Ran with the BYU Army ROTC cadets this morning. We went on a 6.64 mile loop from Smith's Field House to Will's Pit Stop, then up the hill to Timpview, then past the MTC along 9th and back to Smith's Field House. Had to stop at the Will's, so that gave me 1.5 of tempo building a lead, and then catching up. Towards the end we passed the Air Force cadets, and I could sense some rivalry between the two. Afterwards jogged back to my car, and drove to the Provo River Trail by Geneva Road. Decided to do a 5 mile tempo at an aggressive marathon pace. The goal was to keep 5:45. The start did not feel very good - 44 seconds on the first 200 and it felt brisk. However, I got into the rhythm later on and felt better. Total time 28:16. Splits - 5:41, 11:18 (5:37), turnaround in 14:08 (2:50), then 17:00 at 3 (2:52), 22:49 (5:39), last mile in 5:37. I cheated on the last mile to get an even split on the second half by hitting the last 2 quarters in 1:24 and 1:23, but the presense of the motivation to cheat this way is a good sign. Came home ran with Benjamin, Jenny, and Abby. In the evening ran a little bit with Julia. We were practicing for our The Cat in the Hat skit at a ward talent show, so I was dress as the Cat in the Hat, and she was dressed as Thing 1. I have been thinking lately about setting up the Fast Running Blog Fund. So far the development and the improvements to the blog have been happening whenever I could find a few hours to hide in my office and code, which does not happen too often. With the fund in place, once there is enough money to pay for a feature, I could pay myself out of the fund to do the work, and thus would be able to make the blog quite a bit better. Possible sources of money for the fund - online advertising and donations. Online advertising so far has been making pennies, but I recently got approached by Burst Media to run a campaign for a month targeted specifically to runners, and they are willing to pay enough to sponsor about 12 hours of coding. That is a good start. Hopefully the improvements will help us increase the traffic. Once the traffic is up, not only does the blog get more in advertising fees from the volume, but it is also able to get into higher-paying networks. My eventual goal is to get the blog to the point where it generates enough revenue to provide sponsorships for developing athletes. The recipient of the sponsorship will be required to maintain a blog, train at a serious level, and help other runners in the blog on a daily basis. My dream is to be able to help a large number of marathoners go sub-2:20 (men) and sub-2:40 (women), and maybe even get somebody to win Boston or medal in the Olympics. | 