This is the time

Many people like to run at certain times of the day. Some people like the charge for the day a morning run gives. Some like to run in the evening to help decompress from the stress and hectic schedules they endure. Others run whenever they can. I guess I'm in the whenever they can camp.

While I'll do it for my long weekend runs in order to beat the heat, I have a hard time waking up godawfully earlier than the already godawfully early time I get up just to run in the morning. And I have too many family responsibilities and scheduling conflicts to be able to guarantee time to run in the evening. So I take advantage of a very small window of opportunity to exercise after work and before descending on the evening every day.

Exercising in the mid to late afternoon doesn't bother me much, but it does provide a lot of opportunity to think about what I'm going to be doing before I do it. If it's a tempo run I spend time during the day mentally preparing myself to endure a faster pace than I'm used to. If I'm going to do speed work I think about how I'm going to breathe through the intervals. If I'm doing something easy I look forward to plugging the earphones in and zoning out for a few miles. In all cases, I'll visualize my form and think about how I'll feel after the workout.

I think exercising after work also helps mentally. After a long, hard day in the coal mine it's very easy to say screw it and head home to get some unwind time rather than sweat through another workout. But it takes a certain strength to cast those thoughts aside and do what you know you're supposed to do. And the fear of an upcoming race distance you've never run before up doesn't hurt either. But then it's also very easy to hit the snooze button at 4:30am rather than get up to go run so what do I know.

In the end, I think we all just fall into a routine that fits us best. Mine just happens to allow for afternoon workouts. When people say they don't know how I can run every day at that time I just say that I don't know how they can't.

And chances are they don't work out at any time during the day so what do they know?

Running through another week

It's from one extreme to the next this week. While I had a too nice and easy 4 miler yesterday to complain about, tomorrow it's a rough and tumble 6 mile tempo run which will include 4 miles at about my 10K pace (7:57/mile). It will be my longest Thursday run to date, as well as the longest distance I'll have to maintain a relatively fast pace since I started training for a marathon. What's up with that? It's just topsy turvy week for the running me.

Then on Sunday it's 16 miles, which will be another milestone distance for me. By two miles. And I have no idea where to run it. I don't think I want to hit up the NCR trail again, but I may. And even after I finish it I'll STILL have only run 10 miles less than a marathon.

I've vowed to evaluate where I'm at after this week and press on for the marathon or wuss out and downgrade to the half marathon in October, but right now there's one question that keeps going through my head, even with as long as a 14 mile run behind me: how in the world am I ever going to run 26 miles?

If I can answer that after Sunday I'll press on. If I can't will determine how strong my mind is. Will I suck it up, drive on unsure and just do it, or will I be a baby and take the easy way out?

At this point I don't know. I'm not above going bib and pacifier shopping though.

Ramping up the running slowly; backwardsly, even

Week 5 of marathon training kicked off with some cross training shenanigans yesterday and a 4 mile run today. Coming off a stepback week and having my long Sunday run be "only" 7 miles, I'm a little confused as to why my program calls for a pretty short easy run as a follow-up. Even after I ran a 14 miler the Sunday before last my next run was still 7 miles. Granted, today's run is supposed to be at a pace 6 seconds per mile faster than I've been running, but that's a fairly tame incremental increase in speed and I don't think it merits a much shorter Tuesday run than I've been running (to this point my shortest Tuesday run has been 5 miles).

These are the moments where I just repeat to myself that people who know what it takes to run marathons devise these plans and until I'm able to figure it out on my own I should give them the benefit of the doubt.

That doesn't mean I don't wonder what's up though...

Stepping through a stepback week

I thought I'd take it easy today because it's a stepback week and I only had to go 7 miles for marathon training. I slept in until about 6:00am and when I checked before I left the house just before 6:30 I saw it was already 77 degrees with 78% humidity. D'Oh! Statistically, this is the hottest week of the year around here so I guess it makes sense that it was that miserable at that time of the day. It doesn't make sense that I didn't take the heat and humidity into consideration before the run though.

