I Hate Running

Race Report--Brianna Becker 5k

2011-04-11T13:57:00.001-07:00

Wow, I haven't done one of these in a long, long time.

The Brianna Becker 5k was a 2 lap course following roughly a square pattern. The start/finish line was on the right side of the square. It and the bottom side were mostly flat. The left side consisted of 4 hills, while the top side of the course started at a high point that went into a slight dip in the middle to another high point at the other corner, which swept back down around the turn into the start/finish line.
When the gun went off it was a moderate pace with a small field. Everybody stayed bunched up down the first stretch, through the right hand turn, and along the next stretch. Then, after the second right hand turn (where I passed the eventual female winner of my age group), into the hills, the pack was tested and began to stretch out a little bit. The first mile marker was just on the other side of the first hill, and my watch said I had completed that mile in just under 8:00--way, way too fast.
I chugged through the next 3 hills and up the long, slow slope before the last right hand turn of the lap. I swept over the hill and down toward the lap marker and saw the time was 12:38. Again, way, way too fast. I glanced over my shoulder and saw 4 guys running together about 30 or 40 feet behind me. One of these guys ended up being the winner of my age group.
I motored down the front stretch, around the right hand turn, and into the next right hand turn. The 4 guys were still behind me by about 20 feet or so. Then, up the first hill, I felt my legs finally begin to weaken. One of the 4 guys--the age group winner--passed me right on top of the hill while the other 3 hung back. At the bottom of the second hill the next hill 2 of the next three passed me and the third caught me at the top of the third. By the bottom of the third hill the last guy had put 20 feet between me and him. Right about here we started passing the walkers who were at the back of the pack--that was a cool feeling. I managed to close it to about 10 feet before the start of the 4th hill, but he dropped me on that hill and I was never able to close the distance again.
Along the back stretch and up the final sweep I glanced over my shoulder and saw the female age group leader catching up to me, but still a good 50 or 60 feet back. I topped the hill and turned on the final burn. As I approached the finish line the clock read 25:50... :51, :52, :53,.... I kicked it up one more notch ... :54... final time was 25:55.

This topped my previous best time from 2009 by nearly 4 minutes!!

The miles lately have clearly been paying off.

The next target in my sights is a 54:00 10k, and I'm taking a shot at that on April 23.

Demons

2011-02-07T22:23:00.000-08:00

You step up to the line, and it starts.

You don't want to do this (yes I do)

You're not going to be able to finish (yes I will)

You don't have to do this (yes I do)

This is not a race (yes it is)

Nobody is competing against you here (yes they are)

Why are you doing this to yourself (because I must)

Seriously, you don't have to (yes, I do)

What are you trying to prove (it doesn't matter)

You're going to regret this (fine, that's what I'll do)

And then you begin

See, every part of your body is rebelling (calm down)

That discomfort is going to become pain (calm down)

You're not going to be able to finish (calm down)

You might as well quit (never)

Why are you doing this (because I must)

What are you trying to prove (it doesn't matter)

You're never going to be able to pull this off (the worst that can happen isn't that bad)

Oh, no, my friend... failure stings (failure to start stings more)

You remember failure... you don't wan-- (never again)

And then the finish line draws near

You're running out of gas (I have enough)

You're not going to make it (I must)

You can't (I can)

What makes you think you can (I don't think I can)

Exactly (I know I can)

You can't win (I can't lose)

Just stop (just stop)

The challenge is figuring out which is the voice in my head, and then how to silence the other.

2010 Running recap

2011-01-04T14:09:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I haven't posted here in awhile.

Since about June something, if the record can be trusted. Just before the big 10k up in Kingwood.

Well, that run didn't go so well. I missed my target time by more than 10 minutes. I don't think the mile markers were placed very well. I couldn't maintain pace and overheated on more than one occasion. It was an awful run. Awful.

After that I opted to run a few more timed runs, but then I took off the watch and ran without a clock. It was very liberating to do that. I ran a lot without a clock, just free as the wind.

Then September rolled around and my lovely wife enrolled in school.

Then October came and scheduling became a challenge. I offered to my lovely wife that I'd shut down running for a month to get our schedules back in sync.

Then, in November, it was a little bit tough to get the engine to rev back up again. The Turkey Trot came on thanksgiving day. I ran the 10k variety in just over 1:15. Not a spectacular time. Not really even a good time, by my own standards. Nearly 20 minutes behind my time last year and 5 minutes off my time from the Kingwood 10k.

That's when I decided to switch from the marathon to the half marathon at the end of January--officially.

So, then came December and I logged exactly zero miles for THAT month.

Nonetheless, for the full 2010 year I logged almost 20 more miles than the year before--213.
Not a spectacular tally. I know people who run that much in a month. And most "runners" I know run that much in 3 months, if they don't do so in 2.

For me, that's a high water mark. A mark I'm almost certain to top in 2011.

On the 3rd I logged my first 5k. No time, but the distance was there. I think I'm going to shoot for at least a 5k each month of the year along with at least a 10k. Neither of those goals should be particularly hard to accomplish, considering my typical run is at least 3 miles. I can work in a 6 mile run at least once a month. The question is not whether or not I CAN do it, the question is whether or not I WILL do it. There's a discipline thing in there where it doesn't look terribly hard to set aside a couple of hours each month to run two measly runs during the month. But, the fact of the matter is that I don't like running that much, and I don't like running only slightly less than I don't like the extra weight that I carry around when I don't run. So, choosing the lesser of two dislikes is the challenge, because I like to not run a whole lot.

The greater challenge will be to once again try and work in a single half marathon each month of the year. In 2010 I managed to squeeze out 2 half marathons. For 2011, I think I'll shoot for a modest improvement of merely 3 half marathons for the year (but I'm still going to have an eye toward 12).

Cheers to you, and happy new year.

Running stuff...

2010-08-17T10:06:00.001-07:00

Wow, a ton of stuff has happened in the last few weeks since I posted at the end of July.

I ran my 8:00 mile. It was on a treadmill, it was indoors, but it was 7:51. I'll take it because I could have run it faster. In fact, just to prove it I may run a sub-8 mile out here at the park some time in the next few weeks.
The under 2:00 half marathon I was looking at for mid September is likely going to become just another training run because as of right now I'm less concerned with speed and more concerned with distance. Why? Well, that's because...

I just received notice that I was selected in the lottery for the Houston Marathon in January. The goal for January is pretty much 40 miles, because I want the marathon distance to be well below my max extreme. If it's below my max extreme, then running multiple marathons in the same month isn't going to be quite so hard to do. In fact, 26.2 will be a proverbial walk in the park. Target time: 3:59:59.99

That said, my 3 mile runs have become 6 mile runs. My 6 mile runs have become 9 mile runs. And my weekend runs, when I get off my ass to start doing them again, will be 11 to 14 mile runs. For what it's worth, during the month of August 2010 I haven't run anything less than 6 miles at a stretch. Last year during this month I only ran 6 miles once. This is a very, very different year.

Even better, the weather is beginning to break a little. Yes, it's still hot as blazes out there. Yes, the humidity is ridiculous. But it's beginning to break, and break early. Usually we have to wait until mid September for the hottest of the hot days to be behind us, but there have been remarkably few 100 degree days this summer and the pattern appears to be holding. There's still time for that to change, though.

My average mile so far this month is 9:45 over a 6 mile stretch. It'll probably stay there for the remainder of the month while I start trying to stretch the distances out. The next scheduled race is the Houston Half Marathon in October, but I may get a few 5k and 10k runs in during the interim to work on a little bit of speed work.

An interesting thing happens during my 6 mile runs, right around mile 3.5. I smile. Yea, I know. It's weird. It only lasts for about a half mile or so, then the grimacing death mask descends on my face, but that little stretch of the run is actually quite pleasant. Not as pleasant as the nap following the run, but pleasant enough in its own rights.

Runner attacked

2010-08-09T13:21:00.001-07:00

Has anyone heard of any incidents of runners in Houston having things thrown at them from car windows.

Things such as rocks, chunks of concrete, bricks, bottles, etc?

The run

2010-07-29T12:54:00.001-07:00

I said yesterday's run was in jeopardy due to complete lack of energy. Well, I managed to get up off the deck and post a decent run: 6 miles in 1:03. It wasn't great, but wasn't so bad, either. I've done better, but not since January.

But here's the kicker: yesterday was a scheduled rest day. The TUESDAY run was scheduled for 5 miles, but I was on the deck so hard Tuesday night my schedule was off by a block. So, the rest day that I THOUGHT was today is actually a day scheduled for speedwork.

I so hate The Almighty Schedule I can taste it.

I've been tinkering with The Almighty Schedule anyway, so a little more tinkering may not be so bad. I might skip tonight's run and overload the miles tomorrow (with a little speed work thrown in), tack on a 3 easy miles Saturday (scheduled rest day), and then be back on track for the LongSlowDistance run for Sunday (9 miles scheduled).

Or, I might get in a long, easy run tonight, skip tomorrow, sneak in some miles Saturday, and be on track for the LSD on Sunday.
Or, I might rest tonight, run tomorrow morning with an easy 6, cross on Saturday, LSD on Sunday.

I don't know. Maybe I just need to rest to the weekend and try and get my clock straight. I'd hate to lose out on the miles for this week--I don't have any more time in July to make them up.

Setback... of sorts

2010-07-28T14:36:00.001-07:00

Ok, I've fallen a bit ill over the last few days. My energy level has been ridiculously low to the point where I was beginning to feel physically ill. The last scheduled run on The Almighty Running Schedule was skipped as well as the two short bonus runs I had planned to squeeze into the mix. Tonight's run is, to say the very least, in jeopardy. The Almighty Schedule for the week is almost certainly trashed. I can only hope to get back on track for next week, even though I have a business trip planned--all hotels do have treadmills and the mileage is light to moderate. I may overdose the mileage simply to keep myself "normal" in a foreign city.

This could become, to say the very least, a problem. Let's hope it doesn't go there.

True beauty in the park

2010-07-22T20:17:00.000-07:00

5 good miles today. I'll try and knock down 4 in the morning tomorrow, but I have a very bad record of getting up in the morning and running.

But the real point of today's post...

Yesterday, while running in the park I saw a thing of true beauty. And no, it wasn't attached to a sports bra or in any way related to the "wildlife" that can be found in the local running Mecca of Houston during the deepest, hottest parts of the summer.

No, this was a thing of true, true beauty. An inspirational sight that my imagination STILL cannot release.

As I was chugging through my second mile yesterday at what I thought was a decent clip, it happened. Three guys come cruising up on my left in a V formation. Their backs straight, their heads held up high, eyes forward, a light banter going on between them. Then I looked at their FEET. They were keeping an identical cadence, all had identical strides, and their footfalls were so light. The balls of their feet hit at exactly the same time, just under their knees, and then seemed to just slide back.

It was so easy, so light, and so smooth.

It was truly beauty in motion.

For just a brief moment I was able to follow behind them and keep their pace (it was a blistering pace for me, but so light and smooth for them). It felt like I was running with gazelles! It was so light and breezy and inspirational. It's HOW I want to run.

And these guys... they were like ghosts. They seemed to appear over my left shoulder out of nowhere, and then after a few moments of pacing with them they were gone just as quickly as they showed up. I've actually seen them around the platforms--they're always there. But I've never seen them actually running.

But now I have. And wow. I so want some of that.

Report

2010-07-20T18:02:00.000-07:00

Ran 5 miles in 51 min 29 sec @ 10:18 min pace, weather was humid, hot, and full of blech. typical houston july., temperature around 89 degrees, After a 5 day layoff where I felt generally like garbage, I finally took to the road again. The schedule had 5 miles at 10:30, I ran 5 miles at 10:18. I was going to run 7, but the first 3 miles were at a "blistering" pace of 9:48--much faster than I had planned. 1. 10:02 2. 09:41 3. 09:41 (last quarter mile was 2:00) 4. 10:01 5. 12:02

Getting off, and on back on the rails

2010-07-19T08:25:00.001-07:00

The Almighty Training Schedule is kind of bumming me out.
Generally speaking, I have a problem with authority. When that authority is some sort of generic, outside designed round hole that I'm expected to jam a square peg into, then I start to have a real, real problem with the authority.

And that, for me, is what training programs tend to be. Some guy (or chick) decided that in order for ME to accomplish my goals (in this case, sub 2:00:00 half marathon), I need to do X, Y, and Z. Forget the fact that I've got schedule conflicts on three of those days. Forget the fact that I have a travel schedule. Forget the fact that I actually want to see my family on the weekends. Nope, forget all that, and you get no alternatives. Do the program, or good luck.

Well, you know what? Bite my ass.

Don't get me wrong. I understand the program is intended to help. There are specific workouts that seek to deepen the reservoir, widen the pipes, and improve the pump. Each one targets one, two, or (for a time) all three aspects of the machine. I get it. I really, really do.

I also get it that the program is a good starting point, and if I want to get more sophisticated with my training I should consult someone who knows a little more about me than some editor in Colorado (or where ever the hell he is) for Runners World Magazine.

You know what works really well for me? A long, long run on Monday and Tuesday, then a rest day for Wednesday, then some speedwork for Thursday, and a shorter (but still long) run on Friday. Then I can take the weekend off (when most people prefer to run their long runs) and spend time with the family that I haven't seen all week. Maybe that'll change in the winter, but in the summer that's how the schedule works out. Does that fit into the Almighty Training Schedule? Nope. Does it work? I'll betcha it does. In fact, I have yet to find anyone who can give me a good reason why it wouldn't work other than "that's crazy", "that's stupid", or "no program would have you doing THAT". The problem, though, is if the schedule has me doing something else, and I'm not following the schedule, then the schedule simply doesn't work.

So, that's where I'm at right now. I've got a schedule I've tried to stick with. And for the weekday runs, I've done a pretty good job. The weekend runs, on the other hand, I've not done so well sticking with. I'm going to have to rejigger the schedule a bit and see if I can rearrange the runs and the days in order to fit them in a little bit better. I might even wake up a bit early a few times a week and run before work--something I have extreme difficulty doing.

Nonetheless, though, I'll take a stab at reforming the Almighty Schedule into something that's more compatible, while at the same time reforming my own schedule to better accommodate the schedule. Tuesday's 5 mile run will become Tuesday Morning's 6.5 mile run because I'm not sure where the 5 mile turnaround point is on my local route (maybe I'll run 8 miles, depending on how I feel). The shoes, socks, and kit will be laid out tonight and when the buzzer buzzes at 10 to 5 tomorrow morning, I'll be out like a shot.

Speed work Thursday!

2010-07-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

Ran 3 miles in 27 min 33 sec @ 9:11 min/ pace, weather was sunny, with a hot breeze. humid, but not sauna humid., temperature around 93 degrees, The schedule said 1 mile warm up, then 2x1 mile splits at 8:25. 1. 10:46 2. 08:06 3. 08:40 (average for the two miles, 8:23.5) Booyah!

The pump, the pipe, and the reservoir

2010-07-13T08:46:00.001-07:00

There are three parts to a fluid energy system. There's the pump, which actually pushes (or pulls) the fluid from one point to the other. There's the pipe, which allows for the flow of the fluid energy. Then there's the reservoir where the fluid energy is stored. The human body is not much different, even if the parts are not necessarily tangible.

Our pump is, of course, our heart and lungs. In a fluid system the pump will draw the fluid or energy out of the reservoir. The larger the pump, the more that can be drawn out. If the pump is stronger and more efficient, then it can operate at higher speeds for longer periods. Also, less energy is required to operate and cool the pump so it can run for longer periods. The longer it can run, the more can be drawn from the reservoir at a given time.
A good portion of our training has to do with building the strength of the pump. Marathoners have huge pumps that can be set to run for hours and hours at a time. They can fire up a sprint, but they're not designed to sprint. They burn long and slow, and control the flow through the pipes.

The pipes convey the fluid from the reservoir to wherever it's going. If it's an electrical system, the pipes are actually wires. If it's a fluid system, the pipes are... well, pipes. The bigger the pipe, the more that can flow along the pipe with less resistance. The smaller the pipe, the less that can flow and the higher the resistance.
For a runner, we'd be talking about "fast twitch muscle fibers" and "slow twitch muscle fibers" and such things. It's the efficiency with which we can transfer that energy that our heart and lungs are pumping through our body into actual exertion.
We're also talking about discipline and pace. If we open the pipes too far too fast, we burn out. If we keep them constrained too much for too long, we never hit max performance. Marathons are never won in the first mile, but they can be lost completely in that first mile. Go out too fast and you can sacrifice performance in the final miles. We can always open the pipes up for a sustained release of speed, but then we can close the pipes back up to try and conserve and replenish some of the reservoir. A good portion of the training is also learning how to control the flow through the pipes.

The reservoir simply is what it is. In a fluid system it's the lake, or snow caps, or aquifer. In an electrical system it's the battery. For a runner, it's the... well, it's the "IT". You know, do you have "IT" to make it through to the end? To push through exhaustion? To keep those feet moving even when you can barely focus your eyes? Do you have "IT"? When your lungs are burning and your legs are beginning to tingle and your breath is coming in rasps on every footfall and the line is approaching but not approaching fast enough and the clock is ticking the RELENTLESS CLOCK IS TICKING and the white spots are forming in your field of vision AND THE CLOCK IS STILL TICKING and you just can't go another step but you have to keep pushing for just another few feet and you have to reach deep, deep, deep down into the reserves and pull up just a little bit more of "IT"... yea, that's what "IT" is.

And "IT" is the great mystery of long distance running. Training can expand that reservoir mathematically. But there's something else that adds that little something more beyond the mere edges of the pool of reserve energy. There's that little something else that holds the wellspring of amazing, superhuman energy that separates mere mortals from mere mortals who run... and then those mere mortals who run from mere mortals who are runners... and then those mere mortals who are runners from the gods who walk among us.
Anyone can TALK about running.
In fact, anyone can run.
In fact, anyone can run unfathomable distances--it's in our DNA, we're built for it.
And you know, for that matter, on a full tank of gas anyone can blast off an explosive sprint for a 150 meters or so.
The REAL question is whether or not you can blast off a sprint AFTER running 5 or 10 miles.
Or after running 5 or 10 miles, can you run another 5 or 10 miles? Or, on the brink of exhaustion, can you get up and finish?
That's when you start to find out what IT really looks like.
Not in the fresh legs of a new morning, but in the sweat drenched, slightly parched emptiness that lies just before the edge. When you look deep within and see nothing, but then reach down into that inky darkness and find... yea, there it is.

No more comments, for awhile

2010-07-13T07:49:00.001-07:00

Due to a douchebag spammer, comments have been turned off. I'll be simulposting on facebook, so you can comment there if you're so inclined.

I don't like to turn off comments, but until the douchebag spammer dies or grows some dignity--or Blogger figures out a way to allow us to ban or report douchebag spammers--I'll have to leave comments off.

Run update

2010-07-12T18:35:00.001-07:00

Ran 5 miles in 52 min 46 sec @ 10:33 min/ pace, weather was hot in the sun, cool in the shade... but no shade., temperature around 91 degrees, I skipped the 8 mile LSD run over the weekend due to too many good excuses. So, I made up for it on today\'s rest day. I ran 3 fast miles with a 2 mile cool down. It\'s not on the schedule, and it wasn\'t 8 miles, but it needed to be done and I could barely walk at the end. 1. 9:49 2. 9:32 3: 8:58 (and I really felt like I was going to vomit after this mile... but I didn\'t) 4: 12:03 5: 12:22

I didn't really mean to make the first 3 miles of this run speed work, but that's how it happened. I felt good on the first mile and then saw the time, so I kept banging on the second mile and the time was even better. So, on the third mile I kept banging and the time kept falling. Then I felt like I was going to puke, so I laid there on the grass until the urge to throw chunks passed, dragged myself up and tossed off another couple of miles to cool down. Now, at the end of that second cool down mile someone came up on my left shoulder and slid past me at just the right pace, so I got on his heels and paced him all the way to the finish pole. 10 feet from the finish he cracked. That felt good.

Tomorrow is a rest day. 5 easy miles are scheduled, but I've got an appointment to keep. So, I'm swapping the Tuesday and Wednesday schedules with speed work scheduled for Thursday (2 x mile repeats, 8:30 pace). To make up for skipping this weekend, I'm going to add a mile to the easy run and maybe add a couple to this weekend's LSD. This is looking like a pretty good week.

Day 5, wearing down.

2010-07-09T19:05:00.000-07:00

Ran 4 miles in 42 min 49 sec @ 10:42 min/ pace, weather was effin muggy and blech, temperature around 91 degrees, The schedule said \"4 miles at 10:30\". For some reason I thought that meant to start on a route that would take me 5 miles. It took me a mile to figure out what I had done wrong and I corrected course. Der. I also missed the pace by about 19 seconds, or 5 seconds per mile. 1. 10:41 2. 10:51 3. 10:20 4. 10:55

I'm so freaking tired. I wake up and I'm tired. I go to bed, and I'm tired. I spend the day alert and focused, but I'm tired. The fatigue has GOT to be a part of the program, I'm just not sure it's a good, or necessary, part. I'm going to keep with it, even though I'm skeptical. The worst that can happen, I suppose, is that my half marathon time drops from 2:30 to something between 2:00 and 2:30.

Or, I could get hurt because these training programs are stupid. We'll see.

