New Year - New Plan - New Goal - Same Awful Economy

I just finished two great weeks of training.  The first week of February was 55.5 miles and last week I hit 55 miles.  I am trying to follow a Pfitz 12 week 70 miles and under training plan.  This would make my goal race the Frederick Marathon.  I haven't signed up for the race yet and I'm not sure I'm going to but I can't train without a goal.  Here's last week.

• Monday -        Rest
• Tuesday -        8 miles, last 3 @ 7:30 pace
• Wednesday - 11 miles, last 5 @ 7:30
• Thursday -       5 miles, easy 9:00 pace
• Friday -         11 miles, last 5 @ 7:30
• Saturady -       5 miles, easy 9:00 pace
• Sunday -        15 miles, steady avg 8:15 pace

Sunday's long run was great.  Ran the first 8 miles with two friends.  It's always easier running with someone, especially if your the one pushing the pace.  The last 5 miles was a little tough.  Not the distance but pushing the pace.  I think my nutrition was off.  I gave Hammer Nutrition Perpetutum a try again.  After a really great session with Perpetutum last week I think it gave me some problems.  Last week I ran my last 8 miles on the treadmill and used the Perpetutum.  I was able to sip the concoction and it worked so well.  This week all of the miles were on the roads and I ran the first 8 with no fluids or nutrition.  I had made two bottles, one for after the first eight when we came back to the cars and I had a second bottle in my amphipod.  I think I drink too much of the first bottle too fast.  The entire remaining 7 miles I felt sluggish and bloated.

I really believe that the key distance running or endurance events is proper fueling and nutrition. The trick is getting your nutrition right so that you get the correct amount of calories and electrolytes so that you can keep going.  The weather definitely plays a factor on mixing your nutrition.  Things tend to go sour in 100 degree days in your stomach. 

I'm not sure if I'm going to run any races this spring.  They have gotten so expensive that it almost takes the joy out of running.  I mean $120 for a marathon is just crazy.  Especially if the weather is really bad you feel forced to get out there and race in the bitter cold and rain because you shelled out so much cash.  I enjoy running because I like the way it makes me feel while I'm running and how I feel after a good long or hard running.  I call it pleasantly sore.  I love the way my legs "hurt".  If you don't run you wouldn't get it. 

I can do a lot right now for $120 bucks.  I don't need any more shirts or hats.  I normally bring my own GU and other nutrition.  Water I do get from a race course but come on it's almost free.  I've done a few Rock-and-Roll races and the commercialisim is just crazy.  The bigger races have soley become about the money, not the sport.  Right now the only reason I'd run a race is one where I think I can BQ, otherwise I'll just train.

May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live.

May those who love us, love us.
And for those who don't love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if he can not turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles,
So we may know them by their limping.
May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live. 






   

Rock-N-Roll Half Marathon

Woke up at 4:00am. That right there should tell you how the day was going to turn out. Got dressed and grapped a cup of coffee and out the door I went by 4:30am. Stopped by WAWA and picked up a bananna nut muffin. If that muffin doesn't guarantee a PR I don't know what will.

Made it to VA Beach I good time. Found a parking lot on 25th and Pacific that was $7 to park. Decided to walk to the convention center.
Meet some people from NC and Charlottesville and walked with them.
Arrived at the Convention Center at 5:50am. The porta-jon line was short so that was good news. I headed over to the start and found a good place to sit down and just watch the people as they went by.

The start was right on time. I was in the second corral so I went off at 7:02am. Last year there were a lot of slow people in the front corrals but not this year. I had a good first 2 miles. The pace was fast but I felt relazed and strong. Was breathing was comfortable and controlled.
During the 3rd mile I could tell that the temperature of the engine was climbing rapidly. I was sweating profusely now and could tell that it was just too hot. I crossed the 5k mat at 22:20 and began to have serious discussions between Actual Mike and Mike 2.0. Mike 2.0 wanted to try to push on and hold the pace for two more miles. Actual Mike didn't think it was going to happen but agreed to hold pace till the next water stop and then they would decide what to do.

