Journey from 238.5 lbs to 2:38:30

Ran with Matt in Lehi.  Nice easy recovery pace.  Not sure what I am recovering from.  

Ran the Timp Trail half marathon course again this morning.  Wes and Jody came with me, we ran into Seth at Dry Canyon.  Jody was a bit in a hurry so we picked up the pace.  Today's run felt much harder than last week. We started pushing about the same place and I ended up running it in 1:50:06.  Looking at previous runs/races on this course, if I happen to have working legs, no mud and a cool morning I may be able to pull off a sub 1:45.  Heart rate seemed much higher in spots and just much less energetic.    

Orem up provo canyon, left Hip starting to get tight on me

Did a nice progression run with Matt and Reed on the JRT.  Through 14 was around 7:00 pace, last 6, 6:57, 6:53, 6:35, 6:31, 6:15, 6:11.  Felt pretty good, other than left hip getting tight again, getting concerned this is a serious issue starting up.

Highland/Alpine Loop with the group.  Did 2 miles of temp at 5:47 and 5:58. Pace wasn't too bad, just hip bothering me.

A nice Reed tempo run.  5-9 were Reed temp of around 6:30's to 6:40's.  

Took off yesterday to let hip rest, been trying to stretch and massage hip hoping to get it working properly.  Did 2 easy miles to see how hip felt. Wasn't getting much worse (only 2) but still an issue.  

Wanted to run a few today to see if I thought doing 20 tomorrow was a good idea.  Well, I'm still not sure it is, but today's run was decent.  I can tell the hip isn't 100%, though it didn't really get worse while I was running unless I pushed uphill from the thigh instead of the lower leg. Wes turned around at 3.5, I turned around at 4, then I decided to see if I could catch him.   I didn't want to go faster than MP to see how that felt down provo canyon trail.  Didn't have HRM on today so went by feel, and breathing, which was actually nice to do for a change.  

Did 5:46, 5:51, 5:52, which all felt decent, and not too fast, didn't seem to aggravate the hip going downhill which was nice, and breathing wasn't out of control.  

Jumped in the river afterwards to try to cool the hip/legs down. 

Skipped Saturday hoping the inflamation would go down.  And it seems I might be in this for the long haul.  Ran 2.5 slow miles this morning.  Some hip/bursitis pain.  Did a little Yoga, plyo, 10 burpees, jumped rope for 5 minutes. Some other hip exercises.  Thinking about getting some cold lasers to try treating this thing.

Went out to test the leg/hip today, and it was getting pretty sore/tight early during the run, ended up cutting it a little short.  Went and saw the doc, not bursitis, which is good, just a bunch of other inflammed stuff  and started on a medrol pack.  Hopefully things will calm down quickly.

I can tell some inflammation has gone down already, though the pain has shifted farther to the front of the hip, maybe hip flexor as well as farther to the back and deeper.  The hip actually feels better going faster, or I just don't notice it as much, or maybe just a runner's high, but chased Matt to a 5:16 mile, breathing was riding the edge at that pace for that long.  

Ran in Orem.  Still making some improvement, though something still not right on the left side.  At the end of the first 8, Toni had gapped the group and I unsuccessfully tried to catch him with about a half mile to go.  Did a 1:23 and then a 1:16 quarter trying to catch him.  Added four more with Brandon.  I am beginning to really wonder how things would be at this point without all of this nagging injury crap I have been dealing with for months.  

easy 6 in lindon

Went out to get some miles in, and push a few times.

Had some serious pains in my sciatic nerves during a few stops along the way, felt like electric shocks going down both legs.

Averaged 7:06 for 20.   

still having pain in my let hip, did some easy miles

Ran a portion of the timp trail course. Easy trail miles.

8 miles north on JRT.  Path is finally almost finished, they just need to pave it now.  

The past two weeks of dealing with my hip injury/pain (now I think it is gluteus maximus tendonitis) started to get into my head a little as this race approached, I wasn't sure how it would do or if it would just get more inflammed as I ran.  I iced it this morning, took some anti-inflammatories, ate breakfast, drank some chia/vitamin drink on the way to the race.  

I got to Timp Park fairly early so I could run a couple of warm up miles. I found Wes and had him set my skull after I adjusted my hips.  The race starts of going straight up a hill, and hitting that hill cold just seems like a very bad idea.  I ran into Jody who is running Squaw Peak 50 next week and he came to just run the race for a good shake out before next week.  

This was my first race using the Altra Lone Peaks.  I decided that the possibility of some calf soreness, which I hoped to alleviate by using calf sleeves, would outweigh the toe pain from blisters from my other shoes, and I wasn't disappointed.  

 We lined up on the hill and the race started.  I took off up the hill and took the lead.  There was a younger kid who stuck with me most of the way up the hill and then someone else (
Steve) pulled up next to me on the piperoad to the canyon glen turn off.  He stayed behind me through the valley and once we hit the long flat road he took off in front of me.  I kept him fairly close, maybe 50 feet or so, and once we started down the staircase I peeked behind me and saw someone running in black.  I thought it was David, who came in 2nd behind me at Nebo.  So I kept pushing the pace and trying to stay with the leader.  I had noticed that I had gained some distance on him on the uphill through the valley, so I wondered when we got to dry canyon if I would have an advantage for that climb.  

