Go slow to go fast.

Week starting Apr 10, 2011

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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 

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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
42.950.0011.200.0054.15
NB MT101 - Green 11 Miles: 7.00NB MT101 - Black 11 Miles: 21.65NB MT101 - Black 11.5 Miles: 9.50NB 205 Kimbia Miles: 16.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.000.000.000.007.00

Today was the first day since the red hot 50K where I didn't wonder how I was going to feel.  I've been working through various issues recovering for the last 6 weeks, but after last saturday's run, I could feel that I was back to normal with how easy it was to recover from.  And also, my right ankle pain was gone and didn't show up at all during that 2 hour run.

So today was a great day.  The sun was shining and I was able to cruise easy on the trails feeling 100% normal.  It was highly enjoyable and refreshing.  And it makes me look forward to attacking a workout tomorrow without reservation or pain inhibitors.  I think I'll do 4 X 1 mile with Nan at my goal 5K pace or under.  It will be an interesting test to see how well I can hold sub 5:28's.

7 miles - 1:04 - 9:10avg - 1100' vert - skunk cyn to the end of the mesa single track, then back down koehler.  Threw in 5-6 short hill sprints on the uphills on mesa.

 

NB MT101 - Green 11 Miles: 7.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.000.004.000.0010.00

I had a solid and fun workout this morning and am feeling pretty good about it.  And mostly I'm liking how good my legs are feeling during and after.  I don't feel tightness or issues anywhere, which is a pretty great feeling.  Finally feeling fully recovered and normal after Moab in February.

I joined Nan and the RRB for some mile repeats around Coot lake in North Boulder.  After a few miles of warmup, strides and stretching we did 4 X 1 mile repeats.  These were my splits:

5:20, 5:18, 5:22, 5:26

That last mile was definitely tough.  Especially the last quarter mile.  But I feel pretty good that my slowest was a 5:26 and it was on a dirt trail that has ups and downs.  Last time I did 4 X 1 mile was around the indoor track a few months ago and my fastest split was a 5:26 with the others being 5:33, 5:36, 5:37.  So that's some decent progress and I'm happy about it.

Time will tell if I can hold 5:28 or under for 3.1 miles in a couple weeks.  The good news is that this workout has enough time to set in and hopefully by then I'll have that extra bit of fitness that will allow me to string 3 of those together.  It still seems like kind of a daunting task at this point. 

NB MT101 - Black 11 Miles: 10.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
9.500.000.000.009.50

Had a really nice easy run up bear canyon, across mesa, down south shanahan.  Not sure why I waited so long to get "The Postal Service" album...but I felt like some new tunes so I got it this morning and it was definitely worthwhile...some good stuff on there.  

Crossed paths with Johnny T on mesa, then again 30 minutes later on Lehigh as we were apparently running a similar route in reverse.  I turned around and ran with him back up lehigh to fairview to add on a couple miles and chat.

9.5 Miles - 1:20 - 8:28 avg - 1500' vertical. 

I've been loving being back on the trails and hills for my easy days this week.  Its super enjoyable to get up there and just cruise around with no plans or expectations a few days a week.  It adds a nice contrast to hard workout days, which are also enjoyable, in a different way.

 

NB MT101 - Black 11.5 Miles: 9.50
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.450.003.200.0011.65

Schlarb and I met for the weekly Thursday green ascent this am, despite loads of new wet snow.  I woke up to find that it had totally dumped on us over night and was still coming down hard.  It was actually pretty nice out, the temps weren't below freezing.  And the soft heavy snow felt kind of cool to run on...until it got really steep, then it was kind of annoying.

After a short warm up, we decided to head over the mesa and up bear canyon.  I was fairly certain I wouldn't be able to match my pace from last week though with all the heavy snow on the trail.  It was worse than I thought it would be though.

Once we started the climb up the canyon, it was ok for a while, then pretty quick we arrived to a section where it seemed every tree in the valley was intent on stopping anyone from moving up the trail.  Tree after tree was overloaded with snow and hanging right in front of the trail.  We had to duck under them all, or go around.  It totally threw off the running rhythm.

