Rob Murphy

Park City XC Parents/Spectators Race

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Location:

Salt Lake City,

Member Since:

Feb 11, 2010

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

I had some success in high school and college. Winner 1985 Rod Dixon Run 

Had a fair amount of success as a Masters runner for most of my 40s. 

Short-Term Running Goals:

Have fun with running, explore more trails, stay healthy.

Long-Term Running Goals:

Keep running and racing consistently for as long as I can. Find what is sustainable for me over the long run.

Personal:

I teach AP European History and other courses at Alta High School. I coached the track and cross country teams at Alta for 16 years.

Married, two kids - Abby and Andy

My Twitter  @murphy_rob

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Miles:This week: 6.50 Month: 86.25 Year: 340.47
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
198.501.001.000.00200.50
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

No running or physical activity of any kind.Parent teacher conferences.

Why is your class so hard? My child shouldn't have to do hard things.

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Comments(7)
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No running today.

Parent teacher conferences plus early morning appointments to help students make up missed work.

Looks like a 20 mile week. Not the road to success.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.250.000.000.006.25

This is actually Friday's run.

6.25 miles around Liberty Park in the AM.

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Race: Park City XC Parents/Spectators Race (3 Miles) 00:29:04
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
9.250.000.000.009.25

6 AM run with my team. Prefect run. Threw in a few striders at the end.

Jalepeno breakfast roll from Great Harvest and a banana for breakfast after. Awesome!

PM: Ran the Park City Invite course with Abby.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
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Ten miles in Liberty Park during XC practice.

Congrats to all you St. George folks. Especially Fritz!

Congrats also to my Alta cross country team for taking 4th at the Park City Invitational yesterday and to Kramer Morton for taking first overall and breaking his own course record with a fantastic 15:04.

PM: 3 Mile walk.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.501.001.000.008.50

AM: 3 mile walk.

PM: 8.5 miles generally easy but with a couple "up tempo" miles at the end in 6:09 and 5:47. I felt good today.

Banked some Vitamin D by running without a shirt. Not too many of those days left.

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Everyone should check out Wesly Hunt's race report from Saturday. Pretty amazing.

Only a half day of professional development work for me today. Got home at noon and went for a long walk with Ann and finished up at Caputo's Deli for lunch. I'm starting to become a big fan of that Tim Ferriss dude who proposed that 4 hour work week idea. It leaves a lot more time for relaxation, exersise, and socializing. 

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.000.000.000.004.00

Four Easy plus some strength training.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.000.000.000.005.00

Five easy miles with my team plus 5 x 20 seconds up a really steep hill up in The Avenues during Andy's final game of Fall Ball.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.000.000.000.005.00

AM: Two rainy miles on the Upper Loop. Just burning calories and passing the time before the Region III XC Championships today!

PM: 3 miles

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Comments(5)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.250.000.000.008.25

PM: 8.25 mile after school gully run with my team. Jake took the boys a bit further for 12 miles as I had to leave to pick up Andy. Thanks Jake!

Just a little bit on how my Alta boys raced yesterday....

I have a bit of a strange team this year but it's been one of my most satisfying seasons as a coach and one that I'll remember with a lot of pride. Last years team was solid - winning the region championship and taking 5th at the Utah state meet. Since I lost 4 out of my 5 scoring runners from last year I worried that lean times could be ahead this year.

But Kramer Morton was returning and he's not a bad place to start. We've cobbled together a tough team made up of refugees from the football team and first year sophomore runners. They struggled early but have kept working hard and emerged yesterday as a state calibre team.Kramer ran 15:12 on the Cottonwood Complex course to set a new course record. I'm sad that my time with him is coming to an end but we have a lot more to achieve.

Bingham is the U.S. #18 TEAM AND MY BOYS NARROWLY LOST 34-42. Article with typos here

As a matter of fact, I compared their times from yesterday with the times my 2008 team ran on the same course and my 2008 boys edged this years team 27-28. This is impressive because my 08 team won the state championship and advanced to Portland for NXN.

Each team has its own character and trajectory. This years team is rapidly improving at the right time. We have set the admittedly tough goal of finishing 2nd to American Fork (U.S. #3) AND QUALIFYING FOR NXN.

That's right, I said it!

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
2.000.000.000.002.00

TWO.

