Running Notes by HJL

1/22/2006 through 1/28/2006 totals: 33.50 miles, longest 9.59 miles.
Year to date: 113.89 miles

Some improvement in breathing, continuing to increase mileage and single run distance.

I’m probably going to need replacements for the current set of shoes in rotation before too long. They’re still OK on the treadmill, but I’d rather have a fresh set of midsoles before starting higher road mileage. I’ve mostly been running in GT2100’s and Hurricane 5’s for a while.

I like the GT2100’s being a little lighter, but have also noticed that if I run exclusively in them I tend to start having small nagging joint aches after a few months. I’ve gotten more consistently about rotating them with the slightly heavier Hurricane 5’s. I’ve been happy with them since I started running a few years ago, and have gone through something like 8 pairs now.

Continuing to cautiously ramp up mileage and longer runs. The heart rate monitor is returning better data now, after a new battery. Yesterday I logged 9.5 miles on the treadmill, at 9:00 pace. Taking out the warmup and cooldown, the HR data for the middle 80 minutes looks substantially better than a similar run a few weeks ago. I’m still starting out 10 points higher than my 2005 baseline, but I’m not getting the steeply increasing heart rate anymore, and it seems to be tracking about 10 points higher than the baseline all the way out now.

Some of the improvement is just adaptation to having resumed longer runs, but I’m starting to get some improvement in my breathing. It still doesn’t feel great, but it’s definitely not as bad as last month, and I’ve also stopped having random episodes of feeling out of breath while sitting at the computer.

It’s hard to gauge my current conditioning right now, but having the flatter, if elevated HR curves, is encouraging. I may try resuming a little bit of hill and T pace training if things stay like this, working from whatever VDOT seems to fit. The fallback plan will be to just continue on base building.

My goals for Big Sur emphasize having an enjoyable run, as opposed to going as fast as possible, although I’m still holding out hope for improvement over last year’s time (3:50:34). Last year I got beat by a 70-year-old (who turned out to be George Hirsch, founding publisher of Runners World).

1/15/2006 through 1/21/2006 totals: 29.02 miles, longest 8.01 miles.
Year to date: 80.39 miles

Still easing into things. Breathing is still off, but feels slightly less congested.

Tried using the heart monitor transmitter with the new data recorder, it seems to work ok but the strap needs a new battery, there’s a lot of noise in the recorded data. Also successfully imported the database from the old version of the Timex Trainer software. The new version of the software includes better support for GPS, since the new Timex TrailRunner GPS hardware provides “3D” data, i.e. elevation along with position. Haven’t tried it yet, but it looks like it might also be able to import GPS tracklogs from other devices as well.

…especially when I already feel like I can’t breathe properly. What are they thinking?

This morning I headed to the gym for a 60+ minute easy run. I’m still not breathing properly, although I noticed that things got better after about 45 minutes, which is encouraging, if weird.

My heart rate monitor strap seems to need new batteries. When the batteries are low, it starts throwing out readings that are usually fractional multiples of the actual heart rate, such as 1/2, 1/3, or sometimes 3/2 or 4/3, or 60 (presumably from AC line interference). It can also read randomly high, such as the 172 I saw today while warming up (my observed HRmax is something like 180).

Ended up doing about 8 miles at 9:30 pace, mostly at around HR 140-145. This is 15-20 points higher than where I would normally expect to be (120’s) at this pace.

1/8/2006 through 1/14/2006 totals: 27.01 miles, longest 6.67 miles.
Year to date: 51.37 miles

I still need to put together a training plan for Big Sur. Not that I’ve ever followed one precisely, but it’s helpful to map out what needs to get done during the training cycle. At this stage the main task is just to shift my workout time towards running again, get my weekly base mileage back up, and see how everything is working.

Breathing is still off this week, but not getting worse. Haven’t had a chance to play with the replacement data recorder yet.

At the beginning of every year there’s a sudden abundance of runners on the road. I assume it’s from people taking up running as part of their New Year resolutions. In the morning, during lunch, and late in the afternoon are always popular times for running, but it’s particularly noticeable around here as we’re only a block away from the Bryant Street bike boulevard, which is partially blocked to prevent automobile traffic and is thus a popular neighborhood running and bicycling route. It seems to be a group activity, there are many more groups of 3 or more out and about lately.

Unfortunately, few of the New Year runners will make it past January. I think a lot of them are simply trying too hard, thus making every workout unpleasant, or start to develop injuries which force them to bail out. Usually by February or March, it’s back down to the same people who were there the year before.

At this time of year I frequently observe people with amazingly bad running form — huge vertical bobbing, heavy overstriding, the “Rocky Balboa” side-to-side weave, and knees flailing around like eggbeaters. I also see these at marathons, but figure by that time people know what works for them. On beginning runners, it’s more painful to watch, since they probably haven’t reached that point yet, and are often a mass of moving injuries in progress.

I haven’t stopped anybody out on the road yet, but in case you’re a beginning runner or just suspect you may have running form problems, are headed toward an injury, or that you might be working harder than you need to, I suggest you check out Danny Dreyer’s ChiRunning book, which has some excellent guidelines and advice on running form, whether or not you’re interested in the Chi aspects of his approach.

When I first started running a few years ago, one of the first things that I did was to spend some time looking at my current running form for ways to improve my mechanical efficiency. If nothing else, it seemed intuitive that spending a lot of energy moving up and down, side to side, or slamming my feet into the ground wasn’t going to help much. Danny’s book came out some time after I’d worked out my own system, but I find that most of his advice is consistent with what I would tell people, and his explanations are better. I have also avoided any major injuries (so far).

