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Posts Tagged ‘running’

How Many?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poll, running, Running Shoes on May 20, 2011| 2 Comments »

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Flush

Posted in health, motivation, Odd Ball, other, tagged cure, hangover, how to cure a hangover, running on May 18, 2011| 11 Comments »

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Last Monday night I went to the Sox game. I went with one of my best friends, who was in from Texas. The game itself was miserable at first. The Sox, who had finally reached .500 a quarter of the way into the season quickly went down 6 – 0 early to the Orioles. In the end however, the Sox battled back and eventually won on Adrian Gonzalez’s walk-off hit off of the Green Monstah. During the game I downed 4 hot dogs, an Italian sausage with peppers and onions, a few beers and two larges slices of pizza (one pepperoni and one veggie) – I was a junk food eating machine.

What the hell does this have to do with running?

Hold on. I’m getting there.

The game was nearly 4 hours long, ending after 11PM. I dropped my buddy off at his hotel and didn’t get home until close to midnight. By the time I fell asleep, it was nearly 12:30AM. Not good on a school night.

When the alarm went off at 4AM, I felt like crap. I mean, I really did not feel good. The food and the beer had done some very funky things to my system, and my whole body was rebelling against me. As I struggled to the bathroom to change, my stomach gurgled, my head pounded and my gut just hurt.

I put on my running clothes and stared into the mirror.

What are you doing, man?

I had no answer. So I started to take my running clothes back off to head back to bed. As I began to take off my shorts though, I thought, when am I gonna make up the mileage? I had 12 miles on the schedule and honestly, there was nowhere else in the week to put them without throwing the whole training week off. So as crappy as I felt, I pulled the shorts back up and staggered downstairs for a run.

I lay on the ground to stretch and closed my eyes. The room felt off-center, tilted.

This is NOT going to be good.

I took a deep breath, decided to skip the stretching, skip the outside and just hit the treadmill. At least this way, if something went terribly wrong I could run to the bathroom to throw up instead of on some neighbor’s lawn.

The first few miles were tough. My legs were still a bit beat up from my impromptu attack on Heartbreak Hill on Sunday. Combine that with the processed food hangover and the mild alcohol headache and it was a perfect mixture of nausea and pain.

FUN!!!

Within minutes I was sweating. At the time I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing. Normally when I run, I don’t start to sweat for a good 10 – 20 minutes.

This was too soon.

But I quickly realized that as I sweated more and more, I began to feel better and better. As painfully slow as the first 6 miles felt, I could feel myself purging the toxins out of my body with each step, with each drop of sweat. By the time I reached mile 7, I was in cruise control, covering the last 5 miles feeling great and refreshed.

And so I was able to take on the rest of the day much differently than had I gone back to bed. I am sure that if I had given in to the siren call of my pillow (and believe me, my pillow sings beautifully), I, along with anyone else who falls victim to those dreaded singing bird women, would have spent the whole day feeling like a big pile of poo. Instead, I was able to flush the toxins out of my system and actually enjoy my day – refreshed, purged, cleansed.

The next time you drink a little too much or eat too much processed food-substitute, think about curing that hangover with a run.

It works!

Why do you run?

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Heartbreak Hill Half Marathon 2011

Posted in race recap, racing, tagged Half-Marathon, Heartbreak Hill Half Marathon, PR, race recap, race report, RaceMenu, racing, running on May 16, 2011| 12 Comments »

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I really hadn’t planned on being here, yet here I was, at the starting line, wondering what the heck I was doing.

Having just come off my first heavy mileage week since late March, I wasn’t sure how my legs were going to react.

They felt heavy.

What the heck was I doing hopping last minute into a half-marathon?

***

One of the things I “love” about the half-marathon and marathon distance is that at some point, if you are a mid-packer like me, you will be tested. It is not a question of if, but one of when. Usually the test comes in the second half of the race. In a marathon it is often during the last 10K (though mine at Boston came at 17). In the half, I usually find that I must overcome my brain somewhere around miles 9 or 10.

