my makeup may be flaking

Felt like I had a ton of energy this morning. I woke up at 5am and decided to do my Jordan 20 mile loop. I threw in several random surges in the middle and ended up running the whole thing in 2:10 (6:30 pace) and still felt good. I grabbed some snacks and water bottles and put them in my bag and then did the whole thing again, stopping occasionally to eat. Completed the second loop in 2:35 not including stops. Now I feel exhausted. I hope I can recover in time for Saturday!

Hmm ok or was it 10.5 miles very slowly...yes I think it was that instead. Sorry, I get confused sometimes.

Two loops of Liberty Park in the morning.

I did two loops of Sugarhouse in the evening. It suddenly became really nice for about 15 minutes during my run, but then it started to get cold rapidly. I felt much better running today and my legs were pretty fresh, but I'll need to be feeling much better to run a half on Saturday. I'll probably be fine.

Three loops of Liberty Park. I still don't feel good and I'm not sure about tomorrow.

Everything just kind of went wrong today. I got essentially no sleep for starters. I also wasn't feeling good as I'm still not recovered from last week. I thought I would just see how it went and start relaxed.

I felt that I DID start relaxed. I was easily keeping up with the front pack to begin with and thought that I had 3rd place locked up as my breathing was much less labored than either Albert Wint's or Steve Ashbaker's (the duo that fought it out for third). However, my calves were tight after 400m, loosened up briefly but then went into lockdown at mile 6. I felt like I was running in sand the rest of the way. The pain in my calves was not strong, but the tightness upset my form enough to make running very unpleasant. I really hate to give up on a race and until I got to mile 8 I held out hope that I could rally and get third (I had already dropped back to 7th at this point). When the wind hit, these thoughts evaporated.

With 1 mile to go Jeff Macarthur passed me and I decided that I was going to swallow my pride and put up a good effort to beat him. I don't think it's fair to your competitors to shut it down when things are going poorly, so I went back and forth with him a little. He got ahead of me with about 600 left and I couldn't shut it down with the kick. He was very excited about his race so that was good at least. Allie also had a great result. I'm not really too bummed because I felt fresh and strong, I just wasn't ready for a half marathon today. I'm certainly going to run the SLC half now!

Really wanted to do a long run today but I thought it would be wiser to take it easy. I feel better than I did last Sunday, but even though it was slow yesterday took alot out of me. Running around Liberty Park I kind of laughed at the thought that I ran a half marathon yesterday with legs as tight as they are. I know I've said they have felt better each successive day, but they were INCREDIBLY bad to begin with. I could barely walk after I was done. I can definitely still get mileage in but that's about it. We'll have to see how this goes.

Did 4 in the morning around Liberty Park

10.5 in the evening around Sugarhouse. My calves are still tight, it's getting rather boring. I'm still working hard on my runs though and I'm sticking to the soft stuff.

Did 4! loops of Sugarhouse park on the grass. I wanted to keep my long run on a softer surface.

AM Did two loops of Sugarhouse. Threw in some good surges as the run went on and found my legs complained much less than on Saturday. I think I'll do a more organized fartlek type run this evening. Plus there's going to be some good pontificating!

PM Did seven miles with about 3 of them at a faster pace. My calves felt fine but I felt pretty tired overall which is completely understandable given my mileage the last couple of days. I can run reasonable fast (like sub 7) everyday if I'm under 90mpw pace I think, but I have to start measuring my effort when I log 46.5 miles in three days (which I just did!).

Now for the pontification, I'm not sure what my point is...

Anyway I was reading the responses to Jeff's Provo half-winning race report and specifically what Sasha said about the American collegiate system.  I am one of the few on here (I think) who actually ran for four years in college (plus 4 years in high school) and took no break after graduating aside from the break I would normally take after the end of a season. I have continued to improve at pretty much the same rate so far. In fact, the longer I run the more 'talent' I seem to discover.

