A.M. Did 12 total with Steve Ashbaker and Chad. We ran out 6, then on the way back did the 3 mile tempo course from Nunn's Park to the mouth of the canyon. On the positive side of things, I woke up without the feeling of "the hole" in the heart. One difference between this night and others was that when Matthew woke up Sarah did not wake me up to get him. I have been getting up and bringing him to her to nurse because if she gets out of bed, she has a hard time falling asleep. I have been falling asleep after getting him right away, but I think he has been timing his wakefulness just when my sleep was in the middle of doing heart repair. In any case, because I ran hard yesterday, my plan for the tempo was to just keep company to Chad and Steve. I was hoping the pace would not be much faster than 5:40, but I was wrong. We went through the first mile in 5:19. Then I knew that the heart repair was good because this pace felt very manageable in spite of the 16 miler with an 8 mile tempo the day before. Shortly after 2000 Steve dropped back, but Chad was still pushing it. We hit 1.5 in 7:59. I was sitting behind Chad for two reasons. One is that I was lazy and I did not want the pace to be any faster than it already was. The other was that I felt that if I had approached the run taking responsibility for the pace, I might go too fast for both of us because I was not sure that Chad could hold 5:20 pace all the way. But when Chad's pace started to slip I decided to step forward and help him - I felt that 5:30 was good for my health, and that it would also help Chad get a really good time and a confidence builder for the Ogden marathon. So we ran like that to the end. We hit 2 miles in 10:45 (5:26), 2.5 in 13:31, and then finished in 16:16 (5:31 for the last mile). Jenny ran 3 miles including 1 with William.
P.M. Took Benjamin, Julia, Joseph, and Jacob to the USATF track meet in Park City at the Park City High track. The reason we were there was to practice competing, and get some official times for the track meet in Eugine on July 13 which requires qualifiers. Jenny could not do it because she was in a play - she would have to get her qualifier in the next meet. The meet qualifying standards are here. So Joseph and Jacob had to run 3:30 for the 800, Julia had to run 3:20 because even though she is still only 10, she counts as a Midget because her birth year is 2002, and Benjamin had to run 11:30 for 3000. With Benjamin we had several plans - plan A was to break 10:00, plan A+ was to take down Josh Rohatinsky's Youth state record of 9:49, plan A- was to run a little slower than 10:00, and plan C was to hit the qualifier of 11:30 for the Eugine meet. There were some things against him - the track is located at the altitude of 6770 feet, his race started at 1:30 pm with the sun shining brightly, there were only 3 other runners in the race, which was better than the worst we were afraid of, but none of them could help with the pace even for a lap, Benjamin had done no speed for two weeks - the first week due to the injured piriformis and the second due to the AP tests and a minor cold, and he did take three AP tests this week which took quite a bit out of him. So I held the A+ and the A plans out there, but I knew that it would be difficult to get them. However, trying to get them he would do the best that he could under the circumstances, so I told him to pace for 10:00, and if things were good, go for the record, and if not, hang in there and just do his best. He ran 10:10.3 with the following splits: 78.9, 79.2, 79.6, 83.0, 84.9, 85.1, 85.1, 34.6. The altitude got to him on the fourth lap. This was a good learning experience and it reveals something we need to work on - aerobic conditioning. Well, his conditioning is OK, but he is aerobically underdeveloped, which is not a surprise - he is in the middle of maturation, which creates an imbalance with the body being too big for the cardiovascular system, but I've seen it worse. In fact, I think because of his training this growth-related aerobic capacity lapse has been mitigated so well that you have to take him to 6700 feet or have him run a fast pace past 3 miles to notice the problem. But it is good to know the problem exists. I was very happy with this performance, and particularly with his ability to muster a 34.6 kick with no competitor in sight unless you count the ones being lapped after struggling with several 85 second laps. For a comparison, Josh ran 9:49 at 5782 feet when he set his record. So now I think we can say for sure that Benjamin is honestly within 21 seconds of that performance by all counts.
A well-meaning coach suggested that next time Benjamin should run in "real shoes", which Benjamin wisely and politely corrected explaining that he has run all of his PRs in Crocs including a 200 in 29. Joseph and Jacob were in the same heat and they dominated it. Joseph went through the first lap in 95. I yelled at him to speed up, and he did hitting the next lap in 91 high finishing in 3:06.97. Jacob was second with the first lap in 97 and the second lap in 99 finishing in 3:16.15, which is his new PR. Both qualified for the meet.
Julia ran the first lap in 92, but then on the second lap her low iron came into play at the higher altitude and she struggled. But she still held it together and finished in 3:11.8 (still do not have her official time) in third place in the Midget girls and hitting the meet qualifier of 3:20 with room to spare. I ended up jogging about 0.5 going back and forth. Joseph and Jacob ran about 1 each total, Julia around 1.5.
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