THE PROGRAM, day 3

2010-07-07T07:04:00.001-07:00

I have started a 10 week program to run a half marathon in under 2 hours. I figured it was time to just go ahead and quit putting off setting a goal and just jump in, both feet, and get this thing done. Enough with the conceptual knowledge that I can do it, it's time to actually begin the slow, steady process of wearing away, molecule by molecule, the rubbery soles of my shoes. Target day: September 11, 2010. I've plotted out a half marathon course that's actually 13.4 miles long, and I'm calling it the "Half to Beat The Heat Half Marathon +"

I know, I know... it's a little longer than a true half (hence the Half Marathon + tag), but the point is to be able to run it in under 2:00:00 and, more importantly, when the actual half marathon season comes back around I'll actually be able to knock out a half marathon at the time benchmark I've set. Additionally, I can use this 2:00:00 baseline as a launching point for marathon training.

I should also say that I'm thoroughly skeptical of this "program". Yes, I have mined it out of a very respected running publication. Yes, it has been put together by some very respected running coaches and folks very knowledgeable about these things. But all the same, I'm very, very skeptical about what this program will actually do for me that I wouldn't be able to do by simply going out there and running as far and as fast as I can run 3 or 4 times a week logging between 20 and 30 miles per week (the same mileage the program has me running). I mean, why does running 16 total miles (in 3 outings) at 10:30 and a "tempo run" of 5 miles (with 3 at under 9:00) produce better results than simply running between 6.8 and 8 miles on 4 separate days at under 10:00 per mile? I just don't get it. I really don't understand. But I'm willing to try and see if it'll actually work, considering I haven't stuck to the "run between 6.8 and 8 miles on 4 separate days" program much, either. I'm going to give it an honest try, though, and see if 1. I can stick to the program and 2. if it'll actually work. Maybe I'll set the next benchmark as a 20:00 5k!

So, on with the program...
Today is a rest day/cross train day on the program. Yesterday was, I thought, 4 miles at 10:38 pace, but was actually scheduled to be 4 miles at 10:30 pace. All the same, I knocked out 4 miles in just under 10:30. I tried really hard to stick to the 10:38 pace that I thought I was supposed to be keeping, but in the beginning that felt SOOO SLOOOWWWW... towards the end, though, it was a bit tougher to hold on to the pace, so it balanced out. This was also about a mile longer than my typical weekday runs. Usually at the park I'll whip out 3 miles with about a mile of speed work. Yesterday was just 4 steady miles. I'm not sure why, but today I'm a little bit exhausted. I DO know that 16 laps around a track is bo-ring.

Tomorrow the schedule has a 5 mile tempo run. I've never done a tempo run, on purpose. The schedule says to start slow for a mile, then blast 3 miles at 8:54, then finish slow. Finishing slow runs completely counter to everything I've ever learned and every habit I've ever developed, but I'll give it a try all the same. I'm thinking it'll be 4 laps around the oval, then 1 lap around the park, then 4 laps around the oval. I suppose I'm going to have to suspend the 8:00 rule for the park circuit for awhile.

From running to training

2010-07-06T06:44:00.001-07:00

Up to this point I've called myself a runner, but not a Runner. I'm running for recreation and out of that recreational effort I have been able to build a base that can support the effort of a half marathon distance pretty much whenever I want to just "roll out of bed" and run 13.1 miles.

Of course, that distance takes 2 1/2 hours to cover. And I don't care what anyone tells you, running 13.1 miles at a 11:30 pace is not fun. Not fun at all.
I'm also fairly certain, though I haven't had the opportunity to prove it, that I could knock off a full marathon as well. Of course, THAT pace will be something south of 12:00, and as much fun as running a half marathon at 11:30 may sound, running a full at more than 12:00 per mile is even less fun. I don't care what anyone tells you.

Sure, sure, there's the sense of accomplishment blah blah blah... once you've accomplished one, running for 5 1/2 hours ceases to be a marvelous accomplishment and becomes a hot, sweaty, miserable plod.

SO, then, what's next?

Well, I've already set my sights on the mystical "8 minute mile" (that I already know I can run) to be logged by the end of this month. En route to putting that little accomplishment into the books, I've decided to put myself on a 6 week training--yes, training--program to prepare to run a half marathon in under two hours. THAT means I can set my sights on knocking out a half marathon (or half marathon distance) over Labor Day weekend. And if I'm at the point where I can knock out a half marathon (or half marathon distance) by the end of August, then I can seriously start thinking about setting specific time goals for the full marathons I'm looking at for January.

In just my neighborhood alone, there are 3 full marathons in the calendar month of January 2011. I'm thinking I might run all three. I'm thinking I might run all three in under four hours, or at the very worst, between 4:00 and 4:30. Besides, I already KNOW I can run a marathon. Now it's time to find out if I can just run marathons.

Going longer

2010-07-01T13:00:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I ran the longest post-hiatus run to date--8.5 miles.

In the searing heat.

I ran out of water, was under fed, suffered cramps and various pains, but I made it all the way through. It took me a little longer than I expected--a 13:00 pace--but I made it.
Yesterday I followed that performance with a 6.8 mile run at about 11:30. THAT run actually felt pretty good, if not fast. From here forward my 3 mile runs are going to be considered my short runs, and my 6 mile runs are going to be considered the normal runs. Anything over 10 miles, on my chart, will be considered long runs. It's time to start getting serious.

Basically, at this point I feel like my baseline has been built. I'm able to go adequate distances, even if at slow paces. I'm satisfied enough with the distances and can start whittling down the times. I'm still debating whether or not I want to make the transition from recreational running to honest-to-god training. 3 or 4 runs a week seem to be plenty for now, and if I do manage to squeeze out a 2 hour half marathon while keeping to the decidedly non-schedule schedule that I run with, it'll be a very, very satisfying "I told you so" that I'll be able to deliver.

One thing I won't do, however, is sign up for another 5 hour marathon. That's just not any fun.

If the weather holds for tomorrow, I may run home from the office again to tack on another 8.5 to the ledger. It'll be a good way to start the month.

CRUSHED IT!

2010-06-24T15:10:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I've been complaining lately about plateaued performance and acheyness and blah blah blah. I've been fretting about managing exertion and heart rate and overheating on the runs. Well, both Monday and yesterday's runs were remarkably better than any of the runs last week.

Monday's run featured a 32:00 run around the 3 mile loop at Memorial, followed by 3 penalty laps. I know it should have been 4, but I miscounted and only ran 3. I made up the missed lap Wednesday, so it was ok. The primary goal was to manage my pace, heart rate, and exertion. The first lap went off at a quick 9:45, the next two slid down precipitiously. The speed laps, however, were all at a 2:00 pace, so I was satisfied with that. Plus, the last mile and a half or so was run in pouring rain and through slushy muck, so even though I wasn't over heating I was still slogging through mud and blechiness.

Wednesday rolled around and I renewed the focus on pace above all. Mile 1: 10:00. Mile 2: 10:01. Mile 3: 10:02. I nailed it. Of course, I cheated a bit on the third mile because I took it easy on the first half of that mile clocking a 5:30. The next quarter I clawed back ten seconds from my target pace to put the total at 7:53, which allowed me to crush the final quarter at just over 2:09. I counted that final quarter as my first penalty lap, and the makeup lap from Monday's workout.

So, in keeping with the "rules" I made up, because I was over my target of 24:00 by 4 portions of 2:00 intervals (24-26, 26-28, 28-30, 30+), I owed 4 more penalty laps. These laps went at 1:54, 2:02, 2:01, and 1:54, which got me the :09 back from the first penalty lap at the end of the 3 miles. All in all, a very, very good run for this point in my game.
Now that I'm running 2:00 quarters consistently, I'm going to change the rules.
For every 4:00 increment I'm off my pace, I'm going to owe a half mile penalty lap with a target time of 4:00. If I can keep stringing these guys together, I should be able to hit my goal of an 8:00 mile. If I can run a single 8:00 mile, then I can start tacking on additional quarters and push the long distance times down. My last marathon chugged along at about 12:30 per mile. I'm looking to shave--well, really more like amputate--2:30 off that time for my next marathon. And really I'd like to trim about 3:30 off that time and notch a sub-4:00:00 marathon. That won't get me into the money, but it will get me into Denny's before the lunch rush shows up.

THAT'S worth the effort.

The lifestyle

2010-06-21T12:45:00.001-07:00

I read a phrase today that struck me as odd. Haruki Marakami referred to himself running regularly and falling back into the "running lifestyle". This is something I had never used that specific term to describe, but still was something I tended to avoid. My preferred terminology was "Runner" versus "runner" versus "someone who runs". I had personally travelled from "someone who runs" to "runner", but never dabbled into the realm of "Runner". Those people are the ones who lived the "running lifestyle". The guys at the smoothie shop knew their names. The folks at the shoe stores knew their sizes and exactly how much they tended to pronate. These were the folks who hung out in the running clubs, chatted together at the stretching platforms, and generally chilled in their running gear than hung ever so casually over their gaunt, skinny little runner bodies.

These were, basically, folks that I didn't have the time to become. Why? Because I had other hobbies. I have my garden. I have my bike. I have my classes. I have my family. I have other things to occupy my time that makes running as much imposition as it is a blessed escape from the general business of my everyday life.

But, then again, there's that "running lifestyle" that helps light the fire that burns the engine that allows those of us where are/were merely "people who run" to make that transition to "runner", or even "Runner". Some people are born with it, others have to catch it from someone else.

So, now the thought has begun creeping into my mind, as I contemplate running either 3 or 6 miles this evening, do I want to turn that corner and allow myself to be drawn into the "running lifestyle", or do I want to continue to dabble my feet into the pond without ever really taking that plunge? Honestly, I still don't know the answer.

But anyway, I've thought about the running performances over the last couple of weeks and realize that when I start breaking down toward the end of runs it's not because I'm tired. I still have plenty of fuel in the tank, I'm just having trouble getting that fuel to the parts that make the locomotion happen. It occurs to me that I may simply be overheating. My heart rate may be running too high and the breathing, no matter how regular and steady, simply isn't keeping pace with the heart rate causing a general breakdown of the system. I may have to go off and get a heart monitor, or simply learn how to take it just a tad bit easier on the front portion of my out-and-back runs.
Either way, I'm going to test the theory out today by attempting to better manager the heart rate and body heat as I run. It won't be easy, on account of it being close to 5,000,000 degrees outside, but I'll see what I can do. Maybe I'll figure this thing out afterall.

Speedwork day

2010-06-18T14:40:00.001-07:00

Today will be a day of speedwork. This week has been a week of declining performance and increasing times, and it's generally been a bummer. The body has been fighting back, the diet has been a shambles, and pretty much everything has gone wrong. I'm even feeling sore in my shins far, far ahead of when I should be feeling sore in the shins.

On the other hand, at this time last year I wasn't even tracking times yet, and when I did start tracking times I was a step slower (in July) than I am now. So, even though I'm running slower than I'd like to, I'm still running better than I was last year. So, I guess it's a good news/bad news sort of situation.

Nonetheless, I need a change of pace. The various three mile workouts (3.0 and 3.6) I've been running the last couple of weeks are getting tedious. My legs are getting achey. Waa. So, I'm going to start killing some speed workouts all next week. Tonight, running's out of the question since I'm going to be home watching the rugrat on my own and leaving him upstarts sleeping while I go out for an hour long run is, for some strange reason, frowned upon. Tomorrow, though, I may load him into the running trailer and go for a run with him. That might be fun!

Anyway, blah blah blah...
I picked up a couple of new books that should be fun to read, too.

The quest for 8 continues

2010-06-15T11:13:00.001-07:00

I took in another 3.6 mile run last night, and the first half of the run was again a faster front half than the previous run's first half. The run overall, however, was slightly slower than the previous outing, partly on account of pushing the pace a little too aggressively on the front half and partly on account of having a headwind for the front half. I just pooped out on the back half of the run, even with a tail wind.

Nonetheless, I ran a little more than 1.75 miles at a 9:45/mile clip. I suspect that if I went to a track this weekend and laid it out I could break 9:00 for a mile. I feel the 8:00 mile is within reach by the end of next month.

Last night I was looking at a calendar and realized that in the month of January there are 3 marathons in the Houston area--1/1, 1/16, and 1/30. Conceivably I could take a stab at running all three of them. Something of a "Houston Trifecta". Of course, for the 1/30 marathon I'd have to actually win a lottery now that the Chevron Houston Marathon has decided to switch to a lottery system rather than simply require their runners to stick to the registration guidelines (roll eyes). Nonetheless, pulling off a feat like that--with no gu, gatorade, or other manufactured assistance--would be pretty impressive and merely prove that I don't exist.

Because, as we all know from common knowledge, running is a punishment on the human body and you must feed it artificial garbage, ice it down, wrap it up, and medicate the hell out of it in order for it to be able to run 26.2 miles.

Unless,that is, you think common knowledge is simply wrong and believe that humans are, in fact, born to run.

Almost back to pre-hiatus form

2010-06-11T09:05:00.001-07:00

I'm 9 days back from hiatusville. In those 9 days I've taken in 4 runs, with 3 in a single week (and it will probably be 4 before the start of next week).
Last night's run was a quick little 3.6 mile jaunt from the homestead along our little river path. It's a good run, but it's nothing exciting. This weekend may feature a long run (for me) of about 13 miles. It'll be slow, and agonizing, but it'll get finished, and at this stage that's what's important to me.

Meanwhile, the observations continue.
Last night and this morning, the legs were a little bit wobbly. There was a point where I could barely maintain control of the muscles last night. It wasn't entirely a bad thing, just curious. I'm actually running at least as much now than I was prior to the Chevron Houston Half Marathon, but I was much stronger prior to the CHHM. Either way, I expect the volume and distances to continue to rise.

On the appetite front, I'm surprised at how quickly that has turned over, too. I'm ALWAYS hungry, but the cravings are for unusual stuff--at least for me. Peanut butter, bread, milk, berries and fruits, chicken, leafy greens, eggs, grits, and beans beans beans are the fare that I am seriously wanting to cram down my gullet. Burgers? Not so much. I even went out and bought some chia seeds for tea and gardening. I may be off my culinary nut.

On the sleep/energy side of the equation... After the late-ish run last night I showered and settled in for dinner (eggs, grits, milk) around 10pm. Very late, you'd think. The food didn't stand a chance. Before the first commercial break the food was gone, as if it was never there. I leaned back with the tall glass of milk and nearly passed out right then. About 10:30 I got up to finish up some chores and clean up a few messes and hit the sack close to 11:30. When 5:00am came around I was awake before the alarm and rejuvenated with energy I didn't know I had. They say that with regular exercise and extensive physical exertion your body tends to recuperate and reenergize quicker, and you require less sleep. The least healthy people actually require the most sleep. And I remember from prior to the hiatus that I was actually getting less sleep and feeling better in the mornings than from when I had started running the summer prior. What I wasn't expecting was that particular switch to be flipped quite so quickly. I figured it'd be a few more weeks before my eyes were snapping open at 5:30 and my legs were getting all twitchy for the day to start.

Of course, even with the extra energy this morning my legs were still a bit wobbly. That switch won't be flipped for another few weeks, I'm sure.

The 8 minute mile

2010-06-10T13:19:00.001-07:00

It's time to set out some performance goals.

Sure, I want to run farther and faster in general, because running is a primal function that helps me feel healthier. But how much farther? How much faster? That's the thing.

As best I can remember I've never run an 8 minute mile. I know what it feels like to run a 2 minute quarter, but not an 8 minute mile.

That's a good place to start.

Then, I want to run a 25 minute 5k. That's right, a 25 minute 5k. Because I don't know what that feels like, either.

And even more importantly than that, I think I can do both of those things before the end of this year.

And if I can do both of those before the end of the year, I can set my sights on a 50 minute 10k, and a 10 mile run in 1:10--which would be the 10 for Texas in October.

And then once I crest the 10 mile hill, I can start zeroing in on the 1:30 half marathon, and maybe start looking at a 3:00 full marathon. I mean, why the hell not?

I think it's time I started seriously looking into running an 8:00 mile.

Barring any calamities

2010-06-09T08:05:00.000-07:00

Today I'm looking at a 6 mile run, possibly in Memorial Park, possibly closer to home. I'm not sure yet. And that's if the weather and circumstance holds so that I can even pull it off. I've discovered that if I head to the house first, the likelihood that I'll actually leave to go run is diminished. On the other hand, when I do leave to go run, the likelihood that the run will be longer is greater than if I run before heading to the house. It's as if I'll cut a run short in order to get home to the fam and tend to the homestead. Alternatively, if I skip the run and head directly to tending to the homestead, if there's still energy (and will) after the chores are done, I'll bound out the front door and run for an extra few miles. Of course, that is only if there's still energy and will (and daylight) to do so. It's a very curious balancing act.

And speaking of balancing acts, lunch is a tricky thing to figure out. Like I've already said, it's amazing how quickly the switches have been flipped once I started running again. I ran the first mile back from hiatus on the 2nd, and the appetite cravings immediately changed gears. The burger I choked down on Monday was a reluctant compromise with time, and I paid for it. Since then I've wanted nothing to do with burgers, or much red meat at all. I craved, and I mean CRAVED, a bean burrito yesterday--fuel food. Today, I want only a chicken salad. Yea, that's right, chicken salad. That's the only thing I can think of right now.

Chicken salad.Chicken salad.Chicken salad.Chicken salad.Chicken salad.Chicken salad.Chicken salad.Chicken salad.Chicken salad.

Sigh.

The other balancing act that's a real challenge is the technology versus naturalism struggle. With everything today, there's a gadget. There's the music player, there's the "fuel belt", there's the specially formulated water product, there's the specially formulated carbo product, there's the specially formulated energy gel, there's the specially formulated shoes, there's the specially formulated socks... pretty much anything and everything you could imagine you needed or wanted in order to make running easier and more expensive, there's a gadget for that. It makes you wonder how our ancestors ever managed to find, hunt, chase, and kill a beast. Occasionally I'll plug in the music player, but the less I carry, the better I feel. Can a person run a 2:00 half marathon, in today's relatively comfortable society, without energy gels, fuel bars, or specially designed "gear"? I'm not sure, but I'm determined to find out.

Getting into the swing of things

2010-06-08T08:49:00.001-07:00

I was thinking last week how odd it was that the switches would be flipped back on so quickly after a mere 1 mile run. After Tuesday's quick run I was hungry, but not HUNGRY!! On Wednesday there was a little more of a spring in my step, I didn't need/want as much coffee, and there was no craving for an afternoon sugary snack. Then, come Wednesday night, the crash came and I was EXHAUSTED. Completely and totally wiped out. A very, very good, full body weariness decended over me and I completely shut off at a relatively early hour.
Thursday came bright and early and most of the spring was out of my step, the coffee craving had returned, but the afternoon sugar binge was still absent, but the old fuel lunch craving was back, rather than just food/filler lunch cravings. It seemed like the engine had been stoked. Right around 4:00pm the legs started twitching for a run. Again, it seemed like the running switches had been flipped.

Then I got distracted by more important things and the twitchiness went away. The drive home was hectic, dinner was a mess (I "had" to order pizza at 9:00pm, that I munched on for 4 days), and instead of being full-body-wiped-out, I was merely tired and wired. What a crappy night. Friday passed much the same way and I was just glad to slump into the couch when I got home to relax for a few minutes before the night life began. We had a terrific night out with friends, but again, no running. Had I gotten up in the morning I'd have been able to run, but the terrible Thursday precluded a Friday morning run. These are the challenges that accompany having a real life and being a runner. Of course, if I were a Runner (capital "R", big difference in my lexicon), the real life would accomodate itself to the running schedule and all things would be second to squeezing in a mile or twelve--but I'm not a Runner, nor do I aspire to be. I am a runner by right of genetic and evolutionary history, and I am reclaiming that fact from the unnatural world that has been foisted on us. But enough of the soap box talk...

Saturday morning started late after sleeping off the weight of the week. A trip to the market, a rondezvous with friends, and a quick couple of chores later, the morning was complete and the running (which was never really committed to in the first place), was scuttled. News, nap, and preparation for a deliciously natural and local dinner were made and we were on to Sunday.

Another late morning started with communing with my Lord in the garden and tending to chores around the homestead. I might have been able to get a run in yesterday, but the flesh simply wasn't willing. I'm not entirely sure the mind was particularly willing, either. As amazing as it is that the running switches get flipped after a mere 1 mile primer run, it's equally amazing how quickly the switches get flipped back off.

Which brings us to Monday. I pack the running bag in the morning with the specific intent of sneaking out of the office early to dash off to the park and get in the first significant run since February 28--the Cowtown Half Marathon. It was an excruciating 3 miles (in 33:48), and I earned every agonizing minute of the run. I had a bad breakfast followed by a TERRIBLE lunch and didn't hydrate nearly enough during the day.

And just to put a cap on the run, because I was almost 4 minutes off the pace, I tacked on a pair of "penalty lap sprints" on the quarter mile loop. These laps averaged 2:00 per lap, faster than any of the quarters I ran on the long run, and were a proper penance for my sloppy run.

Next scheduled run will be Wednesday morning.

Hiatus terminated

2010-06-02T13:04:00.000-07:00

As of today, the hiatus is officially complete. I will head home, then run this evening as the sun is setting. Probably only about a mile, but it might be a full on 3.5 miles. I haven't decided yet. We'll have to see.

Now would be a good time to recap my running "strategy" and my approach to the whole thing.

