Breaking the Wall

A.M. Ran with Jeff. Gave the foot and the fitness a mild test. Wore racing flats. We warmed up 3.62 which took us to the start of the Fast Running Blog 5 Miler course. The plan was to run comfortably hard (for me) until I felt we've run enough, but no more than 5 miles. I told Jeff to start at 5:50 - 5:55 pace.He  ended up going a whole lot faster from the gun, but I did not mind as I wanted to have a good fitness test and I was feeling good. About 2 miles into the tempo I felt like I could keep the pace all the way to 5, but wanted to avoid unnecessary stress on the foot and on the nervous system, so I made the decision to go to 3. So we ended up with the following quarter splits:

85 - 84 - 83 - 84 (5:36) - 83.5 - 84.5 - 85.5 - 83.5 (5:37, 11:13) - 83 - 86 (180 turn) - 81 - 79 (5:29, 16:42.7).

Total time for 3 was 16:42.7, 5:34 average.

The form felt good with the exception that the right foot was not allowing me to power quite as hard as I wanted. There was also some minor soreness at the insertion point of the achilles tendon on the left foot. In the past I would not have even mentioned this, but I am trying a new approach. The idea is to attack those minor aches to allow me to pound the ground as hard as I want rather than adjust the form to work around the aches. So I am going to continue to ice those spots and run some of the mileage on grass until I can put full force into the steps at any good form running angle.

I was also pleased with the leg power response. No trouble picking up the pace to 5:20 in the last 0.5, legs felt snappy. HR was 156 at 5:36 pace, and maxed out at 162 at the end at 5:20 pace. Compared to yesterday, the effort perception was also very much in line with HR patterns. Jeff's HR also behaved normally. So I suppose we did not get out of shape after all, something was indeed really odd about the Footprinter's field. Which is what I suspected.

Finished 10, then drove to a nearby grass field with Benjamin (It was not far but I did not want to run with the wheel), measured out a 1260 foot loop (0.238), and ran 9 of them with him barefoot in 18:52. That is 2.15 at 8:47 pace.

After all the adventures the foot felt the same as it did before the start. This is encouraging.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:34. Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:23. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:01. Measure a part of the course for the Spring Creek Elementary 5 K with Sarah. Then it got late, so I ran 1.357 to the car in 11:35. Thanks to the wheel I knew exactly how far it was.

A.M. Temple day - so ran in the early morning run with Jeff. 10.1 in 1:18:43 in Crocs on the usual course. The right foot felt almost 100%. The achilles irritation on the left was OK as well.

Stopped by at the BYU Bookstore. They thought I was young enough and skinny enough to be a starving student and tried to sell me the Starving Student Card for $30. I looked at it and decided that I had an idea why those students were starving. Eating according to the card will produce very little nutritional value per dollar spent even with all the discounts. Plus you have to pay $30 for the card. So I said no, I have better food at home.

P.M.  Wore Crocs. 1.5 with Julia pushing William and Jacob in 14:06. Jenny and Benjamin ran ahead and did 2 in 17:30. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:20.

A.M. Ran with Jeff in racing flats. Felt good. Neural drive was there, even though it did not quite shine in the warm-up - 8:00 pace felt fast. The feet felt decent, both the achilles on the left and the top on the right. So decided 2x2 miles at 5:30 pace would be good. In the past I would have said 3x2 miles at 5:25 pace. But I am suspecting that the training effect is better if you take what you can do all out and cut it some. The effectiveness of the stimulus is not in how much it brings you down, but in the net difference between the loss of fitness from the stress and the gain of fitness in the recovery. And I am suspecting that this effectiveness is maximized at a respectable distance away from the start of the red zone.

So we warmed up our usual 3.62. I gave Jeff the instructions. 10:58 is good, but 10:57 is bad - too fast. If you hit 81 do not slow down to 84 to make up, make it 83. The first one (first 2 miles of the FRB 5 Miler) went like this:

81.5 - 85.5 - 82 - 83 (5:32) - 79 - 83 - 82 - 82 (5:26, 10:58.2).

Now you can say with 10:58 that Jeff was a sly fox and got everyout out of me that I was willing to give, but the truth of the matter is that I did pull alongside him in the last 0.5 to communicate that I did not want the pace to drop. The fifth quarter was interesting. I said - wow, I wonder why 5:30 feels like miles 6-8 of this years SLC half when I was trying to hang on to BJ. Then I saw the split - the pace was 5:16, not 5:30, no wonder it felt so hard. HR was 156 after the first mile, then 158 after the fifth quarter, and then it gradually drifted to 160 maxing out at 162.

We jogged 0.5 with a VPB in the middle, and then started the next one from the turnaround of the FRB 5 Miler. It went like this:

81 - 82 - 83 - 82 (5:28) - 82 - 81 - 83 - 79 (5:25, 10:53.8).

I felt strong and communicated by pulling alonside Jeff in a few places that I wanted the fast pace to stay fast. So it was a bit faster than the 10:58 too fast cut off, but I felt a little faster was OK on the second one. The last two quarters were up a small grade and are usually about 1-2 second slower than the others with the same effort in our tempo runs. HR was at 160 by 1.5, got to 162 with a quarter to go, and then peaked at 167 in the last quarter.

Cooled down to 10 miles. Total time was around 1:10:43 if I remember right.

Then 2.15 with Benjamin barefoot at Footprinter's field in 18:48. To my disappointment it got aerated.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 17:29. Julia ran the first 1.5 with us in 13:32. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:12. Wore Crocs.

