Training in Montana

No miles today, but I did shovel my driveway for 2 1/2 hours so I got some aerobic and muscular gains. Beautiful white stuff.

1 warmup mile at 10 minute pace, then 6 marathon pace miles at 7:24 pace, on the TM. First 3 miles at 2% incline, and in the MP miles I was struggling but not as badly as a couple weeks ago. I wanted to make it the full 6 miles without dying, so after my 2nd pace mile I dropped the incline to 1%, went 2 more miles, and dropped the incline to 0% the last 2 miles. I felt like I could have continued at that pace for a long time, so I'm really excited about this run!

I also feel pretty stupid about "trying for a BQ" last summer when I had hardly put in any pace miles. I thought about it and would do a couple here and there but nothing tough like today's workout, and I'm early into the training cycle. I have 8 more pace mile sessions, up to 10 miles, and I can already see how beneficial these will be. I still don't know if I really have a 3:14:59 in me just yet but this is giving me the best chance to date. I love the fitness gains I've seen in me the past 4 years. I love to run.

8 miles on a step back week. Got out at 6:30 am as the temps would be dropping throughout the day and 20 degrees was as good as it would get. Thankfully no wind and it was a nice run.

Paces: 9:34, 8:12, 8:34, 8:12, 8:00, 7:16, 7:11, 7:28 (including putting the ice spikes back on my shoes). AP: 8:03.

5 TM miles this morning at home. A decent run, lots of sweat. Windchills outside were -21 this morning. Good idea to stay inside.

Scheduled called for 3 miles so hopped on the home TM for a quick 3. Progressive run as is normal for me, and ended going a bit quick at 9.3 mph, but I was trying to finish up to get to work a bit earlier than normal. Ended up sweating for 30 minutes after the run but it all worked out.

Ran 2 miles and bit to my best hill, then did 4 X hills, then ran home. No watch. Mid 20s out, breeze heading out but no wind coming back. Felt pretty darn good.

Pace mile Friday, so I warmed up 1 mile on the TM at the YMCA, then did 6 miles at 8.1 mph/7:24 pace. Warmup & first 2 miles at 2% incline, next 2 at 1%, last 2 at 0 incline. Amazing what a difference 1% incline makes. I was struggling after 2 pace miles and nearly slowed to a walk (typed in 4.0 on the TM but didn't hit Enter) but then dug in and continued on. I rightly predicted that after 2 miles or so I would be dialed in to the pace and my legs would be numbed to the difficulty. That worked great. Love this hard workout. Now I need to work on keeping the incline at 2% for longer. Not sure I'll be running MP miles outdoors for a while as the roads are pretty crappy around here and we've had oodles of snow so far this season.

13 up my Veyo hill. Mildish temps meant I took off my jacket after a few miles and ran without it until a couple miles to go. I felt strong. I've got a good mix of TM and outdoor running the last bit.

AP: 8:40.

Very windy all night long, gusts up to 55 mph, so stayed home and ran on the TM. 2% incline, warmed up at 6 mph, then bumped to 7 for a while, then 8.1 (MP) for the last 2 miles as I was rushed for time. My 10 yr old son had hidden the TM key from my 7 yr old daughter a couple days ago, so I had to wake up my son at 6 am to ask where the key was. He mumbled where to find it. Funny kid. Lost 10 minutes so I ran a bit faster to make up for it.

3 on the TM at home this morning. I know 3 isn't many miles, but that's what Hal has for today on his advanced 1 schedule, and I'm not gonna lie: I like the short days. It's a nice rest.

Not completely sure of mileage, but 5 is about right. Did a Hal 35 minute tempo run on the TM. His idea of a tempo is different from others that I've read, and not sure I did it right, but it worked for me. Started off at 2% incline warming up at 6 mph for 1/2 mile, then bumped up 0.5 mph for each 1/2 mile. When I got to 13 minutes I decided that I should do my big speed tempo for the next 15 minutes. Bumped it up to 8.5 mph (7:04 pace but feels like 6:50 pace at 2% incline) and held it there for 15 minutes. That was a good hard pace, one that I didn't think I could keep, but I did. Watching movies while TM running works well for me as it takes my mind off the task at hand and I just run. Watched the last few minutes of the horrible movie Anaconda, and the first few minutes of Batman & Robin. Nice brainless running. My kind of morning.

7 miles outside in the gorgeous moonlight. Clear skies and a full moon on the Western horizon meant that I didn't use my headlamp. What a beautiful way to start the day. Temps 30F with 10-15 mph WSW wind, which wasn't too bad. Legs felt good after a day of rest. My watch needs a new battery (which I have but I need some time to do it as it's not a simple fix) so I used an app on my phone to track speed and distance. This was great because I couldn't see the pace as I ran, but every mile the computer voice would interrupt what I was listening to and tell me overall time and pace of last mile. It's an out & back, up then down course, so on the up I was approx 9:28, 8:38, 8:15, then on the down 7:22, 7:18, 7:03. Those paces didn't feel difficult and best of all I didn't know what pace I was running and I hit my targets. AP: 8:06.

14 miles up Hillcrest with Angela, the woman I'm going to pace in the Bighorn 100 mile run. First time meeting her and running with her so it was nice to be better understand her and what she'll need in the race.

The run was good. A steady breeze in our faces on the way out but it was 30 degrees so not cold. Slower paces than I normally run, which was good for me. Sometimes it's nice to just run. This has some nasty hills and I'm used to them but Angela isn't, so a good wake up call for her to get lots more hills in very soon. She's running a 50 mile race near San Antonio on March 1st so now can better prep for it.

7 TM miles at the Hampton Inn in Bozeman where we stayed the last couple nights. Good run. Awful noise when I started on it, but thankfully it ended after 1/2 mile. Happy bank holiday!

3 TM miles at the Y just before lunch. My work team had a lunch planned for 1 pm so I hit the gym about 11:40, then they decided to bump the lunch up to 12. I went ahead with my run but hit much faster paces than I normally would, then met them 25 minutes late. It all worked out well.

5 Yasso 800s this morning outside up and down my normal hill. (up) 3:14, 3:18, 3:16, (down) 3:10, 3:13. Tough doing those up hills! Good workout. 

Very windy outside this morning, so home TM for my Friday marathon pace workout. 1 mile warmup at 10:00 pace for 1/2 mile, then 8:35 for 1/2, and 1% incline for the entire run. 7 miles at 8.1 mph/7:24 pace. I don't know if it was the Yasso workout or only 1% incline or having done a few pace workouts now or my home TM is slower than at the Y, but this one was so much easier than previous. It also helped that I was able to watch a Jackie Chan movie (Twin Dragons) while running. It completely took my mind off the difficult-ish pace and let me just run without thinking about it. Major sweat fest. Great workout.

The wind is not my friend. 10 miles today in a stiff diagonal 22 mph wind, hitting my right front shoulder. The out was none too fun. Legs were tired from yesterday's MP effort, then the wind just made it tougher. I suffered through it. Good run. 

A few hours later my outer calves throbbed like they have in the past. It doesn't make sense. I didn't run fast today, not very far. Maybe it was the leaning into the wind? Not sure, but odd. 

8 miles on the Treddy this morning at my house. Watched some stupid movie about a $2 million reward for the first person to Silver City, NM. Had lots of great actors in it, but very cheesy.

Warmed up at 6 mph 2% incline for 1/2 mile, then 6.5 mph and 1% incline for 1 1/2 miles (kept incline same for the remainder). 7 mph for miles 3-4; 7.5 mph for 5-6; 8 mph for 7-8. Lots of sweat.

This is the start of week 7 marathon training and this harder schedule is going to be interesting. I'm looking forward to the challenge.

4 TM miles at home. Below zero windchill outside convinced me to stay inside. Good run. Progression from 6 mph warmup to 6.5 for a bit, then 7.0, ending at 7.5 mph.

5 X hill today. Great workout. Ran just over 2 miles to get to my workout hill, then ran up as fast as I could without dying, walked then jogged back down the hill, and repeated. It was a tough one and I 'm wondering how I'll work up to 7 X hill, but as hill work is only every 3 weeks I think I'll get there.

30F with a 20 mph wind made the wind chill in the teens, but it was actually nice after huffing and puffing up the hill.

Rest day. Love my rest days.

1 warmup mile starting at 6 mph and 2% for 1/2 mile, then 6.5 for a bit then 7.0 until 1 mile. Dropped incline to 1% and set at 8.1 mph for the marathon pace run. Set it and forget it.

