Breaking the Wall

A.M. Ran 10 miles. Met Jeff on the trail. We went to the BYU track to do a time trial. Jeff did 400, I ran the last 200 with him. He ended up with 57.2, I ran 28.9. I was actually able to pass Jeff and finish a step or two ahead. I did have a concern that if he were running really well and hit a 27 or even a low 28 in the last 200 I might get dropped. That would have been embarrassing, but fortunately for me Jeff was tired this morning from the 20 on Saturday and 15 on Monday. New 200 meter PR for clogs, though.

I was happy with the result. I was expecting something like 29.5 - 30.0 given the lack of recent sprint training and the lack of proper warm-up as well.

P.M. Ran with the kids training group. Ended up with 2.25 miles. Jacob did 0.25 in 2:23. Joseph 0.5 in 4:10. Jenny ran 2.5. Julia did 1.5. I paced Benjamin through 800 in 2:44, a new PR with the splits of 41.5 - 41.5. - 42 - 39.

A.M. 10 with Jeff in 1:09:58. Did a couple of pickups at 5:50 pace. Jenny and Julia ran 2.

P.M. Benjamin was sick (stomach flu), so he just ran 1.25, including 0.5 with Joseph in 4:31, and 0.25 with Jacob in 2:21, and then additionally 0.5 in 3:58.  I ran the same distance.

A.M. 10.1 in 1:18:58. Met Jeff on the trail. Jenny and Julia ran 2.

P.M. 2 with Benjamin in 15:51. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:39. 0.25 with Jacob in 2:26.

A.M. 10.1 in 1:18:58. Met Jeff on the trail.

P.M. 2 with Benjamin, Jenny, and Julia. Joseph ran 0.9 with us. 0.25 with Jacob.

A.M. Was originally planning on 15, but had some indigestion and decided to cut it short. Ran 10.18 with Jeff in 1:17:20. Last 1.25 in 7:08.  Jenny and Julia ran 2 with Sarah.

P.M. 2 with Benjamin in 14:58. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:35. 0.25 with Jacob in 2:31.

Day of rest. Went to church. We had a fast and testimony meeting, then a lesson on the gift of the Holy Ghost in Sunday School, followed by a lesson from an Ensign article on not being in a hurry. Ironically the teacher went into overtime and was just about to start discussing the point "Do not be in a hurry to be done" when he was reminded that the meeting should have ended 10 minutes ago. In spite of the irony the lesson was good, though. There is a difference between being urgent and being in a hurry. When you are in a hurry you move faster than you should. It takes humility to accept the correct pace.

At dinner time I overestimated the recovery of my stomach and ate more than I should have. This resulted in throwing up later. But I started feeling better towards late evening and was hungry again.

We also went on an evening walk on the Provo River Trail and I brought along my new toy - a digital level that we bought at Home Depot for $40 on Saturday. We measured a whole bunch of grades. I began to understand why the trail is so slow in spite of not having any notable hills. On parts that you would think are flat the grade keeps fairly uniformly fluctuating from -2.0% to +2.0%. A good rule of thumb is to compensate for a given distance at a given grade uphill you need to run the same distance at double the grade downhill. This works quite well for grades up to 5%. So if we integrate, running on the trail with no elevation gain is like running up a 0.5% steady grade.

A.M. 10.18 with Jeff in 1:17:06. Did a couple of pickups. First 0.75 in 3:56.7 with the splits of 80, 78, 78. Then 1.5 in 7:48.0 with the splits of 79, 79, 80, 76, 78, 76. I felt very relaxed at 80, at least for the moment I felt like I could run that forever in a pack. 78s felt sustainable, but not pleasant. 76s felt more unpleasant but I felt that I could survive a surge like this if it lasted for no more than a mile.

Then we met a new potential running partner. His name is Daniel and he is from South Carolina. 2:00 800, 4:25 1600, 9:53 3200 and 15:56 5 K on the road. He supported the tradition of stray running young men in Provo speaking a foreign language. He had served a Cambodian speaking mission in California. He is planning on running with us tomorrow.

Jenny and Julia ran 2.

P.M. 2 with Benjamin in 16:05. 0.5 with Joseph. 0.25 with Jacob.

