Year 2, Week 26, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 185.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.7

Today's food: yogurt, grapes, apple, orange, roll, pork and tomato sauce with bow tie pasta, peanuts, chocolate bunny, tall orange juice

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 26, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 185.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.6

Today's food: 2 rolls, yogurt, taco bell munchito box (taco, burrito supreme, loaded potato munchito, cinnamon twists, large baja blast), chili mac, tall orange juice, popcorn, chocolate bunny, 4 oreos

Today's exercise: a weak 2 miles (didn't feel well)

Year 2, Week 26, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 186.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.5

Today's food: mexican fruitcake, quizno's (2 flatbread sammies™, cheetos, xl mountain dew), 4 pieces pizza, tall orange juice, mexican fruitcake

Today's exercise: 4 miles @ 9:10

Year 2, Week 26, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 186.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.4

Today's food: mexican fruitcake, cheez-its, apple, orange, leftover chicken cacciatore, 2 rolls, tall orange juice, nachos, popcorn

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 25 Wrapup

So, this week I did 4 on Tuesday, 6 on Wednesday, and 20 on Saturday. That's 30 for the week, which is not a whole lot, but is my highest weekly mileage since the middle of February.

I did the 20 miles with my cousins David and Jimmy, and I invited Carlos along again, too. As per usual for Carlos, he wanted to go quite a lot faster than what we could manage, and he took off after we had only gone about 5 miles. He ended up turning around a little earlier than we did, so he probably only did 18.5 miles total. But still, he probably finished a good 45 minutes ahead of us at least.

Our run was just fine, finishing in an average of 9:47/mile. We left at 5:00, so it wasn't too hot yet. We had to stop here and there for Dave to stretch out his knee, but never for more than a few seconds. We also ran into my dad on his bike on the trail, so he rode along and talked with us for a while. We also saw President Elmer from our stake presidency out on his bike as well.

Year 2, Week 25, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 184.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.2

Today's food: mexican fruitcake, leftover cassoulet, barbeque pork chop, green beans, smashed potatoes, roll, viddy's treats (5 peanut butter/hershey's kiss cookies, chocloate cake), mexican fruitcake

Today's exercise: day of rest

Year 2, Week 25, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 185.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.2

Today's food: 1/2 bagel with cream cheese, 80 oz gatorade, jelly belly sports beans™, nachos, chinese buffet, chicken cacciatore soup, garlic bread, piece of mexican fruitcake

Today's exercise: 20 miles @ 9:47

Year 2, Week 25, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 183.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.1

Today's food: wendy's (double, medium fries), cookie, meatloaf, smashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, 1/2 bagel with cream cheese, microwave popcorn

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 25, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 183.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.2

Today's food: 7 donuts, 3 cookies, leftover cassoulet, tall orange juice, 1/2 donut, 6 lemon cookies

Today's exercise: 6 miles @ 9:10

Year 2, Week 25, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 183.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.3

Today's food: 2 donuts, 2 more donuts, leftover grilled lamb, 4 clementines, 5 donuts, orange chicken and green beans, donut, tall orange juice, 5 donuts

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 25, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 184.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.4

Today's food: yogurt, handful of cheese popcorn, manuel's (chips and salsa, chile relleno, cheese enchilada), 2 clementines, 2 whole wheat cheese crackers, london broil, green beans, leftover cassoulet, tall grapefruit slice, bits and pieces of the homemade donuts I was making totalling probably 4 donuts worth

Today's exercise: 4 miles @ 9:10

Year 2, Week 25, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 186.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.5

Today's food: yogurt, banana, 2 clementines, kettle korn, white cheddar popcorn, tall glass of grapefruit slice, 2 ham and cheese snaks

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 24 Wrapup

This week I went out for 4 miles on Tuesday, 6 miles on Thursday, then 18 on Saturday. For the Saturday run, I invited along Carlos, a guy in my ward who's way faster than I am. We were averaging about a 9 minute pace for the first 12 miles, which I knew was a little too fast for me to finish 18. So, after 12, he took off and started racing back to the car, and I finished the last 6 in something closer to a 10:30-11:00 average. The average for the run as a whole ended up being 9:59.

