Fast Running Blog

This means it is the same day as the Alta Peruvian 8K.  I wonder if they will keep both on the circuit so people can choose between the two.

I confirmed the TOU date with the race directors, and it's the same as their website as well as Utah Race Guide.

I wouldn't do the alta peruvian if I were you.  It is tempting but so risky.

In past years, the circuit has had multiple races on the same day. It's nice to have choices, plus it thins out the crowd a little bit for cherry-picking. Or some circuit events have multiple races, such as Ogden, SLC, and Des News, same deal there.

The Peruvian is a lot of fun, but is much harder to recover from than a half marathon like TOU. Definitely do not run it all out. I am usually sore from the Peruvian for about 5 days or so. But in terms of prize money, the Peruvian usually has $200 for first place, whereas TOU will have $100. If you want to be a true stud, you will do both. Run TOU in the morning as slow as possible and still get the win, then run the Peruvian in the afternoon (usually it is around 3PM or so). Again, run as slow as possible to win. You will come out with $300, a boatload of circuit points, and some sore quads. Reminds me of how some folks would run the Sandy Classic 10K on July 4th at 6:00AM, and then immediately leave and drive up the road a few miles and run Murray Fun Days 5K at 7:00AM. Or in the now-defunct Salt Lake City Classic, some of the faster people would run the 5K, and then immediately turn around and run the 10K. That was a good race, sad to see it go.

True stud or true fool?  Is this another april fools joke?   Did you ever double on Alta Peruvian day?  Perhaps Mary Ann can pull it off, but perhaps she'll rupture an achilles tendon.

Yes, I usually go back for seconds and even thirds at the post-race BBQ.


No, I wrote this before I realized it was April fools day. It's just a normal joke. But my examples were true. Perhaps someone wiser can jog my memory (Sasha), but I'm pretty sure the same person won both the 5K and the 10K of the SLC Classic back in 2003. That was studly.

Oh, I thought you were serious!  That actually sounds like something I would do.  I've ran three 5K's in 12 hours before.  I won the UVU midnight 5K ($50 prize), then woke up the next morning and won another UVU 5K ($25 prize) at 9am, then at 10am ran the Autumn BYU Cross Country Classic 5K and beat some of the BYU women's team.  I run races back to back all the time to win as much as possible and because I love racing like crazy!

Actually, if you were running 100 miles/week at that point, and then jogged the half marathon in something like 1:25 just to win, then it would not be a hard double, and probably worth the money. But if you actually raced the half marathon for real, or if you did not have a great base, then doing the Peruvian would be suicide.

So you could say that I was half-joking. I'm pretty sure someone like Sasha could pull it off, but would be a bad idea for 99% of runners.

In 2004 Joe Wilson won the Huntsville half in 1:09 in the morning, and then outkicked me at Alta Peruvian for the win as well. That same year he did a double in Salt Lake Classic winning the 10 K, then finishing second in the 5 K after Jayce Nye. The online results actually have Joe first in 2004, but that is wrong - he got beat. He tried it again in 2005, won the 10 K, but then Trever Ball threw him a curve in the 5 K, and he ended up second again.

In 2006 Corbin Talley finished 3rd in the Sandy Classic 10 K, then jumped in his get-away car, drove to the Murray Fun Days 5 K and finished second in the 5 K beating me by 17 seconds. Here is what is interesting. All of the gap came in the last mile. If he is gapping somebody fresh in the last mile of a 5 K after having raced an all out 10 K 15 minutes earlier you would think that would mean Corbin was in great marathon shape, right? Heck no! I beat him by 9(!) minutes at DesNews 20 days later developing most of the gap in the last 8 miles.

This offers some food for thought. Ability to run 3-6 mile intervals is only remotely tied to the ability to run a marathon. Workouts like 3x3 miles, or even 6 mile tempos train you maybe for the half, but they are very much not marathon specific. You can do great in those workouts and still royally blow up in the marathon. Michelle should say amen to that after her Rock'n'Roll experience.

The ability to hold pace and finish strong in a 5 K is driven primarily by  neuromuscular factors. A certain measure of aerobic support is necessary, but it can be achieved with a fairly low mileage. Corbin at the time was aerobically weak, but showed no symptoms until he had to run the marathon. I was aerobically strong, but could not use that strength in a 5 K because the pace was too fast for my leg power.

