Breaking the Wall

April 18, 2024

15% off for Fast Running Blog members at St. George Running Center!

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:	0.00	Year:	870.94
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

Mon, Aug 19, 2013

Easy Miles	Marathon Pace Miles	Threshold Miles	VO2 Max Miles	Total Distance
13.50	1.00	0.00	0.00	14.50

A.M. Total of 14.5. Started the run with James and his friend Greg. I wanted to see what Greg could do a mile in. We did a mile time trial on the track. Greg started out with a lap in 1:42, followed by 1:43. All of a sudden he started feeling like he was going to faint. He made it to 1000 meters in 4:22 and stopped. However, he could handle 9:20 pace jogging just fine and he has trained more or less consistently for about a year. I had never seen something like this before. I am suspecting some kind of a heart condition. We did a total of 5.5 miles.

Then I ran with the kids. Benjamin did 8, Jenny 4, Julia 3, Joseph 3, Jacob 2, William 1. Lybi and Sarah joined us for part of the run. Benjamin decided to turn his legs over in the last mile and ran it in around 5:50.

P.M. Drive home with Benjamin. Everybody else flew. Not that it was easier, the kids wanted to fly because they had never flown before. Benjamin and I made it in 7:31 to our house taking I-25, then Hwy 287 from Fort Collins, then I-80 and Hwy 40/Hwy 89 with only one stop in Rawlins, WY for gas. Google says the distance is 521 miles, but the odometer showed 528. I can understand extra half a mile from the gas detour, but where did the extra 7 miles come from? Bad tangents, I suppose - but do they measure the highway on tangents? Maybe the tires were slightly under-inflated throwing off the odometer. Benjamin did a lot of Russian reading on the way.

Green Crocs 6 Miles: 14.50

Night Sleep Time: 6.50	Nap Time: 1.00	Total Sleep Time: 7.50

Comments

From Paul on Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 13:18:00 from 207.224.39.118

Google would be measuring using highway centerlines in a simple routing program. However, the questionable thing about Google is that they use Web Mercator as their tile projection -- this is what turns a round earth into a flat map. Web Mercator has become popular lately because it makes for efficient tile caching for web map display...however it distorts distances and areas rather badly. The question is whether Google is using web mercator as the coordinate system for all their underlying data, or just for their tiles. I'm hoping it's just for their tiles, and they have a more accurate coordinate system running in the background so that their measurements are accurate.

Fun reading here:

http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/2010/03/05/measuring-distances-and-areas-when-your-map-uses-the-mercator-projection/

That said, your odometer is probably off too. Most cars are.

From Holt on Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 13:23:12 from 204.113.55.41

Only a map guy would know all that Paul!

From Paul on Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 13:26:39 from 65.114.209.66

True, but Sasha likes to do math in his head, and coordinate systems & projections are 100% math.

But it's a pretty simple idea: The earth is round. Maps are flat. Flatten to the earth to a map, and something has to break. Distortion is introduced to make it work.

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