Don't wanna be FAT!

Made a nice big loop this morning.  Ran from my house into Riverdale, hopped onto the Riverdale pathway and took it all the way to 21st street pond then did a lap around the pathway and headed back on the pathway that goes out to West Haven.  From West Haven I took the back roads back to my house.  It was a great look except that much of the pathway still was covered in ice.  I guess I will be sticking to the rail trail and Syracuse trail for the rest of winter because there is no ice on those ones.  For most of my dry miles I was running between 6:30 and 6:40 pace.  For the entire run AP was 6:51.  

I had a rough go this morning.  I was hoping to average around 5:30 for 10 miles, but could not even come close to that.  Splits:  5:35, 5:42, 5:48, 5:48, 5:40, 5:34, 5:40, 5:53, 5:55, 5:40.  So I only averaged 5:44.  The roads and weather really weren't bad so I can't use that as an excuse.  I'm not sure what it was.  Oh well, the effort was defiinitely good.  warmed up 2 miles cooled down 1 mile.  I cut my cool down short 1 mile so that I would have time to shovel my driveway before coming in to work.  

Alisha and Payson have been really sick and I am now getting whatever they have. As I started running this morning I felt terrible. So rather than making things worse I decided just to turn around and go back to bed.

This is the worse cold I have had in a long time.  This morning went okay though.  I think I'm getting over it.  I went 9 easy AP:  7:24.  

I felt pretty darn good this morning with just a couple of coughing fits.  The nice thing about taking a week off is that my legs feel great, no aches or tightness.  I probably won't do anything hard until at least Saturday.  I want to ease back into things and there really is no need to rush.  Nice weather this morning.  AP:  7:10.  

When I started it was just sprinkling very lightly.  From mile 3 to the end it was raining pretty heavily.  I hope that getting soaked doesn't hinder my recovery from being sick.  Other than being cold and wet I felt great.  AP:  6:57 

Didn't feel real great this morning.  For the first couple miles I felt really tight, then just really sluggish.  AP:  7:25.

Out and back (Syracuse Trail).  I was just going to go 15 miles easy because I have still had a really bad cough, but I was feeling pretty good so I decided to see if I could run under 6:00 minute pace for a while at about mile 5.5 I decided to do that.  So my miles ended up being as follows:  7:23, 7:04, 7:02, 6:56, 6:49, 5:57, 5:46, 5:54, 5:41, 5:32, 5:31, 5:44, 5:31, 6:08, 6:54.  Not a super workout, but I was very happy with it and it felt great to go hard again. 

Worked my way over to 1800 N in Clinton and ran all the way from 2000 W to the top of 1800 N.  It was a good long gradual climb.  Then came back down 6000 S in Roy.  AP: 6:54.

I don't have any excuse for missing the last two days.  My alarm went off and I just wanted to stay in bed and sleep longer.  I need to get out with the Ogden crew some more because I am currently lacking motivation.  This morning I woke up early though because I had to be into work early.  I ran the same loop I ran Monday with a slight variation to shorten it.  I will henceforth refer to it as the "top of the hill" loop.  After reaching the top of the hill I was going to go 3 miles hard (mostly downhill) because I wanted to get some kind of workout in before racing the Salt Lake series 15k on Saturday, but I didn't want to do too much with the race being only 2 days away now.  I ended up only going two miles hard because my calf started to cramp up worse than it has in years.  So I ran 1 mile in 5:29 the first .6 was flat then the last .4 was downhill then the 2nd mile was in 5:23 all downhill.  Overall I averaged 6:38 for the run which is decent considering the size of the hill.  I just hope I can get my calf feeling okay.

Ran my typical 9 mile loop with modifications.  calf felt pretty good it was tight but didn't ever hurt too much.  I think I'm going to try and give the race a go tomorrow, but I have an excuse in my pocket ready to pull out in case I run poorly (which is a bad thing because when the race gets tough mentally then I'll remember I have that excuse and I will probably end up running bad just because of that).  AP today was 7:00.  

Warmed up 4 miles with Dave then did some strides.  The race was a rough outing for me today.  The plan was to try and run 5:20-5:25 pace for the first 1/2 then race hard.  Well I was having a hard time even hitting 5:25 pace for the first 1/2 of the race.  I wonder if I would have been going out with the pack of 4.  I got myself into no-mans land and ran the entire race by myself.  Mile splits (based off of course markers) were:  5:25, 5:29, 5:28, 5:29, 5:35, 5:34, 5:39, 5:46, 5:30, and 5:24 pace for the last .3.  I looked back at right before the 8 mile marker and saw Nate Hornock coming up on me so that going me going for the last 1.3 miles.  So it wasn't close to what I was shooting for and I have had many workouts this year that have been better than that, but I'm glad I went down and ran it because I would not have gotten that good of a workout in this morning had I ran on my own and it was good to get out and see some friends run well.  There were some excellent performances by many today so congrats to those that had good races! 

Ran my rail trail 10.5 mile loop. Calf was still tight but it is getting better. AP: 7:12

2.5 warm-up, 2 x 3 mile tempo with 1 mile jog (7:24) recovery in between, 2.5 cool-down. I turned around at .5 into the 1 mile recovery jog so that the 2nd 3 mile tempo was the same as the first 3 mile tempo just in reverse order so there would be no net elevation gain or loss.  For the first set I went 5:14 (slightly downhill), 5:25 (flat), 5:23 (slightly uphill).  For the second set I went 5:13 (slightly downhill), 5:28 (flat), 5:32 (slightly uphill).  Not a fantastic workout but I'm happy with it.  I realized Saturday that I'm going to have to work my way back down.  This is an okay place to be.  My short-term goal right now is to go sub 2:30 at the Ogden Marathon.  I have a lot of work to do, but I believe there is still time to get into sub 2:30 shape by then.  

Ran an new loop in Hooper. I ran past the cemetery and on some of the pathways in Hooper. It was a pleasant run. I love how early the sun is rising now. AP:  7:01.  I finally feel 100% healthy and I think my calf is about 90% better.  

2.5 warm-up, 8 AB (AP: 5:38), 2.2 cool-down.  Target was to be between 5:35 and 5:40.  Mission accomplished, but effort was greater than I wanted it to be.  It was very windy and I was still feeling Tuesdays workout a little bit.  I almost called it quits after 3 miles but decided to stick in there and take it mile by mile.  I was proud that I ran the whole 8 miles that I had planned on doing and I am glad I stuck it out, I just hope the effort wasn't too great and that this workout doesn't come back to haunt me. Ran it on my 3 mile midland  drive loop.  Splits were:  5:30, 5:49, 5:43, 5:39, 5:39, 5:39, 5:34, 5:28.  

1800 N top of the hill loop.  Good easy run.  Everything felt fine.  AP:  7:16.  Good luck to everyone running big races tomorrow!