Long Run!

Katie recently indicated she’d like to try the AIDS run, a Philadelphia 10K for (you guessed it) AIDS research.  We hadn’t run 10K yet, so we decided this morning to give the distance a try, and see if we might be up for it in 8 weeks.  Our route started in Brewerytown, wound down Kelly Drive past the Art Museum, down the parkway, through Center City, past Independence Hall, and north through Northern Liberties and back to home in Fishtown.  We walked a bit at a couple of points–we weren’t trying to kill ourselves, just to get the distance run.

Katie didn’t really have the stamina or strength for the distance, but I felt pretty good after, thought I could even keep running a bit.  I’ve decided to gear my training for the next 8 weeks specifically toward running the 10K on October 19th.

The basic plan is to rest the legs and do some cross-training stuff on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.  Tuesday will be easy runs, and Sunday will be long runs (ranging from 6-8 miles).  Thursday will be a combination of Speedwork and Tempo runs.  I’m optimistic that this will help me prepare for the BSR, as much of my planned running exercises are for distances longer than my usual 3-3.5 miles.  The easy run is short and slow, generally, but the rest of the runs are generally five or more miles.  I’m hopeful that this will build a good amount of endurance and strength.  When October rolls around, I’d love to complete the 10k in an hour, but, as always, goals shall be adjusted for reality.

In addition, if you have any interested in doing the AIDS Walk/Run, I’ve added a link in the sidebar.  If you’d like to donate to my running cause, send me an email here.

 

Trail Runner

Hey! This picture looks familiar...

Last weekend, the fiance and I decided to head out of the city proper this past weekend to run on some softer ground.  See all the green here?  That’s where we went, Wissahickon Park, early on a bright Sunday morn.  Neither of us were much familiar with the area, so it took us a couple of false starts to find the parking lot we wanted, but once we did, we set off enjoying the weather and the atmoshere.  See the blue northy-southy line there?  That’s a river.  A river that we planned to follow for a few miles, and then turn right and follow a path through the woods to complete a two mile loop.

We were hoping for 2-3 laps of the loop, at an easy pace, for a nice long run.  Of course, that’s not how it worked out.  We got to the river just fine, and kept running without issue, turning back at the path, and all that.  Of course, somehow, in the woods, with their limited markings, we got lost.  We kept running, of course, because we’re young and dumb and had nowhere to be.  I’m not sure how many times we were turned around or whatever, but our expected 1 hour run became a two hour adventure.

We estimate we ran 7-10 miles during the whole thing, and, admittedly, we did a fair share of walking in the second hour.  Trail running is very pleasant in both the scenery, and the freedom.  Pace is often dictated by the terrain itself, instead of any arbitrarily chosen speeds.  The variety, and, I’ll admit, the element of danger, adds a lot of fun to the proceedings, too.  Leaping rocks jutting from a ridge path on a steep hill is this man’s idea of fun, for certain. Getting lost wasn’t ideal, but hopefully, next time, that won’t be such an issue.

I’m hoping to run out there 2-4 times a month.  Perhaps as often as every Sunday, but much will depend on the length of the journey without a car.  With a car, the drive was 20 minutes.  Without one, relying on Sunday SEPTA service, who knows?

 

Joined by the Mentor

Aunt Mary was in town this weekend, to visit my mother, her sister.  I haven’t seen her since I started running, but I took the first train out to the home of my youth this morning to go for a brisk run with Aunt Mary.  I got out to them just before 8:30, sat for a few minutes, chatting, and drinking water.  Then, everybody went to get changed, Ma put Jack, her enormous dog, on a leash, and out we went.

Mom doesn’t run.  Bad… feet.  Toe surgery, heel spurs, all that nonsense.  But, she likes to walk, and, of course, so does Jack.  Aunt Mary and I walked with them for about two blocks, letting our legs stretch a bit, and then we said “bye now” and set off at a trot.

