piriformis?

I'm beginning to think that's what my butt, hip, back, thigh (and now groin) pain is. I can feel this ache deep in my "gluts" (don't snicker!) that feels like it's where my femur meets my hip. I know I'm under the effects of taper madness, but this is getting kind of disturbing. It seems to be causing all sorts of other problems and while it certainly won't result in a DNS, I'm worried about it holding up for 26.2. Of course, I say there's a 50-50 chance I don't feel it at all Saturday.

week of 17 November

Mo -  Rest
Tu - 10.30    1:26:56    8:27    144 (72%)
We - 10.72    1:26:11    8:02    148 (74%)
Th -  5.00    0:45:53    9:11    133 (67%)
Fr -  5.90    0:52:46    8:56    137 (68%)
Sa - 13.43    1:54:11    8:30    152 (76%)  -- HRM messed up 1st two miles
Su -  Rest             
Wk - 45.35    6:25:57    8:31    145 (72%)

I moved the long run up to Sat to put it a week before the marathon and then didn't know what to do with Friday's workout. Thinking that less was more, I didn't an easy six and avoided the back-to-back hard days. Yesterday, I said I'd run 5 today, but I decided that was just some strange need to get over 50 miles and I'd stick with the off day following a "long" run. This leaves me with 45 for the week. Yikes!

Besides over analysis, what are the other symptoms of taper madness?

• New aches and pains. Check! When you cut back the miles, it's like you've removed the all-over, general dull ache from your body and suddenly every little joint and muscle wants to complain about what you've been doing to them for the last 6 months.
• Germ phobia. Check! I ran on a hotel treadmill and Thursday and after rubbing my eyes realized I'd probably rubbed the sweat of a thousand guests in there. I have a tickle in my throat today, but I'm pretty sure that's from raking leaves yesterday.
• Checking the long-range forecast. Check! According to NOAA, it should be 36 at 9am and 42 at noon (start is 9:30). I'll take it! 10 mph wind from the NW. It's basically a north-south out and back (with 7 miles NW), so that could suck, but it's in the woods and somewhat sheltered. Plus, I'd much rather have the wind at my back in the second half. Notice how I pretend like a 7-day forecast means anything? A sure sign of taper madness!

Here is the official plan. It's a semi-steep downhill first two miles, 1% uphill grade for 11 miles, 1% down for 11, then semi-steep uphill last two. I'll hit the turnaround at 3:14 pace and then bank a minute (5 secs/mile) on the downhill to give myself a couple of minutes before getting to the uphill.

One race-day plan I can't quite figure is eating. While I usually don't eat anything on marathon morning, I'm not sure it's a good idea with the race starting at 9:30.

On the outside looking in again?

Another sub-par run has me wondering if I've peaked too early and am now on the outside of 3:15 looking in. How can I be the guy who easily did 17 w/ 13 @ 7:14 pace a few weeks ago?

Today, according to my Garmin, I did 13.4 and the last 2.5 in which I attempted to run at marathon pace were 7:32/165, 7:26/169, and 3:47 (7:34)/170. What the hell? When I did my MP pace run three weeks ago, my last three miles (after running 10 at MP!) were 7:10/169, 7:04/167, and 7:06/168.

Arrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh. My excuses -- which do not app up 20 to 30 secs/mile -- are that

• my Garmin doesn't seem to be completely accurate on the trail. The conventional wisdom is that it's 4.6 miles around, but my Garmin reads 4.5 per last lap. [A friend road a calibrated bike around and got 4.57. Another guy claims a cross country team wheeled it at 4.60.] That's a 1.5-2 % difference, which doesn't seem like much, but that's 7-9 secs at 7:30 pace.
• it was pretty windy. Sustained 15-20 and gusting to 25-30 mph. It wasn't really in my face the whole time, but since it was from the WNW and since my half lap at MP took me from the east to the west side of the like, I guess it was net in my face.
• it was 27 degrees. Cold is better than hot, but I recognize that at some point, you do lose something when it's cold. I was wearing two shirts, tights, and a water bottle holder. It was in the 50s and very low humidity on the previous MP run.

After going through the excuses, I feel a *little* better, but still not happy. Blech. I'll have another track workout between now and the marathon. Hopefully that will lift my spirits.

I think I'll do 5 miles easy tomorrow, which will just get me to 50 for the week. It's been a long time since I've seen a number that low.

The hip definitely took a hit from the 13 miles today, but on average it seems to be improving. Balancing the miles to keep fit while getting healthy is definitely tough.

Take it easy

Tues - 10.3 @ 8:27
- skipped the Tues night double

Wed - 10.7 w/ 2x3 mile - 7:27/148, 7:13/157, 7:10/159; 7:16/156, 7:16/160, 7:18/160
- normally these would be faster, but I felt like the Tin Man without his oil

Ok, now cue the Eagles music...

This morning I ran 5 on a treadmill in a St Louis hotel. I got up to 6.6 mph (9:05) after a couple of minutes and left it there. HR settled at 130 plus or minus for the run. I haven't run on a treadmill in a long time and it was weird to run that easily at that pace. Things are qualitatively different than they were 6 months ago.

I'm back and after endless debating in my head, I'll do another easy 6 or so with some strides tomorrow. My schedule calls for 2 x 2.5 at HM, but I want to move my long run to Saturday since my marathon is on a Saturday and that seemed like too much back-to-back. At this point I'm guessing less is more.

On the knee/hip front, the hip was much better this morning. The knee still sucks, but I don't expect that to get better until after the marathon. I picked up a pain on the top of my left foot a couple of days ago. I think that side is just so screwed up now that the three joints (hip, knee, ankle) just aren't working well together.

the knee says he's #1

After I gave the nod to the hip as the #1 injury, the knee fought back this morning. It wasn't too bad though. I'm kind of use to it, although I will be happy when it no longer has that constant slight puffiness and is more like his taut friend on the right.

The hip thing has now spread to my lower back but it seems to be a duller ache. (I believe it's my gluteus medius that's bothering me.) From what I've read on hips, they often stem from weak back muscles and people like me not doing their core exercises. I'm pretty confident I'll shake this.

Today was a little less than 11 at base pace on my usual course that I haven't done in about 3 weeks (veteran's day, out of town, etc.). The pace was 8:27 and hr 143, so I think I'm back to normal in that regard. I have a new explanation for the poor weekend runs. I think I was under the weather. Yesterday I was just in a total fog.

I'm tapering, so no Tuesday double today.

week of 10 November

Mo    - Rest
Tu AM - 10.95    1:32:43    8:28    148 (74%)
Tu PM -  4.95    0:46:33    9:25    134 (67%)
We    -  9.28    1:13:40    7:56    156 (78%)
Th    -  5.85    0:55:47    9:32    133 (66%)
Fr    - 10.81    1:23:59    7:46    153 (77%)
Sa    -  5.31    0:49:28    9:19    135 (68%)
Su    - 17.99    2:36:13    8:41    149 (74%)
Week  - 65.14    9:18:23    8:34    146 (73%)
Last  - 71.14    10:01:47   8:28    142 (71%)

The taper started today with a shorter long run -- 4 laps around the lake instead of 5. It was blech. I'm not sure what to blame it on, but I'm hoping I haven't passed my peak. I stayed up to late Fr and Saturday, ate crap last night, and maybe the oddly warm weather yesterday threw me off. Today was 45 and pretty windy. The only decent excuse is the wind. I was out there from roughly 9 to 12 and the hourly report of winds/gusts from wunderground was 15 mph/29, 23/32, 16/28, and 16/27. Still it's hard to explain. My fourth lap last week was 8:19 pace @ 151 versus 8:44 @ 152 today. That's 25 seconds per mile!

This was really an annoying run. My hip bothered me the whole time and I felt like I wasn't running efficiently. The hip, the wind, and the trail made me feel like I never got a groove. While I thought I definitely could have qualified if I'd run a marathon last week, I'm sure I couldn't have today. The marathon gods are fickle.

The hip thing is my #1 injury concern now. The pain is where my hip meets my thigh and I feel it from all sides (front, side, back) at various times. Hopefully the increased taper this week will help. I'm planning to do roughly the same thing except drop the mid-week double and shorter the Sunday run to two laps. That should be about 55 miles, which is frankly so low that it scares me a little bit. We'll see if I can stick with it.

an "easy" 5

Hot and humid today.

My hr/pace splits last Saturday and today (same route):

08 November - 9:51/123, 8:56/125, 9:07/127, 9:26/ 131, 9:08/128, 9:08/125
15 November - 9:48/142, 8:57/127, 9:08/135, 9:23/136, 9:17/134, 9:28/140

The first split today is probably a screwing HRM, but the rest should be accurate since I was sweating like a pig! Checked the temps and it was 64 deg and dew pt of 62.6. Hey, isn't it mid-November?

I've developed a mild pain in my left hip/butt. I really felt it in the turns on the track yesterday. I should probably be careful tomorrow, so I doubt I'll do a full 13 at MP. Either half that or none of that.

Friday musing

The Friday tradition of 2 x 3 miles at "HM" pace continued today. Below are the last two times I've done this:

• 10/24/2008: 19' warmup; 4800 in 7:00/156, 6:58/162, 6:55/165; 800m rest; 4800 in 6:46/165, 6:47/170, 6:49/170; 19' cooldown
• 11/14/2008: 19' warmup; 4800 in 6:55/157, 6:48/166, 6:46/169; 800m rest; 4800 in 6:51/165, 6:49/169, 6:51/171; 19' cooldown

The first one looks better to my eye. In what probably really matters for the marathon though, my second (11/9) burke lake 5-lapper (23 miles) was signficantly better than my first (10/19) -- 8:45/152 versus 8:34/148.

Ah, taper madness. I still can't decide what to do on Sunday for my long run. Probably 17 or 18 miles (depending on the course I choose), but I can't decide how much at MP. There's also a 10K I could run. Hey, Bob Glover has a 10k two weeks out in his schedule!

Glad I didn't run Richmond

Forecast is 67 degrees at 7am on Saturday. How's that for 15 November? My odds of warm weather go way down with the extra two weeks between Richmond and my marathon. Of course the odds of having temps in the teens go up too!

hangin' on

The knee is, well, not too good. It ain't that bad though. I've got this week muscle strain in the bottom of my right foot (don't think it's PF). My weight is headed in the wrong direction, too. I counted calories and got to 160, stopped counting, and got to 163 in a heartbeat. I said you could ridicule me if I weren't 155 and didn't qualify for Boston. The offer still stands, but I think I just might have it this time.

I ran 11 at ~8:30 on Tuesday AM, and 5 really easy Tues PM. I was really unmotivated to go out last night. I just felt like I'd rather be doing something else with the 45 minutes. Once I got out there, my mind wandered, and I wondered why it was so hard to get out the door.

Then this morning, I modified my mixed intervals, substituting the 1k @ 5k pace and 800m @ 3k pace with another 2k @ 10k pace. This is sort of a compromise. I think the point of the fast stuff is to keep in touch with your speed, but I never developed any to keep in touch with. HM pace is really good for marathon training per Hudson and damn it if I don't agree :-) I've also decided that 10k pace is just plain good for me and I'm not letting it go just yet.

