On the road to BOSTON!

AM: 8.75 miles over to Bloomington Hills and then a bit of a loop and back- 8:10 average. Legs are still a bit sore from Saturday's run- nice 60 degree morning

Same run as yesterday- warmer temps- average pace 7:31......39 seconds per mile faster with the same effort, felt good!

What a great day! Drove in to work with my wife and ran from Dixie Eye Care out to River Road to the Chevron in Bloomington Hills turned right through the hills to home. Was planning on a very slow run today just to get in some miles. I had a good, hard massage yesterday and didn't think I would be able to do much. Went out and my legs were feather light today. Hit the first mile at 7:59 so I decided to get maybe 3-4 miles at a quicker pace with the nice downhill that was ahead. I ended up averaging 6:48 pace for the whole run. I did take some breaks after the first 4 miles and concentrated on 1/4 to 1/2 mile speed work.I was trying to maintain 6:10-6:20 pace in those short runs, many times hitting mid 5's but couldn't hold them very long-

I fell great after this workout and I am looking forward to seeing what I can do at Utah Valley-

9 1/2 miles with Big Foot, Wildbull and the Budda----Ran from Mikes home up to Snow Canyon park 5 miles then back. First 5 slow and steady 8:17 pace going up-

Coming back first 2 miles at 6:35 pace and then took it easy with 7:02 for the last 2.50- I took the short cut-

overall 7:37 average for the run.

I am feeling pretty good for the race next week-

Went in to town with my wife and started there to River Road/ Bloomington Hills to home. The wind kicked up as I get started and really dried me out. I started feeling slight cramping in my left calf after 4 miles- haven't had that happen in a very long time. I got as much to drink as I could find on the way home but it wasn't enough. I am going to hydrate all day to get this taken care of. I hate the wind! Especially a head wind. I am going to take it easy the rest of the week and just heal up for Saturday--- 7:50 average pace

4 miles out on the Bloomington Trail to I-15 and back. 7:31 pace just taking it easy

Well the conditions couldn't have been better! It all goes down hill after that-

The start was on time but a guy drives his truck to the start line just as the gun goes off.....dork! The first mile was very slow, too crowded and no one was pushing it at all, I wasn't too upset because I didn't want to go out too fast but 8:30 was slow. Once past the first mile things started to thin out a little except at the turns. I started to fall into a pretty good pace just was breathing a bit too hard, not used to the elevation. That went away after 4-5 miles. I was trying to hold to 7:45 pace on the gentle down hill to save some energy for the hills at 8 and 9. Hind sight, I should have gone out a little faster because those hills got me anyway.

Stomach was giving me a hard time when I ate anything and spend 3 stops at the facilities to relieve my self. Lost valuable time there but it was needed. At the half way point I knew I was in trouble sitting at 1:48 so I kind of bagged the BQ idea but still hopes I could get a shot of energy and maybe scrape by.

When I was running I was hitting around the 7:30- 7:45 pace but couldn't hold that pace and was weak in the head and did many walk breaks. The stomach issues seemed to go away around 18-19 but then the right foot started to give me fits. Sometime during the week it started to hurt- kind of bruised and it had done ok until now. I stopped at 20 to take the shoes off and check things out. This seemed to help some but by then I really didn't care about my finish time and jumped made it to the finish line-

Well, at least I have the experience of another marathon.

Went out for a run/ walk this morning. The legs actually feel pretty good, I am just kind of lazy tired, unmotivated.Thats okay, live is still great!  8:21 pace

I have been sick all week. Laying around not being able to breath, headaches, sinus pressure......you get the picture.

Last night I decided no way was I going to go to Cedar and run the Summer Games 10k. I tossed and turned all night and then looked at the clock, 4:45, If I get up and go now I can make it in time. So I went-

It sure was tough trying to breath in the higher elevation plus I couldn't breath well anyway. Went out at 6:36 pace for the first mile wondering how long I could hold this pace. Kept pretty steady through mile 2 with 6:46. The things started getting tough with the breathing 7:07/ 7:43, At this point I decided the only way I could finish with out dying would be to take some walk breaks---7:36/ 7:21 and finished the last .2 at 7:09

Not so happy about the time but happy I finished and won my age group, I ended up being the only one, wish I would have known that before the race then I could have had a lot more fun..lol

We shall see how the 5k goes in the morning-----

Ran the Utah Summer Games 5k this morning. After 2 nights in a row of no sleep this was not looking to be a good day for a race.Nothing special just a solid consistent race. I really wanted to push a little harder for a sub 20 but I didn't have it in me. After the first 1/2 miles I knew it wouldn't happen. My splits were very close to the 10k for the first 2 miles. I ended up with a 20:42 which is my second fastest 5k so not too bad but had I been healthy and not coming off of a marathon I feel I could do a sub 20-

Steve got me thinking about the Track and Field events. Looked at them I feel that I could metal in most if not all of the running events....thinking....thinking.....well next week I will decide if I can give some of them a try. Daughter is having a baby any day so that is the priority, if it works out I may try 3 or 4 events.