At one point I was literally on my hands and (bare) knees crawling through a 6 foot tunnel of overweighted tree limbs that left about 1 foot of space to get under.  It was laughable actually.  Any hopes of matching my time from last week were out the window, although I was feeling pretty fresh and the legs had plenty of energy.

Then on the first river crossing I saw jason's foot print on a precarious rock in the middle, and I knew I needed to be careful there in order to stay up right.  So I slightly slowed down...then promptly I found myself striking the ground hard with my left elbow and noticed my entire left side of my body submerged in the down flowing stream.

Fun!  This is a great time to ice out the legs anyway I thought...maybe I'll just chill here for a bit.

Oh wait, that wasn't my thought at the moment after all.  I jumped out of the creek pretty fast, pretty shaken from the abruptness and chilliness of it all, and continued up the path.  Now wanting to turn around and run down because that was quite lame and it hurt, and the path wasn't getting any easier.

But since Jason was up ahead, I had no choice but to press on and not be lame and just bail on him making him wait at the top forever wondering if I was alive.

That was a good thing I guess.  I struggled to get back into running again for a few minutes, then settled back in to enjoying the beauty of my surroundings.  I never really got cold that I can recall, but my elbow hurt a bit.

Anyway, I made it to the top in 44:30, a good 6 minutes slower than last week.  It was fun though, mostly, and it was really beautiful out there this morning.  Jason was a good 5 or 6 minutes ahead of me I think.   Maybe I still have him beat (which would be totally meaningless but fun to razz him about anyway) for the time being on the time up that route...we'll see what his exact data was!

Coming off the north side of green it seemed like foot high snow in some spots, definitely giving my bare calves a nice ice down.  It was great...now I know how to save all sorts of time.  Just combine the after run icing with the run itself and voila...efficiency!

Total for the morning 11.65 miles- 2:30 - 3100' vertical.

And here are a few pics Jason snapped from his phone

NB MT101 - Black 11 Miles: 11.65
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
12.000.004.000.0016.00

Its hard not to enjoy how much easier it feels to run fast at sea level.During my warm up on the River path (where every single Boston marathoner happens to be running in the days before the race) I couldn’t help but notice how easy it felt to be running 6:30 ish pace on my warm up. I saw Josh Cox run past going the other way. Didn’t realize he was running this weekend…or is he?After about 4 miles of warmup and stretching and strides, I decided to do a few miles of tempo at whatever pace felt good. I pretty quickly settled into a 5:45 pace that I felt I could sustain for quite a while, so I just went with that.In the last mile the tempo I passed Ryan Hall and wished him good luck on Monday. I finished the 3 miles in 17:12 (5:44 avg) feeling like it wasn’t all that hard, but it was just the right amount of effort for today. As a comparison, I ran that pace in January when in a 5K race, and that was an all out effort. Sea level, and some increased fitness are definitely the factors there. I’m still not sure if I can hold 5:28 for 5K at altitude, but I think I’ve got a good shot at it. I’m pretty sure its going to hurt pretty bad the last mile of that though.After I finished my tempo run and was stretching, Ryan caught back up to me so I introduced myself and we ended up running 3 or 4 miles together along the path and back into town.It was great chatting with him. He’s a very nice dude. We share a lot of beliefs and convictions both being Christians, and it was cool to relate to him on that. I commend him for being so straightforward and open about his beliefs.It was kind of interesting to be running with him in that setting where we were passing by dozens upon dozens of other runners, because everybody knows who Ryan Hall is, and tons of people give him greetings and wish him well. That can’t be too bad of a thing I guess. I sometimes think it could be kind of annoying to be famous, and so I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that…but seeing from that perspective, I could see how it could be very motivating to feel so much support from so many people wherever you go

PM - we met up with Anika and Emily, two of Nan's former BYU teammates this evening, so they could get their final pre-marathon run in. I tagged along. We just ran easy, did 4 strides, then 4 x 1 minute at marathon race pace for Nan, which is like my 5K race pace. 5.5 more miles for the day. It was kind of cold and pretty windy out this evening.

NB 205 Kimbia Miles: 16.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(3)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
42.950.0011.200.0054.15
NB MT101 - Green 11 Miles: 7.00NB MT101 - Black 11 Miles: 21.65NB MT101 - Black 11.5 Miles: 9.50NB 205 Kimbia Miles: 16.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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