Wow

Here's a scathing indictment of the state of the US track and field program that was released by the USATF's Project 30 team today. It's pretty long and I haven't had time to read it all, but the list of organizational issues as well as the pettiness of the athletes is rather shocking. Hopefully Team USA can pull it together by 2012. I'll read a little more tonight when I have some time and maybe add a few more thoughts.

As for my running, I did a few miles on the treadmill this afternoon. It felt a little harder than my efforts outside but I think that was because the gym at the office was (actually, it always is) really warm today.

I'm In Bizarro World

Why is that, you ask? Last night I completed my long run for the week - about 3.5 miles. The interesting thing is that this "long" run is shorter than the shortest run in my last complete marathon training cycle.

I know, I know - I'm only on day three of my return to running, but making light of my situation makes it a bit easier, I think.

Also on the positive news front - my weight has dipped below 195, so that will hopefully make the running a bit easier. Now that I'm thinking about it, to this point my body has been holding up a little better than I thought it might. Aches and pains to be sure but that's it.

The next big challenge for me (with respect to my running and my weight) is the fact that I'm leaving for vacation on Friday. I'll be on a cruise ship, so I'll have access to a track and a gym - which I used every day on my last cruise - but it's definitely a challenge to get up and work out every morning while I'm on vacation. Then there's the unlimited access to food...

In other news, I've been getting caught up on all of my running magazines and websites lately, so I should hopefully have something on than my incessant whining on here pretty soon.

Today is likely to be a treadmill run.

Twice As Nice

Yes, I ran again yesterday. Instead of doing the longer or the shorter run I decided to compromise and do two miles again but reversing yesterday's course. I ran around 10pm under a full (almost) moon and that, combined with all the snow we have, made it seem like I was running in the middle of the afternoon. Pretty cool that I was able to see my shadow for most of the run.

Not surprisingly, it hurt as much as it did yesterday BUT my time was over a minute faster than yesterday. I'd attribute that to the improved temperatures (42 vs. 18 degrees) as well as my being more mentally prepared for this run.

Another thing that I've noticed is that my form just crazy right now - it feels like I'm all elbows and knees and nothing is in sync. Fortunately, that awkwardness should fade with time.

Last thing - for the entirety of the run I was in my own little corner of hell, because this kept running through my head - I have no idea why. Thankfully all of my runs are short these days. This happens to me way too often. I should probably just start wearing earphones...

Today it's supposed to be over 50 degrees here, so maybe I'll get an afternoon run in.

What's The Old Cliche?

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step...

While I hope my journey is much longer than a thousand miles I did, indeed, I did get my first run in last night. It wasn't anything too special - just a couple of miles around my neighborhood. I few observations:

The Positive

1. That I ran at all.
2. I'm worried about the recurrence three specific injuries right now: my left hamstring, my right hip and plantar faciitis in both feet. Thankfully, none of those were present last night.

The Negative

1. My tights fit kinda funny right now...
2. I am in much worse shape than I thought (read: I'm pretty sore today). I may need to scale back my training at first.
3. While I am generally a cold weather runner, I have certainly lost my resilience to the elements at this point - I was absolutely freezing last night.
4. At my current weight, my knees and ankles are going to be giving me some problems.

Speaking of my weight - the highest that I've been recently was 202 pounds. Last night I was at 196. A small improvement, but at least I'm moving in the right direction.

I'm not sure what I'm going to run today. I was planning on doing 3-3.5 miles when I planned out my schedule, but I may end up around 1.5 miles instead.

A Question

Does anyone know of a good, running-specific strength training program? I've looked all over the internet and can't seem to find anything. I have several good generic programs, but I was hoping to tailor my plan a bit. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

My Tragic Tale, Or What Have I Been Up To Lately?

This is a bit like reliving a nightmare. I really haven't wanted to talk about any of this for several months, but I can't push it off any longer, so here we go...

Where does the time go? I was reading through the old posts here and I didn’t see anything that explained my running situation – even last year, so I’ll start from the beginning.

