Breaking the Wall

A.M. 10.1 with Jeff in 1:10:31.  We started a bit late because I had a hard time finding my magic socks for Five Fingers (actually regular socks with the front cut out) so we had to hurry a bit. Did explosive sprints. Then we ran fat miles. The first one in 5:52, second in 5:42. HR was 156 at the end, and that quarter was 85. 

Then 2 more with Benjamin in 17:36.

P.M. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:29. 2 with Jenny, Julia ran 1.5. We were a bit sub-10:00 pace.

A.M. Ran with Jeff. We did 6x400 in the middle of our regular 10.1. 5 on the way out with 200 recovery, 1 on the way back after longer recovery. The times were 74.6, 70.4, 69.7, 70.2, 70.6, and 69.3. The recoveries were fairly quick, 1:12 so around 9:30 pace. We ran faster in the recoveries for no particular reason other than to finish the whole run in time for Jeff to get to work. Felt smooth.

Afterwards 2 with Benjamin in 17:36, and 2 with Jenny in 19:13. Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:30.

P.M. 2 with Joseph in 5:28.

A.M. 10.1 with Jeff in 1:14:13. Did explosions, and also two fat miles. First in 5:43, second in 5:52. We did speed up to 84-83 quarters at the end of both miles and those felt good - very smooth.

Later 2 miles with Benjamin in 15:33 with a 0.75 in 4:32 in the middle.

P.M. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:56. 2 with Jenny in 18:24. Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:24.

A.M. Long run with Jeff. 20 miles in 2:11:21. First 10 easy pace from my house to Bridal Veil Falls, then back hard. About 800 or so feet of gain going out, so net downhill on the way back, but not exceptionally fast due to uneven drop and turns/bridges in the last 3 miles. 1:14:24 on the way out. Came back in 56:57. First mile of the tempo was 6:00, then we got down to business and started running sub-5:40. With two miles to go, I was struggling on the turns (we were around mile 15 of the Utah Valley Marathon) as well as with warmer temperatures, and I could tell Jeff's horses were neighing, so I told him to go. He ran the last two miles in 10:29, average of 5:14.5. I slowed down a bit to 5:48 pace, but then was able to pick it back up to 5:40 at the end, so I did that stretch in 11:31, average of 5:45.5. The average pace for the last 10 was 5:41.7.

Jenny and Julia ran 2 miles with Sarah in the morning. Joseph ran 0.5 as well.

P.M. 2 with Benjamin in 16:58.

Day of rest. Went to church. Came home. Ate dinner. Sat down on the couch and wondered how in the world I could run even 1 mile at 10:00 pace. If somebody erased my memory and told me I could not run a mile I would have believed him. No way I would have even bothered to set an alarm to run  Monday morning without the memory and consequently knowing the potential. Thus the importance of knowing the potential.

A.M. Ran with Jeff. Woke up with the same feeling from the day before that I could not break 10:00 in a mile. After the first quarter I said maybe I can break 9:30. After the second quarter I believed I could break 9:00. Our mile split was 8:35. After that 8:00 pace felt good. Then 2.5 miles into the run we got caught by a girl. Her name was Lori. She is a former basketball player, has 3 children, and her half PR is 1:31. She was going 6:45.  We used politics and other forms of cunning art to talk her down to 7:30 and reluctantly increased the pace to keep up. She ran with us for another 3 miles. Then we did a fat mile in 5:50. The first quarter of it felt hard, but then towards the end of I felt smooth. A short while later we did another fat mile in 5:54. The start was slow due to the turns, bridges, and Jeff's playing the guessing game of the results of the Provo Freedom Run ( I had looked at them, but he had not). Towards the end we sped up and I started feeling smooth again. We ran the last two quarters in 84 and 83. So much for not being able to break 10:00. Total time was 1:14:52.

Then 2 more with Benjamin in 17:36.

P.M. 0.5 with Jenny and Joseph in 5:34. 2 more with Jenny in 17:12. Joseph hit the Julia in the head with a door the day before, and she had a minor concussion. She was still not feeling that great so she did not run.

A.M. Tempo run with Jeff. Warmed up 1.38 to the start of the Fast Running Blog 5 Miler. Ran the course twice. There were posted speed limits. Minimum speed limit 6:00 mile or 90 second quarter. Maximum speed limit 87 quarter (5:48) in the first 5 miles, and 85 (5:40) in the second. I told Jeff those were the limits, not necessarily the targets to reach or exceed.

The first half went mostly according to the law, no speeding tickets issued. In fact, the trooper was eyeing us in the first 3 quarters and thinking about citing us for going too slow - we were 4:35 at 0.75, but then we saw him, and speed up to an 88 quarter to hit 6:03 at the mile. After that 2.5 split was 14:53, 5 miles in 29:41, no laws broken.

Then Jeff hit an 84 quarter to accelerate after the turnaround. The trooper started following us again, Jeff saw that and slowed down to 85-86. Next 2.5 in 14:23, 44:04 at 7.5. After the turnaround we were still legal for a mile with the exception of one 84 quarter after the turnaround. Then Jeff pulled out his led foot and did 83 and an 84. The trooper was just about to flash his lights, but Jeff quickly backed off to an 87. Then with 0.75 to go the trooper was called to deal with an accident. Jeff saw that and sped up to 84, 82, and 80 to finish 10 miles in 58:05.9 and a very illegal 14:01 last 2.5. Another trooper came out from the bushes and was going to give us a $300 fine for major speeding. We were able to talk our way out of the ticket by showing our Utah Valley Marathon finisher medals.

