dawson's running history

So, after about two full weeks off without going running or to the gym, I am glad to be back.  I want to say that SOME things were out of my control that kept me from working out, but some was just me getting lazy at the end of the year.  It felt really good to start up again though, and I think the time off has helped me get excited about it again!  So, here is to a new year!!

Getting back into the running. So far so good.

Although I have been stretching, I am getting a weird pain in my lower hamstring, right above the back of my knee.  I kind of feels like a good soreness, but at the same time it feels like it could cramp up on me at any moment.

I have been running the same distance each day but trying to do it in a faster time.  Since this is my first few days back after two full weeks off without running, I start off slow and then speed up.  So far I have taken about two full minutes off of my time from the first day.

So, as ashamed as I am to even log this distance, I need to do some expaining.  This run was the same night that I did my first ever spin class (I am typing this two days later).  As I started to run, I got the worst cramp in my side that i have had in a very long time.  That spin class killed me!!  I am afraid to think of how my legs would be doing if they had no conditioning at all!  Two days later, and I am super sore.  Hopefully I can get them to loosen up before the 5K on Sat.

Today was another practice for the 5K this Saturday.  I finished in about 29:15.  I hope that the fact that it is a race will help me go a little faster.  We will see...

Today was the most distance that I have done for a good three weeks or so.  It felt really good, and it made me excited to keep going.  I am bummed that I stopped training for the half this Saturday.  On the bright side, I have never run a 5 K before, so it will be good to see how I do.

This was my first 5K, and I had a lot of fun!  In training for this race, I was never able to get my time under 29 minutes, so I was very pleased with my finishing time.

Today was a good run.  It felt good to do more than a couple of miles.  I would like to work back up to doing 25-30 miles a week,

Today was a real milestone day for me, and I have been waiting all day to write about it!!  I think other than races, today would be in my top five runs for sure, and the wierd thing is that it was on a treadmill!

So, I was telling someone at my work who used to run marathons about my first experience with the 5K.  He said that when he was running, he knew lots of people that would sign up for 5 or 10Ks to use as training runs for marathons.  He told me that lots of times they would use them as speed or interval runs.  So, I decided to try something like that for my run today.  I knew that I would be running for a full hour on the treadmill at the gym, so here is what I did.  I started out warming up for one mile.  I am pretty sure that I was going about 6.5 MPH by that point, but I don't know what the time was.  Then, I sped up to 7.5 MPH for the next 1/2 mile, and then I brought it back down to 6 MPH for 1/4 mile.  I just repeated that for the full hour.  When I hit minute 59, I took it all the way up to 9.5 MPH until the cooldown started.  By the end of the 60 minutes I had gone 6.83 miles!  Up until this point, I have never been able to get more than 6.57 miles out of an hour on the treadmill.  I honestly cannot remember being this giddy (I know, I said giddy) about a run since I first started.  The best part is that the time flew by, and it was probably the most fun indoor run that I have ever done.  I am super excited to try it again next week!

I was really excited to do a run outside today, but a freak storm came through St George this afternoon.  I was acctually on my way home to get ready to go out when it started to get windy and dark outside.  I guess it is a good thing that I was running a little behind schedule, since we ended up getting hail and even some snow this afternoon! Had to run on the treadmill instead.

I ran 1.25 miles on the treadmill at the gym.  Then my sister showed up so I decided to lift with her.  When we were done, I got back on, and was surprisingly sore, so 2.75 more miles is all I could do.  It was wierd, becuase I didn't feel like I was going too hard either time...?

Tonight was another run on the treadmill :(  I guess one way to look at it is at least I went for a run right after working a 14 hour day, most of it on my feet too!!!!

I tried to do this run on the treadmill like a speed workout again( like I did last week), but I think I was feeling a bit tired.  I missed last weeks mark by about .13 of a mile.  At least I was able to get a little distance in.