When I look at how I did in high school cross, it's kind of laughable. I ran 18:04 at the WA state meet my senior year for 110th in 3A. My college coaches for a while thought I was a headcase because I seemed to fold in big races, they cited that state meet as an example. I told them that at the time it was a good race for me and they were floored. They couldn't believe that I could have been that slow in high school. Was it for lack of effort? NO! Because I had no talent? Apparently not, as I am now faster than probably 100 of those 110 guys. Because the coaching was bad? I don't think so, we were a very succesful team.

Maybe the point is that you can't tell who is going to be good and who is not based upon how well we do in High School. I watched footlocker this year, I decided I could have been competitive in that race and finished in the middle of the pack judging be the difficulty of the course and the times. So what? High schoolers aren't that good in the 5K in general and so it's difficult to see what someone's potential is because everyone is so far from being maxed out. However the people who show promise as freshman in HS get more attention and thus run more so they'll most likely be the best sophomores and so on. People who are the best in high school go to the best colleges and put in more miles and make a bigger commitment. Those who have made it by the time college ends go on to become professionals.

So essentially you will have no reason to push yourself to uncover your talent or be able to justify the time it takes unless you've already come pretty far. This doesn't just apply to running but alot of things. The difference with running is that it necessarily takes alot of time. You're not going to peak at age 20, but if you've only run, say, 14:30 at that point then you might not think you'll ever amount to much if you run D1. There's this kind of false assumption that the running is limited to within the scope of the 4 years.

I'm not sure any of this makes sense. Maybe I'll write more tomorrow and it will be coherent.

AM tried to run this morning but my toe was hurting just a bit. I knew that i wouldnt be able to ice so i just walked home. It was good because I was really tired all day.

PM I felt very tired but my foot felt fine. I tried to run hard and was mostly sucessful, but again I was very tired. Did i mention im tired.

Two loops of Sugarhouse in the morning.

I wanted to do two runs today but I woke up extremely hungover, which was surprising to me as I'd just had one glass of wine with my dinner. The headache got worse as the morning went on and was accompanied by some nausea. I don't often drink, but clearly I have to be careful when my mileage is getting high. My roommate also kept me up talking on his speakerphone at 3am and was very angry at me when I dared ask him to turn off the speaker. This combined with last weekend has me certain that I'm moving out at the end of the semester.

Anyway, I ended up doing a slightly longer run in the afternoon. I did three loops of Sugarhouse at a pretty brisk pace. Probably around 5:50s to start, I think i slowed a little on the uphills when I got to Sugarhouse. I ran slower on the way back but really picked it up the last half mile.
 

I meant to do this long run quite fast, but my legs were dead to begin with. I started to do much better about 7 miles in. I had a headwind the last 4 miles so I couldn't close as well as I normally do, but I tried my best. I should really get a watch so I know how fast I'm going these runs.

I developed a splitting headache this afternoon and by the time I got home it was so bad I could barely think. I went running anyway and it magically went away. In fact, I felt better running than I have in weeks. I felt nice and loose and fresh. I plan to do a proper threshold run tomorrow so I kept it relaxed, but it was nice to feel good again. I did some strides at the end of my run. Then my headache returned after dinner.

AM I did a preview of the Salt Lake Half Marathon course at about half marathon pace (I still don't have a watch so I don't know how far that is). I only did from the 2 mile mark to the 10 mile mark. I noticed three things: I felt pretty good, miles 3-10 have alot of downhill,the course as marked goes on a street that doesn't exist.

PM I did three loops of Liberty park. Did it pretty fast,but I am fast now so it's probably cool, but I should chill out the rest of the week.

AM Did two loops of Sugarhouse park nice and slooooow.

PM It started snowing during the day and I was planning to go at school. I didn't have snow worthy gear so i went to the track. I had planned on doing about 8 miles but I am NOT going to count to 60 laps so I just decided that I was going to run for 52 minutes and presumably run 6:30mile pace. I usually run much faster than that on flat ground so it might be an underestimate, boo hoo. I ran a lot of miles today so the next two days will have to be light mileage days.

