Per Aspera Ad Astra

Drop 13 Half Marathon

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

Location:

Salt Lake City,UT,United States

Member Since:

Dec 08, 2012

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Local Elite

Running Accomplishments:

13.1: 1:09:58 (2018 Des News)

26.2: 2:37:45 (2019 Mesa Phoenix)

Short-Term Running Goals:

Stay healthy!

 

2019 Running Schedule

Feb - Mesa Phoenix Marathon (AZ): 2:37:45. Lingering flu didn't help, but I still got a PR.

April - Bonneville Shoreline Trail Marathon (UT). Mostly just going to be a training run. Finally got myself into the sub-4 club last year, so I'll just have fun with it this year.

May - Stillwater Half Marathon (MN). Goal race for Spring. Looking for ~1:12.

October- Chicago Marathon (IL). We'll see where I'm at in Fall, but probably will be looking for low 2:30s.

Long-Term Running Goals:

Stay healthy, make improvements, maximize my potential.

Personal:

I am a bioengineering PhD currently working as a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Neurology at the University of Utah, where I design and improve neurosurgical approaches for treating movement disorders.


Summer 2018 update: I'm lazy about copying over from Strava, so find me over there for day-to-day runs until I eventually get around to copying everything over here.

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Skechers GoRun 4 Blue - A Bit Too Big, But Free Lifetime Miles: 105.80
Saucony Grid Type A Lifetime Miles: 94.20
Saucony Fastwitch 7 Blue Lifetime Miles: 132.40
Saucony Fastwitch 7 Red Lifetime Miles: 135.90
New Balance Vazee Summit V2 Black Lifetime Miles: 121.90
Skechers Go Med Speed 4 Lifetime Miles: 36.70
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
119.058.1523.700.00150.90
RETIRED Saucony Orange Kinvara 4 Miles: 22.60RETIRED Saucony A6 Orange #2 Miles: 74.20RETIRED Saucony Shay XC3 Red Miles: 39.50
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.400.000.000.006.40

6.4 up and down Grandeur with Daria (very easy pace, but still fun).

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.003.000.000.0011.00

Morning run with Josh, James, and Adam (until I missed them after stopping at the 711 bathroom and had to run back on my own).  Last 2 averaged 6:15-ish.

 

PM: 1.8 miles to Liberty with the first at MP (6:11), then 3 easy miles with Daria.

RETIRED Saucony Orange Kinvara 4 Miles: 6.20RETIRED Saucony A6 Orange #2 Miles: 4.80
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.401.000.000.009.40

9.4 miles with the 9th mile at 6:05 pace.  My place to South Temple/9th East to 21st South to 13th East to South Temple, to C, and back.

RETIRED Saucony Orange Kinvara 4 Miles: 9.40
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

Lazy.  Felt drained from the heat after playing a handful of rounds of disk golf.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
13.200.000.000.0013.20

5.4 miles from home to Hancock Fabrics to pick up some needles for Daria.  Ran there at exactly 6:30 pace, which actually felt pretty darn easy, but still promised myself that I'd run slower on the way back since I'm racing on Saturday.  5.4 home at 7:20 pace.  Then did 2.4 miles with Daria up and down D at 9:20 pace.  Hit 70.1 miles in the last 7 days.  First time I've broken 70 in a one week span since February. Hah.

RETIRED Saucony A6 Orange #2 Miles: 13.20
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.000.000.000.007.00

6 with Josh and Adam at 6 AM.  West High to Memory Grove, up City Creek a bit, and back.

 

Another mile on the Diskgolf course collecting items I managed to lose.

 

Was an idiot and thought the Drop13 half was Saturday, when it was next Saturday.  Otherwise, I'd have run more.  Hah.

RETIRED Saucony A6 Orange #2 Miles: 6.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

A lot of active time outside, but no run!

