Elite Jogging For Dummies

We're up at the Bear Lake cabin for some pre-Thanksgiving festivities.  This morning, Heather and I drove down to the Bear Lake Golf Course and ran every hole, some a couple of times.  Obviously, I am a much better at running on golf courses than golfing on them.  It was an easy run, but at one point Heather and I separated and I spent some time trying to find which way she had turned.  For a moment, I thought she may have been kidnapped by a family of moose. 

Out and back to This is the Place Monument, with a few funky turns along the way.

Black Sheep workout. It was my turn to lead the group.  We did a series of hilly fartlek intervals through Research Park, This is the Place and Bonneville Golf course.  I usually just run through these areas and it was a lot of fun to mix it up with specific intervals in these areas. 

Ensign Elementary loop with Josh, Megan & Amy.  The thermometer said 22 degrees. It was cold, but didn't feel that cold.  Pace was easy.  Josh and I decided we liked pecan pie best of all.

Cold Turkey Run 6k.  The race is right near my house, but I've not run it before.  The course starts at the Capitol and heads north on gravity hill, up approx one mile up City Creek, and then back down the canyon for a finish in Memory Grove. 

I ran from home to the start and got in 3.5 before it got underway.  Ringers at the start included BJ Christensen, Josh Steffen, Adam Wende, the Phippen brothers, Mike Evans (pushing stroller), and many high school runners.

It was enjoyable running with BJ and Josh for the first 200m.  After that, I wasn't really close to them.  Adam, however, was right with me and he was definitely out to race. We were stride for stride most of the way up City Creek.  I tried to make a move at the turnaround, surging into the turn and hoping for a boomerang effect on the way down.  It didn't work.  Adam caught me within 50 meters and then left me in the dust.  He was running very strong today.  

BJ and Josh were 1-2. Adam was 3rd. I was 4th.  A 6k is supposed to be 3.72 mi, but my watch got 3.9.  Adam's got 3.85.  There was a wide margin of error for tangents. My splits (based on my watch as there were no course markers) were 5:41, 6:05, 5:09, and 4:32 (for the last .9 according to my watch or so). 

Great day for the Black Sheep: 2,3,4 in the men. Megan Call, Josh's wife, was 2nd behind Carol Cabinillas.

am-Easy 6.2 miles on most of the Ensign Elementary loop. 

pm--Hooked up with Sam and Casey at about 6:30 for a night time trail run on the shoreline trail.  We met at the meadow trailhead and ran on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail over to Dry Creek.  Saw dozens of mule deer along the way. After dropping through Dry Creek, we headed up to Sam's in-laws house for dinner with our spouses (who had already arrived there).  The moon was bright and between that and our headlamps we had great visibility. Total mileage was just over six miles.  Here's a photo of Sam & Casey I took with my cell phone about mid-way, with Salt Lake in the background. It was a fun night.

Adam wanted to run 15 miles today and I agreed to accompany him.  I woke up hungry this morning--after last night's trail run--and I had a feeling it was going to seem like a long run. We met up at 6am in Foothill Village.  We ran a 3.4 mile loop so we could hook up with a second wave of runners at 6:30.  There were about 8 people waiting for us on the return, all with different distances in mind. We ran out to the new footbridge across I-215 and into Tanner Park, down into Holladay, back along some of the SLC Marathon course (Adam's goal race) and finally weaved our way back to Foothill.  By mile 14 the run finally did start to feel long to me.  Overall though, it was an enjoyable run.