Per Aspera Ad Astra

So busy lately... Ugh... 5.2 with 1 like at 6:00 even on a gradual net uphill (.5% ish). Didn't get to run until 1am.

2 mile warmup, Provo City Half Marathon in 1:15:40 (13th place), 1.3 mile cooldown. Got up at 4:15 AM, left to drive to Provo at 4:30, had to wait until 5:45 to get on a bus, but jogged around down there for about a mile. Waited for a portal potty for almost exactly 30 minutes at the start (seriously, what a mess... these guys need to fix this...), then jogged another mile before starting.

Race went off and I went out hard. I figured I could go sub-1:17 based on my 1:15:33 time last year with a ton of workouts under my belt, and with better baseline fitness this year, but almost no training in about 2 months. I figured I'd have some fun, so I went out in 5:30 and 5:32 for the quite downhill first 2. These didn't feel overly taxing, but my calves didn't feel fantastic based on my current poor fitness and I was nervous about a possible cramp. 3rd mile had quite a few rolls, isn't downhill overall, and is a bit deceiving, so that was a 5:50. 4th mile was back to 5:39.  Mile 5 was a 5:45. At this point, my legs were feeling OK, but not great.  Mile 6 was a 5:47, and 7 was a 5:46.  At this point, I felt like I had a good rhythm going and was getting confident that I could hold it to the finish and somehow eke out a 1:14:xx, despite starting to feel kind of crappy.  Mile 8 kept up this trend with a 5:45.  However, once I turned out of the canyon, I got a blast of headwind and my pace dropped about 10s/mile for a 5:55 in mile 9.  Mile 10, also 5:55, started to feel like quite a fight, and when I saw Spence waiting for the 5k start at the 10 mile mark, I commented that I was "bleeding all over the course at this point". At this point, with a big hill in mile 11, in addition to the wind, I just wanted to keep everything under 6:00, and barely continued that trend with a 5:59 for mile 11.  Unfortunately, the mile 11 marker was way off (the markings on the ground were within .01 of my Garmin for everything up until the last one I had seen at 9, but mile 11 was 11.15 miles in on my Garmin).  I started to realize that even a PR wasn't going to happen, since I was going to have to cover 13.25 miles, but I saw Dave Taylor up ahead and locked onto him, focused on passing him after losing our last 2 encounters by a small number of seconds (Running of the Leopards and Provo City 2013).  I made a big push in mile 12 (5:47) and caught him at about 11.75.  The marker was once again at 12.15 at my watch, and I didn't think I'd catch anyone else, so I made the mistake of backing off a little bit in the 13th mile (5:55).  By the time I hit 13 miles, I realized that the distance actually was correct, and the 11 and 12 mile markers had just been in the wrong spot, but at this point it was too late to really kick in to a PR and I finished up the last .1 in 35 seconds to hit a 1:15:40, 7 seconds off of last year's time and my PR.  Of course, I also just narrowly missed nipping another guy, whom I caught at about mile 13 and then lost in the kick down the stretch (I had no sprint in me today).  Overall, I consider this race to be quite successful given how little I've done lately, but I wish I had found another 8 seconds to nab a PR.

Post race, legs were really beat, and I know that even if I had PRd, I was in better shape at last year's race, when I felt completely fine and capable of more miles in the 5:40s after the finish.  Last year, I went out conservatively and split my fastest miles at the end of the race.  This year, I went out hard, faded, and hung on for a similar time.  I'd rather race like last year's when possible, but it's fun to sometimes push a bit too hard and really test my mettle over the finishing miles.

My girlfriend Daria just flew into town for a long weekend, so I'll take a few days off to recover in order to avoid a massive injury like what I got after last year's race, and then I'll hopefully be able to finally hit some consistency with my training again for the first time in 2 months.

Oh, and great job to everyone that ran fast times here today.  This is really not the fast course that people make it out to be.  If you plug it into Daniels, it's nearly a minute slower than a pancake flat course at sea level (a little over 2 minutes gained from the net downhill, but 3 minutes lost from the altitude), which means that guys like Fritz and Nate had some ridiculous monster runs today.  There's debate among some Utah runners over how much altitude affects longer aerobic performances, but I can say that my experience very closely matches the Daniels tables I use to calculate my conversions, well within a typical day-to-day performance margin.  For example, a tempo / half marathon pace effort on identical terrain, ie on top of the line $10k treadmills, at sea level is typically 14 seconds per mile faster for in MN than in Utah, converting to almost exactly 3 minutes in a half marathon.  However, 5k races for me are run in a time different by only 5 seconds per mile, while my easy runs with identical effort are the better part of a minute faster at sea level.  The easier you're going, the more the altitude slows you down.  People don't always want to believe it, but running a monster time here would indicate even more ridiculous fitness on a half marathon course along the lines of that found in the Dubai Marathon.  Of course, there are very few sea level courses that are legitimately pancake flat, and even fewer that are as straight as Provo City, so a "fast" sea level course may actually be closer to comparable, but a few really fast, but totally fair, courses could yield 1:06s for someone like Fritz, and you can take that to the bank.

Edit: To give additional backup to my last paragraph, I've plotted out Daniels' calculated effects of 5000' of altitude, on various distances from 1 mile to 50 miles, for racers that could, in a maximum effort, achieve 6:00 pace at each of the race distances.  The x-axis is the distance of the race in miles, while the y-axis is the number of additional seconds required, per mile, to complete the race at 5000' instead of at sea level.  The result we see is interesting.  Obviously, the longer the race, the more aerobic the effort, and the more the athlete depends on oxygen levels.  This is why sprinters and jumpers can fare better at altitude, while distance runners fare worse.  This part is not surprising.  What is surprising is that the curve, if plotted to longer distances, reveals an oblique rather than a horizontal asymptote.  Of course, this is purely hypothetical, as it is likely impossible to be properly trained to race a distance of 100 miles.  Beyond 50 miles, aerobic potential becomes less important in the face of muscle cramps, nutritional issues, etc.

