dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

July 2017

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Location:

Alpine,UT,USA

Member Since:

Jan 01, 2008

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Olympic Trials Qualifier

Running Accomplishments:

3K: 8:58 Pocatello, ID 2003 (indoors at Idaho State)

5K: 14:55 Salt Lake City, UT 2010 (Law Day 5k)

10K: 29:33 Salt Lake City, UT 2010 (Des News 10k)

1/2 marathon: 1:06:59 Provo, UT 2010 (Utah Valley Half)

marathon: 2:21:59 St. George, UT 2009 (St. George Marathon)

Short-Term Running Goals:

To get running higher mileage more consistently without getting injured

Sub 2:19:00 marathon

Personal:

I used to run competitively, and maybe I will do so again someday.  Right now I am primarily running to try and get in better shape, and to maintain both physical and emotional health, but also for the simple joy that comes when I run.

I am also the proud daddy of five little ones.  I love the opportunity that I have to be a daddy, and my challenge is to balance my family responsibilities with work and running.

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Asics Speedstar Lifetime Miles: 2020.05
Asics Gel Ohana Racer Lifetime Miles: 2332.20
Adidas Adizero Lifetime Miles: 1375.45
Barefoot Lifetime Miles: 183.10
Nike Free 5.0 Lifetime Miles: 2221.85
Saucony Kinvara Lifetime Miles: 795.92
Puma Faas 200 Lifetime Miles: 381.50
Puma Faas 250 Lifetime Miles: 466.10
Altra Adam Lifetime Miles: 1836.85
Baretrek Lifetime Miles: 290.15
Hoka Conquest Lifetime Miles: 41.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
131.904.103.100.00139.10
Saucony Kinvara Miles: 11.10Altra Adam Miles: 79.10Baretrek Miles: 10.20Adidas Adizero Miles: 5.10Puma Faas 250 Miles: 12.30Puma Faas 200 Miles: 10.20Asics Speedstar Miles: 5.10Asics Gel Ohana Racer Miles: 6.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 40:26.

I may have been a little too worried about how my achilles felt yesterday, as it felt fine when I woke up this morning and didn't hurt at all during the day.  As a precaution I ran my run really easy, only going under an 8:00 pace average during the end stages of the run.  Despite feeling fine running today I may take next week easy as well.  I don't want to overdo things before my body is ready, and I think that I have been ignoring some signs lately that I have been getting too fatigued, probably due in part to stress.

Saucony Kinvara Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 39:43.

Easy run today.  Nothing special happened.  I decided to stop using the GPS watch that I was given about a month ago, and go back to a basic stopwatch.  The HR data was useless, the GPS was too inaccurate (almost always off by at least 2% for the total distance run, and sometimes double that), the cadence would frequently drop when I would run harder/faster while giving me an inacurrate step count during daily activities, and even the time spent running couldn't be trusted because it would frequently change after the data was uploaded online (plus the lag at the start meant I couldn't actually start running when I pushed the start button, which was annoying).  So, basically my $25 watch does a better job as a running watch (it at least gets the time right) then a dedicated running smartwatch that retails for approx $300.

Altra Adam Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 37:16.

I ran 1.5 miles hard in the middle of the run in 8:36ish.  The goal was to run just slightly faster than 6:00 pace, but I got too excited and ended up pushing harder than I probably should have, as it was 86 degrees out and sunny with 62% humidity.  I could tell that I was pushing too hard for the conditions when I started to feel like I wanted to slow down to a jog and I still had over a half mile left.

My legs felt kind of dead the last two miles to my house, which was not what I was shooting for.  The goal for the fast section of the run was to run faster than normal but not have it be too taxing on my body as the short fast stuff recently has felt like like it has taken a toll on my recovery.  Instead I feel like this workout may have had the opposite effect.  Oh well, back to easy running for the rest of the week.

It is so much easier to train well when you are already in shape than it is to do so while getting back in shape after not running consistently for a few years.

Baretrek Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 42:12.

I kept the run super easy today.  It was mid 80's with high humidity just like yesterday, and my legs felt dead again.

Adidas Adizero Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 41:19

Puma Faas 250 Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 39:35.

My legs are starting to feel a little better and it is showing in that the effort for my run was no harder today than it was the last two days.

Baretrek Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 40:15.

My legs are still feeling off.  Today I felt achy, and my back felt stiff.  At times I felt like I could run smoothly, and at other times I felt like my legs were kind of dead.

