lost the second. Threw on half a mile of easy and half a mile of VO2 max.

It snowed this morning! Other than that, today was a bummer. I got almost an hour of running in, but only 6.5 miles. 8:55 average pace. I don't know what was up, but my body refused to move any faster. Hopefully I can rebound tomorrow and get some good miles in.

Did not feel too good today. I went after my classes at 11:30 or so. Just 30 minutes out and 30 minutes back.  Averaged 8:14, and kept somewhat close to that for most of the run, which is good, but not as fast as I want to be. Hopefully runs will get easier as I get back into the groove of things.

 I'm going home tomorrow night so I'm planning on pulling off a night time run in Saint George w00t!

Today is a wonderful day to run. It's a great temperature and it's raining. But I am injured. Again. I did a light jog to my jogging class to see how my ankle was feeling, and it wasn't too bad. I warmed up for 3 laps around the track and the pain escalated just a little. I thought the soft track was helping to make it ok. Then we did 2x200. My ankle screamed at the end of the second one and I was done. Even let someone beat me. 

I went out 3 miles on Saturday night from my house (I was in Saint George.) and then it flared up really bad again.  I had to jog/limp/walk back to my house. Horrible run. I am seriously considering dropping running for this week. It is absolutely disappointing to finally feel like I can run again, start increasing the miles, and then get another injury. I had a goal of reaching 50 miles per week by December and that goal just got thrown out the door.

Yay.

My ankle has been relatively pain-free since Thursday, and I'm ready to start running again tomorrow. It's been a good week, and I'm happy that I didn't have to worry about getting some runs in, because I stayed up way too late (saw Quantam of Solace at midnight and signed up for classes at midnight another day). Looking forward to this week though. One more week before thanksgiving break. Oh, and there is a Turkey Trot at school on Thursday, but I don't know how I feel about trying to run a race so soon. My weight training instructor really wants me to, but I doubt I can even keep up a sub-6:30 pace for a 5k. Crappy eh?

Goal now is to hit 50 miles per week before finals, December 15-19. Then start a serious speed training phase.

This week:

30 minutes on Monday

30 minutes on Tuesday

30 minutes on Wednesday

45 minutes on Thursday

60 minutes on Friday

60-90 minutes on Saturday

 How's that for slowly building up?

Great. I felt pretty darn good on the way to class. And felt pretty good as I started running, until I got about a mile out. The pain came, and I didn't dare do anything to make it even worse, so I just went back to my dorm. Did 20 minutes on the elliptical and then did an upper body workout. I don't know how long this is going to take, but obviously yesterday's goals were too high. I'm going to take tomorrow off and try again on Wednesday. Then Friday. It's the best I can do, and I just have to persevere through these troubles.

Got in a better run today; the pain didn't come until the fourth mile. Just up and around the Temple to stretch my legs out and see how the recovery is going.

Half an hour of running this morning.  I went with a girl in my ward and let her set the pace. Averaged 10:03 per mile. She just about died going up Temple Hill ha ha. It was fine though, because it kept my pace slow, and I was able to get in more time before the ankle tightened up.

Again. The pain was less today, but that didn't mean I wanted to run on it any more than I have been. Just looking at this past month's miles makes me feel bad. They are so crappy.

 Up behind the Temple to Rock Canyon. 2 miles over almost full uphill, followed by 2 miles of downhill. Not the best thing to do when your ankle hurts eh?

I'm going back to Saint George this afternoon, so hopefully I can get some better miles in back home.

Woke up and did not want to run, but finally got around to it at 9:30 or so. Not a good run back home in Saint George. I originally set out to run 4-5 miles, but my ankle started to hurt and I had to take a turn and cut it back to 3.

 I had to push myself just to finish a measly 3 miles.. This is not how I should be running right now; it's so disappointing.

I'm going to play soccer tomorrow, and will run for a mile or two to warm-up. Hopefully I will be able to play well.

I have a group of friends that play soccer instead of football on thanksgiving, so I went to play with them. Surprisingly little pain from my ankle, but maybe it's because of the flat field. I really love soccer.

Started out at a good pace today, and felt like I would be able to keep it up for the duration of my run. My ankle felt good as I stayed off of it for the majority of thanksgiving vacation, but almost on cue it started to hurt at the conclusion of the third mile. Great. It was as I was running downhill, and I think that hills inflame it.  I walked for a bit, and then forced myself to jog back. Called my parents and they said to stop running on it for at least a week, if not two. If it isn't better by the time I go back home for Christmas, they'll take me to a physical therapist or other doctor.

Finally back to running. It felt fine, but man, three weeks off hurts pretty bad. Finals are over and I'm back at home. Hopefully this injury is gone.

Took my 9 year old brother with me for a mile and a half, and then he wanted to go more. I let him go about 2.25 before I told him he needed to stop for his future running ability. 

 I went out another 2 miles or so when he went back home, and my ankle started acting up at mile 3. I really expected 3 weeks of rest to heal it, but I'll just have to keep on pushing through it. I'm going to go to the doctor for my mission physical next week, and I'll see what he has to say about it.

Took Brendan out for about 1.76 miles. Wow, he is a pretty good runner. I've heard that he is faster than the other kids he plays soccer with, but he has some serious potential in those 9 year old legs. Hopefully I can get him to run with my parents after I leave. He'll be challenging for the state championship in 8 years if I have anything to say about it. He needs running shoes too. I don't know where to get shoes in his size though.

I went a bit longer. Not much to call home about. My ankle started hurting, but I kept on going. My goal right now is to ease back into running while getting used to the cold weather (if that is possible). I don't know if I'll be running another marathon before I leave for my mission in August, so running is just going to become a hobby. I'll take it back up seriously when I get off my mission.