11.5 on the C&O Canal Path

This was a good run week starting with a 2 miles shakeout from last weeks 11 mile run, followed by a 5m jaunt with a local running group from Potomac River Running, then 6, 3, and 11.5 miles.  That made for a total of 27 miles, which while nothing for the serious runners, was a lot of miles for me.  As I prep for the Marine Corp Marathon, I know that I’ll be doing many 30+mile weeks, but I’m just trying to train carefully and methodically.  I don’t want a repeat of last year.

I enjoyed the 5 mile run with the running group, although I was not crazy about the route.  It involved having to cross too many roads, and since it was in the evening, there was a fair amount of traffic.  Given the stores location (on Leesburg Pike in Falls Church) it is kind of hard to avoid traffic situations.  But I enjoyed the run nonetheless – good people, good pace. I'll run with them again I think.

The next day I did two 3 mile loops around my apartment area; this is actually a really good work out because very little of is flat.  I’m either going up or down, and there is a very nice uphill finish on each loop, making it great training for the MCM. During my first loop I was dragging so badly at 2 miles, that I almost pictured myself just doing 3 miles. So I sucked down a Gu, pretended like I had someone running with me and we had 6 miles to do, and kept going. While I know full well that the Gu was a great stimulant for me, I also wonder how much my mental imagination of running with someone got me over the hump.  I actually had a really good run that day, averaging a 8:30 pace.  I even clocked a 7:45 split on mile 5 (slight downhill – fun to take advantage of that stretch).

Sunday’s long run was a different story altogether though.  I went back to the C&O Canal path (6:30AM, 67deg, 95% humidity) with the goal of making it to a hill on the west side of the Reservoir.  That hill is on the MCM path and hits right around mile 7, so I wanted to experience it to see how steep and long it might be.  I picked a spot to jump on the trail about 4 miles from the hill, the thought being that I wanted to have some miles on me before I got to it so that I would be a little tired by the time I got there and still finish with an 11-12 mile run.  It turns out that it’s a good hill, but not bad at all. And there is a slight downhill grade afterwards providing some relief – so all good. 

In order to get back on the trail I had to run all the way down MacArthur Blvd to Canal Rd where I found a tunnel that goes under the road and the canal back to the trail.  I’m not big on tunnels, and it gave me the creeps.  It was well lit, paved, and I could see the other end, but it still gave me the heeby-geebies… yuk!

The way back was without incident, and I was able to get into a nice cadence.  It felt really good.  I wound up killing some time when I had to slow to a walk at mile 9 so that I could take off my camelback and get to a packet of Gu in a difficult to reach pocket, but aside from that I was very steady all the way through.  Notwithstanding, by the time I got to where my truck was, I was ready to call it “done”. The humidity just sucked the energy out of me - and I'm sure that the burger and beers the night before did not help...  Even though I had posted 11 ½ miles, and I always prefer to post whole numbers, I did not have it in me to do another ½ mile.  In retrospect, I should have toughed it out, but I didn’t.  Next time. 

My average pace was 9min/mile dead on, with which I was very pleased.  If I hadn’t had to walk while rescuing my last packet of Gu, I would have been able to post a sub 9min/mile pace!  (it is always the little things…).

139 days (20 weeks) to the MCM

Chesapeake and Ohio Trail

I had an opportunity to run on the Chesapeake and Ohio Trail this week – good experience.  I was looking for someplace reasonably flat to do 10 contiguous miles on and came across this trail.  For anyone that is not familiar with it, it is basically a tow path along a canal that runs some 184 miles from Washington DC (Georgetown) to somewhere in Maryland.  The purpose of the canal was to enable the safe passage of

goods down and around the various rapids on the Potomac.  I’m not sure how far the trail goes, but it goes further than I can run…  The trail is a crushed rock/dirt, smooth enough and flat enough to make for easy running.  I like that because I can put myself on autopilot and just run, instead of having to constantly be looking for rocks, branches, and holes.

This picture is at Lockhouse #10 - the canal itself is to the left and the tow path is on the right.  The locks are immediately to the left.