First and foremost, running is not, and should not be, a strange suit we humans put on for the sake of fitness or a means to some other end. Fitness, or body health, or whatever other end you seek to gain from running is not an end, but rather a by product of the act itself. Running, in other words, IS the end. We run because, evolutionarily speaking, we are runners. Now, that's not to say that we all are Runners, because that is a state of mind. But we are, as sure as we are humans, runners. That's what separates us from the animals. That is what makes us who we are. Paleoanthropologically, it makes sense, too. Running afforded us a steady source of meat that our slow witted cousins couldn't secure for themselves because they couldn't run like us. They were left to sit back and bludgeon their prey to death and risk life and limb in close proximity to an injured beast that was more predator than prey. Meanwhile, we could chase down swift beasts that were more accustomed to being prey until they dropped dead from exhaustion or slowed to the point where a point could be introduced to their bellies. That is the essence of how we became what we became. We run not because we wish to get fit, we get fit because we run, and we run because we are runners. Only after we run can we then become a member of that strange tribe of people we call Runners.

Secondly, I have a general problem with authority. Consequently I have trouble joining with running clubs and maintaining a running calendar. I do maintain a running diary, of sorts, where I track my times and distances. But that's about as disciplined as I get. If I can't run today, I don't run today. I'll pick up the miles later on, or I won't. Either way, I'm not going to get heartbroken about it.

In the same vein, I have trouble buying into the "common wisdom" of typical running clubs, training programs, and the "you should" crowd. Sure, I know I should eat certain foods and wear certain shoes, and go out at certain times, and maintain certain paces, and taper, and ice, and stretch, and blah blah blah. I like to hear that stuff. I really do. No, SERIOUSLY, I do like to hear that stuff!! I just don't abide by all that stuff and, quite honestly, don't care if you do, either. If it works for you, go for it. But it doesn't work for me. Sure, maybe I would run a mile in only 9:34 instead of 9:38 if I did some minor tweak of this or that. But 4 seconds? Really? I heard the same crap when I was cycling, too, that I should this and should that. Bah. Trimming off 4.8 grams of bike weight isn't going to make a whit of difference when you're pushing a pair of "C"s up a hill (as in, CC, as in 200 lbs). Besides, gazelles don't taper. Antelope don't go out for pace runs. The rarimuri don't stretch or ice. And if you're truly a runner, you should be able to run at 3:00pm or 5:00am, the position of the sun is just a coincidence. Hell, Kenyans don't even WEAR shoes for the first 16 years of their life.

Finally, if I had to sum up the approach to running in just a few words, it'd be these: just run. Everything else is a result of that first principle. Do you want to run a mile? Just run. 5k? Just run (a little farther). Marathon? Just run (a little farther still). Ultra? Just run (even further). A 4 hour marathon? Just run (a little faster). Want to lose weight? Just run. Want to lose more weight? Just run (a little more). A lot of weight? Just run (a lot more).

It all starts there.
That's how it's always been.

Just run.

See you on the trails.

Cowtown recap and the ongoing hiatus

2010-05-11T08:22:00.001-07:00

Well, waaaaaayyyy back in February I ran my second half marathon in 2 months up in Fort Worth. It wasn't a spectacular showing, but it wasn't terrible, either. I wound up the race in about 2:20-ish. The last half was far worse than the first half, mostly because it was mostly uphill, but partly because I thought the run was Sunday when it was really Saturday and my entire preparation schedule was off by a day. I hadn't eaten right, I hadn't hydrated right, I hadn't done anything right, really, and I just plum ran out of gas in the last 3 miles or so.
I was on a great pace for the first 6 miles. It was a great pace. Of course, it was mostly downhill, too. But then the engine started to sputter and the 2:00 pace that I had been running slipped to 2:15. Then a mile or so later it slipped again to a 2:30 pace. But I was able to rally for the last couple of miles (where the route flattened out a little) and trim some time back off and finish in the low 2:20s. There you go. That's how the cowtown shaped up for me.
The real highlight, though, was that my son got to watch me finish the race for the first time. He was overjoyed. That was a cool feeling to be able to hear my boy squealing with delight as I cut through the crowd that had formed around the last few turns and sprint my way to the finish line. Yea, I may not have finished first, but in his eyes I'm a giant among men. And that'll do just fine.

The next run on the schedule was Angie's Half Marathon down in Clear Lake. I went out and ran a few times to prepare for that one, but the rigors of school and work started to weigh down too much and right around the end of March I officially decided to claim a hiatus until after school. Come June, I'd start running again, but not before. There were just too many things to do and not enough days in the week to do them.

But as of now, school has ended and one of the jobs has become mothballed. The garden is planted, the chores are mostly caught up on, and running will commence again shortly. I'm still looking at the half marathon schedules through the end of the year, but I may modify the schedule to accomodate a few full marathons starting in November or December. Why not? By then an extra 13 miles shouldn't be all that tough (he said, ironically).

Chevron Houston Half Marathon recap

2010-01-18T20:40:00.000-08:00

In November I injured my right calf and the wheels came off the training for the marathon. So, in December I switched to the half marathon.

Here's the results:

Overall: 2:23:24

The miles:

1: 11:07.59

We started in the crowd, of course, so the first mile was a little slow. That's ok, since this gave me a chance to speed up towards the end AND warm up in the beginning.

2: 10:15.51

3: 10:06.09

4: 10:14.40

These three miles blew by without much excitement. The first mile was over the Elsyian (sp?) viaduct and the next 3 were through the neighborhoods on the north side of town. It was all flat and crowded. I believe there was a water stop just after mile 2 and mile 4. At this point I'm cruising along just fine. I've fallen into a rhythm and separated myself into a nice clearing from the crowd.

5: 10:29.68

6: 10:22.56

These next two miles featured what little bit of terrain there is on the route. There were, if I'm not mistaken, 3 underpasses where the route drops below street level. The first one on the route is near mile 4, but these last 3 seemed to have slowed the crowd down a bit and bunched the runners back up. I remember being exceptionally crowded through the midway point until the crowd started to break up again. I also realized I had to pee real bad, but the lines at the bathrooms were all too long.

7: 10:38.77

8: 10:39.17

Here is where I finally decided to pee. I was thinking about needing to pee so badly I was beginning to get a cramp on my left side--which never, ever happens. So, just after mile 7 I tucked into a port-o-let that had a remarkably short line and emptied the tank. The relief was a relief, but 2 things happened at that point. My rhythm was thrown completely off which led to my times dropping off the cliff. Mile 8 is also near where I was expecting to see my lovely wife so that I could take in some frozen grapes and apple juice (the race fuel I expected to consume for a final kick). Unfortunately our timing was a bit off and I passed this point about 10 minutes before she arrived. This left me jonesing for some fuel that I had to go scavenging for further down the route.

9 & 10: 12:01.09

11: 12:05.55

I was too busy scanning the crowd for my lovely wife to see the 9th mile marker. Nonethless, these three miles were by FAR the slowest on the course. Once I realized I wasn't getting my fruit yummies. I had bypassed oranges and gatorade up to this point because I was expecting to get my afore mentioned race fuel. Had I known... Needless to say I was VERY happy to grab a drink of gatorade (only 1 cup for the whole run), 2 animal crackers, 3 pretzels, and 2 orange slices during this stretch of the route. The legs were genuinely starting to feel a little leaden by the end of the 11th mile. However, things started to perk up a bit when the fruits kicked in.

12: 11:26.97

13: 9:59.93

+.1: 0:54.73

This is what happens when the race fuel kicks in. The last two miles were faster than the previous 3 and I was cruising again. I was chugging down the route and into downtown when I realized that I was still tucked comfortably within the crowd. I had not been left behind, and that is a damn good feeling... until you get to the final chutes. What happens is the route gets a little narrower toward the end, which limits the amount of space you have to maneuver. All that elbow room you had a few blocks ago suddenly vanishes at the finish line. That didn't happen to me when I ran the full a few years back because it was just me and a few dozen other people finishing at the same time.

Anyway, we rolled into downtown and the finish line came into sight. That means it was time for the final kick. The girl next to me takes off a little bit, then the guy next to her takes off. Naturally I decide to give chase and put myself just ahead of both of them. She then presses forward for a couple of steps, followed immediately after him, followed once again by me. Except this second time I don't take my hand off the throttle and I juke to the left to avoid the person ahead of me and then bolt down the side. The bad part about finishing in the crowd is the very limited space you have to maneuver in. The GOOD part is ALL THE PEOPLE YOU CAN PASS AT THE FINISH LINE!!! I quit counting after 12. But damn I felt good.

What will I do differently before my next half marathon? Well, the next one will likely be in 3 or 4 days, so the only things I'm probably going to do very differently is pre-race fuel. I'm going to eat more fruits before taking off--probably about an hour ahead of time--to get that fuel into my system. It's remarkably liberating to know I can run a half marathon without manufactured products running through my system. Give me some grapes and a flask of apple juice and I'll do just fine.

So, now the question becomes whether or not I can break 2:00 before my birthday in June.

Chevron Houston Half Marathon epilogue

2010-01-18T20:23:00.000-08:00

In January of 2009 one of the ambitions for the year was to train for a marathon. I started training with the 2010 Chevron Houston Marathon in mind, but then became inspired to take it a step farther.

Way back in the late 1990's I started riding my bike--far. I started participating in the MS150 events in Texas, which are a series of 150 mile or longer bike rides across this fair state. I rode in a pair of MS150 rides and decided the next year that I wouldn't "train" for the Houston MS150, but rather would train to be able to ride MS150s whenever they might come up so that I could ride the Houston ride, then follow up with the Dallas ride 2 weeks later.

When I began my marathon "training" in 2009 I stumbled into a "natural man" philosophy of running that suggested man's natural state is to be able to traverse long distances while running. This intrigued me because I had always assumed that running marathons was beyond the natural grasp of man. It was, effectively, an extraordinary feat. The reality of the thing is that long distance running is man's natural state and man should be able to simply just run.

Granted, under today's conditions of 10 hour work days and constant, frenetic activity that accomplishes nearly nothing, running ANY distance is an extraordinary feat and a full marathon is superhuman.

Nonetheless, I embarked on a "natural man" philosophy of running. Not so much training for a particular marathon at a particular time, but training to be able to run ANY marathon, ANYTIME. In November the wheels came off of that preparation and I realized I would not be ready for the Houston Marathon (it takes time to rub off the modern patina of industrial life). I chose to switch to the half marathon instead.

How did I do? Remarkably well. My time was 2:23, which the fastest 13.1 miles I've ever run. My last mile was the fastest of all the miles. But that only tells half the story.

You read the stories of the people who train for months and torture themselves on the roads doing all kinds of invented training methodologies. They train their stomachs for GU and carbo fuel bars. They lay it all out on a Sunday morning to nail that 5 hour marathon time and this extraordinary effort leaves them wrecked for a few days, unable to climb stairs or move freely for several days. And they call themselves heroes.

And for the most part they are heroes. They've accomplished an extraordinary feat that few will ever try. I do not wish to diminish that feat whatsoever. The ability for a desk jockey to rise up over the objections of his own body to do something magnificent should ALWAYS be applauded.

However, I've already done that. I wanted to do something more. I wanted to be able to get up the next day and live a normal life. And that is precisely what I accomplished.

I ran 13.1 miles fairly well, but not expertly. I am not wrecked. I will likely go out in the next few days and run ANOTHER 13.1 miles. In 6 weeks I am going to travel to Fort Worth and run 13.1 miles and set another PR. I did not train to run a half marathon, I ran a half marathon because I trained to be a natural runner.

2010 is upon us

2010-01-14T07:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, so 2010 is here. The half marathon is just a few days away and I'm as ready as I'm going to get. In January 2009 I wrote down that I "would train for a marathon". I never committed to actually running a marathon, and had my training not jumped the tracks back in November I still think I'd have done fine running the marathon this weekend. As it is I'm satisfied that I accomplished that goal.

In a broader sense, in 2009 I discovered what it means to "be a runner". It has nothing to do with training for a specific race. It has nothing to do with ticking off certain goal, mile markers, or personal achievements. Any task oriented person can do that, given enough time. Running, in and of itself is no special thing.

No, BEING a runner is a different animal entirely.

I have come to learn that we are all, fundamentally and undeniably, runners. So running, per se is no special feat for a human to do. It is, after all, what makes us human and separates us from our cousins from the Neander valley.

But for 99.9% of us, we have no special talent to run 2:00 marathons. That's what separates the elite runners from the mere mortals. No, most of us merely possess the standard tools that have been handed down for centuries from the first group of hunters who chased down an antelope and watched it die from heat stroke right before their eyes. That's all, and nothing more.

We are ALL capable of running a marathon. Most of us, however, have cars and, therefore, no need to travel 26 miles on foot. And that's probably what separates me from most of my fellow runners. I agree that most of us have no special talent. I just have a higher opinion of what our natural talent happens to be.

There are other things that separate me from many of the other runners I know and over time I may explore those differences further.

So, were do I go in 2010? That's a good question.

I've signed up for the Houston Half and the Cowtown Half in February. The Cowtown Half was my concession to myself for dropping from the full to the half for Houston. In March there's a half marathon in College Station. That's 3 half marathons in 3 months without a major adjustment to my "training" schedule. They're really just an extension of the running that I've been doing. Rumor is that there are half marathons in the Dallas Metroplex area just about every month of the year. There's also a pretty decent (and slightly longer than a) half marathon route that starts and ends at my front door that doesn't cost me anything.

Maybe I'll run a half marathon a month, every month, for 2010. And, while I'm at it, I'll maintain an easy preparation schedule and continue to prove that you can be average to above average, compared to the general population, without torturing yourself on a daily basis. In 2009 I logged 193 miles and probably ran closer to 215 miles. This represents the most miles I've run in a year, ever (as far as I know).

I think my goal for 2010 will be 216.

Day 137

2009-11-25T17:45:00.000-08:00

I am now on day 137 of learning how to become a runner and reconnecting with what makes me human--that is, the ability to run.

As I sit here, typing this, fresh off a tune-up run of 3.6 miles (at a 9:03 pace), keenly aware of the cramping and soreness in my right calf, I'm reflecting on the training I did for the '05 and '06 marathons. I'm struck by how naive I was going into the '05 run and sorely underprepared for that race I was come race day. I figured guts alone would carry me through the race. I remember how DETERMINED I was for the '06 marathon to overcome the disasterous failure that '05 was and how relaxed and comfortable I was on game day. In '05 I was so uncertain of my ability to accomplish the marathon, but in '06 finishing was a foregone conclusion by the time I toed the line.

Today I'm running faster than I ever did in '04 or '05, but I'm still uncertain because I haven't been running FARTHER than I ever did. In fact, though I'm running more, I'm not running farther. This is the same thing that put the kibosh on me running in '07--I simply didn't want to put the time on the road that running a full marathon would require. I had very little interest in trading 3 hours with my new baby son for 3 hours of grinding out 10 miles on the road.

Of course, at the speeds I'm running now I should be able to grind out 10 miles in closer to 2 hours.

Nonetheless, I've been seriously considering merely running the half rather than the full simply to accommodate my home/work/school schedules. On the other hand... the marathon is a special thing. The pipes, the communion wafer, the bridge on Westpark, the stretch through Memorial Park, the entrance into downtown... All things that are unique to the full marathon as they happen after the 8 mile mark.

I'm not questioning my ability to do the run. I'm questioning my priorities, which I have in the right order. I question the sanity of anyone who will look in the face of their child, or wife, and say "no, i can't play because I'd rather go run, by myself, for a few hours". Son, you're less important to me than this run that will be there next year... and the year after... and the year after.

On the other hand (yes, the third hand), if I continue to add speed and power to my running, I can actually train for a marathon without sacrificing 3 or 4 hours, because the speed will be such that I can do in 2 what I could do in 3. Of course, that's another year away, at least.

No bother. Tomorrow I have a 10k, and it'll be an honest to goodness race against someone who is, by all indications, faster than me. Maybe I'll get lucky and be able to hang for a few miles before konking out.

I guess what I'm looking for is a sign, like that angel in 1 Kings 19 that touched Elijah and encouraged him to eat, regain his strength, and continue on his mission.

Man, the Runner

2009-11-25T08:19:00.000-08:00

http://www.runtheplanet.com/resources/historical/runevolve.asp

The Evolution of Human Running

Humans evolved from ape-like ancestors because they needed to run long distances—perhaps to hunt animals or scavenge carcasses on Africa's vast savannah—and the ability to run shaped our anatomy, making us look like we do today. That is the conclusion of a study by University of Utah biologist Dennis Bramble and Harvard University anthropologist Daniel Lieberman. Bramble and Lieberman argue that our genus, Homo, evolved from more ape-like human ancestors, Australopithecus, two million or more years ago because natural selection favored the survival of australopithecines that could run and, over time, favored the perpetuation of human anatomical features that made long-distance running possible.

"We are very confident that strong selection for running—which came at the expense of the historical ability to live in trees—was instrumental in the origin of the modern human body form", says Bramble, a professor of biology. "Running has substantially shaped human evolution. Running made us human—at least in an anatomical sense. We think running is one of the most transforming events in human history. We are arguing the emergence of humans is tied to the evolution of running".

That conclusion is contrary to the conventional theory that running simply was a byproduct of the human ability to walk. Bipedalism—the ability to walk upright on two legs—evolved in the ape-like Australopithecus at least four and a half million years ago while they also retained the ability to travel through the trees. Yet Homo with its "radically transformed body" did not evolve for another three million or more years—Homo habilis, Homo erectus and, finally, our species, Homo sapiens—so the ability to walk cannot explain anatomy of the modern human body, Bramble says.

"There were 2.5 million to 3 million years of bipedal walking by australopithecines without ever looking like a human, so is walking going to be what suddenly transforms the hominid body?" he asks. "We are saying, no, walking won't do that, but running will". Walking cannot explain most of the changes in body form that distinguish Homo from Australopithecus, which—when compared with Homo—had short legs, long forearms, high permanently "shrugged" shoulders, ankles that were not visibly apparent and more muscles connecting the shoulders to the head and neck, Bramble says. If natural selection had not favored running, "we would still look a lot like apes", he adds.

I run, therefore I am

Bramble and Lieberman examined 26 traits of the human body—many also seen in fossils of Homo erectus and some in Homo habilis—that enhanced the ability to run. Only some of them were needed for walking. Traits that aided running include leg and foot tendons and ligaments that act like springs, foot and toe structure that allows efficient use of the feet to push off, shoulders that rotate independently of the head and neck to allow better balance, and skeletal and muscle features that make the human body stronger, more stable and able to run more efficiently without overheating.

"We explain the simultaneous emergence of a whole bunch of anatomical features, literally from head to toe", Bramble says. "We have a hypothesis that gives a functional explanation for how these features are linked to the unique mechanical demands of running, how they work together and why they emerged at the same time".

Humans are poor sprinters compared with other running animals, which is partly why many scientists have dismissed running as a factor in human evolution. Human endurance running ability has been inadequately appreciated because of a failure to recognize that "high speed is not always important", Bramble says. "What is important is combining reasonable speed with exceptional endurance". Another reason is that "scientists are in developed societies that are highly dependent on technology and artificial means of transport", he adds. "But if those scientists had been embedded in a hunter-gatherer society, they would have a different view of human locomotor abilities, including running".

Why did humans start running?

The researchers do not know why natural selection favored human ancestors who could run long distances. For one possibility, they cite previous research by University of Utah biologist David Carrier, who hypothesized that endurance running evolved in human ancestors so they could pursue predators long before the development of bows, arrows, nets and spear-throwers reduced the need to run long distances.

Another possibility is that early humans and their immediate ancestors ran to scavenge carcasses of dead animals—maybe so they could beat hyenas or other scavengers to dinner, or maybe to "get to the leftovers soon enough", Bramble says. Scavenging "is a more reliable source of food" than hunting, he adds. "If you are out in the African savannah and see a column of vultures on the horizon, the chance of there being a fresh carcass underneath the vultures is about 100 percent. If you are going to hunt down something in the heat, that is a lot more work and the payoffs are less reliable" because the animal you are hunting often is "faster than you are".

Anatomical features that help humans run

Here are anatomical characteristics that are unique to humans and that play a role in helping people run, according to the study:

Skull features that help prevent overheating during running. As sweat evaporates from the scalp, forehead and face, the evaporation cools blood draining from the head. Veins carrying that cooled blood pass near the carotid arteries, thus helping cool blood flowing through the carotids to the brain.

A more balanced head with a flatter face, smaller teeth and short snout, compared with australopithecines. That "shifts the center of mass back so it is easier to balance your head when you are bobbing up and down running", Bramble says.

A ligament that runs from the back of the skull and neck down to the thoracic vertebrae, and acts as a shock absorber and helps the arms and shoulders counterbalance the head during running.

Unlike apes and australopithecines, the shoulders in early humans were "decoupled" from the head and neck, allowing the body to rotate while the head aims forward during running.

The tall human body—with a narrow trunk, waist and pelvis—creates more skin surface for our size, permitting greater cooling during running. It also lets the upper and lower body move independently, "which allows you to use your upper body to counteract the twisting forces from your swinging legs", Bramble says.

Shorter forearms in humans make it easier for the upper body to counterbalance the lower body during running. They also reduce the amount of muscle power needed to keep the arms flexed when running.

Human vertebrae and disks are larger in diameter relative to body mass than are those in apes or australopithecines. "This is related to shock absorption", says Bramble. "It allows the back to take bigger loads when human runners hit the ground".

The connection between the pelvis and spine is stronger and larger relative to body size in humans than in their ancestors, providing more stability and shock absorption during running.

