On Monday morning I was lying in bed with my eyes open, as I often do, waiting for the motivation to finally swing my legs over the edge and rise for the day. I began replaying the Gasparilla marathon in my head and having a conversation with myself about what I did right and what I did wrong. Soon, my thoughts drifted to the moment near the 24 mile mark when my calves first started to cramp up.
I was trying to describe the feeling to myself and stumbled over the words until I arrived at this conclusion:
“It felt like my calves looked me in the eyes and said, ‘You’ve been pounding us for the last 3 hours. To hell with you’. They tightened so much that they threatened to break their tendony bonds to my bones, tear through my skin, hop the seawall and swim to Mexico where they would find a new host.”
I pictured myself collapsing to the ground of Bayshore Drive as animated versions of my calves awkwardly hopped toward the seawall, casting one final smirk that said “F You!” with their sinewy cartoon mouths before plunging into the sea and making their way to Mexico.
I laughed out loud…for a while and got out of bed. It’s always good to start the day with a laugh.
If consistency is key, then I’m well on my way back. I ran all 7 days this week:
Monday: 3 miles treadmill + leg strength training
Tuesday: 4 miles
Wednesday: 3 miles treadmill + upper body strength
Thursday: 5 miles
Friday: 3 miles treadmill + core strength training
Saturday: 8 miles (final mile in 7 minutes)
Sunday: 5 miles
Total: 31 miles
Overall, my average pace was probably about 8:30 min/mile. I felt good on just about every run with the exception of Thursday’s 5 miler. I was dreading the weekend 8 miler because of that and because I was meeting up with Richie and Steve (who have been pushing faster paces lately). Unfortunately, Richie injured his calf and Steve ran the other direction, so I never met up with them. I had a great run anyway.
I’m getting occasional flashes of the kind of outside my body experience that I had for most of the Disney half marathon. It feels good, but I’m also getting some episodes of utter “suckitude” like Thursday’s painful 5 miler. I did have a lot of wine on Wednesday night, so I think I can chalk it up to that.
All in all, I’m feeling pretty good. I’m not quite ready to add speedwork to the mix, but I’m getting there. Certainly if the temperatures come down, I’ll be ready to fly…maybe even before that. I’ve got a tentative race on the calendar as well. I’ll be running the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 10K in downtown St. Petersburg during the first weekend of October. I’ll also probably run the intrasquad 5K with Alice’s cross country team in the next few weeks.
I think the main lesson I’ve learned from my training in the last few weeks is that I’m not in the kind of shape I thought I was. After being inspired by Spirit of the Marathon, I met up with Richie and Steve for a 10 mile run a few weeks ago. I was really dogging it about halfway through and had to stop for a walk after about 9 miles. They were kind enough to let me catch my breath and we finished 10 miles in about an hour and a half.
Since then, I’ve realized that I’ll have to take it easy and gradually build myself back up until my legs come back. That’s not a big deal since I’ve really got no big race plans until the Ragnar Relay in January. On that front, we’ve put together a team of 12 runners and I’m the coach! It doesn’t mean all that much since we’re not horribly serious about time. I think our main goal is to get to Key West early enough to have a bit of a nap before the party really starts.
I did manage to get 3 runs in less than 24 hours this weekend. The first was 6 miles in about 52:30. The second was 3 miles that I didn’t time, but felt fast. The third was 3 miles in 26 minutes. The legs are holding up pretty well and I’m regaining some cardiovascular fitness. My goal right now is to try to stay consistent and just get my workouts in with little regard for time.
It’s been a long, long time since I’ve posted. Now, my lovely wife has tagged me with a Trendy Blog award. Since I haven’t posted in well over a month, it’s difficult to say I deserve a “Trendy blog” award. So, I won’t be playing along with the tag game, but I will take the poke in the back and actually post.
With the heat index expected to climb over 100 degrees, Alice and I woke up at 5 am to hit the Pinellas Trail before sunrise. After about a mile of running, we could barely make out a lone figure in the dark distance. As we approached, we could see he was carrying a long stick and wearing only flip flops and long boxer shorts. He appeared to wobble a little along the trail. Since Richie and I have encountered many a drunk man on the trail early in the morning, I was about to call for an impromptu fartlek to put some distance between us and this mysterious man.
Before I could, he broke into a pretty decent jog and off he went. Eventually, he pulled off the trail and we passed him. Before long, he was aside us.