After my hill workout on Wednesday my legs were tired and consequently I was tired. Yesterday I was exhausted at the end of the day even though I slept in and didn't exercise. Last night I got to sleep at 10:30 which would give me 7 hours and that's what I need. Normally I sleep really well and roll over to look at the clock within an hour before the alarm. Last night I rolled over, looked at the alarm and it was 12:45 am. What the???? Way too early. I must've rolled over and looked at the clock 5-6 times more, each 45 minutes, then finally it was time and I got out of bed a few minutes before 5:30. Oddly enough I felt rested and ready to go. Hit the home treadmill by 5:50 which gave me just enough time to be done when the family wakes up at 7.

So I'm feeling rested and running along at marathon pace and I'm wondering when this will end. My legs felt fine, but this is a hard enough effort for me to not enjoy it in the beginning miles. I looked at the saved DVR movies and turned on the recent Clash of the Titans. Pretty good flick with enough action to take my mind off fast miles. For me, when I'm on the treadmill I really look forward to the 1/2 way point. Once I get to 1/2 way then the rest seems to cruise along. The same was true today. I made it through the hour of fast running and my legs weren't the worse for wear and neither was my body. I sweated profusely but other than that no ill effects. Eggscellent.

16 total miles today. Did 12.2 outside on 5-6" of fresh snow. In lots of spots it felt like running on sand. 14F for the high today, bright sun, no clouds, no wind. It wasn't too bad. Brought hand warmers for the gloves and that was a really good idea. Wore ice spikes and that helped a little bit but not much. I think it affected my gait a bit as my feet and toes felt weird afterwards. Needed my neck gaiter in a big way and kept it on my chin most of the run but a few times in the last few miles my nose needed some heat so I took off the sunglasses and pulled up the gaiter to my nose and breathed through it. Heated up the nose quickly.

Got home and quickly changed into shorts and a singlet, different shoes, and did the last bit on the treadmill at 1% incline. Most of it at 7 mph, but last mile did 8.3 (7:15 mph). That was hard but only because it was uncomfortable, not because my legs were tired. That's a good sign. I need to run more miles in that uncomfortable 7:15-25 zone so that I get used to it.

AP for the long run was 8:42. I had lots of problems with my music so that slowed me by a few minutes. Also, the snow slowed the pace a bit but I think it ultimately gave me a better workout than I would have had on normal roads. 

8 TM miles at home. Finished Clash of the Titans. Good flick to run to. Lots of action, not so much dialogue.

1% incline, started at 6 mph for a bit then 6.5 for a stretch, then 7.0 for a couple miles, then needed to get finished so 7.5 for the last 4 1/2 miles. Gray shirts are fun to wear when TM running as you get to see your sweat afterwards. I had full back sweat, some belly sweat, and front & back neck sweat. And the headband was a 4 wringer after.

Legs are feeling appropriately sore. Not overly tired, but well used. I'm getting excited about April.

4 TM miles this morning. Warmed up a bit at 6 mph, then to 7, then 7.5, and ended at 8.1. Lots of sweat while outside it was -2 plus windchill. Fun times this winter. Sure am grateful we got a home treadmill a couple years ago.

Didn't feel like getting out of bed so I swapped my rest days. Will run on Thursday.

40 minute tempo run at 1% incline at home. Not exactly sure of mileage but I started at 6 then worked my way up. At 15 minutes I cranked it to 9.3 and held that for 10 minutes then dropped down to 8.5, 8.0, etc. Good run.

Youngest daughter's 8th birthday today so I woke up a bit earlier than normal to squeeze in my miles. We make breakfast in bed on birthdays so at 6:30 my wife was up to make breakfast and I had guilt about not helping so I did the right thing and skipped the last 2 miles and hopped off to help. I didn't end up helping much, but at least the effort was there and appreciated.

Morning: 10 miles outside. 5 degrees with probably a 20 mph East wind and blowing snow, so wind chill about -15 or so. It wasn't too bad until I turned around at the 5 mile mark. The wind was directly into the right side of my face. The only part uncovered was my eyes and the snow was stinging that right eye. It was awesome. On top of that I had my neck gaiter covering my mouth and nose and it was tough to breathe through that thing. Each breath brought the cloth into my mouth as I sucked in. Quite a few times I held the gaiter away from my mouth so I could breathe easily, then the cloth on the right side would freeze and for a bit I could breathe easy. It was a good run but I was glad to get home. Total time 1:34 or so, but didn't get a great read on time or splits. 

Late Morning: 7 TM miles. After coaching & refereeing a 1-2nd grade girls basketball game I came home to finish my miles. I ate too much for breakfast and after the game, so I had a nice side ache the first 2 miles. Slowed and walked a couple times and it eventually went away. Ended the last mile at 7:21 pace. 1% incline. 

I'm not sure how sustainable my current training plan is. It's 2 months out from the marathon and the mileage is feeling burdensome. I'll do my best and we'll see how I can modify it. I modified today's run as the plan called for 9 but I needed more sleep than that. I considered ditching the run entirely but finally rolled out of bed to do 6.

6 TM miles while watching women's figure skating and snowboarding slopestyle. That 15 year old Russian figure skater was amazing. If you get a chance to watch her, it's worth it. Her style, expression, and athleticism were very moving. And the slopestyle is just a blast to watch.

4 TM miles at the gym at lunch. Got a TM next to a fan, so I had a nice breeze on me the entire time. Progressive 6, 6.5, 7.0, 7.5, 8.0. Amazed at how much my leg speed has improved over the past couple months. I wasn't breathing very hard at 8.0 and a while back that would have been a stretch workout.

After 2 straight weeks of sub-freezing temperatures, and most of the time having below zero windchill, we finally hit above 32 and the 10 day forecast is all above freezing during the day. Looking forward to this snow melting and doing more outdoor running.

Yassooooooo!!!!! I ran on the TM at the Y so I couldn't yell that out loud this morning. Did 6 X 800s this morning in a Yasso-prescribed pace of 6:30, but actually 6:27 on the TM at 9.3 mph. They were much easier than the last ones I did, the first half of which were uphill. Not sure how well TM Yassos prepare one for a road race, but it will have to do. Warmed up 1 mile, then started the 800s, .25 cool down in between (walked for .10, then jogged at 10:00 pace for .15). Cooled down with 3/4 of a mile.

The schedule called for a half marathon today, so planned rest days on Thursday and Friday. I got up this morning planning on running a half marathon effort, headed down to the Y after dropping off my son for a Boy Scout merit badge day, and I did not feel it. I was so tired. My work is one block away, so I went to my work and laid down on the couch and took a 90 minute nap before I needed to head off to coach a basketball game. I was not feeling well and it felt so good to lay down. After the little girl's basketball game I headed back to the Y to shower, then went back to my work to lay down again before my 9th grade son's basketball game. The long & short is that it was a wise move to not run as I felt worse all day.

Schedule called for 9 miles today but I did not feel like running. Legs felt like lead, I was tired and in general didn't feel well. Took a 2 hour nap at Noon and was still tired most of the day. Later I started feeling better, thank goodness. I was happy that it was a bank holiday and I work at a bank as I likely would have taken a sick day anyhow.

4 TM miles after a 5 day layoff. Kept it fairly light, running at 6.0, 6.5, 7.0, and last mile 7.5 mph. Felt pretty good afterwards.

6 X hills and with wind and crud outside I ran on the TM at my house. First 3 were 7% incline, 7 mph. Next 2 8% incline, 7 mph, last 1 9% incline, 7 mph. I should've gone with 9% for the hills as that most simulated doing hills outside (when I was gasping for air).

Legs were a bit sore before running, which is so odd that only 4 miles did that.

1 warmup mile, 9 MP miles on the TM at home. It was tough as I clearly lost some fitness by not running for 5 days. At the 5 mile mark of the pace run I decided I needed to walk. Set the pace to 4 mph and walked for a stretch. I thought about quitting entirely at that point but decided to try it out and go for the finish. The pace felt much easier after the break and I was able to get through the run with no problems.

14 outside, 5 on the TM. 15-20 degrees outside, 3" of fresh snow. Thankfully someone had driven on the road so i had a path to follow. It's no fun running in deepish snow so that made the run nice. It was cold enough that I figured 2 hours outside was enough so I turned around at the 7 mile mark. Headed home and changed and ran on the treadmill while watching The Wolverine. Good flick. Weird to watch people running and chasing while I was running.

6 TM miles at the Y this morning. Schedule calls for 10, will try and do 4 at lunch. Lots of snow yesterday and today so my wife didn't want our eldest to drive to school so that ate up a bunch of my morning. Legs felt pretty sluggish today after Saturday's long run. After 3 miles I walked for a quarter mile then got back to running. That helped quite a bit.

5 TM miles at the Y after work. My legs are pretty sore after the weekend run so I again walked 1/4 mile halfway through. That did the trick and i finished strong.

25 pushups and sit-ups.