AP conference at East High all day. Ann went to work as soon as I got home. So tag team parenting/working. Only difference is Ann gets paid for her work.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
9.250.000.000.009.25

9.25 miles on the treadmill plus some hot tubbing. Enjoyed a feeling of general well being.

One of my favorite runners, Ashton Arndt, got smacked by a car that ran a red light while coming home from work last night. He spent the night in the ER but will be all right thank God. Wish him luck.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
13.000.000.000.0013.00

AM: Chilly morning 6 miler with the mighty Alta Hawks cross country team.

PM: 7.25  miles in the gully in 57 minutes with the same group of fellows. 

Hot tubbed after both runs. Double run, double hot tub.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.000.000.000.004.00

Four easy miles plus some striders.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.000.000.000.007.00

I ran 7 miles in the gully today with my favorite training partners, the Alta XC team.

Also, my favorite band ever, The Replacements, were inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame. And without ever producing a single hit.

These guys taught me that you could be a generally successful person while at the same time lacking ambition in the conventional sense.

So, a good day.

Once again, my twitter

twitter.com/murphy_rob

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
12.500.000.000.0012.50

Twelve point five miles at Jeremy Ranch with Jake and my team. 

I had the team start out with an easy two followed by three miles tempo and then seven easy. Kramer ran the tempo in 15:55. Not bad on a hill course at altitude. He's ready for state.

This is a really cool youtube video for you track history junkies. Super high quality audio and video for 1969.

I have a question. Why are the NFL and college football so obsessed with breast cancer? You know, with the pink shoes and helmets, and uniforms every single year? I'm just wondering because football is a game played exclusively by men and it's audience disproportionately male. 

Why not focus on prostate cancer? It kills almost as many people as breast cancer does. I don't know this for sure,but I'll bet that men are far less likely to get regular colonoscopies than women are to get mammograms. It seems to me that the NFL could be far more effective on that front.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
14.250.000.000.0014.25

Nice short article in Outside...

PM: 14.25 miles in 1:52 at Jeremy Ranch. Too nice today not to drive up there.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
2.000.000.000.002.00

Easy two miles at practice. The boys did 1 X 1/2 Mile and 2 X 1/4 mile with long rests. The 1/2 mile was hilly with a 180 degree turn. Kramer ran 2:04, 52, 52. Yep, that'll do it.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
10.000.000.000.0010.00

Jogged up to Highland High and then did 9 miles in 1:08 with Allie, Josh, Andrea, Jake and Steve Ashbaker.

Went to the gym. Short strength/core workout, hot tub.

"Running Your Best 5k"

1. Their are lots of commonalities to training for every event from the mile to the marathon. If you have several months or years of steady, consistent miles under your belt, you are already well down the road to being able to run a fast 5k.

2. Any good 5k program will have one VO2 Max workout built into every 7 to 10 day training cycle. If you don't want to have your VO2 Max scientifucally tested, you can just run a 3200 meter time trial on a track and use that as your VO2 Max pace.

3. A good VO2 Max workout would be 4-5 X 1000 meters with a 1:1 recovery interval.

4. Tempo runs are important. Over the course of a 10 mile run throw in two to three miles at 10k race pace. One every week to 10 days.

5. Several weeks out from your goal race, maybe 10 weeks, you need to start thinking about the capacity of your body to run anaerobically. This involves running fast. This means all out, 100% effort, fast running.

6. Start by throwing in some short, steep hill sprints into your schedule a couple days/week. No more than 10-15 seconds on these sprints. Allow plenty of time to recover between each as the emphasis is on the quality of the effort and propor form, not getting the workout over quickly.

7. After several of these hill workouts, you can start doing some "Flying 30s or 40s" two days/week. These are usually done on the track because the football field markings help or you can just set out a couple cones to mark off the distance. After a good warm-up you do 8 X 30-40 yards at 100% effort with a slow 800 meter jog between each. This is a continuous run and each hard effort is done on the fly - hence the name. You might find yourself covering 6 to 8 miles in this workout depending on the length of your warm-up and cool down. If you aren't used to running at top speed, you will be sore the next day. That's good as the body is transitioning into fast running and making the necessary adaptations.

