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

8 mile hill run on Little Mountain, Newton Park in Cache Valley. 

Spent the day on motorcycles on the Ben Lomond trail, Crest trail, and Ogden Canyon trails with my brothers.  Amazing country and a lot of fun.  I wrecked pretty good just 3 miles from the end and ripped up my arm pretty bad.  Lucky that was all, but shut down any chance of running.  We duct taped the largest cuts together and superglued the rest.  I'm taking the chance this will be good enough as I don't want to pay $150 for stitches.

So much for running today

Went to work with the worst bandaged arm in history.  All I had besides the basic bandages was socks, so I cut off the toes of one and slid it up my arm.  Actually works pretty good and this morning I was able to get to a Walgreens to pick up some bandages.  It's likely that this means I won't run the Outdoor Track Nationals Friday and Saturday in Chicago because I cant really swing my left arm. Did a really slow 11 miler on the best day I have seen in San Fran in a long time. 

Long run in St. Louis at 102 degrees at 2pm.  Holy %$@#!  This was a hard run, just about to total exhaustion.  The arm is doing good and the swelling is down, all good news for continued running.  Official results came back today for the half on Saturday, 1:10:45, a PR by over a minute for me and since this is almost exactly the same course as the AM half that I ran an extra half mile on a few weeks ago for a 1:12, I'm pretty certain that I would have broken 1:10 that week.  Curious to see what my times will be in the next two halfs since they are not as aided.  With the recovery rates that I have this year, I could be in the best shape yet for some fall marathon PRs.

With an overnight in Chicago I was hoping to be able to go over and run the 5000 today in the Masters Track Championships but yesterday they changed the schedule to 11:05am which was one hour before my flight.  I still considered it, but finally had to drop the idea and just go run on the lake shore trail.  If I have time this weekend I'll be back to run the 1500 Sunday.

8 miles easy today. Getting some flack from the arm.

Last recovery run before a heavy training cycle of two weeks. 7:30 pace. My arm was a bit red today so I went into the clinic to get a script for antibiotics, just in case. I met one of the few good doctors left on earth. He said the arm was fine, no infection, and recommended no antibiotics. That's such a rare thing to see anymore when everything is over prescribed. He did give me a script for some if it got worse and told me the best thing for it would be some hard training. Serious? Then he said since I hadn't had stitches that it would heal quicker if he re cut it and steri-stripped it. I closed my eyes and told him to go for it. He better be right and not just teaching me a lesson. Anyways, ten minute visit and I was out of there,

Too much going on with all this to attempt getting to Chicago for the Masters Track stuff. Maybe next year..

One hour of Yoga at the gym which continues to impress me with the feeling of balance and the calming influence on me that it has.

I received an interesting invite to the AFC Half Marathon in two weeks. The same guy has won the masters div in the last five years. John R, the race director for the Fountain to Mountain 15k. The Masters WR for the half was set here, although I understand there's some controversy about this since M. Hussein was given that in 2002 in the Philly Half. The record has stood at AFC since 1982 I believe. Anyhow, it would be good opportuni to run a rolling, honest course with zero drop in elevation. Both Hussein and John R. will be running it. Usually invites like these are set ups, I've discovered, since directors pick a group and enjoy watching the pain. I'm not in shape for a half but I'm going to run it. Nothing like a little pain.