The Home Stretch?

Wow, so I ran 21 miles yesterday, and boy that was a hell of a thing.  I'm pretty impressed at how you forget what it's like even though you've done it before.  

Basically the day went like this, early out of bed, meet the team at Boston College, and then take the bus out to Hopkinton for a team photo, and then a run back to where we started.  Believe me I know that seems like a lot of work just to get back to where you started, that was on my mind the whole ride out.  We took the group photo and everybody just started walking to where the starting line is supposed to be and then we just started running without any fanfare to speak of.  The weekend 3 weeks before race day is an important one for everybody training for the marathon and so between the other charity teams in the area and qualified runners I was one of over a thousand people running the course and never out of sight of other runners, which is a big change from our regular runs.  

Like I said last week, my body is up to the challenge of completing the marathon and so it's the  psychological challenge that I had to beat on this run.  So, I divided the run into 3 parts, 1 unknown and 2 known.  Part 1 is mile 1-9 and the unknown because though I've driven it before I've never run it.  The second part is mile 9-16, we did this part on the 16-miler, After that it's 16-21, which includes the foreboding Heartbreak Hill.  This division worked pretty well for me, the first 9 were mostly downhill and so I took it slow to keep energy in reserve, plus at this point in training I can run just about any 9 mile stretch even if I haven't seen it before.  The next bit was tougher as it includes both the highest and lowest points between the start and Heartbreak - this section really dragged for me, but might not on race day as it includes a mile of screaming coeds at Wellesley College.  The Final 5 miles weren't too bad really, even though it had those 2 big-assed hills and then the Heartbreak.  I read on someone else's blog that when faced with these hills you should just put your head down and go (kind of like not looking down when you're on top of a cliff), which worked pretty well for me.  I made it up Heartbreak with some energy to spare and was glad to see my teammates there.  

The day started grey and in the 40s, but we ended with a cloudless sky and tempts in the 60s.  Nice.  The funny thing about a one-way marathon is the tan lines, the right side of my neck and my right arm got a nice burn (not too bad) that was earning me calls of "redneck" by my friends all night.  I got to mile 21 in about 4:06, which is slower than I wanted it to be, and did include some walking, but I know that I could do the remaining 5.2 within the hour (unless I bonk on the way down Heartbreak).  Everybody talks about an extra kick of adrenaline that they get on race day, and I'm looking forward to seeing what that will do for me on the big day.

I'm pretty happy with my performance.  No blisters and the new shoes and socks held up well.  I was very sore at the end but the tightness in the backs of my knees didn't hit until mile 16 as opposed to 13 like last week.  At mile 9 I took off a layer of clothes and found that I had a bloody nipple; nothing new for me but you hope the body glide will keep it at bay, I'm starting to consider medical tape for the big day.  That's the blood on my shirt that I'm pointing out in the picture up there.  I love the shirt I'm wearing, it gives you the last set of directions that you need on race day, right on Hereford Street (uphill, grrr...) and then a left on Boylston, where the finishing line will be in sight.  Can't wait for that.

A day later I'm still in disbelief that I ran the 21 miles yesterday, but I did.  I didn't obsess about it, in fact when my alarm went off that morning I couldn't remember what I had to do that morning.  No, I just did the math on what was in front of me; one 9 mile race, one 7 mile race, 5 miles uphill, and don't stop.

Three weeks from tomorrow.

The Training Goes On.

So, it's been a while since I last reported in about the Chuck Stratton sighting. Since then I've come back to Boston and mushed on with training. I have to say though that until last night I felt like I was sort of going through the motions. Not surprisingly the long the day after I got back wasn't great, I was just out of energy completely. The next day was a fun 5K with my friends called the Ras na hEireann that is in Davis Square which was a lot of fun, as was the after party, especially since it was nice enough to sit in the sun all day!

After that though it was back to the grind of work and training and it was just hard to get into it all. I did my usual runs that week just fine, but wasn't feeling the old excitement and energy that I had been. That Saturday was a particularly tough day because I was I was planning to do 16 only to find that FitCorp was only set up for 12 miles, and only had one water stop! The water stop was at mile 3, so that meant that I had over 10 miles without water when there normally would be about 3 in that time. That's a hard way to go when you're not prepared. Fortunately I'm on a team with some damn good teammates. Out in Brookline I fell in with some of the other Liver runners who were going to 16 as well including this guy Adam that I've been getting to know over the past few weeks.  He was hitting a pace that was good for me and when it came time to commit to the 16 miles he offered me water from his fuel belt.  I can't tell you how much that helped me, nor how much I appreciate him for giving me water.  He was also very encouraging and walked with me a few times when I felt that I couldn't run.  Great help to me.  I made it to the end of this one tired, but surprisingly I wasn't sore or physically drained, the problems I was having were in my mind.  I hadn't regained the belief that I could finish the run; I had lost some faith in myself and I honestly think it's because of not getting enough rest.  I wasn't getting the "reset" that a good nights sleep gives you. I ended that 16 miles slow, but still happy because I had diagnosed my problem and all I had to do to fix it was stay in bed.  Nice.