I felt tired going in and wore way too much clothing. It was supposed to be 36 (when I paced) but I think it was more like 45. I was wearing sweaty gloves by the time I reached the track. During the intervals my heart rate seemed higher than before, but now looking at the "data" it's pretty close.

Today: 3200m in 6:56/159, 6:50/167, 2000m in 8:10/173, 2000m in 8:10/175.
Last Tues: 3200m in 6:56/159, 6:44/167, 2000m in 8:07/172, 1000m in 3:54 (6:17)/176, 800m in 3:00 (6:02)/178

It was worse today, but not that much different. I was a little afraid I might be slipping based on how I felt this morning, but looking at the above, I can't jump to that conclusion.

My taper is really going to start with my long run this weekend (two weeks out). I did 23 last Sunday. I can't decide what to do this week. Here's a tour of book wisdom.

• "Brain training" calls for 17 w/ 13 at MP again and I just might do that.
• Hudson says 17 easy.
• Pfitz 12wk/70mpw says 8-10k race Sat, 17 easy Sunday. Ouch. (The race sounds fun though.)
• DRF Marathon Training plan A says 2 x (35-40' E pace + 15-20' T pace) + 2 mi E pace. My head hurts. I'm just going to read this as 17 with a couple of fast sections, OK?

I sure own a lot of books. I might do a repeat of my Mt Vernon time trial, but slower. I also thought of driving to the course, but it's a long drive. I could also do my standard 18 mile route and either make it easy or throw in some fast parts depending on how I feel. I'm tempted to do more than 18 because 3 weeks just seems like a long time to have 18 miles be your longest run.

week of 3 November

Mo - Rest
Tu - 9.54 1:14:44 7:50 152 (76%)
We AM - 10.80 1:30:12 8:21 140 (70%)
We PM - 5.31 0:46:47 8:48 132 (66%)
Th - 6.57 0:59:14 9:01 131 (65%)
Fr - 10.78 1:25:52 7:58 145 (73%)
Sa - 5.59 0:52:00 9:18 127 (63%)
Su - 22.54 3:12:58 8:34 148 (74%)
This Week 71.14 10:01:47 8:28 142 (71%)

Sleep, sleep, sleep. I was a bit burned out before Friday's run and scaled back the intensity. Even then I was a little afraid that I wouldn't recover before Sunday and my long run would be miserable. I got 8 or 9 hours of sleep on Friday and took Saturday's recovery run *really* easy (check out the 127 bpm average). Then on Saturday afternoon (after my son's flag football team was victorious to finish the season 5-1!), I took an absurdly long nap and followed it up with another 8 or 9 hours of sleep on Saturday night.

All of the sleep must have helped because after I got going this morning, I felt great. I cranked out 5 steady laps at Burke Lake (23 miles) in relatively easy fashion. The only hiccup was my shoes. I ran the first lap in the Free 5.0v1 that I just bought four cheap pairs of and it felt like running on a golf ball. Doh! Luckily I brought the trusty Mizunos and switched back to them.

I'm hoping that 3:12:58 time for my long run today is a sign.

worse than hitting the wall

I saw this on the Baltimore Road Runners Club web site

"Bowhunting season has begun in Maryland and continues until January 31, 2009. This year the Loch Raven Watershed is open to hunters, so BRRC reminds trail runners as well as users of the NCR Trail to wear bright colors. Trail runners may also want to consider alternate venues that are not open to hunting."

The NCR trail is where I'm running the marathon. Something worse than hitting the wall to worry about.

Today's run was bizarre. Feeling beat up, I decide to do the usual Friday 2 x 3 miles, but not run < 7 min/mi like I had. The 1600m splits for the fast sections were 7:11/152, 7:14/156, 7:13/157 and 7:18/156, 7:21/158, 7:30/158. Unreal. My body must be in a weird state. If not, 7:26 is going to feel like jogging. Right not my plan is to run BQ pace (or maybe a minute faster) for the first half and then negative split. I definitely need to bank a couple of minutes for the last two steep uphill miles.

just beat up

I think the MP on Sunday along with switching my track workout from Wed to Tue (to accomodate work travel) put me over the edge. Combine that with a lack of sleep from the time change and I am just beat up. Saturday is 3 weeks to go. I wish I believed in long tapers, because I could use one.

I manage to squeeze in 3 runs total 22 miles during my 3 days of meetings. The hotel was next to a golf community and there was a very nice 3.3 asphalt loop that was pretty flat and essentially uninterrupted. HRs paces were nice on the flats. 90' @ 8:21/140, 46' @ 8:48/132, and 59' @ 9:01/131.

I'm planning to cut out the stuff faster than HM pace and I think that will help me. Hudson's sharpening phases doesn't have it anyway. Fitzgerald maintains the mixed intervals (3200 @ HM, 2000 @ 10k, 1000 @ 5k, and 800 @ 3k), but I swear the 3k and 5k pace kills me more than anything.

week of 27 October

Today I did a "marathon pace" run. The Brain Training schedule called for a half marathon tune-up today or time trial. Well, there wasn't a half marathon and I wasn't going to time trial one. Plus, I think a half would be too much of a disruption for me.

My plan was to head to the Mt. Vernon bike trail and run the potomac river run marathon course. It's a double out and back marathon and there's a permanent marker at the turnaround (10.5 k from the start). What pace should I do the 21k? Well, I'm a wimp and planned to run 7:20 pace even if that were below marathon hr as I expected it would be from the track. Still, this is a pretty hilly course. The race web page says, "Many flat stretches, some rolling terrain, two notable hills. This is not a flat course." That's about right. In some places the "rolling terrain" is pretty short and steep, which makes it hard to get in a groove.

Anyway, the first 7:20 went nice on the flat and even up the first hill. I kept even pace up the first hill and then kept up the effort, zooming down the other side in 6:59. I ended up running closer to marathon pace then I planned. Here are the splits. (You can see that it's pretty hilly from the lack of correlation between heart rate and pace in some sections.)

warmup - 9:24/154, 9:07/131 -- wonky HRM first mile
7:18/155, 7:18 /162, 7:14/164, 6:59/164, 7:09/166,
7:02/168, 7:15/168, 7:09/167, 7:31/168,7:18/167,
7:10/169, 7:04/167, 7:06/168, 0:45/171 (0.10)
cooldown - 8:47/153, 8:28/150

Splits from Frederick for marathon heart rate reference:
7:35/157, 7:21/168, 7:31/170, 7:34/169, 7:26/170,
7:26/171, 7:23/171, 7:28/171, 7:34/171, 7:32/171,
7:26/172, 7:38/172, 7:43/172, 7:40/173, 7:31/173,
7:29/173, 8:04/173, 7:35/173, 8:14/174, 7:53/174,
7:42/173, 7:56/173, 7:57/174, 7:40/176, 8:10/176,
7:58/175, 2:24/180.

So I did 21k in 1:34:25 or 7:14 per mile. (My half PR pace is 7:08!) The heart rates correspond to a very conservatively paced marathon. By mile 13, I would normally be solidly in the 170s (172 or so), but I'm not sure I could have turned around and done it again. My breathing was 2-2 from the beginning. This is something I probably need to get used to. I used to associate 2-2 breathing with 10 mile pace, but clearly I ran 13 without a problem. I'm now unsure whether to go with my normal marathon heart rate pacing or not. I'd hate to reach for too much and fail to BQ, but I don't want to leave too much on the table either

Here's the week.

Mo - Rest
Tu AM - 10.31 1:27:05 8:27 147 (74%)
Tu PM - 5.01 0:45:21 9:03 135 (67%)
We - 9.46 1:15:25 7:59 157 (78%)
Th - 6.02 0:57:56 9:38 133 (66%)
Fr AM - 1.11 0:10:26 9:23 153 (76%)
Fr AM 9.51 1:14:08 7:48 153 (77%) -- same run, had to reset Garmin
Fr PM 4.95 0:44:38 9:01 142 (71%)
Sa - 5.44 0:50:34 9:18 130 (65%)
Su - 17.10 2:10:13 7:37 160 (80%)
This Week 68.91 9:35:46 8:21 148 (74%)

Mileage was below 70 again. Gotta watch that! Getting in my running this week is going to be challenging, but I'll get it done.

mixed intervals

Today's mixed intervals went 2+ mile wup plus 3200m in 6:56/159, 6:44/167, 2000m in 8:07 (6:32)/172, 1000m in 3:54 (6:17)/176, 800m in 3:00 (6:02)/178, 2+ mile cdn.

Last Wednesday was: 7:04/158, 6:57/165; 6:36/170; 3:56/174; 3:03/176

About the same. Today, my heart rates were a little higher for the last two intervals, but I ran the 10k pace for 2000m instead of 1600 and I ran the second 1600 of HM pace significantly faster than last week.

I really felt like I grooved on the second 1600 of HM pace. I'm calling it HM pace because I'd be happy to run a half at 6:44, but I've averaged ~167 for the second mile of most of my marathons.

10 at base pace -- calf is doing fine

I took an off day yesterday. I'm thinking those things might actually be good for you. I felt a bit like the tin man this morning, but none of the aches were in my calf, which I tweaked on Sunday's long run. By the end, I could feel a bit of a dull ache, but no tugging sensation, so I think I'm good to head to the track tomorrow. I haven't quite figured out what I'll do. I'm not sure I should do anything faster than HM pace. I might swap Wed and Fri and do the long threshold runs tomorrow.

Quite by accident, I've settled into Matt Fitgerald's "Brain Training" schedule. I really like what he tells you to do, but I *really* don't like the way he tells you to do it. All the pseudo-science and marketing really turns me off. The plan is basically two workouts (with lots of mixed intervals), a long run, one off day a week, optional doubles of 20-60' four days a week plus some drills and core work. The workouts get more race specific as you approach your goal race with lots of HM pace for the marathon. It's a lot like Canova and Hudson (who he co-authored a book with), but I think it targets a slow guy like me a little better. Canova uses a hypothetical 3' per km marathoner (the US has had two in history I think -- KK and Ryan Hall) and Hudson's hypothetical guy ends with running a 2:39 marathon. I know I can use the principles, but I'd like to be led a little closer to the water.

I used "base pace" to describe today's run as Fitzgerald does, but it was basically a moderate run (Daniels would call it E pace). I did 8:27 pace (146 bpm average) -- same pace as Sunday. It dawned on me that it's a little faster than I raced my first 10 miler in April 2005.

week of 26 October

Mo - Rest
Tu am - 10.34 1:28:31 8:34 144 (72%)
Tu pm - 5.01 45:07 9:00 147 (73%)
We - 9.27 1:14:53 8:05 150 (75%)
Th- 5.48 0:52:36 9:36 135 (67%)
Fr - 10.70 1:24:59 7:56 149 (75%)
Sa - 6.00 0:55:53 9:19 133 (67%)
Su - 22.28 3:07:47 8:26 149 (75%)
This Week 69.09 9:49:46 8:32 146 (73%)

Everyone who ran MCM today should thank me for the perfect weather since I didn't run today. It was 44 degrees when I started my long run and only 54 at 10:30 when I finished.

