I moved my 20 miler this week up a day. Not to get the mileage in 2010, like an anxious parent scheduling a c-section to get the tax break, but because it fit my schedule better.
The CA Cruiser's typical long run day is Saturday. Saturday is New Years Day. New Years Day means the Rose Parade. Although there are very few good reasons for me to miss a run, there's nothing that will keep me from watching the Rose Parade. I Love the Rose Parade. Yes, it is on all day here in southern California; repeated at least half a dozen times for all those hung over folks; but I'm a bit of a purist. I've got to watch it the first time it's on, live, without commercial interruption. I'd almost prefer to watch it live in the grand stands in Pasadena, but the recliner in my warm house is just fine, thank you.
So anyway, a long explanation as to why I ran today. The Cruisers were planning a 10 mile run. I texted Margaret and gave her a head's up on my plans and she decided to join me.
A strange and infrequent cold front has settled upon us, so it was 34 degrees at 6:30 this morning. We'd already decided to delay our run until 8:00. On my way to Huntington Beach I got a call from Margaret telling me it was cold there - too funny.
We started our run in 38 degree weather under clear sunny skies. The sun sure felt good. So did the long sleeve shirt and 99 cent gloves from Walgreens. The run itself was pretty uneventful. It was a simple out and back on the bike path in Huntington all the way into Sunset Beach. About 12 miles into the run we ran into a coworker of mine. He ran with us for a couple of miles and then took off at his own, much faster, pace.
We finished the run in 3:29 for a 10:27 pace. Again much slower than the prescribed pace of 9:35-9:54. As much as it would be easy to blame the pace on Margaret, truth be told I just can't seem to get going much faster either. I do fall into her pace at the beginning, but 3/4 of the way into the run I just run out of steam. It is a bit frustrating and worrisome.
I've been hitting the paces on both my speed and tempo workouts midweek but have no endurance when it comes to the long runs. Its been going like this for 6 weeks. It makes we really question how I'm going to run 9:09 pace in a marathon (that's what a need to get my 4:00 marathon back). Seven weeks till race day, so I'm going to stick with the plan and we'll see how things work out in Austin.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Basic Tempo
Sunny, 55 degrees and windy!
5 mile Tempo Run.
41:28 (8:17 pace)
Forgot my watch, but thankfully the new ipod I got for Christmas has a stopwatch feature.
Only tomorrow's 20 miler stands between me and the year end statistics.
5 mile Tempo Run.
41:28 (8:17 pace)
Forgot my watch, but thankfully the new ipod I got for Christmas has a stopwatch feature.
Only tomorrow's 20 miler stands between me and the year end statistics.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
One 1200 Too Much
It rained, A-G-A-I-N, today in SoCal. That's all I'm going to say about that. I was thankful today was a rest/cross training day.
Yesterday was beautiful and sunny (the Southern California we all love and expect), the perfect day for some speedwork. I'm on vacation for the week so I headed over the the San Gabriel River Trail at my leisure, which meant around 11:00 in the morning. The temperature was in the low 60 but with the sun on my skin I was plenty warm and salty by the time the days repeats were done.
Things started as usual for these days - park the vehicle in the lot and then head north on the trail from the 35.25 mile marker for a 2 mile warm up. I've gotten really good at finishing up these 2 miles in just less than 10:00. The intervals today were 3 x (2 x 1200) with 2 minute rest between the intervals and 4 minutes rest between the sets.
My goal time for the 1200's was 5:26 to 5:49. The first set of 2 were easy enough at 5:36 and 5:25; both heading south on the trail. For the first one of the second set I headed back north for a 5:49 and then headed back south again for 5:33. I could definitely feel the effect of the slight "up" in the north direction. After the required (and gratefully accepted) 4 minute walk/jog to the next 1/4 marker I got the 5th 1200 done in 5:35 heading south. For the last one I turned back north and retraced my steps. By now my legs were feeling the effects. I even took a couple of short walk breaks ending the 6th and final 1200 in 6:11. Ouch, that hurts! I blame my poor diet, i.e. (way) too many holiday treats on the sluggish legs. Rather than one 1200 too much, it is really more like one (or more) pieces of fudge too much!
This left me one mile north of the car for the perfect cool down mile which I did barefoot again. The river trail was newly asphalted last fall so is in perfect condition for the barefoot running. Unlike on Christmas Day where I actually kept my socks on this time I went for the entire barefoot experience this time. I was surprised to pull this one off in 10:22, significantly faster than just a couple of days before. The only ill effects were the loss of a bit of skin off the pads of two middle toes on my right foot (and maybe some odd looks from the other folks I encountered along the trail).
I'm not sure any of this is really helping my heel pain but at least it keeps things interesting.
Yesterday was beautiful and sunny (the Southern California we all love and expect), the perfect day for some speedwork. I'm on vacation for the week so I headed over the the San Gabriel River Trail at my leisure, which meant around 11:00 in the morning. The temperature was in the low 60 but with the sun on my skin I was plenty warm and salty by the time the days repeats were done.
Things started as usual for these days - park the vehicle in the lot and then head north on the trail from the 35.25 mile marker for a 2 mile warm up. I've gotten really good at finishing up these 2 miles in just less than 10:00. The intervals today were 3 x (2 x 1200) with 2 minute rest between the intervals and 4 minutes rest between the sets.
My goal time for the 1200's was 5:26 to 5:49. The first set of 2 were easy enough at 5:36 and 5:25; both heading south on the trail. For the first one of the second set I headed back north for a 5:49 and then headed back south again for 5:33. I could definitely feel the effect of the slight "up" in the north direction. After the required (and gratefully accepted) 4 minute walk/jog to the next 1/4 marker I got the 5th 1200 done in 5:35 heading south. For the last one I turned back north and retraced my steps. By now my legs were feeling the effects. I even took a couple of short walk breaks ending the 6th and final 1200 in 6:11. Ouch, that hurts! I blame my poor diet, i.e. (way) too many holiday treats on the sluggish legs. Rather than one 1200 too much, it is really more like one (or more) pieces of fudge too much!
This left me one mile north of the car for the perfect cool down mile which I did barefoot again. The river trail was newly asphalted last fall so is in perfect condition for the barefoot running. Unlike on Christmas Day where I actually kept my socks on this time I went for the entire barefoot experience this time. I was surprised to pull this one off in 10:22, significantly faster than just a couple of days before. The only ill effects were the loss of a bit of skin off the pads of two middle toes on my right foot (and maybe some odd looks from the other folks I encountered along the trail).
I'm not sure any of this is really helping my heel pain but at least it keeps things interesting.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Rain and Rumble
I've mentioned previously that this training program takes a bit of mental fortitude. The last couple of weeks I've taken advantage of daylight and run my speed and tempo workouts during the day and things have gone quite well. This past week the forcast called for rain, rain and more rain. After my last long run in the rain, I'd already decided that I would do the speed sessions on the treadmill at the new gym.
The new gym isn't nearly as crowded as the old gym and so far hasn't instituted a 20 minute rule. I don't usually like using the treadmill but I thought it would be a fun challenge and alternative way to do the repeats called for on Tuesday. And then the rumbling began.
Sunday afternoon I ended up with either a touch of the stomach flu or some whopper of food poisoning. I'm the only one in my house that got hit but I got hit good. I rarely get sick, especially with this sort of thing; I've got a pretty iron gut. I was sapped on Monday and stayed home, laid in the recliner and watched endless hours of HGTV. Tuesday I went back to work, but my stomach still wasn't quite right. I could keep food down but my stomach intestines were sure rumbling and working overtime.
True to the forecast it was still pouring rain that afternoon and with the illness I was in no shape to complete mile and 800 repeats. One thing this program makes clear is not to try to make up any missed workouts, so I had no choice but to just let it go.
By Thursday I finally felt 85-90% again, but I had lots of last minute stuff to do and although I might have had time to get in my 10 mile tempo run, I lacked the mental fortitude to go get it done.
Finally on Friday, Christmas Eve morning, the rain had stopped and I met up with a bunch of CA Cruisers for an 5 mile jaunt through a hilly little route through Yorba Linda. I ran with Jay and John. My gut was a bit tentative about the movement, but luckily everything held together.
On Christmas Day, I took advantage of the beautiful dry day and some free time between morning present opening and breakfast and the larger meal later on in the afternoon and put in a nice 12 mile run. The schedule called for 15, but time didn't permit the extra 30 minutes it would have taken. The first 7 miles were run at 9:12 pace or so and then without any real warning things slowed down to 10:00 pace. I decided to try something fun and ran the last mile and a quarter barefoot. My pace for that last mile was as expected considerably slower at 12:33.
I've been having heel pain for some time now so I wanted to give the barefooting a try. My heels enjoyed having the pressure off them for sure. Running barefoot didn't seem that odd, really. One thing I didn't expect was an pain that happened only on my right foot. The three middle toes on that foot felt like they were on fire. That pain continued on for nearly the entire mile and even after I'd finished running. Now two days later, they still feel a little weird. Something else to keep an eye on.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and extend my best wishes for an awesome 2011.
The new gym isn't nearly as crowded as the old gym and so far hasn't instituted a 20 minute rule. I don't usually like using the treadmill but I thought it would be a fun challenge and alternative way to do the repeats called for on Tuesday. And then the rumbling began.
Sunday afternoon I ended up with either a touch of the stomach flu or some whopper of food poisoning. I'm the only one in my house that got hit but I got hit good. I rarely get sick, especially with this sort of thing; I've got a pretty iron gut. I was sapped on Monday and stayed home, laid in the recliner and watched endless hours of HGTV. Tuesday I went back to work, but my stomach still wasn't quite right. I could keep food down but my stomach intestines were sure rumbling and working overtime.
True to the forecast it was still pouring rain that afternoon and with the illness I was in no shape to complete mile and 800 repeats. One thing this program makes clear is not to try to make up any missed workouts, so I had no choice but to just let it go.
By Thursday I finally felt 85-90% again, but I had lots of last minute stuff to do and although I might have had time to get in my 10 mile tempo run, I lacked the mental fortitude to go get it done.
Finally on Friday, Christmas Eve morning, the rain had stopped and I met up with a bunch of CA Cruisers for an 5 mile jaunt through a hilly little route through Yorba Linda. I ran with Jay and John. My gut was a bit tentative about the movement, but luckily everything held together.
On Christmas Day, I took advantage of the beautiful dry day and some free time between morning present opening and breakfast and the larger meal later on in the afternoon and put in a nice 12 mile run. The schedule called for 15, but time didn't permit the extra 30 minutes it would have taken. The first 7 miles were run at 9:12 pace or so and then without any real warning things slowed down to 10:00 pace. I decided to try something fun and ran the last mile and a quarter barefoot. My pace for that last mile was as expected considerably slower at 12:33.
I've been having heel pain for some time now so I wanted to give the barefooting a try. My heels enjoyed having the pressure off them for sure. Running barefoot didn't seem that odd, really. One thing I didn't expect was an pain that happened only on my right foot. The three middle toes on that foot felt like they were on fire. That pain continued on for nearly the entire mile and even after I'd finished running. Now two days later, they still feel a little weird. Something else to keep an eye on.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and extend my best wishes for an awesome 2011.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
A Long Wet One
It doesn't rain often here in Southern California, but it does rain. We're no Pacific Northwest to be sure but we have our rainy season. Right now we are in the middle of a forecasted 4 to 5 days of continuous rain.
