Breaking the Wall

A.M. 10.1 alone easy early in the morning in 1:19:39. Did explosions.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:41. Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:11. Then 2 with Benjamin in 15:48.

A.M. Ran a little later in the morning because Jeff and Kimia went to the temple on an early assignment. Ran with Jeff and Mary Ann. Benjamin and Jenny joined us on bikes for a part of it. Sarah was supposed to pick them up fairly early, but due to a miscommunication  they ended up staying with us longer, and we also ended up running longer, total of 12.75.

We warmed up 2.62, then Jeff and I did The Interval. I think I'll call it that for lack of a better name. I am starting to think that perhaps doing several aerobically targed intervals is a waste of distance. I will argue that the aerobic system is not fully engaged for about the first 5 minutes of the interval if the rest is more than a 200 meter jog. Here is why. I will use an example for simplicity of illustration. Suppose I am to run a mile interval in 5:10 at a steady pace. At the start my HR is around 100. After the first quarter it is maybe 150. At half mile it will climb to 160. Then close to the end of the interval it may get up to 165. If I keep going it will stabilize around 168.

So my aerobic requirements to sustain 5:10 pace require an HR of 168. It means, in other words, that in order to run 5:10 I need at least as much energy as my heart can give at that rate. So if I run 5:10 pace at a lower heart rate, then I need to make up for the balance of energy that is not coming from the heart. By definition that is anaerobic energy. I could actually care less if it is aerobic or anaerobic after all. I should be using different terms. Sustainable and unsustainable. For the first five minutes of any interval I will be practicing using unsustainable energy.

So I need to keep it longer. And if I stop, then I will have to waste another 5 minutes of the next interval in the unsustainable energy development zone. That is 5 minutes of high intensity running that stresses out the nervous system without developing long race specific sustainable energy adaptations. So then just run all of it at once.

So we did The Interval. A little different today. I wanted to measure how fast Jeff could run half a mile off 5:20 pace. We did 1.25 in 6:40 evenly paced, no more than 1 second off at any point. Having a mark every 100 meters really helps. Benjamin rode along with us for that part. Then Jeff just floored it and I tried to hang on. I fell back a bit before the quarter and finished it in 66 seconds, 7:46 for 1.5. I was happy with that. Jeff finished the last half mile in 2:10. I was pleasantly surprised. Definitely some food for thought.

I jogged until Benjamin caught up to me, then I felt very good after 200 meters of jogging, so to reduce Jeff's wait I picked up in the next 200 and ran it in 41 seconds. We ran a long and adventurous cool down, ran into Adam in the process, borrowed his cell phone, eventually reached Sarah, and she picked up Benjamin and Jenny, then we ran home.

More thoughts on The Interval. The original purpose was to teach Jeff to run his dream 5 K pace starting immediately with a high HR. But I think it has a pleasant side effect. You are running 5:20 pace thinking all the time that it is going to get faster. So subconsciously you try to conserve. But the triangle marks on the trail force you to keep the pace regardless. So you have only one choice - learn to run it more economically. I wonder if that is what happened to us, now 5:20 pace is easy enough for Jeff to run a half mile in 2:10, and for me to run a quarter in 66 after 1.25. If so, this idea deserves quite a bit of attention. The number one reason to do tempo runs is to learn to run economically at race pace. We do not do those for aerobic development. They are too short. The focus is neurological adaptations.

So maybe something like this for a tempo run. A mile and a quarter half-marathon pace, then a quarter really fast, then a quarter at marathon pace to recover, then back to half marathon pace for a mile, another quarter hard, then a quarter at marathon pace to recover, then keep repeating the cycle until you cannot do the hard quarter more than 5 seconds faster than the half-marathon pace. This way you learn to be economical at long race paces, get some speed in the legs, learn to surge, and learn to kick. It needs to be continuous, though. Jogging in between is good for a top-end leg power workout, but not for building long race stamina.

A 200 meter jog in between long intervals in essence is a lip service to the gods of interval training,  or another words an attempt to sit on two chairs at once. It will work for building 5 K and longer race stamina better than a longer jog, but the most effective is to do one long interval with strategically varying pace, the pace never being slower than marathon race pace.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:46, Julia ran 1.5 with us in 14:14. 2 with Benjamin in 17:41.

A.M. Ran with Jeff, Mary Ann, Matt, and Ben Crozier. Needless to say we had live entertainment the entire run. Matt went his own way at around 6.25, dropped Ben and Mary Ann off at 7.75, then Jeff and I finished 10. With a quarter to go I saw that 6:00 would give me 1:20:00, so we ran that and finished in 1:20:00.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:54, Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:18, then 2 with Benjamin in 17:12.

A.M. Provo City Half, 1:15:29, 5th place.

Warmed up 3.3 to the race, some of it with Seth Wold. He was running the 5 K, but that did not make things much easier in the half.

Coming into the race I expected to have very minimal chances for prize money. On one hand I am still not 100% recovered from the ear infection. On the other hand the economic decline is pushing more runners to race for money, so the races are more competitive.

Some race directors use the phrase "a chance to win" in reference to prize money. I just have to take a jab at that, too tempting to pass it by. Read my lips, there is no chance unless you are very very fit. And once you are, it is not a chance, it is a certainty. The race is 95% decided before it starts. This should be obvious, but many people still do not quite get it.