Now, when I run on my own, I run pretty quickly, and after the 4 minutes, I’m ready for the minute of walking.  We didn’t have my iPod tracklist today, and I don’t think either of us wore a watch.  My plan, basically, was to follow AM’s lead and pace, and then let her know what adjustments I needed.  I don’t know what kind of pace she normally runs, if today was a gentle pace for her, or a standard one or what, but it was definitely slower than my usual pace, and I was able to keep up pretty nicely with her.  Our path had a few hills, but was pleasant enough to look at, and I managed to keep pace without complaint for the first three miles.  At that point, my shoe came untied, and I allowed the moment’s pause to extend to a walk for a minute or so, to refresh my lungs and legs.  After that, it was a short run back to the house.  In the end, we went 3.7 miles, though I’m not sure of the time.  I’d estimate about 30-40 minutes.

It was really pleasant running with her, and I really enjoyed the easier pace.  I think at least once per week (maybe every Sunday?) I’ll try for a similar sort of run, but for a longer period of time.  Nice and slow pace, for no fewer than 45 minutes.  Increase that endurance.

From what I’ve read, the run/walk intervals I’ve been doing are building up speed and strength in my legs and lungs and heart, but they’re not particularly building endurance.  Which means that, even as I get better and better, if I don’t incorporate runs of longer duration, I’ll hit a wall at 30 minutes, and really struggle to continue running after that.  Given that I’m training for a 10 mile race, 30 minutes just, flat out, won’t cut it.  Now, my goal is 75 minutes, so, eventually, I’m going to need to start doing long runs in the 60-90 minute range.  At a 10 mile minute pace, it’d take 1 hour 40 minutes to get all the way down.  Hopefully, my pace will improve over the next year, but long runs will be necessary to get me to the finish line.

I’m discontinuing the run counter in the sidebar.  Partially because it’s kind’ve a nuisance to update, and partly because I’m not sure it’s of any value to me, the runner, nor any interest to you, the reader.

 

Frustration Unending

I’ve gone well beyond the point of diminishing returns.  Early on in this little running plan of mine, I understood that, eventually, running would become difficult.  What I haven’t expected, however, is that it’s becoming nothing but.  My legs are dead, constantly.  I need at least 2 off days to recover, if I want to run completely fresh.  Which means, run Monday, and then Thursday.  And then Sunday.  And so on.  In between, my legs are so dead I cannot will myself to exercise.  I just want to sleep.
Part of this, of course, is allergies.  I’m suffering pollen or dust or something else.  Part of it is the new job I just started, which is messing with my sleeping schedule, in addition to keeping me on my feet in lousy shoes all day long.  I don’t know if I’m getting better at running, because, as I’m trying to run every other day, still, every run is a brutal struggle.  I’ve been doing 3:1 intervals for a while, and I haven’t been having any sort of easier time with them.  I’ve moved on to 4:1 intervals now, just to deal with something different.  Honestly, I like them a lot better than 3:1.  The run seems to go by much faster.

Here’s the playlist for the inaugural 4:1 run:

1. Radiohead - Bodysnatchers
2. Beatles - Dig It
3. Man Man - Hurly/Burly
4. White Stripes - Little Room
5. Mewithoutyou - Messes of Men
6. Liars - Why Midnight Walked But Didn’t Ring Her Bell
7. The Roots - I Will Not Apologize
8. Tom Waits - Let Me Get Up On It
9. Refused - Summerholidays vs Punkroutine
10. The Roots - @ 15
11. TEXT  - Sound is Compressed; Words Rebel and Hiss
12. Brian Wilson - Barnyard

• Total Time: 29:30

I honestly didn’t realize the run lasted just under 30 minutes until right now.  My playlists are huge–40 or more songs.  I just start at a random on the list, and go for a pre-determined amount of songs.  A 4:1 ratio means 12 songs should be 30 minutes long, but since the songs are only approximately 4 minutes/1 minute, the total came up a bit shallow.  Is anyone is curious, the longest run on there was for “I Will Not Apologize” at 4:34.  The shortest break was a tie between “Dig It” and “Little Room” at 50 seconds. I got a bit too winded during the whole thing, so I repeated one of the rest songs, and thus, the actual run was a touch over 30 minutes.  All the same, the next time out, I think I’ll add another run song.

