Marathon Pace, Long Runs, and Lydiard Lacing

As I eluded to you yesterday, things were a bit crazy at work yesterday so getting in an afternoon run was tough. I was able to carve out about an hour in the afternoon for a run, so I bolted out to the gym and did 7 miles on the treadmill with 5.5 of those miles at marathon pace (6 min/mile). It felt pretty good, especially considering I wasn't really planning on doing any kind of workout or anything, but since I was pressed for time, I kind of had to. That's always been kind of my dilemma now that my marathon pace is getting lower and lower. I guess I've always had it ingrained in my head that marathon pace should feel easy. That you should be able to go out pretty much at any point and do 5 miles at marathon pace and feel fine. While I guess that's true to a certain extent, it certainly isn't to the point where I can just tune out and lock into marathon pace. Does that mean that I'm not there yet, or is it OK for MP to actually feel like an effort? Does the extra mileage that I'm doing make it OK for MP to feel harder, and by the time I sharpen and taper for the actual marathon, what feels tough now will feel easy later? I don't know the answer, but hopefully, as my fitness improves it will start to answer itself.

This morning I did what I call the Halsted Run on the way into work. Basically it's a door to door route starting at my house and ending at the gym by my work. In all it's 23 miles and it's a tough run. You run through some bad neighborhoods and the streets are not made for running. I know it isn't the smartest thing to do in the world, but I pretty much go without water for the entire run. The first water fountain on the whole way is located at about the 20 mile mark. So I usually bring a GU and if I feel like I need it, I will take it at the 20 mile mark and then wash it down with some water and that's it. Overall, the run went good today. My legs felt good and the shoes seem to be working out well.

Earlier this year, I had some strange ankle injury pop up the first time I ran in my Kayano's. After some discussion and investigation, I decided it was caused by having my shoe laces tied to tight on the new shoes. Well, I didn't actually decide that, but it was a theory and one that had some decent supporting evidence. Anyway, there was one particular tendon that was really irritated and it got very swollen and it basically forced me to take almost an entire week off from training in April. Eventually it cleared up and that's when I switched to the Lydiard lacing method for my shoes. Now I don't know if this made a difference or not, but the injury never came back and the shoes seemed to fit more comfortably, so who was I to argue

Which brings us today. About 2 miles into this run, I started to feel that same twinge in my ankle that I felt earlier this year. At first I ignored it, but I could tell it wasn't going away so I stopped, took off my shoes, relaced them as Lydiard instructed and went back at it. It made a difference. The twinge went away and I was able to go on and do the 23 miles. Hmmm, maybe that Lydiard guy knew what he was talking about.

As a side note, I was able to log 409 miles in June. That's the first time I've ever been over 400 miles in a month and about 40 miles more than my May mileage. Of course prior to this year, I've never even logged more than 280 miles in a month, so it's all kind of unchartered territory for me.

Salvaging the Week

Up until now, I've gone on a pretty strict diet of 3 weeks on and then 1 week off. The off week pretty much just consisted of me doing whatever I felt like and usually logging mileage somewhere in the 50-60 range. However, after the last time I took one of these down weeks, I just felt sluggish and bloated when I was done with the week, not refreshed and springy, like I was expecting. So I decided to rethink the down week. This would have been the week that is was scheduled for and from how I felt in the beginning of the week, I really felt like I needed it. My legs were heavy and my head just wasn't in it. I limped through 9 miles on Monday and then on Tuesday, I just didn't have it, so I took the day off. Now normally, when I take a whole day off during the week, it spells doom for that week. My motivation is usually sapped to do any kind of real workouts or any significant mileage. I pretty much just maintain fitness through the end of the week and then start again the following Monday.

Then on Tuesday, I woke up and felt pretty good. I did a 9 mile run in the morning and was feeling particularly bouncy. Normally, unless I plan on doing some sort of workout, I don't bring a watch with me. It eases the temptation that I sometimes to get to race, when I should be recovering. However, today I brought one along, just in case. About a quarter of the way through the run, I was feeling good and decided to just start seeing what I was running at, so I hit the watch. I came through the first mile right around 5:46. At that point, I was still feeling good, so I figured might as well turn it into a tempo run. I wound up doing 4.5 of the miles at a 5:43 overall pace. It felt effortless. Later that day, I went out and did a 12 mile run that felt equally effortless. Apparently the day off did me some good. So I think I'm back on track. I did 10 miles this morning at a relaxed pace and then plan on doing another 7 at lunch….although my current workload may thwart that plan. With a good day tomorrow I should be back on track and on pace for another solid week.