When a runner is perpetually out of shape, he once in a while experiences "miraculous" breakthroughs, gets 10-20 minute PRs, and beats people that he could never beat. Because of those experiences he thinks he might have a chance. But a consistent runner knows better, or at least should know better. If you've seen no signs of better fitness in training, it is very unlikely that they will magically appear in a race. If they do, usually no miracle happened. The runner or his coach just do not quite know how to read the training.

I say "usually" because I believe Moroni 7:35 "...has the day of miracles ceased?" Miracles do happen today. I have seen a few. But they do not happen on a whim. God has to have a purpose to make it happen. We have to have the faith to back up the purpose. We have to understand the purpose and be sufficiently humble in asking for it. When it comes to running, it would serve us well to understand the natural laws behind running fast and follow them first before asking for a miracle that will allow us to run faster than what we have currently earned through training. Even when the result fits with His plan, God rarely intervenes with His powers until we have exhausted our abilities.

So at the start we had Jeff, Nick, and Shin, plus there was a rumor of Mike Vick, so I was not wrong in my expectations. They say there is more than one way to skin a cat. Today I was going to be the cat to be skinned, and I had a choice on the method. I could run evenly paced, run 1:14, and get nothing. Or I could go out hard until failure, then coast in, run 1:15, and still get nothing. I chose the latter because I wanted a better view of the leaders.

The weather was not great, but could have been worse. My slowest mile was 6:02 into a headwind. Not sure how this compares with last year. Headwind is very deceptive. Hard gusts are fairly harmless compared to a fairly mild but steady blowing. Direct headwind is much worse than cross-wind, but it is hard to tell which one you are getting and when. The only way to judge the conditions is empirically by comparing performances, but we do have a curve ball there. Jeff is in better shape and ran tactically, Nick has not run a long race in a while, Shin ran a marathon 2 weeks ago, Mike has not run a long race in a while, and started late in this race, who knows what kind of shape I am in, and Mary Ann is in better shape.  The only thing I can say that the conditions did not make the race faster.

Iain Hunter came to be a volunteer rabbit for the first few miles. The first mile marker came in 5:00, and the consensus was that it was short. Iain's GPS said 5:09, Mary Ann's GPS said the mile marker was 7 seconds too short. I can believe 5:07-5:09 based on the effort. 2 miles came in 10:22, and the marker was painted on the road, so I believe it. At that point, we had Iain pacing, then Nick, Jeff, and Shin. I thought the finish order would be Jeff, Nick, Shin, and me. I was not aware that Mike was actually in the race.

12:00 into the race my legs started getting tired even though my breathing was fine, the realization of the misery of running hard 10 miles after racing a 5 K began to enter my mind, and I decided 10:22 for 2 miles was good for today. So I backed off. So did Iain. I asked him to pace me, and he did. 3 miles in 15:59, 15:53 for the leaders. They backed off as well as the headwind began to pick up.

At this point I was done with the speed portion of my workout and now I had three purposes of running further: a) flash the blog shirt at the finish b) get in a long tempo and c) retrieve my clothes that were in Seth's car.

Iain bailed out at 4 miles (22:41), then I coasted through a mile in 5:59 into a headwind, 27:40 at 4. Then 5.5 the rumor of Mike materialized. Turned out he had started late. I decided one more interval would be good to do my legs in. So I followed him. He was going about 5:20 into a headwind. I made it with him to 6 miles in 33:21 and my legs said, no, time for a break. So I slowed down to 6:00. Mike just kept going. At this point I knew the correct finish order: Jeff, Nick, Mike, Shin, then me. Poor Shin, I thought, hard race, no money. But he is OK, he owns a company in Orem, he can handle that.

The rest of the race was rather uneventful. I did a 6:02 mile into a strong headwind, and after that ran slightly sub-6:00. Tried to pick up at the end, but the legs were tired from the "intervals" earlier.

Jeff gave Nick a surprise in the last mile. Surprise for Nick, that is, but we already knew that Jeff had that surprise in him from his training. 5:03 turning it on only about a quarter into it. 20 second gap in less than one mile. Jeff, as humble as he is, asked me if that mile was maybe short. I told him, no, the marks were painted, I ran it in 5:51, Nick ran it around 5:20, it was correct.

1:10:38 for Jeff, new course record, $350 cash plus a watch of supposedly high value, but in practice difficult to sell, maybe that is why it is being given as a prize, the jewelry store gets some advertising in exchange for unwanted merchandise. Plus a dinner for two for the course record, an impromptu bonus from the race director. Not bad for running the race tactically as proven in the last mile. Then Nick 1:10:58 ($100), Mike 1:12:04($50) gun time, who knows what would have happened had he started on time, but starting on time is part of the race rules. Then Shin 1:13:00 ($0), and me 1:15:29 ($0).

1:19:51 for Mary Ann, new course record by almost 2 minutes, she lived up to her last name again pouring a shower of hammers on her competition and winning the race by almost 12 minutes.

Both Jeff and Mary Ann PR'ed in the cash department winning more than they ever have in one race, and both needed that PR in this economy.

Even though I got outclassed from the money, I feel happy because Jeff and Mary Ann did so well. This year I am learning how to be equally happy about the success of my training partners as if it were my own.

