my makeup may be flaking

Well, I wasn't really sure what to expect from this race. I gmap'd the course and it was a legit 5K so I took that to mean the organizers knew what they were doing. Still, I had no idea what kind of competition there would be. So I showed up and there seemed to be a bunch of serious looking runners (alot of Wasatch back shirts, which is what I raced in). The thing is that when I'm clicking on all cylinders the only people who can stop me in SLC are Adam, Chad, Aleksander, Grant Rotunda, BJ, etc. So even though these guys were in shape, there's no way there going to hang with me running the first mile in about 5:15. So basically I was on my own after 100m and completely out of sight by about 1000m in. I felt like I was working pretty hard. The race was at the U and I can usually tell the difference between the altitude there and at my house. But as the race finished I realized I had a ton left in the tank, which was a shame. Anyway, I hope this really represents a massive gain in fitness and not me just peaking out too soon.

Did 5.5 in the afternoon.

Long run, the weather pulled a Utah and I couldn't feel my hands when I got home.

Did one loop of Sugarhouse park in the morning (8.6). The I ran home 5miles in the evening.

Ahh, the coming of winter and we are barely into November. I wanted to do a fast run today and didn't want to get caught out in the cold so I hopped on the indoor track and pounded out 75 laps. Yes that's right I am a nutjob. It was a tough run, but I was able to keep pretty even splits.

1. 5:48

2. 11:30 (5:42)

3  17:12 (5:42)

4  23:01 (5:49)

5  28:45 (5:44)

6  34:27 (5:42)

8  45:58 (11:31 for two miles, 5:45 avg)

9  51:44 (5:46)

10 57:22 (5:38)

So all the miles were within 7 seconds of each other except for the last one which was just 4 seconds faster than the previous one. I could have made this run a little easier if I'd given myself a chance to warm up. Anyway, it's a good sign that I can hold this type of pace, it's a full two minutes faster than my fastest time last winter and faster than just about any 10-miler I've done at altitude. I'm also going to go ahead and claim this as my official 15K PR (53:26) compared to the 53:51 I ran earlier this year.

Ran to school in the snow. I need to invest in some sunglasses. Then I did 9.7 miles in the afternoon. It was a pretty relaxed run. It was tough to tell if I was feeling the affects of yeterday because I was wearing alot of clothes which slows me down anyway. I found out that I won on Saturday by 1:52 and in Madison I won by 1:31. Maybe the Seattle half will provide an appropriate level of competition. Anyway I now have the course record for the Run Like Health 5K a they changed the course due to construction. Presumably they will change it back next year so my course record will stand forever! Anyway Chad and I will just have to battle it out for the true couse record in 2009. Next year, I'll have to remember to plug that race as it is for a good cause (aren't they all?).

Anyway the course record business made my curious so I looked it up for the Seattle Half. It's 1:05... umm, not this year. But the 12Ks of Christmas which I plan to run two weeks later has a course record of 40:36 set by the super talented Matt Frerker of the Portland Pilots. In fact, my time from last year (when he crushed me) was the 5th fastest ever. Anyway, my second to last goal of 2008 will be to win 12Ks of Christmas in UNDER 40 minutes. That would be sub 5:20 pace for 7.5 miles on a hilly course and would definitely be my most impressive run if I could pull it off. Nothing like back to back wins and some ridiculous workouts to make you think you're superhuman.

Did two laps of Liberty Park in the evening. The snow was mostly melted and I felt pretty good. The I watched that really awesome football game.

Ran 10.6 in the morning. I felt a little sick but wrapped up warm and kept it slow. Ran home in the evening and felt pretty good although I felt some phlegm in my throat.

Ran to Sugarhouse Park and did two loops hard (did a little bit extra warmup). I wasn't really comfortable as I had phlegm in my throat that made it hard to breathe hard even though I didn't feel like I had any other symptoms. I ran 11:12,11:01 for the two loops which is 5:33 pace for 4 miles. I pushed the end of the last one hard and then I began to notice that I might be a little sick. My heart beat was a little irregular for a couple minutes after I stopped, which isn't unusual. So mentally, it wasn't a tough workout, but I'm not sure I could have handled much more.

Felt kind of terrible towards the end of this run as I'm getting sick again but recovered pretty well within a couple of hours. I saw a temperature reading of 60 degrees while I was running which I didn't think could be true but it wasn't freezing. Anyway ended up at just about 7:30 pace which is fine.

Woke up feeling a little ill and had some trouble talking in lab meeting. Seeing how bad I'd felt after running yesterday, I decided to skip my morning run. I ran home 5 miles in the evening as I felt a bit better and that felt pretty good.

I was pleased with this run as it shows that I'm rounding into good form. My fitness seems to have advanced (or I'm just fresher) in the last two weeks. I woke up feeling much better than yesterday, but I decided that by hard base run would be a run-as-you-feel thing. I started out pretty fast, but I started to notice my symptoms after about 2 miles. I was a little dehydrated, a little nauseous and I had a slight cough. Despite this I made it to three miles in 17:04 (5:41 pace). Which is just a little bit slower than m best. I decided that was a good enough workout and that it would be fine to coast for a while until I felt a bit better. I kind of relaxed throughtthe next segment. (1.85 miles uphill, 12:07=6:29 pace). Then I picked it up again and ran 17:53 for the next 2.9 (6:10 pace) which was actually also uphill. This was faster than I had run last week and at this point I was not too far off of the fastest times cumulative for this course. I ran the final segment in 11:14(5:45 pace) this was very relaxed and I could have gone faster easily but I didn't want to put too much stress on the system. Overall I ended up with 58:19 (6:00 pace). I used to consider anything under 58mins to be a very hard effort, so clearly there's some good improvement there.

