The thin line between insanity and dedication

I am still not 100% sure I know if I made the right decision this year.  I was given the opportunity to play softball again this fall.  Softball is sort of a passion for me.  I’m no stellar player, but I enjoy getting out onto the field and making the effort.  I was also given the opportunity to play soccer for my IBM team, but I chose to not play this year because I spent a good bit of last year with a variety of muscle injuries and scrapes and scratches.  I knew soccer could provide an injury that would hamper my race training and this year at least, the half marathon was the most important thing for me this fall.  Still, I am slated to run 5 days a week.  In order to do that and play softball, I had to be willing to get up early in the morning on game nights and get my miles in before work.  So, I was up at 5:45 this morning to get to the gym and start my run.  At least having shifted the long run to Saturday has made it easier to do this.  If I had to run 11 or more miles before I had to be at work for the day, I’d probably have bailed on one of the two.

Still, this begs the question for me:  Is it a sign of my dedication to endurance running or just a mild form of insanity?  I’m starting the training with only three weeks until the race and I’m fed up with running.  It feels like a chore.  It’s no longer the joy that I felt when I entered the 5K last October and stunned myself with my first 10K finish in February.  I’m annoyed, sore, and at times convinced I could do better to stay in bed.  Still, I get in the car, now before dawn, and drive to they gym to push my body when it’s still tight from a restless night’s sleep.

Some runs in the morning have been quite good though.  I recognize that I probably should have at least some calories, but I usually end up not eating before these runs, if for no other reason than I know I’m not likely to push myself into Anaerobic running and I won’t be converting raw carbohydrates into energy.  I should be able to consume fat stores to cook those calories, or at least that’s the theory.

I’m still doing my one mile kick at 30 seconds per mile faster than the base pace miles.  This morning, that meant 4 miles at 8:00 and one at 7:30.  I seem to have settled into that option and it makes me happy to find that even after increasing the total mileage I can still manage that last mile at a faster pace.  Maybe a kick isn’t out of the question.  That’s when I question my sanity.  I’m happy that I can abuse my body at the end of a distance?  It satisfies me to know that I can get in the required miles at 41 seconds per mile faster than the training program and still add in one extra mile another 30 seconds faster?  Hmmmm!

Cheers!

IBM Employee Appreciation Day 5K, October 10, 2009

The anniversary of the race that started it all!  It was this very race last year that effectively kick started this entire odyssey and so I was really looking forward to this year’s race.  I was even willing to forgo my long run to do this race.  Of course, that’s where my first challenge really kicked in.  Colleen had hoped we’d run together, as a family.  I could have, but I also knew she’d run at a pace that would not really provide me enough of a challenge to get around the missing long run and I’d guilt myself into going to the gym to run 11 miles anyway.  So, I managed to convince her that allowing me to leave her to her own race was in her best interest in the long run and so we lined up in different portions of the start.

This race, so I am told, is handled more like what I should expect from the half marathon.  They ask (not heavily enforced of course) that you align your starting position with the times posted that you believe you can finish.  Last year, I’d put myself into the section that was 25 to 30 minutes.  This year, knowing I’d finished last year in 22:50, I put myself in the 22-25 minutes section.  Now, my target was actually below 22, which should have allowed me to get into the very front group, but I didn’t want to seem overconfident and there really weren’t many runners between me and the starting line anyway.

This marked my first road race where I didn’t wear headphones.  I still don’t really like the ones I’m using right now, but they’re the ones I’ve got.  Since this race promised to be really short anyway, I didn’t much care if I had music or not, and it was just one less thing to have to bother with on the course.  My goal was to haul as much ass as my legs would stand.  The start of the race hit and I was off.  The pace seemed blistering, and when I hit the first mile, it turned out I was right.  6:40!!!  I can’t say I have actually run a full mile at 6:40 since I started running in competitions, but I was doing reasonably well and wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down.