We hurried to get Jeff's award, then found Seth, got my clothes out of his car, then cooled down 1.3 to my house barely in time for the General Conference.

P.M. Busy afternoon and evening, went to the Conference Center to do the backup for the Russian translation. Then Priesthood session in the evening. So kids ran around the block, Benjamin 2.1 in 15:42, Jenny ran 2 miles with Sarah,  Julia 1.05 miles.

Day of rest. Watched General Conference. Really liked the talk by President Uchtdorf.

A.M. Easy run with Jeff, Daniel, and Mary Ann. 10.1 in 1:20:52. Did explosions.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:36, Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:21. 2 with Benjamin in 16:43. Then later during the family home evening played freeze tag with the kids, and chased Benjamin in a 200 as well. It was supposed to be a 100, so I gave him 1 second head start because I wanted to be there to time his PR if he got one. But the mark at the 100 was missing, so we went to 200. He did it in 38.8.

A.M. Ran with Daniel, Mary Ann, Jeff, and Ben Crozier. Jeff slept in, so we met him on the trail. Ben was doing a goofy workout from Runner's World, and was too stubborn be talked into doing something more appropriate for his current condition. The workout was 9 quarters targeting a mysterious HR of 180 (how in the world do you hit any target HR in a quarter when it keeps climbing from start to finish?). I figured I'd keep him company to show where quarters start and end, take his splits, and gather up material for further discussion on the need for solid aerobic base before doing speed work. In the mean time, I could  shake out my legs a bit.

Ben did the quarters ranging from 85 to 93 depending on the terrain and his focus. I had to hold him back in the first 100, and then he faded in most of them in the last 100, except for the one when he really focused and hit an 85. So some clear indicators that quarters would be the wrong workout to do, leg power is way ahead of aerobic support, aerobic support development is primarily a function of the mileage, and is very little affected by how fast you are going once you reach a reasonable level of intensity (around 60%-70% of max HR). I just talked to him on the phone, his stubborness now has decreased.

Then Jeff and I ran The Interval. The plan today was for Jeff, 1.25 at 5:20, then 73 quarters to failure or to 2.5 total distance. For me, same, except once 73 quarter pace failure occurred, keep best pace to 2.5. Why? I feel something special happening to the muscles if I keep running hard after the pace failure.

We made it to 1.25 on schedule as usual, although a bit more erratically than normal - at one point we were 2 seconds ahead, and in a few spots 1 second behind. 5:20 pace felt hard at first, but then easier. Part of it was probably from erratic pacing, and I can really feel the difference between 5:12 and 5:20. Then I made it with Jeff through 600 in 1:50, and backed off. The failure was caused by legs caving as usual, except I was able to make it further than before. My 200 splits after that were 43, 43, 42, 42, 42, 40, 40. Total time for 2.5 was 13:22.7.

Towards the end I felt I was at the limit of my leg power, but was still going strong. I was pleasantly surprised with the results. I thought for sure I'd slow down to slower than 6:00 for at least a quarter to recover, but I only needed an 86 (5:44 pace), and then I started to get progressively stronger.

Jeff did 72.5, 72.5, 76, 78, called that the final failure, then once I caught up to him he finished 2.5 with me. At first I thought this was residual fatigue from the half, which did not quite add up with how he was feeling right after the half. Then after some discussion we realized there was a bigger problem. Kimia's sister and her family has been visiting with them and that added some extra running around and threw off his sleeping schedule. Again we go back to the wisdom of classical Kenyan recovery - rest in bed, do not move if you do not have to, when you have to get milk  walk to the store at zombie pace. Shut your body down as much as you can. Strive for zombie status to the extent your circumstances permit. One reason Kenyans are fast is that they know how to be lazy.

Afterwards ran the cool down with Mary Ann, total distance was 10.2.

A.M. 10.1 with Jeff, Daniel, and Mary Ann in 1:20:50. Did explosive sprints. Wore Five Fingers. Set a PR - no blister afterwards in spite of a fairly sizable hole. Five Fingers are great for anti-blister training. With proper approach it is possible to develop callouses such that you will never get another blister wearing racing flats. I think I am already there.

P.M. 2 with Benjamin in 17:38, 2 with Jenny in 19:21, Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:36.

A.M. 10.1 with Jeff and Mary Ann in 1:17:37.  Daniel slept in and ran later. Explosive sprints. Nature-forced 0.25 tempo pickup in 88 to catch up as well. Raining today, and Jeff was in a hurry to get to work. We were thinking about a 2 mile tempo at Jeff's marathon race pace, but decided to do it tomorrow.

I have good news and even better news. The good news is that I am done with my taxes. The better news is that I am getting a fairly big refund.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 17:41, Julia ran the first 1.5 in 13:31. 2 with Benjamin in 16:51.

A.M. Ran with Jeff, Daniel, and Mary Ann. Jeff and I did a bit of speed. Jeff ran only 2 miles at his marathon pace. I ran a little longer - 2.5. We went through the first mile in 5:29 followed by 5:30. Then I made an effort to pick it up, but not much happened. I did a quarter in 78 and my legs felt tired. I slowed down to 80 on the next one. 13:37.7 for 2.5. I felt like a couple of fast diagnostic/nervous system rebooting quarters. Did them in 73.4 and 72.8. In both I was slowing down a lot in the last 100 even though I did not feel I was breathing too hard. Some food for thought. Symptoms of insufficient sleep (good possibility, I did not feel like getting out of bed this morning, which indicates my body wanted for one reason or another more sleep than I was giving it), and/or low glycogen/blood sugar. When it is low, there is a negative feedback system that if it kicks in it can make you feel it even in a quarter repeat.