To make matters worse, there was not a cloud in the sky and the sun was starting to rise over the trees as I walked out the door. Not a good sign. Since it was "only" 7 miles I thought about packing it in and heading to the gym to run the miles on a treadmill, but I miss running outdoors so I drove on.

Quite honestly, I felt pretty good. I was supposed to run a 9:28 pace, but I decided that since it was a relatively short run I'd just go with whatever felt comfortable and not worry about timing specifics. I had my Garmin Forerunner on to make sure I didn't go too too fast, but I wasn't concerned with much else.

I finished 7 miles in 1:03:40 for a 9:03/mile pace. The last couple of miles were hot and hard because of the heat, but even those were run in 9:12 and 9:10 which wasn't too shabby I didn't think. If it were about 20 degrees cooler I think I could have smoked those 7 miles (well, smoked as smoking pertains to me).

Then again, the run took enough out of me that I wound up taking a 3 hour nap in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. That's kind of uncharacteristic of me.

Oh, well. That's one run down and still like 97 to go until the marathon in October. Hopefully they all feel like this 7 miler when I run them.

Toiling on the treadmill

Nothing exciting to report about my marathon training during this stepback week. Today was a 6 mile easy run, which I did indoors due to high heat and high humidity. I will admit that these are b-o-r-i-n-g days in the gym. To combat that some I see how high I can ramp up the incline on the treadmill without making my heart explode.

While my heart didn't explode, it was one of the more challenging 9:22/mile pace runs I've had in a while. In fact, for an easy run it wasn't all that easy and my knees are sore.

But it's over and tomorrow is a blessed day of rest. I'm feeling a little burned out on running this week so I'm thankful I only have 7 miles to do as my long run this weekend.

Maybe those people who devise marathon training programs know what they're doing.

Taking a step back to go forward

This is a stepback week in my marathon training. My long run is 7 miles and all of my runs are "easy." No challenging tempo runs, no heart exploding speed work, just nice and easy. This is to get me ready for longer distances at faster paces in the coming weeks, but it's nice not having a 14 mile run staring at me this week. Then again, I do have 16, 18 and 20 mile runs in the weeks after this one. D'oh.

While it's a nice week schedule-wise, it's also my fourth week of training. I said I'd see where I was after 4 weeks and re-evaluate whether I still want to push forth and train for the Baltimore marathon or cut it back to the half marathon. I don't think it's really fair to myself to make this decision at the end of a stepback week, so I'm going to give it another week and see where I'm at after my 16-miler. That'll be a better indicator of my where my heart is because that'll be 2 miles further than I've ever run.

I will say that judging from my last long run, which was about a mile further than I've ever run at 14 miles, I have to admit that I'm still in for the whole enchilada. The problem, of course, is that 14 miles is still 12.2 miles short of a marathon and 12.2 miles is awfully far, especially after you've already gone 14.

Then again, I did catch myself looking at my training program for this week and feeling a little disappointed that my long run is "only" 7 miles. Just a year ago that far seemed like a marathon distance to me as I was basking in the glow of completing my first 5K (3.1 mile) race and never having run more than about 4 miles.

I guess it's apparent that I have no idea which direction I should go with my running right now, so until I figure it out I'll just keep on runnin' forward.

Running further than ever earlier than ever

I set my alarm for 4:00am to run 14 miles this morning. They don't call me the running MORON for nothing. Even worse, I woke up at 3:53. Way to earn my nickname, I guess.

So I got up, got my stuff together and headed out to the NCR trail, which is a 15 minute or so drive from home. I think I mentioned before that I've never run this far before, and if I was going to run 14 miles outdoors I wanted it to be as easy as possible. Around these parts I can't think of any place easier to run for pretty much as far as you want than the NCR trail (it's 20 miles long). There's a slight incline on the trail on the way out from where I started, but it's so slight you barely notice it. Then, of course, that slight incline going out is a slight decline coming back.