We screamed down the staircase to the gun range and blew through the aid station.  My heart rate was in the upper 170's most of the time and getting into the oxygen debt range, which was way too early in the race to be pushing that hard, but didn't want to lose the leader.  As we made our way through the rolling uphill to dry canyon, I heard a voice behind me say my name, and realized it was Jody, not David behind me.  I relaxed for a second, then realized that I still had someone to catch.  We were just catching the leader as we got to dry canyon parking lot, and he took a left turn instead of a right turn, so we started yelling at him to turn around.  Jody later mentioned that he took several more wrong turns during the next few miles which Jody was kind enough to get him back on track.  As we hit the steep sections of dry canyon Jody as in the lead, which gave me a couple minutes to ease the heart rate a bit, but eventually I was feeling better and passed him.  As I hit the steep concrete covering of the pipe at the rock outcroping I looked behind me down the hill and noticed that both Jody and the other guy were hiking up that steep hill.  At that point I realized that as long as I built up enough of a gap before we hit the road again I should be able to hold him off.  So I pushed up the next mile of hill or so trying not to totally red line, but ride the red line as much as I could.  This part of the course feels so much harder when racing the first half versus how I felt on it a couple of weeks ago when we only went fast on the second half of the course.  

When I finally got to the end of the major climbing I had a sense of relief and hoped the lead would hold. Started blazing down the single track and holding speed as much as possible.  When I hit the road I started to feel a little light headed and hoped that wasn't going to cause problems the last mile or two.  I kept pushing down the road and saw Seth Wold who was out destroying the full course record by 35 minutes or so on the cliff trail below me.  I had wondered if he would have gotten ahead of me with the perfect trail conditions that the full course had this year and sure enough he was killing it.  As I turned down the cliff trail I knew I was in trouble and was just hoping I'd make it to the end of the race.  I was pretty drained and light headed, and just hoped I wasn't going to pass out or soming on the cliff trail and take a tumble off the cliff.  I slowed a little to make sure I didn't die, and finally hit the gravel road the just blazes down to the finish.  Kept pace as much as possible and finally hit the finish line in 1:41:17.  After stumbling around like a drunken pirate for five minutes trying to get my body and mind to respond properly, I was very excited to have the body work for the entire race and hit pretty close to the time I thought I could hit if all things went smoothly.  I had figured that I should be able to go under 1:45 and be close to 1:40.  I hadn't felt this spent at the end of a race in a long time.  Eventually ran another mile cooldown with Wes.  

I love this race.  The course is always beautiful, even if it could be marked a little better in places, maybe some ground paint or something.  Going fast downhill there isn't much looking up involved to look for ribbons and many people made wrong turns.   But the race is always run great.  Starts on time and has the perfect venue.  Feel grateful the body held together for this one! Will post splits and HR later.

The Garmin app shows both + and - separately per mile and has the total ascent/descent at 2800 feet.  Where sport tracks must combine them or something and shows 2100 feet total.  

Split pace HR Elevation change from Garmin App

1. 7:04 168 +288  -61

2. 7:01 172 +161 -53

3. 8:36 177 +377 -102 

4. 6:46 174 +132 -97

5. 6:30 173 +68 -107

6. 5:41 173 +31 -295

7. 7:20 176 +207 -140

8. 9:41 177 +413 -65

9. 13:21 179 +893 -153

10. 7:08 176 +105 -229

11. 6:29 171 +37 -510

12. 6:37 172 +48 -270

13. 6:35 172 +25 -456

.45 2:19 170 +16 -217

I signed up for this race to run in remembrance of my good friend Jared Budge who passed away a year ago.  After being fairly still, sore and hips not working particularly well since my race Saturday, I had intended to take this one fairly easy.  I got there pretty early, which was a good thing since my registration didn't seem to make it onto the list.  They got me put on and I did a couple miles of very slow warm up.  Had a few sciatic twinges and was pretty nervous that my legs weren't going to hold up.  

I ran into Jared's wife Monica and a couple of their kids, as well as a few old co-workers that worked with me at Verizon Wireless, which is where I had worked with Jared, before the race to say hi and chat for a few minutes.  It was awesome to see them all again.  They were all running the 5k.  

Toni showed up to run the 10k and we lined up together pretty early and had a few minutes to chat.  There were a couple of  BYU track guys standing next to us, one of whom is running nationals next weekend so he was taking it easy. The other one wasn't. The 10k started a couple of tenths farther back from the 5k, so we had to make our way around and through the 5k crowd after the race started, that was pretty entertaining.  I started off fairly easy, Toni headed off in front of me, and the faster I went the less I felt any of the pain or soreness I had been feeling, so I kept pushing the pace.  My Garmin conveniently showed my heart rate at 212 for the first mile or so, so that was pretty useless.  But Toni wasn't putting any more distance on me so I figured I must be feeling ok.  About mile 2 the course is climbing through American Fork and I caught Toni going up the hills and gained a little on him.  At mile 3 I asked the aid station guy how many were in front of me and he said 2.  

I could see only one guy way off in the distance so the other one must have really been moving.  As we hit the cemetery with about 1.5 to go a couple of younger guys blew by me whom I guess were running the 10k, just not sure were they suddenly came from at this point of the race.  The last couple of miles is a nice down grade so kept up the pace.  With about a quarter to go Toni caught up to me and began to pass me.  So it turned into a sprint to the finish between as he would gain a little, then I would gain a little.  I'm pretty sure we came across the finish line at the same time.  It was great to race with Toni again.  He is a great training partner.  

I'm just guessing at this point that I ended up 5th overall and first in age bracket.  I never saw them post results anywhere.  Toni and I ran a 2 mile cool down and almost had a helicopter land on our heads.  

It was a great morning to remember a great man and a good friend, and to see some old friends again.  

Loop in Lehi from Matt's house

North on JRT