Aha, I knew you would know the exact times and placings. Those were the examples I was thinking of. Joe Wilson an absolute beast back in '03-'04. Those are amazing performances.

You can't use me as an example in this case.  I had high pain in my SI joint two days before Rock N Roll, medium the day before, then my legs froze up slowly starting around mile 14 of the race.  When I was too close to the race to see clearly, I thought it was a lactic acid build up early (an early wall) from inadequate training.  While that likely was a component, I believe my injury was the main component, now that it and I have been companions for three months.  FYI, I could feel the SI pain in that 3x3 mile workout, but I thought it was just an extension of my hamstring injury, so I continued to have the ham worked on, and ignored the SI joint.  Bad move.

Michelle - you crashed because of fuel, not lactic acid. Some scientists question whether the lactic acid is the actual cause of the slow-down, and I tend to agree with those that do. In my opinion lactic acid is a byproduct of running fast, just like hard breathing. Just like consciously trying to disguise the hard breathing will not make you faster, neither would getting rid of lactic acid. The difference is you do not need a lab measurement to tell how hard somebody is breathing.  Increasing fitness, however, helps reduce the intensity of breathing and the lactic acid levels.

However, even if we assumed that lactic acid was the driver of fatigue rather than a mere byproduct, to maintain a problematically high lactic acid concentration you would have to run really fast, at least your 10 K race pace. If you got at a certain even pace to 14 miles, your lactic acid levels would be under control. The most likely cause of a slowdown at that point would be muscle glycogen depletion.

You are saying that my injury was not the driving force?  I don't think a lack of fuel was my biggest problem in that race.  I have had slow downs at the end of races, but this one was much worse and earlier. 

My opinion is when an injury is the root cause of a poor performance in the race you would experience severe pain isolated to the area of injury during the race as you slow down, and some more after. I re-read your race report and found no mention of being slowed down by SI joint pain. Because of slowing down below your fitness otherwise you are often able to override the pain for a short moment and pick up the pace significantly. E.g when I ran Salt Lake in 2005 I slowed down to 6:30 at the end, I knew I was being held back by the pinched nerve as I was running, I felt my right glut was being gradually deactivated. Two ladies passed me. With a quarter mile to go the top female master caught me and I absolutely would not be beat by her. She had a great kick for an old lady, but I was able to pick up to 5:20 pace in the kick and finished a second ahead. I am rarely able to kick that fast at the end of a normal marathon. In 2007 Jeff was running St. George on a stress fracture. It started hurting at 7 miles. Soon after the first half he slowed down to 6:30 pace, but when Ted caught him after 20 he was able to speed back up to 6:00 for a few miles. He also was clearly aware that something injury-wise was wrong.

In your case - you seem to have never noticed the pain, and when you tried to kick at the end or pick up the pace after slowing down you could not do it. My conclusion is that it was just fuel. You may have aggravated the micro injury by running a marathon on it thus pushing it to the macro-injury area, but it was not the primary cause of the slow down in the last 12 miles.

What is amazing is that Sasha surely came up with all of this information without having to look it up.

Pain doesn't necessarily need to be severe or evident for an injury to have caused a slow down. Pain can be referred and many times, we do not even notice an problem the body is having because it is already handling it. It is possible that running fast or slow you may be affected by an injury or nerve issue without even having a knowledge of it in the area during the run. It is even possible that the body overrides our desicions to run fast in attempt to divert sources to fixing an unknown injury or disturbance. We often only notice the problem when it is strong or already gone wrong. It's like when a tire goes completely flat (in extreme cases blows out). We drive on it everyday and may not pay attention to the tread wear, soft spots, rough road surfaces, or other potential issues even though they are already affecting the performance of the tire. Performance drivers expierence this at an even higher rate. One minute you are going 200mph, you feel a little loose, but can compensate fine. Two minutes later your tire is in pieces, you've crashed into a wall, and out of the race, thinking you are on fire.

check out charts of dermatomes and myotomes to see how nerves cover areas for muscle activation and sensory perception.

That being said, and this is ALL of the original topic, Michelle's race problem was most likely a combination of glycogen depletion, inadequate winter training, the makings of the injury, and their respective relationships to each other, among other things.

Dallen:

I did come up with most of it by memory, but I did look it up just to be sure my memory was right. I have lived a lot of years by now. Not that I feel any less energetic than I used to, or less healthy, but now am starting to feel the burden of remembering my life because there is so much to remember. I look at my kids and say, where did those come from?