On a related note, I finally got some new shoes last night. I've been wondering what kind of difference a lighter shoe might make with my day to day training. Right now, I'm wearing Asics Kayano and/or 2100's, but I've always been pretty flexible with the shoes that I wear. I'm definitely not tied to a particular shoe or brand. I can pretty much run in anything. The Kayano's served me well though and I was happy with them, but man, they are some heavy shoes. I think they weigh somewhere in the 13-14oz range, which is pretty heavy as far as shoes go. I pretty much wear my trainers all the time, whether I'm out for a Sunday stroll, or running a mile time trial, and up until now, I've never really worried about shoe weight. It sort of seemed like throwing away dollars to save some pennies. The risk of injury from wearing too little of a shoe outweighed any kind of performance boost I might get from them. But things change and now I want to give it a shot. I feel like my legs are strong enough now where they can handle a little less support than something like the Kayano offers. So I got some Brooks Axiom, which is a lighter shoe, but still offers some support. I'm not ready to go completely minimalist at this point. We'll see how it goes.

Ending with a Flurry

Sometimes, life gets in the way. Thank God. While I enjoy running and it makes me the rest of my life a lot better, it's the other stuff that really make life worth living. This weekend I managed runs of 10 miles on Saturday and another 11 on Sunday, and I was satisfied with that. It meant that I wouldn't reach 100 for the week, but with a big going away party scheduled for Saturday afternoon and a birthday party scheduled for Sunday afternoon, both of which were being hosted at my house, it wasn't the most pressing thing on my mind. So with the party on Sunday beginning to wind down in the early evening, I got a call from a friend who said he would be out doing a night-time run through the forest preserve at 9PM. My mind started working. Well, the kids should be about ready for bed by 8, so if I did 9 before meeting my friends, 4 with them and then another 4 afterwards I would be right at 100. I'm a sucker….I did it.

So yesterday was a tough day running-wise. My shoes officially got the boot from the house and have been relegated to porch duty. Apparently somewhere in the 987 miles that they have logged on them, they have acquired quite a stench to them. My wife finally had enough of it yesterday. To the porch with them. It's time for a new pair. My morning run was 11 miles with my kids in the double stroller. That was a fun run. They say that we are "going on a mission" and pretend that we are searching for something the entire time. Yesterday, we were in search of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I'll admit that was my idea. Usually the route that we run on is full of deers running out in front of me, but of course, yesterday we didn't spot a single one. My daughter was disappointed, but I tried to keep her interest by pointing out every single bird and bunny that we saw. My son wassatisfiedd with that. Chloe…not so much. Then there was the improptu 17 miler at night. Since I finished somewhere north of 10PM, I haven't run yet today, but I hope to take care of that at lunch.

All in all, not a bad week, but not one that I'm particularly proud of. I did get to 100 miles in 9 runs, but I didn't manage to get in a single run over 17 miles and I had to go 28 miles on Sunday to reach 100…not exactly ideal. I guess it's all perspective. Last year I would have been absolutely thrilled if I could have managed a week like this. This year, the bar has been raised. I'll do better next week…just as soon as the feeling returns to my legs.

Weekly Mileage: 100 Miles
Avg. Mileage Per Run: 11.1 Miles
YTD Mileage: 1944 Miles

Treadmill Running

First off, my 23 miles didn't happen today. Yesterday morning, I started to feel slightly nauseous in the morning, and by midday, it had grown into some major queasiness. I had pretty much lost my appetite and felt like I was on the verge of puking all day. By the time I got home from work, I did feel better, but still had no appetite and the thought of food made me feel sick. So I went to bed having not eaten for almost 24 hours and decided I would see how I felt when I woke up. When I got up this morning around 5AM, I felt better, but I didn't think going 23 on a completely empty stomach was a real great idea so I skipped the morning run. I was able to eat some breakfast though so I figured I was OK to try and run at lunch.

Now, for the most part I hate the treadmill. I kind of feel like it's cheating every time I climb on one, but sometimes I do it anyway. Today, for whatever reason, the thought of running outside just didn't appeal to me, so I stayed in at the gym and went on the treadmill. I realize that you can't really do straight comparisons between road running and treadmill running, but from what I can tell the efforts on the treadmills at my gym are pretty close to what I would be feeling on the road. Besides that, since I was forced to do a lot of running over the winter on these same treadmills, I do have a point of reference. I know what was tough for me 4 months ago on these machines, so it is always good to just kind of do a checkpoint to see if progress is being made.

So I wanted to spend some time at marathon pace, which for now, I'm saying is 6 min/mile. I did the first mile as a warm-up with half a mile at 9MPH and half a mile at 9.5 MPH. Then I set the treadmill to 10MPH and just tried to get into a rhythm. I was cruising along and feeling good through 5 miles, but then I noticed a big increase in effort. I kept pushing on, telling myself that this is the time, when you're really fighting it, that improvement happens. I took it a mile at a time and finally reached 8 miles at marathon pace. I then did a cooldown mile and called it a day. In all 10 miles total with 8 of them at 6 minute pace. A good workout. I'm still not sure how I'm gonna run 3 times that distance at that pace in 4 months, but hey, stranger things have happened. All in all, this was a good workout, and one that I could not have done a few short months ago.

