For a short run, some strange stuff

Today's run: Recovery run of 4 miles at 9:03 pace including 4 x 100m strides

I'm concerned about my left leg.

Today's run should have been trivial. One Mission Loop, one out and back, and some pick it up and stride 100 meter pushes. However, when I got to the 100 meter strides, I could barely summon any speed, and my leg was hurting. Let's break down all the pains in my left leg, shall we?

• Shin. My shin hurts at the start of each run. On longer runs, it tends to go away after the first mile or two. Today, it went from sharp pain to dull pain, and never really let go.
• Knee. No longer is the inner area, consistent with the Plica, the issue. This is a pain on the outside and lower middle area. It flashes with a sharp pain for a moment at a time. Today, it flashed once when I was five minutes in, and again when I was 16 minutes in, and a little during the strides. Subsequent to the run, walking around, I have felt it flash a few times.
  
• Hip. Earlier in the week, I would feel pain in the upper leg near my backside, and in a different area more on the side of the hip region. I have felt this much less as the week progressed, but I did feel it grab at me a bit while doing the strides.

What this added up to was a strange feeling that I could not go fast, no matter what, when it came time to do the strides. So after four moderate paced ones and a fifth, abortive attempt, I just bagged on the sixth one.

Hopefully, I'll feel different tomorrow, or the pains will go away as I get more warmed up into the 17 miles.

Blogging on Empty

Today's run: 11 mile Medium-Long Run at 8:38 pace

I have to admit something: I'm getting blog-fatigue. I do hope my reports aren't less entertaining, but I looked at some of my posts from previous weeks and feel like I don't have the energy to link to as many interesting, related things, or to pour out every observation I have on every run.

One reason for this may be the general lack of energy I feel. This is the fourth consecutive week where I will be putting in 50 miles or more, and I tend to feel a bit tired around the edges. I should be heading to bed right now, but I'm blogging instead, and then I will ice my knees (and hip), and then to bed.

That all said, a good run today.

For the third running-day in a row, I had company. Galen works downtown, so I try to synch up with him for my mid-week Medium-Long runs. Simply put, it is just great to have such fine company. The run seemed to fly by as we had non-stop conversation, running along the Embarcadero, through Fisherman's Warf, Fort Mason, Marina Green ("wow, look at the form on that gal"), Crissy Field, all the way to the pictured point (and back).

As before, I noticed less and we talked more. The best thing about talking while running is that it keeps the pace moderate, and the breathing regular. This pace feels very satisfying, given the state of my left leg and knee, and how I want to take it easy on these runs.

Speaking of which: miraculously, after yesterday's running, I felt much less walking-around pain today, and I had much less initial pain in my hip and upper left leg area. I did, however, have on and off flashes of knee pain that Galen says is consistent with early IT band problems, but that I shouldn't worry about it yet.

Tomorrow is off, Friday is Recovery, and Saturday is a Long Run. Nothing super-challenging this week, but I will run a 10K on the Fourth. Time to get nervous about that? Not yet.

Track

Today's run: 6 miles of Warm Up at 8:45 pace and VO2 Max workout of 4 x 1200 m

I was dreading running today because my left leg has not felt right since Sunday. I even didn't play in my softball game last night in hopes that the day off (truly a day off) would help. Even still, through Ibuprofen and ice, I felt iffy on my leg.

I am varying the schedule a bit in the next two weeks (under guidance from Thomas and Mike) to be able to fit a 10k into my schedule (a real race this time) on the Fourth of July (a Tuesday, not the Saturday that the schedule calls for). So today was a visit to the track and a heavier than usual workout there.

Fortunately, K-Star and natural speedster Ari decided he wanted to join me. We did a couple of laps, stretched, ran the MLK park route to bring the warm-up miles to 6. We kept the pace nice and slow. By the end of the warm up miles, my leg felt okay, though it started to tighten a bit while walking back to the track.

Then, the 1200 meter runs at 5K pace. Here, the target was 4:48 for the three laps (96 seconds per lap). Mike's analogy to the Price is Right was in my mind, and I relayed it to Ari as our goal to run as close to 4:48 as possible without going over. We achieved it without too much strain!

• 4:44
• 4:45
• 4:42
• 4:44
  

At various moments during the laps, my left knee flashed with some pain. Outer knee, not the same place as the irritated Plica. Might this be the fabled IT band? I'm running with Galen tomorrow and I plan to ask him all about it, as he's suffered that one before.

It was great to have Ari along. Having another person to help manage the pace of the laps was terrific, and Ari is a great runner. We had some interesting conversations on the warm up too. Thanks, Ari!

Highest heart rate I saw was 183. I think I'd need to do about twice as many to get into the 94% to 98% range that is considered VO2 Max...

• • •

Puppetron Update:
Recalling a post back on May 26, the day after I had seen Beck play the Fillmore:

I searched and found, finally, some pictures of the phenomenon I was so amazed by, Beck in the foreground, puppets in the background, and PuppetBeck on the screen behind him. There's a whole mess of pictures on Flikr from later stages of the tour, and this one (below) pretty well captures the idea I found most insane.

Busy day along the Embarcadero!

Today's run: Warm up run of 3 miles, Marathon Goal Pace run of 14 miles at 7:45 pace
51 miles this week. Marathon is 5 weeks from today!

After a late night getting home from Berkeley, I thought I might suffer on the run today. And today's run was to be a challenge.

This run would be my longest paced-run of the training. In short, I'm trying to get used to running at the pace I hope to run in the marathon for prolonged distances, and under conditions of tiredness. Hence, doing this run at the end of a 50 mile week and doing it after a 3 mile warm up might provide the training stimulus to prepare me to do this pace over 26.2 mile 5 weeks from today. Ack! 5 weeks from today!

