A.M. Long run with Jeff. He had diarrhea since Tuesday. That was perhaps good. Otherwise, he would have to run 5:40 pace for 20 miles to cause glycogen depletion. So you could not do the depletion without the muscle tightness. This way, there was no tightness, and we could study how he runs without much glycogen, learn what to do when you bonk, and build some confidence that we would not see a repeat of St. George even in a bad case scenario. So we warmed up a mile in 6:39, and then I suggested we run 6:00 pace until something bad happens. Jeff thought it was interesting that I was so sure something bad was going to happen. Towards the end of 10.1 Jeff was not feeling good - fuzzy head, using more effort than normal for the pace. We got to 10.1 which happened to be at the house in 1:01:03, 6:02.7 average. He was just about done with running fast, but I suggested we get some fuel in, and see how much longer he could go after that. For the fuel we used a drink made of evaporated cane juice with EmergenC for flavor and electrolytes. I fueled myself just in case the drink would work on Jeff better than I thought, because it could have meant 5:40 pace for the last 6 miles.
Then figuring it would take a couple of miles for it to kick in we decided to go another 3 miles at 6:00 pace and decide what to next after that. Like magic, 2 miles into it the pace picked up to 5:50 and Jeff asked me about the possibility of planting bottles in the Salt Lake marathon. That was a good sign. Then 3.5 miles into the tempo Jeff says, this stuff does not last long. I told him that's why they have aid stations every two miles. He also asked me about how long you could go off ingested carbs once you hit the wall. My answer was that you could go for a long time, but not very fast. I've been able to speed up to 6:25 after slowing down to 7:10 in TOU 2005. This does not work, though, if the body is not healthy enough at the moment to ingest carbs while running. Jeff said he wanted to turnaround at the 4 mile mark, but keep tempoing, so we did. Then 15.1 into the run he thought he was done. I suggested we go another 0.5, he agreed, he is a very easy going guy when it comes to matters of pain. Then I suggested we go another 0.5 so our total tempo mileage would go over 15, and he fell for it. "...and he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever" (2 Nephi 26:22).
So 16.1 into the whole run we eased off to a little sub-7:00. With 1 K to go I suggested we speed up again, and we did running it in 3:47. Jeff was done, I turned around and ran another 2 tempo miles to finish the 20.1. First one was a slight uphill in 6:05. Then coming back I ran 5:47. Total time for 20.1 was 2:02:07, 6:04 average. The tempo 15.1 was 1:30:18, 5:58.8 average. P.M. Jenny's mile time trial. Benjamin helped too. We warmed up 600 in 3:27. Then I set the pace, and Jenny broke 7:00 with the splits of 1:42, 1:42, 1:44, and 1:44 - 6:52 total time, and became the fourth sub-7:00 miler in the family. For her effort she earned a bike and a Palm Pilot. Then we cooled down 1000. Benjamin was itching to go after about 550 so I let him. Then I realized I wanted to time him, so at about 680 I went after him and ran the last 300 in 58. Could not catch him, it was too late, and he was going too fast, but his time for 1000 was 4:44, mine 4:46. Jenny finished the cooldown in 5:22. Hard to believe this is now her cooldown pace. The later ran 1.5 with Julia in 15:05.
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