A New Week, A (hopefully) Smarter Runner

After last week's follies, I decided to be a little smarter about running this week. I took Sunday off to recover from Saturday's long run and ran an easy 7 miler yesterday morning at about an 8:15 min / mile pace. Nice and easy.

Today was a different matter, but hey, I was rested. Today was an interval session:

10 min warm-up at 10:00 min / mile

6 x 800 m @ 6:00 min / mile with 1:30 Resting Interval

10 min cool-down @ 9:00 min / mile

Felt pretty good during the run - speed and stamina both seem to be right about where I would like right now. If only I could shake this nagging cold as my breathing could be a little better. Both runs were on the treadmill as we had rain this past weekend followed by a flash freeze down to -15 Celsius. This has made running on sidewalks impossible and the roads are pretty dodgy in places as well. I must admit that the -15 temps with wind have had more than a small role in keeping me inside as well. Given that I find it difficult to do intervals on a road as opposed to a track this is probably just as well anyway. 

So what's up over the next couple of days. Tomorrow is a cross training day - spinning at the gym. Thursday I am considering a 8 mile tempo run (1 mile warm up, 6 miles @ 6:50 min / mile, 1 mile cool down). Friday, if I run at all, will likely be some easy slow miles and Saturday I am looking to do 13 miles at about 7:15 - 7:25 min / mile as I try and add some pace to my longer runs.

I am now trying to ensure after each hard run that I give myself an easy day or a day of rest. No sense getting older if you can't get smarter. 

Tortoise and the Hare

It has been a while since I posted anything on the blog - I have been trying to pay a little more attention to other things in life and right now, while I am really enjoying running, it would be really boring to create reports on a regular basis - at least more than it normally is. Here is why it would be so boring to report on. I am currently base training for the lead up to the Boston Marathon. With this approach, I am running all of my runs at a pace in which I can remain conversational the entire time. Read, no real speed. What I am doing is trying to get a good aerobic base in over the next couple of months with an aim towards speed specific training in the 2009. So for now, I am the proverbial tortoise.

This leads me to the Hare. For those of you who have read my profile, or the earliest of my postings, you will recall the reason I got into this whole running thing is to become competitive with my childhood friend. In our first race together, he paced me and almost got me to a Boston Qualifying time. That first marathon was completed after only 9 weeks of training - the result of him seeing a picture of me in a 5K I had signed up for on a whim without real training and making the comment in response that my time was "not bad for a guy carrying two hams around his waist". I took the comment as a challenge and as a result of the relative ease in which he paced me, I felt the need to at some point challenge him.

So here we are one year later. I have qualified for Boston and we are going to run it together. The intention at this point is for us to run the first 24 miles together pacing each other and then, in a form of childishness that is rampant in middle-aged males, we are going to race the final 2.2 miles in a fight for bragging and/or Last rights. Seriously, I am really looking forward to this. Running has allowed us to share something in the past 1 1/2 years that would not have been possible otherwise given our geographic dislocation - goals. So while I will be pushing myself as much as possible from the start in Hopkinton to the finish in Boston, I will also be in the moment with more than a few memories of when we were side by side on the same line playing hockey as kids. Who knew we would be still competitive in sports 30 years later.

Perhaps the message in all of this is that running is my mid-life crisis - if it is, I think I could have chosen worse.

Tempo, May 6 - Pacing

Ran a decent tempo run this morning - 2 sensible warm up miles, followed by 4 miles at tempo pace and ending in 2 cool down miles. I must admit to having felt sluggish through the run. I hope some down time over the next 10 days will help me feel energized come race day.

I have also come to realize that like all my races, I am seriously undertrained. That said, this really started out as being a training run due to my injury so I have to try to keep that perspective as difficult as that may be.

For the race, I am considering running the first five miles at about 7:00 / mile, the second five miles at 6:50 / mile and then just trying to see what is left in the tank for the remainder. I am not sure if anyone out there has any experience running 1/2 marathons, but would be curious to hear about any experiences people have had with pacing as I have zero experience to draw from at this distance.

Spring - In My Step

There is a little bit of Spring in my step this morning. Last night I decided that the time was right to start easing back into some real training. With that in mind, I set out for an Tempo run this morning. For those of you who are reading this and don't have a running background, a Tempo run is essentially running a hard, but controlled, pace. Physiologically you should be right around your anaerobic threshold - the highest effort level at which your body can perform without building up lactic acid. Now with that out of the way, the following is from this morning's training log:

First Tempo run since getting injured. Felt good although I did struggle a little between miles 3 and 4 of the Tempo.

