Psalm 91:1 NKJV He who dwells in the secret place

This morning I ran 11.3 miles at a slow 7:18 pace in 1:22. I ran with the dog for the first 8 miles then the last three miles I wanted to do under 7 minutes which was accomplished. I want to start doing more marathon pace runs in my training leading up to the September 1st marathon so I'm really really feel I'm ready. I also plan to run the Top Of Utah marathon two weeks after that... I keep forgetting to reserve a hotel. I'm very nervous about the September 1st marathon, because I feel this is an important goal for me to be under 2:50, I wish some of you guys could come up and pace me on this race.

I was very tired this morning because I stayed up till 11pm to put together our new treadmill that got here two days before we were expecting it. It's a very nice treadmill that will support the weight of 450 pounds, and has a lifetime warranty on everything including the belt. The speed will go up to 11mph..

Note: I will probably run on my lunch hour today at the health club.

Lunch 2.8 on the treadmill. First mile I ran at a 7 minute pace and the second till the end at a 6:20 pace. After the run I did some strength training on my hamstrings, calves and quads. I'll probably be sore tomorrow.

My plan for today was a 5 mile tempo and I planned to get to bed early last night, because I was dragging... very tired, with a lot of late nights and just being busy.  But yesterday at work we had a patch alert that had to be install on all of our Sun Systems that run Directory Server 5.2, and this had to be done at 9pm.  Well I got home at ll pm and went right to bed.

Woke up feeling a little run-down which I expected.  I started out on my run doing two warm-up miles then into the tempo... The first Mile I just felt like my legs were dead I was just tired (6:14), then I noticed I was really pumping my arms hard and up high which is not a very good running technique.  I lowered them down to the side not swinging them as much and this seemed to help.  Next mile  5:56 now can I be consistent  with staying at a high 5 minute mile.  Next mile 5:58, went up a decent hill and back down still being consistent.  Next mile 5:57  not bad but not fast either, (still fighting a bit to keep my arms from swinging high).  Last tempo mile 5:48 now maybe I'm seeing a breakthrough with finishing strong on the last mile. 

After that I did some marathon pace miles to need the run at 10.3 miles at a overall pace of 6:25.  MP miles (6:38, 6:33, 6:28).  I really hope with these times that I'm ready to prove that I can run a marathon under 2:50.

Sasha or anyone else reading this I need advice.  Do to a scheduling conflict I'm running my long run tomorrow (a 20 miler) on the Pocatello Marathon course.  Now, I'm 4 weeks out from the marathon on September 1st, my question is how should I run this 20 miler.  I thought of making it a endurance run and try to stay at 7 minute miles and maybe do 5 miles at marathon pace.  What would you suggest?.   

Today I ran a long run on the Pocatello marathon course (do to schedule conflicts I've changed my Long Runs for last week and this week to Friday). I started the run at 4:55am so that I could be to work around 8 to 8:30. I saw a deer and five raccoons that passed over the road while I was descending down the hill, and one raccoon strange enough followed behind me for a couple minutes. When I run this route I have to have someone come get me so that I can have them drive me back to my car on top Rapid Creek/Buckskin rd, so you kind of worry a little if any animals will mess with your car.

I ran 20.7 miles at a 6:43 pace in 2:18 really not a difficult run, and I didn't push the pace at all. I through in some MP miles in the beginning and end. (6:38, 6:31,6:29,6:24,6:38,6:46 and end 6:38, 6:20, 6:39). This run was more to stay on my feet longer and not really push the pace. I felt like I did a good job. I've ran this course so much now that I feel it's my second home.

The weather was overcast so I really wasn't able to see my Garmin for pacing until 6:10am. One advantage is we had a heavy rain last night and the temperature seemed to be a lot cooler when I ran the course the same time this week. What's difficult when you run a downhill for say the first 13 miles, and then proceed to the flat and rolling hills your legs and feet definitely have a different feeling. That's why I think it's very important to train on this course, because it's tough and it will punish you if you don't practice the downhill and rolling hills in your training. I would really feel bad for someone running this course if they only trained on a flat training course. Not really much more to tell other than I will now start to reduce my long runs in the next coming weeks.

