Recovering From Microfracture Surgery

Ok, I'm not sure anyone will read this or will be interested but I will post all this week and see if there are any takers.

On Saturday I want to do one last long run before St. George and am looking for anyone that wants to join in. All are welcome even if we are going seperate paces we can at least start together and if enough show maybe even have a couple of groups. Anyway the proposal is to run up at Deer Creek and get a good 20 miler in. There is a great dirt road along one side of Deer Creek Resevoir that is rolling hills at about 5600 feet. The plan would be to do an out and back along the reservoir (out for 6 miles) and then when we get back to the top of the resevoir, where we started, then we would head down the Provo Canyon for the last 8 miles. We would finish at the Breidal Veil Falls parking area. If my estimate is right we would hit the parking lot at mile 19 and then do a 1 mile loop back up to the falls and back to make it 20. I think this would be a great final preparation run for St. George and it would allow us to have water at the 12 mile mark since a car would be parked there. If there are any takers we could meet at the Breidal Veil Falls parking area and then carpool up to the start by the resevoir.

If anyone is interested reply this week. I am looking at starting at 6:00am as I need to be done as early as possible. If I end up with no takers I guess I will be on my own and have to have wy wife drop me off at the resevoir. 

AM - 14.1 miles relaxed this morning along the Provo River Trail from BYU. I met up with Sasha at his house 2 miles into the run and then ran with him until about the 13 mile mark of the run. Ran fairly relaxed although Sasha started to pick it up gradually as we went. I was trying to make sure it stayed relaxed and easy as I want to do a MP run tomorrow. Overall averaged 7:10 pace. I will get some mroe miles tonight.

PM - Added 6.3 miles tonight. 1 with Jared and 3 with James then the rest on my own. Overall averaged 7:30 pace. Legs are a little tired still.

Oh yeah also did 60 push-ups; 60sit-ups and some core strength work. Weight at 135lbs.

The plan is for this week to be my peak mileage week prior to starting a taper for St. George. I am aiming for 120 miles on six days this week with a 20 miler on Saturday. After that I will start a moderate taper and some fine tuning for St. George.

Ok, I'm not sure anyone will read this or will be interested but I will post all this week and see if there are any takers.

On Saturday I want to do one last long run before St. George and am looking for anyone that wants to join in. All are welcome even if we are going seperate paces we can at least start together and if enough show maybe even have a couple of groups. Anyway the proposal is to run up at Deer Creek and get a good 20 miler in. There is a great dirt road along one side of Deer Creek Resevoir that is rolling hills at about 5600 feet. The plan would be to do an out and back along the reservoir (out for 6 miles) and then when we get back to the top of the resevoir, where we started, then we would head down the Provo Canyon for the last 8 miles. We would finish at the Breidal Veil Falls parking area. If my estimate is right we would hit the parking lot at mile 19 and then do a 1 mile loop back up to the falls and back to make it 20. I think this would be a great final preparation run for St. George and it would allow us to have water at the 12 mile mark since a car would be parked there. If there are any takers we could meet at the Breidal Veil Falls parking area and then carpool up to the start by the resevoir.

If anyone is interested reply this week. I am looking at starting at 6:00am as I need to be done as early as possible. If I end up with no takers I guess I will be on my own and have to have wy wife drop me off at the resevoir.

AM - I have been doing a lot of miles but not much quality so I decieded to do a tempo this morning to see how things would go. The plan was a 5 mile tempo at about 6:00 pace which I was hoping would feel like marathon pace effort. I had no idea what to expect as I have not done any workouts at this pace for a long time. If all went well then I would try and do a progressive tempo starting at 6:00 pace and get a little faster each mile if not then at least try and hold 6:00 pace. Warmed up about 4 miles and started on the standard Sasha 5 mile tempo route on the Provo River trail. Started very relaxed and it almost felt too easy. Hit the first mile dead on 6:00 with all quarters right at 1:30. This felt very relaxed and controlled at this point. The next mile I again focused on staying relaxed and easy. I hit the second mile in 5:58 again with very even quarters. So far so good as it felt like a relaxed marathon pace. I hit the 2.5 mile turn around at 14:58, right where I wanted to be and feeling good. At this point I figured I might as well start picking it up and try and hit a negative split for the last 2.5 miles. Mile three was a 5:53 and still felt pretty relaxed. With 2 miles left I figured I might as well put in more of a threshold effort and see what happens. The fourth mile was a 5:40 and this started to feel more like threshold pace. For mile five I wanted to just stay focused but as relaxed as possible at threshold pace. I finished the last mile in 5:30 and the total for 5 miles was 29:01 giving me a 14:03 for the second 2.5 miles and a 55 second negative split. Splits were (6:00/5:58/5:53/5:40/5:30) finished off with a 4 more miles. Overall I was very pleased with the run considering I am in the middle of a 120 mile week following 115 miles last week. I am not sure what to think of it as far as what it indicates for St. George. I think I am in better shape than Ogden but I'm not sure what that equates to for St. George. Although I am pretty sure a sub 2:40 is well within reach. I guess I will know in just under 4 weeks. Looking at Garmin afterwards I am also pleased to see that my heart rate was very resonable. Even at 5:30 pace it averaged about 170 which equates to about an 86% max heart rate for me. Plan to run more this evening.