Yesterday my test came during the first 4 miles. I had jumped into this half-marathon on a whim. I hadn’t trained for it, AND I had just started a new training cycle that already had me at over 40 miles for the week. That isn’t a lot for some, but it is a full week for me. My legs. were. tired.

As the starter yelled, “Go. Go! GO!” I got sucked out by the front of the pack. I had run into RaceMenu/Mix1 teammate Greg (when he showed up I joked that everybody’s projected finish had just dropped one spot) and had made the mistake of hanging out with him near the start. When the starter yelled go, I knew to let Greg go (he’s fast). I didn’t give chase and I thought I was running at a smart pace. Because of the threat of rain, I had left my iPhone (my de facto GPS device) at home, so I had no idea really what my pace was. As we passed the first mile marker I tapped my watch and looked down.

6:09.

Um, what?!?

My goal for the half-marathon I had signed up for 2 weeks from now was to run 7:00 minute miles (and that would be an almost 2 minute PR). I had no business running a 6:09 first mile in an impromptu half-marathon. I slowed myself down a bit which resulted in me watching several runners pass me by.

It’s never a good feeling when you get passed, even if you know in your head that it is the smart thing to do – it is discouraging at best. As the faster runners continued to pass me, I quickly spiraled into a dark place wondering what I had been thinking. I hit mile 3 in 20 minutes flat, but my legs felt like rubber. I was spent. I had gone out too hard, too fast and with little over 10 miles to go, I was done. By the time I hit mile 4, I actually had thoughts that maybe I needed to stop road racing – for a while anyway. What was the point, really? I mean, seriously, I am not fast enough to have a shot at winning any of these races; why in the world was I putting myself through this kind of hell? Miles 4 and 5 were significantly slower and I started to think about walking or quitting. The problem of course is that if I did that, I was stuck in the middle of nowhere and I’d still have to make my way back to the start. On top of all of that, my right foot fell asleep between miles 4 and 5 (and would remain so for most of the race) and it felt like I was running on a stump of a right foot. Yes, things were moving along swimmingly.

When I hit mile 6 I looked at my watch.

41:59.

Just under 7:00 per mile. Granted there were still 7 miles to go, but a PR was not out of the question. We were almost done climbing Heartbreak Hill and I notice that I was now starting to pass a few people. I saw Greg coming in the other direction. We slapped five as we passed each other. He had a good 40 – 50 second lead on the second place runner. Encouraged, I tried to quicken the cadence a little and push up the hill. As we hit the turnaround and started heading back, I saw one of the runners who had passed me early on off in the distance.

I stopped thinking about my sleeping foot. I stopped thinking about the pain and how tired I was. Instead I focused on this runner’s tan shirt. There were other runners in between us, but for some reason I did not want to lose to this guy. It was time to go to work. He was to be a good 75 – 100 yards off, but I slowly started to reel him in. Coming down Heartbreak, a young kid pulled up next to me and I latched on. Moments later I heard a loud, booming, “LUAU!!!” I looked to see Kim from Tales of an Endless Runner working her way up Heartbreak. I yelled back and carried on. Running downhill felt good. I finally caught tan shirt at around mile 8. As I started to pass him, he surged, as did young kid. I pushed along with them. Tan shirt briefly opened up about a one meter gap before fading. Young kid and I pushed on.

I still felt terrible. My legs were sluggish and my breathing was labored. My mindset, as it had been from about mile 5 on, was “just finish”. Forget the PR, just finish.

I kept thinking if I could just hang with young kid, I would be all right, but I very quickly realized that in this particular case, youth was going to win out. At mile 9 I felt young kid quicken the pace. He was trying to reel in a group that was about 50 yards ahead of us. I thought about coming along for the ride, but I knew I had spent my surge energy catching tan shirt. I quickly glanced behind me to see if anyone was closing on me and saw no one. I decided to keep my pace and let young kid go. It was a move I would partially regret later.

When I hit mile 10 I looked at my watch. 70:16. I started to do some math. My PR was a 1:33:14. That meant if I ran the next 3.1 miles in just under 23:00 minutes, I could PR. My heart and my brain went in two different directions. My heart said, “GOGOGO!!!” where my brain said, “be smart, run smart!”

I divided 23 by 3.

