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

Mon, Feb 05, 2007

Easy Miles	Marathon Pace Miles	Threshold Miles	VO2 Max Miles	Total Distance
11.90	0.00	0.00	0.00	11.90

Easy run with Ted at our usual time - 4:45 AM. Met him on the trail. We ran at about 7:10-7:20 pace most of the way. We split at 8.5. On the way back not being in chat mode any more I sped up to 6:30 pace without trying to run harder. The form felt very good. However, when it gets better I start to remember what it is supposed to feel like, and it drives me nuts. I wish I could do some measurements to see if what my intuition tells me is right. I feel my center of gravity tends to fall closer to the heel, too far back. So my choices are to either bring the foot unnaturally back to avoid landing in front of the center of gravity which does not give me full power on the push, or to land ahead of the center of gravity (overstride), which makes the quad do extra pulling forward - also inefficient. The ultimate solution is to fix the spine.

Ran with the kids in the afternoon.

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

Comments

From Nick on Tue, Feb 06, 2007 at 01:23:34

Thanks for the comment Sasha. Like you said, I am hoping that my increased endurance will help me out in this 5k. I have never felt like I have a speed problem, but maintaining this speed seems to be a different story. I think that time and miles are the only real solution.

From wheakory on Tue, Feb 06, 2007 at 23:39:52

How many easy runs do you run a week. I guess I would call these recovery runs. Because I know you don't what to run hard everyday.

From Maria on Wed, Feb 07, 2007 at 06:52:45

Sasha, I saw something interesting today at one of the sites regarding blog promotion/generating revenue from Google AdSense. Basically, they're offering to publish your blog content on their site and help attract audience to your blog. They also run Google Ads and if anyone clicks on them while reading your content, they'll split the revenue with you 50/50.

Now, I thought it's a great thing to try to promote fastrunningblog, as this site is rather popular, BUT then I saw one caveat - while they publish your content, they don't include the URL of your actual blog anywhere! You can mention it in your user profile, but it's not obvious to the reader. The bit about the Ads is still valid though. Another thing that might present a problem, is that they may require RSS capabilities of your blog to be able to syndicate it. As far as I know, fastrunningblog does not support RSS.

Anyway, perhaps you can check it out and decide whether it is feasible/worth it. Here is the info

From Sasha Pachev on Thu, Feb 08, 2007 at 10:54:01

Kory - I do 3 easy runs and 3 hard runs a week. Plus a little jogging with my kids every day, and it usually a good jogging pace - 9:00 mile.

Maria - yourrunnning.com indeed requires an RSS feed. This is a good reason to add one. I'll do it when I get a chance. Probably after the GPX course feature, which has been in the queue for almost a year.

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