45 tempo minutes on the home TM this morning. I nearly skipped this workout as I was tired and thought I'd be too tired to run after last evening's five. Turns out I was wrong so I'm glad I woke up.

Started at 6 mph, then bumped up to 6.5, 7.0, 7.5. At 17:00 I went up to 9.3 mph for a 10 minute fast run. It was hard but not impossible. After those minutes I was happy to bump down to 8.0 for a couple minutes, then 7.5 for the remainder.

Rest day for me, and a realization day. I need the help of my fellow bloggers. I am trying to do too much with my life right now, and I need to simplify my marathon training. I'm following the Advanced 1 Hal Higdon plan  (days of the week modified to have Sunday a rest day) and I'm on week 11. I need to reduce my weekly mileage.

I'm leaning towards keeping my Wednesday workouts and my Saturday long runs the same distance and just reducing the other days. How much can I reduce the M, Tu, F mileage without seeing a massive loss in training?

I realize this will likely impact my marathon time, but that's okay. I'm investing too much of my energy (physical and mental) into the marathon and I need to diversify. :(

9 TM miles at home this morning as more snow piled up outside. Ugh. Having a record-breaking snow year the winter that I'm training for a Spring marathon has been interesting. Without a home treadmill I could not do it.

Ran to 1 episode of Criminal Minds and the start of Prince of Persia.

I've been pondering the advice received yesterday about scaling back my running. Thanks to my blog friends for their help. I will ponder on it some more. I will likely play it week-to-week and even day-by-day so the advice given helps me feel at peace when I do scale back some workouts.

First of my 3 planned 20 milers.  Due to double digit below zero temps I did this on 2 TMs - 5 miles at home, then went to the Y with my family and did 15. It wasn't that bad today. I slept in this morning so was well rested and that helped a lot. Watching Vietnam War in HD on the History channel helped the time go quickly. The last 5 miles I ran at MP, with the last mile slightly faster than MP and I bumped up my speed the last 1/2 mile and finished the last 1/4 at 6:00 pace. A good run all around. 

5 TM miles this morning at home. Legs weren't too tired or sore. Watched last night's episode of The Amazing Race. What a finish! I've never seen them all standing together on the mat at the end. I felt badly for the team that got kicked off. Teamwork and attention to details are tough when in the heat of battle.

4 TM miles at home. I nearly didn't wake up to run these miles but rolled over and looked at the clock one more time and I had just enough time for 4 miles. They felt tougher than yesterday. I think it's a combo of not enough sleep and delayed DOMS (a double delay). I felt the same last week after 19 miles on Saturday. Sunday felt okay, Monday pretty good, but Tuesday felt a bit rougher. It doesn't help that I'm getting less than 7 hours of sleep. I think that's the major culprit.

Yasso! 7x800 on the TM at home this morning. 9.3 mph, 6:30 pace for 3:15 Yasso splits. Good effort, I really like this workout. And I love the step back week.

6 pace miles this morning on the home TM. These miles were hard! Much, much harder than they should have been. I guess it's mostly attitude. I went into this run thinking it would be so easy, that I've worked really hard the past 11 weeks and the 6 previous pace runs I did prepared me for a simple one today. I guess Wednesday's workout was harder than I had thought. I warmed up for 1 mile at 10 minute pace then bumped to 7:19 pace. My legs were tired and a bit sore and I walked for 0.2 miles after 1.75 pace miles. I then wanted to walk again a few times but powered through with Jedi mind tricks. After 5 pace miles my legs woke up and the last mile was simpler. Hmmm.

12 miles this morning...outside!!! It was fantastic to run in the out of doors and have to worry about pace. The temp said it was 35, but that's 600 ft above town and apparently there was an inversion as it was cold and everything was frozen solid with all the melting going on. I was dressed warm enough thankfully.

By the way, running apps on phones stink. Since my Garmin battery died I've used MapMyRun and now use Strava. The GPS abilities stink. The last couple times I've run regular routes and it's measured short. Today was bad. Mile 2 had me at a 6:52 pace while I was running about 8:30. Mile 8 was 3:52 pace. I am amazing, I know. Trying out for the Olympics soon. I still have 4 years eligibility at the college of my choice.... Going to replace my Garmin battery this week.

9 TM miles at home this morning. The roads are almost dry enough to run on, but starting today we'll get more rain and snow so I guess I'm indoors for a while more.

I slept in for 15 minutes and turns out I could've used that time as I wanted to run 10 but no worries. Warmed up for 1/2 mile at 6, then bumped to 7.0 until 2 miles, then 7.6 for 5 miles, and 8.1 for the next 2 miles. Good run, lots of sweat.

5 TM miles at the Y this morning. 6.0 for 1/2 mile, 7.0 for 1 mile, 7.6 for the remainder. Lots of sweat for only a 7:54 pace.

45 heel drops, 25 pushups, 25 situps.

7 x hills on the home treadmill. Warmed up for 1 mile at 6 mph, then cranked up the volume. 7% incline at 7 mph for the first 5, then the last 2 I bumped it up to 8% incline and 7.5 mph. Those last ones left me nearly breathless, which was perfect. Solid workout. It's fun to see the body improve and get stronger and faster over time.

Yesterday at the Y I enjoyed being vain for a few moments. There is a wall of mirrors at the end of the room (with a row of TVs above the mirrors). It's a nice way to see your form and to see if anyone is coming from behind to attack. Great place to be in a zombie apocalypse. Nobody was in front of me so I could see myself in the mirror and it was a thrill to see that I've met my goal of having runner's legs. With each step I could see my quads relax then do the flex/bounce thing on contraction. I used to really envy leg muscles in runners. And to think, it only takes a few thousand miles to do that. Now if only I could work on my upper body....

1 warmup mile, 10 marathon pace miles on the treadmill this morning at the Y. Today's run was more mentally tough than physically tough, and I'll take that. TM running is a bit harder than being out on the roads as well because you can't cheat on pace and it's so monotonous. It's easier to do these runs while watching a movie. Anyhow, I kept up the pace and kept on going. Had to pause once in the middle for a potty break and the TMs turn off at 60:00 so I shut it down at the 7 mile mark then turned it back on again for 4 more. Not crowded so no problem.

45 heel dips, some calf stretching, 25 pushups and 25 situps. Hopefully ready for tomorrow's 20 miler.

20 outdoor miles this morning in town on roads. Once again Strava messed with mileage so I guessed and I might be a bit short but I'll take it. 2:48:51 of running with one pee stop in the middle, 611 feet of climbing. Felt pretty good but not great which isn't surprising considering the 10 pace miles yesterday.

5 windy miles this morning from home. The nice part about running into a strong headwind on the way out is running with the wind on the way home.

Quads a bit sore from Saturday's run but warmed up pretty quickly. On the way back I took off my jacket and hat, just shirt sleeves and thin gloves. Ah.

Too tired to wake up (twice) so slept in. Had a lunch meeting so no run. Will trade off day with Thursday.

45 minute tempo day. Oy vey, this was tough. First time in my life that I got close to thinking about puking from running. I was never on a high school sports team so nobody ever pushed me to my limits. I ran at 9.3 mph/6:29 pace for 15 minutes today and if I would've kept that pace another few minutes I would have gotten queasy. That was tough. Started the run at 6.0, then 6.5, then 7.0, then at 15 minutes I bumped up to 9.3 and held it. Watched the latest Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. while running and that was pretty good for keeping the mind off the pain, although commercials are the worst. I really considered walking in the middle of this stretch but kept going. At one point I did hold onto the treadmill arms and lift myself up a bit but that was only for a few seconds. Kept going and burning and pushing. When I finally hit the end of 15 minutes I walked at 4 mph for 6 or 7 minutes, then finished the remaining time at 7 mph. Not exactly a true tempo run because of the walking after the fast paces, but I definitely got what I needed out of that.

I was exhausted last night so I went to bed just after 9, which I normally only do if I'm sick. I think the 20 miler then only getting 6 1/2 hours sleep per night since took a lot out of me. I have to get more sleep after my long runs.

6 miles outside this morning, uphill into a headwind. Fun. Lotsa fun. The return home was nice. Windy but not too cold out.

6 TM miles,  5 MP before making breakfast-in-bed pancakes for my wife. It's hard to keep going on those MP miles but getting easier.

12 butt cold miles outside. 15 degrees,  felt like 3 or colder with wind chill. Up my steep hill then turned around at 6. Last 5 were 7:19, 6:36, 7:30, 7:36, 7:16. Massive downhill in mile 2, solid uphill in 3 & 4. Happy with this run. Praying for good weather April 19th. 

6 frigid miles this morning (20 degrees, 10 mph wind = cold). The cold snap should go away soon. Yesterday we got more snow and broke the record for the most snowfall ever in Billings. Close to 100" for the season. Of course it's all melted off an on and we have 0 snow on the ground now but the mountains are doing mighty fine.