Chris joined me, meeting me at the Ferry Building, prepared to do the route that takes care of the most flat portions of the marathon course, but also is an out and back.


From the Ferry Building, we headed South towards the Phone Company Ballpark for our warm-up. When I reached what I believed to be the turnaround point at 1.5 miles, I noticed that my watch/heart rate monitor displayed 06:59 as the time (a very unlikely time for 1.5 miles). Then I noticed that it wasn't moving. I pressed some buttons. No luck. The watch was effectively stuck. It is as if it is a computer and the mouse froze, and you need to reboot. I didn't know how to reboot a watch, however. Chris didn't have a watch on him. Hence, the idea of doing a paced run, where I had painstakingly identified the mile markers for 14 miles and committed most of them to memory, was practically lost.

I began to feel a bit cursed in terms of paced runs. The past paced runs went as follows:

• 10k simulation: couldn't keep pace due to many factors
• Lactate Threshold run in Maui: too humid and hot
• Previous Marathon Goal Pace run: missed a turnaround point and threw off the mile markers
• Previous Lactate Threshold run: skipped enitrely, due to the left knee injury.

Instead, we marked time at the clock at the Ferry Building, which would give us pacing feedback at just two points (mile 11 and mile 14). And we headed off.

Several factors lead to some severe crowding/activity along the route:

• Gay Pride Parade (made it tricky to find parking, initially)
• Cruise Ship disembarking (we swung into the street to avoid the throng on the sidewalk)
• Presidio Relay (didn't get in our way, and it was nice to see Mike, Mai and other K-Stars who had completed their races)
• Jints/A's game at Phone Company Park (crowds of fans approaching the park)

As we passed the Presidio Relay finish spot, we noticed that our pace seemed sort of slack. We had been trying to keep to a 8:00/mile pace, but came to some realization that our conversation might have distracted us from pace, so we picked it up a bit. Coming back past the Presidio Relay tables, we called out to someone to ask what time it was, and thought that we were potentially 2 minutes behind pace (at just the 6 mile mark out of 14).

Then we really picked it up.

Now, I'm the first to realize that the odds of the watch of the person who told us what time it was being in perfect synch with the clock on the Ferry Building was slim to none, but it still prompted us to go faster. I started to identify to Chris how many miles we were into the 14 mile paced-segment, and we tried to keep the faster pace. As we approached the 11 mile mark, the Ferry Building clock came into view, and it appeared we were now 2 minutes ahead of the 8:00/mile pace, possibly closing in on the 7:45 pace that I had hoped to do.

We kept pushing to keep the pace going, running past the Ferry Building down to the ballpark, dodging baseball fans, and hit the turnaround. I was feeling pretty taxed, but had enough left to push a little at the very end, as we cruised in (and stopped, eagerly), having hit the total time of a 7:45/mile pace. Wow.

It turned into a nice warm day, and we got to stretch bayside, in the sun.

Two more weeks at 50 miles per week, including a 10k, and then it's taper and race!

Off to see Radiohead!

Today's run: Recovery run of 5 miles at 9:32 pace

I didn't have the chance to post this after my run, since I went to join the throngs of people waiting to get in to see a general admission show of Radiohead at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. Swarms. Hundreds. Kids, in effect.

Today's run was nice and slow, and once I got into a rythm with a low enough heartbeat to satisfy my heartrate monitor, it was a slow, boring run. I noticed a few things, however.

• Actually, I've noticed the roach-coach named El Tonayense several times before, but only today was able to remember the spelling. In fact, I saw two of them along Harrison Street.
• Also on Harrison: a temporary sign indicating the way to get in to the Golden Gate Fencing Center. Reminds me of the fact that I took fencing for PE a couple of quarters in High School. In fact, one of my classmates has gone on to competitive fencing glory (Olympics, I think). Other than that, we mostly learned how most swordplay in movies is utter theatrics. Fencing using saber techniques using a foil? Ha!
• Turning the corner and heading West on 18th Street, I saw an enormous pink triangle draped from the top of one of the Twin Peaks. It is, after all, Gay Pride Week.

Less than 18 hours after yesterday's 12-mile effort, this slow paced run felt okay, but not great. I am hopeful that tomorrow's challenging run will go okay, to complete another 50 mile week.

Post-script: Radiohead was amazing. Best I've seen of them. Their encore of Fake Plastic Trees was incredible. Update: here's a photo someone posted on Flikr:

Music: Response

Today's run: 12 mile Medium-Long Run at 8:27 pace

This evening I had the chance to do my long(er) mid-week run in the park. I followed a typical K-Star Saturday morning route, though by myself.

I had been talking to Thomas earlier in the day, who mentioned something about running with music. I had given up on running with music for three reasons:

• Often, I'm running with other people
• Often, I'm running on streets where I need to be aware of my surroundings (cars, mostly)
• Often, I'm listening for the beep beep beep of my heart rate monitor to warn me I'm working too hard

Today, however, I realized that:

• I'd be running alone
• I'd be on trails and paths where cars aren't an issue
• I'd be unlikely to overstep the heart rate range on this run

So I brought along my wife's iPod Shuffle and plugged in.

Nice thing about the Shuffle is how small and light it is. I was able to secure it on the front, inside key-pocket of my shorts, and I didn't feel it move or bounce the entire run. Fantastic.

With the music, the run's first half was mostly a blur (once I got into the park and the wicked winds in Cole Valley dissipated. I felt like my pace quickened when Moby's Bodyrock came on (this sort of surprised me, since I'm not that into that song).