My legs felt fresh and this was a very easy run. BUT, at about 10 miles, I took a turn and felt a pinch on the medial side of my left achilles. The pinch grew into a dull ache over time and I could feel each footfall. Fortunately, I don't think it's my achilles. I believe it's the muscle between your achilles and medial ankle (to make up a term) that you stretch if you rotate your foot out and lift your toes. Muscles heal better than tendons and I believe this is the same injury as I had in April. I was able to run through that, so hopefully I'll have the same good fortune this time.

Aside from the injury, the run was perfect. If I'd run MCM today, I'm about 90% sure I'd have qualified. I ran 22.3 at 8:25 pace and 149 bpm. My old rule of thumb was MP is 80 secs faster than my 20-mile run pace at 149 bpm (I lock in on that in these runs). On the way back from the lake I picked it up and my miles were 7:59/152, 8:17/159, 7:56/161, 7:44/162, 7:52/162, 8:06/164, 7:57/166. The last two miles are significantly uphill. I like this route because it simulates the last 2 uphill miles of the marathon I'm running and I never like to give in and slow up too much on those miles.

69 was pretty decent mileage for the week with a complete off-day on Monday. I didn't get in the second double I was hoping for to push me over 70 for the week, but that's all right. I'm probably better off.

a couple of good workouts

Wednesday

After a day off on Monday and a moderate Tuesday, I was ready to do a workout on Wednesday and felt a little more spring in my step, so I decided to try some faster running again. I tried a workout from Matt Fitzgerald's Brain Training book. The workout is 2@HM, 1@10K, 1k@5k, 800m@3k with 400m rest. (I also did 2 miles wup + 2 miles cdn) The workout is basically in between the 4M@HM + 2M@10k and the 10k->1500m pace ladder interval from Hudson's book.

I didn't have much of a plan on pace. The math was easy for 6:56 pace (52 per 200), so I shot for that. It was dark for the first mile and I couldn't see my watch well, but hit 7:04. The next 1600 was 6:56. After that, I just tried to take a couple of second off per 200 for each subsequent interval and they were 6:36, 3:56 (6:19), and 3:03 (6:08).

As it turns out, the paces were pretty damn close to what McMillan would predict from my 68:49 10M race in the spring. McMillan says 6:05, 6:22, 6:36, and 6:59 for 3k, 5k, 10k, and HM. I ran 6:08, 6:19, 6:38, and 7:02 per mile.

Thursday

I did a very easy 5 and some really short drills. Like 3 x 10-15 seconds of skipping, high knees, butt kicks, and strides. It's amazing how awkward skipping was the first time and how natural it was on the third set.

Friday

I figured Fitzgerald worked so well on Wednesday, I stole his HM pace cruise intervals. He actually builds up to 2 x 4.5 w/800m by this point in his schedule, but I settled on 2 x 3 miles -- sounded plenty hard. I shot for <= 7:00 per mile. After a 2+-mile wup, the first 3 miles went 7:00/157, 6:53/164, 6:53/165. This was very easy. My marathon heart rate average 172. Knowing that 6:52 is 3-hour pace, I had the notion that someday I might actually run sub-3 (not this time!). The next three were pretty routine also, although the heart rate continued to climb: 6:54/163, 6:56/167, 6:56/169. Another 2+ miles for 10.7 total and 7:56/149 bpm pace overall.

***

I'm really interested in seeing how my long run goes on Sunday. I'm thinking of throwing some goal MP in there to see how it feels. To get an accurate reading maybe I'll run on the Mt Vernon bike path. There are a few permanent markers (4k and 10.5k) from races they hold there. I could do 10.5k out, 10.5k back easy, then 4k out and 4k back at MP.

***

I need to stop eating! I'm 2 pounds up from my low a week or two ago. If I weren't running well, it would upset me a lot more. I'm considering weight training to help me keep the pounds off. I can't run any more than I do and counting calories is too damn hard.

took a zero today

Slightly complicated logistics (probably would have had to run on the treadmill) combined with the realization that I probably ought to take a complete day off some time (my last was 23 Aug), and a vague recognition that 23 miles is a pretty long distance, motivated me to take the day off from running. Slept until 7am!

week of 12 October

Congrats to Mindi on a great race! I know she must be thrilled with her time and negative split. It's always good to exceed expectations.

Mystery coach, bless his soul, sent me a new chart based on my workouts from last week. If I'm reading correctly, it reflects a 10 secs/mile pace increase.

Without further ado here are the stats for the week.

| Date       | Dist (mi) |     Time | Pace | Avg. HR   |
|------------+-----------+----------+------+-----------|
| Monday     |      6.20 |  0:57:42 | 9:18 | 124 (62%) |
| Tuesday    |      9.31 |  1:21:07 | 8:43 | 138 (69%) |
| Wednesday  |     12.09 |  1:49:05 | 9:02 | 133 (66%) |
| Thursday   |      5.40 |  0:49:15 | 9:07 | 136 (68%) |
| Friday     |     14.31 |  2:01:38 | 8:30 | 148 (74%) |
| 6:23 AM    |     11.33 |  1:34:03 | 8:18 | 150 (75%) |
| 6:22 PM    |      2.98 |  0:27:35 | 9:16 | 141 (70%) |
| Saturday   |      5.38 |  0:49:25 | 9:11 | 138 (69%) |
| Sunday     |     22.51 |  3:17:03 | 8:45 | 152 (76%) |
| This Week  |     75.19 | 11:05:15 | 8:51 | 142 (71%) |
| Last Week  |     71.62 | 10:29:29 | 8:47 | 141 (71%) |
| This Month |    203.00 | 30:01:42 | 8:53 | 140 (70%) |
| Last Month |    278.72 | 40:44:19 | 8:46 | 143 (71%) |

My heart rate was inexplicably high on Friday PM and Saturday. I brushed off Friday because I never run well in the afternoon and the HRM messed up the first mile. Nevertheless the last mile of that run was 9:27/136, which isn't good. Then Saturday, was OK, I suppose (the 138 avg mostly comes from a wonky HRM -- 167 bpm first split), but it still wasn't quite right.

I did 23 today. Well, the garmin gave me credit for 22.5, but the conventional wisdom (and my friend's calibrated bike) say Burke Lake is 4.6 per lap and I did 5 laps. I had to thread the needle timewise to get this one in because my wife is out of town and I had 3' 40'' between dropping the kids off and picking them up. 10 minutes from drop off until running and a 10 minute ride to pick up left 3:20 for the run, so the goal was sub-40 per lap (a little under to allow for bathroom breaks and water refills). The laps went 39:57/140, 39:39/145, 39:03/149, 38:56/156, 39:27/164.

Except for the length (22.5 versus 20), this was almost an exact replica of this run on April 13 (3 weeks before my 3:21 at Frederic). In fact, through 4 laps, my times were 2:37:35 today and 2:37:32 then. The third lap today was 38:56/156 versus 38:27/157 then. In other words, I'm the same (or maybe a little slower).

I really felt like I had lost some of my recent mojo from the beginning of this run. The HR seemed too high for the pace given my recent expectations. You have time to think while you run and my slightly runny nose, tight chest rekindled a theory about why I've drastically underperformed at MCM for 3 years -- maybe it's mid- to late-October allergies. This is almost the exact time of year that I follow a confidence-boosting workout (10/16/07) with a bad long run (10/21/07).

I do take one positive from today. Despite the fact I didn't quite have it in the pace/hr department, I didn't hesitate to head around for that 5th lap. My endurance seems pretty good.

Conditioning workout take 2

Time Distance Split time Split distance Split pace Avg. HR
0:09:15 1.00 9:15 1.00 9:14 177 (89%)
0:18:28 2.01 9:13 1.00 9:11 134 (67%)
0:27:06 3.01 8:37 1.00 8:38 129 (65%)
0:36:16 4.01 9:09 1.00 9:10 134 (67%)
0:38:30 4.25 2:13 0.24 9:04 133 (67%)
0:45:47 5.24 7:18 0.99 7:23 157 (78%)
0:53:06 6.24 7:18 1.00 7:21 159 (80%)
1:00:27 7.24 7:20 1.00 7:19 162 (81%)
1:07:45 8.25 7:18 1.01 7:16 165 (82%)
1:15:35 9.26 7:49 1.01 7:46 162 (81%)
1:24:32 10.25 8:56 1.00 8:57 145 (72%)
1:33:21 11.25 8:49 1.00 8:50 142 (71%)
1:34:02 11.33 0:41 0.08 9:09 139 (69%)

Basically the same run as Tuesday but faster and longer and with some "strides." I jogged to the track the long way (4.25 miles) and did 4 miles. After 7:40 pace resulted in a much lower heart rate than the Mystery Coach predicted (148 versus 163), I thought I'd quicken the pace. 7:20 was a nice round number (55 per 200m) and happened to be below my goal MP :-)

The 4 miles (1600m) were 7:18/157, 7:18/159, 7:20/162, and 7:18/165. I was very happy with the heart rates obviously (my first 4 miles at Frederick were 7:35/160, 7:21/168, 7:31/170, 7:34/169), but was a little surprised to see it jump from 162 to 165. Some of that was tiring, but I think some was also the wind. It was semi-windy the whole time, with the wind straight down the track. (Wunderground shows it was 16 mph sustained.) On the last mile it picked up a little and running into a gust saw my heart rate jump from 160 to 168 on one straight.

After the four miles, I decided (for no good reason) to work a little on my "speed." After jogging a lap, I strided down the straights and jogged the curves (6 "strides"). Then headed back (2 miles).

Jogged 3 miles after nearly being hobbled while chasing kids during flag football.

I'll be only 6 weeks out after tomorrow, so I'd like to get back to some of that HM/10k pace that seemed to do wonders for me. I know I can't go to that well too often though. Not sure what I'll do. I'm thinking I might need to do a pure speed workout (like Rubio's 200s) on Tuesday. On Friday, I could do the same conditioning workout (sans the strides) or maybe inch up the pace.
If I could do that HM/10k workout at 6:40/6:20 (and the right HRs) in a few weeks, that would be fantastic.

AM: 11.33/8:18/150 (HRM messed up 1st mile. Said 177 bpm avg.)
PM: 3 miles/9:16/141 (goofed up again)

Progress?

My average pace in March was 8:55 and average HR was 143 bpm. So far in October, those numbers are 8:54 and 137.

Today I did 12 easy -- 9:02/133. Summer made a comeback as it reached the 80s this afternoon. This morning, when I ran, it was 63 deg and 97% humidity.

the (slow) beat goes on

The theme of good heart rates/paces continued today and I'm beginning to suspect it might reflect an actual (gasp) improvement in my fitness.