The pace felt good. In the beginning I felt awkward. But once the pace increased and it started to hurt I rememebred to make a concsious effort to activate the right glut. That seemed to help, I started feeling smoother and was able to handle sub-5:30 pace at the end without feeling I was out of my limits.

Cooled down, then ran 2 with Benjamin in 17:12.

A.M. Ran first 3 miles alone because Jeff was late, the rest with Jeff. We did 2 fat miles. First in 5:56, second 6:00. Also did the explosions. Total time for 10 was 1:14:33.

P.M.  2 with Benjamin in 17:34, 2 with Jenny in 19:31, Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:37. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:45.

A.M. Jeff was not feeling well, said he'd run in the evening. So I ran alone. Did 6x400 in the middle of 10.1 mile run. 72.6, 69.7, 70.4, 70.7, 69.9, 69.5. The recovery was a very slow 200 meter jog except for the last one. Jogged 2+ miles before the last one. Was happy with how I was able to close the last repeat - fell asleep at the start, first 200 in 36, then was able to shift gears and get going.

Then 2 more with Benjamin in 17:44.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 19:04. Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:30. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:56.

A.M. 10.1 with Jeff in 1:14:35. Matt Knold joined us for a couple of miles. I did explosions. Then we ran a fat mile in 5:48, and with 1.25 to go we realized Jeff was late for work. So it was a quick 1.25, and the last 0.75 not fat at all with the quarters of 86, 88, 83, 82, and 80 - total time 6:59. 83 was uphill, 82 had two turns, one of them sharp. 80 had two turns as well, but those are not too bad. The pace felt good.

Did a test. 64 feet on one leg as fast as possible. Results, in sequence: right 7.0, left 7.8, right 6.4, left 7.2, right 6.0, left 6.4. The right felt snappy, the left felt like it was bumming it. Those are interesting results. I struggle with stability on the right leg, and have an odd feeling in the right glut. So I was expecting to hop faster on the left leg than on the right. But it was the other way around.

So my tentative explanation. One leg hop (and possibly hopping/bounding in general) is not affected by stability issues as much as running. In running, though, stability is a bigger factor. However, balance and rhythm is a factor as well. So suppose one leg for some reason is more capable than the other. If both legs were to engage equally then the effort of the more capable leg would be getting wasted by the breaking created by the less capable leg. So it is more economical to put top effort into the weak leg, and then match the performance with lesser effort in the more capable leg to equalize the stride length from each leg. 

I say "more capable" rather than "stronger" because it may actually be weaker or of equal muscular strength, but more efficient.

So because of that principle of balance my left leg never fully engages when running because it never has to. When it is time to hop, the right leg is no longer hampered by the stability problem, and its full power begins to shine. The left one on the other hand demonstrates its lack of development.

Assuming this is correct, an idea would be to try hopping on each leg to develop each to its full capacity, and hopefully this will cause a system reboot. But in order for this to work the boot scripts need to be functioning properly, otherwise you keep rebooting into error. But hopping on one leg here and there does not take a whole lot of time, so worth a shot. It would be really cool if the increased strength of the left push-off  rebooted the stability driver on the right so it would start working.

P.M. Spent most of the day preparing for the race. Mostly refining my timing software. Now I have a solution that is completely contained on one system - I do not need separate computers/PDAs to do the timing and the barcode scanning. Flic scanner scans the barcodes, while Nokia 770 Tablet is running the timer and reading the scans in a separate thread. As a bonus I learned threaded programming in Python as well as GTK for the user interface. Next step is to be able to work with the user database on the device rather than just reading the times, scanning the bibs, and then taking it home to post-process and publish. Dreaming along, code up a registration web daemon, bring my wireless router with an EVDO card, and set up a field WLAN so that volunteers could register people through Wi-Fi devices on the spot, and so we could have the results online immediately.

Had a little adventure with the printer for the bibs and the signs, but fairly quickly worked around it with a hack. However, I do need to figure out why it stopped working normally fairly soon.

Ran 1.5 with Jenny and Julia while setting up the course in 13:02. Another 0.5 with Joseph in 5:53.

A.M. Fast Running Blog 5 Miler For Strong Families, 27:25, 2nd place. Did not run great, but at least set a Five Finger PR for the distance. I am learning that a few extra things I decided to do organizing this race while not appearing too stressful can increase the load on the nervous system and can cause it to fail mid-race.

Set up the start, including the cool new clock from Microframe, nice 5.5 LED digits, remote control, battery power option, available to be used free of charge for races within reasonable distance of Provo that comply with the Promotion Rules. Executive summary of the rules is that you need to have an accurate course, give elite comps, generously (according to your abilities) reward quality performance, and your top raffle prize cannot exceed the lowest performance or accomplishment prize. E.g. if your winner gets only $50, but you are raffling away a treadmill that is not cool. But if you give a cancer survivor that finished the race a treadmill while giving the winner only $50 that is cool.

We had 10 people in the race, 7 pre-registered, 3 showed up day off. Jeff paced me through the first half very evenly with 5:20 and 5:21, then 13:21 at the turnaround. I knew it would be a stretch to hold 5:20 the whole way, but I wanted to know where I would fail and how. At first 5:20 felt very reasonable, half-marathon like. But after the turnaround I could only hold it for another quarter.  Then my legs gave out, and told Jeff to go. I did an 84 quarter, and then it was 86, 85, 86, 85. Legs felt weak. Well, it was not the legs, legs were just fine. The neural drive was not there due to the organizational stress. But I was thankful anyway that it was at least 86 and not 88.

