The sun is up, the air is fresh, the stone is old

Carlsbad 5000

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Location:

Logan,UT,USA

Member Since:

Dec 15, 2009

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

PRs after age 40:

 

5k     15:15  Running of the Leopards.

8k      22:21  Alta Death Dash

10k   33:02    Des News

Half Marathon      1:10  Timp Half

Marathon        2:32    Ogden

First solo R2R2R Bass Trails Grand Canyon 

First R2R2R Grand Canyon Toroweap Overlook

 

Short-Term Running Goals:

Not be fat all year

Long-Term Running Goals:

Smell the dirt, feel the mountain, taste the wind.

Personal:

 

"Our legs are tight, our feet are flying, and we are gliding over the roll of the land. The sun is up, the air is fresh, the stone is old, and we are free and at peace. The clock has stopped because another time has taken over." C. Bowden

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
202.3065.5211.105.00283.92
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
Race: Carlsbad 5000 (3.11 Miles) 16:20:00, Place overall: 13, Place in age division: 13
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
12.000.003.104.0019.10

We got into Carlsbad at 11 last night and slept in the car.  Just so pumped up from the day of trails in Arizona that it didn't even matter.  I was pretty stoked to see some of the racing today, especially the elites later.  We ran a few miles in the morning early along the waterfront and I decided I might as well run in the masters race as sit around watching.  The registration took 2 minutes, seriously.  Amazing quick.  I felt good for about a mile and then the race hurt, lol!  It was all about holding on from then on but I'm glad I did it.  Such neat guys to run with.  I'm guessing at time and place, no clocks at the finish that I could see.  I'll update that later when they post results, but definetly slower than the 5k last week.  Now off to watch some fast folks and catch a workout later in the day. 

Just got results posted and I was slower than I thought.  16:20  Good news is, we all were.  Pete and Christian have both broken 15 every year that they run this as masters so maybe the wind played more of a factor than I felt.  Dennis ran a 14:42 on this two years ago too.

Got home at 7pm and got the second part of the workout in.  3 warm up, 12x400, 2 cool down.  I thought this would be a long weekend to enjoy since my girls were gone, but it's already gone..

 

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Comments(13)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
24.000.000.000.0024.00

Wow, where did this run come from?  I just fell into a groove on this long run and haven't felt this smooth in a long time.  Great afternoon.  24 miles, 6:38 average pace.

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Comments(8)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
10.000.000.000.0010.00

Easy trail run on the single track along the Des Moines River in Seattle.  This was a moss covered trail surrounded by ferns and trees, where even a stick on the ground had stuff growing on it.  Light rain and in the sunlight, one of those runs that makes everything right in the world.

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4 hour hike up Siphon Draw to Flatiron Peak in the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix.  Great evening with a friend, incredible country and good company.  6.3 miles

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Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.000.005.000.0010.00

Finally got home at 10:30pm and it was snowing lightly so I headed to the gym for my run.  Continuous interval workout on the treadmill.  2 mile warm up, 5X1mile @ 12mph with .5 miles @ 8mph, 2 mile cool down.

I had two experiences last week that have been on my mind.  As I walked back to my car after the Carlsbad 5k an older lady was walking beside me and began asking me questions about the race.  She said that she was running the women's master race in an hour for the 5th time.  Then she pointed at the race medal on my neck and gasped, Oh you got a medal!  I kind of shrugged, you know, you get one of these in every race.  She explained that the race only gave out medals to the first 200 finishers and she had been trying to get one for five years.  I pulled it off my head and handed it to her.  How many of these do us runners have anyways?  She gave me a huge hug and started to cry.  I was so impressed by the spirit it takes to work so hard for something.

Then last week on an all day hike with a small group in Arizona after stopping several times with the laggging hiker of the group, after we had talked all day about business plans good and bad, how well his personal one had done, he said that he would give anything he had to get into shape enough to hike or run like I could.  We both laughed because it sounded so funny, but he said he was serious.  It's easy to make money, earn degrees, or be successful, but it's so hard to learn to do what you love.

I wonder how many of us runners forget how neat it is to have grabbed this out of life. 