Total distance for the run was 10.2.

P.M. 2 with Benjamin in 16:50, 2 with Jenny in 18:41. Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:09. 1 mile setting up the race course.

A.M. Ran with Jeff and Mary Ann. Warmed up 1.3. Then paced Mary Ann through a long tempo on the 10 K race course. 6:20 pace to failure or to 30 K. Splits by 5 K:

20:03 - (slow start, we gave her an easy warm-up mile) - 19:47 (lost some time on the bottle pickup) - 19:53 (lost some time on the bottle, Mary Ann still does not know how to drink while running fast, also towards the end she started slowing down to 6:30, so I told her to stop at 15 K and jog back). Afterwards, I picked up the pace. 18:47 (that was all I could do) - 18:38 (figured out how to relax better) - 19:11 (fuel shortage/neural fatigue coming out).

Total time of 1:56:19 for 30 K,  6:14 average.

A couple of observatons. A whole lot of difference in the perceived muscular effort between 6:00 pace and anything faster between 15 K and 25 K. In the last 5 K that threshold moved to around 6:10. That threshold kept fluctuating, and did not always change in the slower direction as the run progressed. It had a lot to do with the art of relaxing.

Also, my first 15 K was done in 59:43, while the second in 56:36. I could not have gone any faster in the second. But I am very certain that if I had run the first one in 56:36, my second one would have been quite a bit faster than 59:43. Very possibly another 56:36.

So from that some ideas. We take a runner and have him race an all out marathon. Give enough time for recovery ,  and while in the same shape, he run a half 5-10 minutes slower than one half of his marathon time, and then a half all out. We call that "tired half" PR. Now Sasha Science Marathon Pacing theory. A marathon is properly paced when the first half is run at the fastest possible pace that still allows you to be within one minute of the tired half PR in the second half. Of course we assume equal terrain and condition for both halves which is never the case in any Utah marathon except maybe Ogden on a cool day.

This does can often mean a positive split depending on the runner. I suspect for a properly trained athlete the range is from 1 minute negative split to 5 minute positive split. For a less fit runner it could be as much as 10-15 minute positive split.

Afterwards paced Benjamin through a 5 K in 21:31. He took thrid place overall. Jenny won the mile with 8:00, Julia was second in 8:23. Jacob ran the 200 race in 1:34. Joseph did it in 1:22.

Day of rest. Went to church.

A.M. Ran with Jeff, Daniel, and Mary Ann. Today was the VPB day of the year. It began with a dream I had about running with a large group and trying to find a good VPB spot. Then about 0.8 miles into the run I had to stop. Again half a mile later. While catching the group I had to stop again. This reminded me of a misconfigured Apache web server error message when you go to a non-existent URL.  "Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request." It tries to find the file, does not find it, then it tries to serve the error page but it cannot find the error page either.

So finally I got going, ran 0.75 in 4:05 and caught the group. Only to stop 200 meters later. This time I decided to be smarter and run fast in increments to avoid shaking things up. Caught the group in about half a mile,  and then stopped a quarter later, finally for the last time.

Then it was Jeff's turn. He found a geo-cache during his stop. No need for a GPS, VPB does it. Now, combining the two acronyms and geocaching, true story, one time I lost a cell phone during a VPB and used a GPS to find it.

Total time for 10.1 was 1:16:50.

And, of course, we could not do without a picture. A few days ago we ran out of toilet paper, so Benjamin and I ran to get it with Jacob in the stroller:

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:47. Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:06. 2 with Benjamin in 16:41.

A.M. Ran with Jeff, Daniel, Mary Ann, and her friend Cindy. Cindy ran 2 miles with us and turned around. Jeff and I ran a mild version of The Interval. He got it easy because he is tapering for the marathon. I figured I should take it easy as well because of yesterday's stomach problems, and a feeling in the body that too much stress would not be good for it. But I felt I could handle a little bit. Mary Ann was excused from The Interval altogether due to leg tightness and the residual fatigue from Saturday.

The plan was  to run 1.25 starting  at 80 per quarter and gradually speeding up after 1000. That is, for Jeff. For me, try to hang on with him to failure, then finish with a measure of dignity. So we did 80 - 78 - 77 - then on this quarter I lost contact with Jeff but still did 73, and then struggled through the last one in 78, but was still happy with the result - 6:26.0.  Jeff finished in 6:16.

We jogged back a bit to Daniel and Mary Ann, joined them, then chased down a girl ahead of us, and she joined us. Her name was Kristy. She ran with us for a few miles. I like tests, and meeting a new person provided an opportunity for one. So I asked her how old she thought I was and how many children she thought I had. At first she was surprised that I had children, but even with that hint, she gave the correct age of 28 and the correct number of children (2) for year 2001. Then we recounted Jeff's incident of being asked to home coming by a high school girl. Running can help you stay young.