The 4th of July is coming up, and we’re heading to Aunt Mary’s house for the weekend.  She wants to run with me, which should be properly terrifying, considering her skill level, and my lack thereof.  We’ll see how it goes.

 

Live Legs

I wish I understood what made some days easier than others.  Obviously, there are some effects that can be measured: temperature, humidity, sunlight, time of day, what I’ve eaten, how hydrated I am, etc.  Now, some of this stuff, I can measure.  I can look up the temperature and humidity.  I can monitor what I’ve eaten.  I guess I could guage the brightness of the sun.

What I cannot do, however, is figure out how much the effect of these things are.  I don’t know what an optimum running temperature is, for me, nor do I know how to measure the impact of running what it’s colder or warmer than that temperature.  I don’t know what I should eat to maximize my performance.  The magazines say “PROTEIN, STUPID”, but that’s not enough for me.  I’m trying to monitor as much as I can: time, distance, route, start time, finish time.  I bought a scale to monitor my weight.  I’m seriously considering a heart-rate monitor.  But what’s unclear to me is just the strength of impact any external (or internal) factors can or may have on my running.

Anyway, after two or so weeks of such daily exhaustion that I was seriously beginning to wonder if I was somehow sick, I woke up this morning feeling drowsy but okay.  I got out the door at about 6:40, and headed along my usual route.  The air was still, and mostly cool, as the sun was still golden and rising, instead of the lightbulb yellow that’s popular in Philadelphia in summer.  I didn’t bother to eat anything before I went.  I didn’t drink anything.  And I felt great.

I was running intervals of 3 min to 1 again, and my legs carried me through the first 2 running stages without issue.  With the third stage, my lungs warmed up and my saliva reduced to something as thick and viscous as maple syrup.  And on the fourth stage, I was cruising.  At times, I struggled, of course, and my legs got a bit rubbery near the end, but I was feeling great, and if time had permitted, I might have run longer.

As it was, however, I needed to scoot on home after getting in my requisite 30 minutes, and after a quick shower and dress, I paced my 3 mile bike ride to work nicely as a sort of cool down from the run.  Really, and outstanding way to start the day.  I can only hope that whatever was wrong with me lately is all but done, and I can get back on the pavement without pain.

Hell, maybe it was just the music.  Today’s list:

1. Pixes - Debaser
2. Tom Waits - Bone Chain
3. Wolf Parade - Modern World
4. Beatles - Wild Honey Pie
5. Wreckless Eric - Whole Wide World
6. Cat Stevens - Tea for the Tillerman
7. The Decemberists - July, July!
8. Brian Wilson - Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine
9. Andrew Bird - Fake Palindromes
10. Liars - Why Midnight Walked But Didn’t Ring Her Bell
11. Mountain Goats - Michael Myers Resplendent
12. Tom Waits - Bend Down the Branches
13. Mountain Goats - Pigs That Ran Straightaway Into the Water, Triumph of
14. Beatles - Dig It
15. Elvis Costello - Lovable
16. Andrew Bird - The Supine

• Total Time: 30:54

For whatever reason, I especially enjoy running to numbers 5, 7, 13, and 15.  Make of that what you will.

 

Finally, We’re On the Road

Just a quickie here, though I’ll write more extensively this afternoon/evening.

Ran for 30:54, making it about 2.74 miles.  I might have gone a bit longer, but, alas, I’ve got work this morning.  Felt really, really good about.  First run in two weeks I’ve felt even remotely good for.

More to come.

 

Built To Spill

Well, we all knew not every run could go well, right?

I hadn’t run in a week.  I will make no excuses for that here.  I should have run.  But, I didn’t, and so my tenuous grasp on the concept of “fit to run” was, certainly, lost.  I kept biking everyday, so, at least, I hadn’t spent the week in some kind of hedonistic escapades.  I just didn’t put on my runnin’ shoes and hit the sidewalk.

Finally, though, I got back to doin’ what I do today.  Today, of course, marked the first “hot run” of the year.  The temperat ture jumped in the past week from the 60s to the 80s, with rumor of the 90s coming this weekend.  Now, of my 7 runs before today, 6 had been with a bit of rain, and all 7 had taken place in cool weather.  Cloudy, wet, and cool were the conditions under which I’ve run over the past few weeks.  Today: hot, sunny, and dry like sandpaper.  So, not only was I out of practice, physically, but the environment decided to significantly up the difficulty.

