End of the road...

After running six days in a row, the time has come to take a day off.  A miniature point-to-point 2.5 mile run yesterday was enjoyable, but the legs were feeling like bricks.  That tired leg feeling always signals trouble.  Having tired legs in a race means something went wrong with the taper (as in, ya didn't).  It could be a sign of general over-training, too.

So, despite it looking like a great (but hot) running day, I will probably give in to wisdom for once and figure out some cross-training...ugh...

Short stuff...

The days keep rolling along and the training runs are getting stronger.  I finally turned the corner after the marathon and have some strength back.  I can feel that at-will leg acceleration when out for those 5 mile runs.  I've been keeping the distance fairly light, though, and working on some speed.  The last two days have been about 1 min/mile faster than my usual 5 mile times.  I just need to keep that going.  I'm also adding some leg weights to the program to hopefully combat the toasted quads that came up last race.

Only 13 days until the Allentown to Bethlehem point-to-point marathon...I'll be getting a ride back to the start line this year unlike the pathetic 2 hour wait for the bus last year.  Can't wait!

Riding the Unicorn...

After every marathon (these days), I always wonder how long it will take to get back to running.  I must have a side of me that wonders if, one of these times, I won't start up again.  Rain or shine, it's typically the Thursday after the Sunday marathon where my legs actually move in a shape and form like running.  This week, I tried to accelerate the process by attempt running on Wed and made it exactly .5 mile before looping back home.

The Thursday run was filled with butterflies, unicorns and awesome sauce (don't ask me).  It was only 3.4 miles, but that is in line with a solid recovery strategy. Run the relative same number of miles per day as in the week leading up to the marathon.

Never jump back into big miles too quickly after a big race or you run the risk of big injury.  Thoughts on that?

Marathon recovery...tight as a drum...

Well, I'm getting closer to having the motivation to run a little bit (and today may be the day), but my hamstrings are sealed shut on the third day after the marathon. I iced my quads right after the race which helped tremendously, but the hamstrings are killing me. This is not a new thing, and requires some stretching and maybe a massage (grrrrr). I like to think about recovery as if I have another marathon on the following weekend. I want to speed it up as much as possible. Here are some of my classic recovery tricks: 1. Ice the legs right after the race. Bring ice packs in a cooler to the race. 2. Get some protein in the pie hole right after the race. 3. Drink some sour cherry juice for a few days after the race. I read that once and have no idea if it does anything. The taste isn't bad as a breakfast aperitif. 4. Stretch lightly each day...don't go wild with this or you run the risk of injury. 5. Take a warm bath, but not on the same day as the race. The age-old wisdom of taking an ice bath right after the race isn't gonna happen for me. 6. Keep doing your core exercises. I do 200 sit-ups and 50 push-ups every day. I throw in an occasional plank, too. It makes you think you are doing something until you feel like running again. Anything else that anyone does for recovery?

Marathon #50 race report aka the good, the bad and the ugly...

