Recovering From Microfracture Surgery

AM - Easy 12 mile run along the Provo River Trail with Sasha. First 2.5 miles with sone James as well and then just Sasha and I chatting while we run. I have been very surprised by how I have felt after Saturday's run and today. We averaged 7:18 pace for the 12 today and the whole run i felt pretty good and had to hold back to make sure it was an easy run. With 124 miles last week and 22 miles on Saturday I expected to be more tired. Even on Saturday I had a ton of energy all day and the legs felt good after running 22 miles. I'm not sure why but I will enjoy it while it lasts. Plan on running a few more miles this evening but this week will be only 100 miles then about 75 miles next week in preparation for St. George.

PM - 5.2 miles tonight 2 with James, 1 with Jared and 2 on my own then 5xstrides. Almost feel like I cheated today only running 17 miles.

AM - 12.1 miles total this morning at the very dark hour of 4:30am with Sasha. I really do not like running this early but sometimes it is necessary. It is very hard to get going in the dark at this time of the morning and to do a fast workout makes it even tougher. The plan was to do 6x800 on the trail all in 2:40 with a 400 jog. This sounds easy enough but at 4:30am it becomes a bit more of a challenge. This morning was interesting as it was dark enough in places on the trail that we could not see the actual trail very well and at faster paces it makes you a little nervous trying to make sure you stay on the path. We warmed up 4 miles and then started the 800's. Splits for 800s were 2:35, 2:36, 2:37, 2:37, 2:39, 2:37. Sasha let me control the pace for most of them. The first 800 I felt smooth and in control and was a bit surprised with the time as we hit it in 2:35. After that one I wanted to make sure I stayed like at this effort and remained at a controlled pace. I did not want to feel like I was pushing all out on any of the repeats. All of them felt pretty good and were at what felt like 5K effort overall never pushing to what would feel like top speed. Afterwards we did about 4 more miles back to Sasha's house. Overall I am pretty pleased as I was well under my 2:40 goal but the effort was what I wanted it to be. I am also happy as running at this time and in the pitch black makes it much harder and I'm pretty sure slows one down a bit. A few more miles tonight with the boys.

PM - Added 4.3 miles, 1 with Jared, 2 with James and rest on my own. Easy miles and only 16.4 total today.

Interesting read below continued from a previous article.

Link to Part two of a series on running economy!

AM - Very easy 12.4 today. Under 8:00 pace but not by much. Felt very relexed and easy. Started at 4:30am ran to Sasha's and then ran with Adam and Sasha for awhile and ran into Jeff who joined us along he way. I headed back to BYU via Bulldog and then ran about 3 more miles with cadets at BYU. Overall I was very tired when I got up this morning and had a hard time getting going but once I woke up and got moving things felt pretty good. Right hip was bothering me a little bit but that is a fairly common problem of mine. More planned tonight with James at his XC practice.

PM - 4.4 miles at James' XC practice. All sub 7:30 on grass. 4xstrides as well.

Thanks to Sasha we have a discussion forum now. I think this will add a lot to the blog!

AM - Well today the plan was to do another 5 mile tempo run on the standard Provo River 2.5 mile course. For those that like the bottom line up front I ended up running 28:07 (5:37 avg.) for the 5 mile tempo which is a big step forward for me. The rest of the story follows.

I wanted to try and run about 5:50 pace at first and then drop to 5:45 or so depending on how things felt. This was based on last week being able to average 5:48 after starting the first 2.5 right on 6:00 pace. I figured if all went well I could average about 5:45 or so this time. Sasha and Jeff were with me today and volunteered to help take turns leading quarters. I was a bit concerned that they would push it too fast on their turns as this would be a fairly easy pace for them. After warming up about 4 miles we started into the 5 miler. I led the first 1/4 and hit 1:27 so pretty much right where I wanted to be and it felt very relaxed and easy at this point. We went through the first mile in 5:47, a bit ahead of plan but it felt very relaxed. Sasha and Jeff were doing a good job of hitting fairly even quarters at this point when we traded off. Things picked up a little the second mile as we went through it at 5:41. Again it felt a little faster but still relaxed. This started to feel like threshold. Sasha picked it up a bit on his next uphill quarter and I could feel the difference. Jeff then put us back on a more reasonable pace again. We hit the 2.5 mile turn around in 14:20 and I was thinking if I could maintain this then 28:40 for 5 miles would be a good time today. I was still feeling pretty decent so I knew it was possible. We hit the third mile in 5:41 again and I could feel it a little bit but still feeling like threshold. At this point Sasha and Jeff started to push the pace a bit more on their quarters and I could feel the difference but was willing to push and see what I could do. We did a 5:28 for mile 4 and this was a bit tougher and started to feel like I was definetely dipping under threshold. This was feeling more like 10K effort now. I asked Jeff and Sasha to not push too hard the last mile or they would drop me. They complied and maintained a pretty even pace. We did mile 5 in 5:30 with the last two quarters in 1:23 and 1:20. Overall 5 mile tempo was 28:07 today which is 54 seconds faster than last week. This was a big surprise as I did not really expect this. Finished off with 4 more miles cool-down and for 13 miles averaged 6:59 pace. So splits ended up being 5:47, 5:41, 5:41, 5:28, 5:30. Sasha is telling me I need to shoot for a sub 2:30 at St. George based off of this workout but I am still not convinced I am ready for that yet. I need to figure out what pace to run but I am still leaning on going out no faster than 1:17 but Sasha says I need to go out in 1:16 for the first half. Well, a couple more weeks to make that decision I guess. A few more miles planned tonight.

PM - Ran 5.6 more easy miles tonight at James XC race helping set up course and running with James during warm-up and cool-down. More than I planned but that just means tomorrow will be easier.

AM - Standard Sasha House 10 Miler with Sasha and Adam. Very easy relaxed run today. Although I am coming down with a cold or something as my throat was very sore all night and this morning and my glands are swollen. I'm goign to hit the Emergen C pretty good and hope to just get over it quickly. The good thing this morning is that my legs felt good. They were not tired at all from yesterday. We averaged 7:25 pace with the second 5 in 35 minutes. Only 2 more miles tonight so a low mileage day of 12 miles today.

PM - 2 miles with kids. Sick as a dog and it stinks!

AM - Total of 20.9 miles this morning. Met Sasha, Jeff and a new runner Brad who is one of Jeff's roommates running St. George. We headed up the canyon at a easy pace but I am still very sick so I felt pretty bad. I was up all night with sinus headache and body aches so it was not a fun night. I was not really looking forward to running for some reason. I figured if I did not puch it then it would still be ok. First 8 going up felt very easy and under control. Sasha and Jeff took off on the way down. I ran with Brad at what felt easier than marathon pace and just gradually picked it up each mile until the last three or so felt closer to marathon pace. Splits for the lsat 8 miles were 6:08, 6:24, 6:15, 6:09, 5:53, 5:51, 5:35, 5:44. So an average pace of 6:00 for the last 8 miles and it felt very relaxed. The cold and sinuses sucked but legs were ok. I then went and ran the 1/2 mile with Jared at the Cougar Run. He ran 4:12hiw ch was a little slow for him but his first real race. Then I jumped in with James and paced him on the 5K. He ran 19:46, almost a PR on a hilly course. So I ended up with three more miles at close to marathon pace of 6:14, 6:08 and about 6:40. So 11 marathon pace miles and about 10 easy. Now the real taper begins, yeah!!!