I guess it wasn't a bad start to the week, especially after overdoing it on my diet during the superbowl!  Good thing that only comes around once a year.  I really wanted to try and do two runs today (and I may still, but probably not :), but I think I will focus more on trying to run at least 5 days this week.  I think if I can do that, I will be able to get some more miles in, which is what I have been struggling with the past few weeks. 

Today was a good run.  Although I did not run quite as far as I have in the same amount of time in the past, it FELT good, and I got a good sweat going, which is always a good thing for someone trying to lose some weight like me.

Just another run at the gym.  Although I was a bit sore, it was good to run 6 miles three days in a row.  I think I will be able to get 5 days in this week.

The run today was during my break today, so 3 miles is all I had time for.  I plan to run on Sat morning before work, which will put me at my goal of running 5 days this week :)

It felt good to get 5 days of running in this week.  I started out saying that I would take it easy on the treadmill this morning, but by about 2.5-3 miles in I was right back up to 61/2 miles per hour, but it felt good to at least start clear down at 5 MPH!  Now I just need to keep the 5 days a week consistant...

After my run, I checked my Garmin, and this was my first run outside in a little more that 3 weeks!  I know I was just being a sissy when it comes to the cold, especially since I live down south!  The run felt good today.  I forget hw much different it is to run outside.  A good start to the week.

Today was a run on the treadmill, but it was a good one.  I definitely got a good sweat going, so that is always nice.

I tried to do my run on the treadmill like a speed workout, but after doing about three 1/2 miles with a 1/4 mile slower rest inbetween, I was pooped! I just milked the rest of the time for whatever I could get out of it.  I guess I should quit trying to run on an empty stomach!

I finished this in 29 minutes, which was pretty exciting for me.  This morning one of my shins was bothering me, so I wasnt sure how the run would go today, but it was a good one.

Although I started this run totally intending to do a nice easy run, it wasn't long before I was creeping up to 7 mph on the treadmill!  I think I get too competetive with the other runners on the rest of the treadmills.  They may not know that we are racing, but we are!!!

Today was a great run outside.  I started off a little cold, but that didn't last long.  Although I was wearing my Garmin, I was focused more on getting at least 10 miles in, and not so much on my pace.  It was a good run, and I feel great afterward!

Nothing too exciting about the run today. I think I am on track to get 30 miles in this week.  I have been trying to maintain this amount for a little while and this will be my second week in a row of doing that (29 last week is close enough for me).

What a crappy week it ended up being.  I was a good 10 miles or more under my goal for the week.  I didnt have control over everything that got in my way, but I know I could have done better!  I guess the one good thing was that I was able to do the 3.1 miles in 28:09, which I THINK is my fastest time except for the race I did a while back.  Well, next week here I come...

Today was a beautiful day in St George, and it made for a great run!  I didn't leave my house until about Noon, and so it was about 55 degrees when I left.  It make me that much more excited for spring to get here.  I felt pretty good about the run overall, especially the first half of it.  By about 8 miles or so, I could feel my feet getting a little sore, and I started to slow down a bit.  I still finished with a 9:37/mile average, which it right about where I have been running in the past.  So far a good start to the week.  We will see if I do better this week than I did last as far as hitting my 30 mile goal.

Today was a run on the treadmill.  I felt pretty good, although I could tell that the miles yesterday were still a little fresh.  Once my legs started to loosen up though, it went well.

Today was a good day!  I wish I would have pushed just a little bit harder on the tradmill, as I was able to come within 1/20th of a mile from my personal best while running one hour on the treadmill.  As it was, I was doing an average of 9:12 for the whole time, which is pretty good for me, especially anything over a 5K distance.  I think I will be able to hit my goal for mileage this week!

Today was a great run, even if it did have to be on a treadmill.  When I got to the gym, I decided that I was going to push myself hard.  By the time I hit the end of the run, I was going at 7.5 miles per hour, which is pretty dang speedy for me.  My overall average was an 8:46/mile.  Other than my 5K race, that is the fastest 3 miles I have run so far :)

I had all the intentions in the world to make today a nice slow run.  I even started out running at 5 miles per hour. But, by the time it was done, I was back up to 7.5 miles per hour.  Average for the run was 9:46.  I met my goal for the week, with over 30 miles, so I am really happy.

