A Balance, Redefined

Salt Lake 1/2 Marathon

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Location:

Vestavia,AL,USA

Member Since:

May 31, 2007

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

Marathon Top 10 Finishes: 7 Bridges ('15), Utah Valley ('13), Salt Lake City ('08), Top of Utah ('07), and St. Louis ('04). Ran around the equator (24901.55) in 4,388 days.

Personal Records
Marathon 2:39 (SLC '08)
1/2 Marathon 1:12.30 (Provo River, aided '08)
10K 34:16 (Track, sea level '00)
10K 33:15 (Des 10K, aided '08)
8K 25:32 (Crack of Dawn, aided '13)
5K 16:44 (Track, sea level '00)
5K 16:07 (Running of the Leopards, aided '12)
 

Short-Term Running Goals:

NYC Marathon November 3, 2019 done 

London Marathon October 3, 2021 done

Tokyo Marathon March 3, 2024!!!

And my largest challenge to date, raise $20,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of my cancer survivorship and in memory of those lost to blood cancer...
DONE! $26,403.70

https://pages.lls.org/tnt/al/london2021/awende

Long-Term Running Goals:

Enjoy being a Masters Runner.

Get under 3 hours one more time...

Personal:

Grew up outside Chicago and joined the blog while I lived in Salt Lake City. Now living outside Birmingham. I am married with two daughters. Wife thinks I'm crazy for doing marathons. And yes I am crazy I'm a scientist for a living...

Click to donate
to Ukraine's Armed Forces
Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 331.25
RM 090416 Lifetime Miles: 136.06
Saucony Type A Lifetime Miles: 200.18
Nike Vaporfly Pink Lifetime Miles: 122.22
Saucony Ride #37 - Black Lifetime Miles: 56.50
Saucony Ride #38 - Neon Lifetime Miles: 53.50
Saucony Ride #39 - Grey Lifetime Miles: 59.50
Brooks Launch #38 - Grey Lifetime Miles: 65.25
Brooks Launch #39 - White Lifetime Miles: 57.50
Brooks Launch #40 - Blue Lifetime Miles: 54.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTrainer 1 MilesTrainer 2 MilesRacer MilesTotal Distance
15.0013.000.000.000.000.000.0028.00
Night Sleep Time: 50.50Nap Time: 1.50Total Sleep Time: 52.00Weight: 0.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTrainer 1 MilesTrainer 2 MilesRacer MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.00


Night Sleep Time: 7.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 7.50Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTrainer 1 MilesTrainer 2 MilesRacer MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.00

Night Sleep Time: 8.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 8.00Weight: 0.00
Add Comment
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTrainer 1 MilesTrainer 2 MilesRacer MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.00

Night Sleep Time: 8.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 8.50Weight: 0.00
Add Comment
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTrainer 1 MilesTrainer 2 MilesRacer MilesTotal Distance
5.000.000.000.000.000.000.005.00

Single: It is so nice to be putting in an entry again. It was only a few days but the rest has felt like forever. I was able to catch up on some sleep getting over 7hrs each night, one night I even got 8.5hrs. Still very behind in work etc but that is my normal state of being. Now to the important part. I ran today. I ran to SH, then ran into BC. We started talking about his Park City race and I ended up doing one more mile than I had planned. However, my knee was not in pain. I would best describe it as "tight". I still take it easy-low mileage Thur and Fri and continue with the Docs plans of using Sat as the "real test." Mi 5-R3 Avg. 7:59

Asics DS-Trainer #2: 371 / / Asics DS-Trainer #3: 77 / / Saucony Rides #1: 441 / / Saucony Rides #2: 444 // Saucony Rides #3: 162 // Adidas Adistar (flats): 205 / /

Night Sleep Time: 7.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 7.50Weight: 0.00
Comments(11)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTrainer 1 MilesTrainer 2 MilesRacer MilesTotal Distance
6.000.000.000.000.000.000.006.00