Tuesday is normally a workout day, but I kept it slow per the Mystery Coach's advice. He recommended 15-25' wup, 20' at 7:40, and 15-25' cdn as a conditioning workout. I padded the warmup a little and did 39' wup (long way to the track), 4800 meters at 7:43, 7:38, and 7:40 per 1600, and 19' cdn (direct route home).

The bottom line is that 7:40 pace was very easy in terms of effort and heart rate. Below are the splits

Time Distance Split time Split distance Split pace Avg. HR
0:09:50 1.01 9:50 1.01 9:42 150 (75%) -- HRM was screwed up
0:19:21 2.02 9:30 1.00 9:28 130 (65%)
0:28:07 3.02 8:45 1.00 8:46 125 (63%)
0:39:37 4.24 11:30 1.22 9:25 130 (65%)
0:47:20 5.23 7:43 0.99 7:49 145 (72%) -- 1600 on track in 7:43
0:54:59 6.22 7:38 0.99 7:43 148 (74%) -- 1600 on track in 7:38
1:02:40 7.24 7:40 1.01 7:34 148 (74%) -- 1600 on track in 7:40
1:11:38 8.23 8:58 1.00 8:59 134 (67%)
1:20:26 9.23 8:47 1.00 8:49 133 (67%)
1:21:07 9.31 0:41 0.08 9:06 133 (66%)

After the first mile on the track, I pretty much stuck at 148 bpm. That's very, very low for me. It's not even what I'd normally call an 80% run. It's barely in the high aerobic range. It also felt very easy. I was somewhere between 4-4 breathing and 3-3 breathing during the three laps. Mystery Coach said 7:40 should correspond to 163 bpm, but it wasn't close to that.

I don't think I'm overcooked or I wouldn't recover so well. Note how low my cooldown heart rate was at a pretty decent pace. I think/hope that backing off on the threshold stuff for a little bit and working on turnover will get me fresh again. I'll probably inch up the pace on these conditioning runs. I'm a little afraid of giving back what I've gained recently by backing off too much. I probably shouldn't be running 6:40 like I was, but 7:40 seems too slow.

The knee is still giving me trouble, but I did some light stretching before, during (at stoplights), and after my run that seemed to help a little.

feedback from the Mystery Coach

Perplexed by my inability to "go fast" in this workout, I emailed the Mystery Coach in the hope he might be able to figure out what went wrong and how to "fix it." MC kindly provided a detailed response, including this chart. The chart has times across the top indicating the length of time the heart rate and paces below can be held. There's a range of paces that bracket my current fitness on line 9. From the first column, I should be able to run 6:11 pace for 12:33 with an associated heart rate of 197.

MC believes my inability to get my legs to go fast comes from the inability of my upper level muscle fibers to generate the force needed to drive you HR up because they have not been activated (lack of leg speed work) or because they were not conditioned properly in the base phase. He suspects my running ahead of my maximum lactate steady state (MLSS on the chart) has undermined my condition and recovery, exhibiting a disconnect between HR and running pace.

MC suggest I do some 15-60 sec accelerations with a lot of rest -- 1-2 minutes worth every 15 minutes. On the conditioning end, start with a 20 minute steady run at about 7:40 pace (HR should be about 163) with a 15-25' and cool down. This could be the day before a longer slower run (75-100 minutes).

For at least a few weeks, I should stay out of the red and orange zones (except for the accelerations).

His advice is pretty similar to my intuition. Although I've been enjoying the absurdly low heart rate (my run today was 6.2 at 9:19 per mile and 124(!) bpm average), I can't quite believe the low heart rate reflects my real fitness. I think I need to cut down on the LT pace until I get some semblance of normalcy. What he suggests is actually pretty similar in spirit to a couple of the Joe Rubio workouts (continuous "80%" runs and 200m intervals) I was doing early in the summer.

I do have to disagree with line 9 on the chart though. I really think I'm in better shape than that, which makes me ambivalent about changing what I'm doing. I think all this HM and 10k pace got me in better shape, but I recognize there are diminishing returns there.

week of 6 October

• Mo - 5.30 0:45:48 8:38 139 (70%)
• Tu - 11.60 1:38:02 8:27 147 (74%)
• We - 9.30 1:25:23 9:11 133 (66%)
• Th AM - 5.60 0:52:51 9:26 133 (66%)
• Th PM - 2.98 0:27:55 9:22 132 (66%)
• Fr - 11.25 1:28:44 7:53 158 (79%)
• Sa - 5.33 0:50:45 9:31 130 (65%)
• Su - 20.25 3:00:01 8:53
• This Week - 71.62 10:29:29 8:47 141 (71%)

On Saturday, I got in 5 easy before my son's flag football game. His team scored at TD with 4 secs left to tie and made the conversion to win! After the game, we drove down to Williamsburg for the weekend to visit colonial Williamsburg and Yorktown. By prior agreement, I was able to get in my long run on Sunday :-)

I agonized over where I was going to run and ultimately decided to run from the colonial area to a trail I read about at the Waller Mill resovoir. Unfortunately, my replacement from Garmin didn't make it before we left (of course it was on the doorstep from Saturday afternoon until today) so I just ran 3 hours. I attempted to do the lookout trail at the park, but after scaling a couple of hills, I realized this wasn't a jogging trail and I just might snap my gimpy knee off. I also found a nice bike path that was about 2 miles long and shaded. I ended up doing a couple of out and backs on the bike path before heading back. Some guesswork and gmap-pedometer puts my distance at 20.25 (8:53 pace). Most was at ~9 min/mi, but the last 7+ were about 8:40 min/mi. (I don't have a HR because I forgot my chest strap.)

In other news, a high school friend of mine surprised both of us by getting within 90 seconds of his PR. That's really something when your 1) 37 years old and 2) ran sub-2:45 in your late 20s. He's running Boston in the spring and I'm hoping to make it there with him.

I couldn't run faster than 6:30/mile...

...if I fell off a cliff.

This was another weird one today. The plan was 4@HM, 1 mile jog, 2@10k.

- Jog 2.25 miles to the start line of the track.
- The 4 "miles" (1600m) went 6:43/166, 6:39/172, 6:37/175, 6:39/176. As I said before, my avg HM heart rate is 180, so this was quite a surprise. I had planned to hit the first 200m at ~51-52, but hit it at 50 and then it was just 50s the rest of the way. Really this was quite easy.
- Jog a mile - 9:05/148. HR recovered well.
- I was supposed to do 2 @ 10k and I tried. I really did! I though I'd hit the first 200 at 47-48 and I saw it tick over 47 to 48 as I crossed the line. Perfect I though. Then the next 200 was 50 again. Crap. I thought maybe I'd increased my breathing rate and went from 2-2 to 2-1. I saw my heart rate go down, but I didn't get any faster. The first mile was 6:36/173. I was trying! On the second mile, I stopped looking at splits and tried to relax and move my arms and legs fast. 6:47/175. Ugh.

I realized I wasn't far off an 8k PR through the 4 miles. My PR is 32:45, which is 6:33 per 1600 meters. During that race, I averaged 187 bpm over the last 4 miles. I'm not sure what the deal is. Maybe its just the marathon training that's made me slow, but strong. I feel like I could crush my 10 mile PR (6:53 pace) but probably couldn't touch my 5k PR (6:23 per mile).

I did 3 miles ez tonight (I can't double tomorrow like I wanted to).

doubles

Doubles... I think I'm going to have to start doing them. My keys for 3:15 are 70 mpw and 155 lbs. Adding intensity has made the former harder. Hudson says 70 mpw is about the most you can do in singles. For me, because I'm so much slower than Hudson anticipates, that point is probably less. I've been trying to do 10+ miles w/ a workout on Tu and Fr, a med long run on Wed, an easy 10-miler on Sa, and a long run on Sun. I think the Fr, Sa, Su stretch is probably taking a lot out of me. If I made Saturday, and possibly Wednesday, into doubles, the schedule would probably be a lot easier to handle and let me consistently reach 70 mpw while keeping the workouts. I hesitate on doubling Wednesday though, since I have a deep attachment to the mid-week medium long run. If I'm doing 10-12 on Tu & Fr though, maybe that would suffice. I really don't like doubling because of the time it takes, but I'm less than 8.5 weeks out now, so I'd only be doing it for the next 5 or 6 weeks.

I noticed that Rubio and Hudson differ on which days to double. Rubio would have you double workout days first (Tu and Fr). Hudson has AM moderate/PM easy on Wed and AM easy/PM easy on Saturday. I lean toward Hudson only because I always feel like I'm going to pull something when I shuffle around the evening after a hard run. At 37, maybe I ought to look at that masters chapter.

I was a good boy and did about 10 minutes of stretching/core today after an easy 9.3 miles @ 9:11/133bpm.

No spring in my step?

This was the strangest run ever for me.

I had been planning to do maybe 8 miles with something at the track, which would mean I could run at home before going to work (rather than get there early and run from there). Then last night as I was looking at the menu from Hudson's book, he had what looked to be about 11 miles, so I packed up my bag at about 10:45 and tried to go to sleep. Of course, I then woke up at 4:30. Since it was so early I figured I'd just do my run at the high school track near my house.

Here was the plan: 1.5 wup + 3 x (1 mile, 1k, 800m, 400m w/200m jog) at 10k -> 1500m pace. Ouch!

After 15 minutes of jogging, I found myself looking at a locked gate outside the track. I've run in the morning here before, but I guess not quite this early. This wasn't going well at all. I jog back to the old 10 laps per mile gravel track at the elementary school.

On my weird little track, I planned to do 3 x (10 laps, 7 laps, 5 laps, and 3 laps w/1 lap rest), which would be close to the plan.

My trusty Garmin is in Olathe, KS right now and I'm waiting for Garmin to send me a new (refurb) one, so I have my Suunto T6 on. The T6, unfortunately, has the world's worst backlight implementation. Not only does the backlight stink, but I can't figure out how to make it stay on. My only choices are "Normal" (press hold a particular button to get it to come on for a few seconds), "Night Mode" (on for a few seconds when I press any button), or "Off."

I tried the first mile at what, without looking at lap splits, thought was 10k pace. When I hit the lap button, it showed 6:56 and 164 bpm (not avg, but at the end of the interval). Um, that's kinda weak. I picked it up (or so I thought), and got down to ~6:40 pace for the next interval. After that, I never got much faster. The whole thing was bizarre. Near the end of the second set, I decided to stop and just run another 30' easy, because this obviously wasn't what was intended.

I tried everything to go faster. On the last interval (3 laps), I basically did what I felt was sprinting and only managed 1:52 -- 6:13 pace. The first mile of my 5k PR was 6:00 and (6:23 pace overall). My heart rate also never really got that high. I've put the graph of my heart rate below (ignore the first 10 minutes before I broke a sweat.) I've also added lines of 180 and 185, which are what I average for my last HM I raced (9/2007) and my last 10k (9/2008), respectively. My heart rate is really quite low. I would think it was because I was tired, but in the past when that's happened, I'd expect my heart rate not to recover so well, but look how well it recovered between intervals in only 0.1 miles (usually 55'') and how well it recovered in my cooldown run. When I've been overbaked, it would usually stay very high even when I was shuffling after a workout.