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
16.000.004.000.0020.00

Bottom of City Creek up the road, and then another 4.35-ish miles along the trail at the top before turning around and coming back down.  Interestingly the trail at the top is officially only 2 miles or something like that, but it goes much much farther than that, just not particularly well maintained.  Watch had me at 7:50 pace up the road, and then was screwy above that on the trail in sections with lots of turns and lots of branches overhead (everytime it started turning much, the pace would just dramatically, so it was measuring a little short).  I turned around when it was at 9.8 and figured that I was at least 10 miles into the run, based on how much faster the pace was registering when the overhead was clear.  In the last mile on the way out, I ran into a few patches of snow, which was kind of fun.  I turned around and came back down to the road, seeing a massive moose on the trail in front of me half a mile before I hit the road (just a bit before Smuggler's Gap).  Surprisingly, it was more scared of me than I was of it, so I didn't have an issues.  Once I hit the road, I kept it easy for a tenth or two and then launched into tempo mode for 4 miles (14 on the watch, probably more like 14.5).  Mile 15 was 5:15, mile 16 (downhill, but a couple nasty-ish rollers compared to the uphill) was 5:35 (yeah, probably backed off too much), mile 17 was 5:03 (nice gradual downhill), and mile 18 was 5:08 (2 significant uphills mixed in but pushed it quite hard).  Hitting this 4 mile stretch in 21:02 (5:15 AP) was certainly encouraging and actually faster than I expected to be able to comfortably hit.  Last 1.5 was a cooldown. Partway through mile 19, my watched screwed up and randomly added on two tenths, so that mile got screwed up (was running over 7:00 pace, and it jumped down so much that it logged me as 5:42 finishing the mile, ie .8).  Watch finished at 19.8, which should've been 19.6 with the shortened upper city creek, which should've been probably 20-ish.  Even if I was slightly short, and only hit 19.6 (I'm very sure this is wrong), I still hit 14 to 18 in 21:02 at what felt like half marathon effort and sustainable for 13 miles if fresh, which even with copius downhill, is extremely good for me right now.  Overall, definitely an encouraging run.

RETIRED Saucony A6 Orange #2 Miles: 20.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

Had moderate soreness in my right hip (the long time problem one) after the previous day's run, so I took a day off.  That said, I'm not particularly worried about it.  It never felt misaligned or off balance, even afterwards, and it felt more just like a localized soreness than an injury.  It's hard to describe exactly, but basically, there's a certain sort of off-balance feeling that really indicates possibility of injury, while general soreness in the area isn't necessarily so bad... I did a hard run on Sunday, and my hip is still the weakest link, so that's probably why it was the only really sore part of my body.  With all of that in mind, I still really want to be careful, so I'm not going to take unnecessary risks.  I spent close to an hour doing a couple sets of stretches (both static and active), which made things feel a lot better.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.000.000.000.007.00

7 miles with a moderate bit of hills (my place up to M, down to South Temple, along 9th to 17th, to 7th, to south temple to E, home) at a steady state pace (6:43 average).  Would've done more, but couldn't get out the door until 10:30 and didn't want to be up super late.  Hip felt fine.  Worth noting is that I've started taking the Meloxicam prescription again just to be safe.  Now that ski season is over, I don't have that twice-a-week physical therapy bolstering things, so it's really important that I'm proactive with stretching, strengthening exercises, and taking anti-inflammatories until ski season starts up again.  I don't expect to have any setbacks this summer and am pretty confident in my ability to manage it, but, that depends on being careful.  Unfortunately, I doubt I'm going to be able to really kick my mileage up super high from now until the end of July like I wanted, but we'll see.  In any case, I think St George training is officially starting.  I'm glad that I've been pretty lazy for a few months.  I've somehow managed to maintain fitness pretty well with minimal mileage and now I have the opportunity to start from there and take 4 months to really get myself ready for St George.

 

One other note: why do my Kinvaras never last as long as other peoples'?  My current pair has 330.5 miles on them and they're getting pretty thrashed.  Lame.

RETIRED Saucony Orange Kinvara 4 Miles: 7.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(13)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

Hosting a few of Daria's friends who were traveling across the country.  Took the night off.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.700.000.000.007.70

To Liberty, 2 laps on/outside the mulch, to State, up State, back home.  Didn't wear a watch in order to not be tempted to run fast.  Nice and easy.