The breakdown:

2 warmup miles @ 8:10 min / mile
4 miles @ 6:26 min / mile
2 cooldown miles@ 8:08 min / mile

I am pretty excited as I haven't run a tempo run since last Fall and to be able to go at a 6:26 pace for 4 miles first time out is certainly helping with my mental outlook and has put a Spring in my step.

A Strange Incident

Slowly but surely, I think I am beginning to round back into shape. I still have some pain in my knee, but with each week it is diminishing - I am seeing progress. Take last week for example, I ran 5 times - something I have not been able to do since getting injured.

Monday: approx 6 miles
Wednesday: approx 4 miles
Friday: approx 6 miles
Saturday: approx 4 miles
Sunday: 8.2 miles

This is not an overwhelming amount of mileage, but considering where I have been I'll take it. All days except for Sunday represent estimates. I was really beginning to get curious about pace and what my real distances were so on Sunday I took the trouble to measure my run online. Lo and behold - my estimate of 7.5 miles was short by quite a bit. Essentially, as part of recovery I was estimating my distances based on my relaxed running pace last year prior to the injury. Typically, I had been running about 8:20 per mile during these sessions. Given that I was running coming out of an injury I had guessed my pace would be no better. Making my calculations, however, I now realize that I am considerably faster right now than I was last year. The 8.2 I ran on Sunday worked out to be about a 7:30 pace. Considering I was running a easy relaxed pace this is much better than I expected. I guess losing 20 pounds has had some impact.

Now to the strange incident. During Sunday's run I had something happen to me that has never happened before. I was running along my usual route when a police car headed towards me with its lights flashing. Thinking that it was going to stop a car for speeding heading in the opposite direction, I remained blissfully ignorant to it. A couple of moments later, I noticed that I was the focus of the officers intentions as the car slowed down and the officer made a waiving motion for me to stop (I can't say pull over as I was already on the shoulder of the road). Anyway, I was perplexed as to what was going on and to make light of things asked the officer, "Am I going to fast?" As it turns out, this wasn't the issue. Currently, there is a criminal in the Halifax area who escaped from prison guards enroute from a prison to day surgery at a local hospital. He is considered armed and dangerous and they, the police, happened to be tracking him a mile or so from where I was running. Apparently, runners can spook tracking dogs causing a potential incident and can be considered "hostage bait" for escapees. So the officer kindly asked me to change my route for the day and rerouted me in the opposite direction. It was all perfectly explainable, but quite strange to come to the realization that your are being stopped by the police while running.

The Great Outdoors was Great!!!

Sorry about the long hiatus. Frustration was rearing its ugly head and frankly, I didn't have much to write about as I was unable to run recently. The few times I had tried I had to stop after about 1.5 miles as my running form was way off due to the level of pain I was under.

Since my last report, I have moved on to another treatment approach. I went to see a chiropractor who specializes in Active Response Technique (ART) on Thursday. Without any disclosure from me he was able to detect an abnormality in my right leg that I was aware of but did not think would be implicated in my current problem - he disagreed and who am I to argue. Anyway, I received one treatment from him on Thursday and he seemed confident that I should see marked improvement in 3 weeks. He also gave me the go ahead to continue running - as long as the pain was not too intense.

With the above instruction, I set out for my first run on Friday. I went for 4 miles and it went reasonably well. Yesterday, Sunday, I went for 6 and that too was pretty good. I can still feel pain, but it was not debilitating. Today, Monday, I went again - this time for 7 miles. I feel much as I did yesterday. I have some pain in my knee and my glutes, but nothing I can't handle. This marks the first time that I have run outdoors back to back since early January when this issue began. I am beginning to become a happy camper. Given the duration that this has lasted, while not convinced I am on the road to recovery, I am at least cautiously optimistic. With the way I have felt recently, this is an accomplishment in itself.

Technolust

By now many of you will have seen the new Garmin 405 watch that was unveiled at the recent CES show. GPS, heart-rate monitor all in a sleek traditional watch like form-factor.

I noticed today that Runners World has posted a new video of it. You can see the video by clicking here. The watch is actually smaller in size than I had anticipated. I was a little suspicious prior to seeing this video as to the overall size of the watch as all prior videos have not shown it on someone's wrist. However, in this video it does appear to be a reasonable size to be used as an everyday watch.

I am still curious as to how long the battery life is on this thing. What I mean here is how long the rechargeable battery will last before it dies and needs to be replaced. That said, it does seem to be pretty cool... especially for a self-professed techno geek.