Everything Counts

6 miles easy on the Riverdale Parkway with Ken, Jon, and Albert. My legs don't feel too bad at all, but certainly there is still some muscle damage. I will keep things easy this week. My weight wasn't as bad as I anticipated after all the junk I ate the last two days after the race.

Here's a comparison of my race last year versus this year. More than half of the difference was in the last 10k (I subtracted out the stop in both years to get a better comparison). The miles with smallest difference were mostly those in which I stopped or the mile just before the stop (even though I subtracted out the time for the stop).

AM: 8.25 miles easy and early with Dave and my brother Denver (who ran the first five with us). I feel pretty good, even like I could get back to normal training. But, I'll stay on the safe side and go easy for the whole week.

Lunchtime: 4.25 more miles easy with Dave at lunch on the base perimeter road.

AM: 10.35 miles easy on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail with Ken, Albert, Bob, and Bret. It was an extremely peaceful run with the darkness, cool air, and headlamps. My legs feel totally normal. I'm trying to stay cautious though and overcome the temptation for a push tomorrow.

I was checking the elite entries to Big Sur today and it's stacked! A few of the top Americans are Ian Burrell and Sergio Reyes. Last year a 1:04 won the race and 1:10 took 8th (the last podium spot). This year there's two guys with 1:01 PRs, four guys with 1:02, two 1:03, one 1:04, and a handful of 1:05-1:06 guys. Lots of Kenyans and Morrocans. I'm looking at maybe 10th with a near perfect race for me. That's ok. I don't need to finish on the podium, I just need a huge non-aided PR! Should be a fun race and hopefully the excellent competition can pull me along.

PM: 4.35 miles. I felt like a million bucks and the pace got faster as I went, so I just rolled with it. The light rain was annoying at first, but then it was invigorating.

MILE REPEATS

I wanted to get a light interval session in, just to see how the legs are feeling and to get them primed to resume normal training next week. I didn't want to do anything too taxing, so I asked Ken if he wanted me to pace him on some mile repeats. He thought four at 5:10 would be a good target. We ended up running 5:11 5:11 5:08 and 5:03.

My legs felt pretty good, but the effort was tougher than what 5:10 should feel like. And that's to be expected after a taper, marathon, and recovery. But, I'm hoping that by priming the legs a bit this week, they'll be more up to the task of regular training again next week. I know I can't just resume the paces where I left off on my marathon buildup, but I'd like to get back to them somewhat quickly and then try to expand my fitness before Big Sur.

11.5 miles easy with Ken, Dave, Bret, and Bob (for part of it). We ran the North Ogden loop from 21st Pond. It was pretty humid this morning, but not too cold running.

Amy and I met Dave and drove up to run Trapper's Loop. We warmed up two miles then ran five miles up to Snow Basin and then I paced Dave on a 5-mile downhill tempo. The goal was 5:20 pace to get him ready for Snow Canyon Half. Amy is also running that race, so she did the same tempo. Dave and I ran 532 520 505 505 521. Amy also ran very well averaging like 6:1xs for her 5 miles.