My plan called for 18 miles on Saturday morning. The rain had already begun on Friday. All day long I fretted over the possibility of having to run that many miles all wet and chilly. I really wasn't looking forward to it. I don't mind running a few miles in the run but 3 hours out there was just messing with my head. But the CA Cruisers are just like the US Postal Service, we run rain or shine.
When I left home Saturday morning at 6:00 there was a light drizzle. By the time I met up with over a dozen intrepid souls the drizzle had become more of a heavy mist. Actually not so bad for running. Getting started in that was much easier than having to get started in full on rain.
A very funny thing happened about 2 miles into the run. Here we are, a bunch of middle- to late-aged folks out for our long run. We'd all dressed for the weather with long sleeve tech shirts, hats, assorted rain gear (jackets, ponchos, trash bags) and our fair share of extra percentage points of body fat. The mist had subsided so most of the rain gear was now tied around our waists. As we ran down Fairmont Blvd in Yorba Linda we were over taken by a trio of college guys. They must have been team mates. They could have been triplets or clones. Each one was dressed in black shorts and running shoes and nothing else and none of the three had more than 0.5% body fat. It was quite the contrast to our little band of runners. It was no time before they were well off in the distance never to be seen again.
I ran with Margaret again. She had 16 on her schedule so we decided to share much of the run together. Most of the runners ran a shorter 6 mile loop. When we hit the river trail we left the group and did an out an back on the trail. About 8 miles into the run the rain started up again and continued for the duration of the 18 miles. Luckily the temperature was in the mid 50's and there was only a light breeze, so I never got too cold.
It is nice to run with a partner on these long runs, but Margaret usually runs at a slower pace than me, so once again I didn't meet my long run pace goal. This weeks goal was 9:39. We were doing just less than 10 minute miles for quite a while. 15 miles into the run we had a cumulative pace of 10:12. The miles began piling on and the fatigue piled on too resulting in a final pace of 10:33 for the entire 18 mile distance. I ran the last mile and a half alone but was unable to pick up the pace as much as I would have liked to.
I've been good at hitting the paces mid week, now I've got to start concentrating on hitting the paces on the long runs as well. I might try running on my own to be able to get closer to the planned pace and forgo the camaraderie of the Cruisers for a couple of these long runs.
My plan called for 18 miles on Saturday morning. The rain had already begun on Friday. All day long I fretted over the possibility of having to run that many miles all wet and chilly. I really wasn't looking forward to it. I don't mind running a few miles in the run but 3 hours out there was just messing with my head. But the CA Cruisers are just like the US Postal Service, we run rain or shine.
When I left home Saturday morning at 6:00 there was a light drizzle. By the time I met up with over a dozen intrepid souls the drizzle had become more of a heavy mist. Actually not so bad for running. Getting started in that was much easier than having to get started in full on rain.
A very funny thing happened about 2 miles into the run. Here we are, a bunch of middle- to late-aged folks out for our long run. We'd all dressed for the weather with long sleeve tech shirts, hats, assorted rain gear (jackets, ponchos, trash bags) and our fair share of extra percentage points of body fat. The mist had subsided so most of the rain gear was now tied around our waists. As we ran down Fairmont Blvd in Yorba Linda we were over taken by a trio of college guys. They must have been team mates. They could have been triplets or clones. Each one was dressed in black shorts and running shoes and nothing else and none of the three had more than 0.5% body fat. It was quite the contrast to our little band of runners. It was no time before they were well off in the distance never to be seen again.
I ran with Margaret again. She had 16 on her schedule so we decided to share much of the run together. Most of the runners ran a shorter 6 mile loop. When we hit the river trail we left the group and did an out an back on the trail. About 8 miles into the run the rain started up again and continued for the duration of the 18 miles. Luckily the temperature was in the mid 50's and there was only a light breeze, so I never got too cold.
It is nice to run with a partner on these long runs, but Margaret usually runs at a slower pace than me, so once again I didn't meet my long run pace goal. This weeks goal was 9:39. We were doing just less than 10 minute miles for quite a while. 15 miles into the run we had a cumulative pace of 10:12. The miles began piling on and the fatigue piled on too resulting in a final pace of 10:33 for the entire 18 mile distance. I ran the last mile and a half alone but was unable to pick up the pace as much as I would have liked to.
I've been good at hitting the paces mid week, now I've got to start concentrating on hitting the paces on the long runs as well. I might try running on my own to be able to get closer to the planned pace and forgo the camaraderie of the Cruisers for a couple of these long runs.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Nailed
I took advantage of my excess vacation and took a half day off to get my speed session in on the San Gabriel River Bikeway taking full advantage of the quarter mile markings and the daylight. The plan called for 2 x (6 x 400) with 1:30 Rest between the 400's and 2:30 rest between the two sets of 6.
My goal times for the for the 400's was 1:45 to 1:53. By running this workouts on a trail marked in quarter miles I'm really running 440 yards so I'm probably running these a bit faster than I need to, but all that extra math just isn't worth the effort.
My first quarter after the warm up was a bit slow at 1:58 but then I got then under control. The first 6 x 400 went like this:
1:58, 1:48, 1:42, 1:45, 1:37, 1:44
I took a 1:30 walk break after each quarter with a 2:30 walk break after the last one before starting round 2.
1:42, 1:42, 1:42, 1:45, 1:42, 1:42
How sweet is that? I followed that with a nice 9:18 mile cool down and left the trail tired and happy.
I'm looking forward to Thursday's tempo run.
My goal times for the for the 400's was 1:45 to 1:53. By running this workouts on a trail marked in quarter miles I'm really running 440 yards so I'm probably running these a bit faster than I need to, but all that extra math just isn't worth the effort.
My first quarter after the warm up was a bit slow at 1:58 but then I got then under control. The first 6 x 400 went like this:
1:58, 1:48, 1:42, 1:45, 1:37, 1:44
I took a 1:30 walk break after each quarter with a 2:30 walk break after the last one before starting round 2.
1:42, 1:42, 1:42, 1:45, 1:42, 1:42
How sweet is that? I followed that with a nice 9:18 mile cool down and left the trail tired and happy.
I'm looking forward to Thursday's tempo run.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
LA County Holiday Half Marathon
This race is run mostly in my favorite little running route - Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park. This is the second running. I can't remember why I didn't end up running last year, but this year I decided to join in the fun. My new planned called for a 13 mile run this weekend, so the timing was perfect. None of the CA Cruisers were joining me, so it would be a solo effort.
The race started on the grounds of the LA County Fairgrounds. As a training run my prescribed pace was PMP (planned marathon pace) + 15 sec. That would put me at 9:24 which seemed reasonably doable. I really wanted to try to get the thing done in 2 hours or less which is really my PMP. I figured since all more other long runs on this plan had been run significantly slower than planned it wouldn't hurt to throw a little bit of speed at this effort.
At the start I ended up running into fellow Cruiser that I didn't know was going to be there. He is much faster than me at the short distances. At the sound of the air horn, we took off and I let him go right away. When we hit the 1 Mile mark I was surprised to see him only about 20 feet in front of me. My watch read 8:22, over 30 seconds per mile faster than I really wanted to go. At this point we were had left the fairgrounds and were traveling across the parking lots.
The second half of Mile 2 was run on the Pomona Raceway dragstrip. At the 2 Mile mark John was still less than 30 feet in front of me. I clocked that mile in 7:47. Way too fast. I worried that that one was going to come back and bite me in the arse for sure. I stopped at the next water stop and made a conscious effort to slow the pace. The race was being used by Students Run LA as a training effort for the LA Marathon. Running along all those young folks I think got the race of to a pace faster than I could hold on to.
Mile 3 took us along Puddingstone Drive and even with my best efforts to slow down I still clocked an 8:09 mile. Soon after that we entered the north side of Bonelli and ran west through the parking area. Mile 4 came in at 8:28. I feared that the correction had begun from my careless Mile 2.
Mile 4 took us across the dam. We had a great view of downtown Los Angeles over 30 miles away. The weather was perfect southern California "winter." The temperature at the start was 56 degrees and was probably warmed up to the 70's by the end. Mile 5 came in at 8:38. Slowing down some but still going better than the sub-2:00 plan.
After the dam we headed south on Raging Waters Drive and then east into the park on a nice little downhill. At Mile 6 I ran into John unexpectedly. He, like me, had gone out too fast and had run out of steam. I was getting tired I told John I was going to hang on as long as possible. I passed him by and didn't see him again until the finish line. Further slowing on the gently rolling course, Mile 6 was 8:43.
At the far east of the park we doubled back and round what I call the picnic loop route. I missed the marker at Mile 7. Mile 8 read 17:33 (roughly 8:45 pace). I was definitely running out of steam as well, but I'd been with a couple of the same folks since Mile 3 and we were all in the same boat, no one taking off and no one being left behind.
Mile 9 included a nice little incline that took us out of the park and into the adjacent Eastlake RV park. Along this section we had a great view of the entire Puddingtone Lake over our left shoulders and an amazing view of the San Gabriel Mountains just ahead. The uphill was followed by a nice little down hill into the RV park but it didn't help much. Mile 9 was 9:06, almost exactly on the pace I should have probably been on all along.
Mile 10 took us through and then out the other side of the RV park. The poor folks in the RV park probably wondered what all these crazy folks were doing. Still at 9:10 pace for Mile 10.
The next mile included a long slow grind up a little bump in the road passed Brackett Field a small airstip in LaVerne. We'd gone passed the other side of it on Puddingstone Drive back on Mile 3. I trudged up the bump, noticeably slowing but trying my best not to break stride. I was rewarded with a 9:20 Mile 11.
I thought that this would be the end of the rolling course but the way up McKinley Avenue towards Fairplex Drive was a long slow slog ever so slightly up as well. I don't mind a rolling course but it was definitely getting the better of me by this point. Mile 12 found us with a nice reprieve on Fairplex coming in at 10:02. I chuckled. The correction that I'd feared at Mile 2 had certainly come back to haunt me now.
We wound our way back through the fairground parking lots, onto the fairgrounds proper right back to where we started with 10.11 for the last 1.1 miles.
My final time was 1:55 and change. I'm super happy with that. It wasn't a PR but I wasn't aiming for one, but it is well under my secret hope for a sub 2:00. I waited around at the finish line for John. He came through right around the 2:00 mark. It was a decent showing on an absolutely beautiful Winter day.
This run came on the heels of my tempo run on Thursday. I was supposed to do an 8 mile run with 6 at Long Tempo Pace, 8:30-9:00. My first two were 8:22 and 8:33, then I ramped up to 8:06 without trying to. I took walk breaks each of the next 3 miles to try to keep the pace in check and still clocked 8:15, 8:14 and finally 8:43 which included a the one and only real hill on the trail (twice since it was an out and back mile).
This new approach to training is working out so far. Ten weeks until Austin.
