Running For Trevor

Orchard loop with Jen easy, 7:24 pace.  32 degrees with no wind is absolutely perfect running weather!

Off to Phoenix this afternoon to pace my friend Emily the last 16-18 miles of the marathon tomorrow.  Best of luck to everyone racing this weekend!

Had the opportunity to pace my friend Emily for the last 18 miles of the Phoenix marathon.  It was such an awesome day and I am so glad I got to be there.  She ended up finishing in 3:17 which was a PR for her.  I am really happy with the way I held up for the 18 miles.  I felt really great the entire time and was able to focus 100% on Emily.

Definitely feeling the marathon itch after talking to everyone after the race!  The course was awesome and I would love to run it next year.

6 mile easy around some city streets in AZ.  8+ pace

25 min weights

8.5 mi on the treadmill 7:30ish pace

PM:  4 miles, 32 min.

9 mile orchard loop with Jen. Not really easy but not really a workout either. 4 miles sub-7. I am ready to refocus my running again and start training for something I think. But what? Any suggestions are welcome. Currently I'm not registered for anything until UVM in June.

20 min weights at home

Hilly route in Salem with Jen, 7:22 pace.  First time I've actually been able to see the hills and they felt much harder than when we run in the dark.  Neither of us have done any sort of workout in over two weeks and we are running too fast but it feels natural so I guess I'll go with it.

Jen is trying to talk me into doing the Woodland Hills Yeti race this weekend......so I guess I need to learn to ski by Saturday.  hmmm that should be interesting.

3 min plank.

PM:  5 miles with a few 1 min surges, stressful day at work and sometimes running fast helps.

8 mile downtown Payson loop with Jen, 7:13 pace.  When in the heck did that pace become a relaxed conversational pace for me?  Jen has literally ran me into shape!  My job has been causing me ridiculous amounts of stress lately and these morning social hours are my saving grace.  Oh and girl scout cookies have also helped!

Planks/pushups

PM:  3 easy, 3 phone calls, busy day!

6 lovely miles in Provo canyon with Melody.  Thanks Melody for the fun run.  I am really loving the light and totally dreading day light savings.  It seems to kill me every single year!

16 mi around Springville/Mapleton. First 9.5 with Jorge, Holly, & Stephanie. I turned back early and so that I could come play cheerleader at the Yeti race. Didn't feel so hot today but it's been a really long stressful week so I'm not too surprised. 8:05 pace for the run.

8.5 mi in Santaquin/west mountain orchards. Beautiful day and I felt good. 7:11 pace. I got chased by a lot of dogs and I think that helped the pace.

25 minutes weights - upper body + planks/pushups

Treadmill workout all at 1% incline except the final 400. 4 x 1 mile + 2 x 400 with 2 min jogging in between all reps.  2.25 mi warmup and then into the workout 6:15, 6:10, 6:07, 6:03.  400s were 88 & 86.  My legs were toast by the end but I felt really good for the workout.  Cooldown was at a lovely 8:27 pace.

PM:  5 lovely sunny miles with Christie.  So nice to run in the sunshine!

8 mile orchard loop with Jen, no watches but it took us about an hour I think... No headlamps either and dang it was dark!

15 min it band rehab & stretching.

Provo canyon out & back, 7:45 pace.  Pace felt much slower and like a true recovery run.  Feeling good!

PM:  1 loop along the river trail in SF on my way home from work.  3 miles

7 mile hilly route in Salem with Jen, 7:25 pace.  Love my morning chats with Jen.  We really need to start wearing headlamps though....it is dark and creepy with all of the random farm animals sneaking up on us.

10 min elliptical at the gym really slow just to watch the news for a bit. 

Loved my run today, I was so tired after a late night but it still ended up being a great run & a great way to break up a long run. Started with Jen for the 7 mi loop. 2 mile wu & 3 mi tempo 6:19, 6:17, 6:19 (we talked the first 2 and then Jen smoked me the last mi). 2 mi back to my house to drop Jen and I went right back out. 2 mi easy and then a 2 mi tempo 6:22, 6:14. I saw my friend Julia 1 mi into her run and caught up with her for a nice 4 mi cool down to round out 15 for the day. 15 mi never flew by so fast!

I have some work to do to get back to where I was for IMS and these tempo mi were a little harder than I had hoped but today was all about hitting the hmp effort and I feel like I was successful in that.

8 miles in Kanab easy, 7:45ish pace.  Absolutely beautiful run surrounded by red rock.  I stopped to take quite a few pictures.