A.M. Ran 10.1. Met Jeff and Daniel on the trail. Did a pickup for 0.5 to test Daniels current fitness. He put in what he thought was a 10 K effort and we ended up with 2:59. Then did a 600 in 2:06 catching up after a VPB.

P.M. 2.75 with the kids running group. Benjamin and Jenny did 2.5. Joseph did 0.5 in 4:15. Jacob did 0.25 in 2:29. Julia ran 1.5.

A.M. 10.5 - some with Jeff and Daniel, 2.9 with Benjamin.

P.M.  0.5 with Joseph in 4:31. 0.25 with Jacob in 2:34.

A.M. 6 with Jeff and Daniel. Jeff and I did a 0.5 pickup in 2:24.4. It was supposed to be 2:30, but we started the first 200 in 38 and then Jeff overcorrected. It felt good, though.  Jenny and Julia ran 2.

A.M-2. 0.25 with Jacob in 1:57. This is his new record.  2 with Benjamin 16:39. Joseph ran 0.5 with us in 4:25.

P.M. Took VanGoGo to do safety and emissions. It failed the emissions. The mechanic thought it was because we had not driven it in a while, so he said drive it on the freeway. I figured it was a good chance to study the Utah Valley Marathon course. So I drove the course. After that the test still fail. Had to leave the van to get tuned. On a normal day I would have just run home, but since I am tapering, and have done a quick 0.5 in the AM I needed to limit my activity to the minimum. But I did not want to be on the road for too long, so I just Gallowalked home. So I suppose Gallowalking is useful for something after all. Discovered I could walk at 12:00 pace. Ran some of it at around 8:00, maybe about 0.5.

A.M. Tapering. 2 miles with Benjamin in 15:30. 2 with Jenny and Julia in 17:13. One by myself in 1 in 6:46. Jenny wanted to do set a record in the quarter after her run. So we started out at a good pace and she hit 300 in 1:01 fairly evenly, but then she panicked because she thought she was going to throw up and just stopped. I explained to her that feeling like this was normal in an all-out quarter, she realized that all she had to do was coast in and she would have had the record, and now was determined to try again. I explained to her that she was not going to run as well due to fatigue, but given how much ahead of her record pace she was on her first try she should still be able to get it. On her second try she was able to hit the first 200 in 41, then faded to a 23 100, and then 24 finishing in 88, which is still a record by 3 seconds. But her first attempt shows she was capable of about 83 fresh.

0.5 with Joseph in 4:26. 0.25 with Jacob in 1:54. He set another record. Now I am starting to think that the story about Summer Harper's 3:58 half mile at the age of 3 could actually be true. I heard it from Hawk and used it to motivate Sarah to start running back in 1999 right after our first child (Benjamin) was born. She did a time trial to beat that time and nearly died running 3:57. The she decided to start training. But then after I became more familiar with what 3 year old kids are capable of  I began to wonder if maybe something was exaggerated in that story. Now Jacob has shed a new insight for me on what a 3 year old kid can do.

A.M. Utah Valley Marathon, 2:31:58, 6th place. 

Lots of competition at the start. Four Kenyans, Peter Vail, Jacob Buhler who had an exceptional first marathon (2:24 for 3rd), Clyde, and Dave Holt among a number of runners I recognized at the start. I hooked up with Peter and he agreed to go out a bit slower so both of could have company for a while. Report mile by mile:

1 - 5:26 - with the lead pack (all Kenyans, Peter and Jacob). HR was around 145 due to the downhill (2.9% drop). Believe it or not, it was quite conversational. I was chattering away with Peter.

2 - 10:45 (5:19) - still with the pack, the grade is 2.5% down, felt harder but maintainable, HR was around 155. Still chatty, but not as much as the first mile.

3 - 16:08 (5:23) - The Kenyans had some kind of a discussion, then all of a sudden surged. I told Peter about how they did that to Seth in the Salt Lake Marathon in 2009 and made him run a 4:55 mile. He agreed it was not a good idea to surge with them so we dropped back. The grade was 1.5% drop, HR around 157. A bit too high, but I want to stay with Peter for as long as is reasonable, and 157 is still reasonable.