The race started on the grounds of the LA County Fairgrounds. As a training run my prescribed pace was PMP (planned marathon pace) + 15 sec. That would put me at 9:24 which seemed reasonably doable. I really wanted to try to get the thing done in 2 hours or less which is really my PMP. I figured since all more other long runs on this plan had been run significantly slower than planned it wouldn't hurt to throw a little bit of speed at this effort.
At the start I ended up running into fellow Cruiser that I didn't know was going to be there. He is much faster than me at the short distances. At the sound of the air horn, we took off and I let him go right away. When we hit the 1 Mile mark I was surprised to see him only about 20 feet in front of me. My watch read 8:22, over 30 seconds per mile faster than I really wanted to go. At this point we were had left the fairgrounds and were traveling across the parking lots.
The second half of Mile 2 was run on the Pomona Raceway dragstrip. At the 2 Mile mark John was still less than 30 feet in front of me. I clocked that mile in 7:47. Way too fast. I worried that that one was going to come back and bite me in the arse for sure. I stopped at the next water stop and made a conscious effort to slow the pace. The race was being used by Students Run LA as a training effort for the LA Marathon. Running along all those young folks I think got the race of to a pace faster than I could hold on to.
Mile 3 took us along Puddingstone Drive and even with my best efforts to slow down I still clocked an 8:09 mile. Soon after that we entered the north side of Bonelli and ran west through the parking area. Mile 4 came in at 8:28. I feared that the correction had begun from my careless Mile 2.
Mile 4 took us across the dam. We had a great view of downtown Los Angeles over 30 miles away. The weather was perfect southern California "winter." The temperature at the start was 56 degrees and was probably warmed up to the 70's by the end. Mile 5 came in at 8:38. Slowing down some but still going better than the sub-2:00 plan.
After the dam we headed south on Raging Waters Drive and then east into the park on a nice little downhill. At Mile 6 I ran into John unexpectedly. He, like me, had gone out too fast and had run out of steam. I was getting tired I told John I was going to hang on as long as possible. I passed him by and didn't see him again until the finish line. Further slowing on the gently rolling course, Mile 6 was 8:43.
At the far east of the park we doubled back and round what I call the picnic loop route. I missed the marker at Mile 7. Mile 8 read 17:33 (roughly 8:45 pace). I was definitely running out of steam as well, but I'd been with a couple of the same folks since Mile 3 and we were all in the same boat, no one taking off and no one being left behind.
Mile 9 included a nice little incline that took us out of the park and into the adjacent Eastlake RV park. Along this section we had a great view of the entire Puddingtone Lake over our left shoulders and an amazing view of the San Gabriel Mountains just ahead. The uphill was followed by a nice little down hill into the RV park but it didn't help much. Mile 9 was 9:06, almost exactly on the pace I should have probably been on all along.
Mile 10 took us through and then out the other side of the RV park. The poor folks in the RV park probably wondered what all these crazy folks were doing. Still at 9:10 pace for Mile 10.
The next mile included a long slow grind up a little bump in the road passed Brackett Field a small airstip in LaVerne. We'd gone passed the other side of it on Puddingstone Drive back on Mile 3. I trudged up the bump, noticeably slowing but trying my best not to break stride. I was rewarded with a 9:20 Mile 11.
I thought that this would be the end of the rolling course but the way up McKinley Avenue towards Fairplex Drive was a long slow slog ever so slightly up as well. I don't mind a rolling course but it was definitely getting the better of me by this point. Mile 12 found us with a nice reprieve on Fairplex coming in at 10:02. I chuckled. The correction that I'd feared at Mile 2 had certainly come back to haunt me now.
We wound our way back through the fairground parking lots, onto the fairgrounds proper right back to where we started with 10.11 for the last 1.1 miles.
My final time was 1:55 and change. I'm super happy with that. It wasn't a PR but I wasn't aiming for one, but it is well under my secret hope for a sub 2:00. I waited around at the finish line for John. He came through right around the 2:00 mark. It was a decent showing on an absolutely beautiful Winter day.
This run came on the heels of my tempo run on Thursday. I was supposed to do an 8 mile run with 6 at Long Tempo Pace, 8:30-9:00. My first two were 8:22 and 8:33, then I ramped up to 8:06 without trying to. I took walk breaks each of the next 3 miles to try to keep the pace in check and still clocked 8:15, 8:14 and finally 8:43 which included a the one and only real hill on the trail (twice since it was an out and back mile).
This new approach to training is working out so far. Ten weeks until Austin.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Mental
The heels still hurt, but seem to be holding up well without the orthotics. I did my the 20 miler on last Saturday and my speed session today without them. My heels weren't exactly pain free at the end of the 20 but they we much better than the week before with the orthotics. I will continue to monitor them. I ran 6 miles today at lunch and am no sitting here at home hours later with my feet on an icepack.
Now to the title of the post - Mental. As if running 20 miles isn't enough of a definition. The mental I'm referring too is mental focus. This program takes a good portion of that. I may be only running three days a week but each of those runs has a very specific sequence and pace associated with it. Just figuring out all the paces and then remembering them is a chore. Thank goodness for good notes.
Last week the night before I did my Tuesday speed work I had a dream that I got over to the river trail and then realized I had no idea what the workout was supposed to be. I was panicked. When I got up in the morning I wrote down all the specific and the paces and stuck it in my pocket. I reviewed it several times that morning to be sure I wouldn't forget. I even carried the note in my pocket while I ran an referred to it a couple of times to be sure I was hitting the paces.
The work out was 20 minute warm up, 2 x 1200 (2:00 RI), 4 x 800 (2:00 RI), and 10 minute cool down. I'd done the math to determine how time for each distance based on the per mile pace, because we all know I don't calculate well on the run.
Thursday run was a simple 5 miler at mid-temp pace which for me is 8:16-8:34. For me doing these runs requires a measured trail so I can keep track of my pace. I don't have a garmin so I really on the markings on the trail. Relying on these marks also limits my runs to at least waning daylight. This is why I've done a few of my speed runs during lunch. Thursday since the distance was less complicated I'd planned to leave work a little early to take advantage of the last few minutes of daylight. As often happens, things at work did not cooperate. This puts me in "bad place" and although a run would have cleared my head I knew I couldn't use the marked trail in the dark to meet my goals so I gave up the run. Major lack of mental focus.
I packed my stuff to give it another try on Friday afternoon and then opted out for fear of jeopardizing the 20 miler. Super duper lack of metal focus.
But today my calendar was clear and I got back out there at lunch for a similar speed session as the week before but this time with 6 x 800 (goal time 3:40). It was a beautifully warm (70 degree) and sunny day with very few folks on the trail. I was a happy camper. My paces on the intervals were 4:02 (I started off slow because I tend to start of too fast), 3:41, 3:36, 3:33, 3:36 and 3:45. Score a major victory for mental focus.
Hitting the mid week runs will be easier for the next three weeks since I have excess vacation to burn before year end so I'm taking half days on Tuesdays and Thursdays to get the job done. We'll see how focused I can be in 2011.
How much longer before the sun sets sometime around 6:00 pm?
Now to the title of the post - Mental. As if running 20 miles isn't enough of a definition. The mental I'm referring too is mental focus. This program takes a good portion of that. I may be only running three days a week but each of those runs has a very specific sequence and pace associated with it. Just figuring out all the paces and then remembering them is a chore. Thank goodness for good notes.
Last week the night before I did my Tuesday speed work I had a dream that I got over to the river trail and then realized I had no idea what the workout was supposed to be. I was panicked. When I got up in the morning I wrote down all the specific and the paces and stuck it in my pocket. I reviewed it several times that morning to be sure I wouldn't forget. I even carried the note in my pocket while I ran an referred to it a couple of times to be sure I was hitting the paces.
The work out was 20 minute warm up, 2 x 1200 (2:00 RI), 4 x 800 (2:00 RI), and 10 minute cool down. I'd done the math to determine how time for each distance based on the per mile pace, because we all know I don't calculate well on the run.
Thursday run was a simple 5 miler at mid-temp pace which for me is 8:16-8:34. For me doing these runs requires a measured trail so I can keep track of my pace. I don't have a garmin so I really on the markings on the trail. Relying on these marks also limits my runs to at least waning daylight. This is why I've done a few of my speed runs during lunch. Thursday since the distance was less complicated I'd planned to leave work a little early to take advantage of the last few minutes of daylight. As often happens, things at work did not cooperate. This puts me in "bad place" and although a run would have cleared my head I knew I couldn't use the marked trail in the dark to meet my goals so I gave up the run. Major lack of mental focus.
I packed my stuff to give it another try on Friday afternoon and then opted out for fear of jeopardizing the 20 miler. Super duper lack of metal focus.
But today my calendar was clear and I got back out there at lunch for a similar speed session as the week before but this time with 6 x 800 (goal time 3:40). It was a beautifully warm (70 degree) and sunny day with very few folks on the trail. I was a happy camper. My paces on the intervals were 4:02 (I started off slow because I tend to start of too fast), 3:41, 3:36, 3:33, 3:36 and 3:45. Score a major victory for mental focus.
Hitting the mid week runs will be easier for the next three weeks since I have excess vacation to burn before year end so I'm taking half days on Tuesdays and Thursdays to get the job done. We'll see how focused I can be in 2011.
How much longer before the sun sets sometime around 6:00 pm?
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Heel Thyself
I started using doctor prescribed orthotics in my shoes back in 2008 when I suffered the stress fracture in my right shin. I have no idea how long orthotics are supposed to last but I'd put about 3000 miles on these (I only wear them in my running shoes). I took them in to the physical therapist and they refurbished them.
I've been having heel pain for at least the last year. They don't hurt while I run but afterward walking could be painful. The first few steps after getting up from a chair I walked like an old man. While the orthotics were out being refurbished I ran a few runs without them. It seemed that my heels didn't hurt nearly as much. Although I got the orthotics back from the PT I continued to run at least some of my runs without them to see if I could tell a difference. I ran 14.5 miles the weekend before last and felt pretty good.
This week I ran both my midweek runs without them. The long run this week was penciled in as an 18 miler. I was afraid to try that distance without the orthotics. By the time I'd run only about 5 miles I realized that I'd made an error. My heels were beginning to hurt while running. By the time I was finished they hurt worse than they'd ever hurt. I was definitely hobbling around like an older, much older, version of myself.
I was able to get a foot massage on Saturday afternoon from a reflexology and therapeutic massage therapist. My heels felt much better afterward. I didn't run Sunday or Monday and by this morning they were feeling pretty good.
I went out at lunch today and did my speed workout of the week. I didn't use the orthotics. My feet felt fine during the workout and afterward were sore but not as debilitating as on Saturday. I'm going to continue this experiment without the orthotics to see how my heels hold up. With 20 miles on tap this weekend the heels are bound to hurt, no matter what.
I've been having heel pain for at least the last year. They don't hurt while I run but afterward walking could be painful. The first few steps after getting up from a chair I walked like an old man. While the orthotics were out being refurbished I ran a few runs without them. It seemed that my heels didn't hurt nearly as much. Although I got the orthotics back from the PT I continued to run at least some of my runs without them to see if I could tell a difference. I ran 14.5 miles the weekend before last and felt pretty good.