7 2/3.

7:40.

But that doesn’t take into account the extra 0.1!

23 divided by 3.1 is…

oh crap! too hard. I can’t even do that when I’m not running.

I arbitrarily assigned the 0.1 mile stretch 45 seconds.

22:15 divided by 3.

3 times 7 is 21.

that leaves 1:15…divide that by 3…that 75 second…25!

7:25!!!

I need to run 7:25 pace the rest of the way to hit a PR!!!

Yes, this is what was running through my brain as I covered mile 11. When I hit the mile marker I looked at my watch – 7:18 for mile 11!

Re-calculate!

Nononono!

Just run!!! Keep pace.

Mile 12 came in 7:19. 1.1 miles to go. If I could just maintain my pace I would beat my previous best. I looked ahead. I had pulled within maybe 75 yards of the guy ahead of me (young kid has disappeared out of sight). I thought about trying to make up 75 yards over the course of a mile, but I was spent. That said I did manage to pick up the pace. With less than a few hundred yards to go, I heard RaceMenu Chief Alain cheering me in. There was no one behind me and there was no way I was catching the guy in front of me, but I picked up the speed with one last push. I knew the PR was mine. As I made the final turn and ran through the chute, I saw the clock – 1:32:23 – a PR by 51 seconds.

1:32:23 - 22nd overall, 4th AG, 51 second PR

I. was. beat.

Alain handed me a mix1, congratulated me on my PR and told me that Greg had won the race in a course record 1:14. Man that guy is fast! Greg and I posed for a picture for our sponsors.

So, I finished in 1:32:23, 22nd overall and once again, as it seems to be my fate in these things, 4th in my age group, just off of the podium. Maybe if I had chased young kid back at mile 9 – 10 I would have caught the 40-something that finished ahead of me – of course, maybe I would have crashed and burned before even making it to mile 11, who knows.

I’m glad I chose last minute to hop in on this half-marathon. I’m glad I passed the test early on in the race. Did I learn anything? Maybe that even when it feels like it’s all going down the tubes, if you put your head down and battle through, sometimes good things can happen. Makes me feel pretty good going into the Boston Run to Remember Half Marathon over Memorial Day Weekend in 2 weeks. That race is MUCH flatter than this was, so I’ve actually got a shot at another PR. We shall see.

***

On a tangentially related note, it seems that Sunday may have been National PR Day. Many of my running friends scored personal records in the races they ran, none more joyous to me than my buddy Brendan (@mainerunnah on Twitter) who ran the Pittsburgh Marathon and got his BQ in a 3:19 finish. Those of you who read this blog regularly may remember Brendan from my Smuttynose BQ. At that race we were both shooting for 3:19’s as part of Team Kinvara, but he unfortunately came up 33 seconds short. Getting the text that Brendan had achieved his goal actually brought a tear to my eye. Congratulations Brendan, you have caught the Unicorn! I will see you in Hopkinton in 2012!

Why do you run?

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So you want to run a marathon?

Posted in motivation, training, tagged knowledge, marathon training, running, wanna run a marathon, want to run a marathon on May 14, 2011| 16 Comments »

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My brother-in-law, RB, emailed me a few days ago. He had decided that this was the year he was going to scratch “Run a Marathon” off of the bucket list. He came to me looking for a little advice on the how and what to do over the next several months.

I essentially wrote back with the following list plus a link to Hal Higdon’s Novice Marathon Training Plan:

Your goal in this marathon will be to “just finish”. Currently your base of 18 – 20 miles per week means that you need to concentrate on the distance of the marathon as opposed to speed.
Your most important workout every week will be your long run. You can skip the shorter runs here and there, but you shouldn’t miss more than 2 long runs for the whole training cycle. And you CANNOT miss your two longest runs (18 and 20). Those two runs are key to giving you the mental confidence of finishing a marathon. There will be a point in the marathon when you want to quit, but if you have these two long runs under your belt, you will be able to draw on the experience of running them and finish.
Your long runs should also be run a little slower than what you are used to running (10% – 20% slower than what you anticipate your marathon pace to be). If you don’t know what your pace will be, just make sure you are running at a pace where you could carry on a conversation (at least for the first 14 – 16 miles).
If you have the desire, join a running social network like dailymile.com. It’s an easy way to keep track of your training and I could hook you up with a lot of my running friends who would give you support throughout your training.
Running shoes. Whatever shoes you believe you will be running the marathon in, use them for your long runs. And then get a fresh pair of the same shoes maybe 4 weeks before marathon time and do maybe 4 or 5 runs in them to break them in. Your feet will thank you.

