Journey from 238.5 lbs to 2:38:30

Ran to Smith's to meet up with Scott, Matt and Ryan, a bunch of 2:30ish marathoner's.  Love being the slow man in the group, really helps to keep motivated in hopes of being able to keep up with them during the marathon next year.  Ran 5 with them, Scott is tapering for NY on Sunday, then ran home.  The arctic headwind was a nice touch.  Felt great this morning.  

Ran the Grandeur Loop with Scott and Matt. First time running this peak and loop. Started at 5am. headlamp was too dim, didn't change batteries until mile 3 or 4, which really helps to see. Was icy and snowy on top, made for a slow run up and most of the down. Had a hand held flashlight that was glitching the whole time, ended up stumbling on the trail and dropping it off the side of the mountain.

Ran from my parents in Orem to Runner's corner for the waffle run.  3 mile run before the 9 mile waffle run, then 3 back.  With about 2 miles to go on the waffle run I decided to see if I could catch the 2 runners that I knew were ahead of the group I had been running with.  I dropped it down to a 6:22 then a 5:58 and caught up to them at the corner heading into runner's corner.  Waffles were good, then headed back to my parents home to help with some computer stuff.

Headed south on the JRT.  Was trying to do as fast of a mile as I could at mile 7, with probably .1 or .l5 left, the cold got to my lungs and had to slow way down so finished in 5:44.  At least the first half of that mile was at a 5:23 pace.  

Trail 51 run with a couple of new additions on both sides.  Found some new trail to take close to the rock pile and around dry canyon instead of through it.  Went backwards on the trail from what we normally run.

North on the JRT.  First time on new section of trail under 2100 north bridges, which still isn't quite open, a small section of trail isn't paved yet.

Taper run on the BST south from bridal veil.  

Ran the Half Pregnant Half Marathon put together by Jun and Matt in draper this morning.  The conditions were perfect.  40mph winds at the start, snow and ice here and there on the bst, mud, ice, wet clay, snow, more mud on the trails in corner canyon.  Couldn't ask for a funner way to spend a saturday running.  I got to have a nice chat with faceless ghost for most of the first half of the race.  I got lost once or twice, went around hills the wrong way and took a detour up the side of the mountain for no apparent reason (thought I missed a fork in the trail, thought it went up and I went down), but I ended up running fairly strong the whole race.  The last 2 miles, any climbs were really starting to slow me down, pretty much after my up the mountain detour, I was hurting going up, but straight and down were still just fine.  Even took a nice .3 mile detour at the end, wrong fork again, which about half of the field seemed to take this way too.  

The BBQ at Jun's afterwards was a blast, always good to hang out with a bunch of nutty runners.  Thanks Jun for organizing this race.  And thanks Altra for sponsoring the race and the pair of lone peaks which I hope to get and use soon.    

Out and back on the BST above Orem-PG.  Fantastic run, was doing a nice slow recovery run.  Did a couple of faster miles for 7-8.5.  7:22, 7:12 and 6:37.  

Didn't make it out to run yesterday, and ate Panda for lunch, mmmm, love Panda, and knew we were having a pot luck at lunch today, so went out for a long run this morning to burn some extra calories.  Went out south on the jordan river tail before 5 and headed towards saratoga springs.  Awesome morning for a run.  I had thoughts to doing a 5 mile tempo on the backend on the way back, but decided to just do 3 1 mile repeats at what I hope to be my marathon pace in June.  Mile 10 was 6:07 pace, mile 12 was 6:00 pace, mile 14 was 5:57 pace.  By the end of these tempo miles I start to breathe hard enough that the cold starts affecting my lungs a little bit.  Run felt great, back felt great when I got up for the first time in a couple of weeks.

6 miles in Lindon

7.13 on JRT

Did 2 runs.  Morning run on JRT, noon 6 miles in Lindon.

Did 1 800 at 2:43.  Wanted to see how fast I could do an 800 at the end of a 10 miler, too cold, lungs were burning a couple of times on this run 

slow miles in neighborhood.  Trail was icy

Lake Mountain with Jun, Crockett, Matt, Scott.  Awesome run to peak at sunrise.

Temple Loop.

Trail 51

8 mile loop in lindon