Apparently, Apollo’s cruelty is well known to runners.  Says Aunt Mary:

The first couple [of hot runs] are a bitch til you get acclimated. But you will.

That’s comforting, at least.

Comfort, of course, is what I need.  Because this run, as already indicated, was a bitch.

To account for the heat, I half filled a pretty large bottle of water to carry with me.  I only filled it by half because there’s no way I would need the entire bottle on a 30 minute run.  I just wanted enough to wet my throat, essentially.  I started out, and after only about 10 minutes, I was struggling.  Actually, I was struggling from the outset.  My lungs felt okay, but my legs were damn exhausted, and, honestly, I don’t know why.  I’ve felt dead legged for almost two weeks now, which is a condition I didn’t expect to find myself in after a week of rest.

After about 8-10 minutes of run/walk intervals (3 min: 1 min), I started struggling.  I started sweating faster than I could brush away, so I let the sweat burn up my eyes a bit.  Because of my dead-leggedness, and because the heat made me much more tired much more quickly than I would have expected, I decided to shorten my route a bit, thinking that after 30 minutes of running, I wouldn’t come near the 3.1-3.35 miles I’d been averaging.  Well, after about 20 minutes, I was approaching my house again, and began debating internally whether I could handle an extra ten minutes of running, or if I should just call it a day.

The decision was made for me. By the sidewalk.  I must have been shuffling my feet a bit in my exhaustion.  I also must have been struggling to see the sidewalk through the sweat on my eyes and on my glasses.  Whatever the cause, I hit the ground hard and unexpectedly.  The iPod survived, somehow.  That was surprising.  My water bottle rolled under a pickup truck next to me.  By the time a man just around the corner from me, maybe 30 feet away, had come over to check on me, my knee had started to bleed.  I decided the run was finished.  I walked home–no limp, but I was feeling tender.  My only thought for the two block walk was: I hope I can get home before this blood reaches my socks.  I’ll be honest, I think that thought is a sort of watershed moment. Maybe someday I’ll reach the point of “I’m pretty sure I can finish this race before I lose a dangerous amount of blood”.

Anyway, I ate it, and I blame exhaustion, dead-legs, and sweat-caused blindness.  My legs feel okay, so if my knee can handle the friction, I’m going to try to hit the road again tomorrow.

If anyone has any suggestions for how to handle the heat while running, I’m all ears.  Aunt Mary has some thought on today’s run, so we’ll pass them along when the time comes.

 

No Time!

Sort’ve busy and distracted tonight, and thus, no update about yesterday’s run.  However, there shall be another run tomorrow morning, and I hope to update all of you with all sorts of new info about running thereafter.

Only update is in the the sidebar stats. Another run, another 3+ miles, and another 30+ minutes.

 

Recovery Times

Ran about 3.3 miles in about 38 minutes.  I’m actually confident that both of those numbers are accurate.  Perhaps the first TRULY accurate numbers I’ve had so far.  That’s a pace of 11:25, which is way higher than my last two runs, but I can tolerate it.  I started the run feeling pretty tired to begin with.  I’m not particularly sure why.  My legs were just wimpy when I started running, and the result was that I didn’t recover during the walking sections as well as I would have liked to have done.  Part of the reason for this is that today is a bright and sunny day, easily the warmest since my first run.  Thanks to at least a drizzle during each run, I stayed reasonably cool.  Today I was breathing pretty heavily after only about a mile.

Now, I took the day off yesterday, largely because I had run the two days previous, even though I wasn’t feeling particularly sore or tired.  So, after 48 hours rest, I didn’t have the all-conquering (ya know, for me) that I was expecting or hoping for.  Now, as has already been shown, I don’t know anything.  So, I Googled the subject of improving recovery times for runners.  The second article, for me, talked about tapering your running before a race to improve your rested-ness, and thus, your time.  It also included this tidbit:

Research has shown that tapering effectively improves race performance by 3% to 5%. This means that a good taper can shave 5% off your finish time. When you consider that any one workout will give you less than 1% improvement in fitness, it is wise to err on the side of too long a taper rather than too short a taper. Depending on your race distance you should taper from seven days (for example, 5Ks) to three weeks (for marathons).