A.M. Had interesting dreams. In one I was discussing the Book of Mormon with Paul on the blog. I told him I knew it was true, but he said he did not believe it was true. In the other dream a guy from Magadan (very cold and very remote part of Russian north-east) survived the Second World War eating very small amounts of food. After the war he did not increase his food intake by much and was eating only beets. In spite of that he was in perfect health. I wondered how it was possible to maintain good health with a diet that was so out of balance. But my questions were not answered - the alarm went off and it was time to run.

I ran 2.04 to Grandview, 6.18 there, most of it with Jeff, and then 2.04 back. Total time was 1:19:14. Noticed that HR was consistently lower, about 5 bpm, at the same places and speeds as a week ago. Also noticed that I was very sluggish starting out, more sluggish than normal, but then got into good rhythm faster than normal in spite of the early sluggishness.

Then 2 more with Benjamin at Grandview in 16:44.

P.M. Finished measuring the Spring Creek Elementary 5 K course. Ended up running 1.5 while measuring. Then 2 with Jenny in 17:42. Julia ran the first 1.5 with us in 13:30. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:57.

A.M. Started with Ted and Jeff. The plan was 20 miles with the last 15 hard. Ran to Bridal Veil and back. We met a guy named Tyler and he joined us from 3 to 5. Ted ran the first 5 then turned around.

The first 5 were slow (39:11), HR was not getting up, and the pace felt fast. I told Jeff to keep my HR at 152 no matter how slow of a pace this produced. It ended up not producing that slow of a pace after all. But it was hard. I think the problem was that I was out of fuel. Maybe those guys at the BYU that were selling Starving Student cards noticed something real after all.

So we did the first 5 of the tempo up the Provo Canyon (from about Orem Center street to about  Bridal Veil) in 31:03 (1:10:14 at the turnaround). I had to tell Jeff my HR was 154-155 a few times, but he was pretty good at pacing otherwise. It did help that he had his HRM on as well. It felt hard.

Then we turned around, and discovered that for my HR to hit 152 we needed to go 5:36-5:40 pace on the downhill. So we did. This was for some reason harder than maintaining the same HR uphill. What is interesting is that both Jeff and I felt the same way about the effort. Next 5 miles in 28:04.

Then it was time for Jeff to run fast. Yes, I know, he had just run 5 miles at 5:37 average with 15 on the odometer, and I am saying it was time for him to run fast. But he has progressed a lot in the last two years and 5:37 down Provo Canyon in a long run is not fast for him any more. So he took off and averaged 5:20 pace for the last 5. I was starting to feel the fuel issues and all I could manage was 6:00 pace. I could tell in particular during the turns - had a hard time accelerating when I lost the momentum. Legs were feeling shaky. So normal pace was a bit faster than 6:00, but I was losing more than normal on the turns. HR was often at 151 and I had to focus to bring it up to 152. However, in the last mile I was able to focus and bring it to as high as 160 in the last quarter. Last mile was 5:51.

So I ended up with 2:08:17 for 20 miles, 6:24.85 average, last 15 in 1:29:06, 5:56.4 average. I was happy to average sub-6:00 for 15 with the Provo Canyon uphill. Last 10 in 58:03, 5:48.3 average. Was happy about that as well - three weeks ago I could not break 1 hour on the same stretch even though I did not tempo for 5 miles uphill prior.

P.M. 1.5 with Julia in 14:00. Benjamin and Jenny ran 2 miles ahead of us in 17:16. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:12. Wore Crocs.

Day of rest. Went to church.

A.M. 10.04 around Grandview with Jeff in 1:14:49 - grass, barefoot. Benjamin ran the first 2 miles with us in 16:48. After that we did not speed up by much until maybe around 7 miles into the run. Then we ran the last 3 laps (total of 1.158) fast. I told Jeff 2:20 - 2:15 - 2:10. He took me through the first lap in 2:07 instead. Then 2:09, and then he sped up to 1:59 for the last one, but I did not go with him because I did not want to visit the red zone and ran that lap in 2:06. Pace conversion:  2:09 - 5:34, 2:07 - 5:29, 2:06 - 5:26, 1:59 - 5:08. So I averaged 5:29.7 in the last 3 laps.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:22. Julia ran the last 1.5 with us in 13:28. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:46.

A.M. 4x1 mile with Jeff. Wore racing flats. Ran a warmup a little over 3 miles. Then did the repeats on the mile stretch between 1 and 2 of the FRB 5 Miler. The target was 5:20. For Jeff, last half of the last repeat hard so he would get a bit of a workout.

So we did it like this: 5:18.5 (the watch said 5:18.9, but it was dark and I stopped it a bit late, max HR 161) - 5:17.6 (Max HR 163) - 5:17.4 (165) - 5:17.8 (168). The recovery was a very slow 200 meter jog. There was a VPB after the first one, which unintentionally increased the recovery time, but what can you do?

Jeff sped up on the last one half way through and closed with 72 and 67 quarters finishing the repeat in 4:57.

My feet fussed a bit in their usual spots. The left one in the heel  and the right one in the metatarsal area. Not enough to cancel the workout, but I could tell the fuss was making the form sub-optimal. Although obviously not too bad since I could hit sub-5:20 miles 4 times with a short recovery and without a red zone visit. Or, we should say, not worse than usual.  I have been suspecting that I've had this fuss all along, and just got used to dealing with it by running sub-optimally.

Finished the run in around 1:10:50 (total of 10 miles). Then took Benjamin to Grandview and we ran 2 miles on grass (I ran barefoot, Benjamin wore Crocs) in 16:53.