This week I ran both my midweek runs without them. The long run this week was penciled in as an 18 miler. I was afraid to try that distance without the orthotics. By the time I'd run only about 5 miles I realized that I'd made an error. My heels were beginning to hurt while running. By the time I was finished they hurt worse than they'd ever hurt. I was definitely hobbling around like an older, much older, version of myself.
I was able to get a foot massage on Saturday afternoon from a reflexology and therapeutic massage therapist. My heels felt much better afterward. I didn't run Sunday or Monday and by this morning they were feeling pretty good.
I went out at lunch today and did my speed workout of the week. I didn't use the orthotics. My feet felt fine during the workout and afterward were sore but not as debilitating as on Saturday. I'm going to continue this experiment without the orthotics to see how my heels hold up. With 20 miles on tap this weekend the heels are bound to hurt, no matter what.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
And Now for Something Completely Different
well, sort of....
I've been frustrated with my marathon times for quite awhile now. I haven't made any improvement on my PR in over 4 years. I've not been able to even get below that nice round number of 4:00 except for once, in Des Moines under ideal temperature conditions. At the risk of sounding whiny, many of my long runs have been sub par if not outright disastrous. Granted I spent part of 2007 and 2008 on the disabled roster. I'm not getting any younger (but am far from old!). I've continued to run 5 days a week for most of the time and have added 3 to 4 gyms sessions to the equation as well for the last couple of years. So much of run I read in the running literature would suggest that possibly I'm over training; not giving my body the time it needs to repair and rebuild. I'm too stubborn to believe this line of reasoning, but I've recently begun to come to grips with it.
At the end of 2009 I ran a 10K personal best of 49:52 which would predict the ability to run a marathon in under 4 hours (3:54). At the beginning of this year I pulled off a surprising half marathon personal best of 1:45:11. This would predict a marathon time of 3:41. My PR at the marathon is 3:40:52 set way back in 2006. I haven't come anywhere close to that this year, in fact in Albuquerque I added a full 60 minutes to that time. Frustrating to say the least.
That old adage that goes - if you always do what you've always done, you are going to get what you've always gotten - comes to mind. Ever since I've began running I used the same basic approach - 5 days a week with little variety in pacing, very little speed work, etc, etc. So for my next marathon I've decided to take a different approach. I'm trying the FIRST program.
There are two key runs during the week that are run with some significant speed and one long run on the weekend. There seem to be more "long" miles than I normally use in a marathon buildup but they are mostly run at a slower pace. The plan also calls for cross training hard on 2 other days.
Setting the paces has been somewhat of an problem for me. Many of the pace suggestions are based on the 10K pace less some time. I'm not used to running that fast mid-week (or ever, really) but it definitely keeps things interesting.
Yesterday's workout called for 2 mile warm up, 3 x 1 mile, and 1 mile cool down. The pace for the mile repeats was 10K - 35 to 40 seconds, so somewhere between 7:20 to 7:40. I took the warm up easy at 10:00 pace. My first mile seemed interminably long. I snuck a peak at each quarter mile marker, but my math skills while moving aren't the sharpest. I smacked out that first mile in 7:16 - too fast. The plan called for only 1 minute rest between repeats. At the end of the minute my heart rate was still elevated but I took off non the less, returning the way I'd just come.
This repeat was very slightly uphill (yes, that means the first was slightly downhill). I had to take a couple of short walk breaks along the way and barely managed an 8:09 mile. Not good. After this one I gave myself longer to get the heart rate back down a bit before heading back again.
The third repeat was again aided by the slight downhill which gave me a 7:32, beautifully paced mile. The cool down felt good, for sure.
Just over 12 weeks to Austin with lots more speed and variety to go. Let's see how it all works out. I'm happy to be at least trying something different.
I've been frustrated with my marathon times for quite awhile now. I haven't made any improvement on my PR in over 4 years. I've not been able to even get below that nice round number of 4:00 except for once, in Des Moines under ideal temperature conditions. At the risk of sounding whiny, many of my long runs have been sub par if not outright disastrous. Granted I spent part of 2007 and 2008 on the disabled roster. I'm not getting any younger (but am far from old!). I've continued to run 5 days a week for most of the time and have added 3 to 4 gyms sessions to the equation as well for the last couple of years. So much of run I read in the running literature would suggest that possibly I'm over training; not giving my body the time it needs to repair and rebuild. I'm too stubborn to believe this line of reasoning, but I've recently begun to come to grips with it.
At the end of 2009 I ran a 10K personal best of 49:52 which would predict the ability to run a marathon in under 4 hours (3:54). At the beginning of this year I pulled off a surprising half marathon personal best of 1:45:11. This would predict a marathon time of 3:41. My PR at the marathon is 3:40:52 set way back in 2006. I haven't come anywhere close to that this year, in fact in Albuquerque I added a full 60 minutes to that time. Frustrating to say the least.
That old adage that goes - if you always do what you've always done, you are going to get what you've always gotten - comes to mind. Ever since I've began running I used the same basic approach - 5 days a week with little variety in pacing, very little speed work, etc, etc. So for my next marathon I've decided to take a different approach. I'm trying the FIRST program.
There are two key runs during the week that are run with some significant speed and one long run on the weekend. There seem to be more "long" miles than I normally use in a marathon buildup but they are mostly run at a slower pace. The plan also calls for cross training hard on 2 other days.
Setting the paces has been somewhat of an problem for me. Many of the pace suggestions are based on the 10K pace less some time. I'm not used to running that fast mid-week (or ever, really) but it definitely keeps things interesting.
Yesterday's workout called for 2 mile warm up, 3 x 1 mile, and 1 mile cool down. The pace for the mile repeats was 10K - 35 to 40 seconds, so somewhere between 7:20 to 7:40. I took the warm up easy at 10:00 pace. My first mile seemed interminably long. I snuck a peak at each quarter mile marker, but my math skills while moving aren't the sharpest. I smacked out that first mile in 7:16 - too fast. The plan called for only 1 minute rest between repeats. At the end of the minute my heart rate was still elevated but I took off non the less, returning the way I'd just come.
This repeat was very slightly uphill (yes, that means the first was slightly downhill). I had to take a couple of short walk breaks along the way and barely managed an 8:09 mile. Not good. After this one I gave myself longer to get the heart rate back down a bit before heading back again.
The third repeat was again aided by the slight downhill which gave me a 7:32, beautifully paced mile. The cool down felt good, for sure.
Just over 12 weeks to Austin with lots more speed and variety to go. Let's see how it all works out. I'm happy to be at least trying something different.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Missed A Step
Remember back in grade school when you had those compound math problems, usually they were the word problems, and you just couldn't get the right answer. Usually it was because you missed a step. Well tonight I missed a step.
My plan called for running 5 x 1K repeats at 10K pace +42 to 47 secs. So I figured out my pace to be 8:45 or so. I don't usually run 1K repeats but I'd mapped out a stretch of Raging Waters Drive in Bonelli with some easily recognizable landmarks. After work at this time of the year that road is very sparsely traveled so i figured it would be a great place for the repeats.
I started off with a 20 minute warm up run and then hit my first land mark and started off on my first 1K repeat. I settled into a comfortably fast pace. When I got to the next land mark I hit the clock. The clock said 5:06. When I looked down I realized that I'd "missed a step." I had no idea what my 1K pace really was. I'd done the math to figure out my 1 mile pace but "missed the step" of converting that to a 1K pace.
I'm not much for calculating math on the fly but I quickly did 5:00 x 5K = 25:00. 25:00 divided by 3 miles = 8:20 or so per mile (if I'd done the math right in my head). This was faster than planned but since I hadn't done it right in the first place I went with it.
My 5 repeats came in at 5:06, 4:39, 4:52, 4:48, and 5:03. Once I got home I figured out my "per mile" pace to be: 8:12, 7:29, 7:50, 7:43, and 8:07 - quite a bit faster than the proposed 8:45. Next time I'm calculating my pace I'll be sure not to miss the step of converting to kilometers if necessary. In the end I'm pretty happy with my effort with this workout.
I feel the slug melting away already.
My plan called for running 5 x 1K repeats at 10K pace +42 to 47 secs. So I figured out my pace to be 8:45 or so. I don't usually run 1K repeats but I'd mapped out a stretch of Raging Waters Drive in Bonelli with some easily recognizable landmarks. After work at this time of the year that road is very sparsely traveled so i figured it would be a great place for the repeats.
I started off with a 20 minute warm up run and then hit my first land mark and started off on my first 1K repeat. I settled into a comfortably fast pace. When I got to the next land mark I hit the clock. The clock said 5:06. When I looked down I realized that I'd "missed a step." I had no idea what my 1K pace really was. I'd done the math to figure out my 1 mile pace but "missed the step" of converting that to a 1K pace.
I'm not much for calculating math on the fly but I quickly did 5:00 x 5K = 25:00. 25:00 divided by 3 miles = 8:20 or so per mile (if I'd done the math right in my head). This was faster than planned but since I hadn't done it right in the first place I went with it.
My 5 repeats came in at 5:06, 4:39, 4:52, 4:48, and 5:03. Once I got home I figured out my "per mile" pace to be: 8:12, 7:29, 7:50, 7:43, and 8:07 - quite a bit faster than the proposed 8:45. Next time I'm calculating my pace I'll be sure not to miss the step of converting to kilometers if necessary. In the end I'm pretty happy with my effort with this workout.
I feel the slug melting away already.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Nearing Slugness
I said I was going to take some time to rest up after my less than stellar performance at Duke City and I guess I took myself seriously. The day after the marathon I found myself in Kansas City, Kansas for three days. I took the time to rest even though I normally would have taken advantage of the opportunity to run in a new unknown locale. I was home for one day, Thursday, of that week and then I was off to Las Vegas for a couple of days; again for work.
I was home the entire next week but had much to do at work to prepare for another trip to Europe (I know poor me - having to go to Germany and Paris for the second time in less than a year). By the time I left work each day that week I was exhausted and overwhelmed and although going for a run would have probably been good for me I collapsed instead at the end of each day. I managed only one run of 5 miles on the San Gabriel River Trail at a pretty decent clip of 8:20 pace.
On Friday of that week (10/30) I was off to Germany, then Switzerland and finally France before returning to the good old USA on Monday, November 8th. Our schedule was pretty jammed packed on this trip. I realistically had time to run in Germany but jet lag hit me hard so I just could not get up the energy to run in the mornings. I did manage a meager 2.5 miles in Interlaken, Switzerland one morning. One interesting note of that run was seeing cows grazing in the central park of the city. Switzerland was beautiful and I would love to return to get a chance to see more.
This past week back home I was exhausted yet again from jet lag. Couple that with my general hesitancy to get out in the dark when the temperature dips below 60. Ideal conditions really, except for the darkness, but I wimped out none the less. Finally on Friday I had an opportunity to run in the afternoon while the sun was still up and the temps were in the 70's. It was only 4 miles but being in Bonelli reminded me why I loved running in the first place.