Warm or even hot Cytomax just doesn't work. I couldn't even get a mouthful down. I grabbed 2 waters and slowed to drink them all. That was it. It was over.

My heart rate was racig due to the heat so the plan quickly became to finish and live to fight another day. I decided to hold between 7:50 and 8:00 pace and walk all of the water stops. If I didn't get 2 to 3 glasses of water in I figured I wouldn't make it. By mile 5 I was literally dripping wet. But so was everyone else. Even the girls were soaked. I saw girls holding their shorts up for miles because they were soaked and kept falling down.

I hit the 10k mark at 48:06 or 7:45 pace but the heat was getting worse.
There was no breeze at all and you could cut the air with a knife it was so humid. Honestly if it wasn't for the hot chicks in spandex I would have stopped. But they just kept bouncing ahead and I kept following in a stupid heat induced trance.

By the 10 mile mark, I was and 1:20:46 seconds into the race and my pace had slipped to 8:05 miles, mainly because the walking breaks had lengthened to get in more fluids and try to get my heart rate down.
Mile 10 was right before the Rudee Inlet bridge.

By mile 11 the carnage began. Nearly everyone was walking the water stops now. The entire field would get to the station and just stop as if Joe's happy noise went off and we all had agreed to stop. About a
1/4 mile further I started seeing people sitting on the curbs. Medical people were running around now. I saw a woman with her boyfriend that was completely out of her head. He was literally holding her up and she was just mummbling gibberish. What a romantic weekend those two were going to have.

We turned onto the boardwalk at mile 12. People were dropping like flies. I saw a lady fall down about a 1/4 mile from the finish. She was out for the 10 count. The medical guys were running like mad now.

I finished in 1:48:28 with an average pace of 8:17. I was 1129th out of
16336 total finishers, or in the top 6.9%. I was 145th I my age group out of 1129 finishers, or in the top 12.8%. Last year I finished in
1:44:23 with an average pace of 7:59. Last year I was 1366 out of 17025 finishers, or in the top 8%.

This year I was 4 minutes slower and finished 1.1% higher in the standings. The heat and humidty affects the whole crowd not just you.
Running distance races isn't just against the clock. It's a race against the heat, the humidity, and the terrain. Times don't correlate against all courses. You've got to know when it's your day and when it's not. I was disappointed with my time but it was all I could do that day.

The Rock-N-Roll is a great race to run for a cool experience. It really is a huge crowd with tons of spectators. The bands are fun but I find them distracting. And on the glass is half full side of things, the heat makes all of the hot chicks come dressed in the coolest outfits. I think this was probably my last Rock-N-Roll, it is just too hot.

Garbage In Garbage Out

I have had some problems in the past with fueling my engine. Several years ago after running quite a bit during the heat of the summer I started having chest pains. Now chest pains at 31 are pretty dang scary. It was July 4th and the family and I had just gotten back from a parade and I was sitting in my recliner around 3:00pm. My heartbeat started racing. I mean like 160 to 170 beats a minutes. I was seated with my legs elevated in the air conditioning. There was no reason for my heart to be racing. After 20 minutes it had not stopped. An overnight trip to the hospital and several IV bags of potassium and I was ok. From that day forward I realized that distance running was something to be respected and that I had to be extra careful of how I fueled my engine.

Since I have upped my mileage and have also been swimming and biking several days a week I am learning the importance of nutrition. Not just what I eat but what I eat before a workout, what I eat during a workout and what I eat post workout.

During the last few years I have been reading everything that I could get my hands on about runners nutrition. They drink gatorade and swallow GU's. They eat some carbs and try to eat a balanced diet high in protein. But then I entered the "DARK ZONE", the world of TRIATHLON. Now marathons last for 3 or 4 hours but triathlons can last anywhere from 8 to 17 hours. Now fueling for an event like that is serious science. I started reading and searching for information on tri fueling strategies. It was like someone had just opened a magic book up for me.