P.M. Ran barefoot at Grandview. 2 with Jenny in 19:14. Julia ran 1.53 with us in 14:44. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:18.

A.M. Ran with Jeff and Benjamin at Grandview. Benjamin ran the first 2 miles with us in 16:36. Then we gradually sped up. Jeff ran home after 16 laps (17 for him due to my bathroom stop). I did 26 laps (10.04 miles) in 1:13:59. Ran the last lap and a little bit before it quicker. Last lap was 2:11- 5:39 pace.

P.M. 0.5 with Joseph in Crocs in 5:00. 2 with Jenny at Grandview in 18:01. Julia ran the first 1.53 with us in 14:09.

A.M. Tempo run with Jeff. Wore racing flats. The warm-up was sluggish as usual - felt reluctant to run 8:00 although we eventually got up to that pace. The foot fussed a bit, I considered not running the tempo for a moment. But then figured the minus of losing the fitness was greater than the plus of giving the foot additional rest. It was not any worse off than it was at the start of the 15 mile tempo on Saturday, and I was able to get to the end of a hilly course 15 in 1:29 at 5:56 average. So I figured if I was OK after a hard 15 at the end of 20 it would be OK for 5 at the same pace in the middle of 10.

The plan was to maintain my HR as close to 152 as possible and see what pace that would produce. Jeff predicted that we will be a little bit under 29:00. He ended up being dead right. Our final time was 28:54.1.

I made sure to wet the contacts of the HRM to avoid malfunction. An error as little as 5 bpm would render the device useless. In fact any error would render it useless. Fortunately, HRMs tend to err either a lot or not at all.

The first mile was sluggish. We opened with a quarter in a glorious 94. Then sped up to a normal pace - 87, then fell asleep (90), and kept on sleeping until the 1400 meter mark, and then all of a sudden woke up and sped up to 5:20. Needless to say with this kind of pacing, and with it being the first mile I completely ignored the HR for the purpose of deciding if the pace was too fast or too slow. HR was slowly climbing, but was still below 145 until the surge. First mile was 5:58.

I figured I would not be maintaining 5:20 or even 5:30 at the HR of 152, but decided to just keep going for a bit without fuss to let the HR climb to the target. After a quarter in 83 HR was 154, so I alerted Jeff accordingly. Interestingly enough I was able to run 84-85 quarters to the end of the second mile without sending more alerts. Our second mile was 5:38.

Even though my HRM has the alert option, we still use verbal alerts. It would be very annoying if the HRM started to malfunction half way through. Or perhaps if it got a little warmer and the HR range would need to be adjusted. Or if for some reason we decided half way through that the target HR was wrong.

It would be nice if the HRMs had a lock/unlock low HR button and lock/unlock high HR button for alerts. You look at it, see a certain HR, decide you do not want to be below or above it, and lock it with one button press! Then the HRM bugs out or it gets hot, or you decide you want to work a bit harder, and you do not want to be beeped at, so you unlock it.  With no dumb "Are you sure?" confirmation screens! Some of those gadgets, like Garmin 305, have a delusion of grandeur. They think the information they are collecting is so important that we can absolutely not train without it. So when losing a signal, for example, it of course needs to flash a huge error message screen that covers everything else until you confirm that you've noticed it!

Things settled down by the third mile. I used the following alert rule. 151 - pull alongside Jeff and push the pace a bit. This did not happen often. 153 - no fuss. 154 - see if it is going to drop to 153 or rise to 155. If stable for too long, verbal alert. 155 - immediate verbal alert. This is one reason I would like to have an HRM with an open development platform. With a development kit I could program it to do the lock/unlock magic as well as the fuzzy alerts myself.

With that our third mile was 5:44, and the fourth 5:45. At the end of the fourth mile the HRM did a trick. I noticed that HR fairly quickly climbed from 152 to 157 with no increase in perceived effort or pace. Then it quickly dropped to 152. I did not issue alerts figuring either the HRM was probably malfunctioning for a second, or possibly we hit a packet of warm air, or something weird like that.

No alerts on the uphill quarter even though HR hit 155. But once we were done and Jeff tried to maintain the effort and I saw HR staying at 155 I gave an alert. So the rest of the last mile was at 152, and the time was 5:49.

The right foot fussed during the tempo and I could tell it was interfering with the economy. It was difficult to relax, although not unbearably difficult. I'll do most of my miles before TOU on grass with hopes of a more complete healing. But I am not getting my hopes too high. I feel confident that in good conditions I can get to 15 in 1:25 or faster, but what is going to happen after that I have no clue.

Cooled down to 10, then took Benjamin, Jenny, and Julia to Grandview. Jenny and Benjamin ran ahead, I stayed with Julia. She took me to 1.53 in 14:14, then I picked it up and chased down the older kids. Passed Jenny, went after Benjamin. The chase lap was 2:18 (5:57 pace), but I caught Benjamin a little bit before the end, so the actual fast pace was a bit faster. They know better than to try to run away from Dad when they are in trouble!  Finished 2 with Benjamin in 17:14. Jenny finished 2 in 17:41.

A.M. Ran to 2.04 to Grandview in Crocs, then 6.18 barefoot on grass, and 2.04 back. Total of 10.26 in 1:16:59. Jeff saw me from a distance and at first did not recognize my form. I take that as a compliment. Picked it up a bit in the last 1.5 in Crocs and ran the last mile in 6:34. The foot almost did not fuss.