RETIRED Saucony A6 Orange #2 Miles: 7.70
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Race: Drop 13 Half Marathon (13.1 Miles) 01:10:40, Place overall: 1, Place in age division: 1
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
1.000.0013.100.0014.10

A little jogging before the start, then Drop 13 Half Marathon win in 1:10:40.  This course is very aided.  I went out very easily in 5:03, and no-one was within 30-40 seconds, so I backed off and settled into a mid-5:20s average.  I'm not sure what to say about this race.  I really didn't feel like I cared much once I knew it would be an easy win.  Time trialing seemed irrelevant, as the time is obviously not something I could run on a fair course, and winning wasn't going to be too hard, so I just settled into 90-95% effort.  Around mile 7, I started to feel a hot spot under my right foot, which got a lot worse over the last 6, but never slowed me down.  At mile 9-ish, the screaming downhill after the Stairs plant really hurt my quads, but they recovered once it got back to a 4% grade.  At mile 10, the cop escort slowed until he was alongside me and told me that I had a 5 minute gap on 2nd place.  I debated just backing off to avoid injury and speed the process of recovery, but figured I'd keep the effort consistent, as I was on track for sub-1:11, which sounded awesome.  Mile 12 was very annoying, as I had to run down a 2-flight set of stairs to get onto a bike path, which broke up the rhythm.  If I'm not mistaken, I was supposed to join the bike path 20 feet further along on the other side of the road, but the volunteers seemed adamant that I had to go down the stairs, so I did.  I realized I'd have to work a bit over the last mile to get under 1:11, so I pushed the 13th mile.  When the course flattened out for the last mile (less than .1% downhill, so very nearly flat), I kept the pace in the low 5:40s, so that was good.  All that said, I'm pretty sure that the cops at the last turn sent me into the wrong lane, as the last 1.1 ended up being only 1.05, and the markers, while slightly variable when meeting up with aid stations in the canyon, were previously quite accurate, at least on average.  So yeah, I had 13.05 in 1:10:39 (granted, I did briefly lose signal after going under the bridge in mile 12, so that's probably part of it), and they had me as 13.1 in 1:10:40.  Either way, I'd have been in the high 1:10s, with a slight negative split, so I don't really care.

 

In terms of my time, I calculated that a 1:09-mid/high (a little under a minute faster) would've been equivalent to my Provo City half time, aerobically.  The difference here is the need to have the ability to handle all of the pounding, so I figured that an equal pain effort would probably be slightly slower than the equivalent time.  My quads/calves held up remarkably well, but I have a massive blister on the bottom of my right foot, and one of my left toenails has blood coming out of it, so my feet didn't take it so well.  With all this in mind, I think a full on honest effort could've been as fast as 1:08-high, but I'd have been significantly increasing my chance of injury by doing so, so I'm glad that I ran as I did.  In the end, I won by 8 minutes in a field with just shy of 1000 registered (maybe only 600 actually running, somehow), so that seems pretty solid to me.

 

It'll be interesting to see how my recovery goes.  I'm a bit more sore than after, say, Provo City, but not by much, other than the mangled feet.  In any case, I'd say that the overall takeaway is that I'm happy with how I ran today.

Oh, and also, major shoutout to my girlfriend Daria for getting up at 4:15 to drive me to a 4:50am bus pickup, and being one of only a few spectators around when I finished.  She's pretty awesome.

 

Leopard print paid off today:

RETIRED Saucony A6 Orange #2 Miles: 14.10
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(9)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.600.000.000.008.60

With Holly and Daria. Bowman Fork to Alexander Basin and back on Mill Creek road. Legs were pretty beat up.

RETIRED Saucony Shay XC3 Red Miles: 8.60
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.200.000.000.007.20

Took off most of the week due to soreness that didn't seem worth running through - it was actually quite bad during and after Sunday's run.  I've been active outside (I've really taken a liking to disc golf lately, and play 2 rounds most days), but haven't run since Sunday.  Downhill is hard on the legs, even at a sub-maximal aerobic effort!  Anyway, I did 7.2 on JRP with Adam and James at early o'clock. Felt good for the first couple miles today, but then felt the soreness creep back in.  I think I'm past the worst of it though!  Wasn't really paying attention to pace all that carefully and don't have my watch handy, but the first mile was high 7s and the last was right around 7 flat, so I'm guessing mid-7s average.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.154.150.000.008.30

Up and down Bowman Fork to Baker Pass. 57 up at what felt somewhere in the ballpark of marathon effort, 33 down, easy. This used to seem like a serious climb, but it's pretty routine now. Min elevation 6275', max elevation 9369', total climb of 3300'.

RETIRED Saucony Shay XC3 Red Miles: 8.30
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

In Dallas for the Neural Interfaces Conference and forgot my shorts.  I have shoes, Garmin, running socks, ipod, but forgot shorts.  Seriously?

