Breaking the Wall

A.M. Start of the ease-off week before TOU. It is funny how you start to think of a week that ends with an all-out marathon as an easy week. The mini-taper before the marathon more than compensates for the actual effort of the marathon itself.

Ran on the Provo River Trail with Ted. He came to my house warmed up, and dragged me through the first quarter in 2:01. This was a bad idea, that made me warm-up sooner, and I started initiating sub-7:00 pace earlier than he wanted. At first I thought no noticeable effects from Alta Peruvian, but then I noticed the quads feeling a bit tender when going under the bridges. However, last year it hurt a lot worse. Ran 12.15 in 1:25:59.

The purpose of TOU - test how much my recent Big Workouts and mileage have done for my fuel storage. Go out hard, if Hobbie and anybody else (rumor has it Ezekiel Ruto is running it) runs slower than my threshold on the first half, go with them. As soon as it becomes unsustainable, back off, and try to maintain sub-6:00 or whatever feels good. Run myself out of glycogen, and then see how fast I can run on fats. This will accomplish two things - a Really Big Bonk Workout that my body hopefully will respond to by refueling aggressively, get an idea for proper pacing in St George as well as proper disaster management plan, and ... who knows, if a miracle happens, maybe there will be no bonk, and I'll get an accidental Trials qualifier. Sounds crazy, but I am not afraid to do it after my post-Great Salt Lake cool down adventure. I know I can comfortably maintain 7:10-7:20 on a flat course with a cross-wind in 70 degree weather with no fueling or water for at least 13 miles after racing an all-out half at the end of a 112 mile week. In TOU I will be fresher (I hope), there will be no cross wind on the last half (I hope), it will be cooler (I hope), I will run the first half a bit slower than all out (I hope), the last half is still a slight downhill, and there will be fuel and water.

Just discovered a great post in Paul's blog. He thinks only three people have read it. Let's prove him wrong.

P.M. 0.5 with Benjamin, Jenny, and Julia all running, 4:51. Dropped Julia off, 13:21 split at 1.5, dropped Jenny off, 16:45 split at 2 (Benjamin hit 3:24 for the last 0.5). Then played badminton with Benjamin and my mom for a bit at the park, got eaten by mosquitoes, then continued the run. Benjamin admonished me to catch the 8:00 guy. I was happy to exceed his expectations finishing the  5 mile run in 37:07.

A.M. Provo River 5 Mile Tempo with Jeff. Slept in this morning, barely jumped out of bed just when Jeff showed up. Ran a slow warm-up, 3.62 at slower than 8:00 average, with a record-slow first quarter in 2:31. Did a longer warm-up on purpose, waiting for the sun to rise, and for the body to recover from sleeping in.

The plan was to run 28:00 or a bit under. Jeff had been doing some hard workouts, so I suggested he should just draft today. The start was rough, first 200 in 44, first quarter in 1:26. Then I pushed a bit, it woke me up, and I settled into pace. First mile 5:34, second 5:31, then 0.5 in 2:47, 13:52 at the turnaround, recovered from 180 in 2:49, third mile in 5:36. Felt good, did not want to positive split, picked it up a bit to get back into the rhythm again, next mile in 5:31. Then the next 0.5 uphill in 2:47. I was running relaxed thinking about how slow I could go and still even split when Jeff took the lead and started pushing the pace. I justed tucked in behind him and coasted, but we were now outside of the marathon pace zone. Next quarter in 1:19, and then with 200 to go I pulled alongside Jeff, and we finished the last quarter in 1:15. Total time was 27:33.7, nearly caught the 5:30 guy, last 0.5 in 2:34, last mile in 5:21, and last 2.5 in 13:41, definitely a negative split.

Cooled down 1.38 to the house.

5:36 pace felt like a jog, 5:30 felt like I could make it at least to 15 in a pack. Good sign, because this is flat/slightly rolling, and I had not yet tapered at all. TOU is high quality downhill the first 14, then a slight downhill for the next 4, then a mild up for the next 2, good down for 1, then rolling to the end. I feel good about being on pace for the Trials Qualifier at 15, which, if you can do at TOU, you will qualify in St. George.

One more thing - Kory still has not found a place to stay in St. George. Does anybody have offers for him?