Running down the Great Highway wasn't as scenic as earlier in the week, since the fog was in. Out and back on the path, I noticed signs that indicated the route would be closed from "early June" for 6-8 weeks for construction, though little sign that work had begun. Mental note to consider alternative routes!

Coming back up along JFK, my legs started to complain a bit. Largely this was the first up-hill of the run, and it was my quads that itched, but 8 miles in feels like an early time for the legs to complain.

Fortunately, the music kept me going (perhaps even a touch fast) on the way back up, especially along the three hills on Middle Drive/Overlook. Of note:

• The Chemical Brothers' Loops of Fury
  
• Red Snapper's Digging Doctor What What
• Leftfield's Phat Planet

A really nice stretch was coming up Middle Drive and Overlook. The park is so bucolic once you get off the main drag of JFK or MLK, and with a mild fog, late on a weekday, there was little to no activity except me on the road, running with my music. Very nice.

The finish included a reprise of the winds in Cole Valley, the legs to get up the last hill in strides, and a mild surprise at the quickness of the pace. Lately, though, I get into a bit of a can't-be-satisfied area with my pace thing. 8:30 seems too fast for a just-get-the-miles-in run, but 8:45 or slower feels a little too slow and makes me think I didn't have a good run. 8:30 is also only 30 seconds slower than my goal pace, and the ease with which I run at that pace suggests that 8:00 might be too conservative of a goal.

No Roller Coaster

Today's run: 8 miles of General Aerobic at 8:51 pace

Running in Santa Clara, despite its magical healing effects, has some downsides.

• The routes are rough or boring or both
• It is HOT HOT HOT outside, even at 6pm

So, I just took this one easy. I struggled a tiny bit, but mostly, the heat got to me and I just kept things slow. I kept my heart rate low (150 average, 157 max), which tells me that things weren't as bad as they were in Maui, but bad enough to sap my energy quickly and keep the pace slow.

I had decided that instead of doing strange loops and whatnot, I'd just do a simple out and back two times.


The route takes me past Great America, and despite me seeing many cars in the parking lot, I did not see the roller coasters rolling. Perhaps they close the park at 6pm. Oh well.

I'm thankful for tomorrow's day off. I'm not sure where I'll do my 12 miles on Friday, but Chris has agreed to run my 17 miler (with 14 at marathon pace) with me on Sunday. Again, I'm in a great place to have people to run with!

Might be an issue, might not

Today's run: 6.8 miles of General Aerobic at 8:50 pace and VO2 Max workout of 5 x 600 m

Last night's softball game involved a few short sprints -- to beat out a grounder, to convert an outfield hit into a triple, etc. On one or two of those sprints, I felt something in the upper upper hamstring on my left leg.

Today, as I began my warm up run before the track workout as slowly as I could, I felt most of the left leg feeling a bit lame. Unfortunately, this feeling of lamness waxed and waned, instead of just fading as I got warm. Also unfortunately, I had to use a bathroom, and I was mistaken about my notion that a bathroom was not far down the road on my initial, intended route down MLK.


I was supposed to add a mile anyway, but I was going to do so as a cool down after the track session. Instead, I looped around the Great Highway (very nice view of the ocean) to where I knew there was a bathroom, and came back.

My heart rate stayed exceptionally low (averaged 141), and I am astonished I wasn't running over 9:00/mile.

The track session started fine, though I didn't push as hard as I did last week, and it showed on the splits. I was pleased, however, that I was keeping closer to my target pace, instead of wildly erring underneath it. One time, I hit the target exactly:

• 2:22
• 2:19
• 2:21
• 2:24 (on target)
  
• 2:22

My three sessions at the track (each bar color represents a different session):
These 600m sprints (if you can call it that) just don't seem that hard. Count that in the column of evidence that my 10K pace is probably around the pace I raced on that DSE race, not what I did Saturday.

I am a bit worried about the leg. Tomorrow, I'll be running in Santa Clara again. Maybe it'll have the same healing qualities it had last time.

Perfect Weather -- Can't believe I had this in me.

Today's run: Long Run of 17 miles at 8:31 pace
51 miles this week. Marathon is 6 weeks from today!

The day after an effort like I had yesterday would seem to be the worst time to do a Long Run. In fact, it was precisely this part of the schedule that caused me to have the following exchange with Thomas:

Subject: Insane Training Program ;)
From: Brent
Date: 3/23/06
To: Thomas

Hi Thomas...

So, just checking on something with you... Pfitzinger's 55-mile a week (peak), 18 week training program has a few oddities that, having read Chapter 2, I barely understand...

1) There's a couple of instances where he has you run a 8-15K race on a Saturday ("all-out") and then a recovery run of 16 or 17 miles the next day.

2) There are three races scheduled in the last mesocycle. (8K, 10K, 15K)...

If I'm reading it right, the kind of running in races is different enough from the kind of running during long runs, and, having already done a couple of 20 milers in the weeks preceding, doing a 17 mile run the day after a fast 10K actually works... ?

Brent

Subject: Re: Insane Training Program ;)
From: Thomas
Date: 3/23/06
To: Brent

It's not as bad as it sounds. Once you get to that point you'll be in the best shape of your life and 17 miles will be a cake walk.

[snip]

There's also an immense mental benefit from setting a 10K PR 2 weeks before a marathon. You can make it better by establishing a benchmark early in the process, like in the next month or so. Racing also breaks up the monotony of training but don't overdo it.

::t.

So, the question today would be, does a 17 miler feel like a cake walk?

The verdict? Let's leave some suspense, shall we?

