In The Long Run

Ran a longer Liberty loop tonight with Nate and the pup.  While running to the park, I decided I would do 2 x 1 mile pickups (to around tempo pace) just to gradually add in some faster stuff and to make running the loops go a little quicker. Ran right around 8:30 for the first one and it felt pretty easy.  My poor old pup is used to running much slower and I could tell she didn't have another 8:30 mile in her, so I bailed on the second one.   

Jupiter Peak Steeplechase.  Race report coming.

15 miles of mountain biking in Park City.

Painful 6 miles at City Creek. I fell hard on Saturday during the Jupiter Peak Steeplechase and my body just aches.  My right leg is bruised at the hip, knee, shin, and ankle.  It hurts to walk. 

AM: Short spin class.

PM: Easy 3 miles with the pup.  Legs still hurt. 

AM: Spin class

PM: Liberty Park run.  Got a late start and it was a really pleasant night for a run. 

This was a really crappy week of running for me, but I was excited to do this race.  This was the third race in the series and my favorite so far.  I intended to use this as a marathon effort tempo and I think I did that pretty well.  Split were all over the place as expected on trails. 

(I just figured out how to embed and I'm pretty excited about that!) 

Final pace was a tad slower than goal marathon pace (9:13 vs 9:09), but since this was on trails at 6800', the effort was certainly there. 

I made the Park Record showing off the aftermath of my fall at last week's Jupiter Peak Steeplechase: 

From

PM1: Mountain biking at Round Valley.  Attempted to ride the 15k course from yesterday's race, but took a wrong turn at one junction. Ended up on some really awesome, twisty single track with plenty of switchbacks for me to practice on.  Distance was probably around 10 miles.

PM2: Easy run with the pup.  She is a stubborn old hound. 

Managed to drag my butt out of bed for a morning run with the husband and hound.  

AM:Spin class

PM: Was feeling lazy and did not want to run.  Eventually convinced myself to go, but by then I didn't have much time.  Decided on a short yet efficient track workout. Warmup, 8 x 200 with 200 slow jog recovery, cooldown.  These were a little slower than a few weeks ago (started at 52 worked down to 49), but there was a lot more weaving tonight.  The people at this track don't know track etiquette and walk with strollers in lane 1, ride bikes in lane 1, walk their dogs in lane 1, and walk four abreast in lane 1.    

Dead-legged Liberty Park run. Ugh.

AM: Spin class

Went to Newpark to pick up my Park City half marathon packet and did a quick run on the beginning part of the course.  Gorgeous evening to run.

Race #2 of the Triple Trail Challenge.  The Mid Mountain Marathon is all that stands between me and my TT fleece jacket!

Anyway, I am extremely happy with this race.  I thought that I would run between 1:57-2:00, so sub 1:55 is just awesome.   It's only about one minute slower than I ran at Striders in April on a much easier course when I was running consistently more miles per week. My training has been pathetic since Ogden so I'm somewhat surprised at some of the races I've had recently.  

My husband ran this with me and it was nice to have someone to run with.  The course is basically an out and back, climbing gradually on the way out. My goal was to run an even effort that kept my breathing controlled, whatever pace that happened to be.  My first mile was way too fast, but I quickly settled in to a more sustainable pace.  There was a women who I will call "heavy mouth breather" who kept cutting me off. I was getting so annoyed. She would speed up, pass me, then slow way down. Then when I would start to go around her again, she would cut over, basically forcing me to chop my stride and pass on the other side.  This went on for most of the first half of the race.  I was finally able to drop her on the climb to the turn around.  Normally, I am only concerned with racing the clock, but I just had to beat this woman today.

Nate had stopped for a bathroom break around mile 9, so I was on my own for awhile. The fear of heavy mouth breather passing me motivated me to pick up the pace a bit. Nate caught back up to me after mile 11 and told me that she was coming fast. Crap.  Just like the killer in the horror movies that keeps coming back to life, this woman wouldn't quit. So I picked it up even more.  Before I knew it, the finish line was in sight.  After I finished, I turned to look for heavy mouth breather and she was nowhere in sight! Nate had lied to me to get me to run harder and it worked! Darn husband!

Mountain biking: Armstrong to Mid Mountain to Crescent Mine Grade, I think around 10ish total miles.  The climb up Armstrong was tough!

Liberty Park run with Nate.

Very slow run with Nate and Bourbon. Felt humid and sticky.

SLCTC group run. Legs felt really heavy and achy. 

Took the hound for a short evening run. Having weird, random quad pains.

Rivalry Relay from SLC to Provo.  Ran as an ultra team of 3 runners so I did legs 1,2,7,8,13, and 14.  This was a ton of fun. 

Mountain biking at Round Valley with my husband's coworker's daughter.  She's 11, but has been mountain biking for years.  She's much better on technical stuff than I am and I like riding with her. After a series of mishaps, we ended up finishing our ride with random strangers where I was totally schooled by a 9 year old.  At least I managed to barely outride the 7 year old!