Mile 3 was 5:25, then 5:42 in the 4th. I gave myself a cheer that even though I was dragging at slower than 5:40, at least I hit 4 miles in 21:48, which is a decent time on that course. With half a mile to go I found a droplet of a kick and was able to speed up to 84-83 quarters and finish with 5:37 mile and 27:25 for the whole distance. Jeff closed with a 5:19, 5:17, 5:06, 4:50 pace the last half, and finished with 26:22, new course record, and $50 richer. Not a lot, but better than nothing.

Then I jogged back and ran with Sarah. Found her at around 4.1 into the race. She pushed herself hard and finished with 45:54, a great time, it's been a while since she's been able to run that pace, before the start she was not even sure if she'd be able to break 50:00. She said afterwards that the pain of the effort was greater than in William's labor, but less than in others.

Afterwards drove to the Youth Regional Track Meet at BYU. Jenny ran 1500 in 6:31.22. Benjamin was registered as well, since one of the runners that beat him in State did not run. But he got cold feet and refused to run. He is still a kid, but he needs to learn to deal with those kinds of fears and moods, you need to learn it right at a young age, or your adult life will not be happy. We had a conversation afterwards and he agreed to do a redemption mile time trial on Monday.

Ran 1.5 with Benjamin and Julia to pick up the signs and cones from the race course in 13:40. One of the signs got damaged when somebody apparently rammed into it on a bike or a scateboard. Lesson learned - make sturdier signs.

Will run another 10 with Sarah on a bike tonight.

P.M. Ran 10.1 in 1:09:36 as Sarah followed me on a bike. It was nice to have her around and it's been a while since we've had the opportunity. About 3 miles into the run I told her in Russian that we were following the 7:00 guy with the intent to strike and pass him at some point. Except it was not quite what I said:  Мы пасём семиминутного товарища. Which literally translated is - We are shepherding the seven minute comrade. Sometimes my mouth produces interesting Russian phrases that sound completely normal to a non-English speaking Russian but nevertheless surprise me because I think about how the difficulty of properly translating them into English, and the amusing value of the literal translation. How about this one - "The car was operated by a citizen in a  non-sober condition."

We did the last 2.5 of the race course fast - 14:24, 5:45.6 average. Sarah sang me BINGO the entire time to get me going.  Not surprisingly, the pace felt very hard at the end of the day, but I was surprised at how low the heart rate was - even in the last mile it was 152, and briefly hit 155 at the end when I sped up to 5:36. I think it was a PR for pain at this heart rate with the conditions as warm as they were and the low level of hydration. I never thought I would have to work so hard on a warm July evening after running for 45 minutes to get that low of an HR.

My Five Fingers developed a hole. It is in the right shoe. Less than 500 miles. The other pair took 1000 miles. I suppose that is the difference between doing speed work and tempos and just jogging.

Day of rest. I kept reminding myself the entire week not to miss the Stake Priesthood Meeting at 7:00 AM. And sure enough I completely forgot about it. I woke up at 7:55, and then remembered. So I got dressed ASAP and was able to catch the last 30 minutes of it.

A.M. Ran 10.1 with Jeff in around 1:16:45 or so if I remember right. Did explosions. We were supposed to do a fat mile. But right before it we were talking about the track races in Europe, Bekele, and how he can run 63 second laps back to back in a 10 K. So both of us were a bit too excited for the fat mile, and only the first half of it has a semblance of fat. The quarters were 87, 84, 82, and 77 for the total time of 5:30. Seeing we've blown the fat aspect already Jeff decided to sprint the last 100 to catch the 5:30 guy, and I joined him. So we ended up with the last 100 in 17. But I have to say that 82 quarter felt very good. I was focusing on engaging the right glut and it seemed to help.

The we took Benjamin for his Regionals DNS redemption one mile time trial on the Provo River Trail.  He did well. I guess the right pace would be 6:08, or 23 per 1/16, and it ended up being a good guess. He ran 6:07.7 - a new PR by 7 seconds. Splits: 91, 92, 94, 90. His last 1/16 was 21 seconds. He is on the verge of breaking 6:00. I told Benjamin he reached a significant point in his improvement because he is now fast enough for me to count his mile time trial as marathon pace. One day we will be laughing about him counting my mile time trial as his marathon pace, I hope, and not because I get slower. I can just see that day - Dad, good job, give me five, come on, you can do it, get right there and slap my hand...

I do not get too excited about success at 10 years of age, though, except with the perspective of progression. Now is the time to lay a solid foundation of health, work ethic, and mental toughness for success in adulthood.

P.M. Went to the Provo Canyon. 0.7 with Joseph, 0.5 of it in 5:49. 2 with Jenny and Julia in 19:14.

A.M. Tempo run with Jeff. Warmed up 1.37, then started. The plan was normal tempo for the first 6.5 then Jeff runs the last mile as fast as he can while I try to hang on as long as I can, then once I cannot keep contact, tempo in to the finish.