I have been very fortunate to have found a couple of runners who run my pace and are willing to coordinate the occasional non-Saturday run with me. Today's victim was Galen, who established the route, originating at our typical meeting place for the K-Star runs.

My expectation for the run was to face cold, hard winds for much of the run, especially coming up the Great Highway. All day long it seemed the wind was blowing, and it was blowing hard in Cole Valley when we started. Galen convinced me the wind wasn't too cold and I should wear a short-sleeved shirt instead of the long-sleeve I showed up in, so we stopped at my car for the exchange (I tend to bring both long and short sleeves if I'm not sure about the weather).

We reached the park in short order. One of the great things about running with someone else is that you can completely distract yourself from the run through conversation. Instead of observations about the route, I can only really tell you about the conversation topics:

• Baseball: how Wayne Huizenga was a terrible owner and other topics
  
• Energy Gel preferences
  
• The Daily Show
• The Colbert Report
• Yesterday's run
• Is golf a sport?
  
• Other runners (oh, don't you wish you could know!)

I felt like we were taking it nice and slow, the perfect pace for this run. At one point, around mile 7, I realized that I had little recognition of where we were, though I was pretty sure we had been there the time we accidentally did 20 miles. Funny that.

When we reached Fort Funston, we were treated to nearly clear views up and down the shoreline, and some winds. Approaching the Great Highway, the winds blew some sand in our faces. But coming up the Great Highway, the wind was at our backs, and it wasn't too cold.

Back in the park, taking JFK all the way back meant a different arrangement of hills to climb. At that point, the toll of yesterday and the week behind me started to register. Even still, the pace felt good, and it wasn't until we had about 2.5 miles to go that I felt like my legs would go on strike. This is when I observed that I my total for the week was approaching 50 miles, and the feeling of accomplishment made me feel good. Still, my legs were tired and I felt a little pain in my knee.

Getting closer to the end of the route, aware that it was getting tougher and tougher, conversation flagged a bit. When we reached the last, one-block hill up Stanyan, I surprised myself (and Galen) with how fast I climbed it. We reached the end a couple of blocks later, stretched in a very windy spot, and called it a day.

I'm surprised by the pace: it didn't feel like 8:31 (it felt slower), and this is a good sign that after a day like yesterday I can run that distance in that pace. In fact, all of my Long Runs so far have been between 8:30 and 8:40, and this gives me confidence for the marathon.

Verdict? Not a cake walk, but doable, and probably the "training stimulus" that will put me in excellent shape six weeks from today.

In Place of a 10K

Today's runs: Warm up run of 2.8 miles at 8:53 pace. 10k Time Trial. Cool down run of 1 mile at 8:47 pace.

One challenge in following the schedule shown in Advanced Marathoning is found in three weekends like these. Today, the schedule says to run a race (8-15K), and tomorrow, a Long Run (17 miles). In all of the Bay Area, however, there are no races today, and in general, races are found on Sunday. Doing the Long Run today and racing tomorrow would not be advised, so I had to solve a problem, or deviate from the schedule.

Mike decided to help out. He needed to do a tempo run, and his pace on said run would set a good pace for me to simulate a 10K race. So, off to the Saturday K-Star run for the first time in a few weeks!

I had a strange feeling this morning, though. The sun was bright and warm at my house when I awoke, and there was unusually thick traffic as I drove across town. Quite simply, a beautiful morning in anything but running terms.

We announced our plan in the circle-up: run the standard 10 miler, but at around 3 miles, pause and start to run at 6:40 pace. Meredith and Chris decided to join.

I took the warm up miles slowly, keeping my heart rate in check even if that had me trailing the entire pack of K-Stars starting their various runs.

We regrouped at the 3 mile mark, discussed the course and pace, and started off!


The route began downhill, making the start pretty quick. It felt fast but easy. When we hit the mile mark, Mike announced a time of 6:15, about 20 seconds fast, and encouraged us to slow it down a bit. I kept on Mike's pace to the turnaround point just before the two mile mark and somehow fell behind at the turn. Mike announced the second mile split as 6:45, about what we'd like.

Somewhere coming back up the Great Highway it become harder for me to catch up. Mike dropped back to offer encouragement, but I didn't have the confidence I could do this pace and started to get into my own head a bit. Mike and Chris started to gain ground ahead of me, and try as I may to keep up, I was having serious trouble doing so.

Then, the mind really kicked in. Was it:

• the warm weather?
• the fast start?
• the onset of a long stretch of hills?
• the sluggish week I've been having?
• the lack of sleep?
• insufficient eating?
• or, was I just plain slow? Was my previous 10K time based upon a short course?

As it became a fight to come up the three hills on Middle Drive/Overlook with any speed, trying to keep Chris and Mike in reasonable distance, I battled my doubts in my head. I could tell my heart was working hard (seeing 185 on my heart rate monitor), and my breathing was heavy, and my legs, though occasionally getting bursts of energy, were not compensating for the trouble I was having with overall energy. I mistook, again, the second hill on Middle Drive for the hill on Overlook, and drooped a bit in the exposure of the sun when I realized it.

Mike drifted back and announced that we were "calling it". This heat was too strong for us to try to do this pace, and we should just forget pace and push hard to the end. I felt Mike could probably keep the pace himself, but he was being very group-oriented and selfless in guiding me along.

Towards the end, a few times I thought I could push more, but I just couldn't maintain it. At the finish, I couldn't reel in Chris or Mike, and pulled in, beat and tapped out, at 43:25.

