Racing

Hadn't raced since November 22nd. Haven't done much "speedwork", but I have tried to run some faster runs in the past few weeks. Decided to run the Burlington Education Foundation's Exercise for Education 5k. A good friend lives in the middle of the course and if he can get his old triple-jumper body around it, I might as well, too.

Started with a warm-up run with one daughter in the Family Fun Run. A half-mile run, that she didn't walk even a step. She complained some, but did better than she has ever done in a race.

The 5k started like most typical small local races, a bunch of young boys sprinting from the line, only to get in the way a minute or two later as they slow to a walk. By a half-mile in, I had moved up to 8th place. The 1st place runner was decided in the 1st quarter-mile, then two sets of two runners out of reach, and finally, a line of three, each separated by about 10-15 yards. During the quarter mile climb to the mile mark, I slowly gained on 7th place and with a tiny push over the top, moved ahead of him to begin the downhill second mile. 1st mile 6:27

I don't run downhills very well and over the next half mile, I couldn't gain any ground on 6th place. I could tell I was putting space on the 8th place, based on cars trying to cross the course and occasional spectators. When the course flattened, I started to close the gap a little, but couldn't seem to make a lot of progress. I felt I was still running hard, so it wasn't a big concern about what place I finished. As we approached the water stop and two mile mark, 6th place ran out of gas. Suddenly, the gap was gone and we ran side by side for the next 100m or so. I commented that the course looked like it was going back uphill and he commented that I was running a nice race. I encouraged him to join me in trying to get to 5th place as he was "coming back to us" (in my dreams). When he replied that it was too far, I knew I was probably going to running alone for the rest of the race. 2nd mile 6:08 (I think it was short)

Mile three had a few ups and downs and multiple turns. This made it impossible to see 5th place. I ran hard and was happy to look back at about mile three and see that 7th place was back far enough that no sprint was going to catch me. When I could see the clock, I realized that a sub 20:00 was easily in reach. As my last race back in November was a fast course, I knew beating my 19:50 from then would be a stretch. I crossed the line in 19:57. 6th place overall, 1st in the 40-44 age group. 2nd in the 40-49.

After I finished, I reset my watch and started it at the 21:00 mark and headed out to meet my other daughter and wife who were running. After a few minutes through the twists, the bright red face of my 8 year old came down the hill. My wife told me that she hadn't stopped to walk at all, other than when drinking water back at the 2nd mile. We ran together for the last half-mile and once I saw that she wasn't going to stop, I did the quick math to realize that she would be under 30 minutes. Her previous best for a 5k was about 34 minutes. She finished in 29:28, 1st in the 10 & under age group (once they fixed her gender in the results). I'm proud to say that she does this with no training. They both do enough other activities (piano, soccer, softball), that I don't worry about them not being active and I'd prefer to not push her to the sport at too young an age. Seeing their parents run and race on a regular basis should be enough to encourage them to try. When they show interest, I'm there to help it along.

A great day on the roads.

The Itch

Spent Monday at the Marathon. I watch it from the 19.6 mile mark. Get there early, run down to the fire station and then back up to mile 20. Did the 19th and 20th miles in 6:58 each. Not bad, but it was after only 2.5 miles, not 18. Very windy. Headwinds are bad enough, but to have them while running uphill is just nasty.

Spending a few hours watching people run the race certainly put a little marathon itch into me. I can't say it lasted more than a day or so, though. Right now, I'm still happy with my decision to moderate the miles (around 40) and up the tempo/speedwork component. Maybe by Dec/Jan, I'll be ready. Luckily, I have the running club for a number, cause I don't know if I have a qualifier in me.

Anniversary

Sorry it's been awhile since I've posted. My running has been in the doldrums lately. Had a run that resulted in a weird pain on the inside part of right leg, just below the knee. This made me tentative about runs for about three weeks. I've moved into a new phase of training as of Monday. May not be reflected in my log until the end of the week, but the goal now is to maintain a decent mileage level (35-45) while incorporating speed and races. It's only about 5-10 miles per week less than I've been running, but incorporating the speed is going to require some additional recovery time and races will typically lead to additional off days or very short days (both before and after).

More importantly, today is my 25th anniversary of running. I ran two miles on Sunday, April 15th, 1984. My first run, in anticipation of running the Maine Coast Marathon in May, 1985. I never ran the marathon, but I did keep up the running. A few very lazy years after college and some decent injuries limited my totals, but based on known records, I've run 26820.5 miles.