Our first quarter was sluggish, 93, after that we got into a good rhythm. We ran 1.25 out then back, then the Fast Running Blog 5 Miler course. First 2.5 in 14:52, 29:23 at 5 miles. First 5 miles my HR was very low - did not crack 145. Normally I would expect it to be visiting the 150 range at that point. Then the pace got a little quicker, and I also started getting nervous about the last mile. That seemed to help. HR climbed first to 148 and then crossed over 150, and the pace felt easier and easier even though it was gradually getting faster. Our next mile was 5:46, and then we did a half in 2:51, 5:42 pace with the last 100 in 20 (5:20 pace). 

And then Jeff hit the gas. Fortunately not too hard. He was nice enough to do the first 200 in 37. This bought me some distance. Next 200 not so nice, 36, so 73 at the quarter. Not bad for the uphill, and I am still alive. At 500 it started to hurt. I made it to 600 hanging on to dear life, and 680 meters into the pickup I lost contact. Made it to 700 (or 7/16th, more accurately) in 2:09, and then eased off. Legs felt like I had just been carrying a car on my shoulders. Ran the next 100 in 23, so 2:32 at the half. Not bad. Next quarter felt a little better, ran 88, then another 200 in 44, and was able to pick it up to 41 in the last 200. So 5:25 for the last mile, 43:25.0 for 7.5. 2:29 for the 0.5 from 100 before mile to go, not bad, sub-5:00 average for 0.5 mile. Happy to run 5:25 with this kind of pacing at the end of a tempo. HR maxed out at 166.

Jeff closed with a 4:59 mile to finish the tempo in 42:59. We ran a cool down, and then I ran another 2 miles with Benjamin in 17:23.

HR maxing out at 166 instead of 172 combined with the "I have a car on my shoulders" feeling combined with a relative ease of breathing tell me the limiting factor is leg power. One more argument for one leg hops.

P.M. 1.5 with Jenny and Julia in 13:38. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:58.

A.M. 10.1 with Jeff in 1:14:25. Did explosions and two fat miles - first in 5:45, second in 5:40. Caught up to Mark Robison, BYU head track coach, and ran with him for a little bit before starting our last fat mile. He was going a decent pace for his age - a bit sub-8:00.

P.M.  Of all things, did something that may sound a bit out of character for me. I spent the afternoon messing around with Wii Remote. But it was in character. I did not all of a sudden turn into a videogame bum. In fact, I only needed the remote, that's all. The reason for my interest was that I found out it had a hackable built-in Bluetooth-capable accelerometer. The hacking was a success - I got it to talk to Nokia 770 and was able to gather some acceleration data while running holding both. The cool thing about it that if you found a way to attach it to the foot, or even to the body is a stationary position where it would not bounce, tilt, or slide around too much, you could pick up ground contact time, air time, and stride frequency. From which you can extrapolate running pace as well after calibration. Then the next step is to get a PDA Watch with Bluetooth, hack it so it will run Linux, and you've got your own magic running watch that could potentially tell you all kinds of stuff about your form. Wii Remote is a bit too clumsy, and too expensive (I borrowed this one from a friend),  especially if you wanted to have two of them, one on each foot. So I ordered a Wireless Playchuck from Amazon for $25 (including shipping) for more experiments. Maybe in a year or two we will have more cheap Bluetooth accelerometers small enough to be attached to the foot. But for now, I'll have to setting for this.

In theory, of course, I could just run with Nokia 770, but it has two problems. One, it is too big. And two, the screen is not designed for outdoor use. So I am eying M600 wrist cell phone  for the watch unless I can find something cheaper. I do need to figure out how to put Linux on it. But I do not need to worry about it yet, as Benjamin's Nokia 770 is good enough for development purposes.

Ran 2 with Jenny in 19:08. Julia ran 1.5 with us in 14:15. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:53.

A.M. Ran with Jeff. Decided to modify our quarters workout by stringing most of them together and running them a little slower. In other words, 74 second pace to failure or to 1.25.  Based on how I felt on Tuesday I thought I could break my Five Finger PR in the mile (4:58) without too much blood. Plus I wanted to have the confidence of being able to run a sub-5:00 flat mile, something I have not done in a while. And for a bonus I wanted to go through the mile sub-5:00 and then keep going at a respectable pace for a little bit, even if it was just for a quarter.

So Jeff paced me. I told him to be nice. He is learning. It is a benefit to him. Because if he learns to be nice to me over a short distance, he will also learn to be nice to himself over a distance three times as long. Jeff was exceptionally nice and paced it near perfect. 74 - 73.5 - 74.5 - 74 - 75. The last one was not Jeff's fault, I was struggling with the pace. So I reached my goals - 4:56 mile split (new Five Finger PR), and then another quarter in 75 past that. New flat 1.25 PR of 6:11.5, Five Fingers or not. HR maxed out at 170, but dropped to 168 near the end. Another indicator of muscular strength problem. But better than before.

It felt good to go through the mile in 4:56 and not quite feel like I was racing the mile. In fact, I was comfortable enough to think that if I pushed the right buttons, I could hold this pace for a while, maybe even as long as a 10 K. Which still does not break 30:00, but it does break 31:00. Of course, there is a big difference between thinking that at the mile, and thinking that further along. I was not thinking that anymore 300 meters later, that is how fast you go downhill when leg power fails. But cardio was OK, surprise, surprise. The good news I can run 5:00 pace at HR of 168. The bad news I cannot hold HR of 168 for very long.

We jogged another couple of miles and then to give me more misery for the day ran a quarter in 68.4. I was happy with it because I felt strong and it was evenly split. In spite of the hard 1.25 interval earlier I was not fading in the last 100. Jeff suggested more misery for me - another quarter 200 meters later, but I declined using the excuse that we needed to hurry to get him to work, and another fast quarter would require a whole lot of recovery.