The course turns around at roughly 1.5 miles, though there’s no real split timer there to let you know how you’re doing.  I got to the 2 mile mark and the time was called out as 12:55!  That meant I’d run the second mile in 6:15!  Boy was I on fire!  Because of the loop, I knew there were 15 runners in front of me.  Finishing 16th overall would not have disappointed me in the least.  As I was trying to really see if I could do a kick, I sped up slightly going into this last 1.1 miles.  I passed a couple of runners and was suddenly in the top 10!  That’s when it hit!

I’m a chronic rhinitis sufferer.  I wake up most mornings, even when I’m healthy with a head full from sleeping in a prone position.  Today was no different from most days, except that I was running at an accelerated pace.  Suddenly, I was struggling to breathe and started coughing trying to bring up something stuck in my throat.  It got so bad I had no choice but to stop running and retch.  I didn’t actually vomit, but I did dry heave several times wasting precious seconds until I brought up a pretty good hunk of phlegm and then started running again.  Three runners had passed me while I was retching and I knew catching them would be out of the question.  No top 10 finish for me this time!

Got to where I could read the timer clock and saw I still had a shot to finish under 22.  That was really my only goal for this race so I pushed the last two hundred yards and crossed in 21:40!  I’d still managed 13th overall and that was out of 197 runners being officially timed.  Not too shabby.  Of course, this race (and for all I know many 5K) are flush with runners in the 40-49 age range that are quite fit.  Despite my time, I still was 5th in my age group and the 6th fastest man in the 40-49 age range.  The fastest finished the race second.  So, I can only wonder with some mild regret what could have been if I’d been able to push through without stopping to retch.  Could I have finished under 21?  Maybe.  I don’t think I was stopped long enough to have finished under 20.  I’m not even honestly sure if I had stopped more than 40 seconds, so under 21 might not have happened.

I did realize that I could kick, I just had to convince myself to do so.  I’m not sure if the last mile is the place to start the kick, but right now it’s the easiest marker for me to try.  It also aligns with the tweak I made in my training plan which is to run the last mile at least mildly faster than the rest.  We’ll see how that applies to a long run when I run the next one of those.  Only three weeks until the half marathon and I think I’ve really discovered what I am as an endurance runner.  Not too shabby for only 13 months in active competition.

Cheers!

Speed Work is Evil

I understand the premise.  I know I’ve got to train my body to push harder when I reach Anaerobic threshold and speed training allows me to do that in increments.  I just don’t like it!  It’s WAY faster than I’m used to running any more (though comically it isn’t about the pace as much the time at the pace, or the velocity) and it seems quite draining.  So, each cycle through this training program when I have reached speed work, I’ve been a bit hesitant.  Coupled with the more than coincidence that each time I’ve done speed work I have come down with some illness and there are plenty of reasons why I hate it.

This also brings me to a point where I’m not sure how to proceed.  I’ve done all (since I discount the road races as training) of my training on a treadmill.  I found a treadmill pace conversion chart which indicates that my training may actually be slightly faster than I was targeting in the first place.  For this speed work, I was supposed to run 8.8 miles per hour.  I set the incline for 2% when running and according to this chart, I’m actually hitting 6:37 per mile instead of the attempted 6:50.  I was supposed to run 3 miles at that pace, but I’m once again not paying attention to the regimen and instead opted for 4.  Unfortunately, to get the fourth mile in, I had to lower the incline to 1%, which the chart says is 6:51.  Now, that’s actually closer to the target 6:50, but I just don’t know if what I’m doing is reasonable or not.  If anyone is actually reading this, send me a comment and let me know, especially if you’ve got any experience in running.

I got it all done.  I was exhausted but I ran the complete circuit.  I tweet my training completion to post it to Facebook as my status as well, and of course someone decides to compare their times and distances to mine.  I usually feel guilty about this.  I’m not posting to show anyone up, I’m just posting because it gives me a sense of accomplishment.  I’m struggling through this alone and hoping to find support, not to bring others down.  Oh well!

