It’s Race Week!

[My Lovely and Talented Wife, this post is about running… this is not the post you are looking for]

So tomorrow is the Expo 10k, it’s not too late to enter my Guess My Time, Win Crap Contest, and what a wicked horrible person I am! I never took a picture of the bag. Oh well, surprise on the winner! Well maybe I will take it to the race and use the remote for Stella to take a picture.

As you may already know, I am volunteering for the race in the morning. I get to be there around 6:15 for pre-race activities. Sounds like I am going to be a set-up dude for some of the vendors that are going to be there… Not a big deal. That’ll mean I will have more time to warm up.

So, recapping on my running… taking you back to last week, when I was training at Altitude in Draper, UT. I somehow managed to run some 800m repeats (okay, they were “technically” 1/2 mile repeats…) with increasing speed. I only made it 3 miles (or 6 repeats) but I significantly increase the pace (by 30 seconds) each time. I did take the last 0.1 of mile and cranked it up to a 6 minute mile… I can do THAT for 0.1 of a mile.

Then on that Tuesday, the next day, I ran shy of 5miles out on the road. It was a fairly gradual up hill to the turnaround point and then back down. Some of the hills were reminding me of Knoxville but the view was breathtaking… check out my last post for the album pictures.

I then did nothing until Saturday as my legs were tired from the speed work, then hill work (at altitude) and then traveling on Thursday. Saturday, I took the kids out in the double stroller and ran 5.24 miles with the kids. I think their favorite part, after the train tracks and playground is holding on to the camelback (that Petra gave me) and drinking ALL of my drink! Oh well. I let the kids play for about 20 minutes and then it’s back in the stroller. It’s a nice strengthening workout for the legs, something that I owe my marathon PR last November to.

Then came Tuesday, were I ran the exact same course, except instead of running 5.24 miles, I made it an even 7 (which is really odd). Not only was I able to crank out the 7 miles, but with the new quarter mile markers, I was able to record that I ran 1/2 splits pretty consistently. I’m not where I want to be speed wise, but I am getting there. I ran an average 8:38 per mile pace. I’d like to get that down to 8:00 per mile if I could.
Oh, I did want to share a Running MacGyver Trick… if you are out running and you have absolutely NO water and the stream that your running next to has signs that say “Failed bacterial Standards” and you are so thirsty you feel like you have a mouthful of sand… look to Mother Nature. I was out on the run on Tuesday with about 1 mile to go, extremely thirsty and no water. I then thought what would MacGyver do? I dunno what he would do… I didn’t have duct tape and a paper clip… but I did see the honeysuckle bushes off to the side. I used the honeysuckle to just get barely enough taste in my mouth (and you had to get alot) to curb the dryness. It wasn’t a cureall but it worked long enough for me to get to the car!

Wednesday my legs were beat, so I took the day off. They were sore on Thursday too… so I decided to swim instead of run, with the race looming on Saturday. Even my swim times were alot faster than earlier. After my swim, I convinced myself that I am going to do the Tellico Sprint Triathlon on June 22nd. More on that at a later date.

I feel like I am ready for the race… my legs aren’t 100% but they are 90%+ and by race start I should be doing just fine! Not PR shape, but judging by the times submitted so far, I think their good ones! Remember, you can submit your guess on what my time is going to be and win crap prizes! If you miss this time, you’ll definitely be able to guess for the Tellico Sprint.

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