Patrick's Blog

Today for Cross Country practice we did have a early morning advanced group run. So I got to use my new Garmin and wear my new racing flats:) We met at sugarhouse park and went out on the field up the hill and and stayed in the park till we got to Highland High school. Then we turned on 17th and stayed on that till 27th. Then we stayed on that passed the light 3 blocks not 2. Turned right then turned left after like one block. Then from there it was all a progressively larger hill to the finish line. I didn't notice it at first but when we almost got to Tanner Park my Garmin was set for only a 3 mile run so it turned off after the 3 mile mark but I remembered Bill saying one mile to go at the 2.3 spot so I guessed when we got there it was at 3.3 miles. On the street just before the park by the highway or freeway on ramp there was a corner store and my mom used to own that building as a consignment store so that was cool to see that again. Then we went back the same way. I stayed with the fast people all the way until we got to the park then my legs gave out but it was nice to know that I can stay with them. We got there in 24:31 and came back in 19:42 so that was a pretty good jump on times. Going there was all uphill and coming back was all down hill but oh well it was a really good run. It ended at 6.8 miles. Then we met up with the Newbies and we started with a grass loop of 2 miles then dynamic stretching. During the stretching my legs felt like led but it was nice to think we weren't going to do circuits,,,,,, I was sadly mistaking. We did only one set of circuits though. After that I was exhausted and we were at 9 miles exactly because after the grass loop we ran to the drinking fountain to get the .10. Then not to my knowledge we did another lap. The newbies went around the pond for a cool down and the advanced group did a lap around the park staying on the road. To get the extra 1.5 miles. Then I came home and took a shower and going to get my LICENSE!!!!!!!!!! YAY then I did my core- Crunches, Push ups, and leg lifts, and going side to side to work on the sides of my stomach or whatever that is called. Overall my legs felt really good during the advanced group run and then during the newbies run I felt ok but overall a very nice day to run and a great day to have my new garmin.

Today for Cross Country practice we met at the international peace gardens over by the Jordan River Park Trail. We started the run thinking that the advanced group was going to go 8 miles not knowing that the trail would be flooded 2.5 miles into it. So we started the run going on the trail for 10 minutes as a warm up as a team. Then after the warm up we did a short fartlek workout. It was 2 sets of 3 minutes on and 2 minutes off. During those my legs felt absolutely horrible!! Probably because of yesterdays workout. I tried to stay up with Natalie for those but I couldn't get my legs to move that fast. So I stayed in front of Sarah but kind of close to her so I could hear her yell Off or On. Then when we were done with those we were at the flooded area so we turned around and met up with everyone under some bridge. We decided to go 1.5 out the other way but when we got to about 3 miles so .5 out the trail ended so we had to turn around and go back the way we came until we got to 4 miles. But I was thinking and talking to Ben and we were saying how we didn't want to do half our mileage in 2 days and only have to do like 4 the rest of the week. So we were thinking of going 6. When we got to about one mile to go Ben, Dakota, and Voung or however you spell his name decided to run across the red light on that busy street,,, I didn't want to do so I didn't cross it. Then Sarah caught up to me and we decided to go 7 miles instead of 6. When we got back to the peace gardens we were at 5.5 miles so we decided to go until we got to 6.25. When we got out of the peace gardens again the trail ended so we decided to go back. Then I swallowed a bug so I had to stop and gag for a bit. When we got back to the cars we were at 6.5 so we stopped at the swings to see if anyone was back besides the newbies and no one was so we went out to the street around a block to the baseball fields then Taylor and then were just at the drinking fountain when we got there. By this time I was going to faint of dehydration. I am glad that I didn't do the full 8 because I probably would of fainted because I had no liquids before the run. During this I was trying to push the pace and stay under a 8:30 avg. pace but it was 8:47. Hopefully my speed comes back because this was a miserable run even when I was just starting. My quads, bottom of my knee, and my "pockets" hurt right from the beginning and they hurt the entire time. Then when I was finally done we did 3 sets of one minute step ups and arm swings. Then I did my crunches, push ups, leg lifts, side to sides, calf raises, and quad strengths. 

