Out of Gas

Almost 4 weeks until the Top of Utah Marathon. We've done all the 20s we're going to do, but we are working to build up our speed. After some consultation with a few running groups and store owners we've come up with a pretty good strategy. It involves lots of fast running and lots of hills. Today was the begging of our new training routine for the next 3 weeks to see if we can shave some time off our pace.

2-3 times a week

First 3 miles: steady run slower than we usually do
Next 10 minutes: Kick butt faster than I ever thought I could run (30 seconds per mile faster than our goal race pace)
Next 2 minutes: slow jog
Next 10 minutes: repeat above
Next 2 minutes: slow jog
Next 10 minutes: Drag my butt through another set and hope to survive
Rest of the run: walk crawl and drag myself home.

1 time a week: Hills....yeah like that's going to take a whole lot of effort. I walk out my door and there are hills. There are two hills that runners in the area call "suicide hill" and "hill of death". I run them regularly so why am I going to go out of my way to concentrate on them? Oh yeah, this little thing called a marathon I'm doing....I should have taken up Super Mario Galaxy instead. Oh, the kids in the neighborhood call where I live "death hill" just so you can compare.


My running partner was so inspired by this new routine. I just stared at him blankly and said "we're doing intervals?" He wondered why I would have such an unimpressed attitude about it. After today's run, he knows.

We'll see what it brings, but I am seriously out of gas today and we only went 10 miles with a stop at a local school to use the bathroom (man I'm glad school is back in session).