Here’s an article by Danny on running, posture, and avoiding injuries. I’ve also taken a couple of Danny’s workshops with the MIT Community Running Club, and have always come away with some opportunities for improvements.

ChiRunning by Danny Dreyer (at Amazon)

Here’s a look at last year’s weekly mileage (2005). The year started off pretty well, up through running Big Sur at the end of April. After that I spent much of the year doing more cross training instead of running, trying to get rid of some lingering aches which were gradually getting worse.

During the fall I usually run less lately until soccer season is over. This year I also picked up bronchitis or something which is still giving me problems around mid-October.

Looking back, I see I haven’t logged a full week of “normal” running since May 2005. On the plus side, my joints and ITB are all feeling pretty good, and I’ve kept up the cardio workouts on the elliptical, stairclimber, and rowing machines. So if I get some improvement on the breathing problem things look generally positive, and even if things stay the way they are now I can probably manage OK at Big Sur if I reset my paces slower.

At the moment I’ve dialed down my “easy” pace to somewhere between 10:00 per mile and a fast walk, which is enough to bring my HR up to low aerobic range. At this rate I may need the additional finishing time they’ve allowed this year before closing the course. They close Highway 1 to vehicle traffic to run the marathon, so there’s a hard stop after 6 hours, which is a 13:40 pace. Hopefully I can do better than that, even if I still can’t breathe properly by April.

The replacement for my old Timex data recorder arrived. I don’t have the Timex Trainer software loaded on this computer, I’m hoping there have been some bug fixes since the last time I tried it.

In my experience, the data recorder and software usually works pretty well, and is a great improvement over trying to log workout heart rates and paces manually. However…

I purchased my first data recorder shortly after they went on the market, having already gotten the Bodylink heart rate monitor and the predecessor Ironman GPS unit. At the time, both the hardware and software seemed a little buggy, but still pretty amazing for the price point, just over $50. The lack of user interface makes the data recorder a little challenging to use sometimes. There is a single button and a single LED which flashes timed patterns in red or green to indicate various conditions, which can be difficult to see in bright sunlight and can take a while to interpret. In particular, it’s easy to miss the red-and-green flash which indicates low battery, which soon leads to the unit shutting itself off.

The most unfortunate experience I had with the data recorder was using it at my first time running the Big Sur marathon and having the Timex Trainer software choke while uploading the 4 1/2 hours of data. I had the speed smoothing function turned on and I’m guessing that it hit an exception somewhere while chewing on missing or spurious location data. I was fairly annoyed about this, since I wanted the training data, and actually worked out the HR part of the data using the flash memory dump feature in the Timex software.

Hacking the data out of the firmware wasn’t my first choice, I actually contacted Timex to see if I could either have someone rescue the data from the memory dump or send some documentation so I could do it myself. I got as far as extracting the time and heart rate data, which was moderately useful in planning for the next time around.

There’s now a project on SourceForge, sponsored by Timex, which provides the logger.dll code used to interact with the data recorder over USB. I haven’t gotten around to trying it, partly because I haven’t had a data recorder for a while, so I may give it try sometime.

My notes on hacking the Timex data recorder are posted on the main blog in the running category:

• Hacking the Timex Bodylink, Part 1
• Hacking the Timex Bodylink, Part 2

1/1/2006 through 1/7/2006 totals: 24.36 miles, longest 7.36 miles.

Aside from the mysterious breathing problem, I’m still evaluating how things look for this training cycle, getting ready for Big Sur in April, and shifting back to more running and less cross training. I’ve been logging more time on the stairclimber, elliptical, and rowing machine for a while. Just trying to get into a marathon training mindset at the moment.

I find Jack Daniels’ VDOT tables useful for setting target training paces. These can also be used to identify a theoretical target time for events at different distances, based on equivalent level of effort and training. The general idea is to quantify how fast you can go for a given rate of oxygen (O2) uptake. Higher numbers are better.

Some of the physiological contributors to the training improvements:

• Increased mechanical efficiency as your form improves
• Increased heart stroke volume (chamber becomes larger and stronger)
• Increased lactate buffering capacity (lets you sustain near-anerobic pace longer)
• Increased capillarization (you develop more capillaries which get O2 in and CO2 out faster)

Unfortunately, your basic starting point is largely genetically determined, and there’s a limit how much improvement can be obtained through training.

My ability to gauge paces is slowly improving over the years, but I’m remarkably bad at “running by feel”, which is one of the reasons I tend to rely on instrumentation. I also find it difficult at times to tell how hard a “moderately hard” level of effort is, which is where a heart rate monitor can be useful.

Right now, it seems that I’m getting less oxygen in than normal. I’m guessing that my present state is around VDOT 35, based on an 8:00 mile. I’m currently running no faster than 9:00 pace for daily runs, and am mostly going slower than that to stay in the middle of aerobic training range. In comparison, last spring I was in the vicinity of VDOT 46, based on a 6:15 mile pace.

The big question mark at the moment is whether or not I’m going to be breathing properly reasonably soon. During the first few weeks of the training cycle I usually just try to build up the mileage and don’t worry about speed at all, so it doesn’t make much difference yet. I’m not too excited about actually running the event in this condition though.

There is a much longer discussion of the VDOT model in Jack Daniels’ Running Formula, which I highly recommend.

Since my training paces are all off due to the mysterious breathing problem, I’ve ordered a new data recorder to make tracking and logging heart rate and pacing data easier. I’ve been using the Timex Bodylink system since it came out, but haven’t been using a data recorder since last spring when the previous unit went missing somewhere in Maui.

They’re not perfect, but I like being able to compare one workout with another, especially during a training cycle, and even more so now, when none of my usual training paces yield the expected level of effort.