A.M. Decided to try an experiment. I've done the 3 mile tempo stretch from 10.5 miles in the middle of the 20 mile run over the last three weeks hitting the times of 15:55, 16:05, and 16:06. So I wondered what would happen if I did it fresh. Benjamin and I drove to the Canyon View Park in the Provo Canyon, then he rode along with me on a bike as I did a 2 mile warm-up followed by the tempo run on the same downhill course, about 1-2% grade. I hit the splits of 5:18, 5:24, 5:22 to finish in 16:04.7. Essentially the same result as in the middle of a long run. This provides some food for thought. Obviously there is some limiting factor involved that is not fatigue related as it does not seem to matter if I've run a 2 mile warm-up or a 10 mile warm-up. But I do not know what to make of it. Need some time to think. Jogged some more, then we dropped off Benjamin's bike at the park, and he ran 4.3 miles with me. He got going at the end and his last mile was 6:13. Got home ran another mile with Julia. She did a total of 1.5 with 0.5 with Jenny. Jenny could only do 0.5 because her leg was hurting. I ended up with a total of 11.5 miles. P.M. 1.5 with Joseph in 12:59. William insisted on going for a run, so I ran 200 meters with him in 1:17. That was quite remarkable as he does not yet quite talk. He says things here and there, but you can never count on him understanding verbal instructions. And of course, he still wears a diaper. But he can run! Then did 0.25 with Jacob in 2:37. Then I decided to try another experiment. I did a calculation that if you turn over at 180 with a stride length of exactly 6 feet, that is 4:53 mile or 2:08:11 marathon, which is the goal I feel I should set my eyes on, even though it does appear unachievable. But that is what faith is all about. Achieving things that appear achievable is science, it takes no faith. If you want your faith to grow, you need to set your eyes on things that appear unachievable. Ironically, I've helped a lot of bloggers achieve what to them looked unachievable, but for me it was science. With myself, I do not have a mortal to ask advice from to whom what appears unachievable to me would be science. And I do not have the gift of beholding of angels, so all I've got is my faith and quiet whisperings of the Holy Ghost, which I hope I can hear and understand. Anyway, I figured that 180 stride rate is about the highest sustainable for me in the marathon, also it appears to be a common denominator among the guys that run 2:08. I can sustain 180 stride rate in the marathon, so the missing link therefore is the stride length. The difference is that I do about 5 feet, while a world-class runner does about 6 feet. So I wanted to get a better feel for what its like to run with a 6 foot long stride length. I laid my "magic" squares out 6 feet apart for 102 feet, and did some strides. I wanted to know the highest possible stride rate I could get with this stride length. It was around 210. My fastest time was 4.8, which is around 15.4 for 100 meters. I really liked the feel of the stride. It felt like I was running a good quarter. So in other words, 6 foot stride length is not completely unnatural to me. It just takes something that I cannot quite grasp to extend it from a quarter to a longer distance. I wonder if the critical element is connected to being able to turn over at 240 at that stride length, and if I learned that, I'd be able to relax with 180 stride rate/6 foot stride length. In addition to learning the high turnover, maybe what I should try to do next is try to run with 180 stride length/6 foot stride rate and try to understand why it is not natural to me. I figure I did about 0.25 in the strides. So about 2 miles for the evening run.
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