dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

So, today I ran a little race close to my parent's house.  There was a possibility that one fast guy would show up, but otherwise I knew I would be running alone.  I was actually kind of dissapointed when the fast guy didn't show up (his name is Joe Gray) as it is difficult to motivate oneself when running alone.  It also didn't help matters that I came down with a cold yesterday and I wasn't feeling 100% and the wind was gusting and blowing to high heaven.  Before the race I also met a fellow blogger, Dale who I had never met before.

The race started and I took off and was alone for the entire race.  The course was an out and back with a slight uphill during the first half, and of course a slight downhill on the way back.  The wind was gusting off and on the entire race, but it was the worst during the second mile and the first part of the third mile.  I started out the race running about a 5:00 effort and ran the first mile in 5:08.  I then hit the 5k turn-around in 8:09 and hit the 2 mile mark in 10:38 (5:30 second mile... ouch!).  I made it to the 5 mile turn-around in 13:20 (2:42 for a half mile).  I missed the 3 mile marker, but I made it to 4 miles in 21:03, (7:43 from 2.5 - 4 miles) and then finished with a 5:02 last mile to finish in 26:05 by my watch (official timing was messed up so I never found out an official time).  I timed the last 200 meters of the race, which were on the track in 34 seconds.

So, not as fast as I really would have liked, but considering the wind and being just a little under the weather I think I did fine for a mid winter race with no competition.  Hopefully things will go more smoothly for me as the year progresses.

I felt really gross today.  I barely made it under 9:00 pace for the run.

still sick, so no running today.

I was feeling better today, so I decided to do the full 10 just like normal.  It ended up being a bad decision as I felt horrible the entire rest of the day.

probably could have run 6 miles or so, but I decided to take the day off instead and try to get rid of whatever it is I have as quickly as possible.

I was feeling a lot better today, although I still have a lot of nasal congestion

No problems today.  Coughing a lot more now as the flem in my throat seems to be clearing up

Ran a 5 mile tempo fairly slow.  In the afternoon my knee started to flare up some more

Ran another 5 mile tempo fairly slow.  I think that running tempo runs of longer than a mile or so is bad for my knee, even when I run them slow.  So, probably no more tempos in the next few weeks.

easy run.

Easy run.  The cough and nasal congestion seem to finally be getting better

Nothing special happened

Ran a hard 400 today in about 71.  It felt harder than it should have

Ran 5x400 today with 400 rest.  Splits were 70, 70, 67, 68, 70.  Sasha requested that we slow down just a little on the last repeat, thus the slight slowdown.  Otherwise the run was pretty relaxed.

Today's run was super slow.  The trail was wet, and the water was semi-frozen, which made for very slippery conditions even though there was no visible ice.  Total time of about 1:27:xx for 10.2 miles

I ran from my house so that I could make it back in time to get to work.  The trail was still super slippery, but not as bad as yesterday.  1:24:30ish for 10.1 miles.

I ran from home again today.  Finished in about 1:21:xx

Just under 1:21:00 for 10.1 miles this morning.  I am feeling better than I have in a while from a health perspective (both from being sick and from knee and foot problems), but I decided to hold off on running any doubles this week so that I can study a little more for the GRE, which I take on Monday.

I slept in this morning because I have been getting less sleep lately due to GRE study.  In the afternoon, Kimia was feeling sick and she begged me to stay at home with her.  I told her that I would stay with her until she fell asleep (she went to bed around 6:30) thinking that I would have plenty of time to run after she was asleep.  However, she didn't fall asleep for good until after 9:00 and by then it was too late.  All of this makes up for a pretty pathetic start to my running in the new year.  Maybe this will teach me to get to bed on time so that I can get my run finished in the morning before life gets in the way at night.

It snowed during the night, so today's run was slow again.  However, snow is less slippery than slush, so we were still able to make decent time for the run.  1:57:12 for 15.2 miles.  I ran hard for about 5 seconds at one point to see how slippery the snow was, and it wasn't too bad.  Later on we ran a 400 hard and I finished in 79 seconds.  The effort was probably worth about 10 seconds faster.

So, I have not updated my blog in a long long time.  In order to get caught up a little quicker I am just going to make one blanket entry per week until I get mostly caught up again.  I won't be too specific, because if I want to see my specific workouts during this period I can always just look at Sasha's blog.  So anyhow, here it goes.

65 miles this week plus a little extra, but I can't remember how much.  15 mile long run on Saturday.  I took the GRE on Monday, and I scored 750 quantitative, and 590 verbal (1340 total out of 1600).  I found out later that I scored 5.0 on the written portion of the exam.  Approximately 83rd percentile for all three sections of the test.  I was excited about this because the average score that BYU masters students in Exercise Science receive on the test is about 1050 combined with just under a 4.0 on the written.