Breaking the Wall

March 28, 2024

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Location:

Orem,UT,United States

Member Since:

Jan 27, 1986

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Olympic Trials Qualifier

Running Accomplishments:

Best marathon: 2:23:57 (2007, St. George). Won the Top of Utah Marathon twice (2003,2004). Won the USATF LDR circuit in Utah in 2006.

Draper Days 5 K 15:37 (2004)

Did not know this until June 2012, but it turned out that I've been running with spina bifida occulta in L-4 vertebra my entire life, which explains the odd looking form, struggles with the top end speed, and the poor running economy (cannot break 16:00 in 5 K without pushing the VO2 max past 75).  

 

Short-Term Running Goals:

Qualify for the US Olympic Trials. With the standard of 2:19 on courses with the elevation drop not exceeding 450 feet this is impossible unless I find an uncanny way to compensate for the L-4 defect with my muscles. But I believe in miracles.

Long-Term Running Goals:

2:08 in the marathon. Become a world-class marathoner. This is impossible unless I find a way to fill the hole in L-4 and make it act healthy either by growing the bone or by inserting something artificial that is as good as the bone without breaking anything important around it. Science does not know how to do that yet, so it will take a miracle. But I believe in miracles.

Personal:

I was born in 1973. Grew up in Moscow, Russia. Started running in 1984 and so far have never missed more than 3 consecutive days. Joined the LDS Church in 1992, and came to Provo, Utah in 1993 to attend BYU. Served an LDS mission from 1994-96 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Got married soon after I got back. My wife Sarah and I are parents of eleven children: Benjamin, Jenny, Julia, Joseph, Jacob, William, Stephen, Matthew,  Mary,  Bella.  and Leigha. We home school our children.

I am a software engineer/computer programmer/hacker whatever you want to call it, and I am currently working for RedX. Aside from the Fast Running Blog, I have another project to create a device that is a good friend for a fast runner. I called it Fast Running Friend.

Favorite Quote:

...if we are to have faith like Enoch and Elijah we must believe what they believed, know what they knew, and live as they lived.

Elder Bruce R. McConkie

 

Favorite Blogs:

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 133.01 Year: 776.88
Saucony Type A Lifetime Miles: 640.15
Bare Feet Lifetime Miles: 450.37
Nike Double Stroller Lifetime Miles: 124.59
Brown Crocs 4 Lifetime Miles: 1334.06
Amoji 1 Lifetime Miles: 732.60
Amoji 2 Lifetime Miles: 436.69
Amoji 3 Lifetime Miles: 380.67
Lopsie Sports Sandals Lifetime Miles: 818.02
Lopsie Sports Sandals 2 Lifetime Miles: 637.27
Iprome Garden Clogs Lifetime Miles: 346.18
Beslip Garden Clogs Lifetime Miles: 488.26
Joybees 1 Lifetime Miles: 1035.60
Madctoc Clogs Lifetime Miles: 698.29
Blue Crocs Lifetime Miles: 1164.32
Kimisant Black Clogs Lifetime Miles: 720.62
Black Crocs 2023 Lifetime Miles: 1312.70
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

Day of rest. Went to church as usual. The Sacrament talks were on the Atonement of Christ. Then we had a lesson on Alma 32, which talks about faith. I have some thoughts about faith. When we teach a child to do something that he struggles to have the initiative to start or finish we may sometimes use a reward. At first the reward has to be immediate. As the child matures, the reward can wait longer and longer. Eventually he does what we've been trying to teach him with no external reward as he recognizes the intrinsic value of what he is doing. That is what God does with us in matters of faith. For example, when we first begin to pay tithing we may receive dramatic blessings such as extra money appearing out of some unexpected source to take care of an urgent problem. I suppose the Lord knows this commandment is difficult, as such blessings seem to continue for a long time after you first begin to pay it. But then as your understanding of the law increases, you no longer need to rely on the external physical reward. You do things that are natural in the Celestial Kingdom naturally as they appear self-evident. You are more confident than ever that something good will come out of it either now or sometime in the future, either in this life or the next, and likely more than one thing, but that is now why you do it - you just do it. The question of "what did I get out of obedience?" becomes irrelevant, in fact rather silly. You realize that it is neither possible nor necessary to scientifically itemize each blessing and tie it to some specific act of obedience. Rather you acknowledge that exercising your faith and obeying always puts you in a strong position  from which you are eventually able to draw a multitude of blessings.
 