Dropped Jeff off at 8.1 miles then ran 2 more with Daniel and Mary Ann. Total distance was 10.1.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:16. Julia ran the first 1.5 miles in 13:45. 2 with Benjamin in 15:27. He ran the last mile in 6:36.

A.M. What an eventful week! Monday was the VPB day. Tuesday was the Meet New People day. Today was the Police Day. Ben Crozier called at 6:48 AM to report that he got pulled over by a state trooper and he was not sure if he was going to be able to make it to run with us. I called him back half an hour later and he did not answer his cell phone. We assumed he got arrested and so we went without him.

Ran with Cindy, Jeff, Mary Ann, Daniel, and Matt. Cindy turned around at 2 miles. Then we all turned around at 3 because Jeff was gonig only 6. I did a quarter in 82  post-VPB. Dropped Jeff off at 6 and called Ben again because I wanted to know how big his ticket was. Turned out his car got impounded for expired registration, and the trooper left him on the road in the rain in shorts. So he ran to the Provo City Office building and tried to plead his case. Needless to say unsuccessfully. So we told him to run from there to our house while Daniel, Mary Ann and I went for another 2 miles. I did explosive sprints.

Then we came back, dropped off Daniel, and picked up Ben. Ben warmed up 0.5, ran a 3 mile tempo in 22:00, then cooled down 0.5. I ran with him. Mary Ann turned around a mile into it to make it 10. I ended up with 12 for the run. Afterwards I gave Ben a ride home.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 19:27. Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:42. 2 with Benjamin in 16:55.

A.M. Ran with Daniel, Jeff, and Mary Ann. We got some snow. The trail had a few fallen branches and trees. Jeff did only 4 because he is running the marathon. Daniel and Mary Ann did 8. I ran 10. Total time was 1:25:41.

P.M. Went to SLC with the family to pick up the race packet, go to the Church Art and History Musium, and visit the NPS store. Ran about 0.5 retrieving the car from a remote parking spot. Later ran 2 with Benjamin in 16:41, and 2 with Jenny in 18:41. Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:30.

A.M. 8 with Daniel in 1:05:03, then 2 more with Benjamin in 15:31.

P.M. 2 with Jenny, Julia ran the first 1.5. Do not remember the times, but it was around 9:30 pace average.

A.M. SLC Half, 1:11:23, 6th place.

Ran a warm-up with Jeff. Ran into Julie Thomas. Found out she has 6 kids now. So that raises the fertility rate of the top 3 in St. George last year to 3 children per woman (assuming Christina does not have children),  which is 1.1 higher than the national rate, and 0.8 higher than the Utah rate. To make Julie's accomplishment more remarkable, she raced St. George with her baby being only 6 months old. 150 years ago tough women crossed the plains while bearing children. 150 years later their equally tough descendants run fast marathons in between bearing children.

The plan was to hang out with Jeff, Seth, and the Kenyans regardless of the pace, and then do the best I could once the marathon and the half split. So I was up for a surprise. I could be running a survival race, or a negative split race, or anything in between. And in all honesty I did not care, when there is no chance for prize money I am happy to be a participating spectator and do not mind running a minute slower by running somebody else's race.

Today, however, being a participating spectator helped me run better. Details to follow, mile by mile:

Mile 1: 5:21. Teren and Alexander Thomas in the lead of the half far ahead, Nate Hornok trying to hang on with them, James Moore (Fiddy) out there between them and us. I am with the lead pack of marathoners which includes Jeff, Seth, evenutal winner Joseph Mutinda (2:13:19 PR on March 1, 2009), Moses Kororia (28:05 10 K, 1:01:49 half in Nairobi, 2:12:04 PR in Dallas in 2006, since then not so hot in the marathon (2:15-2:17), which I suppose why he was here instead of Country Music), and Ezekiel Ruto, the Top of Utah winner of last year. BJ Cristenson, who was supposedly out of shape (is he ever really in shape?) and told us he was going to run 1:15, and Jason Shoenfield. I believe we saw Fritz there for a little bit as well. Others in the pack I did not recongize.

This mile was downhill, but even still it felt so easy that even with the downhill adjustment I questioned its length. However, there was a red mark on the road, and Seth's Garmin beeped right there. So I was willing to believe it was right.

Mile 2 - 5:33 (10:54). A little down and about the same amount up. Felt harder, believable, but still not straining myself.

Mile 3 - 5:23 (16:17). Downhill. Felt too easy, like I was slacking. Started feeling antsy to go, but decided to stay true to the original plan.

Mile 4 - 5:15 (21:32). Downhill. This was the most educational mile of the race. I pulled alongside Moses and a thought occurred to me to try to follow his rhythm stride for stride. I tried and succeeded, it felt right, and the pace started to feel a lot easier. I have had those experiences before, and consider them significant. They do not happen very often. It is possible to borrow somebody's better rhythm. You need to be going the right pace, and you need to have the right rhythm instructor. Two requirements - he needs to have a good rhythm period, and that rhythm also must be within the optimal range for your body type. Chances of it happening are very rare, but I've raced enough to have it happen. So far the following runners in addition to Moses have been able to feed me the rhythm: Craig Lawson, Nick McCombs, and  Hobbie Call. Now that I am thinking of this I could possibly add Mike Dudley and Lewis Jones. There may have been more cases when I was not aware. I'll discuss the concept of rhythm on the forum later.