That pace is slower than all three of my previous 10Ks, but I don't feel too bad. The Book says there are two purposes to races before the marathon:

1. Feedback on fitness
2. Experience of the anxiety of a race

And more importantly, it lists two ways to do such a race:

1. Train through them: all out effort when fatigued
2. "Mini-taper" and allow for recovery

Strangely, though this schedule comes from the book and you'd think it would design it as the text implies (the second option), there is no recovery from this race (tomorrow: 17 miles), and doing this in the context of a 50 mile week strikes me as not a mini-taper, either. The book cautions, however:

This will provide an excellent training stimulus as well as a mental challenge that will help steel you for the marathon. Racing when tired, however, brings the danger of believing that your finishing time and place represent your current fitness level... you could interpret the result as meaning that you're not in shape, and you might start to train harder or become discouraged. It's important to put the result in the context of the situation. (Advanced Marathoning pg. 36, emphasis mine).

Having read that makes me feel a lot better about today's result. The pace ended up being spot on my Lactate Threshold pace, and I feel good about at least replacing the near-death run when it was too hot in Maui. Further, this being the first time I'm running at 50 miles per week, I am certainly feeling tired these days.

I expect that my next race will either feel better, or be at least equivalent. Hard run, but good.

Many thanks to Mike for making the hard run possible.

Choosing from all that goo!

Today's run: Recovery run of 4 miles at 9:15 pace including 6x100 m strides

Today's run was on the warm side. Mission Loop plus a mile out-and-back with the strides. I saw a few things:

• A cluster of people having lunch at the outdoor tables in front of Universal Cafe, a favorite restaurant that's just off the side of my route.
• They are redoing the blacktop to the parking lot at Best Buy.
• There was more office furniture sitting outside that building I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

My heart rate was back up, perhaps because of the heat. At first, I was trotting along around 140 or so, but by a mile and a half in, I was struggling to run slowly enough to keep it under 154. I was getting concerned that something had changed. We'll see if I can summon the legs and the speed in tomorrow's simulated 10k race. (But more on that tomorrow).

• • •

I think it is time to mention that I've narrowed down my Energy Gel selection to one brand and two flavors. As I first mentioned in my Food and Water post, this was all entirely new to me. At this point, I've injested 12 packets of energy gels during my runs, including during this run when I took one while running at around 7:40 pace. I've tried 3 brands, and a total of 8 flavors. I've tried with caffeine and without. And now, my guide to energy gels:

Disclaimer: Everyone has their own favorites and react to the energy gels in different ways. These are just my experiences!

Factor #1: Texture
Since I enjoyed Clif Bars, I figured I might well enjoy their energy gel product, Clif-Shot. This was the first brand I eliminated, however, because the texture was too gooey, too much like taking a blob of peanut butter in your mouth while running. It simply would take too much water to wash it down, and that got in the way.

Factor #2: Taste
I became slightly enamored with Carb-Boom because their first flavor I tasted (Apple Cinnamon ) went down smoothly and had a nice taste. When I tasted another flavor, I realized that the taste, as long as it wasn't offensive, was something I didn't notice. I tried five more flavors at this point and determined it wasn't as big a factor as I thought.

Factor #3: Dispensing Ease
It wasn't until I had gone back and forth between Carb-Boom and GU that I realized that, due to the narrower packet size, GU was easier to get out of the packet and easier to carry. I later noticed that it went down even easier than Carb-Boom, despite my initial impression. When running, it is simply difficult to manipulate these things, and the easier it is to squeeze the contents out, the less distracting (and pace reducing) it promises to be.

So at this point, I've narrowed it down to two flavors of GU: Lemon Sublime and Tri-Berry. One has caffeine, and another doesn't. I'm thinking at present that on the actual race day, I'll carry two packets without caffeine and one packet with, since I am aware how caffeine can hinder hydration.

(The funny thing is, if you Google any of those brands, a sponsored link come up for a competitor who claims to pack more calories and carbs into the same amount of space.)

These are the ones I tried:

• Clif-Shot: Cola Buzz
• Clif-Shot: Mango
• Carb-Boom: Apple Cinnamon
• Carb-Boom: Strawberry Kiwi
  
• Carb-Boom: Banana Peach
• GU: Lemon Sublime
  
• GU: Tri-Berry
  
• GU: Orange Burst
  

Some days are like this

Wednesday's run: 11 mile Medium-Long Run at 8:45 pace

Generally, my run last evening felt bad. Not horrible, but bad.

I took the Embarcadero route that I've done many times before, and it was striking how different it felt from Sunday's run. Sunday, it was the start of a very long run, it was morning, and Chris was along. That day felt brisk and easy. Last evening felt laborious. The whole way, I felt like I would rather be in bed, on a sofa -- anything but running.

I did see a few cool things:

• The Black Rock Arts Foundation is installing a sculpture, shown above, on the Embarcadero. Though the site says June 16, the figures are there now, and they are big.
• The view of the Golden Gate Bridge, under the clouds, was clear and beautiful, especially the hillside just inside the gate.
• A whole lot of sailboats (perhaps a race) coming back from the bridge.
• My softball teammate, Julie, who was in the City for a convention yesterday.

My heart rate averaged 145, a beat lower than the day before's warm up run. Part of me thinks I am still in defecit from Sunday's 20 miler. Part of me thinks that I'm just not getting enough sleep, or eating enough, for this many miles.

I'm hoping that with today's day off, and tomorrow's mild 4 miles, I'll be feeling fresh on Saturday.

