A.M. Fast Running Blog 5 Miler For Strong Families, 27:25, 2nd place. Did not run great, but at least set a Five Finger PR for the distance. I am learning that a few extra things I decided to do organizing this race while not appearing too stressful can increase the load on the nervous system and can cause it to fail mid-race. Set up the start, including the cool new clock from Microframe, nice 5.5 LED digits, remote control, battery power option, available to be used free of charge for races within reasonable distance of Provo that comply with the Promotion Rules. Executive summary of the rules is that you need to have an accurate course, give elite comps, generously (according to your abilities) reward quality performance, and your top raffle prize cannot exceed the lowest performance or accomplishment prize. E.g. if your winner gets only $50, but you are raffling away a treadmill that is not cool. But if you give a cancer survivor that finished the race a treadmill while giving the winner only $50 that is cool. We had 10 people in the race, 7 pre-registered, 3 showed up day off. Jeff paced me through the first half very evenly with 5:20 and 5:21, then 13:21 at the turnaround. I knew it would be a stretch to hold 5:20 the whole way, but I wanted to know where I would fail and how. At first 5:20 felt very reasonable, half-marathon like. But after the turnaround I could only hold it for another quarter. Then my legs gave out, and told Jeff to go. I did an 84 quarter, and then it was 86, 85, 86, 85. Legs felt weak. Well, it was not the legs, legs were just fine. The neural drive was not there due to the organizational stress. But I was thankful anyway that it was at least 86 and not 88. Mile 3 was 5:25, then 5:42 in the 4th. I gave myself a cheer that even though I was dragging at slower than 5:40, at least I hit 4 miles in 21:48, which is a decent time on that course. With half a mile to go I found a droplet of a kick and was able to speed up to 84-83 quarters and finish with 5:37 mile and 27:25 for the whole distance. Jeff closed with a 5:19, 5:17, 5:06, 4:50 pace the last half, and finished with 26:22, new course record, and $50 richer. Not a lot, but better than nothing. Then I jogged back and ran with Sarah. Found her at around 4.1 into the race. She pushed herself hard and finished with 45:54, a great time, it's been a while since she's been able to run that pace, before the start she was not even sure if she'd be able to break 50:00. She said afterwards that the pain of the effort was greater than in William's labor, but less than in others. Afterwards drove to the Youth Regional Track Meet at BYU. Jenny ran 1500 in 6:31.22. Benjamin was registered as well, since one of the runners that beat him in State did not run. But he got cold feet and refused to run. He is still a kid, but he needs to learn to deal with those kinds of fears and moods, you need to learn it right at a young age, or your adult life will not be happy. We had a conversation afterwards and he agreed to do a redemption mile time trial on Monday.
Ran 1.5 with Benjamin and Julia to pick up the signs and cones from the race course in 13:40. One of the signs got damaged when somebody apparently rammed into it on a bike or a scateboard. Lesson learned - make sturdier signs. Will run another 10 with Sarah on a bike tonight. P.M. Ran 10.1 in 1:09:36 as Sarah followed me on a bike. It was nice to have her around and it's been a while since we've had the opportunity. About 3 miles into the run I told her in Russian that we were following the 7:00 guy with the intent to strike and pass him at some point. Except it was not quite what I said: Мы пасём семиминутного товарища. Which literally translated is - We are shepherding the seven minute comrade. Sometimes my mouth produces interesting Russian phrases that sound completely normal to a non-English speaking Russian but nevertheless surprise me because I think about how the difficulty of properly translating them into English, and the amusing value of the literal translation. How about this one - "The car was operated by a citizen in a non-sober condition."
We did the last 2.5 of the race course fast - 14:24, 5:45.6 average. Sarah sang me BINGO the entire time to get me going. Not surprisingly, the pace felt very hard at the end of the day, but I was surprised at how low the heart rate was - even in the last mile it was 152, and briefly hit 155 at the end when I sped up to 5:36. I think it was a PR for pain at this heart rate with the conditions as warm as they were and the low level of hydration. I never thought I would have to work so hard on a warm July evening after running for 45 minutes to get that low of an HR. My Five Fingers developed a hole. It is in the right shoe. Less than 500 miles. The other pair took 1000 miles. I suppose that is the difference between doing speed work and tempos and just jogging.
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