Year 2, Week 24, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 184.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.2

Today's food: lemon poppyseed muffin, 2 grapefruit, bratwurst, tall lemonade, roast chicken, 3 helpings of chicken-drenched potatoes, salad, corn on the cob, rainbow sherbet, cinnamon crisp

Today's exercise: day of rest

Year 2, Week 24, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 183.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.2

Today's food: lemon poppyseed muffin, 1 1/2 liters gatorade, gel, 3 pancakes, 2 strips bacon, hash browns, tall lemonade, chocolate bunny, 2 bowls cassoulet, lemon poppyseed muffin, tall lemonade

Today's exercise: 18 miles @ 9:59

* before running. 182.0 after running and gatorade and diet dr pepper and water and gel

Year 2, Week 24, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 182.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.3

Today's food: yogurt, taco bell (quesadilla grande, crunchy taco, large baja blast), bratwurst, curly fries, 4 1/2 mini lemon poppyseed muffins

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 24, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 183.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.5

Today's food: yogurt, orange, 2 mini reese's peanut butter cups, lamb sandwich, tall orange juice, peanuts

Today's exercise: 6 miles @ 9:16

Year 2, Week 24, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 184.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.6

Today's food: yogurt, grapes, orange, 2 pieces oven-fried fish, asparagus, mashed potatoes, rainbow sherbet, popcorn, handful of mini reese's cups

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 24, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 185.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.7

Today's food: yogurt, biscuit, banana, grilled leg of lamb, mashed potatoes, asparagus, cinnamon bears, tall orange juice

Today's exercise: 4 miles @ 9:16

Year 2, Week 24, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 186.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.6

Today's food: m&ms, famous dave's leftovers (ribs, baked beans, fries), ham, mashed potatoes, biscuit, green beans, cinnamon bears, tall orange juice

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 23 Wrapup

I had a race on Saturday, so I thought I would take it kind of easy this week. Unfortunately, things conspired to turn "taking it easy" into "no running at all this week".

On Saturday was the "Everyone Runs Catalina State Park 5.5 & 10.75 Mile Trail Race". A couple of months ago, a few guys from my ward had made a plan to all do the 5.5. I thought it might interfere with my marathon training a bit, but figured I would do it anyway and call it a rest week or something. At the time, I had no idea of knowing that almost all of my weeks would be rest weeks.

Friday night, it started getting really cold, and by early Saturday morning, it was raining a lot. I was concerned that it was going to be too cold, the trail was going to be too muddy, and I was going to be too tired because I couldn't get to sleep at an early enough hour the night before. If I hadn't already pre-registered, I most certainly would not have actually gone.

Since I had pre-registered and was intent on getting my free (i.e. already paid for) tech shirt, I dragged my sorry butt out of bed at 5:30 and drove up to Catalina State Park, which is about a half hour away. It rained a little on the drive up, and by the time I got to the shuttle loading zone, it was raining pretty hard. I waited in my car for the shuttle bus to get there, and thought that if the rain didn't stop by the time the bus got there, I was going home. The rain did stop, but about 10 seconds later, it started hailing. Fortunately, that only lasted about a minute, and everything was clear by the time the bus got there.

When I was hanging out before the race start, I saw Adam Lebrecht and his dad, Steve. The Lebrechts were our next door neighbors growing up, and I hadn't seen either of them since Adam's wedding a few years ago. They're both serious runners, and Adam had come down from his home in Avondale to visit his folks for Easter and to run the race.