I started fairly early, 6:30AM, and there were quite a few people at Lockhouse #10 parking area off the Carla Barton Parkway – mostly cyclists it seems.  But when I hit the trail, I pretty much had it to myself.  By the time I was finishing, shortly after 8AM, there were substantially more runners and cyclists, which obviously means that this is a popular trail.  But even with all of this popularity the trail was very clean of debris and trash.

Despite the 6:30AM start, the temp was 73 degrees with a 79% humidity.  Up at the parking area there was a nice breeze, but down on the trail there was zilch for wind, so as the sun rose, so did the humidity.

My plan was to run easy and get my 10 miles in.  Easy for me was to be defined by whatever pace just felt good.  Without pressing I found myself loping along at about a 9 min/mile pace, some miles were 8:50, others were 9:10.  Interestingly enough, I found that the mile following a gu (mile 7.5), I actually clocked an 8:40 split – that stuff is amazing.  Once I realized that I was kind of trucking along a little faster than I probably should, I backed it off some and settled back to a 9 min/mile pace.

I had the foresight to bring my camel back, which I loaded up with Gatorade and made a special point to take a sip every ½ mile (very soon I’m going to have to train myself to drinking only every 2 miles – pre-marathon prep).  From prior experience, I wanted to make sure that I remained well hydrated, but not overly so.  I suspect that some of my cramping issues were caused by not watching my fluids and nutrition.  For nutrition, I made sure that I fueled before I left my house (peanut butter on whole wheat toast) and then a gu at mile 3.5 and again at mile 7.5.

By the time I was approaching my mile 5 turnaround point (I was doing an out-and-back run) I was feeling so good (hot but good) that I thought that I should push myself to 11 total miles instead of just 10…  so I trotted along for another half mile and then did my turn-around.  (It is so easy to talk myself into “an extra half mile… it’s only 4 ½ minutes or less… just do it…”  which can really backfire on me since I have to run an equal distance back again.) By now it is about 7:30AM and the sun is definitely up – and even though there are lots of trees for shade, it is hot and humid on the trail. 

One of my heat/humidity indicators is to track when my sweat starts to drip off the bill of my cap.  That started right around mile 7.  At that point I am making sure that I am sipping my Gatorade a little more regularly – I don’t want to cramp.  I was also very grateful that I brought the camelback vs the little bottles and the waist belt.  (I always piss and moan about how heavy – it really isn’t – a full camelback is… but as in this case, so grateful that I had all of its fluids!).

Around mile 9.5 my hams were getting tired and a little tight, so I started modifying my gait a little: one minute one way, another minute a little different, and so on.  That really seemed to help.  As it was tightening, I was a little concerned that it might be a pre-cramping signal, so I was trying to be very cognizant to making sure that the muscle had an opportunity to relax (inasmuch as it can) and stretch out.  The idea with altering my gait was to give my hamstrings a different feel and a chance for me to finish my run without incident.

The last half mile was the hardest.  I think that I was pretty much done at mile 10.5.  The humidity was taking me down and sucking all of the energy out of me.  I felt that I was managing my fluids well and my legs were ok, but in general I was becoming very fatigued.  I know that it is all a training thing.  I had a great 10 miles run 2 weeks ago, but that was in a cold mist.  Humidity is such an energy sucker.  I kept telling myself that this was as tired as I wanted to be at mile 25 and that I could without a doubt finish strong.  I did finish that last ½ mile at a steady pace, making it a 9:10 min/mile split.  Overall I ran a  9:03 m/m pace without really trying.  Very happy with that.

 145 days to the MCM!

Running tired

There is something about learning to run when you are tired – or at least much that I need to learn.  And it’s actually an interesting phenomena. 

In my case, I’ll get to a point in my (long) run where I’m starting to think that “I’m tired”, but naturally, I’m not done with my run.  And as is often the case, I may be 5, 8 or more miles away from my truck or home, so being tired is, well, just too bad.  I have to finish.

There are times when the thought crosses my mind (very briefly, mind you) that I could just walk…  but that would take so long to make it back to wherever, so I just continue to run.

The crazy thing is that not too long after I get this feeling I seem to get a second wind, like new-found strength and I’m fine for a while longer.