P.M. Took the kids to Grandview. Ran 2 miles with Jenny in 17:41. Julia ran 1.53 in 14:01. Benjamin ran 2 in 16:33.

A.M. Green grass. Remembering a popular Russian song from the time I was a teenager about the astronauts that dream of green grass by their house instead of the rumbling noise of the space center or the icy cold of the blue colors of the outer space.

10.04 miles on grass today.  Barefoot as usual. 26 laps around Grandview. Some of it with Jeff. Ran a tempo for 11 laps (4.248).  First 8 laps (3.089) kept HR under control around 152. Except this time I did not have to send verbal alerts to Jeff at all. And a few times I did have to pull alongside to push the pace when HR dropped to 149. First 8 laps in 18:13 - 5:53.8 average.

Then I told Jeff I wanted to pick it up. He asked how much. I said 2:12 per lap. I really wanted  2:10, but Jeff is an overachiever so you have to tell him a bit slower. We did the last 3 laps in 6:27 (2:10 - 2:10 - 2:07), 5:34 average, and that felt good. HR was 157-158 at 2:10 (5:36 pace), and 161 at 2:07 (5:29). The good news is that it did not feel unbearable - I felt like if I were in a race I would have a while at that effort before getting dropped, or even might not get dropped at all.

Total time for 11 laps was 24:40, 5:48 average. Total time for 26 laps (10.04) was 1:07:21. I was happy that I was able to get this time without working too hard. It was only 6 seconds slower than a couple of weeks ago but it took a whole lot less effort. I was really enjoying it for the first 8 laps,and then it was comfortably hard when we picked it up.

P.M. Sarah and I went to the temple while Kimia (Jeff's wife) watched our kids. They did their runs on the trail under Benjamin's supervision. Benjamin ran 2 in 16:45. Jenny ran 2 around 18:00. Julia got confused and ended up with only 0.4. Joseph ran 0.5 in 5:11.

Day of rest. Went to church.

A.M. 21 laps around Grandview barefoot with Jeff in 57:11. The distance is 8.11. Last 5 laps (1.93) at a tempo pace in 11:13 (5:48.55 average). HR was a little high (156, last lap 164 at 5:31 pace). Felt sluggish. But it was warm, and it is Monday, and I am usually a bit sluggish on Mondays.

Then drove Zhu to Computune to fix the breaks. Zhu is a 93 Ford Escort Wagon. Today I realized that it was old enough to drive and go out on dates. In two years it will be old enough to vote. I also realized that all of our cars are now teenagers.

Ran back with Benjamin from Computune.Timed 2.25 miles in 17:52, but we did make a detour of about 0.25 to buy Benjamin a watch at Big Lots.

P.M. Ran with Jenny and Julia to fetch Zhu from Computune. 2.25 in 20:43. It was raining. Then later 0.5 with  Joseph in 5:08. It was still raining and it was dark. He did not seem to mind. Our kids actually think it is fun to run in bad weather.

A.M. Ran at Grandview barefoot with Jeff and Benjamin. Benjamin ran the first lap with us, then we sped up. He ended up with 17:21 for 2 miles. I ran 21 laps (8.11) in 57:59. Last 5 (1.93 miles) at a tempo pace - 11:11 (5.47.5 average).

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:49. Julia ran the first 1.5 in 13:58. 0.5 with Joseph and Benjamin in 4:55.

A.M. Ran with Jeff at Grandview barefoot. 6.18 in 45:54. Last 0.5 quicker. Timed the last lap in 2:13 (5:44 pace). Felt energetic in the last 0.5.

Then drove the Fast Running Van to Computune to get it ready to pass the safety test and ran back with Benjamin in 18:38 (2.25 miles).

P.M. 2.25 to Computune to get the Fast Running Van with Jenny and Julia in 19:53. Had an interesting conversation there. Jenny said that 9:00 pace was an easy pace for her. I explained that she had raced a 5 K at 7:40 pace, so a little over 2 miles at a slighly sub-9:00 is not hard. The manager said that was amazing. Jenny corrected him - no that's normal! Our kids have been thoroughly brainwashed!

0.5 with Joseph in 5:14.

Ordered new Crocs online (well, Water Clogs technically, official Crocs are too expensive) for myself, Benjamin, and Jenny from Target. Walmart did not have them.

A.M. Ran with Jeff. Wore racing flats. We did a short warm-up (1.37) and then ran a tempo. I only went 1.5 because I am tapering. He did 5. It was dark, early, and our warmup was short, so we started out sluggish with a 92 second quarter. It felt harder than it should have. I was concerned some. But then the next one was 85 and it felt easier than I thought 85 would. And then I thought the next one would be maybe 84, 83 at the fastest from the effort, but it was 81. Then 81, 81 again, and 80 to finish 1.5 in 8:20.

The right foot had no issues. The left heel hurt a bit, enough that I had to alter the form some. But not too bad, I can run a marathon on it and live.

Turned around 3 miles away from the house, then jogged back to where we started the tempo and decided that since Jeff would get there in 4 minutes I could wait for him. He finished the 5 mile tempo in 26:57. Still struggling with his cold, but hopefully there is enough time between now and St. George for him to be fully over it.

Then ran home with Jeff, total of 6 miles in 46:36.

P.M. Got my Water Clogs in the mail for $10 including shipping. Took them for a spin.  0.5 with Joseph in 5:19. Then to avoid putting too much stress on the left foot rode the bike for the other kids runs. Benjamin ran 2 in 16:33, Jenny in 18:53. Julia had cut her foot in a small accident so she biked.