“Forerunners?” he asked, referring to a popular running club here in St. Petersburg.
“No,” I replied, “you?”
“Nah, too old and slow,” he said as he picked up the pace and left us behind.
We continued for another mile, climbing over two overpasses. At the bottom of the second, we encountered him again.
“How far are you going today?” he asked.
“8 miles,” I replied. “It’s Alice’s first 8 miler. How about you?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been out here since 3 already.”
“Really?” I asked, “Do you do that a lot?” He seemed surprised.
“You’ve never heard of me?”
“No,” I confessed.
“Go to….no don’t do that. Just Google ‘Larry the Flip Flop Guy’. There’s an article about me”.
“How long have you been running in the flip flops,” I asked.
“About 15 years I guess.”
“So you didn’t just read Born to Run and start running in sandals like everyone else?”
“Nah”.
We chatted for a while before Alice and I stopped for a quick drink. We then passed him as he walked up an overpass.
“You’ll be turning around soon?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied,”probably on the other side of this overpass”.
“Catch you on the return then!”
Alice and I made it over the bridge and down the other side. We ran out to about 4 and quarter miles, then turned around. When we did, Larry was nowhere to be found. We joked that we’d probably Google him and find out he died in 1999 or something like that.
About a mile later, we spotted him in the distance. It turns out, Larry’s pretty fast when he wants to be. We caught him on another overpass and I stayed with us until we stopped for water again, asking questions and doling out advice the whole time. He runs the trail almost everyday, averaging around 120 miles a week (down from over 200 miles per week in his prime).
Larry stayed with us for the rest of our run. It was definitely one of the most interesting runs we’ve had. When I got home, I did Google him. Here’s what I found:
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/10/04/Life/Catching_up_with_the_.shtml
For those of you following Alice’s running career, she ran a 13:38 3200 m race at the Regional meet, finishing 14th. The girl who won ran a 10:18 for the second fastest 3200 in the nation this year. The goal going in was to not get double lapped and she achieved that goal by a good 5 seconds. All in all, the experience was pretty positive. She got to school the catch the bus at 6 am, drove 3 hours south, sat around all day to race at 8:30 pm, then drove home with me, arriving home just after midnight. We knew going in that she wasn’t going to qualify, so I think that the day of figuring out how to deal with that kind of situation without the pressure of having the qualify was good for her. The experience will benefit her in a year or two when she does have a chance. Also, it never hurts to run with some of the best high school runners in the nation (the girl who won has a twin sister who finished just 15 seconds behind her - they both ran 4:54 in the mile) when you’re in 7th grade.
Since track season is now over, Alice has been turned over to “Coach Daddy” to prepare for cross country season. She’ll be traveling to St. Louis for a couple of weeks in June and we decided that would be a great time for a couple weeks off. She’s also feeling highly motivated at this point. So, we’ve jumped right into training. I added her to my membership at the gym and we did some core training on Monday. Tuesday was a tempo run at 7:40 pace. Today was interval training.
Instead of standing there with my stopwatch, I came up with a new plan this time around. Since her ideal 400 m interval time is 1:35 and mine is 1:25, I figured I’d just give her a 10 second head start, then chase her down. She has really come a long way since our 400 m interval sessions in the winter where she struggled to hit 1:38 consistently. Today, she ran all of her intervals at 1:30 or faster. That made it harder on me, since I was pacing myself on the idea that I should catch her right at the finish. So, here’s how I did:
400 m in 1:19
400 m in 1:21
400 m in 1:18
400 m in 1:19
400 m in 1:23
400 m in 1:14
The last one was just because I wasn’t going to let her beat me on all 6. Unfortunately, she ran that last one in 1:26, so I had to push it to pass her. It was pretty cool to have run the last interval sub 5 min/mile pace. We jogged 400 m at about 10 min/mile pace in between intervals with a 1 mile warmup and cooldown. Overall, it was a good workout for both of us. I think the 10 second head start thing was a pretty good idea. It allows us to push each other.
I’m still alive.
No, I didn’t injure myself running barefoot.
Yes, I’m still running.
I’ll admit I’ve been a slacker lately at least when it comes to the blog. I have been very busy at work (both jobs), which is good for the financial situation, but less so for blogging and keeping up with all my friends’ blogs.