Human buttocks "are huge", says Bramble. "Have you ever looked at an ape? They have no buns". He says human buttocks "are muscles critical for stabilization in running" because they connect the femur—the large bone in each upper leg—to the trunk. Because people lean forward at the hip during running, the buttocks "keep you from pitching over on your nose each time a foot hits the ground".

Long legs, which chimps and australopithecines lack, let humans to take huge strides when running, Bramble says. So do ligaments and tendons—including the long Achilles tendon—which act like springs that store and release mechanical energy during running. The tendons and ligaments also mean human lower legs that are less muscular and lighter, requiring less energy to move them during running.

Larger surface areas in the hip, knee and ankle joints, for improved shock absorption during running by spreading out the forces.

The arrangement of bones in the human foot creates a stable or stiff arch that makes the whole foot more rigid, so the human runner can push off the ground more efficiently and utilize ligaments on the bottom of the feet as springs.

Humans also evolved with an enlarged heel bone for better shock absorption, as well as shorter toes and a big toe that is fully drawn in toward the other toes for better pushing off during running.

The study by Bramble and Lieberman concludes: "Today, endurance running is primarily a form of exercise and recreation, but its roots may be as ancient as the origin of the human genus, and its demands a major contributing factor to the human body form".

Credits:

Run The Planet thanks the University of Utah (www.utah.edu) for the permission to reprint "How Running Made Us Human - Endurance Running Let Us Evolve to Look the Way We Do" by Lee Siegel, a news release about the article by biologist Dennis Bramble and Harvard University anthropologist Daniel Lieberman (published in the November 18, 2004 issue of the journal "Nature"). Text © by University of Utah. Chart © by Laszlo Meszoly, Harvard University (drawings of our ape-like ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis, and an early human species, Homo erectus, showing some of the differences that gave humans the ability to run long distances). Illustration © 2005 by Run The Planet.

3 more lunch time miles

2009-11-24T12:39:00.001-08:00

Today’s 3 miles were… ahhhh… painful. Painful, to say the LEAST.

I’m still running without a watch, so I don’t know the time, but I KNOW the first mile was fast. How fast? Dunno, but the dude I was following was built like a Marine—an old Marine, but a tough sunuvabitch all the same. I paced behind him until he stopped for some water at about the 1 mile mark, and it was about half way into that mile that I started to realize that he was booking it. But I was on his heel, so I figured I’d hang as long as I could and see how it went. He dropped for some water, and I picked up on another guy who had a slightly slower cadence, but was taller and a ton stronger than me. We kept a slightly slower, yet still quick, pace for the next mile.

How much slower? Not much slower, but the old Marine passed us at about the 2 mile mark. I dropped old Long Gate and chased the Old Marine knowing damn good and well that I wasn’t going to be able to keep that pace for the full 3 miles, but figuring I could give it a shot and see how it went.

At about the 2.5 mile region, Old Marine started to pull away from me and I started to get a cramp in my damn side.

I hate those. They’re painful.

Then, over my left shoulder, I hear Old Long Gate’s “thud-thud-thud” cadence in the gravel behind me, back maybe about 15 feet or so (I need to start measuring like a runner… that’s, what, 5 meters or so?). Worst timing ever!! The cramp is starting to set in, I’m trying to get my breathing under control and in the proper rhythm to counteract the cramping, and now I have to pick up the pace to hold off Old Long Gate!! Ugh.

So, for the next half mile, give or take, I’m trying to fend off cramps AND Old Long Gate, panting hard, gasping for breath, desperately trying to hold my mid section just right while keeping the muscles under control and in proper form as we approach the stretching benches. He’s still about 3 or 4 meters back, but he’s closing fast (not that I think he’s racing me, or trying to catch me, he’s just galloping along). I grab my side and push on to the 3 mile marker, grit my teeth and push the last 7 meters or so, and he’s closed the gap to maybe 2 meters, and then finally, blissfully, it’s over. I reach the marker and damn near collapse in a crampy garbage heap. Old Long Gate just trots on by. One of these days… one of these days… that’ll be me.

Meanwhile, Old Marine watched me pass from the stretching benches and smiled as I passed. He looks like a neat guy, and hopefully I’ll get a chance to talk to him next time I see him. By the time I had caught my breath and the cramps had gone away, he had trotted back to the tennis courts where he picked up a very lovely running companion and went trotting by for another lap. You know, what’s another 3 miles among friends? One of these days… one of these days… that’ll be me, trotting another lap like it’s nothing.

Ok, I deserved that

2009-11-20T15:55:00.000-08:00

Not two days after asserting, rather proudly, that I do not exist because I do everything wrong and have never been seriously injured, I suffered some kind of ligament or tendon injury.

I deserved that. No question.

But after 8 days of downtime I’m back, and I’m feeling good again, doing the one thing that separates us from cave men and every other mammal on the planet—running. I haven’t used my watch on my last couple of runs, clocking miles instead of time. I’ve packed on, as of today, 6.6 miles and will run another 5 or 6 tomorrow as I start extending my distance once again. In a week or so I’ll break the watch back out and see how my times are holding up on the longer—10+ miles—runs and make a determination as to whether I’ll run a marathon slowly or run a half marathon quickly.

The decision will be based on the following:

I am not, nor do I ever intend to, train for A MARATHON. I am, however, training my body and mind to once again be a RUNNER. And as A RUNNER, if I hope to condition myself to be able to not only run 100 meters quickly, but also 100 MILES. No, I am under no presumption that running 100 miles is as easy as running 100 meters, but a runner—a true runner—should be capable of doing either, even if the 100 miles takes 5 days to do it. A runner is a different breed of animal than a person who runs. A runner holds himself differently. A runner knows that if gas spikes back up to $10 per gallon, he’ll still be able to get to the office because it’s “only” 15 miles and he can run that in 2, maybe 3 hours. A runner has a higher level of fitness, poise, confidence, and general well being that merely somebody who runs. I am not training to run a marathon. I am training to be human again.

As such, I know I can run 13 miles. That is not now, nor ever has been, a question in my mind. I’m not saying it’s easy to run 13.1 miles, but I am saying it’s easy for me to run 13.1 miles. 26.2, however, is still hard for me. As such, 26.2 is my current goal, but merely as a waypoint to my ultimate goal of being able—both physically and mentally—to run 26.2 today, tomorrow, and whenever as easy as I run 3 or 5 or 10 today.

However, if based on my times in the next few weeks, I can run 13.1 miles exceptionally—that is, “exceptionally” as I have defined it being under 2 hours, and closer to 1:30 than 2:00—then I will seriously consider adjusting my training to seek that goal. Because if I can run 13.1 in under 2 hours, then I can begin to seriously consider not only running far, but running far AND fast. I know not a few runners who are quite literally torturing themselves on a regular basis in order to shave several minutes off of the 300 or so that they’re already planning to run for the marathon. Do you know what the difference between a 5:35 marathon and a 5:28 marathon is? A lot of miserable Tuesday nights, and 7 stinkin’ minutes. Do you know what the difference between a 5:30 and 4:00 marathon is? Me neither, but I’d still like to find out. But running a 3:00 half marathon won’t get me any closer to knowing.

And I guarantee if I run a sub 2:00 half marathon, a sub 4:00 full will not be too far in my future. And I won’t have to torture myself to find out.

And that would be something, indeed!

There's a first time for everything

2009-11-09T07:42:00.000-08:00

Yup, I pulled … well, pulled something. Maybe strained something. Possibly just suffered a severe, severe cramp.

I was nervous before the run on Sunday. A feeling I’ve grown accustomed to this season. I tried to shake the nerves with a little blood pumping activity.

Consequently, on Sunday, before the 25k, I was doing some warm-up jogs and stretches. During these short little jogs and stretches, I felt a twinge at the top of my right calf, just below, and behind, the knee. It’s a twinge I’d felt before on runs, but the twinge always went away after a couple minutes of running as the muscles and ligaments loosened up.

Not this time.

At precisely 7:00am, when the gun sounded, and I pushed off with my right foot to take my first step with the left, I felt a BIG twinge in my right calf, just above the muscle, just behind and below the knee.

I kept going, hoping it would go away, as it has always done in the past.

Mile 1, 12 minutes. Mile 2, 15 minutes. On mile 3 things started to get to normal and I logged a pair of 10 minute miles. At the start of mile 5 I had to stop and use the can. Standing there caused the muscles to seize up once again and that mile cost me 19 minutes. I crossed the starting zone and pulled out of the race. The pain was unbearable at that point and it wasn’t getting normal. I had gone about an hour and a half into the race, was roughly 5 miles behind where I wanted to and needed to be at that point, and wasn’t going to be getting that time and distance back. It was over.

I’m worried that I strained a ligament. I’m less worried that I strained the muscle, and even less worried that it is just a severe cramp. The last will be fine in a few days and everything will be back to normal. The second will take a little longer, but everything will be ok if I focus and work on making up for lost time, possibly pushing the goal from sub-4:30 to sub-5:00. The first, however, will likely force the conversation of the complete realignment of goals for January, like from 26.2 to 13.1.

That’s a conversation I’m not ready to contemplate right now.

Now, a little post crash analysis.

In August, my FREQUENCY of runs was roughly one every other day—about 15 runs logged.

In September and October, my FREQUENCY dropped to one every third day—about 10 to 12 runs logged per month.

My frequency needs to increase.

In August, my distance and intensity was relatively low. I was in the process of ramping up distance from 1 to 6 miles and my times were all above 10:30 per mile.

In September and October, my intensity began to steadily increase as the times steadily began dropping to sub 10:00 and sub 9:00 miles. The distances, on average though, continued to remain flat at an average distance of roughly 5 miles per outing.

Now, the frequency can drop, but the distance needs to increase along with the intensity. The distance cannot remain the same if the frequency is going to drop. If the distance is going to remain the same, the frequency needs to remain at least the same while the intensity increases. If the intensity is going to drop, the frequency needs to stay at least the same while the distances increase. It’s like a big triangle, and the ultimate goal is to increase the area of the triangle. If only one side grows, the total area stays the same or shrinks. At least two sides need to grow simultaneously, while the third at least stays static, to ensure an increasing total area. The sides of the triangle are intensity (time), distance, and frequency. The two most important sides are intensity and distance. As soon as the pain goes away, I’ll start back on that formula and see what it gets me.

Race fuel

2009-11-06T13:04:00.001-08:00

Ok, I just read about a chick who fuels up during long runs with Gummi Bears.

Interesting idea…

Just remembered that I have a dinner date tonight with part of the fam. I’m quite literally going to have to go home, throw on my gear, and run to dinner. Hopefully I’ll get there in time for the entrees.

How’s that for dedication?

My lack of existence

2009-11-05T12:47:00.001-08:00

According to most marathon training programs, I do not exist.

I don’t stretch.

I don’t train with weights.

I hardly ever do speed workouts, and when I do they’re pretty short.

I never run hills.

I rarely run more than 3 or 4 times a week.

My mileage rarely tops 35 miles in a week.

I don’t do “tempo” runs.

I don’t run Fartleks.

I don’t consciously carbo-load.

I don’t use energy drinks.

I don’t use energy gels.

I rarely drink sports drinks.

I don’t have a heart monitor, and therefore don’t know when I’m at 90% of my ideal heart rate.

My “long, slow runs” are neither long, nor slow.

I don’t consciously taper before a big race.

I don’t warm up.

I don’t cool down.

I run almost exclusively on concrete.

Basically, I do everything they advise against, yet still manage to run long distances and have completed one marathon with the second on its way without any significant injury to my muscles, joints, or bones.

Basically, I don’t exist.

Sure, you can say “it’s just a matter of time before…” But you know what? If you wait long enough, even Olympians get injured. And I’m willing to bet real, American money that most of the Olympic runners have been injured more in the last 6 months than I have.

Basically, my training program is to get out there and run. Run as far as I can, as fast as I can, given the time constraints I have to work within. If I have an hour to run, well, I need to go out there and run for an hour. If that’s 3 miles, then it’s a 3 mile run. If it’s 6, then a 6 mile run. If I can finish 8 in that time frame, then I’ll go after 8 (and thus far I have never been able to run THAT fast, for THAT far). Sure, on the weekends, when I have more time, I’ll give myself a specific distance target—go run 10 miles, cover the distance, no matter what. But on a typical weekday evening, or morning, when I have to get back to the house ahead of either darkness or in time to go to work, then I have to either leave early—which is precluded by sleeping or driving—or adjust either the speed or distance. And you know what? A 6 mile run at 9:00 per mile is probably as good a workout as a 10 mile run at 12:00 per mile.

Of course, I can’t prove that. I’m not a coach or anything.

But, then again, according to most coaches I don’t exist.

A week of preparation

2009-11-02T09:05:00.000-08:00

I’ve fallen into something of a pattern with my running. A pattern that will likely be completely disrupted thanks to the phase shift from daylight savings time to standard time… or standard to daylight savings time… whichever. We fell back and now it’s dark when I get home.

The old pattern was 3 or 4 runs a week. Most of the runs were in the evening and I could usually sneak one in on a Wednesday morning if I didn’t stay up too late on Tuesday. Going back to the middle of September I am working in long runs every couple of weekends. I’ve stretched the definition of “long” from 6 miles to 13 miles, and will be hitting 15 this weekend (2 weeks after the not-so-good 13 miles).

On the weeks in between these long runs, it’s not that I don’t want to run. In fact, Saturday I woke up with every intention of running, but couldn’t find socks, shoes, or shorts. An hour after I intended to leave, I crawled back into bed and enjoyed the warm sheets. The next morning, as I was opening the door to head out, I hear my son call from upstairs and decided that playing with him was FAR more important than the 13 I was about to run, so I chose to play with my kid—and will no doubt pay the price for that this weekend.

However, this weekend’s run shouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. Sure, it’s 15.5 miles. That’s a long way to run. But just 4 days ago I whipped off 6 miles at a 9:30 clip. The fastest 6 miles I’ve run in probably forever. If I can key it back to 10:30, I should be able to crank out 13 or 14 miles, and then gut out the last mile or two. Even more importantly, I need to find out what my “forever pace” is. Alberto Salazar, at the end of his marathon career, realized that he could no longer run 26.2 miles at 5:30/mile. He realized, though, that he could run forever at 6:30, so he transformed himself into an ultramarathoner and started running 40 mile races instead of 26.2 mile races. He was injured shortly thereafter and hung ‘em up for good, but THAT’s the pace that I’m looking for. I don’t want to plod around at 15:00/mile. I want to find that pace where I can just hit the cruise control button, crawl into the back seat, and nap all the way to the finish line.

So to speak.

To do that, though, I’ve got to put in some more miles and deepen the reserves of energy as well as add some strength to the old power plant. So, in preparation for the next long run on Sunday, I’ll be running 6 miles this evening (and possibly 3 at lunch), 6 miles tomorrow evening, skipping Wednesday (unless I can sneak in a morning run), and adding another 6 or 8 on Thursday and Friday. I’ll take the day off on Saturday (or only run 3), and then it’s off to the races on Sunday.

What about the taper, you ask? I’m not looking at this as a race, I’m looking at it as just another training run. Will I be at my peak performance? Nope. Will that matter in the grand scheme of things? Nope. I’m not trying to shave another minute off my time to beat out some Kenyan at the front of the pack. I’m just trying to run 15.5 miles… and get to church on time.

Ideal time for this run, between 2:35 and 3:00. That’s between a 10:00 and 11:30 pace, which is around the pace I want to have for the marathon.

Can I do it? Not sure. Will I try? Yup. The half marathon was an 11:30 pace, and I’m feeling a lot stronger now than I was then. I should be able to at least match that “performance”.

Can and Will, the eternal struggle

2009-10-27T09:13:00.001-07:00

I know I can bust out a marathon. I’ve done it before. If I continue at my current pace, I know I’ll finish the marathon in January. I can set my pace at 13 minutes per mile and grind out a slow, steady, 5:30 marathon without any major problems. It won’t be pretty, but I won’t die trying.

The thing is, I don’t WANT a 5:30 marathon this time around. LAST time I ran a 5:30 marathon. I know what that feels like. I’ve climbed that mountain, looked down and seen the valleys. I don’t need to spend $100 to run another marathon slowly. I want to run a little faster race this time.

This time, I want to finish in the front half of the fourth hour.

But the question isn’t “what can I do?”

The question has NEVER been “what can I do?”

The thing that defines Man is the ability to run for long distance. Man IS el cazador, el coreador. Physiologically, the issue of “can” has never been in question.

However, the fact remains that much of the population of the world today has never run 26.2 miles in its entire life, much less 26.2 miles in one shot. But even for them the question is not whether or not they can.

The question that begs an answer is “what WILL I do?”

Will I do the extra conditioning needed to extend my endurance so that I can maintain a 10 minute pace for 26.2 miles?

Will I do the extra training required to mentally prepare for the distance?

I know I can run a marathon. I know a person can run a marathon in under 4:30—hell, people run the marathon in 2:05.

WILL I run a marathon in under 4:30? Do I have the will to push through that time barrier?

I think so. Time’s coming to prove it.

The whole half recap

2009-10-26T07:54:00.001-07:00

This weekend’s half marathon is really the story of 3 races. I started out strong, I fell into a nice, steady pace that I’m generally comfortable with and was cruising along for awhile at that pace, then things started to go south around the 10 mile mark and times started to drag, my quit caught up to me and I started to run/walk the last few miles, but managed to dig down and fight through the last mile and change to finish stronger than I had been dragging through those last few miles.

All in all, not a bad run, but not even close to a good run, either.

Final time (per my watch): 2:29

1. 9:14

2. 9:44 (end race 1)

3. 10:18

4. 10:24

5. 10:44

6. 10:15

7. 11:10

8. 11:13

9. 11:25

10. 12:13 (end race 2)

11. 13:58

12. 14:02

13. 13:13

.03: 1:01

Hydration was a problem. Dietary preparation was a problem. GI preparation was a problem (need to teach the gut what to expect as far as Gatorade on the run). Training was too light. The list can go on and on.

I’m not overly satisfied with the run, but I’m not devastated, either. I knew going in it was going to be a challenging run, and I knew I was a little underprepared. I didn’t expect it to be THAT challenging, though. I thought I was going to finish about 10 minutes faster. Oh well, I know what the road ahead looks like now. I have a LOT of work to do over the next 2 weeks to get ready for the 25k, if I’m going to run that race strong.

The preliminary goal for the 25k (which is 15.5 miles), is 2:40. That’s slightly slower than 10:00/mile. That’s doable. At least it SHOULD be doable. A 10:00/mile marathon is 4:19:00. That’s doable, too.

Is IT in you?

2009-10-23T07:58:00.000-07:00

Admittedly, this has been a bad couple of weeks running.

After the 10 for Texas (which was a GREAT run), I got in a good 3 miles on Monday for recovery, but the speed work on Wednesday had to be cut short for a plethora of reasons. Then I went down with some kind of stomach bug. Then Tuesday was the first day I felt good enough to run again, so I got in a really good run that day. Class on Wednesday ran long and cut out that run. Company came over last night and precluded a run. This morning I overslept my alarm and didn’t get out to run. Tonight I’ve got a fall festival thing and likely won’t run (I might elliptical, though). Tomorrow is the day before the half marathon, so I might only run 3, if I run any at all.

This has been a bad couple of weeks.

But I’m STILL going to go hit the half marathon on Sunday and see what happens.

The timeline will go like this:

5:00am, wake up

5:30am, eat—egg, toast, peanut butter, banana

6:00am, head to downtown.

6:30am, head to the starting area, mill around for a little while, chat with some real runners.

7:00am, gun

Run…

10:30am, church. Here I get to be the liturgist, so the run needs to 1, go well enough that I can finish in less than 3 hours (shouldn’t be a problem), and 2, not be so exhausting that I can’t stand, sit, and be coherent while reading the scripted cues.

This will be a fun weekend.

So, the question is, even without really rigorous training over the last two weeks, is IT in me?

I think it is. I’m so ready for this. That antelope better be well rested.

The Tuesday run

2009-10-23T07:56:00.001-07:00

Tuesday was the first day that I felt good enough to run since last Wednesday when I pulled the plug in the middle of my speed workout.

Here’s how it went.

Around lunch time, this drum cadence starts throbbing in my head.

DA - DA - D-DA CH-CH DA - DA - D-DA CH-CH DA - DA - D-DA CH-CH

Again and again and again…

Then my legs start getting all tingly and I just want to rip off my shirt and run.

But I left my bag at home because I was feeling pretty junky in the morning again.

Nonetheless, I jam on my headphones and start listening to my pre-race music mix—lots of RATM, Beastie Boys, some Black Eyed Peas… mostly stuff with driving beats that can be jammed LOUDLY. No drum cadence, though. And the drums are getting louder.

The 6:00 whistle sounds and I’m out the door like a bullet. Flying through traffic, weaving in and out of every open space on the freeway, doing my level best to get home NOW.

In the door, kiss the missus, kiss the boy, into the bedroom and back out wearing my running gear like Clark Kent in a phone booth. My feet barely touched the carpet.

I jam out 9:30 miles over my 3.64 mile route (a route which I have been calling my “three and a half mile route” and believing it is actually 3.5 miles even though, for some inexplicable reason, it never dawned on me that 3.64 is not, in fact, 3.5 miles and is, in fact, 3.64 miles…) and made it home good and tired and ready for dinner.

The drums had gone silent.

Later that night, I hear them again—WHAT IS THAT SONG?!?

I go on to the electronic answer box and start looking.

