Training for Top of Utah 2011

Nice morning for a run. Rain overnight left the roads wet. Some clouds but no rain during the run. A little wind but reasonable. 40 degrees.

Did not wear my HR monitor due to it causing a sore on my chest last Saturday. going to run without it for a while and go by feel and by pace. Definitely went faster than normal with the 2 days off it was feeling good!

Changed up the route a bit. Hit Muir and then went round the trail there to add on .9 mile then the reg. route.

Was glad that the calf did not give me any grief. Will go again tomorrow.

Avg. Pace 8:40

Another nice day for a run...no rain...moderate wind, and I can live with that. Another change to the route today. Went down Cascade and over to Crestview where we used to live, then on to the main park for water and a stretch @ the 4 mile mark.

No HR monitor again...Kinda glad I got rid of that thing. I was relying too much on it and staying too slow I think. 

Today's pace 8:32 and felt really great after yesterdays 8:40. Did the first 5.25 miles at the 8:40 pace and then there is a nice long downhill that I just let er go and it felt really good. The legs feel strong.

If I feel good tomorrow morning I'm going to run 3 days in a row and then long run on Sat. If I don't feel good tomorrow then will run Friday and moderate length on Sat.

Easy Tread run in prep for tomorrow's Monster Hill run.

Took it real easy today. Started easy for 5 minutes then eased it up to about 6.3 mph.

Going to take on the Full Parkway hill tomorrow morning with Mark Howard. 3 miles pretty much all up and 2 really steep parts. Will run (hopefully) 11 total miles with a 4 mile warm up and 4 mile cooldown.

Should be fun(hard).

Sweet morning for a run. 50 degrees with wind. Left the house at about 6:45 and headed down towards the parkway. As I was going down the hill the sun was just coming up and hitting the clouds and making a gorgeous color display of red, orange and pink.

Stopped at the park on the hill and watered up and stretched. Then on to the bottom of the parkway to meet Mark Howard for  our hill run.

We jumped right on it and went the 3 miles without even having to stop for cars. On the very last hill we saw some people ahead of us and reeled them in towards the top. I really like running with Mark as it helps push me a little harder. He had run from home and had already come up the Salish lodge hill before he met me.

I felt super good this whole run...

After the hill we watered up at the train park. Then we split up and I finished up my 12 and now to take care of Heidi who is sick.

Avg. Pace for the whole run was 8:40 and splits are as follows: 8:53, 9:13, 8:17, 8:12, 9:12, 9:35, 8:37(this included the toughest hill portion), 8:20, 8:18, 8:43, 8:32, 8:08 finished up the last quarter semi-fast.