Rich's 10K

I ran the Rich Bouchard Memorial 10K at South Weber Country Fair Days in Utah this morning.

My goal was 45:00. My official time was 45:31. I should mention that the course was not certified. My Garmin had the distance at 6.07 miles and my time at 45:48. The race had it all. The course was challenging with hills. Of course the wind was blowing as it always does during the morning in South Weber. Fortunately it was at the runners' backs most of the way. That is until the final two miles which were run back uphill, into the wind ... tough! In addition, the altitude was around 4,500-4,700 feet.

I won my age group but that's more a function of today's event being a 5K and 10K. Most runners ran the 5K leaving the 10K field much lighter and very diluted. Still, a win is a win so I'm happy to take the victory and the hardware.

It's late but I want to add a quick note about Rich Bouchard, a personal friend of mine. Unfortunately he was killed in a car accident 20 years ago. During what now seems like a prior life, I ran track and cross country in junior high and high school. Rich is a big reason that I ran. He was a senior when I was a sophomore. He was an excellent runner who loved the sport and loved life. Rich drove a couple friends and me home from team workouts. We didn't have our drivers' licenses yet but he did. Of course, he didn't have to do that but he did. And I enjoyed the association of an "ultra-cool" upper classman.

A couple years later, I was part of a 4-man contingent that traveled to Columbus, Ohio to compete in the National Explorer Olympics. We had a great time during our week of competition. Rich was our distance specialist. Ricky Smith was our sprint specialist. Glen Coy was a strong distance runner and excellent swimmer. I was the fourth man in this group. We had no idea how we would stack up at this level coming from a small town in northern Utah. But by week's end, we had piled up a stack of gold, silver, and bronze medals primarily on the track and in the pool. Rich was the heart and soul of our team. The competitive fire burned brightly inside of him and each raised our game just from being around him. I don't recall how many medals Rich won but I remember cheering from the side during one race - probably the 800 or 1600 finals or maybe the anchor leg of our medley relay. He ran the gutsiest race I've ever seen and brought it home for the victory.

As great of a runner as Rich was, he was an even better person. It's a shame his time with us was so short. I'm happy I was able to share some of that time with him.

My run today was in his memory. Had he been with us to race today, I'm sure he would have challenged for the overall victory; just as he always did.

Morning 8

I missed last night's scheduled run. Work has become increasing busy as we move closer to the September 15 deadline. I had a chance to break away around 6:30 or 7 pm but the heat index was 100 degrees so I just stayed in the office working for a couple more hours. I went home and straight to bed.

Got up around 5 am and drove to the Y parking lot and went 4 miles out and back through the neighborhoods and onto the trail. The run was good. I generally held the pace close to where I wanted it. I did run the last 6 miles with a particularly upset stomach. I suspect it was from neglecting my pre-run "fueling" routine ... or maybe it was something I had eaten earlier ... ???

The humidity was around 94% but, thankfully, the temperature was about 73 degrees.

8 miles @ 9:14/M (1:13:53)

Still Feeling the Affects ... ???

(For those questioning the grammar of this entry's title, I never can sort out the difference between effect and affect. Can someone please give me an easy way to distinguish?)

Today was my worst run ever! I felt absolutely lousy!

I left the office around 7:30 to run 8 miles along Buffalo Bayou. It didn't take very long to know that it wasn't going to be a good run. I could see I was slow on my watch and more importantly could feel that there wasn't going to be much I could do about it. No matter what I did to spur myself to pick it up, I couldn't sustain anything. It was a VERY frustrating feeling. So I resigned myself to slogging it out while just trying to enjoy being outside. ... difficult to enjoy much based on how I felt .... So I made a mental list of excuses for what was happening. Here are a few:

• Even though my legs felt fine from Saturday’s long run, my body really hadn’t recovered.

• The past two Saturday’s 18- and 20-milers had taken a cumulative effect (or is it affect???) that finally caught up to me.

• My glycogen stores were absolutely tapped leaving me with absolutely no “fuel in the tank”.

• This morning’s weight lifting workout pushed me to or over the limit. My trainer bumped my leg press up another 25 pounds.

• I am suffering from major nutritional deficiencies. Maybe two long runs tapped me out. Saturday afternoon I ate a big pile of junk food for about the first time in over 6 months (justified myself with the fact that I’d run 20 miles earlier that day). I ate the wrong foods and I overate in a big way. On Sunday the pendulum swung the other way. Since it was the first Sunday of the month, I ended up not eating much all day long (although Paige made some lovely marinated turkey steaks for us Sunday evening!).

• It was hot and humid. These are probably a bit flimsy as excuses since I should be somewhat used to it by now and it wasn’t overly extreme. The temperature was around 86 degrees with 68% humidity.

• Work is quickly becoming a pressure cooker of stress as the September 15 deadline approaches.


So with this tremendously bad vibe going, I did something that I haven't done before. I cut my run short by a mile. It made me mad to do it but it seemed like the right thing to do.


7.32 miles @ 9:49 (1:11:52)

Training Schedule: August 6 - 12

MON: Easy 8M @ 8:57
WED: Easy 8M @ 8:57
SAT: Race 10K