Man did I feel stiff today on my run.  I am not sure if it was because I acctually made it over 30 miles last week, or the fact that I blew my diet all weekend long.  Whatever it was, it took a good 3 miles into it to even feel kind of ok.  Especially on any kind of a downhill, my left calf was having a weird pain deep down in the middle of it.  Anyway, I pushed through it and made it to the end of my run.

Today was supposed to be a speed workout with the SGRC, but there were onle three other people there, and I did not know any of them.  I assume Steve Hooper must have slept through his alarm or something...   So, anyway, I decided to do 800's for my first speed workout in a couple of months.  Here are my times for the five 800's I did:

1st- 3:59

2nd- 4:08

3rd- 4:15

4th- 4:17

5th- 4:16

I jogged a 400 between each one, with a one mile warm up, and a one mile cool-down(plus an extra lap in there to come out to 6 miles).  Overall time for the whole thing was 54:33.  Good workout today!

Today was a great day for me!!  I do my runs on Wednesdays as part of my workout at the gym, which means the dreaded treadmill.  I don't know about how others feel, but I cannotrun for more than an hour on the treadmill because I cannot make myself imput everything after the TM stops at the hour mark.  So, that means that I just have to push myself to run as FAR as possible in that time frame.  Up until now I do not think I have ever broke 6.6 miles (If I did, it was one time, and it would have only been 6.61).  I decided as soon as I started out that this was going to be a good, hard run for me.  To make a long story short, by the time I hit the 60:00 mark, I had gone 6.73 miles!  I know that for many of the speedier bloggers out there, this does not seem like too big of an accomplishment, but to me it was huge!  I feel as though the ever-elusive 7 miles in an hour mark is that much more achievable!  Anyway, I know that I will be able to exceed my 30 mile goal again for the week.

This was a run while I was on vacation in Puerto Morelos, Mexico, and while on the one hand I am kind of embarassed to post such a small amout on what is usually my long day, with the humidity down there I am really kind of proud that I made it as far as I did!  When I left the resort we were staying at, it was only in the low 80's I would have to guess.  Not really too hot at all.  But, the humidity had to be up in the 80-85% range as well.  By the time I got back from the loop, I couldn't stop sweating, and I even had to take two cold showers!  Another thing that was surprised me was how much it slowed me down.  I ran an average of one minute per mile slower down there than I usually do here in St. George.  It was a wierd experience overall, but it did make me respect mother nature that much more.

Today was the first run since I was on vacation, and the first one of any real distance in ALMOST 2 WEEKS, and boy do my legs feel it!  It was pretty windy this morning, which wasn't helping things at all, but I know that that cannot be the only reason for my slowness today.  I am glad that I was able to put in some distance today, and now I just hope that I can finish the week close to my goal of 30 miles.  We will see...

Run today was at the gym.  It still felt a little hard/slow today.  It makes me wonder how much "damage" the last two weeks have done?  How long will it take for me to feel like I did before my vacation?

I slacked off all morning before work, so 5 miles is all I could get in.

Just another run during my break during work.

Today was a long hard one for me.  Nevermind the fact that I haven't been doing too well since before I left on vacation, I also have not run over 10 miles for a while now.  At about 9 1/2 I could really feel it too.  I really plan on getting back to how I was running.  Also, I plan to do a speed workout with Steve Hooper and the St. George Running Club.

Today was a speed work out at the track with Steve Hooper.  It felt really good to do some speed work.  We only did 3-1000's, but I have never done those before, so it was a good workout.  Afterwards I did an extra long cooldown, mostly just to get up to 5 miles.  It was a good start to the day though!

So, after my two runs last week, my left foot was killing me.  For most of the day Wednesday, I was limping around so I decided to take it easy for the rest of the week.  By this morning, I did not feel any pain whatsoever, so I decided to give it a try.  Although I did not push myself too fast (average of 10:00/mile), by about 9 miles in I started to feel some discomfort.  I can definitely feel it, although it isnt as bad as after my run last Teusday.  By the way, the pain is right over the bone that connects my big toe to my foot.  I am not sure where to go from here.  I think I will try some ice/heat to see what that does.