A.M. Ran 11 laps around Grandview field barefoot. First 5 with Benjamin. He turned around at the tree and finished 2 miles in around 16:20. Jenny was not feeling awake so she ran slow. 2 miles in about 20:30. Julia's foot is still recovering from the cut. 4 more laps at an easy pace, and then the last 2 fast - 2:18 and 2:16 (5:54 pace).

During the run on the 9th lap I stepped on a wasp and it stung me.At first I thought it was a thorn, stopped to check, saw no thorn and no blood. Odd, I thought - why did it feel like a thorn. Was able to run at 5:54 pace almost unaffected. First lap felt a bit odd, on the second I got used to it. Then I stopped and noticed the ring toe (for lack of a better name, the one right next to the pinky) was slightly swollen. Then all of a sudden it swelled a lot. I got concerned for a second. What if I had stepped on something deadly? But I was feeling fine, so I figured I'd just drive home and be prepared to pull over if all of a sudden I started feeling bad. Just in case gave Benjamin the cell phone and told him to call 911 if I was acting weird.

But those turned out to be overprecautions as this was just a wasp sting, and I probably got only a portion of the poison. The sting lap was done in 2:46 (7:10 pace), so I figure about 0.2 seconds for the ground contact time. A wasp probably needs at least 0.5 seconds to do its job (does anybody know exactly?). So with those assumptions, and also assuming that the venom release happens at a uniform rate, I would have gotten only about 40% of the doze. So by now the swelling is very minimal, almost non-existent.

This reminds me that Deena Kastor was once stung by a bee. Except not in the toe, but in the back of her throat. This happened during the Worlds Cross Country Championship in 2000 in Porgtugal in the first 100 meters of the race. She spat out the bee and kept on running. As the race progressed her throat began to close. She passed out, then got up and finished the race in 12th place.

P.M. Made the magic drink for Top of Utah. Recipe: 1.5 liters of water, 2 table spoons of gotu kola powder (gotu kola is a native Sri-Lankan herb and has nothing to do with colas), 2 table spoons of hawthorn berry powder. Bring it to a boil and let it cool off. Then mix with 12 table spoons of honey and 1 tea spoon of sea salt. Poor in three 0.5 liter bottles. Serve the first at mile 10, the second at 15, and the third at 20.

Top of Utah Marathon, 2:35:19, 8th place. One phrase summary of the performance is "better than embarrassing" or "it could have been worse without being the worst I've run in the last few years".

Going into the race I had a few issues. Undertrained due to foot and recent sickness, and inflamed attachement of plantar to the heel in the left foot (Josse helped me figure that out tonight, and scraped/massaged it as well). Two weeks ago I experienced fuel issues in the last 5 miles of a 20 mile run which should not have happened and were probably the result of being slightly out of shape.   On the positive side I felt my form has smoothed out from running on grass, and the leg power felt decent.

I debated between two options for the race. Keep HR at 152 or try to go out a bit quicker and survive. I do have a tendency to crash at the end some even if I go out slow. At the same time I was curious to see if maybe I'd be able to overcome that tendency. 20 minutes away from the house I realized I had forgotten my HRM. This made the decision easier, so it was go out quicker and hang on.

The field was loaded. 4 Kenyans at the start. Paul, Nick, no Seth, Steve, Jon, Vance Twitched, Joe Wilson (out of shape, but you never know), Bryant Jensen from Weber State, and Eric Held who has improved dramatically in the last year.

I followed Paul and the Kenyans. The pace was quick but not insane. I considered backing off after 3 miles when Paul pushed it and we hit a 5:21, but then he got some water and dropped back behind the Kenyans who did not want to go faster. For a good reason - they were out of their own (2:14) or even Paul's shape! So I stuck with the pack a bit longer. We went through 5 miles in 27:11. Then in the sixth mile Paul hit the gas again and I said now is the time to back off and run my own pace.

In about a mile or two Nick caught up to me, and I followed him until 10. Then it was time for me to get refueled. Aaron, Nan Kennard's husband, brought the bottles to me. I backed off and let Nick go. 10 mile marker was wrong. I remember it being wrong last year as well. My time was 54:50, but it was probably closer to 55:40.

When I backed off from the lead pack one of the Kenyans had already lost his wheels and was behind. I caught up to one more and we were running together, but I knew he was done. Then when Nick caught up that helped me separate myself from that Kenyan. But there were two more ahead, plus Paul, plus Bryant. Not good for a sore footed undertrained man, but that's life.

1:13:03 at the half. Then a tailwind picked up and carried me for a couple of quick miles. 5:29, and 5:39. 1:23:39 at 15. Eric Held caught up to me, but then fell back.

Got my bottle at 16 from Aaron, enjoyed it.

I was feeling decent and maintained a slightly sub-6:00 on the Hollow Road and all the way to mile 18. Felt good on the uphill. Ran the next two miles in 6:15 and 6:20. 20 miles in 1:54:05. Got another bottle at 20 from Aaron, enjoyed it as well. Aaron gave me an update on Nan - 1:20 at the half. Perfect. On pace for a course record, and she would need to close in 1:15 to chick me if things do not go so well. So I am relatively safe.

Figured I was headed for a 2:33 maybe a little under. However, then there was a surprise.

