A.M. The Big Workout. An interesting day. I would say a different day for a number of reasons. On the light side of the matter, Ben Crozier joined me again, as well as Karl Jarvis. Ben adds to the light side. If there were jobs for running comedians he would be one of the leaders in this profession. He provides constant live running entertainment. Benjamin ran the first two miles with us in 16:32, then we dropped him off and continued for another 4.12 hitting the 6.12 mark in 46:09. Then it was time for my 7.5 tempo run. This was the more serious side. Not so much because of having to run hard, that is a given in the Big Workout. The thoughts of Ryan Shay, his life and his death were on my mind. I knew the 5.5 mile mark would be special. I feel connected to every runner. I feel particularly connected to a competitive marathoner. I feel even more connected to a runner that does not have the most talent but makes up for it with work. I feel particularly connected to a front runner that is not satisfied to sit in a slow moving pack in a tactical race. Additionally, I found out that Stephen Shay who runs now for BYU is Ryan Shay's brother. So even though I had never met Ryan, his death hit close to home. But at the same time I had a feeling of perfect peace. I know that this life is only a temporary period of probation. We have already proven our ability to make good choices when we can see God. Now is the time to develop our ability to make good choices while we cannot see God, thus developing our faith. It is through faith only that most people are able to know that there is life after death, and thus we mourn those who depart because we do not scientifically know where they went, yet we can know through faith. I felt I knew through faith, and it was good enough. My mind was at peace. The tempo run started at a leisurely pace. 5:43 for the first mile. It started getting warmer, the sun was out, there were much fewer leaves on the ground. I picked it up a bit and hit the 2.5 mark in 14:11. Not bad for uphill. On the way back, all I wanted to do is stay with the 5:40 guy. But I ended up getting into good rhythm, and started seeing 1:22 quarters quite often pretty soon. Decided no reason to back off if I could sustain it with a reasonable degree of comfort. Ran the next 2.5 in 13:47. On the way back I maintained a steady effort after recovering from a 180 turn, holding 5:36 pace, then winding it up to 5:32, and then 5:30 on the last mile which has a slight uphill. This gave me 13:54 for the last 2.5, 27:41 for the last 5, and 41:52 for 7.5, avg. 5:34.93. Overall had a very hard time distinguishing between threshold and marathon pace. Something has changed. Faster pace that should be threshold felt easier and sustainable, and I was able to sustain it for long enough, and accelerate from it well enough to put it under marathon pace category. So I am going to say 2 miles of the tempo were at threshold. This is the fastest time I've ever run on this tempo. The previous fastest time was 42:02, most of it was done trading quarters with Jeff vs. running alone, the last two miles were intentionally threshold, there were no leaves on the ground, it was productively warmer, and I felt I had worked harder. So it appears I am starting to get into better than pre-St. George shape. Now it is a matter of not blowing it before St. Jude and caching out on the fitness. Ran 1.38 home in 10:17, total of 1:38:19 for 15 miles, avg. 6:33.27. P.M. Jenny and Julia wanted to run by themselves around the block. So we let them. They ran 1.05 in 10:25 first together, then Jenny added another 0.7 to get 17:00 for 1.75. Benjamin joined her for the last 0.7, but was too impatient and took off finishing the segment in 6:10. Later I ran 6 miles with Jenny following me on a bike and Jacob in the stroller in 42:59. Starting to think of 120/week as standard training mileage rather than high mileage.
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