Breaking the Wall

December 21, 2024

15% off for Fast Running Blog members at St. George Running Center!

Location:

Orem,UT,United States

Member Since:

Jan 27, 1986

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Olympic Trials Qualifier

Running Accomplishments:

Best marathon: 2:23:57 (2007, St. George). Won the Top of Utah Marathon twice (2003,2004). Won the USATF LDR circuit in Utah in 2006.

Draper Days 5 K 15:37 (2004)

Did not know this until June 2012, but it turned out that I've been running with spina bifida occulta in L-4 vertebra my entire life, which explains the odd looking form, struggles with the top end speed, and the poor running economy (cannot break 16:00 in 5 K without pushing the VO2 max past 75).

Short-Term Running Goals:

Qualify for the US Olympic Trials. With the standard of 2:19 on courses with the elevation drop not exceeding 450 feet this is impossible unless I find an uncanny way to compensate for the L-4 defect with my muscles. But I believe in miracles.

Long-Term Running Goals:

2:08 in the marathon. Become a world-class marathoner. This is impossible unless I find a way to fill the hole in L-4 and make it act healthy either by growing the bone or by inserting something artificial that is as good as the bone without breaking anything important around it. Science does not know how to do that yet, so it will take a miracle. But I believe in miracles.

Personal:

I was born in 1973. Grew up in Moscow, Russia. Started running in 1984 and so far have never missed more than 3 consecutive days. Joined the LDS Church in 1992, and came to Provo, Utah in 1993 to attend BYU. Served an LDS mission from 1994-96 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Got married soon after I got back. My wife Sarah and I are parents of eleven children: Benjamin, Jenny, Julia, Joseph, Jacob, William, Stephen, Matthew, Mary, Bella. and Leigha. We home school our children.

I am a software engineer/computer programmer/hacker whatever you want to call it, and I am currently working for RedX. Aside from the Fast Running Blog, I have another project to create a device that is a good friend for a fast runner. I called it Fast Running Friend.

Favorite Quote:

...if we are to have faith like Enoch and Elijah we must believe what they believed, know what they knew, and live as they lived.

Elder Bruce R. McConkie

Favorite Blogs:

Click to donate

to Ukraine's Armed Forces

Miles:	This week:	0.00	Month:	0.00	Year:	3010.45
Saucony Type A Lifetime Miles:						640.15
Bare Feet Lifetime Miles:						450.37
Nike Double Stroller Lifetime Miles:						124.59
Brown Crocs 4 Lifetime Miles:						1334.06
Amoji 1 Lifetime Miles:						732.60
Amoji 2 Lifetime Miles:						436.69
Amoji 3 Lifetime Miles:						380.67
Lopsie Sports Sandals Lifetime Miles:						818.02
Lopsie Sports Sandals 2 Lifetime Miles:						637.27
Iprome Garden Clogs Lifetime Miles:						346.18
Beslip Garden Clogs Lifetime Miles:						488.26
Joybees 1 Lifetime Miles:						1035.60
Madctoc Clogs Lifetime Miles:						698.29
Blue Crocs Lifetime Miles:						1164.32
Kimisant Black Clogs Lifetime Miles:						720.62
Black Crocs 2023 Lifetime Miles:						1743.12
White Slip Resistant Crocs Lifetime Miles:						759.93

Sat, Oct 14, 2006

Easy Miles	Marathon Pace Miles	Threshold Miles	VO2 Max Miles	Total Distance
6.50	1.50	3.50	0.00	11.50

Decided to test The Toy(Garmin 305) in the Provo Canyon. Ran from the Canyon View Park to Vivian and back. First 5 miles easy, about 7:00 pace, HR hovering around 130 due to the 1-1.5% grade. The Toy agreed with the Hawk's Holy Marks perfectly. The fun started when the marks ended. When I went under the bridge by the Nunns park, The Toy reported a 1:36 quarter, with no perceivable increase in the effort, or HR. Otherwise, the remaining quarters made perfect sense. Got to 5.00 reading on the Toy at 35:10, turned around, and started a tempo on the way back. The goal was to push HR past 155.

It took a while. Mile splits were 5:49 - 5:32 - 5:31 - 5:25 - 5:27. I had to run 0.04 past the car to hit 10.00 on The Toy. HR hovered at 152 until I started running 5:25 pace. Then it went up to 157. This is down 1-1.5% grade, with the grade being steeper in the earlier miles. The Toy handled the bridge a lot better the second time around - no weird quarters at all.

In the afternoon ran with the kids.

As you may have noticed, I coded up the bare bones of the race reports. It uses my new paging code and Smarty templates. I will soon be converting the blog viewer to use this code to - it is about time, we have 49 public blogs.

I also set up an affiliate with Amazon, and added some code to detect product references in the blog comments and auto-magically hyperlink them to the appropriate product page at Amazon. So far, my product table has only Garmin 305. I will be expanding it gradually. E-mail me, or post in the comments your favorite products to be included in the database.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00	Nap Time: 0.00	Total Sleep Time: 0.00

Comments

From Paul Petersen on Sun, Oct 15, 2006 at 13:52:27

Sasha, is there currently a way to post images within a blog entry using html? This would be a cool feature, and I'm wondering if there's a way to do this already.

Here's some favorite running books from Amazon that you could add to your product references: "Daniels' Running Formula", "Advanced Marathoning", "Road Racing for Serious Runners", "Lore of Running", "ChiRunning".

From Paul Petersen on Sun, Oct 15, 2006 at 13:52:45

Sasha, is there currently a way to post images within a blog entry using html? This would be a cool feature, and I'm wondering if there's a way to do this already.

From Dave Holt on Mon, Oct 16, 2006 at 14:02:25

Hey Sasha, I was just checking out the race feature and looking back at some people's past races. Just wanted to say... it's a great feature and the site keeps getting better.

From cheston on Mon, Oct 16, 2006 at 19:50:16

Hey Sasha,

Thanks for the advice. Sounds like your really starting to hit it hard again. I can't believe how fast you bounce back after a marathon!

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