A.M. 20 mile run from my house up to Bridal Veil and back on the trail. Same as last week. Ran with Ted and Jeff. Jeff went only 16 turning around at 8. We started out with a leisurely warm up, then moved into the area of brisk (sub-7:00 and occasionally sub-6:40) after about 3 miles. There was a headwind in the canyon. Nevertheless, 6:40 uphill and into the wind felt relaxing once I warmed into it. I think the wind was gusty. Gusty winds feel bad, but do not slow you down much. Our first 10 miles was 1:10:12. On the way back we picked it up. I wanted to slack off and go barely sub-6:00. But Ted would not let me. He did one of his quarters in 1:24. Then I was wound up, and did not want to go any slower. So I was doing my quarters in 1:22-1:24 as well. I offered Ted to sit on me, but he was smarter than that knowing that he would not see a quarter slower than 1:24 for a while in that case. So we traded quarters. Next 5 miles in 27:55. Ted started getting tired, and we did the next mile in 5:42. Then on the next mile we ran a slow quarter uphill in 1:30. I started getting concerned that the 5:40 guy might catch us, and picked it up a bit, but Ted did not respond. I was feeling good, and wound up enough to not want to run slower. So I figured I'd just run the last 3 miles alone. Next mile was 5:45, after that, 5:37, 5:35, and 5:30. Last 5 in 28:12, last 10 in 56:07, 5:36.7 average, total time 2:06:19, 6:18.95 avg. No quarters slower than 1:26. I was very happy with that since the last 5 miles have a lot of turns and going down under the bridges and through dark tunnels. Ted held on very well and finished about a minute behind me. In my estimate this shows if he were to start his taper today, he would run St. George somewhere between 2:25 and 2:27. Felt very strong at the end, much better than a week ago. Afterwards, the legs felt fresh, and there was no serious fatigue. If I did not have the memory of running 20, you could have tricked me into thinking I've just run easy 10. I should be very thankful for this. It has not always been this way. I remember coming home from a 20 miler many times and feeling completely dead. But eventually God has blessed me with the ability and knowledge of what I need to do to recover fast. I've had nothing to complain about in this respect in the last couple of years, but I feel things have progressed beyond that in the last couple of weeks, and especially today. I still do not quite know exactly what I did to make it happen. I am suspecting my latest garlic adventures might have had something to do with it. I have been concerned about the possibility of getting sick, so I have been religiously sucking on garlic like candy a couple times a day in an attempt to kill any hiding germs. I am so glad that Sarah has gotten used to the smell of garlic over 10 years of our marriage. Went to Benjamin's cross-country meet at Kiwani's park afterwards. He ran 3 K in 14:02 winning pre-Bantums, only 1 second off his PR for that course. Not bad for cold weather and not being tapered. James ran 11:17, a new PR for him.
P.M. Ran 1.05 with Jenny and Julia in 11:05, Julia had a side ache and was struggling. I need to make sure she gets to drink enough during the day. Then 0.5 with Jenny in 4:27. Pushed the double stroller with Jacob. Then 3.5 by myself with Jacob in the single stroller in 26:54 (7:41:14 pace) . Caught up to 3 guys during the last stage of the run on the trail and ran with them for about a mile. As usual (for Provo), discovered a high degree of foreign language fluency. One was fluent in Spanish, another in Portuguese, and the other in Thai - all from serving LDS missions. Speaking of which, we have a lot of language fluency here on the blog, native as well as acquired. I am aware of the following: Russian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and German. Any others?
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