For completeness, here are the splits.

• 26' warmup (average from 16' - 26' was 118 bpm!)
• 6:56/6:56/160/164 (time/pace/avg bpm/bpm at mark); .1-mile jog
• 4:45/6:47/162/164; .1-mile jog
  
• 3:19/6:38/162/172; .1-mile jog
• 1:56/6:26/165/172
• .2-mile jog between sets
  
• 6:44/6:44/167/171; .1-mile jog
• 4:41/6:41/167/171; .1-mile jog
• 3:17/6:34/170/171; .1-mile jog
• 1:52/6:13/173/180
  
• 30' cooldown (133 bpm average)

Total: 2.7 wup + 5.8 interval + 3.1 cdn = 11.6 in 1:38:02; 8:28 mi/mi;

One thing I find interesting is that the interval portion totals 5.8 miles and I ran 7:07 pace (including the rest intervals) at 164.5 bpm average. For the first 6 miles of the Frederick marathon, I averaged 168 bpm and right at 7:30 pace (I avg'd 172 for the marathon). Does this mean I should just run intervals at my next marathon? :-)

week of 29 September

The 10k stuck with me nearly all week. Even on Thursday, my quads felt trashed. By Saturday, that sharp soreness was gone, but I still felt like I was running in molasses and had aches and pains all over. Today's long run was no different. I started over 9 min/mi (hard to tell without my Garmin) and brought it somewhat under by the end (two timed laps on the track were 8:40/mile), but I felt so off, it was hard to tell how fast I was going. I cut it off at 18 miles instead of doing the neighborhood loop to bring it to 21. I planned this exit ramp as I knew I didn't feel well. The shin thing is, thankfully, gone, but has been replaced by the knee thing (this ain't going away) and something on the lateral edge of my right foot. Being a veteran of peroneal tendonitis, I recognized the pain. It's not anything like what kept me out for two weeks a couple of years ago, but I'm going to take it very easy tomorrow (0 - 45 minutes) depending on how it feels when I step out of bed.

Enough whining. Here's the week:

Date Distance (mi) Time Avg. pace (min/mi) Avg. HR
Monday 6.60 1:01:07 9:16 132 (66%)
Tuesday 9.30 1:18:39 8:27 140 (70%)
Wednesday 13.72 2:03:44 9:01 133 (66%)
Thursday 5.86 0:55:06 9:24 132 (66%)
Friday 10.31 1:28:23 8:34 141 (70%)
Saturday 8.30 1:15:54 9:09 135 (68%)
Sunday 18.00 2:43:51 9:06 139 (70%)
This Week 72.09 10:46:44 8:58 137 (68%)
Last Week 59.09 8:22:39 8:30 144 (72%)
This Month 278.72 40:44:19 8:46 143 (71%)
Last Month 299.35 45:24:38 9:06 140 (70%)

I finished off September as well this week and obviously bumped up the intensity. I still kept reasonably close to the same mileage. I also went over 1,000 miles on this pair of Nike Frees. I'm not sure when/if I should get new ones. I don't think these things even have a mid-sole to wear out.

I've been wildly swinging between mileage and intensity the last couple of weeks and need to find the center again (after I get my legs fresh).

One more thing. The weight is coming down. I'd say I'm within a pound of my Frederick weight. Here's a nice graph.

ain't as spry as I used to be

I strained my right shin mowing the lawn last night. (I hate %@#$#@ mowing.) This morning I bagged anything fast and did an easy to easy/moderate 10 miles. This afternoon I was the asst coach on my son's flag football team, and since we were a player short, I filled in. Well, it's hard for an old guy to chase down and de-flag 10 year-olds even without a bum shin. I think I should challenge them to 30 or 40 laps before the practice to get them good and tired, so they don't move so fast.

The shin thing seems like a muscle strain (pushing off with my toes while pushing a lawnmower uphill), so I think it will go away fairly quickly. Hopefully it's not a tendon.

slogged my way into work

http://www.mensracing.com/athletes/interviews/bradhudson.html

MR: Do you have all of your runners use a heart rate monitor?
BH: I try to instill in everyone that this is something useful, but I can't force anyone to put it on. Some people just don't like to use them. They don't like the feeling of running around with something strapped to their chest. You can learn a lot about your body from one if you use it regularly.

MR: Like what?
BH: Like if you're doing a workout and you can't get your heart rate up, your muscles are telling your cardiovascular system what to do. They're tired, maybe glycogen depleted, you might be on the verge of overtraining.

This was absolutely the case with me today. I did somewhere between 13.5 and 14 (no Garmin) and my average heart rate was only 133, but my legs felt like they weighed 100 lbs each and I was ready to be done after 45 minutes.

I've been reading Hudson's book, "Run Faster." I think it's great stuff and makes Canova's ideas more accessible. It does have some serious editorial flaws though I'm afraid. The text and the tables/schedules look like they were written by two different people. He talks about different threshold paces (60' pace, 90' pace, and 2.5h pace) but then the schedules use different terminology. Sometimes you can figure it out (marathon/half marathon is probably 2.5h pace), but sometimes you can't. The tables also aren't consistent. They should "aerobic support" runs for a hypothetical peak-70mpw marathoner in one table, but when they put the whole schedule together, it doesn't match. Hudson also says you should double if doing more than 70 miles per week, but then the schedules have the Level 3 marathoner do 84 miles in a week in singles. Of course you should craft your own schedule, but it would be nice to have something to start with that didn't violate the principles of the book.

There's also some annoying salesmanship ("In my adaptive training system...") that I'm sure is not from Hudson. It sounds a lot more like his co-author, Matt Fitzgerald.

Ok, now that I've complained, I think it just might be the best practical running book out there. It distills a lot from "Run Strong" into more of a how-to book.

10 k revisited

Well, that was some great race math on my part. Miles 1-4 (if that was the mile marker) in 20:47 is 6:56 pace, not 6:36 (19:47 is 6:36 pace). Would you believe I got a perfect score on my math SAT? Anyway, 6:31 for mile 1, 6:56 for miles 1-4, and 6:47 for the last 2.2 is fairly believable. This would have to be the race that my Garmin dies.

That being said, I checked the results from the most recent 10k (certified) I could think of and found some people who ran both. He are the matches:

28 Sep, 10 Aug
36:59, 35:54
47:58, 46:01
50:08, 48:08
51:49, 50:41
52:27, 54:50
54:47, 51:51

As you can see, everybody except one was over a minute slower at my race. I don't think that the course was long though. It was 64 deg/59 dp on 10 Aug believe it or not and it was 71 deg/67 dp on Sunday.

I almost think I need to do another race before the marathon to gain some confidence, but I don't want to jeopardize too many more long runs to do it. If I keep my mileage up and my weight down, I think I've got it. The latter is the tough part. I've lost a couple of pounds and am about 2 pounds from my spring marathon weight. I'd like to get at least a couple below that though.

***
Did 9.3 miles this morning. ~35'' easy, 25'' moderate, and 18'' easy. I worked the uphills to get the heart rate up because my quads are trashed. That's never happened to me in a 10k. Usually it's my hamstring with short races.

props to Garmin and an easy 6 w/ 6 x hill sprints

Getting to tech support was a pain (the web form didn't work and I had to wait 30 minutes on hold), but once I did, they were great. The end result is that I'm sending mine back and they're sending me a refurbished unit under warranty even though I'm 10 days past the 1 year warranty, so I'm pretty happy with that. I'll be using the old Suunto T6 until then.

I did six in the neighborhood this morning on one of my usual routes. Pace was about 9:00. I finished with six 10-second hill sprints on a 6-8% grade hill (I could probably find out for sure with the accurate altitude from the T6). I've been loosely following Hudson's Run Faster and did 2 hill sprints last Mon, 4 last Th, and then 6 today. They serve basically the same purpose as strides, but they're also supposed to help leg strength.

I'm still scratching my head over the 10k.

week of 22 Sept -- 42:18 and a dead garmin

The remnants of some tropical storm laid a wet blanket over the area for the last three days or so and the overnight lows have steadily increased as the heat has been unable to escape during the dark hours. As a result, it was 70 degrees and humid as I left at 6 am this morning. Checking wunderground it was a steady 71 with a dew point of 67 during the race -- decent standing-around weather, but not so good for a race.

My Garmin has given me fits as I said on Friday and it hasn't stopped It's takes some kind of reset voodoo just to get it on and I couldn't even download my runs last night. I tried to fill in the customer service web form, but after detailing my wows, the submit button didn't work. Thinking it only worked with Internet Explorer, I retyped it again and still no joy. Ugh. It has a 1-year warranty. Looking trough my old email, I see Garmin shipped in on 9/19/2007. Double ugh.

So, I put it on before my warmup and after 30 secs of trying, I get it to start. 10 minutes later I see "low battery." (It was completely charged last night.) I figured it wasn't going to last for the race, so I went to plan B - my trusty Suunto T6. I jogged for 19', which I'll call 2 miles and by the second mile, my sweat confirmed the humidity. Still, it didn't seem horrific like the half marathon. I timed my jog perfectly for the 8am start, but not the 15 minute delay.

8:15 and we're ready to go. One of the nice things about the Garmin is that you get some pretty good pace feedback before that first mile marker. Well, I wouldn't have that today. The plan was to hit mile 1 at 6:30 and if the start aligned, run 6:25's the rest of the way to, by some miracle, break 40. If things weren't clicking, 6:30 wouldn't be too fast to ruin my day.

It's getting near 6:30 and I'm looking for a marker, but don't see one. The I hear some watches beeping. I look at the ground and see a 6-inch line with "G1." 6:30.7. Perfect. My heart rate is really good at this point -- 183 -- and I'm beginning to think, "Hell. I could do this." People are starting to fade and I have to consciously pass them to keep up my pace. Another 7 minutes and I don't see a mile marker. Great. We get on a bike path and go through some mud, take a few twists, etc. Things have kind of sorted themselves out and I'm about 30 meters behind a blonde woman with a pony tail who I hear is the first woman. I had a mental lapse and she started to pull away from me a little and a guy started to catch me from behind. I didn't let him go by though and we ran together for most of the rest of the race, trading the lead. I asked if he'd seen a mile marker. "Not a one." was his reply. I think maybe, I saw a "G 4" and 20:47 was the split. 6:36 pace sounds about right, I think, and probably the best I could have expected. [Of course, now I've figured I was off by a minute and that was 6:56 pace. I'm usually good at math while running, but not this time.] I still wasn't sure this was a course mark though because there were marks all over the trail. I know 6:26 is 40 flat pace, so I'm about on 41 maybe (if that was 4 miles).

