Finishing 2011 strong!

2011 has not been a great running year for me. Sometime in 2010 I started getting nagging pain in my upper right hamstring and in assorted other areas on the right side. I continued to run strong and fast through it though. I remember setting my 10K PR in Dec 2010 and then feeling it all the way home. In February I did not have my greatest day but still ran the surf city marathon fast enough to qualify for Boston. Then in March I ran the Los Angeles Marathon in the rain even faster getting that BQ – 10 minutes qualifier.

In 2011 I only had 1 really great PR race – I set my 5K PR and broke 20 minutes for the first time on my birthday – March 5. Through the summer the aches continued to nag but I continued to run and race. The summer series races were all on different courses so I could not compare with previous years for progress.

In September I got my registration for Boston taken care of and thought to myself. Now is a good time to let myself heal and recover for a few weeks. A few weeks turned into 2 months. The hamstring was still not completely better, but I reached a point were sitting around was having a worse effect on me than running so I started again, easy. Now after not quite two months I have reason for hope for good running in 2012.

I have been working with Clay at Valley Physical Therapy for a while now and my core and backside muscles are becoming much stronger. I can do exercises that I have probably not done in decades! The speed on Tuesday nights is slowly returning though it is not quite back to last spring’s splits yet. The endurance is also coming back.

Today Clay, Dave and I ran 13 miles on the aqueduct. It was perfect running weather. It felt so warm as we were getting started that I left my gloves in the car. Within a couple of mile I took of my extra shirt and tied it around my waist. Each of the last two weeks I was able to run 10 miles without much difficulty but I was not sure about jumping to 13. It turned out to be fine.

It is interesting that when I get fatigued now, I get fatigued differently than in the past. I have always felt it first in the hip adductors (groin area.) When they go I slow noticeably and then other areas like the calves begin to tire. Lately with the hamstring issue, it is typically the first to fatigue (though I no longer experience any specific point discomfort like I used to.) On the first 10 miler, two weeks ago I noticed the adductors and the hamstring fatiguing together. Last week and this week, the fatigue was in the calves and the hamstring – today it was specifically the left calf and right hamstring. I am not saying that either place feels injured, I am just saying that they were the two areas to feel tight and tired. The cool thing about the lack of fatigue in the adductors is that I am able to maintain speed.

Lets look at some totals:
This week = 21 miles (plus tomorrow)
This month = 129.5 miles
2011 = 1208 miles

You can see that the total miles is down quite a bit from the last two years:

Tomorrow 2012 begins with a run! See you at Vasquez Rocks ready to hit the trails at 8:30!

Peoria Part II

Yesterday I got lazy and slept in. We did, however visit the Phoenix’ Desert Botanical Garden. We spent 2 1/2 hours walking around there! I was thoroughly impressed. This morning I got up and headed the other way on the bike path adjacent to the hotel. The path went 2 1/2 miles upstream before suddenly ending. So I turned around there and made it a 5 mile run. I am considering this a recovery week.

Running in Peoria

This morning I stepped out of my hotel and wandered out of the parking lot. Immediately next to the hotel is a river. Along the river is a nice bike path that goes on and on for miles! I just ran an easy 3 miler. As I did I was thinking, boy it would be easy to be a race director here! The Phoenix area is criss crossed with rivers that have nice wide paved bike paths.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have been jam packed full of fun, family, worship and of course running!

Saturday morning started with an early drive over to Marie Kerr Park for the Jingle Bell Jog. My good friend Christian was there to handle the computer for me so that I could actually race while being responsible for the timing of the race. I got him set up and then headed out for a warm up. I ran 1 mile and headed back for some water and to check on things. Then I met Clay and we ran another mile.