Here's to 25 more years. I doubt I'll get another 26,000 miles, but I'm off to a good start.

Nifty Fifty

The plus side of having the week off from work, plenty of time to exercise. I treated this a lot like the old "training camps" in college. I ran 10 miles each day for the past 5 days. It's an unusual way to get 50 miles, but it works. Normally, to get that sort of mileage, I would add a longer run during the week. I'm hoping to do a little bit more tomorrow, but the past couple runs have been a bit of a struggle. Today was as close to 10 miles at 8 min/mile as I've ever run. Trying to balance the additional miles with not getting injured. I'd gladly pass up some miles to avoid a week or two of no running.

To the 'non-runner', this kind of mileage means marathon training. I'm still waiting for the warmer weather to start throwing in some speed work and then I'll pick a few 5k/5M races to see how well the winter training program worked.

Downhill running

Each of my three Boston marathons had the same physical result for me, sore quads. In general, this is due to the pounding of all the downhills on the course. I've vowed that before I run Boston again, I would try to acclimate my body to downhill running. Of course, since I don't plan on running Boston this year, I haven't done anything toward that goal.

What I did do is run a course that seems to cause the same (but lesser) pain on Saturday. A relatively simple 10.75 mile run left me cringing as I walked down the stairs for the next day and half. It didn't bother my regular activity and didn't stop me from putting in an easy 6.5 mile run on the treadmill. I'm still sore, but hope that some additional rest and additional miles that are on schedule for this week (work shutdown) will clear out whatever's left in the quads.

Enjoy yet another snow day.

Run down

The mileage, combined with the usual winter weather, work hours, etc lead to a couple of sick days and sleepless nights. Needless to say, I won't be breaking 50 miles this week. Still hope to get in 30 or so, even with 3 days off, but can't push the pace until I feel 100% again. This is one of the few times that I've broken the rule about whether an illness should stop your run. Normally, if the cold/congestion, etc is from the neck or higher, you run; chest colds, etc, you rest. This one kept me from sleeping so much that I just didn't have the energy to put in a run those days. On the plus side, my legs feel perfectly fine after my 7 miles this morning, so I should be back to normal mileage next week.

Turning 50

With two outdoor runs over the weekend, I cracked the 50 mile barrier this week. Just three weeks short of 10 years since my last time over 50 miles. Guess what, that 10 years makes a huge difference in the recovery process. I struggled with soreness and general fatigue for most of Monday. When pushing the mileage, we're more suseptible to colds, etc. Right now, I'm trying to get as much sleep as possible to fight off a sore throat and just plain recover enough to get in the next run. With the school vacation week and a light work week in early March, I hope to turn 50 once more.

Outdoors

Thanks to the warm predicted tempertures actually coming through and a cooperating schedule, I got to run outside for the first time this year. I tried to do my standard 10ish mile course, but many of the sections were still fairly iced over. The warm weather added a stream of water and puddles along many roads that actually made the available running area even smaller than it has been this winter. I skipped an extension section of my loop that isn't very wide in good conditions and would be downright dangerous. Call it 8.5 (gmap says 8.64) in 64:42.

With that 8.5, I finish the week at 48.5, my longest week this year. I think I'm ready to break the 50 mile barrier, without risking an injury. In college, my limit was 60 miles. If I did a week over 60, I needed to back down under the next week or I would invariably come down with some sort of overuse injury (IT band, hamstrings, etc).

Getting a lot of questions about "what are your training for". No, not doing Boston. Not really even sure what my next race will be. I can probably guess that it will be a relatively spur of the moment/weather dependent 5k/5M. This is simply a chance to really concentrate on base mileage. Typically, in your school days, this is done all summer to build for xc and then the track seasons. In the post-collegiate world, it's typically done as part of marathon training. Ideally, it should be done prior to starting the training, but there never seeems to be the time to do base miles and typical racing schedules. Plenty of time and races in the Spring, I'll worry about it then.

Long runs

Been a busy few weeks in life. Winter storms, year-end work duties, kids birthdays, new seasons of favorite shows...and running. On the 18th, I put in 13 miles. My longest run since a marathon in 2004. Combined with getting my daily mileage up, I've been consistently running mid-40s per week. Even compared to years when I was preparing for Boston, my total mileage is still the most I've ever had for the month of January.

