Fuel SMART,Train HARD, Run FAST.

6:30am- Nice trail run on BST with Kam.

Both of my Garmins are dead as of today. My 305 died after Ogden and my old timer died this morning. Also worthy of noting, my hair just looks silly today. My hot curlers also gave up the ghost as I got ready for work this morning. A lot to take in today!

8 miles on Davis. I didn't lope as much as usual today since I tried to run down a couple that looked to be going a decent pace. Unfortunatly, they only went out a couple miles before turning around. If I run Garmin-less, I need to find a way to make a game out of it. At least my early effort to catch them made some of the time pass.  Aprox.7:40's AP with the last mile at ~6:30's, downhill.

Garmin 305 now works. Tender mercy.

6:00am- Beautiful morning! I ran down Main this morning without much of a plan. I didn't feel like any speed work so I just picked up the pace slightly after the first mile for 4 miles, then easy up the hill home. 7:18ap. 

Came home to get ready for work and found a Gatorade recovery drink in the fridge. What? A day of tender mercies!

2 mile hike/walk after dinner with family and pup. We walked up to the kids school to let them play on the playground for a while. Favorite family summer activity. Wish we could have this weather year round!

8 miles up and down Bountiful pushing my jogging stroller. Decided to "run" errands rather than drive. Stopped for a little DI action. Quite the line, looks like I picked the prime time! 

I had speed work planned this morning, so the kids and I did a little warm-up to celebrate the last day of school. We literally laughed our heads off for 45 minutes as we "Pracercised" around the house and yard. Getting ready for the last day of school seemed over rated. My favorite is the Pracercise gallop near the end. "Cut the noose and let loose!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-50GjySwew&feature=youtube_gdata_player

After I dropped off the kids at school, I pushed the jogging stroller (yes, there was a kid in it) for a hilly 3 miles. Then to the TM for a little speed work. Since signing up for a couple 5k's, I decided to do a little speed so I 'm not tasting pennies, come race day.

Some Pracercise action combine with 5.5 hours of interrupted sleep and two delicious chocolate cupcakes for breakfast, meant that good things were in store!

I eased into the speed with a progressive mile...

1 X 1600 @ 7:07.

2(400, 800, 1600) >3 min rest/jog. Each respective split was @ 1:20 (5:20), 2:51 (5:42) and 6:07.

I used the pace calculator for 5k training to determine paces. The 800's were much harder than the 400 and 1600 for some reason. Sweated bullets!

3 mile hilly walk with family.

5:45am- My body was soo tired and heavy today. I wasn't sleepy, just couldn't get my body to move. I hoped the track would inspire me, so I ran down to check it out. That's about all I did there. It looked nice. I moved on to run down Main Street. Ran 9 miles with some pick ups at the end. 4x3 min with equal rest. I really had to give some effort into these. Paces were all over the place due to the ups and downs on the way back. 6:20, 6:18, 6:38, 7:30. Variable inclines on first two, last two uphill- especially last climb. 

So hot today. I took a shower, but never cooled down. I made it to work on time. That's about the only thing I did right today. I was all sorts of a mess. Lot's of content free information shared with my patients. I could not articulate for the life of me! Wow. Then the crazy laughs started after lunch. You know the kind when you loose your mind? Yep, that one. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA! 

6 slugs and 1 dead body.

Today I went jogging with Joss, then swimming later in the days with the kids.

6:50am- 8 miles/8:05 ap on Main. Last few miles pushed up the hill.

This week has been weird. I felt so dead for my two previous runs along with a sore/tight hamstring on Tuesday's run. I decided to take two days off of running  and stayed active with my kids instead.  I also used this time to being reading, "Running Within," A great sports psychology book. My two favorite things. I've also put a lot of thought into a training agenda for this summer. 

Some not so interesting thoughts- 

I've had SGM on my mind. I really didn't want summer running to be centered around marathon training again, but shorter/faster distances instead. After some thought, I came to the conclusion not to make SGM my main training focus this summer. There are too many factors that go into it. This was clear at Ogden. So in order to kill two + birds with one stone, I'm going to work on bringing down my times from 5k-half until Hobble is over, then focus my energy on SGM with the time left.  Obviously the risk is that it wont be enough to PR in the marathon, but PR's in the other distances will be okay this time. I just don't want to put all my eggs in one basket for this next training cycle. Figures of speech, love 'em.

So, more 10k-half  workouts with long runs on weekends to keep my endurance up. I've considered talking to Melody's coach and  I also picked Sasha's brain the other day.It's clear I need to bring up my weekly mileage. Sasha provided some good pointers that I'll certainly need to work up to. Last year I was averaging 3-4 days of running a week (40 mi peak.) Now, I've built up to 5 days a week (~50 mi peak), but 6 will be a challenge. The idea is to run less on the other days so I can sustain 6 days of consecutive running. I really value a cross training day in the middle of the week and Sunday's off. Perhaps I can still do that, but have higher mileage days on the other days. 

Now for a tangible plan... 

Garmin teased me. It is dead again. Time to send both in for real this time.

6 miles on Davis. I've just now realized this route is not so fun in the summer. No access to bathrooms or drinking fountains. Maybe if I looked at a map, I could locate some resources. Lucky for today, 6 miles did not merit a stop.

Nothing interesting about running, but work....well, it was a very bizarre day full of threats. At least it makes the day go by faster. 

.5 mile warm up with plyometrics.

1 mile at marathon pace, then straight into a 4 mile tempo @ 6:30ap (26:00).

5 mi total @ 6:42ap

.5 cool down with dog.

Stayed within the limits of the pace calculator and effort felt comfortably hard, so I knew I was doing it right. I could also tell that I have lost some fitness. Felt jiggly. Rushed my wu and cd a bit because I was due for a salon visit. I went blonde-ish-er.... voilà!

