Breaking the Wall

Post race picture:

Fast Running Friend Workout - 2015-01-31 09:31:56
Workout Totals: Distance13.307Time1:39:06.80Pace7:26.89
Today we ran the Salt Lake City Track Club 5 K. There were eight of us - Sarah, myself, and our oldest six children with ages ranging from 6 to 15. We averaged 22:13. This would probably be a record of this kind if such records were kept - average 5 K time on the same day for at least eight immediate family members with both biological parents running and the mother having given birth to nine, the youngest being four months old. I suppose since we do not know of anybody else keeping such records we could - if anybody knows of any family that has achieved some kind of a decent group performance time in spite of a challenging age distribution, use either the comment or the feedback form to report it. Right now the rules are a little fuzzy, but we will formalize them as we go. We need to have a lot of categories - e.g. if you require the mother of many children to run that changes the game because by the time she had given birth to all of them and raised them to maturity it would be very hard for her to run a time that does not drag the average down a lot. Conditions were windy today, so I estimate this produced a slowdown of anywhere between 20-30 seconds. Report on each family member in the finishing order: Benjamin - 15 years old, turning 16 next month. 16:13, 3rd overall after Anthony Costales (15:30), and Jason Holt (15:43). Beat Fritz Van De Kamp for the first time in his life. Fritz was not having his best race, but it was not his worst either. Benjamin's splits were 4:59, 5:25, and 5:49 for 1.107 which is 5:15. His last 1 K was 3:07 which would not have been so decisive if had it not been into a fairly strong headwind. For a comparison, all I could do for the last 1 K was 3:37. Fritz did 3:32, Jon Gauthier did 3:21. Jason Holt was only 1 second faster than Benjamin over the last 1.107. First time that I remember in my 15+ years of experience with Utah LDR Circuit races that somebody 15 or under made the podium in a circuit race. Myself, age 41 - 17:37, 13th overall, 3rd master. Splits 5:17, 5:47, 6:33 for the last 1.107 - 5:55 pace. Craig Green won the masters with 16:47, Dan (2nd place) ran 17:25. Even though I slowed down a lot into the headwind I got passed by only one person which was around the 3 mile mark, and I was able to latch on to him and finish maybe only a second behind while we closed on some other runners in front of us. So the slow down in the quality of effort was perhaps not that drastic as there were plenty of relatively strong runners behind that would have passed me otherwise. Jacob, age 8 - 21:12, 1st in 1-14 division. Experienced a cold in the week prior to the race, but recovered enough to be competitive. Opened with 6:34 mile, then somewhere around 6:50 for the second, which makes it 7:48 for the last 1.107 - 7:02 pace, quite respectable for an 8 year old into that headwind. I saw him twice - once while I was racing, and the second time when I was running back to meet Sarah. He looked smooth both times. Joseph, age 10 - 22:04, 2nd in 1-14 division. For him this was a lesson in humility. He was recovering from his bike accident 11 days ago in which he punctured his upper quad, lost a good amount of blood, got 7 stitches, could not walk for 2 days, and could not run without a serious limp until Wednesday. His biomechanics were still affected, and I could tell that he had lost some endurance largely due to the lost blood, and possibly also as a result of inactivity when he could not walk. So considering all things, this was a miraculous performance. However, Joseph had to deal with the fact that his younger brother Jacob beat him. This had never happened before. Joseph has a problem with unhealthy addictive sibling rivalry. Perhaps this experience will teach him to make some adjustments in the way he thinks and make him a more healthy competitor. Julia, age 12 - 22:54. First in 1-14 division. Her opening mile was 7:00, do not know her other splits. This was a significant accomplishment for her. She has had to reduce mileage over the last couple of weeks due to a cold. Over the last few years she has struggled with anemia - now she is able to control it with an iron supplement and a diet focusing on iron. She also has some kind of a condition that nobody has been able to diagnose that makes her not function well unless she gets 12 hours of sleep at night. Jenny, age 14 - 22:55. Opening mile 6:55, then Julia passed her and gapped her, but Jenny closed most of the gap with a strong kick, but ran out of road. This performance is a significant achievement for Jenny. She has struggled with anemia as well, and has just barely began to come out of it with the help of a supplement and dietary modifications. We are learning something about girls. They naturally tend to eat like a mouse when they need to be eating like a lion. Especially if they are training while going through puberty. That skill needs to be taught, few girls have it naturally. Jenny also has struggled with the feeling of panic when the pace gets fast and her breathing goes out of control. She dealt with it by thoroughly studying Elder Holland's talk "Lord I believe" and thinking of it whenever she felt that feeling during the race. William, age 6 - 27:02. This was a great result for him, I thought. From his training I knew he could run under 26 on an ideal course, and 100% healthy. He had just barely recovered from a cold, and he is very sensitive to respiratory obstructions - they drive him nuts, when he finds anything in his nose he blows it like crazy for a long time. To make things more difficult, he has a very dramatic personality. It is a miracle that we have been able to convince him to run every day, I think this has taught me how to get anybody to run. So now under those circumstances he goes out and races a 5 K running the second half into a tough headwind that humbles the strongest runners in the state, and he does it alone without a parent or sibling being by his side to pace him or block the wind for most of the way - except for the last half mile when Benjamin came back to him. Somehow William pulled it off. Before the race I asked him what he wanted for his prize and he said three bottles of honey. I think that helped him deal with the adversity, and he courageously toughed it out. Sarah, age 39 - 27:50. Sarah has given birth to nine children. Our youngest, Mary, is only 4 months old. That alone would make racing tough, but on top of that she picked up a cold a couple of weeks ago. She had not been able to shake the respiratory symptoms until about three days ago, but there was another twist to this. Even a simple cold puts a lot of stress on the hormonal system. It is common for a runner to experience the flat feeling when running hard after a cold for a couple of weeks even after the fever and the respiratory problems are long gone. For a woman that has recently had her ninth child this takes on a different dimension. Sarah felt sudden onsets of fatigue, sometimes lasting several hours over the last couple of weeks. She reduced her training to accommodate, and tried resting more, but ultimately she just has to let it run its course. She was still not 100% over it today, but she was able to deal with it and run a decent time. I ran back to her after I finished my race and paced her for the last half mile or so.
Leg 1:Distance2.500Time19:11.90Pace7:40.76
Warm-up with Benjamin.
Leg 2:Distance4.307Time27:56.50Pace6:29.25
Split 1:Distance3.107Time17:38.00Pace5:40.52 Cumilative:Distance3.107Time17:38.00Pace5:40.52
My race.
Split 2:Distance1.200Time10:18.50Pace8:35.42 Cumilative:Distance4.307Time27:56.50Pace6:29.25
Back to Sarah, and then paced her.

Leg 3:Distance3.000Time24:29.90Pace8:09.97
With Benjamin.
Leg 4:Distance3.000Time22:31.70Pace7:30.57
Alone.
Leg 5:Distance0.500Time4:56.80Pace9:53.60
With Stephen.

Breaking the Wall

Salt Lake Track Club 5 K