The race itself went rather well. I got off the line a little slow compared to everyone around me, but then I had fun passing them. A quarter mile in I caught Clay (who was waiting for me) and we ran together. We pulled ahead of Dave and Dawn and continued to weave through people for more than a mile. I have not yet downloaded from my garmin but I think the first split was a hair over 7 minutes. I have not run the Jingle Bell Jog the last couple of years because of timing duties, but as I have noted that the 2nd mile always seems to be long. During the second mile I spotted Adam (Jen’s husband) and Lance and decided to try to catch and pass them. We caught Adam and he battled us for awhile right around the 2 mile mark. We caught Lance shortly thereafter. When we caught Lance he looked and said Hi Dale, with enough enthusiasm and breath support that I figured he was not tiring. Sure enough he pulled back ahead. Shortly after that Dave and Dawn ran by. The looked strong, but by now I was fading.  Still, I felt strong and smooth. The race showed progress!

After the race I plugged the computer wire into the wrong port and the clock reset. I lost all the times from the race. I told Alan and he said, “These things happen.” We also had problems due to duplicate bib numbers and such. I ended up hanging around till after 11 trying to figure it out.

When I got home, my parents and other family members were waiting to begin celebrating! So celebrate we did. Then of course the evening included worship at church.  Afterwards we took our dog to a friends house and went back home where Cheryl and I exchanged gifts. It was a long Christmas Eve.

And then came Christmas Day!  Believe it or not, Chuck, and Jose met me at the aqueduct for a long run. We headed west and saw a bright yellow clad runner heading toward us. It was Justin Pantananan who turned and joined us. Justin started at his house but stuck with us during most of our run. The three of us ran 10 miles in 1 hour 20 minutes.  I felt pretty strong through the run. The unusual part was that in the last couple of miles I began to fatigue in the calves. They are probably sore from all the jumping that Clay had me do on Friday.

After our run I went home, changed and headed to church. After church Cheryl and I drove to Phoenix. The drive was nice but finding places to eat on Christmas day was a challenge. We found McDonalds for lunch and IHOP for dinner.

Tomorrow, I will celebrate some more with my son Daniel.

Jump!

I was going to try to embed the song, but it is turning out to be more difficult than I want to bother with….

So, today I headed over to Marie Kerr to meet with the kids once again. Unlike yesterday, however, today was a beautiful day for a run. At 8 am I am sure it was still at or below freezing, but the sun was shining brightly and there was no wind. I hope tomorrow we have just as nice of a day for the Jingle Bell Jog!

Since tomorrow is the Jingle Bell Jog, I kept today’s workout easy and fun. We ran a lap around the park. Then the kids played some freeze tag and did a couple of relay races. Then we ran another lap around the park. Fo myself, not getting into the games, I barely ran 2 miles.

Later in the afternoon I headed over to Clay’s office for my PT work. Clay has been having me jump! I was jumping up onto some boxes and then back down. At one point he had me jump sideways which was kind of awkward. I cannot remember the last time I jumped sideways. I am excited to think about where this strength training will lead me as I ease back into faster training and racing!

The Dreaded Diablo Dash

This morning 13 Hillview kids met me at Marie Kerr park for a workout. On the drive over I noticed some slushy ice in a couple of gutters so the temperature must have been around freezing. Unfortunately, it was also a bit breezy out there making it a cold morning for a run.

The fourteen of us did one of our normal Marie Kerr Park workouts: Hill Repeats. We jog from Marie Kerr over by Cottonwood elementary and make our way to the gate at the end of P-12. From there we run West up P-12 and then Southwest up the aqueduct access road. We break this run into 30s chunks and run them fast. Once we get up to the aqueduct we take it northwest and follow the path down across the road that had been P12. There the access road gets really steep heading back up to the aqueduct. Someone measured off 100m on it and marked it off in 10m increments. We named this 100m hill the Diablo Dash. We ran it, circled clockwise over the little hill nearby and went back down and ran it again!

I have never made the kids do Diablo twice, but it was still so early that I was worried if we just ran back to the park, the kids would spend too much time sitting and waiting for their parents. The wind chill would be dangerous once we stopped working out. So, just to kill time – we did it again. On the 2nd one I gave the slowest girl a 30m head start. Most of the kids caught her. As I got close though she really dug deep. So did I but she still managed beat me in a photo finish.

After a leisurely jog back to the park, most of the parents were already waiting. The rest huddled together for warmth for just a few remaining minutes till they were picked up.