My runs have been pretty informal. I’ve been leaving the Garmin at home and just running whatever distance and pace feels right on any given day. Sometimes I run to the gym, workout, then run home (about 5 miles round trip).
Running has still been a big part of life, though. Some of the good that has come from working into the night has been that I’ve freed up some time to go to all of Alice’s track meets. Last week, she finished second in the 3200 m at the district meet and has advanced to the regionals (tomorrow down in Naples, FL). So, I guess you could say I’ve been a little inspired by the “playoff” atmosphere of the last couple track meets and her improvement/drive to keep improving in general. Perhaps that’s why I was finally motivated to do some 400 m intervals yesterday. Here’s how it went:
1.5 miles warmup
400 m in 1:19
400 m in 1:21
400 m in 1:19
400 m in 1:25
400 m in 1:23
400 m in 1:21
1.5 miles easy
The recoveries between intervals were 400m between 8 and 9 minutes per mile (with 10-15 seconds walking post interval to catch my breath). It felt great. It’s nice to see I’m still in pretty decent shape. I’m sticking with one of Jack Daniels’ non-specific training plans right now. I’ll be adding a second day of speedwork in a couple of weeks - probably 1200’s at 5K race pace. I’m running 12 miles with Drew on Saturday. Hopefully he’ll go easy on me. He didn’t bother with much recovery after his sub 3 hour performance at Gasparilla and nearly ran a sub 35 minute 10K a couple of weeks back. Maybe he’s ready for some recovery now.
This was another not so hot week. I’m really starting to realize that I peaked mentally/emotionally for the Walt Disney World half marathon. Right now, I’m just kind (poorly) going through the motions of training for a marathon. I think I’m there. I’m not going to set the world on fire, but I think I’m in good enough shape to take 2 hours off my previous PR and that’s basically my goal this time around. When I compare my long runs, especially, I’ve done two 18 milers and 3 20 milers this time around compared to 1 of each last time. On top of that, I’ve put in some fast miles during a few of those runs too.
It’s not totally burnout, though. The rest of life has been pretty stressful lately and that especially gets to me in the morning when I don’t have a lot of motivation to face the day in general. If not for running with Steve and Justin and injured Richie’s text message coaching, I don’t think I’d have put in the long runs. I have to say, though that Saturday afternoons have been the best times of my life lately. The week is behind me and I’m exhausted from the long run and I just vegetate in front of something that pretends to be educational - I’ve become especially fond of Revolutionary War specials on the History channel.
In any case, I’m 3 weeks from the marathon and it’s time to taper! Though this week was so pathetic, I may just run more mileage in my first taper week. Here’s how it went:
Monday AM: 1 hour (21.5 miles) stationary bike
Tuesday AM: 6 miles (2.5 at 6:40 pace)
Friday AM: Almost a mile, though I’m not counting it
Saturday AM: 20 miles at 8:35 pace
Total: 26 miles
I’m going to try to get a 2×3 miles at 6:45 pace workout in this week and the “long” run will probably be 14 this weekend - and that seems positively short!
I made a pretty good comeback this week. Even though it was sometimes difficult to get out of bed, I hit all of my planned workouts this week. I’m 4 weeks away from the Gasparilla marathon. I’m officially registered and I’ve only got one more week before the taper. Here’s how it went:
Monday AM: 21 miles (60 mins) stationary bike
Monday PM: 6.1 miles with Alice at 10:20 pace
Tuesday AM: 8×1200 m in 4:45-4:51 with 30-60s rests. 10 miles total
Wednesday AM: 6 miles at 8:15 pace
Thursday: Off
Friday AM: 6 miles at 8:40 pace
Saturday AM: 2×1.5 miles at 6:45 pace + 17 miles = 20 miles in 2:42
Sunday AM: 6.2 miles with Alice at 10:35 pace.
Total: 54.3 miles
The speedwork on Tuesday went quite well. I was surprised to get all 8 1200’s in at under 6:30 pace. I’ve gotta believe I’m capable of a sub 40 min 10K now. Saturday’s long run was tough. I did 2×1.5 miles at 6:45 pace before meeting up with Steve and Justin (they were running 13). I ran about 11 with them and Steve drove the pace over their final 6 miles at 7:30-7:40 pace. That wore me out for my last 4 miles which were straight into a 22 MPH headwind. I held onto my run despite an extreme desire to walk and finished my 20 miles in 2:42 - which is actually a 20 mile PR for me.