My foot was still feeling a little tender from yesterday, so I only did two miles on the treadmill while at the gym.  I have been taking some IBU for it and icing it when I go to bed, and it has felt much better since I started a couple of days ago.  I think I will just keep taking it easy and see how it goes.

Took it easy on the treadmill to make sure my foot does not get any worse.  I felt pretty good, and by the end I was not feeling any discomfort where I usually do, so that is good.  I think I will just SLOWLY increase the weekly mileage, while keeping the intensity fairly light and see how that goes...

Today I decided that I was going to keep it nice and easy for the run at the gym today.  I have been doing a good job of not making my foot any worse, and I wanted to make sure and continue that.  I started off at 5 miles per hour, but I slowly increased until I was going an average of about 6.2 mph or so.  My foot did not really bug me at all, which is a very good sign.  I will continue to keep my pace easy for at least another week to ensure I do not re-injure myself.

Today was a hard one! My shins were very sore starting off, but  thankfully my foot seems to have gotten over whatever was plaguing it.  It was very windy in St George this morning, so the second half of my run was all against the wind, which made me a big sail!  My athsma really kicked in when I got home.  It took a while to get over.  I hope this week I can get in about 25 miles or so.

Today was a "speed" workout.  I put it like that because it was kind of pathetic.  I was tired and sore from the day before (but I got my new aquarium set up :), and I guess the SGRC workout got cancelled this morning, so I ended up doing one by myself.  I can definitely see a difference in my running if someone is right next to me!  I did 2-800's and 2-400's with a warm-up and cool-down of one mile each.  Hey, at least I didn't just go back to bed when I saw that nobody else had shown up!

At the gym I decided to jog a little while my wife was doing her cardio.  Man, did my legs hurt!  I even started to get a cramp/stitch in my side after going up to about 5.5 miles per hour.  After 1.3 miles, I decided that I had had enough.

Another run at the gym during my break at work.  I feel like I have lost some conditioning lately.  I know I have been as strict as I was before my vacation, and I did have a foot injury slowing me down for a bit, but lately I get really tired by the time I have the treadmill up to 6.6 or so.  A couple of months ago I could go up to 7.3-7.5!  What is the deal!

Today felt a lot better, as there was no wind to contend with like there has been the past few Mondays.  I did start to slow down with about a mile and a half to go, bit it is slightly uphill for a lot of this.  I think I might get to my goal of 30 miles this week.

Another speed workout at the track.  Steve Hooper was there as well as a few more people.  I did 4- 800's with a warm up of .75 miles and a cool-down  of 1.25 miles afterward.  My fastest one was 3:40, but that one was a little too fast!  The rest were somewhere between 4:00 and 4:08.  It was a good workout afterall.  It is always better with others, even if you are the slowest guy out there!

It has been a while since I have run for an entire hour at the gym, so it felt good to get some distance in this morning.  I even had time to sit in the steam room for about 1/2 an hour before I had to get ready for work.  The run felt pretty good.

Run at the gym.  I pushed myself pretty hard, and it felt good.  If I am able to keep up this pace, I would meet my goal for the half marathon.  I am not sure about it though, because my legs were killing me!

Today there were only two of us that showed up to do speed work this morning.  Also, the gate to the track was locked, so we just went for a run, which was a good thing.  Otherwise, I think I would have gone back to bed.  By the time we got back to the high school, we had gone 6.18 miles.  A couple of hours later, I did 3 more miles while at the gym with my wife.  It was a good day overall.

I did a run outside this morning.  I tried to keep it at a nice even pace, and I felt good by the end.

I had to run during my break at work today, which meant the gym.  Maybe I use the treadmill as too much of a crutch?  I find it easy to get on and do whatever because I know exactly how fast I am going and it is very easy to bump it up or down a little bit.  It is what it is though.

