Felt since I was still not 100% recovered from the marathon, I needed to do something mild today. Decided to try Tinman 1 mile easy/1 mile marathon pace long run. I absolutely cannot stand a 20 mile run at an easy pace. It takes forever, and I feel more tired afterwards than if I run at least half of it at marathon pace. And I have not had good results with those slow runs in the past. Started with Ted and Jeff from the finish of the Provo River 10 miler (Riverwoods), and ran up to the start and back. Forgot The Toy, so decided to do the mile pickups by the Hawk's marks when they were there, otherwise just go roughly by time. Started out with a jog, took about half a mile before we started breaking 8:00. Ran the first tempo mile up 0.5% grade into a headwind in 5:58. Before the start of the second, Jeff and I had to make a pit stop. Ted went ahead at an easy pace. It took us a bit too long, and we fell further behind than could be covered with one tempo mile. We did the first tempo mile into a headwind and up about 1.5% grade in 6:06.
After that, there was still no sight of Ted, so we kept going at the same effort further up. After about another mile, we still could not even see Ted. So we eased off thinking that perhaps we might have missed him somehow. Then a couple of minutes later we passed some runners and asked them if Ted had passed them. They told us he was about 200 yards ahead, so we picked up again. It took us about 0.8 at about 6:00 pace to finally catch him. Ran with him until his turnaround - 7 miles, and then started the tempo. By that time we were going up South Fork. Jeff had to be to work early, so he turned around at 7.5. I figured a tempo effort up that grade would be about 7:00 mile, so I decide to go for 7 minutes. However, after the 7 minutes were up I did not feel like losing the momentum, and decided to go another 2 minutes to make the total tempo mileage on the odometer around 5 before the turnaround. Hit the turnaround in 1:09:17 - not bad for 800 feet of climb with only half done at a tempo effort. On the way back, decided to make my tempos a bit longer to get the whole run over with quicker. Figured I'd do the stretch from the start to Vivian Park (3.23) and the standard 3 mile tempo from Nuns to the mouth of the canyon. Felt sluggish starting out, but after two miles got into a good rhythm. Finished the 3.23 stretch in 18:16, which is around 5:40 average. Jogged from Vivian Park to Nuns at around 6:40 pace. Then started the second tempo. First two miles were sluggish again - both in 5:44. I felt a bit low on fuel. However, when I reached a little deeper, I was able to find more. The third mile was 5:37, giving me 17:05 for the 3 mile stretch. Then I could not bear the thought of dragging along for another mile at 6:40 pace. It would have felt like hitting a construction zone at the end of a 15 hour drive. So I decided to keep the tempo effort to the end. It was actually a bit more than a mile, but I timed a mile stretch on the trail in 5:34. Total time for the whole thing was 2:09:11, ran the Provo River 10 miler coming back in 59:54. Ran 2.5 in the afternoon by myself in 18:14, then 2 miles with Benjamin in 17:07 (Jenny ran the first in 9:11, then rode in the stroller along with Jacob). Another 0.5 with Julia in 5:42.
Felt good, on the second run could not really tell I had done the first. Benjamin looked great on the last 0.5. At 7:30 pace he looked like he was out for a stroll - very relaxed stride.
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