Cheers!

Tweaking the training

So, it’s been a little over a week since the 10 mile race.  I had a couple of dejected days right after the race.  I was so cooked I cut a run short and then refused to run the next day because it felt like a chore.  Anyway, I made the conscious decision on Saturday, October 3rd that the 10 mile race showed me I needed one more adjustment to my training.  After the 10K, where my pace was 7:30 per mile, I made the deliberate choice to change my easy and long run pace from 8:24 per mile to 8:00.  This is an even further deviation from the training plan that had me running at 8:46, but I did it because I knew that if I could run 6.2 miles at 7:30 during a race, I needed to be training closer to that pace to help pick up my endurance at tempo.  This somewhat follows some reading I’d done that indicated endurance runners in the Olympics said they’d run more of their weekly mileage at marathon pace or faster as opposed to the old school theory of slow runs to get in form, psychology and avoid injury.  Anyway, the 10 mile race told me I needed to work on my kick as well.  So, when I started my run on Saturday, I decided that I’d do the last half mile in 7:30 split instead of 8:00.  Not significantly faster, but it’s my race pace and it allows me to work on a speed boost toward the end of the run.

The Saturday run was an affirmation really.  After feeling once again like running had become a chore instead of a passion, or a catharsis, I didn’t run one of my scheduled days.  I went mostly to prove to myself that it was still enjoyable.  It actually did feel comfortable at 8:00 per mile and so even after my 5 miles was done, I kept going.  I told myself I was going to get close to a full hour running, but in the end I decided I had nothing to prove.  I did my first attempt at a “kick” and managed to run the last half mile at the 7:30 pace.  I guess I’m going to try that for a bit now and see how it goes.  After this next week, I’ll probably see if I can extend it to the full mile.  Hard to say.  I wish I had the resources or the friends I could lean on for training advice, but instead I tinker.  Hard to tell if I’m doing more harm than good, but it also keeps me guessing and the training a bit more interesting.

Cheers!

Anna’s Angels 10 mile race, Durham, NC September 27, 2009

Yes, I put that in correctly.  This wasn’t a 10K, it was 10 miles.  I needed a race to get a sense of what it took to run this half marathon, and a 10K was just too short.  So, this race presented itself.  I had a ton of butterflies leading up to the race, and I was almost visibly shaking when I picked up my packet on Saturday the day before the race.  Was I going to fall on my butt?  I had no way to tell.

I’d never run this race, obviously, so I had no clue what the course would be like.  I’d seen a map, but that doesn’t show me the topology.  For what I could tell, there would be some hills in this course, but I wasn’t sure what the severity is.  Driving these roads the hills seems minimal.  Running them, some hills seem severe. LOL

This race was it.  I’d become an endurance runner and I wasn’t even aware of it.  It was raining and I don’t mean lightly.  I would be running in rain on wet roads.  Yet, I wasn’t backing down and was actually dealing with nervous energy as I picked up my timer chip.  When did I become that kind of runner?  I am not sure.  But, after I forcibly altered the training program based on the results of the 10K two weeks before (I went from an 8:24 mile average to a flat 8:00 because I was running the race distances at 7:30) I suddenly became a more determined, more self confident runner.

The first 5 miles, and everything was awesome!  I had set an arbitrary goal to finish 10 miles in 75 minutes or less.  That would mean an average of 7:30 per mile over the entire distance.  I had steeled my resolve that worst case I’d finish in 80 minutes based on the training runs I’d done that were 10 miles or more.  I can easily run 10 miles on 8 minute averages.  I reached the 5 mile mark and the volunteer there called out my time as right at 7:30 per mile, or just under 37:30.  I was stoked!  75 minutes seemed to be not only possible, but also well within my skills.

The second 5 miles, however, wound up being slower.  I didn’t see which miles were slow, but by the time I hit mile 8, I was just over one hour.  That was really only 15 or 20 second slow overall, but it meant that I’d have to be able to kick at the end of the race and I knew I had no kick; had no training that let me run the second half faster than the first.