8. Finally, we get to the workouts that will really improve your anaerobic capacity. A couple examples...

4 X 400 meters at max effort with 7 minutes rest between each.

1 X 800 meters all out. Rest 30 minutes. 3 X 300 meters all out 5 minutes rest.

In order to run fast, an athlete must be conditioned to both physically and mentally experiencing  running fast through their entire athletic career. Speed must never be neglected at any stage of development whether it be in the cold of winter, the precompetitive season in the spring, or the peak of summer. Speed must be sustained from week to week, month to month, and year to year. The skill of running fast is a learned response and, in order to be developed, it must be included in the regimen of the athlete. The more the athlete runs fast as a part of their development, the more they expect to run fast, and, as a consequence of expecting to run fast, they do.

- Dr. Joe Vigil

These are the basic principles I've used with my Alta XC team and with Kramer Morton, the defending 5A champ and course record holder. It's mostly about confidence. Kramer trains so that he knows that he can sustain any pace over the first couple miles. His confidence comes from knowing that he can run VERY fast over the last 400 to 600 meters when he is VERY tired.

 

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.250.000.000.004.25

Easy treadmill run. Had Sterling Scholar interviews as well as practice after school.

Utah now has seven, yes seven, teams ranked in the top thirty in the nation in Boys cross country. The Davis High girls are ranked #1. 

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
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Easy four. Exciting post to follow....

Great experience for me and my team last night on the night before the state meet.

PatTyson, one of the legendary coaches and winner of 12 state championships at Meade High School in Spokane Washington came to our team dinner and spoke with my kids. Pat was college roommates with Steve Prefontaine at the University of Oregon so he has tons of great stories and insights. He is currently the coach at Gonzaga and is here looking at Kramer.

As a bonus, he agreed to stay here with us Murphy's und so we sat up late last night talking running and coaching. Awesome experience.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.000.000.000.004.00

4 miles.

State meet: My boys finished tied with Westlake for 5th. We lost on a tiebraker. Kramer finished 6th. Braydon finished 7th to earn first team All State.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
3.000.000.000.003.00

Easy 3. Was going to join Kramer and some of the guys up at Alta but Kramer's super sick.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.500.000.000.006.50

Gully Long Run.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.000.000.000.008.00

Eight miles from my house to Liberty Park and around the park a couple times. Met Ann and Andy at the park. Perfect fall day.

I'm having a hard time thinking of anything besides the state meet this past Wednesday. My boys were so close to pulling off some truly amazing upsets but fell just a bit short. I'm so anxious for Kramer to bounce back at the Nike and Footlocker meets that I can hardly stand it.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.000.000.000.008.00

AM: Eight easy miles in Liberty Park.

PM: Five mile walk. Stopped for a cup of coffee along the way. Read some more of The Sports Gene.

RIP Lou Reed

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.500.000.000.007.50

7.5 miles on the treadmill while Abigail was swimming.

I did some leg presses afterwards with massively heavy weights to develop power in my quads.   I may have ruptured myself.

Kramer's college visits began today.Today and tomorrow at BYU, this weekend he's going to Georgetown, next weekend is the mighty Wisconsin Badgers (NCAA runners-up last year, champs in 2011).

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.250.000.000.006.25

6.25 mile "treadmill fartlek" which included 9 X 1/4 mile at 6 minute pace. Speedy!

Had a good day at practice. The boys are pretty excited about our trip down to Arizona for Nike Southwest. We spent a lot of time in practice watching old videos of past races on runnerspace and the team is really motivated. I've been trying hard to understand elements of sports psychology that have eluded me in the past and my conversations with Pat Tyson last week have caused me to evaluate a lot of what I do.

If you aren't growing you're dying.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
12.250.000.000.0012.25

AM: 6.25 miles in the early morning darkness with my team. Stayed mostly on the track and around the school to avoid traffic in the dark. Looking forward to next week when we will have some light on our AM runs.

PM: 6 miles split between the stairmaster and the treadmill. Some strength training after, lots of leg presses, because Jay Johnson (who hasn't blogged for a couple months!) says they are magic.

I like roasted, salted, pumpkin seeds.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.500.000.000.006.50

6.5 dark morning miles with the team in 52 minutes. It seemed like we were running faster.

This will be it for the day with a track workout after school and halloween tonight.

PM: A couple miles of walking around the neighborhood eating candy. Abby was some sort of zombie princess and Andy was Chipper Jones. Great fun with the Hartford Street kids and parents.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
198.501.001.000.00200.50
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00Calories: 0.00
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