P.M. 0.5 with Julia in 5:10, 2.1 with Benjamin to his soccer game in 17:23, then 0.4 in 2:55 on grass before the game started. Benjamin's team won again 6-2. The other team had bigger kids, but Benjamin's team dealt with the problem by never letting them have the ball. Back home with Jenny, 1.58 in 14:00, then added some more to make the total 2.02 in 17:10. Felt a nerve irritation in the lower back after waking up from a nap, maybe laid in a funny position. Have had this before, a couple of times it made my runs very very miserable in the past, so I am concerned. However, the pain was manageable to begin with, and was reduced by the end of the day.

A.M. Easy 8.03 with Ted and Jeff at 5:00 AM in 1:00:57. The nerve irritation is gone.

P.M. 0.5 with Julia in 5:28, then 1.5 with Benjamin, Jenny, and an empty single stroller in 13:56. Bathroom stop, then put Jenny in the stroller, and, since Benjamin was complaining about Jenny's slow pace, and itching to run fast, I challenged him to break his rather stale 0.5 mile record of 3:18 which he repeated at the end of a 2 mile run earlier. He fussed about how there was no way he could run two quarters in under 1:39 each. I told him to hit the first one in 1:40 or faster, and then decide if he wanted to go for the record, or just jog in. He hit the first one in 1:36, that made it essentially impossible for him to decide to back out. He eased off a bit, but then with 0.14 to go I told him he really needed to hustle  to get the record, and he sure did. Last quarter in 1:32 with the total time of  3:08! Benjamin's total time for 2 miles was 17:04.

A.M. Ran with Ted and Jeff. Ted originally wanted to do 6x800 at threshold. I figured there is no way he'd be able to do them at threshold, so I convinced him to do 2x1.5 miles instead. We did the first one in 8:48.9, and the second in 8:29.1. Both felt very relaxing, the horses were neighing, but I told them the time to neigh would be on Saturday. Total of 8 miles.

Ted, Steve, and Kory still need to find a place to stay in St. George. Would anybody in our St. George group, or their friends, have some floor space for them?

P.M. Steve, Ted and Kory found accommodations in St. George through our generous friends. Steve and Ted are staying at Mik'l's parents' house, while Kory will be staying with Logan's parents. We have one more homeless runner, though. Katie  got into St. George at the last moment. For those who have not been following the blogs closely, she is our fastest female marathoner on the blog (2:59), and she did it after having given birth to four children. Leave a comment in her blog if you would like to have her over. She does not mind floor space, that beats camping out or paying for a hotel.

Ran 2 miles with the kids tonight. First 0.5 with all three in 4:54. Then put Julia in the stroller, hit 1.5 in 13:40, then put Jenny in the stroller as well. Finished the last 0.5 with Benjamin in 3:39, which gave us 17:19 for the whole run. Benjamin seems to have made a breakthrough in his top speed. He really made me work on the last 60 meters today. Of course, I was pushing a double stroller with considerable weight by that time, but he actually managed to drop me at first, and I had to go full throttle to catch up.

A.M. 2 miles with Ted and Benjamin in 15:49. Then 2 more with Ted in 14:54. Then 1.5 with Ted and Jenny, and Julia joining us for the first 0.5 then riding in the stroller the rest of the way. 0.5 in 4:54, then finished the 1.5 in 13:08.

P.M. Drive to Logan. Did a VO2 Max test, got 68.8 after 40 seconds of 11 mph at 4% grade at the end of the test, stopped it early to not be too tired for the marathon. Full details of the V02 Max test:

Notes: After about a minute standing, started at 8 mph, grade 1%, ran 3 minutes. Then increments of 0.5 mph every minute up to 11 mph. 2 minutes at 11 mph. Then a minute at the same speed with 2.5% grade, and another 40 seconds at the same speed 4% grade.

A.M Ran Top of Utah marathon in 2:28:42, first half in 1:10:57, 4th place, got beat by Hobbie and two Kenyans, details to follow later.

OK, now finally found a moment for details. They will be getting posted incrementally.