I might run some more this afternoon or evening.

I ran 5.3 on our new treadmill tonight to give it a test run.  It's very secure and durable, and has a lifetime warranty on everything. 

No thrills on this run today, just a slow pace with the dog (7:26).  6.13 miles in 45.38.  If I have time I'll run more later, but it will be difficult

Run 11.23 miles at a 7:05 pace in 1:19 this morning.  I ran 8 miles with the dog on a hilly course.  The last three miles I did (6:36, 6:19, 6:00).  I told my wife that I need to start running without the dog with only three weeks left to the marathon, so I can focus more on my training.

 Well the last two weeks I've got good runs on the Pocatello Marathon course  22 miles and 20.7 miles.  This week I will do 18 miles with a small tempo in the long run and MP miles. 

Today I did 10 X 400 but I messed up my Ironman watch and only recorded six of them. I took Sasha's advice to see if I can do these faster by taking a longer interval between each repeat.

1. 78 (400m rest)
2. 82 (400m rest)
3. 83 (400m rest
4. 83 (800m rest)
5. 82 (800m rest)
6. 82
7-10 (data lost).

Not that great... my biggest problem is I seem to get tired on the last 100m and I think I lose my running form. I know I tried pushing really hard on these six. On the 7-10 repeats I seemed to relax my form and tried to run more straight up, and I actually felt faster. The problem is I didn't realize I messed up on my Ironman watch to get these splits. Next time I'm going to use the Garmin.

After the track work I did some MP miles. It seems if I relax my legs more I run faster with shorter strides. Something I'm definitely going to have to work on. I've only started doing track work since last November so I have a lot to improve on.

Totals 13.22 miles at a 6:23 pace in 1:24.

Run just a little bit at lunch.

I ran 10.4 miles this morning for my easy run day at a 7:22 pace in 1:17.  I basically ran all over the city including up to our football stadium the mini-dome.  The dog ran all 10.4 miles with me, a new mileage record for my Golden Retriever.

 Lunch:  Treadmill 2.6 miles, then I lifted weights on my upper body and legs.  Maybe not a good thing for tomorrow's tempo run.
 

This morning I left the house around 6:30am and wanted to do a 6-5 mile tempo.  I was a little sore for the first two miles of the warm-up because of the weight lifting that I did yesterday on my legs.  I knew this would be the case, and it wasn't a smart thing to do the day before a tempo run.

Tempo Miles

Mile 1. 6:14 (getting warm-up and my legs weren't feeling comfortable).

Mile 2. 5:55 (starting to feel better with the legs).

Mile 3. 5:59 ( going up the hill seemed to make my legs dead, should have been faster).

Mile 4. 5:56  (felt a little bit more refreshed running pretty much on a flat portion of the course for this mile.  Still should have been faster)

Mile 5. 5:47 (I seemed to gain an energy burst on this flat section of the course.  Now this is what I should be consistent at for the tempo pace. Then again I've really only starting dipping into the 5 minute mile range since last year.

Mile 6. 5:57  (I really messed up on this mile.  I slowed down because I thought I was done with the tempo miles until I looked at my Garmin and realized I still had one more mile in the tempo.  I was already half way through the mile so I had to kick the last half of the mile at a fast pace to average below 6 minutes again.)

All in all I guess it was a good run... I'm just disappointed that I can't average a consistent pace.  I would like to average around a 5:47,  maybe it's coming.  The more track work I do it will start showing in these types of runs.

Tomorrow is my long run 18 miles, and 5 miles at a between tempo pace and then another 5-6 at marathon pace. Marathon is on September 1st it's coming fast.  Does this sound like a good  strategy?

Last two weeks I've done my long run after my tempo run, and the legs have felt fine. 

Today I did my long run again on the Pocatello Marathon course. 20.60 at 6:37 pace in 2:15. I ran the top portion of the course slower than I did the last two weeks, because I wanted to push the bottom (flat and rolling hills) harder by doing a 3 in 1 run.