So now I've backed myself into a corner for the weekend. I have to do a longrun either Saturday or Sunday and then do some decent mileage the other day as well. Normally, I like to do most of my really big mileage days earlier in the week so that I can kind of coast through the weekend and rest up for the next week. Unfortunately, that doesn't look possible this week. Such is the life I guess.

Confidence

Last night my youngest son Mikey, who recently celebrated his 2nd birthday, decided that he has had enough of his crib. He finally worked up the courage to climb out of it and claim his freedom from his confined sleeping space. Nothing revolutionary had occurred with Mikey, either physically or mentally, in the past month to allow him to finally be able to climb out of the crib. Actually, he's probably been capable of getting out for a few months now, but luckily for mommy and daddy, he didn't know that he could get out. Once he figured out that he could do it, there was no turning back. We tried to get him back in the crib, but he would climb out again before we could even get to the door. What sparked this sudden climbing ability within Mikey? Confidence. Once he knew he could get out of that crib, it became easy for him. He no longer had to worry about the unknown. He knew he could do it.

Confidence is such a strange thing. Sometimes I look at the workouts that guys who are faster than me do, and I think I could do that. I could run with this guy in workouts, but why would he whip my butt in a race? I wonder if it is as simple as just confidence. The guy next to me knows he can run this thing in X amount of time, whereas I'm still thinking I might be able to. Should there be more of a focus on the mental aspect of this thing or does confidence come with work? I have a 5K coming up in a few weeks. It is the first race I've done in a couple of months and I will step to the line just about as confident as I could be. While I don't think I'll hit my ultimate goal of breaking 16 minutes, I will hopefully lower my PR and get closer to 16. Many runners talk about breakthrough performances. A race or a workout where they reach a new plateau in their running and once they get there, they never look back. That's what I'm hoping for this summer. I'm confident I can do that.

Today I did 10 miles at a very relaxed pace. My legs were not real happy with me for most of the run, but they did loosen up a little at the end. I think I'm suffering from some severe glycogen depletion. Since I went camping this past weekend, my diet has consisted of a lot of meat, and very little carbs. Not exactly the ideal diet for a runner. Today I'm focusing on carbs to try and get some energy in these tired bones. Hopefully tomorrow's 23 miler will reflect that.

The Mystery of Tempo

Man oh Man, it is humid out there. Today called for a double workout of 10 in the morning, with some of those miles at tempo pace and then an afternoon run of 7 miles at a relaxed pace. I felt like absolute crap for the warm-up miles of my morning run, but once I started dropping the pace, amazingly, I started to feel a little better and once I got into full stride, everything seemed to come together for me. I did this workout with a 3 mile warm-up out to a 2-mile straight path, where I did the tempo portion of the run. I started out into the wind and was able to average a 5:52 pace for the first two miles. I then turned around and with the wind at my back was able to drop the pace for the next two miles and bring the overall pace for the tempo portion of the run down to 5:44 for the 4 miles. In all, I was at tempo pace for about 23 minutes, which, acccording to the experts, is long enough to get the desired effect. In the past I've always done tempo runs for about 35 minutes, but I was never able to consistently do these in the 5:40's so I guess there's a trade-off. Actually looking back through my log from last year, I averaged in the low 6's for most of my tempo runs the last 2 years. I think the faster paced shorter runs are more of what I need right now to kind of supplement the longer slower stuff.

I think I'm starting to finally "get" the tempo run. I still can't give someone a good definition of it, but I think at least I'm starting to understand what it should feel like. Just to really butcher a famous quote from one of the judges on the Supreme Court regarding the definition of pornography, "I shall not today further try to define the tempo run...but I know it when I see it."

The 7 miles in the afternoon were not much fun considering it was in the 80's and what felt like 100% humidity. I wasn't just sweaty when I was finished, I was saturated. Nice mental picture huh? Ya know, it's not so much heat, it's the humidity.

I Have a Problem

I've always been a marathoner with an endurance problem. I know…not exactly a good combination. You can hide a certain amount of endurance deficiency in a 5K or a 10K or maybe even a half-marathon, but the marathon will expose you. Looking back over my last 3 Chicago marathons my half and full splits are pretty revealing:

Year 1st Half 2nd Half Final
2003: 1:24:07 1:35:53 3:01:53
2004: 1:19:52 1:28:57 2:48:49
2005: 1:20:53 1:25:15 2:46:08

