Fast Running Blog

As a convenient resource, I've looked at the Grand Slam results from 2006 and 2007 to compare finish times from Ogden vs. Deseret News.  It appears that only a small proportion (like 1/3) of those that ran both races had a faster time at DesNews.  Sasha's race predictor indicates that the opposite should be true (namely, that DesNews is a faster course)

So I'd like to know, what type of preparation and what race strategies I should use to get myself into that minority who run DesNew faster than Ogden. 

If you choose to run Des News fast it will blow your chances of going fast for St. George.  DN is a brutal course and you probable won't recover enough to do well at SG if ran fast.  I would just use it as a good training run and don't worry about your time.  Then kill it on SG!

It really depends on how you run Des News.  I ran faster at Des News when I ran both in 2006, but I took the downhill a little conservative and I had plenty of speed left at the end.  The downhill will beat your quads up if you run too fast.  I think Sasha can examine this better than anyone.

DesNews is such an odd race. I am still trying to figure it out. It always ends up being dog slow for everybody, and I cannot quite figure out exactly why. One thing I know that even if you start out conservatively, you still lose a lot in the last 8 miles. Do not trust the predictor too much on it. I calibrated it off myself in 2005, and now I am thinking I had a really bad day in Ogden, and a really good day in DesNews. Plus the course has changed since then, and it might have become slower. I'll fix the predictor after we run it this year. I do not quite know what to fix it to right now.

I think that Des News is a couple of minutes slower than Ogden because the severe downhills early in the race trash your legs and the heat at the end of the race sap your energy.

First, Des News was short in 2005.  I know that for a fact.  Marathon and 10K so if either was a PR throw it out because in the marathon you could add at least 3-5 minutes to your times.  Even the 10K add 2 minutes, elites a little over a minute.  I have run it both ways, fast at the start and more conservative the first half.  My best recent time was on the short course, a no brainer, but I went out much slower and finished stronger.  I feel like the real factor of how fast or slow it is is heat based.  The more heat and the lower base miles the more likely to crash or cramp up.  Heat can do a pretender in, in a hurry.  You need to have a strong base to endure this marathon to the end.  I've seen many great runners run it well but they all where high mileage based.  My coach won it 9 times. 

Sorry that last post was not by Breanna, I didn't know she was logged in and not me.