I hurt my hip in September of 2007 by falling off of a stepladder. It wasn’t a terribly long fall; only a few feet. The problem was that I landed directly on top of the ladder and severely bruised my right hip (at least that’s what I think I did). I should have gone to the doctor, but I didn’t. I should have taken some time off from running to recuperate, but I didn’t do that either. Instead, I tried to jump right back into training. The problem was that I had zero power in my right hip as well as a compromised range of motion for several months thereafter. Even so, I continued to run. The lack of strength in my right hip led to some over-compensation with respect my left leg and I eventually strained my left hamstring – right up at the very top of the hamstring. Those, I’m told, take a long time to heal. Unfortunately for me, I’m not very patient.

I decided to run the Philadelphia marathon, but instead of racing it, I paced a couple of friends. No problem, I’m being good by not pushing it, right? Well, I built up the mileage to about 200 miles per month in January and February ’08 – that when I started this blog – to keep track of my running. Well, my hamstring continued to act up and I kept injuring it – over and over and over. So, if you’ve read this blog at all, you’ll know that I was planning to run both the New Bedford Half-Marathon as well as Boston last year – neither of those happened as I was nursing my hamstring injury. I was able, however, to obtain a medical deferral for Boston ’08.

It was in early March that my training started to go to hell. I couldn’t get in the miles due to the injury and soon thereafter my motivation started to wane as well. It remained this way for much of the summer – I’d run a bit and then re-injure the hamstring (you’d think that I’d try to strengthen it by now, wouldn’t you?). At this point I decided that I was in pretty pathetic shape and that I needed to rebuild my base, so I began a low heart rate training regiment. This actually worked pretty well, but it was extremely aggravating. I started off with a pace that was just under 10 minutes per mile, but soon dropped to the low nines, then the high eights. As fall rolled around, I could occasionally run a mile in under eight minutes while maintaining my target heart rate.

By October, I managed to build up my monthly mileage to just under 200 per month again and decided that it’d be ok to run the Baystate Marathon in Lowell, Massachusetts. I had done no speed work and no real long runs worth mentioning, so I can’t explain why I thought that this was a good idea. The race started off well. I wanted to treat it as an exceptionally long training run and was cruising through 20 miles at about a 3:35 pace. That’s when disaster struck. Just past the 20 mile marker, I felt a shooting pain going through my left knee. I stopped momentarily to see how serious the injury was. After a minute or two I ultimately concluded that my knee was nothing to worry about, but it was a cold day and my muscles quickly stiffened up. The bottom line was that I could not get my body back in motion after stopping except for a painfully slow trot over the last .2 miles. My 3:35 turned into a 4:48 with the last 6 miles all walked. It also turned out that I had injured myself, yet again - the hamstring as well as a nice case of plantar fasciitis. I had to shut my running down entirely – this time until I was completely healed. That took almost two months. Unfortunately for my training apathy, frustration and a touch of laziness had set in and I failed to run for all of December and most of January as well.

If you look back, you’ll see that my weight as of 1/1/08 was 184.5. That was 20 pounds heavier than I was earlier in the year. Well, this year I topped out at 202. So, I have a long way to go to reclaim my old running form. Needless to say, I’m not going to be able to run Boston ’09 either. That’s ok with me though, I’d rather re-qualify than run it in my current condition.

So, what am I up to now? Well, I’m going to run for the first time is a long time tonight. I’m hoping to be able to get through 2-3 miles without dying. I’ll probably continue with my low heart rate training for now and see how quickly I can get back into shape. I’m also going to try to get back down to that elusive 150 pound mark that I mentioned last year through a combination of running, strength training and diet. I’ve also signed up for another marathon – the Lake Placid Marathon - it’s going to be run on June 14th and my goal there will simply be to finish. Then, hopefully, I’ll be able to take another shot at a Boston Qualifier in November at the Outer Banks Marathon.

Whew! That’s a lot for one post. Anyway, at least now his blog will have a theme to it – triumph over adversity. Hopefully I’ve got it in me. Only time will tell.

The Workout That Kicked My Butt

Oy. Work, life, etc. have gotten in the way of my posting recently, but I’m back. Fortunately, I’ve been able to keep up with my running, although much of it has been on the treadmill.

So, yesterday’s workout was the following:

2 mile warm-up, 4 x 6 minutes at tempo pace (60 seconds easy running between sets), one hour of easy running, 20 minutes at tempo pace, 2 mile cool-down.

