Breaking the Wall

Day of rest. Went to church. We had a lesson in Sunday School on Romans 8-10 which talks about salvation from sin through the redemption of Christ. In the Elder's Quorum we had a lesson on on temple worship. The Sacrament meeting did not have talks, but a fast and testimony meeting instead as it was the first Sunday of the month.

A.M. Did 5 with Benjamin, of it with Joseph. 1.5 with Julia and Jenny. 0.5 with Jacob. 5 without the kids. Saw another runner before my turnaround and decided to chase him down. Took me about 0.9 at about 5:50 pace. At first I was feeling sluggish, but gained strength as the chase progressed. The runner's name was Jeff. He is a freshman at BYU from Riffle, CO.  My training partners keep getting younger than me. This was my new PR for the age difference with a running partner my height - he is 20 years younger than me. I am still in the mindset that it is not possible to be 20 years younger than me and be already born.

P.M. For our Family Home Evening activity we went to the intersection of 40 N parallel and 112 W meridian. It turned out to be a spot in the field near Elberta, UT. We could not quite get to the sweet spot due to the presence of a fence with barbed wire. But we got as close as we could. I really enjoyed the fresh air. We meandered far enough away from the car as we tried to get to the magic spot that I had to do some running to get the car. Ended up running about 0.5 miles.

A.M. Ran 5 with Benjamin, Jeff joined us for a portion of it, then 0.5 with Jacob, 1.5 with Joseph, Juila, and Jenny, and 5 more myself. Ran the last 2.5 in 13:56. Felt strong. 

P.M. 2 miles.

A.M. 10 miles at 5:15 AM before going to the temple. Thought I would feel sluggish, but was more awake than I excepted. Total time was 1:12:53. Met a Russian language mission-bound missionary at the temple - saw the word Elder in Russian on his name tag and decided to give him some practice. Even though he was as green as it gets in the MTC we managed to have a conversation without a single word of English. I found out that he is from Arkansas, has a younger brother and sister, was baptized at the age of  8, and is headed to a Russian-speaking mission in Moldova.

P.M. 2 miles pushing Steven with Sarah on a bike.

A.M. Did 5 with Benjamin, 1.5 with Julia, Joseph and Jenny, 0.5 with Jacob, and 5 alone. Did 2x800 in 2:32.5 and 2:30.8 with 100 meter jog recovery. The reason to even bother with the recovery is that now with the flooding under the bridge I have one good 800 meter stretch, followed by another 100 meters later. Otherwise I would have just run the whole mile. Total of 12.

P.M. 2 miles.

A.M. Did 5.5 with Benjamin. We paced Sarah through a 7:37.9 mile, her new PR since Stephen was born. Then I did 0.5 with Jacob, 1.5 with Jenny, Julia, and Joseph, and 5 more alone including hill sprints - 10 x about 60 meters from magic spot to magic spot. Fastest time was 10.0. Total of 12.5.

P.M. 2 miles pushing Stephen in the stroller.

A.M. Ran 5 with Benjamin, 1.5 with Jenny and Julia, 1.5 with Joseph, and 0.5 with Jacob. That gave me the total of 8.5 warmup. Then I took Sarah with me to the Provo Canyon. She rode the bike along side with me during my tempo run. I wanted to test myself on my standard 3 mile course to see if the improvement I noticed last week was from the long distance endurance, or if it was all across the board. I also wanted to get another point of reference.

However, the workout had another purpose. When pacing Sarah yesterday it occurred to me that she did not know how to properly respond emotionally to the high intensity effort, and it had cost her up to 20 seconds. So I figured it would be good for her to observe a more experienced runner deal with the fatigue while riding alongside on a bike.  I would recommend this to everybody who has not run competitively for very long - ride a bike alongside somebody who has when he is running at a high effort and pay close attention. The speed does not matter so much, although those who have more competitive experience tend to be faster.

So I ran up a bit over 2 miles, and then ran the tempo on my 3 mile course from Nunn's Park to the mouth of the Provo Canyon. The first mile was 5:07, and felt reasonable, so I maintained the effort. The second mile was 5:12, and I was happy with it as well. On the third mile I started to struggle some for a number of reasons - fatigue from the first two, more areas of the trail exposed to the sun, and more people on the trail, so I had to do maneuvers to avoid an accident which breaks the rhythm. I also was getting complacent because I knew I was going to smash all of my times from this year with comfortable effort. Nevertheless I managed to run the next 0.75 in 3:59, and then Sarah started singing the fourth verse of Come, Come Ye Saints: "And should we die before our journey's through, happy day all is well. We then our free from toil and sorrow too, with the just with shall dwell." I thought that when I finished I would be free from toil and sorrow, and wanted to accelerate the arrival of that glorious moment, so I pressed harder and ran the last quarter in 75. This gave me 5:14 for the last mile, and 15:33.5 for the 3 mile tempo.

My efforts this year on that course have produced very consistent results with the times ranging from 15:55 to 16:06. So 15:33 was definitely an improvement beyond accidental. I changed two things in my training in the last month - added hill sprints, and a second 2 mile run in the evening. I am suspecting the second run is responsible for most of the magic. My hill sprinting times have not improved. I would imagine if the hill sprinting was responsible for the improvement I would at least see some improvement in those times. On the other hand, I do feel a difference from a month ago in the way I breathe. When things get hard, I feel like the oxygen I breathe in is going somewhere, like there is some infrastructure underneath to absorb it and it is not just the muscle contracting harder.

So that gives me some food for thought. I had tried running fast earlier this year with an HRM and observed that I was unable to get the HR beyond 167, and it dropped as I was unable to maintain the pace. That points to a neuromuscular problem. At the same time, adding a second run gave an improvement in performance. That points to some kind of aerobic improvement which should not have helped if it was a purely neuromuscular problem. I suppose the interaction between aerobic and neuromuscular is more complex than I realized. Live and learn.

P.M. 2 miles.