Go slow to go fast.

March 28, 2024

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Location:

Westminster,CO,USA

Member Since:

Nov 11, 2009

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

Finally started learning how to run in '09 after totally botching it up for the 14 years prior and dealing with chronic IT injury...have had zero IT band pain since fall of '09 and have run way more than ever before in my life...loving it.

PR's

Road Mile: 4:44 - Pearl St Mile August 2011 

2K: 6:32 - Uni HIll 2K 2011

3K: 10:07 - West end 3K 2011

5K - 16:53 - Turkey Leg 5K 2011

10K - 38:38 - Butte to Butte Eugene OR 2003 

Half - Never raced a half

Road Marathon - 2:57:19 - 11/12/2011 - solo.

Trail Marathon - 4:48 - Kings peak August 2011

55K - 4:59:54 - Moab red hot 55K 2011

Short-Term Running Goals:

Be healthy, run injury-free, listen to my body.

Sub 16 min 5K

Sub 34 min 10K

Sub 2:40 Marathon

    2012 Tentative Schedule

  1.  Quicker Quaker 5K January
  2. Boston Marathon - April
  3. ??

Long-Term Running Goals:

Get stronger, faster and more fit as a runner and biker to allow for bigger adventures as the years go on.

Still be running in my 80's.  

Personal:

I'm married to Nan Kennard and she kicks my butt at running.  She has beat me handily in every race we have done together except for a downhill mile we did once.  She is my running inspiration.  I'd like to run a marathon with her someday and actually keep up.  

My Personal Blog

My Family Blog

My Business Blog 

Favorite Blogs:

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Bare Feet Lifetime Miles: 282.68
Cycling 2011 Lifetime Miles: 291.40
Altra Instinct July '10 Lifetime Miles: 637.35
Altra Instinct Sep '11 Lifetime Miles: 481.45
Altra Lone Peak Lifetime Miles: 157.50
Altra Instinct Black Lifetime Miles: 69.00
Altra Adam Lifetime Miles: 27.50
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.550.000.000.007.55

OK, all you 'ultra runners' out there, picture this hypothetical scenario.  I'm kind of curious how this would make you feel:

 You're cruising along the mesa trail in Boulder on your easy recovery day.  Your heart rate is very relaxed in the mid 130's, just trotting down a downhill section enjoying the mountain air, running through pine tree single track.  Then you turn a corner and notice a runner on a switch back below you out of the corner of your eye, and you just keep cruising down.  Then you do a double take since your brain has now processed the long hair, the beard, the smooth stride, and you realize you're catching up to Tony Krupicka...and yet you're barely breathing from lack of effort.  What the?!?  Then by the time you get down the switch back he's out of site like a deer that pranced off into the woods, and you're back to reality, realizing he must surely have just barely jumped on the trail in front of you and was then bounding off up the nearest mountain at some ludicrous speed.  But your curiosity is still peaked, so you pick up the pace a little, and around the next bend, just behind NCAR by the mallory trail he's still just ahead of you, much closer now.  Weird!  So you catch up to him and then slow the pace down to run and chat for ten minutes or so as you cruise up the mesa trail past bear canyon and up the steeper Fern canyon trail for a little while.

OK, so how does that make you feel/think?   

Alright, you may have guessed that there was a little too much detail there for me to be making that up by now, so I'll tell you what I felt...Heck Yeah!! I'm in awesome shape right now!  I was hardly breathing and I was catching up to Tony on my easy day!  Wahoooo!  I'm going to win Western States this year! (OK, that very last line was fabricated just now, I didn't actually feel/think that at any point)

Amazing what a little 'positive mental attitude' can cover up isn't it?  And hey, maybe if you lie to yourself long enough eventually it may turn to the truth?

The good news is, our subconscious mind can't seem to differentiate all the time.  While in reality, my logical mind is well aware that I most likely just happened to hop on the mesa trail from the skunk canyon trail a couple hundred yards after Tony had just run by and we were most likely running a similar easy pace.  Then once I saw him, I definitely picked up the pace a lot in order to catch up and run with him for a bit.  Then I slowed back down to the pace I was at before so I could run and chat with him.