Since the half marathon is this Sat., I decided that I would get some miles in this week, but take it easy at the same time.  My knee was hurting in a weird spot for the past couple of days, so I did not want to make that worse.  My average time per mile by the time I got done was 9:36.  I think that I will be able to pick it up enough to finish in 2 hours.  We will see.

I was supposed to do a speed workout at the track this morning, but when I got there, I didn't see anyone from the runing store there.  I decided to drive home and just do a loop by my house.  It started out being a loop that I havent done in a very long time, but a little more than half way into it I decided to return home a different way, which added on the last .4 miles.  My hips were a little stiff when I started, but I felt pretty good by the time I got back home.

Did another 1.75 miles at the gym at a nice, slow pace.  Usually by the time I get to the gym it has been about 2 hours or so since my run, and I am pretty stiff and sore by then so I figure anything else I can do is better than not doing anything else at all, even if it is slow.

Run at the gym today.  I decided that I wanted to run at what would have to be my goal pace for one hour on the treadmill to see how it felt.  You know what?  I think I just might be able to make my goal of 2 hours or less for the half marathon this Sat.  I know that seems super slow to a lot of people on the blog, but it will be huge for me!!!

I was really hoping to break 2 hours on this race, but I guess it wasn't meant to be.  At the half-way point I was right where I needed to be.  Once the main downhill started, however, something started to go wrong.  First, one hamstring started to cramp up and then the other.  I acctually had to stop and stretch them both out, which wasted a lot of time.  A little later, one of my quads started to tighten up as well.  I was able to finish strong, and the good news is that I was able to shave off almost 17 whole minutes off of my time for this race last year!  I know that I need to look at the positive, and not worry so much about a PR.

I planned to take a week off after the race, but my wife and my sister in law were planning to do a few miles this morning.  I decided that since they would be going at a slower pace, it would be good to do a nice easy run.  It felt good, and was fun to run with other people.

Man, my body is still hurting from the race!  After the first mile and a half, I decided to keep this one short.  I don't know what the deal is.

I wanted to get up and do a speed workout this morning, but my body had another iea and decided to slep in, so I ran at the gym.  Still very sore and stiff, so I take it easy.

I am running pretty slow this week, which is very frustrating to me.  I know it is natural to feel it after a race, but this is rediculous!

Ok, so I started out at 5.5 miles per hour, and in a few minutes worked my way up to 6.1.  None of this is out of the ordinary for me.  In fact, I would consider that a bit slow.  So, why did I have to slow down to a walk so I could make the ache/stitch in my side go away?  It was killing me.  After a couple of minutes, I was able to SLOWLY get it back up to where it should be (up above 6 miles per hour).

Today was so crazy hot, that by the time I got up and thinking about a run, it was seriously like 90 degrees!  I decided to run at the gym instead.  It wasn't as fun, but at least I did something.

I wanted to run with the St George Running Club this morning, but when the alarm went off, my body had other thoughts, so I ran after working out at the gym. 

The old 3 mile run during my break at the gym.  I can't remember my exact finishing time, but I think it was about 29 1/2 minutes or so. 

Even though I started off a little slow, I was able to get bak up to the speed I was used to before the last race.  I have noticed that for the past month or so the first mile of a run is pretty hard for me.  My shins hurt and I kind of get a pain in my side, but it goes away within about 1 1/2 miles or so.  I guess I will just have to watch it closely and see if it gets any worse.

So, I slept in this morning and decided that it was too hot to run outside for any kind of distance.  I had also been putting off printing off my training schedule for the marathon.  What a surprise to find out that this week is week one of the schedule!  So, no more excuses I guess.  I did this one at the gym, but it was a good run for me.

I went to the high school track to do a speed workout with Steve and the others from the SGRT, but nobody was there, so I did one on my own.  I only did 3.15 miles at the track, but then later I did another 2.5 miles at the gym.  I feel like I need to work on my endurance more.

A good run even though it wasat the gym

I was able to do this in 40 minutes, which is getting back up to where I used to be at.