We cooled down averaging around 7:00 in the last 3 miles. Total of 10.1. Then I ran 2 more miles with Benjamin pushing William in 17:25.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:45. Julia ran 1.5 with us in 13:50. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:49.

A.M. 10.1 with Jeff in 1:12:18. Dragging the first 5 miles. Saw ROTC cadets, they ran with us a bit. Then a little faster because Jeff was late for work. Still dragging. But the body responded when called upon. Did 2 fat miles - 5:43, and 5:44. Also did explosions.

Did one-leg hops on the 64 ft stretch as fast as possible. right: 6.1, left: 6.8, right: 6.0, left:6.8, right: 5.9, left: 6.6. 

Then  2 miles with Benjamin in 15:55. Sarah ran a quarter with us in the middle when we caught her in 2:09. Then we sped up, and she kept sub-9:00 pace for the last 0.5 to the finish.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:51. Julia ran 1.5 with us in 14:06. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:53.

A.M. 20 miles with Jeff. The original plan was 10 easy out to Bridal Veil Falls, then hard back. However, when I saw and felt all the rocks on the University Avenue stretch from Wyview to Wills, I suggested a change of plans. Start at the Will's and run hard for 10 miles, then jog, then maybe run hard at the end if feeling good. That would give us about 5.8 uphill and into a headwind out, and 4.2 downhill with a tailwind back.

So we started out sluggish. The uphill was not too bad, and there was no headwind yet, but we slugged along through the first mile in 6:05, and it did not feel like a jog, not a good sign. The next mile we picked up the effort, but we ran into some obstactles. First, the trail was dug up at the intercection with the Orem Center street, so we had to take a detour that probably cost us 4 seconds, and then the head wind picked up. So that mile was 6:05 as well. Jeff stepped on the gas and I tucked behind as we battled more headwind. With the increased effort the pace became a little under 6:00.

Then as we entered the Provo Canyon the head wind eased off for just a quarter and we were able to see what our effort was worth. We did a quarter in 85, 5:40 pace. Jeff was surprised, I was not. Then we had a mile at around 6:00 average, and then the headwind picked up and the uphill got steeper and we started to see 1:32 quarters. HR was 154. 30:13 at 5 miles.  Right after that the headwind increased more. We ran a 1:39 quarter and passed a couple of nicely equipped bikers as if they were standing still. Finally we reached the turnaround. On the way back we were going first 5:50, then 5:45, then 5:40, and my HR was not breaking 145. We were gradually closing on the 6:00 guy. At 7.5 we were 2 seconds behind (45:02). Then I told Jeff the pace was easy enough for me that he could pick it up. Earlier on the uphill I had to tell him to ease off. So we did the next 0.5 in 2:53, not a whole lot of pick up. Then I said I wanted to break 59:00, so we would have to hit 84 quarters, and then kick. Our next mile was 5:28, followed by the closing mile in 5:14. Those were down 1% grade with tailwind. Total time for 10 was 58:37. HR maxed out at 159.

It was an interesting experience to hit the gas pedal hard when you still have 6 miles to go. Very good for mental conditioning.

When we started jogging I thought I was done with fast running for the day. Then 2 miles later I asked Jeff if he wanted to run the last 2.5 at 6:00 pace. He said just the last mile. So we jogged eventually speeding up to sub-7:00 pace, and then ran the last mile in 5:54. HR got up to only 152 even thought it started to get warm and I had no water or anything for that matter during the whole run. Total time for 20 was 2:14:39.

Even thought I felt decent in the last mile and could have gone longer, when I got into the house I was mentally done. I asked Sarah for some cherries in Russian using diminitive words. Then I remembered that Russians start using diminitives when they are very tired. Diminitives do not exist in English, but for a rough idea, instead of say "cherry" you'd say "cute little cherry". One time I took my friend who was out of shape for a 12.5 mile run. He was a tough guy. When in half decent shape he could take me out for a tempo and make me speak in diminitives afterwards. 11.3 100, 1:57 800, 4:10 1500, and 16:08 5000. He did not train very consistently, thus much faster in shorter distances. His father was from Ghana, but his mother was Russian. Being the only black kid among the Russians he dealt with the challenge by never showing any signs of weakness. His fists were connected to very well coordinated explosive muscle fibers, so nobody dared insult him to his face. Needless to say, he did not use a whole lot of diminitives in his speech. However, after that run he was literally a different person. He was not talking like himself. I had never heard that many diminitives come out of his mouth.

P.M. 2 with Benjamin and Jenny in 17:53. Julia ran the first 0.5 with us in 4:46. She ran a mile in the morning with Sarah.

Day of rest. Went to church.

A.M. Ran with Jeff. We ran into a few BYU guys who were warming up for a tempo, ran with them for a bit less than a mile. They helped us catch the 8:00 guy. Then we bummed the rest of the way at a bit faster than 8:00. I did explosions. Jeff was concerned about his knee and did not want to do the fat miles. Then some bikers passed us, and I was able to talk Jeff into doing one fat mile. The excitement of the bikers was too much for him, and we opened with a 38 200 AFTER I had warned him that the pace was too fast. We still ended up with a 5:16 mile, HR got up to 162, not a fat mile at all. We were rewarded for our speeding by passing an old guy on a tricicle. The ladies gapped us. A lesson in humility. Do not mess with bikers.