Single: Well two down and many more to go. This run was about the same as yesterday. It is amazing what a few days off will do. My calves were actually a little tight today. I had to go back into work as I have a "big" meeting tomorrow so I ran from lab to MG and back starting at 8:30pm. Mi 6-R3 Avg. 8:16

Asics DS-Trainer #2: 371 / / Asics DS-Trainer #3: 77 / / Saucony Rides #1: 441 / / Saucony Rides #2: 444 // Saucony Rides #3: 168 // Adidas Adistar (flats): 205 / /

Night Sleep Time: 7.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 7.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTrainer 1 MilesTrainer 2 MilesRacer MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.00

Big fat goose egg. Kind of like this whole week... I had a big meeting this afternoon at work and never had time until 8pm to go for my run and at that point I didn't feel it was worth squeezing in with the race tomorrow.

Night Sleep Time: 6.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 6.50Weight: 0.00
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Race: Salt Lake 1/2 Marathon (12.96 Miles) 01:16:13, Place overall: 2, Place in age division: 1
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTrainer 1 MilesTrainer 2 MilesRacer MilesTotal Distance
4.0013.000.000.000.000.000.0017.00

Race Day: SL “1/2” Marathon-So this is the third year in a row that I’ve done this race. But, I’m going to commandeer this race report to first discuss my “injury” and current state of mind about it before I get to the details. First, thank you to everyone that has already commented. I’ve been really up and down emotionally the last week and really didn’t know what to expect. Last Wed was really a bad day. It was the first time I can ever remember stopping during a run and walking. My knee had really locked up and with the “noise” coming from it I was seriously convinced that I had torn something. I immediately locked down mentally and tried to decide what to do. To my surprise, as I already mentioned, my knee was not in “pain” as early as the next day. However, last time I tried to run through an injury I was out for 3-months and I didn’t want to take any risks this time so I took the next day off. I then ran two days later and didn’t feel “right”, ran one more day with the same feeling and decided to take some “real” time off. After talking to one doctor and seeing another, I decided that I wasn’t broken just damaged. I ended up taking the most time off since my last injury (almost two years ago) and really didn’t know what to expect. I was really down on myself for what I thought (in hindsight) was so stupid, running hard downhill in new shoes. In all reality though I don’t think that could have been what it was. There are about a dozen other things that I’m sure all added up to it. So the good news as we’ll read in a moment is that my worst fears were not realized.

Started the day off a little extra early as I was picking up James (Fiddy) and Eric (Phoenix) for the ride to the start. We met Eric at the start where he left his car and headed up. This year James (race director) had done a good job at the start with a lot of extra Port’o Potties. It was cool but felt good. The three of us just chatted and did an easy warm-up to about the mile mark and back down. A little into that I saw something moving on the mountainside. As we got closer we thought it was a bear or cow but then it turned to us and it was actually a large bull Moose with a huge rack! It is my first Utah moose sighting. On our way back it had moved closer to the road and we had a pretty good view of it, though it was still probably 200-300 meters away.

As I mentioned above I was really not sure what to expect today: 50% of me thought I shouldn’t be here, 40% thought I should do it as a training run (yeah right, like I could take a race easy), and 10% thought I wanted to win it… I saw BJ at the start with some of his team but quickly found out they were all relay runners… Looked around for anyone else that I would worry about and decided James and I were in for a fun run.

At the gun four of us went out; James, Jason Schoenfeld (unknown to me), myself, and 4th guy. A few yards ahead of us was one of the relay team guys. I was perfectly happy to tuck in behind the others and let them pace. Really until the first mile I was seriously thinking I would stop at the top of the hill, little did I know... We hit the mile mark at 6:30 and I felt perfectly fine. “4th guy” started to fall back and it was the other three of us running easily together. I did notice that my breathing was more labored than I would have liked but up to this point my knee was still behaving. The next mile has the worst of the climb. We still managed a 6:50 and I felt perfectly happy letting the others set the pace. At this point I thought I noticed Jason getting anxious at the bit and he started to move. James and I went with him. The next mile (still with 115 ft of ascent) we managed a 6:16, at this point I really went into competition mode and that last 10% of me took over. I felt I would just go with this guy and kick it in on the downhill. At this point James fell back a little and we kept going. Just before the top of the hill Jason actually made the first move and put about 10 ft on me. I thought “no problem” I’ll pour it on after the crest. Mile 4 I had a 6:30. This actually put me ~40 seconds ahead of my time at this point last year! Though I didn’t know this at the time. I really felt that I was just going with the flow.