For the first time since college, I did a significant double run yesterday. 6 miles in the morning and another 10 at night. The 10 at night was my fastest paced run of the year.

All this leads me to start wondering if I shouldn't be preparing for another marathon, or at least a fast half-marathon. Like many runners, as soon as I finish a marathon, I figure I never need to do that again, but then soon after, begin to think of how I could do it better. Since the 2004 marathon, I haven't reached that "do it better" stage, but I can't deny I'm getting close.

I think some long runs are in my future.

Consistency

I'm off to my best mileage start of a year in my recorded history. Essentially, it all comes down to consistency. I'm running 6 days a week and getting in 6-10 miles per run. I'm taking the extra few moments after each run to stretch the problem areas, groin, calf, IT band that have plagued me in the past. Generally, I've been finishing my runs feeling better than when I started and have little soreness during the day. Mid-40s mileage for a little while will be a great base for Spring.

Looking at my running history, 1987 and 1997 were, by far, my best racing years. One was during college and one at the height of my marathoning days. Despite different training methods and personal obligations, the main similarities are consistent running and avoiding injuries. (okay, they tend to help one another, so maybe they are only one item). In the summer/fall of 87, I took off 10 days over the course of 20+ weeks. Most of those days were either pre or post a hard race. Other than the normal one week off between racing seasons back then, I was averaging 1 day off every two weeks. In 1997, from Boston to Ocean State, I averaged more than 5.5 days per week and was consistently at 6 days per week in the fall, leading up to my Baystate half-marathon (PR 1:23:19) and Ocean State (PR 3:19:36). Along the way, I had some fast races (18:33 Brewery Exchange 5k) and Aug/Sep averaged about 50 miles per week.

Now, if the weather and my schedule would cooperate, I'd like to avoid one set of consistency that I'm currently on....All my miles have been on the treadmill so far this year. That first run involving downhills is going to be interesting.

Youth Sports

I'm coaching my girls' youth basketball team this year. I haven't played basketball since 8th grade and when I played, I wasn't a starter. Since then, I've learned a lot about coaching and little about a bunch of sports. The combination makes me pretty good at the youth coaching level. Once I started coaching, I began to realize that I had some really good and really bad coaches in my history. In the youth sports, they were just involved parents like I am now. As a kid, I assumed they were experts at the sport. That's an important thing to keep in mind when running a program.

Youth soccer in North Reading does a good job of realizing that the coaches may not have experience in the sport. There is a weekly set of drills/skills to cover and a coaching meeting to go over the goals and key points, prior to the session. The other sports I've done in town (softball and basketball) leave you on your own to develop a season plan. I think that's what makes some sports a complete gamble for the kids. There are some softball teams we played against that were simply glorified babysitting. They didn't teach the kids anything about the sport and were more concerned about finishing early, not letting the kids play the games.

As I coach this basketball season, I'm trying to keep notes of what works and what doesn't. How the kids progress, etc. This should help me for next year and may provide a guide for the 2nd grade program next year.

Good Start

It's amazing that a simple date on the calendar adds such motivation, but New Year's, birthdays, holidays all seem to help inspire my running. To get a jump on my resolutions, I've started with three straight 8 mile runs. My highest total ever for the first three days. Given that I've been in training for Boston or getting into the middle of indoor track season in years past, this won't last, but if I can maintain around 40 miles or so a week, that is a good sustainable level and seems to be a level my body can handle without breaking down. When we get into speedwork and racing, I'll need to drop miles. I learned the hard way at the Burbank 5k, that my body can't do mid-40s and race.

Happy New Year.

Resolutions

To help make the resolutions stick, I have to make them public.

Mileage goals: 2000, 1500, 1250
Races: Under 35 minutes at Showcase 5 miler; Under 20 minutes at Hornet Hustle 5k; find at least three other races to do. (one half marathon, one x-c, one flat 5k (Burbank 5k again?))

General: at least 20 runs of 10 miles or more; Treadmill miles under 60% of total.

Add a cross-training workout each week (row, bike, etc). Add stretching/strengthening exercises twice a week.

Weight: under 170 pounds (currently 180); body fat under 17% (currently 18ish); body water consistently over 55% (54ish now). (since I'm eating chips while writing this, I may have some trouble here).