Somewhere after mile 4, I say something like "let's catch the pony tail." She's pretty far ahead at this point (maybe 50 meters), but we start to pull her in. I start to lose my concentration and he took the lead back. I was surprised to see my HR drop from 188 to 185 after I started following him. Maybe this running together thing works. After about 5 miles (no marker of course), he put in a surge and made up half the ground in maybe 400 meters. I hung on with that one. Another effort and he dropped me. I finally saw the overpass and couldn't believe I was already at 39 minutes. WTF? I was well over 0.25 away from the finish. I really wondered if the course was long. I could see my running partner making up ground on the first female while I stayed about the same distance back. We got to the top of the hill and he tried to make up the last of the distance. They said something over the PA and she picked it up. I couldn't see who got there first. It was really close. I came in (according to my watch) at 42:18 -- only 35 secs faster than my Cherry Blossom 10k split.

I caught up with my running partner later and he said she beat him by a step. He also said he ran a 10k last weekend and ran 90 seconds faster. That made me feel a lot better about the result. I'm still scratching my head on the time though. If that were 4 miles, did I really lose 1:24 over the last 2.2? That seems impossible. I wasn't falling apart and I kept my HR nailed at 188. Three people passed me in the last mile. Two were young guys who looked like they were on a training run, picking it up the last mile. One was a guy who I think was 20 ft behind me the whole way. If I slowed 40 secs a mile, I would have expected a ton of people to pass. I guess those weren't the mile markers, but this was run on the George Washington Birthday 10k course, so "G" makes sense as the mile marker designator. I'm really confused. Gee, if only I'd had my Garmin...

Anyway, I think I'd have done better with a 20 miler today instead of a psyche-killing 42:18 10k. Here's the week. Another intensity fest w/ 12.2 miles at 10k pace and 3 at HM. Only 59 miles. Yikes. How we make money? Volume. I need to get the mileage back up. Yesterday was 9 weeks to go. This is really sneaking up on me and I haven't done enough work to finish that last 10k of the marathon strong.

Date Distance (mi) Time Avg. pace (min/mi) Avg. HR
Monday 3.01 0:28:36 9:30 131 (66%)
Tuesday 7.72 1:01:10 7:55 158 (79%)
Wednesday 12.12 1:47:28 8:52 137 (68%)
Thursday 6.72 1:02:10 9:15 132 (66%)
Friday 10.25 1:21:15 7:56
Saturday 10.05 1:31:22 9:05 136 (68%)
Sunday
- 7:34 AM 2.00 0:18:55 9:28 130 (65%)
- 8:14 AM 6.21 0:42:18 6:48 185 (92%)
- 8:58 AM 1.00 0:09:25 9:25 159 (80%)

This Week 59.09 8:22:39 8:30 144 (72%)
Last Week 72.13 10:59:16 9:08 137 (69%)
This Month 262.82 38:24:33 8:46 143 (72%) <-- mileage heading in the wrong direction!
Last Month 299.35 45:24:38 9:06 140 (70%)

workout without a watch

Well, I didn't intend this, but my 2 easy 3@HM, 1 easy, 2@10k, 2 easy went untimed. On the way out, I hit the mode button to check the time of day (make sure I had enough time to make it back to work) and when I hit mode again, my Garmin lost the satellites. This has happened before, so I turned it off and back on, but this time it wouldn't come back on. I thought I knew the reset button sequence, but I had it wrong and I could never get it to come back on. As a result, the run was totally by feel. I think I hit the 10k pace right and might have been a little slow in spots during the HM, but I wasn't too far off.

As for time/distance, I'll go with 10.25 and 1:21:15 (easy = 9:00; HM=7:00; 10K = 6:30).

6 easy and hill sprints

I didn't mention it, but I dipped my toe in the hill sprint water a couple of days ago, doing a whopping 2 hill sprints lasting ~ 10 secs each. Hudson recommends starting with 2 and adding a couple until you get to 10 (20 for middle distance runners). He also recommends starting with a 6-8% grade, which I did, instead of jumping into 10 hill sprints on a 15%(!) grade. I did 4 this morning and it felt good. When I was doing Rubio's 3 x (form, 3k effort, sprint; ~60s each), I was always felt the beginning of the sprint was the most beneficial. Now that's all I'm doing :-)

Of course, I registered for the 10k and the weather took a turn for the worse. It's supposed to be 68 at 8am, which is about 20 degrees higher than ideal for me, and 10 degrees higher than predicted when I signed up yesterday. It's also the warmest, I believe, since the day after the ridiculously hot/humid half I did a week and a half ago. Still, the dew pt should be below 60.

signed up for a 10k

I signed up for a 10k today. It was kind of impetuous I suppose, but the schedule in Brad Hudson book had a 10k tune-up for this weekend, and that sounded like fun. Plus, I'm curious about how I'll do after yesterday's intervals.

What time will I run? I don't know. My official 10k PR is something like 47:21 believe it or not. I've only started three that I can recall: 50:XX, 47:21, and DNF. My 10k split from Cherry Blossom was 42:55 and I'm quite sure the marker was accurate. Mcmillan says my 10M PR at CB is worth 41:04.

I'm not familiar with the 10k course. Last time I was supposed to run this course was Feb of 07 I think. It was covered in ice though, so they re-routed, and I DNF'd (pulled hamstring anyway). I think the course is pretty fair though. According to the magnificent course map drawn by the talented Robert Thurston, the high point is 21 meters and the low is 4. That's about 50 feet, which is not pancake flat, but pretty flat unless we roll up and down that a bunch. The forecast says 60 degrees, which is a little warm for my Swedish blood, but it's only 10k.

I think I can run sub-41 (gee, I'm ambitious), but based on those intervals I might do much better. I was hitting low 180s (bpm) on the last of the mile repeats at 6:31 - 6:34 per 1600. That's more like 10M heart rate, but the last couple felt a tad harder than that. I think I'm just more aerobically fit than fast at the moment. Anyway, I think 6:30 per mile is possible (40:23). Now, of course, the gears spin and I think "Gee. That's damn close to 40:00!" 40? No way. That's a distant dream goal. First BQ, then sub-1:30 HM, then sub-40. We'll see. I'll be happy with anything under 41 (ideal course and weather).

4x1600 @ 10K(?) w/400m rest

I've been reading again, which usually gets me in trouble. Anyway, I picked up Brad Hudson's "Run Faster" and I'm liking it. It's funny I'm reading this after Canova's book, because it's basically Canova For Mortals. It does have some minor irritations though. For one, the typesetting is awful. It's inexplicably double-spaced. Do they think I'm editing it? Also, there's a mis-match in terminology between the schedules and the text. He talks about 60', 90', and 2.5h tempo pace. Cool. But then the schedules have marathon/HM (guess that's 2.5), HM (90' maybe?), and 10k (huh?).

[Insert perfunctory transition here.] After being unable to focus long enough to decide what I was going to run this morning, I grabbed the workout from the schedule that's on Tuesday 10 weeks from the marathon. 1.5 wup, 4x1mile @10k w/400 jog, 1.5 cdn. Jeez, that sounded tough. (Actually I just re-read and it was supposed to be 2 mile wup/cdn and 3 min rest -- more like 600m for me.) I didn't think that hard about 10k pace. I remember using 6:40 pace in the spring, which round nicely to 100 secs/lap, so the math is easy. Here are the splits.

Time Distance Split time Split distance Split pace Avg. HR
0:15:18 1.54 15:18 1.54 9:56 137 (69%)
0:21:50 2.55 6:31 1.01 6:28 169 (85%)
0:24:03 2.80 2:13 0.25 8:51 157 (79%)
0:30:34 3.81 6:31 1.01 6:26 175 (88%)
0:32:49 4.06 2:14 0.25 9:10 160 (80%)
0:39:24 5.06 6:34 1.00 6:33 177 (88%)
0:41:39 5.31 2:15 0.25 9:04 163 (82%)
0:48:13 6.32 6:34 1.01 6:33 178 (89%)
1:01:09 7.72 12:55 1.40 9:13 147 (74%)

They went 6:31, 6:31, 6:34, and 6:34. The first lap was very easy and I just settled into that. The only reason the third interval is slow is that I took a nap on the third lap and didn't make up the time on the fourth. On the fourth one, my legs felt a little heavy and I couldn't figure out how to make my legs go faster despite a pretty low heart rate. Notice the average hrs are 169, 175, 177, and 178. That's nothing like 10k heart rate. The last one leveled off at about 182, although I tried to make up time on the last 200 and hit 184. I typically average 182 for a 10 miler, so I don't think this was 10k effort, but my legs are so unaccustomed to running fast that I think they just didn't quite know how to run faster on that last interval.

If I did another 1600 at 6:34, then that would add to 32:44 for the five. My 8k PR is 32:45. I think I have to be in at least that shape.

week of 15 September

Monday 3.04 0:30:03 9:53 131 (66%)
Tuesday 6.06 1:00:34 10:00 131 (66%)
Wednesday 14.05 2:08:53 9:11 134 (67%)
Thursday 8.43 1:22:00 9:44 128 (64%)
Friday 10.31 1:32:14 8:57 137 (68%)
Saturday 10.08 1:30:54 9:01 137 (68%)
Sunday 20.17 2:54:38 8:40 147 (74%)
This Week 72.13 10:59:16 9:08 137 (69%)

Another 70+ week, so that's good. I really just had to chill all week to recover from last week's intensity-fest, including the "training run" I did at the half marathon. The hamstring seems to be recovered and I didn't feel it all on the 20 miler today. The knee thing just lingers and I walked the few very steep downhills. I think I need to get back to doing my easy days on the track or the treadmill (if I fix the squeak).

You can see just how chill Mon-Th were. 9:44/128? Come on! Friday I let the run come to me and used the uphills to get my heart rate up without stressing my legs. That felt right.

Today's 20 was a repeat of two weeks ago, but with better weather. It was 52 as I rolled out the door! It heated up pretty quickly though and was 69 and clear when I finished at 11 am. Still it was pretty dry and very nice. I finished the run very strong, running my last mile on the infamous 10 laps/mile track at ~180. I was shooting for 45 secs/lap (7:30 pace) but most came in around 43 (7:10) and then I stopped keeping track. The Garmin says 7:05 pace for the mile, which is probably fast, but not way off. Overall the pace for the run was 8:40 and hr 147. 149 is usually my magic number for these kinds of moderate (or progression) long runs, so that was a decent pace. I used to believe I could run a marathon 80 secs faster than 20 miles @149 bpm pace. It worked that way a couple of times, but I'm not sure that's the case. 7:20 pace would be pretty nice though! (3:15:59 is 7:28.)

Anyway, it was a good week and I set myself to put the intensity back in next week. I'm considering doing "something" with a 20 mile race next weekend. I love the race and wish there were more 20 milers (making me feel guilty about not doing it) and it's a great opportunity to do something that would be tough on my own. Last year I did 20 w/14 at MP. I thought about doing 20 at 8:15 (90% MP), but I'm not sure that's the right thing to do at this stage and it costs $40. I need to act quick if I'm going to do it, because the race usually fills up and they're advertising "limited entries."

and the scale says...