Here is the link to the workout…. 

btw, last night I did my WWW – Wednesday Watch (tv) and Workout.  Click here or the strength training worksheet link above for details.

Not so speedier

This morning I met about 10 of my kids at Marie Kerr Park for a run. We did the run from there to Mt Rite Aid. Here is a link to the workout on Training Peaks

Looking at my splits I got a couple of halfs as fast as 4:24 but many were WAY slower. Of course there were some hills to climb, but there were also some pauses along the way to check on the progress of my kids. I had one girl who had not been out in a while and she was running really slow…

Speedier

Another Tuesday, another Tuesday night speed workout. This time we had four of my students: David, Travis, Harry and Cooper. We also had a bunch of the regulars: Jesse, Alan (eventually), Brenda, Debra, Leo, Clay, myself. We had two DCS boys: Zac and Jonathan . Finally, we had a new young lady named Sarah. She looks like she will give Jen and any other 20 something young ladies a challenge Saturday.

We did the same workout as last week: 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1  I was feeling pretty light and loose.  As the evening progressed I went faster and faster. On the first four my lap splits were 1:42 and 3:35. On the second four: 1:41 and 3:32. On the threes and twos the lap splits went: 1:40; 1:39, 1:39. 1:37. On the 1 minute intervals I went around 350 and 360 meters respectively.

The whole time I felt smooth and twinge free!

Afterwards, the same old areas are tightening, but not bad.

During the 1 mile cool down I struck up a conversation with a guy who was out there running laps. It turns out he is the dad of one of my current science students. He will probably be joining our workout next week.

1.6

The title of this post is the distance I ran this week. Your challenge is to identify the units used….

I like my Sunday morning run habit. I really missed the Sunday morning runs most during my 2 month hiatus. You see, on Sundays my wife gets up really early to get ready to go save money at Rite Aid and CVS. She literally gets her coupons and bonus deals all lined up and heads over there for free things. She has their system figured out and works it to her advantage. Now the stuff she gets is not just for us. Our church has a food pantry for the needy and Cheryl keeps it stocked with other items that the needy might need: Deodorants, Toothpaste, Aspirin, Depends…..

So if I head out for a run at 6:30 or 7 am I am getting in a run without removing myself from any other family activity. Of course I have to be finished by a certain time to get changed and ready for church. Cheryl wraps up her shopping and I wrap up my running and we meet at Church an hour early to practice the day’s music.  She is the keyboard player and I am the lead singer and guitar player for our church’s singing.

This morning I had the pleasure of running with 3 friends: Jen, Adam (Jen’s husband), and Jose. This was the first Sunday morning run for Adam and Jose. We all ran together and talked and joked for five miles.  (Sample Joke:  Adam and Jen are both running in Vibram shoes. The temperature is 30 degrees. Jen says I can’t feel my toes, Adam can you feel yours? Adam says No. I say, I can’t feel either of your toes.)  After 5 miles in 42 minutes, Adam and I quit. Jen and Jose headed out for more. I believe Jen was planning on 3 marathon pace (7:30) miles. I noticed her pulling away from Jose has they headed out. The run was probably pretty long for Jose.

So this was my longest weekly total since my break. My hamstring is a bit sore and tight from yesterday’s 10 miler and/or Friday’s workout at Valley Physical Therapy.

How fast should you run a long run?

We had a nice crowd on the aqueduct for our morning run: Neil, Karl, Christian (Neil’s friend), Jeff, Dave, Lauren, Clay and I

We all got ready and headed west for a long run of 10 miles. Almost immediately I dropped back a little and Clay joined me. I was feeling okay but I did not want to push the pace on the way out. As the splits from my garmin came in I found that the pace was just right – 8:22, 8:30, 8:29, 8:25, 8:26, 8:20, 8:33, 8:31, 8:32, 8:35, 8:30. Still, as Dave and Lauren and the others pulled away I really had to fight the urge to chase. Clay made me hold back even a little more on the way back.

I have been noticing that many runners are not running their long runs at the correct pace. The general rule of thumb is that long runs should be run 30s to 90s slower than your marathon pace. In my case, my best marathon was 3:19:30 which works out to 7:37 per mile. So, I should run my long runs between 8:07 and 9:07 per mile. Actually, since I am in a rebuild phase and I am not in the running shape I was when I ran Boston, I could / should go even slower.