Went to pick up my packet at the expo for the SLC marathon. My goodness it was hard to find! No signs or anything. Compared to the seattle marathon this was pretty surprising. Anyway I got some GU finally and a new running watch! I got home and did 7 miles at 6:35 pace.

Day before the SLC marathon. I'm doing the half tomorrow so I just did three loops of Liberty Park. I saw a Kenyan doing his run going the opposite direction. We were dressed the same and going almost the same speed (he was going a little faster) it was kind of cool. I wanted to go talk to him but I'm kind of shy about going up and talking to random people in the park.

I've been getting kind of anxious about this race and I've had a number of dreams where I was running the course and had to stop and tie my shoe or got lost or ended up getting passed by people but one really took the cake. I had it a few days after reading the news about Devine racing on Letsrun.com.

It was a long dream, I was running the full marathon in this version. It was rather mundane to begin with. I was running along in third in for awhile but I know that I had started out too fast. With only about 2 or 3 miles left I started to gain on the second place guy who was catching up to Sasha who was leading. Second place guy was wearing a hat with earflaps like Bill Cobbler might wear. Anyway he looks back and sees me and takes off but I catch both him and Sasha. After passing Sasha I realize that the course is unmarked and I have no idea where to go next. I have a copy of the course map in my back pocket so I pull it out and read the instructions for the last two miles. They are truly bizarre. I realize that the course is supposed to go on this one trail that you can't see until your on it and the only way to get on it is to run a loop of this park. Ear flap guy is confused by the instructions and I'm running the loop and trying to explain at the same time. Meanwhile Sasha is using the bathroom (not a vpb but an a(ctual)pb, I know it's unrealistic). I finish the loop and the trail appears while earflap guy is still trying to read the map. Sasha emerges from the bathroom to help but at this point the 4th place guy (white t-shirt and blue running shorts, I know him from somewhere but I don't know where exactly) finally catches us and sees me on the trail and just jumps in behind me. I say "hey you've got to run the loop, no fair" and he says "just try and stop me" basically. So he sits on me as we go into downtown and now we are suddenly on the top floor of an office building and we have to run down all the stairs. The whole way down he's grabbing onto me slowing me down because he can't keep up (basically he's a cheater). All of his antics allow a 5th guy to catch up (Bruce McDowell, great masters runner from Washington and head coach at Cedarcrest High School). Tshirtguy decides to run behind Bruce instead. Bruce had been kindly pushing the door open, but Tshirtguy tries to close it in my face. I push ahead of him then slam the next door we come to in his face as hard as I can. I feel a little bad about my poor sportsmanship, but he was getting ridiculous. Both Bruce and I walk through the lobby of the office building (as instructed by the course map). The next set of instruction was something like "cross the street, turn left and look for the stairs, they should be easy to find") The road is very busy, so Bruce and I cross it carefully one lane at a time. I figure I should be able to outkick him so I'm not too concerned about the slow pace. On the other side of the street there is a staircase that's marked by a bunch ribbons (Thanks Devine Racing!). Bruce heads down the stairs but the ribbons get tangled with the ribbon that I'm already wearing. (The race organizers gave me a ribbon instead of a bib because they were out. However  this wasn't a ribbon like in a Miss America pageant but rather a giant tangled mess encircling my whole torso. Tshirtguy had been using it to hold onto me.) I finally get myself free but now Sean Sundwall has caught up to me and is also down the stairs. At the bottom I can see the finish line banner about 400metes away. But between me and it is a huge crowd of spectators cheering us on. Unfortunately they are all in the way. I start my kick but there are too many people in the way and I have to keep swerving. Somehow this isn't bothering Bruce or Sean. Then I look over to my right and see Sasha, earflap guy and tshirtguy cutting effortlessly through the crowd. Distraught I finish 6th, money and prizes go to the top 5.

Oh boy what a turnaround! I knew all week that I was going to be 100% for Saturday, I just had a good feeling in my legs and I was right. It was a great day for me physically but I know I could have run faster if things had gone differently. The circumstances were what they were and I made the most of it...so I'm happy and I got a very nice looking PR!