Yesterday was a family day. My wife and kids all had the day off from school so I took the day off as well. I was planning on running 10 miles and got dressed and everything but I just couldn't get out of door so I stayed home. Went to the Y and swam and shot hoops, went to the new city library, then went to a movie. The boys saw Divergent and the girls saw the Muppets. Fun, fun day.

This morning I headed out the door and it was chilly. Like winter chilly. Having fresh legs was very nice. My 3 miles up were a steady 9:52 first mile, then picked it up a bit to 8:29, 8:14, then the turn around and 3 miles downhill. 7:20, 7:11, 7:02. I'm excited by those paces because I'm just running off feel as I don't have my Garmin and my phone with GPS is hidden from view. The computer voice tells me each mile how fast the last one was, and that's nice to get some feedback.

Yasso! 8X800s at the HS track during lunchtime. Nice temps of 43 degrees with a 7 mph wind. They were comfortably hard, goal of 3:15. My garmin is dead so just used a stopwatch, but I think they were: 3:14, 3:11, 3:19, 3:14, 3:15, 3:15, 3:14, 3:13. 1/4 mile walk/jog in between each. As you can see I was spot on for the first one, then a bit quick, then a bit slow. I finally figured out my 200 yd splits and kept better on time. The 4th one I was 4 seconds slow after the first lap, so I turned on the jets and made my time. This is a pretty awesome workout. Dreaded, but fun.

Ran back to the Y for a 1/2 mile cool down.

10 supposed pace miles on a run from home into work this morning but my phone was so far off that I had no idea how many miles I actually ran or the pace. I measured my route just now with MapMyRun and it says 10.5 miles. Total time 1:21:06, so average pace 7:43. Hmph. I thought I was running MP but I had no way of knowing. I should've worn my regular watch as I know the mile markers through mile 5. Next time.

Regardless, a good workout. My birthday is in April and I'm asking for a new Garmin 110. I tried to replace the battery in my 305 and I broke off a prong that's needed for the top of the watch to make contact with the base. Oops. Oh well. It lasted me for lots of runs and many good miles. The GPS watch is a marvelous invention.

My last 20 miler.  Didn't quite get to 20 due to time but no biggie. I wore the wrong shoes for road running and got a nice blister in my left big toe crease. It was painful the last few miles. Beautiful weather,  wore shorts and short sleeve tech shirt and still sweated like a horse. Ah.

My plan was to make a big loop I've never done which would give lots of elevation gain and be hard. My legs were tired & sore from yesterday so I was not interested in speed. First 3 miles are downhill, then a steady up for 3 miles then a big up for 4. I got to mile 10 and the wind naff picked up dramatically. The prospect of running uphill another 400 feet and into the wind another 6 miles before turning around was not positive. I was beat. Called my wife and learned she was heading to town so I had her bring a change of clothes so I could meet them there. Good call. Ended up on roads 8 miles more than planned, however,  and I was wearing trail shoes.  

I made it to town but was slow the last few. I nearly stopped and walked but decided to power through and it was good training for race day. 

AP: 8:33. Blister is feeling better a few hours later.

Snowed 4-5" last night so did my run on the TM this morning at home. Tired and sore legs from Saturday's run so I almost slept in today and skipped the run entirely, but I couldn't do that. I need these last few good runs.

Warmup for 1/2 mile, then most miles at 7.0/8:34 pace. Last two miles I needed to hurry so bumped to 8.0/7:30 and held it. My tired legs wanted to stop but they were just being lazy and it wasn't hard to continue on. Sweatfest, however.

Taper on! I love tapering. My tired legs love the taper.

Muddy roads outside so treadmill at home. Legs were tired but not too bad. Fastest paces hit were 7.5 at the end.

6 X hills on the home treadmill. Roads outside still muddy and nasty and my hill is 2 miles away. I'm still tired from my weekend run, so didn't want to wake up early enough to get to my hill. This is the 3rd 20 miler of this training cycle and I know realize that the long effort wears me out for most of the next week. It's probably my age more than anything.

1 mile warmup at 10:00 pace, then 1/2 mile hills. 7 mph/9% incline for the first quarter, but that was a bit much. Walked 1/2 mile at 4 mph and 0%, then 7 mph/8% for the remaining hills. On one of them I forgot my math and I should've been done at .25 miles but my addled brain continued on and when I got to .35 and my legs were dying I realized I had gone too far.

Looking forward to April 19th. I'm ready to get this marathon behind me and return to a more normal schedule.

I am fatigued and I don't know what's going on. I got good sleep the last two nights, no run on Thursday, and I just couldn't do it this morning. Meant to do 4 pace miles, so warmed up with a 10 minute mile then upped the TM to 7:24 pace and the first mile was so tough. Like running in concrete. After 1 mile I slowed the TM to walking pace and walked for 1/4 mile, then back to MP and it was still tough. I figured my body is really tired and no sense pushing it 2 weeks from the race so I threw in the towel. Packed it in. Got on my bike and went home. Quit. Hmph.

I'm pretty sure I'm not fighting a sickness so I'm baffled at feeling this tired in the middle of a low mileage week. Hopefully I get some good rest this weekend and feel better Monday as today's run was definitely not a confidence booster.

Thanks to Camille Herron's blog about heavy legs during tapering I stopped feeling sorry for myself and my fatigued heavy legs and went for my run. I told my wife last night that I needed to test out my birthday present so I charged up my new garmin 110 and used it on this run. Ah... so nice to once again know my pace as I run. Went up my Veyo hill and I felt great. Not sure my total pace up that hill but I think that mile was 8:40 or so. Awesome. 

Average pace for entire run was 8:05. Last half were in MP range. This is the confidence booster I needed. 

8:53, 8:42, 8:28, 8:37 (241 ft incline), 8:55, 8:30, 8:42, 7:29, 7:04, 7:13, 7:31 (114 ft up), 7:18, 7:18. 

Got out the door late so cut my 6 miler to 4. Decent run, nice temps.

Could NOT wake up this morning, so I was able to take an early lunch and run outside in beautiful weather. I might even make the news, as today is the first day in the 70s in 7 months and I was outside wearing shorts and a St. George Running Center singlet. I see some guy kneeling down on the sidewalk ahead of me looking into some gadget and wonder "what the...?" By the time I realized it was a local news crew I just kept on looking like a dork and running. I hope they caught me doing a farmer blow.
It was a solid run. Warmed up a bit first mile and towards the end of that mile I picked up the paces (cameraman was during this stretch) and kept it up. New watch only shows the pace of that current mile so I'm not sure where I was but I think 7:15 range. Kept that up for a bit then slowed down. On the turnaround I picked the pace back and up and kept it fairly strong. Last mile was 7:00 flat.

I love allie's approach of a 5K warmup to the marathon but we have few 5Ks in my city so I've been planning the past few days to do a time trial at the high school track. A couple hours ago I saw a flyer for a 3.75 mile race this Saturday morning, $25 entry fee. Sawheet! Signed up and I'm ready to roll. I sure wish it was a certified 5K but beggars can't be choosers. Well, they can be, but it just isn't right. Also don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

AP: 7:36

30 tempo minutes early on the home TM as I had an early work meeting. Started at 6 mph, gradually moved up and at 12 minutes I did 5 minutes at 9.5 mph. That was pretty awesome as I didn't know if I could maintain that pace. After 5 mins I bumped down to 8, then quickly lower until I ended at 6 mph the last 2 1/2 mins. Good workout.

Excited for Kam to join me and pace me at the SLC Marathon. Bring it on!

4 miles this morning from home. Beautiful out. 38 degrees with wispy clouds. Shorts, long sleeve tech shirt and thin cotton gloves. Felt really good. I kept it nice and slow the first 2 up miles, then a steady pace on the return. Looking forward to tomorrow's 3.75 mile race. Should be a great "tune up" as the great allie likes to say. Left hip is slightly bothering me but I'll roll it out and ignore this taper niggle as it's a new in the last couple weeks.

Warmed up with 3 laps around the 1.25 mile course then got ready. Started out behind one guy and a kid but was trying to run 6:15 pace so passed them.  Another guy popped up at .25 miles and he floated along. I stuck on his tail until about .75 then let him go. I was not in 6:15 shape today. Not sure if it was the undulating course or what but not my day. Thankfully nobody fast ran this so I easily held 2nd the entire race. I only saw 3rd place once and I upped my pace a bit.

Won a $30 gift card for a dozen cupcakes at the downtown cupcake shop. I'll save it until after the marathon....

4 X 400 on the TM at the Y. Warmed up 1.5 miles, thankfully was able to move to a TM near a fan. Ran the 400s at a 6:00 pace. Felt good and as I've been doing Yasso's every 3rd week my mind and body were expecting to keep going, so the short 400s were a nice leg stretch.