And looking…

Find nothing until the next morning when I chance across the current Gatorade commercial.

Yup. That’s right. It’s the song from the Gatorade commercial. It actually has an artist, and a title (Lock it Up) and you can find it on You Tube and download the mp4 file and even a ring tone.

So thank you crass commercialism and marketing. One of your commercials has made its way into my pre-race mix and I’m jamming THAT along with my other sets of music.

Is it in you? It sure as hell is in me… Bring on the half marathon. I eat 13.1 miles for breakfast.

The morning after the morning after

2009-10-12T14:00:00.001-07:00

I’m still not sore.

110 miles into my training and I have yet to wake up sore from any of my runs.

I’ve had tightness, sure. But that would go away after about 15 seconds of walking into the other room. There’s also been injury-type pain, but that’s a different problem than the lactic-acid buildup muscle soreness. To date, there have been no lingering, non-injury related ill effects from any run that I have gone on. What’s up with that?

Saturday morning was the 10 for Texas. It was the first timed 10 mile run I’ve ever participated in, so a PR was guaranteed. It was also the farthest I’ve run this season. Fuel stops were set at each even mile, plus the 9 mile mark. The weather was perfect. It was a VERY well put together event and the course was pretty decent.

I had serious doubts going in to this run. I wasn’t worried so much about my conditioning, because I know I can cruise at 11 or 12 minute paces for quite awhile. However, I wasn’t sure I WOULD cruise at that pace, or any pace, for that amount of time. In other words, the worry isn’t whether or not I can, the worry is whether or not I will. My quit has been a near constant running companion for the last several weeks and the notion of running for more than an hour still seems pretty absurd. The goal was to finish in the range of 1:30 – 1:45. Worse than that would have been a bit disappointing, better would have been unfathomable. I get nervous the day before, arrive early and still nervous, see some folks I recognize and am still nervous, run back to my car and I’m still nervous, lose the folks I recognized and I’m still nervous, take a leak and I’m still nervous, race to the starting line still nervous, the gun goes off and… no more nerves. That was pretty cool.

For the first mile I’m picking through the crowd waiting for things to thin out. Eventually the crowd thins and around the half mile point I find two guys who keep the exact same cadence and stride length as me. They’re also keeping a 9:30 pace for the first mile and keyed it back to a 9:45 for the second mile. I slow down and grab some water at the refreshment stand, and they scoot on ahead, but not out of sight. I begin to reel them in at about the 2.5 mile area and catch them at the 3.5 mile area. At 4 miles I slow down again and grab some water, they scoot ahead. I was feeling good and keeping a nice, steady pace. A half mile later I spot the JuneBug up ahead of me, cruising along like the machine she is. She has an equipment malfunction and we briefly chat, then she pours on the speed and leaves me behind. At about 5.5 miles I catch her and my two pacers and push by them to get a little space at the water stand. They blow by me anyway and for another mile or so I keep them in my sights, but lose them forever between mile 7 and 8.

The first 7 miles were really uneventful.

For what it’s worth, 6 miles is the longest I’ve run in a single stretch this year. I’ve doubled up some runs in a day and run more than 7, but never at a single stretch. The fact that I was able to clear the first 6+ without really slowing down much or stopping to walk at all (except while drinking, but that’s allowed), gave me a significant sense of accomplishment already.

Around mile 7, though, is where I started to feel the distance. I began checking my watch to gauge how far until the next water stand (keeping steady 10 minute miles really makes it easy to estimate distance). I started talking to myself to keep the focus and energy up. I started counting breaths and paces to maintain focus. I began pulling out as many tricks as I knew how to pull out, plus I was keenly aware that my speed was slowly dropping. I wasn’t at all out of breath and my legs weren’t really tired yet, but I was beginning to feel it all the same.

This is where my quit began talking: This is too far, no shame in walking, slow down, catch your breath, you have plenty of time to get ready for the half in 2 weeks, just relax, you knew you weren’t ready for this, 7 miles is better than nothing…

Mile 8, water, keep rolling. Check the watch, focus, focus, check the tank, test the legs with a little surge, ok that was a big mistake but they’re still responsive, keep pushing, keep pushing, don’t stop, don’t even THINK about stopping, measure the breathing, check the stride, lengthen the step, maintain the pace, doing good, doing good, keep it going.

You’re not going to make it, might as well pack it in now, no need to torture yourself for 2 more miles, just walk/run the rest of the way, you’ve already fought a good fight, you’re just not good enough to finish today, don’t worry about it, look at those guys running so much stronger than you, you don’t even deserve to be on the road with them, why are you even here…

Mile 9 is approaching and I hear music!! This was just about the best placed water stand on the whole run. The music was great, THE Jon Walk was there wearing his crown AND gorilla suit with a host of other super heroes. A quick check and the watch told me I was 90 minutes into the run and WELL within my target of finishing before 01:45:00. That put a little spring in my step, too.

I start to push the pace, ever so slightly, which really only serves to get my pace back up to where it was when I started. I check the breathing, and it’s still good. I’m keeping a nice, steady cadence breathing out on every other left step. The rhythm and tempo are keeping strong and steady. (I’ve long since given up heart monitors and this is the best way I know to measure my exertion level.) 5 minutes in and I see the market square area where the finish line should be. The problem is I don’t know EXACTLY where the finish line is, so I don’t really know when to kick it into another gear. I surge just a little, anyway.

And you know what? The voices have gone silent.

Where’s my doubt? Where’s my quit? Silence. That’s a pretty damn nice sound.

We get on to the curbed streets which means the finish line is close. I push the pace a little harder. We turn a corner and I recognize a building. I push a little harder still. We turn another corner and there’s the finish line. I break cadence, switch to the final kick, and press to the finish line. I stopped getting passed when the curbs showed up and I finally begin passing people on this final stretch.

1:40:50. 10:05/mile pace.

Tasks for the next week and a half: deepen the tank a little bit more, get at least 1x 10+ mile run, learn how to push through that wall of exhaustion a little harder.

Breaking the Quit

2009-10-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.”

We all know the saying and have probably heard it so many times that it has lost just about all measure of impact. That’s what clichés are, after all.

But I offer another twist.

We all have at least two forces working in us. One force drives us forward. We can call it fight, or pride, guts, determination, stubbornness, or whatever else you want to call it. It’s the thing in us that makes us get up at 5:00am (or earlier), throw off the warm sheets and slide into the cold running kit to go pound asphalt for 60 minutes every morning. It’s the thing that pushes us on in 200 degree heat with 100% humidity and mosquitoes the size of chickens swarming about.

But there’s another force working in us. This force drives us back. It’s what makes us hit that alarm button just one more time until it’s too late to run. It’s the force that tells us it’s too hot, or too cold, or we’re too tired. Or when our lungs are burning, but the legs are churning, we just decide it’s too much. Call it what you want—doubt, uncertainty, “the wall”, fear, complacency—but I’ll call it my quit.

I drag my quit around on several of my runs, and I know damn well it’s back there. Or, maybe I’m not dragging it around so much as it’s stalking me, waiting for me to falter, waiting for me to take the next step at a slightly slower cadence so that it can catch up to me, climb on my back, and whisper in my ear the words I hate to hear: you’re kidding yourself, you’re not good enough, there’s no way you will accomplish this, you can’t make it, just stop now, stop torturing yourself, what are you trying to prove, who do you think you are, you’re too small for this, you’re too fat, you’re not good enough, you’re not good enough, you’re such a disappointment, you might as well cut your losses now, you don’t want to feel that pain again… just quit.

Right now I know my quit is a better runner than I am. I know this to be true because I hear it whispering to me when I run and that insidious whisper drowns out the personal trainer soundtrack and the envelope of complete silence that surrounds me during the most blissful miles.

There will come a point, and I know this to be true as well, when my quit will falter and I’ll be able to look back over my shoulder and see it there, gasping on the side of the path, calling out for ME to wait up. I don’t know when this point will come, but I know it WILL come.

Because it’s not about the dog in this fight, nor the fight in this dog. It’s about the quit… and breaking the quit… and leaving it broken on the side of the road begging for a ride home.

ALWAYS HUNGRY!!

2009-10-08T10:04:00.001-07:00

I have been hungry almost non-stop for the last 3 days. What the hell?!?

Ok, so the speedwork last night was good. I ran 2x800, then a series of 400s. The first 800 was an easy pace of nearly 5:00, the second 800 was what I consider to be fast at under 4:00.

I trotted over to the small track and ran one slow lap at a 2:30 pace, then launched into 3 faster laps right at 2:00. The final lap was another slow one at 2:30.

The intent was to break the 100m mark on my training log. I thought I was at 97.79 going into the day and needed a cool 2.25 to put me over the century mark.

I was at 96.04 miles. I was a little pissed off to find that out. And after I got home I wasn’t allowed to go back out and play.

[pout]

So, I’m taking the next 2 days off to run the Ten for Texas up in the Woodlands. I’ll break the 100 mile mark there… right before the first mile marker.

Oh yea, I’m giving serious consideration to signing up for the Dallas Half in December.

100 miles, here I come!!

2009-10-07T07:29:00.001-07:00

Today (or tomorrow) should be the day I break 100 miles.

Sunday I went out for a rather dreadfully humid 6 miles, but it didn’t leave me shattered.

Yesterday I went out for a not quite so dreadful 3 miles and thought I was running a little harder than I actually did. I still managed to come close to 00:29:00 for the circuit. I was a little surprised I ran as well as I did since the afternoon started with a little … uh … gastrointestinal problem. Yea, that’s a polite way to say it. It had me worried about dehydration and, well, the obvious problem.

But everything came out ok in the end.

Tonight I have a meeting at school. Usually I run on Wednesday mornings, but I had trouble sleeping last night. I’ll probably run two or three tonight and tack on some track work to get the legs good and worn down so that I can sleep like a drunken baby tonight.

If I do my speedwork tonight, then I’ll rest for the remainder of the week in advance of the 10 miler in the Woodlands.

I’ve been giving serious SERIOUS thought to running the Austin marathon in February. How nutty is that? For $110, though, I need to do more than think about it.

I also see that the Marathons of Texas program encourages people to hit Dallas, Houston, and Austin in December, January, and February in some combination of the half and full. Finishers get a premium award.

I can do a half marathon in December. Hm.

The hardest mile

2009-10-05T15:11:00.001-07:00

Often times I find parallels between my running and my religion. After all, the practice of training runs is in and of itself a religious act where a runner learns the discipline required to maintain faith in the unknown—that is, his ability to achieve the desired goals—even during the times when the body or spirit is unwilling or unable.

This is yet another of those parallels.

A runner will find a comfortable distance and run that distance repeatedly. There will be some recognizable point along a path that becomes “the turnaround point”, a physical anchor point that tells the runner he’s run far enough and every step beyond that point is uncharted territory.

Breaking through that barrier on a familiar course is one of the hardest things a runner can do. It is far easier to plot out a new course that covers the new distance than it is to run 85% of a new distance on an old course and 15% of the distance into uncharted territory.

There are many things that can go wrong when a runner knowingly ventures into uncharted distances, not the least of which is physical breakdown and the inability to finish. There is also the knowledge that the runner is “so far from home” and a physical breakdown becomes a significant challenge. On a new course, however, much of this is washed away by the lack of familiar land marks informing the runner of his progress and letting him know just how far from home he really is.

On a familiar course, the runner becomes very familiar with dozens of signposts along the way informing him of his progress. There’s the 2:00 corner, the 3:00 light post, the 3:45 fence post, the 5:00 sign, the 5:35 rock, the 8:00 man hole, and the list of markers goes on and on to the midway point. On a new course there are no such markers. The runner is free to simply run without the judgment of geography informing him if he’s doing well or not. Every step along a new course is doing well because it’s a step that has been authored anew.

Churches face these same challenges. Congregations erect various signposts along their own paths that inform them whether or not they’re doing well. Attendance on Sunday morning, attendance to bible studies, the weekly offering, participants in the choir, prayer requests, and several others that inform them whether or not they’re “doing well”. Each of these points up to and including the “turnaround point” where a church gets just up to the edge of what it feels comfortable doing, then promptly executes and about-face and marches back down the familiar path. Adding to the distance from home is hard to do, as each step beyond that “turnaround point” becomes harder and harder and uncharted territory is covered with each new step and the familiar is left further and further behind.

A completely new course, more often than not, is far easier to traverse, but it is far harder to commit to.

Eventually a runner has to decide what kind of runner he will be and either bust through his own turnaround point and turn the uncharted miles into familiar ground and reach out farther than he ever has before, or chart a new course entirely, all the while maintaining the fundamentals that allowed him to achieve the original distances in the first place. Alternatively, he can just stay in his old rut, comfortably traversing the same miles, day in and day out, without any hope of running farther and faster than he ever has before.

Wrecked

2009-10-05T13:22:00.001-07:00

I feel very wrecked today.

Not entirely sure why… yesterday’s run shouldn’t have taken this much out of me.

I’m wondering if the unspeakable is happening. That would be bad. Very very bad. Not catastrophic, but still very bad.

Weekend torture session

2009-10-05T09:11:00.001-07:00

I know I should have run Saturday morning. I even got out of bed at 5 to go to Memorial to run my 3x3 mile repeats.

But something happened between the bed, the alarm, the gear bag, and the door and I found myself back in bed at 8:00am wearing my running shorts, 1 sock, and trying desperately to remember if I had actually run or not.

I had not.

So I know I should have run later that afternoon when it was all overcast and cool. I didn’t. I took a nap instead because I had exactly zero energy. Then we planned an afternoon at Dewberry Farms, then it rained, then I ate some delicious red and black bean stew to store up some energy to use on Sunday for the run.

I know I should have run Sunday morning when it was still cool and only drizzly. I did not. This time the alarm had been set, but failed to go off (a bit of an oversight on my part). I packed up the gear bag and brought it to church. I had images of running from church down to the end of the White Oak Trail and maybe even heading a few blocks south to cross the bridge for a full 11 mile round trip.

I was getting genuinely pumped.

Alas, the run from church remained merely an image. When we left the sanctuary to head to fellowship hall the skies opened up and great peals of thunder and brilliant bolts of lightning shredded the sky. With no small amount of disappointment, I decided to just go home.

A few hours later the rain relented, but the humidity returned. I know I should have run Saturday, but was left with a late Sunday afternoon run. Gear on, out the door, no second thoughts.

The plan was 6 miles on the trail, light and easy, some hydration, then 3x1 mile repeats back in the ‘hood. The front half of the 6 went by easy enough, though the humidity was awful, and an operational error prevented me from accurately clocking my return trip, so half the run was untimed.

The clouds were bringing darkness on early, so I had to boogie to beat the night and made it home ok. I gobbled a Cliff Bar and chugged some water and headed out to the 1 mile course when the sky lit up again. The 3 miles were going to have to come another day as the lightning wrote better plans for my evening.

I stood on the scale after the run and saw that I had sweated off 2 lbs. Maybe that’s why I was feeling so wobbly.

The 10 for Texas is Saturday. I’m looking forward to that run.

Today has a 3.5 miler scheduled, but I may stretch it to 6.

2009-10-05T08:21:00.001-07:00

I lost 2 pounds while running Sunday. When I got home it felt like I had been swimming.

Run recap

2009-10-02T12:39:00.001-07:00

Last night was a scheduled “easy run” with June.

Slacking off on the middle miles is a sin that I know I commit while running and by allowing June to pace me for “like 4 miles” would help atone for that particular sin. It did.

But first, let me say a little something about distances that are “like” other distance. Back in 2005 when I ran the Sugarland 30k (and had to sprint to the registration table because I forgot to collect my race chip), I was told that a 30k is “like 18 miles”. “Cool”, I think to myself, “I ran 3 yesterday for a good tune up and should be able to knock this down, no sweat. I ran 13 a few weeks back, so what’s another 5 miles?”

Now, not yet being what you would call a “runner”, I was not quick with the 5k to 3.1 mile conversion math and never bothered to multiply 3.1 by 6 to get the actual distance. I just took the real runners’ word as gospel truth. To me a kilometer was as relevant as a dram, stone, or cubit.

That is, I took their word as gospel truth until I reached the 18 mile marker and saw no finish line anywhere near where I was.

“Like 18 miles” my ass. It’s “like 19 miles”. Or, more accurately, like 18.6 miles. So very much like 18.6 miles that it is, in fact, 18.6 miles.

So, back to yesterday’s run that was “like 4 miles”. I immediately ask for clarification of whether or not “like 4 miles” was really 4.8 or 3.8 or some other horridly evil distance. June assured me that it was actually closer to 3.8 (3.76 is what it turned out to be). I knew what distance I was up against, and we were off.

What I didn’t know is that I’d be paced by a flat out machine.

June kept us pegged at 10:00 minute miles for the whole route. No slacking off for this fat white guy. The first mile whipped by at 9:59, the second at 9:51, and the final mile and change at 10:05. At one point, after crossing a street and well into my tired stretch of the run, she sped up.

That’s right. She sped up. It was just for a few paces, and I don’t think she intended to do it, but I called her an evil witch anyway (through a gasping smile). She came close to breaking me, but I needed that in a bad way.

Nonetheless, I had just enough in the tank at the end to sprint to our cars.

It was a good run. A very good run, even. And June isn’t an evil witch… she’s a good witch and a pacing machine.

The October "schedule"

2009-10-01T08:31:00.001-07:00

Ok, so calling it a “schedule” is probably not entirely accurate because I am notoriously bad about working on schedules. That’s part of the reason why I don’t like to run with groups. The way I see it, running at 5:00am is no better than running at 7:00am, so why the hell get up 2 hours early on a Saturday just to run? The problem is that most runners get up at 5:00am on Saturday to start their day running because, as far as I can tell, they are completely off their nut.

The goals for October: 150 total miles (66 for the month) and drop 13 lbs. I may get some cycling in, but it’ll be hard to budget time for that.

To accomplish this I have tentatively mapped out what I thought was a rather pedestrian (giggle) October schedule as far as distances go, but ambitious in the sheer volume of work days versus off days.

A typical week (starting on a typical Monday) will look like this:

M: 3.5 AM, 0 pm

TU: off

W: 3.5 AM, 1.5 speed pm

TH: 6.0 PM

F: 0 AM, 3 easy, plus 1 speed PM

SA: 10, 11, or 13 miles AM (long run day)

SU: off

That’s around 30 miles for the typical week. Nothing spectacular, yet, and I’m good with that. There will also be 2 races on the docket, the 10 for Texas on the 10^th, and the Koala Fitness half marathon on the 25^th. Calling it a “half marathon” makes it sound so much more daunting than merely 13.1 miles. I wonder why that is. This half marathon is the first of 3 tune up races. Back in 2006 I ran my first half marathon distance in November. How I do on the 10 and 11 mile runs will determine whether or not I’m going to enter the 13 mile run at the end of October, but it is an excellent target to shoot for.

If I take only a week off during October, I still will have run 100 miles for the month, more than passing my 150 total mile mark that I want to hit. I also have the freedom within the schedule to cut the longer runs short—convert a 11 mile day into an 8 mile day, or a 6 into 3.5—but that needs to not happen simply because I need to get my miles in, even if they are junk miles.

SPRINTS!

2009-09-30T19:10:00.000-07:00

I got out of class a little late tonight, so I decided to just do some short 100m sprints instead of 1/4 mile sprints.

The plan: 1 warmup lap, run the straight, walk the curve, 1 cool down lap.

The warmup lap: about 2:00

The sprints: 0:19, 0:16, 0:17, 0:19.

Compared to the last 100m sprints I did:

8/25/09: 0:20, 0:20, 0:19, 0:18.

Shrug.

The cooldown lap: about 2:00.

Not a bad workout. Not a great workout.

Tomorrow I'll lay out my goals for October (sneak preview: they feature a 10 mile AND a 13 mile run!!).

Evening run

2009-09-30T09:04:00.001-07:00

I fully intended to run last night. No, seriously, I did.

Then I didn’t get out of the office until about an hour later than I expected. No sweat, trim the run from 6 miles to 3.

Then I had to stop by the store. No sweat, I love my wife and will stop by wherever she needs me to stop to get whatever.

But that meant there would be no run last night. So, I put my gear together and ran this morning.

Let me make this perfectly clear: I hate running in the morning almost as much as I hate running any other time of the day. ESPECIALLY when the “morning” technically hasn’t dawned and it’s still, technically, night time. My eyes are already blurry from peeling myself out of bed at a stupid hour, and then the headlights are blinding me, and then it’s all dark and shadowy on the ground. I swear I’m going to break my leg out there.

But the weather was cool and I had all the energy. It was a quick 3.6 miles to bring my total mileage up to 83. I’m not going to hit 100 miles by the end of today, and I’m ok with that. I should hit 85, though, if I get lucky enough to sneak in a little speed work at the track on Memorial.

So, the stats?

18:25 out, 18:38 in. Total time of 37:04 for a 10:11 pace. Not bad. Not bad at all. That’s about a 4:26 marathon, but only if I can keep that pace. It’s likely closer to a 5:00 marathon, which is the time I want to beat. 4:30 is just about as close to my wildest dreams as it gets right now.

To qualify for Boston, I’d need to bust 3:15 in the next 5 years. I wonder it would feel like to run a 7:26 pace for 26.2 miles…

Ok, Time to get back into this thing

2009-09-29T15:21:00.000-07:00

It’s been a week since the speed training, and I still haven’t taken in a long run.

That means I’m going on nearly 2 weeks without a long run for my ledger.

That’s a problem.