I know, I know. Not the way you want to run a race. My preparation for those marathons were pretty varied, but for the most part, they included two days of speedwork and one long run per week. The speedwork, I was pretty good at getting out there and doing it. The longruns, were more challenging for me, from a motivation standpoint. I always found it a little easier to go out and kill yourself for an hour as opposed to the slow painful death that you get with the longrun. Last year, which was probably the best preparation I ever had from a longrun perspective consisted of these longruns: 17, 18, 20, 17, 17, 20. That's it…and most of those runs were coming on weeks where I was in the mid-50's from a mileage perspective. Now, I don't want to stick my nose up at that. There are many many people who do great running marathons on less long runs and mileage than that. However, keep in mind, that I have an endurance problem. There is really only one cure for an endurance problem, and luckily, it's a pretty simple solution. Mileage….lots and lots of mileage. So that was my goal for this year. High weekly mileage. Lots and lots of long runs. Speedwork mixed in, once I adjusted to the mileage. I wrote this plan up in January and when I looked at it, I kind of laughed to myself. Yeah right…but I stuck with it. And it started working.

In April, after 4 months of my new training philosophy, with very few miles run at faster than 7 min/mile pace, I ran a small trail marathon in the northern suburbs of Chicago. My main goal was to go out and run comfortably maybe break 3 hours, and see how I bounced back from it. The results? A PR of 2:45:55. The first half split was 1:25:10 and the second half was 1:20:45. My last 3 miles were at a 5:45 pace. And it was easy. The plan is working.

Did 17 miles this morning without a watch. The 17 mile run has become my bread and butter run of this training cycle. If I'm starting to feel sluggish or just not right, I go to the 17 miler and I usually feel good after I'm done with it. It's long enough, where there is a sense of accomplishment upon completion, but it isn't so long that it breaks me down. Last year, this would have been the pinnacle of the week. The run that every other run centered around. This year, it's my Tuesday run. Slow steady progress is being made. And anyone can do it.

Catching Up

Some things I learned over the weekend...

1. The days of a relaxing vacation, for the time-being, are over. I am a much more tired person today than I was on Friday morning. Camping with a 2 and a 3 year old is hard work. Good thing I'm back at work so I can rest up. We did have fun though, so it was worth it.

2. I'm a flatlander. The area that we were in was definitely not the hilliest area in the world, but there were some hills. Pretty much constant hills…but not the kind that make you want to cry and/or quit when you're half-way up it. No, these were just gentle rolling hills that just never stopped coming. It was good though. Being from Chicago, I don't get a chance to run on hills very often. If I ever did decide to go to full-time Lydiard training, I'm not sure what I would do when it came to the Hill phase of the training. I guess I could find a nice on-ramp or something to run up and down on, but well, no thanks. Actually, I believe Joe Newton, the famous coach of the York Boys Cross Country team here in the Chicagoland area incorporates a lot of Lydiard's teaching into his training plans. However, he totally skips the hill section of the plan. I would imagine it has something to do with the fact that you just can't find a nice hill to run on in the area. You might find some in isolation, but it's definitely a challenge.

3. Mosquito bites on your lower legs and feet are at the absolute itchiest about two and a half minutes into a run. It must be from the blood rushing to your feet, but it gets pretty intense for a few minutes. If you just keep going and fight the urge to stop and rip off your shoes and socks, the feeling will pass.

4. The muscles in my upper back do not like camping. They are having an absolute revolt today. I have problems with my lower back from time to time, but this upper back stuff is brand new to me. I've never felt so old.

5. Mikey and Chloe have serious potential as world-class swimmers. We went to the beach on Saturday morning, and I think they left the water for a total of 45 minutes the entire day. Their dad? He isn't crazy about cold water, so he would join them but only if the water didn't reach the bottom of his swimming suit. That's as far as he would go. What a wimp. I guess that's why I never really got into that whole ice bath thing for recovery.

Did two 11 mile loops this weekend right around a 7 minute/mile pace over the previously mentioned hilly route in Michigan which brought me to an even 100 for the week. I must say, I was pretty happy on both days to see daylight as sleeping was absolutely brutal both nights. I just like sleeping in my bed, what can I say.

Weekly Mileage: 100 Miles
Avg. Mileage Per Run: 11.1 Miles
YTD Mileage: 1844 Miles

Today I did 8 miles at lunch. I should have run longer, but I was too tired to wake up this morning and eight was all I could fit in at lunch. It will have to do. This will hopefully be my 3rd straight week of mileage over 100. Additionaly, I've done 100+ for 6 out of the last 7 weeks. I never thought it was possible, but I guess it's time to admit that it is. No more excuses for me.

Oh and Happy Birthday Mikey. He turns the big 2 today. Someone told me this weekend that it seems like he's been around a lot longer than 2 years. Kind of funny. I think with most kids, you're supposed to say, "I can't believe he's 2 already," but not Mikey. He's seen a lot in his two years and he's wise beyond his years. What a lucky dad I am.