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Comments(6)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.000.000.000.008.00

Easy run this morning at 8 min pace with some lifting.  Heading out for sure today on the White Pine trail for some cross country skiing.  New fresh powder in April!  Ha Ha!

Proud of my son for deciding he wanted to sacrifice two years of his teenage life to serve a service mission for the LDS church.  He's saved up a lot of money for this.  We just opened his papers and he will be living in Nashville, Tennessee after spending two months learning Spanish at the Provo MTC.

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Race: Striders Half Marathon (13.11 Miles) 01:13:56, Place overall: 5, Place in age division: 1
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
1.0013.100.000.0014.10

Little late this morning and missed my warm up totally, but since it was 15 degrees I didn't really care.  It really was a beautiful day though.  It was fun saying Hi to everyone from the blog for the first spring race and then it was time to get to work.  I wanted a 5:40 pace today and not a stupid race like the ones I keep running, a good tempo run before Boston.  By 3/4 mile I was feeling the altitude.  I just do too much training at sea level right now.  I think the race is at about 6,400 feet and I was winded already.  James M. was loping along side me like it was a Sunday afternoon jog in the park.  I was kind of stiff and didn't want to spend 13 miles feeling like that so I picked up the pace to 5:20 and stayed there for the next three miles, trying to shake it out.  I began to catch up to the lead group of three, but about 6 miles into it I felt like they were probably going to hold that pace and ran my own race.  When the course leveled out I began to catch my breath and felt much better than the start.  I could then just focus on hitting the 5:40 and relaxing.  Somewhere in there 7 Rossy cruised by me and slowed enough to say Hi for a minute and he was gone.  Smooth race and the first half in a long time that was just fun.  This course has never been one I enjoyed.  Just a few seconds fast on pace in average, but it was due to shaking out some on those first miles.

Awesome talking to Albert, Ben, Riley and Rossy together after the finish.  These guys are in the groove.  Ben and Riley especially are hitting some really neat workouts.  There's some cool stuff coming from these two this year.  James and Allie are fun as usual, and James had some great ideas for running parts of Bostson that had me worried.  Thanks!

Now heading up to White Pine trail above Tony Grove for an afternoon of Cross Country skiing.  Word is 8" of fresh powder that's melting fast...

 

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Comments(18)
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Day off enjoying Easter with the family. 

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Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.000.000.000.007.00

Easy run on soft trails in Atlanta

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.000.003.001.008.00

Short speedwork today, two mile warm up, 2X1mile at 5:30, 1 mile all out, 4X400s, 2 cool down.  Sore calves from Saturday which is probably due to running in flats for the first time this year, heel lowering.

Now I'm sitting by the pool for the rest of the day.  This feels like I'm a school teacher. 

Halfway through "Hell on Two Wheels" and trying to figure out if this whole thing is real.

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Comments(8)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.000.000.000.006.00

Easy afternoon run in Detroit.

Best new (for me) running music discoveries:  Nickelback, Shinedown, Three Days Grace, MSG.  Wow..  

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.000.000.000.008.00

2am wake up today in Detroit, good times.  Snowing in Cache Valley when I got home so the kids and I went to the gym.  I got in a fun fartlek style run, 2 miles warm up then (200,200,400, 1 mile) X3.  200s at 14mph, 1 mile at 12mph, 400 in between at 8mph, 2 easy for cool down.  Jogged around the indoor track for 20 minutes with the kids.  We are training for the annual 1 mile school run they do in a month.

Just about the fastest interval style workout on the treadmill for me, but very short.  I'm just a little worried about the lingering calf soreness from jumping into flats too quick.  30 minutes of upper body lifting. 

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.000.000.000.007.00

Easy run in the morning and spent the rest of the morning at my daughters science fair.  Awesome day!  Worked the flight today from Salt Lake to Denver and then the Boston flight which was just a cool experience.  Walter was on the flight and 3 of our flight attendants that were going to Boston to run as well.  I had the gate agent make a PA for any marathoners to come up to the gate that were flying with us for a picture and there were 15 more!  Great flight and a ton of fun talking to everyone about their goals.  Excited for the rest of the weekend! 

