After the 5K on the 4th, my long runs didn’t go well. My legs felt very tired, and there was just no pickup. I didn’t feel great going into the Bryce Canyon Half-Marathon. However, that morning, I felt awesome! So awesome in fact, that I went out way too fast (I seriously clocked an 8-minute mile for mile 3, and didn’t slow down much until mile 6). I died by mile 7 – my back hurt, the back of my knees hurt…the early and fast downhill had just been too much for me. I finished in 2 hours, 18 minutes. Not SO far from my goal, but far enough.

Since then, I’ve been taking it pretty easy. I’ve still be running, but more like 10 – 15 miles a week and not a really long run (no longer than 6 miles) on the weekends. We took a 10 day vacation in early August, and I ran a few times, but just enough to it wouldn’t be hard to get back on schedule when vacation was over.

The truth is, I’ve felt great – much better than before the half, when my legs were tired and I just couldn’t make them go.

Yesterday was Labor Day to most of you. To me, it was Miner Day, Park City’s town celebration day. It, of course, starts off with a 5K! In the past couple of years, the course has been short. I let them know last year via email that they might want to work on that… And…they did! It was a full 5K this year! Yesterday morning was cold. It was supposed to be really cold, but the weather smiled on us – I felt comfortable enough to wear shorts, a short-sleeved shirt, and gloves. It was the perfect outfit for the weather.

I felt like I was going really fast. Was I having a breakthrough run? I knew there weren’t too many people in front of me, and I was passing just as many as were passing me…I finished, stopped my Nike+, and realized I was seriously not having a breakthrough run. I was running…not fast! But, hey, I was running faster than everyone else apparently. On a side note, always remember to kick at the end – I totally counted this girl I passed as gone, and she ALMOST caught up to me. Timing chips put her at 0.1 seconds behind me.

Anyway, as soon as the race finished, I said hi to another Olaf Alum who often runs the same races I do, and left the race to hit breakfast. I hadn’t even registered for the raffle, and it would just be ridiculous to think I placed in the top 3 in my age group (not that there have ever been age group awards before this year!). But then a friend met up with us after breakfast – and said he heard my name called. I checked with the organizers today – I was third in the female 20 – 35 age group. Huge age group, right? Oh, and I was 4.5 minutes slower than the girl who was 2nd. Like I said, I didn’t go fast, just faster than everybody else. But, I have to say, I am super-excited to have placed in my age group for once. Next time I hope it’s because I actually went fast

In the last four years, as I’ve progressed to getting back in shape, I have steadily increased my time by two minutes a year (30 min, 28 min, 26:15 last year). I didn’t expect the trend to continue this year. With the piriformis and the rotator cuff, I wasn’t anywhere near where I needed to be to run 24 minutes.

I’ve learned over the last several years that if I don’t want to fight the crowd the entire time (this year 549 women and 462 men were registered), you have to line up just behind the ‘fast people’. Turned out to be the right place for me this year as for most of the race we ran a pretty steady pace altogether, not to many people passing or being passed.

We had perfect weather today – it was cloudy and cool during the race. My hands were just slightly cold, but overall it was the perfect temp to not get overheated.

She doesn’t know it, but there’s a girl I graduated from high school with who is my ‘goal’ for this race. She was a swimmer in high school, I was a runner. But post high school, she kicks my butt in this 5K every year. This year, I started right behind her so I could at least keep an eye on how fast she was going. I saw her going the other way right after the turn around. That was great! I still finished behind her, but was much closer this year than in the past (50 seconds).

I knew during the race I was running a pretty good time. All the people I was around had a pretty comfortable pace going, and I knew from previous years they were faster than the people I usually run with (less small kids, more technical fabrics). And you know what? PR! 24:55! It wasn’t a two minute increase, but it was more than a minute! Plus it gives me a great goal to get to 24 next year, and injury free I think it’s possible.

7th in my age group and 65th woman overall! I’ll take that!

(Side note, I have this great desire to turn 30 to move up an age group…but I still would have been 7th in the 30 – 34 age group! Sigh…)

My first ever 100 mile month.

I really didn’t know it was going to happen. I knew based on my schedule it could be close if everything went right.

Well it didn’t. I missed out on some miles and training at the beginning of the month because of the flood. I’ve never been as sore as I was after sandbagging.

After that, however, my training, the Ragnar, and everything since have gone pretty well; pretty much as well as I could have planned. As of Sunday, I knew I had to do a 4 mile and a 5 mile run by this evening to make it happen. So I did, even though Chris’ parents are in town right now and I kind of had to delay our evening with them to make it happen tonight.

I’m still a little shocked. I have this feeling that no matter what happens from here on in my life, I can say that I ran 100 miles in a month. Man, do I feel like a runner tonight!

My legs go like this:

3.6 miles with a net elevation change of -7 feet (man am I looking forward to this leg!) This will be sometime mid-afternoon on Friday. So it will be hot, but it’s at about 5000 feet, so I’ve got that altitude advantage.

7.7 miles with a net elevation change of +294 feet. Don’t let this fool you…it’s just slightly uphill the whole way. Average elevation is 5600 feet (there’s so much air down there!). I did an 8 mile run yesterday afternoon, and it was great! I felt rested, able to go farther if needed, and except for the storm moving in the wrong direction toward my run, very comfortable. The big difference between that run and my leg? My leg will probably be at about 3 in the morning.

4.0 miles with a net elevation change of +1631 feet. Ouch! Plus I don’t get any altitude advantage as it starts at 7233 feet and ends at 8864. This will be mid-day on Saturday. While it will (hopefully!) be in the sun, the elevation should make it a little cooler, and much of the leg is shaded.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m really excited (and slightly honored) to do the Ragnar leg, but I’m still quite nervous. I really wanted to go to the other side of the mountain from that leg and run up it for training over the weekend, but the perpetual rain and less than 50 degrees kept that from happening. Mostly because I’m sure it was snowing where I wanted to be.

So this week, I take it easy. I’ll do 4 miles this evening (maybe some slight hills, but easy), and 30 minutes Wednesday. Don’t know our start time yet, but I’m guessing it will be about 9 o’clock Friday morning.

This is why

The house on the left is mine. While the flood waters went down very quickly after this, we spent all day sandbagging and loading them on trucks to be taken to our house and many, many others. We don’t have any damage (we hope) in our house. Not for sure yet, as we’re just leaving the furnace off until we’re sure to have no more flooding.

Those kids on the right side of the picture? That’s a small part of the local high school football team. The whole team was out sandbagging, helping people out of their houses, and doing whatever needed to be done all day, basically. Which means I can no longer complain about them taking up the entire weight room at 7AM.

But filling sandbags is hard work. The muscles in my legs and back are all very sore, my hands are raw, and my knuckles are swollen and painful. Plus I got a major sunburn. I didn’t sleep well last night as I was still worried that we might wake up to two feet of water again, so this afternoon I’m quite exhausted. I just don’t think the tempo run is a good idea, nor is it likely to go the way I want it to.

We’re not sure if the river is coming back up again. It was supposed to be very hot today creating even heavier runoff, and it’s supposed to rain tonight. But it kind of sounds like we might be okay as long as all the canals and overflows stay unclogged.