Running Notes by HJL

Emily and I did the Palo Alto Moonlight Run again this year. Once again, we lined up at the front of the untimed 5k walk/run and ran the course. She was thinking about doing the regular 5k run this year, but it doesn’t start until 8:45pm and we wanted to get home in time for a full night’s sleep before soccer at 9:30am on Saturday morning.

It was overcast in the evening, and actually turned into a “hard drizzle” at around 7:00pm. I got a free frisbee from one of the booths and used it to keep the rain off for a while. It pretty much cleared up by around 7:30pm. The 5k walk/run started at 7:15pm, so we didn’t get too wet.

Other than helping find a path around the baby strollers at the start area, I pretty much just follow whatever pace Emily wants to go at. They’re apparently doing 1-mile runs at her middle school, it sounds like her paces have been around 8:15 to 8:30. She’s gotten a lot faster than last year. We finished the 5k loop in 29:20, compared with last year’s 39:55 (got stuck behind the pack of walkers), and 2005’s 36:50. We passed the other runners (mostly other kids with parents) and finished first, well ahead of the pack of walkers.

When we finished, we headed for the post-run snacks. The woman at the table was doing a good job chasing away people who were trying to get a headstart on coffee cake, telling them that it was only for after the race. We explained that we had already finished running the 5k walk/run, and Emily looked sufficiently sweaty and indignant that she might not get her snacks after finishing 1st that we didn’t have any further questions. We always like the Hobee’s coffee cake after a good run.

mile 1 8:59 8:59
mile 2 9:45 18:44 (stoped at water station just before marker)
finish 3.1 10:36 29:20

I’ve been fairly casual this time around, compared with previous marathon training cycles. This will be my 4th outing at Big Sur, and I’m basically just planning to enjoy the run, probably something around 4:30 or even 5:00ish, depending on the weather and how interested I get in taking photos. I took a lot of notes and did a lot of planning the first couple of times on the course, but this time I’m relying more on past experience and being able to look back at previous runs there.

Looks like I’ve averaged something like 35-40 miles per week since the start of 2007 on this training cycle. The graph is slightly misleading as I’ve also been coaching my daughter’s soccer team for the past few months, and other activities which I don’t try to log, but in general I’m running at slower paces than a couple of years ago which tends to hold down the weekly mileage. This training cycle has been pretty similar to last year’s.

I still haven’t gotten any constructive resolution of my “mysterious breathing problem“, other than it’s not life-threatening, and my lung function is still testing in a “healthy normal” range. I find it psychologically challenging, though, in that I always feel like I’m working harder than the pace I’m actually running, i.e. it “feels” like I’m running 30-45 seconds/mile faster, based on my level of effort and heart rate from a couple of years ago.

This year I actually did log a single 20 mile run (versus last year’s zero 20+ runs) although I don’t feel that it’s making me any more prepared at this point. I generally try to stay at 3 hours or less for training runs, and I simply don’t go as far in a given block of time on my current (slower) paces. While we were on vacation in Maui a couple of weeks ago, I had the luxury of extra time and nice scenery, so I got in 10-12 miles along the ocean, several days in a row, and in relatively higher temperatures than I expect to see on Sunday.

The current forecast for Carmel this Sunday says 64 hi /51 low, partly cloudy, 10% chance of rain. A few degrees cooler, and that’s nearly ideal weather for the marathon.

Views like these are basically why I run at Big Sur:

There’s a huge storm on the East Coast this weekend with flood warnings from New York to Maine. I just looked to see what the word is on tomorrow’s Boston Marathon.

From the Boston Athletic Association:

FORECAST:
The most up-to-date weather forecast calls for a predicted Spring storm on Monday, including heavy rains (potentially 3 to 5 inches), with the start temperatures in the mid to upper 30’s. Wind will likely be East (in the face of the participants for most of the race) in the 20 to 25 mile per hour range, with gusts to as much as 50 miles per hour. This will produce a wind chill index of 25 to 30-degrees Fahrenheit.

Ugh.

Update 04-19-2007 17:35 PDT - Robert Cheruiyot won for the second year in a row, in 2:14:13. At the other end of the field, Jacob Seilheimer finished (unofficially) last, in roughly 9:40. I’m impressed that he actually finished, he apparently started training in January, mostly on a stationary cycle, and weighs around 350 pounds.

I logged 20 miles on the treadmill at the gym yesterday, which will be my last long run before Big Sur at the end of the month. I did the whole run at 9:00 pace, with a water/bathroom/gel break at each hour. I think I’m going to plan for a little slower than that on the course, though. I did 16+ at 9:30-10:00 pace a couple of weeks ago during vacation in Maui where it was scenic, but around 80 degrees by the time I finished. Wasn’t planning on putting in 20 miles yesterday, but it was raining a little which got me to run in the gym instead of outside, then I figured I’d just run for 3 hours instead of 2+. I also started on the treadmill at about the same time as Waterworld started playing. It’s a relatively long movie which I’ve seen in bits and pieces, never had sufficient interest to rent it but interested enough to keep it tuned in instead of my usual treadmill fare of SpongeBob on the video screen while I listen to my own music on headphones.

I didn’t prep as thoroughly for yesterday’s run as I might have otherwise, as I didn’t originally plan to go that far. I discovered a few sunburned spots that got chafed at 3 hours that have been ok at 2 hours running time. I also didn’t trim back my toenails beforehand, so I have some blistering around one of them, which may end up falling off. No carb loading, so I ended up a little tired and hungry all day yesterday and today. On the plus side, no cramping, no joint or muscle problems, no blistering except around the slightly long toenail. The Hurricane 9’s have been OK during the long runs on this training cycle, although I would like just a little more forefoot cushioning / support. I guess I still like the Hurricane 5’s better, if only they still made them.

