Joe's Running Blog

Great Salt Lake 1/2 Marathon

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

Location:

cokeville,wy,usa

Member Since:

Jun 25, 2007

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Unknown

Short-Term Running Goals:

Get fit again! Casper Marathon on June 8th in Casper, Wyoming. I don't have a specific goal time for it, as I don't know the course real well, but I'd like to shoot for 6 minute pace.

Long-Term Running Goals:

Run for your life! Stay active enough to eat seconds and ice cream without guilt.

Personal:

Married to a beautiful wife AnnMarie, who is also a 3:15 marathoner and the mother of our handsome 2 year old, Myles and newbie Sullivan. Sullivant was born 2 years and one day after Myles was born. Myles knows only one speed--running all out. Kinda like Prefontaine. Besides running, I enjoy reading, woodworking, fishing, and chasing Myles around our house.

Click to donate

to Ukraine's Armed Forces

Miles:	This week:	0.00	Month:	0.00	Year:	0.00

Sat, Aug 18, 2007

Race: Great Salt Lake 1/2 Marathon (13.1 Miles) 00:01:13, Place overall: 4

Easy Miles	Marathon Pace Miles	Threshold Miles	VO2 Max Miles	Total Distance
3.00	13.00	0.00	0.00	16.00

I don't know why I keep doing this race. I had debated doing the xTerra trail run Friday night and then the Peak Performance 5K saturday morning, but figured I'd better show my face at a circuit race and wear the SLRC uniform a couple times this summer. I slept okay--not great--and made it to the registration in plenty of time. When I saw Paul Peterson, Pat Smyth, Teren, Dennis, I really felt like I should have done the trail race/5K combo instead. But I knew my training had been solid, and figured 5:20s would be very reasonable.

For some reason, I feel like something just isn't right. My hamstrings have been hurting for over a month now, and a race situation just exacerbates it. I don't mean to make excuses--Teren, Pat, Paul, Dennis, Sasha and many others ran great. Rather, I know I'm in better shape than 1:13, and I can't figure out why just six years ago I ran 1:08:08 on this very course and ran that day thinking "Who wants to go faster? Who?" I don't buy that it's all in my head--my training is solid and I feel fairly fit most days, I feel something biomechanical is not right. I am going to spend some time and money getting checked out by my physical therapist, I trust her and feel she can get me back on track again.

Anyhow...the race. Teren took off like a scalded dog, Pat and Paul went with him, and I thought out loud there would be some road kill before 10 miles. I didn't think 5:20s would make ME road kill, but it did and Dennis pulled away at 8. Sasha dropped off at 6, and I was able to keep Dennis in range, and finally when we got to the island I changed rthythm and caught up to him and ran in with him. Overall, I was disappointed with how things turned out, I don't know what else to do other than to get checked out with the P.T. and see what she says.

I was amazed on the bus ride back to the start to see Bill and Sasha running back to the start. They both look fit, I'll bet Bill doesn't have more than 2% body fat. The guy looks FIT, like a gunny sack full of deer antlers.

Comments

From Lulu on Sun, Aug 19, 2007 at 21:28:23

Consider having the PT look to make sure your hips are level. Sometimes just stepping off a curb or running on an uneven trail can rotate one side of your pelvis. It will manifest itself as sore hamstrings, sore glutes, sore piriformis, sore low back, or sore hip flexors (even sore IT band). Just a thought.

From Paul Petersen on Sun, Aug 19, 2007 at 22:34:21

Joe, I agree with what Lulu said. In any case, PT will probably help. Used alongside PT, I think chiro can help too (although I think chiro is about useless by itself). I went through a lot of injuries last year and did several months of PT + chiro + massage. When I came back from injury, I was faster than I was before the injuries, and I am convinced that all the PT work helped straighten out my back and hips, giving me the biomechanics to not only stay injury free, but run at the level I was at back in 2000-2001.

Anyway, it is obvious that you are very fit. But perhaps your body alignment is inhibiting you from running up to your true fitness. Stay optimistic; you have the best races ahead of you.

From Lulu on Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 11:09:43

Joe, I agree with Paul in his suggestion of a chiro. I see a chiropractor who doesn't manually adjust people -- he uses this computer called ProAdjuster. My insurance, which normally wouldn't cover chiropractors, pays for it because the clinical trials were so convincing. It has helped with my back and hip alignment. The machine vibrates your vertebrae to determine if they oscillate at a predetermined rate. The chiro, then goes back with the same machine and it taps the vertebrae until they oscillate correctly. He did this with my hip joint too. I've had the hip problem for years and with his help I have been running virtually pain free. Recently I have also been getting a deep tissue massage every other week. I really hope you find some relief for the hammies! Good luck!

From Sasha Pachev on Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 15:21:42

Joe - some post-race feedback. First, your 1:13:23 is actually a decent time. Under normal conditions I was expecting you to run between 1:10:00 and 1:11:00, beat me by between 15 seconds to a minute, be competitive against Dennis, and get beat by Paul by anywhere from 1:30 to 2:30. Paul had a breakthrough, so the gap was bigger, we had some headwind and high humidity, so the times were slower, otherwise you ran what Sasha science would predict.

Sasha science is still predicting you will miss the Trial's Qualifier by a frustratingly small margin (1:00 to 1:30) in Chicago in good conditions, but you have a shot at it in St. George.

Regarding the training - make threshold runs longer to keep you honest on the threshold pace. Up the mileage to the extent you can recover from. More mileage at marathon pace effort. I noticed you had some new fat on the sides of your lower back, is that just my perception, or do you actually weigh more than you used to? In any case, as you get older, your body becomes more sensitive to your diet, so some changes may be necessary. You can still run at the same level as you used to or even faster, but you need to put better quality fuel into your system for it to happen.

Regarding PT - I have mentioned before that I strongly suspect the reason you've lost speed since 6 years ago is primarily biomechanical. However, be warned that the science of evaluating and correcting running biomechanics via PT (or any other way) is still very rudimentary. Your PT may think she knows what the problem is, but then it may turn out that her assumptions were wrong. Be prepared for some frustration. There is a light at the end of the tunnel though - Paul and Trever have gotten to it.

From Michael on Tue, Aug 21, 2007 at 12:17:52

Youre a great runner Joe, keep it up

Lulu/Sasha - question, my left hip always hurts alot after I run, could I have an alignment problem and a PT should look at it? It also hurts though when I wake up from sleeping on it. Its something I can live with though, so maybe it will go away but so far it hasnt for last 3 months

From Sasha Pachev on Tue, Aug 21, 2007 at 12:43:18

Michael - a PT check-up never hurts, except for your wallet. A good PT may be able to find something that will help, but at the same time, you may end up with a wild goose chase constantly doing a bunch of exercises that the PT swears by, but that in reality make no difference.

From Lybi on Tue, Aug 21, 2007 at 12:46:37

A gunny sack full of antlers! Now you get the title for most vivid description, as well as having the title of most intimidating picture on the blog. Nice race!

Add Your Comment.

Keep it family-safe. No vulgar or profane language. To discourage anonymous comments of cowardly nature, your IP address will be logged and posted next to your comment.
Do not respond to another person's comment out of context. If he made the original comment on another page/blog entry, go to that entry and respond there.
If all you want to do is contact the blogger and your comment is not connected with this entry and has no relevance to others, send a private message instead.

Debt Reduction Calculator

Featured Announcements

Most Recent Entries:

New Kids on the Blog
(need a welcome):

Lone Faithfuls
(need a comment):