Taking a Step Back

Yesterday I mentioned in my post how I was wanted to do some tempo work and thankfully, Mike and Eric both jumped in to tell me that I should probably think twice about that, with all the other stuff I've been doing this week. Actually it shouldn't take two people to remind me of this. Just a couple of days ago, I was writing about how I had given up on being a hero in my workouts and now just wanted to do steady solid runs every day. And now, not even 72 hours later, there I was overdoing it. I'm still a newbie when it comes to incorporating speed and mileage together. While I have gone over 100 miles 5 out of the last 6 weeks, I've only started incorporating faster than MP workouts in there last week. So I'm still trying to figure out that balance between when to push it and when to just let it be. After thinking about it, I decided I would just go by feel today.

I did 11 miles in the morning with 10 strides at the end. It felt right. The strides seemed to wake my legs up and the easy miles before it were just what the doctor ordered. At lunch, I did another 8 miles with Chloe, my 3 year old daughter, along for the ride in the jogging stroller. It's nice to do runs with the jogging stroller as it serves as a throttle. Not many people can really go crazy with the speed while pushing a jogging stroller around. At one point, I mentioned to Chloe how I was getting tired. Her advice? "Well, maybe you should slow down Daddie." From the mouths of babes. From the mouths of babes.

Just Let It Be Over

Everyday isn't going to feel great. Today was just one of those days. I could tell that after yesterday's double runs with very little recovery between the two that for whatever reason, my legs just weren't bouncing back. They felt dead the rest of the day, and when I tried to fall asleep last night, I had trouble sleeping because they were bugging me so much. Nothing localized or anything, just general achiness (sp) and restleness.

When I woke at 5:30, I wasn't looking forward to the 17 miles that I was planning on running, but I was determined to get it in. I do a lot of my mid-week runs as part of my commute into work. I live 23 miles from work, so if I want to do a real long run, I will just run door to door. That works good from a mileage perspective, but you have to run through some very shady areas on the way in and there are no drinking fountains on the way in either. Normally I would just bring a few bucks with me and stop at a gas station for some water along the way, but truthfully, I don't really feel safe even stopping in a store in most of the areas. If I'm in motion, I'm OK. If I stop, I feel like I could be a target. So I stay in motion..and usually end the run very thirsty. I also have a 17 mile route that I do more often, at least once a week and sometimes twice a week. This one I take the train for a little while and then run about 8 miles on the roads, and then another 9 on the Lakefront path which gets me into work. This one is better from a logistical standpoint, because once I'm on the lakefront path, the drinking fountains are plentiful and the threats of gunshots go way down. I also like it because once I get off that train, it's basically no turning back. It's either run the 17 miles into work, or die trying. Sometimes I can't give myself options. I also have a 9 mile route, where I take the train even further and it lets me off right at the lake, where I pick up the tailend of the 17 mile route. That's my favorite and the one that I get to do least often. It get's tough to coordinate running into work too many times during the week, just because I need to bring clothes and food in the day before and plant them in my locker at the gym and well, all that work just isn't worth it for a 9 mile run.

So today, I did my 17 mile route. It was one of those days that I needed to have no options but to gut it out and finish the run. My stomach was giving me problems and my legs were sore and I generally just wanted to be doing something else. But I finished and actually my overall pace of 6:40 wasn't too bad. Hopefully, I'll bounce back from this one better than I did yesterday, as I would like to do some tempo work tomorrow before I leave on a camping trip with the family for the weekend. This running thing is easy. Camping with a 2 and 3 year old. Now that requires endurance.

A "Good" Workout

The goal this year is to do good workouts. Not great workouts, and of course not bad workouts...just good ones. Every day. If you were to look at my training over the first 8 years of my marathon years, it would look like something like the elevation chart of the Boston Marathon. Up and down, up and down. I would have a great day, followed by nothing, followed by a Herculean effort the next day, followed by squeezing in a 4 miler on wobbly legs the next day. It got me to the finish line of 14 marathons so far, but I always figured there had to be a better way.

I would read Jack Daniels tell me that I should feel energized after doing a tempo run, and I would just stare at the book (or magazine or computer screen), in absolute amazement. Enegerized? After a tempo run? I was fairly certain that the tempo run was created in some 3rd world country as a punishment for some heinous crime to humanity. I pictured a judge sitting on his bench sentencing a thief to 15 days of tempo running over the next 30 days (even a judge would have to allow for recovery...right?), as the defense lawyer shouted his protests.

However, I think I'm starting to get it. Instead of going out and racing my tempo runs, I'm starting to understand what the term "comfortably hard" means. It gets tossed around quite a bit and I always kind of ignored the comfortably part and just did everything hard. Those were my peaks on my elevation chart. The next day would be my valley as I was too wiped out to do anything.

Today, I did 8 miles with 25 minutes at tempo pace of 5:42, and the overall pace for the 8 miles at 5:58. It was comfortably hard, and guess what. I felt energized when I was done. Maybe that Jack Daniels guy knows what he's talking about.