My training had suffered in recent mesocycles due to fatigue issues. I had blood work performed and was instructed to start taking iron supplements. This really made a difference. Today if I have a bad workout, chances are I forgot to take my "pills" the night before.

I also sensed that I wasn't getting enough calories. I quitting worring about weight issues and just started trying to fuel my engine with good high quality jet fuel. The problem quickly became that it isn't easy getting top grade food into your body in enough quantity between and after workouts. The only time left is during and right after workouts.

I have switched up my training nutrition from water and GU to Perpetutum and Endurolytes and have started taking Endurox 4 for my post workout recovery drinks. I really believe that this has made my workouts of a higher quality. I have been able to push harder and last longer during intense workouts.

One downside to hard workouts is that I am able to go 100% for a longer time. The next day I have been pretty wiped out. Even if my plan calls for a 6 mile recovery run and I am dead, I just skip the workout. How much will I really get out of a 6 mile easy run? Is the point of the workout to help my body recover? If the result of the recovery run on makes me more fatigued haven't I defeated the purpose of the day, to recover from yesterday's hard workout. I am recovering faster and I am not skipping all recovery runs just the ones after really hard efforts and where I feel completly wiped out.

I am working on designing a diet for all of my meals and snacks. I let you know how it's coming. Definitely not going to be easy with a wife and 3 kids.

Lost and Found

I guess I got lost that must be why I haven't been posting for a while. Nah. Really I've just been so busy with all of the summer time activities that I just haven't had much time to write anything. Summer is half way over and it has been a blast.

My two boys have been swimming on the neighborhood swim team this summer and I really have enjoyed working the meets. I trained as a stroke an dturn judge and worked almost every meet. I really learned a lot about swimming stokes this year. It's also amazing at how much you can learn while watching kids swim for 3 hours twice a week. I have been amazed at how much my kids have improved during the summer. My 5 year old couldn't swim 25 yards in June and now he has a decent looking freestyle stroke and can swim a 50 without stopping.

My training has been going very well during the last few weeks. I have really upped my mileage and it really seems to help. It's still been hard for me to run every day, life always gets in the middle but that's OK. My running is important to me but not as important as my family and my work. Running is a part of me, not who I am.

The weather has been very hot here the last few days. It has really affected my nutrition while running. This has forced me to really examine how I have been fueling and replacing my electrolytes. One thing that I have learned is that marathoners think they know nutrition but that Triathletes really know nutrition. I mean it's one thing to fuel during a 3 1/2 hour marathon, but it's one a whole new level to fuel for a 10 hour marathon. So, I've been studing alot about tri fueling and what the top tri guys use. Someone put me onto Hammer Nutrition products. I ordered a few things last week and we are going to give them a try.

Several weeks ago I rode my bike with the guys on a long 57 mile ride. It was great! It didn't take but 3 1/4 hours and the effort wasn't that bad. Since then I have rode the "loop" 2 more times and I am scheduled to ride it again this weekend. On these long rides fueling really is important and I am startingto get the right prescription dialed in. One of the best things about the bike is that I get a great cardio workout without killing my legs. My quads hurt some the next day but usually after a couple of miles of slow running I'm good to go.

The biggest improvement that I have noticed is my recovery rates. Last year after a 20 miler I would hurt for several days and be wiped out. After increasing my mileage if I run 20 miles Sunday on Monday I'm good for another 8 miles. Instead of my muscles hurting it seems that my energy levels are what is holding me back. If I have 3 hard days in a row I will be wiped out on the 4th and usually end up skipping a day. Getting enough of the right type of calories to keep my energy levels up is as much work as training. I'm learning a lot and I guess that's what makes the whole thing so much fun.

