A.M. Eventful run. Started out with Hyrum and Daniel. Ran to Jeff's house. Ran back to my house to drop Hyrum off. Saw cops on the trail, police car driving on the trail as well. Saw a truck parked on the 820 N bridge. Something was going on. Then ran with Jeff and Daniel to BYU Smith's Fieldhouse to do a leg extension test. I did 200 on the left leg and 180 on the right. Jeff did 160 on the right and 180 on the left. Then we ran back in the direction of my house, dropped Daniel off and did 4x100 on the trail with full jogging rest. I wanted to do this workout because I noticed that I am able to push my top end speed a lot more when following somebody. So my reasoning was - whatever it is that keeps me from running fast is partially overcome when I follow somebody running fast. Not sure why, but it works, so I should try it. On the first one I got 15.3 (standing start, 0.5-1% downhill grade), then another 15.3 from a standing start slightly rolling and into a mild headwind. Then 14.7 jogging start, rolling and into a slight headwind. The last one was 14.3 from a jogging start, slightly rolling and with a slight tailwind. Jeff put about a second on me on the last one in the last 50 meters or so. After doing this I think I've figured out what is going on and I am very excited about it. Suppose I am following somebody at 5:00 pace until I can't. Well, I can run with bad form and by the time I know it I am too tired to do anything about it. I just cannot hold the pace anymore. I can even do the same all the way up to 4:00 pace. But if you make me go 3:50 pace, I can do it for a little bit, but not unless I fix the form. If I am running with bad form, I know immediately because I start falling behind. This critical training speed needs to be fast enough that it is impossible to run with bad form but slow enough that I can do it within my ability to auto-correct. The only way I can keep up the pace at all at that speed is by running with a better form. I do not need to know what it is that I am doing wrong as in not lifting up knee, not extending the leg, running too tight, etc. Nor do I need to worry about it. The desperation of being left behind and the lightening fast immediate feedback makes me intuitively find it and fix it. A bird decided to make our run more eventful and did number two on Jeff. I asked him if he knew if birds did number one as well. He said yes, and he happened to know it from personal experience as well. P.M. 1 with Julia in 10:49, 1.5 with Jenny in 13:16, 2 with Benjamin in 16:00 with 2x100 in the middle, first in 19.4, second in 17.8. This was Benjamin's PR in 100 meters. He also decided to run the last quarter fast, we did it in 1:33.
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