Breaking the Wall

Earn Your Turkey 4 miler

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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

 

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 133.01 Year: 776.88
Saucony Type A Lifetime Miles: 640.15
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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
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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
73.000.000.005.2578.25
Vibram Five Fingers Miles: 20.25Brooks T4 Racing Flat Miles: 43.00
Night Sleep Time: 24.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 24.50
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

Day of rest. Went to church.

Night Sleep Time: 8.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 8.00
Add Comment
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
13.000.000.000.0013.00

A.M. 10 miles alone in 1:11:56. Still feeling stoked about the economy.

P.M. 1 with Julia in 11:29, 2 with Benjamin in 17:47, Jenny ran the first 1.5 in 13:27. 

Vibram Five Fingers Miles: 10.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00
Add Comment
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
11.750.000.001.2513.00

A.M. Ran with Tyler. He is a business/finance major so it was fun to talk to him about the economy. We did quarters. I did 5, he did 10. 200 meter recovery between all.

Times: 69.4, 70.3, 69.4, 69.8, 69.4

Subjective: Consistent, quick recovery, faster than last week, but still slow. They all felt hard, like in all honesty I could not do them any faster even with infinite rest. Question - is the problem in the power, or in the turnover? If turnover I need to run downhill. Otherwise uphill.

Total distance - 10 miles.

P.M.  1 with Julia in 10:42, 2 with Benjamin in 17:35, Jenny ran the first 1.5 in 13:15.

 

 

 


Brooks T4 Racing Flat Miles: 10.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00
Comments(3)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
13.000.000.000.0013.00

A.M. Ran with Jeff, Dustin, and Derek. Dustin and Derek went 8, Jeff and I added 2 more. Total time 1:14:47. I overdressed at the top.

P.M. 1 with Julia in 10:32. 2 with Benjamin in 16:50. Jenny ran the first 1.5 in 12:49.

Brooks T4 Racing Flat Miles: 10.00
Night Sleep Time: 8.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 8.50
Comments(1)
Race: Earn Your Turkey 4 miler (4 Miles) 00:21:22, Place overall: 10
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.000.000.004.0011.00

A.M. Earn Your Turkey 4 miler in Orem. 21:22.6, 10th place.

Today was a special day. Everybody in our family except Sarah and William ran. I ran first. We had a fast field. The start was very fast. I worked through the pack until I found Stephen Clark pacing Shaine Kirtright, and tucked in behind them. The mile markers were off. For the record, my time at the first mile marker was 5:06, but it was short. 5:30 at the official 3 mile mark which we would hit on the next lap again, and the it was really supposed to be 3 miles, but I knew already it was in the wrong place. I caught a split at the four triangles for 1.25, and it was 6:40. Now that made sense. 2 mile split officially in 10:41, I think that one was right.

Then around 2 miles Shaine started struggling, Stephen started yelling at him, and I passed them and surged to catch Gamechu, a high school runner that immigrated from Ethiopia. Caught him, he surged and dropped me, but I was able to pull back up. Tucked in behind him as tight as I could. 15:55 at the official mile 1 the second time around, 16:06 at the triangles, I think this was the actual 3 mile split, and 16:19 at the official mile 3. My natural tendency to association cannot help but remind me of the standard Soviet propaganda line when they spoke about America: "According to the official, obviously distorted, data ..."

With about 1 K to knowing that Gamechu had a close to 11.0 PR in 100 meters I tried to break him, but could not. He ended up gapping me instead, but I closed with a quarter to go. But then it was too late. He turned on his kick and pulled ahead. He eased off, I closed some, but could not catch him. I timed the last quarter in 76.

Ahead of me: Sean Sundwall 19:55.3, Nick McCombs 19:59.8, Jeff McClellan (our Jeff) 20:02.1, Reagan Fry 20:13.8, Aaron Robison 20:30.1, Shin Nozaki 20:33.0, Danny Moody 20:45.1, Thatcher Olson 21:11.9, and Gamechu Goesse 21:21.9. 1-2-3-7-8 for the blog. Not bad in that field. Bloggers beat BYU, not bad at all. Of course, not sure how to count Thatcher - he is both.

Overall the race went better than I expected. 5:20 pace felt good when tucked behind somebody. Felt like I could run a 10 K like this. But not any faster. Did not handle surges well, they hurt bad. On the positive side of things ran strong all the way, did not fade in the last mile. So while the neural power is lacking the neural endurance is not doing too bad.

Now the fun begins. Kids races. Men 0-2 - 100 meters. Jacob won with 35 seconds. This is our family record for the diaper division. 9:20 pace while wearing a diaper, how about that? We've tried to win that division ever since we've had kids. It took 5 tries (as in kids, not the number of runs).

Men 3-4, 400 meters. Joseph ran 2:34 for 7th place. A new PR, and not bad for a 3 year old. His stride is still developing though, he shuffles. No big deal, he'll outgrow it. Jenny used to shuffle at his age as well.

Women 5-6. 800 meters. Julia crushed the field with a 3:51 winning by more than 40 seconds. New PR. Splits of 1:51 - 2:00, quarter PR en route as well. She pushed hard, which for her is remarkable. She is not developed mentally to the level of Benjamin and Jenny at her age yet.

Women 7-8. 800 meters. Jenny won coming from behind. Her time was 3:21, splits by quarter 1:41 - 1:40. There comes Jenny the Fire Breathing Dragon, better watch out.

Men 9-10. 1 mile. Benjamin finished second with 6:14, 4 seconds behind his arch-rival Jacob Blackburn who is a year older. New mile PR. Last quarter in 1:30. He gave it all he had.

Interesting enough, in all of the races our kids ran the Pachev-Blackburn combination did a 1-2 punch. The main Blackburn family has 10 children, and they have cousins as well. It is fun to race them.

All of the children performed according to my expectations. After having worked with my kids for probably 7 or so years I can appreciate the significance of this. This is a true miracle. I do not set my expectations low. I do not tell a kid he did a good job to make him feel good when he performed poorly. When he runs below expectations I am  honest with him, we analyze what went wrong, and make plans on how we are going to improve.  You can train, you can prepare, you can make plans, and things still go wrong. They go wrong even with adults. With all the experience I have I still have bad races. With kids it is much worse - kids can run into issues adults never will (hopefully), like a temper tantrum at the start, or half way through the race. To have all five run with no glitches was something special.

Ran a cool-down with Jeff, total of 11 miles for the day.

Brooks T4 Racing Flat Miles: 11.00
Night Sleep Time: 8.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 8.00
Comments(9)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
13.250.000.000.0013.25

A.M.  10.25 with Jeff in 1:22:59. Felt tightness in the left hamstring. I actually like it when the hamstrings hurt. I had tight hamstrings after my best races.

P.M. 1 with Julia in 10:44, 2 with Benjamin in 16:46, Jenny ran 1.5 with us in 12:55. Julia rode along on a bike. 

Vibram Five Fingers Miles: 10.25
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00
Comments(4)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
15.000.000.000.0015.00

A.M. 12 miles with Jeff in 1:34:35. Stomach has  not worked since yesterday afternoon so I have not been eating much. This entire run felt like the last 6 miles of St. George. 8:00 pace was a challenge. Focusing on the positive, stomach flu helps save on food.

P.M. 1 with Julia in 10:47, 2 with Benjamin in 17:47, Jenny ran 1.5 with us in 13:18.

 

Brooks T4 Racing Flat Miles: 12.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00
Add Comment
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
73.000.000.005.2578.25
Vibram Five Fingers Miles: 20.25Brooks T4 Racing Flat Miles: 43.00
Night Sleep Time: 24.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 24.50
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