When I first started running regularly, I leaned a lot on my friend MK. He was and is a huge wealth of knowledge. Unfortunately, when I first decided to give the marathon distance a try, neither one of us had run a marathon yet. I wish I had had the resources I have now at my disposal.

So with that said, I would like to ask you, my readers, specifically those who have run marathons, to help me out. Whether you are a serial marathoner (as it seems I am turning into) or a one-time marathoner who is just happy to get the race off of the bucket list, I would like to elicit what advice you would have given yourself when you first set off to conquer this magical distance, knowing what you know now.

My hope is to make RB’s first experience of 26.2 miles an positive one.

Why do you run?

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The Price

Posted in motivation, training, tagged Inertia, Morning Running, predawn, running on May 13, 2011| 10 Comments »

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I got two hours of sleep on Monday night. There was no good reason really. I turned out the light at around 11:30 and then proceeded to toss and turn for then next two and a half hours. When the alarm went off at 4AM, I hesitated briefly before rolling out of bed. 9 miles later I was ready to start the day.

Tuesday night I was up past midnight. This time, there was good reason. A friend had turned 50 and we were out celebrating. Again, when the alarm went off at 4AM, I hesitated before rolling out of bed. Several Stoli Doleys and beer definitely had taken their toll. Still, I forced myself down the stairs and 11 miles later, I was again ready to start the day.

And again, last night, for no good reason, after falling asleep around 10 or so, I woke up close to midnight and couldn’t sleep for a couple of hours. When the alarm went off at 4AM, I really thought about putting off “just this one workout”. Instead, I dragged myself down the stairs and 11 miles later, I was ready to start the day.

In all three cases before I put one foot in front of the other, all I wanted to do was reset the alarm for two hours later and go back to sleep (forget the snooze button!). Wednesday’s morning run brought the additional bonus of feeling slightly woozy and hung over.

Fun!

I don’t tell you the mundane details of my training to a.)let you know what I’m doing or b.) toot my own horn.

No.

The reason I share this is because of what happened after I started. Each run started with stiff legs and a groggy head. Each looked to be headed for a miserable time, either due to lack of sleep or the effects of vodka, beer and pineapple juice. But each run turned around quickly. As tired as I was, within a few mile, my mind was alert and the legs loose.

There was a pep in my step.

Jess says that I often look very self-satisfied in morning when I come back upstairs to shower after my early morning runs.

You know what? Even on so little sleep, I am. I am self-satisfied.

The blood flow, the endorphins, the miles banked and the knowledge that I’m over 1,000 calories in the hole add up to a very self-satisfying feeling. And that feeling generally lasts all day. Maybe that’s why I have a resting pulse of 38 – I’m happy and relaxed.

But there’s a price to be paid to get to that happy and relaxed state. You must battle inertia every morning. You must battle the urge to hit the snooze button and roll back over to go to sleep. You must battle the first few mile to reach that flow.

At 4AM that price looks like $1,000,000.00, but if you can get through it, you realize in retrospect that the price was a.)more like $1 and b.) well worth it.

I don’t normally go on only 2 – 4 hours of sleep a night. Usually it’s about 5 – 6, but what this week reminded me of was that running, or any exercise for that matter, can be just as energizing as sleep. You just have to be willing to fight through the inertia.

Did you pay the price this morning?

Why do you run?

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Here I Go Again…

Posted in training, tagged marathon training, running on May 9, 2011| 6 Comments »

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…and so it begins.

Today I ran 8 miles followed up by some strides. I followed my heart and ran happy. The only real significance of the run is that it was the first scheduled run for this new training cycle. On Friday I officially signed up for the Around the Lake Marathon. Today I started the Pfitz 12/70 plan. The 12-week plan starts at about 55 miles per week and peaks at a little over 70.