Now, obviously, “fitness” is an pretty ambiguous term, and I have no idea how the author is defining it.  If I’m 10% more fit in a month than I am today, does that mean I’ll run 10% faster?  Less than that?  More?  Plus, there’s an issue of diminishing returns.  I imagine that my half dozen runs over the past 9 days are worth much closer 6% than Haile Gebrselassie’s last six runs are.  Hell, my last six might be worth over 6%, given how unfit I’ve been, and it’s entirely likely that most of Gebrselassie’s running sustains his fitness, rather than increases it. The statement doesn’t take into account the quality or the workout, either.  Is my half hour run enough?  Or do I need to run farther, or add some crunches and weight lifting for it to count?

It is nice to think about, though, if I keep running 4-5 times per week for the next 48 weeks, I could be a solid 200% fitter than I am now.  Whatever that means.

 

Run Number Five: I’ve Got Blisters On My Fingers, er, Toes

This evening’s run was, essentially, a repeat of my last run, style-wise, though I ran what I would generally consider a more pleasant route.  More and more I’m feeling strong in the run, though I’m not remotely fast.  It’s a bizarre feeling, in fact.  My lungs are burning moderately, my legs are swollen and aching, and I feel fucking great.  Part of it is the music, I’m listening to, I suppose.  It’s good, kinetic, upbeat stuff.  Stuff with backbone.  I find that my running paces tend to mimic the beat of the song I’m listening to.  I have a lot of fun with that.

I think what’s happening for me is that my runs are starting to take shape.  They’re beginning to arc.  I head out the door and I’m stiff and maybe my feet hurt because I work upright in uncomfortable shoes (really, I’m gonna have to do something about that, immediately).  I might have some mild shin splints that make me feel like my fibula and tibia are negotiating a divorce.  I might have serious questions about some shit that’s going on in my life, outside of the running, and that might have me a stormy as I head out the door.

And so I run up my street and hang the first right and head left thereafter and after about 1/2 mile my lungs are smoldering a bit which, naturally, gives me a bit of a headache.  The run is not helping things.  And at the 1 mile mark, things are not improving, until I hit the big six-way intersection that I’ve got to, essentially, sprint across, and the speed with which I’m able to do that surprises me and afterward, I’m not feeling any more out of breath than I already was and my muscles don’t ache any more and I feel a sort of comfortable warmth all over.

And so I keep running, and I keep feeling better.  Just before the second mile of my route, I hit the point where I start heading toward the house again, and I’m cruising pretty nicely.  “I Know You’ve Come to Take My Toys Away” comes on and I enjoy the lyrics and music so much and I’m cruising so well that I plum forget to start walking again when “Midtown” comes on and I accidentally run through half of my 1 minute rest period.  Not that I’m complaining, and, no, I didn’t give myself an extra thirty seconds of “Asthma Attack” for walking.  I just started right back up again, because, for about half this run, climaxing in minutes 20-25, I felt really, really good running.  And, what’s more, I felt like it was something that I could, with plenty of work, actually become pretty good at.

Anyway, here are today’s stats (all numbers are as approximate as ever):

30 minutes
3.02 miles
9:56 per mile pace

Under ten minutes–that’s the kind of improvement I like to see.  Of course, given the kind of rounding I do, it’s very likely that I’m still actually averaging over 10 minutes–probably in the 10:30 range, in fact.  But the larger point is that, somehow, I continue to improve.  I almost want to have a lesser run with cramping and all that stuff just to make me struggle a bit more.

Anyway, the only new development is my first toe blister.  Between the big toe and the lieutenant.  It isn’t too big, and I’m hoping it’ll heal by Friday when I hope to run again.  Tomorrow is a rest day.  Honestly, I think the blister is more a product of the lousy shoes I wear to work than the running I’ve been doing.  If I hadn’t gotten it, I think I could’ve run a bit farther and faster, and almost certainly I couldn’t run longer.