A.M. A very eventful morning. Ted came in at 6:20 and announced the arrival of a heat wave - 38 degrees! We ran in shorts. Did our usual 15.1 course with a 10 x 1 minute on/1 minute off fartlek. The on pace varied, started slow then progressed to around 5:28, then eventually progressed into 5:12, and on the last one we actually ran 5:04 pace - I mistakingly told Ted 5:12, though. The recoveries were around 7:10 pace. The main discussion topic was whether Salazar was really as slow in shorter distances as the legend has it (57 quarter), and whether he reached his true potential in the marathon (2:08). The consensus was that the legend probably stems from his inability to run the last 400 of the 12 under 57, and that he would have run 2:05 in Berlin with pacers. Total time was 1:45:26, 6:58.94 avg. P.M. 1.05 with Julia in 11:16, 1.5 with Jenny in 13:25, 2 with Benjamin in 15:14, 0.7 on my own in 4:38. Pushed Jacob for Julia's and Jenny's runs. Benjamin impressed me with his zeal today. I told him run easy, no splits, just go by effort. He said, no I want the splits so I'll know which guy to chase. About 0.5 into the run he decided he wanted to chase the 8:00 guy. He hit the first mile in 8:05, then his subsequent quarters were 1:54, 1:48, 1:45, and 1:42. Got some hailstorm on the last quarter, then I got it in full measure on the remaining 0.7 by myself. I asked Benjamin what kind of effort he was putting in on the last half mile. He said about 5 K race pace. It is quite a sight to watch an 8-year-old cruise (not sprint!) at sub-7:00 pace, never ceases to amaze me even though I get to see it almost daily. We run side by side, he turns over at around 190, I turn over at around 180, so even though he is only 4-3 in height his stride is almost as long as mine, and at 7:00 pace my stride is not short by any means.
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