So, marathon #50 has come and gone this past Sunday...I have four more before the end of 2014, so I don't have much time to linger on this one. Here are a few highlights, though: Chasing the Unicorn, Washington Crossing, PA - Sunday, August 17 7:15am start Set in the beautiful Washington Crossing Historic Park north of Philadelphia, PA, this race was a double-out-and-back on a canal path (about 1 car-length wide) that runs parallel to the Delaware River. About 300 brave souls ran the race and they seemed to be all Type A Boston qualifiers. Despite only 300 runners, there was a 'wave' start to spread out the field on the fairly narrow canal path. I should have taken the hint when I saw that I was in Wave 6 and there wasn't anyone behind me in the starting corral. I took off with the Wave 5 people so I wasn't standing there alone with a sheepish grin on my mug. I knew there was rain forecasted, but I didn't want to mention that to my wife or she would have stayed in bed. She bravely brought her bike and patiently trekked around for the 4+ hours, including the last 10 miles of feet shuffling with me. She really knows her birds and wildlife, of which there were plenty to see along the canal (swans, turtles by the caseload, egrets (I'm in way over my head mentioning egrets), etc. As the eventual winner cruised by me on his final leg while I was heading out for my second half loop, I was struck by the level of talent at all of these races. The same person doesn't win every marathon, so the depth of the fields is always staggering. These are folks who put in 50-150 miles per week plus speed work to reach these levels (while probably working full-time and having families, etc). Amazing! My 30-40 miles per week is paltry in comparison. I eventually made it over and under several bridges on the pancake-flat course to the turn-around and clicked off the last 6.5 miles to the finish. The crowd support was rated a B+ where folks had taken up positions on the bridges. Other exercise enthusiasts were running and biking along the canal at the same time, so it was not a closed course (which was completely fine). Things that went right: 1. I finished. 2. I didn't hurt myself (at least I don't think) or anyone else. 3. I spent some quality time with my wife. 4. I realized how lucky I am to be able to do these crazy events. Things that didn't help: 1. Had a sports massage a couple of days before the race. I wouldn't normally do this, so the added muscle tweaking might have tightened me up rather than loosened me up. 2. Swam laps in a pool the day before the race...not just casual laps, but crazy man, all-out, trying-to-win laps...dumb... 3. Believe it or not, I wore a brand new pair of Mizuno Precision 13s for this race. The tread on my previous two pairs of MP 13s was trashed, so I called a last minute audible. This seemed to lead to some foot pain (metatarsal?) for the duration of the run which kept me running on the grassy part next to the trail. It doesn't hurt today, so we'll see. Rookie mistake #99... 4. I started the race too fast. I was running 1 min/mile faster than what I usually do trying to keep up with the Joneses..rookie mistake #12... 5. My patented (um, not exactly) method of walking through the aid stations (which were about 1.5 miles apart and had water (always) and Gatorade (sometimes)) didn't seem to help my running. I think this technique works really well if you start slow and shoot for a negative split in the race. 6. I didn't see anything resembling food on the course. There was a person handing out Honey Stinger gel packets (which were delicious), but no bananas, cookies, etc. I like a little snack somewhere in the proceedings, so this was a bummer. 7. I have a new Garmin 220 which displays the distance, time and was set for current pace. This was great to see my current pace, but I really want to know my average pace. I had to do a bunch of math during the run to figure out how I was tracking. Math and running long distances don't really mix. All in all, I would recommend this race as a bare-bones, no thrills, good time. The medal was top-notch and the shirt was a white singlet (which is unusual and was welcomed as a change-of-pace). A final top tip is to wear your short gaiters to keep the dirt and stones from invading your shoes.

The dreaded taper...

I can't think of anything worse (well, yes I can...) than wanting to run and not running. This is the informal definition of tapering before a marathon. Even worse would be wanting to run and not being able to due to injury, etc. The taper takes many forms and shapes for different people. Some people can power through them and keep running their usual mileage. I like to take it easy the week before a marathon with a couple of short, easy runs. This makes me crawl out of my skin, particularly not running on the Sat before the Sun marathon. Saturday is usually one of those days where one should have time to bust a move long or short and fast. Taking Saturday off is pretty much anathema. Even worse (maybe) is taking a couple of days off on the other end of the marathon due to soreness, exhaustion, complacency, laziness, etc. That gets old real fast... The good news is that I usually don't change up my schedule too much other than the week before and the week after a marathon. I don't have a long complicated taper starting weeks in advance. What does your taper look like, so to speak?

Exactly the opposite...

Have you ever had a vacation where you returned home exhausted? Well, I just did. It wasn't from being overly active or from doing so much. It might have been exactly the opposite. The bed, the air conditioner, blah, blah, blah. Whatever it was, it wore me out! I ran the 6.2 mile 'bagel' trail run down to the Brandywine River and back yesterday. I was trying for a record time, but it was pretty much exactly the opposite. I enjoy this particular trail run for multiple reasons: there are multiple water crossings; there are some serious hills; I always say hi to the horses at the farm along the way; the midpoint is the wonderfully scenic Brandywine River; it's uphill on the way back, so the second half is harder than the first half; the corn fields were about 8 feet high, so there are spots where I was running through a tunnel of corn; and the trail landscape changes every time I run it - new trees are down, new rocks are on the trail, etc. What runs have you had that turned out exactly the opposite of what you thought?

Another day in paradise

Just knocked off another 7 miler which was nice and easy. I even stopped on one of the steps overlooking the inlet and took in the beauty of the ocean (for once). It's great to have time to reflect and think about the past and the future. The weather was slightly cooler than the usual midday blazing sun which made it even more enjoyable. I'll be back on my home course tomorrow and starting my usual pre-race weekly prep of food, stretching and somewhat limited running. My next marathon is only 1 week away from Sunday! While they never get easier, I also never get bored of doing them...keep moving forward!

It never gets easier...

