More Like It

And just like that, things are back to normal. Yesterday I set off on a 14 mile run and within about 10 minutes, I started to feel what has become an all too familiar feeling of just general fatigue. I had no desire to be running 1 more mile, let alone another 13. However, after continuing to struggle for a while longer, I eventually got into groove and was able to cruise for most of the run finishing at a 6:40 pace. The last hour of the run was probably the best I've felt in over a week. The lungs were relatively clear and the legs continue to feel unbelievably strong. Sometimes you just need to push through the fatigue on these runs, and thankfully, this was one of those days.

Today I wanted to test out that 3rd gear (OK, maybe 4th gear) that I've had so much trouble finding as of late. Since it has been snowing and windy for pretty much the whole day, I was confined to the treadmill, which makes running fast particularly difficult. I just hate doing tempo runs on the treadmill. It turns into an exercise of figuring out how I can keep my sweat contained to my little rectangle, and then how long I can keep my eyes occupied so I don't peak down at the time and mileage every 10 seconds. It's maddening really. However, today was one of the better ones. I did a 2 mile warm-up and then cranked it up to 10.5 MPH at 1% incline for the next 4 miles and just cruised. I won't be so cocky as to say it was easy, but I have definitely had much more difficult treadmill tempo runs. Finished things up with a nice 2 mile cooldown for a total of 8 miles.

Overall I'm happy with how January has gone. I've gotten in 308 miles for the month which is a new record for me and January. January is usually one of my more difficult months when it comes to training. I'm dealing with cold weather and then for the last two years, I've been trying to figure out exactly how to fit in the miles with a new addition to the family. Luckily baby Jack has just recently figured out this whole "living" thing and has become quite the joy to have around, as you can see. You'll have to excuse the shoddy camera work. I'm new at this.

Cough Hack Cough

It's so easy to get frustrated with this running thing. For the most part, things have been going pretty good this year, but all it takes is a couple of bad runs and the next thing you know, you're questioning all of it. As I mentioned in an earlier post, everyone in the house has been sick over the past 2 weeks or so, and I was unable to escape the wrath of the virus. While I didn't get the throw-up version of it, I did get a good congestion going on and a nice on again/off again fever.

While this hasn't stopped me from running completely, it has made some of the runs much more difficult than they should be. If I go back through my logs, I can see that this is just how I react when I get congested lungs. The runs suffer. It's like 1st gear is OK, 2nd gear is not too bad, but anything higher than that, and I really struggle. Oh yeah, and the gas mileage starts to suffer a bit as well. I just get extremely fatigued much quicker than I normally should. OK. I think I probably took that analogy a little bit too far. It won't happen again.

So last week on Friday I did manage 17 miles on the treadmill, but unlike the previous weeks run, this run left me feeling weak and, well, sick. Saturday and Sunday I managed ugly runs of 7 miles each, which was much less than I wanted to do over the weekend, but based on how I was feeling, it was probably more than I should have been doing. By the time Sunday night rolled around, I felt like a 50 year old menopausal women..hot flashes one second, followed quickly by the cold shivers. Luckily, I got a great nights sleep and woke up on Monday feeling pretty good.

Monday's 9 mile run was nothing to write home about though. It actually was just more of the same. Started out feeling OK, but just got extremely gassed after about 5 miles. I forced myself through the 9, but it was not enjoyable. Today was probably my best run in a while with 9 miles in the morning at a 6:24 pace, but things returned to form in the afternoon with a miserable 7 miler.

I realize that the smart thing to do now would be to back off a little and let things return to normal, but that probably isn't going to happen. The legs feel great and all the little nagging injuries that were bothering me so much a few weeks ago, have just gone away as I start to get back into the routine. Since all I'm doing is base-building at this point, I feel like suffering through a few runs right now isn't the worst thing in the world. It will just make next week, when I'm back to being healthy, that much easier. That's the plan anyway.

Here's last week:

Mon: 9 Miles @ 6:20 pace
Tues: 12 Miles @ 6:40 Pace
Wed: 10 Miles on highschool indoor track - starting to feel sick
Thurs: 8 Miles
Fri: 17 Miles @ 6:40 Pace
Sat: 7 Miles
Sun: 7 Miles

Weekly Total: 70 Miles
YTD Total: 261 Miles

Who's the Baby?

***** Whining alert. Whining alert. Whining alert. *****

I realize that it's only my 3rd entry of the year, so I really shouldn't resort to the complaining post quite yet. I understand I need to build up some goodwill and then maybe after a few months I can go to the whining and the poor me stuff. Too bad. My blog. My rules. I feel like whining today.

January running in Chicago, with 4 kids/germ collectors, is just tough. This weekend was freezing, and of course my treadmill at home decided to stop working, so I was forced to the outdoors. Saturday run of 11 miles was pretty traumatic as the windchill was somewhere south of 0 and I just couldn't bare to head back out for very long on Sunday. I did make it out for a quick 5 miler to bring my total for the week to 76 miles. I was hoping for more, but sometimes you just have to play the hand your dealt.

Saturday night we were awoken by my daughter in the middle of the night, complaining that she had a tummy ache. Being the nice daddy that I am, I let her climb into bed with me, which she graciously accepted and then proceeded to throw up all over my pillow. I guess we need to work on our please and thank-yous. Luckily, she's the tough one of the bunch and she handled it like a champ that night and the next day and was almost back to normal by Monday. I did manage a decent 9 mile run at 6:20 overall pace during lunch.