Next Visit to the Track, Next Mesocycle

Today's run: 5.5 miles of General Aerobic at 8:45 pace and VO2 Max workout of 6 x 600 m

Just two days after the longest run of my life, I nearly forgot that I might not feel fresh and ready to run today. Then I started my warm-up run of 5.5 miles, and my quads were the first to complain. I felt sluggish, but my heart rate never really got up. I hit the turnaround point and headed back up the hills on MLK Drive, and just didn't feel like going very fast. Still, 8:45 pace is perfectly acceptable, though it is the slowest General Aerobic run I've done in San Francisco. On the way back, I caught a few pitches of a baseball game. First pitch for a strike, next pitch a single to right-center, and then an overthrown pick-off attempt brought the runner to third.

I felt like the first of my 600 meter runs, targeting a theoretical 5K pace like last time, was going to indicate that the set would be rather difficult. I finished it one second faster than my target pace, but that was four seconds slower than all of my 600m runs last time. Then I got a little excited since I peeled off the next three at 2:21, pleased with my consistency, and also pleased that I was close enough to the target pace. But then I sensed the end was near, and sped up.

A comparison between last time (blue) and this:All of them under the target, all of them slower than last time, but the last one being the same speed (#5 last time = #6 this time).

• • •

I've now begun the third mesocycle of the training program: Race Preparation. This mesocycle, four weeks long, features a trip to the track every week, and two 10k races (one of which will be simulated this Saturday). There will be the longest Marathon Goal Pace run (14 miles after a 3 mile warm-up), and I will attempt another longest run ever at 22 miles. I will average 50 miles each week.

I think this is like the last, long hill in a big run. If I can stay healthy and get these four weeks done, I'll feel like the remaining weeks before the race will be, in effect, downhill.

Then there's just the race itself.

The first 20.

Today's run: Long Run of 20 miles at 8:33 pace
55 miles this week. Marathon is 7 weeks from today!

As it starts to dawn on me that the actual event I have been writing about and preparing for these past several months is less than two months away, it is great to compensate for a burgeoning fear with a week like this (55 miles) and a run like today (the first 20 miles of the marathon course).

Chris, who is on his own crash-course to train for this marathon, agreed to meet me on the uncharacteristic day of Sunday for this long run. We met at the start at around 8am, and, map in hand, energy gels in pocket, and water bottle full, ran the first 20 miles of the course (more or less).

The first five miles or so are easy and familiar, being the same as portions of my Embarcadero routes. The biggest difference today was, due to the early hour, the low-levels of tourists to be found along Fisherman's Warf.

The fog was dense at the bridge. I agree with Thomas here: what is so fantastic about running back and forth across the Golden Gate Bridge if there is so much fog that you can't see the views, or even the top portions of the enormous towers of the suspension bridge?

We took a short break at one end, consuming an energy gel and drinking a little water, then got going again. Ouch. My body just doesn't want to take breaks. I think that, despite Galen's insistence that it doesn't save you much time to try to drink/eat while you run, just the mere stopping and starting trouble may give me reason to do so, even if I just slow down a bit.

We cruised up Lincoln (uphill, starting to feel a little less fresh), and headed down 27th Ave towards the Park. Our usual Golden Gate Park routes don't follow this exact path, so we had to concentrate a bit on the map to find our way. I noticed nine Bison in the paddock. Hi, Bison!

Somewhere coming back up JFK Drive, before the Stow Lake loop (mile 16), I started to notice that my legs were not happy with me. Not yet at the stage of "what the hell are you doing!?!", but getting there. Fortunately, Chris was there to distract with conversation, at this point about urban (and non-urban) living, and the scrapes he's gotten into/avoided.

Finding our way out of the park, we crossed over to Haight Street, discovering the start of a street fair. This actually made it easier to navigate those blocks, as the sidewalks were pretty clear. I picked up the pace here, probably for two reasons:

1. Obstacles have some sort of impact on my pacing
   
2. I knew we were getting close to the end

Haight starts to tend downhill, and then I started to fly a bit. The last couple of blocks actually felt good, and I can imagine picking up speed in the marathon at that point, leading into the final 10k.

Thankfully, the corner where we finished (in an admirable time) had a market, and I was able to re-hydrate with Gatorade. I took the bus home (one bus!). Shower, lunch, nap.

My legs are tired, I am tired, but I feel very good about this run. It was great to do the first 20 miles of the course, and Chris was a great running companion.

I'm still not in Hawaii...?

Today's run: Recovery run of 6 miles at 8:48 pace

Today I wore a long sleeve shirt while running. This morning's fog has not lifted. It is sort of chilly. I am clearly not in Hawaii today, which still bums me out.

The run was nice and easy today. One full Mission Loop, one 2/3 Mission Loop. Heart rate kept nice and low, though I wanted to go faster. Nothing especially interesting to note, except I noticed a sign for a weekly Regae music festival. I'll have to notice the URL next time.

Tomorrow's run is the long one. Today's Recovery run puzzled me, my legs were fine after yesterday's 12 miler, and I didn't feel like I needed to recover. I guess it was just easy miles to pad the total for this week, the peak week in the schedule.

• • •

Since I can't exactly get Maui off my mind, I updated my posts from Maui with formatting and pictures. The posts below are ones where I added pictures:

• Aloha from Maui
• Gatorade Slushies, Mahalo
• See you in Lahaina!

The posts were originally composed and sent from a cell-phone via email. Particularly amazing to me was the idea that I was sitting on a beach in Lahaina, writing about the run I had just completed, and sending in the post within 40 minutes of finishing the run.

Where's my Aloha?

Today's run: Medium-Long Run of 12 miles at 8:14 pace

No bye, no Aloha.... Or so sang Kim Deal.

Usually, the gap between two runs of twelve miles is greater than two days. As it was, the gap in time was small, but in space, experiences and atmosphere, it was enormous.