I would be kidding you if I didn't tell you that there was a mental part to this.  When I get that "I'm tired" feeling, I'm instantly evaluating if my body is really trying to tell me something or not.  At 56, I'm scanning all of my vital signs like a pilot does his instruments - am I in trouble or am I ok?  99.9% of the time I am ok, and I have to find the mental strength to get past it. And sometimes it is hard, really hard, to do - but it feels so good when I do, when I push past being tired and keep rolling.  I have no idea where that comes from and I wish that I could find a way to bottle it up.

The really hard part is towards the end of a long run, particularly if that last bit is uphill.  The tiredness becomes very heavy, and all I think about is “keep running and just finish”. I use any number of little mental tricks to keep me going: I’ll tell myself that I’m on mile 25 of a marathon and I’m going to finish and I will do it running. Or I’ll think about other people who have actually had to run for their lives or someone else’s and giving up was not an option.  I’ll also imagine a wire attached to the middle of my hips that is pulling me to the finish (or up the hill) – that last one works to keep me pumping. 

I’ve never been so tired that I literally felt like I was going to collapse (that’s a line that I won’t fret with).  I think that instinctively I’ve always kept a reasonable buffer in the tank, so to speak, so that bad or weird things don’t happen.

The hard part is that when I start to get really tired, I mean really tired, I start to not process thoughts very well, and as a result I have to be extra careful that I don’t make stupid decisions.  I’ve learned that this is likely caused by the flood of lactic acid in my system. Hot conditions will do that also, but for different reasons.

But the even crazier thing is that finishing a run tired seems to better condition me for the next run. Which makes sense of course; I am pushing the envelope a little bit, expanding my ability by a bit more every time.  It turns out that there is actual science to this:  As I endurance train, I am increasing the amount of blood that is being delivered to my muscles.  But note that it is not my blood volume that is increasing, but rather the ability for the blood to reach the muscles that need the nutrition.  It turns out that I am increasing the number and size of the capillaries that deliver blood.  In addition, I am becoming more efficient at burning fuel (glycogen and fat).

One very telling symptom of this cardio improvement is that I’ve noticed that my resting heart rate is in the 45-50 bpm range. An emergency room doctor that I happened to run with one day told me that if I ever had the misfortune to wind up in an ER to be sure to tell the attending nurses/docs that I was a runner, or else they would start giving me drugs to raise my heart rate!  I thought that was pretty crazy..

Of course, after “pushing the envelope” the trick is to recover adequately and properly so that my body can take advantage of that new endurance.  By that I mean, refueling properly (water, electrolyte replenishment, carbs and proteins), taking care of my muscles (stretching, rolling), and some rest (but not too much).

The more I get into running (all 4 years of it so far), the more I can see how deeply engaged and involved one can get.  It all depends on how deep you want to go and how much time you have to spend on it.  Overall, I think it’s pretty interesting!  I’m just hoping that I can keep my body healthy enough to continue.

148 days to the MCM!

10 miles on WODT

This past Sunday was my day to do 10 miles on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail.  Well, it wasn't mandated that I run there - I just picked that trail to run because it wasn't hilly and I wanted to do 10 miles.

The area that I live in is at the top of a  hill, so no matter which way I go, I'm always finishing uphill, which is fine in many ways - great for training purposes for example.  It seems that every route in my immediate area has no measurable distance that is more or less flat; I'm either going up a hill or down one.  Again, it is good training, and I can feel it in my legs - in a good way.  It's a great work out.

So back to Sunday: I wanted to get 10 miles in, but wanted to "just run"... thus the WODT.  This was only my second time on it and I still kind of like it.  It's reasonably safe traffic wise, except for when you have to cross a road and you have to guess whether or not the car waving you across is actually not going to run you over - and it is well taken care of.  Go early enough and you have the trail pretty much to yourself.

The path runs under high-tension power lines, which is a little weird in a way.  I'm an EE engineer by degree, and I remember my Fields and Waves classes... just exactly how many Gauss are we exposing our bodies to anyway?.. Clearly a topic for a different blog or forum.

But my point with the power lines is that it was a foggy, then misty, then drizzly morning (7AM-ish) and the lines were buzzing, which adds to the weirdness of the run.

