A.M. After the problems at the actual Provo River Half marathon I began to wonder I had issues in the area of half-marathon endurance that were more than just a hurt rib cage. So I decided to repeat the race, this time "uneventfully", or in other words completely alone. I took the first and the last place with the time of 1:13:02, and am generally happy with the effort. This was 1:46 faster than in the actual race, so it does show that the rib cage problem was a significant drag two weeks ago. I was sluggish at the start. First mile (going off race mile markers) was 5:19, followed by 5:23. At this point I was 5 seconds behind my pace two weeks ago. The 4 mile split was 21:32, so 5:25 average for the next two miles. I knew I was running slow for the generous 3 % grade, but I could not get myself to go faster. It did not look slow to the people I was passing, and they were quick to comment, but it was still slow. It is all relative, I suppose. Once I got out to the less steep grade, however, I maintained the pace better than I thought I would. I timed a 5:33 mile on the markers. After the first 4 miles, the official markers on this course go a bit wild, so it would be more reliable to keep track by the land marks - those do not move. My split at the letter S at the start of the uphill was 35:28. A mile later at the mark that said 16 it was 41:51 (6:23). 42:28 at the turnaround. 43:01 back at the 16 mark. 48:27 back at the letter S (5:26 mile). 49:32 at the start of my 3 mile tempo course in Nunn's Park. The next 3 miles were 5:29, 5:31, 5:33 - 16:33 for the 3 mile tempo course, which gave me 1:06:05 split at the end of it and 56:08 at what looked like the official 10 mile mark, which is fairly accurate. 1:08:52 half a mile later on the triangles mark, 2:47 for the half mile. I forgot for a moment that I was running the Provo River Half, and not my 10 mile tempo back to the house, and did not cut the corner near the press building. That probably cost me 3 seconds, which unfortunately ended up putting me over the 1:13 barrier. 1:10:01 at the start of the Riverwoods trail right as you cross the bridge. My overall take from that run is that I know how to hold 5:30s for a while on anything ranging from 0% to 2% downhill quite well, I can hold it fatigued, but I have a hard time sustaining sub-5:20 pace on any grade, even 4-5% downhill. The limiting factor seems to be this strange thing that I have observed before. Being aided by gravity allows you to, more like forces you to, increase your leg turnover. As your leg turnover increases, your brain starts thinking you should breathe more frequently, when in fact, you can do just fine without it. When you start to breathe more frequently that triggers the response "this pace is not sustainable because I am breathing too hard". I call this the "downhill respiratory panic". There is a cure for it - fast downhill tempo runs or long intervals, which I will do in the next couple of weeks. Ran a long cool-down to make the total 20, some of it with Benjamin. Benjamin did 7, Jenny 3, Julia and Joseph 2, Jacob 1. P.M. William finally broke 2:15 in the 400 meters at Orem High track. No hand holding. His splits were 28, 33, 35, 37 - 2:12.8. He earned himself a watch, which I ordered the same night. Joseph tried to break his record in the 200, but in his first attempt he tripped. at around 150 meter mark. He tried again, but was too tired running 40.4. William's total for the run was 0.5. I ended up with about 0.7.
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