The last 20 at tempo was the most miserable that I’ve felt during a workout (well, in recent memory). I should go back to my running log and see how I did this workout in early ’07 because I don’t remember doing it. I’m thinking that I may have broken it up or skipped it altogether. Anyway, I’m feeling much better today, but I was feeling the effects of that run for most of the day yesterday.

What else is new?

- I’m likely going to skip the New Bedford Half in mid-March. This means that I’ll have no true assessment of my fitness prior to Boston. That’s a little scary to me right now.

- I recently joined the local YMCA. This means that I now have access to a pool. I’m going to try and fit some swimming into my schedule. However, I have no idea what I should be doing, so any suggestions are welcome.

- I’m probably NOT going to do a fall marathon. After Boston I’d like to focus on some shorter events as I’ve been ignoring them entirely since my return to running three years ago. If this means that I don’t get to run Boston ’09, that’s OK with me. My body could probably use the break from marathon training as well. Of course the thought of running a 5k all-out has me gagging right now…

More later.

I’m Way Behind

Ok, I haven’t been able to post for a few days. I’m back to explain my PRs.

5k – I think this may be my finest running hour. I ran this time at a cross country invitational during my senior year on a day when our top two runners were out with injuries and our coach was looking for someone to step up. My previous PR was around 16:20 so I was a little worried when the opening split was a 5:05. I had never been that close to the front of the pack in a race before and it was more than a little uncomfortable. I persevered, however, and stuck with the leaders for much of the race. Upon entering the final stretch I was gassed. At this point 2-3 other runners passed me, but I managed to hold off several others and ended up with a 10th place finish. 10th place with a 15:50? You have to understand that, at the time I was in high school, central New York was absolutely loaded with DI running talent. My 15:50 was about a minutes behind the winner and a sub-15 was usually required to win an invitational. I managed an honorable mention all-league that year, but I was a very average runner in high school.

Five miles – This was a really fast training run in January 2006. The mileage was measured with my Garmin, so I don’t count this as a legitimate record. I’ve never raced a five miler otherwise.

10k – I’ve only run two 10k races ever – both in the late 80s. I have no recollection of my times, but they were much faster than what I have designated as my current PR. This time comes from a 10k split (that I believe to be short) from a half marathon that I ran in June 2006. I was running a great race that morning until I tweaked my hamstring in the 9th mile of that race. I ended up limping in to the finish, although that time was then a modest PR. A very disappointing race.

15k – This time came from a race that I ran in November 2006. My mileage leading up to this race was mediocre and I did zero speedwork. I had no expectations for this race, so the PR was a little surprising. My previous PR at this distance came from my high school years when I was in great shape but had no idea how to tackle this distance from a strategic standpoint.

10 miles – Another split from a half-marathon. This time, it’s from my half PR effort in April 2007. I’ve never raced a true 10 miler.

20k – Another training run. I’m relying on my Garmin again for the mileage, so this is another PR that I don’t put too much stock in.

Half-Marathon – From the Skunk Cabbage Classic in Ithaca, New York. I ran this race on April 1, 2007 as a tune-up for the New Jersey Marathon later that month. It was a cold (38 degrees), rainy, blustery day with occasional gusts of wind of up to 40 mph. I thought that I might PR, but I wasn’t expecting the weather. Apparently the weather wasn’t an issue because I got stronger as the race progressed. My last mile was run at a 6:20 pace and I felt like I had at least a little something left in the tank at the end of the race.

Marathon – The New Jersey Marathon on April 29, 2007. I’ve run three marathons, but this one, my second, was my only true effort at the distance. I was woefully unprepared for my first marathon but somehow managed to hold onto a BQ pace for 24 miles. From there I blew up in spectacular fashion in a 3:22:xx effort. I trained with a purpose for my second marathon. I did all of the long runs and all of the speed work prescribed by Jack Daniels. During the race, I ran with the 3:10 pace group and stayed with them for the first 22 miles of the race. At that point a started to slow down some, but managed to hold on to my Boston Qualifying time. It was frustrating to watch the pace group slip away ever so slowly. I was worried for the entire second half of the race that I might blow up again like during my first effort so the BQ was not a certainty until I actually crossed the finish line. I should have been happy, but my oxygen-starved brain didn’t realize that I had qualified at first because I somehow forgot during the race that my qualifying time was a 3:15:59 and not a 3:10:59. So, for the first few minutes after crossing the finish line I was under the impression that I had missed the cut-off by exactly one minute. You can imagine my delight when I realized my error.