Messing with a Man's Masculinity

In high school they used to call me Chicken because I had chicken legs. You know lean long runners legs. Well all those guys are fat as hell now and I'm 163 lbs at 5'11. But I digress. It's summer and I am working out one or two times a day and sweating like Frosty the Snowman in Hades. I have hairy legs and man are they breaking out. Now that I'm a "Triathlete" I have toyed with the idea of shaving my legs but I just can't bring myself to do it. I mean, I have zero fat on my legs but shaving them is just crossing some imaginary man line.

So I go to the gym and pull off my jeans and there I am with these shaved legs. What do you do or say. I mean where do you stop shaving. It looks like a lot of work to keep them shaved and damn, I feel like I am always in the shower anyway with all of these workouts. I mean chick stubble is one thing but man stubble is just bad. I think I'm going to be sick just writing about this. See writing this stupid stuff sometimes help work the answer to the problem out. When I start placing in my age group I'll think about shaving my legs. Until then I'll just have to deal with breaking out.

Training - Saturday I went on a 30 mile bike ride with 3 other guys instead of a 6 mile easy day. It was a great ride and we went out pretty hard. Nobody every says that they are tired or hurting during the workout but talking to some of the wives later that day I found out that they were all spent that night. "All he did was lay on the couch. You guys must have went out really hard yesterday." Yea as hard as I could.

Sunday was scheduled to be a 17 mile long run. I was supposed to go at a nice easy pace. I received an email from my buddies that they would be running 3 miles easy, a one mile time trial hard, and three miles easy for 7 miles total. Perfect, I could run down to the waterfront to meet them and back and tack on 7 more miles. I could find 3 more miles somewhere and have my 17.

Well, I guess I miscalculated the distance to the waterfront and had to running a lot harder than I wanted to so that I wouldn't be late. Mistake #1. Then the 3 mile easy warm-up became a hard 3 mile test of manhood after the bike ride on Sunday. The one mile time trial was where I was supposed to let them go and show some maturity. I must be a child because after the first quarter I was at an all out sprint and finished around 6:45, and this mile had some big hills to boot. The last 3 miles was easy because the guys were spent by now but I still had to run home. The 3 1/2 miles home were rough because it was getting hot by now and all I had was Gu and water. I needed some electrolytes but there were none anywhere. I made it home but paid for it all day. I was tired and worn out all day.

Lesson learned. If you want to be successful, find a good plan and stick to the plan. By running like an idiot yesterday I missed my mileage goal and am so tired and beat today that I probably won't run today. If you go out to hard one day it could affect you for multiple days and cause more harm than good. Steady work wins the race. Every workout should have a purpose and you have to stick to that purpose.

Long Run - On a Thursday Morning

I am following the Pfitz 70 plus plan which calls for weekly long runs in the middle of the week. Yesterday, I just couldn't get out of bed. I skipped running and stayed in bed. I felt guilty all day but I am glad I did it because I feel a whole lot better today.

So this morning I went out for 15 mile run and it went great. I felt really strong until the last 2 miles and my hips started getting sore. Not the muscles but the bones. I was glad to be home.

The weather was high 60's and was perfect. I never run with a shirt except in the winter so it was almost chilly the first couple of miles. The birds were out in full force and their songs were so nice to hear today. Why anyone would listen to an ipod I'll never know. The sounds of my footstrike, the noise of my breath, and the song from the birds made me really thankful to be alive. God has really blessed me and my family and this morning I was so happy that I am strong and healthy and able to run for 2 hours in God's beautiful outdoors.

Lunchtime Swim

So I took lunch at the YMCA around the corner from the office and swam 2000 yards. I have swam 2000 yards in a single workout before but today I didn't stop at all. I didn't warm-up or anything. I just jumped in and started swimming. It's mostly boring but I can really tell that my upper body is getting stronger. I focused on good even strong pulls with each stroke. The tiles on the body seemed to fly by and it seemed that the overhead flags were almost always coming by.

I really need to learn how to do flip turns. I think that they would make my workouts go faster and I would look like i knew what the heck I was doing.