Movement toward the barely possible

Speaking of:

I've been running about 2 miles per week, ever since an injury sidelined me back in September. Or, rather, I've been running that much since I started running again, in January.

Runner's World advises adding no more than 10% of your weekly mileage each week, to avoid injury.

So, starting this week, I can go 2 miles
Week 2: 2.2
Week 3: 2.42
Week 4: 2.662
Week 5: 2.9
Week 6: 3.22
Week 7: 3.54
Week 8: 3.89
Week 9: 4.29
Week 10: 4.71
Week 11: 5.18
Week 12: 5.7
Week 13: 6.27
Week 14: 6.90
Week 15: 7.59
Week 16: 8.35
Week 17: 9.19
Week 18: 10.1

Now, I don't know that this needs to be adhered to that strictly. For instance, I think I could probably add a half-mile run in sometime this week, and jump to week 3 without doing too much harm, and adding 0.1 miles to each run next week (0.3 total added) would also probably not bring to a breaking point. Mostly, I wanted to type this up to see just how long it really will take to come back from an injury. The hardest part about this set of numbers is, just when I was cheering up, thinking that I could run a 5K in 6 weeks... I realized that the 5K would be my entire week's mileage.

So, this is sobering. 18 weeks before running 10 miles in a week. That... wow. Wow.

That is incentive to make sure to add the 0.2 this week, so that I can get to 2.4 the next week. Otherwise, I'll either be stuck doing my 1-mile runs forever, or risk injury.

That said, I'm seriously contemplating training for a triathlon. It's not worth aggravating my injury to try to train for a run too early, but focusing more on cross-training could probably do wonders in terms of keeping my cardiovascular health from slipping any more than it already has in the last few months.

On Motivation

Since I injured my knee back in January, I've had a tough time staying consistently motivated to run. I recently looked back over my running log, and during the February-June period, I think I averaged only about six or seven miles a week. So it has been slow going.

Fortunately, the upcoming Columbus Marathon is changing that. For a while, I was waiting to commit to the race before starting my serious training. But at the same time, when I wasn't seriously training, it was hard to feel like I was in good enough shape to actually complete the race. Several shorter races this summer (from 5Ks to a half-marathon) helped me to get over the Catch-22 situation that I had gotten myself into. Also, one really good long run (15 miles) last weekend finally convinced me that I could actually be ready for the marathon in October. It wasn't at the pace that I hope to eventually achieve, but I have to be where I am before I get where I'm going. Mostly, the fact that I didn't feel like complete crap for several hours after the run felt like an accomplishment in and of itself. I decided that I must be making progress towards being race-ready, after all.

It also helped considerably that the Women's Olympic Marathon was last weekend too. Seeing others run marathons, and run them well, does wonders for my motivation. Watching Constantina Tomescu build up such a dominating lead over the likes of Catherine Ndereba and the rest of the elite field was quite exciting--the aerial shots with the long, slow pans from the leader over to the chase pack something like a quarter mile back were quite amazing. I actually did the registering for the Columbus Marathon about a half an hour after Paula Radcliffe grittily limped her way to the finish (still finishing with an average pace around 5:40). Seeing that reminded me why I'm a marathoner.

Runnin' in a Winter Wonderland

I woke up this morning to this:


Two, maybe three, inches of snow! The nice, fluffy kind that is good for snowball fights, but is less good for running in. I've not gone for a run in snow in as long as I can remember (it was snowing in Buffalo when I ran there a few weeks ago, but there was none on the ground at the time). So I have to say I was a bit intimidated. Would it be too cold and wet and miserable? Worse, would I slip and fall and break something?

But then I saw a single set of footprints in the snow outside, and I realized that I could do it. With a headband, gloves, long-sleeve dri-fit shirt, and sweatpants, it actually wasn't too cold after all. And the snow even provided me plenty of traction; the only tricky parts were crossing the streets where the snow had been plowed and only a thin layer of ice remained. I did have to breathe a little more heavily to get enough oxygen, but I still managed an 8-minute pace over a 5 mile course. After I realized that the snow was no big deal, I felt like I could have gone all day. But there's that whole "work" thing that I'm supposed to do too.

So in conclusion: let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

The Importance of Diet for a Marathoner; or, Don't Devour Pixy Stix Right Before a Training Run

Well, the title is pretty self-explanatory.

Now, one might think that Pixy Stix shouldn't be too much of a problem if one is only going to do a short run, right? Ah, but then when I tell you it was supposed to be an interval run, that changes things a bit, doesn't it?

One minute of sprinting followed by one minute of jogging.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
For slightly more than two miles.
After having done several miles at more or less race pace.

The crazy thing is, I still managed negative splits on the out-and-back route. Fortunately, I've only got a headache now, and the sprints weren't as nausea-inducing as they could have been. But it was still a mistake.

