Everything Counts

AM: 11.7 miles easy with Ken, Dave, Bret, and Jace from 21st Pond up to Ogden Canyon and then back on Bird Song Trail and down 21st Street.  Added a bit more around the pond too.

During mile one we crossed a bridge and I heard some scurrying under the bridge.  I immediately thought we were going to encounter a troll.  But it wasn't a troll, it was a skunk and it jumped out from under the bridge in attack mode and had Dave been 1-2 seconds slower, he would've been sprayed!  Definitely the closest of three very close skunk encounters over the year...it's only a matter of time.

PM: 5.05 miles easy around south Weber.

AM: AEROBIC BUILDER

I met Dave and Bret at 21st Street Pond for an aerobic builder.  We all had different paces in mind so we were on our own after a 3-mile warmup.  I ran 8 miles at a 5:17 average.  I felt pretty good this morning, which is a good sign coming off of my highest mileage ever last week.

PM: 5.3 miles easy on base with the last tenth of a mile run at 3:33 pace.

10 miles easy with Dave on the base perimeter road.

AM: MILE REPEATS

I met up with Bryant and Ken at the Dee and we warmed up three miles over into South Ogden to the "tempo loop" over there.  Bryant has been sick and wasn't sure how well he'd do this morning so he ran the first one easier and Ken was shooting for 5:15, so I was on my own. I wanted to do 5-6 reps at 4:55 or faster with 2:00 jog for rest (ended up being 2:20 as I split the difference with Ken, so he'd get 2:00 rest).  Bryant ended up doing the 2nd and 4th ones with me to help me out a bit with pace even though he didn't feel particularly fresh.  My stomach started hurting a bit on the second one and got worse with time.  By the end of the fourth I wasn't sure if I'd even finish the fifth one.  But I did manage to do five reps at a 4:53 average.  Splits 4:55 4:51 4:54 4:52 4:52

PM: 4.05 miles easy pushing girls in jogger and running with Amy.  Too much smoke in the air, I don't like it! 

10.08 miles easy with Ken on the trails on my final furlough Friday!  

LONG RUN

I met Ben and Jon at Ben's place at 6:30 and we drove up to Sardine Canyon to get a long run in.  We didn't know what to expect since we've never run up there before, but Ben's wife runs there a lot and said it was a good run.  So we dropped my car off in Brigham City and then drove about 6-7 miles up the canyon.  The plan ended up being 2 mile warm-up, a good chunk at sub-6:00, 2 miles easy, 3-mile tempo, and then 1 mile easy.

The warm up we did up a dirt road and then back down.  It was a nice dirt road and it's tempting to head up there again sometime and just run on that road.  Then we started the sub-6:00 portion of the run at mile 3.  We had 3 miles downhill (which we were still trying to get warmed up on) and then we did 9 miles around Mantua Lake on a nice, flat dirt road.  I really enjoyed the two laps of the Lake; it's very beautiful up there.  Then we started down the canyon again with two easy miles.  Finally we did 3 miles at tempo which was one really fast downhill mile, one gradual uphill mile, and then another downhill mile (though not as steep as the previous one).  Finished up with one mile easy to round off the 20 miles.

Splits:

12 miles at sub-6:00: 602 556 547 (downhill first three) 558 554 551 546 546 549 549 544 545 (9 flat miles around the lake)

3 mile tempo: 449 (steep downhill) 529 (gradual uphill) 505 (somewhat steep downhill)