rebound

i ate a whole pie. as in pizza. 

5 miles @ liberty park. 

i was hoping for more miles in the PM, but i'm a milquetoast at work. busy few weeks ahead...just running when i can. plank workout. arm weights. bah. 

8 miles. sunnyside down at sunset. great weather. this was a PM run because i was up way too late dealing with work projects. 4am was not happening today.

plank workout.  

8 miles. sunnyside up/sugarhouse construction adventures. this included a good five minute break at a non-functioning traffic light that was being treated as a four-way stop. i finally grabbed an orange crosswalk flag and just went for it -- i don't think i would have ever made it through otherwise. that was my first time ever using the slc flag system.

perfect weather out! 

11 miles with james, jake, and andrea. my longest run since top of utah! wow. i have been feeling really beat up ever since the race and i can't seem to snap out of it. it's now going on a month and my legs still feel stale and achy. something isn't quite right.  i guess it's time for me to really make some decisions about the rest of the year... 

anyway -- today's run was nice. i felt okay throughout and actually felt semi-good through the final three miles. the company was great, and other than the chilly winds coming out of emigration and parley's canyons, the weather was very pleasant and octoberish. 

sunnyside/wasatch drive (des news!)/bike path to tanner park/sugarhouse loop.  

just an easy 3 miles this morning to try and give my legs a rest before tomorrow's races. the plan is a triple header, although i'm not sure i will end up doing all three. 

event #1 (8am): beat the heat 5k -- the main event. this is the last circuit race. i'm currently in fourth place in the circuit standings and my goal is to earn enough points to hold that spot -- it's worth $250. the course starts at popperton park and runs along 11th avenue before climbing D street (steep!). it will be a tough race and a good challenge. 

event #2 (9am): radiating hope 5k at liberty park. i will only do this one if my legs are feeling okay after the main event. i'm not going to force anything though.

event #3 (3pm): undead 5k -- a wacky zombie vs. human race -- but there is a specific purpose behind this one. james is registered as a zombie and i'm registered as a human. the humans get a 2 minute head start -- this is just the right amount of time to make it a good challenge for both of us, although i think james has a slight advantage. i am going to do everything i can to ensure he doesn't catch me before making it to the finish. maybe this is how i will get that sub-18...

the triple header! this report has the potential to be extremely long, so i'll try recap each race in two sentences or less. 

race #1: beat the heat 5k -- the main event and the "serious" race of the day. it was last circuit race of the year. it was a tough course and my goal was to break 19:00. i ended up running 19:00 exactly. nice to see a lot of bloggers there. i'm already over my sentence quota. moving on...

race #2: radiating hope 5k at liberty park. the course was long -- james ran 3.9 miles; i ran 3.6 miles. i was chased by a dog near the end of the race and i think i screamed but i don't really remember because i was starting to feel woozy at this point.

lunch break: we got smoothies at red mango then soaked our legs in the river at sugarhouse park. then we sat in the sun to get warm while watching a little league football game. this was probably the best part of the day.

race #3: undead race at the utah state fairpark. i could write a mouthful on this one -- it was pure and utter chaos. it was a two lap course, and the humans started 2:00 ahead of the zombies. by the time we reached the second loop, there were humans on the first loop, zombies on the first loop, humans on the second loop, and zombies on the second loop -- all bottlenecked. i was dodging and weaving my way through the crowds but it was extremely chaotic and difficult.

 just to sprinkle in a little more fun, the first pack of about 20 humans were misdirected on the first loop (myself included), so the course ended up being way short. i approached the finish line at 13:27 and a woman stood in front of it and said i couldn't cross because i hadn't run a 5k. i told her i was aware of this but that it seemed there was really nowhere else to go. she said to just keep running until i had run a full 5k. i wasn't wearing a garmin, so i had no idea how far i needed to go. i set off on a random loop and ended up approaching the finish line from the wrong direction. i finished in 16:57, so it was obviously still way short, but i tried.

the lead pack of guys that went off course finished in all sorts of weird order -- some ran short and some ran long. in the end, there were probably about four different distances run by the participants and the results were a complete disaster. i told them to leave me out since i didn't even run the full distance -- it was just too complicated. so obviously there were a few logistical issues that seemed to be overlooked and ended up causing a lot of problems, but in the end it was just for fun. it was actually more of an event/attraction than an actual race -- they were selling french toast and onion rings before the race (and there were plenty of takers). a wild day at the fairgrounds. 

in total: 17 miles for the day -- 58:37 of that time running at vo2 max. i'm tired, but my gimpy legs held up fine, so i am happy about that. 

note: there was a couple who one-upped (three-upped?) james and i today. they ran all three races that we did, plus the murray moonlight run in the evening. AND they ran to each one. we drove.