The wind was blowing around 15 mph and it was cold being at an altitude of 6,000ft. I started the run at 4:55 and my hands froze for the first 8 miles... it was cold! I seen a skunk at mile 3 and I switched to the opposite side of the road, because the skunk was running downhill with me. I was praying please don't come near me! It's amazing experience up on that course when you run the first 8 miles in the dark.

Miles 6:59, 6:49, 6:40, 6:47, 6:33 (I was trying to keep a steady pace, and it was really hard to want to stay at this slow pace.)
miles 6:22, 6:36, 6:48, 8:01,6:51, 6:50, 6:46, 6:40, 6:48 (still just cruising along and felt good. The wind was very strong... the 8:01 mile was because of a brown code alert.

Miles 6;35, 6:26, 6:08, 5:51, 5:59, 5:53 (I picked up the pace for the ending miles with a tempo pace. The last mile was up the big hill. I was very encouraged by this run. Now the next two weeks my long runs will be shorter with doing over 20 miles three weeks in a row.

Easy 8 mile run today at a 7:32 pace after the long run yesterday. I had to hurry and do this run, because we were going to Salt Lake to drop our kids off for Church camp. Salt Lake is around 2 and a half hours from Pocatello. I had to work till 4am this morning, because of a disk failure in our Sun Fire V440, and I got up about 7:40am to run so I'm beat.

No running today.  I called every hotel in Logan for the Top Of Utah Marathon and not one room is available.  I guess I will not be running the Top Of Utah Marathon this year.

I did my standard Satterfield hill climb and back down. 10.21 miles at a 7:05 pace with the dog. I left the house late today and won't have time to drop the dog off and do some Marathon pace miles so I thought how would the dog handle the marathon pace miles. The last four miles I started the MP miles (6:30, 6:16, :6:29, 6:35) the dog kind of lagged on the last one. I really like this hard climb because it's a really good fitness tester, and it gives me the uphill work.

There's a 10k race this Saturday and I'm debating if I should run it or not, being that the marathon is on September 1st. What do you guys think?

Update, I decided to run on the treadmill tonight while watching Monday Night Football (Yeh! it's back) 2.5 miles average pace of 7:20.

Speed work today on a very tired mind, body, and everything else. My son woke us up from 11pm to 5am every hour complaining that his leg hurt. We know it was growing pains, because I remember our girls going through this.

My sister-in-law and pastor who are also running the Pocatello Marathon (at a 9:30 pace per mile) asked if I wanted to run the back side of the Pocatello marathon. My sister-in-law's house is right down the street from mine, which is nice. This course is downhill and is 8 miles. My mom was driving them up to the top of Rapid Creek/Buckskin where the marathon starts. I decided not to because I wanted to stayed dedicated and do speed work, but I guess I could have set my Garmin to run the repeats every 400s on the downhill course? Oh well they were leaving by 5:30am and I didn't even get out of bed until 6:20am.

Back to this morning run. First off I did about a 3 mile warm-up.
I then did 7 x 400 and 2 x800 (didn't keep the time on the 800's) not very good times. I even took a lap rest in-between each one.

Times

78 (slow)

82 (Hey even slower)

81 (I'm following a slow routine here)

83 (Wow I must have had rocks in my shoes)

86 (Must have feel asleep very poor performance)

80 (I must have woke up for a second)

95 (now this one I had an excuse the wind picked up and it starting hailing)

My goal was to hit 70 seconds as you can see not even close . Oh well just need more training.

Totals: 12.10 miles at a overall pace 6:32 in 1:19.

The run today I started at 6:30am and I chose a different route than I normally run, because I wanted something different. More of a flat course with some small uphills. The first 8 miler were slow with the dog at a 7:19 pace. I dropped the dog back home and ran (6:57, 6:31, 6:19, 6:12). This took more effort than it should have, but this was suppose to be a easy run anyway.

