A.M. - Though I had signed-up for the half marathon, I ruled it out a while ago. My intention was to try and switch over to the bike tour so that my race fee wasn't a total forfeiture. But when my buddy Scott called me Thursday night about a Saturday morning group ride that was going to be longer than 26 miles and with a bunch of friends, it wasn't a hard decision how I wanted to spend my Saturday morning. Sin confession: For anyone reading this, please don't hate me, but I admittedly supported a bandit in the race by convincing a co-worker to take my race bib and make use of it. So that 2:08 you see next to my name isn't me. Don't rat me out to the race director! I fronted the cost. I knew he wasn't going for a Boston qualifier or anything like that. I just didn't want my entrance fee to be wasted. Congrats "M" on a good first half marathon... Can't wait to see how you improve by UV 1/2! A group of 7 of us (me, Scott Tasker, Brad Porter, Jon Miller, Dayne Hassett, Rob, and Russ) headed out from Scott's house at around 7 AM. All of these folks, except for Brad, is going to be on our MS team in June. We headed north on 7th/9th East and bisected the marathon course at Van Winkle (prior to the marathoners getting there), then bisected the half marathon course at 17th South. Just after we cut through, I saw one of the front runners. Looked like a masters runner and looked familiar, but I didn't know who he was (not Steve). We went up to 8th South and then turned west. As we were crossing State, we saw another fast runner. A shorter younger guy with purple shorts cooking along really good (sorry, I didn't recognize him either). That was the end of our encounters with the race. It really made me sad that I wasn't running in the half. I've really grown to enjoy this race over the last couple of years and had been looking forward to it. We continued west for a ways and then north eventually getting onto the Legacy Parkway trail. We didn't go very far north though and after 25 miles, most of us decided that we wanted to get in some hills and to get in some semblance of a workout. We headed back east under I-15 and then started back south. We stopped at a gas station for a quick refill on the water and then headed down toward the capital. Russ wasn't interested in tackling any hills today, so he broke off from the rest of us and headed home. The rest of us climbed up past the capital and then up into the avenues and up and around the University. Then east to the road just east of the zoo. Through the Foothill neighborhoods and on the path over the freeway to Wasatch. Then south to 9400 with a couple good climbs up the hill just passed Big Cottonwood and the one just past La Caille going up to 9400. Then straight down the hill to Scott's house down by Mt. Jordan middle school. Fun, fun ride. We got in around 57 miles or so. Most was done at a leisurely pass since we had a wide range of bikers with different fitness levels, but the hills allowed it qualify as a decent workout. I'm feeling good on the bike. I need to be doing more of it too though. I think I'll be fine for the 100 and 70 miles for the two day MS ride, but if I get into Lotoja (odds not good, but will find out next month, really keeping my fingers crossed!), then I've really got to get serious and be much more consistent on the bike. Scott has been diligent about his riding and has been doing spin classes consistently. It's paying off because its easy to see his improvement. Rob, one of the guys from Scott's ward who rode with us, was a Cat 3 cyclist a few years ago and has done Lotoja several times. It was fun talking with him about his racing experiences and his thoughts on training. This is going to be an interesting year. Assuming the leg gets better soon and I can resume training, I really want to build on last year's good running year. Last year, the only thing I was really focused on was sub-2:30 at St. George. I worked hard and was ecstatic when it came to pass. But this year I don't have such a concrete goal. We've got our second kid on the way in 3 weeks. I'd really like to get more use out of my expensive road bike and do decent in Lotoja if I can get in. There are a few other relatively big life decisions/changes that we're working on before the end of the year too. So things will be interesting. The danger, of course, is becoming too diluted in these various pursuits and ending up not really excelling at anything. If I get into Lotoja and the leg still is giving me fits by the time June rolls around and its not looking like I can get the kind of training block that I want to for St. George. Then my fitness focus will likely be cycling. However, if the leg comes back on track soon (I think it will) and I don't get into Lotoja, running will clearly be the primary fitness focus. Things will come more into focus over the next month or two and I'm sure things will proceed to work out as they are meant to be. | 