It was great catching up with them. When I was a kid, Steve and a few people in the neighborhood would go out running every morning. Every once in a while, maybe once or twice a year, my dad would decide it was time for me & him to start exercising. He'd make me get up early with him and go out and run with the running group. I could never keep up, and usually couldn't run more than about 1/4 mile before petering out. My dad's commitment would usually only last about 3 days, then it was back to my usual slovenly ways. Since I started running seriously, I always hoped I would run into one of those guys from the neighborhood so I could tell them, "Look, I'm a runner now". It's probably best that I saw Steve at an actual race, because had he not seen me actually cross the finish line, I'm not sure that he would have actually believed it.

Right before the race started, I saw Matt Rhodes from my ward. Evidently, everyone else hadn't bothered registering thinking it would be full, or else just didn't want to come on such a cold rainy day. I hadn't run with Matt before, so I didn't know if he was good or what. He's skinny enough that I thought he might be pretty fast. I still wanted to beat him for ward bragging rights, but with all of my recent non-running, I didn't know if that was in the cards.

The race started, and we took off down the trail. It really was a nice course. There were only a couple of stretches that were narrow enough to be single track, and one really steep section with a bunch of stairs. But, other than that, it was pretty gentle desert paths. The trail wasn't muddy except in a couple of spots where you had to run around some standing water in a wash. I led Matt for maybe the first mile and a half, but then we turned around into a downhill stretch and said he was going to take off to take advantage of the downhill. That was more than fine with me, because at that point I was nursing a strong side stitch and some non-specific bowel pain.

Since I didn't know how hilly the trail would be, I had decided that just finishing at under a 10:00 pace would be enough for me. I had every intention of running the whole way, but just after the halfway mark, I came to one of those "no, I don't think so" hills that everyone was walking up. After I got up the hill, I was feeling a little better, so I picked up the pace a little bit, finishing just a couple of minutes behind Matt.

I ended up with 51:52, good enough for a 9:25 pace and 84th out of 325 overall. This got me 9th out of 17th in my division. It was not a good race for me, but it was better than could be expected given my recent lack of training.

Afterwards, they had smoothies and a mexican breakfast (eggs, beans, tortillas). The line for smoothies was pretty long considering how cold it still was. The line for the breakfast was even longer, but it was totally worth it. The salsa was quite possibly the best I've ever had in my whole life.

So, overall, it's a good race, but there's some definite logistical problems to sort out. Parking's very limited at the start, plus there's a $6 entrance fee to get into the park, so they were pushing the shuttle service pretty hard. That's great, except that after the race, there was no place for the shuttle bus to turn around, so you had to walk a half mile down the road to catch it. With my luck, I walked half a mile down the road and got on the bus, only to find that the bus driver was going to try to get up to the finish line and turn around there anyway. This was a great idea, except there still wasn't a place to turn around, and we had to sit on the bus for about 15 more minutes until some booths were moved so that the bus could turn around. All this to get to my car which was really only about 2 miles down the road.

On top of all that, there was nothing to do with your belongings once you got to the race. If they really want people to shuttle away from the cars on such a cold day, they need to have a bag check to check your sweatshirt, poncho, gloves or whatever. I think the fact that it was so could made more people relucatant to leave their car, making more people try to drive in, making it more crowded at the finish, making it even less likely for the bus to be able to turn around. If I were to run this again, I wouldn't mess with the shuttle unless they fixed the way it works or did a bag check. As it was, I was lucky that I found Adam there, because I was able to throw my hoody into his car.

