Breaking the Wall

December 21, 2024

15% off for Fast Running Blog members at St. George Running Center!

Location:

Orem,UT,United States

Member Since:

Jan 27, 1986

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Olympic Trials Qualifier

Running Accomplishments:

Best marathon: 2:23:57 (2007, St. George). Won the Top of Utah Marathon twice (2003,2004). Won the USATF LDR circuit in Utah in 2006.

Draper Days 5 K 15:37 (2004)

Did not know this until June 2012, but it turned out that I've been running with spina bifida occulta in L-4 vertebra my entire life, which explains the odd looking form, struggles with the top end speed, and the poor running economy (cannot break 16:00 in 5 K without pushing the VO2 max past 75).

Short-Term Running Goals:

Qualify for the US Olympic Trials. With the standard of 2:19 on courses with the elevation drop not exceeding 450 feet this is impossible unless I find an uncanny way to compensate for the L-4 defect with my muscles. But I believe in miracles.

Long-Term Running Goals:

2:08 in the marathon. Become a world-class marathoner. This is impossible unless I find a way to fill the hole in L-4 and make it act healthy either by growing the bone or by inserting something artificial that is as good as the bone without breaking anything important around it. Science does not know how to do that yet, so it will take a miracle. But I believe in miracles.

Personal:

I was born in 1973. Grew up in Moscow, Russia. Started running in 1984 and so far have never missed more than 3 consecutive days. Joined the LDS Church in 1992, and came to Provo, Utah in 1993 to attend BYU. Served an LDS mission from 1994-96 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Got married soon after I got back. My wife Sarah and I are parents of eleven children: Benjamin, Jenny, Julia, Joseph, Jacob, William, Stephen, Matthew, Mary, Bella. and Leigha. We home school our children.

I am a software engineer/computer programmer/hacker whatever you want to call it, and I am currently working for RedX. Aside from the Fast Running Blog, I have another project to create a device that is a good friend for a fast runner. I called it Fast Running Friend.

Favorite Quote:

...if we are to have faith like Enoch and Elijah we must believe what they believed, know what they knew, and live as they lived.

Elder Bruce R. McConkie

Favorite Blogs:

Click to donate

to Ukraine's Armed Forces

Miles:	This week:	0.00	Month:	0.00	Year:	3010.45
Saucony Type A Lifetime Miles:						640.15
Bare Feet Lifetime Miles:						450.37
Nike Double Stroller Lifetime Miles:						124.59
Brown Crocs 4 Lifetime Miles:						1334.06
Amoji 1 Lifetime Miles:						732.60
Amoji 2 Lifetime Miles:						436.69
Amoji 3 Lifetime Miles:						380.67
Lopsie Sports Sandals Lifetime Miles:						818.02
Lopsie Sports Sandals 2 Lifetime Miles:						637.27
Iprome Garden Clogs Lifetime Miles:						346.18
Beslip Garden Clogs Lifetime Miles:						488.26
Joybees 1 Lifetime Miles:						1035.60
Madctoc Clogs Lifetime Miles:						698.29
Blue Crocs Lifetime Miles:						1164.32
Kimisant Black Clogs Lifetime Miles:						720.62
Black Crocs 2023 Lifetime Miles:						1743.12
White Slip Resistant Crocs Lifetime Miles:						759.93

Wed, Aug 29, 2007

Easy Miles	Marathon Pace Miles	Threshold Miles	VO2 Max Miles	Total Distance
17.08	0.00	0.00	0.00	17.08

A.M. Ran with Ted on Sasha House 10 Miler at 5:00 AM. 10.04 in 1:15:54. Felt fresh and energetic for the 5:00 AM run, but Ted could not be tricked into going faster. I felt I had horses neighing in my head, but I figured I'd let them neigh tomorrow. Looks like I am headed for over 500 miles this month, a life time high, but I am starting to feel undertrained. Better than overtrained, plus, it would be difficult to find the time for more miles without undermining the recovery routine, which, I learned from experience, is something you absolutely do not mess with once you are over 90/week so I'll stay at 120/week for now.