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.500.000.000.008.50

Got up early in Boston and flew to Cancun and back.  Perfect day for pre marathon relaxing.  Three movies and tons of food.

Nice 8.5 in Boston tonight with some strides and hanging out with Walter waiting for Rob's flight to get in

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Comments(4)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.500.000.000.005.50

3.5 miles in the morning with Rob and Walter.  Awesome day in Boston and a great dinner at Maggianos.  2 miles on a soccer field in the evening.

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Race: Boston Boiler (26.2 Miles) 02:57:09, Place overall: 436, Place in age division: 47
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.0026.200.000.0026.20

What a fun weekend!  The most I got out of Boston was that the best marathon experience is as a team.  Man was that cool!  I felt as ready for this marathon as any I've ran, great mileage, great speed and a nice taper.  In the groove.  What a humbler...it's like that scene from Knights Tale where he says, "You've been weighed, measured and found wanting".  I hit the 5k just about dead on goal, 18:14.  I was drenched already.  The 10k was right on 37, still conservative and planning on using the fuel later.  By now I was taking two waters and a Gatorade at every water stop.  A first for me.  I started having a harder time and couldn't make the planned shift to a quicker pace.  Jeff and Walter caught up to me, passed and I adjusted my time back 30 seconds a mile.  I didn't feel the pace was a problem, it was just suffering!  I'm not used to just the total feeling of suffering.  Pretty much think I've trained for the leg pain, but I have no mental toughness for the heat part.  I came through the half and from then on I decided to quit after the next two miles.  When I reached that point, it wasn't getting any worse, so I decided to quit after the next two miles.  This went on until cresting Heartbreak Hill and I realized that I could finish this.  Best feeling I've had in a long time.  Better than the finish.  Around mile 23 I looked over at the guy next to me and it was Walter, so I told him we should stick it out and finish under 3 hours.  He doesn't remember any of this... The race was a surprise, a mixture of not being prepared for the heat part of it and learning I need some mental toughness. 

Guys and gals run in heat like this all the time around the world and kick $%&@.  especially trail runners.  We road racers need to suck it up.

Other highlights:  Awesome race dinner the Shadleys set up.  Great times flying to the race and spending time with Walter and Rob, both guys that basically taught me how to run.  I kissed two Wellesley girls, one with a sign that said, "kiss me, I'm naked', and one with a sign that said, "kiss me, it's my last year, I'm a senior".  How many times does that happen at the halfway point of a marathon? :)  My arm is sore from all the high fives.  I missed the transvestite and Santa Claus, but I did beat the guy in the monkey suit. 

 

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Comments(21)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.000.000.000.007.00

Easy run in Denver just before work, 30 minutes lifting. 

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
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Easy run in the World's Fair Park, New York City.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.000.000.000.008.00

Nice hot run in St. Louis.  Glad to be getting home tonight.  Too long to be away from the kids!

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.000.000.000.006.00

5 miles easy at home with 4X400 at 75% effort.  Feels like the legs are about 65 to 75% recovered today.  I think I could survive the marathon tomorrow.  I'm going to do it.

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Race: Salt Lake City Marathon (26.22 Miles) 02:37:21, Place overall: 3, Place in age division: 1
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.0026.220.000.0030.22

I wanted only today to pace a marathon more like what I've been training for.  The open question was if I could do it 5 days after a serious hard effort at Boston.  I was fairly certain the slower race Monday was due to being a wuss.  I just wasn't able to cool down.  The advantage to that was that I felt the slower pace would lend to a quicker recovery.  I did a 2 mile warm up and took stock of how I felt.  It seemed reasonable to aim for a 3 hour marathon and if I felt good, pick it up and run.  The start was fast, Fritz, Seth, John, and Dennis were outa there.  I noticed immediately that a 6 min pace felt great, probably because it was downhill.  I lost touch after maybe three miles with any marathoners after that and settled into what felt good.  Such a nice change from Monday to just enjoy the run.  I passed Dennis and eventually caught up to John about 12 miles.  I was so worried about the heat that I was dumping water on my head at every aid station, but it turned out to be pretty unnecessary.  Through 18 I realized that the pace wasn't taking a toll on me today, I had no idea who was ahead anymore, and began to plan on what to do when anyone tried to pass at 20 or so.  Demetrio yelled at me from an intersection that Dennis was way back and to just hold pace which really helped.  I faded maybe 10 to 20 seconds a mile after 22 and focused on holding some reserves to make a push.  Nobody popped up, thankfully, so I could be lazy.

