Same Time, Same Channel

Easy Run + 8 x 10 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 9:14.

Shred level 2

42°F, 96% humidity, wind 3 NNW, light drizzle, fog.

The fog made it seem even darker than usual. I would estimate that visibility was less than 1/4 mile. It was especially weird doing the hill sprints because there are no street lights in the green belt and so it was very very dark on the hill. My head lamp helped, but only so much.

I was okay for most of my run wearing shorts and a long sleeved shirt, but just as I began the 6th mile I turned north, which was colder because of the wind, even though it wasn't a strong wind. I picked up the pace a little bit more at that point in an effort to stay warm. Splits were 9:34, 9:18, 9:14, 8:54, 8:50, 8:25. Paces for the hill sprints were 6:47, 6:45, 6:20, 6:40, 6:39, 6:43, 6:43, 6:26. I think this is the first time that all of my hill sprint paces have been in the 6s. I think it helps that they were 10 sec. instead of 8 sec. because it gave me a little more time to get up to speed.

I think that today was the warmest morning I'll have all week. It looks like morning temperatures are going to be in the 30s for the rest of the week and last I checked, I might have rain tomorrow morning.

Hill Repeats - 2 miles easy, 8 x 1 min. uphill @ 5K effort w/jog-back recoveries, 2 miles easy.

31° F, 85% humidity, winds calm.

Remember two weeks ago when I did hill repeats and I couldn't quite reach a sign that was just beyond where I could get in my 50 sec. repeats? Well, today I had 10 seconds more on each repeat and so I was able to reach the sign. I just reached it on my first 2 repeats, and thereafter I went beyond it, particularly on the last repeat. My paces on the repeats were 7:52, 7:56, 7:39, 7:40, 7:47, 7:38, 7:31, 7:00. I went quite slowly on my warm up and cool down, as well as on my jog-back recoveries, so my average pace for the whole run was only 9:50.

It was cold out this morning. Cars that were parked outside had frost on the windows. However, I was pretty warm by the time I finished my hill repeats.

Extraordinarily Easy Eight. Average pace: 9:56.

46° F, 26% humidity, wind 12 SSE.

I was surprised by how warm it was this morning. The forecast was for a much colder morning and I had laid out clothes in accordance with the forecast. My mind wasn't nimble enough to change clothing plans at the last minute, so I was slightly over dressed.

I just never got going very fast today for some reason. Maybe yesterday's hill repeats took more out of me than I realized.

I skipped the Shred today in a feeble attempt to rest up for a dinky trail race that I'm running on Saturday. I'll skip the Shred on Friday too.

Threshold Run - 2 miles easy, 6 miles @ half-marathon pace, 2 miles easy. Average pace: 8:44.

35° F at start, dropping to 33° F by the finish, 90% humidity, wind 7 N, light drizzle/mist.

I'm cold. I'd like to jump in a hot shower, but my sons have been showering, so now I've got to wait for some hot water.

It's been a long time since I've run 10 miles on a week day. I can only fit in 8 miles if I'm going to make it home in time to drive to seminary, so today I made the boy walk to seminary. In the cold and the wet and the dark. Poor boy. I assume he made it. He was gone when I got home.

According to the McMillan calculator, and based off of my Ogden marathon time, my half-marathon pace is 8:09. I've yet to actual run a half marathon at that pace. My splits this morning were 9:56, 9:56, 8:29, 8:20, 8:24, 8:02, 7:57, 7:54, 9:06, 9:18. This particular route is mostly uphill for the first half and mostly downhill for the second half, and you can see that in my splits. If you average together the splits for the 6 tempo miles, it comes out to 8:11, so that's pretty close to my half-marathon pace.

It was a cold, wet run, and I felt like I was running blind much of the time because my glasses were very wet and sometimes fogged up, and my headlamp wasn't working very well. I really couldn't see where I was going.

Yesterday on my way to work, I stopped and took some pictures of the hill where I do hill repetitions. It's longer, but not as steep as my hill sprint hill. When I took this first picture, I was standing at about the spot where I start my hill repetitions. I've drawn an arrow to the sign I try to reach, but I don't think you can see the sign very well.

Here's another picture that I took when I was part way up the hill. Again I've pointed out the sign that I try to reach when I run up this hill.

It occurred to me when I was taking the pictures yesterday that if I really want a challenge, I should try running up that grassy hill that's on the right side of the street.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:30.

28° at start, 32° at end, 90% humidity, winds calm.

Well I'm not posting quite as early as I usually do on week days. My kids don't have school today, so I slept in and got out to run around 7:30 am. I thought about working for a couple of hours and then running when it was a little warmer (because it's supposed to warm up a little today, unlike yesterday or tomorrow), but I decided just to go out and get it over with. It actually wasn't as bad as the temperature would indicate because it was sunny.