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00
Comments
From Steve on Sat, Aug 04, 2012 at 21:06:32 from 66.87.65.0

I like that analogy, also explains why people are happy at whatever level they are at sometimes.

Today for the first time in a while I plugged in some numbers into your race predictor from my running this year. It's interesting that although I've ran 8 Marathons this year so far (12 by year end planned) all are pretty much dead on what your calculator has. One marathon and one half marathon were 4 days after hard marathons. They both were on predictor pace. So aside from a few blow ups frequency doesn't seem to have any effect on my race times. Any thoughts on this?

From Sasha Pachev on Mon, Aug 06, 2012 at 12:23:24 from 69.28.149.29

Steve:

I think it means that for the ones where you did not completely blow up you were equally inhibited on all of them. We actually see this pattern on the travelling Kenyans that run many marathons in a row. They can run maybe 2:14 well rested, but due to the high frequency they run 2:18-2:22 equivalent (adjusting for the course/conditions) in the marathons that they do not win (meaning that was all they had), and it does not get worse, at least not for a couple of years.

My take on the marathon distance is that when you are fit, you can visit the past-22 mile zone and come out mostly unharmed, but it is still not ideal for your training. This is why you do not see too many elites go beyond that in one run, even though they may pack 35 miles in one day total. You get best results for marathon endurance from running about 10 miles hard when glycogen depleted as frequently as your body can handle it. For me that number right now is once a week, but if I had more time for naps, I could make it two with one being at the end of a long run, and the other at the end of a midweek medium long run.

Long story short, I think if you replaced all of the marathons excepts the ones that really matter with halves, and did that for a year, you would be running around 2:30 low, or maybe a little under on the DesNews/Ogden/Utah Valley/SLC quality course, and under 2:25 in St. George on a good day.

Another important question to answer is what kind of 800 meter speed you've got right now. That could provide some clues as to what type of training you could do to improve your marathon performance even further.

From Steve on Mon, Aug 06, 2012 at 16:44:55 from 66.87.67.217

No idea about the 800 speed. I don't do much of that kind of running. Not with a timer anyways. I like all this stuff, some good things to think about. Thanks

From Sasha Pachev on Mon, Aug 06, 2012 at 17:18:38 from 69.28.149.29

Steve:

This might be one missing link. My thinking is that it is not possible to run a marathon faster than this computation (works for anywhere from world class to 2:40 marathon) - take your current 800 in minutes and seconds - add 12 seconds - obtain the marathon time in hours and minutes. For example, if your current 800 is 1:57, adding 12 seconds we get 2:09. So your theoretical marathon limit is 2:09:00. If you are running much slower than 2:09:00, your problem is converting the 800 speed into the marathon, you should up the mileage, do long tempos, and check out your fuel and cardio health - maybe the heart has a defect, maybe there is some disorder with the glycogen storage, etc. Maybe there is just not enough slow twitch fibers, but still even if you have some, you should be no slower than 10 minutes over the target, so in this example 2:19:00.

Now in this example of a 1:57 800 meter runner if your marathon PR is pretty close to 2:09:00, then your problem is not in the endurance factor, the endurace is more or less as good as it can get. It would be a neuromuscular, or bone structure problem. So maybe there is some kind of a nerve entrapment, or maybe a bone structure defect, maybe a defective spinal disk. In this example "defective" means "non-world-class", a guy running 800 in 1:57 has to have a fairly healthy bone structure and nerves, but something is underperforming somewhere, which is why he cannot run 1:52. I believe that even if you had a marathoner-style fast-slow twitch fiber ratio you would still be able to run 1:52 if the nerves were delivering the signal to the muscle perfectly, and there were no structural defects in the body that affect running speed.

In your situation - you used to be able to run 800 in 1:57, so the bones, the spine, and the nerves used to be in pretty good shape. It is quite likely that some of that was lost through aging. The question is how much if any, and how much of what was lost is recoverable. Step number one to find out is to go to the track, and run an all out 800. Step number two is add some 800 meter specific work and try again 6 months later.

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