Please note that this relationship assumes that the athlete is completely acclimated to 5000'.  If the athlete is not acclimated, the results will be far worse than what I've indicated.

Nice day:(Daria in the photo above).

Hiked with Daria, Holly, and Nala (we were doggy-sitting) in North Salt Lake, but it started raining hard, so we ran a few miles to get back more quickly.  3 miles in jeans and leather boots, but at least the boots were comfy!

Avenues loop without a watch.  Raining hard during the run.

Natural History Museum to Mt Wire trailhead, up to the peak, and back.  Somehow did it in 50 minutes, but I guess I was pushing pretty hard.  The run only converts to 6:06/mile effort on a flat course (ie without 2200' feet of uphill and 2200' of downhill) at sea level, but considering the technical nature of the trails, it seems pretty good.  The soft trails are good for avoiding injury this week. 

6 miles, easy, with James at 7:20 AP around campus.  It was raining pretty hard for some of the run.  The weather sucks this week!

Ski day #59.  Legs were sore afterwards.

11.6 miles with Jake and Fritz from Highland at 7:15 AP.

Finally get to run St George!  Got in via the lottery today!

Run: 12.6 miles at 7:09 AP.  My place to 9th East to 33rd S, around Harmon's, on 13th E to Highland, to 21st S, to 9th East to South Temple, back home.

Lifted weights very briefly in the middle of working, but got home late and was lazy.  Was OK, as legs were sore.

Little Black Mountain up and down from JCC parking lot, 3100'+ net climb, probably about 3300' total with a very minor amount of roll in a couple places.  Hit Dry Creek (official start for this run, at least for me) in 2:00, Unkel F...er Peak/Ridge in 24:18 (22:18 dry creek to Unkel split), and the pseudo-peak with the logbook at 50:16 (48:16 total climb from Dry Creek).  Both the split and the pseudo-peak times were the fastest I've hit.  Hip was a little testy near the top, after 3100' of net climb, but was OK by the time I got down.  Total Dry Creek trailhead to trailhead was 1:17:27, with a JCC parking lot to JCC parking lot in 1:21:06.  Run down would've been faster if I hadn't accidentally packed Kinvaras, which are horrendous on trails. Hah.  Want more specific GPS data, but I can't seem to find it since getting home.  Hope it turns up...

Also, found this incredible study today: 

A bit more than 3 laps of Burke Lake on the muddy / hilly xc path at 5:58 pace. A hair harder than marathon effort. Felt honestly pretty relaxed, which is awesome. Sea level makes such a massive difference for half marathon + distances.

Mahtomedi loop with Daria riding a bike alongside me.  I feel super out of shape after not running for 3 days (drove halfway across the country in the last 2 days, and have been extremely busy otherwise).  Somehow, however, easy pace was 6:25 / mile, even with a little bit of rolls.  Woohoo, sea level.

Testing out the new Saucony Shay XC3s.  North Salt Lake, along Bosho up Guinea Hill, stopped at Guinea Point, up to the ridgeline to the radiotowers, along to the highest towers, too far along the ridgeline, back down some pseudotrails and then bombed down a nice trail-less slant back into the neighborhood, then back.  With Holly.  Liked the shoes a lot.

Skied for the 61st time of the season.  Was planning to run later, but just got really tired after dinner and went to bed.

Averaged about 7:00 pace for the Jeremy Ranch run (finally did this) with Fritz, Jake, Josh, Rob, John, and James.  Felt great through all the hills, although the faster last couple miles felt a bit tougher.  Skied for the 62nd and final time of the season afterwards.  Since it was closing weekend, I rode in my galaxy print shorts and no shirt, which was pretty awesome, at least until I realized that I had gotten a moderately bad sunburn.  Wish I could ski more...

A little under 9 miles at 6:46 AP with a couple hundred feet of hills.  Came within less than an inch of being hit by a bicyclist who was cutting a corner through the tip of a sidewalk while running a red light to make a right turn without even slowing down.  A mile later, I got cut off badly by an SUV in a crosswalk (once again, they were trying to turn against a red light).  I am exceedingly aware of what's going on around me when I'm running, but I have close calls on a very regular basis.  I seriously don't understand how so many people here make it through life without killing a pedestrian.

Half mile warmup, Wahsatch Steeplechase Course (16.3 miles), half mile cooldown.  Didn't eat beforehand, and managed to bonk only a bit over an hour into the run, which made it pretty miserable.  I was planning to time trial it, but managed to get into "just complete" mode before I even got to the peak, so it was exceedingly slow to complete the course (2:46), with a lot of time lost in the last half mile of climb, the crag section, and the descent down Smuggler's Gap.  Once I hit the road, I fumbled 6:20 pace on the nice downhill and then ran low 7s down the trail portion.  Not my best day, but at least I didn't end up hammering my legs as badly as I could have.  I'd like to run this course again at some point when I'm feeling better, as I think I could run somewhere close to 2:25 on a good day.

Felt pretty beat up from the Steeplechase bonk outing the night before, so my outing with Josh and Fritz felt quite rough.  Mueller Park / North Canyon loop.  I let Fritz and Josh go on the climb and then ran with them on the descent until we were halfway along the road.  We were only going 7:10 pace or so (on a downhill, at that), but my feet felt pretty beat up from 2 days in a row of pounding on rocks in very minimalist shoes and my quads felt trashed, so I told them to go and just jogged in 7:45 pace for the last mile.  Getting back into shape is a blast! Hah.  Total loop time was 1:44.