I did that pretty well Saturday night and into Sunday morning (not quite into the afternoon).  Monday's run was pretty cold and upwind which is no fun.  I woke up yesterday feeling like my legs were still tired from Monday and Saturdays running and so was really worried about the hill workout at FitCorp that night.  I started late but settled right in to the rhythm of uphill to downhill and before too long was getting the feel for efficiently burning energy on the way up and recharging energy on the way down again.  When I got done I felt like it had been over too fast!  I felt like I hadn't done enough of a workout even though I had.  This is a really weird feeling that I didn't try ruin by running extra, that's a great way to ruin your training schedule.  

Now it's Wednesday morning and an off day.  I have 6 miles tomorrow before the big 21 Miler on the course on Saturday.  After this week I think I might actually be ready for that.

In related news, I got fitted for new shoes at my local Marathon Sports, and they switched me out of the Saucony's that I had been wearing for years and into the Asics Gel Fortitude 3. So far, so good!

In other news, my Mother should be getting out of the hospital today!  

16 Mile Roundup

Man, it's been quite a week.  Last week was the disastrous (for me) Love Your Liver Valentine's Day 16-Miler.  This is a special run that the team does every year as kind of a way to inject some fun into the long training season.  They encourage people to dress in V-day related costumes and then drive us out to Mile 9 on the course (roughly Natick Center) and then we run the rest of the way in.  Its great experience for us since we're on the actual course the whole time instead of doing out and back runs from FitCorp where we're on and off the course.  

That's the idea anyway but things went horribly wrong for me.  I started off okay, but because we were off our usual routine my head never really got into the run and I was struggling to stay motivated the whole time.  I walked some and then in the midst of the hills in Newton I remembered why I run and was able to get my head in the game again.  That didn't last long though because just before Heartbreak I came across a runner who was in a worse way than I was and walked with him a bit.  I got into Brookline before I realized that I was developing multiple blisters on each foot.  I made it to the end with a dismal time and feeling demoralized - honestly the feeling was familiar, it was just the way I felt during my first (and only at the moment) marathon.  That time I felt like I couldn't finish and somehow managed to after a long and arduous ordeal.

This week I've soaked my feet in epsom salts a bunch of times and all of my blisters except one have gone away.  I also had a great 7.7 mile Crossroads run Thursday so I went into this mornings long run feeling positive.  We had the choice of 14.7, 16 or 18, and I was on the fence about which to do.  My coach has set up a training schedule for me that called for 14 miles but I was kind of thinking that 16 was a challenge that I was up to.  

I've been thinking about my running pace lately, and by pace most runners mean how many minutes it takes them to run 1 mile, which is a good metric for comparing two runner's speeds.  I'm typically a pretty consistent 10 minute per mile runner which is 6 miles per hour and I think isn't too bad for a biped, though it's by no means fast on the scale of marathon runners.  Coach Brian has decided that my goal for the marathon should be 4 hours 20 minutes (which as you all know is not one of my 3 listed goals), a perfect 10 minute mile pace, but in order to do that I have to do some miles faster to make up for the miles that I will inevitably do slower.  I'm being realistic here not self-deprecating.  In order to achieve this goal I have to do some training runs faster and some realistically slower, and so Coach Brian had me set to do 14 miles at a 10:43 pace.  That wouldn't be pushing my limits much, but is still good since I did my 8 miles the other night faster than the 9:55 pace he wanted me too.

I'm going on a bit long here so I'll try to keep the description of today's run short.  It started off fine except for a intermittently ridiculous headwind that was nice to have at our backs for the return loop.  When I got to the 14 mile turn in Newton Center it was decision time on if I was going to take another swing at 16.  I felt good and so I went for it.  this meant that I got to Heartbreak Hill and the hill before it, but today that was no big deal.  The only thing that came close to being an issue here was getting sweat in my eyes (a first for that) that had me thinking of borrowing one of my Dad's old 80s style blue and red sweatbands.  I would look totally rad in that.  By the time I got to the last water stop I was definitely feeling tired and sore, but good enough to make it through the end.  And then the blister in the center of my left foot popped.  

