Hmmmmmm.............

            For the 2^nd time in my life, I really have been contemplating giving up running competitively. In my last training stint, I was attempting to get in shape for Grandma’s marathon and decided to run a couple of 20 milers at a pretty decent effort. Unfortunately, shortly after these runs, I began feeling symptoms that were identical to the symptoms that I experienced during my first sacral stress fracture. I entered the Human Race 8k (St. Patty’s Day weekend) at the climax of the injury and I raced about ½ mile and then slowly transitioned into jogging Sunday long run pace over the next couple miles. I took almost a week off running and then I tried to back off running a little bit hoping my hip would feel better. Unfortunately, I had no such luck. At this point, quitting competitive running really began entering my mind. I just have not been able to put together any amount of sustained training over the last 2 years which has been a very frustrating process for me. I’ve now taken quite a bit of down time (I honestly am not sure how much). In my down time, I’ve picked up playing broomball which really exposed a lot of my muscle imbalances which were even worse than I thought. Most notably, I’ve experienced “tightness” in my groin for over 2 years now. I believe that tightness is slowly going away. Additionally, I now have been continually experiencing issues with my right hamstring. Both of these right leg issues have probably heavily contributed to my sacral fractures over the last two years. That pretty much takes to me today.

            I started running again this past Thursday and have now run 5, 6, and 10 miles over the past 3 days. I am probably in the worst shape that I’ve been in over the past 4 years so it should be interesting to see how long it takes to regain my physical fitness. At this point, I have absolutely no plans for up and coming races. In college, I was always training to get ready for a race. Over the past 2 years, I have been doing the same thing. Right now, I’m planning on going back to what lead to me “breaking through” in the running scene (breaking through is of course relative). When I plan on entering a race, I really feel pressure to run fast so I’m not planning on entering any races until my training indicates that I’m ready to. I have absolutely no idea when this will be. I feel like a little bit of a toolbox joining the Run N Fun team and literally sucking for the past year. I would love to go out and start racing fast for the team, but in the end, being a little selfish right now will probably pay dividends in the end. I still plan on playing a fairly decent amount of broomball which may lead to some short term setbacks, but should provide a great alternative exercise to discover muscle imbalances and help resolve them as well. Because I am currently having hamstring issues, I am trying to avoid running with people until this is resolved. depending upon how my leg feels, you may see me out running anywhere between 5:50-7:30 pace so I’d just rather run myself and by feel at the moment. In the back of my mind, I’d like to run a marathon next spring or in the fall of 2013, but it’s more important to get back running healthy. I’m sure I’ll hop in a couple races this fall, but the magnitude of these races has yet to be determined. I suspect it will be a fairly low key fall for me, but time will tell.

Training update, Perspective, and Races Approaching

As a refresher, all of my training for this season is focused on running well at Grandma’s half marathon in June. At this point, I’m solely trying to build base, strength, and get down to a better running weight. The diet has been a little more relaxed lately, but I’ve been pretty good about staying away from “less healthy” food (aside from occasionally enjoying a couple beers). For once, my training has been consistent and I’m beginning to see some benefits. I’ve really tried to avoid “fitness gauging” workouts and quite honestly have not run too many workouts. Over the last couple weeks I’ve run the Franklin Bridge hill workout. Each repeat is ~0.4 miles and I’ve run workouts with 7 and 8 repeats which were plenty to stimulate a breakdown in my muscle fibers and induce a need for recovery runs. I actually ran this workout in consecutive weeks and each repeat was ~4-5 seconds faster the second go around. I’m sure a lot of this had to do with confidence, but I am feeling stronger on my runs, and it’s always nice to see the times heading in the right direction.