Next downhill mile in 6:11 instead of 5:55. Legs do not want to move, no motivation. And then a complete disaster - 6:51. No, not quite complete. Next mile in 7:00 or so! Odd. The foot started complaining. Not good. I considered dropping out. There were several reasons I did not. I believe if you get a comp and can finish without damaging your health you should, and I felt that in all honesty I could finish without serious health damage. I also thought that there was a remote possibility of somebody from the lead pack dropping out or royally blowing up, which then would put me in the money. It was my 11th time running the race, and I wanted to keep my streak of sub-2:40 finishes.  And, not the least important - in my state of mind I could have gotten lost trying to find a short cut to the finish and end up running close to 26 miles anyway.

Of course this was enough for Eric to start closing. I regrouped and picked it up to 6:40. Probably the sugar from the honey kicked in. Then Eric caught up to me around 24, and then Jon passed both of us as if we were standing still shortly before 25. Well, we were standing still, so no as if. Eric used the commotion to pull away from me, and I had nothing to respond with.

I believe I saw 2:27:21 at 25 and 2:34:01 at 26, so another 6:40 mile. Could be worse. Tried to reel Eric in, but did not have the strength. Set a goal to beat my Five Finger time at Utah Valley (2:35:46), got to have some kind of goal even when the race is falling apart. Pushed as hard as I could in the last 385 yards. Got 1:18, that is actually 5:56 pace, not too bad.

At the finish we had Paul in 2:23:07, Josephat Chemjor 2:25:08, Sammy Nyamongo 2:28:12,  Nick 2:28:46, Bryant 2:31:10, Jon 2:34:16, Eric 2:35:00. In 9th place Vance Twitchell 2:39:05 and Tylor Monson 2:39:22. The entire top 10 under 2:40. Interesting result from prize money increase in the current economy. Paul's winning time was very solid, but it was slowest win since after 2005. But if I remember right, first time 10th place was under 2:40. I suppose the conclusion is that what the winner will run is sufficiently unpredictable and correlates less with the prize money, but the depth of the field correlates a lot stronger.

Paul's win was very impressive. I suspect somehow he managed to become  2:13 guy currently wearing a 2:23 guy's clothing. Or I should say this. He's always been a sub-2:13 guy, but the clothing was so thick that he appeared to be slower. It is nice that he is willing to serve as a guinea-pig for the rest of us to learn from documenting his trials and how he overcomes them.

Nan ran great. 2:44:10, new course record. Her last 10 K was faster than mine by about a minute. It is one thing to have the math tell you you can run a good time, but actually running it takes you to a new level.

After the race once the endorophins wore off my foot started to fuss a lot. I had a hard time keeping up with Cody and Adam walking to the car. Even though both of them fell apart a whole lot worse than I did in the race I could not keep up with them walking and had to ask them slow down.

P.M. Kids ran their usual distances on their own with Sarah's supervision. The times got messed up except for Benjamin's which was 17:27.

Day of rest. Went to church. The foot felt better thanks to Josse's scraping last night. Quads and calves sore.

A.M. Ran with Jeff and Benjamin at Grandview. Benjamin went 2 miles with us in 17:33 (I think). Jeff was a little late and joined us after a couple of laps. At first I was feeling sore and  thought I would run 2-4 miles. But then the form was becoming smoother and I felt better and better. So I upgraded my plan to 6, and then said - I am feeling good, why waste a training run, go full 10. So I ran 26 laps (10.04) in 1:16:48. Jeff's back was hurting during the run and he had a concern it might be heart-related. I did not think it was since it did not hurt any more when he was running than when he was sitting. But just in case I suggested we pick up the pace to get HR up and see if he passes out. He did not, but we ended up running about 0.8 quick with two laps in 2:26 (6:18 pace) and 2:19 (6:00 pace).

After talking to Paul on Saturday I decided to try going gluten-free for three months as an experiment. In 2003 as part of my diet experimentation I did not eat any bread or pasta (even whole wheat) between June and  late September. In that time I ran TOU in 2:27:46 and St. George two weeks later in 2:24:47.  In TOU in spite of opening in a suicidal (for me) 1:10:31, and taking in nothing the entire race except some soy milk mixed with bananas in a blender and a cup of water at 23 I closed in 1:17:15, which is the fastest closing second half I've ever run in the 11 years.  I believe that was my true PR race. St. George in 2:23:57 in 2007 was not as good.

So after contemplating Paul's experience with eating no gluten and not having fuel issues and my own experience in 2003, I began to wonder. Maybe I do have an adverse reaction to gluten after all. I did some research. Turns out that while only 1% of the population have a clinical celiac disease, a lot more experience minor symptoms. Gluten can cause an auto-immune response in the intestine which interferes with the absorption of nutrients, and thus you will have fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, and other problems. So I figured I'd give it a shot and see what happens.

This is going to require some creativity and getting out of the comfort zone. Because I love whole wheat bread and depend on it to fill me up. But I do want to know if I have the problem. And I do have an easy way to test if it's been fixed - run 20 miles hard and see if I can go under 5:30 in the last two.

P.M. Benjamin ran 0.5 with Joseph in 6:16. I rode 2 on a bike with Jenny in 17:38. Julia ran 1.5 with us in 13:42.

A.M. Again ran at Grandview with Jeff and Benjamin. Benjamin ran 2 miles in 17:38 or so, I believe. The grass was cold, almost unbearably cold. It was good for my plantar to heel attachment inflammation. But it gave me some minor blisters. Not sure what to do tomorrow. Maybe I'll try wearing Five Fingers or Crocs on grass.

The grass was also splippery so it was difficult to run a good pace. I got lapped by the 3:00 per lap guy (7:46 pace), but then picked it up in the last three laps to a bit slower than 6:00 (which took some work on cold wet grass) and edged him at the end with 1:17:57 for 10.04.