I was able to get up nice and early today to do my run, which was a good thing.  I was able to finish in 1:10:32.  The last little bit to my house on my route is all uphill and while it is good for my training, it really slows me down right at the end.

I went down to the track this morning to do a speed workout.  Since I have been going b myself for the past few weeks, it is hard to push myself very hard.  I did do a total of 4 miles at the track, with 5-400's plus my warm-up and cool-down.  I have no idea what my times were because I apparently left my GPS on all day yesterday and it was dead this morning.

After that I did one mile nice and slow at the gym.

I decided to run outside for this run.  I didn't leave the house until almost 10, but since it was such a short distance, I wasn't too worried about it.  I meant to go 3.1 miles, but by the time I was back at the house, I was at 3 miles, so I automatically stopped the GPS.  Oh well.

I felt really good for this run.  It was on the treadmill at the gym.  I was able to do the distance in 40 minutes, which made me pretty happy.

Today I ran with my wife out on one of the trails.  I am the faster of the two of us and also I was wearing the GPS, so I let her get a 5-6 minute head start.  I caught up to her at about 2.1 miles or so.  We walked together for a minute and then we both started running again.  When I got to the halfway point, I put down something on the trail and then told my wife to turn around at that point.  She said that her foot really started to hurt so she had to walk a little more than usual.  When I got to the end, I hit the lap button and then turned around and made my way back to where she was at and finished with her.  I finished the 5 miles with a 9:07 average, and then just took it easy while meeting back up with the wife.  Good run overall, and faster than I have been running normally.

400's at the track again.  Did a mile warm up and then the following 400's with a 200 jog inbetween:

1-1:51

2-1:59

3-2:00

4-1:58

5-1:58

6-1:57

then did a half mile cool down for a total of 4 miles in 36:45

So, I had Saturday off which was unusual, and my wife was out of town, so I decided to sign up for this thing.  The whole idea of running by the light of the moon and stuff sounded fun.  What I didn't plan for was the fact thet I had to work all day Friday (13 1/2 hours on my feet), and then I went home and worked on a home improvement project that I was trying to finish before my wife got home the next day.  To make a long story short, I wasn't as prepared as I could of been, but then, neither were the people putting on the race!!  I guess they weren't counting on the fact that by the time the race started at 11:15 p.m., the moon still was not up over the hill that the golf course backs up to.  They did have some flashing strobe lights on the course, but they were not nearly enough to keep people from getting confused.  I talked to more than a few people who got lost at some point on the course and just walked through the golf course to get back to the start line.  I even got off course a little, but luckily it was at a spot where some people were on the sideline cheering the runners on, so they got me back on the right path.  Overall it was an interesting experience, but running through the golf course with only the hat lights provided was more than a little scary! 

I am amazed at how sore I still am after that blasted midnight 5K on Friday night.  I guess it doesn't help that I have pretty much been going nonstop for almost a week by this point.  Anyway, the run feels ok, but especially at the end (last 1 1/2 miles), I am running on empty.  Glad to get it done though.

Although I am still not feeling 100%, and I did one less 400 than last week, I feel pretty good about the run this morning.  I did a 1 mile warm-up(a little more actually), and then did 5 400's.  Here are the times:

1-1:56

2-1:55

3-1:54

4-1:57

5-1:52

I was getting pretty tired by the fourth one, but I pushed hard on the last one.  I feel pretty good about these times and know that I can keep improving!  Did a cool-down for a little over a mile and then called it a day.

Today I had to go to the gym to work out, so I did my run  there too.  The difference is that I rode my bike to the gym first, wich was about 5 1/2 miles.  My legs were pretty tired by the time I got there!

Usually I go to thy gym on Saturdays to work out before I go to work.  Since I have been riding my bike to work though, I did not want to ride to the gym just to run and then ride to work, so I just did a run around my house.  My legs are really feeling sore in funny places after riding to work and back a few times!  My run was pretty slow, and I had to wind around the house a bit to squeeze three miles out.