Finished 10.1 in 1:15:21. Then 2 more with Benjamin in 16:26. Then 64 foot one leg sprints: right - 6.4, left - 7.1, right - 6.2, left 6.5, right 5.9, left 6.4.

P.M. Ran 2 with Jenny in 19:08. Julia did the first 1.5 in 14:22. Then 0.5 with Joseph in 5:33.

A.M.  Progression tempo run with Jeff. I like the Russian word for it - в раскрутку, or literally with a spin. The plan was 90-89-88-88 (5:55)-87-87-87-87 (5:48) -86-86-86-86 (5:44) -85-85-84-84 (5:38)-77-77-77-77 (5:08) - 28:13. Yes, I got nerdy enough to plan every quarter of it. The purpose was to get some marathon pace running, help Jeff feel his 10 K pace, and see how long I could run 5:08 pace at the end of it up a small grade.

It went fairly close to the plan. 90 - 89 - 87 - 88 (5:54) - 87 - 87 - 86 - 88 (5:48, 11:42) - 86 - 86 (14:34) - 86 - 84 (5:42, 17:24) - 86 - 83 - 84 - 83 (5:36, 23:00) - 78 - 77 - 80 - 81 (5:16) - 28:16.2. Yes, I am nerdy enough to remember every quarter split without the use of the split button. Because every one of those quarters has a special meaning that extends beyond the number. Jeff's last two quarters were 78 and 76 with the mile in 5:09. The first quarter of the last mile was just perfect. Then we lost the momentum a bit, and Jeff pushed to regain it. Pacing on that stretch is difficult. This little surge was too much for me. After the first half mile I started losing it and around 1 K into the mile told Jeff to go. I still managed to stay at a little slower than 5:20, but did not have the leg strength to run faster. Was happy to have edged out the 5:30 guy for the last 2.5 by three seconds (13:42).

Here is what's interesting. HR maxed out at 167, but dropped to 164 after I had slowed down to 81 second quarter pace. More evidence against lactic acid being the performance inhibitor as if we needed it. I believe the fatigue mechanism is the same as when you drop a book after holding it with your arm straight for a couple of minutes. At least that's what it feels like.

Jogged back to the house, then I ran 2 with Benjamin in 17:33 and a quarter in 85.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 17:52. Julia ran 1.5 in 13:24. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:32.

A.M. 10.1 with Jeff in 1:12:59. Did explosions. No fat miles, resting for DesNews 10 K.Started out slower than 9:00 in the first mile, then sped up to 8:00, then ran sub-7:00 the rest of the way because Jeff needed to get to work. HR was around 132 at 6:40 pace, 126 at 7:00. Discussed a training idea - one week of 5 mile tempos at 6:00 pace every day followed by two normal weeks.  I  tried three weeks like this in 2006 aggravated by Wasatch Back Ultra in the middle, and it gave me neural fatigue at the end. However, a week later I ran a PR for the 3 mile downhill Provo Canyon tempo (15:15), had a decent performance in Draper Days (16:00 on the old course), and did not totally lose it in DesNews (2:31:47). After DesNews I had severe neural fatigue for a while, but then recovered to run St. George in 2:25. So a milder version of this, backing off timely, might actually work.

The theory behind it is to make the slow twitch fibers work very very hard to cause  myofibrillar hypertrophy. That is the type of hypertrophy that gives the muscle the strength without the volume, exactly what a runner would need. Nobody quite knows how to do it yet. I think the consensus is that you cannot do it. Fast twitch is easy  - weight training, 90-100% of the max reps. Slow twitch does not do it. But maybe it can. You just have to pick the right volume, frequency, and intensity. Possibly you need to have enough aerobic support in the muscle itself and in the cardiovascular system, and be healthy otherwise to even be able to train at that load without getting injured. Which would make it next to impossible to scientifically prove unless you really really know what you are doing.  

Ran 2 with Benjamin immediately after in 17:19.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:06. Julia ran  1.5 with us in 13:33. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:10.

A.M. 10.1 with Jeff in 1:12:31. Did a quarter that was supposed to be Jeff's 10 K pace, but ended up a little faster - 74. Then 2 with Benjamin in 16:42, last 100 in 19, and 2 with Jenny in 19:04, Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:24.

A.M. Deseret News 10 K, 32:31.7,  30th place. Yes, 30th, and triple-chicked! Last year I would have been safe. So I thought sub-33:00 will preserve me from the embarrassment. But this year we had two Kenyan ladies - Hyvon Ngetich and Caroline Rotich, and then Lindsay Anderson and Lindsay Dunkley had break through races as well. I barely beat the slower Lindsay, so 4th place among women. I suppose I can use running Five Fingers as an excuse, but in all honesty if it did make a difference at all it may have saved me the disgrace of local chicking (32:22), but Ngetich would have still chicked me with this effort. My only defense is that I did not get chicked from behind - the speedy ladies just took off and I could not catch them all.

The reason I ran the 10 K this year was that I did not want to run in shoes, and did not feel confident I could handle the marathon course in Five Fingers. Plus I did not want a marathon in my legs at this point in my training.

Running in Five Fingers presented a problem with the chip. Sarah solved it for me by sewing a special ankle velcro strap with a velcro-locked pocket. It worked out perfectly. Did not bother me at all, the chip never was under any threat of falling out, the strap stayed on. We did have to call Kurt Black to find out the exact dimensions of the chip to get it right, though.