Puma Faas 200 Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 39:20.

I was running pretty slow at the start (9:00 pace or slower for the first quarter), and then about half a mile into the run I suddenly started feeling like it was easier to run and I sped up quite a bit with only a minimal increase in effort.

Altra Adam Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 38:08.

At the start of my run I saw another runner heading the same direction I was going in.  I had to try really hard to not chase after him, but as he continued in the same direction as me I couldn't help but speed up a little.  About a mile into the run he stopped to fix his shoe and I passed him.  For the next three miles I then ran just fast enough to stay in front of him until he finally stopped again near a bathroom next to the lake we were both running around.  I should have just relaxed and let him pass me earlier in the run, but he looked like he should be slower than me and I think I was maybe just a little too prideful to let that happen.

Altra Adam Miles: 5.10
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 41:48.

I felt tired and lethargic again.  I am wondering if how I feel is more closely connected to how much I eat than I realized previously.  Sometimes I don't eat enough, and when that happens I lose weight pretty quickly (I can drop a few pounds in a couple days) and I then have to really eat like a horse in order to put the weight back on.  I wonder if this is contributing to me feeling off lately.

Asics Speedstar Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 40:29.

My achilles felt really tight for the first part of my run.  I felt fine otherwise, but the achilles felt too tight to speed up much.  It finally loosened up a couple miles into the run, and I felt pretty good thereafter.

Altra Adam Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 40:04.

I was worried that my achilles would feel extra stiff this morning since I did my run yesterday in the evening, and today I ran in the morning.  Thankfully that did not happen and my achilles felt better throughout the run today than it did yesterday.

Altra Adam Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
1.004.100.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 34:25.

I was in a time crunch this morning, so I kept the pace brisk throughout.  The effort wasn't too hard but due to my lack of fitness I am calling most of the workout a marathon pace effort.  I started slow like usual (2:16 for the first quarter) in order to let my achilles stretch out, and my overall pace for the first mile was still fairly slow (8:06).

After I hit my estimated mile mark I sped up substantially, and I hit the 2 mile mark in approximately 14:45 (6:39 mile), and made it to approximately 3.5 miles in 24:26 (9:41 for the 1.5 mile split).  At this point I saw a runner in front of me that was running pretty quickly, and I decided to catch her.  I would guess that she was running 6:30-6:40 pace, so I sped up to sub 6:00 pace in order to catch her.  I made it to a mile to go in approximately 27:56 (3:30 for the 0.59 from the 3.5 mile mark, which is a 5:55-6 average), followed by running the last uphill mile into a headwind in 6:29.

Overall pace for the run was 6:45, with a 6:26 average after the first mile.  This is the fastest run I have done on this course since I started running on it a month or so ago.  I was happy with how I felt during the run, although at times I longed for the pace to feel as easy as it used to when I was in much better shape.

Puma Faas 200 Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 39:39.

I felt decent after the weekend.  I was less stiff than I expected.  I feel like the things I have been doing to try and get myself to feel better have been working (mostly just eating more).

Altra Adam Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 38:56.

I hit my estimated mile marker in 7:58 this morning.  It is the first time in the past few weeks that I have run the opening mile of my run in under 8:00.  My achilles didn't feel too tight either (that is usually why I have been starting off so slow).  Focusing on eating more in general, but also eating more of some specific foods seems to be really helping lately.  I also wonder if just taking things easy and not running any speed workouts has also helped my body to adapt better to the mileage I am running, as despite the low overall mileage I am still running consistently more than I have at any point in the past 3.5 years.

Altra Adam Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 38:46.

I felt pretty good while running today despite starting the run with a temperature of 83 degrees, and finishing the run at 86 degrees.  I just kept things easy like I have been for a few weeks, starting off with an initial mile of 7:49, followed by averaging 7:34 per mile for the rest of the run.

Altra Adam Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.000.000.000.006.00

6 miles in 47:47?

I ran 6 miles this morning and finished in 47:47 according to my watch.  However, I am a little confused because at about 4.4 miles I thought I was about 90 seconds under 8:00 pace, but by 5 miles I was only about 20 seconds under 8:00 pace.  Either I looked at my watch wrong at 4.4 miles, or I mishit the watch button when I tried to stop it to go to the bathroom.  This is one area where using the GPS watch would have been beneficial, because it would have recognized that I stopped and recorded it as such online even though I have the auto-pause function turned off.

Saucony Kinvara Miles: 6.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 39:30.