The run today was ok.  The loop I use for these runs is mostly downhill on the way out, so I make pretty good time.  On the way back however, I find that I have to walk a couple of times to keep on going.  There are no steep hills on the way back, but it is just a nice steady climb the whole way.  The worst is when I turn the last corner before I hit my goal, there is a kind of steep little hill that I just cannot make myself run anymore by that point.  I usually walk up it and when I get to the top, I have about one tenth of a mile left, so I run it as fast as my burning legs will go.  Today I got up to a 6:33 pace for that last sprint.

I was supposed to get up and run at the track, but I stayed up too late last night and I couldn't make myself get out of bed, so I ran at the gym while my wife did her training session.  I felt really good by the end.  I got up to 7.2 MPH and then took it up to 9MPH for the last tenth of a mile.

Did a run with a few people that I have met through Steve at the running store.  We did a loop that started off with a good mile or so uphill, and then we wound our way back down for a while.  The funny part is that my house sits somewhere in the middle of this loop, but I had never seen about 1/4-1/3 of it before!  It was a good run and it felt nice to go with others so that I would push myself a little harder.  Finishing time was 59:48.

So riding my bike to work and back for the past three days has really made me sore and tired.  My time today was a good 90 seconds slower than I ever do.  Also when I am running, I just don't have the ability to pick up the pace when I need to.  I am sure that in time I will feel better for my runs even while biking.

I usually get up early to do my long runs on Mondays, but I had something come up.  Although I did get up early, I went fishing for the first time in more than 10 years!  My friend and I each only caught one fish, but it was still fun.  By the time we got home it was noon and I knew there would be no running in the 100+ degree heat.  I also knew that the farthest I have ever been able to go on the treadmill was ablout 6.5 miles (because they reset after 60 minutes).  I decided I was going to do it anyway.  I pushed hard and would push it up to 8 or 8.5 MPH for about a minute and then come back down slowly and do it again.  To make a long story short, by using my cooldown time to inish, I was able to hit 7 miles in about 64:10!  I was pretty excited.

So, today I started back up with a personal trainer at the gym.  I decided it was time to stop being lazy about working out and I knew it would be the best way to work on some of my frustrations with my training.  My trainer put me on a three day a week lifting schedule, which is good for me, but the thing is that means that I have more exercises per time and I have to do 4 sets per exercise!  I decided that since I only had to do three miles, I might as well get my leg day out of the way.  Boy am I paying for that silly mistake.  After only 2 miles, I had been going for almost 25 milutes, and I felt like the tin man.  I decided that I would make up the extra mile on another day.  I think I will be sore for a few days!!!

Well I am still pretty sore from the workout yesterday, but I decided that I would try to do the Wed morning run with Terry and Tim from the Albertson's.  Since it was only the three of us that showed up and they saw how sore I was, we decided to do the 4 mile loop instead of the 6 (Thank you).  I thought I had to do 6 for my training schedule, but when I looked at it, I was still on a 5 mile week.  I knew that if I jogged from my house to where the runners meet and back, it would put me over my 5 miles with the loop.  When I got to the store, my garmil said exactly 1 mile.  I did the loop with Terry and Tim.  I'm sure I slowed the two of them up a little bit, but there wasn't a whole lot I could do to make my legs go any harder.  When we got back to the parking lot I decided that I would TRY to jog back home to get the extra mile in that I skipped out on yesterday.  Although it was the slowest mile of the six, I was able to finish the whole thing in 1:03:?, which is much better than the embarassing paced I was doing yesterday on the treadmill!

I did this at the gym along with a weights workout.  I cannot remember my time, but I am sure it is still slow as I am still feeling sore from my leg workout back on Tuesday!