Mile 5 - 5:32 (27:04). Slight uphill. During this mile the half and the full split. I ended up with BJ and Jason. Jason and I contended for the coveted spot right behind BJ. If you've ever seen BJ you would know why. 6'6 tall and a solid frame to support the height. Felt a lot harder. I tried to remember the rhythm I had borrowed from Moses earlier.

Mile 6 - 5:15 (32:19). Appeared flat. Even though BJ pushed the pace, and the mark was painted on the road, I was quite sure the mile was short. I was expecting the next one to be long. Around this time we caught James.

Mile 7 - 5:11 (37:30). Slight downhill. Also painted on the road. I suppose mile 6 was not short after all. That cheered me up quite a bit, which I needed because BJ kept pressing the pace, and I was hanging on for dear life.

Mile 8 - 5:16 (42:46). Slight downhill. Eventful mile. First Jason fell back as BJ kept pressing the pace. I stayed with BJ but quickly got miserable enough to drop back as well. Jason caught me but I was able to latch on. A little bit of downhill relieved my leg strain and I was able to relax and find a good rhythm again.

Mile 9 - 5:21 (48:07). Very slight down if any. Still with Jason, and BJ is not moving away from us. In fact, maybe we even closed a second or two. Feeling a good rhythm.

Mile 10 -  5:34 (53:41). Flat. Jason surged and dropped me. Lost the rhythm, trying to survive. Legs are starting to cave.

Mile 11 - 5:37 (59:18). Slight down. Trying to find the rhythm, legs caving, but still strong in the 5:40 range.

Miles 12 and 13: 11:35, probably around 6:00 for 12 (uphill), and 5:35 for 13 (up for about 0.1 then down). I am basing the breakdown off James' split of 5:59 for mile 12 along with him saying he was keeping the distance neither gaining or falling back. When I realized how far uphill we had to go, I started doing disaster calculations of what time 19:00 for the last 5 K would give me. 1:12:41, still respectable. Fortunately it was not that bad, last 5 K was 17:42, almost as fast as I was racing flat 5 Ks at the beginning of the year, at least in the same minutes. Felt stronger on the uphill than I anticipated I would when I saw it at mile 11. There was a surprise of a different kind. There was a wall of 5 K walkers, that was expected. What I did not expect is a wall of slow moving bikers from the bike tour. Then on the downhill the bikers started passing me back.

Kick: 30 seconds. Was surprised that I had some kick in me.

Finish: Alexander Thomas 1:06:22, Teren  1:07:09, Nate 1:09:15, BJ 1:10:38, Jason 1:10:43, me 1:11:23, James 1:11:37.

Afterwards ran with James back to Jeff. Did not quite make it to Liberty Park before we saw Joseph Mutinda. We stopped immediately and timed him at the spot a little after mile 23. 2:01:23. I figured he was headed for around 2:17 and commented that the economy must be really bad if $2500 with a possibility of not being paid for a year produces 2:17 on this course. Moses Kororia 2:03:05, Seth 2:07:23, Ezekiel Ruto 2:07:55. Finally Jeff 2:13:05. We ran with him back to the end. He was out of fuel badly. He does not run well on fats. So only about 7:30 pace on fats, that is what kills him. When he runs 5:30, there is pleny of leg power, and there is plenty of aerobic support, but he is burning carbs like a semi because his fat base pace is only 7:30. One advantage of bonking in the marathon is that you find out your fat base pace. For a comparison, mine is 7:00. On the positive side, in St. George his fat base pace was 8:15, so there is a substantial improvement.

So Jeff finished in 5th with 2:35:07, $100, first marathon prize money (not counting St. George age division appearance fees), first W-9, first running-related media experience. His interview was hillarious - he showed KSL his check which he said he was in a hurry to cash.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:50, Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:35.

Day of rest. Went to church.

A.M. Ran with Ted, Daniel, and Mary Ann. Ted ran 6. Daniel ran 8. Mary Ann ran 10, but only the first mile with us. Total time 1:12:57.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:55. Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:37.

A.M. Ran with Ted, Jeff, and Daniel. They ran easy. I did The Interval. Decided 2 miles would be good with the first 1.25 in 6:40 and then try to keep a faster pace. Cut it short if not feeling good, was not expecting to feel that good today. However, I ended up feeling better than I thought. So I ran the first 1.25 on target, then 77, 79, 78. 10:34.2 for 2 miles, last mile in 5:14. Then I started jogging back. Did not see them. Figured they had turned around, decided to try to catch them. Ran a mile in 5:21, my legs were getting tired, and they were still not in sight. Figured they turned around early. So just jogged back to the house. Found them, turned out they just ran faster than I expected them. Ran the last 3.25 with Daniel.

Was not completely unhappy with how 5:20 pace felt today, was happy with the intensity of breathing and the heart involvement, this means the nervous system did well.  But I was not quite satisfied. Too tense, hard to find the rhythm. Maybe what I should do is practice running a slower pace and learn a good rhythm. Then try to speed up to 5:20 without losing the rhythm. Then if I feel it is going away, slow down and try to regain it. That's an idea for Thursday workout - good rhythm tempo run. No time goals, 6:00 pace is good if it is the fastest pace that can be done with good rhythm.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:07. Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:44. Then Jenny ran the last 0.5 in 3:23. 2 with Benjamin in 16:45 with a 1:25 quarter in the middle.

