The day of growth today. 5x400 + 3 mile tempo + 5x400 in the Provo Canyon. This workout used to be unpleasant. It did not feel particularly unpleasant today. Having Ted around helped quite a bit. Warm-up, then the anaerobics. Exact opposite of aerobics. Usual morning headwind out of the canyon. Slower on the way up. 70.0 down - 76.4 up - 70.5 down - 75.9 up - 69.8 down. So far so good. Felt strong but not fast. Jogged up to Nunn's Park. I decided to call the barrel that we start the tempo from Vladimir Kutz in honor of the Russian runner who won the Olympics in 5000 and 10000 in 1956. Before he started running he was a pudgy kid which earned him a nickname of bochka or barrel in English. He is also known for a special coaching method - drop a group of runners 20 K from the training base in the middle of nowhere, and tell them that lunch starts in an hour, whoever is late does not get to eat.
We gave Ted a 30 second head start to make things interesting. After the first 900 he actually increased it to 31 seconds. I noticed that along with the 3:21 split at 1000 and decided to get down to business. 5:18 at the mile. 10:34 at 2 (5:16). I've closed the gap, but Ted is still 16 seconds ahead. Now I'd better really get down to business. The greyhound instinct is starting to kick in, and Ted sure knows how to exploit it. I cannot believe it - I am now running 5:10 pace, and Ted is edging towards me very slowly, this means big trouble if and when I catch him, he'll give me a run for my money on the kick. With a quarter to go I figured if match or beat his fastest quarter in the interval session, I should be safe. Easier said than done, that would have to be 71. I managed 71.5, last mile 5:04, total time 15:38, passed Ted with 50 meters to go. Ted ran a great time - 16:08, a 30 second PR for the course for him. The tempo felt hard, but it seemed whenever I needed a boost of speed, I could reach deep down and find it. That is a very good sign. Also, I was not mentally fighting the idea of doing 400s afterwards, another good sign. Ted's hip was hurting, so he decided to do 200s to make it a bit easier on it. That helped me a lot - he paced me through the first 200 on every one of the intervals. Ran a bit faster overall - 69.0 down - 77.1 up - 69.6 down - 75.1 up - 66.3 down. Cooled down, got 13.2 for the workout. Ran with Julia in the afternoon. Benjamin heard about the meet in Payson and wanted to go. So we all went. Ran with Jenny, then watched the meet. Benjamin ran 50 meters in 9.3, long-jumped 7 feet ( new record), and then there was the 1600 meters. They announced that the parents were invited to join. That was very good as there was a fairly strong headwind on the back stretch. I gave Benjamin a goal of running no laps slower than 1:45. This was a 440 yard track. After the meet I realized that due to a mistake we had actually run about 1607 meters instead of 1600. Not a big difference, but still nice to know we've run more.
Benjamin ran a PR of 6:48 with the laps of 1:43, 1:43, 1:42, and 1:40. I was very impressed. He said he started hurting at 525 meters, and it kept getting worse with each lap. Unusual mental toughness for a kid so young. He took third place overall.
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