At least it's not a mistake I make all that often. And this was not nearly as bad as the time I had Cheez-Its for dinner the night before (what was supposed to be) a 16-mile run. That was quite a memorable outing, for all the wrong reasons.

A New World Record! (or not)

Flat courses and cool temperatures make for good races. According to the map tracker for the Columbus Marathon, my pace during the race was 3 minutes 48 seconds. Eat your heart out, Pre!

Except you'll notice that there's no time for the 20 mile split. Rosie Ruiz I'm not. It's just that I ran the half-marathon, but with the two finish lines being the same, the tracker got a bit confused. For a more accurate assessment of my performance, you can check out the official race results.

In case the link is giving you trouble, what with all the people checking the website, I'm happy to report that I have a new half-marathon PR. By quite a bit, actually.

I was worried that my times had reached a plateau, but if they keep dropping, I may even be able to qualify for Boston.

Settling In

Though I'm only about 25% unpacked from my move to Columbus, I have managed to get my priorities straightened out: I got in an 11-1/2 mile run this afternoon, my longest since the Vegas Marathon in 2005.
I was a bit worried about running the Columbus 1/2 Marathon next weekend, so the run today was really just to make sure that I could still handle that distance. My pace was a little bit more erratic than I would have liked, but it was still respectable overall. Running past the 'Shoe (Ohio State's football stadium) while there was a game going on was quite interesting. I could hear the stadium's announcer for several miles, even when the stadium was completely out of sight. The crowd was apparently pretty tame, though. I guess it wasn't worth getting all worked up when you're beating up on the other team by 40-some-odd points. There were also hundreds of tailgaters scattered throughout all of the parking lots along the route--fortunately, they were staying off the sidewalks for the most part. Since the game was already underway, the crowds were a lot more manageable than they otherwise could have been.

Other parts of the run were really nice too. Running along the Olentangy River reminded me a bit of Back Bay. I'm looking forward to getting farther along the path beside the river in the future--I read somewhere it's supposed to be at least 14 miles long, which should mean lots of different scenery along the way.
There were a good number of other runners out as well, and my route was circuitous enough that I encountered the same people several times. I wonder if the running population will drop off precipitously after the marathon next week. Even if it doesn't in the next few months we'll all have to find some way of running in zero degrees and a foot of snow. Any suggestions?

Kenyan outbacks

I tried to do a workout today I heard of called Kenyan outbacks. It's relatively simple. Run an out and back course, running the back part of the course faster than you ran the out part. It's helps the body get used to running negative splits, running faster when you're tired.

I added my own little wrinkle. The out part of my course had a significant downhill so I'd be running back uphill.

I suppose it went OK for the first time I tried this particular workout. I threw a little curve into my route and I'm not sure I had an exact course to measure myself by. Plus, I think the second two miles were slower than the first two miles. So when I got back to my starting point I jumped on a treadmill and ran two miles at a pace definitely faster than the previous four.


The most frustrating part is that I know I could have run a bit harder but I didn't feel very loose. All in all though, six hard miles.

Happy trails.

21 minutes here I come

This morning before the race, my friend Ryan Slight asked me about my goal. He said something like - You're looking for 25 minutes, right?
Yeah, 25 minutes. I told him I'd been looking for 25 minutes for a long time but I hadn't quite seen it. My 5K pr was 25:45 and that came from way back in September. And that was 9 seconds off being three minutes faster than my previous pr.
What I didn't say, didn't really think about until just a few minutes ago, is that it felt like I'd beaten that 5K pr a long time ago, I just hadn't done it in a race. It's an old goal. My new goal is to get a 21-minute pr.
First things first though. Today's race. The 1st annual Mother Road Route 66 5k.
And a new pr. 24:37. That's two seconds off being a whole minute faster.
The only depressing thing about today's race is I know I could have run faster. I just didn't do it.
My friend and sometime training partner Jim Evans passed me near the half-mile mark in the race. Later, he said I was barely breathing hard at that point. Of course, when he passed me, I had negative self-talk going crazy and I thought that perhaps I'd started way too fast. I thought he would already be far ahead.
But I did have some positive self-talk going for much of the race. I remembered lines from my most recent slam poem. I talked to myself about how much I love hills. And I got a bit offended when I saw shadows closing in or heard footsteps a little too close to me.
I was able to separate from some people but since I can't look back too much when I'm running, I'm not exactly sure how many. The second half of the race was hilly and I love the hills. It's much more fun though to pass people than it is to hold them off.
One girl, a freelance writer who I recently met at the office, passed me in the last mile of the race. What she didn't realize is that I've got a good kick. At the very end I was definitely sprinting, more so to make sure I got under 25 minutes than to pass her. But passing her was nice.
Still, I must get faster.
Now, I've got to work on increasing my weekly mileage and getting up the intensity in my speed work, hill work and tempo runs.
21 minutes, here I come.