Zac's blog thinger

Early morning cold run. I'm looking forward to afternoon runs, getting back to work tomorrow. This past week was quite a challenge with the cold and the holiday.

I tried hard to make this run a faster one. With the cold, the extra clothes, darkness, ice, etc. it seems to take a lot out of me. I managed to do this run in 56:49 or 8:05 per mile, which is a reasonable run with the hills on a normal day but with the cold and stuff I think I was giving about a 7:20 per mile effort. It's just a guess but I know for sure that something about cold sucks the speed right out of me.

Anyway, it's been a good holiday and I'm looking forward to the coming year.

Treadmill. Started out fine but became very tough. I actually picked up the pace at the end just to get it overwith. I don't know what was going on. Total time 56:49.

Weight 171 (goal 160) - at least I didn't gain anything over the holidays.

Ran to Liberty Park, two times around, and back. I ran to the park and the first loop with a friend from work. We were going about 9 minute mile pace through that portion. I was on my own for the last loop and the way back and I averaged just under 8 minute miles through this section. Total time was 57:30.

I felt pretty good, which is a relief considering how bad I felt yesterday.

Weight 172 (160 goal); my weight never changes. I need to start that diet plan soon. I just need to be careful not to overly rob my body of carbs.

Treadmill. Couldn't quite convince myself to go out in the snow. First 3 miles at a slow 9 minute pace. My right knee felt a little sore. I slowly picked it up from there over the next 4 miles peaking at a pace slightly below 7.

I still feel a little beat up. I guess that 25 miles last Friday did take a toll.

Weight 172 (160 lbs - goal)

Ran up 2100 South for 3.5 miles and back. It was pretty icy and stoplights were a pain but it went pretty smoothly overall. Went up in 28:45 and down in 26:15 or 8:12 pace going up and 7:30 pace coming down.

Very relaxed. Nice day.

Weight 172

Very cold. Very, very cold this morning. I'm still cold. Between the cold and some stomach trouble I only went 5 and then took an emergency break. Then I headed out for two more and came home because my kids were waking up.

Anyway, during quiet time (kid's nap time) at 12 I went out for a few faster miles (8,8,7 - ok not super fast but it was cold).

Total time was a slow 1 hour and 29 minutes. Looking forward to spring!

Treadmill. Took it pretty easy. My right knee has been hurting a little and also my right arch was bothering me a bit. My shoes are probably part of the problem.

I feel like I just bought these shoes yesterday but they have about 500 miles on them now. Urgh! They probably weren't the best from the start. I wish I could find a 5,000 mile shoe that would only cost about $50. Then I could just concentrate on the cost of races. Running is a relatively cheap sport but with 4 young kids, almost anything additional is expensive.

Anyway, the 7 were a little taxing on the treadmill. Started slow and then picked up each mile thereafter from 8:30 - 7:30 pace (I went a bit faster at the end). It was hard to hold the pace down. It would have probably felt much easier to have increased the pace.

Weight 170 (goal 160)

Road run out to North Ranch and back. There is an initial downhill and then it was a gentle uphill the whole way out. I measured the distance after the run. I was guessing that it was about 7 miles. I guess I'm not terribly well calibrated - perhaps it will come with time or never. The total time was 57:27 or roughly 7:47 per mile. It was a very comfortable run. I felt me knee a little but not bad.

Every 5 minutes I did a 1 minute farlick (I don't know how to spell it - sure sounds bad). It wasn't really fast because I wanted to continue to give my legs a chance to heal up a bit.

Anyway, it was a nice run.

Wow, this is an enhancement.  I think I'll try some different colors and fonts. 

Anyway, I did a boring treadmill run.  I should have gone outside because the weather was decent.  My knee is still bothering me.  I tried uping the incline to 3% for a couple of miles, which only aggrevated it more (I thought it might but I just wanted to increase the challenge without increasing the turnover).  Anyway, my time ended up pretty slow - 60 minutes for 7 miles.  I hate running so slow.  I really wanted to do a tempo run but I knew it wouldn't be a good idea.  Hopefully it will heal up soon. 

The pain is in my upper knee above my knee cap.  It might be from over-striding, which I've heard is a common treadmill injury and I run way too much on treadmills. 

Well, one of these days I hope to get my body past all the little injuries but this may never happen.

Hey Bryan, if your reading, I'm going to go ahead and do the same and find some new shoes and phase out my others (of course, they're close to phased out already).

Treadmill.  Didn't have time to deal with the snow and it's a bit dangerous around here with all of the traffic.  My knee still hurt.  Throbbed a bit but didn't involved any shooting pains or anything.  I went very slow at first and slowly built up the speed.  I took pace sub 7:30 for the last two miles.  I could feel it in my knee but it wasn't terrible.  Total time was just under an hour.

Weight 172

Treadmill.  Knee was hurting still. Between not having enough time and going slower than usual I only went 5 miles.  I can't recall the time.