And yea, I’ve got some legitimate excuses for most of the days. Others, not so much. There has been physical and mental pain that I’m dealing with (no, I don’t want to talk about it), and a general sense of ennui. But the fact remains that I have a 10 mile run on the 10^th of October that I damn well better get ready for and a marathon in January that I sure as hell need to get ready for. It’s time to get up off the couch.

Tonight I’ll run. Tomorrow will likely be an off day, and Thursday I have the great pleasure of having an experienced runner pound me into submission on the track. Friday will likely be an off day, but I may take the day to do some track work. Then there will be the Saturday long run.

I’m going to set the total mileage goal for October at 150 miles, which wouldn’t be very daunting had I stuck to my September schedule. As it is I’ll likely miss that target, but I will get beyond the September total, and that’s ok.

I’ve decided I’m not technically training for the Houston Marathon. I’m running. Hopefully lots. Hopefully there will be an accompanying mental transformation that comes with the physical transformation that running will bring about.

Today's run is doubtful

2009-09-25T08:18:00.000-07:00

I was planning 3 laps at Memorial Park this evening, but a couple of things are conspiring to possibly prevent that from happening.

First and foremost, the lovely wife wrenched her back and may not be ambulatory this afternoon. If that’s the case, I’m damn sure not going to be able to go out running.

Second, the rain has created some rather juicy conditions on the trail at Memorial. I hate running in the mud for two reasons—it’s bad for the track and it’s bad for me.

Third, and somewhat related to the second one, my left ankle hurts, but not in an “oh my god I can’t move” type of way, more like an achy, overused, improperly used kind of way. The track where I ran my intervals was a little sloppy, so I employed the grass around one of the curves. The grass was wet, but not soupy. It was also a little rutty, though. I think the extra work in maintaining my balance and preventing the feet from rolling up under me caused a little high, outside strain on the ligaments between the calf and the ankle (the 9:00 position, if you’re scoring at home). It’s not sprained, it just feels like I have a bad bruise. It might be wise not to run 9 miles today—especially if the track is soupy.

So, if I don’t run the 9 today, do I run the RTW tomorrow? Depends on the missus’s back. Depends on the likelihood of getting a longer run in later in the day. Depends on a lot of stuff, I suppose.

My week of "penance"

2009-09-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

I started this week in a funk, not wanting to run another step. Injury right about now would have been an excellent excuse to not run for awhile.

So, I confessed that I was becoming a lazy distance runner and that I was getting bored with my routine. Penance? Speed intervals.

Except for the one time I ran 100m sprints at the elementary school down the street last month, I have never, ever run quarter mile intervals. I don't think I even ran them in high school that semester I ran with the cross country team.

Anyway, to get back on track I decided to take a week off and change the routine a little. The plan? Run quarter mile intervals until I couldn't run them any more. Monday I hit the track and ran 3 laps under 2:00, and the fourth was just at 2:00. At that point my body was rebelling and I was done. The next time I hit the track I'd run at least 5 laps at under 2:00.

Tuesday it rained (dirt track + rain = no run), so I hit the track Wednesday evening. The track was still a little juicy, so that required a little bit of creative maneuvering around the slop. Nonetheless, I managed 5 laps at under 2:00, but my body was again rebelling after the last one and I called it quits.

My buddy, The Cheetah, came out to run with me and I promised him one true 100m sprint if he ran a few of the quarter mile intervals with me. After the 5th lap we lined up for the sprint. He took off faster than I could and at 50m he had a solid lead of maybe 5 yards. Over the next 25m I caught up to him and in the final quarter I managed to blow by him.

In all fairness I have run more in the past 2 months than he has probably run in the last 3 years. But in even more fairness I had just finished running 5 laps around the track (he ran 3) and was quickly approaching exhausted. I honestly thought he was going to beat me. I was a little surprised when he didn't.

I may never be an elite runner, but I like being competitive with my peers. I also like the idea of getting through runs quickly. There's a big difference between running 10 miles in 1.5 hours versus 2.5 hours. It changes the outlook of the entire workout.

The intervals are done for the week. The next run will be Friday. The plan is to run 3 miles, three times. And no, that's not technically 9 miles. The intent from the get-go will be to run 3, then rest, then repeat. The first two sets, ideally, will be non-stop. The third set I will give myself permission to run/walk, but the preference, of course, will be to run.

Against some probably very good advice, I am also planning to get up and do the RTW on Saturday. Maybe there will be a sighting of a fellow running blogger?

Only the penitent man shall pass

2009-09-21T12:32:00.000-07:00

I frequently find analogies between my running and my religion. After all, for a runner, running becomes a type of religious act in and of itself. And if a finish line is heaven for the runner, and the miles and miles of training are the daily grind that the faithful must endure, then sprints, hills, and speed work represent for the runner what confession and penance represents for the believer.

When we grow lazy and complacent in our faith we risk falling into old habits and build up a barrier between us and our ultimate reward. For the faithful, the way to break that barrier and crack out of the old habits is the physical act of confession and penance, however your particular tradition builds those activities. For the runner, breaking out of the tired old repetition of the long distance grinds means you must head to the track and rip off the calluses that have formed and break yourself down to the principal components that make a runner a runner. A runner must shred those long, slow, endurance fibers that allow him to run for miles and miles at a stretch and reawaken those short, quick sprint fibers than propel him down a track even though his lungs are screaming for air and everything is numb. A runner must go into that realm of complete oxygen deprivation and muscle fatigue. A runner must, in effect, break his own will and conform it once again to that of the task at hand, which is to run with abandon and complete lack of desire for self. You must, in effect, die to distance and be reborn to speed. The runner must remember what it is like to be near that point of complete collapse, and at times even beyond that point, and still find the will to stand up and do it all over again. To allow the body to work even after the mind has checked out.

Only then, after the miles of trials, can the distance runner return, once again, to the daily trial of miles.

Doldrums

2009-09-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

I didn’t think it would be this dramatic of a crash, but I was expecting it to come… eventually.

I have entered… THE DOLDRUMS.

I know the run Friday sucked ass—big time. But that is not what has precipitated this current malaise. I’ve had bad runs before—just about all of the ones before mid August come to mind—that did not precipitate such a fundamental and cataclysmic crashing of the spirits. Usually I just pick right back up and hit the road the next day. Get over one by getting on another, so to speak.

Right now I legitimately don’t want to run. I just don’t give a crap. I just ever so barely stepped in a hole yesterday and was disappointed that I didn’t turn my ankle, not even a little bit. THAT would have given me a legitimate excuse to not run for a couple of weeks, maybe even call this whole stupid marathon thing off.

Right now the only thing on my mind is rest. I’m tired of the sore legs. I’m tired of the twitchy feet that can’t wait to get on the track. I’m tired of the dreams that involve just running. I’m tired of the soundtrack that plays as I replay the imagery of the Houston Marathon in my mind’s eye. I’m tired of the imagery of the Houston Marathon, and imagining running in New York, or Dallas, or San Antonio, or even considering the sheer idiocy of running 2 marathons in 2 weeks in 2011, and 5 hours of running is a lot longer than 30 minutes, or 1 hour of running, and 10 miles is a long way to go, not to mention 26.2, and… and… and…

I’m just tired.

It’s as if I’ve been trying to outrun all that and had been out ahead of it, but the bungee finally recoiled and the full weight of all of that has finally come and smashed me in the back and left me lying face down and bowled over by the weight of everything.

I’m so tired.

But tonight I’m going to go to a track and run a mile. Then I’ll rest. Then I’ll run another. Then I’ll rest. Then I’ll run 8 sprints, while resting on the turns, then another mile, and maybe one more. Maybe I’ll even get obsessed again.

The trials of miles must continue. The enemy is nipping at my heels.

I knew this would come because it came before. I also know how to get through it, because I’ve gotten through it before. But oh the weariness… oh the weariness.

Ugh

2009-09-18T14:06:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I firmly believe that periodic failure is as important as
incremental success en route to ultimate victory.

I get that.

But this run sucked ass. I'm seriously, you guys, it sucked ass.

I started out light and easy and, unbeknownst to me at the time, with
a tail wind. This allowed me to chalk up a pretty surprising first
leg time that was way quicker than it felt. After that, everything
went downhill.
The course turned slightly and I felt the wind in my face for the
first time. I thought to myself "Hm, that's unfortunate". But it
gets worse, because the wind shifts ever so slightly in the next 10
minutes.
I hit the turnaround point--right at 3 miles, just over 30 minutes--
and it occurs to me that I might be able to finish in under an hour,
if I hustle. Alternatively, I may be able to beat my time from the
last 6 mile run. I catch my breath after a second and take off back
up the path.

This is when I find out that the wind shifted ever so slightly to
give me a headwind once again.
The energy is just flooding out of my legs. I'm getting tired. I'm
getting thirsty. It feels like I'm running on little sacks of wet
flour.

I plod along into the wind for about 6 minutes and the legs just give
out. They won't run anymore. I take a short breather and talk my
legs into running again, but they're very reluctant. I make it
through the third leg in a respectable time, but the wheels just come
right off for the fourth leg. I was trashed.

I stole some water from the mason's lodge on TC Jester, but it didn't
really help. I flat out bonked.

The trial of miles continues, though. I'll get back out there
tomorrow, maybe for a short run of "only" three miles. Maybe for
another longish run of 6. Maybe I'll still go hit the Kenyan Way
folks and try to break off an 8 miler.
I was wondering when the doldrums would come. Maybe they're finally
here.

Today's run!!

2009-09-17T13:27:00.000-07:00

3 miles at about 1:30pm (lunch run, whoot!!)

Mile 1: 9:28.74

Mile 2: 10:12.04

Mile 3: 9:36.84

Total: 00:29:17.62

Mile one was a little quicker than I expected, mile 2 a little slower than expected.

Mile 3 turned out to be a tale of 2 runs:

The first ½ was done in 5 minutes. The second ½ was done in 4:36. The quarter mile checks on the first lap had even splits of roughly 2:15 at the first two markers, so the last ½ mile was run at about the same pace as the first ½ mile. That’s pretty manly, if I do say so myself.

Tomorrow, probably 6 or 8 miles, then I’m shutting it down for the weekend and running another “crucible” week starting Monday!!

The saga of the first marathon

2009-09-17T08:47:00.000-07:00

The “Saga of the First Marathon” actually starts back in 1995 when I decided I was going to run a marathon before I turned 30. 9 years later it dawned on me that if I was going to do it I better get off my ass because January ’05 was the last chance to run the Houston marathon before I turned 30 in June ‘05. Starting in 1996 I was cycling year round and riding MS150s, so I was in pretty good shape in 2004. In September ‘04 I decided I’d run the marathon and in October ’04 I rode in my 3^rd MS150 that year and had ridden between 1000 and 1500 miles for the year. I figured training up for a marathon (26.2 miles) wouldn’t be so bad having just ridden 150 miles in 2 days.

On my first run I couldn’t hardly make it to the end of the street.

I ran periodically starting in the beginning of October and pushed my distance up to about 8 miles, hating every step of it. That’s actually when I started a running blog (now at www.screamingatthewind.blogspot.com). Eventually I’m going to migrate the early running posts over to the current running blog, but I’m in no real rush.

The short version of the ’05 recap is that I undertrained because I had no clue what I was getting myself into. I thought I was in good enough shape to run a marathon because I was in good enough shape to ride my bike over the horizon and back.

I was wrong. I thought I might be in trouble after 5 miles, but also thought I might be able to gut my way through. After 9 miles, when every step was in uncharted territory, I knew I was REALLY in trouble. When we passed the half way point, I was fading fast and my 10 minute miles were becoming 12 minute miles and fast approaching 14 minute miles. I hit the Westpark Bridge with a vengeance, because on the bike I hit hills HARD and relax on the other side. I NEVER let hills win—ever.

This hill won. I knew there was no way I was going to finish unless I found some energy somewhere. My wife tells me I looked drained and near death coming over that bridge. It was about there that my left foot and knee, and right groin was beginning to hurt, too.

Everything was going wrong.

I staggered up Newcastle, down the feeder road, got passed by a cleaning crew truck, staggered around the corner to 610 and Richmond, I think, and one of the medics asked me if I was ok. I was most definitely not ok. I threw in the towel right around there. I called the missus to tell her to meet me at GRB, I was finished.

I know the question because I get it a lot: why didn’t you run a half marathon first?

Answer: I knew I could run a half marathon. I wasn’t sure I could run a marathon and riding across the horizon and back was getting easy. I chose to do hard, and failed… hard.

I licked my wounds, rode in the MS150 in May, and in July decided to run the 2006 marathon. I considered joining a club, but decided against it because I don’t do scheduled runs very well and wasn’t going to run it based on someone else’s plan or program, this was going to have to be my own redemption.

While training in 2005 I realized that when you train for a marathon, really train for a marathon, the actual running of the marathon is just a technicality. You’ve already run the thing so many times in your head that the sense of inevitability as the thing approaches is more profound than the nervousness or anything else. Preparation trumps everything. I’d driven the course, walked over that bridge a few times to remind myself of that sting (a sting I still feel today), basically everything short of running the actual marathon before race day. Of course, I also maintained a very moderate running schedule because, as I’ve said before, I hated every step of the training.

And in 2005 there was more of it to hate.

Nonetheless, the week before the run, there was really nothing left to do except run the race, and I had to wait on the calendar for that.

So, race day came, I showed up to the corrals late (as usual) but still within the crowd before the start, and got to running. From the 2005 marathon I remember very little except for the pain, exhaustion, and utter, profound feeling of defeat. From the 2006 run, though, I remember everything. The smells, the sights, the view of the sunrise from the viaduct, the pipers on Main, the communion offering and the sprinkling of holy water, getting passed in the Rice Military Village by some chick the announcer knew, the spring in my legs as I crested the Westpark Bridge and KNEW I was going to finish this thing, the look of relief on my wife’s face (I do this crap to impress her, you know) at the same place, cruising through Tanglewood with “Monica” (who’s family was cheering wildly every 3 or 4 miles) and realizing that I had 2 hours to cover a distance that should take me 1 to 1.5 hours to cover, getting passed by the guy who had a “50 years old, 50 states, 50 marathons” t-shirt on and just thinking “damn”, entering friendly territory through Memorial Park, running with THE Jon Walk for a few miles down Allen Parkway, hitting the “wall” where my pace dropped from a steady 11:30 to 14 or so, then getting some oranges and things moderating back to 12-ish. [As for this “wall”, I didn’t know I was hitting it when I did, only when I looked back at the times did I realize my times had come to a near stand-still.]

The best part, though, is entering downtown. The buildings are like a giant gateway that leads into a giant valley. You can hear EVERYTHING. The “March of the Centurions” plays on my own personal soundtrack at about this point with the music building to a dizzying crescendo only to be drown out by… You enter the valley and it’s two turns and on to the home stretch. The few remaining people (5 ½ hours in) are cheering like total lunatics (or, at least, that’s how the mind’s ear remembers it), what little fire is left in the engine burns a little hotter. “Monica” was faltering, so I had to yell at her to not quit because it wouldn’t be right to beat a quitter to the line. She kept running, but I beat her anyway.

It was very… vindicating. There is so much more to running a marathon that merely running.

And now it’s time to do it again.

6 miler update

2009-09-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

The schedule I had jotted down, and the clock, really only allowed for a 3.5 mile run last night.

I got to my 3.5 mile turnaround point, started to turn around, looked at the clock, and started to wonder…

The first half of the run had been remarkably easy and quick. I still felt good. If I hurried, I could still make it home by 8 and make my 9:00pm appointment.

On the other hand… I could knock out 3.5 tonight, then hit the trail for 6 in the morning, maybe even 6.2 and call it a true 10k… although, realistically there was very little chance I’d wake up early enough to get in a full hour or so run in the morning, AND I was going out of town Thursday, which would be the next morning I could realistically cram in a longer run…

Then, the light turned green and I bolted across the street without even thinking about it another second. 6 miles it is!! I let out a (louder than expected) bark of a laugh, people looked, but I didn’t care. I was actually feeling pretty good and even somewhat enjoying the run. As Holden said, I might be becoming friends with running.

I touched the tracks and made the turn back home. A check of the timer showed me that I ran the first half in just over 30 minutes. If I hustled, I could make it home in an hour. I wasn’t sure I had enough juice in the tank, and there was a pretty stiff headwind, but if there’s a chance of failure, I might as well fail big. There were a couple of points on the trail where I leaned on the accelerator just to see how the engine would perform. At one point a guy and his wife passed me very slowly on their bikes. I flipped on the burners and tried to catch up to them and was getting close, until she looked over her shoulder and added a little speed of her own.

That’s ok… I ran faster than a bike rider there for a few seconds. Even better, I ran the whole route.

For the final leg, I saw that I needed to finish in about 15 minutes to break an hour. That was unlikely to happen, but it was worth a try. By the time I got to the home stretch it was clearly not going to happen, but I could still get home in under 11:00/mile, so I kept the pressure on and stopped the clock at 1:02:57, just under 10:30 per mile. Not a bad run.

The tale of the clock:

6.02 miles. Total time: 1:02:57 for a 10:27 per mile pace.

Splits (1&4 = 1.82 miles, 2&3 = 1.19 miles):

1. 18:10.5 (9:59/mile pace) ç11 seconds faster than the previous running of this segment.

2. 12:01.0 (10:05 pace)

3. 13:30.4 (11:21 pace)

4. 19:15.7 (10:35 pace)ç1:30 faster than the previous running of this segment.

The average mile was 10:27. The standard deviation (yes, I’m bit of a nerd) was only :37. I’d still like to get some more consistency.

For the first time a 5:00:00 marathon seems within reach (11:27 pace), and a 4:30 marathon is not inconceivable. I still have a long way to go for either of those marks, though.

Running my metaphor

2009-09-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

There are really two types of true “runners”: elites, and the rest of us. (Look there, I referred to “runners” as “us”!!)

The elites are the gods among us who manage to run 4 minute miles as easy as we eat our corn flakes in the morning and string together 26 very impressive 5 and 6 minute miles and barely break a sweat. These people breathe running and make a very fine living off of such endeavors.

They enter races and expect to compete to WIN, not just finish, but win. They are finely tuned running machines, and we speak their names in hushed tones: Haile Gebrselassie, Paula Radcliffe, Deena Kastor, Paul Tergat, Robert Cheruiyot and many many more. You recognize them from their pictures and the pattern on the soles of their shoes. When you see these people have signed up for your marathon, you know immediately that 1. You have lost and 2. You are not one of THEM.

I, like most of the people out there running, am not an elite runner. I will likely never, ever win a race that is actually attended by a field of runners without remarkable good fortune. I am racing only the clock, and in my race against the clock I find my metaphors.

Life is a marathon.

My faith is a marathon.

School is a marathon.

Fatherhood is a marathon.

… is a marathon.

And, of course, wisdom

One step at a time.

Remember to breathe.

Preparation is key.

If there’s no risk of failure, it’s not worth doing.

If there any risk of failure, be sure to fail BIG, or not at all!

Know which kind of pain you’re feeling, and address it accordingly.

If the marathon were not a metaphor, these little nuggets of wisdom wouldn’t be applicable to anything except running a marathon.

But of course, even for the gods among us, the marathon is a metaphor.

Galveston 5k update

2009-09-13T19:44:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I am resigned to the fact that I will NEVER be an elite runner due to the fact that I have a job. However, an interesting thing happened over the last 2 or 3 weeks.

I found myself wanting to run.

I dare say I found myself enjoying the runs that I've been going on. Gobbling up the scheduled miles, then going at it for another few, just for good measure.

How sick is that?

I even found myself referring to myself as... [gasp]... a runner. Although, admittedly, I still refer to others as "real runners".

Anyway, this brings us to the Galveston Rebirth 5k.

I had only 1 goal for this run: break 30 minutes.

We packed up the family and headed to the island for the run with the weather reporters telling us that the weather is going to suck all weekend long. The little 'un was looking forward to the beach and had told us so all morning and evening, and for the entire drive to the island. We were hoping that the weather would allow us to actually appease him.

I then occurred to me that I had never run in the rain. Clouds were a good excuse for me to skip a run, but I was growing an increasing resolve to run this thing rain or shine. I checked the map to confirm the morning logistics, realized it was only 3.5 miles to the starting line from the hotel, and began seriously considering running to the run. Reason took over in the morning and I decided to sleep an extra 45 minutes.

I get to the registration booth early--very early--despite making the mistake of following another runner almost all the way to her car because I thought she was going to the registration booth.

Oops.

I get my number, my goodie bag, and yes Jon and Holden, my race chip. Then I had about an hour and a half to wait for the race to begin, which I thought was starting in 30 minutes. I got the logistics wrong.

Then it started raining. And kept raining. And kept raining. Until about 5 minutes before the gun, it rained. I usually get soaked during a run, but in this case I was soaked before the run. I was also soaked during the run. I stayed soaked for about an hour after the run and didn't fully dry off for maybe another hour or so.

Here's something I learned about in Galveston: swamp crotch. Not pleasant. Not pleasant at all.

Ok, so on to the run.

There were about 750 who registered, and only 266 picked up their chips. After the interminable waiting was finished, we took off in a thick crowd that quickly thinned out and I was able to move forward fairly quickly. I fell into a pace behind 4 runners when one of them had to stop and tie his shoe. They slowed down, he caught up, and I dropped into a good pace behind them. It was at this point when I remember getting yelled at during the one season I ran for the cross country team after I stopped DURING A RACE to tie my shoe and I thought to myself "I won't make that mistake again". Meanwhile I seem to be managing to hit every puddle of water along the way and sure enough, my right shoe come untied. I tried to ignore it, but had to stop and tie it since my shoe was beginning to slide around. I tie the shoe--double knotted, thank you--and catch up to my pacers who have collected 2 more runners.