Year 2, Week 23, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 186.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.4

Today's food: marshmallow butterfly, grapes, easter dinner (ham, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, 2 rolls, deviled egg, apple pie), biscuit, easter candy

Today's exercise: day of rest

Year 2, Week 23, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 186.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.1

Today's food: smoothie, mexican breakfast (eggs with salsa, beans, tortilla), cinnamon bears, costco hot dog, samples, famous dave's (big barbeque sampler, hot fudge sundae)

Today's exercise: Everyone Runs Catalina State Park 5.5 Mile Trail Race

Year 2, Week 23, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 184.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.9

Today's food: carl's jr (western bacon cheeseburger, medium fries, medium dr. pepper), cinnamon bears, onion braised brisket, mashed potatoes, green beans, rainbow sherbet, 3 biscuits

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 23, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 184.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.8

Today's food: yogurt, burger king (2 bk burger shots™, med onion rings), spam sandwich, tall orange juice, last piece of the yellow cake, 8 oreos

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 23, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 183.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.7

Today's food: yogurt, 4 clementines, 3 thin mints, orange, coke pot roast with potato, big piece of cake, popcorn, tall grapefruit juice, 3 oreos

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 23, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 183.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.7

Today's food: donut, doritos, tall grapefruit juice, big piece of chocolate bundt cake, piece of yellow cake

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 23, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 183.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.8

Today's food: yogurt, orange, 4 clementines, 2 cookies, 4 thin mints, 7 donuts, orange glazed chicken, brown rice

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 22 Wrapup

This week was still really hard to get motivated to go running. I'm still totally not in the groove that I was in before, and it's still hard to imagine doing as much mileage as I used to. I'm especially discouraged when I think about the summer, and trying to do the long runs in the heat.

I didn't have much problem with that last year, but I think I was just too stupid to know better. I was such a new runner that I had to blindly follow my schedule, and that kept me going now matter how terrible the weather. Now, I feel like I know a little bit more, and I find myself rationalizing a bit more, telling myself it's okay to miss a little bit here and a little bit there, because I'm such a good runner that I'll be able to rely on the training base I already have. This somehow is ignoring the speed at which a good training base disappears.

I'm worrying a little about St. George, though. I thought it would be easier to train for than Park City, because St. George is later in the year. But, now that I look at it, I see September would be mostly taper, and the real big runs would be in July and August. That compares to June and July for Park City. Yeah, it's kind of strange arguing the benefits of 100 degree high in June versus a 109 degree high in July, but every little bit counts. Also to be factored in is the monsoon season, from early July to mid-August. St. George training would have me doing long runs through the entire thing, when Park City had me tapering by the time it got really bad.

I ran 7 miles on Tuesday, and again on Thursday. Then, I was planning on running 16 miles on Saturday, but I woke up late and didn't feel all that great. I was watching conference all day, and it felt like a Sunday anyway, so I briefly toyed with the idea of calling that my Sabbath and doing the run on Sunday. But, I woke up late on Sunday as well, so I was saved from my potential Sabbath-breaking. So, now, either one of two things will happen. Option 1: I'll wake up early and do my 16 miles on Monday or Tuesday. Or, Option 2: I will not run 16 miles. Anyone laying odds on what will happen?

Year 2, Week 22, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 183.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.9

Today's food: chili cheese fries, gummi worms, piece of mexican fruitcake, 2 steak snaks, 2 chicken enchiladas snaks, orange, microwave popcorn

Today's exercise: day of additional rest

Year 2, Week 22, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 182.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.9

Today's food: 2 grapefruits, piece of mexican fruitcake, homemade chips and salsa, gummi worms, small grapefruit juice, sour cream chicken enchiladas, root beer float, another piece mexican fruitcake

Today's exercise: day of rest (held on a saturday this week)

Year 2, Week 22, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 181.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.0

Today's food: yogurt, pork burrito, pear, tall grapefruit juice, london broil, smashed potatoes, 2 biscuits, big piece of mexican fruit cake

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 22, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 185.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.3

Today's food: grapes, pear, 2 clementines, orange, 1/2 spam sandwich, 2 pieces mexican fruitcake

Today's exercise: 7 miles @ 9:16

Year 2, Week 22, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 183.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.2

Today's food: grapefruit, lucky wishbone (fries, garlic toast, 4 chicken fingers, 2 shrimp, 10 steak fingers, large dr. pepper), pork chop in mustard sage sauce, green beans, gummi worms

Today's exercise: none