4 - 21:41 (5:33) - 0.9% grade down, HR 157, Peter is pulling me.

5 - 27:04 (5:23) - 1.4% grade down, HR starts visiting 160 but stays at 157. Still with Peter. Feeling OK, but I know I should be feeling this kind of OK in the marathon at mile 5. We passed a Kenyan. I think his name was Zack.

6 - 32:41 (5:37) - 0.7% grade down. Peter is edging to press it, but the pace is already too fast for me. So I tell him to go and back off. HR drops to 153.

7 - 39:06 (6:25) - 1.9% net  grade up, but rolling a lot. A lot of 6% grades, so a really slow mile.  The Course Tool thinks I actually hit it right on for my average pace even though it was 38 seconds slower than flat. HR stayed at 160 during the climbs and visited 163 mark briefly. I had not looked at the Course Tool prior to the race, so this came to me as a surprise. That is one place where it is easy to misjudge the grade. Plus it occurs at 5500 feet, which has an effect on how much of a hit you get from a given uphill grade. This ended up being the slowest mile of the race for me.

8 - 45:08 (6:02) - 0.2% net grade down, but again a lot of rolling with grades varying from 5% up to 5% down. The course tool says the right split for it would have been 6:07. HR is all over the place from 145 on the down to 160 on the up.

9 - 50:50 (5:42) - 3.1% grade down. HR did not crack 150. The Course Tool says it should have been 5:24. Probably was having a hard time shifting gears after the uphill grades earlier.

10 - 56:41 (5:51) - 0.1 % grade down on a roller coaster of grades varying from 4% up to 4% down, but mostly staying in the 2% up/down range. Got some rhythm. Do not remember the HR, but I imagine around 153-155. The Course Tool expected 6:06.

11 - 1:02:31 (5:50) - 0.7% drop on a roller coaster similar to mile 10.

12 - 1:08:30 (5:59) - 1.1% drop, the roller coaster continues. Right on with the Course Tool.

13 - 1:14:16 (5:46)  - 0.4% drop, more steady.  The Course Tool was confused there because of the tunnel.

Half - 1:14:53. Time to do some assessments. Given how I am feeling and that I did have to be aggressive to get this slow of a split, sub-2:30 is probably out of the question unless there is a strong and steady tailwind all the way combined with no crash, which is too much luck to ask for.  If I average 6:00 to the finish that gives me a high 2:33. I'll be OK with that. If there is a crash of average severity, I might not average 6:00 to the finish. So we are looking at 2:35, which is on the edge of being embarrassing. I'll just take it a mile at a time, and try to put as much gap on the 6:00 guy for the second half as possible, so I can still hold him off if I do crash. 2:33 will be better than embarrassing.

14 - 1:20:01 (5:45) -  1.2% down, more or less steady. Hey, that invites illusions of breaking 2:30, but in order to do that I would need to be as fresh in the last 6 miles as I am now. But still it is nice to think about being technically on pace for 2:30.

15 - 1:25:59 (5:58) - 1.4% steady up. This is exciting. Last year  the split on that mile was 6:02, and I was in a pack at mile 5 instead of being alone at mile 15. The course is different this year.

16 - 1:31:29 (5:30) - 3.4% steady down. Got going. Last year the split was 5:33.

17 - 1:37:01 (5:32) - 2.4% down with some rolling. Last year 5:25 on Jeff's initiative. Still technically on pace for sub-2:30, but the marathon has not yet started. 3 more miles to go before it starts. Marathon starts at 20. If you can get there ahead of pace without killing yourself, you get the privilege of the early start, and it does not count against you.

18 - 1:42:50 (5:49) - 1.2% down. Last year 5:34 on mile 8 in the same spot. The fatigue is starting to show.  But I am still sub-6:00 and with a couple of 5:30s in addition to not slipping over 6:00 on the uphill I have a good gap on the 6:00 guy for the second half. However, all it takes to lose it is a couple of 6:30s, which can still happen.

19 - 1:48:46 (5:56) - 1.1 % down. Last year 5:36. Still sub-6:00.

