dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

I ran 10 miles this morning, running most of it on the grass barefoot.  I threw a few (3) surges in while I was running on the grass, although they weren't more than about 5-7 seconds each and were just to get my legs moving.

I am in Arizona right now visiting my parents as I am on spring break.  I ran 12 miles on the canal near my parents house.  Temps were in the high 70's when I started my run, so I imagine it was over 80 by the time I finished.  1:28:01 for 12 miles.

I ran out on the canal again, and during the run I ran a workout of 400-800-1600-800-400.  Distances were all approximate because I didn't have any markers on the trail to measure the repeats, and I imagine that for the most part I went a little long on my repeats.  Near the end of the run I ended up running one more hard 400 just to get my legs moving a little more.  Total of 14 miles in 1:37:48.

I felt tired today.  My legs just didn't have much in them, so I ran pretty slow and finished 12 miles in 1:31:39.  It was also hot.  Both yesterday and today temperatures hit a high of 90, and I went running during the hottest part of the day, so at best I was running in temperatures that were in the high 80's.

I felt a lot better today than I did yesterday.  Temps were only in the mid 70's when I finished, so that may have been part of it, but my legs felt like they had more spring in them too.  I hit the halfway mark of my run in 44:00 (vs 46:22 yesterday) and I maintained the same pace until about 9.5 miles.  Then, a lady came out onto the canal riding her bike and I was feeling feisty, so I decided to pace myself off of her.  She didn't start out too fast (maybe 5:40 pace) but eventually it felt like I was going about 5:00 pace, and maybe a little faster.  Eventually she started talking to me because she couldn't believe that I was going so fast, and we talked for a bit (while still moving close to 5:00 pace) until I had to turn off to go home.  Total of 12 miles in 1:23:37, with the last approximate 3 miles in 17:41 (some of this was running hard, and some of it was slow).

Today our stake put on a 5k as a big stake activity.  They had a pancake breakfast with eggs, sausage, bananas, and juice/milk after the race.  I got a gallon of gatorade and a granola bar as prizes for winning.  

I gave the granola bar away, and I don't plan on drinking the gatorade, but all in all I think that for a little "fun run" this race had more to offer than a lot of the 20-30 dollar 5k's out there that offer little to nothing to their finishers (lots of food here), and only give the "good" prizes in the raffle (thankfully no raffle here, despite being in Vegas).  They also had prizes for the ward with the most people that participated, for the ward with the most primary children participating, as well as some other miscellaneous awards (I was actually hoping to get the bubbles as my prize instead of the gatorade, but oh well).  Overall, I liked this race, because the focus was on the race (and breakfast) not on the raffle (and the race).

To top everything off, this race was free (thank you tithing funds) although I got the feeling that there really weren't many expenses other than for the food, as most everything else (labor, equipment, etc) seemed to be donated.  If one of those 20-30 dollar a head races put on the same kind of race I would bet that the entrance fee money would be more than enough to provide everything we had today.

Anyhow, as for the race, it was what it was, a "fun run" with minimal competition, an approximate distance, and no mile markers.  That was to be expected as it was put on by people that had never put on a race before, and these people were not runners.  The race started off, and I immediately went to the front.  Temperatures at the start of the race were perfect (mid 50's), but it was pretty windy.  On the plus side, we were running through neighborhoods, so the wind was blocked to a degree by the houses and trees, minimizing its effect, however the wind still slowed the race down a bit.  The race was an out and back that was mostly flat, but had a couple mild hills.  The course turned enough that there was a mix of headwind and tailwind during each half of the race, however there was definitely more headwind during the second half of the race (thus more tailwind during the first half).

I am fairly sure that the race was long but I am not sure by how much.  What I do know is that despite an honest effort, and what seemed like more tailwind on the way out I hit the halfway mark in 8:03 when I felt like I should have turned around at about 7:45.  On the way back, since I felt it was long, I wasn't as precise in following the line that had been chalked on the road and the distance was shorter (thus the equal time for the second half despite having more headwind on the return trip).  After getting home I used the course tool to measure the course on the way out and I ended up measuring it to be 1.6 miles (3.2 miles total).  I know that the course tool is not very accurate, but in this case I think it is accurate enough to know that the course was long.  Since I cut some corners on the way back I figure that I probably ended up running about 3.15 miles.

So, even adjusting for length, I ran this race in the low 15:50's, which is fairly slow for me.  The wind is probably mostly to blame, despite the fact that I did get a tailwind during some portions of the race.  I figure that the wind cost me about 20-30 seconds over the course of the race, but who knows if that is accurate or not.

After the race was over I ran the course again as a cool-down, while looking for Kimia (she was supposed to be walking the course but turned around early to see the finish and then missed it because she was inside).  After eating some food, and waiting for awards we drove home to put Anita down for a nap.  After bumming around at home for about 20 min or so, I finally headed out the door again to finish my run for the day.  I ended up running a 6 mile tempo to finish 20 miles.  Approximate mile splits for the tempo were: 11:53 for 2 miles, 5:54 for 1.05 miles (5:37 pace), 10:48 for 2 miles, 4:55.  The first 2 miles were almost all right into a nasty headwind, the third mile was a mixture of headwind and tailwind, the fourth and fifth miles had some tail wind, and some cross wind, and the final mile had a nice strong tailwind with added downhill to speed me up.  All in all, it gave me a time of 33:30 for 6.05 miles.