8/27/2008 166.8
8/28/2008 165.8
8/29/2008 165.9
9/2/2008 165.3
9/3/2008 162.3
9/4/2008 163.4
9/5/2008 164.5
9/11/2008 165.5
9/12/2008 165.3
9/13/2008 164.4
9/15/2008 162.3
9/16/2008 162.3
9/18/2008 162.0
9/19/2008 163.3

I've been counting calories for a couple of weeks and running what I thought was about a 500 cal/day deficit. It bounces around, but I think I'm down a pound or two. I haven't felt well this week. I'm not sure if it's my run in the heat, whatever my son had that caused him to puke in the middle of the night at his friend's house, or something else. Anyway, I haven't felt like counting calories the last few days, so I haven't. I hardly slept last night and today I probably overate in an attempt to feel better. I ran 8.5 miles though, so I'll probably still break even.

The legs are kind of banged up from last week's intensity. I had a little pull or something in my hamstring from my 20 miler a week and a half ago and with the hard running it never went away. I've been letting my legs decide how fast to go this week and so far that's been really slow -- like 10 min/mi slow. I've looked down and seen heart rates under 120 on the downhills, so I think I'm in good shape. Hopefully, I'm not squandering it trying to recover, but getting injured would suck, so I'll keep shuffling until the legs come back around.

week of 8 Sept

The Parks Half Marathon


The weather was tough as expected. From wunderground I found it was 69.8 deg/69.8 dew point at 6:55am, 73.4/73.4 at 8:35. Race started at 7:00am and I finished around 8:45. It was 100% humidity the whole way. How can it heat up and stay 100% humidity? Well, it was foggy. It's kind of weird when it's foggy and in the 70s.

Anyway, as I whined earlier, I knew I had no chance to run a good time, so I decided to run with one of the pacers. I was debating between the 7:45-8:00 pacer and the 8:00-8:15. I ran Annapolis at 7:52 pace, so I ran with the 7:45-8 pacer and decided I'd stick with him even though I'd probably be above MP with the tougher weather. Things went about as I expected through the middle of the race. By the end though, my heart rate was through the roof. Here are the splits. The pacer's plan was to run 7:53/mile. He did a pretty good job of that accounting for hills. I ran with him most of the way, but pulled ahead after the 11th mile was 8:04.

Time Distance Split time Split distance Split pace Avg. HR
0:15:21 2.03 15:21 2.03 7:33 161 (81%)
0:23:15 3.03 7:54 1.00 7:56 169 (84%)
0:31:27 4.04 8:11 1.01 8:06 170 (85%)
0:39:21 5.05 7:54 1.01 7:50 173 (86%)
0:47:06 6.06 7:45 1.01 7:39 175 (87%)
0:55:00 7.07 7:53 1.01 7:49 175 (88%)
1:02:49 8.08 7:49 1.01 7:45 177 (88%)
1:10:36 9.09 7:46 1.01 7:41 178 (89%)
1:18:30 10.10 7:54 1.01 7:50 180 (90%)
1:26:35 11.11 8:04 1.00 8:02 183 (92%)
1:34:35 12.12 8:00 1.01 7:56 185 (93%)
1:43:23 13.26 8:47 1.14 7:42 188 (94%)
Avg HR: 175

Check out how my HR skyrocketed. My fitness isn't *that( bad. It's just overheating and maybe dehydration. (I weighed 7 lbs less when I got home than I did last night, so I might have been dehydrated.) It's funny. Even though I could not have run the last mile any faster, I'm sure I could have run the first 8 or 9 faster and ended up with a faster time, if that makes sense. With better weather, I usually hit 180 bpm by the 3rd mile and have a flat heart rate the whole way. Here, I just couldn't cool fast enough with the humidity and the heat built up. That's my interpretation anyway.

The week

Date Distance (mi) Time Avg. pace (min/mi) Avg. HR
Monday 3.28 0:30:01 9:10 132 (66%)
Tuesday 7.07 0:58:50 8:19 146 (73%)
Wednesday 16.29 2:17:48 8:28 149 (75%)
-- 8:15 AM 12.00 1:38:25 8:12 155 (77%)
-- 9:04 PM 4.29 0:39:23 9:11 136 (68%)
Thursday 4.30 0:40:03 9:19 134 (67%)
Friday 9.30 1:19:00 8:30
Saturday 5.10 0:48:30 9:30 141 (70%)
Sunday 14.86 1:58:19 7:58 171 (85%)
-- 6:29 AM 1.60 0:14:55 9:18 139 (69%)
-- 7:01 AM 13.26 1:43:24 7:48 175 (88%)
This Week 60.20 8:32:31 8:31 151 (76%)

Only 60 miles this week, which makes me wince, but it was a tough week for intensity, and ultimately I think it will pay dividends. The biggest mistake I made this week was running Tuesday too fast. I was pretty sore for Wednesday MP run and never quite got my spring back before today. By the way, notice that on Tue morning I ran 12 miles at 8:12/155 versus 13.1 at 7:48/175 today!

The plan

Here's the guaranteed 3:15 qualifier plan

1. get my weight under 155
2. keep my mpw over 70
3. don't get injured

If I can manage the third one with the first two, then I'm a mortal lock. The knee is quite shaky at the moment though. I'm planning on running slowly for the next three or four days.

thedailyplate.net and some more half marathon angst

Two posts in a day -- I'm prolific. I've tried to use on-line calorie trackers before and found it just too painful. For instance, I tried sparkpeople but it didn't seem to have anything in its database and I didn't want to do all that typing. Well after searching for nutritional info and having thedailyplate.com come up with the answer several times, I decided to try it. It actually has the stuff I eat in there! Also, I figured I needed to eat about 2500 calories a day to lose weight (2000 + the ~1000/day I burn on average running - a 500 calorie deficit). Thedailyplate came up with the same answer. Nice. The bummer is that I only have 25 calories left today.

By the way, it's crazy humid outside right now. The forecast for Sunday has worsened to 74 with a dp of 70! Geez. I'm thinking that there's no point in beating myself up for this race. Maybe I should just do a MP run like I did at annapolis. The weather is actually supposed to be worse! I can run a 5/10k later for a better fitness indicator. The goal is the marathon and I think I'll just interrupt my training and damage my psyche if I run this thing all out. Thoughts?

half weather - adjusting goals

I just checked the forecast and the overnight low on Saturday is only 70. Wunderground says 72 with a dew point of 68 at 8am. Well, I'm not going to run very fast in that. I'm throwing sub-1:30 completely out the window. My waistline was enough to rule that out, but the weather seals it. 1:31:30 sounds nice (6:59 pace), but that would be tough on a perfect day. 1:32:28 (7:04 pace) is what mcmillan calls equivalent to a 3:15. That might be something to shoot for, but with a dew point near 70, I wouldn't bet on it. My PR (last year's race) is 1:33:28.

I was hoping to get a good fitness check, but this won't be it. Now I'm not sure what to do with this thing. I guess I'll still race it, but what's the point. I might run a small PR over last year (when the weather was perfect). Is that worth the impact on training and potential for injury? Blech.

running in Anaheim

On Monday, I jogged 40' or so before heading to the airport. On the plane, I read Canova's IAF marathon book I got in the mail on Saturday (more on the later). The plane was late and I ended up getting about 5.5 hours of sleep before getting up early to run before my meeting. The good news was that I had a great place to run. When I checked in, I asked whether there were any recommended running routes nearby (which almost always gets a blank stare), but in this case, I got a "sure!" It turns out the hotel is on one side of the Santa Anna "river" (man-made waterway) and on the other side was the Santa Anna River bikeway. According to the markings, I was about 16 miles from Huntington beach on the path. You could run forever uninterrupted because you went under all the bridges. These dips under the bridges were also the only "hills" to speak of.

I set out on Tuesday morning to do my 60' -- 30' out and 30' back. I thought about Canova's book and particularly what he says about slow running when I was warming up. Basically he says under 80% MP (~9:15 for me) is useless *if* you're in good condition. I'm not in good condition by Canova's standards (the examples he gives are all for a 2h08' male marathoner or 2h28' female!), but still I kind of had this sense to run a little faster. So I did.

On the out, my heart rate was only in the low- to mid-140's but it seemed like I was moving and the pace was in the low 8s. I should have noticed that I was running in the same direction that the river was flowing and that probably meant I was going downhill! I found out soon enough when I turned back for the hotel. I was 10-15 secs slower per mile. Overall it was only 146 bpm average and 8:19 pace, but my legs weren't completely fresh for the next day.

On Wednesday, I picked Canova's "long run with pace variations" (or something like that). The example he gave was 30' wup/80%MP, 7k at MP, 10' at 80% MP, 5k at MP, 10' at 80% MP, 3k at MP, and 20-40' 80% MP. His example runner is 3' per k(!), so I figured 7k was 21' or about 3 miles at MP for me, so I did 2M wup, 3 at MP, 1 slow, 2 at MP, 1 slow, 1 at MP, 2 slow for 12 total. I would have padded the beginning and end to reach my usual 14, but didn't have time. I ran 40' in the afternoon and then 40' again on Th morning (on the treadmill) before leaving for my flight.

Now I'm back and have to set my alarm for 5 am tomorrow. Not sure what I'll do considering I have the half on Sunday. Probably just 9 or 10 easy.

week of 1 Sept

The stats:

Date Distance (mi) Time Avg. pace (min/mi) Avg. HR
Monday 3.38 0:31:39 9:21 127 (64%)
Tuesday 6.57 1:00:01 9:08 133 (67%)
Wednesday 14.09 1:58:59 8:27 150 (75%)
Thursday 6.57 1:00:11 9:10 133 (67%)
Friday 10.56 1:25:10 8:04 157 (78%)
Saturday 10.16 1:41:07 9:57 134 (67%)
Sunday 20.07 2:53:00 8:37 149 (75%)

This Week 71.40 10:30:07 8:49 144 (72%)
Last Week 70.75 10:37:10 9:00 143 (71%)
This Month 71.40 10:30:07 8:49 144 (72%)
Last Month 299.35 45:24:38 9:06 140 (70%)

A bit belated, but I just noticed I hit a mileage PR last month. 299.35 -- shoulda run another 0.65 :-) My pace/hr for August was 9:06/140 versus 9:17/139 in July.

OK, today I did 20 miles as you can see. I figured that Hanna left my lake trail under water, so I did a big loop around town for 4.5, made a pitstop at home, then did an out and back to the lake trail (about 6.5 each way), filling up at the water fountain at the lake. I'm glad I didn't run around there. I thought I wouldn't see any water in the 1-mile section I took to get to the water fountain, but the south end of the lake actually overflowed its banks. I had to tiptoe around (not too bad) to make it to the water fountain.

Before I ran, I decided I would try to do like last week and run at a decent pace. This usually somehow turns into a 149 average. I felt a groove and picked it up on the way back, even charging up the steep hills at the end and then do about 5 laps on the 0.1-mile track at 45 seconds per lap (goal MP). Still, I averaged 149. My pace was 8:37. Not bad.