I hadn't ever been to Kanab before but it was a really pretty place.  I had the opportunity to present at an all womens conference on Saturday and really enjoyed it.  The conference was more than accomodating and one of the board members even took me out Friday night to show me a good place to run.  It was such a nice touch and I was just incredibly impressed with how great of an event they put on. 

7.1 mi easy with Julia in Payson, 8:45 pace.  It was windy but I dressed up in my all green St. Patricks Day attire which made it fun. :)

7.1 mi hilly route in Salem with Jen, 7:17 pace.  I think this is the fastest we have ever ran this route which is weird because it did not really seem like we were pushing any harder.  I guess sometimes good conversation makes you move faster.....errr it was all the cake and ice cream I ate last night. :-)

Tuesday death by training with Jen..... Regular 8 mi loop with no planned workout per usual. I suggested a tempo after a 3 mi warmup. I had no headlamp so I couldn't see splits so we just went on effort......errrr I just chased Jen! 1 mi recovery after the tempo (at a brisk 6:55) and then 4 times by 2 min fartlek efforts. 8 mi in 53:30/6:42 pace. No stopping ever, just a continuous workout. The 2 tempo miles ended up being 5:58, 5:53. Jen was a good 10 seconds ahead of me but I am very happy with this workout, although it was very very hard! 1 mi cool down with Jen. 25 min weights at the gym and then I slogged another 9 min mi up to my sisters house.

PM:  3.8 easy recovery, 8:30 pace.  First 2 miles with Izzy dog and the last 1.8 with Skippy dog.  Both dogs were in better shape than I had anticipated considering the winter layoff.  However they both panted and acted like they were dying for a good 30 min after the run.

8 mi Provo canyon out & back easy recovery 8:06 pace.  Beautiful morning!

My butt muscles are incredibly sore and I am pretty sure it has nothing to do with running at all but rather from hiking the "Y" on Monday.  Pretty ridiculous and a little embarassing how out of shape that 1.75 mile hike made me feel!

Stomach Flu......maybe some sort of ab workout from throwing up all night long. Ugh I haven't been this sick in a very long time!

PM:  After being curled in the fetal position for 16 hours straight I just had to get out of the house.  5 mi slowly with a few walking breaks.

6.6 mi orchard loop with Jen, 7:24 pace.  I am feeling so much better today, thank goodness.  It is amazing what an entire day of sleeping and a full sleeve of soda crackers will do!  I think yesterday was quite likely the most unproductive day of my life.  I did read a book and watch 4 episodes of Kourtney & Kim take Miama!  Having the stomach flu is not fun at all.

25 min strength training at home

I am supposed to pace 1:35 at Riverton tomorrow so I need to make sure I get plenty of fluids and calories in me today. 

PM:  3 miles with the pups in a windy blizzardy, snowy mess.  .5 with Izzy dog (she was being a total pansie and it was too cold to force her to run) and 2.5 with Skippy dog.  8:30 pace.

I was planning to pace the Riverton course but when I got up there I found out the race had been cancelled.  First time I have ever actually seen a race cancelled in Utah but honestly I have to give the RD props for cancelling because the course really was pretty bad.  The roads were just a complete slushy mess and there was a good 4-5 inches deep of snow lining miles 5-9 on the golf course trail.  Anyway there were about 50 people that showed up and still wanted to run the course anyway.  I was really glad because I still wanted to get a run in and now I could just enjoy it without the pressure of pacing....that works for me!

For a split second I thought about still trying to hit my pace (1:35) just for fun but as soon as I realized just how much snow I was dealing with, and how crappy I felt still recovering from stomach flu I threw that idea out the window.  Sadly I was not in race mode and wasn't fast enough to keep up with Chad...yet also not slow enough to join the leisurely crew so I ended up running the whole course solo.  I usually don't enjoy running alone but I actually just kind of soaked it all in and had a good time.  It was really beautiful with all of the snow and it is always fun to run in a new place.  Ended up finishing in like ~1:38 or something....I don't really remember. 

The race organizers heard there were people out running the course for fun and were waiting at the finish with chocolate milk, bananas, shirts, medals, ect.  I thought that was a really nice touch since they had already refunded everyone there money.