At the start everybody took of like a bat out of a hot place for sinners. Maybe because it was rather warn - temperatures in the high 70s. I found myself in mid-pack of sorts through about a quarter mile. That is not too abnormal. However, one mile into it I was still into heavy mid-pack in spite of running 4:51. Downhill, but with the adjustment it was probably worth about a flat 5:15. In a 10 K! And then I did not pass a whole lot of people in the second mile in spite of running it in 4:52 (probably 5:15 flat equivalent). 9:43 at 2 miles.

Then I could not believe my eyes. After that effort I see what looks like a girl about 100 meters ahead of me. It was really a girl, not just some weird high school runner with a ponytail that is trying to send some sort of a weird message. She turned out to be Lindsay Dunkley. I did not recognize her. Now that is embarrassing. Not only are you getting chicked, you do not know who you are getting chicked by!  Putting things in perspective - a mom of three kids just put a 100 meter gap on me in the first 2 miles of a 10 K while I had just run an equivalent of a flat 10:30 2 miles!

Third mile had a net down with some significant up. I ran it in in 5:24, 15:07 at 3 miles. Probably worth around flat 5:30 . Made zero dent in the gap with the group ahead of me. However, some high school runners have been falling off the pace and I was passing them here and there. However, there have been a couple of smarter ones that have started a bit slower and were now passing me.

5:17 in 4th mile, 20:24 at 4 miles. Probably worth a flat 5:30 again. Gradual downhill, no up. Happy that I found another mile at sub-5:20 in me. Reduced the gap in about half. Not looking forward to the next two miles fearing that I would slow down a lot. Trying to relax and not go into neural red zone. I know very well what happens when I do. When you are limited by oxygen, you go into the red zone, then you ease off for a minute or two, catch your breath, and you get back to pace. If you go into the red zone neuromuscularly for as little as 40 seconds, you never get back to pace, and you have absolutely no kick. This took some self-control, as breathing wise I feel like I am bumming it, and when racing I prefer to breathe on the verge of vomit.

In the fifth mile I came up on the group I was chasing, which by now had caught Albert Wint. A small consolation - I might get chicked, but at least I will beat Albert today. No split, missed the mark. In the last mile I ran with Brad Perry - a Box Elder High runner, and Lindsay Dunkley. I saw a Kenyan woman - Caroline Rotich - fall off pace and start coming back to us. And further ahead there was another white woman - turned out to be Lindsay Anderson. I did not realize the woman's leader was a good minute ahead and was hoping to unchick myself completely.

So I pushed as hard as I could, but so did everybody else around me. Alexander Thomas appeared out of nowhere, and passed us slowly. That was odd. He must not have been having a good day, he should have been about 2 minutes ahead.

A couple of high school runners came from behind and demonstrated with their kick that they could with some training run this course under 30:00. Ben Van Beekum passed me, but then I was able to gain on him and almost outkick him, but he edged me out at the finish. Caroline kicked pretty hard knowing that if she got passed she'd be going home empty-handed, and was able to stay in 3rd. That kick was also good enough to keep me from reducing my chick count.

Hyvon Ngetich got 31:30, then Lindsay Anderson 32:22, Caroline Rotich 32:28, and Lindsay Dunkley 32:37, a major breakthrough. It is odd that I am reporting on the women's race today, but, hey, I report first on the one I watched!

In the men's we saw 27:46 from an Ethiopian runner Alene Reta. To give you an idea of the depth of the field, Teren Jameson finished 8th with 29:24 (or maybe 29:22 depending on which version of race results you believe). Jeff McClellan set the blog record for the course with 30:13, but that was good enough only for 12th, and 6th Utahn after Seth Pilkington (29:07), Kyle Perry (29:20), Teren, Brad Osguthorpe (29:39), and Jon Kotter (30:07). Previous record was held by Paul (30:27).

Afterwards Jeff and I watched the marathon backwards, and then I paced Mike Warren from about mile 20 to the finish. Then ran back to my car at the start of the 10 K.

Had an interesting incident. I felt thirsty so I decided to try some grape juice. Drank to much of it. Started feeling sick. Threw all of it up, it even went through the nose. Then I felt a whole lot better.

P.M. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:55. Julia ran with Sarah (1.5 in 14:42). Jenny and Benjamin ran ahead and did their usual 2 miles. Benjamin 17:41, Jenny 17:50. Ran 0.5 with Sarah in 4:55.

A.M. Ran the Uneventful Half with Jeff in 1:40:14. We were really dragging today. Both of us were tired from yesterday's race. First mile was 9:05, then it took us another 3 before we even started running faster than 8:00. After about 6 we started hitting 7:20s, and then both of us felt a whole lot better around 10. So we decided to run the last 1.5 at 6:00 pace and did it in 8:55, a little quicker. I felt good at 6:00, HR was 143, but felt very reluctant to go any faster, it felt like a magic spell. Then we did 2 more with Benjamin in 16:44 including a quarter in 82, which is Benjamin's PR. Then 0.5 with Joseph in 5:05, which is his PR as well.

P.M. 1.5 with Jenny and Julia in 14:24.

Day of rest. Went to church.