After Wednesday's too hot to run-run (it's not the heat, it's the humidity), we spent a beach day in Napili, drove around the Western route of Maui, had a delightful dinner, woke early the next morning for a kayaking and snorkling expedition, packed, went for lunch, almost drooped from the midday heat on the way to the airport, flew home, settled in and tried to get to sleep.

Today, taking a familiar route through the park on JFK Drive, I experienced contrasts:

• the air was cool, and once into the park, foggy, as opposed to damp warmth
• I saw Bison (not Sea Turtles)
• my heart rate stayed low, and my pace was quick
• the ocean, while the same body of water I was snorkling in yesterday, appeared grey, not turquoise or blue
• I put on an extra layer to keep warm after I finished, rather than plunging my head into a cold shower to cool down

That said, it is good to be back to normal running, and good to know that all that stands between me and achieving my peak-week is Saturday's Recovery run and Sunday's 20 miler. He he.

It's the Maui Island Challenge!

Today's run: 12 miles: 3 miles of Warm Up at 9:27 pace, Lactate Threshold run of 7 miles at 8:03 pace, 2 mile Cool-down at 11:16 pace.

I woke up unreasonably early (6am) to try to beat the heat, and though I got on the road before 7:00, I could tell I was in for a challenge. After the three mile warm-up, where I stuck to the shade and kept my heart rate at around 150, I briefly stopped to change my watch settings and get the LT run started. Phoomp! Covered in sweat: I was an instant humidor.

I took off with a pace that put me inside my target range inside of two minutes. With a short uphill and then some downhill, I figure this would be a fast first mile. It was and it wasn't: 7:22. At this point I could confirm that I would go by heart rate and not pace. As the second mile, slight downhill, came in at 7:42 and my heart rate was around 175, I knew it was going to be a struggle to get all 7 miles done like this.

I was appreciative of the comment from blogger Champagne on yesterday's post, as I stopped worrying about pace and just kept checking my watch for heart rate. Still, the pace was troubling and I wasn't optimistic about continuing. I slogged through the next two miles, dealing with the complexities of mopping my brow, drinking some water, eating some energy gel, and watching my heart rate.

Then the trouble came. Mile 6 was largely uphill, and I was tired. (Okay, so it was really mile 9, but for this I'm discounting the warm-up.) I let my heart rate drift down to 171 at times and kept working the uphill. When a stretch of downhill came, I had to work that, too, to keep the heart rate up.

Mile 7 felt like crap. I felt like I was barely putting one foot in front of the other to go uphill, I was sweating faster than I could mop it up, and the split made me wonder if I had mis-measured, since all the other splits came in under 8:00, and the last one was something like 10:00. Plus, it was during this mile that my water bottle decided to leak, soaking my shirt (moreso).

I paused briefly to change watch settings, drink some water, and mop my brow. I started out a slow, slow "cool-down" run: the two miles back to the house. After four minutes, I began to think this is what Thomas would describe as "junk-miles", since I felt like I was barely moving forward as I slogged uphill, and I wondered if it was actually doing me any good.. After 10 minutes or so, I just walked the uphills (even still, my heart rate was around 150). I jogged slowly the last quarter mile.

Beat.

I saw my wife when I came back, who said, "it's hot out there." Yup. Maybe I should have gotten up at 5:00.

• • •

Tomorrow is a rest day, and we'll be coming home. All in all, I ran 45 miles on this island while on this vacation. What kind of person wakes up early on vacation to put in 45 miles of running in tropical heat? An insane one, I think.

I could get used to this

Today's run: Recovery run of 6 miles at 9:30 pace, including 6x100m strides

At 5:30am, the sun is coming up and birds start chirping as if this is a surprsing event. What is suprising is that I start to wake up with them, and in about an hour I'll get up, have a nibble, stretch, apply sunscreen, put on my gear and go out for my morning run at around 7:30am. After my run, I stretch while looking out over the ocean, admiring West Maui, Lanai, Molokini and Kahoolawe. I use the outdoor (cold) shower to lower my body temperature, then retire to the deck to ice my knees, drink some iced Gatorade, and write this blog entry.

Yeah, I could get used to this.

• • •

The run itself was good. Beautiful scenery, and I managed to keep to the shade for half the run.

I tried to keep my heart rate in check, even with the hills and heat. I did this in no small part by padding my heart rate zone by 12 bpm, and also by going slow. I mostly thought about tomorrow's run: a 12 miler with 7 miles of Lactate Threshold (LT) pace (7:05/mile).

First: I tend to think this is an important run. I missed the last LT run when I was resting my left knee, so it has been a while since the 5 miles of LT I did on the Embarcadero with great results. This is the longest LT run in the schedule, and this week of training, 8 weeks out from the marathon, is the heaviest. So I'm disinclined to blow it off.

Trouble is, I don't think I can hit the pace without sending my heart rate through the roof. With the exception of the 14 miler to Lahaina on Sunday, all (3) of my other runs here have been slower than usual, with a much higher heart rate.

So the question becomes: do I go by heart rate, or by pace? I could set a range on my heart rate monitor from, say, 167 to 182, and make sure I stay within it. I'm pretty sure that would yield a strong workout. I guess the question is: is heart rate as good a proxy for the Lactate Threshold as is pace?

See you in Lahaina!

Today's run: Medium-Long Run of 14 miles at 8:33 pace
43 miles this week. Marathon is 8 weeks from today!

"See you in Lahaina!" I said, as my wife wife left me on the side of Highway 30, fourteen miles away from Baby Beach in Lahaina. Thomas had given me the idea to run part of the Maui Marathon course for one of my runs, and I had been looking forward to this way of seeing the island for weeks. Covering 14 miles on foot without doubling back or looping can be quite a treat.

