Breaking the Wall

Day of rest. Went to church. Watched the Draper Temple Dedication.

A.M. Ran with Matt, Michelle, Mary Ann, Jeff, and Carolyn from Colorado. Did explosive sprints, and a quarter in 78 as well for standard reasons. Carolyn was conversational at a slightly slower than 8 pace. Very interesting. She just raced a half averaging a slower pace. With half mile to go I wanted to test Carolyn's speed and level of freshness and told her to run fast. She did two quarters of 1:39 and 1:43, 3:22 for the last half mile. With proper training I think she could run a 20:00 5 K.

Then we added 2 more miles. My total time for 10 was 1:19:06.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 19:36. Julia ran 1 mile with us in 9:46. Then Benjamin wanted to gain his Jared playing privileges back. I told him he needed to run 2 miles under 14:00 or finish his 2 mile run with a sub-6:40 mile. He chose to go for under 14:00. Good attitude rules apply, no negative talk. He did great in spite of the wind. Quarter splits of 1:42, 1:44, 1:42, 1:46 (6:54), 1:40, 1:41, 1:40, 1:37, total time of 13:32, new PR. Incidentally, he also broke 6:40 with his last mile in 6:38. That got him all of his privileges back. 

A.M. Ran with Jeff and Mary Ann. Josse and Carolyn came as well, but they ran without us because Jeff slept in and was late. Mary Ann and I waited for Jeff.

Did a new variation of our workout. Wanted to see how Jeff handles 4:40 pace off tempoing at 5:20 for a bit over a mile. Also, wanted to experience some pain trying to hold 4:40 pace myself in those circumstances.

So we paced Mary Ann at 5:20 pace to failure. She started falling back after 0.75. I yelled at her, this slowed us down to an 83 quarter, so we were 5:23 at the mile, she was a second or so behind. Then Jeff and I sped up to 5:20 pace, while Mary Ann finished 1.25 in 6:47. Our split at 1.25 was 6:43. Then was the moment of ultimate pain for me. I felt I reached the limit of my leg strength. I stayed with Jeff for about 300 meters, and stopped at 1.5 with the quarter split of 71, and total time of 7:54. Jeff had a hard time with 4:40 pace himself, and slowed down to 75s finishing 2 miles in 10:23. That is interesting. I am thinking neuromuscular failure. Aerobic would have produced 70, 73, 77, not 70, 75, 75. A high end failure, not many people would think of slowing down to 5:00 at altitude in winter clothes as a failure, but for our goals it is a failure nevertheless.

Then we ran into some horses on the trail. They had escaped from the farm. Police was trying to round them up. On the way back the police was gone, so I assume everything went well.

Total distance was 11.35 miles.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:47, Julia ran the first 1.5 with us in 14:12. 2 with Benjamin in 17:15.

A.M. Ran with Jeff, Matt, and Mary Ann. Carolyn and Josse came, but started ahead of us not waiting for Mary Ann since they were going to run a little slower anyway. Did explosive sprints. Also ran my catch-up tempo 600 in 1:59.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:49. Julia ran 1.5 in 14:22 with us. 2 with Benjamin in 15:18.

A.M. Ran 10.1 with Jeff and Mary Ann in 1:21:26. It was colder and snowing at times.We tried a couple of quarters. I did 67 and 72. Jeff did 66 and 65. Decided it was too cold and windy for more.

P.M. 2 with Jenny in 19:48. Julia ran 1.5 with us in 14:45. 2 with Benjamin in 16:32.

A.M. Ran with Jeff, Mary Ann, Matt, and Carolyn. Jeff slept in, so we met him near DI. Carolyn was going to drive back tomorrow so she wanted to do a long run. We warmed up 1.5 to DI at around 9:00 pace, then I wanted to see how Carolyn would handle 8:00 pace. After a mile in 7:57 she picked it up to around 7:40-7:45 range. She was breathing hard but was maintaining the pace. I figured 8 miles would be good, with a surprise to follow. So she finished 8 miles 1:02:13, average of  7:46.6. Then she jogged a mile in 9:12 and a little more at about 9:00 pace. As soon as the 8:00 girl caught us I told Carolyn to go after her and PR in the half. She ended up running 1:45:20 for the half, a 4 minute PR on a slower course beating her Moab time 6 days ago.

P.M. 2 with Benjamin in  15:36. 2 with Jenny in 18:00. Julia ran 1.5 with us in 13:42.

A.M. Long run with Jeff. He had diarrhea since Tuesday. That was perhaps good. Otherwise, he would have to run 5:40 pace for 20 miles to cause glycogen depletion. So you could not do the depletion without the muscle tightness. This way, there was no tightness, and we could study how he runs without much glycogen, learn what to do when you bonk, and build some confidence that we would not see a repeat of St. George even in a bad case scenario.

So we warmed up a mile in 6:39, and then I suggested we run 6:00 pace until something bad happens. Jeff thought it was interesting that I was so sure something bad was going to happen. Towards the end of 10.1 Jeff was not feeling good - fuzzy head, using more effort than normal for the pace. We got to 10.1 which happened to be at the house in 1:01:03, 6:02.7 average. He was just about done with running fast, but I suggested we get some fuel in, and see how much longer he could go after that. For the fuel we used a drink made of evaporated cane juice with EmergenC for flavor and electrolytes. I fueled myself just in case the drink would work on Jeff better than I thought, because it could have meant 5:40 pace for the last 6 miles.

Then figuring it would take a couple of miles for it to kick in we decided to go another 3 miles at 6:00 pace and decide what to next after that. Like magic, 2 miles into it the pace picked up to 5:50 and Jeff asked me about the possibility of planting bottles in the Salt Lake marathon. That was a good sign. Then 3.5 miles into the tempo Jeff says, this stuff does not last long. I told him that's why they have aid stations every two miles. He also asked me about how long you could go off ingested carbs once you hit the wall. My answer was that you could go for a long time, but not very fast. I've been able to speed up to 6:25 after slowing down to 7:10 in TOU 2005. This does not work, though, if the body is not healthy enough at the moment to ingest carbs while running.

Jeff said he wanted to turnaround at the 4 mile mark, but keep tempoing, so we did. Then 15.1 into the run he thought he was done. I suggested we go another 0.5, he agreed, he is a very easy going guy when it comes to matters of pain. Then I suggested we go another 0.5 so our total tempo mileage would go over 15, and he fell for it. "...and he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever" (2 Nephi 26:22).

So 16.1 into the whole run we eased off to a little sub-7:00. With 1 K to go I suggested  we speed up again, and we did running it in 3:47. Jeff was done, I turned around and ran another 2 tempo miles to finish the 20.1. First one was a slight uphill in 6:05. Then coming back I ran 5:47. Total time for 20.1 was 2:02:07, 6:04 average. The tempo 15.1 was 1:30:18, 5:58.8 average.

P.M. Jenny's mile time trial. Benjamin helped too. We warmed up 600 in 3:27. Then I set the pace, and Jenny broke 7:00 with the splits of 1:42, 1:42, 1:44, and 1:44 - 6:52 total time, and became the fourth sub-7:00 miler in the family. For her effort she earned a bike and a Palm Pilot. Then we cooled down 1000. Benjamin was itching to go after about 550 so I let him. Then I realized I wanted to time him, so  at about 680 I went after him and ran the last 300 in 58. Could not catch him, it was too late, and he was going too fast, but his time for 1000 was 4:44, mine 4:46. Jenny finished the cooldown in 5:22. Hard to believe this is now her cooldown pace. The later ran 1.5 with Julia in 15:05.