Woke up in the morning, and felt like boxing. Good feeling. Kory was happy he did not sleep in the same room with me. Started the morning with a scripture study as usual. Read in Alma 14 about how Alma and Amulek burst the bands they were tied with and made the prison collapse through their faith. Something to learn from them. Then read in Ezekiel 34 about the shepherds who feed themselves but not their flock. Both scripture chapters applied to the race in a way. I was going to work on bursting the bands my unbelief, and I was going to race a guy named Ezekiel, first time I actually met anybody by that name. I have a special respect for the nation that goes that deep in the Bible to find the names for their children. God had to bless them with something for that, and He did with running speed and endurance.

Jogged about 0.8 from Hotel de Petersen (aka Paul's house) with Paul and Kory to the bus loading area. Made up a geek joke that only a runner with some Unix sysadmin/programming background could understand, fortunately Kory was in that group so there was somebody to share that joke with - what do you call missing a bus? Answer - Bus Error. Quick explanation of why a geek would laugh - you get a Bus Error when a program royally crashes, it is like when somebody loads a tray loaded with something you really do not want on the floor, and at the most inconvenient moment it all comes crashing down.

Having created and shared the joke, I nearly got the Bus Error myself. I realized my chip was back at Paul's house. So ran there, got it, and barely made the last bus. This gave me a good warm up, though.

Ran another 0.5 to visit a VPB (virtual private bathroom), then I was ready to race.

Trouble at the start: Hobie Call, two Kenyan - Ezekiel Ruto (PR of 2:14) and Joseph Sitienei (PR of 2:11), and the dark horse Steve Ashbaker.

Talked to Hobie, admonished him to start out on pace. He assured me it was his plan. Last year he missed the qualifier because of goofing around for the first 6 miles. He told me he was going to hit the half in "something crazy like 1:07". I told him it was not crazy at all and that he had the fitness to run the first half in 1:07 and live.

Talked to Joseph, he said he wanted this to be a training run before Twin Cities, keep it at 2:35. I wondered why he had to come all the way here to run 2:35 for a training run. There was going to be no money except may age division prize for running this slow. I figured he would soon realize he'd have to do his training run a lot faster to come home with cash.

As I already stated earlier, my plan for this race was "and should we die before our journey's through, happy day all is well. We then are free from toil and sorrow too, with the just we shall well. But if our lives are spared again, we'll see the saints their rest obtain. Oh how we'll make this chorus swell, all is well, all is well". I wanted to go out hard, put myself into a state of struggle and learn to power through it. I also wanted to test my suspicion that the reason I slow down on the second half is not so much fuel as it is plain neural fatigue. My hypothesis is that if make the first half hurt, the nervous system is tuned for driving the second half, but otherwise, it just goes to sleep even when there is plenty of fuel.

I debated whether I should go out with Hobie at his fast pace. But his watch died, and I figured I could be there for him at least in the first mile to give him his split. He took out fast. My GPS reported the first quarter as 1:11 (it was a bit short, as it turned out, but I think we did get at least 1:13). I told him, do you realize we are going around 4:40 pace? He had a response full of faith - that's OK, the Trials will be fast, we'd better get used to it now. Fortunately for me, we did ease off a bit, and hit the first mile in 5:02. That did not hurt too bad. I figured I could give him another split at 2, and maybe if he eased off to 5:15, even make it to 3 or 4. The second mile was 5:08. I gave Hobie the split, and backed off to 5:23 on the next mile.

Joseph came up on me shortly after 3, I decided to go with him to 4, then felt good enough to make it to 5. 5 miles in 26:08, keeping my head above water, staying ahead of the 5:20 guy while the downhill lasts. No significant tail wind, but now headwind either, which is very nice. Backed off after 5, but Joseph is still not too far ahead. Saw Hobie cross the 6 mile mark from afar, his split was faster than 30:51. Then I knew that barring a very serious disaster he would be sub-2:20, more likely 2:18.

With the downhill becoming more gradual we slowed down to around 5:30 - 5:35 pace. Joseph was running ahead of me, but not putting any distance. At the downhill around 7 mile marker I just let it go with the Sasha downhill maneuver and caught up to him. Drafted a bit, then he invited me up front. I suggested we share quarters. He agreed. The alliance did not last very long, though. He asked me, how fast is that guy up ahead. I told him I was fairly certain he would run to 2:18. The moment I said it, he just took off, and was gone. I think that move cost him the second place, though.