A.M. Ran with Ted, Jeff, and Daniel. Towards the end of 6 miles ran into Ben Crozier. Ran more with him and Daniel. Ben did 2x1 mile first on a slight uphill in 6:53, then coming back after some rest in 6:30. Then ran the cooldown with Ben to his car and back. Total distance was 11.1, time 1:27:36.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 19:15, Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:45. 2 with Benjamin in 16:11. 200 with Jacob in 1:29. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:37.

A.M. Warmed up with Ted and Jeff, then ran on my own. Did The Good Rhythm Tempo. The idea is to run relaxed, focus on the rhythm and feeling smooth, observe the pace, but not try to hit any particular targets. If running sub-6:00 creates a strain, then we run 6:00 and no faster.

Distance: 5 miles on my standard course. Splits: 5:45, 5:43, 5:44 (14:19 at 2.5), 5:44, 5:28. Total time 28:24.6.

Subjective/Descriptive: Felt relaxed at 5:44 pace, barely breathing, but felt that going faster would create a muscular strain that would make it difficult to practice efficient rhythm. In the last mile decided to press harder. Thought that as much as my legs fought going faster than 5:44 that I should expect about 5:35 out of the last mile given that it is 5-7 seconds slower than flat. I was surprised with a 5:28. Was breathing a lot harder and had to focus a lot more, but at least I had the ability. Felt that after practicing good rhythm for 4 miles at a slower pace/lower muscular effort the faster pace/higher muscular effort was not breaking my rhythm too bad. In fact, I felt that I owed that 7 second gain to the rhythm.

Thoughts: I have said before that I felt the lactate level is as much of a red herring as the intensity of breathing. To say you slowed down because the lactate levels were too high makes as much sense as to say you slowed down because you were breathing too hard, or even more plainly - because you reached the pace that you could not sustain. Which in essence says nothing - could not run fast because could not run fast. Rhythm is a different story. I am willing to believe that a runner could slow down a lot because he lost his rhythm. In other words, he started working against himself expending more effort while running slower.

Once the aerobic capacity is present, the focus should be on rhythm. You need to do whatever it takes to learn a good rhythm, know the best rhythm for your body and the race you are running, be able to kick into it from the gun, be able to find it quickly after a surge, a water stop, or a hill. Have an uphill rhythm, a downhill rhythm, a flat rhythm, a headwind rhythm, a tailwind rhythm, and a roller rhythm at your fingertips. Good rhythm means the muscles that should relax do relax when they should, and the ones that should contract contract when they should. It is all about timing. Ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta. It gives maximum forward thrust with minimum energy expenditure. In a marathon good rhythm could make a quite a difference - pushing the wall away by 3 miles can easily produce a 5 minute improvement or more. Rhythm is critical.

Afterwards ran 2 with Jenny in 17:47, 1.5 with Julia in 15:26, and 2 with Benjamin in 16:59.

A.M. Ran with Jeff, Ted, and Daniel. Jeff and Ted stopped at 6. Daniel and I did 9 in 1:06:something. Then 2 with Jenny in 18:40, 1.5 with Julia in 14:25, and 2 with Benjamin in 15:50. Benjamin ran the last 0.75 in 4:54. Pushed William during the kids' runs.

A.M. Started with Jeff, Daniel, Ted, and his son James. He used to be little James, but he is getting bigger. Ran the first 2 in 15:06 then started my very long tempo. The plan was to run the 10.1 course twice for the whole run tempoing the last 18.2 of it. No pace goal again, focus on running in a nice relaxed rhythm. I am quickly converting into the good rhythm goal/no pace goal religion. Pace goals are meaningless. You can run exact same pace in a workout and get very different results. If you force your way through it you learn to run tense. That is not what we want, we want to learn to run relaxed, and we cannot know in advance what pace will create the best educational experience on a given day at a given point in the run. Most definitely it will vary not only from day to day but from spot to spot in the run. It has to be by feel, we take the splits only for observation.

So at first I was running 6:00 pace, occasionally a little faster, and it felt just right, as fast as I could go without excessive muscle strain. I was concerned about that. 6:00 should have felt dog slow this early in the run, and it did not. I was expecting very miserable 6:10 later on if not worse. 33:11 total time at 5.05, then came back in 30:12 (1:03:23). At this point Jeff joined me on a bike and he had my magic bottle containing a special drink of evaporated cane juice from Costco diluted in water. 700 ml of water, about 10 teaspoons of cane juice. Keep it simple. I have a feeling that Powerade and Gatorade to meeting energy needs are what expensive brand name shoes are to injury prevention. There has to be something very simple and basic not associated with any brand name that will do a much better job. So I created my own mix in search of that and was trying it out today.

The arrival of Jeff created two positives. Having him around produced some excitement. So I had more adrenaline and the pace started to feel easier. Also, the sweetness of the drink produced a nervous system reboot to help that cause, followed up by the actual energy arriving 10-15 minutes later. I found myself hitting 84 second quarters from time to time and they did not feel miserable at all. At one point managed an 87 while drinking from the bottle. Jeff gave me the bottle at 10.5, and then every two miles. Got to 15.15 in 1:32:33 (29:11 for 5.05).