A.M. 10.1 with Jeff in 1:17:40. We actually did not start out too slow, and caught the 8:00 guy within 2 miles. But then we did not go any faster except for my explosions and the mile that was supposed to be fat. Only half of it was. Jeff with bikers is like a dog with cats. He has the instinct, he absolutely cannot control it. So we start out our fat mile like we were supposed too, maybe a little quick, but acceptable - 85, 86 nicely on pace for 5:41. And then up ahead just like last week we see that same guy on a tricycle. So Jeff's horses start neighing and we do a 200 in 41. Then they start neighing louder and we run the next 200 in 37 and blow by the tricycle. And then Jeff cannot slow down, so we run the next quarter in 77 - 5:26 for the mile. Very nice, 5:04 pace for the last 600.  I think I heard Jeff barking - ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff as we chased the guy :-)

Then we ran 2 more with Benjamin in 15:58. I gave him a challenge to catch the 8:00 guy in the last quarter with about 350 to go, and he successfully met it in spite of grumbing for about 50 meters - last quarter in 93. So we got some more running at marathon race pace.

Then did one leg sprints. 64 feet. right - 6.2, left 6.5, right - 6.1, left 6.4, right - 5.9, left 6.3. Good to see the gap is reducing.

Then 2 with Jenny in 19:36, Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:50.

On the positive side of things my left Five Finger is starting to develop a hole in the sole. That is a good sign because it is not as far behind the right hole as it was in the other pair. So it appears the stride is becoming more balanced, even though I still wear out the right one quicker than the left.

P.M. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:22.

A.M. Ran with Jeff. We did a 3.62 warm-up, and I needed it to be that long since we had a early start (5:30 AM) due to Jeff being called into work early. The warm-up was also brisk. After dragging through the first mile in 8:20 (which is actually moving by our standards), we sped up to sub-7:00. We needed to do this because yesterday was a laundry day, and I had a hard time finding my clothes in the morning.

The workout was originally planned to be alternating quarters of 83 and 77 until I felt it was too hard, then jog and repeat trying to get as much mileage in as possible in this manner with as few stops as possible. However, due to the lack of time we altered it. 83/77 until I felt it was too hard, then tempo to the finish with accelerating by feel. My feel, that is, not Jeff's. 

So we did 83.5 - 77.5 - 82 - 76 (5:19) - 84 - 76 - 84.5 - 74.5 (5:19, 10:38). At this point I was tired, so we started the recovery. I was amazed at how slow we went and how hard it felt after a 74.5 quarter. We did 96-94 and it felt like we were going maybe 87. 13:48 at the turnaround, wow, half a mile ago we were ahead of the 5:20 guy, now we are behind the 5:30! Then 91 - 89 (6:09,16:47) - 89 - 89 - 87 - 87  (5:52,22:39) - 86 - 82 - 85 - 76 (5:29). Total time was 28:08.4, 5:37.7 average.

HR maxed out at 167. However during the last quarter it was only 163. During recovery it quickly dropped to 145 between 2 and 2.5 (6:20 pace), then rose to 152 when the pace got up to 5:56. Normally it would be 135 at 6:20 pace, and 147 at 5:56. I interpret this as follows. There was some anaerobic build-up from the first 2 miles, most of it got cleaned up between 2 and 2.5, and all of it was gone before the last quarter. At least the heart was not being asked to work harder than normal for the pace.

I started breathing with thirst for air about 1.5 into the workout, so I interpret that as VO2 being higher, but the failure did not happen until the muscles felt tense in the 74.5 quarter.  They were also tense after the workout for a while.

We jogged briskly to the finish of 10 miles, total time was 1:05:32. Then 2 more with Benjamin in 17:16. A quarter in 82 in the middle, plus last 100 in 19.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 19:26. Julia ran 1.5 with us in 14:30. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:54. That is a record for him. He is getting into shape fast.

A.M. Ran with Jeff. Not that Jeff is boring to run with, but we could use more company than just each other.We did have some today. Rich Borget joined us about 6 miles into our run until the finish. I did explosions. Then we ran the fat mile in 5:48. No tricycle guy today. Rich was about a second back.  Total time for 10.1 was 1:17:40. Two more with Benjamin in 17:16, I think.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:51. Julia ran 1.5 in 14:20 with us. Then 0.5 with Joseph and Benjamin in 5:06.

A.M. Ran with Jeff. He was taking it easy, I did quarters. First one was around 74, I messed up and did not start the watch until 200 into it. But the last 200 was 37. Then 71.0, 70.0, 71.5, 71.7. 200 meter jog in between. Did not feel quite right in the last two quarters, legs were heavy, the effort was hard in the last 100, HR got up to 166 instead of 163. Possibly the jog in between was too brisk - I was trying to make sure Jeff would get to work on time. Also the footing on those stretching was rather rough, too many twigs and other stuff that has fallen off the trees, so I may have not been as efficient due to Five Finger holes. Then 2 miles later did the last quarter in 68.5. Jeff paced me this time, that helped. But also HR was only 163 and I felt more like myself. The footing was better.

Then after jogging for 0.75 we ran a "fat" mile, after the quarters it was not fat at all, but we ran it anyway in 5:43.6. Again no tricycle to get Jeff excited. But I had to tell him to hit the brakes after the first 100 at 5:20 pace. The pace varied, but HR was normal for the pace. Then we jogged briskly to the finish, total time 1:12:13, Jeff made it to work on time.

2 with Benjamin in 15:57.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:22. Julia ran the first 1.5 with us in 13:56. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:10.

A.M. Ran with Jeff and Rich Borget. 10.1 in 1:13:32, I think. Did explosions. Ran a fat mile in 5:50. Rich was with us, but fell behind in the last quarter and finished in 5:56. Then 2 more with Benjamin in 16:45.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 19:24. Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:30. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:22.