Less than 2 hours later, I headed out for a quick 6 mile recovery run. The extra short rest between my two runs today was less than ideal, and I certainly don't want to make a habit of it, but sometimes you just have to roll with the punches and that's what today was. What I've found as I have begun to explore the world of high mileage, is that keeping your mileage consistently high is a mindframe that you need to embrace. While that second 6 miler today wasn't make or break for my week, it keeps me mentally in the game and on-pace for 100 miles this week. You have to take motivation where you can find it sometimes.

Recovering

I woke up this morning to bright sunshine at 5:30AM and headed out for an easy 10 miler. As my legs hit the ground they immediately began to scream at me. It was kind of surprising actually. I did 17 miles yesterday and tried to push some of the middle miles (with little success due to a big headwind), but it was nothing that should have killed me. Maybe this was just the cumulative effect of a pretty tough week of running last week and no rest for the weary this week. But hey...that's what the recovery run is for...to recover. I added some strides at the end and that did seem to wake the legs up a little.

For anyone who wants to consistently put in good mileage weeks, let me make one simple suggestion. Go big on Monday. If you start your week off with a big number, it makes the rest of the week so much easier to manage from a mileage perspective. I know mileage shouldn't be the most important thing in a training regimen, but for many of us, it's how we define our weeks. In the elevator on the way up to work, no one asks you how many miles at tempo did you put in last week. It's how many miles did you run last week. Well, actually it's probably more like "how long is the marathon you'll be running this weekend" but occasionally you'll get something a little more running savvy.

I've devised my own plan for how I'll be "getting in the mileage" this summer. Actually I've used it all year long and it is working out pretty good for me. The concept is that the week is made up of 7 days. You take one day out of that right away and reserve it for your long run. That, for me, is on Friday. That leaves you with 6 days left. You break those remaining 6 days into 2 day segments. Each of those three 2-day segments should be pretty close in mileage to each other. So at the beginning of each week you figure out how many miles each of your pods will be and then go to it. Right now, I'm working right around 27 miles per pod. That usually puts me pretty close to 100 miles for the week (27 * 3 = 78 + LR = 100). I like it because it keeps me honest so that I don't sluff off early in the week or totally frontload a week and then have crappy workouts but still get the mileage in.

When I started this back in January, it was a big struggle to get 20 mile pods done. That was all easy paced runs and it really beat me up. However, what I've learned is that a couple of weeks of being tired usually leads to some adaptation and that allows you to move forward. From those humble beginnings, I've moved up to consistently being around 100 miles and getting some good quality workouts mixed in as well. It's tough to be patient with your training, but if you want long-term results, it's the only way to go. For me, the 18 week training plan no longer works. For me, it's more like a 3 year plan, and it's only just beginning.

The weekend

6/8/2006 (continued)
I did 6 miles after work on Friday in addition to the 10 in the morning, because I had to wait for my wife to pick me up so we could go dancing on the a dinner cruise. It was for Kelly's work and truth be told, we didn't dance much. That's my fault. I really don't like doing it. We did get out there once, right before the lounge singing lady did her best rendition of "Last Dance," but it was a slow song so I was able to fake it.
6/9/2006
I was supposed to go do a 10K this morning, but I woke up and it was pouring out. I hadn't pre-registered for this thing, so there was really nothing forcing me to drag my butt out there to get soaked, so I skipped it. About 10AM I was really starting to beat myself up about wimping out, but it was too late at that point. Finally, in the mid-afternoon, I headed out to the track (the real track this time), and decided I would try a new workout.

I have a book at home called Running Tough that for the most part sits under my bed, untouched. However, on Saturday I pulled it out, dusted it off, and decided I would pick one of the workouts out of the book. Basically, what the book is, is a collection of 75 different workouts that elite runners do and some explanation of what you're trying to achieve with each workout, pacing, etc. It also has each workout classified as either LSD, recovery, intervals, or Tempo (there may be one more in there...I can't remember). So on Saturday I went to the Tempo section and paged through it until I found this one.

Go to the track and do two sets of 3 miles, alternating the pace with each lap between 5K race pace and marathon race pace. It really doesn't sound all that hard, but what it teaches your body to do, is to recover from the hard efforts while still at marathon pace. Hmm...could come in handy. So for simplicity, I said my 5k pace would be 75 sec quarters (which is probably too fast) and my marathon pace would be 90 second quarters (which is about right). I had to do even numbers just because I'm not that smart and I would have to be doing the math "on the run." I took off and came through the first mile right on pace @ 5:30 (75 + 90 + 75 + 90 = 5:30) with each of the individual laps coming within a second or two of where I should. The second mile was more of the same clocking in dead on at 11:00 minutes total. The last mile I really started to struggle keeping the 5K pace, but was pretty good about keeping the marathon pace segments and finished up in 16:35. I was tired, but not wiped out. I then jogged a mile and started on my second rep. The first mile was more of the same and I came through right on pace again at 5:30. After that though, the 5K pace segments became increasingly hard to maintain, and I was losing about 5 seconds every fast lap, but was still maintaining my 90 second recovery lap. I finished the second set at 16:48, which I was happy with. I cooled down for 2 miles to make it an even 10 for the day.