I usually reserve this title for a discussion about marathons...which is absolutely true in my case...no matter how many longer-than-marathon runs/races that I do, the marathon never gets easier. This is counter-intuitive on some level. Today, the 7 miler wasn't any easier than the one on Monday. I started slower than Monday, but fairly quickly found myself shuffling along until I consciously tried to pick the pace. I was marginally successful with that approach...but it was still a great run (aren't they all?!). This could indicate overtraining which wouldn't surprise me. If I had my heart rate monitor, I would do the usual test to see if my standing heart rate is elevated upon waking up. I could check this by 'hand', also. I'm not that worried about being overtrained, though, so I'll march on (and maybe take tomorrow off from running)...

Choppy waves

Wow, busy day today that started with a solid 5 mile run in the blazing heat. We went to the beach for the afternoon and heard the siren song of the ocean calling us in. The waves were rough but I managed to float and swim around some. Shout-out to all of the open water swimmers and triathletes out there. The incoming waves literally knocked me down several times. Swamped! It was all good, though, and I felt it by the end of the day. Gonna do it all again tomorrow!

Running on the flat land

Back in the day, I never used to like running the shore races because the terrain is completely flat. The lack of variation made my legs go into auto-pilot, and not in a good way. Now, I definitely like the monotony and calming effect of the flat land runs. As a matter of fact, I ran a pleasant 7 miles today without blinking. Anytime you do a long run or race, it seems to widen your horizon on what distance you can do comfortably. Earlier this year, I ran a long race in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. That was almost completely dead flat and I loved it. It was a point-to-point race, too, which are my favs. Anyway, keep getting out there and making it happen!

Back in the saddle...

Alright, after almost a week off to recover, I finally got out there today for a road run of 6.2m. I could definitely still feel the after-effects of the race last weekend. I basically trained my legs to run 11 min/mile for that last ultra, so I now have to re-train them back to 8-9 min/mile. My next race is Sunday, August 17 in Washington Crossing, PA (Chasing the Unicorn), so I have a couple of weeks to get my act together. My usual routine is to run 2 hard 'time trials' per week on my usual 5 mile course and possibly do a 5k race a week or so before the marathon. Any other ideas?

Haven't run since last Sunday...

I would normally be crawling out of my skin to run after not running for 2-3 days. Not running for 5 days is almost unheard of for me. In this case, after running a bunch of mileage last weekend, I don't want to jump back in the water too quickly for fear of injury (oh, did I mention that big, honking blister on my heel?!). I try to de-taper after a run the same way as I tapered. So, my next run will probably only be 3-4 miles. Does anyone do anything different than that after a race?

In 24 race highlights

Having just run 76 miles at the In 24 hour urban ultra last weekend, I was reflecting on the good, the bad and the ugly.  No matter how short or long the race, one always gets ideas from other people and the surroundings. The key is to actually learn from them. Below are a couple of tidbits that I came away with:

1. Never underestimate the weather.  In the case of last Sat-Sun, the weather was 80 deg F with fairly low humidity and a slight wind which is about as good as it's gonna get in mid-July in Philadelphia.  The weather at this event in previous years usually averages around 90 deg with 90% humidity.  The event was even re-scheduled last year to a Sept date which resulted in torrential rain (which is still arguably better than 90deg/90%.
2. Footwear can be deceiving over longer race distances.  I always train in running shoes for many miles before using them in a long race.  What you don't know is how they will perform in a long run/race until you get there.  In the latest 24 hour race, I started developing hot spots on my feet (metatarsal and heel) relatively early in the race (30+ miles).  I stopped at one point and changed my shoes (to a different pair of the same brand/model) and re-dusted my feet with Glide and baby powder.  This helped for a while, but eventually I felt the telltale funkiness of the dreaded blister on my heel.  The blister would have been a major problem in a longer race.
3. Stopping at aid stations can add up.  In this case, the course had six aid stations (not including the start line) on the 8.45m loop.  My nemesis was at the start-stop line.  We had a gigantic 20", three room tent setup in the little 'tent city' next to the starting line.  This became a magnet that sucked me in for at least 15-30 every loop.  I'm no mathematician, but that adds up to some serious time over 9 loops.
4. Nutrition, nutrition, nutrition.  Since you have to eat real food/meals during a race like this, it's important to figure out what foods work for you and your stomach.  I wasn't very hungry as usual and only managed several bites from an Italian hoagie, some veggies from a meatloaf platter and miscellaneous items from the aid stations.  Not enough to sustain me in a long event like this.  My magic brew of Campbell's chicken noodle soup fell flat when I first tasted it, too. I need to find something that provides high calories but doesn't upset the stomach. 

Ok, that's all for now.  I may add to this list in the future based on what comes to mind.  Happy running!