            In the after life of club nationals, I really have deemphasized my long run efforts. This was actually really difficult for me to do. Quite honestly, hard long runs are a stimulus that I’m addicted to. I can’t explain why, but I just enjoy lack of consciousness that comes over the last 5 miles of a hard long run. However, over the last couple months, I simply took the hard long runs out of my training regime because I was feeling injured after every single effort. Instead, 14-16 mile easy efforts were becoming a Sunday ritual. Two weeks ago I decided that my training had reached a reasonable level of consistency and that I was ready to move the long run up to 18 miles. Early into the run, I decided that I was only up for an easy effort. I honestly don’t recall what I averaged (maybe 6:15-6:40ish???), but I bonked hard over the last 4 miles. The only explanation was that I hadn’t been running long and my recent streak of consistent training has left me a bit fatigued and depleted. Going into this past Sunday’s run, I wanted to put forth an honest, fast pace and struggle to make it through 20 miles. The route I chose put the wind at my back for the first mile with a net downhill. I didn’t look at my watch at all….it clicked, I looked down, and it read 5:30. I was pretty sure that my watch wasn’t working, but the second mile turned me into the wind, and I ran a 5:28. At this point in the run, I was clearly running an effort that I wasn’t going to quite be able to hold for 20 miles, but I wasn’t worried about running an even paced run. Instead, I was trying to make my body respond to distress in the second half of the run. In the 8^th mile of the run, I ran around Lake Calhoun into a fairly stiff wind and overexerted myself to run a 5:35. This put my 8 mile split at 43:57 (5:30 pace), and it put my body in a position where I needed to back down. I backed the pace off and averaged somewhere in the mid to upper 5:40’s for the next 8-9 miles and really struggled to get home the last 3. I think my last 3 miles were 6:05, 5:45, 6:08. It ended up being a 20 mile run in 1:53:55. Going into the run, I was expecting to maybe run in the 1:59’s to achieve what I wanted for the day so I was pleasantly surprised to run 5-6 minutes faster than expected to achieve what I wanted for the day. It definitely gives me confidence moving forward and leaves me a little more optimistic that I’ll be in half marathon PR shape by the time mid June comes along.

            In the short-term, my first spring race is shaping up to be the Human Race 8k in about 3 weeks which will be followed by the Shamrock Shuffle 8k in 4 weeks. I’m not sure how sharp I will be, but I’m definitely NOT running the races as workouts. In my build-up, I’ve decided to have 8-9 consecutive “up weeks” with running fewer than normal workouts which has left me with tired legs, but I’m going to run a mini taper that focuses on freshening up for the Shamrock Shuffle. While I don’t guarantee that I’ll be running fast or impressing anyone, I’m definitely planning on finding out what kind of shape I’m in at the moment. While I’m not in the best shape of my life, my 8k PR isn’t my best PR and I’m hoping to take a shot at it. However, most importantly, I’m just excited to get back out and race.

            As talk of racing comes up, the topics of workouts and training plans are common themes. In the workouts that I have run, I’ve dialed back the duration and intensity some. Every runner’s mentality is very different, but my biggest weakness as a runner is to run too hard too often. When I’m on a training schedule, easy fartlecks quickly turn into efforts that are harder than my track workouts with planned rest. Unfortunately, rest and recovery is the most overlooked component to a training segment. While I don’t consciously do this, I can not put together a workout schedule because at some point, I always try to beat the schedule. I suspect that a lot of runners have this problem, but I am always trying to do more than I thought would be possible. I’m pretty sure that I do it for the runner’s high afterwards, but the moral of the story is I can’t train to a schedule. I need to know what I’m building towards, bur I honestly think I need to plan my workouts week by week, and adjust them depending upon how my body responds. This probably gives the impression that I’m unfocused or maybe I’m not doing everything I could be to get better, but the reality of the situation is I’m probably a “little” too obsessive compulsive about training details. I’m sure those who know me strongly disagree with that statement, but yes, I might over analyze training a little bit at times. While planning weeks or months of training is definitely is an effective method for some, it’s definitely not for me. To summarize how planned training goes for me, I am always running a little faster early on, but I’m always barely holding on, missing workouts, or not hitting my times by the end. It’s quite easy to spiral into a negative mentality without even knowing it. Without the structure a flawless training schedule, I’m finding that letdowns on bad workouts has lessened while great workouts still yield the same runner’s high. For the time being, I’m just enjoying running healthy and really looking forward to the up and coming racing season. While I’m aware of the details that are required to run well, I’ve made a conscious effort to not be aware of them, but not obsess over them.