7 easy miles 8:01 pace from St. George Industrial Park to home-

Loop out on the trail under I-15 past Walmart to home- 8:07 pace-----legs are still so tired

same run as this morning- 105 degrees out- 7:40 pace

 I was looking over the official times and I am listed as 1:33:12- my Garmin shows 1:33:02 and usually I am off a second or two but usually on the high side not the low. Don't know for sure but this looks to be the gun time for the results not the chip time...could be wrong

The timing crew did not get chip time started until 40 seconds after the gun went off-----this means I have no chip time just gun time. I am adjusting my official time to what I feel it should be at 1:32:59. I know I started my Garmin a bit early because of the congestion at the start, I hit the watch and then had to stand still for a few seconds before moving past the mat, didn't care because it was to be chip timed...... I also hit my watch a second or two after passing the finish line so dropping 3 seconds off my Garmin is what I feel is fair.

Okay, now that I am home I can jot down a few thoughts about the race. First of all I loved the course! The only thing that would have made it better would have been to have it 3 miles shorter but count it as a half marathon....j/k

After 2 nights without sleep I knew I was going to have some issues on this race. I drove up from St. George Friday afternoon on my way up to Ogden. My daughter Hilary was in labor and all the way up I am hoping for news of the birth. The longer it went the more concerned I became. She had been in the hospital since noon on Thursday. As I got to Utah Valley I had pretty much decided that the race was not going to happen for me. I decided to at least go pick up my shirt on the way by American Fork. As I walked up to the tent the call came! Happy day, my first grandchild.

Since it had been such a long process everyone was so tired so I stayed for the race.

The course is awesome, the kind I love- downhill and lots of it. I started out trying to keep things slow- weaving in and out of the slow runners was a joy and when I hit mile 1 I was at 6:38, feeling pretty good since it was a slow start and the water that I had to jump, splish, splash through. Mile 2 was the same 6:38, Now as I was getting to mile 3 I had to take a pit stop lost some time but I had to go, 7:10 on that mile so I lost time but didn't feel too bad. Mile 4 I picked up where I left off with 6:44 then it gets crazy. I don't know what got in to me but the next 3 miles were fast (for me). 6:13, 6:08, 6:07 I would look down at my Garmin and see times of 6:03 or 5:52 etc. and couldn't believe my eyes. Mile 7 was 7:00 and this is where I started to slow down and get tired. my splits to the finish are 7:46, 7:44, 8:12, 7:22, 8:06 and 7:21 for the final .10. I started taking walk breaks of 15-30 seconds, mentally I was very weak and really just tried to keep runners in sight that I had been seeing all the way down the course. They started to tire as well so we would then go back and forth the rest of the way taking breaks.

I feel bad again that I didn't hold things together on a race when I was running great and would have destroyed my PR but didn't have enough fight in me to finish strong. I can also see from some of my splits that I have the ability to turn the legs over for an old (word removed by admin/ wasn't a swear word but starts with an 'f' and ends with a 't' with an 'ar' between) but just don't have the stamina that I need or the mental toughness to match up. Again, I know that had I been running with someone I could have gutted it up and dropped several minutes off my time. It's all good and I am excited about the race. I want to run this one again when I haven't just ran a marathon, 5k and 10k in the last 2 weeks and had been sick for those same 2 weeks following the marathon.

Now that I have downloaded my Garmin I am sick! I broke down the times that I stopped and walked, bathroom break etc and was blown away with how bad I blew this race. I estimated very conservatively that I was walking for approx 7 1/2 minutes. Some of that was aid stations but that is minimal....bathroom was 40 seconds but needed to happen. It is the last 4-5 miles that ticks me off........no excuse for myself on this total mental lapse! This was my race to break under 1:30 and I was too weak mentally to push through being tired.

5 miles with nothing in my legs. When I am running I am ok running around 7:30- 7:45 pace but I can't keep anything going for very far....the body is just flat tired of running

25 mile bike ride on mountain bike