Overall it was a great run - but not altogether flat; I had a few minor (very minor) hills to tackle, but nothing that I had to focus on.  I ran an out-and-back (5 miles out, turn around and run back - no opportunity to quit: my truck is at the end of the run....).  It's always easy to run the first 5 miles, it's the last few miles that get hard.

The best part - the part that I totally love - is what I call the breakthrough:  almost always during a long run I'll enter a tired phase and most of the time it just sticks with me until I'm done with my run.  But every now and again I'll get a breakthrough; it's like running through a curtain and I am no longer tired. It's like I am (temporarily) re-infused with energy - and it feels sooo good.  It is impossible to know how long it will last (usually at least a couple-three miles), but never longer than that.  But when it happens it is the greatest feeling ever.

On Sunday I got that breakthrough right at mile 8 and it was awesome.  I cut almost a minute off my next mile split, and then another 30 seconds off of that for my last mile. I got PB's for my last two mile splits (the nerd that I am tracks his splits on a spreadsheet....).  When I got to mile 9 I felt so strong that I just got on the balls of my feet and just ran.  It was as effortless a run as I can ever remember.  It was like suddenly I was running the way the guys at Newton Shoes were expecting me to run with their shoes....

I do remember thinking, as I was approaching the mile 10 marker, that I would not be able to keep up that pace for  very much longer, but I was able to just long enough.  It was a blast and I felt great about it.

Overall I averaged an 8:49 min/mile pace over the 10 miles, with my first mile being the slowest (planned it that way) at 9:56 and the last mile being my fastest at 7:45.  It was good tempo training.  My pace is still considered "slow" and I won't win any medals, but so what... I'm just running for me.

 160 days to the MCM!

Mid-foot running - yeah, right..

About 270 miles ago I purchased some Newton running shoes with the idea that they would help me become a more natural mid-foot runner, which of course is supposed to be more efficient that any other kind of stride...  But as all runners know, everyone runs a little bit different simply because no two people are built exactly the same.

The net-net here is that after 270 miles, I'm realizing that I'm not a mid-foot runner; I'm more of a "flat foot" runner, trending towards fore-foot, but definitely not a true mid-foot runner. In other words, I'm not landing on the balls of my feet, but rather further back. Ok - so does that really matter?  Not really.  At least I don't think so.

I've probably spent a large portion of those 270 miles trying to run on my forefoot, i.e. land on the nubs on the bottom of the Newton shoes.  But it just never felt right, I could not get into a good cadence, and I definitely could not keep it up for miles on end.  For short distances, I was definitely running faster, but my stride could never quite get into it.

I finally sort of just let myself "run" and tried to pay attention to how I was running. I naturally lean ever so slightly into my run, but I also consciously think about making sure that my hips are forward. This keeps me from slouching and getting sloppy in my posture. I try to imagine that I'm driving my hips forward, almost like I have a wire attached to to the mid point of my hips and it is pulling me up the road or trail.  The net result is that my feet follow and by conscienciously making sure that my feet are always landing under my hips, I don't heel-strike.  But it's also not a forefoot stride - it's really more of "forward-flat-foot" stride.

My knees, hips, and ankles seem to be ok with it - I can do this for many miles, although I do mix up my stride a bit on on long runs just to ease my leg muscles.  I'm also finding that I'm a tad faster.  It may be an illusion right now (I haven't run any events, like a 5 or 10K to confirm it), but my splits seem to be better.

So what's the point of this?  Simple: I like the Newtons and I think that they are helping me run better.  But I also believe that I'm running better because I letting myself run naturally and not how someone is suggesting that I run.

166 days to the MCM!

Miles

I’m doing 20-25 miles a week as I do my pre-training for the Marine Corp Marathon in October and once I get into the heart of my training routine I’ll probably peak out somewhere close to 40 miles during certain weeks.  And to me, that’s a fair amount of running – and time…  And I started to think about other people that I’ve met or read about that do 30-40 miles per week just on a regular basis, then amp it up to 60+ for their marathon training. Some of these runners are running multiple times a day.  The question I have to ask is: do these people have a life outside of just running? Do they have jobs, errands to run, a house to take care of, have kids, a spouse, or friends?  You know… a life?  Do they go out for a beer on Friday or Saturday nights?