20 - 1:54:45 (5:59) - 0.9 % down. Last year 5:40 on the matching mile 10. The long anticipated start of the marathon. One thing I do not like about marathons is that it takes almost two hours of running before the race begins. You can really psych yourself out with the anticipation. If you hurry to get there, you might end up too tired to race and perform poorly in spite of the head start. If you take your time, you can get there fresh, but the race will have already started without you.

Time to assess again. Last year split at 20 miles was 1:55:50 and the preceding mile was 6:19. This year things look more promising. The split is a good minute faster, the pace is 20 seconds per mile faster, and we drop 290 feet in the last 10 K at a fairly steady grade with only two minor climbs, one by the Country Club and one on the bridge in the last mile. So it will be faster than 2:35:46, but by how much? Sub 2:30 by now is impossible. I will need to run a 35:15 10 K, which is not happening if an honest effort is giving me barely sub-6:00 at this point. However, something like a 38:00 while challenging is still realistic. That would give me high 2:32 which would be not too far off my prediction of 2:32:00 on the message board. I decided to set a goal of hitting at least one mile in the "zone" under 6:00. Then hopefully the momentum will carry me through something like a 6:10, and maybe one more. Then I will smell the barn, and give it a good push, and maybe the slowdown could be stalled. Still not quite 38:00 for the last 10 K, but worth a try.

21 - 2:00:40 (5:55) - 1.3 % down. Goal met. Let's do one more. By this time I started to catch the half marathoners and they served as easy targets. Every little bit helps in the "zone". Zero in on a runner ahead of you. One nice thing is that unlike when you race your competition he always comes to you at a fast rate, and then there is another to zero in on. You can even fancy that a runner ahead of you has blown up and you are moving up a place. So you are easily meeting the goals and that helps you keep the spirits up when the blood sugar is down.

22 - 2:06:37 (5:57) - 1.2 % down. Another sub-6:00. Encouraging, but do not get a big head over it. Still 4 miles to go and the blow up can be spectacular. Doing some crazy math. If I average 7:30 to the finish, this gives me 2:37. That would be embarrassing. But I am not likely to average 7:30, I always drop gradually. So let's say I average 7:00. That would be 2:35. I like that better, especially since I am not going to average 7:00, at least I am a good minute faster than that pace right now and I am feeling quite strong. OK, let's try another one under 6:10.

23 - 2:12:40 (6:03) - 0.5% net down, but with a climb by the Country Club. Better than expected. Do I have another good mile in me? How about a good 5 K? Hey, 20:00 5 K gives me a low 2:33, and by now I am feeling quite confident I could run a 20:00 5 K.

24 - 2:18:41 (6:01) - 1.3% down. On pace for a sub-19:00 5 K, but still 2 miles to go.

25 - 2:24:44 (6:03) - 0.7% down. During this mile a police officer underestimated my speed and thought a car could safely cross in front of me. It did make it, but it was a bit too close for comfort. So he commented about his mistake. I'll take his mistake as a compliment, especially during mile 25.

26 - 2:30:43 (5:59) - 0.7 % net down with the bridge. When I saw my split at 25 I thought that I needed to give it an earnest to push to break 2:32 or else I would be cursing myself for running something like 2:32:05 for the next two months. Two days ago I played in a chess tournament with an HRM (now you have to be a geek to play chess at all, geek squared to play in in a tournament, but to play it in a tournament with an HRM is more than a geek cubed, it has to be something like e^geek

). I noticed that my HR goes up as high as 90 on some moves while normally when I am sitting down in the evening on a warm day it hovers between 57 and 65. So I knew how I could get some adrenaline. I thought about a tournament game I played two weeks ago against a player that was rated 200 points above me. I was a bishop up, and had a mate threat that he could only stop by sacrificing his rook. So in essence I had a win in the bag. But unlike running, one mistake is fatal. I improperly captured his rook, lost my queen, lost my rook, and ended up playing queen against a bishop which resulted in a loss. This did the job. HR hit 160 on the bridge, and I was moving.

Kick - 1:15 (5:52 pace) - 2:31:58 at the finish. The results have not yet been posted, but the finishing order from what I gathered was two Kenyans, Jacob Buhler, Peter Vail, another Kenyan, then me, Dave Holt and Clyde.