That didn't hurt, but Damn. the aftereffects sure did.  The final three miles were very painful and I was in a constant mind game of trying to block out the pain.  Now, a popped blister doesn't hurt much on the scale of human experience, but running on one after 13 miles is way beyond the scope of my daily pain experience.  I had made it this far without really walking that much, just across a few streets and at water stops, but this blister sure derailed that effort.  I made it back to FitCorp having run most of the way, though Sheri caught me walking on Beacon Hill and ordered me to get running.  What could I do?  She's the Runner's Council Chairperson, so I ran the rest.  

There was only a little bit of blood on my sock when I got to the locker room, and an open blister hurts a lot when it gets wet in the shower, plus it looks gross (I have a picture if anyone wants to see, by request only of course).  Needless to say, I'm going to be more careful about blisters in the future.  In the end I did the 16 miles at an average 10:10 pace, well ahead of where Coach Brian wanted me to be, and I'm happy with myself because some of those final miles were at well over an 11 minute pace.  Not bad.

I'm posting some pictures of the silly costume's from last weeks run on my other site, and you can see them here:  http://web.mac.com/andyhint/Canaveral/V-Day_16-Miler.html

16

Just finished the 16-miler am I'm waiting at the gym for Molly to finish
showering. What a day. Nice weather, but the run was kind of an
emotional disaster. Somehow I just wasn't ready to run today and that
just pervaded nearly every step of the way. Now I'm sore and have
blisters and a bloody nipple. That's right, I said bloody nipple.

More on all that later, now it's time to party

More Snow Running

It's been a few interesting days of  running.  Saturday there was a break in the cold/snowy/icy weather that has held Boston in a death grip, which made for nice conditions for the run up Heartbreak.  In fact, I haven't sweat so much since I started this training as I did that day.  We hit Comm Ave.  and it was all relentless sun and mid-30s.  I even had to take off a layer, which is also unprecedented.  I felt great and even had some extra energy for the last 3 miles which is a rarity for me, especially considering that I was running by myself pretty much the whole way.  My regular running buddies were doing a different course and I didn't fall in with any random people along the way.  It worked out fine though and I had a great run that was pretty close to the 10 minute mile pace that I want to hit.

Monday was warm again, but it had iced over during the night so there were some definite icy patches along the way.  

Tonight was really great though.  Once again there was all kinds of talk about snow hitting us over night, and once again it actually hit later on in the morning.  We had a steady falling of snow all day, but not so much that the plows couldn't handle it so the Hill Repeat workout went on as planned.  It was coming down for the whole run and pretty soon after the plows went by there was a nice layer of snow, and so I tried the YakTrax again (pictured above left).  These things are really great, and I went from being really worried about slipping and sliding in the damp snow to feeling perfectly stable in no time.  We did 7 hill repeats and I'm just really happy that they've gotten easier.  Hills are a big fear of mine for this race, especially since they kicked my @$$ at the BAA Half-Marathon in the fall.  I gather that we'll be doing 7 for a while, and then 8, 9, and eventually topping out at about 10 a night.  Something tells me that will be a bit monotonous.....

In addition to just generally having a good run, it was great to be out in the city during the snow.  Everything was just beautiful and quiet and the light was awesome.  I would have missed it all had I just gone home; hmmm, I guess I need to add that to list of reasons to run a marathon, getting to run hill repeats in the snow.  

Runner Mind

In the mid-1940s rocket and jet engine technology was brand new and aviators and aircraft designers were pushing the limits of speed and altitude, the main speed goal was to travel faster than the speed of sound.  The best test pilots in the country flew across the New Mexico skies trying to breach that sound barrier, they pushed the throttle forward and accelerated to higher and higher speeds that pushed their aircraft through air that was increasingly turbulent.  Many men got right up to the edge of that barrier and only to find their aircraft coming apart on them, or they lost control and ended up plowing a furrow across a dry lakebed.  The man who finally did it for the first time was named Chuck Yeager, an already accomplished fighter and test pilot who became a legend with his transonic flight, and through many other achievements afterward.  What's remarkable to me is that the day he broke the sound barrier and set a new speed record he reported a smooth flight.  There was the usual turbulence as he sped up to close to the speed of sound, but as he got right up to it, things smoothed right out.  It was what he was expecting at all, and seems sort of anticlimactic today.  His flight had rough patches, but at the moment he was expecting the most danger things suddenly went smoothly.  