Running: lots of easy miles. I have some intervals on the schedule tomorrow. I’ll let you know how they go.

My Personal Records

I've just added them over to the right. I think that, when I have some more time tonight, I'll come back to provide some background because they're all over the place. Some are recent, some are from my high school days and some are from training runs. That should be interesting, shouldn't it?

Morning Running Is Teh Suck

Well, I finally got a morning run in. It was every bit as tortuous as I remembered. In retrospect, it was only the first few miles that were terrible and then I seemed to get into a little groove. Hopefully, the more I do it, the easier it'll get. I also think running outside once the weather improves will also make it more palatable. Several easy miles today.


Has anyone seen McMillan's Performance Page in the latest issue of Running Times? In it, he introduces a different (to me) training pace - the sub-maximal effort. In brief, it's not quite as fast as lactate threshold pace, but also not as slow as marathon pace - it's somewhere in-between. The length of the run starts at 3-4 miles/20 minutes and increases over the course of a training plan to 9-10 mile/60 minutes. I'd be interested in hearing the pros and cons of this type of training from those who have tried it. Actually, all opinions and observations would be appreciated.

January 24th - Nothing All That Interesting

Six miles easy. My legs feel great. I don't have much to say today. I have, however, been checking out several other running blogs that are a LOT better than this one. I'll be linking to them soon - keep checking the list to the right.

ETA: I've added a few - more to come.

January 23rd - Feeling Stronger And Getting Lighter

Today's workout was a set of intervals - 6 x 1 mile @ 6:30/mile with one minute of easy running between reps. Two miles as a warm-up and 2+ miles as a cool-down. Total mileage - 10.5 miles.

Overall, I felt stronger throughout than in past interval sessions. Ok, to be honest, by the fifth rep nothing felt great but nothing felt that terrible either so I just kept on going.

The scale is now at 169.5. I'm nearing my pre-holiday weight so now the hard work really begins.

I should also start thinking about whether I want to run the New Bedford Half in mid-March.

January 22nd - More Easy Running

Another six and a half easy miles today. Instead of running through downtown Hartford, I ran toward West Hartford with a couple of guys I know from my gym. Some points of interest:



Elizabeth Park, Hartford - home to one of the oldest, largest rose gardens in the country.



University of Connecticut School of Law, Hartford.

One of the guys that I was running with always gives me a hard time about the number of miles that I run. He tells me that I'm putting in elite-level miles, but not getting elite-level results. His claim is that one should be able to BQ on 25-30 miles per week (he has run 1:20/3:08 on that mileage) and that running 60-80 miles per week should produce world-class results. If not, I'm obviously doing something wrong. I just smile and nod.

January 21st Run Report

Eight easy miles today.

The official weigh-in for the week has me at 171 pounds so I didn't lose any weight over the second half of the week last week. Oh well, two pounds for the week isn't too bad.

One thing that I find a little frustrating is the extra recovery time that I find that I need after longer runs (usually 14+ miles). In January 2005 I underwent a triple hernia repair. I had a laparoscopic procedure in which I had squares of plastic mesh inserted into each of those hernias to "keep everything inside" so to speak. Now, every time I run hard or run long I need at least an extra day or so to recover. My legs will feel fine, but my groin continues to feel sore for up to three days thereafter. It's merely a discomfort, but a frustrating one. It could always be much, much worse. At least I can continue to run.

Tomorrow is another easy run and I have more intervals on the schedule Wednesday. This week I'll also, once again, attempt to move to morning runs.

Housekeeping

In an effort to make the place a little more user friendly for my visitors I have sorted through the blogs on the right and categorized them according to my perceived level of their running content. The first category - Running and Life - contains blogs that are, for the most part, centered around running. The second category - Life and Running - contains blogs that contain roughly equal parts of running and non-running material. The last category - Non-Running Blogs - is self explanatory.