Training Update and Gary Bjorklund Half Marathon

            This morning I met up with a group of runners from the Run N Fun/Twin Cities Track Club and this allowed to do two things: (1) Hit 80 miles for the week; and (2) Hit my longest streak of consecutive days running since my last sacral stress fracture that I suffered this past summer. ……..18 days in a row (Previous best streak was 17 days). While I’m not afraid to take a day off if I need to, I generally take a day off of running every 1-3 months so this past stint of training has not been characteristic of my training habits. While I could go off in a tangent about how the last year of running has not been “ideal” for me, it has been a learning experience that should set up well for the next 4 years of training.

            Operation find my lower abs is currently in affect. While I was 153 lbs after the holiday season, I’ve cut my weight back down to 148 lbs which is a long ways off of my ideal running weight, but I’m heading in the right direction. While I’ve cut a lot of weight in a short time span, I imagine the rate at which I lose weight will slow down over the up and coming months. All of my PR’s have come at times where my weight was in the 137-142 lb range so my goal is to get back down where I should be. While I wasn’t given a naturally sleek runner’s body, I was given a large set of lungs so hopefully I can put the work in so I can take advantage of the talents that I have.

            My last week of training was somewhat uneventful which was great news. My week started out with a long run of ~15.4 miles with Paul Limpf and Dan Allen. It really was a relaxed effort which was exactly what I set out to do. For the time being, the goal of my long runs is to get time on my feat to train my body to burn fat stores early in runs rather than glycogen. As many people know, this is a key component for racing longer distances. On Tuesday I met up with the Run N Fun group and had a little quicker effort. Wednesday was my treadmill cut-down “workout”.

Mile 1 - 6:18 (9.5 mph)

Mile 2 – 6:00 (10 mph)

Mile 3 – 5:49 (10.3 mph)

Mile 4 – 5:40 (10.6 mph)

Mile 5 – 5:27 (11 mph)

Mile 6 – 5:18 (11.3 mph)

Mile 7 – 5:10 (11.6 mph)

7 to 7.25 at 9.5 mph

7.25 – 7.5 at 10 mph

7.5 – 8 at 10.3 mph

8-8.5 at 10.6 mph

8.5-9 at 11 mph

9-9.25 at 11.3 mph

9.25-9.5 at 11.6 mph

9.5-9.75 at 12.1 mph (Just wanted to see if the treadmill went over 12 mph)

9.75-10 at 9.5 mph

As you may guess, I didn’t necessarily plan this out ahead of time. Instead, I knew that I wanted to run a cut-down workout and the type of effort that I wanted to give so I adjusted the workout accordingly. The purpose of the workout is to get a sustained effort, work on stride efficiency at various speeds, work on taking in fluids while running, and not tax my body in the process. While this workout does not “show you’re in shape”, it’s definitely a workout that gets you in shape. For the up and coming season, I’m really going to focus on recognizing the purpose of each work out and stick to the purpose. On Thursday I ran a 13 mile easy mid-long run and filled in the rest of the week to hit 80 miles. All in all, the last 2 weeks of running have been very successful and I hope to continue to have consistent training. I’m planning on running 80-85 mpw in February to continue to build a foundation for the spring season. Getting healthy and consistent is my number one priority for the up and coming month.

            The last update is that I’m officially going to gear my training to peak for the Gary Bjorklund Half Marathon (i.e. the half marathon at Grandma’s marathon). For the next 2 years, this race is the USAtf Half Marathon National Championships. I’ve heard great things from people that have competed in the past years. Additionally, the race is providing athlete compensation with a nice purse as well as time standard incentives. The Event Organizers are making a premiere national event which should create some buzz and attract a fast field (http://grandmasmarathon.com/site/). To anyone looking for a great late spring event, there’s about 5.5 months to get ready. If anyone from Michigan is running the race, let me know.