Then last night, my oldest son, awoke us in the middle of the night with the same tummy ache complaints. Having learned my lesson, we headed straight to the bathroom, but he threw up before we could make it. After a quick clean-up and some more puking everyone was back sleeping, but I just didn't have the heart to duck out of the house early for my run, leaving my wife with one and a half sick kids. The boy doesn't handle sickness quite as good as his sister, so this could be challenging. Luckily things fell into place this afternoon where I was able to squeeze in a nicely paced 12 miler on the treadmill around 6:35 pace. I'm still holding out hope I'll have the energy to get out for a short run this evening, once the kids are sleeping. We'll see how that goes.

I'm sure this little bug will make it's way through the rest of the house in due time. So I'll just keep surviving. I have a feeling that might become a them this year. I am trying to become more stubborn about not skipping runs this year. Missing runs can turn into a slippery slope so I'd prefer to just not let it happen. We'll see if the kids cooperate. Scary. I know.

This ends today's whining session. Please carry-on with whatever you were doing prior to reading this.

Here's last weeks runs…for prosperity sake:

Monday: 8 w/ 6 @ 6 Min/Mile
Tues: 9 Morning, 6 Evening
Wed: 7
Thurs: 9 Morning, 6 Evening
Fri: 16
Sat: 11
Sun: 5
Total: 77 Miles
YTD: 191 Miles

Getting Into the Flow

I can honestly say that I'm please with how things have progressed so far this year. The first two weeks of the year had mileage in the 60's, with most of it being slowish paced, probably right around the 7 min/mile pace. Maybe occasionally a bit faster than that, but not too often. As I mentioned in the previous post, the real point right now is to get my legs back under me and to get my body used to training again.

With the increased workload has come the normal aches and pains. My right hip has given me some problems, but I've actually found a few pilates stretches that really seem to help, and since incorporating them into my nightly routine a few times a week, I've seen great improvement. Probably the most troubling thing right now is my right big toe. I believe I have a pretty bad case of Hallux Limitus/Rigidus, which is basically arthritis of the big toe. While it doesn't give me too much trouble while I'm running, I'm usually forced to limp for about 5 minutes immediately following every run. After that it seems to calm back down and is back to normal. I've seen a doctor about it last year and for the most part, the general consensus is that as long as I can deal with the pain, it's OK to keep running. Now I have to decide if this is something I can deal with for an entire year. The long-term solution is to get surgery to fix it. I'm hesitant to do that though, because from what I can tell, recovery is slow and uncertain. I'd hate to give up a year of peak running to get a surgery that I could live without right now. Hopefully as the weather warms, the stiffness will decrease and I can at least make it through October with things as they are.

Speaking of the weather, things are getting frigid around here lately. Temps today were in the single digits when I awoke at 5AM, so of course I did what any hearty Midwesterner would do. I bundled up and headed out the door…and made a beeline straight for the health club treadmill. The thought of doing a long run in the cold windy weather was even less appealing than doing it on the treadmill. Overall it went OK, with all 16 miles done at 9MPH. Just a few more months of this nonsense and then things should start to warm up. I truly cannot wait.

New Beginnings

I have never been one of those guys that can train non-stop all year long. I can usually stay pretty strong from January - October when I run my fall marathon. After the marathon, I can sometimes extend things for maybe a month or two, but at some point I need to just stop. I need to reacquaint myself with David Letterman and other late night TV viewing. Well, OK. Maybe not David Letterman, but at least the 10 o'clock news. I need to wake up at 7AM and not worry about the fact that my window to run for the day has probably already closed. I need to eat a normal lunch at work and not worry about hurrying off to the gym. I have to be normal. At least for 1 month out of the year I have to be.

And then, when that month or so is over, I need to start running even more than I needed to stop running a few weeks back. The drive returns. The drive to wake up and feel like I am accomplishing something, or at least working towards something. The desire to feel lean and fit. And fast.

This will be my third year following a higher mileage plan. During the first year, I was basically just surviving the mileage. Despite that survival mode, I PRed in every distance that I raced that first year, which showed me that this high mileage stuff really does work. The second year, I feel like I was really able to do high mileage AND train, which wasn't always the case that first year. I was able to PR in 5K, 8K, 10K, and Half-Marathon. Unfortunately, there was no marathon PR last year, which really leaves me itching to get one this year. So that's the goal this year.

I feel like there are definitely things I need to improve on if I want to accomplish the goals. First off, I need to be more consistent. Two years ago when I started this blog, I was close to fanatical about getting the mileage in. I simply wouldn't miss my mileage goal for the week. This created some rather lopsided weeks of running where I was chasing miles throughout the week. While that may not seem like the brightest thing in the world to do, it worked for me, because it kept me working towards a tangible short-term goal.

Last year, I was a little more realistic about my running, and allowed myself to back-off every now and then if things were getting too much to handle. This worked OK most of the time, but I'll admit this approach does scare me. It's a slippery slope when you start to give yourself breaks. A day off here, leads to an easy week there, which leads to lower mileage, which kills PRs. At least for me it does. I need to keep piling it on to keep myself moving forward.

So this year I want to more consistent with my mileage, but I also want to be more focused on my runs. I think I sometimes get a little rudderless when it comes to training. I need to make more of a deviation between recovery runs and training runs. Everything should have a purpose. Including this blog. If you see something that doesn't seem right to you, call me on it. I won't be offended. I value the feedback. My intentions here are purely selfish. It's to make myself a better runner.

I won't bore you with what I've been up to so far this year. It has been mostly just getting my legs back under me. I think that has been accomplished. The fun stuff is to follow.

PS...I'm glad to get this first post out of the way. I hate the "I'm back" post. Hopefully this is the only one I'll have to write this year.