When I got out to the trail it was still very dark and I was the only one in the parking lot. I think technically the trail is open from dawn to dusk, but the gate to the parking lot was open so I figured what the heck. I put my shoes and socks on, put on my robo-runner gear (mp3 player, Garmin Forerunner, hydration belt...), did a little walking to warm up and hit the trail seconds before 5:00am.

I have to say that it was pretty nice running. I saw no other people except some guy on a bike, did see some wildlife, it was humid but not too hot, and I was able to maintain my pace (sort of... my Garmin was having issues with the overhead trees I guess and kept losing track of my pace by varying wildly between a 6:30 pace and a 10:45 pace, both of which were way off).

When I turned around and ran a couple miles back I started seeing people more and more - runners, hikers and bikers, and by the time I got back to the parking lot it was probably 2/3 full. The NCR trail is a popular weekend morning destination.

Anyway, I did the 14 miles relatively easily. Only the 14th mile was above my target pace of 9:28/mile and I finished with an average pace of 9:23/mile, five seconds per mile below my goal pace. I knew I wanted to finish the run no longer than 2:13:00 and I made it in 2:11:something. So, a successful run all around.

It was nice to have a long run that was below my goal pace for once. I guess as long as it's flat I am teh awesome, but introduce a hill or two and I turn into teh suck.

When I got home I iced down my knees for a while and now I feel great. That's probably the best I can hope for when running a new further distance.

This post is really long, so I'll save the review of my new hydration belt and my TMI bodily function story for later.

Down with the sickness

I'm beginning to think running is a disease, or at least a sicknees. It's about 7:45 on a Saturday evening and I'm winding my day down so I can get a decent night's sleep to kick off a 14 mile run as early as possible in the morning. Heck, it's still light out even.

What normal person does something like that?

What kind of rhythm does this tempo have?

My marathon training plan called for a 5 mile "tempo" run yesterday. It's my understanding that tempo runs start slowly, then speed up little by little until you get to a certain speed under your race pace about 2/3 of the way through the run and then slow down from that point until you finish. If it were a picture, it would look something like this:



The run I did that was called "tempo" started at an easy run pace of 9:22/mi for a mile, then three at 7:53/mi and the last one back at 9:22. It looked something like this:



I don't know if what I did was the intention of the training program or if I took the instructions too literally, but there was a pretty big disparity between what I know as a tempo run and what I did as a tempo run. I guess I can only hope that what I did do wasn't detrimental to what I'm trying to accomplish. That is, finish a marathon without dying.

In other news, I was advised to make sure I keep workout t-shirts for working out and non-workout t-shirts for not working out. Seems that the "non-staining" stuff I use to prevent chafing on my nips, SportShield, isn't so non-staining and makes me look like I'm leaking when I wear workout shirts when I'm not working out. Oops.

A slow run and fast shorts

Boring run yesterday. Five treadmill miles at a 9:22 pace to kick off week 3 of marathon training. As usual, I ramped up the incline to compensate for the slowish pace. I'm a late believer of the principle of slowing down to go further, but man it's hard to do. You just feel like a snail and I worry that I'll lose whatever speed I have, which I know was never much to begin with. But then I remind myself it's a marathon and not a sprint and trod on. Har.

Anyway, the highlight of the day was me running any appreciable distance without wearing compression shorts for the first time. I was wearing a pair of shorts with a built-in liner in them, which I've never tried before. It might be hard to believe, but I was really worried about running in them. I'm a dork about dumb things like that. I was just concerned about binding or chafing or riding up or something. As it was, the shorts were great. My mp3 player didn't even bounce around in the pocket. So I know they're good for at least runs up to 5 miles. I'm still not sure if I want to run 14 miles in them this weekend though.

You know it's a slow day and when a runner stretches the bounds of interest by discussing his shorts on his blog. Yeesh.

Missing a race anniversary

This weekend is the Pikesville 5K. Last year, this was the first race I ran since I started running. I remember being so nervous and pretty excited and unsure of anything. I also remember running the course the weekend before the race and guesstimating what my finish time would be. After it was over I immediately started to wonder how much I could beat my time by next year.