Today for Cross Country we had a advanced group workout. We met at Fairmont Park and went 1.5 miles right and came back then 1.5 miles left and came back. When I was going right I was doing pretty good because I was running with the fast group but because of yesterdays workout my legs just couldn't handle it so at the turn around point I looked back and saw Sarah coming so I waited for her and ran the other 4.5 miles with her. The Advanced run absolutely sucked because it was 6 miles of just going straight. Then when we got back we broke into groups with the newbies for the scavenger hunt. My group had all of the fast guys so we had to go 6 minutes behind everyone. My group was Me, Tomy, Taylor, Dakota, Bill, Kevin, and Voung. We started out pretty slow and ran to the first location which was the golf course, then the boys and girls club, fairmont park, granite bakery, some condos, birds of paradise place, sprague library, sugarhouse park trail, barnes n noble, smiths, and then back to the park. The scavenger hunt was total of 4 miles but it felt like a ton more. When we got to smiths we saw the group of boys that started 3 minutes ahead of us and they were about 1 minute ahead of us at this point. So we quickly went to the store and got everything that we needed from it and sprinted and I mean sprinted back to the park to get to the slides. We did win the scavenger hunt but only by default. The boys in front of us forgot to get one of the ingredients at Smiths so they didn't win because of that. During the run today my legs weren't in pain really they just felt like lead the jelly back to lead. They did that in a continuous circuit throughout the entire run. I don't  know if I am just running weird or they aren't used to the amount of mileage that I am doing all at one time. But these past few days my legs aren't feeling to good. Hopefully they feel better by tomorrow otherwise I am only doing 7 miles. We will see. I don't want to go over my mileage for the week so I might only do 7 or 8. But other than that my form while I am running is getting better but the pain seems to never be ending. I was noticing when I was outside today that I have been getting blisters on the top of my second toe on both feet and on the back of my heal. The heal one is from my sock rolling down under my foot so I did the whole run rubbing my foot on my shoe but the ones on my toe is still a puzzle to me.

Today for Cross Country practice we met at the Park-N-Ride. We drove up to the pipeline trail. I was only planning on running 7 miles today but when I turned around at the 3.5 mile mark I ran into Bill and Natalie and Bill told me to go and finish the run with them. So we ran past the coolest place ever, it was a view of the entire valley. We kept running and passing into groups ahead of us until we eventually got back up to Scott and them. When we got to the turn around point I was feeling really good. I was staying with Natalie and Bill the entire time. That made me feel good. But on one of the turns I saw a rattle snake and I stopped because it was crossing the trail and I didn't want to run over because it might have bitten me. I waited for about 10 seconds then the snake passed by. By this time we had a little more than 4 miles to go. When I got to the 3.5 miles to go I ran into the Brighton Boys and they kept me pushing for the rest of the run because I didn't want them to pass me again. Which they didn't. When I got out of the trail I was about at 9.25 so I ran up the trail till about 9.65 then I came back and it was shorter for some reason so I added .08 on with Delaney. This was the first time ever that I ran 10 miles non stop and it felt really good. When I got home I did my core, crunches, push ups, leg lifts, quad strengths, and calf raises, and holding my knee up for a minute thingy. My blisters on my feet hurt a little bit but nothing to really complain about.

Here is my link to my garmin connect:

http://connect.garmin.com/player/95925165 

Today for Cross Country practice we met at liberty park for a little speed workout. We started with a lap warm up then ran to the starting line for the first 800. But then we had to do 6 strides first. Then we started the 800's. On the first one I started out a bit too fast and then I started to slow down and my time was 2:56. My goal was just to stay under a 6 minute mile. Then we jogged around the park to the next one. My second 800 time was 2:55 which is under a five minute mile which made me feel good and I started out slower so I didn't die so I could kick it in at the finish line. Then we finished out the lap to get to 4.5 then we did another .5 to finish out the day at five. My legs felt great throughout the day, I was just a bit sore throughout everything. It wasn't a hard workout it was nice to wake up my legs again and do some speed. I need the speed and this is where I am going to get it. Then while we were at the park I got to do all of my core as a team. We did the crunches, push ups, leg lifts, and we also squeezed in some arm swings...... Why not.... I was only going to do 40 miles this week but since I would only have 2.5 to do today Bill had me go to 45 because my legs are sort of used to the high mileage they could handle jumping up 10 miles this week. Only 2.5 miles to go now.

Here is my garmin Link:

http://connect.garmin.com/player/96097119 

Today since it is Saturday we don't have cross country practice. So since I only had to do 2.5 miles today I decided to take my garmin out and measure the loop that I have been thinking is 2.5 miles. I was pretty close for just guessing, it was 2 exactly to my house which I thought was really weird. So when I got back to my house I had to do a half mile more so I stopped and changed the song that I was listening to on my Ipod because it was a horrible song and I put on my favorite Lady Gaga song, The Edge of Glory. My goal was to finish the last half mile before the song ended which I did. But during the run it felt like I was going really fast but in fact I wasn't, I wasn't going that fast because I went during the heat of the day, not a good idea. When I was done with the run I did my crunches, bicycle crunches instead of leg lifts today, push ups, calf raises, and then the quad strengthening machine. My run was good because it was in the heat of the day and I need to get back into running in that again and I was trying to stay on my toes the entire time. I almost did it. I had to stop running on my toes for one block then I got back up on my toes again and that really pushed the speed I thought.

Here is the link to my Garmin Connect today:

 http://connect.garmin.com/player/96382429