Went for a 40 minute hike with the kids.  I gave my leg a rest.  It's strange, I actually felt very guilty for missing my run.  We would of hiked longer but it was so cold that we couldn't take it for too long.  Hands, toes, and faces were cold.  My leg was fine hiking.

I ran a bit of the pony express route.  It was pretty nasty when trucks would go by and kick up the salts that have been dumped on the roads.  I had to cover my face to breath.  Apart from that, it was a fun, comfortable run.  I would really like to open up and speed up but my knee has no quit nagging.  It was the kind of pain that doesn't stop you at all but is pretty annoying and worrysome. 

I will have to go to mapmyrun to figure out the exact distance but it was about 7.5, I think.

Knee was hurting.  I ran 2 miles on the treadmill and then did leg lifts and stretched hamstrings and then did 1 mile and repeated again and again.  5 miles total - pace was a very slow 9 min/mile. 

Ran .5 miles and my knee hurt.  Tried the bike for about 5 minutes and decided that people that bike indoors are nuts.  I walked a bit and did some other exercises.  Finally, gave up and went and got a burger. 

That was yesterday.  Today I'm trying to diet a bit since I'm not sure if I'll be able to do much mileage.  I got to focus on something to keep me busy while my knee heals. 

I hate missing a run.

Treadmill.  My knee felt a bit better but not great.  I ran 3 miles at 9 min pace and then did some leg extensions and stretched my hamstrings.  Then I ran 1.5 miles at a slightly faster pace and did more leg extensions.  Then I ran 1.5 miles one more time at a pace just below 9 min per mile.  I wish I could go faster but it was much better than yesterday.

Weight 172.  I'm trying to cut back significantly on my calorie intake.  We'll see how that goes.

Knee still hurt.  Ran 5 in about 54 minutes.  Now that is slow!  I'm hoping that a weekend off will make a big difference on Monday.

No run.  Trying to let my knee heal.  Hopefully not getting fat in the process.  The last thing I need is more weight to lose before climbing the big hills of the Wasatch Steeplechase in June.

Back really hurt.  Ran very slow.  Knee was feeling a bit better.

Very slow; back and knee improving but still not well.

Very slow once again. 

Felt a bit better.  I got the pace down to a low 8 min pace but my knee started to ache again at around mile 3.5 to 4 or so and so I just walked a little after 4.6.  I got too excited.  My back is improving much faster than my knee.

Rested knee.  Lifted some weights; tried not to get discouraged.

Rested my legs again.  My back is starting to feel a lot better.  My knee is still ify. 

I don't recall ever having knee trouble before, it's a new injury for me.  I've had a lot of other things and perhaps I'm just not remembering well. 

It doesn't hurt at all to walk so hopefully it is getting better.

5 miles on the treadmill.  I'd love to get outside but the air is disgusting out there, especially in SLC.  I couldn't feel any pain in my knee until mile .5.  Ok, so I didn't make it too far before the pain came on but it was a little bit of an improvement.  I mostly ran a 10 minute pace but picked it up a bit at the end.  I really wanted to run faster but its good that I didn't.

My goal is to run no less than 5 miles per day this week and to keep the pace slow.  It's not very exciting.

I've been thinking about where I'd like to focus my running and I feel conflicted.  On one side, I love running fast and doing road races but on the other side, I love running long, slow trail runs that really challenge you in other ways.  This year I plan to run the Bonneville Shoreline Trail Marathon (free - no pressure), the Wasatch Steeplechase (crazy fun), the Provo Canyon Half Marathon (fast and fun), maybe the Jupiter Peak Steeplechase (????), St. George Marathon (my serious race), and probably the Pony Express 100 (30-50 miles only -very slow, cold - just for fun).  Of all these races, the St. George Marathon is the one that I get the most stressed about - almost to the point that it is not as fun to do any more.  I think after this year I will avoid serious marathon runs for a while and just focus on trail runs and shorter road races.  I like these races more and why run if it's not fun.

Of course, I may change my mind.

Weight 170 (goal 160)

Treadmill again.  Slow run. Total time 47:40.  Knee hurt a bit but more of a nag than an a major pain.  I'm just trying to be careful. 

My lower back was fine but I was having some other trouble.  It's not new to me.  I just need to do the exercises that the doctor gave me to do.  For some reason my hip has a tendency to go out of wack and it puts pressure on the ribs that connect to my spine.  The stretches push it back in place and the exercises help keep it there.  I got lazy about doing them.  It's probably what caused the lower back pain.  If it gets really out of wack it will do that.

The last time I went the doctor about it, he said that it was an annoyance but not serious.  At that time he told me, mostly in jest, that I shouldn't run more than 10 miles.  In other words, he wasn't very concerned about it.  It is annoying so I plan to take care of it.  Perhaps this is affecting my knee too.  Who knows?

Weight 170 (goal - who cares?)