P.M. Ran 0.5 with Julia in 5:09. Then did a relay game of sorts with Benjamin and Jenny. First Jenny ran 1.52 in 13:21 while Benjamin rode a bike, and I pushed an empty single stroller. Then Jenny rode the bike, while Benjamin and I ran, again with me pushing the empty stroller. Our goal was to beat the 8:00 mile guy, and I guess Benjamin was determined to do it in such a way that I would not have to go sub-8:00 on my leg. He hit the first mile in 7:14, and the next quarter in 1:43. I figured he was on pace to break his mile PR of 6:48 on the last mile and it was well with his capability, so I challenged him to do it. He hit the next two quarters in 1:42, then made a 180 turn and kicked in 1:36. This gave him a new mile PR of 6:43 at the end of a 2 mile run which was also a new PR - 13:57. Then we put Jenny in the stroller, and Benjamin on a bike and ran 3.02 miles home. The total time was 49:29 and we left the 8:00 guy in the dust.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00	Nap Time: 0.00	Total Sleep Time: 0.00

Comments

From Superfly on Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 16:13:51

I can't see the blog.

Also I'm going to start the 3- 15 mile a week runs with 6 miles at marathon pace next week and see how it feels. Sounds like a lot of work but, also sounds very effective. My garmin was a little short on Hobble but others had it right on. I ran every tangent I could. It was the very same coures as last year.

From Sasha Pachev on Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 16:21:45

Clyde - please explain. Whose blog? Which page? What exactly do you mean by "cannot see"?

From Mik'L on Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 16:30:55

Sasha- I am at work and cannot see it either. If you try to go to "Other Blogs" it goes to an empty page. It has been that way all day. So the only blogs I can go to are the most recent and the comments.

From Lybi on Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 16:32:28

I am having the same problem, Sasha. If I go to fastrunningblog.com I see the 1st page, but if I click on "blogs" the window goes blank. If I click on "race reports" it is normal, though.

Can't wait to see what you put those poor horses through tomorrow. Holy cow, a lifetime record in mileage! You seem to be handling it really well, still perky and, dare I say it, eager to engage in heated debate. : ) Must be all those honey sandwiches.

From James on Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 16:33:54

I am in that same boat.

From Sasha Pachev on Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 16:43:44

Guys - thanks for the bug reports. I have now fixed it.

From Sasha Pachev on Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 16:50:47

Also, as you may have noticed, each page now has a monthly unique visitor count. Lets have a race on who can get most uniques. Mine does not count because it has hard links from the main site. I think Paul is in the lead right now with 262 projected uniques for the month. To win the race, you can tell your friends and family, etc to visit your blog, put your blog name in your e-mail signature, when you get interviewed by a paper, tell them about your blog, and make sure they get the URL right.

From Sasha Pachev on Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 16:58:49

No, I was wrong. maaron is actually higher than Paul, at 280 projected uniques. I suppose another way to up count is to stir up some hot discussions that will produce a lot of debate. Randy and I will take credit for that one, though.

A clarification on the meaning of unique visitor for the non-computer savvy. It is an attempt to count how many different computers the blog was accessed from, which hopefully will closely approximate the number of actual people who saw it. There are several techniques to figure that out, none of them perfectly reliable, but I think QuantCast has an upper hand in this with their advanced statistical analysis of Internet traffic + me putting their code on the page. Very interesting stuff - if you want to see a whole lot of data about the visitors of a particular blog, just click on the counter button at the top.

From Mik'L on Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 16:59:19

I get interviewed by the paper all the time.

Can I make a small suggestion? Can you italicize "If you are wishing to reply, please do so at the page where the reply was posted. This makes it easier for others to follow blog discussion. Do not reply to this via e-mail, your e-mail reply will bounce." so it doesn't look like part of the comment on email?

From James on Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 17:11:54

Thanks for fixing that. I have another problem, I haven't been able to get into my blog options for the past couple of days, I can get into user options though.

From Sasha Pachev on Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 17:24:20

James - I've fixed that one too. Mik'l - you cannot italicize unless you send out an HTML-email, which is considered bad manners in a generic e-mail for a number of reasons. However, I did find a solution to the issue - just use the dash marks to mark the start and the end of the actual comment, hope that works.

Add Your Comment.

Keep it family-safe. No vulgar or profane language. To discourage anonymous comments of cowardly nature, your IP address will be logged and posted next to your comment.
Do not respond to another person's comment out of context. If he made the original comment on another page/blog entry, go to that entry and respond there.
If all you want to do is contact the blogger and your comment is not connected with this entry and has no relevance to others, send a private message instead.

Debt Reduction Calculator

Featured Announcements

Most Recent Entries:

New Kids on the Blog
(need a welcome):

Lone Faithfuls
(need a comment):