I'm a distance runner, which means that over the years I've trained my body to be comfortable with running distances of more than 4 miles.  I don't know that I'd say that I'm good at it, but I know that if you challenge me to a 50 yard dash I'll probably lose, but a 10K I can power through and do OK.  A 5K (about 3 miles) is tougher for me, this distance is more about speed than persistence and when I'm 2-3 miles in I'm panting away and thinking that I'll never make it to 10 miles or whatever the distance is today.  But then suddenly after mile 3, things smooth out, my breathing evens out, I don't pant anymore, my legs have found they're stride, my gait is going well, and I don't feel like I'm sweating buckets anymore.  This becomes the middle part of a run for me, and it's the best part because I feel like I could do it forever.  In this stage of the run my body moves exactly how it should and it has become the vehicle for my awareness.  My mind is just being carried by my body and now acts as an almost passive observer to what's happening around it.  At this point I've entered the Runner Mind.  

If you ask, most distance runners won't be able to tell you what they think about while they run.  It takes you 3 hours to run 14.7 miles, they must be thinking of something.  They are, but in a way they're not, at least they're not thinking of anything that they can explain rationally later on.  While you're running little bits of information trickle from your senses into your mind and send you on strange journey's into memory.  The sound of a wind chime brings forward the image of a crystal resonating in time with nature, which brings to mind the image of beautiful lights dancing in the night sky, stars which in the time of Galileo were believed to be held on crystal spheres in the heavens that slid past each other creating beautiful tranquil music that filled the space around the Earth.  That music must've been very much like the wind chime I just ran past, or why else would I be thinking about them?  And what do 500 year old and outdated theories of astronomy have to do with making it up Heartbreak Hill?  

Nothing, I'm in the Runner Mind and the purpose of that is to distract your rational mind from the irrational activity that you're pushing your body into doing.  I mean really, for what rational reason are your running 14.7 miles today?  Oh right, so in two weeks it'll be easier to 16 miles.  Yeah, that makes sense.  

Its not always crystal spheres that I'm thinking of, but it's all random stream of consciousness type stuff.  If I could get it all on paper it would be as loosely connected as pages on the Wikipedia, but somehow it's interesting to me, and that's the point.  

Running in a Microclimate

This weekend was an interesting run. The temperature when I got up was about 17 degrees, but the wind chill was registering it as more like 9. That is not awesome, but it’s not easy to tell how the wind chill is going to affect you when you’re running and I can say that I didn’t much notice the wind this time. It was a nice sunny day and conditions were such that sidewalks were mainly clear of ice except for random spots where people hadn’t shoveled enough. At FitCorp they told us that today was to be a 14.68 mile run – this was in opposition to the Liver Team schedule that had us doing 12 miles, which was much more in line with the training I’ve been doing. Jumping from 10.5 one week to nearly 15 the next wasn’t a great idea and my mid-week runs had only prepared me for the step to 12. Several other people mentioned the change in distance and several of us decided to only do the 12.

Somewhere between the car and the gym I had lost my tight running hat that makes me look a bit like a henchmen for a James Bond villain so I ended up wearing my Harpoon baseball hat instead. I felt pretty unsure about this as it doesn’t cover my ears and I knew they’d be quite cold in the 16-degree weather, but I didn’t have much choice. We started off and straight out in front of the State House we cross the brick line in the sidewalk that is the Freedom Trail, which is a line that connects important historical sites in the city, but today it was also effective at concealing a random ice chunk that was loose on the sidewalk. I hit the chunk of ice right on and turned my left ankle on it which hurt like a mother. Turning an ankle is the kind of thing that can end your run abruptly, but fortunately this time it just hurt and I could run through it, so I ran on down the hill.

Runners become very aware of climate on a micro level; we try to keep in mind which side of the street will be shady or on which part of a loop the wind will be at our backs. We run along the North side of Beacon Street the whole time as it’s more likely to keep us in the sunlight and out of the shade of the buildings on the south side of the street (which incidentally have lower property values because of being in the shade). I got to about Dartmouth Street when I realized that my right ear was ice cold while my left ear was in the sun and much warmer. Somehow though, the cold ear and the turned ankle didn’t hamper me at all, I kept right on to Cleveland Circle at a good pace and with nothing to really complain about. I downed a goo pack (remind me to write more about them in another posting) at the 3 mile mark and its extra energy boost kept me going almost all the way back to the gym.