It was cooler this morning than it has been on other days lately as we had a big rain storm last night.  It felt nice.

Altra Adam Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.000.000.000.006.00

6 miles in 44:55.

I ran the same route that I ran on Thursday.  I was very surprised when about 4 miles into the run I had a guy pass me.  Normally I don't ever have people pass me, even when I am running close to 9:00 pace early on in my runs.  I sped up and followed him for a minute or two, and then continued to run a little faster than normal because there was a race going on and I got excited even though I was running in the opposite direction of the race participants.  As a result, I ended up averaging close to 7:00 pace for a 2+ mile segment of my run.

Altra Adam Miles: 6.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.000.000.000.006.00

6 miles in 45:50.

It was cooler this morning than it has been on average recently.  It felt nice.

Altra Adam Miles: 6.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles in 38:30.

Altra Adam Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.000.000.000.006.00

6 miles in 47:05.

I had a late night yesterday trying to get my final computer model up and running (actually a lot of late nights lately).  I'm trying to get as much data processed as I can before I move, and this particular step will take almost 2 days to run.  I finally worked out the bugs late last night, but I didn't get home until about midnight, and I wasn't asleep until about 1am.  Since I was working on campus and not from home, I also didn't eat enough during the day as I thought I would only be on campus for a few hours and it ended up being closer to 10 hours.  As a result, I was pretty tired this morning, and it took me a while to get going.  I tried not to push myself at all, and eventually I started to feel a little better.

Altra Adam Miles: 6.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.000.000.000.006.00

6 miles in 43:50.

I needed to be a little faster this morning because of a child's Dr. appointment, so I kept the run a little more brisk.  I didn't start too fast, hitting the first mile just slightly under 8:00, however I then sped up and averaged 7:02/mile for a 2 mile stretch in the middle of the run, while averaging approximately 7:12 pace for the last 5 miles of the run.

Asics Gel Ohana Racer Miles: 6.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.100.000.000.005.10

5.1 miles this morning before moving. I finished in 38:xx minutes... I think. In the rush to finishing packing I misplaced the watch that I wore today, and I can't remember the exact time I was running for. I'll have to find that watch this weekend.

Edit: found the watch. Run time was 38:22.

Altra Adam Miles: 5.10
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.100.003.100.007.20

At least 7.2 miles this morning (maybe a little more?) in 51:43.

I wanted to run a 5k time trial before I moved, and despite feeling exhausted from packing and moving all day yesterday I decided to run the time trial today because it was the last chance I would have before I leave on Monday morning.

I ran about 2 miles to the lake from where we are staying temporarily and after a trip to the bushes I started the time trial. I ran a full figure 8 around the lake, which I have measured on the blog course tool at 3.13 miles. A cyclist passed me just after the start and I latched on to draft. It got me started faster than I had planned, but it did not feel too hard. After about a quarter mile I passed the cyclist and then pushed on alone for the rest of the time trial.

I timed a 1.5 mile segment in the middle of the time trial in 8:38. I knew that I had started faster than that pace, and I could tell I was slowing down even more. I wished that I was in a race with people to compete against to help compensate for my lack of speedwork longer than a mile, and my general lack of fitness due to low mileage, plus the fatigue from moving, etc. As I got about a quarter mile or so away from the finish, I was able to find the strength to speed up some, and I finished in 17:53, which would give me approximately 17:45 for 5k.

Overall, I'm happy with the time and effort. It gives me a good benchmark on which I can gauge future improvement, even though I will probably never get back to where I used to be.

Puma Faas 250 Miles: 7.20
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.000.000.000.005.00

5 miles in 39:36.

This was my last run in Iowa before moving.  It is bittersweet leaving Iowa, as I leave with many good and bad memories of my time here.  Additionally, while I look forward to what the future might bring I can't say that I am all that excited for the present, as moving without a permanent home to live in, without a job, and without having finished my degree does not lend itself to great amounts of optimism.  But, I do have faith that in time everything will work out.  Trying to be patient.

Altra Adam Miles: 5.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
131.904.103.100.00139.10
Saucony Kinvara Miles: 11.10Altra Adam Miles: 79.10Baretrek Miles: 10.20Adidas Adizero Miles: 5.10Puma Faas 250 Miles: 12.30Puma Faas 200 Miles: 10.20Asics Speedstar Miles: 5.10Asics Gel Ohana Racer Miles: 6.00
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