my makeup may be flaking

Lifting and plyos too.

I have a love/hate relationship with my saucony type As. I like the built in sock and the hook on the back to help you pull them on. I also like the colour. I like that they are light. Whenever I wear them for hard efforts, though, something always seems to go wrong.

I figured that this race would be pretty low key so I thought it would be a good day to put some miles in on these shoes. This turned out to be pretty silly as the trail part of this race is slightly rocky and the soles are pretty thin. I'm not quite sure how Allie managed in her Hattoris.

Anyway, this race goes up and down city creek. It's a great course that I have wanted to race on for quite some time. I felt great from the start and I was all alone after just a few minutes. I attacked the trail pretty viciously and I enjoyed the burning in my lungs. It's been 19 days since Des News but that feels like an eternity without a hard workout.

I reached the end of the trail portion at about 17:00 and started to sprint down the road as hard as I could. This part was about 2.35 miles and I covered it in 11:49 which is 5:02 pace. This was not too surprising as it is a solid downhill and I have split 5:20 for this stretch during tempo runs.

After the race, I cooled down with Allie and Kam and then reenacted Freedom Half.

This is my 6th victory of the year! Previous high was 4 in 2009. Want to make it to double digits.

Also the largest margin of victory of any race I've ever done. (4:01)

Allergies were acting up a little bit today, it was also really hot. I was dissappointed not to break 16 but I was happy with my effort.

I put myself in the lead pack in the first mile and we would stay together until 2.5 miles. I hit the mile in 5:00 which was faster than I wanted and it felt too hard. I was chopping my stride a little bit and felt generally tight. I cramped up pretty badly in the second mile (5:23) and fell back from the group. I closed pretty strongly and recaught the group. I was running side by side the final mile with Skylar Williams and Brayden Cromar from Davis HS. We kept passing each other back and forth (probably due to my inconsistent surging). With about 800meters left I heard Skylar mutter an expletive under his breath as I surged by. He then let out a primal scream and started to kick. At this point Austin Neuner flew by all three of us, knocking me into seventh at the 3 mile mark. I kicked hard by both of them to take fifth.

The field was very similar to last year.

2010 (from memory)

1.Jared Ward (BYU, Davis Alum) 15:29

2.Austin Neuner (Davis HS, now starting at USU) 15:49

3.Logan Petter (Davis Alum, UVU) 16:00

4.Brad Nye (Davis HS) 16:00

5.Joe White (Davis HS, now BYU) 16:05

6.James Moore (me) 16:06

7.Preston Johnson Davis HS 16:09

2011

1. Jared Ward 14:43

2. Brad Nye 15:33 (Look Out World!)

3. Joe White 16:00

4. Preston Johnson16:05

5. James Moore 16:17

6. Skylar Williams 16:19 (16:22 last year)

7. Austin Neuner 16:23

8. Logan Petty 16:41

9. Brayden Cromar 16:43 (16:35 last year)

Possibly the race was slower this year due to heat? Hard to say, I'm at a much different point in my fitness.

Ran an agonizing cooldown with Allie. She is do strong for me.

AM 8.5 This included 11 1min pickups with two minutes rest in between. This one a fun workout to do. I did the whole workout running around liberty park. I did the easy bits on the woodchips and the pickups on the grass to get some firmer footing. Each time I picked some landmark and tried to make it there before my watch beeped. Definitely looking forward to more Fartlek type workouts this fall.

PM 6.2 10k loop to 2100S. I did this late in the evening (starting around 10pm) or so and it was still too soon after dinner. I didn't feel nauseous but I felt pretty sluggish. Someone I managed to push myself to a respectable pace.

AM After I ran, ate breakfast, showered and rolled my muscles out with the stick I realized I was going to be late for work. The fastest way for me to get to school is running, even with a full backpack. So I completely undid my shower by running to school at about 9am as the morning was heating up. Gross.

Probably my last circuit race for the year. I have been obscenely consistent after a few hiccups at the beginning.

ROTL-12th,SLCHalf-10th,PCHM-4th,(UVHM-should be on LDR-6th),Draper Days-6th,RFTC-5th

I was debating with myself whether or not to do this race right up until the last moment. So much so that when I went to pick up my packet, they found my name added in pen to the bottom of the sheet written, no doubt, with ink made from the tears of the race director as she contemplated why people make her life so hard.

Umm,anyway,yes, I wasn't sure about this race because I knew I wasn't really ready to race a 10k. I can kind of gut out a 5k (see last week's effort) but a 10k is really just about pure fitness. I've been close to getting some money everytime at one of these races so I thought I should give it a go.

The competition was pretty good up front. There was Teren, Nate H., Riley Cook, Ken Richardson and Dennis Simonaitis. When I saw this lineup, I though to myself "if I am smart, I can get top 3". It was hot and I do not do well in the heat, but there would be shade and otherwise I was feeling pretty good.

At the start I let Teren go and settled into 4th behind Nate and Riley. The pace felt easy (as I've come to expect) and I was getting antsy but then my breathing just kind of ran away from me and I couldn't get it out of control. That's really a sign that I have some work to do base wise. I started to slowly lose ground right at the mile mark which I reach in 5:16. This mile should have felt a little bit easier than it did so I started to worry. I had a prerace expectation of 33 high, but I felt that I was capable of maybe sub 33 which is 5:18 pace. I figured that was out the window after this mile. I found a new rhythm and go my breathing under control. The second mile was 5:34. This is about what I would expect from myself at threshold pace and I hoped to be able to hold onto this pace.

Well, not so much. My third mile was very slow-5:49. I got passed by Ken R. I knew that 5:49 is not good and that I should try to stay with Ken. My spirits weren't very low however, as I could see that I was not the only person struggling. In the 4th mile there is a turnaround and Teren came back the other day with death all over his face. No one was any further ahead of me than I would have expected so I kept clipping along. I was hoping that my strength would prevail, but I was dealing with a bunchof 30-35 year olds so I figured they were all running pretty sensibly.

Anyway, for the last three miles I chased Ken and tried to hold off Dennis. Mile 4 was 5:46 and mile 5 was 5:42.  I put in a 6:43 for the last 1.22 which is about 5:36 pace (I think). The last couple of miles have a gradual decline which  accounted for my increase in speed.

Anyway, times were slow all around by about a minute it seems. I was 2:53 behind Teren and only 0:56 behind Riley. Earlier in the year I was 1:09 behind Riley in a 5k. I'm happy with my effort, it shows that I'm still on the upswing despite taking some down time these last couple of weeks. I'm still, possibly, 45-60 seconds away from my previous best.

After yesterday, I decided I need to stop thinking and go out and run some solid miles. My races indicate that I have the speed I just need to build up the strength again. Looking at Jake Krong's amazing performance also made me realize that I need to start doing more. I need to worry about my miles first. My performances always seem to coincide eerily with the length of my long runs.

I charged up Sunnyside and turned onto Foothill. Started to run the death segment in reverse and was just getting ready for 2 hours of pure torture when I ran into Rob Murphy. He was running a decent clip and asked if we could run together. I decided that this was probably wise. We still ran pretty fast the rest of the way and I ended up averaging just under 7 minutes per miles after a  surge in the last 4 miles.

Felt great on my PM run today after feeling sluggish all day.

AM 11.5

After a short warmup I did 6*5mins 'on'-5mins 'off'. The off minutes were probably around 7:30 mile pace and the on minutes were probably 5:30 ish. I ran to Sugarhouse Park, did two loops then ran home.

PM 5.5

Weights+Core