Training in Montana

Ran 4 miles this morning in beautiful 47 degree temps. Hands were cold! Beautiful. AP: 8:54 (I hope I'm not going too fast too soon, but the legs feel good and a comfortable pace for me on the flat is 8:30 or so).

Noon, did Boot Camp. I forgot the gym floor is being redone, so the class was at a nearby park. It was .8 miles away, and I booked it there. Had some tough exercises, plus lots of running, so I did nearly 7 miles today. Legs feel good. Heading to PT again this afternoon for round 2, and likely final round, of dry needling.

Nice run this morning, again in cool temps of 50 or just below. My hands were ice cold on the out with the sun to my back, and warmed up going into the sun. Legs felt good (but sore from yesterday's efforts) and calf feels great. Hit Physical Therapy again last night and did the dry needling for the last time, hopefully. No twitching with the stimulation, which was odd, but a lump in the calf went away so it must've worked.

Stretched, 30 pushups, 60 second plank, 10 pullups.

AP: 8:36

Noon Boot Camp. About 2 miles between running there and back, and running around the track. It was a good one, but hot. No clouds, sun beating down, and on the fake turf it was hot as blazes. Lots of legs, arms, and core exercises.

I signed up today for a 5K on Saturday. I'm not in racing shape, so we'll see how it goes. I haven't done a 5K in a long time.

Ran the 5K course this morning before work. It is a goofy course with lots of turns, but it ends at our minor league baseball stadium and they found a course which doesn't require a lot of busy roads to be blocked off, which makes sense. What I struggled with is the course description isn't an actual description or a printable map - it is a link to Google Maps with different colored lines for each distance (2 mile, 5K, 10K). It actually worked well, as I could see my blue blinking dot on the map, and it showed where I went off course either because they couldn't mark it within the University grounds, or where I wasn't looking down and missed seeing the white 5K arrows going left or right. The course isn't easy. Starts slight downhill, then flat, then uphill, flat, uphill, flattish, up 1 level of a parking garage, then it's downhill or flattish, and finishes with a solid downhill. Not a Utah/mountainous downhill, but it must lose 100 feet the last 1/2 mile. I plan to fly down that. Will run the course again tomorrow morning and Saturday before the race.j

Ran the 5K course again and didn't get lost this time. Glad I ran it a 2nd time. Ran fast the last 1/2 mile, and probably shouldn't have. Felt a left calf niggle while jogging back to the Y, so I stopped running and walked the rest of the way. Rolled it out, doesn't seem to an issue, and hopefully it won't be. Supposed to be 50 and raining tomorrow morning. Ugh.

Being youngest in an age group is nice. Not in great shape, but nobody showed up and my effort was good enough for 1st AG. I ran my race, which was nice for a change. Rainy day, 52F at start time and light rain. It dumped in the night time, then lightened up a bit before the race. My initial plan was to run the course again to warm up, but because it was raining I hit the Y to warm up, which isn't far from the start line. Hit the bike for 1 mile, then the water rowing machine for 90 seconds (that is hard), then ran 1 mile at a fairly slow pace. It was getting close to the 8:15 am start, so went and changed and decided on singlet with arm warmers, thin gloves, headband, compression socks, running shorts, and long-billed running hat with nearly clear sunglasses. Perfect combination. Parked halfway between start and finish, so wore long sleeved shirt to walk to the start. Moved right to the front of the start line, took off the long sleeved shirt and rolled it up to tie around my waist. Gun went off on time, and the start is downhill and I took off but not too fast. Faster than I thought, or the GPS was wrong, but I hung back of a guy older than me. A lady around my age smoothly cruised past both of us and I was jealous. She won the Master's womens division by a large margin. After the initial downhill the rest of the first 3/4 mile is flat, then a big uphill that I run regularly. It slowed all of us down. Then 1/4 mile flat, and another 1/2 mile of up. I was feeling pretty good, but breathing hard yet controlled. I continued with a solid pace, about as fast as I could maintain, and kept that up and most of us picked it up the last mile. With 3/4 mile left a guy close to my age passed me by 5 steps. I was waiting for the last 1/2 mile which is very downhill. I picked up the pace, as did others, and once we hit the flat (maybe 1/4 mile left) I picked it up more, and about 150 yards out I started sprinting. Passed the guy who had passed me, and finished strong. I could've picked up the pace sooner as my legs still had a lot left in them at the end, but I'm still happy. I was absolutely soaked at the end, as was everybody. A steady drizzle throughout, and lots of puddles we ran through. I didn't know how I did, but after collecting free stuff from vendors, walked to my truck, drove to the Y and cooled down, then checked results online. It showed the Men's Masters winner had a time of 22:15 (which seemed slow) and my time was faster than that, but I couldn't find me in a search. I hurried and showered and went back to the finish line to argue with someone. I had my number on my shorts, not my chest, so I thought they may give me grief, even though that's how I've done every race. Turns out the Master's winner was 19:42 or so, but I did win my age bracket. Not hard when you just turned 45 and it was 45-49. That worked in my favor 5 years ago at a 5K, so glad it worked for me even though I am not in decent shape. Good enough, and I'm happy. 

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/2781686542