It is about this time--close to the 1/2 way point, I think--in the run where I begin to feel a bit of agony. I think I'm running out of steam and realize I've been running WAY too fast, but then there's a group of people ahead of me cheering like a bunch of nutters. Interesting how a group of cheering "fans" will put an extra pep in your step. I then drop my pacers and begin to reel in some of the folks in front of me. This is also the point in the race where I realize it's not the 1/2 way point, but it's the 2 mile marker (they didn't have actual mile markers, but refreshment tables were reportedly near the first and second mile marks, consequently, there're no splits). I'm very happy right now because I looked at my watch and I've been running for less than 20 minutes. This might turn out to be a good day.

We turn on to 25th Street which is the final straight of the run, and I pass this dude who was catching a breather. 45 seconds later dude passes me like I'm standing still. I decide at that point to pass his ass.

A minute later, 2 ladies slowly pass me in front of a guy cheering us on who says "you're not going to let them pass you, are you?" I am, at this point, gasping for air and trying to maintain my cadence. I manage to gasp out "I'll catch them". They glance at each other and smile.

A guy and a girl pass me up a few seconds after that. I remember seeing them earlier because she was wearing pink shorts and a shirt from a bar and had one too many tattoos while he had none and I thought they were an odd couple. That's two more I'll have to pass.

The finish line is at Mechanic Street and 23rd. We get 2 blocks past Broadway, and it's time to turn on the burners--or my version of them.

The first "victims" are the odd couple. They were chatting with an older lady I had seen at registration, but not since. The dude catching a breather is the next to fall. The 2 ladies who slowly passed me earlier are about a block away and we're 2 blocks from Mechanic. As we approach the turn, I pass them, then the pink shorts bolt around my left shoulder.

At this point I realize I have a remarkable amount of energy in my legs and take off after her. I catch and pass her. Much to my surprise another pair come screaming up the road past me. The girl takes off, the guy drops back, and the crowd (as I hear it) goes wild.

This is a by-God race!! A slow motion explosion that has taken over three miles to unfold!

She inches past, I inch past, she inches back up, then BOOM!!! I hit the line first and the guy is right behind us.

I look up to see who this sparring partner was and much to my surprise see a very disappointed child who can't be more than 15 years old giving me a run for my money, with her grinning dad standing right behind us. She got a pat on the shoulder, he got a hand shake, and I got me some water, not the least bit embarrassed for not letting a girl win because I looked at my watch and saw 29 minutes and several seconds. The first 26 minutes of the run flashed by in a blur. The last two minutes or so seem to have taken forever. Interesting how time works.

I was having so much fun I decided to go back on the course and run some folks in. That's how much energy I still had and how much FUN I was having.

There was the 67 year old grandma who was having trouble keeping her pants up (no kidding).

There was the little girl (like, 8) who's older brother (10?) passed her but, with my urging, decided to whip his ass to the finish line.

There was the guy running with his daughter who was pissed at him because he wasn't supposed to be running, per doctor's orders.

There was the girl, about my age, running with her grand mother.

There was story after story after story... it was a ton of fun.

Thank you Galveston.

Running update [SPOOOOON!!!]

2009-09-04T16:58:00.000-07:00

It wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. It was actually pretty decent.

3 miles scheduled. Ran those 3, then tacked on a pair of extra ones for June. 1: 9:21.41 2: 10:19.00 3: 10:25.14 At this point I ran about a quarter mile and walked another quarter mile cooling down, then decided that since I was already a half mile into the loop, I might as well prepare a good dose of shame for June, so I started running some more.

3.5 - 4: 5:23.75 5: 14:39.43 (I was a little tired here) 6: 11:33.12 (a bit of a rally for the final mile).

Friday get away day

2009-09-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

Today is the first scheduled running day of September for me.

After 3 days off, I’m going to go to Memorial Park, run a terrible 5k that will include excruciating agony and boredom as well as 2, possibly 3 miles at a pace far slower than should be normal, then maybe, if I’m lucky, leg and side cramps.

I can’t wait.

Hoorah.

Thus far this training thing is an exercise in physical and mental discipline. I’m not trying to get away from running, I’m trying to get absorbed into running, so I’m not bringing my iPod on the runs yet. I’m trying to become one with the pavement, one with the visceral, carnal action of running. I’m seeking zen (maybe THAT should be the blog name?) in running shoes. In fact, I don’t suppose I even need running shoes. I’m going to Galveston next weekend for my first ever “out of town” run, and I think I may run nude on the beach to greet a sunrise, just to have the feel of running free. I’ve read about it and how liberating an experience it can be to just run and completing an elemental ccircuit between the prehistoric and modern man. Participating in the one thing that mankind does when frightened AND elated. The one activity that connects defense and offense, protecting ourselves from being eaten while providing something for us to eat. I think that’s going to be something to do… but I don’t think I’ll be telling my wife that. I doubt she’ll let me do it.

Last day to hit the mark

2009-08-31T17:40:00.001-07:00

And hit the mark, I did.

3.64 more miles in the books, which means I hit my mark of 48, plus another .4 for good measure.

Not sure which is the more overwhelming feeling right now, the satisfaction of knocking down another 3 1/2 miles, or the tight balls of hate in my shins.

Only 2 splits, both measuring 1.82 miles:

1: 18:55.41

2: 21:42.65 (mostly because I got stuck by a long red light, but also because I was wearing down)

Total: 40:38.06

Pace: 11:09 per mile

That's a tolerable pace for me right now. It won't be in a month, but then again running only 3.6 miles won't be acceptable in a month, either.

2 off days coming up, and I need them, bad.

Feeling much better today

2009-08-31T08:02:00.000-07:00

Last night I made like a “swoosh” and just did it. I didn’t want to run, but figured I ought to go out and hit the bricks anyway, just to stay in the habit.

I only ran a mile, but I hated every step of it.

My legs felt like concrete pillars. My breathing was labored. I felt like I was running in sand, against a headwind, uphill, while pulling a loaded water cart. And then it got worse.

9 ½ minutes later, I’m home and stretching out my legs and the real agony ensued. You know that feeling when you have smash your finger and you have a blood blister under your finger nail and the pressure against your nail is just throbbing and it feels like an anvil is resting ever so gently upon your hand? Yea, that’s about what it felt like down in my shins. I’m not unfamiliar with the pain, but I’m not fond of it, either.

I broke down, took some drugs and laid under a couple of ice packs. Screw the whole “let it heal” crap. This hurt—a lot! I wanted that pain to go far, far away, so I treated the symptom—take away the inflammation, take away the pain, get up and run some more. Tonight I’ll try and pack in another 4 miles of hard running, maybe more, and then shut it down for a couple of days. Tomorrow is not only an early morning, but also an 8^th anniversary for a very sweet woman I know. Wednesday is class night. Therefore, the schedule is going to be dictated by external events and I’ll be allowed to get in some good, deep stretching. Just in case the pain isn’t quite gone, though, I’ll be bringing my cell phone to call for a ride home. Just in case, you know.

I think I’m going to set the September goal at 100 total miles (52 miles for the month), and leave the cycling goal at 100 total miles (60-ish miles for the month), too. I totally missed the cycling mark this month, but it looks like I’ll hit the running goal—if the pegs stay on message, that is. In fact, the initial sketch of a schedule for September suggests I may come close to 90 miles for the month. That’ll be a feat!!

October will feature at least one 10 miler and a half marathon distance (maybe even an actual half marathon), so that will be 2 of my weekend long runs. There will be at least one more 10 or 13 miler thrown in there, so October will be at least 33 miles in long runs alone, probably twice or thrice that for the total month, marking the most miles I’ve run in a month, ever. In fact, I’d go out on a limb and say it’ll likely be more miles than I ran in all of 2004 and close to as many miles I ran in 2005—all in a single month.

I’m still waiting for that breakthrough where I can just get up and go run, without the need to talk myself into getting up and going for a run. Right now going for a run is like a shuttle launch—the slightest anomaly will cause me to halt the countdown and possibly scrub the launch. I’d like for it to be more like going for a drive where “all systems are go” simply means the key is in the ignition, and that may not even be true. I was almost there a couple weeks back, but not anymore.

Run update

2009-08-30T17:41:00.000-07:00

Last night, for the first time, I ran home from church. We had a party, and I ran home. Hooray!!

It was a short-ish run of only 2.77 miles, and after the first quarter mile or so it wasn't a bad run. It was mostly in the dusk, not quite dark, and I didn't exactly rock it out. The splits are from landmark to landmark, not so much specific distances.

The first .9 of a mile (or so) was run in 9:21.

The next half mile (or so) was about 4:51.

The next third of a mile (or so) wrapped up in 2:56.

The next bit was close to a half mile, and I knocked it down in 4:06

The final stretch was about three quarters of a mile, and I slogged through it in 8:24.

All around, not impressive. But it was mostly pain free (yay!) after the first quarter mile and my recovery time after the run (the time it takes to catch my breath and quit sweating buckets) was not too long.

Today, however, my legs are just worn out, which bugs me because it wasn't THAT long of a run. And the shorts I wore yesterday (Addidas shorts from Sports Authority) chafed like hell. I hate those shorts. Hate them hate them hate them... but they were the only ones I have that didn't stink like a sweaty ass.

Oh well, I'm a little bummed and not feeling the running vibe right now. I'll likely hit it tomorrow.

Sprints. Ugh.

2009-08-25T19:21:00.000-07:00

They should totally contact the United Nations and make some kind of treaty banning this crap.

Total workout was only about a mile and a half, mostly because I quit after a half mile of sprints 'cause I hate them and my leg was hurting and I couldn't breath and it was dark and hyenas, and werewolves, and vampire bats, and zombies, and all kinds of other good reasons to not run after dark.

Since I got me a watch, I know my splits!!

The warmup mile clocked in at just over 8:30:

Lap1: 1:57.65

Lap2: 2:12.96

Lap3: 2:17.03

Lap4: 2:15.00

4 sprints, running the straights and walking the turns:

1: 0:20.90

2: 0:20.15

3: 0:19.98

4: 0:18.79

Next time I go for sprints, I think I'm going to drop a line to the Cheetah to get someone to push me a little.

Depending on how the leg feels tomorrow, I may be shutting it down for the week.

Got me some gear

2009-08-25T13:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, since I’m doing sprints, I decided to finally drop some coin on a new watch.

While I was getting the watch, I decided to check out the bags. Underarmor was the only company that had bags with a separate compartment for shoes and that was precisely what I was looking for in a duffle. So, I picked me up a new bag and can now stop using my overnight luggage duffle for my running gear.

Finally, I trotted by the shoe section and saw Nike’s running sandal. It looks really, really nice. And for only $20, it was a helluva good deal. But, I already bought some shoes and don’t need those—maybe in a couple of months I’ll pick up a pair, but not now. Across from the shoes were the shirts, so I grabbed me a new shirt that will hopefully keep the sweat off my back, and headed to the checkout.

New bag, new watch, new shirt… ready to run tonight. I can’t wait. I’m legitimately looking forward to a good workout tonight.

Injuries, recovery, and the circle of life

2009-08-25T11:08:00.000-07:00

Ok, yesterday I had a SCHEDULED rest day, so I wasn’t just sitting on my ass. This week was planned to be a light week after my 20 mile week last week. There is no set schedule per se, but the expectation is somewhere in the 5 to 10 mile range with distances building toward Saturday and Sunday. Most of the week will be short 1 or 2 mile runs with speed torture. In fact, tonight will feature just such a torturous path if I am pain free.

Yes, I said it was a light week. There’s a reason for that.

Next week I intend to up the mileage again to 30 miles, with no fewer than 3 intermediate runs of no less than 6 miles and maybe even an 8 or 10 mile ramble thrown in there just for fun.

Which brings me to the reason WHY I planned for this week to be a light week (my training weeks are Monday – Sunday, by the way, it works better for me that way since the Marathon is on a Sunday).

I scheduled a 20 mile week last week for 2 reasons, with a third reason deep in the background. The first two were simple—get the miles in, and see if I could stick to a training schedule. I mostly stuck to the schedule, with some bonus miles to make up for the runs that were missed for one reason or another, and got my miles in. I’m pretty satisfied with those wins.

The third reason was to create the conditions under which the inevitable would happen. Something of my “Judas” theory.

You all know Judas—he was the apostolic betrayer. Some of the Gnostic traditions suggest that he wasn’t actually betraying Jesus, but actually attempting to bring about the conditions under which the spirit Jesus would be freed from the mortal form and thus perfected, ushering in the Kingdom (total Cliff’s notes version, but that’s the gist).

My experience tells me that when I go from zero to marathon training, I encounter the blistering, debilitating pain known as shin splints right around the neighborhood of 30 to 50 miles.

Looking back at 2004, there’s this post: http://screamingatthewind.blogspot.com/2004/11/pain-aaarrrggghhhh.html

In it I discuss a “funny twinge in my left shin” that became an “ow kind of pain”. That was about 20 or 30 miles into training after riding a MS150 a few weeks before.

In 2005, there’s the following 2 posts: http://screamingatthewind.blogspot.com/2005/09/hmm-thats-odd.html

And http://screamingatthewind.blogspot.com/2005/09/pain-bit-annoying.html

These describe pain in my lower legs, not directly in front, but in the area right between the calf muscle and the shin—the 12-3 area on the left leg and 9-12 area on the right (as well as some pretty good excuses I’ve used for not running). This pain was in the 30 or 40 mile zone.

With both of these incidents, stretching, resting, waiting, and finally running made the pain go away and never come back for the remainder of the season.

My 20 mile week was intended to get me into this zone and create the conditions under which the inevitable pain in my shins would come, get healed away, and go away forever. Or at least until the next time I decide to go from zero to marathon.

So, then, the question becomes what’s better: treat the pain and get back out there as soon as possible, or heal the injury and take as much time as you need so that the pain simply goes away.

I, obviously, fall into the “heal the injury” camp. I want to be able to just roll out of bed and run. Not roll out of bed, munch some drugs, slather on some cream, and then run. I also want to be able to take in a run, then come home and either nap or get on with my day, not have to take an ice bath, or hot bath, or icy-hot bath, or look like a mummy walking into the office. If I can’t just grip it and rip it, so to speak, what’s the point?

Of course, I can be talked out of that mindset, I suppose, if I could find one person who lived with persistent pain and merely treated that pain and was able to never utter the phrase “I quit because the pain got too bad”. Why would you put yourself through such punishment and torture?

So, today I feel pretty much pain free. I’ll go out and run tonight and work in some sprints to the run. Maybe I’ll even go to one of the local schools and use their track for quarter mile sprints. That’s something the Spanish Inquisition should know about!! I should probably get a watch if I’m going to do sprints. Hm…

1 mile + sprints

2009-08-23T16:46:00.000-07:00

Today I broke the 20 mile marker for the week.

I took in a mile and added some sprints for speed work...

my legs are killing me.

I'm feeling the first twinges of shin splints in my left leg. Not good. I'm going to stretch it out and hope for the best.

This week will be a light week of mile sprints and a couple of longer runs, with an 8 mile punctuation mark on Saturday. I'm guessing about 15 miles for the coming week.

I am Cazador Corriente

2009-08-23T06:15:00.000-07:00

I hit the RTW yesterday with the plan to reel in a PR in a 5k, which would be beating the time 26:54.77.

I honestly can't remember my course best at RTW--I think it's in the range of 31 minutes, so I'm going to establish my current RTW-PR as 31:00.00.

Saturday morning, I cleaned my gun and set out on the hunt. A buddy of mine--I'll call him the Cheetah--decided my running has inspired him to take a stab at the RTW and run for the first time in 2 or 3 years. The horn blows, and we take off.

At a blisteringly fast pace.

I say "oh shit", and immediately start to reel my pace back so that I don't flame out. The Cheetah? He takes off with the leader pack. All I see are shoe soles and elbows. He makes the first loop with the leaders, gets down to the corner and drops back a little, turns the next corner and drops back a little more, and hits the driveway to the park and started walking. Not a bad sprint. I caught up to him at my steady 10 minute pace and he started trotting with me again. El Cazador had caught el Guepardo, but that wasn't my quarry.

Much to my surprise, I was able to chat a bit while running. This was going to be a good day.

Cheetah: you ok?

Cazador: yea, I'm great. You?

Cheetah: I'm fine.

Cazador: You took off there like a shot.

Cheetah: that why you said "oh shit"?

Cazador: No, that's 'cause the whole group took off like a shot. I wasn't about to keep up that pace and I figured I'd catch you eventually.

Cheetah: you're going to keep this pace the whole way?

Cazador: that's the plan.

Cheetah: you know I'm going to smoke you at the end?

Cazador: If you can, I'm OK with that.

A few seconds pass in silence...

Cheetah: I can't keep this pace... I'm dropping back.

Cazador: (laughs) All right. I'll come back for you. (yelling over my shoulder) with a stretcher!!

From there I motored on. No watch, no music, no nothing. Just me, the pavement, and my shoes. The simplest connection of man and his primal self. As I allowed myself to be immersed in the run, I could see up ahead the wispy image of a gazelle trotting on the path a few hundred feet ahead of me, looking over its shoulder as I approached, then taking off into the trees again. My body saying "run". My mind saying "this is inefficient, there are easier ways". So far, the body is winning, but slowly. The day will come when I see that gazelle fall over from exhaustion.

But today was not that day. El Cazador remains hungry.

32:05. Missed my course record by a minute. Missed my PR by 5. I'll be back in a month, then the 10 miler in October and maybe by then I'll have a watch.

For the first time ever, I'm feeling this thing. I'm looking forward to runs. I'm itching to get out on the roads and run. To make that ultimate connection with the ultimate of primal instincts that separates us from the animals and our caveman cousins. To just run, untethered by mile markers or my own brain saying "this is stupid".

Currently I feel better running than I did at any point in 2005, but I'm going to begin cataloging my 2005 blog entries to determine where I stack up compared to the last marathon training I did.

It's called "persistence hunting"

2009-08-21T12:41:00.000-07:00

First, the recap, now that I’m fully recovered from my semi-exhausted, thoroughly sweat drenched, and slightly dehydrated state from last night.

Yesterday I set out for a 3.5 mile run. I decided at the turnaround point to take it an extra couple of miles (I had already gone nearly 4 miles, so 5 or so shouldn’t be too bad) and run to the next mile marker on the White Oak Bayou trail. Besides, it was still light out and an extra mile or so wouldn’t do me too bad.

I missed the mile marker. A fat family was standing right on top of it, and I just kept running to the 6 mile turnaround point—the railroad tracks just north of 34^th.

Sooo… I went the full 3 miles to the turn around without a pause. I caught my breath on the tracks, then started chugging it back home. About ½ mile in, I saw the mile marker. Right about this time I noticed it was starting to get dark, and I only had another 2 ¾ miles to chug. I don’t like running certain parts of my routes in the dark, but I figure that even in my slightly tired state there’s enough testosterone coursing through my veins to allow me to good and flip out on someone if I had to. At the very least, I just keep running and if they want to steal my shoes (about the only thing of value I run with), they’d have to keep up with me or knock me down. Regardless, I motored on home, pausing only 1 time along the trail where there wasn’t a red light or cross street with traffic, and made it home with a time somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 hour. I still don’t have a watch (and may not get one), so I’m not sure.

However, in the course of 7 days, I’ve gone from 2 miles to 6 miles. I’m ready for my PR at the RTW tomorrow. Can’t wait.

Ok, now for this “Persistence Hunting” thing.

I’m almost done with my runner’s porn “Born to Run”. The underlying thesis of the thing is that man is a highly evolved creature. A creature highly evolved for long distance, endurance running. We are so well evolved for it, in fact, that man can outrun a horse over 50 miles. We are so well evolved for distance running that a human man can run down an antelope until it keels over from exhaustion and dies.

I’d SO totally love to see that. A pack of marathon runners, in the middle of a sunny summer afternoon, zeroing in on an antelope in the high savannah, and then BAM!! Taking off after it as it darts away. 10 or 15 k later, the thing is keeled over dead as a doorknob. That would be BEAUTIFUL!!

So, I googled “marathon hunting” and found “persistence hunting” and found a handful of videos. Totally righteous. We are not only born to run, we are highly evolved creatures that are designed specifically to run, and run for long distances. That’s why Neanderthals died out, and we won.

I am man. I can outrun an antelope.

Ugh... so... tired...

2009-08-20T19:05:00.000-07:00

Added 6.02 to the tally tonight. So dehydrated. Next time I go 6 miles, I bring water. Ugh. So. Tired.

But I feel pretty good, considering.

More later.

Running style

2009-08-20T15:09:00.000-07:00

I’ve decided to take a more adventurous tone with my running.

In the past, and currently, I’ve been so obsessed with time and distance and trained by my cycling mind that I’ve taken a single route, mapped the route, and followed that route religiously. Here and back, here and back, here and back. Each repetition provided an opportunity to compare stats and see how I’ve improved.

That works real well on a bike, since there are relatively few areas where you can really stretch out in the saddle and drop the hammer without having to contend heavily with automobiles.

Running, on the other hand, can be done just about anywhere there’s a sidewalk. And in some cases, where there’s just flat ground (like the easement alongside railroad tracks, or the concrete channel skirts of bayous).

