Breaking the Wall

Ran in the Provo Canyon in the morning. A mile warm-up, then 4x100 with ankle weights. Up 19.0, down 17.4, up 18.3, down 17.2.

Then the same 8 mile up and down back and forth tempo as last week, except picked it up on the last mile. Total time 46:09, up average 6:00, down average 5:32, last mile 5:32. 2 mile cooldown, total of 12 miles in the workout.

In the evening jogged with Joseph in the stroller, and ran with the kids. Total of 15 miles for the day.

Paul Petersen has a vacancy he needed to fill for the Wasatch Back Relay. So I am doing the ultra legs 7-8, 19-20, and 31-32. If somebody is going from Midway to Provo and could give me a ride on Saturday morning at around 9:20 AM (assuming we move on schedule), let me know.

Jogged some in the morning with Eric and George. Then drove to the Provo River Trail by Geneva road to do the tempo run. First, 4x100 with ankle weights. Felt a bit of the pinched nerve problem in the back that I had a year ago, and decided to do them more relaxed. 19.3 - 18.8 - 18.5 - 19.0.

Jogged some more, then did a tempo. 2.5 out, 2.5 back, then turnaround and another 1.25. Maintained a fairly steady pace for the first 5 miles - 29:03. 5:45 felt too fast, 5:50 felt just perfect. After the turnaround, gave myself 0.25 to regain the momentum, and then accelerated to an aggressive half-marathon pace. Last mile in 5:22 very steady - 1:20 - 1:21 - 1:20 - 1:21 - they were probably all 1:20.5. Felt very good, the stride was relaxed, the legs were not cramping up. Jogged some more afterwards. Total of 13.25 miles in the workout.

Jogged a mile in the afternoon. In the evening, ran with the kids. Total of 16 miles for the day.

Regular Wednesday early morning run. Warmed up 2 miles, then did an 8 mile tempo mile out mile back trying to stay flat. Took a while to get going. Total time 47:13, average pace 5:54. However, it was a constant cycle of recoverying from a 180 turn. Once I got going the pace was around 5:45. I think the 180 practice is good, though, to learn how to deal with the changes of pace better.

Ran with the kids in the evening, and did some jogging. Total of 14 miles for the day.

Warmed up with George and Eric. Then ran about 5 miles of marathon pace tempo part of the trails and part on the roads. Cooled down to be at 10 miles when I got home. Then took Benjamin and Jennifer for a run with Julia and Joseph in the stroller. Then a short Julia run. Afterwards, Benjamin joined me for my sprints with ankle weights. He can almost keep up with me when I have ankle weights on. We did 2x100 ( me 17.8, Benjamin 20.4, me 18.0, Benjamin 20.7), and then a 200 (me 36.5, Benjamin 44.1). This is Benjamin's record on a 200.

Met with a client for the whole day. Ran 1.25 during a break.

Wasatch Back Relay tomorrow.

Ran with kids in the morning. Then in the evening drove to Logan for the Wasatch Back Relay. Ran legs 7 and 8, total of 9.4 miles uphill from Paradise to the middle of the Avon pass. Did it in 56:38 (29:23 - 27:15). It was hot, but with the team giving me plenty of water to dump on myself it was not too big of a problem. Felt strong, including the hills. Felt very good afterwards. The rest of the relay story in the Saturday entry.

My second leg of the relay (legs 19 and 20) started at 1:30 am. I think given a choice, I would start with three normal legs instead of two, or maybe even four to get in as much distance on fresh, well slept legs, and then run the remainder of the distance after having good 8 hours of sleep. The way you do it in a relay is probably harder on our body in a way than running a full marathon - you run, get shuttled to the next leg, by the time you get there, there is no time to sleep, you need to get ready to run again.

My teammate Jon Felis was faster than we anticipated, so I was still in the bathroom when he got to the exchange. He ended up having to wait two minutes for me.

Paul Peterson rode the bike with me and provided the entertainment. Leg 19 started out pretty good, I was keeping about a 5:40 pace or so, if our GPS could at all be trusted. Then we hit a climb that was steep enough for me to drop Paul while he was giving it all his got on his bike, although I felt I was barely moving. Did leg 19 in 25:41. Then we started going downhill. Did 4 highway miles in 5:33. Then we got into Henifer, and finally made it to the exchange. 1:05:02 for the 11 mile stretch, and 39:19 for leg 20. When I got the baton, the BYU team who had a 5:00pm start (we started at 4:00pm), had already passed us, and the Full Nelson team Paul wanted us to try to beat was a bit ahead. At the end of the leg, we had a 7 minute lead. It was an interesting race - Full Nelson was a gender mixed team, while we were ultra. Their male runners on average were better than what we could on average muster in the ultra sections, however, we made up quite a bit of ground when their legs were being run by a woman. My legs were sort of the revenge ones - the first regular leg was run by Anna Judd (about 3:00-3:10 female marathoner), and the second by Bob Hinzte ( a master marathoner in about 2:40-2:45 shape).

My last leg (legs 31 and 32) started in Heber and finished in Midway. By that time I had slept for a total of about 5 minutes, and had run over 20 miles of hard tempo on hills. From the last two miles of the previous leg I knew my glycogen stores were pretty low, and it was also clear than my regular meals do not replenish them very well in 6 hours like I hoped they would. So I figured I needed some quick sugar, bought some honey at Days Supermarket in Heber, and loaded as much of it into my system as I felt was healthy. However, the nervous system was quite a bit out of whack due to the lack of sleep.

I got the baton a minute ahead of Full Nelson this time, so my goal was to try to put on as much distance on them as possible. The task much harder on the third leg, and it also a lot more important in that place. Drew essentially hit the wall on the last two miles of his second leg, and he still had You gotta be kidding me followed by Ragner ahead of him (about 8 miles of steady 7.5% grade climb) while racing Taha Mahmood and Scott Browning who can run 17:15-17:30 5 K fresh. I suppose this is reverse revenge for me putting on distance on a woman, so it is all fair.

I was not super fresh, but did the best I could. Decent pace through leg 31 (4.1 miles in 23:28) on a gentle downhill. Clocked a highway mile slightly uphill on Hwy 113 in 5:59 - still good. Then the uphill started getting to me. I felt I was slowing down. Last mile was 6:52 on 3% grade up, if the mile to go mark was accurate. It did not help having no sleep and 30 miles on the tempo odometer for the last 24 hours. My total leg time was 1:02:12 for 10.2 miles, with leg 32 in 38:44. Only about extra 4 minutes on Full Nelson this time. Still managed to put about 45 second lead on Bob Hintze, so it was not all in the ladies department.

But this was not enough for us to beat Full Nelson. Drew and James were pretty tired from the ultra impact. Drew managed to hold Full Nelson off until about half-way through Ragner, but then they ran strong from then on and beat us by 7 minutes. We managed to dip a bit under 20 hours, though - 19:58 I believe, won the ultra, and were 5th overall if my current info is correct.

For a father of almost 5, the race never stops just at the finish line. Sarah came to get me at the end of my leg in Midway, and we went to Benjamin's and Jennifer's piano recital. I managed Joseph through it - unlike me, he did not want to sit still. Then we finally got home, and I was able to take a nap. Dreamt about chasing Full Nelson.

Later in the evening ran with the kids. Benjamin set a record on a half-mile - 3:32.