The time is the fastest I've run since 2007. It was nice to break a dry spell of pour marathon performances. It was also my marathon debut in clogs. I am pleased to report that aside from some minor slipping on wet uphills there were absolutely no issues - no blisters, foot pain, etc. So I have proven that a sub-2:32 marathon can be done in a $10 pair of clogs bought at Walgreens. Of course, Abebe Bikila proved in 1960 Olympics that a 2:15 marathon can be run barefoot, shoe cost being zero. Indeed, it is not the shoe that makes the runner. I was also happy that my second half was decent (1:17:05), and my last 10 K (the real part of the marathon) was 1 minute faster than my optimistic goal at 20 (37:13).

Update - results are at  Stride Racing. 

P.M. 2 with Benjamin in 16:55. 0.25 with Jacob in 2:24. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:36.

...

Day of rest. Went to church. The talks in sacrament meeting were on standing in holy places. The lesson in Sunday School was on the gifts of the Spirit. The lesson in the Elders Quorum was on scriptures.

My legs were sore, but walkable/runnable. When I finished the pain was in the calves, but later in moved to the quads. There is a term for that - DOS - delayed onset soreness. To a computer programmer DOS, aside from a well known old operating system, also means Denial of Service attack. So I suppose I can say my legs are getting a mild denial of service attack. I think I need to do more downhill training to get them back to where by Monday I would have no clue that I raced a marathon on Saturday. That ability is not there anymore, although it is not as bad as pre-2003 when I was totally miserable and could not run at all for 48 hours after the marathon. 

A.M. Met Daniel on the trail.  Ran 7.25 at a bit slower than 8:00 average. Did not want to go any faster. Ran the last quarter with Sarah in 2:50. Legs sore, but runnable with an OK form. At least I think it was OK :-) Jenny and Julia ran 2 in 17:32.

P.M. 2 with Benjamin in 16:29. 0.5 with Joseph. 0.25 with Jacob.

A.M. Did 10.1 meeting Daniel on the trail. We did a control mile. Daniel's target was to hit what he thought was his 10 K race pace. So we ended up with a mile in 5:31.6 with the splits of 78, 83, 85, 85.  Then Daniel more or less correctly identified each split by feel after the run. So this is significant progress for him compared to last week. I was rather puzzled by the results, and asked him when he got to Utah from South Carolina. Turned out May 29th. That explained everything - altitude acclimation. He was not himself a week ago. Also ran 2.9 with Benjamin with quarter pickups of 84 and 89.

P.M. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:29. Jacob ran 0.25 with Benjamin. Jenny and Julia ran while I rollerbladed along. Jenny did 2.16, Julia did 1.85.

A.M. Met Jeff and Daniel on the trail. Ran a bit with Jenny and Julia at the end. They ran 2.16 miles. I did 10.5. Had a post-VPB pickup for 600 meters in 2:09. Felt good. A bit later ran with the kids. Jacob ran 0.5 in 6:09, Joseph and Julia did it in 5:06. I stayed back with Kaytlin, this was her first half mile run. We did it in 6:19.

P.M. 2 with Benjamin in 15:55.

A.M. 10.2 in 1:18:07. Met Jeff and Daniel on the trail. Did a post-VPB 900 in 3:13, which is 5:43 pace. Caught up to Neal Harmon at the end and ran with him. He told me about his new business OraBrush and even gave me a sample product. It scrubs the tongue to remove bad breath.

Jenny and Julia ran 2 miles.

Later took the kids for a group run. I stayed with Kaytlin and she did 6:09 for 0.5, and this time she ran all the way. Jacob did 0.5 in  5:49. Joseph  and Julia did 0.5 in 5:00.

Then took Benjamin for 2.9. I have given him a challenge of breaking my 11-year-old  2 K record of 7:57. He obviously was ready to smash it, given that his mile PR is 5:53. So something like a 6:10 to open, and even jogging down in 1:40 would still put him 7 seconds ahead. But he does have a tendency to psyche himself out, and he has been doing that over the last two weeks stubbornly convincing himself that he could not do it in spite of all of the facts to the contrary staring him in the face. Finally I had enough of that and told him we were going to run 1200 in 4:42 (6:16 pace), and if he made it that far with no negative comments he was off the hook and could run whatever pace he wanted to the finish. If he made a negative comment he had to surge for 100 meters at whatever pace I would set for him (around 5:20). If he failed to do that, then we stop immediately, go back to the start, and try again. We keep doing this until we have gotten to 1200 in 4:42 or faster, or until we've run a total of 10 K!