P.M. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:35. He closed with a 2:08 quarter. That is very encouraging. Julia won the Thanksgiving 3-4 year old race in 2:00, and I do not believe anybody has ever run much faster than that. So he should be able to win unless there is another Joseph or unless Joseph has a fit. But he's never had a fit in a race. It is a lot of fun training little kids for a race. Mental preparation takes on a new meaning!

With Julia we did the mental preparation like this: "Julia, what are you going to do?" "I am going to run fast and win the turkey!". "What happens if you cry and stop?" "Another girl gets the turkey!" "What happens if you cry and walk?" "Another girl gets the turkey!" "What happens if you fall down, cry, and do not get up right away?" "Another girl gets the turkey!" "What happens if you get tired and slow down?" "Another girl gets the turkey!" "What are you going to do?" "I am going to run fast and get the turkey!"

Jenny and Julia ran their usual distances acompanied by Sarah on a bike. I did not feel like running any more on pavement, and also I was busy with Jeff's programming lesson.

A.M. Ran with Jeff and Benjamin again at Grandview. Wore my new Water Clogs this time because the grass has been getting too cold to run barefoot. Benjamin did 17:21 with us in the first 2. Then we picked it up a bit. Jeff went home after 15 laps because he had to run to Kimia's work to get the car. 

Picked it up in the last two laps - ran them in 2:21 and 2:19 - around 6:00 pace. The grass was slippery, but the form felt good. Nevertheless the heel fussed some. Total time for 10.04 was 1:15:43.

P.M. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:25. New record for him. Splits of 2:15 - 2:10. Then rode the bike with Jenny and Julia. Jenny got 19:14 for 2 miles. Julia 14:24 for 1.5.

A.M. Ran with Jeff at Grandview. Wore Clogs in the first 10 laps. Jeff wanted to do a mini-speed session. 3x3 laps (1.158) with 1 lap recovery. I decided to do some of it with him depending on how I felt. In the first one things were going great for the first two laps - 2:14 - 2:05 and even the first 200 meters or so of the third. Then my Clog fell off. I guess my new Clogs are slightly bigger than the Walmart No-Boundaries Crocs, and are not designed for going faster than 6:00. I was confused and did not stop my watch. Nor did I think of simply finishing the repeat in one Clog. With all the commotion and the extra time to go back to get the fallen Clog my last lap was 2:28, total time 6:48.

Jogged the recovery lap with Jeff, and decided to skip the next one for good measure. Figured the grass was not as cold as yesterday so I decided to go barefoot. Running barefoot felt good, so I decided to run Jeff's last repeat. It went better than I expected: 2:05 - 2:05 - 2:01 - total of 6:11, 5:20 pace average, first two laps at 5:23, last one at 5:13. 5:23 felt sustainable, 5:13 was more pleasant than miserable, and the best news is that I did not get dropped. In the past whenever Jeff would get close to a 2:00 lap I inevitably got dropped even if we were running only 3 laps. So maybe going gluten free is already starting to bare fruit, who knows. If only I can get the foot to stop fussing before St. George now.

Total time for 26 laps (10.04) was 1:13:29.

P.M. Joseph is on the roll. He wanted to set a new record. I warned him that too many records in a row is not a good idea, but he insisted that he was fast. So he opened with a 2:19 quarter, and then really picked it up closing in 2:02. 4:21 for the new half mile record. Then supervised Benjamin, Jenny, and Julia while riding a bike. Benjamin ran 2 in 17:47, Jenny in 18:46, Julia 1.5 in 14:12.

A.M. Ran again with Jeff at Grandview. 10.04 in 1:13:50. Barefoot. The grass was warmer - just perfect. Cold enough for a natural ice bath but not so cold to make it unbearable.

P.M. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:57. Supervised Benjamin, Jenny, and Julia on their runs on a bike. Benjamin ran 2 in 17:47. Jenny in 18:59. Julia 1.5 in 14:31.

A.M. Timed the Slate Canyon 5 K/1 Mile. It went well. Only one glitch. The race-supplied barcodes did not scan on my scanner. But we were prepared. I had created a more flexible bib entry system. My hack running on Nokia 770 transformed the $99 scanner into a fancy scanning machine worth  that was capable of a combination of scanning and manual entry and could send the scan results to the timing system via WiFi. So we did it with manual bib entry as runners went through the chute.

Both the mile and the 5 K courses were very slow. A lot of hills.

Benjamin won the mile with 6:46. Jenny was the second girl with 8:07. She got beat by Jessica Resindez (7:23), but Jessica is 11 so Jenny won the 9 and under age division. Julia was the 6th girl with 8:44, and 4th in the 9 and under division. But she was not even 7 on race day. Jenny also ran most of the race barefoot because her new Crocs were too big, one of them came off, and then she ditched the other. That's OK, though, as she will grow into them.

What is interesting is that the field in the mile got chicked with the exception of Benjamin. Second boy was with Benjamin shortly before the turnaround, but ended up 54 seconds behind over the last half mile. From that we should probably conclude that soccer and tag will get you ready to run a decent 800, but to run the mile you need to run.

The kids race repeated itself in a way in the 5 K. The field got chicked again with the exception of the overall winner. Jeff ran 15:54, then Lindsey Dunkley 17:21, and Mary Ann 20:11. This was a PTA fundraiser so not a whole lot of money available for the prizes. To make do with what they had and make it fun they did the battle of genders. Women got a 3:00 bonus for the purpose of prize money calculation. So Lindsey ended up winning $75, Jeff got $50 and Mary Ann $25.

