Category: Running (Page 5 of 9)
It’s been a while since I posted a random sample of the stuff I’ve been reading. If you only read one of these articles, read the very first one.
In healthy patriarchies, men push themselves to earn the respect and admiration of other men. They work to prove their strength, courage and competence to each other. Men pride themselves on their reputation for mastery of their bodies, their actions, and their environment. They want to be known for what they can do, not just how well or who they can screw.
‘Marathon blues’ can affect Olympians and recreational athletes alike – Someone once told me there was a high rate of alcoholism for former top-level runners and former astronauts for this very reason. I haven’t seen numbers on that though.
This Handmade ‘Game of Thrones’ Board Game Is Gorgeous – The young’uns are loving strategy games these days. Can I justify this?
Cycle Workouts To Improve Your Cadence – Perfect for cross training workouts while marathon training, and a good investment.
Lost Photos – discovering lost photos in your email account – One of these days…
How To Make Caricatures Using GIMP – I hope to get around to doing this at some point.
The Benefits Of A Negative Bike Split – Wait…tell me one more time. It may actually sink in this time around.
Importing SharePoint 2007 list templates (STP) into SharePoint 2010 – Kick Aise. Quick and easy!
How the Lunar X Prize Is a Preview of the New Space Age – Popular Mechanics –
How to Develop Film Using Coffee and Vitamin C! Srsly! | Photojojo – Is there anything coffee can’t do?
TURNING TURDS INTO TRIUMPHS – What she said!
An Act of Great Cunning – Whoa!
Senate rules do not allow a filibuster when the bill under consideration has to do with imposing or repealing a tax. If the Republicans take the Senate and the Presidency, they can now repeal the individual mandate. They will not need sixty votes.
This was on loop in my head for today’s run. Actually a really good one for temp run!
I love data analysis. Here’s a look at a snapshot of my week 17 volume and pace comparisons from three different 18 week training periods.
Notes:
- The other two periods were 2003/2004–I’m much older now.
- I’m down 20-25 pounds now from where I was for the other two periods.
- I’m running 3 days/week now instead of 4 back then
- In 2004 I pretty much stopped training at the end of the program…only 50 miles of running the last month, and that included two 20s. That doesn’t come into play here, but explains the different performance on race day between 2003 and 2004.
I don’t plan on doing this often, but I’m hoping it puts me in a good frame of mind to set a PR.
Week 17 Comparison:
- 2003: 16.35 miles @ 9:37 avg
- 2004: 22 miles @ 9:33 avg
- 2012: 20 miles @ 9:12 avg
I’m so glad that I know more than I knew then.
Mostly because it made me remember that taste.
Who would have ever thought I’d wake up with a cold the day of my first training run?
I was very tempted to go out and try to run anyway because I really don’t want to start a program that way, but I thought better of it. I’ve actually tried that before, and I did not have a speedy recovery. I generally don’t go back and pick up missed runs in a training program because they are so small in the big picture. However, I’m trying a three day a week program for this race, and I think I’d be better off skipping one of the cross training days and making sure I get my runs in. I’ll just push the long run out a little further and I can be back on my planned schedule within a week.
Then again, the run I missed was an interval workout. Maybe I could skip it…just this once.
Cool medals too!
I decided on a fall marathon to try to fix what ailed me in the Florida 70.3 run. Luckily there’s a great local race, The Space Coast Marathon, over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Using the FIRST training plan, I hope to keep up with my swimming and cycling as best I can on the cross training days, and once the race is over I’ll get back to cycling heavily and put the run into a mostly-coast mode to get ready for the Naples HITS 70.3 in January. We have local open water swims every Wednesday, and the course is set up nicely to get a 1.2 miles swim in safely. The real trick is going to be getting some distance in on the bike, so I may have to work overtime a little to make that happen.
Here’s this week’s schedule
Monday
Cycle: Probably a Spinervals Aero Base Builder
Tuesday
Key Run #1: 10 minute warm-up, 6 x (1 minute fast then 3 min. easy), 10 minute cool-down
Wednesday
Open water swim
Thursday
Key Run #2: 2 miles easy, 2 miles @ 8:15-8:30 pace, 2 miles easy
Friday
Rest
Saturday
Key Run #3: 8 miles @ 9:30 pace
Sunday
Cycle: High intensity spin or another Spinervals video
Yesterday I had one of my least favorite types of run…The Bonk. Does anyone enjoy a bonk? Adding insult to injury, it was short-distance bonk–only four miles. I should be able to negative split that every day.