 The night before I had a terrible stomach ache and I had to go puke in the middle of the night, but then I felt fine. I left my house at around 5:45 am and jogged over to the TRAX. It took forever to get up there and get ready so I couldn't properly go to the bathroom. I did get one GU down though.

I barely made the start and pushed my way to the front. I knew I needed more time but I was just antsy to get going. Teren, Alex and Nate H. all took off at the beginning. I was just going to run with the lead marathoners but there was no headwind and I felt that I could go faster so I did. I started to pull away from the lead marathoners and pretty much flew through the first 4 miles. Then I turned around at Sugarhouse and headed uphill. I saw a pretty good group of half marathoners chasing me so I knew they would catch me as I needed to relax due to my shins cramping (this happens every race but it goes away). Anyway Sasha,BJ and Jason Schoenfeld all passed me in mile 7 and started to pull away. I'm not sure where it happened, but at some point between mile 8 and mile 10, I started to feel really good but I had to go to the bathroom really bad. I had Sasha in my sights going all the way up State Street but couldn't pull him in. I was dissapointed, because this was similar to what happened in Seattle, where I felt I couldn't really push myself hard. I knew that if I kept up the current pace that I would PR so that kept me motivated. I ended up with a 1:11:36 (it should have been faster but I stopped at the banner then walked over the timing mat, whoops!).

Mile	Time	Cumulative	Pace
1	5:12	5:12	5:12
2	5:16	10:28	5:14
3	5:19	15:47	5:16
4	5:16	21:03	5:16
5	5:39	26:42	5:20
6	5:26	32:08	5:21
7	5:17	37:25	5:21
8	5:26	42:52	5:21
9	5:29	48:21	5:23
10	5:43	54:04	5:24
11	5:33	59:37	5:25
12	5:59	1:05:36	5:28
13.1	6:00	1:11:36	5:28

Estimated Splits

8k 26:32 Hahaha 9 seconds off my PR!

10k 33:17

12k 40:21 PR!

15k 50:14 PR!

After I was done I ran back to Liberty Park with Sashs and we waited for Jeff, who was running the marathon. He was clearly crashing when he got to us (we were standing at about mile 23), but was solidly in 5th. The three of us then ran to the finish together, we tried to give him Gatorade and help him cut through the half marathoners and he ended up holding on to fifth. Then I drank some milk (probably not a good choice) and started walking along the course looking for Allie. I didn't have to go very far as I saw her about 800m from the finish. I ran with her a little, she seemed to have a good finish. She claimed she felt terrible. After running through the finish for a third time I realized I was now exhausted. I then spent the afternoon looking at apartments and I could barely stand by the end. All of my housemates had a dinner party but they made me cook for myself and then clean up after them...even though I was exhausted from my day. Yeah...this is why I'm moving out.

Did my normal 20miler today. It was essentially perfect conditions for a long run. Sunny, nice cool breeze...lovely. I started off really slow (close to 8 min pace). I took a Gu at about mile 10 to see how it would affect me (Vanilla Flavor). I was able to eat it while still running and without drinking any water (all of the water fountains were off). By mile 11 I felt it kick in and I ran fast from mile 11 to mile 17. I started to feel pretty tired so I ran slow from mile 17 to the end. My total pace was probably a little under 7:30 (I forgot to start my watch until 5k).

I swear it always seems like I round my runs to the nearest half mile but that's just what happens naturally. This one was 4.52! Anyway I did an easy run in the sun around campus in the afternoon. Pretty sweet. A bunch of latina women pulled up next to me in research park and yelled at me to eat something. Yeah...this is my life.

I did three loops of Sugarhouse park. I started off really slowly. Probably 7:30 pace at the beginning, but I ended up averaging just over 7 for the entire run. I felt pretty good until I came down the steep hill near 13th S and 13th E then my quads let me know they were still a little sore. I haven't really decided what kind of workout I want to do tomorrow with a 30K this weekend. I'll probably try to inject some faster stuff if my body can handle it. I finished up this run with a sprint then jogged the last 100 meters or so.