My schedule is all messed up for this week and probably will have to do my long run tomorrow of 14-16 miles. I want to hit over 70 miles this week and start the two week taper.

Lunch: Ran 4.6 miles on the treadmill at the health club in 30 minutes. Did some light lifting on the hamstrings and quads.

I did my long run today, because of a scheduling conflict the next two days.  I went up to the Pocatello Marathon course and ran down the other side, not the side where the course runs.  The first half mile of the course is uphill then it's downhill for the next 6 miles. I started out around 5:51am and needed to be home by 7:30, and I was wanting to run 16 miles.  Well, you know when your in a hurry than you get all your cylinders in gear at tempo speed.  

The first mile I took slow 7:29 then I got in a groove (5:59, 6:00, 6:16, 6:11, 6:07).  Then start the uphill which is a steep climb (6:48, 7:03).   I really was feeling good at this point and knew I needed to hurry to get home by 7:30.  The reason I needed to be home is my wife and I were picking our kids up from church camp in Tooele, Utah. 

Okay, time to pick the pace up (6:06) flat surface for this mile.  Now back into a two mile downhill off Satterfield down Jeremy St, (5:56, 6:04). 

Now I wanted to get in some marathon pace miles on a course that was flat the rest of the way home (6:30, 6:24, 6:36, 6:27, and 6:27).  Well I was 5 minutes late back 7:35am, and I repented to my wife and she forgave me.  Then we headed to Tooele  which is roughly 3 hours away from Pocatello. 
 

(Olympus Run)

This was the first easy run I've done in a long time. 10.4 miles at a 7:38 pace in 1:19. I ran up Olympus Dr. with the dog which is a pretty decent hill then back downhill on Booth Rd.. I would say half of the run was uphill and half downhill. I would have been tempted to run some miles under 7 if I didn't have the dog, but it's a good idea to have some easy days.

Lunch:

I decided to run around the street where I work at, because I didn't have time to run to the gym.  I didn't want to do anything hard, because I wanted this to be an easy day.  I ran 4.41 miles at a 6:59 pace.  The temperature was 88 degrees, but it didn't seem that hot.   The sweat off the body though recognized the hot conditions.  The course was totally flat and kind of fun and different.

Today I started from my house and decided to run the 10k race course that was already in progress by about 15 minutes by the time I ran there. I passed quite a bit of runner's but didn't push too hard. I reached the course about two miles into my run, and started picking the pace up (6:32, 6:20, 6:05, 6:02, 6:16, 6:50) then another cool-down mile.

Totals 9 miles at a 6:38 pace in 59.54 nothing that great and not pushing real hard today, but I did get some good quality miles in.

Afterwards I took an ice bath. I like to do this every once in a while to freshen up the leg muscles

The rest of the day my wife and I went looking at Toy Hauler RV's. We want to buy an RV that
feels like home, but will also carry two ATV's. We liked the Weekend Warrior Superlite fs23. We our both big time into taking the family camping, and I'm a whip anymore and don't like to sleep in tents.

I hit over 80 miles for the week now I will taper to 50 miles than 30-25.

I did my standard Satterfield hilly loop except I turned right down the hill when I reached the top.  I want to cut my miles down this week for the beginning two week taper. I did two mp miles in the last part of the run (6:23, 6:22).  Today I ran alone, because I felt sluggish and didn't want to take the dog.

Totals 7.7 miles at a 7:13 pace in 55.52 minutes. 

Today I did  6 x 400s, 2 x 800s and 2 x100s.  The two 800s and 100s I didn't time because I forgot (don't you hate that).

The wind was blowing really hard today and it made the speed work difficult more than I ever remember.  But no excuses,  I'm not seeing any increase performance on my speed work.  I was basically around the same times as last week.

 400s

1. 82 (400 rest)

2. 88 (400 rest)

3. 88 (400 rest)

4. 81 (200 rest)

5. 86 (200 rest)

6. 86 (400 rest)

 I ran most of the miles today hard, but cut the volume of the run for the taper.  I'm a little disappointed in my speed work performances, but I'll keep trying.