One thing that struck me as I was doing this workout, was this son and dad on the side of the track. This dad was absolutely killing his son making him do sprints up and down the stadium stairs, and then hopping up and down on the bleachers and every once in a while sprinkling in some boxing workout moves. The kid could hardly stand up-right but he was still trudging up and down the stairs as his dad yelled at him. Now, I'm not here to villify the dad. He knows his kid better than me, and maybe he needs to some extra prodding to motivate himself. What I realized was that this is what I was doing to myself last year. I would go and totally beat myself up 2 or 3 times a week with mile repeats or a tempo run that was really at race pace, but I had nothing to support myself. I had no real aerobic base to build off of. So while those sessions certainly did something for me, I wonder at what price. Maybe I was in constant dread of Tues. and Thurs. last year, because I wasn't ready for that kind of workout.

This year, things are definitely different. On Saturday I banged out a 16:35 and a 16:48 3 miler. I may have been able to do that last year, but it wouldn't have been as, oh I don't know what the word is, workman-like as this was. My PR for the 5K that I set last year was 16:52. The first set from my workout on saturday computes to about a 17:05 5K. For a workout. In the middle of the day. At the end of a 100 mile week. Something is happening.

Sorry that took so long to get out, but I've been thinking about it a lot over the weekend, and I had to get it down on paper (or whatever this is).
6/10/2006
10 miles at a recovery pace. I won't bore with anymore than that.

Weekly Mileage: 103 Miles
Avg. Mileage Per Run: 11.44 Miles
YTD Mileage: 1744 Miles

6/11/2006
17 miles on the way into work. I was, once again, going to do the middle 7 miles at marathon pace, but there was a huge headwind in my face and it was way too hard to maintain 6 min miles into it, so I turned the watch off and went by effort. The effort was there. I'll take it.

Somewhere during this run, I passed my 2005 yearly mileage total. In June.

My Week...So Far

6/5/2006
15 miles during lunch with 4.5 miles @ 5:40 pace. Not sure what I was trying to accomplish with this run other than to wear out the legs early on in the run and then keep a decent pace for the last few miles. I did the tempo miles from mile 3-7.5 and then had another 7.5 miles to go. It was a good workout. I actually didn't expect to go 15 miles when I set out on this run, but it was so nice out, I just kept crusing along. Good run.
6/6/2006
12 slow relaxed miles. A little shaky from yesterday's tough workout so this was definitely a recovery run. It's kind of nice to have recovery runs now. When I was doing every run at a general aerobic pace, there wasn't much room for these nice and easy runs.
6/7/2006
Mile repeat day. This was my first visit to the "track" all year so I really had no idea what to expect. I quote the word track because actually I do these around a .4 mile path that runs around a little park by my house. They have each .1 mile marked so I do 2 1/2 laps for the mile and then jog the .2 back to the starting line for another one. Last year I was doing most of the miles around 5:30, so I had that as my baseline. I also started very slowly last year, starting at 2 repeats and working up to 5 by the end of the year. Since I was going into this one with a good base though, I figured I would just do 5 right off the bat and see what happened. I was pleasantly surprised. My times were 5:22, 5:21, 5:23, 5:25, 5:24. The thing about these were that I didn't really feel smooth on any of them. They all felt choppy and unnatural, but I won't argue with the results.

In looking at the McMillan Calculator, for a 2:36 marathoner, it says I should be doing my mile repeats at 5:07-5:18. However that is for the speed workouts. The way I do these, with the shorter rest interval it is actually closer to his definition of cruise intervals. For those, it says I should be running 5:18-5:25, so I'm in range there. Whatever. I don't want to get to analytical on all this stuff (I know...too late for that). This was a good solid workout and definitely something to build on.

I did do 7 miles in the afternoon too. It was nice and relaxed.

6/8/2006
The Halsted Run (23 miles). For the most part, this was a pretty uneventful run, which is good as far as I'm concerned. It was somewhere in the 2 1/2 hour range and I felt decent throughout the run. I was a little worried about hydration since this was definitely the warmest that it's been on a day that I've done this run, but it was fine. I lived. I was also happy with how my legs bounced back from yesterday's hard effort. I wasn't sure what they would feel like since I haven't really done hard intervals all year. They were fine. I wonder if the second run in the afternoon yesterday helped knock some of the gunk out of the legs. Hmmm...
6/9/2006
10 miles with 6 strides near the end. Since I'm open to change I incoporated the strides during the last mile of my run. From a purely logistical standpoint, I like it. It was nice not having to go to the field across the street after my run and do them. It also helped that last mile go by fast. However, I'm fairly certain the cars passing me on the street thought I stole something.