I’m starting to feel pretty confident about the marathon even though the distance is still intimidating. I’m definitely ready to tackle it and then spend a few weeks without a training plan to follow.
Here I am at the peak of marathon training. This is how I roll. Here is the kind of week I put in at the peak of marathon training:
Monday AM: 3 miles at 8:16 pace
Tuesday AM: 21 miles stationary bike (1 hour)
Friday AM: 40 minutes stationary bike + 2 miles treadmill at 8:22 pace
Saturday AM: 18 miles (12 easy + 6 at 7:30 pace)
Sunday AM: 2.6 miles
Total: 25.6 miles(almost a marathon!)
Yeah. That’s about what Ryan Hall did this week, I think. The Saturday run was a solid 18 miler, but it’s pretty sad that I couldn’t put together enough miles in the 6 other days of the week to even equal a marathon. I’m pretty mentailly drained right now. I’m ready for the race to be over so I can get up in the morning and run (or not run) however many miles I feel like at whatever pace I feel like without a schedule to follow.
5 weeks to go. I’ll try to be better this week.
I know a lot of you know this, but it’s really hard to get yourself out of bed when the weather is really, really cold. I slept really well last night, but the urge to stay warm and cozy under the blankets was very strong. It is Florida, after all. It’s rare that I’m not lying in bed sweating, so this is all a very special treat in some ways.
When I’m in the mood to stay in bed, it often takes some internal negotiation to get me out. Today’s negotiation ultimately led to an agreement upon 18 miles on the stationary bike rather than 6 miles in the cold. The thing that sealed the deal in this case was that the shower at the gym would be much more luxurious than my shower at home (which generally sucks in the cold weather). So, I dragged myself out of bed and headed for the gym.
Once on the bike, I rode for about a mile before recognizing the back of Steve on the treadmill. He has a fairly distinctive running style that kind of reminds me of a bulldog. I certainly wouldn’t call it elegant, but powerful would be a word that fits. Anyway, I decided to ditch the bike and put in my 6 miles on the treadmill, so I hopped up next to him.
We exchanged pleasantries and I asked how the long run went last weekend. He, Richie and Justin had run 20 miles (all the way to the beach). I was impressed and a bit jealous, but not too jealous (many consider 20 mile runs to be torture after all). I whipped out 6 miles at an average pace in the low 8’s and then stretched.
Meanwhile, I’m starting to freak out about the weather for the Walt Disney World half marathon this Saturday. It looks like the weather will be in the low 30’s with a chance of rain at the start of the race (5:45 am). If I run my goal time, I’ll be finished before sunrise. Last year, the temperature was 46 at the start. I ran in a sleeveless T-shirt. I was very cold in the corral waiting for the start, but felt great during the run. This year, I’m not sure what to do. I might get arm warmers, or cut up toddler tights and make my own arm warmers, or maybe I’ll just say “screw it” and wear a long sleeve shirt.
I like the arm warmers idea for it’s flexibility during the race. I can discard the homemade ones, or just roll down the store bought ones. One the other hand, if I’m finishing before sunrise, it’s not likely to get warmer between start and finish. Any advice is much appreciated - especially if you’ve run with arm warmers before.
I didn’t put in nearly the mileage I was hoping over the holidays. The cold temperatures, crazy schedule and copious amounts of booze were sufficient excuses to keep me from doing too much. My one saving grace was that I did manage to hit pretty much all of my quality workouts during that time and only skipped out on so called “easy” runs. I’m not going to lay everything out here mostly because it’s been a crazy day and I just want to put all this behind me. So, the highlights include:
A Christmas eve session of 1.5 mile intervals at 6:45 pace in the cold, windy rain.
An 18 mile slog on the treadmill
A 16 mile run two days later that included several 1200 m intervals at 6:20-6:30 pace and a 15th mile run sub 7 minutes.
The final 16 miler was a good confidence booster going into The Walt Disney World half marathon this weekend. I’m ready to rock and roll and I’m pretty confident in my ability to break 1:30.
On another note, life has been pretty crazy lately, so I apologize to those readers who’ve missed my regular and incredibly insightful comments on their own blogs (ha!). I’ll try to get back to being my usual blogosphere social self in the very near future. I’ve also got some plans for changes to this blog. I’ll try to spill more on that later this week, along with a look back at my goals for 2009 and how I fared.