Now it's next year and I've made the decision to not run this year's Pikesville 5K. I'm in my third week of training for the Baltimore marathon and this weekend calls for a long run of 14 miles. Unfortunately, I don't have time on Saturday to do the long run to open Sunday for me to run the 5K, and I don't want to run the 5K and then go off somewhere and run 11 more miles, mostly because it's mid-July and the race doesn't start until 8:00am which means it's going to be hot (forecast high is 91 for Sunday) and even hotter by the time I get somewhere to do the rest of the 14 miles. And I don't want to split it up by running 5K in the morning and 11 miles in the late evening. Since I don't want to fiddle with the structure of my marathon training program too much something has to give, which would be my participating in the Pikesville 5K.

The bright side to all of this is that I'm eschewing the 5K race because it's not enough of a run for me. Who knew a year ago that I'd think that? Last year I was running a 3 mile loop around my neighborhood thinking I was hot stuff. Now I don't bother with that route unless I'm doing a slow, easy recovery run the day after a half marathon or something. Last year I ran six 5K races and a 5 mile race for 23.6 miles worth of races. This year I've run three half marathons, a 10 miler and 2 5Ks for 55.5 miles. And the year is only half over.

To sum, I'm not running this year's version of my first 5K race. Mostly because I've moved on to bigger and further things. That's not a bad thing, I don't think.

Weekends are made for long running

While most people spend their holiday weekends vacationing or partying or hanging out with friends or otherwise goofing off like normal people should, I've spent mine trying to figure out where I was going to run 12 miles.

I ended up on a road I had no business on as a pedestrian, but I made it through alive. Maybe my hitting the road at 4:30 am had something to do with that. See, normal people - party and sleep in. Running moron - early to bed and too early to rise. But it was nice to only have to deal with humidity and not heat (it was 66 when I left and 68 when I got back), and it was nice to not have to dodge the sun's rays.

Anyway, I was supposed to run a 9:28 pace over 12 miles. I managed 9:30. Close enough, I guess, but I am a little disappointed at missing my target. Looking at the data from my Garmin Forerunner, it appears I ran the first 6 miles about 10 seconds under my target pace and the last 6 about 10 seconds over. I need to set my Garmin to beep when I go above or too far below my pace because it was really hard trying to fiddle with it every two minutes in the dark to figure out how I was doing at the start.

Also, I kind of thought the route I chose would go downhill and then flatten out for most of the rest of the way. Wrong. This is what I faced this morning:

SIX of the last seven miles were uphill. Sure, there were downward dips throughout, but trust me when I say they didn't help all that much.

When I got home and stretched I realized that my knees were kind of balky. I iced them down for 25 minutes or so and they feel pretty good. I could sure use a massage though.

Next weeks is 14 miles. I think I'm going to chicken out and do that on the NCR trail. It'll be boring but it'll be pretty flat, and I've never run that far before so I want it to be as easy as running 14 miles can be.

And I least I'll have my tunes. I need some decent earphones though. It's always something.

Going uphill indoors

Aside from the fact that running 10, 12 or more miles on a treadmill would probably kill me from boredom, I make a point of doing my long weekend runs outdoors. I have to get up extra early in the summer and/or run wherever the shade is, but that run outside is really important to me.

But for shorter runs, of say 6 miles or so, I have no problem hopping on the treadmill to avoid running in an 85 degree afternoon during the week. Such as it was yesterday for my scheduled 6 miler at a 9:22 pace. An easy run in week two of marathon training.

The problem with this kind of run is that while I sweat like a maniac it's a generally too easy workout for me, by probably a minute or so a mile. Especially on a treadmill.

To compensate for the slowish pace (which I'm dealing with because I'm trying to run 26.2 miles and the key is to slow the heck down) I find myself cranking up the incline on the treadmill. While that turns me into a true salination machine, it gets my heart pumping a little harder and challenges me without going at a faster pace than I should.

