Week of 3-5-12: 93 miles, 14500' gain.

Monday: 14 miles, 2000' gain, 1:45 to 1:50-ish?, JCC to city creek on shoreline, back up to the meadow above city creek, and back to JCC along a somewhat indirect road route. Took the first 2 miles pretty easy and then tempoed from there. This was by far the hardest effort run I've had in quite some time. I don't recall the overall time, but my split coming out of city creek was 54, and that's after an easy first 2 miles, despite this typically getting split in around 62 most days lately.

Tuesday: 12 miles, no gain, 1:23:xx, treadmill, 1% decline (to make it more like at sea level). Felt pretty easy, made sure to not pick it up at the end, even though I wanted to.

Wednesday: 4 miles, no gain, didn't get nearly enough sleep the night before, tired, just a very light jog with Holly at about 10 minute pace.

Thursday: 15 miles, 2500' gain, 2:13. JCC to City Creek and Back with Adrian Shipley. Took it out in 62 and just got lazy on the way back, finishing with a second half split in 71, when an even effort would be only about 3-4 min slower on the way back. Haha...

Friday: Similar to the theme of the week, not enough sleep, stayed at work later than expected, and had to wake up early for Saturday's long run, so I unfortunately took the day off.

Saturday: 34 miles, 7000' gain, 5:10, with Adrian Shipley. Hogle Zoo via slightly long route to JCC to City Creek via long route to radio towers, to end of this chunk of Shoreline Trail in Bountiful and back, same way. Splits were 2:30 and 2:40, but we ate almost all of the food in the 2nd half and walked while eating, not to mention that the 2nd half should be slightly slower by around 3 minutes by my calculations, so I'd say this was pretty even run. I had this run in mind for quite awhile since it's a full out and back of the longest local complete section of the Shoreline Trail, but just never previously got out the door to get it done. Felt pretty decent, but in the last hour, my lack of electrolytes caught up to me and I just felt like I had a lot less pep in my step. The high temperature was predicted at 58, but later in the day on the way back from the run it was 62, so I'm guessing we hit a high of 63 or 64, which. While that's not hot by any measure, it is hot enough for me to sweat out lots of sodium over 5+ hours of running. I definitely didn't feel quite as good as I did at the end of last weekend's 37 miles / 10k' gain long day, but last weekend was much colder and I think that the simple act of taking electrolytes and drinking a slight bit more would have made the entire run feel completely fine. Oh, and my nutrition for the run was 38 ounces of Powerade (had about 40, but gave a couple ounces to Adrian, who didn't bring as much fluids), one reese's big cup, a caramello, and half a 100 grand bar. Gotta love the simple sugars on long runs like this; I really think they work better than all the complex carbs in gels (and they taste a lot better...)

Sunday: 14 miles, 3000' gain, 2:00, with Holly. Bountiful to radio towers down to city creek, slightly out the front, and back. Took it easy, legs felt pretty decent, but I was a bit dehydrated right from the start and the temps were around 60 again, so the run was less pleasant than it could have been.

Holly on the trail out of city creek, during today's run:



Weekly totals: 93 miles, 14500' gain. A little less gain than previously and 1 mile less than last week. Once again, a large focus of the week was on doing a high quality long run of at least 5 hours, so I was pretty pleased with the week overall, even if I intended to get above 100 and missed out on that due to one missed day and one very short day.

For next week, I'll plan to do at least 100. I have 301 miles in the last 3 weeks and feel that 4 weeks with over 400 miles would be good to have in my legs right before I taper for the Moab 12 hour. I still don't really have a definite goal or expectation for that race, but I would like to be able to run relatively strongly for the full 12 hours, whatever that means.

The lower country is getting pretty clear of snow right now and while I'm sure we'll get more before summer, this ought to be a good week to run the lower trails in the Wasatch Mountains (ie, what I've been running lately):


Music for the week is the Japanese band Koenjihyakkei. Definitely an acquired taste:
BECTTEM POLLT

Oh, and one other point of interest is how destroyed my first pair of New Balance MT00s is after 281 miles of use. I plan to buy more of them since they are the best feeling pair of shoes I've ever run in, so I'm going to load up the inside with anti-blister pads under the weak spots, which has prevented similarly thin shoes from falling apart on me in the past. Hopefully I can get at least twice as many miles per pair in the future by strengthening the weak spots...