Easy run through neighboring streets. I expected to be a little tired from yesterday, but felt no different. Good.

I'm debating on running Des News Half or Timp Half. Any thoughts on which one you would do?

I wasn't too excited to run intervals, but when my Sketcher's Go2 shoes arrived this morning, that changed! I'm very impressed with those flashy shoes!

Yasso's 800 workout 

1.5 mile wu 

10x800 (400 jog/rest)

Splits- 2:58, 2:56, 2:56, 2:56, 2:56, 2:54, 2:54, 2:54, 2:50, 2:46 (2:54ap)

 .5 cd

This workout was hard, but not terrible. I'm happy with the results. I hit the average pace I was hoping for today. I know based on the results, Yasso predicts I can run a 2:54 flat marathon (give or take five mins). I'm not sure I believe that right now, but aided, yes! Although they got a little harder at the end,  I felt better for the last four than I did for the first six. I guess it took some time to get into a good rhythm. I'm hoping to repeat this workout two more times before October and bring my average pace down 10 more seconds.

I've also noticed that for the past two speed/tempo workouts, my lungs have been more tired than my body. It seems this is usually the other way around. I need to keep working quality cardio miles.

I'm a not so hot, sweaty mess. Time to primp up for my hot date tonight. Today my husband and I celebrate our 12 year anniversary!  Good job to us!:)

Today was tempo day, wind edition. Sometimes it favored and other times hindered. I could never tell which way it was blowing! I know, crazy.

I read an interesting article yesterday found here http://www.runnersworld.com/workouts/are-8-minute-intervals-uniquely-effective

I thought I would give a few a try. Eight minute tempos seem much harder than 4 mins or 16 mins, at least I thought it did. Holding the pace and concentrating that long was the challenging part. Some serious hills in parts of the tempo that made me hit my VO2 max, especially on the last climb. Felt good about my effort on these today. It also evened out nicely, the tempos ended up being 4 mins of uphill and 4 mins of flat or downhill.

3 mile wu, mostly down hill towards South Main Street. Then worked back up for the tempo workout.

4 mins@ 5:56 (.68) slight down

3 min rest/bathroom break

8 mins @ 7:35ap for.56 long uphill, and 6:11ap for.61mi with slight down

2 min jog rest

8 mins@ 6:11ap for .90 (slight down) and 7:53ap for .31mi with steep uphill finish.

204 bpm  

Army fitness test. Passed in all areas except sit up test. 1 full sit up every 2 seconds is something to work up to for twos mutes. I always figure my abs are pretty much goners anyway after stretching out three times. Needs improvement, that's for sure.

Fun run up at Mueller park with Allie, Andy, and Kam. Nice weather followed by a nice river soak. I love summer running!!

Tired. My friend called me in the middle of the night since she was going into labor. I went and picked up her kids and transitioned them into makeshift beds at my house. Her kids are wonderful, but I stayed up most of the night with her toddler. It was was more me than him. I kept checking on him, thinking he was crying. I remember those days not to long ago. I didn't want a kid to die in the night on my watch. Those thoughts appear very possible at night only to me:)

My sister is also in town with her kids. We had 7 little kids running around the house all day. Lunch was epic feeding those mouths. We were able to bribe a sitter to sneak off for an hour to exercise.

I could almost consider today's workout a duathlon. She agreed to ride a mountain bike on the BST trail while I ran. The hills and rocks were making her nervous, so we switched several times. We decided to find our way onto the road. We weaved in and out of neighborhoods and ended up circling the cemetery with water and shade. Lots of hills and lots of laughs today! Good day:)

4x400@1:28-1:29. 5 miles total.

Light sleep- 4h 30m, Deep sleep- 2h 1m  

Fun race put on by Allie and James. It was fun to see other bloggers too!

Today I was hoping for sub 6:15 pace but would have liked to be around 6:00, if I could. Although my time was fine-ish, the effort was harder than I would have liked. Dang it. I was super tired after 800m. My body felt like a Zombie from waking up till now. I took a caffeine pill to help, it just made me hyperverbal and annoying. Oh well. 

There looked to be around 30 people total, but not all running the 5k. Most were running a relay. I was either last or first, not sure. I think only one other girl was running the full 5k. I ran alone and focused on how tired I was rather than how well I was doing:)  I need to run more 5k's to toughen up! My times were the opposite of negative splits-  6:06,6:15,6:20, 5:52 (.15). Talented, huh?:)

Afterwards I went on a nostalgic jaunt around Sugarhouse park, running the state high school XC course. Ah, the memories. I even finished on the track. 

I came home to a bleeding toddler. My husband was rough housing with the kids and Landon hit his head on the fireplace. Luckily, Steve had Lidocaine and sutures on hand so we were able to bypass the dreaded Instacare. Every kid needs their head stitched up at least once.

Busy day, we are heading out to visit family for the weekend! Don't rob us, our poodle-of-sorts dog will be here.

Hope everyone has a good weekend full or racing and running! 

 (Ls 3h 3m, ds 2h 22m)

MERCY.

A day of rest. I felt completely wiped out after yesterday's race. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought I ran a marathon without the soreness. Allergies or a cold kicked in shortly after. I woke up with plans to go to Idaho for a farewell, but decided to stay behind. I just felt completely dead. I knew lack of sleep was the main contributor (I've been on a sleep kick obsession lately). So my husband and kids left for the day. I woke up at 10:50am and felt so disoriented. The time didn't make sense to me. I think the last time I slept in that late was pre-kids!  HR was slightly elevated up 5 pts at 48. Rested throughout the day and feeling better.

Another night of rest then ready to tackle another week of training.