Race Schedule & New PR

I I've got my race schedule (pretty much) figured out for 2010. Finally. I know you've been waiting and waiting for this moment, and it is finally here!

I haven't decided for sure about the first two. I told Pete a while ago that I would just do one race next year. Well, at least that's what he said. How can I just do one race though!? Maybe I meant I would just do one big race? Well, my big race, or my "A race" as they say, is going to be Bear Lake Half. Utah Valley Marathon won't be too little either. I'm so tempted to do Rage and St. George Tri, but then I think it might be better to just focus on running until after the marathon. But then I don't want to totally loose my triathlon fitness either.

• ❑ April 17 - Rage 1/2 (Lake Mead)

• ❑ May 15 - SGTri Sprint/Olympic (St. George)

• ✓ June 12 - Utah Valley Marathon

• ✓ July 31 - Spudman Olympic (Burley)

• ✓ August 7 - BAM Olympic

• ✓ August 28* - Bear Lake - 1/2 (bear lake)

* I can't find the date for next year's Bear Lake Half. It will be August 28th if they do it the same weekend as this year. Hopefully they'll get their new website up soon.

If you're looking for a good race to do in this area, these are some of my favorites, and it would be awesome if anyone wanted to join me at any of these races. If none of these work for you, here are the other ones I wanted to do, but I took off my list when I narrowed it down:

• ❑ June 12 - Boise 70.3

• ❑ July 10 ? - Echo Sprint/Olympic (Coalville) One of my favorites, and would be a great first tri!

• ❑ July 17 - Scofield Sprint/Olympic/escape/kids (Price)

• ❑ August 21 - Park City Marathon (Park City)

• ❑ September 16 - Kokopeli Sprint/Olympic (St. George)

• ❑ September 18 - Top of Utah Marathon (Logan)

• ✓ October 2 - St. George Marathon

• ❑ October 16 - Pumpkinman Sprint/Olympic and 1/2 (Las Vegas)

I will probably also do a few 5ks and 10ks in there somewhere on the way to the marathon, just for fun. In fact, there is one on Thanksgiving in Bountiful that I think we're all going to go do. There's a kids k and all the kids are really excited about doing that.

Now onto today:

This morning, Elle woke up at around 3 with a fever and she said her hands and feet hurt so I was a little worried about her. I gave her some Ibproufin and got her back to bed by like 4. Amazingly, she woke up just as happy as can be and seemed a lot better today. She didn't have a fever, but she's still got the runny nose and a little cough. She watched movies for most of the morning, and she sat with me while I watched Roman Holliday and folded laundry. She even kind of liked it. She kept asking, "Is that the princess?" That's a great movie by the way. After lunch, I got her to take a nap, then I headed out on a run since Pete was home sick too (yeah, with something different though).

I went out with just my long-sleeved shirt on since that's what I wore last time and I got hot, but I turned right back around to get my jacket. I guess when it's 37 degrees, and you can see your breath, it's time for a jacket. I also pulled my long sleeves out and over my hands which worked pretty well. I did warm up after a mile or so, just like I knew I would, but I had to be a little careful about the ice sidewalks. I need to get used to this running in the cold stuff.

I ran on the bike path by the river, and was trying to remember if the river froze last year and why I couldn't picture it. Then I remembered, I didn't run last winter. Like at all. I had a stress fracture in my heel from the St. George Marathon so I didn't run from October until January (around the time I started this blog). Even when I did start running again, it was on the indoor track for a while. (Man, just thinking about it is making my heel hurt.)

I wasn't feeling great starting out, but I started to feel pretty good after a while. I pushed it a little bit on this run, and it was worth it!

I ran 6 miles in 54:50!!

That is SO close to 9-minute-mile pace!

I've never ran that far that fast before! Pete was like, "That's a new PR! You should write that down somewhere." So I'm writing it down here. There is my fastest 6 miles: 54:50.

That would explain why my legs are so tired now.

Here are my mile splits:

1. 9:05
2. 9:15
3. 9:03
4. 9:10
5. 9:01
6. 9:10

The weird thing was that, if I'd look at the Garmin and notice I was going slower than 9:00 pace, say 9:30, I'd just start going a little faster. It would seem almost imperceptible how much faster I was going, and it would jump to 8:30. Wow, that is really good to know! So, a little bit more effort really helps a lot! From now on, I'm going to keep putting that little bit more effort into my runs. No more just coasting for me.