A.M. 6.05 with Adam and Ted in 52:25 at 5:20 AM, Ted was really hurting and so was Adam. Ted had two reasons to hurt, the marathon and the accident, and he decided to share with Adam, I guess, so Adam somehow ended up in pain as well. Picked it up to around 6:50 pace after dropping them off, ran another 4 in 27:18, total time for 10.05 was 1:19:43. Then ran 1.05 with Julia in 10:47. Odd how I feel very little pain, and yet I felt could not run any faster in the race even though I had every reason to. Kory and I are in the same boat this way, except he has a hard time in the first half, while I do in the second. However, one ray of hope for me - after running high mileage, and running hard after running easy for a long time on numerous occasions I held my own on the second half better than ever, and was able to negative split for the first time in my life. Of course, true negative split in St. George is when your second half is at least 3 minutes faster than your first. But in the past I could not even do as little as negative split it period even with the second half being naturally much faster than the first. So perhaps I am just a slow learner - many people can negative split in an optimal race off as little as 70 miles a week, while I may need to sustain 120+ for a while with lots of marathon bonk simulation runs before this starts happening for me. P.M. 1.5 with Jenny in 14:33, then 2 miles with Benjamin in 16:48. Still some residual soreness all over the legs, evenly spread, but not too bad, can start out at 7:00 pace without problems, can walk down the stairs, can run 10 miles at once and not feel like I've run at all. The virtual particle of dust that was there in my chest a week ago I guess never left, I think I just subconsciously ignored it to keep it from affecting the mental aspect of my race. I could feel it today and yesterday. Gave it some garlic treatment just in case. At 7:00 pace it is no more than an annoyance, at 5:20 pace I cannot feel it because there are a lot of other feelings that overshadow it, but it probably does make things harder by inhibiting the force of the air intake. Kind of like running at a higher elevation - you do not necessarily feel anything right away, but it is harder to run at the same pace. I would say 4.46 seconds per mile that the qualifier guy got me by could be exactly the size of that particle. Talk about Paul and his thorn in the flesh (see 2 Cor. 12:7). I guess all I need to do in three years is show up in St. George in no worse shape than this but without the virtual particle. Better yet, just come in better shape, so I can still run the qualifier even if I am not 100%.
| 