So we hit the first quarter in 95, then I picked up the pace and did 92 with Benjamin reluctantly dragging about 2 seconds behind. I yelled at him and told him he could not stop at 1200 until he had caught me. He caught me immediately running an 88 quarter. So we were 4:37 at 1200 and jogged the next 400 in 1:59 while I tried to convince Benjamin to start running a normal pace and get that monkey off his back. He fought me like there was no tomorrow, and those of you who I have paced before would know that I will make your life so miserable at a slow pace that the faster pace would appear the lesser evil if you have that faster pace in you at all. And after having raced for 25 years I do know by feel when a runner right next to me has another gear!  So when we approached the mile mark (6:36), he smelled the barn and starting running. His next 200 was 43, and then he shifted gears and ran the last 200 in 37. That is 5:00 pace! So he ended up with 7:56, 1 second ahead of my record in spite of jogging and arguing for a quarter mile at 8:00 pace in the middle.

This was the third time in the last couple of months that Benjamin had a practical lesson on not doubting himself. First one was 5:53 mile. Second was in a chess tournament when he kept insisting that he was going to lose to a 1900 player no matter what he did, and then ended up beating him. So hopefully the third witness today had delivered the final crushing blow to his self doubt.

A.M. Met Jeff on the trail. Ran 10.1. Then added 2 with Benjamin in 16:39 with  2x100 in 16.7 and 16.2. 16.2 is Benjamin's record. Took kids for a group run. Jacob ran 0.5 in 5:39 paced by Jenny. Joseph did 4:17 paced by Benjamin and Julia. I stayed with Kaytlin - she set a record - 5:41.

P.M. 2.2 with Jenny and Julia.

A.M. Ran with Jeff for most of the run, but he started from his house, so I ran the last 4 miles alone.  Total of 15.2 with the last 2.95 in 16:58. Last two quarters were 84 and 80. I was happy with how easy they felt. 80 was not exactly easy, but it felt more in the tempo range than 5 K pace. Jenny and Julia ran 2.

P.M. 0.5 with Jacob in 5:18. Joseph ran 0.5 with Benjamin in 4:45. Then 2 with Benjamin in 15:46.

Day of rest. Went to church. The talks in the sacrament meeting were on the role of a father. We are blessed to have a very good singer who came to BYU on a vocal scholarship from South Africa. He sang the hymn O My Father in a solo. The lesson in Sunday School was on sacrament, and the lesson in the Elder's Quorum was on the prophets. 

A.M. Uneventful half + detour with Jeff in 1:37:58 (13.19 miles). Except we had one event - last 1.96 in 10:36, 5:24.5 pace. Jeff had an upset stomach, so we cautiously dragged along most of the way, and I was not excepting Jeff to go that fast in the tempo portion. I told him imagine you got to mile 20 of a marathon feeling like this, now run to finish the marathon expecting maybe 5:40 at best. I think he really wanted to qualify for the Trials. But in spite of a faster pace I felt very strong. It felt sustainable for the half.

Jenny and Julia ran 2.

P.M. 0.5 with Jacob in 5:29. Benjamin ran 0.5 with Joseph in 4:36. Then 2.05 with Benjamin in 16:22.

A.M. 10.2 in 1:20:00. Met Jeff on the trail. Then 2 with Benjamin in 15:53. Jenny and Julia ran 2. Jacob ran 0.5 with Julia in 6:00. Joseph ran 0.5 with Benjamin 4:35. I stayed with Kaytlin - she did 0.5 in 6:36.

A.M. Met Jeff on the trail. Total of 10.1 in 1:19:52. Did 4x400 with full rest. The goal was to coast at 70, practice running fast and relaxed. We ended up with 68.5, 67.0, 66.9, then Jeff decided to relax on the last one, I sensed it was going to be slow because it felt too easy, and sure enough it was 70.7. But perhaps it was the best interval because we actually did it right.

Jenny and Julia ran 2.