But not yesterday.
With about 1.25 miles to go, that ol’ familiar feeling crept in. I knew I was not only going to have trouble knocking a minute off my current pace in the last mile, I was going to have trouble holding my current pace. It happens to everybody, and it’s part of running. When this happens to me, I try to make the best of it. I try to occupy my mind with thinking about all the ways this run is going to help me on race day. I have a little conversation with myself. It’s a very repetitive conversation, because I’m basically repeating the same thing over and over:
“Yes, this hurts. Ok, we’ve established that. Isn’t this what you expect to feel like on race day? Isn’t this the exact position you want to put yourself into with a mile to go? The only difference is that you want to be going faster. That’s the only factor that makes this situation different than race day. This is an opportunity to practice, and you can’t create this opportunity when you choose. You have to seize these rare opportunities when they come along.”
At the wall, but winning the Clydesdale division and setting a PR. This is what I trained for. I bonked a 10 miler the day before this race. September 11 Memorial 5k, 2003.
It makes sense, right? You run intervals to get your body used to the feeling of running fast. You run a lot of miles to get your body used to running tired. Why not also practice running bonked to get your mind trained to force your body to fight through The Wall? I do my best to pretend that I am running fast, and that’s the source of the pain.
It’s not a very easy thing to do though. You’re slowing down with every quarter mile, so it’s hard to keep from getting mentally discouraged. Sometimes, it’s hard just to not stop and walk. No one is watching. It’s not a race. This can just be a 3 mile run instead of 4. Right?
Then the conversations starts again:
“Are you going to make that a part of your race plan? Unscheduled walking? Do you feel good about the fact that you took unscheduled walks in your last race? Are you happy with the fact that these unscheduled walks cost you a PR by only 15 seconds? If you still want to walk, go ahead. But know that you are teaching yourself that it’s ok to give up. You’re training yourself to miss another PR by 15 seconds.”
Quitting eats peas.
Running through The Wall like a big fat Kool-Aid man rocks.
About 2 years ago I had a really strange numbness in the top of my right foot around the third and fourth toes. I could “activate” the numbness by rubbing a little spot just below my ankle. There wasn’t any pain involved, so I didn’t think much of it, but I asked my doctor about it when I went for my regular checkup. He ordered an MRI, and called me up to let me know this was the result of a stress fracture and that I should stop running (and cycling and swimming) and wear shoes until I had a chance to get in with a podiatrist.
After three days of wearing shoes (I usually go barefoot), the pain showed up. It wasn’t anything unbearable, but when I got to the podiatrist, he prescribed total rest for a couple of months. I rested it, but didn’t have any improvement, so when I went back he concluded that it wasn’t a stress fracture after all and that it was probably just a neuroma and could be taken care of with a shot or two of cortisone. Man, was I happy I’d spent those months doing absolutely no cardio and losing all that fitness for nothing!
Since then I’ve been dealing with minor flare ups here and there, but I did notice that after my 70.3 race in May there wasn’t any pain at all, which was surprising. Yesterday evening I was about halfway through an 8 miler I noticed a really sever crown in the road. I mean, it all of a sudden seemed like I was running on the side of a mountain. I moved over to the middle of the street and instantly felt relief in my right foot and calf. I’m realizing now that this crown in the road has probably been the root cause of my issue.
I have really high arches and supinate naturally, so I think running on the left side of the road against traffic on our neighborhood roads has exaggerated that. I don’t really run any other places (yet), but I’m going to try out some different routes on sidewalks to see if it makes a difference. I usually avoid sidewalks because the concrete is so much harder than the asphalt on the roads, but I think it may be worth a shot to see if that remedies the issue.
Last night we went to an open track meet hosted by the Holy Trinity track team and The Running Zone. What a blast, and a great idea for a fundraiser for a track program or running club. There were all sorts of ages and abilities there, and lots of events.