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.400.000.000.008.40

Still in Dallas for the Neural Interfaces Conference with no running shorts.  Didn't want to miss another day, so I asked around and borrowed a pair of basketball shorts.  Ran 8.4 miles easy (my hotel to downtown, halfway on a rather muddy bike trail under a ridiculous amount of construction, and then randomly around a surprisingly crummy downtown) at 6:31 AP at 11 PM in disgustingly humid conditions (98% relative humidity).  Garmin had 8.21, but I lost connection for over a minute going under a bridge (it dropped satellite and didn't add the lost distance when it recalculated, so a mile previously at 6:20 pace prior to dropped satellite ended at 7:40, so I just applied the average pace for that mile over that gap in time).  Once again, despite disgustingly humid conditions, running in basketball shorts and a t-shirt that got obscenely drenched (needed one since I was staying in a hotel and had to walk out through the lobby), and having had a massive dinner and 2 beers shortly before my run, the pace for an easy (ie, very aerobic) run at nearly sea level (400') was SO MUCH FASTER than in Salt Lake.  This effort would not have been within 20 seconds per mile even under ideal flat conditions in Utah.  Altitude makes all the difference in the world.  That said, despite the fast sea level pace and the ability to run on very flat terrain if so desired (I literally had zero feet of elevation change registered on my Garmin in the first 2.12 miles, which was mostly on a toe-path, and the high point and the low point of my run were only 28 feet apart), that humidity was so disgusting that I have very little interest in ever running here again.  Excited to get back to Utah tomorrow.

 

Other notes:

1. Boy is it humid here.  This is 5 minutes after finishing my run:

 

 

I'm pretty sure I'm actually in a swamp.

 

2. Do Texans not care at all about the Mavericks?  I thought they were popular, but their stadium, at least from the outside, appeared really tiny.

RETIRED Saucony A6 Orange #2 Miles: 8.40
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.006.600.006.60

Tempo run on trails at 6000' with almost exactly (just over) 1000' of elevation gain (pipeline plus some connectors).  I hadn't really attempted to run Pipeline fast previously, but looking at the GPS data, I feel relieved.  Average pace was in the 6:20s and felt pretty hard, like actually half marathon pace, but it's a lot more undulating than I realized.  Correlating to flat and sea level (assuming actual half marathon effort) would give 5:55 pace, which sounds very slow for a half marathon, but considering that it was quite rocky and full of turns, that's actually not bad.

 

RETIRED Saucony Shay XC3 Red Miles: 6.60
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
16.000.000.000.0016.00

Rather serious trail and road run.  16 miles, 4000'+ up, 4000'+ down. From Brighton, up Milly, through SolBright to Twin Lakes Pass, down to Alta, up Cardiff Pass, down the BCC side into Cardiff Fork.  This part was a little treacherous, as I had to sidestep across some very steep snow slides, which I'm not a fan of.  Down into Cardiff road eventually, a little loop of that campsite right before Big Cottonwood Road, and then Garmin died .2 miles from the road (9.8 on the Garmin).  Then, 5.8 miles back up the road with a .2 mile venture into Spruces to refill water.  The road portion was longer and steeper than I remembered and I really pushed myself hard on the 2nd big climb (Cardiff), so I was really out of it on the road and even had to walk a couple of the steepest sections.  Finished in sort of a daze, but hey, that sometimes happens when getting endurance back and doing 2 1/2 + hour outings.  Total drop was 3990' in the first 9.8, and I'm sure I had more than 10' of drop in the last 6.2 miles, even with an almost pure uphill, so given a loop and equal up down, total gain and loss were both somewhere between 4000' and 4100', ie, not easy.  My feet held up fine in the 5.x oz Shay XC shoes, but I found myself being quite careful on rocky sections, so I'll just get some Kinvara TR2s for Speedgoat in a month.

 

GPS of the first 9.8:

Elevation of the first 9.8:

The last 6.2 miles really sucked.  I seemed to recall Brighton being 8500 and Mill D being 7800, for 700' of climb on the road, not 8750 and 7300 for 1450' of climb.  Hah.

RETIRED Saucony Shay XC3 Red Miles: 16.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

Lazy.  Felt tired after playing a lot of disc golf.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
119.058.1523.700.00150.90
RETIRED Saucony Orange Kinvara 4 Miles: 22.60RETIRED Saucony A6 Orange #2 Miles: 74.20RETIRED Saucony Shay XC3 Red Miles: 39.50
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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