A.M. Ran Desnews 10 K in 32:31. Exact same time as last year. First mile felt good, and then the legs started to give out. Mile by mile: Mile 1 - 4:48. Got out of the crowd, then worked my way up to Lindsey Dunkley and James Moore, and ran with them. Felt comfortable, wondered if maybe too comfortable. Mile 2 - 4:54 (9:42). Running with James and Linsey. Felt good enough to talk, invited Lindsey to draft, she tried, but said she felt better side by side. Saw the split, and knew something was up. That effort should have produced another 4:48, not 4:54. Mile 3 - 5:19 (15:01). Legs were not moving, but this is not unexpected. Eventual women's winner from Ethiopia came by, Linsey went after her, my legs were not responding, we gapped James, but then I fell back, and he caught up to me. Mile 4 - 5:24 (20:25). Sitting on James hanging on for dear life. Thinking that I'd be lucky to run 32:45, and being over 33:00 is a possibility. Telling myself to keep fighting, not to quit. Mile 5 - around 5:25. A high school runner from Davis caught up, I was able to latch on on a downhill. I noticed that I was not breathing very hard, so I knew what was up. The nervous system had quit. When it does you are hosed, there is not much you can do. However, it is possible to gain 5 seconds a mile by refocusing and making bold moves. If you can tell yourself, latch on and run a quarter at a faster pace, and you actually manage to do it, the next quarter will not be slower from the surge as you are not going into oxygen debt. We dropped James, the high school runner started to let up, which was a blessing, then he let up too much, and I attempted to pass, but not really. I knew that I could barely manage his pace if I were in front, so all I wanted is give him an adrenaline rush (high schoolers have plenty of adrenaline) so he would go the right pace. It worked, he picked up, and I latched back on. I hoped we would catch Lindsey and I would avoid the embarrassment of being double-chicked, but at the same time I knew that the only way this was possible with how I was feeling is if she had fallen apart, and that would not be good. So I just focused on running my best.
Mile 6 - around 5:30 (31:20). With about 0.7 to go my high schooler smelled the barn and shifted gears. I did not have another gear. Another runner approached from behind. I caught a ride for 100 meters or so, but then I did not have it. Kick - 1:11 (5:32 pace). That was all I had. I wanted to beat my last year's time, and was trying, but legs were dead.
Lindsey ran a great race - 32:19, 2nd woman, improved by 18 seconds from last year. Dave Holt got 32:11 (gun time). Daniel got 32:48, James 32:54. Jeff ran 29:33, good enough for 12th place. It was a fast race, the winner ran 27:18 with 4 people under 28:00. Miles Batty did 28:15. Seth Pilkington 28:59. Teren - 29:27, I think. John Kotter around 29:30, Brad Osguthorpe 29:31, and Paul Petersen did 29:39. Total of 14 people under 30:00. Went the shortest way to mile 20 and paced Rob Rohde to the finish. He ran strong, 41:37 for the last 10 K with around 2:51:40 finish time. I think he made top 10. Jeff paced Steve Ashbaker for the last 10 K in 39:52 with around 2:44 finish time. There are some good and bad things about this performance. The nervous system malfunction is a concern. I thought I had gotten this under control. Apparently not. On the positive side, I held it together somewhat even with the malfunction. I am excited about Jeff's breakthrough, or more precisely solidifying his breakthrough from Law Days 5 K. It was great that he finished only 3 seconds behind Teren there, but there were still some lingering doubts as to whether Teren was in good shape, or if he was running all out given that all he had to do was beat Jeff. Now Jeff finished in a decent position in a stacked race with gaps that prove his performance at Law Days 5 K was not a fluke. He is however moving to Las Vegas to attend UNLV graduate program, so I need to find a new training partner. I have been spoiled in the last couple of years. Any time I wanted to run a workout, I could tell Jeff to pace me, and he could pull me at any pace I wanted for as long as I wanted, sometimes faster than I wanted for longer than I wanted as well. And, of course, he was always there for easy runs too, I rarely had to run alone. He will be difficult to replace, but I do have ambitious plans for cloning Jeffs from the BYU Cross Country tryout trash can. May Daniel could become the next Jeff. Jenny and Julia ran 2 miles in the morning.
P.M. Found brand name Crocs at Big Lots for $10. Got two pairs, we'll see what kind of longevity they have. They do have a thicker sole.
Mark Palamar (the Mark of the blog) and his family came over to visit. He ran DesNews in 3:10;57. His wife Jenny did 3:58. They had two children with them - Andy and Tom. We went for a run/bike ride. I ran 2 with Andy in 18:06. Mark and Tom rode along. Benjamin ran ahead - 15:32 for 2 miles. Then I ran another 0.5 with Benjamin, Jacob, and Joseph.
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