There's nothing like running outdoors, but there are ways to make running indoors a little more manageable. For me, playing with the incline buttons is key.

Cooling down the creaky joints

I hate to say it, but I'm getting old. That point is being proven by my knees, which are starting to get sore after my long runs on the weekend. There's no pain; just soreness. Considering my next two long runs are 12 and 14 miles before I get a stepback week and have to go "only" 7 miles, I guess I need to do something about it.

I'm regularly taking a glucosamine and chondroitin supplement for my joints in addition to the multi-vitamin I take. I can't prove it, but I think it helps. Maybe it's just a placebo effect. That'd be good enough for me though.

Now I think I'm going to start adding ice therapy after my long runs to hopefully stave off some soreness. I don't think I'm logging enough miles for it really, but every body is different, so maybe running 25 miles a week for me is like running 100 miles for an elite runner. And many of them incorporate ice therapy in their post-running workout routines so who's to say it's not right for me?

Anyway, it's an easy 6 miles today, which I'll do on a treadmill and without a Breathe Right strip.

Now I'm off to check out ice therapy technology (i.e., bags of ice and towels to wrap them in).

Breathing is a right

10 or so years ago I went to see an ear, nose and throat doctor regarding a problem I was having with an ear. While I was there he noticed my slightly deviated septum and said he could do something about that to help me breathe better. I told him I was fine with the way it was and didn't think it necessary. He said ok, but he guessed that by the time I turned 40 I'd want to do something about it.

I still don't really have much desire to do much about my septum, but I do sometimes wonder how much better I'd be able to run if I could breathe through my nose a little better and if I could ever stop looking like a knuckle dragging mouth breather when I run.

Yesterday I was in the store and noticed a box of Breathe Right nasal strips, those band-aid type things that open your nasal passages. A light bulb popped on in my head, I said what the heck and bought a box.

This morning I had a 10 miler on tap, so I got my stuff in order, slapped on a nasal strip and headed out the door.

It was really humid, and after 6 miles, when the sun finally burned through the cloud cover, really hot, so breathing while running was hard to begin with. Did the nasal strips help with my running? I don't know, but I noticed a marked difference in my ability to breathe through my nose and I think that when it finally cools down in the fall I may get some benefit from them.

Anyway, I was supposed to run the 10 miles at a 9:28 pace, which is kind of slow, but I started a little later than I planned, took a new route, hit a couple unexpected hills, and with the heat and humidity finished even slower with an average 9:31 pace. I took 30 seconds longer for this run than I should have. I'm not going to beat myself up too badly over that. This was the conclusion of the first week of marathon training anyway, so I have time to step it up and get it together.

Still wondering what I got myself into with all this marathon training stuff.

Slow and steady manages the race

I'm slowly but surely starting to see the value of slowing down while training. Yesterday I had to run 5 miles, the first and last at an easy 9:22 pace and the middle three at 7:53, and finished only about 30 seconds slower than a typical 5 mile trainer at a steady pace of my choosing.

Everything I read and hear about training for long distance runs says to slow down, but I'm bull-headed enough to think that is advice that doesn't apply to me, the late 30s runner with a little over a year of running experience behind me. So I run however I want and on race day die the last couple miles and blame the heat. The heat may or may not be the significant factor that does me in, but I'm tired of using it as an excuse. Granted, I'm doing all except for my long runs indoors so I don't know what road running in the mid-atlantic summer weather is like right now, but I'm firmly starting to believe that slower is better. For now.

Blessed day off today, with a 10 miler up this weekend; my third 10 miler in 3 weekends. Next weekend I get up to 12 miles and I'm looking forward to it, but not waking up before the roosters to get it in before the sun/heat/humidity takes over.

Who's bright idea was it to decide to do a fall marathon that requires training in the oppressive Baltimore summer months? Yeesh.

The batteries that power my motivation are dead

Today's running workout dilemma: I forgot to charge my mp3 player last night and the battery is dead. Ugh. I hate having an audio device that requires a charging cable with a proprietary plug for the equipment and that doesn't just use a nice standard USB cable.