Ran to school in the morning. I wasn't feeling sick anymore. Then I did a run in the mountains at sunset (very beautiful) before running home. When I got home I felt a little sick to my stomach (this has been coming on for a few days). My roommates all felt the same thing. I'm kind of in some discomfort right now.

Ran home from school, dropped of my stuff and then ran three times after Liberty Park. I ran kind of fast.

Did two loops of Sugarhouse park but then I stopped paying attention and added on going around again before doubling back. Then I ran home from lab in the evening. I felt really really good on the evening run. But that was probably more for emotional than physical reasons.

Felt sick in the morning and so just did a base run in the morning. In the afternoon I did three loops of liberty park wood chip trail hard. It was cold and I was wearing alot of clothes that slowed me down. My splits were 8:26,8:37,8:35. Total time was 25:39 (5:42 pace). I was feeling kind of sluggish and my quads were really hurting towards the end but I was able to keep the pace up and I could have done another if you'd put a gun to my head. This was 16 seconds off of my best for this workout which I did last month and I believe that was done with fewer miles the day before.

Easy long run, my legs felt pretty tired. Start of my taper.

Just ran home from lab today. Ran in shorts outside, craziness!

What a great day on so many levels. The running part-Did two loops of sugarhouse hard. Did just over 6-minute pace going up to the park and running around the park then did 5:30 pace coming back. It felt pretty easy and I was controlled during the whole thing. Total time was 62:32 (5:53).

Felt pretty good on all runs today. Ran 3.5 to school, then did 8.5 in the mountains before another 3.5 going home. The slightly warmer whether is agreeing with me and I no longer feel sick. Let's hope it stay that way for another 11 days!

First day off in a loooong time.

Did 10.6 in the morning and 5 in the evening.

Decided to get everything in the morning despite feeling stuffy. Did 6.3 miles for a warmup then had a quick change before three laps of Liberty park (8:27,8:32,835) Total time 25:35 (5:41 average) a little faster than last week and felt alot smoother. Doubly good because it was after a pretty fast run and I was stuffy and it was the morning.

Felt very depressed today wasn't planning on running anway, but couldn't really bring myself to do anything. Anyway, 1 week to go.

10.6 in the AM

5 in the PM

Did my last hard workout prior to the race. Got to three miles in 16:56. Then did the next 1.85 in 11:44 (6:20 pace). Then did 2.9 miles in 18:06. Finished it off with 1.95 in 10:40. Total time was 57:26 (5:55 pace).

Just three loops of Liberty Park before flying to Seattle for Thanksgiving

Ran and played some tackle football (stupid).

Just did a nice easy run on Mercer Island.

Did a final run in flats to kind of get myself in the right mindset.

Up at 5am, drove to downtown and got the closest parking spot to the finish line. I couldn't go to the bathroom satisfactorily and I knew this would come back to bite me. It also didn't help that there were 4 starts and I was worried they were going to start without me. When the gun went off, I went immediately to the front. I didn't feel like I was going all that fast and I was confused. I missed the mile split but then had 10:24 at 2 miles. Oh...shoot. It was downhill by a bit, but that was too fast, way too fast. The bigger problem was that I couldn't just coast and let the pack catch up as, somehow, Steve Dekoker was only one step behind me. Then we headed up onto the I-90 express lanes hitting three miles in 15:53 (5:29) then 4 miles in 21:14 (5:21). I was really grinding the pace hoping to get a little gap. We left I-90 and went on to Lake Washington Boulevard and he got a gap and quickly pulled away. I slowed down a little and needed to recover. This was a flat mile and I did it in 5:37 (26:52 at 5 miles). I felt recovered at this point and did mile 6 in 5:30 (32:22 for 6 miles). I thought that I might be able to work back to him for a few moments, but I realized that I really needed to go the bathroom and this made it difficult for me to push it as hard as I possible could. This was made evident by a 5:44 mile 7 (38:07). The next mile had a short steep uphill that slowed me to a 6:10 mile (44:17). The course also starting having some corners in it and I lost sight of the leader. After a nice downhill, the course had a steady uphill. I thought that this would be a good section for me as I felt that it was a grade that I could easily handle. Reached nine miles in 49:56 (5:39). Going up the hill (Interlaken Blvd) people kept telling me that I was about 30seconds back even though I couldn't see him. Reached 10miles in 55:37 (5:40). At this point, I really had to go to the bathroom, but I was concerned that people were coming from behind. I knew I couldn't catch the person in front of me as I just couldn't lift the pace up even though I felt like I wasn't working that hard. It made me at least confident that I could run a full marathon under 2:30. Mile 11 was 5:42 (1:01:19). I had a little uphill left before a screeching downhill finish which I knew I wouldn't be able to take full advantage of. Did mile 12 in 5:40 (1:07:00) then the last 1.1 in 6:08 (5:34 pace).

Basically, I felt that the GI issues hurt me more than the fast start (as the start was downhill). But I kept a pretty even effort in the hill and had some pretty notable accomplishments. Went through 10K in 33:28 (extrapolation), only my second run under 34! Got to 8k in 26:42 which is one of my best times ever. Hit 12k in 41:12, a 1:14 PR from 1 year ago! Hit 15K in 51:38, a 2:16 PR from earlier this year. Hit 10miles in 55:37 (a 15second PR from college). And, of course, the half marathon itself was a 4:50 PR, but that was the first half of Boston.