I’m still having problems getting my the Timex HRM strap working lately. It doesn’t give sane readings on the new Bodylink watch I got to replace the old one, and I get bogus data in the data recorder as well. So no nice charts and graphs. I may try doing one more round of changing all the batteries before I completely give up on it. It hasn’t really been useful since I ran Big Sur last year, I didn’t even bother bringing it on vacation to Hawaii. Using the old fashioned method of counting heartbeats, I ended the 3 hour run at about HR 164.

I finally got around to rotating in a new set of running shoes. I’ve been running with a few pairs of shoes that I’ve had since last spring, partly because I didn’t log many runs in the latter part of the year. I skipped from the Hurricane 7’s to the Hurricane 9’s because the 8’s seemed too narrow again (like the 6’s which I also skipped). For the past few years it seems like every other update to the Hurricanes has been too narrow. I tried the 8’s and they were way too narrow for me in normal width, I probably could have gone with the extra wide version but they didn’t have them in stock at the time.

I’m still using the Hurricane 7’s and GT-2110’s from last year for short runs, but they’ve both got well over 500 miles on them, and for me that rules them out for longer runs. I start getting a variety of foot and leg problems, mostly plantar fasciaitis, if I log a lot of mileage in worn out shoes. So far I’ve put in a couple of 10 mile runs without any problems. The Hurricane 9’s seem to be a little lighter than the 5’s or 7’s, which is good if your form is pretty clean, but I feel like it might not provide quite as much support if you’re on the edge of an injury. I haven’t had any problems on this training cycle yet, but I haven’t pushed my mileage up very far yet either.

I’ve been putting it off, but it’s the end of January and tomorrow the registration fee for this year’s Big Sur Marathon goes up by $10.

I’m a bit ambivalent about it, mostly because I still haven’t found a solution to my ongoing mysterious breathing problems, and I’m not too excited about the resulting slow paces.

On the positive side, I logged a 10 mile run this weekend at 9:00 pace without any problems. I remembered to find the Vanilla Gu from the pile of last year’s training stuff in the drawer. Popped one at about 60 minutes. Wasn’t quite as sleepy afterwards as the week before without it, although my conditioning is probably improving slightly from week to week.

As noted previously, 2006 wasn’t a great year for me in terms of running and health. One personal goal in 2007 has been to assess where things stand and make improvements from here, rather than focusing on where my previous benchmarks have been.

On the positive side, the mysterious breathing problem that started at the end of 2005 doesn’t seem to be life-threatening and hasn’t been getting worse over the course of 2006.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve increased the volume of running workouts and have begun increasing the duration of my longest weekly run. Yesterday I logged a 9 mile run for the first time in months, mostly at 9:00 pace with a couple of 5 minute segments at 7:30 pace to check it out. Part of my training task is to work on the psychology. I’m running more slowly now, and it simply takes longer to cover the distance. Or put the other way, since I usually run for a set time, I’m logging shorter runs in the same time as before.

I’ve kept a base training level of around 20+ miles per week during the latter half of 2006, with relatively short weekly longest runs of 5-6 miles. I’m encouraged that I can still crank out 9 miles without a huge effort, and I seem to be OK holding 9:00 pace. On the other hand, I’m de-trained enough that it’s been making me sleepy all day yesterday and today. Next time I’ll bring some gels if I think I might run longer than an hour. I have a bunch of Vanilla Gu in my desk drawer somewhere left over from last year.

Here’s a look at the past year’s weekly mileage (2006). Total miles for the year are roughly 1316, average of about 25 miles per week.

This hasn’t been a great running year for me. I’m still having chronic breathing problems, even after making the rounds over at the Palo Alto Clinic. The good news is that after pulmonary, cardiac, and CT exams, they’re pretty sure I don’t have any life threatening problems and my weight and blood pressure look great. The bad news is that while I’m technically “healthy”, my lung function is testing well below where I was a few years ago when I went in with allergy-related breathing problems. So I’ve been feeling relatively short of breath and sluggish all year, and there aren’t any obvious avenues of investigation to follow.

At the moment my easy/long workout pace is still around 10:00, and I’m starting to mix in some 9:00 pace as well to see how it works out. My legs turn over at higher paces without any problems, but I go anaerobic pretty quickly at anything above 7:30 now. This is generally discouraging since before this I was at 8:30 for easy workouts and 7:00 for weekly T runs. It looks like I may be stuck with these lower paces for the foreseeable future, though.

I ran Big Sur in April on my downward-adjusted target pace of around 10:00/mile, plus time for picture-taking stops. This was a “personal worst” for me, but I always enjoy the course and I got some nice photos.

For most of 2006 I’ve basically been in a holding pattern while investigating the mysterious breathing problem, just running enough to maintain a modest aerobic base and stay on a daily training routine. At least I’ve avoided gaining weight, despite the large reduction in weekly mileage since mid 2005. As of today I’m exactly flat for the year. I’m starting to rethink the plan for 2007 based on not seeing an improvement in my breathing and assuming that this may be a more or less permanent condition. Yuck.

In the past few days I’ve seen a few new faces at the gym and more people out running around the neighborhood. By next week the New Year’s effect should be in full swing and we’ll be seeing lots of resolution runners on the road. This is a good thing, although every year I see one or two on the road that have spectacularly bad running mechanics. Perhaps they’d be better off on an elliptical or stairclimber at the gym.

This year Emily and I did the untimed 5K walk/run at the Palo Alto Moonlight Run, along with some of her AYSO U10 soccer teammates. We finished the 5K loop in 39:55, in time to watch the 10K runners lining up for the start. It took longer this year than last year, as we started late and got stuck behind a large pack of walkers.

The girls had a lot of fun and want to do it again next year, so I feel pretty good about that.