I think the battle of genders is a great way to provide a decent cash prize when the budget is low. Some may argue that 3:00 is too much, and it definitely is at a sub-15:00 (man) performance level, but is appropriate for the natural competition depth in the 16:00 and slower zone.

The course is a beast. My course tool gives Jeff 37 seconds, and Lindsey  40 seconds. The reason for the difference is that with the hills in effect extending the length of the course the faster runner will have more time to gap the slower one. So, converted to a flat course, their times become 15:17 and 16:41. Mary Ann's 20:11 becomes 47 seconds faster - 19:24, and Josse's 21:09 becomes 49 seconds faster - 20:20.

P.M. Could not only run in the afternoon. It was less than ideal. Hot, especially on the grass. The grass itself was warm, which did not give me a chance for an natural ice bath on the run. And I would not dare run anywhere else for fear of aggravating the foot. So I did my usual 26 laps around Grandview. 10.04 miles in 1:10:50, 7:03 average. Picked it up a bit in the last 0.5, but still slower than 6:00 pace (6:12). But the the heat and on grass this was  a solid effort. HR hovered around 145 at 7:00 pace, and climbed to 158 when I sped up to 6:12. Here is what's interesting. Normally if I get the HR up in that range and then stop, in two minutes it is down to 85 or so. But because it was hot two minutes later it was around 108. And four minutes later it was still over 100.

Another interesting point is that I was not breathing 145 bpm worth at that HR. I could have easily conversed. Normally at 145 I am huffing and puffing and speak in monosyllables.

P.M-2. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:15. Took Sarah on a date to the Canyon View Park where we sat by the Provo River under the bridge and looked at the stars as I soaked my feet in liew of an ice bath.

Day of rest. Started the day by soaking the feet in the Provo River. Good way to study the scriptures. Palm Pilot makes it easier - you do not have to worry too much about getting it wet. Scripture study by the river is a bit out of character for me - aside from running I am a very much an indoor creature. But in Russian they say "The need will force you" as well as "Hunger is not an aunt" which both mean the same thing. I want to have a shot at a decent race in St. George.

On the side note I just realized that I accidentally memorized all of the names of the sons of Jacob (or The Twelve Tribes of Israel) including the names of their mothers.  It just happened naturally on my third round through the Old Testament. I noticed that tendency about myself. Give me something to memorize and I am below average. But allow me enough time to be around the subject matter and I memorize a lot of things without trying. That is how I remember a whole lot of running times and splits.

During our sacrament meeting today a member of the High Council who is from Guatemala and is still not confident with his English expressed a concern to the bishopric that he might have language difficulties giving his talk. Somewhat in jest they told him he could switch to Spanish if he ever stumbled. He asked them to find out how many people in the audience could speak Spanish. They did. About half of the ward raised their hands. He ended up giving his talk in English with no problems, though.

In the evening soaked my feet again in the Provo River.

A.M. Ran with Jeff and Benjamin at Grandview. Benjamin ran 2 with us in 16:24. Then we sped up. Jeff was done after my 15th lap. I had another 11 to go. Gradually picked up the pace. Ran the last 9 laps (3.09) in 18:33 (6:00 average). Was not really trying to run fast, it just happened. Considered going even faster, but decided not to to avoid unnecessary stress. The form felt smooth. The foot did not hurt on cold grass. Total time was 1:11:13 for 10.04.

Afterwards soaked my feet in the Provo River. Benjamin estimated the speed of the current in the meantime with the help of a stick that he threw in the river. It turned out to be 3km/h.

P.M. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:56. Supervised the girls during their runs on a bike. Jenny did 2 in 19:24. Julia 14:41 for 1.5. Soaked the feet in the Provo River again as Sarah and I read the scriptures. Very appropriately we read 3 Nephi 8 and 9 where it talks about a vapor of darkness during the time between Christ's death and resurrection. It was dark by then, although not quite that dark.

A.M. Ran with Jeff at Grandview. 26 laps (10.04) in 1:16:49. The foot fussed in the first 2 miles or so, but then the cold grass calmed it down. I exercised caution for most of the run and was moving pretty slow, but in the last lap was tempted by the 1:17 guy (there is always some guy to beat) and picked it up to 6:00 pace in the last 0.3.

Soaked the feet in the Provo River afterwards.

P.M. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:57. Supervised the kids on a bike. Jenny ran 2 in 19:30. Julia 1.5 in 13:48. Benjamin 2 in 16:48. Soaked the feet in the river as Sarah and I read the scriptures. It was 3 Nephi 10 this time.

A.M. Today I was glad to have an excuse to run only 6 (tapering). It was raining. Not too bad, but it has not been raining lately so I got spoiled. The cold rain made it nice for my foot, though. It fussed for the first couple of miles, and then I felt absolutely nothing. I think if the weather repeats itself in St. George from last year it would help me in the cause of placing higher, although I hope not with the time. If it did help with the time it would mean that the foot would fuss so much on a normal day that the slow down from the cold, rain, and headwind would be less than from the foot.

Ran the total of 6.179 (16 laps around Grandview) in 44:30. Last lap in 2:13 (5:44 pace). No soaking in the river. I figured the feet got plenty of soaking from the rain already. 

P.M. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:49. Supervised the kids on a bike. Benjamin ran 2 in 16:38, Jenny in 19:24, Julia 1.5 in 14:16. Soaked the feet in the river as Sarah and I read 3 Nephi 11.