| 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
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 61.42 | 11.08 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 72.50 |
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| Night Sleep Time: 0.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 0.00 | |
| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 12.50 | 0.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 13.00 |
| Ran with Ted in the morning at 4:45. It was a cold and early morning. My bed felt good, and I missed it. Ted started from BYU and I met him on the trail. We ran to his turnaround, and then back to BYU. There we did a strength test for a mini-experiment - max leg extension on a weight machine with one leg. Ted was my guinea-pig to establish a comparison base. The test measures your raw quad strength. My expectation was that I would outperform Ted by a lot more than you would expect from our running difference. My expectation turned out to be correct. I was able to lift 200 lb and failed at 220 lb, while Ted lifted 140 lb, and failed at 160 lb. Then we did a vertical jump. We did not have any way to measure it, so we just did a basic visual evaluation by the number of blocks on the wall. Our vertical jump was essentially the same. I think the preliminary results confirm my suspicion that I have very much below average spinal resilience. And also, that the spinal resilience is critical in the running economy, and just as important as the raw leg strength for sprinting. That is why you can see a guy with skinny legs run 100 in sub-12 quite often, while somebody with bigger legs may not be as fast. The skinny legged guy has to be very well coordinated and has the back of a cat. However, I would like to do more of those tests. Ideally, it would be nice to find a graduate or P.H.D. student who wants to do a study for his paper/dissertation and do it with him. But at least doing some informal measurements is a good start. If anybody wants to participate, let me know. The catch is that the leg extension test needs to be done on the same machine and with the same starting angle, so you'd have to come down to Provo for it. On the way back caught the 7:00 mile guy. Ran a bit of a tempo on the last 0.5 at sub-6:00 pace. Total of 11 miles in the morning. Ran with the kids in the afternoon. 13 miles for the day. |
| Night Sleep Time: 0.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 0.00 |
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 8.30 | 3.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 11.80 |
| Ran with Ted at 4:45 AM again. Was thinking about my warm bed the entire run. We did a fartlek, 6x400, then 4x800, all at around 5:45-5:50 pace. The recoveries at 7:00-7:20 pace. HR readings were normal once I worked up enough sweat. 10.04 in 1:07:48. Ran with the kids in the afternoon. |
| Night Sleep Time: 0.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 0.00 |
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 10.42 | 1.58 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 12.00 |
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My cellphone woke me up with the "Serenade" at 4:30 AM to run with Ted at 4:45. It says on the menu - Seranade, 4:30 AM, Daily. A most lovely melody that would get a corpse to arise. Sarah asked me if I could put it on something less lively. I explained it had to be lively enough to get me out of bed. I also get dressed faster while that tune is still vividly playing in my mind.
Met Ted on the trail - he ran from BYU. Saw a runner from afar in the dark and wondered if it was Ted. Should not have wondered. The probability of it being somebody else was extremely low. In fact, I believe the last time I saw anybody other than Ted running before 5 AM was in the Wasatch Back Relay.
We were both asleep and ran at 7:20 pace or so most of the time. I proposed a 6:00 mile to wake up, but Ted's legs were tired from yesterday. Followed Ted part of the way to BYU until it was time to turn around. Then I had 1.5 left to the house, which I decided to do at marathon pace. Turned out it was 1.58 because I miscalulated the turnaround. No problem. Ran 1.5 in 8:41 at a steady pace, HR eventually climbed to 150, total time for 10.08 was 1:11:49.
Ran with the kids in the evening. |
| Night Sleep Time: 0.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 0.00 |
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 9.30 | 2.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 11.80 |
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Ran with Ted in the morning. Did a tempo 2.5 in 14:23. The rest was at a very relaxed pace. Total of 10.13. Ran with the kids in the evening. Worked all night figuring out little and not so little bugs in the new text editor. It is still buggy, but at least functional. Please report bugs as you find them. One thing I really need tested is try entering some text, then wait about 5-10 minutes to submit it. If you can reproduce it posting the numbers, but not the comments, please report. |
| Night Sleep Time: 0.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 0.00 |
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 11.80 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 11.80 |
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Easy run with Ted in the morning at 4:45 AM. 10 miles through some serious snow. Ran very relaxed at about 7:40-7:50 pace in chat mode. Then ran with the kids. Went to Sarah's youngest brother's wedding afterwards. He and his wife were sealed in the Jordan River Temple.
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| Night Sleep Time: 0.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 0.00 |
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 9.10 | 3.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 12.10 |
| Today was a big sleep-in day. I slept until as late as 6:30 AM. Ted had a hard time getting out of the snow, so we did not get going until 7:30. It was cold at the start (12F) and lightly snowing. When the temperatures are around 10F and below the snow becomes brittle and starts cracking under your feet. This provides decent traction, almost as good as asphalt. So we had good traction at the start. I decided to do mile pickups. Ran the first one with decent traction in 5:45 with HR at 152. Started slipping more as it got warmer on the second - 5:52, HR hit 154 and went back down to 150 probably as I lost motivation from slipping. And then one more in 6:00, slipping even more with HR at 152. Towards the end we were struggling to keep 8:00 pace conversationally, while at the start we were cruising at 7:10 pace. Ended up with 1:12:59 for 10.24 - a little longer because I kept coming back to Ted after the pickups. Ran with the kids in the afternoon. |
| Night Sleep Time: 0.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 0.00 |
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 61.42 | 11.08 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 72.50 |
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| Night Sleep Time: 0.00 | Nap Time: 0.00 | Total Sleep Time: 0.00 | |
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