AM Ran to Liberty park and did 4 woodchip loops (Easy,Hard,Easy,Hard). The two hard ones were both 8:02 (5:20 pace) which is very fast for a windy woodchip trail let me tell you. I was pleased with the workout after waking up with a splitting headache

PM Ran in the mountains above the U. I kept it pretty easy except for a few 30 second stretches as my legs felt pretty tired.

Really quite tired today. Ran to Sugarhouse and did two loops easy on the grass. Some guy asked if I was Seth Wold! I thanked him for the compliment. Average pace for the run was just about 7 minutes/mile. I just want to feel close enough to my best Saturday that it will actually be useful test for me.

I felt some tendonitis on the lower partof my shin last night and it presented itself while I ran this morning. I know from experience not to mess with this injury so I walked home. I walked to and from school instead to get some exercise.(3 miles walking total)

So I decided to give the 30K a go anyway. I knew there was a chance that the tendonitis might be gone. When I got up it felt fine and I had planned on running a few steps to see if it was 100% better but I overslept so I went straight from bed to Walter's car. I did a warmup 20minutes before and it was unclear whether or not I would be able to run. I decided to start anyway (which was really dumb,in hindsight) and made it two miles when it started to get a little painful and I could tell that it was only going to get worse. So I stepped off the road and jogged slowly back to the start. Basically, I realized that I had just run the easiest flat 5:39 mile of my life, that I'm in incredible shape and that I should live to fight another day.

Took an extra day off to get properly healed.

Ran an easy 7 in the evening. Tendonitis pain seems to have been nipped in the bud. Taking a day off kind of throws me out of whack and I ended up having only eaten a single banana prior to my run. Tomorrow I plan to do a hard 20miler to make up for missing the 30K. I will get to see how well a 15hour carbo load works!

So the plan today was to try to do a hard 20miler to see where I am. I made it about 6 miles in before calling it quits. There was a 20mph head wind battering me straight on and it was proving too much. It was also making me lose water rapidly. I was also feeling the affects of my accidental fast from yesterday. I just finished the run out as a regular long run. Oh well.

AM Did two loops of Liberty Park. I had some random tight feelings that came and went. I ended up running this faster than I should have because I started too late. Averaged 6:45 pace for 10.5 miles.

 PM Did my first hard 10miler (that wasn't a race) for quite some time. I did my usual 9.7 mile loop. The loop is divided into four segments somewhat arbitrarily. The first 3 miles is quite downhill and I did it in 16:30(5:30 pace) which is my best time ever for that segment. The next 1.85 miles has a steady climb and I did that in 11:13(6:03 pace). The next segment is the "death segment". Start out flat but turns into a never ending ascent. It has one descent which is way too steep to be helpful I did this in 17:44(6:03 pace). Each of the first three times was the fastest I'd ever done. Normally I slow down on one segment so stringing together three fast ones back to back (as the back end of a double to boot) was really good. I kind of staggered through the last segment in 11:11(5:44 pace) which is not particularly good. I was tired for sure, but there was also a tough headwind to contend with. Final time was 56:39 (5:50 pace), which beats my previous best by 30seconds. It felt pretty tough though.
 

Oh man oh man oh man. Tough day physically. Whenever I have a day with an unusual schedule, I tend to end up not eating nearly enough and it comes back to bite me...no pun intended. Did just 4 miles in the morning. Then I walked all over SLC looking at places to live. Then I walked home had a bit of lunch, then walked to the train station...went to Sandy and walked to the Wasatch running center. I finally got some good flats (adizero!) and I really like them. Then I came home, realized I had just walked at least 5miles and promptly crashed out on my bed. I shook myself awake, pulled on my shoes and ran to Sugarhouse and did three loops. When I finally left the park, I felt wiped out, like I was finishing out a particularly brutal 20miler (but it was only 12.5miles!). phew