The intended 15-mile course took us down Beacon Street like normal and out to Cleveland Circle, where we were to head off the course and do a long loop around Boston College and then back in to FitCorp the way we had come. They gave this nice little had drawn map that was not at all to scale to tell us what the course was, and once I got Cleveland Circle I checked it to see where 6 miles which was where I wanted to turn around. 6 miles was marked as being next to “BC Dorms”. Now, there’s a lot of BC Dorms and I had now way of knowing which one to turn. Just across Cleveland Circle is the Chestnut Hill Reservoir and when I got to there I was struck by how tranquil and still it was, and so rather than just run to some arbitrary point and turn around I decided to loop around the reservoir instead. It was great, very quiet, not much traffic around and once I got about halfway I could see the tall buildings of downtown Boston in the distance – a sight that is both exciting and disheartening. I was impressed that the path along the reservoir was plowed most of the way around, and where it wasn’t I could run on the sidewalk in Evergreen Cemetery. The only places that I came across ice were the areas of the sidewalk that were at times in the shadow of the thin lines of trees spaced out along the road. I’m always impressed that the difference between an icy and a dry surface is defined by such vague line as the shadow of leafless trees.

Something was working right in my head for this run and I didn’t have to spend much time keeping myself psyched up and so the remainder of the trip went on without incident. I got back to the gym ahead of the runners doing the 15 mile loop and it felt really weird that all of these people who are stronger, faster runners came in after me, but we all have to run our own race. They ran what they needed to do and so did I. In the end I did only 11.5 miles, and I wish I had known at the time so I could’ve worked in another half mile, but I’m still happy with my run.

Afterwards during stretching I had some fun conversations with the other runners and I wanted to mention how utterly insane I think Mara is. Every Saturday she runs the 2 miles from her house to the gym before whatever our long run is, and then runs home afterwards. So Saturday she ran 2 miles to the gym, 12 miles on the course, and then 2 miles home. That’s 16 miles on what’s meant to be a 12-14 mile day! She says she does it because it’s easier than parking.

Man, runners just aren’t right are they?

First '09 Long Run...and it felt it.

Saturday was not a particularly good day for me running-wise.  Turns out it's not a great idea to skip 2 weeks of long runs, eat holiday foods, and then try to run Heartbreak Hill for the first time.  You'd think I'd be smart enough to know that, but I guess there's some things you need to learn by doing.....

This was the first of our "Woodland" runs, which are going to become a pretty standard routine for my training.  Basically we do the usual meet at FitCorp at 8am, and then get on the D-Branch of the Green Line T train and head out to the Woodland Stop and from there we run back to FitCorp.  Seems kinda backwards to go all that way only to run back to where you started early on a saturday morning, but hey, it's what we do.  

Woodland is near to mile 17 on the marathon course and starts you on what is basically a slight downhill, I'll have to learn to enjoy that as it's the last time I'll be seeing a slight downhill on this 10.5 mile run.  

Within a quarter mile you make a right turn onto Commonwealth Avenue (Comm Ave to the locals) past the Newton Fire Station, and bam! you're climbing a hill.  I'm not sure what the actual boundaries of Heartbreak Hill are, but I think it actually is comprised of 4 smaller hills that rise up and level off a bit only to rise up again.  It's the sort of thing that always seems to be almost over - but then isn't.  Hills aside, the run up Comm Ave is very pretty and scenic, which offers something to take your mind off the hills.  This part also has what I've heard called a "Carriage Road" which is basically a third lane for local traffic on the other side of a grass (snow covered) median and made for a great place to run since the traffic was light and one-way.  This area is frequented by a lot of runner's who live in Newton, and you can tell them apart from the marathon trainers by their high-tech and expensive running gear and the lack of a look of terror or exhaustion on their faces.  Kevin O'Connor, the host of This Old House, ran part of this stretch for segment on the show once.  If you've seen it and you're a Boston runner you'll find it pretty amusing.

Anyway, the hills aren't easy, but eventually I get past them and hit Cleveland Circle and realize that I only have half of last weeks long run to go, 6 miles.  Later on in training that'll be a good thing, right now it still seems like a far way to go.  It is, but I make it without too much fuss.  I'm the second to last person to get back to the gym, except for Nhu who stayed out too late the night before and so was 20 minutes late starting the run.  He wasn't that far behind me when I got back.  

I don't like the feeling that I had when the run was over.  It was a hard run but I can only blame the hills for part of it.  For most of it I have to blame myself for not training harder over the holidays.  There's still plenty of time to get ready for the marathon, but I'm still disappointed that I'm not further along.  I have to keep pushing myself so that I can work out of this low point.