So here I go again…

4 AM wake ups, predawn runs, long run Sundays. I’m looking forward to seeing if my legs can handle the new program. This will be uncharted territory for me in terms of mileage, but I think that it’s the logical next step.

Yes, here I go again…

Long runs, marathon-paced runs, tempo runs, VO2Max runs – my familiar morning friends.

Yes, here I go again…but fortunately for me, unlike David Coverdale, I may not be going “on my own”. As you may or may not know, the Around the Lake Marathon is part of a greater 24 Hour Around the Lake Ultra Marathon. There is talk among the NERTS (the New England Running Tweeps) of forming a team to run the 24 hour ultramarathon as a relay. They are still a few people short, so if you’re interested, let me know. That relay team could/would serve as a pacer for the first 8 laps for yours truly! Talk about awesome!

In return, I’d crew for them the rest of the way.

Sounds like a party!

So here I go again…

It feel great to be running with purpose again, with a goal on the horizon.

Do you think David Coverdale was a marathon runner?

Why do you run?

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The Joy

Posted in motivation, other, training, tagged joy, run happy, running on May 9, 2011| 5 Comments »

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With all the “what went wrong” and “what could I have done” and “what will I do” posts over the last two weeks, I was told in passing by my friend Brendan that I was analyzing my Boston Marathon race to death. The tone in his comment was not critical or even one of “hey, earth calling Luau” – it was simply matter of fact.

And he’s right.

Inadvertently, he reminded me that the running is not necessarily about the race or the analysis, but rather, it is about The Joy!

The benefits of the Runner’s High are well documented. So are the health benefits one gets from running; as are the psychological ones; and to a lesser degree, the intellectual ones.

What Brendan reminded me of is the joy of simply being active. All of the benefits mentioned above come after a certain amount of time on your feet. To achieve them, you have to work – sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

The Joy however is that feeling you get while you’re slipping on your shorts and then into your shoes, and then finally as you are stepping out the door. That anticipation of movement, of sweat, of earned endorphins, of that feeling of “spentness”

I love that feeling – that sense of joy, that sense of knowing you are about to bring the pain and it is going to hurt so good.

I haven’t forgotten the Joy while I have been dissecting my 2011 Boston. In fact, the Joy has been, in part, what has kept me sane, allowing me to continue to have the desire to run despite the disappointment and analysis.

Well, after Brendan’s comment, the analysis is done, the disappointment is harnessed.

Yes, it is back to training; yes it’s back to numbers – The Around the Lake Marathon is less than 12 weeks away. But this cycle is going to be about The Joy!

Why do you run?

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Following My Heart

Posted in health, training, tagged heart rate, monitor, running, training on May 6, 2011| 6 Comments »

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Yesterday I wrote about Discipline – how my lack of it at key times may have cost me my goal in my last marathon.

Our race day performances are, more times than not, a reflection of the training we have put in over the course of weeks and months. My training cycle leading into Boston felt great. My workouts were fast (for me). Except for the recovery runs, they were all fast. That isn’t a huge problem when you’re running tempo or VO2Max runs, but it is a problem when you are doing your medium-long and long runs.

There is a physiological purpose to the long, slow distance:

Pure endurance training stimulates [your ability to store glycogen and use fat for fuel] and increases the capillarization of your muscles…the primary type of training to stimulate these adaptations is runs of 90 minutes or longer…long runs are the bread and butter of marathoners…the most beneficial intensity range for most of your long runs is 10 to 20 percent slower than your goal marathon race pace.

-Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas

My issue was that once I was out there on Sundays I would get sucked in by how good I felt. Almost every time I was out on the road, I would realize early on that my splits were faster than the prescribed training. My goal of a sub-3:15 marathon called for me to run the marathon at about a 7:24/mile pace. According to Pfitzinger, I should have been running my long runs 10% – 20% slower than marathon pace. That means I should have been running my long runs between 8:08 and 8:52 per mile pace. It is at these speeds that the physiological changes occur to increase one’s endurance. Looking back, my long run would start in the mid to low 8’s and ultimately end up in the mid to low 7’s.