The cool thing is that all the little kids run too. They have heats at the shorter distances for them (it’s so cool to see a 7 year old PR the 800 by 1 second). They also get to high jump, long jump, put, and everything else. Our kids had a blast just running around the track and drinking Gatorade, aka “shiny yellow”.
Now for the nitty-gritty…
My original plan was to only run the 5000 meters, but I was the only one who registered for it, so it got cut. I ended up running the 1600 and 800 and scratching the 3200 because it was the last event and my quads felt like car batteries at that point–very heavy and full of acid.
The 1600 sucks. I have no idea how to judge my pace for that distance because, you know, when do you ever run that fast when you’re training for distance running? Sure, you may do some 1 mile repeats, but those are run knowing that you have more of them to run and that you need to be able to run that pace multiple times (hence the word “repeat”). The 1600 is a one-shot distance–how fast can you get it done. I knew ~6:00 is the best I’ve ever run it, but I wasn’t expecting to be able to run that. Unfortunately, I didn’t really know where I’d be.
6:15? 6:20? 6:30?
Imagine what went through my head when I finished my first painful lap at 1:27.
Great. I’m hurting really bad and I’m running way too fast.
I quickly came to two conclusions:
- I’m about to slow down whether I want to or not.
- The pain isn’t going anywhere.
I ended up at 6:28. Ugh…way off anything close to negative splits, and going out fast probably cost me at least 5-7 seconds. I just didn’t know how to pace that first lap, and I’d probably make the exact same mistake if I ran it again tomorrow. I’m not sure how many of these I’d have to run to get it right, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to run that many of them. 🙂
The 800 was a little better. Still DFL’d my heat it by one second at 2:59, but at least I got a 4 second negative split and had some kick at the finish.
Pocket Chainsaw – Genius! Please develop a pocket band saw and forklift as well please.
A Marathon of Measurements – I’m glad someone wants to do this. Wish there were more of these guys.
2:16 Marathoner Says He Can Break 2:00 – If he didn’t have to work. I could do it too…if I didn’t weight 200 lbs, had a coach and dietitian, and more flexibility in my hips. Oh yeah, I’d like a shoe sponsor as well. Geesh.
Custom themes in Gmail – Add photos to your gmail theme…cool!
The Libraries, Studies, and Writing Rooms of 15 Famous Men – Counting down the days to the time when I will take the room I want for my office!
Choose, Lace, and Replace Your Running Shoes Based on How You Run – Hopefully this will make a bigger difference than the podiatrist did.
Twitter moves toward the news system of the future – Or, as it is known in many circles, Google+
Better With Age – This is comforting
Thinking of going this route – FIRST marathon training plan
Never-before-seen photos from 100 years ago tell vivid story of gritty New York City – Awsum.
A Simple, Responsive, Mobile First Navigation
Google Semantic Search: Bad for SEO, Good for You – Make your SEO money now!
We had a pretty rainy weekend here with Debby sitting out in the Gulf. No storms, just a slow rain. Maybe not the optimal weather to go out and run in, but at least it wasn’t hot…right?
I did 8 miles in the rainiest part of the day yesterday and took it pretty easy up until the last mile. I’m hoping to test out with an 8:3x 10k in a couple of weeks, so I was happy to get that last mile in at 7:35 after having run 7 already in squishy wet shoes. I used to run in squishy shoes all the time and it didn’t seem to bother me, but I’m not liking it so much lately. The upside is that I only have one pair of runners right now, so they’re too squishy to go do anything today other than swim, bike, stretch, or do yoga. So I don’t feel any pressure to work out at all.
Here’s Jesco.
When I first started running just after the turn of the century (haha) I sought out some experts and tried to leverage their knowledge as best I could. That meant using the Hal Higdon (awesome running coach) Novice Marathon program, reading message boards that focus on training, and finding some locals who gave me good advice based on years of experience (“If we’re running so fast we can’t talk, we’re running too fast.”)
Around the same time, some guys at Furman University were starting to do some research on running based on science. I know…the horror! At FIRST (Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training), what they learned flew in the face of the observed conventional wisdom coaches had been passing along for years. The result was a program featuring only three days of running a week.
Ah…there’s something worth noting there. It’s not a three days of exercise program. It’s a three days of running program. The program has at least two other days of cross-training. And the three days of running are all difficult–intervals one day, tempo runs another, and a long-distance day that doesn’t let you go as slow as you want. It’s slower for sure, but still challenging.