So how would you know how fast to run if you had not had a successful marathon recently? One great way is to use any recent race time with Greg McMillan’s calculator – click here.  Let’s look at an example: Neil Small recently ran the Santa Clarita Half Marathon in 1:15:49. Plugging this time into the calculator shows an equivelent marathon time of 2:39:54 or 6:07 per mile. The calculator says that Neil should run long runs at 6:37 to 7:07 per mile (notice that at this speedy pace the window is only 30s wide).

I am not sure what his pace was today. By the time we were done we had split into four groups: Neil and Christian were the fastest, then Karl and Jeff. David and Lauren ran faster than Clay and I, but they turned around at 4.5 miles. David went out and ran 1 more at the end to make it ten.

After seeing how the group split up today and thinking about everyone’s racing ability I got curious. For each of us who ran today (sans Christian) plus Jen (who will join me tomorrow) I plugged a recent best race time into mcmillan’s calculator. Here is what I came up with:

	Race		Time		Long Run Pace
Dale	Boston Marathon 2010		3:19:30		8:07 – 9:07
Dale	Mardi Gras 5K 2011		19:52		7:54 – 8:54
Clay	Mardi Gras 5K 2011		19:50		7:53 – 8:53
Dave	CIM 2011		3:28:07		8:27 – 9:27
Lauren	Long Beach Half 2011		1:39:56		8:33 – 9:33
Neil	Santa Clarita Half 2011		1:15:49		6:37 – 7:07
Karl	CIM 2009		2:57:30		7:17 – 8:17
Jeff	Bakersfield Half 2011		1:32:37		7:58 – 8:58
Jen	Toys 4 Tots 5K		20:53		8:17 – 9:17

There are some interesting things here. I tried to choose the most recent half or full marathon results as these would be the best predictors of a marathon pace and running long runs is training most specific for half and full marathons. Clay and Karl did not have a 2010 or 2011 result I could think of so I used Karl’s CIM from 2009. I used Clay’s 5k where he paced me to my PR back in March. Of course his 5K (and mine) call for much faster marathon paces and long run paces than we are currently ready for. Jeff’s half marathon time is almost a year old and I think he is faster now.

Looking at the table, today’s run made sense for 6 of us. Neil and Christian were fastest – then Karl and Jeff. Clay and I were right on pace. Lauren and Dave’s prescribed pace at the faster end is right about what Clay and I ran today – 8:27. So, they ran faster than they needed to. Now, it is okay to run a little faster IF you are really in shape to do so or if your long run has another purpose. As I train for marathons, I like to mix in some fast finish long runs. I got these from McMillan as well – here is the article.  On these runs I start at typical long run pace and then speed up to actual marathon goal pace.

So, you might be wondering, how does a long run that is 1 minute per mile slower than marathon pace and maxes out 6 miles shorter than a marathon prepare you to run a marathon?  Or, even if you do the fast finish runs just mentioned, you still end up slower and shorter than a marathon. How do these runs prepare you?  The answer is that these long runs are done at the end of a full week of training with lots of other runs. The week has included speed work and some work at marathon pace or maybe a tempo run. Perhaps the week included some work on hills. The week also hopefully included a couple of workouts designed for core strength. When training for a marathon I like to make sure that my weekend has back to back runs that total more than 26, perhaps totaling 30 miles in two daya. So, when you begin the long run, your body is already stressed from all these other runs and workouts. In an article about the Hansen’s training for the marathon, they described the weekly long run like it was the last miles of a marathon – not the first.

In contrast, when you actually race the marathon, you are tapered, you are recovered, you have had an easy week leading up to the race. You stand at the starting line refreshed, strong and ready to go. It is a wonderful thing when this all actually works. At Surf City 2009, CIM 2009 and Boston 2010 I ran my fastest miles after mile 20. I had great fun passing the other people whose speed had left them. There is nothing quite like running those last miles fast. There is nothing quite like the feeling of finishing a marathon spent, but strong!