Perhaps it’s just me, but an hour’s run actually consumes more like 3 hours of my day if I take my pre and post run routines into consideration.  All told, those 20-25 miles take a reasonable, but very enjoyable, chunk out of my life.  So for those folks that are consistently doing 30-40 and more miles per week, either they run really, really fast or running is basically pretty much all they do.  And I’m pretty certain that when they are not running, they are cross-training…

So my point here I guess is that there are varying levels of running fanaticism. There’s the guys like me that want to run, like to run, and want to be better, but are constrained by the different priorities and pulls of a “life”.  And then there are those that live to run.  I have this image of those that live to run literally wearing running gear under their work clothes and then do the phone-booth Superman transformation (ok – they probably do it in a bathroom or perhaps their car).  Of course I’m assuming that they are actually working….  There was a story in Runners World about a guy who kind of had that way of life: as soon as 5:00 hit, he'd change clothes and be running down the road by 5:05 and then order pizza while running to be delivered to some corner so that he'd have something to eat for the run back to his car.  But guys like that are so not the norm.  C'mon man...

But nevertheless, I am hammering out my miles in the relentless effort to become more fit and physically capable of accomplishing a difficult goal.  I struggle with balancing training-time and other-things-I-need-to-do and I know that I'm not alone.  But in the end the personal reward is tremendous.  It’s something that I can’t describe to anyone and I’m sure that other runners feel the same.  And it’s more than just accomplishing something.  It’s almost like it’s an internal digestion and reaching for a certain “zen”, whatever the heck that is.  

I can’t wait for the MCM.  I’m excited and I hope that I am fit and can toe the starting line healthy!

176 days to go.

Dog running

Ok - I know that it's a crappy picture, but it is impossible to take a suitable picture of one's dogs while running with them...  I'm actually surprised that it came out at all (I only gave myself one shot at it).   But the point is that I ran with my dogs again this weekend - and it is always so different than when running without them.  This was along a path next to Potomac River on a totally awesome morning ~ 49deg.

Obviously, running without them is so much easier, but their companionship and the joy that they seem to get out of being out there with me is very cool.  So many smells, so many things to pee on, interesting critters to want to chase...

These guys aren't much for distance; 3 miles with a break in between somewhere is about all they are good for.  After a bit, the dog on the left starts lagging on me and I have to encourage him to finish with me.  More than once we've had to finish at a walk rather than at a run because he got too tired, or perhaps because something was bothering him.

I give these guys a lot of credit for helping me run:  in my early days (all of 4 years ago), they helped me run faster than the slow shuffle jog that I was calling "running".  Back then, I struggled to keep up with them; at first I could only do it for short spurts; now they pretty much signal  me to stop or slow down after a bit.

But it is so much  pleasure when we get into an easy lope and they are just trotting along with me.  The dog on the left puts his ears back, the black dog on the right seems to always have her ears out, and both of them always smelling for something.  Woe is me if the black dog spots a squirrel or a rabbit and I'm not prepared to rein her in.

Running on this particular trail is handy in that I don't have to travel with water.  Both pups just wade right into the river and drink their fill. In this picture, she's spotted some ducks and I know that she's wondering if she can catch them...

I wish that I felt confident enough to slip their leashes and just let them run, but I'm concerned about what they would get into.

As we were cresting one particular hill, a very large tan dog appears sans a leash....   He stopped when he saw us, effectively blocking the narrow trail, and so I naturally also stopped. Is this dog by himself or what?  I didn't want to attempt to pass him and risk a confrontation of some sort, given how narrow the trail was and how big he was (he was huge!), so we all just starred at each other for a little bit until his owner showed up. It was only 20-30 seconds, but it seemed like a long time - I had enough time to start considering my possible options...  It was just kind of weird how this huge dog was literally dominating the trail and waited for his owner to tell him what to do with us.  It all ended well - the owner was a very pleasant lady who shoo'ed her dog onwards and around us, noting that her dog had never had a leash in his life....  nice.