Started the morning with a 1 mile jog. Did another one with Julia in the stroller after breakfast. Later in the afternoon went to the Provo Canyon for the speed workout. A warmup to the Canyon Glen Park, 4x100 accelerations, and now the real work starts. 12x400 downhill with 200 recovery jogging backwards. I noticed a moderate headwind, and thought perhaps a sub 69 average would be a good goal. Regardless of the time, what was important for me is learning good relaxed form trying to make the quads work less and the gluts and the hamstrings work more. First repetion exceeded my expectations. With the headwind I was prepared to see something like 68.7 or 69.3 on my watch. Great was my surprise when it said 66.0. I followed with a series of sub-67s when the head wind was mild and the downhill stretch was steady, and a bit over 67 when the headwind got stronger and the short uphill sections were present. I made it a practice to always start a repetition with a short prayer asking to be able to do a good repetition, and also say a prayer of thanks at the end regardless of the time of the split. This workout is very hard to get through without a prayer for me. One repetition started with an uphill, and then the head wind was strong on the downhill section. I hit it in 67.9. This one was my slowest. Before the next one I prayed to be able to break 67 - that was all I hoped for. When I finished it, great was my surprise to see 65.5. Another prayer before the last one. I wanted to run 65. Some headwind, but not too much. I got my goal - 65.2, and 66.8 average for the workout. The form did not feel particulary pretty, but as Emil Zatopek once said, this is not gymnastics, you do not get points for looks. I felt strong, the last 100 m of each repetition did not feel as miserable as it used to, and I was able to hit the times with the headwind that I needed a tailwind for just a week earlier. This is a good sign. Ran with Benjamin and Jennifer when I got home, and also 0.5 on the way to the swimming pool in the evening (We took the kids swimming tonight). Total mileage for the day is 13.5. | 