First time for two marathons in a week for me and a much better feeling about how the conditions in Boston affected me.

 

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Comments(26)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.000.000.000.008.00

Spent the afternoon up in Blacksmith Fork Canyon with the kids.  I got in an easy run on the left hand fork trail which has to be one of the neatest trails I've run on.  Just a soft easy single track.  We then spent the evening on kayak lessons, which for some reason they like better than canoes.  My ten year old can already handle the class 1 areas of the river in the kayak.  It's amazing how fast they learn this stuff.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
9.000.000.000.009.00

Busy day working on boats in the sun..can't decide if it was work or not.  Nice trail run in Prov Canyon and got in some quick lifting.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.000.000.000.005.00

Easy 5 miles of the Upper loop trail of Ogden Canyon.  Testing some gear today for iFrogz and Backcountry today which was kind of fun.  Had to be able to use a phone for music, make calls, track GPS, and take pictures, all hands free. Except the taking pictures, ha ha!  Pretty cool stuff but wasn't too impressed with the GPS antennae in the iphone or the android.  The over ear phones are kind of nice though.

30 minutes of lifting at the gym and stoked to finally be ably to handle the 70lb dumbells on chest flys.  Last week I embarrassed myself trying to get them off my chest while a couple girls were watching.  I had to drop them on the floor.  :)

Long over night tomorrow in Phoenix.  It may just be a night for a Grand Canyon run..

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
13.000.000.000.0013.00

I was supposed to have a long Phoenix overnight and get out for a sweet trail run but got swapped into a New York overnight.  Turns out the company CEO was on our flight and wanted jumpseat.  Good downdrafts and rain on descent.  I did one of my hardest landings ever, Ha Ha!  Real embarrassing..

The sun came out in the evening and I did my fav run around Citi field and three loops of the World Fair Park, all on grass.  Could be the longest grass run I've had.  Game night so things were busy.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.400.000.000.007.40

Easy run on the grass of the huge Metro Park in St. Louis.  Good 45 minutes of lifting afterwards.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

Off day

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
10.500.000.000.0010.50

Amazing run through Paris with my sister.  Ran from our apartment at Rue du Temple to the river Seine, across the Ile de le Cite on the Pont D'Arcol bridge, down the river, across Pont Royale through the Jardin des Tuileries down the Avenue de Champs Elysees to the Egyptian Luxor Obelisque, took pics running under the Arc de Triomphe and continued to the Palaise de Chaillot.  Then we ran across the river again to the Eiffel Tower and crossed the park to the Ecole Militaire and around the Hotel de Invalides to cross the river and run between the Petite and Grand Palaise to run through the Jardine des Tuileries which took us under the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel to the Louvre and then up the little streets back to the apartment.  Like a mini tour of Paris!   

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

Spent the entire day walking Paris and in the Louvre.  No time for a run.  Probably put in 15 miles anyway.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
11.400.000.000.0011.40

Another amazing run in Paris.  Spent the morning in the Notre Dame and the Germaine Quarter visiting bakeries and then did our run.  My sister has been running with me these three days and has been kicking butt!  We started at the apartment at Rue Temple and ran across Paris East to West around the Opera and through the Arc again (nearly killing ourselves on the huge traffic roundabout) out to the main Paris park on the West edge of the city.  This park just takes your breath away, one of those absolute perfect parks full of lakes and amazing trees.  We ran through the park around lake Inferieur and back through the city.  It got a bit interesting in the city since everybody was out now for the holiday tomorrow.  great run and amazing to be a runner and be able to cover so much of a city in so little time!

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
202.3065.5211.105.00283.92
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