Ran from my parents house down to the lake and then down to the school to meet them at the indoor track.  After 5 mi the weather was warming up and I was inspired by the famous Jake K to do a few 100s on the outdoor track.  16 times by 100s at the Westlake HS track.  I just picked it up on the straights and jogged the corners.  Didn't time anything and just kind of ran off of effort.  8 mi total in about an hour.  My running isn't feeling very 'sharp' lately and I've kind of been feeling a little off.  I'm trying not to dwell on it too much because I'm still recovering from the stomach flu and life has just been busier lately forcing running to take a back seat in my realm of priorities.  I'm hoping to refocus this week and get back on track.  I'd like to work on getting more controlled quality miles in.  Less medium-hard miles and more fast-true recovery miles is the plan!

20 min walking with my parents and the pups.

25 min strength training

30 min elliptical

4.6 easy treadmill miles in 36 min.  First time running on the treadmill in awhile and I completely forgot how mind numbingly boring it is.  I was just too big of a wuss to run in the dark and cold morning alone today.

PM:  4 easy

Orchard loop with Jen.  I wore my headlamp this morning so that I could pace the tempo better.  Last weeks sub-6 min miles were cool but kind of left me in a hole so I did not want that to happen again.  2 mile warmup and then 4 mile tempo 6:23, 6:12, 6:10, 6:10.  The first 3 miles of the tempo felt very controlled and we even talked through them.  The last mile was more of a push.  It is a gradual uphill and Jen had a good 10-15 seconds on me which I was totally okay with.  The goal of the workout today was to get more of a controlled workout and not wipe myself out.  3 mile cool down with Jen at a moderate pace and then I added an extra slow mile by myself to shake things out.  10 miles total.

Strength training and foam rolling.  My left shin is bothering me just a bit so I got some ice on it.  Didn't notice it during the workout but just when walking up the stairs to my house afterwards.  I really need to buy some compression sleeves (my dog chewed mine...literally) and some new trainers. 

7.2 mile hilly route in Salem with Jen, Aubs, and Mack.  Fun to have a bigger group this morning and hopefully we can get a good little training pack going down south. :)  55 min

Gym - planks, pushups, it band rehab, squats & lunges

PM:  4 miles easy around the orchards, 7:50 pace.

Fartlek type workout on the Orchard loop with Jen.  She got this workout from Nick Symmonds and I just went a long with it...

18 min wu (~2.3 mi), 2 x 3 min with 2 min active recovery + 8 x 90 seconds with 60-90 second active recovery.  Continual workout with the recovery much swifter than I probably would have done on my own.  2 mile cooldown.  63 min.  It was way too dark to try to keep track of paces and I didn't really care anyway.  This workout was way more about the effort for me.

Feeling like I have shin splints in just my left shin?.....I did not feel it during the workout but noticed it during the cool down.  Definitely just a niggle at this point but it has me worried and I need to be cautious.

PM:  20 min very easy shake out run.  no watch

Love my late start Friday morning runs.  That extra half hour (6:30am start) makes such a huge difference!  Just 7 easy around Salem with Jen, 55 minutes.  We looped around the pond a couple of times and just meandered around the neighborhoods.  Beautiful morning and running in the light just makes me so happy. :)

My legs are feeling so much better after a good scraping yesterday.  I also found an old pair of arm warmers and turned them into compression calf sleeves...they are tighter than normal compression sleeves I am sure.  It took me like 5 min to get them on!

I had plenty of opportunities to run with people this morning, but I really just wanted to sleep in. I also didn't know how far my body would carry me and didn't really want to committ to any distance. I got my beauty sleep and then headed out aimlessly without a plan. Ended up with 9 miles easy (70 min), some of it up payson canyon and then a 5 mi tempo 6:31, 6:17, 6:12, 6:12, 6:10. 1.5 mi trot (literally 8:30 pace and some walking) back to my house. I guess you could call this a depletion run because I never stopped the watch once and had no fluids, ect. Or maybe I'm just calling it that to make myself feel better about it? Ha! This solo run gave me plenty of alone time to think and made a few things clear to me.

1. My feet are still a problem.

2. I am no where near in shape to race a marathon right now.

3. This was a big week for me and I am wiped out! Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Either way I'm headed on vacation today with my family and looking forward to taking 4-5 days off of any sort of workouts. Hopefully I can even talk my sister into jogging with me.

AM 2: 2.5 mi with Christie. .5 chasing her down the last half mi of the 5k and then a nice and easy 2 mi cool down with her after the race. Did I mention that she freaking won the tri!!!! Yep she killed it and is looking so good going into stg half ironman. Very fun to watch her and I am very proud of that girl.

7.25 miles in St. George.  Virgin River trail + Santa Clara river Trail.  easy, easy very relaxing recovery run on a beautiful Sunday morning.