A few runners had some very odd racing habits.  This was my first race where this was considered a short distance by the majority of the runners.  For me, obviously, it was bleeding edge, but for most, this was a tune up for the fall marathon season.  Some had very interesting pacing habits.  They’d run past me, leaving me two or three hundred yards behind, only to slow to a walk as I passed them again.  Some would walk as they stopped for water and then pass me again ( I still don’t know enough about running to know how to properly hydrate myself and I consider running up to say 2 hours no reason to get water.  That may be wrong, but we’ll see.) and others that ran roughly the same way I did.  My pace seemed to swing a little, as there was a woman that kept passing me and I’d pass her.  Not really sure how that went, but it was obvious I wasn’t on a flat line pace.  At one point, I exhibited what I’m sure were my own odd habits.  I was really in a groove in the run and found myself singing, possibly loudly, to the music going in my ears.

I am not sure what the real requirements are for headphones.  I understand the USATF regulation regarding insuring races, but at the same time, I sign a release as part of my registration.  So, what is the insurance actually covering?  If I got hit by a car as part of the run?  Knee sprains, ankle twists, etc. are my problem, not theirs, so for me there’s really just a posturing going on when the race says “no headphones allowed” and I have come to ignore that and wear them anyway.  I’m hardly alone in this, so I don’t feel like I’m the only one bucking the system.  In the end, I’m not here to win the race (I know better) and whatever it takes for me to run 10 miles they should allow.

Made the turn into the last bit toward the finish line.  It was straight uphill.  I hadn’t noticed we’d come straight downhill at the start, but now I was running back up.  I felt gassed.  I noticed a squishing in my shoes from the rain and that I’d also opened up a blister somewhere in my arch (again!)  As I approached the line, I looked and caught a glimpse of the clock.  I misread it and thought it was about to hit 1:15:00 so I literally sprinted the last 100 yards.  It turned out it was the 5K clock, which was a bit over 11 minutes behind the 10 mile, so the time I’d read was actually 1:04 about to hit 1:05 and not my time.  The 10 mile clock was up and to the left, but I didn’t see it as I dashed across the line.  I am sure I annoyed a couple of the runners as I passed three in that last 100 yards in my dead sprint.

So, by the end of the race, I’d completed 10 miles in 1:16:29.  Obviously I didn’t make my target of 1:15, but at the same time I was not upset.  I’d run in rain, I’d run the longest race I’d ever run outside of training.  I was really happy.  I went to the car to change into the dry clothes I’d brought with me while I waited for the results to be posted.  I knew I wasn’t going to win anything, but I was interested.  When the results were posted, I was thrilled!  I finished 86th overall.  I had no idea where I was and for my first race, a top 100 was beyond my expectations.  I also finished 12th in my age group.  That too was better than I’d expected.  I’m in the top 25% of runners overall (there were more than 400 that ran 10 miles) and in the top 25% of runners in my age group (47 runners 40-45.)  Considering I hadn’t called myself an endurance runner before this, I had absolutely no reason to be uptight about these results.

I knew at the end of this race the half marathon was a foregone conclusion.  It isn’t now about whether I can finish.  It will instead be about what time am I willing to accept.  Is under 1:35 still possible?  Perhaps.  But, I also know that worst case below 1:45 is attainable.  That’s a pretty big margin, but I think I’ll wind up surprising myself when November 1st hits.

Cheers!

Mebane on the Move 10K, September 12, 2009

I told myself as part of the training that I’d need a couple of checkpoint races.  Something to assess how well or how poorly the training had been going.  After two really bad respiratory infections (one massive sinus infection and one acute tonsillitis) I realized that I was tearing my body apart and massively scaled back my training regimen.  I had to accept that it was my own fault my body was broken and that the two infections had ravaged my body over the summer.