Or, at times, monotonous.

Doesn't seem possible, does it? Beautiful, tropical island with stunning views...

The first half- hour was mostly up and down in a curving part of the highway. There were numerous places where the rock-face had been cut into to let the road through, leaving giant, vertical rock walls on either side of the road. At certain points, the traffic would subside in both directions and it would be just me, the view to the ocean or rocks, and the silent road. Despite the 7:30am start, it was pretty warm already and I was sweating. Fortunately, I had kleenex.

The next half- hour brought the road down to the coast: flat, but exposed to the sun. Still miles away from Lahaina, these were empty beaches and vacant highwaysides. The view to my left was the ocean, and the view to my right was the dramatic peaks and cliffs of the two dormant volcanoes that built this side of the island. The constant exposure made me wilt, however, and I wondered if I could make it.

So, I took a little break. With a spot of shade as the road broke inland a bit, right around the hour mark, I stopped. (I almost never do this.) I mopped my face, changing to my third clean kleenex, ingested the entire Gu packet I brought, and drank a few ounces of water... leaving me almost out.

The main reason I don't like to stop is that it is hard to start up again. My legs complained as I began again, and for the next twenty minutes or so, the scenery didn't change and monotony set in. I started to think about how varied the San Francisco routes I take are: Embarcadero, Golden Gate Park/Lake Merced, and even the Mission Loops.

At around 1:20 I started to feel great. My pace picked up again, I realized I was probably 2/3 the way there, and I felt like I'd probably find water before I absolutely needed to. Then I concluded: the Gu has kicked in! This stuff is great! I'm definitely going to use this in the marathon.

Five minutes later, I found a beach park that had water spigots. I emptied my pockets of used kleenex and Gu packet and re-filled my water bottle. The water had a taste that reminded me of the outdoor drinking fountains I'd used as a kid (summertime in the San Fernando Valley). It tasted warm and metallic.

The next half hour showed increasing progress towards my goal. The beach parks became more frequent, and I saw a sign marking the entrance to Lahaina (sooner than I expected). I took my turn-off onto Front Street and was immediately grateful to be off the main road. The street began as a quiet resedential street with some shade, and then evolved to the main drag of Lahaina's tourist district (which was pretty quiet at around 9:15 on a Sunday morning). Lappert's! There's a Lappert's ice cream! I know where we're going later!

Past the commercial district (not before noticing a large sign that says "Jesus: Coming Soon"), the street became resedential again, and before I expected, I found the street that lead me to Baby Beach. I spotted our car, and soon found my wife on the beach. I was surprised by the pace.

Our cooler held some nice, cold drinks. The water cooled me down almost instantly, and I took a brief nap on the beach. Perfect.

Updated 6/10: Added pictures and links. Pictures are from a different day, and condensation on the lens caused them to be blurry. Rats.

Gatorade Slushies, Mahalo

Today's run: 8 miles of General Aerobic at 9:06 pace including 6x100m strides

When the sun came up, bright amd clear, at 6am, I did not bolt out of bed and get on the road. My penalty for this was to run in direct sun, in temperatures 15-20 warmer than I am used to. I had been emboldened yesterday, seeing it remain cool and overcast all morning. And the route I chose had long rolling hills instead of Thursday's route of short rolling hills.

However: I conquered the blinding-effect of last run with a hat and preventattive dabbing of my eyes with kleenex. Pretty effective, and it is making me second-guess what shorts to wear tomorrow (different pocket arrangement).

Oh. Look to the left: stunning views of the ocean, Kahoolawe, Molokini, Lanai and the Western side of Maui. Look to the right and see hills covered in palm trees. Ho hum. It's so darn beautiful here it almost makes me forget that I'm running slow, out of breath, sweating like a dog and struggling to get up hills on what should be a low-intensity run. I was toasted enough at the end that I didn't get in all 8 of the 100m strides on my plan.

When I got back to the place we're staying, I took a quick dip in the ocean and used the outdoor shower to cool off, then had some Gatorade, then felt insipred to blend the ice and Gatarade together with some orange juice, milk and fresh pineapple to make a Gatorade Slushie. Bizarre, but good. (Truth be told, my wife made the Slushie, but I did specify the ingredients).

Update 6/10: Added pictures from the run.

Aloha from Maui!

Today's run: Recovery run of 5 miles at 8:57 pace

With ocean waves lapping at the rocks just in front of the deck upon which I sit, icing my knees and watching the sun slowly dip towards the ocean, still, I write for you, faithful reader...

Today's run could have been better termed an Adaptation run, as the heat (though not torturous) did a number on me. First, the beep beep beep of my heart rate monitor was incessant, as I forgot to adjust my settings upwards to take the heat/humidty into account. I spent all of ten minutes "in range". Second, since the sun was behind clouds and it was cooling off, I didn't wear my hat, which resulted in sweat rolling down my face and into my eyes. By the middle of the run, one eye was always shut, and towards the end, I was speeding up just to end the torture!

However, my turnaround point did have the rewarding vista of an open view of Lanai in the distance, and what must be the island of Kahoolawe, pretty close off the coast here.

I should also mention that when my wife and I stopped after lunch at the Natural Foods grocery in Kihei, we saw Mike Meyers (yes, the Austin Powers one), buying lots of water and some blueberries, sending off vibes that he preferred to be left unacknowledged.

Lastly, posts while I'm here will be blandly formatted (as this one is), and I won't see comments unless I stop at a cyber-cafe. But keep reading! I'll post a couple of pictures when I come back...

Update 6/10: adding formatting and a picture from not long after I sent the original post, on the deck.