I honestly think that this run qualifies for one of my top five most frustrating runs so far!  Besides still not being back to 100% from my leg workout (every time I do another run it seems to tighten up the muscles again), it has also been stormy the past few days down here in St George.  I guess it would be ok if the rain acctually brought the temp down and kept it down.  Humidity like we have been having with 100+ degree heat is not fun!  I made sure to leave before the sun had even officially come up.  In fact, I did not even see it until I got around the bottom side of the black hill.  That didnt keep me from sweating like a crazy man the whole time though!  It was so bad that when I had to stop on my way back at one of the parks to use the restroom (maybe 9-9.5 miles in) I noticed that my shorts were acctually soaking wet.  Because of the hydration pack I was wearing, all my sweat was running and collecting where the pack was hitting on my lower back.  The sweat wes acctually dripping off my shorts and hitting my calves as I was going along (ok that even grosses me out a bit so I will stop explaining it!). So, between those two factors, I finished SLOWER than I have my last two half marathons!  I was super frustrated, but at the same time I was glad to have made it through.

I acctually made myself get out of bed to go to the track today, which is more than I can say for the past two weeks.  It felt good to get out there and see some of the same people I always do there.  There are lots of people that I watch there that make me want to keep improving.  There is one old guy there who is ALWAYS there on Tuesdays.  He cruises around the track.  He is usually already there when I show up, and still there when I leave.  If I had to guess, I would say that he is in his 60's, but then I have never been too good at guessing anybody's age.  Anyway, he is awsome and it makes me hope that I can still be doing stuff like him when I reach his age. 

So, I am still doing 400's at the track.  I wish I could move up to 800's but I feel like I would be so slow on the second laps every time.  I did 5 400's.  All of them were in 2:01 or less.  I also warmed up for a mile, and then cooled down until I hit my fourth mile on the Garmin.

I am so excited that I was finally able to reach my goal of a sub 2 hour half marathon finish!  There were a few points in the race where I was not sure I was going to make it in time.  One thing that I was confused at was the fact that by the time I crossed the finish line, the Garmin said I had gone almost a full third of a mile farther than I should have.  I know they had to change the course because of a fire up the canyon, but that seemed like a big discrepancy.  After I finished, I walked back through the course until I met up with my wife and her sister.  (It was their first, and my wife says last half marathon for them).  They were both doing awesome!  I ran alongside them to help motivate them (but my legs were screaming at me the whole time to stop).  We had some friends that ran it too, along with some of their family members.  Everyone did an awesome job and I think it was a great experience!

Like I said in my post from August 27th, I am looking through my Garmin and going backwards to post some of myu runs, so I have no memories that really stand out for this run.

So, although the Garmin has this logged as an 18-mile run, I was completely out of energy (and willpower), so I walked almost the entire last two miles so I am only counting it as 16.  I did not get up early enough and so the sun met me with still at least 7 miles to go.  Also, I had not done too much hill training up to this point, so the downhill pounding on my legs and knees killed me.  This run definitely goes in my top 10 list of crappy runs!

Although I tried the same exact run last week with less than optimal results, I got it into my head that this was going to be a better experience.  I got up almost a full hour earlier, and I got up to the gas station and was all stretched and ready to go about 45 minutes earlier than last Monday.  The other thing that I had going for me was the clouds in the Eastern sky.  They delayed the sun rising just enough so that I was litterally walking up my driveway when I finally saw the sun peek out.  I think that is what saved me!  Other than walking to drink or take some GU, I was able to run the entire distance (ok, Veyo hill still got to me a little).  I felt pretty good after I gfot home.  But, because I had to run errands all day and not get in a good nap or at least some down time off of myu feet, my left knee really started to hurt.  By the time I was ready for bed, I had to put an ice pack on it, which seemed to ease the pain a bit.

This was a run on the treadmill.  I tried something different to vary the speed as I went along.  If nothing else, it kept my mind occupied while I was constantly adjusting the speed up and down.

So, it has been a long time since I have even logged on.  It's not that I have not been running, it just seems to slip my mind.  I will try to fill in the gaps in the past few weeks where I can, mostly using whatever runs I did outside so I can look at my garmin.  Today was a good, easy run with Tim on the 4-mile loop from Albertson's.  I got some great advise from him, so I am really glad I was able to pull my head off of the pillow this morning.