2 miles tomorrow, then 2 on Friday. Traveling to Utah Thursday afternoon, playing with the family on Friday, Marathon in the morning, Mother-in-law's 70th birthday party in the afternoon and my first Real Salt Lake game on Saturday night, Easter services then dinner on Sunday, travel home Monday. Looking forward to this week.

Running 2 miles doesn't take much time, but that's what the schedule called for. My legs will be properly rested on Saturday.

Thanks Kam for calling me yesterday on the drive home and talking me off the ledge. I've put in the work and now it's time to go use all those training miles and bring home a BQ. Kam is planning on joining me the last 16-18 miles of the course which will be awesome. Please send a prayer or two for cool weather. I'd prefer 50 degrees max for the entire course but it's looking like it will warm up a bit more than that. I just need to finish quickly. Thanks to all of you for your support through this process. It makes it so much easier knowing that other runners have my back.

Short run near Bingham high school as I'm staying in South Jordan at my sisters house. Got a good 6+ hours sleep, hopefully get a nap today as well. Bring on 4/19!

I haven't had a chance yet to upload my mile splits but I'll give a shot at a report. First off, huge thanks to Kam for pacing me the last 16.219 miles. We grew up in the same neighborhood and were good friends and it's really cool that he would give up his Saturday morning this year and last to help me go for a BQ. I feel badly that I wasn't able to do it either year, but we tried.

I stayed at my sister's house in South Jordan then rode Trax to the start and it worked well. Got up at 4:20, cleaned up and took care of business and headed out the door at 5:00. Got to the 80th & Redwood Trax stop at 5:09 which was 14 minutes early. Perfect. The train was right on time, chomped on a bagel and drank a Propel during the 50 minute ride and got to the start 45 minutes early. Made an immediate pit stop then got my drop bag ready, then hit the POP a last time then took off my warm clothes and moved into the starting line. I moved through a lot of people but still was a minute back from the start. 7:00 came and went as the last Trax train had just come in and a few hundred people were trying to get from the platform to the starting line. Finally got started 7 minutes late. Got past the start line finally and started running, then after 1/4 mile there was a funnel due to a weird road and that slowed me down a lot as we headed up the first hill. Got out of there and hit the first mile 30 seconds behind schedule. Cruised along feeling good but had to hit the first POP at 3 miles for a quick urine stop, but thankfully my only stop. Figured it was better to do it with a downhill in front of me. Cruised along, passing groups of people, especially the pacing groups. Those clumps were tough to pass. When we turned East up a hill I knew that would be a toughish mile and it was.

At this point in my write up, I'm bored writing out the details so I'm going to skip around. Nutrionally I determined to take a gel every 30 minutes and a Salt capsule every 60 minutes. I was able to do that pretty well. Pace-wise I was trying to run a 3:13:30 and I used the splits from Tazrunning.com to give me my per mile paces. I bought a tattoo from that site and put the first half on the inside of my left forearm and the second half on my right arm. That was really useful.

As I cruised through Salt Lake I was feeling pretty good and was doing a pretty good job hitting the prescribed paces. Frustrating, though, was my new Garmin as it shows my pace for the current mile but it wasn't super accurate. I tried to hit my tangents but not sure what happened. Frequently in the first half the pace would say 7:33, then when I hit the mile marker the total time would be 7:39 for instance, probably because the mile measured long compared to the Garmin? I know the miles are correctly marked so I'm not blaming anyone, but it was mentally challenging to deal with the discrepancy when I thought I had been doing so well on that mile.

Mile 10 was supposed to be the slowest mile due to elevation and it certainly was. As I ran up the last hill before Sugarhouse Park I said to one guy in front of his house, "Someone needs to level this hill!" He smiled. I panted up the hill. Kam met me at the entrance to the park and this was also the first place I saw my family. It was awesome to see them. At this point I was feeling pretty good but about 1 minute behind schedule. Kam ran next to me or led me the rest of the way. After mile 13 I remember feeling like I wanted to walk, so the mile-by-mile mentality started then. "I can make it to 14". I was breathing way too heavy at that point so I knew I was likely not going to BQ. I'll never know how much my lack of running prowess is self-fulfilling prophecy, lack of proper training, or lack of the right physiological characteristics, but I'd venture to guess it's a combination of the three. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, though, to figure out that a person laboring halfway through a marathon might not hit their time goal. I carried on to the next mile marker, then the next, and after hitting 45th South (furthest South part of the race) I was doing okay until sometime around 17. Running up a slight hill I felt very winded, my head started feeling really tight, and I felt light headed. I yelled to Kam that I felt dizzy and needed to walk. It took a few minutes of walking to feel better. Some nice people handed out sliced oranges and I took a few and that felt great. My family had reloaded us with a new water bottle at mile 16 which Kam carried for me, and I doused my head, front, and back. After a few minutes of walking we started running again, but never broke 8 minutes again. I was done with my Boston dream and at that point all I cared about was finishing. Kam did the math and he told me I could still break my 3:25:03 PR but I didn't care. I wasn't being negative at all, in fact, I was very positive, and I just didn't care. It was actually a huge weight off my shoulders. I was running a marathon, I was doing okay, and I was going to finish. I wasn't going to finish strong, but I would finish solidly. From that point on I tried to maintain a sub 8:20 pace but that didn't happen too often. I just ran. I walked a couple more times, but mostly just carried on. I got passed by a lot of people but I didn't care. I was still running.

As we ran I evaluated my last two bonks and I came to the conclusion that some people can qualify for Boston on sub-par mileage (40-50 mpw) but most of us need more miles than that. I'm in the second category and I'm okay with that. I also realized that I'm much too busy right now with my church responsibilities and will be for the next 4+ years so I won't have time to commit to running 50-60 mpw for a couple months solid. I'm okay with that. In 4 years I'll be 45 and will get an extra 10 BQ minutes. I can run a 3:25 on my limited training. I'm convinced that if I had been aiming for 8:00 miles in this race I could've hit it, but because I was aiming for 7:24 miles I went too fast and burned out. I'm okay with that. I'll focus my sights on 5K to half marathon races, and probably some longer mountain races. I can run far but not fast.

I coasted through Liberty park then down the long street with the Finish line in the distance and Kam peeled off just before the barricades. My 10 yr old boy and 8 yr old daughter were there, waiting to run with me. They ran and I grabbed my daughter's hand and she held her brother's hand as we crossed the finish line. That was really sweet to me. I loved that they could share that moment with me.

Props to Kam for doing a great job as a pacer/mule, carrying water and gel. It was awesome to see my family 3 times during the race then ran with my 10 and 8 yo holding hands the last 50 yards. Well organized race, great city support, awesome aid stations. I definitely recommend the race.

1st half: 1:38:19 7:29 pace

2nd half: 1:53:31 8:39 pace

Major positive split! Woot woot. :)

No watch, no radio, I just ran a little bit. I planned to go to Boot Camp as I've been missing it, but when I got there and saw the exercises they would do my body physically ached and I knew I wasn't up for it. I've been sick with allergies or a cold the last few days so that plus the marathon was not a great combo. Then tried the elliptical but after 3 minutes I wasn't having that, so I headed outside. Fairly cool and windy but perfect running weather. Legs felt pretty good and by the end I was moving okay, in the low 8s probably. Nice short run but good to be back at it.

Lots of regrets from the race. Once I got dizzy and the A goal was gone I should've switched to my B or C goals, but I hadn't created any. It was an A goal or bust and now I feel a bit busted. All that training should've gotten me a PR, and I could've done it but I didn't listen to my coach (Kam) during the race. I switched to just wanting to finish and be done with the whole training cycle, and that goal was accomplished. I'm just left wanting a bit more now.

2 miles this morning from home. Nice and cool with a South wind. Felt good to stretch the legs. Feeling more and more ready to run.

4 miles in the rain at night on the rails to trails in Herndon, VA. I love running at sea level! Felt great. I was completely soaked.

AP: 7:34

One of my favorite things to do is run in a city I'm visiting and I've wanted to run around the mall in DC for quite a while. Mission accomplished. Ran all around it, up the steps of the Lincoln memorial, Supreme Court, and partly up the Capitol steps but it was blocked to the top. So many people out running. I love the exercise vibe around here.

AP: 9:03. Tired legs from yesterday plus lots of traffic lights. Lots and lots.

4 miles around Herndon Virginia about 11 am. Warmer and muggier than I'm used to. Nice to stretch out the legs.

4 is the new 10. 4 miles around Charlottesville Virginia this morning before going to Monticello. Run was great. I found a route that had other runners on it, so that means I win my game of find the route, which I always like to play in new cities. Also went to Manassas battlefield which was awesome. Flying home tomorrow.