Tomorrow is my first 10K in almost 6 years. The last one I did was when I was in Germany in 2000. It came after a summer of great training, and I ran a 35:30. I hope to improve on that tomorrow. I'm pretty confident I will.

Some Background

This is the year I make it into the paper. Yep, no excuses. This is the year. I'm gonna make it into the paper. It will probably read something like this:

96 Smith, John 2:36:15
97 XXXXXX, Greg 2:36:26
98 Doe, Jane 2:36:35

Most people probably won't even notice it, but I will. Wait, let me take a step back and explain. I've run some good marathons in the past couple of years. I've finished closer to the front than the back in most of the races that I've run and PRed in pretty much every distance that I ran last year. However, after every Chicago Marathon that I've run in my lifetime, which now stands at 8, I have been left with a somewhat empty feeling the next day when I go to get my daily paper. You see if you live in Chicago, and probably even if you don't, you know that there are two main papers in the city, The Sun-Times and the Tribune. Now, I'm sure there are many reasons why one would choose to read one paper over the other. The Sun-Times tends to attract the younger, more liberal crowd. The Tribune is a little more stuffy and conservative in it's leanings. The Sun-times is much flashier and has a tendency to over-sensationalize everything. The Tribune has Tom Skilling doing it's weather. I mean come on, Skilling's a rockstar. Now, all those are valid reasons for someone to read one paper over the other. Heck, maybe someday I'll be smart enough to form an opinion on one paper over the other based on some grown-up logic like that. For now though, I'm stuck with the only thing that makes sense for me. The Sun-Times is just easier to read on the train than the Tribune. It reads like a book, just has one main section, you can get to the sports page by just flipping the thing over. And when you're done reading it, you close it and put it away. No sections to sort through, no pages to unfold. Clean and easy. It's just easier for my little brain to handle this way.

However, there is one day every year that I have to go out and buy the Tribune. The day after the local elections so I get catch up on who won what? No. The day after Thanksgiving to get all the sales Ads? No. The only day I have to go out and buy the Tribune is the day after the Chicago Marathon. Why? Well, because the stupid Sun-Times only lists the top 100 runners in it, but the Tribune lists every finisher. It has bugged me every year since I ran my first marathon back in 1998. I want to get into the Sun-Times. So to have a shot at cracking the top 100, I need to go sub 2:37. Sounds daunting. A couple years ago, it would have sounded impossible really. My PR was set at last year's Chicago marathon at 2:46, so I need to trim 9 minutes, 560 seconds, off of that time. Nine minutes spread over 26.2 miles means that I need to run about 21 seconds per mile faster. That would put me just under a 6 minute mile pace (thank-you Start Menu - Programs - Accessories - Calculator), which is another lifelong goal of mine. 5 years ago, the thought of running a marathon under a 6 min/mile pace seemed impossible to me. It doesn't anymore. To be brutally honest, I feel like I should be able to run at a 6 minute pace for the entire race. I just need to train properly for it. Ahh the training. That's what always does me in.

In years past, I have followed some hybrid training plan by Hal Higdon, or Pete Pfitzinger, or maybe even Jack Daniels. I mean I never really followed anything, but I would take bits and pieces from everywhere and mish-mash them together until I got something that worked for me. Something that would get me through the summer and in good shape for my fall marathon of choice, The Lasalle Bank Chicago Marathon. However, this year, I know that if I want to improve my marathoning, improve by minutes not seconds, I need to stop thinking in terms of 18 week plans and training cycles. I need to start thinking long-term.

Now, this probably wasn't the best time to have an epiphany like this. I'm 32 years old (soon to be 33), married with 2 wonderful kids and a 3rd child on the way. This isn't exactly the time when most people decide to get serious about running. It probably would have been easier if I'd have made this commitment about, oh, let's say 10 years ago. But I didn't. But I couldn't. I've never been a place where I could totally commit my freetime to training. Now I can. Now I am.

To give a little background on my running, I finished my first marathon in 1998 in a time of 3:32. Since then I have worked my way, rather slowly down to my current PR of 2:46 which was set last year at the LBCM. Last year, I averaged somewhere around 40-50 miles per week for the 18 weeks leading up to that race. So there is room for improvement. This year, I have dedicated myself to a high-mileage program that I'm kind of making up as I go along. So far this year, I have average 75 miles per week, with my peak week at 104 miles. I hope to keep my mileage above the 100 mile mark for the rest of the summer.

Well, now that that is out of the way, I guess I can get to the good stuff. Well maybe tomorrow.