Seeking a better country...

Huge props to all the Ogden Marathon participants.  FRB had a very good showing, up and down the field.  While I spent all day yesterday finishing a bathroom and mowing lawns, my mind wandered often to the road down Monte Cristo, around Pineview, and down Ogden Canyon. 

Today's run began at 6:30.  I headed south for a change, warming up for a mile on the road before heading straight up the hill to BST.  I ran BST to Farmington canyon, noting extremely high water in all the creeks, as well as 2 never before encountered streams.  The runoff situation is dire, and only going to get worse.  I ran down Farmington Canyon to the pond, with water gushing over the spillway.  I'm already sad for the people who will be drowning this spring...fingers crossed people will use common sense and be careful.  

I felt pretty good through this run.  I don't have pace info, cuz I'm too lazy to upload the data from the Garmin, but I ran some pretty fast, hard miles on the singletrack, and on the road home.  I got home with the luxury of 10 minutes to get cleaned up and dressed for a 9:30 meeting.  I was right on time. 

I think it's time to put these shoes into the lawnmowing pile, but they are still pretty good for shorter runs.  I hopped out for a quick 5, and surprisingly did a quick 5.  I enjoyed the frog chorus down on Legacy, and many foul and fair aromas as I passed horse pastures and wisteria.  Temp was perfect, and I wore my HRM.  130's feel rock steady and indefinitely sustainable.  Anything in the 140s seems considerably harder.  At the tail end, I opened up to (my) fast speed, and got up to 160.  More useless numbers.  Overall pace: 7:30.  I need to quit calling those fast miles, since my goal marathon pace is more like 7:00.

I wish the default setting wasn't times new roman.  I'm so sick of that font. 

My diminutive running partner awakened me at 5:45.  Actually, the noisy bird beat her to the punch by 45 minutes, and I was just laying there, half awake.  She gently nudged me and asked, "Dad, are we going on a run?"  I grunted yes.  She said, "I'll come back at 6:10, you better be ready."  I had my oatmeal, she had her cheerios.  To make things difficult, her little sister who is far less competent at riding a bike was awake and wanted to come too.  I settled her in with the Nintendo DS, and we left.  It was a resplendent morning.  On the way back, we stopped at Fresh Market for a donut.  She picked a white frosted with red, white and blue sprinkles, "Because Memorial Day is coming up, Dad."  I should have bribed her with a donut last week.  It was nice to have her company again after a couple weeks off.

Tonight my running partner was 11.  Her bike has gears, so she did a much better job of keeping up.  We went down Parrish to Legacy, around the pond (as far as possible, before deep water forced us off the path).  The pelicans were right off shore, and we got a good look at them taking flight.  Quite a wingspan on those birds.  The pond loop was kind of spontaneous, and by the end I was quite thirsty.  We stopped by WB park to get a drink, but the *#$%#'s haven't even turned on the fountain yet.  Yes, I checked the calendar and it is May 27th.  I guess the parks budget must be cut and they can't afford the water.

This was part two of the relay practice.  Sort of.  I ran in the evening last night and then again early this morning.  Following all day of lawn mowing I'm going to go for 8 to see how tired I can get.  My running partner played at three parks while I ran around sort of close by.  We stopped again for a donut, thus explaining the presence of my running partner.  She was very slow today, which suited me fine.

a.m.-p.m.  10 hours of upper/lower body and core cross training with lawnmower and trimmer.  I thought I had solved this problem...