If you are the creator of one of these blogs and have an issue with where I've placed you, please let me know. I'm not above changing any of them around.

I Am The Lizard King. I Can Do Anything.

First, my apologies to Jim Morrison.

Ok, the weekend’s over and I’m back. Normally, I’d be posting on the weekends too, but my brother-in-law and his family visited us this weekend so I had absolutely no computer time at all. One interesting thing that we did was to bring the girls to a presentation on lizards at the local library. It was a hands-on experience so, in addition to learning about the various lizards, they were able to pet each of them as well. The biggest one we saw was this guy – a monitor lizard. That was pretty cool.



Ok, back to the running. With our visitors, I had to cram it in the best I could. Saturday was a spur of the moment eleven easy miles done right after hauling away all of the branches that had fallen on our property during last week’s ice storm. As you can imagine, I was a little tired at the outset. I was surprised, however, at how easy this run ended up being. About a mile or two into the run my legs really loosened up and I cruised the rest of the way.

Sunday was my long run - eighteen miles. Like Saturday’s run, it was done on the treadmill and, also like Saturday’s run, it was really quite easy if not a little boring. The one saving grace is that I was able to watch three complete episodes of Lost (and part of a fourth). So, yes, watching John Locke blow up the Flame station as well as a submarine, kill a one-eyed Russian and discover his father bound and gagged in a closet at the Others’ camp helped to pass the time. Thank you John Locke.

I'm Really Trying

to find a way to make six miles on the treadmill seem interesting, but I'm afraid that's impossible. It was a beautiful day in central Connecticut - 46 degrees and as sunny as can be - but I missed it. Work duties kept me chained to my desk all day.

One thing that I noticed during this run. It was probably the first run in months where I wasn't feeling the effects of an injury, my excess weight or my relatively poor conditioning of the past six months. To put it another way, I'm feeling almost back to my old self. I'm now keeping my fingers crossed as I still have 13+ weeks to go until Boston.

Until tomorrow...

He'll Be Hard To Beat In Beijing

Haile Gebrselassie runs a 2:04:53 in Dubai - the second fastest marathon performance ever.

Either You Get It Or You Don't

I actually like the newer Pearl Izumi ads more, but this one is pretty good too.

Jack's (Intervals Are) Back

Yes, today was a set of intervals. Although I referred to them yesterday as "cruise intervals," Greg McMillan actually refers to them as "tempo intervals" due to their length. Here's how McMillan defines the two:

Tempo Intervals

Tempo Intervals are like fast tempo runs broken into two to four repeats with relatively short recovery jogs. The appropriate race paces for tempo intervals are 10K to 15K race pace and they should last between eight and fifteen minutes. Unlike the previous workouts, Tempo Intervals are the first workouts to allow for a recovery jog between hard efforts. In this case, you jog two to five minutes between each repeat then start the next one.

Cruise Intervals

The Cruise Interval workout was popularized by running coach, Jack Daniels. They, like the other Stamina workouts, are meant to increase your lactate threshold pace. Cruise Intervals are like shorter and slightly more intense tempo intervals. They last three to eight minutes and the pace is between 8K and 12K. Like tempo intervals, they are followed by short recovery jogs (30 seconds to 2 minutes). You'll probably find that it's easy to run too fast on these. The tendency is to treat them like regular long intervals. However, keep it under control and work on a smooth, fast rhythm. Control in training is key to improvement.

Whatever you'd like to call them, my workout went as follows: a one mile warm-up followed by two 12-minute sets of running at my tempo pace (6:30/mile), with two minutes of running at my easy pace in-between, followed by a little over an hour of easy running. Total distance: thirteen miles.

Overall the workout felt pretty good. I could tell that I was working a little harder during the second interval. I assume that this was primarily because this was my first attempt at the twelve minute length at tempo pace (I have run probably two workouts in the last few weeks with six minutes at tempo pace prior to today). My legs were also a little wobbly for the first few minutes of my 60 minute recovery run, but that feeling disappeared rather quickly.

One final note - the scale said 171 pounds this afternoon.