A couple of miles into my run I had to cross a busy street. It has two lanes going in each direction, plus left-turn lanes, so it's 5 lanes wide. The light turned green when I was a few yards away from crossing, so it had been green for a little while when I got to the point of crossing, but I decided to go for it anyway. I probably should have stopped, hit the walk button, and waited for the next cycle. When I was mid way across the street, the light turned yellow so I started sprinting. I made it to the opposite curb just after the light turned red. The problem was that my hat fell off during my sprint. So when I got to the opposite curb, I hit the walk button and thought I'd wait until the next cycle to go out and get my hat, but then there was a city bus about to go through the intersection in the lane that my hat was in, which was the closest lane to my curb, and he stopped and motioned for me to go get my hat. I'm not sure whether he would have run over the hat if he hadn't stopped, but it was nice of him to stop for me. It's my favorite hat and I wouldn't want it to get run over.

I'm feeling just a little under the weather. I have a slightly scratchy throat and an occasional cough.

Here's the weather forecast for tomorrow:

Cloudy and cold with a mix of freezing drizzle and light snow. Morning lows are forecast to be from 21 to 26 degrees, afternoon highs from 32 to 36 degrees.

It may be a fairly unpleasant race tomorrow. I remember that it was quite cold on the day of this race last year, but there wasn't any snow.

19°F, 87% humidity, winds calm.

It is freakishly cold today. Did I mention it is really cold today. Oh and one other thing. It's incredibly cold today.

This was a tough race. Besides that it was very very cold, the trail was very hill, windy (and by that I mean that there were a lot of turns, not that the wind was blowing), rocky in spots (sort-of flat, slick rocks), and was covered with a light dusting of snow. And there was a little creek that I had to jump over twice. It was quite slippery and I very nearly fell down several times. I really did fall down once, in the 7th mile, just as I was approaching an aid station. More on that later.

There were really not a whole lot of people at this race. I guess the smart people saw how cold it was and stayed home. It was funny at the start line. No one seemed to want to line up at the front. There was a handful of people at the front and then a gap and then everyone else. But we did close in the gap right before the race started. Because of the small crowd, people spread out pretty quickly right at the beginning of the race. I passed a couple of people in the first mile and then every one was pretty much set in their position. In about the second or third mile, I could hear a guy behind me but there wasn't room for him to pass me because we were on single track and we had just done a little loop and were passing runners going the other way who hadn't done the loop yet. We got to a place that was a little bit wider, so I moved over and let him pass me. He thanked me. I'll now call him blue jacket guy. I then decided to keep blue jacket guy within sight because it was pretty lonely on the trail and I was a little worried about getting lost. I stayed behind him for a few miles and noticed how he put his arms out on the turns and I figured he was a more experienced trail runner than I am, so I tried to emulate him. After a couple of miles, we caught up with a guy that I will call black jacket guy who then fell into step with us. For a couple of miles, blue jacket guy was in front, then black jacket guy, and then me. I just tried to stay up with them. After some time, black jacket guy went in front, so then it was black jacket guy, then blue jacket guy, and then me. That went on for quite a while. I was sticking with them pretty well, but then it must have been in the 7th mile, I was going up a little hill around a curve approaching an aid station, and I fell. It wasn't a bad fall. My legs slid to the right and I fell on my left side. I was able to get back up easily. There were three women at the aid station and they saw me fall and asked if I was okay. I said I was fine, but I stopped at the aid station for a minute and drank a cup of gatorade and commented to the three women that I guessed I would give up trying to follow those two guys. So then I got going again and before too long, I was able to see those two guys again. We went around a loop and so we passed the aid station where I had fallen again. As I went past the second time, I yelled to the three women that I had almost caught the guys. I kept following the two guys, and in the last mile, I actually passed blue jacket guy, but I wasn't quite able to pass black jacket guy, so I finished between them. I talked to both of them after the race and thanked them for being my pacers.

I think the course was a little short. My garmin only said 9.93, but maybe it was because of the short cuts I took. There were 2 or 3 places where you could go one of two ways over a short distance and one way was a little shorter than the other and there were no markings indicating which way you should go. In any case, my splits were 8:42, 8:58, 8:07, 8:09, 8:47, 8:08, 9:18 (the fall and the stop at the aid station), 8:59, 8:11, 7:23.

I was cold during the race, but not too bad. When I really froze was waiting around afterwards for the awards ceremony, so I could get my little medal. But they don't do anything for 2nd place overall. I hope that we have a freakishly warm day for the half marathon next month.

Did I mention that it was cold today? Oh, and instead of giving you a t-shirt, at this race you get a hooded sweatshirt. That comes in handy. I had brought a dry shirt and another sweatshirt with me to the race. So after the race, before the awards ceremony, I went out to my car and took off my wet shirts and put on the dry shirt, the sweatshirt from the race, and my other sweatshirt. However, I was obliged to keep the wet bra on because I could change that much in my car.