A.M. 6 miles with Jeff in 47:55 - Tvpb, Hyrum joined us for the first 3 in 24:17 with the last mile in 7:07, his mile PR since he started running again. T4 Racer - 53.95 miles. P.M. It was the afternoon of PRs for the girls. On Saturday I bought some honey sticks at Good Earth. Over the week I've been marketing them to Jenny and Julia explaining that they could be had if they ran fast. For Julia the standard was a mile under 9:00 and for Jenny under 8:00. Those times were slower than their PRs but I figured they needed some motivated practice in pushing themselves. Benjamin does it naturally, I actually have to hold him back a lot. Finally Jenny succumbed to my marketing efforts and decided that today was going to be a prize run. We warmed up the first 0.5 in 4:27, then she went to the bathroom at the park and we started the fast portion. I did not expect her to break the record, but she ran the first quarter on pace - 1:51. I told her she could get the record and and that there will be additional bonuses. So she ran the next quarter in 1:48 followed by 1:53 and 1:47 for the total of 7:19 - a PR by 11 seconds. Julia heard about Jenny's rewards and wanted some as well. Knowing the rules she asked if she could do a prize run too. She started out very fast - 26 at 100, 54 at 200, 1:24 at 300 and 1:55 at the quarter. I was holding her back figuring let her run fast while she is motivated as she might have a fit later on. Sure enough she did. When Benjamin was her age he understood math very well, he knew what the splits meant, if he was on pace or not, etc. Julia is a bit behind the Pachev curve in this area. At 5 years and 7 months her reading is at the level of Bob Books and her math is at the level of adding numbers less than 20. Benjamin and Jenny could read anything on their own at that age, although Jenny's math was at about Julia's level. However, Julia is a very emotional creature and can get upset a lot more easily. So she did not understand that we were going to the second four-triangle mark before the turnaround. She thought we were going to turn around at the first and when we did not she went into utter panic. It took me about a quarter mile to convince her that if she just coasted she could still get her record along with the prize, during which we slowed down to 2:18, which gave us 4:13 at the turnaround. To Julia's credit, very few 5 year olds would be running 9:12 pace in her emotional state at the time. She calmed down and finally believed me that she could still get the record. Her next quarter was 2:10, and her last one was 2:06. Her mile time was 8:29, a new record by 12 seconds. Fitness wise she did have a sub-8:00 in her. She could talk on the second half, asked me several times if we were on pace, and made a comment about people walking on the trail. The first thing she wanted to do afterwards is draw a picture of us running on the trail, which she did while we were driving back. Benjamin ran with Jenny, and then finished the last 0.5 of his run with me in 3:13, which gave him 15:00 for 2 miles. My Five Fingers have arrived (St. George Running Center now has them), and I did the run in them. I like them very much. Five Fingers - 3 miles.
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