Now here is also were a problem sets in. It turns out that I’m pretty sure Jason had the same plan and he just started to put distance on me. My next mile was 5:24 which I knew was a good bit slower than last year’s mile 5. The next mile I pushed it a little more but didn’t really seem to be gaining any, 5:13. I could feel my knee a little with the added effort so at this point I had a heart to heart with myself and in the end decided it was not worth hammering my legs on this race to try and catch this guy so soon after having such a big blow-up. Mile 7 was in 5:27 and mile 8 was in 5:31.

The next miles are where I’ve really pushed it the last two years but I decided that I was not gaining on Jason and this is just supposed to be a training run. Somewhere in here I could have also sworn that I heard Chad and turned to see I runner coming up the canyon but couldn’t see him. Turns out it wasn’t but it was funny, hallucinating about Chad that is… The next three miles were all just in cruise control 5:44, 5:47, and 5:40. Coming out of the canyon I looked at my time and thought about going for a 1:15:##, but in the end just decided to keep it in check. Mile 12 5:30 (you can see the twinge of hunger in that split). I then saw Josh Steffen and he cheered me on to catch the relay guy ahead of me. I ended up catching him just before the turn, the exact same spot in the course I caught the last relay person last year! Just after passing that guy I saw Steve Ashbaker. He ran in most of the last mile with me and we just chatted. My one calf (the one on the bum knee leg) was starting to tighten up on the slightest of uphills at this point in the course and I looked up to see the clock tick off 1:16. I finished in with the last “mile” in 5:46. Like the last two years the course was short but it was still fun. Final time was 1:16:13 with the Garmin reading 12.96. Some cool down with Steve A and a little with James. I also got to talk with Jason a little after the race and gave him the blog sales pitch. Also, congratulated him on a great race, turns out he had run in college but has only been on and off the last 5-yrs. I hope he has a great race at TOU in a couple weeks. Overall, I really like this course (winning the race the first time I ran it probably has something to do with that) and think that James does a good job trying to drum up a large field.

Post race assessment: Well I took second and only ran ~40 seconds slower than last year so I can’t say that I’m disappointed. In fact I am REALLY happy with it. Considering my mind set and the week I’d had before the race I couldn’t have asked for more. I’m a little bummed I didn’t keep the legs moving enough to go under 1:16 and have all three finishes in 1:15 but know I’m just being greedy. Mostly I just think that the bar has been raised so high this year that I really have to keep things in perspective and realize that every race can’t be a PR. So for now I’m happy with how quickly I seem to be recovering from whatever it was that happened last Wed. I’ll still take it extra easy this week and then just four weeks until game day!!!

For the other number geeks out there here are my splits for the last three years. You can really see where I made the decision to just run it in this year…


1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

2008

6:30

6:50

6:16

6:31

5:24

5:13

5:27

5:31

5:44

5:47

5:40

5:33

5:46

2007

6:36

6:59

6:26

6:46

5:17

5:10

5:34

5:27

5:39

5:21

5:26

5:19

5:24

2006

6:31

7:04

6:18

6:37

5:25

5:22

5:24

5:36

5:30

5:36

5:16

5:15

5:16

Night Sleep Time: 5.50Nap Time: 1.50Total Sleep Time: 7.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(13)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTrainer 1 MilesTrainer 2 MilesRacer MilesTotal Distance
15.0013.000.000.000.000.000.0028.00
Night Sleep Time: 50.50Nap Time: 1.50Total Sleep Time: 52.00Weight: 0.00
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