But even though I know all that, my conscious knowledge of that still isn't taking away the really cool feeling that occured when I noticed myself catching up to Tony even though I was running really easy.  That event told my sub-conscious in no uncertain terms that I must be in good shape, and that I can run with fast guys.  And it embedded that in my belief set for now.  And it increased my confidence to some degree, despite all the logical explanations my mind can come up with for why that may or may not be the case.  Interesting stuff.....

Thanks Tony...for going slow sometimes so I can feel fast! 

It was nice chatting with Tony for a while about his upcoming race at Rocky Raccoon and other stuff.  Also, I appreciated him asking about my upcoming race and giving me some beta on the Moab Red Hot course.  He took 2nd place there to Kyle Skaggs by only 1 second in 4:03:03 in 2008. 

For the morning: 7.55 Miles - 1:06:35 - 8:51avg - HR: 138avg - 1300' vertical - I am pleased that 5:30-6:00 pace is feeling like easy recovery pace coming down from the mesa trail and my HR is not getting even into the 140's for that section/pace

NB MT101 - Black 11.5 Miles: 7.55
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments
From jun on Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 15:30:31 from 66.239.250.209

As a corporate trainer I used to teach people that if you fake it long enough it will become natural. I believe that exactly what you explained is very true. These little moments can have long term positive impacts . . . far more impacting than the negative ones.

It's Tony K.

And yeah, you caught him without really trying. His relaxed pace is like a 6:30. And you caught him.

That says a lot man. You are going to kill it at Moab.

From Scott Wesemann on Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 17:38:41 from 66.239.250.209

Jun and I were actually talking about Tony K during our little adventure today and you were actually out running with him. Very cool.

From Aaron Kennard on Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 11:42:56 from 98.245.117.176

Jun - yeah, it is interesting how, with an optimistic outlook, little, brief, sporadic good moments can out weigh lots of difficult or not-so positive moments (sounds like I'm talking about parenting;). Its cool how that works.

But please let me clarify...it actually did take a decent effort to catch up to Tony. Please don't be mislead into thinking I am anywhere near Tony in 'ultra distance' fitness. We were in reality probably going the same pace, and he was probably barely breathing, and when I saw him my HR was 135, then I sped up to catch him to chat, and by the time I got to him I was at 165 breathing pretty hard because of the short few hundred yards of running faster to catch him.

But that being said, I am definitely in way better running fitness than I've ever been in, so I'm excited to see what happens at Moab. Just don't expect to see me pulling off any Tony esque performances. I would be thrilled to make the top 10 there with how stacked the field is.

From Aaron Kennard on Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 11:44:35 from 98.245.117.176

scott - yeah, it is pretty cool bumping into the pros on a daily basis around here, and even running with them. It's motivating to be sure when you read all about awesome performances and then get to see the dudes in action and chat with them about it.

From Scott Wesemann on Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 12:24:45 from 66.239.250.209

Aaron- You have been on fire lately. Are you planning on defending your Quest for Kings title this year?

From Aaron Kennard on Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 12:33:53 from 98.245.117.176

Scott - Yeah, I'm definitely planning on it at this point. That was a fun trip. Don't know the date yet or if I may end up with a conflict with my wife's racing schedule, but I think middle to end of August will work well for our schedule like it did last year.

From Scott Wesemann on Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 12:36:02 from 66.239.250.209

Very cool. I'm excited to watch (well, hear about later since I'll probably be at dollar Lake when you finish) you, Jun and Faceless Ghost, and others battle it out. Good times.

From Dorsimus on Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 14:39:51 from 66.239.250.209

Awesome! Sounds like you had a lot more fun than I did driving all day! :) It's cool now that I actually have an idea where you are talking about.

From Jon on Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 22:49:57 from 98.71.181.194

Pretty fun. Although, technically, beating Tony doesn't get you first at Western. You still have to beat Geoff.

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