Boot Camp! Finally made it to BC after months away. I love the camaraderie and competitiveness at Boot Camp. Plus the incredibly sore muscles I have for the next few days. DOMS is fun.

4 miles from home this morning before helping my wife make breakfast for my new teenager. I have two teens now. Ahhhh!

Gorgeous run this morning, few clouds, bright sun, decent breeze. AP: 7:41

6 miles from home this morning. Felt great, gorgeous overcast weather. Bright sun at 5:45 am. Love spring!

10 miles in Helena, MT, our state capital. Ran up a mountain so the downhill was pretty quick. Quads will be sore tomorrow.

AP: 9:41

Noon Boot Camp. Apparently I need more sugar before doing BC again as I got really dizzy a few times and had to sit down a couple times. I was also really warm so not sure if it was a combo of overheating plus low blood sugar plus a taxing run on Saturday. Regardless, a great workout and my triceps will surely be sore the next few days. Last week it took 4 days to get over the soreness from BC. Love it.

Thursday night I'm going for a 2 hour headlamp run with the lady I'm pacing next month. Should be fun! Any advice from experienced 100 mile pacers? I'm doing miles 48-82 and likely during the middle of the night.

Way cool article about a new app to help with making treadmill running more interactive and enjoyable.

4 miles in a new model, Brooks Cascadia 9 trail shoe. Seems decent. Great morning.

Morning: The night run that was supposed to be last night fizzled then I got to bed later than planned so today's 6 miles were cut in half. Not having a race of my own to train for is nice but tough to get out the door. Planning on double digits tomorrow. Will do the night run Tuesday night.

Noon: Went to Boot Camp, which was at the local park 1/2 mile away. Got 1 mile running there and back and at least 1 mile between exercises. I'm tired. Lots of sweat! Love that it's warm outside finally (80 degrees today; we hit above 75 yesterday for the first time in 239 days).

10 gorgeous miles up my normal Saturday hill. Didn't get out the door until 8:30 and it was a warm day so lots of sweat. Legs sore so took a while to warm up. Walked at 3 miles but ran all the way up my hill. Not sure about these shoes. Love the protection from rocks on a gravel road but maybe a bit sloppy for my feet. We'll see.

4 miles before going to Red Lodge for the day. 

Skipped the morning run as I planned to run at night with my 100 miler. She's sidelined for a bit as of today so had to cancel. Hopefully she can still run the race. 

Noon Boot Camp. Pure awesomeness will mean lots of sore muscles. Fantastic. 

6 miles this fine morning.

4 miles this morning from home. I love spring weather.

6 tough miles. Ran home from my son's soccer game and it's uphill most of the way. Legs still tired from Wednesday's boot camp which I think played into it. Hopefully I'll finally get that long night run in on Monday. My 100 mile runner is back at it. Should be fun.

Night run! Thankfully I was late getting to Angela's house so I saw the thunderstorm coming our way, otherwise we would have been caught in a very vulnerable spot during some intense lightning. Left at 10:30 pm, an hour late, so cut the run short. It was muddy in lots of spots and Angela wasn't wearing her traction shoes (didn't expect mud before the storm and forgot to change shoes before heading out) so that slowed us down. Very interesting to trail run with headlamps! Hers is 300 lumens which was amazing. Mine is only 100 so not great but good enough. Might get a new light for me before the run.

6 miles this fine morning. Good effort. Looking forward to a long run on Saturday.

4 miles this morning with a nice West breeze which made my hands cold. Loved it. Fast last mile of 6:50 really surprised me.

Looked again at the portion of the 100 miler I'll be pacing and it's daunting. I start at 8800 feet, climb to 8951, drop to 4590 over 14 miles, climb to 6800 the next 3.5 miles, then minor ups and downs until climbing back to 7500 where I finish. And a bunch of this should be in the dark. Fun stuff!

20 miles on the trail with a friend. It was a great morning. Got up at 4:45 and drove the 30 minutes to the trail, hit the trail by 5:50 am. 42 degrees on the thermometer but calm. No gloves, short sleeve tech shirt. Hands cold the first 30 minutes, then actually cold until mile 15 but it was okay. Thumbs still usable. Lots of up and down on this trail with total elevation gain of 1700 feet. AP: 11:59, average moving pace 11:25. Had 30 ounces of water in the pack, 22 ounces Gatorade in the handheld. Ate jelly beans and 1 gel and a few bites of Hammer bars from my friend. Took a Salt Stick every hour. Great run and I think I'm ready to pace. 

5+ miles on the road today at lunch. 76%, 24% humidity. Not bad but I was major sweaty when done. Not San Antonio sweaty, but sweaty. Good run but I probably pushed the pace a bit much just because I could. My legs are a bit sore from Saturday's long run so I was pushing through the aches and enjoying the weather. My left foot hurts a bit afterwards. It's in the arch of my foot so likely it's a strained ligament or something. I felt it a little bit after Saturday's run but nothing worse noting. Today was almost limp-worthy after the Y but now a couple hours later it's feeling better. Guess I'll take it easy until my pacing duties are over.

AP: 8:15

Beautiful chilly morning, slight rain and breeze. Cold hands = pure bliss. Kept it slow and steady, although last mile dipped down to 7:30 pace on a slight downhill. Left foot felt okay but definitely some soreness in the arch when I walk. Wearing my stiff hiking boots at work today to limit arch movement and that seems to be helping. It also helps that my group moved our offices today so we got to wear jeans. The boots might look a little weird with my dress slacks.

Foot is feeling okay, just want to be sure I don't hurt it more before the pacing begins.

Hmph. Been babying my left arch but at 1 mile I felt something weird I haven't felt before. Feels like I pulled something in my foot. Stopped running and walked home. Iced it just now in an ice bucket. That's cooold. Anyone have suggestions on how I should tape my foot for next week's pacing run?

Paced a runner 34 miles in her first 100 at the Bighorn 100. It was a great experience. She made it to the cutoff time at the end of my turn by 2 minutes; the next cutoff she made by 14 seconds; finished the whole thing 4 minutes before the cutoff. So proud of her. It was tough conditions and 150/256 finished. She missed DFL by two spots. Oddly I had no pain in my left foot today so I was just being overly cautious last week. I'll take it. Picked her up at 3:15 am and finished at 4:00 pm. Long but fun day. Report: Got to Jaws Trailhead by 9 pm, as she thought she'd be there by 9:30. I knew that was way underestimating the hills. What a party! Lots of people, very cool atmosphere. I pulled out the thermarest and sleeping bag and just about then the lightning, thunder, and rain started. I dozed in the crew car the next few hours and got a couple hours sleep. The cutoff time was 5 am and about 2 am I gave up on her. Just after 3 her pacer knocked on the car door and she was in! I rushed up to the tent, hurriedly decided on what to wear and bring and packed up. She was under-dressed the 5 hours before getting in so was freezing (was rained and snowed on with no jacket and uncovered legs) but warmed up quickly and put on her winter gear. We headed out at 3:15 am. The next 3 miles were the worst mud I've ever seen and it slayed a lot of people today. We quickly moved through it with minimal wetness. She was moving okay and we kept it fairly steady. I wore a 100 lumen headlamp then carried a 200 lumen flashlight and a handheld water bottle full of water. Had a Nathan pack on my back filled with Heed. That was a great combination. She forgot to fix her heel at Jaws so we stopped a couple times to work on the blister that formed. Thankfully I'd brought a knuckle bandage and that worked perfectly. We stopped after the sun came up and bandaged the heel and put on fresh socks. That worked great and she moved much better after that. Made it to Foot Bridge aid station with our drop bags at 9:30 am. Got her some medical help and cleaned off her feet, taped up the blister and other hot spots, and wrapped her right ankle which she'd twisted early in the race. I changed socks but not shoes as my Cascadias are way better in technical terrain then my ASRs. Took off tights, changed to short sleeve shirt, refueled, and we were off by 9:45. What a brutal hill the next 3+ miles. If there were a 7 point bull elk at the top of the hill and all I had to do was hike up it to bring that bull home I would leave it there. Honestly ridiculous. She was dying up hills so this was a big struggle. After 5 minutes she was struggling with the tape job and we couldn't fix it and had no moleskin or more bandages with us so I told her to keep going on and I turned around and ran down the hill, grabbed another large bandage and some tape from her drop bag then ran back to meet her. That was fun and didn't take me long. We finally made it to the top of the nasty hill but the climbing continued for a long, long time. Brutal climb. We were doing math in our head to see if we could make the next major aid station with a cutoff time. It would be tight. She could run on the down and flat so we ran when we could but walked up everything as it was killing her. She did a good job eating and drinking and taking salt sticks but I had to prod her to eat a gel when she wasn't feeling it. She did well and was really tough. We finally got to Cow Camp, the last station before I was done. We had 6 uphill miles to go and exactly 2 hours to do it. Tough, tough to do. I thought we could do it for the first hour, but the second hour we could see the aid station in the distance and I thought there was no way but I told her we could do it. At one point I basically admitted defeat but told her to continue on in case they let us go past the cutoff time of 4 pm. We jogged when we could and walked as fast as possible. Finally we could see the end but we were 25 minutes out. A pacer ran down the hill and it was her next pacer! He came to pull her up the hill. We had time to do it as the station was closer than I had thought. I left them and ran up the hill to get her stuff together as she needed to be out by 4 pm and we were cutting it close. Her husband crewed her and is awesome. He ran down a bit and I told him what we need and then I helped him when I got there. We had all her stuff ready and laid out for her when she arrived with 5 minutes to spare. We got her socks and shoes changed, some fluids in her, packed a jacket just in case, and got her off 2 minutes before the cutoff. What a cool experience. I found out later she made the next checkpoint by 14 seconds, then finished the race 4 minutes before the 34 hour cutoff. She is a trouper!