Felt strong in the next couple of miles, but then started to feel stale. So I started asking for the bottle more often, every half mile or so. That did the trick. I would lose a second during the bottle quarter, but then get back to pace. At that point I was going around 5:55 pace and felt I could make it home. With 0.5 to go Jeff started yelling at me, and I pushed harder. Did an 87 quarter followed by 83. Was surprised that a) I could do 83 at this point and b) even though I was running as hard as I could I felt relaxed.

So 2:02:09 for 20.2 miles, 6:02.8 average. Excluding the warmup, 1:47:03 for 18.2, 5:52.9 average. Last 10.1 in 58:46, 5:49.1 average. Do not recall my split at 7.1 exactly, but the last half marathon of the run would have been around 1:16:45.

I will give my new magic drink an A rating based on this experience.

P.M. 2 with Benjamin, Jenny, James, and Jared in 17:58. Julia ran 3 miles earlier with Sarah.

Day of rest. Went to church. Daniel spoke in the Sacrament meeting. He told a story of one stake president interviewing one of the brothers in his stake. "Suppose you were asked to give up the deed to your house, would you do that?" "No problem"." What about all of your stocks, bonds, and saving?" "No problem." "What about the expensive things that your wife cherishes?" "No problem." "What about your horse?" "No, I would not give up my horse!" "Why?" "Because I actually do have a horse!"

A.M. Ran with Ted and Jeff. Had a post VPB tempo - 0.5 in 2:50.  Dropped Ted off after 6, then ran 2.5 more with Jeff. We ran the last mile fast. The idea was to fall asleep burning fats during the run, then speed up without waking up the carb-burning beast. Well, this time we blew it big time with two quarters in 83, and then 77. That was like putting rooster right next to the beast's ear. After that Jeff kept going, while I eased off a bit. He did 76,77 for a 5:13 mile, I did 82,85 for 5:27. Then 2 more with Benjamin in 15:48. Did explosions during Benjamin's run.

P.M. 1.5 with Julia in 14:44, faster than the policeman. We have a friend that is trying to get a job as a policeman and he needs to be able to run 1.5 miles in 15:00. So any time Julia breaks 15:00 I tell her she ran fast enough to be a police officer. 2 with Jenny in 17:59.

A.M. Ran with Jeff. We did a brisk warmup (by our standards) at 7:30 pace for 2.12 miles. Then we ran The Interval. The Interval has been modified to include a mile warmup to get into the rhythm. So we started at 0.5 mark of the Fast Running Blog 5 Miler Course and ran towards the start, then did a 180 and ran to the 2.5 mark. First mile was 5:45, then 5:19, and then 5:12 with the quarters of 79,79,78,76. Total time was 16:16.8. Felt very strong, very much in control of the pace even when it got fast. It felt good to blow by the 5:30 guy in the last mile and put 14 seconds on him after being 15 seconds behind one mile into it.

After the lion stopped roaring, ran a nice cool-down to make 10 miles total. Then added 2 mile with Benjamin in 17:34.

P.M. 2.25 from Computune with Jenny and Julia in 22:42.

A.M.  Ran with Jeff and Ted. Dropped Ted off at 6, then did 4 more. The river overflowed and there was quite a bit of water under some bridges. Five Fingers dry out a lot quicker than regular shoes with socks. Did the Fat Mile at the end in 6:00. Fat Mile is a new term I've just invented. You lull your body into burning fats by running a slow pace first for a while, and then you speed up hoping you are still burning fats and can teach your body to rely on fats at a faster pace.Total time was 1:13:36.

Afterwards, 2 more with Benjamin in 17:36.

P.M. 2  with Jenny in 19:04. Julia ran the first 1.5 with us in 14:34, faster than the policeman again.

A.M. Ran with Jeff. Adam joined us for a little bit on the trail as well. Did The Good Rhythm Tempo on the Fast Running Blog 5 Miler For Frugality And Against Obesity course.

5 Miles in 27:57.5. Splits: 5:42, 5:33, 5:39 (14:04 half way), 5:34, 5:29. First mile was a warm-up, second pushed it, in the third started feeling tense, so figured I had pushed too hard, eased off, found a relaxed rhythm again, then pushed in the last `1.5 with the quarters of 83,81,84(up), 83, 85, 77. In the next two last quarter I had to get around a couple with two strollers. I figured there would be no way they'd figure out how to get out of the way in time, so I went around the best way I could, which was not great. So I lost the rhythm and concentration at that point. However, this was compensated by Adam appearing out of nowhere to pace me in the last quarter. So bad luck was compensated by good luck. That is usually the case, overtime luck is neutral, however, effort is not.

Jogged back to Jeff, we jogged some more, then ran the Fat Mile in 6:00. His was probably fatter than mine since I had just finished a hard tempo and had my carb-burning beast alive and ready for more. A new application of the scripture from 2 Nephi 9 "Let your soul delight in fatness".

From the experience today I am beginning to wonder if my "neural fatigue" is really adrenal glands underperforming. Is there such a thing as "adrenal wall" - wearing out the adrenal glands from 15 miles of hard running and then slowing down not on fuel but on the lack of adrenaline to use the fuel?

P.M. 2.25 with Benjamin and Jenny to Computune in 21:34. 1.5 with Julia in 15:49.