Totals 8.6 miles  overall pace 6:35 in 57.01 minutes.

 No run this afternoon and want to keep my miles down to feel fresh.

Easy run this morning of only 7 miles at a 7:23 pace in 51:58 with the dog.  Just continuing to taper and nothing real special about the run.  I did run by where there downing construction on building our new Gold's Gym.  Currently Gold's Gym is in one of our mall's.  I ran around the city blocks and a flat course today.

 Tomorrow is a Tempo of 4-5 miles... Friday  8 miles probably 4 at MP pace... Saturday long run of 12 miles at an easy pace.
 

Today was a strange run... originally I was going to do a 5  mile tempo, but last night I decided to change that to a 5 mile marathon pace run.

I got to bed early last night and actually got over 8 hours of sleep, and woke up late, so I was hurrying out the door for my run.  After the first warm-up mile of 6:55, I didn't realize that I ran the next mile way below marathon pace at 6:07, but it didn't feel that low.  I decided then to just run below marathon pace at that point.  The course was more of a gain of elevation than loss.

6:55 (warm-up)

6:07 (Should have been a MP mile)

6:01

5:55

5:54

5 :51

6:21 (cool-down Mile)

I really feel confident after this run, because I was feeling very sluggish and wore out all week on my other runs.  Tomorrow Easy run.... maybe some MP miles and Saturday 12 mile long slow run.

 Totals 7.16 miles at a 6:11 pace in 44:19 minutes 

This morning I drove up to American Road which is above (American Micro Systems) a Semi-conductor plant.  It's also on the back side of Buckskin Rd.  I wanted to run back and forth on American Road because it has rolling hills to simulate the Marathon course between miles 16 thru 18.  This road is about 1.5 miles long and very hilly. I just took it easy averaging an overall pace of 7:05, distance 6.8 miles,  time 48:19 minutes.  Tomorrow a long easy run of 11-12 miles (not really long considering I usually run that amount everyday).

I'll probably run this same road next week just to get the rolling hills on my feet again. 

This morning I ran my last long run on the Pocatello Marathon course (the race is next week).  I ran 12.3 miles at a easy pace of 6:51 in 1:24.  I didn't feel like I gave any effort at all.  The last two miles I picked up the speed just to get some MP mile effort.  It felt great (6:03, 6:19).  

This next week on my easy runs, I'm going to drive out to the second half of the course and run the small hills  between miles 16-18 just to get a feel for them again.  Easy training all next week to get ready. 

This morning I ran 7.3 miles at a 6:46 pace.  Three of the miles I did at  a high MP pace (6:32, 6:34, 6:26).  Very easy run for a taper not much excitement. You can start to tell that it's getting darker more in the mornings, fall is approaching.

Todays run I didn't want to push-it and tried to stay around 7 minute miles, and I did succeed. I ran 7 miles in a 6:58 pace in 49.07 minutes. I went up Olympus Dr. and back down it was a hilly route, but I felt my effort was easy.

Tomorrow I'll do a dress rehearsal run. My plan is to drive out to the Pocatello Marathon course around mile 16 and run the course for about 5 miles with 3 miles being at marathon pace, with what clothes and shoes I'm going to wear in the marathon.

Today I did a rehearsal run kind of simulating Saturday's race, by wearing what I plan on wearing and running three MP pace miles (6:14, 624, 6:16) they felt easy. 

I also drove out on the actual course to do this training today, because I wanted to get the course in my mind one last time.  I started at mile 21 and ran to mile 19 as a warm-up and then turned around and started the MP miles.  What was nice, in the second MP mile I was able to run up the big hill (not really that big it probably lasts 800m's), and I felt really good.  Time to carb load: honey, pasta, Oatmeal, rice, Potatoes, bagels is all on the menu for the next few days.

I ran 4 easy miles this morning.  I'm just trying stay relaxed now until Saturday.

I did an easy 3.2 miles in 7:20 to be ready for tomorrow's marathon.