Wind died down after sunset so after a long day of helping people move and doing yard work I headed out for a night run. It was fantastic. No moon, lots of stars, only 2 cars. Great to be running again.

AP: 8:15

Finally got a chance to go for a run, so ran at lunch time. It felt great even though it was close to 80 degrees. No music or watch. I just ran. 

Monday night I drove down to West Yellowstone to meet up with my family. A grizzly cub ran in front of my car on the way there. Very cool. Tuesday we saw the hot pots, Yellowstone Falls, and the kids swam in the Firehole River. We saw a nice herd of buffalo, a 6 point elk in velvet 30 yards from the road and about 200 head of elk across a valley. And some amazing views of Yellowstone Lake at dusk. Perfect light but no good camera so I didn't even bother. I just kept the picture in my memory. Nice little trip. 

A tough double digit run which reminded me that I'm only 2 weeks post 34 mile run so not quite recovered yet. The run a couple weeks ago was at such a slow pace and I had very little post race soreness so I thought it hadn't affected me much. I guess it did a bit. This morning's run was hot for me but thankfully had a nice West breeze which helped. Went up my typical Saturday hill and I love this beast. I made it to the top without stopping but walked at the top where normally I keep going. Walked a few more times after that which is unheard of but makes sense. Glad to hit double digits so soon after a big mileage race such I normally don't do for a month afterwards. Hmmmm.

Noon Boot Camp at the Y. Felt awesome. I will be sore.

Noon Boot Camp at the Y. I will be more sore as I am already very sore from Monday. Love DOMS.

Finally got my rear out of bed this morning and went for a run. I've tried most every day this week but I keep staying up late and can't roll out of bed. Stayed up late last night but was awake at 6:10 so got up. Warm morning of 70 and cloudy but had a nice 10 mph breeze which felt better. After double Boot Camp this week I took it slow and steady as that's about the only speed I had.

AP: 8:51

At a family reunion near Red Lodge MT and went for a run before everyone woke up. Excellent dirt road and thankfully it rained earlier so knocked down any dust from cars, not that I saw many.

Tree lined road headed South towards the mountains and passed through a small town then back towards the mountains. Fantastic view, steady climb on the out. Felt great. What a difference a week makes.

Boot camp. Struggling to wake up early enough to go run. Plus I really like BC.

Woke up early enough to run. A bit warm but very nice. Great to run my normal route after a couple weeks of not going 6 mid week.

Not sure why but my back is killing me today and it's hard to move around. I've never had my back hurt like this. Tried various stretches and nothing.

Update: figured out it was my hamstrings and an odd stretch helped my back feel better.

11 is the new 10. We're camping in the most gorgeous spot on earth and thankfully my back felt well enough to run on an amazing trail. It's an amazing single track that goes wherever you want. Unfortunately I was only able to go about 5 or so miles.

Ran outside at lunchtime. Decent 76F temps, 46% humidity felt humid to me but it wasn't bad. I'll take it over the Midwest anyday.

Back is still a bit sore on the right side but didn't bother me running. Need to see a Chiro.

Ran outside at lunch again. Ugh. Huge rainstorm last night all through the area put the humidity to San Antonio levels this morning, but thankfully dropped to only 80 degrees and 50% humidity during my run. That was pretty rough so I can't imagine doing that and much worse every day during the hot months. I felt like I had no energy but I'm sure it was the weather.

Chiro fixed the right side of the back but now the left side is hurting. I see him again Friday. Very odd but not constant pain, just twinges when I step or turn wrong so I tried to not do those movements while running....

Total guess on miles. I ran 4 laps around the island and with no GPS watch I just ran. 54 minutes total. Felt great. Back is back to normal. Whew.

6 loops around the island. A kid with a GPS watch said it's a 1.5 mile loop so I'll take it. Going for 8 loops tomorrow, means a 5 am wake up call. Gorgeous views here but I'm ready to go home!

much tougher run today after yesterday's longer effort. Wanted to do 8 loops today but realized my math was off and I only needed 7 so I completed 7. I felt pretty good afterwards and got in 24 miles this week on the island. Getting ready to head out in the morning. Ready to be home.

Finally got up early enough for a run. 4 miles. So glad to have my garmin back. It's like a security blanket.

Got to bed late so I absorbed the punishing heat and ran at Noon. 84F and 33% humidity. It was a dry heat. Took a water bottle with and dumped it on me on the way back. The legs were definitely not happy and I wanted to walk a few times but continued on. I sure like cool runs better than hot ones. I need a long race to train for. Not having one is killing me. But I sure do like having my Garmin again.

AP: 8:14

Evening: Played Ultimate frisbee with a big group of church friends and I wore my GPS watch to see how much we ran. 4 miles! Had a blast, soaked my bandanna and shirt with sweat. And my side won. Good times.

11 miles this morning. Very tough with sore legs from Thursday's Ultimate frisbee. I hadn't used my fast twitch muscles in a long time and they rebelled. Walked a couple times today and it felt great. Able to finish strong. Glad to hit double digits once again. Need to go longer one of these Saturdays, but would be nice to have a reason to go long. 

Fairly warm lunchtime run. 82F and 40% humidity and full sun. My legs actually felt really good. So odd how going for a long run 2 days before can make your legs feel better, not worse. I don't understand the body mechanics of that paradox.

Got up early to run before a morning meeting. I had time to go for 6 but I wasn't feeling it so cut it in half. Hmph.

Lunchtime run. A lovely mild rainstorm blanketed the area for a few hours and caused the Noon temps to drop during my run. Amazing. Went from 71 pre-run to 66 during the run. And with a few raindrops to go along with it. The legs do not feel so good. Lots of fatigue, probably from not being regular with my running and not getting enough sleep. No cross training doesn't help either. I kept going, though, and finished just fine.

Noon Boot Camp. I just couldn't resist. It was a sweat fest and it felt fantastic. 

4 tough miles this morning. I hope it's just that I'm not getting enough sleep, and that I went to BC yesterday, and then hit the climbing gym last night with the family. I hope I'm just tired cuz I sure haven't felt it on my runs lately and that's a first. It's supposed to be so easy. I think I'm losing it! :)

At a friend's house I maxed out on the bench press for the first time in 25 years. I benched 195! I can't believe this little weakling benched 30 lbs more than I weigh. 

After that we did an Insanity workout. It was awesome! 41 minutes and I was sweating worse than ever. Wore a bandana headband and the last 15 minutes the sweat was pouring from my forehead to the ground. It was awesome.

10 cold, wet, windy miles. On the 22nd of August. What???? Good run today. We're in a weird monsoonal moisture pattern mixed with an Alaskan air disturbance so it's been cold and rainy the past few days. I needed double digits to keep my sanity and I got it done. It was actually fun to be soaked and a little chilly when it should be hot.

AP: 8:53

20 minutes of Boot Camp. Just enough to be semi sore the next day.

4 miles down a hill and back up it. Good workout. Need to get back in the groove.

4 1/2 miles at lunch time. 82F, 30% humidity. It actually felt pretty good. Heavy legs first mile, then warmed up. That's been happening a lot lately.

AP: 8:04

Ran at lunch time. Felt way hotter than 73F. Can 56% humidity really impact the feeling that much? I feel for Preston and others who constantly run in heat & humidity. I can't even imagine it. Not that today was hot, but it actually felt a bit hotter than yesterday which was 86F and 30% humidity. I'm sure more of a mental thing than anything.