So until this morning, nearly 4 weeks since the Duke City Marathon, I'd run a whopping 11.5 miles. This is about as "slug-like" as I've been since I began running without a really good reason, i.e. injury. I've booked my plans to run the Austin Marathon in February and took a look at my schedule and realized that I was already behind the plan.
My CA Cruisers were planning on running 10 miles this morning and my friend Terry was planning on running up to 12. I was afraid that going for 10 after only running that much in the last month might not be the smartest idea.
Because today was my wife's birthday I took the opportunity to skip both the Cruisers and Terry and stay home in the morning to make breakfast for Lisa. Before I was a runner, breakfast on the weekend was a ritual at our house. Living with Runner Darrell, breakfast on the weekend has gone by the wayside.
I finally opted on running at the San Gabriel River Trail after breakfast. I decided to just go until I was pooped and I made it 8 miles before I realized that I was nearing the end of my energy stores. I was 2 miles from the car at that point so I finished the last 2 miles and got in 10 miles in 1:43. I had purposely kept the pace nice and easy. Those last two miles today felt like mile 25 and 26 of a marathon. Boy have I got some work to do. Now, 8 hours later, my legs are telling me that I definitely went farther today than they are used to.
I need to keep this momentum going next week. Austin is only 3 months away and I've got those 20 milers looming out there in the future. Slugness be damned!
I was home the entire next week but had much to do at work to prepare for another trip to Europe (I know poor me - having to go to Germany and Paris for the second time in less than a year). By the time I left work each day that week I was exhausted and overwhelmed and although going for a run would have probably been good for me I collapsed instead at the end of each day. I managed only one run of 5 miles on the San Gabriel River Trail at a pretty decent clip of 8:20 pace.
On Friday of that week (10/30) I was off to Germany, then Switzerland and finally France before returning to the good old USA on Monday, November 8th. Our schedule was pretty jammed packed on this trip. I realistically had time to run in Germany but jet lag hit me hard so I just could not get up the energy to run in the mornings. I did manage a meager 2.5 miles in Interlaken, Switzerland one morning. One interesting note of that run was seeing cows grazing in the central park of the city. Switzerland was beautiful and I would love to return to get a chance to see more.
This past week back home I was exhausted yet again from jet lag. Couple that with my general hesitancy to get out in the dark when the temperature dips below 60. Ideal conditions really, except for the darkness, but I wimped out none the less. Finally on Friday I had an opportunity to run in the afternoon while the sun was still up and the temps were in the 70's. It was only 4 miles but being in Bonelli reminded me why I loved running in the first place.
So until this morning, nearly 4 weeks since the Duke City Marathon, I'd run a whopping 11.5 miles. This is about as "slug-like" as I've been since I began running without a really good reason, i.e. injury. I've booked my plans to run the Austin Marathon in February and took a look at my schedule and realized that I was already behind the plan.
My CA Cruisers were planning on running 10 miles this morning and my friend Terry was planning on running up to 12. I was afraid that going for 10 after only running that much in the last month might not be the smartest idea.
Because today was my wife's birthday I took the opportunity to skip both the Cruisers and Terry and stay home in the morning to make breakfast for Lisa. Before I was a runner, breakfast on the weekend was a ritual at our house. Living with Runner Darrell, breakfast on the weekend has gone by the wayside.
I finally opted on running at the San Gabriel River Trail after breakfast. I decided to just go until I was pooped and I made it 8 miles before I realized that I was nearing the end of my energy stores. I was 2 miles from the car at that point so I finished the last 2 miles and got in 10 miles in 1:43. I had purposely kept the pace nice and easy. Those last two miles today felt like mile 25 and 26 of a marathon. Boy have I got some work to do. Now, 8 hours later, my legs are telling me that I definitely went farther today than they are used to.
I need to keep this momentum going next week. Austin is only 3 months away and I've got those 20 milers looming out there in the future. Slugness be damned!
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Duke City Marathon
The Duke City Marathon is held in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I signed up for this race when I was looking for someplace I could use my unused ticket from Missoula. That ticket was on Alaska and oddly enough Alaska Airlines doesn’t fly to ABQ. A couple of my CA Cruiser pals were running Duke City, so I decided to go ahead and by a ticket on Southwest and join the party. Since ABQ is a short flight from LAX I was able to save a Friday night hotel stay by leaving LAX at 8:30 a.m. and getting to ABQ before lunch. It turns out one of my friends was on the same flight. We had both scored A group boarding passes for the flight and hoped to sit together. We were chatting in the waiting area and didn’t realize they were boarding. We looked up just in time and ended up being the last two people on the plane. Needless to say we ended up with center seats, boo.
We got to ABQ and were able to check in early at the host hotel, the Doubletree. We immediately went next door to the convention center to pick up our bib, D-tag and t-shirt. Somehow, my friend’s registration hadn’t gone through. She didn’t show up in their records. Thankfully she had brought along a copy of her registration and a copy of the cancelled check. Calamity aborted.
Four of us had dinner at an Italian place, Villa de Capo’s. It was a decent meal, just average Italian food, nothing special.
The starting line was on 3rd Street just across from the Convention Center. We were able to stay in the hotel lobby until just a few minutes before the race started. The temperature was a reasonable 48 degrees. I had only packed my Marathon Maniac singlet, so I purchased a previous years long sleeve tech shirt at the expo the day before for $5. I figured I would never wear a shirt from a race I hadn’t run and I could toss the shirt when it warmed up without too much of a guilty conscience.
The starting line area only took up a very small section of the city block. Reports on the web indicated that this years race was the largest ever. Last year there were approximately 500 finishers. Add the relay teams to it and there was mayber 700 folks in the starting corral. There was never any jockeying for position in this race. We were off and running by 7:01. It took about 20 seconds to cross the starting line.
Much of this race is run on the bike path next to the Rio Grande River. The first and last three miles are run on the streets of ABQ. This is a very good thing, because most of the folks in ABQ seemed to be quite oblivious that there was a marathon going on. This was the 27th event so I would think that they would get used to having about 3 miles of city streets closed down the 2nd weekend of October, but apparently not. There were quite a few folks upset about the street closures.
Apparently the bikers are not happy about the marathon either since they seemed to be less than thrilled to be sharing their bike trail with 700 or so runners.
I was bopping along quite nicely for quite awhile. My miles spits for the first 13 miles were:
9:20, 9:22, 9:42, 9:21, 9:11, --, 20:07 (included a bathroom stop),9:06, 9:18, 9:50, 9:01, --, 17:32. Doing quite nicely so far. The course was a simple out and back, reminiscent of my training runs along the bike paths I run regularly in SoCal. On the way back things continued to buzz along ok for a few more miles. By now the long sleeve had been removed long ago, at mile 6 or so and the sun was shining brightly. The bike trail offered little protection from the sun. The next few miles ticked off like this: 8:05 (had to have been mismarked), 15:06 (see), 9:56, 9:33. This was mile 17 and then things took a turn for the worse. I began to see more people walking than I’ve ever seen at this point in a race. Mile 18 and beyond went like this: 10:47, 10:04, 11:01, 11:16, 11:57, 12:42, 13:58, 15:45, 19.51 and then thankfully it was over. I walked much of mile 24 and 25. My friend Margaret caught up to me around mile 25 and walked with me a bit. I decided we should start running again but I just couldn’t keep up with her so I let her go and started walking again. By now the temps were in the mid 70’s, not quite ideal marathon conditions but not the worst either. My final time was a not quite expected 4:42 (unofficially).
I’m not completely sure what happened, but I can’t remember a race where the wheels fell off so completely and so quickly. It could have been that I ran two marathons only two weeks apart, but I’ve done back to back weekends in the past with much better results. I could have been the elevation. ABQ is actually higher, on the books, than Denver. Could have been the arid climate leading to dehydration, but I felt like I did a decent job of drinking water at most stops and Gatorade at the rest. I only took two gels and a couple of blocks but that is about normal for me. Who knows for sure. All my long runs in 2010 have been sub-par if not disastrous. I wonder if there are long term negative effects from running the LA Marathon in March with bronchitis. Who knows?
Overall I enjoyed the race, because I really don’t mind the out and back format. Since the crowd spread out fairly quickly it was sort of like running a glorified training run at home, except with water stops and a medal at the end. The race was pretty much devoid of spectators unless you count the unhappy drivers and cyclists. ABQ is a funky little city. Our route took us down the main drag, Central Ave and then down Laguna a residential area with some pretty nice upper middle class homes and then onto the bike path which was pretty much deserted except for the ROTC kids that manned the aid stations every mile. One highlight of the race is that we got to see about a dozen hot air balloons take off in front of us around mile 7 or so. All in all, it was a nice way to get New Mexico added to the 50 states list. After the race, we went over to Old Town ABQ and had a great Tex-Mex meal at the Hacienda Restaurant.
I am currently sitting in the airport, less than 7 hours after finishing trying to catch a flight to Kansas City. Sadly it has been delayed so I won’t get there until nearly midnight. I have to be on the ground running, as the saying goes, at 8:00 for customer visits over the next couple of days. I follow that up with at trip to Las Vegas for work next weekend and then another trip to Europe the first two weeks of November. I think I will take the travel schedule as a much needed break from running and the get started at the end of November to ramp up for training for the Austin Marathon in February.
I since landed in KC and posting this before hitting the hay.
We got to ABQ and were able to check in early at the host hotel, the Doubletree. We immediately went next door to the convention center to pick up our bib, D-tag and t-shirt. Somehow, my friend’s registration hadn’t gone through. She didn’t show up in their records. Thankfully she had brought along a copy of her registration and a copy of the cancelled check. Calamity aborted.
Four of us had dinner at an Italian place, Villa de Capo’s. It was a decent meal, just average Italian food, nothing special.
The starting line was on 3rd Street just across from the Convention Center. We were able to stay in the hotel lobby until just a few minutes before the race started. The temperature was a reasonable 48 degrees. I had only packed my Marathon Maniac singlet, so I purchased a previous years long sleeve tech shirt at the expo the day before for $5. I figured I would never wear a shirt from a race I hadn’t run and I could toss the shirt when it warmed up without too much of a guilty conscience.
The starting line area only took up a very small section of the city block. Reports on the web indicated that this years race was the largest ever. Last year there were approximately 500 finishers. Add the relay teams to it and there was mayber 700 folks in the starting corral. There was never any jockeying for position in this race. We were off and running by 7:01. It took about 20 seconds to cross the starting line.
Much of this race is run on the bike path next to the Rio Grande River. The first and last three miles are run on the streets of ABQ. This is a very good thing, because most of the folks in ABQ seemed to be quite oblivious that there was a marathon going on. This was the 27th event so I would think that they would get used to having about 3 miles of city streets closed down the 2nd weekend of October, but apparently not. There were quite a few folks upset about the street closures.
Apparently the bikers are not happy about the marathon either since they seemed to be less than thrilled to be sharing their bike trail with 700 or so runners.