No easy running days.
Personally, I’m not short changing the conventional wisdom at all. I followed the Higdon programs for many distances and was very happy with my results. These programs will get you where you want to be, for sure. My only real complaints with them are the number of days I have to spend running , which really takes its toll on my knees, and the fact that there are a lot of slow/easy miles involved, which is against my natural tendency is to try to race every day. Granted, it takes some restraint on my part to run these miles without going hard, and there are some valuable lessons to be learned there about patience and restraint that can really help on race day. I haven’t learned those lessons as well as I’d like, but I know the lessons are there.
But this weekend I grabbed a copy of Run Less, Run Faster
I was a little disappointed that the marathon programs in the book start with a 13 mile run on week one and feature five 20 mile runs. That’s probably a great program if you’re coming into the training in marathon shape, but I was looking for a beginners/not-quite-ready-for-marathon version. A web search turned up this schedule, which seems like it was part of the FIRST program…I’m just not sure why it’s not in the book.
Right now I’m working on getting ready for a 10k test in mid-July to determine what my predicted marathon pace will be and hopefully squeeze every second I can out of my finish time. This is so I can go into my next 70.3 with the best running base possible and fix what’s ailing me there. This, so I can (hopefully) convince myself I’m ready to tackle the 140.6 distance. Lots of miles ahead of me.
One of the downsides to telecommuting is that it’s very easy to become withdrawn, especially if you are a natural introvert like me. I find myself going days on end without leaving the house unless it’s for a quick trip to the gym,and I’m usually under water for most of the time I’m there. I do make it off of our street quite often to go out running and riding, but that hardly counts as “going out”.
The upside is that training solo makes racing solo a little easier. The downside is that you don’t get that little extra push on the tough days when you’re training alone, and you don’t get little nuggets of wisdom and information from other athletes. I was really lucky to find out about an open water swim/run brick group that meets close to the house, and I was able to actually go out last night and participate, which was awesome!
The Running Zone sponsors this workout every Wednesday night at Pineapple Park near the Eau Gallie causeway. There are a couple of swim options, and all kinds of athletes swimming a variety of paces show up. Lots of people do a quick 0.4 mile out and back swim, but there’s also the opportunity to get a full 0.8 mile (~1400 yards) swim without doing two laps of the .4 course.
See how close that is to the 1500 meters you’d swim in a Oly? See how easy it would be to do the 0.8 + 0.4 for a total of 1.2, which just happens to be the exact distance you swim in a 70.3?
Dang. I wish I’d known about this when I was training for the Haines City 70.3. I did one short single solitary open water swim before that race, and I really paid for it.
The great thing about swimming here is that when you’re done you are in the perfect spot to get a run that includes the causeway. That’s the closest thing we have to a hill here. It’s not very steep and not very long, but it’s the the best we have, and it has a very nice pedestrian walkway that is safely protected from traffic by a bike lane and concrete dividers, so it’s very safe.
Now for the best part…all the added information you get by going to where people are and actually talking to them. I met a couple of good dudes last night who gave me all kinds of information on local and semi-local races. Better than that, I got information on even more organized open-water swims and group runs. There are all kinds of opportunities for long runs with Gatorade/water support and social runs throughout the week. I’m going to make it out Sunday for the group long run, and this Wednesday night swim is going to be a staple of my weekly schedule!
My race plans usually aren’t very complicated. I’m just a regular ol’ MOP’er. I don’t have the latest equipment or a coach. I don’t race very often, and I don’t live and breathe triathlon. It’s just fun for me, and I actually enjoy the training more than the racing. I’m not racing anyone but myself anyway…no realistic chance of placing in my age group.
But I loves me a PR.
So here are some of the things I’m thinking about for my upcoming race, and how I work on them in training.
Swim
The course has changed to an ‘M’ shaped swim. Sort of unconventional, and I’ve never done one. As usual, I’d I’d like to take it easy for the first “out” part. I plan for what I want to happen on race day in my training swims by overcompensating for an easy start, swimming the first 500 yards as “long” as I can. This means really reaching and gliding with each stroke; usually about 11 strokes for the 25 yard length, breathing every three strokes. I then do at least 500 with a little faster turnover, breathing every two strokes. Sometimes I’ll go another 500 at that pace. I know I can handle that, and I’d like to pick up the pace a little on the diagonal parts of the ‘M’ on race day. From there, I like to take it easy on the way back, almost a cool down, because I don’t want to transition with a jacked up heart rate and body/mind that isn’t as relaxed as possible.