We had our company health fair a couple days ago and my results sucked. Up 6 pounds, more visceral fat, less muscle %, etc. etc. It ticked me off and woke me up. I pulled up a graph of my monthly running the past 4 years and for the first time in 4 years I haven't hit 100 miles in a month for 5 straight months. No shocker that my numbers stunk so bad. I've added a marathon training plan to my calendar now so I have something to shoot for. It's helped get me out the door the last two days and it will continue.

AP: 8:00

Ran 4 miles from home after work. Fairly warm out but not horrible. I am just not in very good shape anymore and it's very humbling. Without hard work small efforts become hard. I'm ready to get back into some hard work.

On a side note, my Cascadia trail shoes are super comfortable. I think they might be my footwear of choice if I could wear anything everywhere. Not sure how good they'd look with my shirt & tie at work but maybe I can find out.

Boot Camp. Hadn't been in a while. This one was tough and kicked my butt. Should be plenty sore the next 5 days... perfection!

5 miles at lunch. Amazing how much fitness gets lost in a few months. 7:45 pace is way harder than 7:15 pace was back in April. Sheesh. Decent run, and just past the 4 mile mark I (correctly) did some math and if I pushed it could hit under 40:00 for the run. Nothing like arbitrary time standards to create motivation. I pushed it and must've been in the mid 6 range for the last while as I got my last mile down to 6:55 pace. My new watch only shows the average pace for that mile so no idea what I was running at the end but it wasn't very conversational. Or conservational.

Same route as yesterday but early morning before work. 44F is downright chilly without gloves. My hands were like ice. Not a bad problem to have, but I wish I had brought my gloves. Felt great to be out less than 24 hours after running and I had a nice rhythm this morning. It helps that it wasn't even close to being hot. For 5 miles I beat 40 minutes by 13 seconds without even trying. Cuz that's how I roll.

AP: 7:59

Nice run on the Crow Reservation. Had a ward campout and I slept in until 8:15 and headed out by 8:45, running East towards the Pryor Mountains. Twin track rough road with lots of cattle marks from muddier days, lots of cows on the road that I chased away, and had to cross through three gates each way. Just when I reached the mountains and the run started getting really interesting it was time to turn around. I knew I wasn't in shape for a 15+ miler. Feels good to get some miles in the past 3 days and hope to keep it up.

Yesterday I realized how good I felt all day with a morning run under my belt. It should motivate me to get up and run instead of just trying to fit it in. I was hungrier all day Friday and I think morning running has been one of my key ingredients I had forgotten about. 

Boot Camp at Noon was brutal with a capital brute. In between sets she has us stop and "rest" which means do something awful. Today the first two were running around the block which of course I enjoy, but the third was lunges 1/4 of the way, then running down and back, lunges again. Oy. I really should start incorporating lunges into my weekly workouts.

 This morning from home. Yum.

AP: 8:12

Short run this morning with my dog. Her shock collar hasn't worked for 6 months and she's finally figured that out so I headed out for a run and she showed up at my side. It's the first time she's ever run with me and did well for a 56 year old dog (8*7) with a bum knee. She's not in very good shape so I stayed on dirt roads and kept it short. I think she slept the rest of the day.

Trail run with a friend from the YMCA. Thick frost this morning on my car windows, 30F with 92% humidity. Nice brisk morning. We had a nice run. My friend is younger and in better shape and I was huffing and puffing behind him. It was a nice 45 minute run. The showers at the Y were really warm as was the dry sauna. Ah....

After getting sick over the weekend then missing work Monday and Tuesday I finally got back to the gym today. Knew I'm still weak so hit the TM. Ran 1.5 at 6 mph then walked for a bit then ran again and bumped it up and up, finished last bit at 10.0. Felt pretty good.

I'm still not really feeling it, so I did the Y TM this morning and ran for .5, walked for a bit then bumped up the incline to 10%, then bumped it to the max 15% and walked then ran at 5 mph for a couple minutes. That's a nice workout. Then back to regular incline and running, then tried to run at 8.3 mph and did it for 1/4 mile but that didn't feel good, so slowed, then quit at 2.5 and walked more while watching the morning news. And a show about old lumberyards. And SportsCenter. I would like 3 large TVs at my house. It helps with my ADOS (attention deficit...oh shiny!).

Noon Boot Camp. Lots of lower body/quad workouts so I should be sore until Friday. Ah...

4 miles this morning. Beautiful morning, fairly warm at 60F. We're having a hot spell this week in the low 90s for highs. Wild weather swings. I've been dying for an exercise fix and got one yesterday at boot camp and today with a short run. I need a race....

4 miles this beautiful morning. Had a decent pace. Thinking about a 5K on 10/4 and I'm not well trained for it so halfway through mile 3 I decided to pick it up for a while. My watch is only pace per mile, not current pace, so not sure what I was hitting but I brought it from 7:45 to 7:05 so I was moving. After hitting mile 3 the pace reset and at one point was at 6:05 so I guess I was moving quicker than I thought, but a slight downhill so not that impressive. Not long after I hit the brakes and coasted in for my last mile. Overall, my fitness is nowhere near PR for a 5K but I think I can be just slightly over 20 minutes. I hope.

AP: 8:04

Noon: Boot Camp. I need to step it up in all aspects of my fitness so I hit BC for the 2nd time this week. The soreness should last me a while as my quads are still very sore from Monday.

4 miles this morning from the Y. I am not ready for a solid 5K. I've run so few miles since April and hardly any fast miles. My legs are not solid. I ran a slowish first mile, faster second mile then ran a 5K paced 3rd mile in 6:32. I could barely hold on. There's no way I can keep a pace close to this for 3.1. I'll decide next week whether to run it or not.

10 Saturday morning miles on my normal route. I love running up hills. On the flat I'm lethargic but a hill starts and my engine revs and I power up it. I may not be fast but I can keep going. I need to turn that strength into a focus on ultras and that's where my mind has been lately. I might do that 5K but it's 50/50 right now. Glad to hit double digits once again and be above 20 mpw, as pathetic as that is.

Noon Boot Camp. Brutal. Sweaty. Very tired afterwards.

Finally got off my lazy tail and ran. Monday had BC, Tuesday I woke up but was tired and didn't want to push my body too hard (and had Noon meetings so couldn't run), Wednesday I didn't get enough sleep due to being up too late watching the most exciting baseball game in the history of ever (Go Royals!) then had Noon meetings, so finally I got up and ran. It was good. Last two miles were 7:01, 6:43.

AP: 7:48

Chilly morning. Thick frost, 29F, 85% humidity. It actually felt great and my gloves helped my thumbs from freezing. Kept a good steady pace on the up and the back.

AP: 8:15

Got up a bit earlier than normal and got in 6 miles, which has rarely happened lately. Good run, nothing too crazy to report. Temps 48F with a breeze, glad I wore my cotton gloves.

AP: 8:11

Just over 5 trail miles with my new trail running buddy and his dog Cash, a speedy yellow lab. Out of 3500 miles or so I've run less than 100 of those with someone else. It's amazing how time flies! It took over 50 minutes and it felt like 15. Granted, it took me 35 minutes to drive to his house in order to make it feel like 15 minutes. 35 + 15 = weird....

Didn't feel refreshed this morning so I laid back in bed after the alarm, then woke up to a text alert that my bank account needed an infusion of funds. Joy. Transferred money then went for a short run. On the way out to the main road an ambulance came towards me heading the opposite direction. After another 1/2 mile the fire chief followed the ambulance so I turned around and followed them to make sure it wasn't my friends who live down that road. It wasn't, so I turned around and ran back home on a shortened morning. Life is good.

Woke up feeling refreshed (oddly, as I only got 6 hours sleep) and headed outside. 42F with only a very slight breeze so very comfortable temps. Listened to holy writ as I ran. I hear about every fourth idea when I do that but it's a nice way to squeeze some goodness into my life. It is so nice running in the dark with a full-ish moon and cloudless skies. I was able to turn off my headlamp most of the way.

AP: 8:16

I left my truck at a soccer game Friday afternoon so I ran down to pick it up Saturday morning. Nice run, great weather, all downhill. I like those types of runs, although it was a bit short for a Saturday.

Intended to do Boot Camp but I left my shorts at home. Which I didn't find out until I was undressed and ready to suit up in my gym clothes. Doh!

5 miles this morning. Only 55F! Weird to be so warm but I'll take it. Planned on 6 but I got out the door a bit late. Pushed it well the last couple miles.

AP: 7:53

4 miles on the hotel TM in Casper, WY. Not a pretty place. Glad I had access to the A/C in the exercise room as it was warm but I cooled it to 62 and it felt great. Running on a TM is harder than running outside. I'd forgotten that. Did a typical progressive run, warming up at 6.0, moving to 6.9, then 7.6 for mile 3; 8.6 for mile 4 with 10.0 for the last 1/4 mile.