I was bopping along quite nicely for quite awhile. My miles spits for the first 13 miles were:
9:20, 9:22, 9:42, 9:21, 9:11, --, 20:07 (included a bathroom stop),9:06, 9:18, 9:50, 9:01, --, 17:32. Doing quite nicely so far. The course was a simple out and back, reminiscent of my training runs along the bike paths I run regularly in SoCal. On the way back things continued to buzz along ok for a few more miles. By now the long sleeve had been removed long ago, at mile 6 or so and the sun was shining brightly. The bike trail offered little protection from the sun. The next few miles ticked off like this: 8:05 (had to have been mismarked), 15:06 (see), 9:56, 9:33. This was mile 17 and then things took a turn for the worse. I began to see more people walking than I’ve ever seen at this point in a race. Mile 18 and beyond went like this: 10:47, 10:04, 11:01, 11:16, 11:57, 12:42, 13:58, 15:45, 19.51 and then thankfully it was over. I walked much of mile 24 and 25. My friend Margaret caught up to me around mile 25 and walked with me a bit. I decided we should start running again but I just couldn’t keep up with her so I let her go and started walking again. By now the temps were in the mid 70’s, not quite ideal marathon conditions but not the worst either. My final time was a not quite expected 4:42 (unofficially).
I’m not completely sure what happened, but I can’t remember a race where the wheels fell off so completely and so quickly. It could have been that I ran two marathons only two weeks apart, but I’ve done back to back weekends in the past with much better results. I could have been the elevation. ABQ is actually higher, on the books, than Denver. Could have been the arid climate leading to dehydration, but I felt like I did a decent job of drinking water at most stops and Gatorade at the rest. I only took two gels and a couple of blocks but that is about normal for me. Who knows for sure. All my long runs in 2010 have been sub-par if not disastrous. I wonder if there are long term negative effects from running the LA Marathon in March with bronchitis. Who knows?
Overall I enjoyed the race, because I really don’t mind the out and back format. Since the crowd spread out fairly quickly it was sort of like running a glorified training run at home, except with water stops and a medal at the end. The race was pretty much devoid of spectators unless you count the unhappy drivers and cyclists. ABQ is a funky little city. Our route took us down the main drag, Central Ave and then down Laguna a residential area with some pretty nice upper middle class homes and then onto the bike path which was pretty much deserted except for the ROTC kids that manned the aid stations every mile. One highlight of the race is that we got to see about a dozen hot air balloons take off in front of us around mile 7 or so. All in all, it was a nice way to get New Mexico added to the 50 states list. After the race, we went over to Old Town ABQ and had a great Tex-Mex meal at the Hacienda Restaurant.
I am currently sitting in the airport, less than 7 hours after finishing trying to catch a flight to Kansas City. Sadly it has been delayed so I won’t get there until nearly midnight. I have to be on the ground running, as the saying goes, at 8:00 for customer visits over the next couple of days. I follow that up with at trip to Las Vegas for work next weekend and then another trip to Europe the first two weeks of November. I think I will take the travel schedule as a much needed break from running and the get started at the end of November to ramp up for training for the Austin Marathon in February.
I since landed in KC and posting this before hitting the hay.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Twin Cities Marathon
State #17 has been a long time coming but now it is finally in the books. Just as this blog has fallen into disrepair it seemed my training was pretty hit and miss this year as well. My work and personal travel schedule has wreaked havoc on my training, but none the less last Sunday morning I lined up outside the Hubert H Humphrey Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis to run the Twin Cities Marathon. Twin Cities is a point-to-point course ending at the steps of the state capitol in neighboring St. Paul. Twin Cities is billed as "The Most Beautiful Urban Marathon in America" and it certainly lives up to its reputation. The marathon was helped immensely by nearly perfect running conditions - 40 degrees at the start, mid 50's by noon, a sunny day with a very light breeze. We couldn't have asked for more.
I flew into town on Friday evening and stayed downtown within walking distance of the start. After having done a few of these I think it is the only way to go. It is so nice to just walk a to the start and not have to hassle with parking and traffic. Twin Cities had a very efficient bus service to get us back from the capital finish line to the start.
The expo was in St. Paul, not too far from the finish, so having transportation was helpful. I'd rented a car. The expo was well stocked with vendors. At the expo we got a pair of Fitsoks with the marathon logo. Shirts come later. I had lunch with some friends that used to work in SoCal but have since transferred back to the mother ship in St. Paul. Then dinner was with a friend from St. Paul that had worked for our division but now works in the corporate labs. I'd talked him into coming out of retirement to run Twin Cities together. My haphazard training and his youth (he's got a 15 year advantage on me) led to us running our own races so dinner was the only time we got to spend together. It was a fun evening with he, his wife and their two year old son. Baby #2 is on the way soon, so the poor guy won't have much time in the future to train properly so this may have been his last hurrah for a while.
Twin Cities has a pretty robust Corporate Challenge going with over 35 teams competing. I signed up for our corporate team and even bought the jersey to run in. The team jersey was a racing singlet. I was a bit concerned about being too cool in sub-40 temps so I'd bought a pair of Moeben sleeves to help keep warm. I was perfectly comfortable the entire day with the sleeveless singlet and the Moeben sleeves. My friend was trying to break 3:40. I set my own goal at a more conservative 4:15. My half marathon PR back in February would have predicted a 3:42 marathon, but nothing in my training pointed to that possibility. The real plan was to run comfortably and hopefully pain free.
I started off the race pretty far back in the pack in Corral #2, well behind the 5:30 pace group. The corral was pretty crowded and I couldn't work my way further up. Once the race got under way I passed the 5:30 and 5:00 pace groups with a couple of miles. By mile 4 or so I caught the 4:30 pace group and by mile 6 I'd caught and passed the 4:15 pace group. At the 5K mark my pace was 9:20, at 10K I'd fallen off to 9:38 but at the half I'd picked it back up to 9:27 pace overall.
Somewhere around mile 14 I had to take a bathroom break and lost my lead on the 4:15 pace group. I'd regained it by mile 16 and steadily built on that lead until Mile 20. My pace at the 30K was 9:30 and at Mile 20 was still right on 9:30 overall. Things take a change for the worse in Twin Cities at Mile 20. Up to that point the course is gently rolling up and down. Mile 20 marks the lowest point in the race and begins a steady climb over the next 3.5 miles. This is probably the worst point in any race for this to happen. To help ease the pain the view along Summit Avenue is spectacular with old homes and great crowd support. My mile splits took a dive at this point into the 10:00's and then into the 11:00 at Mile 25 and 26. The last half mile is a beautiful down hill finish but the previous 25.7 miles had just sapped any kind of umpff that was needed to bring it home. There was just no way to make up that extra 66 seconds over 4:15. Pretty darn close to my estimate and all the bettter with no major injury other than normal 26.2 stiff and sore legs. My friend didn't meet his sub 3:40 goal but he did PR with a 3:43:48 finish.
All said and done - the Twin Cities Marathon was an awesome experience. The people of the Twin Cities area come out big time to support the runners. The views along the lakes and the neighborhoods of the area were perfect. And as I said earlier the weather cooperated in a big way. The finish line food was more than adequate and at Twin Cities the finisher's shirt is exactly that. You have to finish the race to get the shirt. It is handed out at the finish line after you've even gotten your medal. Being part of the corporate team had its perks as well. It was fun to meet up with some other runners from my team and the food in the Corporate Team tent was even better. Massages were available although I didn't take part.
If you can fit it into your race schedule and travel budget or if you live in the area, I'd highly recommend the Twin Cities Marathon.
So the blog title ratchets up one notch for a week or two. I'm off to the Duke City Marathon on October 17. Fall IS marathon season, after all.
I flew into town on Friday evening and stayed downtown within walking distance of the start. After having done a few of these I think it is the only way to go. It is so nice to just walk a to the start and not have to hassle with parking and traffic. Twin Cities had a very efficient bus service to get us back from the capital finish line to the start.
The expo was in St. Paul, not too far from the finish, so having transportation was helpful. I'd rented a car. The expo was well stocked with vendors. At the expo we got a pair of Fitsoks with the marathon logo. Shirts come later. I had lunch with some friends that used to work in SoCal but have since transferred back to the mother ship in St. Paul. Then dinner was with a friend from St. Paul that had worked for our division but now works in the corporate labs. I'd talked him into coming out of retirement to run Twin Cities together. My haphazard training and his youth (he's got a 15 year advantage on me) led to us running our own races so dinner was the only time we got to spend together. It was a fun evening with he, his wife and their two year old son. Baby #2 is on the way soon, so the poor guy won't have much time in the future to train properly so this may have been his last hurrah for a while.
Twin Cities has a pretty robust Corporate Challenge going with over 35 teams competing. I signed up for our corporate team and even bought the jersey to run in. The team jersey was a racing singlet. I was a bit concerned about being too cool in sub-40 temps so I'd bought a pair of Moeben sleeves to help keep warm. I was perfectly comfortable the entire day with the sleeveless singlet and the Moeben sleeves. My friend was trying to break 3:40. I set my own goal at a more conservative 4:15. My half marathon PR back in February would have predicted a 3:42 marathon, but nothing in my training pointed to that possibility. The real plan was to run comfortably and hopefully pain free.
I started off the race pretty far back in the pack in Corral #2, well behind the 5:30 pace group. The corral was pretty crowded and I couldn't work my way further up. Once the race got under way I passed the 5:30 and 5:00 pace groups with a couple of miles. By mile 4 or so I caught the 4:30 pace group and by mile 6 I'd caught and passed the 4:15 pace group. At the 5K mark my pace was 9:20, at 10K I'd fallen off to 9:38 but at the half I'd picked it back up to 9:27 pace overall.
Somewhere around mile 14 I had to take a bathroom break and lost my lead on the 4:15 pace group. I'd regained it by mile 16 and steadily built on that lead until Mile 20. My pace at the 30K was 9:30 and at Mile 20 was still right on 9:30 overall. Things take a change for the worse in Twin Cities at Mile 20. Up to that point the course is gently rolling up and down. Mile 20 marks the lowest point in the race and begins a steady climb over the next 3.5 miles. This is probably the worst point in any race for this to happen. To help ease the pain the view along Summit Avenue is spectacular with old homes and great crowd support. My mile splits took a dive at this point into the 10:00's and then into the 11:00 at Mile 25 and 26. The last half mile is a beautiful down hill finish but the previous 25.7 miles had just sapped any kind of umpff that was needed to bring it home. There was just no way to make up that extra 66 seconds over 4:15. Pretty darn close to my estimate and all the bettter with no major injury other than normal 26.2 stiff and sore legs. My friend didn't meet his sub 3:40 goal but he did PR with a 3:43:48 finish.
All said and done - the Twin Cities Marathon was an awesome experience. The people of the Twin Cities area come out big time to support the runners. The views along the lakes and the neighborhoods of the area were perfect. And as I said earlier the weather cooperated in a big way. The finish line food was more than adequate and at Twin Cities the finisher's shirt is exactly that. You have to finish the race to get the shirt. It is handed out at the finish line after you've even gotten your medal. Being part of the corporate team had its perks as well. It was fun to meet up with some other runners from my team and the food in the Corporate Team tent was even better. Massages were available although I didn't take part.
If you can fit it into your race schedule and travel budget or if you live in the area, I'd highly recommend the Twin Cities Marathon.
