Really fun time with everyone today down south in St. George. I got to experience another good day of WU, tempo and CD. I need to create some better habits and today was a good practice run for exactly this. I warmed up with Scott, Matt, Toni, Mike and Brandon for two miles. These guys have been fun to train with. A very good team with much more to come through 2013. I did a another mile and some strides on my own after. I took to long to get ready after the WU. This is something I need to do better down the road. Got to pace the 1:25 group today. It was really a good opportunity for me to just get a good tempo run in and experience a real race for MP tune up. I want to average at least 6:30 pace in Phoenix. That was our target goal for today. At mile 11 though, my hamstring locked up and once it tightens it does not let go. I had to back off and just jog myself into the finish. Overall I was pleased with the workout. I wanted to focus on pace fundamentals which I have not done a lot of this since the last two months has been focused primarily on base mileage. I now feel ready to do more pace work, tempo and interval training. Looking forward to training harder the next month and get my body ready for the marathon. After the race, I met up with Scott and Mike and we did a 4 mile CD. Felt pretty good after words. Really enjoyed the advice and experience from a lot of really cool and great runners this weekend. It was like a mini running camp. Hope to take what I learned this weekend and continue to stay consistent and steady with my training. I feel ready to break out and do some fun things this year. This race should be a tradition if possible as the first race of the year. Next year I look forward to racing this course. A very honest and tough course to say is this half marathon. Loved the turn at about 8.5 miles coming back into the city on the high trail. Unbelievable view and very surreal. | 