10 miles in 53:36, 5 mile split of 27:28, not bad for the reduced downhill and no wing-endowing tailwind. Still ahead of the Trails Qualifier guy. Around 12, Ezekiel went by. He was in a hurry, I could not even think about latching on, and moved away from me fast.

Tail wind picked up a bit, I hit a 5:32 mile from 12 to 13, got to the half in 1:10:57. Then the wind just carried me from 13 to 14, I felt like I had wings, 5:22, and one more mile on the Hollow Road in 5:32. Hit 15 miles in 1:21:15, right on pace to the second for the Trials Qualifier, which was exactly my plan - make it to 15 on pace, the rest does not matter.

From that point on, coasted with the idea that anything sub-6:00 was good. The downhill was pretty much over, there was no tailwind, and we had some unpleasant rolling hills up ahead. Had to make a VPB stop shortly before 17. Got to 18 in 1:38:48. The next two uphill miles in 6:04 and 5:58, 1:50:50 at 20. Pushed it hard on the downhill mile (0.5% grade) from 20 to 21, got 5:46. I decided to use a different mental approach on the second half. Instead of thinking, you have X miles left, hold back, I was thinking, push hard the next mile, then if you die, just jog in, but push hard that one mile. It worked very well, I kept feeling strong in spite of pushing it. I suspected from my training that I should have been able to run slightly over 6:00 on a flat/slightly rolling terrain at 4500 feet with no glycogen in the muscles, and I wanted to prove it to myself. Mentally, it was very hard and scary. I knew what I had done in the first half. However, around mile 14 as the tail wind picked up and was carrying me, a song came into my mind, based around Proverbs 3:5 - I'll trust in the Lord with all my heart, and will not lean upon my own understanding. In all my ways I'll acknowledge him, and he will direct all my paths.

This tune stayed in my head for the rest of the race. It gave me the courage to keep pushing for one more mile without the fear of the consequences.

Over the next 4 miles I hit a string of 6:12 over the rolling hills and frequent turns. Again, taking it one mile at a time. Then as I was climbing the hill on Main street on approach to mile 25, I was able to remember how I felt there a year ago. I thought, there is no way I could qualify in St. George with a tendency to be this weak this late in the race and running this slow. The thought of even trying scared me. This time it was different. I felt no fear. I confidently charged up the hill feeling more strength on it than I ever have. I visualized mile 25 of St. George, being on pace for a Trials Qualifier, and being confident that if I gave it all I've on the last mile, I'd get it. This vision did not scare me, it did not look impossible anymore. I was not afraid of the pain of that effort anymore. At this point I knew that I had accomplished the purpose for which I had entered this race. I had broken the wall of doubt and fear.

Mile 26 started uphill, but then flattened out, and had a quick sharp drop. I felt strong, but had a hard time shifting gears, got 6:10. Then my favorite trooper appeared out of nowhere on a motorcycle. Yes, I have a favorite trooper. He was there with me when I won in 2003 and 2004. He was also there when it was not my turn to win, and still cheered for me in other races. Somehow he intuitively knew exactly what I needed. He turned on the flashing lights and the siren. I forgot everything, and went into the kick mode. The response I get from the flashing lights and the siren would make you think I have a history of juvenile delinquency or something like that. I managed 1:12 on the last 385 yards, uphill, that is around 5:30 pace. I felt like I could have held it longer, but not faster. I wonder what would have happened if he showed up at 23. 2:28:42 at the finish, first time under 2:30 since 2003 and second in my life on a non-St. George course of correct length (I ran 2:25:30 in DesNews 2004, but the course turned out to be short).

Hobie won with 2:16:39, then Ezekiel Ruto with 2:24:27, Joseph Sitienei 2:25:42. Steve was 5th with 2:36:43. The bloggers controlled the top 15, taking places from 4th to 12th. Congratulations to Kory, Cody, Adam, and Jon on setting PRs.

P.M. 0.5 with Julia in 4:22, 1.5 with Jenny in 14:23, then 3 with Sarah in 29:23. Pushed the double stroller with Joseph and Jacob. No noticeable side effects from the race aside from a small tenderness in the lower back (gone after 10 minutes of inversion table), and a small staleness in the legs.