Breaking the Wall

Day of rest. Went to church. The talks were on living the gospel of Jesus Christ. The lesson in Sunday School was on faith. The lesson in the Elders Quorum was on prophets.

A.M. Easy 10.18 with Jeff in 1:19:47. Chatted about the Saturday's race. Jeff has grown into a monster over the last three years.  Three years ago BYU did not want him. Now he has a very realistic shot at making the Trials without having to run the full marathon (via 1:05 half). That is what we do on Fast Running Blog. We breed monsters!   

P.M. 2 with Benjamin in 16:50. Julia ran 1.5 with us in 13:05. Jenny ran 2.5 with Sarah in the morning. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:47. 0.25 with Jacob in 2:38.

A.M. Met Jeff on the trail. Ran 10 in 1:16:27 with 3x1200 on the trail with 200 recovery. 3:57.8, 4:02.0, 3:51.2. I think this is a perfect 5 K training workout. Maybe do the 4th one once you plateau with 3. I felt HR was going into 170 range on the last one. If you just bust out a fast 1200 HR might not go up and you will be running anaerobically. This is OK for the mile, but not for the 5 K. In the 5 K you want your HR elevated for the longest extent possible (not due to the lack of aerobic fitness, though).  While in the half and longer you are playing the game of getting the most out of one heart beat, in the 5 K that is not enough. You need to get the heart to beat fast as well.

Then 3.25 more with Julia in 29:25  to Walgreens and back to get new clogs.

P.M. Ran with the kids running group. It was a special day. I have been giving Benjamin workouts to get him to believe that he could break 6:00. I carefully planned this one to make it happen right in the workout. I told him, open with an 85, then 90, then whatever you want, I do not care if it is 8:00 pace, then 90.  He was freaking out and telling me he could not do it, and that he would not even try. I gave him a talk about Laman and Lemuel, threatened him that he would have to take two piano lessons a week instead of one, and then told him to pray for humility. He finally did and was ready to go. I told him if he opened with 85, and got to half mile in under 3:00 I did not care if he jogged to the end from there, but only with one condition - he had to be able to be happy with himself.  Of course, I knew that if he opened with 85, he would get to half mile in at least 2:55, and once he is there he would not be happy with himself if he had not tried to hold the pace. He seemed to understand that as well and deep down was fighting the idea.

So from the start he busted out of the gate. After I had slowed him down, the first 100 was 18. I congratulated him for being on pace for 4:48, and he backed off to what was right. 84 at the quarter, 2:07 at 600, 2:51 (87) at the half. This was a 1 second half mile PR. Then he started freaking out and slowed down to a jog. But that was OK, it was part of my "devious" plan. I knew you could jog only that slow after running fast. His next 100 was 28, so he was still ahead of the 6:00 guy. After hearing the split he began to believe that he could break his mile record of 6:07 and sped up to a 24 quarter. He was still 2 seconds ahead of 6:00 pace, and had only 600 to go. He ran the next 200 more or less off inertia in 46 hitting 0.75 in 4:29 and then it dawned on him that he only needed a 91 to hit 6:00. So pretty much maintain the pace, and it is in the bag. He got excited and sped up. His last quarter was 84, and he finished the mile in 5:53.9 thus becoming the second member in our family sub-6:00 club!

So his progression is as follows - sub-8:00 at the age of 5, a month before his 6th birthday. Sub-7:00 at the age of 8 a couple of months after his 8th birthday. Now sub-6:00 at the age of 11 three months after his 11th birthday. Now we are hoping for sub-5:00 at 14 and sub-4:00 at 17, of course. In reality, sub-5:00 will probably happen at late 12/early 13, and sub-4:00 may never happen, but I'll be OK with that as long as he can run 4:10. You can run 2:05 marathon off as slow as 4:10 mile with proper endurance training.

Benjamin ran a total of 3. Jenny ran 2.5. Joseph ran 0.5.

A.M. 10.38 in 1:18:57. Jenny and Julia ran 2.

P.M.  2 with Benjamin in 16:00. Last 200 in 39. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:40. 0.25 with Jacob in 2:28.

A.M. 10 in 1:18:12. Met Jeff on the trail. We did a 200 stride in 40. Jenny and Julia ran 2 miles.

P.M. Ran with the kids running group. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:17. 0.25 with Jacob in 2:32.  2 with Benjamin in 15:20 including a 600 in 2:03.0 and a 200 in 39.9.  His next challenges are to beat my 11 year old records: 1000 in 3:24.6, 300 in 51.3, and 2000 in 7:57. The 2000 is weak as I ran it with only maybe a month of training fading a lot in the second kilometer. Benjamin almost got it last week without trying to break any records closing his 2 mile run in 8:03 for the last 2 K. 300 would be tough, but I figure if he can hit a 56 at the end of a fartlek, he might be able to run 51 fresh. He is pretty close to taking down the 1000 record given that he can hold the pace through 600 in a fartlek already.

A.M. 10.28 in 1:12:23. Last 1 K in 3:31. Jenny and Julia ran 2 miles.

P.M. 2 with Benjamin in 16:50. 0.5 with Joseph. 0.25 with Jacob.

A.M. 20 with Jeff in 2:18:04. Ran to Bridal Veil Falls and back. Did a workout in the middle. 3 miles up the Provo Canyon from the mouth to Nunns Park in 17:28 (5:53 - 5:49 - 5:46). Got a slight tail wind. Then the same stretch back, now with a slight headwind in 15:55 (5:28 - 5:19 - 5:08). We bummed it in the first quarter (88 downhill), then got down to business. Then the last 1.5 at my honest marathon pace effort more or less. At least the first mile of it (5:44), then we did 84, 80 to finish the interval in 8:28.

Felt cruising at 5:20 pace downhill, very comfortable feeling. Not quite the marathon pace, but I think slower than the half. Also felt very comfortable at 5:44 pace in the last 1.5 segment. Did not feel so good at 5:08 pace downhill. Part of it is that by that time the downhill decreases and we were running into a headwind. Part of it is that we had to dodge a group of walkers and Jeff hit the gas, which gave us 78 before the end of the second mile followed by 75 while weaving through traffic. This put some stress on my nervous system and I suppose I was still feeling it in the next three quarters at a brisk pace. And part of it is that it was 5:08 and I am not yet fit to run this for a long time.

Jenny and Julia ran 2.

P.M. 2 with Benjamin in 15:56. Pushed William in the stroller. Benjamin has developed a habit of making me work on a Saturday night when I am tired from my long run. He made me run 88 at the end of it this time. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:33. 0.25 with Jacob in 2:37.