Plus, with tools like Google Earth on our side, we can map out just about any area, route, distance, or path that we choose to take.

So, I can now do on foot what I could never do in the saddle, and that is to just pause at an intersection and decide, right there on the spot, whether or not to go straight, left, or right.
Tuesday evening, when I added a half mile to my run, I did just that. I came to the end of my route and instead of turning back I decided to turn left. Why not? It turned out to be a pretty good run.

This is, so I’ve been told, what ultra-runners do. They just wake up and run. Where? Forward. Until they decide it’s time to turn around, then they turn around.

I’m wondering how long I’m going to be able to do that until I get lost.

Scrubbed run

2009-08-20T08:34:00.000-07:00

I stuck to the schedule this morning, but to no avail.

The alarm went off at 5:00am, I was already awake at 4:45 but wanted to wait and make sure the alarm worked (yea, right). I dutifully hit the button at 5, and got up promptly at 5:09am. Slipped on the shorts, socks, and shoes, grabbed the hat (that I won at the RTW, thank you very much, Luke’s Locker!), and hit the pavement running. I made it around the block and noticed a curious little gimpiness.

“Hm”, I thought to myself. “Hm, that’s interesting, maybe it’ll go away.”

Nope. I went another block, and it didn’t go away. I stopped and walked home.

It wasn’t pain, per se. But it felt like the precursor to pain. “A softness”, as I described it to my lovely wife, and object of my showing off. A feeling that I’m not at all happy with.

Maybe a good 3.5 miles this morning would have pushed it over the edge from “soft” to “hurt” and gotten it on to the healing path?

Maybe it’s just a tired knee, explaining to me that I’m doing too much too fast?

Maybe if I lay off it for the morning and maybe evening, it’ll get better?

Maybe it was just too damn early for the second time this week?

Not sure. But I opted to scrub the run and try and hit it this evening, just to see how things go. This means, of course, that I’m now .5 miles + 3.5 miles behind my weekly goal of 20 miles, which may or may not be made up elsewhere in the week. I think I’ll end up with a 16 mile week, unless I sneak in a run on Friday morning (unlikely) or Saturday evening (very likely). I suppose Sunday is always an option.

The 5k in the Woodlands this weekend is still on the calendar. I’m going to set a PR this weekend. I feel it. I demand it. I need that win, real bad.

Part 2 of 2

2009-08-18T18:46:00.000-07:00

I added another 3.95 miles this evening. Two runs, one day. Like a canoe in a hurricane, I rock a bit.

Still don't know the time, but I'm not sweating that small detail.

Since I cheated a little bit this morning and went 2.6 instead of the 3.5 I was planning, I decided to run my 3.5 this evening, but added a little stinger at the end. All in all, not a bad run. I didn't have to labor during any of the run, and only paused at certain points to decide whether to stay on the path or take a turn. The whole run out--1.8 miles--was non stop. I paused only to decide whether or not to add the stinger. The next mile was also non stop (that was the stinger portion). Come to think of it, I didn't pause at all except to wait for traffic for the whole run, until the last 3/4 of a mile. At that point, I paused only to decide whether or not to run on the north side of the street, or the south side. I picked the south and rolled on.

This is 13 miles in two days. That's a lot of running for me.

I just might be becoming a raramuri.

Part 1 of 2

2009-08-18T07:48:00.000-07:00

I realized this morning over my eggs and toast that I have designed for myself and entered into a crucible of sorts, and didn’t realize it until I was nearly halfway through this morning’s run (2.66 miles of the 3.64 planned distance).

I’ve scheduled my hardest week of the season thus far—20 miles, chump change to you seasoned vets—for this week partly to if I can actually stick to the schedule for a change. Another part for the schedule is to simply see what will happen on the other side.

I know that discipline imposed upon an undisciplined form will create a new form. Imagine a Jell-O mold or military boot camp. I also know that discipline for the sake of discipline is meaningless. What I’m curious to see is whether or not on the other side of this mini-crucible I’ve set up for myself something is forged out of the formless mass that is entering. Will there be a breakthrough moment? Will this prisoner come to love his captive? Will I bound out of bed at 5:00am and bounce off for a run? Is anyone sick enough to do that?

I doubt 20 miles is enough to forge a love for running, but I beginning to understand that in order to reconnect with my primal roots, I’m going to need to more than just go through the motions. “I don’t wanna” trumps going through the motions, every time.

3.6 at Memorial

2009-08-17T17:35:00.000-07:00

I made my return to Memorial Park this evening. I would have hit it this afternoon at lunch, but I forgot my socks at home and couldn't run. So I went to Luke's and got some new kicks instead (Asics, Cumulus--just like my old shoes, except more silver and less blue. Still fast like blue, though.)

Anyway, the flora and fauna at Memorial are just stunning this time of year--especially the fauna.

The run was alright. Nothing spectacular. I took off going counter clockwise (west, from the tennis house), and made the full loop, plus about .15 miles, plus a quarter mile, plus another quarter mile back to the car. By my reckoning, that's pretty damn close to 3.5 or 3.6, and I'm going to call it 3.6.

Of course, there were a few stops along the way. No walking, though. I did take a light break between the final 2 quarter miles, but I ran them both at a flat out sprint. That was pretty ok.

All in all, it was a miserable, horrid, awful workout. However, at the end, I was smiling and my legs felt pretty good, even if I couldn't go another step.

I'm going to try and get up in the morning and run 3 or so, and maybe get in 3 or so when I get home from work. I have plotted out a course to 20 miles this week, and if I actually stick to the schedule, it will be the first 20 mile week I ever run that doesn't feature an 18 mile run AND it will be the first time I stick to a running schedule that actually involves running (off weeks are easy to stick to).

We'll see how it goes. I sure do want to want to do this.

Intent--bah

2009-08-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

I put out my shoes, shorts, shirt, socks, and hat to run this morning.

The alarm went off, as planned, at the appointed hour.

I decided to “sleep in” and grab an extra 30 minutes sleep rather than 30 minutes running.

I think, if I am to run in the morning, I have to set the alarm yet an hour earlier (and go to bed yet an hour earlier) in order to pull off the 30 minutes or so I’d like to start running during the week. Thanks to the victory of the 3.5mile 5k I ran on Thursday, I feel that the weekday short runs must be no less than 3 miles now, unless there’s a good reason to do something different. I vaguely remember my short runs being in the 6 mile range in 2006, but I also remember weekday runs being at Memorial Park, which means they were likely to be only 3 miles as I rarely ran the circle two times. Maybe I should actually look back at that old running journal and see?

Regardless, I feel stronger than ever and am actually itching to get out on the road and RUN!! It’s an odd thing, an odd thing indeed. I may be starting to like this foolishness.

I made an interesting observation while in the saddle on Saturday. The bike was much, much harder than the run 2 days earlier. I wonder if it’s because the only master I have on the trail is the distance, while when in the saddle I have a clock, speedometer and odometer as my masters. Consequently, to chase the statistics, I’m pushing myself and not simply riding. Meanwhile, on the trail I’m just running. And I’m reading these stories (and blogs) of people who just get up and run. They wake up, strap on the shoes, and go out and feel normal.

Maybe I shouldn’t get a watch.

I also read that running combines 2 primal elements of humanity—fear and love. You see something you are afraid of and you turn and run. You see something you love, you turn towards it and run. Also, children run EVERYWHERE. It’s just a part of what they are. Those tiny little unfiltered beasts just … run. As they grow, they begin to filter those two primal emotions and learn to moderate and walk. Maybe that’s the difference between a runner and someone who runs.

Anyhow… it’s off to Memorial Park to run this evening. No less than 3 miles, rain or shine.

And this weekend I’m going to set a PR at the RTW.

Two wicked climbs

2009-08-15T07:05:00.001-07:00

I set off for a slightly longer ride today, but I was constrained to only 1 hour, so it couldn't be too terribly long.

I hit the trail on White Oak. The first thing I noticed was the complete lack of a headwind. That's generally pretty bad news because it means there's either no tailwind assist on the way home, or even worse there's going to be a headwind on the way home. I didn't feel myself going particularly slow, and the grass wasn't bending with me, so I took that to mean the air was just plain still. That was at least some comfort, although keeping up the averages was still going to require more work than previous rides.

I hit the end of the trail and set my mind to traverse the "mountains" on TC Jester. Just north of I-10 is a rail yard, and TC Jester climbs over that rail yard. It's a wicked tall and long climb, as far as Houston climbs go, so I likes it a lot (it's also smack dab in the middle of what would be a slightly-longer-than-half marathon course, which also makes for a spectacular training run).

I scale the "mountain" at no less than 10mph, not spectacular, but serviceable. On the way down I see a biking club coming the other way across I-10, so I latch on to their wheels and pace their leaders up the climb the second time. We split paths at 11th where White Oak Trail begins, and I proceed to beat them to 34th street (not sure if they knew we were racing, and I wasn't sure they were going that way, but since I beat them there, we were definitely racing).

So, the stats for the morning:

13.54 miles,

15.4 mph (average)

25.5 mph (max)

52:01 overall time.

Not a bad ride. Not a bad ride at all.

The news just gets better

2009-08-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

I checked my measurements this morning, and the 3.17miles I ran last night was actually 3.64miles!

I’m stronger than I thought, sooner than I expected.

5k and rollin'

2009-08-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I started reading my runner's porn today and was so damn inspired that I bolted out the door as soon as I got home.

I ran my normal route, then added the final 1/4 mile to the turnaround point to make the out route 1.57 miles. On the way out, I was thinking it was just short of a 5k, since it was going to be 3.17 and not 3.2 miles, but then I remembered that a 5k is 3.1 miles and not 3.2. You see, I'm an American, I play baseball, and have plumbing in my house. So I'm not so good with metric units, like all the rest of the world that isn't American, plays soccer, and has no plumbing.

Needless to say, I was grinning like a fool for most of the home stretch. Even better news is that I only stopped at stop lights and cross streets, and didn't walk for an inch of the route. This thing is coming together slowly, but surely. I just might be ready to go back out to a RTW and not embarrass the hell out of myself.

The post run celebration was chicken and dumplings provided by some very good friends, a couple of bowls from the pipe (tobacco, of course), and a few beers. That'll teach my body to be well conditioned!!

I'm going to push the distance a little more next week, and maybe by the end of August I'll buy a chronometer.

Runner's porn

2009-08-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

Went to the store yesterday and bought two volumes of runner’s porn: I run, therefore I am—Crazy, and Born To Run by Christopher McDougall.

The first one is a stupid little book full of what seems like running themed newspaper commentary/articles where the guy basically bitches about what he loves about running.

Not at all inspiring.

The problem is that all the little quirks that he loves about running are the things that really bug me about running—the aches, pains, dehydration, delirium, and on and on. I’m not running because I WANT all that stuff, I’m running so that all that stuff doesn’t happen anymore when I run. I know, it’s something of a catch-22, because if I just didn’t run I wouldn’t have dead legs and shin splints. But, then again, if I do run and can condition myself beyond that, I’m all the stronger for it.

I read the first 20 pages, flipped through the rest of the book, now I’m done.

The other book, though, is a fascinating story about the Terahumara tribe in Mexico’s Copper Canyon region. I’m maybe 25 pages in and want to go running tonight.

Yes, I’m actually horny for running, so to speak. The runner’s porn has done its job.

The thing is, I want to want to run. I don’t like forcing myself to do things, even though I know it’s good for me and I can’t do X unless I first do A – V, whether I want to or not.

Today, however, I find myself actually looking forward to my new shoes I’m going to go shopping for in a week. I’m looking forward to picking up a few more shirts, and another couple pairs of shorts.

This go around might actually be different. The switch might actually be flipped.

Time will tell.

A step beyond

2009-08-10T18:27:00.000-07:00

I was planning on pushing the distance up to 3 miles this weekend, but not today.

Nonetheless, I made it to my 2 mile turnaround point and decided to take just a couple more steps because I was feeling good. Those few more steps turned into an extra 1/3 of a mile.

Total distance for today: 2.66 miles (according to Google Earth).

I made the whole distance out without a single stop. I made it about 1/3 of the way back and had to pause at a red light (blessedly placed right where I needed a short breather). There's an uneven patch of cement where a bus stop used to be that I walked 6 steps across. Then 3 more points on the way home where I stopped. I didn't walk any of the 2.66 miles.

By the end of the month, I should be knocking down 6 miles on the weekend long runs, and 3 miles on the weekday long runs. By the end of September, the goal is 10 mile weekenders and 3 mile weekday short runs.

I owe myself a bike ride or two, as well. I'm a bit behind on my bike mileage, and consequently I'm still running a little heavy.

I've also noticed that I haven't been sore after ANY of my runs. What the hell is up with that?!?

Finally, I almost rolled my ankle not once, but 3 times. THREE TIMES!!!

Anyway, time for dinner and a little bit of water.

Two miles--no walking

2009-08-08T07:11:00.001-07:00

Ok, I squeezed in two miles this morning. Not having a watch is beginning to get on my nerves.

I think I maintained a 10 minute pace, but I can't be sure. I paused twice to catch my breath, but both pauses were less than 5 seconds. The legs didn't feel like tree trunks at all during the run, and I managed to work through the "ok, just walk for a few paces" phase right after the turnaround point.

Working through that is a big psychological win for me. When I hit the turnaround point (or mile markers at Memorial), there's this feeling of "whew, I did it!" I presume you runners know what I'm talking about. Then comes the "I give me permission to walk" crap that pops into my head, so the physical trainer on my back starts to shout insults at that little douche and challenging my manhood. I have a very interesting soundtrack going through my head when I run (or bike, for that matter). I'll describe my physical trainer a bit more at some other time.

So...

2 miles today. No walking. For a run, it felt good.

mm mm good

2009-08-06T07:24:00.000-07:00

Cream of mushroom, wild rice, celery, carrots, peppers, and either quail, dove, pheasant, or rabbit.

Goodness gracious.

Lunch!

2009-08-06T07:23:00.001-07:00

From August 3:

Ok, so I had the burger. And it was good.

But it wasn’t a double (did have cheese, though), it did have lettuce and tomato, no mayo, and no coke.

Yes, I ate the fries.

So, I figure the salad balances out the yummy, juicy, delicious meaty cheezey burger.

And the tea offset the fries and foregone coke.

Take that, Captain Killjoy!

Of course, I’m still going to have to put in 5 miles or so to balance the whole deal, but I was hoping to work up to 5 miles by next week anyway. I’m actually looking a little bit forward to the 6 mile route I used to run. It’s a lot longer on a map than it feels in my head, and it’s even longer while running it than it looks on a map. But, as far as runs go, it’s a good run.

And thus, it is official

2009-08-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

From July 17:

I have paid the fee and am registered, officially, for the Houston Marathon in 2010.

I’ll probably even run it.

When I close my eyes I can still see the 2005 and 2006 iterations of the marathon. The one with crushing defeat, the other with waves of exhilaration. I was underprepared in 2005 and I knew it, but was hoping that guts would take over where preparation gave out. They did not, and brains stepped in for the guts and I had to shut it down. I can go out to the very point on the pavement where I knew it was over, too. And then there’s the spot a little further down where I actually threw in the towel. I can still feel the failure if I stop and ponder it for even just a moment. There’s a pain associated with it that’s not just physical, but something deeper and more profound. There’s even an acrid, acidic smell that comes to mind, too. Something like baking pavement, car exhaust, sweat, and demoralization.

DNFs are not the end of the world. They happen. I’ve pulled out of a couple of MS150s without the same sense of failure. But this was different. This was not “a” marathon. For me this was “the” marathon. I’m probably never going to qualify for Boston or travel the country running marathon after marathon. Houston IS my crowning marathon achievement. My Tour de France. My Everest. Quitting in 2005 was an admission of defeat. That hurt. It made me angry.

But that tight ball of hurt and anger became fuel that would start a fire burning in July that kept growing through December.

Those very same spots, the very next year, came to carry a new and different meaning. The first where I knew I was done in 2005 became the spot in 2006 where I knew I was strong enough to finish the thing. The spot where I had to quit and admit defeat became the spot where I spat on the ground because this time the course wasn’t going to win.

A new spot was added to the list, as well, and it exists both physically and mentally. This was the spot on the course where, based on the pace I was keeping and the distance remaining, I knew I was going to finish in about 5:30, right on schedule. That barring any injury or freak accident, I really, truly was going to finish. The goal was reached. I was going to win.

Tonight I’ll take in a short run. I’ve spent the last two days pouring and stuffing poison into my body, so I’m going to have to crank up the engine to burn some of it off. I’m going to pay for the poor choice of fuel, but what the hell. Pizza tastes good. Beer tastes good. Saturday or Sunday will feature a longer run (3 miles?) and another shortish ride (10 or 15 miles, maybe). I’m going to have to plan a trip back out to the Woodlands to scrub the embarrassment of the last RTW out of my hair, too. I know, I can go to Memorial and run a 5k there, but none of those runners know I’m chasing them down to pass them and nobody has a stopwatch or free goodies to give away, either.

2 miles and multi tasking

2009-08-02T16:50:00.000-07:00

The junior got a new bike for his birthday. A cute little teeny tiny thing with training wheels.

Thank you Nana and PawPaw.

So, today we introduced him to his bike helmet and took him for his first spin. Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to get my first run of August in the books. The junior took one little spill and bounced back up like a super ball. No sweat. He's a tough little guy.

I added a tenth of a mile (about a block) to the run and managed to get about 3/4 of my two miles without pausing. The full front mile went down non stop. About 1/4 away from the midway point, I had to pause--not to catch my breath, but to spell my legs. What the hell is up with that? I can push a bike into the wind for a solid 15 miles without pausing even a little, but if I run for 10 minutes, my legs start to feel like telephone poles. I can't think of a more stupid physical phenomenon.

Anyway, I got the motor turning over again and made another 1/2 mile or so before taking a short pause to cross the street, then cranked it back up to the big house. That's my run. Exciting, isn't it?

Oh yea, I saw some guy get arrested and his car towed.

I also saw a couple of friends of mine gawking at the police action. Shame on them... it's like they don't have cable or something.

A few feet more

2009-07-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

Ok, tonight featured a 1.9 miler. I ran most of it, probably only walked 1/4 of a mile, max.

About 1/3 of a mile in, along Tidwell, of all places, it struck me how quiet it was next to the road. There was a lull in the traffic, and there was just... silence. It was odd. (Like a 7). It also struck me how constantly loud I remember Memorial Park being, with what my mind's ear remembers as constant traffic all around the jogging path.

That'll probably get fixed next time I run in Memorial.

It wasn't a terrible run, as far as runs go. Tomorrow, no run. Thursday, probably a mile in the morning, otherwise a longish run Friday.

Quite possibly, the worst ever

2009-07-20T18:39:00.000-07:00

That mile, above almost all miles I've ever run, was the worst.

The good news is that the knee doesn't hurt.

The bad news is that just about everything else does. My right side, just below the ribs. My left side, just above the hip. My back, right at the small of the back. The back of my left knee. My right and left shoulders (?).

Ugh.

Other than that, a good mile.

Even better news, my 1 mile route is 1.05 miles.

Weekend update

2009-07-19T15:21:00.000-07:00

So, the knee was bothering me yesterday. I opted to rest it for the day and maybe take the bike out in the evening. Well, it rained, so I chalked up a day of rest.

Since I didn't stretch the knee out yesterday, I decided to give it another day today and take the bike out. Same 12 mile route (the 14 mile route includes a pair of wicked climbs on TC Jester over the railroad tracks, maybe next week) as last week, but the stats are much more improved. I think the heart and lungs are getting into the game. I might be able to pull this marathon thing off yet.

Stats:

12.05 miles

25mph max (wind and gravity assisted)

21.5mph max (on the flat, against the wind)

Time: 0:47:09

Average speed: 15.3mph

The wind was in my face going out, and it was brutal. Yahoo says it's coming out of the SE at 14mph. I'm believing it. The good part about an out-and-back is that the wind is only in your face for 1/2 of the ride. The ride home was niiiice.

No run today

2009-07-16T13:36:00.000-07:00

Today is a day of rest. Plus, I have classes and I'm just a little tired.

For lunch, though, I did have a double serving of poison. Yum. (Tortino's Pizza, which contains absolutely no nutritional value and very little food)

Tonight I'll fix the old bike tire and prepare for tomorrow's run. Maybe I'll get in a longer run on Saturday--something in the variety of 2 - 5 miles.

Morning run in the books

2009-07-15T04:46:00.001-07:00

Add another mile to the tally.

Not a bad run, as far as runs go. Just a quick mile, but I felt strong through the whole thing.

I'm glad the meatball sub (6 inches, thank you) didn't stick with me this morning.

Now, time for breakfast.

It was a cool evening

2009-07-13T19:10:00.000-07:00

Yea, cool for Houston. "Only" 88 degrees... at 8:45 pm.

So, I didn't want to run tonight. But I did anyway. I guess I'm glad I did. I guess that counts as a win.

I got in about a mile and a half (according to Google Earth) and got it in with no stops. That certainly counts as a win.

My bike has a flat. What the hell is up with that? I don't remember hitting any bumps Saturday eve, but I must have pinched it somewhere. Probably on the driveway.

Lunch was a chicken salad at LaMadeline's, but I'm still fat. I need to get that tire fixed pronto. That's the only way I can think of to work off the blubber--I'm more likely to ride 200 miles in 2 months than run 200 miles in 2 months. Think I may even ride it to the session meeting tomorrow.