Recovering From Microfracture Surgery

For the most part an easy 8 mile run at 6:57 average pace. After 4 miles Sasha wanted to do a hard mile again like last Monday. He let me pace and he checked splits but again did not call them out. I tried to just run by feel. I felt slower today than last Monday and was very surprised at our time when Sasha told me at the end. I guessed we were a little slower than last week. Last week we did a 5:32 and I thought we were at about 5:35-38 today. However, we did a 5:17 for the mile this morning. I did not expect that at all. At the end Sasha wanted to make sure we beat  7:00 pace so we ran the last 1/2 at sub 6:00 pace with the last 1/4 in 1:26. Feeling pretty decent with the drop in mileage.

Just over 7 miles total at 7:09 average but all but 2 miles were easy. Sasha wanted to run a 3 mile tempo and I decieded to pace him during the 1st and 3rd mile with just over a 1/2 mile jog rest between while waiting for him to come back from his 2nd mile. Another strange day pace wise in the sense that I thought we were going much slower than we were on both of the miles. On the first mile I would have guessed we would hit a 5:35-40 and we hit a 5:26. On the second mile I was thinking anything under 5:30 would be tough because it was an uphill mile. When we were running the second mile I would have guessed it would be about 5:30-35 and we hit a 5:18. So two times a mile at 5:26 and 5:18 with a 1/2 mile jog rest today. I'm not sure what to think of my fitness level right now as far as what to expect but I know I am starting to run faster. If I can up the miles after Ogden and lose the last 10 pounds of extra weight things will be looking much better for a decent Fall marathon.

5.1 miles today very easy averaged 7:12 pace. Sasha wanted to do 1 mile at marathon pace and I was more interested in taking it easy so I let him go and just ran my own pace. I did not expect to be near marathon pace as I was just relaxing and running very easy. My guess would have been 6:40 pace at best. However I ran that mile in 6:15. I guess it is good when 6:15 feels like an easy morning run pace. Two more easy days and we will see how things go at Ogden. Goals are:

1. Finish with no major problems and be sub 2:50.

2. Run even or negative split race and sub 2:45.

I guess that's about it. 

Easy 5 miles this morning. Feeling pretty decent.

Easy 4.4 with Sasha sped up to marathon pace for a mile. Heading to Ogden with Sasha this evening.

 On another note I took my son James (12) to his first ever track meet. He wanted to run a mile but the longest events for his age group were the 800 and the 400. We signed him up for both with the 800 being first followed by the 400 about 30 minutes after the 800. I was not sure what to expect in the 800 but I told him to just go out and run hard the first 400 and see what happens. I was thinking he would run around 2:45. He took off at the start and after the first 100 was in second. On the back stretch he took the lead and started to pull away. He hit the first 400 in 78+ and was well in the lead. At this point I was hoping he could hold on. He was able to hold on to the pace pretty well running the second 400 in 80+ with an over time of 2:39.2 and had a pretty big gap on second place. He was very excited about it as he did not think he could run that fast. The 400 was next and James was not too excited as he was pretty tired from the 800 and there was  a boy from his school that had beat him in the 400 at school several weeks ago during PE. I told him to just run as best as he could but the key was to get a fast start and push the first 200 hard. He led from start to finish and won by about 2 seconds running a 72.11. What was even more impressive is that the wind had picked up quite a bit and was blowing very hard directly down the finish straight. He commented afterwards that the when he hit the last 100 the wind was killer. This was a great day for James and a big breakthrough for him. Sorry for going on I guess I'm just a proud father and was very surprised at how fast he ran.

Well the race is over and I am feeling a bit crippled right now. Things did not go as well as I would have liked but I cannot complain. One thing I know for sure is that I did not have enough long runs in training. The first 10 miles felt great and I was feeling like I was holding back, almost like an easy long run pace. However, just after 10 miles I got this weird kind of numbing sensation in my quads. This is what I remember feeling like when my glycogen stores are running low. In the past when I have gotten this feeling I have been able to hold pace for about 5-6 more miles before things get ugly. It is a hard 5-6 miles but I can hold pace. With this feeling coming on at 10 miles I knew this was not a good sign of things to come. As predicted I really started to struggle at about mile 15. I tried to hang on after that but I knew I was pretty much done at this point and was really in survival mode with the goal of just finishing. To overcome this in the past I need to do a lot more long runs where it seems as if my body learns how to adapt and store more glycogen. Besides the Striders 30K I think I only did one 18 miler. This is by far not enough for my body to be ready to run a marathon withouot crashing and burning. The good news is that I know what I need to get back to where I was and I think I am furhter along than I though I was. Now I just need to increase the miles and long runs and in doing so lose the last 10 lbs of extra weight I am carrying around. If I can do this then my next marathon should go much better. Well, enough rambling my splits are below. Also, thanks for James and Jeff (from Idaho Falls) for running together for the first 14 miles and helping each other stay relaxed. Conrats to everyone on the blog that ran today as well, especially Paul and Steve who both ran very well and finished 1-2. My splits below do not include the stop at mile 24 and 25 to drink so I could finish as I was pretty dehydrated and was worried that I may not make it if I did not get a couple full cups down at each of thse stops. I lost 1:03 during these stops.

1	6:09
2	6:04
3	5:59
4	5:56
5	5:56
6	6:01
7	5:58
8	5:57
9	6:11
10	6:15
11	6:19
12	6:08
13	6:19
1/2	1:20:00
14	6:09
15	6:29
16	6:17
17	6:20
18	6:04
19	6:19
20	6:28
21	6:32
22	6:28
23	6:17
24	6:57
25	7:31
26	6:55
.24	1:35
Total	2:46:48 with stops

 I made my goal of beating my first marathon time of 2:47 so that is a plus. However, we will see if I make it through the next couple of days injury free. Right now I am a bit concerned about a few things.

 Once again congrats to everyone and thanks for the support and kind words.