Well, Luau, if you could run faster at those distances, isn’t that a good thing?

Here’s the thing – all those run simply proved was that I could run those distances (12 – 20 miles) at or near marathon pace. They did not in fact do what the long run is designed to do, which is improve endurance.

So why didn’t you slow down?

That’s a damned good question. Logically, that’s what I should have done. I could see the splits on my watch. I knew that I was running too fast. But here’s the problem – I’m a mildly competitive person, not necessarily with others, but with myself. I had a hard time slowing down. Mentally I just couldn’t do it.

So what to do?

Obviously knowing my mile splits didn’t do it for me. I felt good so I kept at the pace. My legs didn’t feel like they were working too hard, and I was able to convince myself that if I felt good I could and should keep going.

I could fool my legs, I could fool my brain, but there is one part of the body I cannot fool – my heart.

One of the purest ways to determine how hard you are working is by listening to your heart. The harder you work, the faster it beats. It’s pretty simple. When I trained under the Pfitzinger plans for both Smuttynose and Boston, I trained during the week solely based on time, or what I perceived my various levels (Recovery, General Aerobic, Long Run, Marathon Pace, Lactate Threshold and VO2Max) to be. I determined my times based on past races. The only problem is that some race results indicated that I could run a 3:07 marathon, while others indicated a 3:17. 10 minutes may not seem like a lot to a non-marathoner, but believe me, it is.

Guess which indicators I chose to believe?

As runners, we hear over and over again, train at the fitness level that you are at, NOT at the level you want to be. Training where you are allows you to get better and improve; while training where you want to be, though exciting, can lead to undue injury and, possibly in my case, missing the point of certain runs all together.

So over the past week, I have dusted off the old heart monitor (I think it actually belongs to the wife), and decided I would let me heart lead my workouts. Yes, I will literally allow my heart to dictate what the pace of the day (based on the prescribed workouts) will be. So far, I have been pleasantly surprised to find that my heart rate remains relatively low when it comes to my Recovery and General Aerobic runs. It may all be an indication that I was previously running too slow during the week and too fast over the weekends.

We shall see…stay tuned!

Now, if I could only get Garmin to send me the new Forerunner 610, I’d be all set!

Why do you run?

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Discipline

Posted in boston marathon, training, tagged boston marathon, Discipline, running, training on May 5, 2011| 17 Comments »

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments

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As I continue to peel back the layers of what may have happened to me at Boston, something keeps nagging me. Looking back at my splits, I realize that early on I wasn’t on pace for a 3:15 marathon, or even a 3:10. Some of my splits, had I been able to maintain them would have brought me in between a 3:00 and 3:05 marathon.

That’s a problem.

I’m not a 3:00 marathoner. Not yet anyway.

***

In retrospect, there were signs of the coming power bonk* during my training.

Throughout the winter, I was disciplined about running on the days I was scheduled. During the week I would run exactly or very near to what was prescribed by the Pfitz 18/55 plan I was following. On Saturdays, I would also run at the distance and speed that I perceived to be required.

But then there were Sundays.

Ah, the Sunday long run. It is, without question, my favorite part of training for a marathon. Whether it happens on my treadmill in the basement in front of the TV or, preferably, outdoors where I can enjoy the scenery, it is a relaxing time. Yes, I push myself; yes, I finish tired; yes, it is not easy; but it is peaceful. I get my highest runners’ highs off of the long run.

But there was a problem. I could never just run at the pace dictated by my training schedule. I always pushed the pace to a speed that was out of the physiological training zone I was supposed to be working on. Long, SLOW runs have their purpose. They are important, and yet I always pushed the pace a little faster than prescribed, probably costing me some precious endurance.

That being said, I was still probably in good enough shape to achieve the 3:15 I had originally been after, but true to form, when it came to race day, I pushed the pace. In the closing days leading up to Boston, I let myself get sucked into the concept of running a 3:10. My discipline went out the window at mile marker 1 and, in the words of my friend MK, the 20 – 25 seconds per mile I gained probably caused a classic bonk – and when I say classic, I mean an All. Out. Bonk.

