A.M. Total of 8 miles. Benjamin did 8, Jenny 4, Joseph 3, Jacob 2, Julia 3, William 1. William ran a mile PR of 8:50.3 improving by 2 seconds on the same course. His splits were 2:15, 2:18, 2:09, and 2:08. He got excited about going for the record when I told him that his split at the quarter was fast enough to get it. But about 900 into the run he said he did not want the record anymore. That is exactly how I felt at mile 18 on Saturday. I told him he's gone way too far and worked way too hard to just give up and miss the record now. He rebooted his 4-year-old mind, sped up, and got the record.
Analysing my performance on Saturday I realized that there may have been three factors involved:
- Aging
- Lack of training at fast paces
- Fallout from Big Cottonwood half a week earlier
While aging is going to become more and more of a factor in the next few years it does me no good to use it as an excuse, although there may be some things I can do that I have not done already to forestall it. It would do me no good to blame the sub-par performance on the prior half-marathon - not much to do about it except not do it next year. However, lack of fast pace training can be fixed. I made a mid-year resolution to make sure that I always run at least 20 miles a week at paces 6:00 per mile and faster and figured out how I can do it while running with the kids. There is a 500 meter stretch where I can do pickups.
So I followed that resolution today and got about 1.2 miles at around 5:50 - 6:00 pace. Legs felt the impact of the marathon, but could move enough to do the pace without major pain.
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