Now, I know realistically that the adrenaline is going to be a factor at the start, and I also know myself well enough to know that it takes me a couple of hundred yards to settle into an open water swim. And if I find some good feet, I’m jumping on them and riding as long as I can. But the swim is negligible for my overall time, so I just deal with whatever happens there on race day. I won’t be worried if I swim a little faster than planned, and I won’t be worried if I swim a little slower than planned.
Bike
There are some rollers on this course, and winds could be a factor as well. I have a pretty old bike that never was the latest and greatest, and I don’t have multiple cassettes and wheel options to change based on terrain or what the wind is doing. I keep my strategy here simple. Fight the wind and fight the hills, and relax a little on the downhills and with the wind at my back. I practice this in training all the time. The rationale is pretty simple. When an object, in this case a fat guy on a bike, is going slow it doesn’t take as much energy to increase it’s speed by 1 mph as it does when the object is going fast. It’s tempting to ride harder when the wind is at your back because you can look down and see your mph jump on your computer, but physics says it’s a foolish thing to do. It sucks fighting to stay over 18 mph in a headwind, but it beats giving up and going 16.5.
I stay in aero all the time, or as much as possible. If any sitting up is going on it needs to be standing to power up a hill or, if seated, with wind at my back. Even then, only for a rest. Stay aero.
I like this course for my plan because the course is a loop that starts heading south, then heads back north. The biggest hill is at about mile 27, and there’s a good chance winds will be out of the south. That means I can put a bigger effort in at the beginning going generally uphill and into the wind, and get more of a rest at the end, going generally downhill with wind at my back. That will help with my plan to fight for a pre-determined average speed on the bike and (hopefully) get a chance to try my run strategy out.
Run
I’m doing something here I’ve never done before. Maybe it will work, and maybe it won’t. Either way, it’s a better plan than “just survive”, even if that’s what I end up doing. I’m breaking this run down into 3 separate pieces: 2 five mile sections followed by a 5k. I have paces I’d like to run for each of them, but the hard part is going to be holding those paces. For the first 5, the challenge will be getting up to speed getting off the bike. There will need to be some split differences in these miles. I know from experience that it takes me about a mile to get my legs back from the bike.
For the second 5, the challenge is going to be getting to the right pace in the first mile and then holding it without speeding up. I’m not really concerned with what will happen if I slow down during this section. If I can’t hold the pace for the entire 5, there’s no way I’d be able to race the last 5k anyway, so I’ll be better off saving myself whatever gas I can to get through it. But I don’t want to go faster than my predetermined pace, so I can have as much as possible available for the 5k.
If I make it through the second 5 on pace, it’s a 5k race with whatever is left in the tank. Again, there’s a course advantage here. The course is three loops, and the first part of the loop is uphill. If I can make it to the top of that hill on pace in the last lap, what I’m left with is a mostly downhill 3 miles or so. That should help with the pace. Again, if I can’t keep on the pace schedule for the first 1o miles, then whatever happens happens.
To train for this, I’m going out and doing short runs and trying to hit those paces. For instance, I’ll do a one mile warm up, then try to do my first mile at the pace I plan on running the first 5 during the race. For the second mile, I’ll try to hit my planned pace for the second 5 during the race. And for the last mile, I go at the 5k pace I’d like to hit on race day. I’m actually doing my long run this weekend with the same strategy, but using 2 miles instead of one for each planned section.
It’s worth noting that this entire, detailed, thought-out plan is a product of two things: (1) Not listening to music when I run, so I have nothing to do but think about this and (2) Tapering right now, so I’m obsessed with thinking about this race. If you are using this plan as advice, keep in mind that it’s free advice, and it’s worth about what you paid for it…if that.
In a way, I’m looking forward to this all being over with so I can go back to worrying about what new features Google is pushing out this week. Or maybe I’ll keep up with the Kardashians for a day or two until I’m so repulsed that I want to train for something again.