Breaking the Wall

Day of rest. Went to church. Had a long day in church - we went to Sunday school and Priesthood/Primary/Relief Society in our ward, and then drove to Sarah's parent's ward and attended all of the meetings there. Sarah's parents happened to have moved into my old mission area, so some people remembered me from 15 years ago. After all these years I was remembered as the missionary that liked bananas. I still like them, but not nearly as much as I did back then. During dinner appointments I would leave the beef and the cake alone, and go after bananas. If it was hot - it usually was in the summer, and I was hungry, I could eat 10 at once if the family had that many, but they usually had only 5.

During the Priesthood opening exercises we sat down to sing the opening hymn, when to my great surprise I saw a hymn book in Russian. I looked at it again, sure enough it was in Russian. It happened to belong to an elder who served in the Ukraine some time ago. So he and I sang the opening hymn in Russian.

A.M. Ran 8 alone, then 4 more with the kids. Benjamin - 3, Jenny and Julia 2, Joseph 1, and Jacob 0.5.

A.M. Usual run - 8 + 4 with the kids. Except I decided to introduce something new, somewhat inspired by the training method of one Japanese runner who ran 2:34 marathon at the age of 61. He does fairly light 5x1000 twice a day every single day. So I thought about how this could work, and if something similar could work for me. It is quite unconventional, but there are some strong benefits in this approach. The intervals are long enough to make you breathe and practice your form, but short enough and slow enough (if you do not treat them like a true interval) that the nervous system does not get a chance to get overworked. So you can do something like this on an easy day without overworking yourself (I hope). Yet you get some solid mileage at anywhere between marathon and half-marathon race pace on a daily basis..

So I did 800 pickup at a nice relaxed pace but with a bit of a push to get myself breathing and the legs moving. Then I did another, and a few more. Ended up with 5 of those with the times of 2:56, 2:57, 2:56, 2:52, and 2:41. Benjamin and Jenny - 3, Julia 2, Joseph 1, and Jacob 0.5.

A.M. Total of 12. Did 5x800 - 2:51, 2:55, 2:59, 2:52, 2:39. Some of it was slippery. Benjamin - 3, Jenny and Julia 2, Joseph 1, and Jacob 0.5.

A.M. Total of 12 including the run with the kids. 5x800 : 2:51, 2:55, 2:52, 2:42, 2:40. Benjamin - 3, Jenny and Julia 2, Joseph 1, and Jacob 0.5.

A.M. Did a total of 12 including kids runs. Ran a mile in 5:51. Benjamin did 3, Jenny and Julia - 2, Joseph - 1, Jacob - 0.5. I fell yesterday, and today started to feel the consequences. Maybe it was a combination of the fall and running fast breathing in cold dirty air. I started feeling pain while inhaling or moving my arms around in a certain way. So at the start of the run I did not feel like running fast at all. However, in the last mile I started feeling better and picked it up to 5:51.

A.M. Went to Benjamin's chess tournament in West Jordan. He ended up tying for the first in the 6th grade with 4.5 points out of 5 winning 4 games and drawing the last one against the co-winner. I was particularly impressed with his 4th and 5th games. In the 4th one due to fatigue he made a number of bad mistakes and found himself a rook down, and an exposed king on a voyage through the board. Miraculously, his opponent overlooked a mate in two several times, and then missed the chance to win Benjamin's queen. Finally, the checks stopped for one move and that was enough for Benjamin to force a queen trade, win a bishop, threaten to queen a pawn which won his rook back, and that was enough to win the game. In the last game, I watched in horror as Benjamin hung his queen on a tactic, which his opponent fortunately did not see until he had already made his move. They exchanged a few more blunders as well as brilliant tactics, with the end result of Benjamin playing the end game with a knight against a rook. Benjamin put up an excellent defense - no blunders that either I or his opponent could catch. He offered his opponent a draw, which was refused perhaps unwisely, as Benjamin almost ended up winning on time. His opponent timely took his protected knight with 1 second left on his clock, which resulted in an automatic draw due to insufficient material to mate. The spectators applauded once the game was over.

What I was impressed was Benjamin's ability to put his earlier mistakes aside and in spite of the disappointment play the position at the best of his ability without complaining about it or wasting energy wishing that it were different.

P.M. Ran a total of 15. I am writing it down as easy, because the pace was not cardiovascularly strenuous, but it was not easy due to the chest problem. Every step hurt. I thought of stopping after 2 miles, but then decided to tough it out. I was able to maintain sub-6:40 for the first 11.5 that I did by myself. Then I did 3 with Benjamin and Jenny (Joseph ran the first mile with us), and then 0.5 with Jacob. Julia was sick and did not run.