PM - Added 7.5 more miles this evening. Ran with James for a little and then did a Sasha training event by running while watching Jared's soccer game. It gets very boring looping around the soccer field but I was able to get 6 miles in during the game all on the grass. Averaged 7:30 pace for the whole run.

Below is a link to an interesting read on running economy.

Running Economy 

AM - Ran from BYU to Sasha's house and then ran with Sasha and Jeff. Easy run of 10 miles when I got back to BYU. Then did some push-ups and sit-ups with cadets and headed out for 4 more miles. Overall average pace of 7:35. More tonight as usual.

PM - Joined James at his cross country practice and got a decent workout I was not planning on. After a couple mile warm-up we did 10x300 with about a minute rest between reps. They were all in the park on the grass rolling hills. All of the reps were about 5:20-30 pace. Legs felt ok, tired but ok once they got going. Then a few more miles cool-down. Ended up with just over 21 miles for the day.

AM - 14.1 miles total average pace 7:13. Joined Sasha and Jeff this morning and Sasha convinced me to do 2x1.5m tempo. I was a bit hesitant as I have had two workouts in a row and was at 62 miles in three days. So the first 1.5 was fairly conservative at what felt like marathon pace. 1st 1.5 miles was 8:48 or 5:52 pace. Felt ok so I figured the second one at about the same pace would be good. The first 1/4 was a 1:23 and felt ok so I just focused on relaxing and trying not to push too hard. Second 1.5 miles was 8:28 or 5:39 pace. This felt more like threshold pace. After getting back to Sasha's I added 6 more miles on my own. Add more tonight as usual but it will be very easy.

PM - I was not very motivated to run tonight as I was pretty tired from a long day at work and the miles are adding up this week. However, after I forced myself out and got about 3 miles in to the run it was not as bad. I ran a total of 6.8 miles at 7:25 average with one with James and Jared and Jared set his new mile PR of 7:30.

It looks like Jeff and Adam are going to join me for the Deer Resevoir/Provo Canyon 20 miler on Saturday. We are going to meet at the Bridal Veil Falls Parking lot at 5:45am and then carpool up to the resevoir so we can start the run by 6:00am. Any others going to join in?

AM - Ran from BYU for an easy run for a total of 13.2 miles at average pace of 7:42. Ran 3.5 miles than joined Sasha for another 5.5 miles with his kids. Then I finished up with another 4+ miles on my own back to campus. Felt good to just run easy today after three days of miles and some decent quality. Plan on adding more tonight.

PM - 5.8 miles in hills around my house including 1 mile with James and Jared. Average pace 7:37, very easy and relaxed the whole time.

Good news is weight is now 133lbs so I am almost back at what I consider my racing weight.

Well this week I set 3, 4, and 5 day all time running mileage highs with 62 miles for 3 days, 83 miles for 4 days and 102 miles for 5 days. I will finish the week of with a 6 day all time high of at least 122 after tomorrow.

Sasha and I discuss the topic of sleep and the importance of it while running high mileage. I found an interesting article on it.

Sleep

AM - Headed up to Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon and met with Adam and Jeff at 5:45am. We then jumped in the back of Adam's truck and drove up to Deer Creek Resevoir. We ran very easy in the dark along the resevoir i the rolling hills. There were a few rocks scattered on the road and while it was dark Adam seemed to be hitting them all. He hit a big one and went down and I tripped over him and went down with him. Scratched up my arm and leg a little but was ok. I think Adam came out ok as well. We continued along at an easy pace until it started to get light out. At the 6 mile turn around Jeff and I gradually started to pick it up to 7:00 pace along the rolling hills but still pretty easy at this point. We got a drink at 12 at the top of Deer Creek Resevoir and then headed down the canyon. We started to pick it up at this point and put more of a marathon effort in, for me at least. It still felt relaxed and we were actually chatting the whole way. We picked it up the last 4 miles even more and then I guess it felt more like true marathon pace at this point although I was still able to talk most of the way with Jeff. Afterwards jumped in the car and headed down to see James run his cross country race. Added another 2 miles cheering James on and cooling down with him. So 22 miles for the day and 124 miles for the week. Overall pace average was 7:04 per mile for 20 miles. First 11 average was about 7:46 average then the next 9 miles we averaged about 6:13 pace with the last 4 miles at 5:58 average. Splits below:

1	8:44	Avg HR 140
2	8:47	150
3	8:07	145
4	8:07	145
5	8:12	150
6	7:51	155
7	7:22	150
8	6:59	155
9	7:00	160
10	7:09	160
11	7:07	155
12	6:30	150
13	6:25	150
14	6:25	150
15	6:20	140
16	6:25	150
17	6:04	155
18	6:05	160
19	5:54	160
20	5:50	165