I looked back to April and I did a 20-miler in 8:40/150, so about the same. The weather had to be warmer today though. I did this run in direct sun about 70% of the time and it was pretty dry (58 dew pt), but not exactly cold -- 65 at 8:30 am and 73 at 11:30 when I finished.

Here are the splits (you can see the hills from the pace/hr variation)

Time Distance Split time Split distance Split pace Avg. HR
0:09:24 1.00 9:24 1.00 9:25 142 (71%)
0:17:56 2.00 8:31 1.00 8:32 134 (67%)
0:26:47 3.00 8:50 1.00 8:51 136 (68%)
0:36:04 4.00 9:16 1.00 9:16 138 (69%)
0:45:27 5.00 9:22 1.00 9:21 136 (68%)
0:54:08 6.00 8:41 1.00 8:40 138 (69%)
1:03:28 7.00 9:20 1.00 9:21 140 (70%)
1:12:22 8.01 8:53 1.01 8:48 145 (72%)
1:20:55 9.01 8:33 1.00 8:33 148 (74%)
1:29:22 10.01 8:27 1.00 8:28 145 (73%)
1:38:00 11.01 8:38 1.00 8:37 147 (74%)
1:46:49 12.01 8:48 1.00 8:50 148 (74%)
1:55:36 13.01 8:45 1.00 8:45 145 (72%)
2:04:01 14.02 8:25 1.01 8:23 151 (75%)
2:12:52 15.02 8:50 1.00 8:52 157 (79%)
2:20:49 16.02 7:56 1.00 7:56 161 (81%)
2:28:36 17.02 7:46 1.00 7:46 161 (81%)
2:36:34 18.01 7:58 1.00 8:00 166 (83%)
2:44:51 19.01 8:16 1.00 8:17 174 (87%)
2:52:28 20.00 7:37 0.99 7:45 178 (89%)
2:52:59 20.07 0:30 0.07 7:32 182 (91%)

Go Adam!

Our friend Adam, who is clearly insane, is running or has already run the Superior Sawtooth 100. Either way he is in incredible pain. Good luck!

I thought of him this morning as I went for a run this morning. I managed to be the heavy rain from Hanna, but it was *steamy*. The dew point was 75. Ouch.

Speaking of ouch, I jinxed myself with my positive post yesterday. My knee is not doing nearly as well now. I ran on the trail and I think it's the surface (gravel mostly) that does much of the damage. My normal trail is going to be soaked tomorrow. I'm thinking about heading out to a bike path (paved).

another Friday, another workout

I hardly slept last night and felt like crap when I turned off the alarm at 5:15 (before it went off). I just had too much on my mind. When I'm working on some problem, I often have a hard time shifting gears and getting to sleep. But off to run I went...

I drove in to work with the plan of running the 2 miles to the high school track, doing something, and then running back. I checked one of Joseph's comments and grabbed a workout -- 3 miles @ MP, 800m, and 3 miles @ tempo. (Don't let it go to your head Joseph, I figure anything marathon pace and/or tempo-ish would do.) I mulled it over on the drive in and damn that sounded hard. I was figuring 400m splits for 7:30 pace were when the news guy said "currently 75 degrees" on the radio. (Looking at wunderground, it was indeed 75 deg with a 67 dew point.) Hmmm. I'll start off at 7:30 or a little slower and see how it feels.

Time Distance Split time Split distance Split pace Avg. HR
0:09:37 1.00 9:37 1.00 9:38 142 (71%)
0:18:45 2.00 9:06 1.00 9:07 132 (66%)
0:19:57 2.13 1:11 0.13 9:26 134 (67%)

0:27:32 3.16 7:35 1.03 7:20 154 (77%)
0:35:01 4.18 7:29 1.02 7:22 161 (80%)
0:42:28 5.20 7:26 1.02 7:17 165 (82%)

The 3 miles (1600m actually) were 7:35, 7:29, and 7:26 and went very smoothly. It actually felt like a reasonable marathon pace. The heart rates even look a bit conservative (although I was at 168 on the last lap). Too bad I can't run this thing on a track!

0:46:53 5.70 4:25 0.50 8:55 150 (75%)

OK, Joseph. 800 meters rest? Man, you're generous. During this, I started negotiating with myself. Do I really want to run 3 miles at tempo? Well, I'm supposed to run 13.1 in a week. How about doing HM pace? Well, maybe dream HM pace (6:52 = sub-1:30).

0:53:54 6.70 7:00 1.01 6:57 170 (85%) -- a little slow out of the gate
1:00:45 7.72 6:51 1.01 6:46 179 (90%) - perfect
1:07:37 8.72 6:51 1.00 6:49 183 (91%) - perfect again

This was definitely faster than HM pace. After the first mile, I decide to find my threshold by feel and run just below it, which is basically 10-mile pace. The 183 seems a little high for mile three, but then again I did 5.5 with 3 at MP as a warmup! My cherry blossom 10-miler splits were 163, 178, 180, 182, 183, 182, 183, 184, 182, 184, so 183 is basically my steady-state 10 mile effort. I think it's reasonable to say that was 10-mile pace. Given the weather, I'm pretty happy with that. On the other hand, I was thinking, "Good lord. I have to do 13.1 like that in a week. Holy ****!"

1:25:09 10.56 17:31 1.84 9:32 154 (77%)

Warmdown. Stopped at a light near work and just felt like walking in from there. (I don't walk enough after running. I really think it helps.

There seems to be kind of a gap between my MP and my 10-mile pace right now. After how easy 7:30 felt, I thought I might do much better at the 3 tempo miles. I guess it makes sense though considering I haven't work LT at all. Also, the weather might have been a factor as I got hotter.

***
I haven't updated the status on the knee, which of course means it's improving -- I'm more prone to complain, I guess. I've been icing and taking vitamin-I about half the time (when I remember) after my runs.

I think the big improvement has been in avoiding hills as much as possible. For instance, yesterday's easy run was at the high school track. I have to mention this... While I'm there, a guy walks onto the infield, stretches about 10 minutes and then does four, maybe six, laps at about 8-8:30 pace and then runs one lap at what must have been flat out because he bends over and grabs his shorts when he finishes. Then he walks off and leaves. What was he doing? Maybe he was just curious to see how fast he could run 400 meters.

***
Man, I'm feeling chatty today. Since I complain so much, I have to mention how incredibly lucky I am with running options. I have so many routes to choose from it's ridiculous. I have two beautiful lake paths 2.25 and 6.5 miles from my house. I'm 3 miles from the cross county trail and theoeretically I think I could run to Pennsylvania on that. I can run 10.5 miles to work entirely on sidewalks on trails and there's a shower there. I have a HS track 2 km from my house and 2 miles from my work (the one near work is *very* nice). I have a 0.1-mile track 0.25 miles from my house and a 0.25-mile grass field loop there as well. I have treadmills at home and at work and an elliptical at work if I'm injured. That's a pretty damn sweet deal.

a half workout and a question on calorie allocation

My car is in the shop again. I paid $400+ when the check engine light came on a month ago and I was diagnosed with a bad oxygen sensor. Six days later in came back on, but because of work travel and vacation, we waited until last night to drop it off. The good news is that I can run in. Ain't that convenient? The bad news is that I'm out another $350 for the *other* oxygen sensor. Methinks they replaced the wrong one last time.

Anyway, I took the long way in, which means going the long way around the lake. I had to take on a loop around a block to get to 14.0 because, well, 13.7 or whatever just wouldn't do. I started off with a plan to do a moderate run like last week (~8:30 pace), but then I started thinking about slipping in some slightly harder stuff. The Hansons' program has MP on Th (I think) and "strength" on Tu. Strength is MP - :10 run in something like 2x3mi. Well 2x3 mi sounded like a little much. I ended up throwing in a mile here and there and ended up with 3x1 w/2 mi "rest" in between. Here's what it looked like.

Time Distance Split time Split distance Split pace Avg. HR
0:09:58 1.00 9:58 1.00 9:56 132 (66%)
0:18:30 2.00 8:33 1.00 8:34 138 (69%)
0:27:15 3.01 8:44 1.01 8:39 137 (68%)
0:35:54 4.02 8:39 1.01 8:34 143 (72%)
0:43:17 5.03 7:22 1.01 7:19 161 (81%)
0:52:07 6.03 8:50 1.00 8:51 151 (75%)
1:00:22 7.09 8:14 1.06 7:49 153 (76%)
1:07:38 8.08 7:16 1.00 7:17 163 (82%)
1:16:10 9.09 8:31 1.00 8:30 158 (79%)
1:24:43 10.09 8:32 1.00 8:31 148 (74%)
1:31:50 11.09 7:07 1.00 7:08 168 (84%)
1:40:45 12.09 8:55 1.00 8:55 153 (76%)
1:50:06 13.09 9:21 1.00 9:20 150 (75%)
1:58:56 14.09 8:50 1.00 8:51 152 (76%)
1:58:59 14.09 0:02 0.00 14:52 154 (77%)

The funny thing is that I ended up running almost the same pace heart rate today (8:27/150) as last week (8:29/150). That surprised me a little because I thought the even effort of last week would have been more efficient. Of course I ran different routes and the weather was probably different. The somewhat wild variation of pace and heart rate is a reminder of how hilly northern virginia is. Early in the run, when I was running a steady 8:30 (both uphill and downhill), I noticed that my HR was 149 at the top of a hill and reached 130 at the bottom. Weather was pretty nice today -- 60 and dew pt of 60.

***

Counting calories stinks by the way. I was quite hungry today and ate about 200 more calories then yesterday before leaving work. I guess that make sense, having run 14 miles at a good effort today verus 6 easy yesterday. I wonder whether my daily caloric intake should be roughly the same day-to-day or whether it should vary with my expenditure. My guess is somewhere in the middle -- intake varies, but not as much as expenditure.

I've been weighing myself at the same time everday when I change clothes after work. Here's the tally

Date Weight
8/27/2008 166.8
8/28/2008 165.8
8/29/2008 165.9
9/2/2008 165.3
9/3/2008 162.3

I think I must have been dehydrated today!

half or full

OR

The family is going to San Diego in January and I'm planning to run either the half or the full. I haven't signed up yet because I can't decide which. If I qualify on 29 Nov, then I'd just want to run the half. If I don't, then it would be nice to have a backup. Now if I don't qualify on the 29th, it seems unlikely I will on the course above, but if there's something crazy like snow or maybe I just have a bad day, it would be nice to have a backup.

I could run the half and then use the local George Washington birthday marathon (mid-Feb) as a backup but that race is notoriously cold and windy (and fairly hilly). Plus you have to run by yourself (most likely) while Carlsbad has a 3:15 pace group.

The B&A trail marathon is pancake flat, but it's in the beginning of March . I think Boston filled up in at the end of February this year, so this is out and mid-Feb might even be pushing it.

OK, I think I've just talked myself into signing up for the full at Carslbad! (And now I look at the website and you can transfer from full to half until January 4th! -- not sure this applies if the half fills though.)