dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

December 2018

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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
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
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Total running time of 60:00

TLDR:  mild tempo lasting about 18 minutes.

Full Version:  My right calf started acting up on Thursday about 2/3 of the way through the run.  It is a problem that I have dealt with for years, but this was the first time it has acted up since I started running again back in late May.  The general problem is that the soleus becomes too tight and it causes a knot to develop in the muscle near the attachment with the tibia.  This knot then causes uneven pulling of the muscle on the bone leading to pain (and a stress fracture back in 2007).  As long as I massage things out for a few days after it tightens up it tends to go away without any major issues developing.

So, on Friday I ran super slow as a precaution, still running for the full 60 minutes that I had planned.  I noticed that the calf hurt more when running downhill and essentially did not hurt at all when running uphill.  I kept massaging with the plan to scrap a hard workout for today unless there was a drastic improvement over the next 24 hours.  I decided to keep today's run on as flat of terrain as possible in order to avoid any steep downhill, so I started my run off by heading South down Main Street.  This meant that I was running downhill, but nothing so egregiously steep as to agravate the calf.

I made it to my estimated mile mark in 8:00, and slowly sped up even though I was still trying to be really careful with the calf.  I continued heading South down into Highland, crossing Timp Highway.  I noted when I passed an approximate 3.5 mile marker from running the same route last fall as this was the first time that I have made it past that mark as I am running more mileage now than I was back then.  I was feeling antsy as I continued to run.  I wanted to run a speed workout, and it felt like every muscle in my body (except one) wanted to as well.  So, after turning around at 31:01 I started a very mild speed workout as I headed back up the gradual incline towards home.

In order to be careful with the calf I focused on speeding up gradually and staying relaxed as I headed back towards Timp Highway.  Eventually it felt like I got moving at a decent speed (maybe close to 6:00 pace or a little faster?), but at no point did it feel like I was running "hard", and my calf felt good throughout.  Once I crossed Timp Highway again I slowed down again, but shortly thereafter another runner on the opposite side of the road started to pass by me.  I still felt good so I sped up again in order to stay in front of the other runner.  This time I felt like I was working a little harder, but my calf felt good and did not hurt at all so I kept going.  I slowed back down again for good once I made it a little ways past the round about on Main Street, and then finished the run by running home and adding a bit extra in order to hit 60:00.

First half of the run: 31:01, second half (before adding extra): 27:20ish.

Speed work strech going out: 22:34, coming back: 19:20 (didn't run hard for about 20-30 sec in the middle, plus the first 1:00-2:00 after turning around).

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60:00 run.  Had fun running on trails in the snow.  Saw 52 deer while running (yes I counted, no I don't know if I saw some of them more than once).

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Total time of 63:00

TLDR:  3 x 5 min hard, 3 min easy

Full Version:  About 2 weeks ago beginning the day of my last blog post I started to feel off.  My legs started to ache, my stomache hurt, my neck hurt, my back hurt, I felt tired.  It was odd.  I felt similar to how I felt last fall when I stopped running, and also similar to how I was feeling when I was visiting doctors years ago getting blood work done, only for them to find nothing wrong with me.  I still do not know what was up, but I ended up deciding to maintain my running time for a few weeks instead of continuing my schedule of weekly time increases.  So, I ran 60 minutes per day for the past two weeks, and only started increasing time again at the beginning of this week bumping up to 63 minutes.

The other odd thing about what I was experiencing is that it occurred at the same time we found out that my wife probably has an autoimmune disease, and part of me felt like I was experiencing sympathy pain.  To a degree I felt bad for not feeling good because I felt like Sam needed the attention, not me as she is the one with a genuine diagnosable medical problem.  More on Sam... she probably has Ankylosing Spondylitis, although an official diagnosis has not yet been made.  She has had recurring bouts of uveitis/iritis (caused by inflammation in the eye), has tested positive for the HLA-B27 gene that is associated with AS, and has elevated levels of C-Reactive Protein (general test for inflammation), in addition to chronic back and hip pain, so I feel like it is just a matter of time before the diagnosis is made official.  Now we just need to figure out how to deal with everything so that we can minimize future damage to her eye, spine, etc.

Back to running... Ok, so this week I finally increased mileage again, running 63:45 on Monday and then 63:00 yesterday and today.  I haven't run any hard workouts over the last couple weeks, and today I wanted to run a workout but on a more limited level.  I decided to shoot for something that would not be super high in intensity, so I decided to run some longer repeats, opting for 5 minutes hard with a 3 minute recovery.  My initial gut impression was to run 5 repeats (25 minutes total hard running and 40 minutes total counting recovery), however I felt like that was more in line with what I should do on a normal day, not after skipping all hard workouts for almost 3 weeks.  So I decided to run 3 repeats, with the option to run a 4th if I was feeling up for it.

I ran a 20 minute warm up with a bathroom break in the middle before starting the workout.  The first rep I felt pretty strong and smooth for most of it, with minimal elevation change.  The second rep was uphill for the entirety with a more mild grade for the first 4 minutes, and a very steep grade for the last minute.  I felt like I probably could have pushed myself more on this rep.  The final rep had a mild-moderate downhill gradient for the entirety of the rep.  I still felt like I was running within myself on this rep, so that was a positive.  After three reps I was still undecided on whether to run a fourth rep or not as I felt fine except for maybe a little calf tightness which went away on its own after only a minute or two during the run.  I ended up deciding not to run any additional reps after the third out of an abundance of caution as I don't want to experience a reoccurance of the fatigue I experienced regularly last fall.  I then finished my run, arriving back at the house in 62:38, followed by running the extra 22 seconds in the driveway to end up with 63:00 total.

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Total running time of 63:00

I ran south into Highland.  On the way home I ran a tempo run from the 36:50 mark until I reached the corner of Main Street and Pioneer Drive at the 59:47 mark of the run (22:57 for the tempo).

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Total time of 65:00 for the run

In Arizona visiting family for Christmas.  I ran a ladder workout on the canals, 1-2-3-4-4-3-2-1 minutes hard with 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 minutes recovery.

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Total time of 65:00

I ran a workout with 4 x 8 minutes hard, with 3 minutes recovery.  I had a few times where I had to stop at street crossings while running on the canal (I had the same problem on Wednesday), 1 stop during the first rep for about 60 seconds, and 2 stops during the second rep (the first was for no more than a few seconds, and the second was with only 15 seconds left in the rep and was for approx 15-20 seconds).  No stops during the final 2 reps.  The workout was harder than anticipated due to wind.

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