A.M. Did my 20 mile long run. 10 miles up the canyon in 1:15:09, then back in 57:40. Total time 2:12:49. My goal was to average sub-6:00 for the last 10 miles. When I started the tempo I felt sluggish at first and very reluctant to his the pace. But then I warmed into it, and 5:50 felt good. Then Benjamin met me with about 4.7 miles into it and pulled me through the remaining 5.3. Now that I've raised a fast running 14-year-old son I get the privilege of having my own bottle carrying pacer for the hardest part of this kind of workout. Makes all the work worth it.
The purpose of the bottle was to learn how to drink on the go. It had a mix of EmergencyC and dextrose. I drank a couple of sips when I met Benjamin, and then a couple more a mile later. After that I did not feel like drinking anymore because he turned up the heat on the pace. We did the 3 mile magic tempo stretch in 17:06 with the splits of 5:42, 5:44, 5:40. That would have been good enough for a sub-1:14 Provo River Half. Then I kept telling him to back off, but he kept serving me 84 second quarters. So finally I thought of a trick to make life easier for myself - two birds with one stone. I gave Benjamin my jacket. This slowed the pace down some, and also kept me cooler.
Neverthless the next mile was still 5:42. With about 0.4 to go Benjamin was finally fed up with having to carry the bottle and the jacket and wanted to throw them down. I took the jacket back from him and carried it in my hand. We ran the last uphill mile in 5:53.
I was very happy with the time. It was my fastest time for this course this year and suggests around 2:36 fitness on the TOU course.
Jenny did 4, Julia 3, Joseph 3, Jacob 2, William 1.
P.M. Went to Jose's baptism. It had the best church activity food I've ever had and was prepared by Jose himself. He is into healthy food and life style, so it had no junk - I could eat everything. We met Jose when he was walking by our house a few weeks ago. Then last Monday he told us he was getting baptized.
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