I have never bonked like that before (not even at Manchester – that was my quads). I never want to bonk like that again.

So this training cycle is going to be about discipline (how I go about it I will discuss in my next post). Don’t get me wrong, I will still run happy. I will still have fun while I’m running. BUT, on Sundays and on race day, I will also remember the classic line, “slow and steady wins the race”.

More importantly, I will remember on race day that I have a plan, that I have trained for the plan, that I need the plan. I will resist the urge to push the pace early, and hopefully keep enough in the tank so that instead of hanging on for the final 10K, I will actually be able to pick up speed and finish strong. This was the strategy at Smuttynose, and it worked until I hit a soft wall with a mile to go. At that point though I just needed to finish to get my BQ…and I did.

So if you see me out there on a Sunday running way faster than I should, feel free to yell at me to rein it in. I know there are going to be times over the next 12 weeks that I just let the horses fly (or the schedule calls for a marathon-paced run), but I’ve got to remember, if I want to be disciplined on race day, I’ve got to do it in practice as well.

*In endurance sports, particularly cycling and running, hitting the wall or the bonk describes a condition caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles, which manifests itself by precipitous fatigue and loss of energy.

Why do you run?

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Complement

Posted in training, tagged Advanced Marathoning, marathon training, New Training, Pfitz 12/55, running on April 29, 2011| 17 Comments »

com·ple·ment/ˈkämpləmənt/
Noun:A thing that completes or brings to perfection.
Verb:Add to (something) in a way that enhances or improves it; make perfect.

***

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It’s time to complement – not to be confused with compliment.

No, though I’m sure I could write 1000’s of words complimenting all of you, today the topic is complement.

***

With every marathon that I’ve run, I have tried to follow a plan of some sort. For Manchester in 2009 it was the Runners’ World plan for Intermediate Runners. For Providence, and consequently Boston, last year (Spring 2010), I went with lots of long, slow, miles. For Smuttynose & New York (Fall of 2010) and Boston this year I followed my running bible, Advanced Marathoning.

In retrospect, I now believe I missed a very important part of the training process in each of these training cycles.

Yes, I put in the miles – man, did I put in the miles.

I ran fast.

I ran slow.

I ran hills.

I ran flats.

Ran.

A lot!

See a “running” theme here? Despite mixing up the types of runs I was doing, I essentially did nothing other than run. Oh, I touched on doing push ups for a couple of weeks, planks for even fewer, but for the most part, every workout was about the run, run, run.

***

Now, my ego is still hurting a little from my collapse at Boston this year. Yes, I did manage to make Lemonade out of Lemons. I enjoyed myself immensely. But honestly, it is not the way I would have chosen to run this, or any marathon.

I’m not saying that my asthmatic episode was caused by a lack of core strength or lack of flexibility. I’m not looking for excuses. But I do know this – Pfitz’ 12/55 program call for 4 – 5 day of running per week. On the off days, the plan calls for either rest or cross-training. During the past two training cycles I have almost always chosen rest, and by “almost always” I mean always – an older guy like me needs recovery time, right?

Looking back I can’t help but wonder – would a stronger core have helped me expend less energy over the first 17 miles of Boston? would that conserved energy have translated into my breakdown happening much later in the race? would I have arrived at mile 17 just that much sooner? would increased flexibility have prevented the eventual tightening of my legs and shoulders after I went into survival mode? would I have been able to stride it out on the Newton Hills?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if the episode was stress and anxiety induced.

However, I do know that every edge helps.

I went into Boston this year thinking that my legs were ready to run a 3:10. I still believe that they are, but I wonder if there are other parts of my running system that need a little extra work?

With that thought in mind, the next training cycle is going to be a little different from previous ones. I will still take rest days to be sure, but they will be significantly fewer and farther between.

There will be more stretching.

There will be more consistent core work.

There will be regular cross-training.

I’ve got 2 1/2 weeks to adapt to this new routine if I’m gonna run the marathon portion of the 24 Hours Around the Lake Race in late July. Hopefully, these complements will take my running up a notch and eventually take me to my goal.

…and then we can talk about compliments.

Why do you run?