Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

December 22, 2024

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Location:

Provo,UT,

Member Since:

Apr 07, 2010

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

5K - 17:11 (Cougar Run)

10K - 34:35 (Deseret News)

15K - 57:33 (Utah Running Club)

1/2 - 1:22:26 (Mountain View Trail)

50K - 4:22:31 (Sapper Joe)

Short-Term Running Goals:

Sub-2:45 at Saint George Marathon

Win the Antelope Island half marathon

Long-Term Running Goals:

I'd like to run the Angeles Crest 100 at some point. And I'd still like to go sub-4 at a trail 50k. Other than that, I'm open to suggestions.

https://www.strava.com/athletes/4808912

Personal:

I was a competitive cyclist for years. In 2009, after racing in the Tour of Utah, I decided I had plateaued as a cyclist--I could continue to improve, but I wouldn't break through to a new level. So, I started looking for a new challenge.

I thought that challenge would be mountain biking, but I'm a terrible bike handler. I married Catherine in January 2010 and a couple of weeks later I entered the SLTC Winter Training Series with her. A couple of weeks after that I decided I'd like to run ultras, so I signed up for a couple of 50Ks to get started.

Those first races came and went, with varying results. I was looking forward to running more and possibly pushing into the longer distances, but I injured my knee in June 2010 and I've never been consistently healthy since.

I started law school in August 2010, which meant less time for training. In June 2011, Baby Elliott was born, which meant even less time for training. But she's worth it.

Baby Nora joined us in October 2013, with the same effect on training as Elliott (who, incidentally, is no longer a baby).

I (finally) finished school in April 2014 and now I'm an evil corporate lawyer in Salt Lake. I have no illusions that I'll ever get back into the shape that I once was, but I'm perfectly at peace with that. I still have many goals to accomplish and many years in which to do it.

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Miles:	This week:	0.00	Month:	0.00	Year:	0.00

Thu, Nov 11, 2010

Total Distance

3.00

It's hard to say whether it's all in my head or not, but I'm really worried about my knee. I felt a few warning signs on Monday and Tuesday, so I decided to back off for a bit starting yesterday. This morning I went to the gym for some cross training. Unfortunately, my options were surprisingly limited. I wanted to use a stair stepper, but the local Gold's only has three--two ghetto, old-school contraptions in the Cardio Cinema, and one of those stair treadmills that absolutely terrify me. So I decided to use the elliptical. But the ellipticals are set up so that I bash my knee on them every minute or so. After about fifteen minutes of that, I decided I wasn't doing my knee any favors there, so I stepped on a treadmill. Instead of running, I set the incline to 15% and started walking. The first mile in 15 minutes was more work than I expected. I held that pace for a little more than 20 minutes, than I switched to intervals. Two minutes easy (19:00-20:00) followed by one minute hard (12:45-13:15). And those hard minutes were very hard. It's interesting, because I could run that pace for miles. But I guess at that speed, walking is much less efficient and much more difficult.

Anyways, I don't count cross training miles here because I only want to see my running miles, not fake equivalent miles. But I do count walking miles like today's, because I figure that hiking up steep hills is part of mountain running. If anyone disagrees, please call me on it.

According to the little computer display, I made it up Mount Treadmill once and then up to the first switchback on the second ascent. According to the readout, I climbed 2,376 feet over three miles, averaging 15:51 per mile.

Brooks Launch Miles: 3.00

Weight: 163.60

Comments

From jun on Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 10:02:43 from 68.171.231.18

Where is your knee hurting? That sucks.

As for recording your miles, I fully agree with your assessment. I think most on this site don't count ellyptical miles but would count anything on the TM, even walking.

From Aaron Kennard on Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 13:09:37 from 24.8.144.22

sucks about the knee pain.

And its your blog, so you can do it however you want I say! But the way you look at it is the same as I would...I don't personally want to have my total running miles mixed with biking or other activities. I do find it interesting to see the time or miles I put in in other activities separately, so I added a 'cycling 2010' as one of my 'shoes' so that I can record that data here too...I guess I would do the same for other types of training if I were doing them and wanted to track them.

From Faceless Ghost on Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 16:40:06 from 128.187.97.2

My knee was giving me some trouble on the side during my runs earlier this week. It cleared up by the end of each run, but now I'm on notice. The problem is that I'm so focused on my knee that I can no longer tell which pains or twinges are real and which are made up. I hate backing off, but I hate it less than forced time off.

Aaron--that's a good idea, and it's what I've done with the road bike (although it's not on my blog right now because I'm not really riding these days). Of course, I'd hate to add a category for gym equipment. It would be too depressing to have reminders of how much time I spend that way :)

From Scott Wesemann on Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 14:50:55 from 66.239.250.209

I think counting any running, hiking or walking miles is totally legit. That sucks about your knee. I think maybe give it some good rest. You have been cranking out the miles lately, and they haven't really been easy miles either.

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