So the blog title ratchets up one notch for a week or two. I'm off to the Duke City Marathon on October 17. Fall IS marathon season, after all.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
City of San Dimas 5K
I haven't raced a 5K since last December 2009. The ones before that were July 4 in 2009 and 2008 and I ran those with other people at their pace, just for fun. A couple of interesting points about the race - my church, Christ's Church of the Valley was the title sponsor. Like me their were many of us running and even better a whole host of folks came out to volunteer and to cheer us on. The other odd fact about the race is that it is in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the city of San Dimas. In a country that has 300+ year history, especially on the east coast, I get a kick out of the fact that our history is only 50 years old. Yes, we on the west coast have history older than that but we have plenty of cities that are even younger than San Dimas.
Back to the race - since I'm at the end of marathon training (Twin Cities is next weekend) and my training has been mediocre and completely devoid of speed, my expectations were pretty low for this event. My best case scenario was somewhere around 24:00.
The field was fairly small at about 250. I ran into a bunch of folks I know, including a coworker, parents whose son played youth sports with our kids, and a guy that I run into routinely at other local races. Plus there were a bunch of friends from church and a few of my Zimbabwe team mates either running or cheering. Lisa even signed up and walked the route.
I started off the race right next to my coworker, but he left me behind fairly quickly. He'd just won 3rd place in his age group at a big 5 mile race a couple of weeks ago, so I had no expectations of staying with him.
I was more than pleased with my 7:39 first mile time. Mile 2 clocked at 8:00 pretty much to the tenth of a second. I was able to cross the finish line with an official time of 23:46 (7:39 pace); a decent cushion on the predicted 24:00 finish. I was the 26th person across the line out of 252 which included a host of walkers. My time was good enough for 4th place in my age group (M 46-50). The guy who clenched 3rd was the guy that routinely see at local races. He's on the mend from an injury, so going somewhat slower than normal. When he's trained well, his dust is settled long before I get there.
It was a fun little event. I was surprised at the relatively low attendance considering the 5oth anniversary status of the city. Our church came out in a big way but if we had really gotten behind it we could of jammed the streets of San Dimas, church attendance is well over 3000.
It was fun to try to run a little faster than normal. I should consider adding a few more 5k's into the mix in 2011. For now it's time to take it easy for the Twin Cities Marathon next weekend.
Back to the race - since I'm at the end of marathon training (Twin Cities is next weekend) and my training has been mediocre and completely devoid of speed, my expectations were pretty low for this event. My best case scenario was somewhere around 24:00.
The field was fairly small at about 250. I ran into a bunch of folks I know, including a coworker, parents whose son played youth sports with our kids, and a guy that I run into routinely at other local races. Plus there were a bunch of friends from church and a few of my Zimbabwe team mates either running or cheering. Lisa even signed up and walked the route.
I started off the race right next to my coworker, but he left me behind fairly quickly. He'd just won 3rd place in his age group at a big 5 mile race a couple of weeks ago, so I had no expectations of staying with him.
I was more than pleased with my 7:39 first mile time. Mile 2 clocked at 8:00 pretty much to the tenth of a second. I was able to cross the finish line with an official time of 23:46 (7:39 pace); a decent cushion on the predicted 24:00 finish. I was the 26th person across the line out of 252 which included a host of walkers. My time was good enough for 4th place in my age group (M 46-50). The guy who clenched 3rd was the guy that routinely see at local races. He's on the mend from an injury, so going somewhat slower than normal. When he's trained well, his dust is settled long before I get there.
It was a fun little event. I was surprised at the relatively low attendance considering the 5oth anniversary status of the city. Our church came out in a big way but if we had really gotten behind it we could of jammed the streets of San Dimas, church attendance is well over 3000.
It was fun to try to run a little faster than normal. I should consider adding a few more 5k's into the mix in 2011. For now it's time to take it easy for the Twin Cities Marathon next weekend.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Pre-Marathon Angst
Preparation for the Twin Cities Marathon has not gone as planned or nearly as good as necessary to tow the line in two weeks. I got off to a rough start with the trip to Europe. Then my hike to Mount Whitney disturbed the plan, too. In general I just slower than I used to be. I haven't been able to get in any kind of speed work and the couple of times I attempted it the weather was cooperating; being over 100 degrees. The most recent disturbance to the the training plan was the two week land and sea tour of Alaska. It was a wonderful trip with my parents. The opportunity to vacation with my parents was a rare opportunity. I haven't vacationed with my parents since I was 18 and our whole family went to Florida from Ohio. We drove the whole way in our new chocolate brown Ford LTD station wagon. I visited my parents at their home often when the kids were young but we've gone any where significant with them.
I ran in Fairbanks (12 miles), Anchorage (7.5 miles on the Tony Knowles Coastal Bike Trail), on the ship (3.3 miles on a treadmill) and in Juneau (@4 miles on the Loop Trail Lower Daley Lake). Fun runs to be sure but not up to par with the marathon training schedule that called for 47 and 50 miles each of the two weeks I was gone. The first week including a run on Monday at home I got in 28 miles. The second week including a 22 miler I did the day after I got home I got in 27.3 miles.
The 22 miler ended up a disaster. I ran 16 miles and then my right ankle locked up. It was like it was being squeezed in a vice. At that point I decided it best to stop running and had to walk 4 miles back to my car. I iced it at home and have taken it easy on it this week. To top it off both Lisa and I caught a cold when we got home.
The original plan for years was to run with a friend that lives and works in the Twin Cities. This is his "Brett Favre" run as he calls it. He's aiming to break 3:40 and there's just no way I can keep up with that. I feel bad about talking him into coming out of retirement to run and not being able to run it with him. He's still a young guy so he'll do fine. We share some grub and drink after we both make it to the finish line.
I ran in Fairbanks (12 miles), Anchorage (7.5 miles on the Tony Knowles Coastal Bike Trail), on the ship (3.3 miles on a treadmill) and in Juneau (@4 miles on the Loop Trail Lower Daley Lake). Fun runs to be sure but not up to par with the marathon training schedule that called for 47 and 50 miles each of the two weeks I was gone. The first week including a run on Monday at home I got in 28 miles. The second week including a 22 miler I did the day after I got home I got in 27.3 miles.
The 22 miler ended up a disaster. I ran 16 miles and then my right ankle locked up. It was like it was being squeezed in a vice. At that point I decided it best to stop running and had to walk 4 miles back to my car. I iced it at home and have taken it easy on it this week. To top it off both Lisa and I caught a cold when we got home.
The original plan for years was to run with a friend that lives and works in the Twin Cities. This is his "Brett Favre" run as he calls it. He's aiming to break 3:40 and there's just no way I can keep up with that. I feel bad about talking him into coming out of retirement to run and not being able to run it with him. He's still a young guy so he'll do fine. We share some grub and drink after we both make it to the finish line.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Seventeen Down - Interupted
This ad appeared in Runner's World in January or February. It caught my attention right away. I loved the colors and the chalk art. What really got my attention was the race date - July 11, 2010 - my birthday. What a better way to celebrate my birthday than running a marathon. I'd run a half in Napa several years ago and a marathon in Bellevue, Washington on the weekend of my birthday in 2006. I was intrigued. The same issue of Runner's World also had a review of the Missoula Marathon. It was very highly regarded winning "Best Overall Marathon" of 2009 by Runner's World readers. There were many kudos on the race on marathonguide.com as well. A fellow CA Cruiser had run the race in 2009 and had only good things to say about it.I registered early, bought plane tickets, secured a hotel room and even recruited another 50 state hopeful from the Cruisers to join me. Since the race is a small one, I had contacted the race staff and they'd agreed to give me bib number 49 in recognition of spending my 49th birthday at the Missoula Marathon.
I registered by mail and somehow neglected to fill out the amount on the check, although I'd managed to sign it. The race staff had a bit of fun with me by filling in the check amount for $275,000 and thanking me for purchasing the marathon and hoping I enjoyed by birthday. After a couple of frantic phone calls trying to assure myself that they were just kidding, I couldn't wait to actually make the trip to Missoula and to meet these people. They had a little fun at my expense, but good fun, my kind of folks.
But then disaster struck. Well not quite disaster, but the big project I was working on at work required me to take a two week trip to Europe to obtain customer feedback. The trip had to be scheduled in July, the first two weeks, before all the Europeans take off for their summer holidays. Just like that my hopes of adding the Missoula Marathon as State #17 were put on hold. At first I was reluctant to go on the work trip, I really would have rather run the marathon. But I finally came to terms with the trip and thoroughly enjoyed my two week stay in Europe on the companies dime. I was able to get some very much needed feedback on a new product idea and to see a part of the world I'd never had the opportunity to see before. And the best part is I got in some really fun runs while I was there.
In Paris I found my way to the Tour Eiffel and the River Seine one morning while in Paris. In Germany I got to run several days in the wonderful NaturPark Nordlicher Teutoburger Wald in Bad Essen. In London I had an afternoon where I got to explore Green Park, Hyde Park and Kensington Park and a shorter run on morning around St. James Park. In Madrid I was able to go for a run in the Parque del Retiro. It turned out to be not such a bad exchange for missing Missoula.
I'm planning on trying to run it in 2011 and although it won't be on my actual birthday it will be my birthday weekend. As a bonus a couple of the other 50 state crazies in my running group are hoping to join me.
For now I'm on track to make the Twin Cities Marathon on October 3, 2010 the official reason to change the blog header/name yet again to Seventeen Down. But then again you never know where work might send me in the fall......
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Ragnar Relay - LA 2010
It has been just over two weeks since I ran this incredibly fun event and I thought I'd better get it down on blog "paper" before the specific become any fuzzier.
The journey to this race started a long time ago. I'd read blog accounts of others that have done similar races, like Hood to Coast, and they always sounded like a lot of good fun. I received a flyer for the Ragnar race several months ago and wondered whether the Cruisers would be interested. I didn't necessarily want to be the team leader and decided that the Cruisers might not be into something like this, so I let it go. Then about 6 weeks before the race I found out that Rochelle, a long time CA Cruiser, was running the relay with a team of folks from her gym, appropriately named the "CrAzY gYm RaTs". I immediately emailed her an offered myself to the team if they had any openings. Her initial response was that the team was full but she would keep me in mind. Only a few days later I got another email from Rochelle asking me if I was still interested. Of course I was. And just like that I was the 12th member of a Ragnar Relay team. Rochelle was the only person I knew initially but after spending a day or two in a vehicle with 5 others you get to know them a little as well.
When I joined the team, I told them I'd be willing to run any leg they need me to. I said, "give me the hills, give me the long legs, give me the stuff no one else wants." Well I got my wish. I ended up with some good stuff.
Ragnar rates all the legs from "Easy" to "Very Hard". I got one "Very Hard" and 2 "Moderates". After having run the Very Hard leg I think that Ragnar rates them based on a beginning runner. There's no doubt that it was a challenging leg, but I wouldn't call it very hard.