Mebane is a small town about 50 miles from the house.  That meant we had to get up pretty early and I always feel guilty about having Haylie up early to haul her into the car for one of these.  Still, I don’t know how to do it any other way short of Colleen not really running and I like that she’s at least willing to run the 5K portion of these races.  So, we’re up before dawn to drive to this race.

I was a bit nervous.  I hadn’t run competitively since the Mother’s Day race in Garner, and my legs were still sore, especially in the knees from trying to push myself in the wrong way for the half marathon.  I just wanted to be able to remind myself that despite the feeling that I’d destroyed my body, I was still in reasonable shape; that I still had it in me to run a competitive race.

The race started and I was off.  Despite feeling that both knees hurt and my hips were tight, once the running started, I didn’t really notice it.  I hate my headphones.  The ear buds didn’t do well with the amount of sweat and these new ones don’t fit tightly enough so I can hear roar as I run.  Oh well, I’m supposed to focus on the running anyway.  Something was different though this time.  I didn’t look for a shoulder to follow.  I wasn’t trying to use someone else’s pace.  I was running my race.  A couple of runners did try to pace with me, but I mostly ignored them as well.  The run wasn’t a significant challenge over the first 5K.

Made the turn where the two deviated.  This was actually my first race where both started at the same time and I suddenly realized that I was being paced by 5K runners, and they were no longer anywhere near me.  I was somewhere in the top 20!  Was I sure of that?  I could no longer see the lead runner for the 10K, but I was pretty sure there were no more than 20 ahead of me.  I disappeared from the 5K runners with a renewed zeal.  My legs didn’t feel nearly as heavy.

Ugh!  Hills!  I had never been in Mebane, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but there seemed to be a lot more hills than I wanted. LOL I think this is my fatal flaw in treadmill training.  I’m not effectively training for hill ascent and descent.  Still, I managed a couple of passes and continued at what seemed to me a fairly consistent pace.  A Grand Master runner passed me and for the first time in the race, I thought about him being my “shoulder to follow” which is how I describe a runner that is running either slightly ahead of my pace or at my pace in front of me that I don’t want to lose sight of.  Unfortunately, that was about mile 5 and I realized his pass was likely to stick.  I didn’t see how I’d be able to catch him and his distance in front of me, while growing quite slowly, was growing.

By the 6 mile mark, I realized I had nothing left for the kick.  Another flaw in my training.  A friend of mine that ran cross country in school told me the premise was to run the second half faster than the first.  There would be no such thing here.  I couldn’t even be sure I’d run it in the same time.  My legs were heavy and as I crossed the finish line I was glad the race was over.  Still, I was really happy.  At mile 4, the race looped and I got to see the lead runners, and a good bit of those ahead of me.  I had finished in the top 20 overall!  My first top 20 finish in a race since I started.  NICE!  My time?  The slowest I’d run all year at 46:29, a pace of 7:30.  I finished 18th overall and 2nd in my age group.  Another gift certificate for my efforts!!

I could not believe how well I did.  I was really surprised by how this race went.  I needed this race.  I’m in better shape than I had considered and still in a good place.  I love the 10K distance!!  I am sure this will be my preferred race distance moving forward.

Cheers!

Getting back to it

So, I realized that I’d mostly abandoned this blog.  I was not happy with the way it was going.  It wasn’t about my experience, it became mostly clinical.  So, yes, I have still been training all this time.  There’s still a half marathon I plan to run November 1st, but I’ve also discovered that I’ve had to reassess what I was doing, who I was as a running, and what the training really was supposed to mean.  I think now that I have a better perspective on it, I’m ready to start blogging again.  I’m going to actually flash backward with two posts that will be following this one, because it will document the last two races and what I can only describe at this point as my epiphany.

I don’t have a sense of whether or not anyone reads this anyway, but if you’re out here, I apologize for the delay in updates and hope you’ll stick with me as we move forward.

Cheers!