It was pretty crazy day for a race. Not a flake had fallen overnight and weather.com said the snow would hold off till at least 10:30. But we all know that the weatherman likes to lie to us. Right at the Saltair exit the snow started coming down, and I got there just in time to see the early star. Met up with Fritz and "warmed" up 3 miles. Luckily we were both bundled up so only out faces were getting stung with little snowflakes. When I got back in to put on my tights Jake and Rob Murphy and decided to take their leave of this race as conditions had deteriorated too far for their fragile bodies ;). I made myself a makeshift face warmer out of one of my arm sleeves and some pins, and threw on my Brook Cascadias to get some traction out there. Like all the SLCTC races this one went off at exactly 10AM Mountain Time. The wind had shifted and let up some so it acted as a tailwind going out. From the Start it was BJ, Fritz, Chris (East High all-star) and me. With about 1" of snow on the ground it ended up being pretty easy going. The first few miles we stayed together then BJ started gaping up and Fritz went after him. BJ then lost his glasses around 4 miles and stopped to pick them up being him back to us. At the turnaround we were still close together, but then the wind started hitting us, and I went from being too hot to just about right (except my face). The snow would melt on my face and obscure my vision, so I had to run with one eye closed on the way back. BJ caught back up to Fritz then I caught Fritz too and ended up with about a 15" gap between us the whole way back. My legs felt heavy the first two miles back, but started coming back the last miles of the race. But there was nothing to be done, I ended up second in about 56:30, I didn't stop my watch immediately as I had no manual dexterity and the shirt was frozen around the watch. Unofficially I am the winner of the Winter Series with the lowest overall time, due to a rough day for Fritz after a hard week of PT for him. I am disappointed by the weather today, this was supposed to be a good indicator of my fitness going into the last 7 weeks of Boston training and help set goals for the next few weeks. I know I'm in good shape, but how good? Right now my goals are at minimum sub 2:35, and best case sub-2:31 good for the American Development corral at Chicago. The next race is Canyonlands in three weeks, and should tell me a lot about where I am. This is the grinding part of the training cycle. My plan for next week is to back off the miles a little bit and give myself a few extra days to recover from the 15k then hit a big long run on Saturday. Back to back 106 mile weeks have felt surprisingly good, though the easy days have been as slow as I can manage. Splits: 5:53, 5:43. 5:42, 5:46, 5:58 (turnaround at 4.65), 6:32, 6:31, 6:15, 6:14, ~2:00 (.321). Meet tomorrow at Highland at 9AM for an easy 10! Even the birds were flying away from it:
| 