P.M. 2.25 with Benjamin and Jared in 20:28.

A.M. Met Jeff and Daniel on the trail. 10 miles in 1:19:12. Did a 0.2 pickup after a VPB.  Then 2 with Benjamin in 16:20 with 3x200. Well, the first 200 got botched as we passed a runner with a dog and Benjamin tripped on the dog's leash, so it ended up being more like 160 meters. The first 100 was 17, though. On the second one my watch did not start. Benjamin did not want to end the day without a valid 200 time, so we did one more in 37.0. Total time for 2 miles was 16:20.

Then did 0.5 with Kaytlin and her cousin in 5:54.

P.M. 0.5 with Jacob in 5:29. Joseph ran 0.5 with Benjamin in 4:23.

A.M. 2 with Benjamin in 14:47. 10.25 with William in the stroller in 1:14:29. 0.5 with Jacob and Kaytlin in 5:48. Joseph ran 0.5 in 4:59 with Julia. Jenny and Julia ran 2.16 as well.

A.M. 20 with Jeff to Bridal Veil Falls and back in 2:19:15. Did a workout in the middle. About 7 miles into the run one mile uphill in 5:33. The target was 5:45, and we were right on pace half way through, but then Jeff saw a biker up ahead so we sped up to 5:20 for the next half mile. Then about 10.5 into the run we ran 3 downhill from Nunns Park to the mouth of the canyon in 15:57 (5:20, 5:19, 5:18). Jeff monitored splits every 100 meters so we were very even. That felt great, breathing felt almost conversational, but the nervous system was obviously in non-conversational state, which is why I cannot run a 2:20 marathon.

Then the last 3.02 in 17:12 (5:41.7 pace) on a rolling terrain with turns and bridges. First mile was good - 5:36, second was harder - 5:39, and then the heat and the distance got to me and 5:52 was all I could give. Jeff maintain the pace, and even sped up a bit finishing the interval in 16:56. Nevertheless I still was happy that I crashed to only 5:52 and not worse.

Ran 0.5 with Kaytlin in 5:31.

Jenny and Julia ran 2.

P.M. 0.5 with Jacob in 5:23. Joseph ran 0.5 with Benjamin in 4:57. 2 with Benjamin in 16:39.

Day of rest. Went to church.  The talks in Sacrament were on the restoration of the gospel in the last days. The lesson in Sunday school was on observing the Sabbath day. The lesson in the Elder's quorum was on mothers.

A.M. Did 13.18 with Jeff in 1:31:51. Benjamin ran the first 3 miles with us in 23:36. Last 3.04 was a tempo. Did it in 17:09, 5:38.5 average. Not bad for the bridges, turns, and net uphill.Jenny and Julia ran 2.

P.M. 0.5 with Jacob in 5:23. Joseph ran 0.5 with Benjamin in 4:23.

A.M.  10 in 1:18:33. Met Brian at my house and Jeff, Matt, and Daniel on the trail. 2 with Benjamin in 16:39. Jenny and Julia ran 2. Did a 500 pickup in 1:41.

P.M. 0.5 with Jacob in 5:29. Benjamin ran 0.5 with Joseph in 4:25.

A.M. Ran a total of 10.1 with Jeff. Met him on the trail. We did an 800 meter time trial. First we went to the BYU track, but it was closed for construction. So we went to the Provo High track. We do not run much on the track normally, only when we want to test ourselves.

The results were 2:07.5 for Jeff and 2:16.2 for me. I was 4 seconds slower than my PR of 2:12, which is not a bad start. Jeff started 200 earlier, I joined him at 200, so he finished at my 600 and I ran another 200 alone. We did it so to maximize the distance of running together. My splits were 31, 32 (63), 35 (1:38), and 38. I felt the breathing was OK, but I lacked the leg power. Jeff felt the same way. I was able to stay with Jeff for 400 meters. What was odd is that I thought I had sped up in the last 200, but I have actually slowed down a lot. Up to 600 I was on pace for a PR, but then did not have the strength.

Jenny and Julia ran 2. I did 2 with Benjamin in 15:53. 0.5 with Jacob and Kaytlin in 5:43. Benjamin ran 0.5 with Joseph in in 4:25.