David Taylor Gonzales

8/8

I ran 4 miles with Travis this morning. It was my first early morning workout in awhile. My body has been craving a higher intensity aerobic workout for the last week so we did some interval training. 12 min warm up, then 5 x 2 minutes @ threshold pace with 2-3 minutes of recovery running in between. Total stats: 4 miles 8:08/mi pace. I’m glad we were able to get this one done together. There’s something about running with a friend that keeps me motivated during the higher intensity workouts. We were still able to talk and catch up a bit in between the intervals so it was a good balance and start to the morning. Tomorrow’s run is 9-10 miles, all easy. That will put me at 27 miles for the week and good position for the increased miles going forward. My ankle and right side TFL is a little sore which might have been due to running in the Hyperion Max’s which I reserve for my high aerobic/sprint workouts. I’ll do some stretching and foam rolling tonight to get ready for my long run tomorrow.

8/9

I did my 10 mile run in the heat of the day. It was 96 degrees in Springfield with a hot bright sun overhead. I set out water and a chia seed pouch for an aid station at the halfway mark. I ran my first 4 miles around the neighborhood before it became clear that I needed fuel. I was tired almost immediately. Even though these were supposed to be 10 easy miles, nothing about the run was easy (or fun for that matter). I texted my Dad afterwards and told him that this was one of my least favorite runs of all time. Now that I’ve had a day to process, I stand by the statement. I felt heavy and sluggish from the speed workout the day before and the foam rolling and stretching I did in the morning didn’t help at all. I had to pause the run to go by one of my rentals to check on a drainage issue and a broken doorknob at the seven mile mark so the interruptions for hydration and the house issues prevented me from getting into a good flow mentally. Still, we logged the miles and checked the box.

27 miles for this week. It felt good to get some recovery time in after 3 straight weeks of stacking miles. I have a 5 mile easy run with strides mixed in tomorrow after church. We have another hot day incoming, looks like a high of 94 with a small chance of rain in the afternoon.

8/10

The sermon today was on the spiritual discipline of community, something I’ve been thinking more about in recent months. As a high school and then a college student, my Christian community of friends were really special to me, to the point where I probably made them into an idol. I struggled with that for a long time and it wasn’t until I married someone who was more introverted that I learned the value of intentional solitude and one on one quality time.

In recent years, community has looked a lot different for me. As a husband and a father of 2, my main focus and my main community is my family. They deserve all my attention and leadership. Friends and extended family deserve parts of me too but it’s been an important thing to remember to always save the best of myself for my wife and our children.

I listened to a Chris Williamson podcast episode with Mike Israetel as the guest and he said that something in your life will suffer when you go all in pursuing something else, even if the pursuit is positive. I’ve been thinking a lot about that. I was struck with fear at first. The thought crossed my mind, “Is my family suffering because of my training?” That didn’t make sense to me. I feel like a better Dad for the training I’ve done. I think the alone time with God that the running has afforded me has enhanced my drive to be a great husband and father. But the question kept nagging at me, “What is suffering because of the way I’ve chosen to orient my life?” It feels weird to admit but I think it’s friendship. I don’t think I’m as good a friend as I could be because of the choices I’m making. I spend 45 hours per week working, I spend, on average, 6-8 hours of my free time training. Calculate 7-8 hours of sleep per night, and there’s not much room for quality time with other people outside of my family.

I’m thankful for my friend Travis who I run with once a week. I’m thankful for my friends I see at church on Sundays. But the late nights downtown are long gone. The college rental houses are occupied by different strangers now. I pass by them on Pickwick or Delmar sometimes and say the same thing to myself, “remember when ____ used to live there?” Sometimes I miss those days. I wouldn’t trade my life now for any of it but still, it’d be nice if all of us lived in the same city again. Everyone’s so spread out now.

I ran 5 miles today and mixed in some strides to get the heart rate up. My body recovered well from the 10 miles yesterday despite the heat. I decided to skip on mowing the lawn. We haven’t had rain in almost a month and I don’t want to scorch the grass. Glad I can take that off my list of to-dos this week. I sat in my garage for 20 minutes and shut the door to use it as a makeshift sauna. No idea if it helped my body recover but I’m gonna keep trying it a couple days a week.

8/11

Tonight is a workout. I’m trying to be more consistent with the strength training. Up until now, I’ve avoided the gym for fear of soreness affecting my performance in my speed training days. I heard from a running coach who runs ultramarathons say something to the effect of, “speed work isn’t about running about peak performance, it’s about improving endurance so that your peak is higher on race day.” That has really changed my mentality when it comes to speed training. I’m not going to be afraid of running on tired legs or lifting heavy, even if I have a run the next day.

I did a 45 minute strength workout, mostly focused on legs and back. Here’s the full breakdown:

Pull-ups: 3 sets x 7 reps

Barbell back squat: 3 sets x 12 reps

Trap-bar deadlift: 3 sets x 12 reps

Calf-raises: 3 sets x 12 reps

Dumbbell shoulder press: 3 sets x 12, 10, then 8 reps (25lb dbs)

Hammer curls: 3 sets x 8 reps (25lb dbs)

Candlestick leg raises: 3 sets x 8 reps

The arm and shoulder work was purely cosmetic but the rest of the workout is going to help me achieve my marathon goal. I need stronger legs and if that means my speed work sessions suck a little bit, that’s okay. I don’t want a random threshold workout in August to be my best run of 2025. I’m trying to run my best on race day.

8/12

My speed work run was 7 miles. I woke up at 5:45 to get out of the house early so I can be on Dad duty when the kids get up. Here was the structure: 1 mile warm up, 6 x 1km at 10k pace (RPE 7/10), 2-3 min cool down in between each interval. I was surprised by how the legs performed. I expected to be moving through cement during the run but we were able to move faster than expected. I ran the 1km intervals around 7:20-7:45/mi which felt challenging but not an all out effort. I was surprised my Garmin counted it as a Base workout based on my heart rate data instead of a tempo workout. It felt like a high aerobic workout to me but I know to take some of Garmin’s tracking with a grain of salt.

We’re sleep training John this week so I’m hoping to start doing these early morning workouts more consistently. I always feel better when I knock my training out early so I don’t have to think or worry about it later after work. It frees me up to spend more time with the family and get quality time with God. I’m going to wake up around the same time tomorrow to do a 5 mile easy run.

8/13

I woke up with a bit of a sore throat and my Training Readiness was in the mid 50s. I didn’t want to push too hard today but I felt too good to just do a slow run since I’m resting tomorrow. I changed it to a slow progression run. We started at 10:40/mi pace and cut 10 seconds off each mile from there and did the last mile at marathon pace with some strides mixed in. Total stats: 5.45 miles, average pace 9:56/mi. Kept the heart rate in Zone 2 for the majority of the run. I’ve run 17.6 miles so far this week. I’ll be taking tomorrow off so Lane and I can have some quality time then I’ll do 3-4 easy miles with Travis on Friday and a 13 mile workout with my buddy Elliot who I haven’t seen in months. I figured I might as well try to spend more time with friends if it’s been a weak spot recently!

Keep Going!