And since it's supposed to be in the 90s today I'll be running on the treadmill indoors. For a five mile tempo run; three of those miles at a pretty by-god fast pace that could use some aural encouragement in the guise of angry upper-middle-class suburban white boy music. Yeesh.

Oh, well. This will be my first time in my new Mizuno Wave Rider 11s, so I have that.

It's still going to be a long five miles. I predict it'll feel like at least 6 or 6 1/2.

A star in the making?

I was in the locker room changing yesterday after soldiering through a 6 mile run at a 9:22 pace on the treadmill (where it took all my effort to not speed up the pace) when I started talking to some guy in there. I've been seeing him in the gym for almost as long as I've belonged to it. We say hi but never really talk.

This time I said something to him (I think it was "hi") which led to him saying something to me which eventually got to him mentioning that he sees me out on the road running sometimes. Usually Sunday mornings while I'm suffering through my long runs. I'm a local running celebrity! Heh. Or more likely that moron who you always see out there running for no good reason.

I told him that I just started training for my first full marathon and that he may start seeing me out there at different times. His eyes started to glaze over at that point and I realized I shared too much with him. So I finished tieing my shoes, wished him well and headed home.

Race training decision day

This is the first of 16 weeks leading up to the Baltimore marathon, which I'm registered for but still haven't decided to run. What I have decided is to train for the marathon and if after 4 weeks I'm not feeling it to downgrade to the half marathon. I can easily train for a half marathon in 12 weeks with the running base I have under me now.

The biggest problem is that I haven't decided on a training plan. I am down to two, both of which had cross-training on the plan for yesterday, which I did. The plans I'm deciding on are the roll your own one you can build on runnersworld.com and the FIRST program, which is probably the most scientific training program out there. I'm leaning toward the Runner's World program because it's a little more customized and requires a little less thinking from me, but I'll take the rest of the day to decide.

What's interesting to me about both of these programs is that they only require three running days a week. I get kind of leary of long-distance running training programs that don't call for lots and lots of running, but as a potential first time marathoner I'm even more leary of tweaking a program and adding stuff to make it my own when I have no idea what I require to complete a marathon.

A little disheartening is that according to the Runner's World program, which uses previous race times to calculate training and race paces, I should be shooting for a marathon time of around 4:30. It's kind of my goal to finish a marathon under or around 4:00, but I realize the first time you run a distance as long as a marathon you should just work to finish it and then shoot for time improvements as you go on. But what if I don't ever run another marathon? Will not killing myself to hit my time goal haunt me? On the other hand, will killing myself to hit my time goal kill me?

At any rate, there's less racing and more training on tap for me regardless of which race I run in October. Now it's all about staying motivated, I guess. Wish me luck.

Running to recover

I don't know if a 10 mile race needs any recovery, but I ran a 4 mile recovery run this morning anyway. It wasn't quite as hot as it was yesterday, but it might have been even more humid and I felt at times as though I was running through water. Still, it was nice to knock out a little run and keep myself in the groove. I was a little slow for 4 miles with an 8:40 pace, but let's not forget my ongoing excuse for all poor run times: it's summer.

Now, with no race on the horizon (although there is a 5K I'm thinking about doing in mid-July if it's not a million degrees out), I have to start focusing toward the Baltimore Running Festival in October. Am I going to run the marathon, the half marathon, the relay? This is a decision I have to make very soon because time is training, or something like that.

Speaking of the Baltimore Running Festival, it looks like I have a group of 7 or 8 coming in to run. The furthest traveler is from Alaska, but Florida is being represented now in addition to MD, PA, NV, and OR. It's pretty exciting to make this happen. Of course, I have to show the out-of-towners a good time while they're here.

That's a big "Yikes!" for Mr. Homebody over here.

(Any locals are welcome to join in on the running festival festivities too. Leave a comment or e-mail and I'll give details.)