To explain the format of a Ragnar Relay: there are 36 legs, about 200 miles total, that are split between the 12 runners. Each runner runs three legs ranging from as low as 2 miles to as much as 9.9 miles. Runners maintain the same run order throughout the 36 legs. I ended up with leg 6, 18 and 30. Each runner runs on average 16 miles or so. At the LA version the lowest 3 leg total was 12.6 miles and the highest three leg total was 21.1. Guess who got the 21.1?
In my estimation the running part of a Ragnar Relay is maybe the easiest part. More difficult is dealing with the lack of sleep and the effect that has on the other 6 folks in your van. Our van was awesome in that regard. Although none of us got much sleep, some more than others, we all got along famously. I'm not sure that can be said of all the other vans.
As the Leg 6 runner, I was the anchor for Van 1. I handed it the snap bracelet that served as a baton off to Jerry, the lead runner for Van 2.
Our team had gathered in Orange County on Thursday evening. We went out as a group for dinner and then drove up the Ventura and stayed overnight in a hotel near the race start. Friday race morning began with packing up the two Ford Expeditions that would serve us as race vehicles and home for the next 30 hours or so. Our designated start time was 9:30 with a required safety meeting at the starting line an hour before. There were something like 280 teams, but with the staggered starts from 6:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m and starting times every 30 minutes only about 30 teams start running at a time.
We had projected times for each of the legs but there was a flaw, at least in my mind. The projected times were based on your 10K PR, but with a very hard nearly 10 mile leg, keeping up a 10K pace over that distance was somewhat realistic. The morning was spent seeing our runner off and then navigating/driving to the next relay point.
I began my first leg around 2:30 in afternoon on Friday. My first leg was the longest leg of the race. The route included a total elevation gain of 779 feet with most of that occurring in the second half of the leg. I was able to overtake a couple of runners and was feeling pretty good about my run. Pacing yourself is somewhat difficult due to the staggered start there are never that many people on the road with you and there is no real way to tell when they started. My major humiliation during this leg was being passed by Marilyn Monroe. Actually Marilyn was a very studly guy in drag, but being passed by the windswept white dress was a fun memory. My time for the leg was around 1:23 for an 8:30 pace. I was pretty pleased.
With that we were free for a few hours while Van 2 ran Legs 7-12. We grabbed a bite to eat at Corner Bakery and then headed over to the Major Exchange Point and tried to get some rest. It was still early in the evening so although we didn't necessarily feel sleepy a few of us did our best to catch some z's. I slept, or more accurately, napped lightly for about 2 hours.
Our second round started sometime after 9:00. My second leg, my shortest at 4.3 miles was classified as Moderate. I started running somewhere around 2:00 in the morning. I left the exchange point within steps of another running. Our leg took us pretty much straight down Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica to the pier. The run was a nice slow down grade all the way to the pier. I was a few feet behind the other runner about 2 miles or so. We were keeping up a pretty good pace. We were running on the sidewalk. We ended up catching up to a slower runner that was being paced by bicycle (this is allowed at night during a Ragnar Relay). I yelled out to the other runner "go into the street!" I got out there first and took the opportunity to pass my rabbit. I never looked back. One of the highlights of this leg was the number of homeless folks we passed spending the night in almost every doorway we passed. I made it to the exchange point with a 7:30 pace - undoubtedly assisted by the downhill and rabbit effect.
The second set of legs by Van 2 were shorter than their first set, so we had less time to rest. Although we probably need it more now than we did earlier. We caught about an hour of fitful sleep on the Santa Monica pier to the sounds of vans coming and going and cheers at the relay point. We needed the shorter rest to have sufficient time to get to the next Major Exchange Point.
We started our final set of legs around 6:30 on Saturday morning in Long Beach. My leg was a relatively easy one for me. I had 6.9 miles along the Huntington Beach bike path. I run here all the time so I was very familiar with how far I had to go. I enjoyed this leg, but I think I enjoyed the others more because I had the opportunity to run in places I hadn't run before. One of the highlights of this leg for me was putting a younger guy in his place. I passed this guy who may have been in his late 20's or early 30's and thought nothing of it. About 10 minutes later he came barrelling by me. I'm not sure what he was thinking, but I imagined that he had decided that he didn't want to get beaten by the old guy. Well his little burst of speed didn't last long. I maintained my pace, passed him up and got to the exchange point a good 5 minutes before he did. His tactics may have had nothing to do with me, but I had some fun believing that it did.
With that Van 1 was done with nothing to do but to wait for the rest of our team to complete their last round of legs and meet up in Dana Point at the finish line. That was around 11:00 on Saturday morning. Rochelle had the honors of Leg 36 and came across the finish line in the late afternoon 31:28:41 after we started.
This was at least an hour longer than we originally expected, but never having done anything like this we were all ecstatic. We hung out at the finish line festival for a little bit and then headed home for much needed showers and sleep. Everything went well. No one got hurt. There was even talk of getting together and doing it all again next year. Now we have a goal to beat.
The journey to this race started a long time ago. I'd read blog accounts of others that have done similar races, like Hood to Coast, and they always sounded like a lot of good fun. I received a flyer for the Ragnar race several months ago and wondered whether the Cruisers would be interested. I didn't necessarily want to be the team leader and decided that the Cruisers might not be into something like this, so I let it go. Then about 6 weeks before the race I found out that Rochelle, a long time CA Cruiser, was running the relay with a team of folks from her gym, appropriately named the "CrAzY gYm RaTs". I immediately emailed her an offered myself to the team if they had any openings. Her initial response was that the team was full but she would keep me in mind. Only a few days later I got another email from Rochelle asking me if I was still interested. Of course I was. And just like that I was the 12th member of a Ragnar Relay team. Rochelle was the only person I knew initially but after spending a day or two in a vehicle with 5 others you get to know them a little as well.
When I joined the team, I told them I'd be willing to run any leg they need me to. I said, "give me the hills, give me the long legs, give me the stuff no one else wants." Well I got my wish. I ended up with some good stuff.
Ragnar rates all the legs from "Easy" to "Very Hard". I got one "Very Hard" and 2 "Moderates". After having run the Very Hard leg I think that Ragnar rates them based on a beginning runner. There's no doubt that it was a challenging leg, but I wouldn't call it very hard.
To explain the format of a Ragnar Relay: there are 36 legs, about 200 miles total, that are split between the 12 runners. Each runner runs three legs ranging from as low as 2 miles to as much as 9.9 miles. Runners maintain the same run order throughout the 36 legs. I ended up with leg 6, 18 and 30. Each runner runs on average 16 miles or so. At the LA version the lowest 3 leg total was 12.6 miles and the highest three leg total was 21.1. Guess who got the 21.1?
In my estimation the running part of a Ragnar Relay is maybe the easiest part. More difficult is dealing with the lack of sleep and the effect that has on the other 6 folks in your van. Our van was awesome in that regard. Although none of us got much sleep, some more than others, we all got along famously. I'm not sure that can be said of all the other vans.
As the Leg 6 runner, I was the anchor for Van 1. I handed it the snap bracelet that served as a baton off to Jerry, the lead runner for Van 2.
Our team had gathered in Orange County on Thursday evening. We went out as a group for dinner and then drove up the Ventura and stayed overnight in a hotel near the race start. Friday race morning began with packing up the two Ford Expeditions that would serve us as race vehicles and home for the next 30 hours or so. Our designated start time was 9:30 with a required safety meeting at the starting line an hour before. There were something like 280 teams, but with the staggered starts from 6:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m and starting times every 30 minutes only about 30 teams start running at a time.
We had projected times for each of the legs but there was a flaw, at least in my mind. The projected times were based on your 10K PR, but with a very hard nearly 10 mile leg, keeping up a 10K pace over that distance was somewhat realistic. The morning was spent seeing our runner off and then navigating/driving to the next relay point.
I began my first leg around 2:30 in afternoon on Friday. My first leg was the longest leg of the race. The route included a total elevation gain of 779 feet with most of that occurring in the second half of the leg. I was able to overtake a couple of runners and was feeling pretty good about my run. Pacing yourself is somewhat difficult due to the staggered start there are never that many people on the road with you and there is no real way to tell when they started. My major humiliation during this leg was being passed by Marilyn Monroe. Actually Marilyn was a very studly guy in drag, but being passed by the windswept white dress was a fun memory. My time for the leg was around 1:23 for an 8:30 pace. I was pretty pleased.
With that we were free for a few hours while Van 2 ran Legs 7-12. We grabbed a bite to eat at Corner Bakery and then headed over to the Major Exchange Point and tried to get some rest. It was still early in the evening so although we didn't necessarily feel sleepy a few of us did our best to catch some z's. I slept, or more accurately, napped lightly for about 2 hours.
Our second round started sometime after 9:00. My second leg, my shortest at 4.3 miles was classified as Moderate. I started running somewhere around 2:00 in the morning. I left the exchange point within steps of another running. Our leg took us pretty much straight down Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica to the pier. The run was a nice slow down grade all the way to the pier. I was a few feet behind the other runner about 2 miles or so. We were keeping up a pretty good pace. We were running on the sidewalk. We ended up catching up to a slower runner that was being paced by bicycle (this is allowed at night during a Ragnar Relay). I yelled out to the other runner "go into the street!" I got out there first and took the opportunity to pass my rabbit. I never looked back. One of the highlights of this leg was the number of homeless folks we passed spending the night in almost every doorway we passed. I made it to the exchange point with a 7:30 pace - undoubtedly assisted by the downhill and rabbit effect.
The second set of legs by Van 2 were shorter than their first set, so we had less time to rest. Although we probably need it more now than we did earlier. We caught about an hour of fitful sleep on the Santa Monica pier to the sounds of vans coming and going and cheers at the relay point. We needed the shorter rest to have sufficient time to get to the next Major Exchange Point.
We started our final set of legs around 6:30 on Saturday morning in Long Beach. My leg was a relatively easy one for me. I had 6.9 miles along the Huntington Beach bike path. I run here all the time so I was very familiar with how far I had to go. I enjoyed this leg, but I think I enjoyed the others more because I had the opportunity to run in places I hadn't run before. One of the highlights of this leg for me was putting a younger guy in his place. I passed this guy who may have been in his late 20's or early 30's and thought nothing of it. About 10 minutes later he came barrelling by me. I'm not sure what he was thinking, but I imagined that he had decided that he didn't want to get beaten by the old guy. Well his little burst of speed didn't last long. I maintained my pace, passed him up and got to the exchange point a good 5 minutes before he did. His tactics may have had nothing to do with me, but I had some fun believing that it did.
With that Van 1 was done with nothing to do but to wait for the rest of our team to complete their last round of legs and meet up in Dana Point at the finish line. That was around 11:00 on Saturday morning. Rochelle had the honors of Leg 36 and came across the finish line in the late afternoon 31:28:41 after we started.
This was at least an hour longer than we originally expected, but never having done anything like this we were all ecstatic. We hung out at the finish line festival for a little bit and then headed home for much needed showers and sleep. Everything went well. No one got hurt. There was even talk of getting together and doing it all again next year. Now we have a goal to beat.
Monday, April 26, 2010
One half of the Crazy Gym Rats
After we finished our last leg. All we had to do was wait for Van 2 to run to the finish line. Our final time was somewhere around 31 hours. Good fun! !
Friday, April 23, 2010
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