The Taper Begins

October 31, 2010

herb running, training 1 Comment

October is done and so am I. Stick a fork in me. I’m so glad it’s over.

This was a tough month, but I’m finishing it off with the highest monthly mileage for the year; 258 miles. And most miles were at a fast pace. I also lost 5 pounds in the process without intending to.

I’m happy I was able to complete all of the four long runs that I planned at marathon pace. The first was tough, but the second was much worse. I was going to bail and go easy on the third, but decided when I saw what my pace was after the first few miles that I would try to hold it. It was torture by the time I was done.

The last one was somewhat easier, and it was for 22 miles. The pace was as fast as the others, 7:00. There were a few things different about this though. For starters, I intentionally began by running slower than the pace I ended. Plus, I ran this on a different route, and listened to a different playlist on my iPod. Just the thought of starting out on the same route as the other three times made me cringe in fear

I know this type of training is somewhat unorthodox. But, I’ve always been the guy to go against conventional wisdom or say the things that go against the grain. It doesn’t make sense to me how you can expect to race at a pace for a certain distance if you don’t train at that pace over a comparable distance.

Now the insanity starts as I begin my taper. The first week or two will actually be nice. I need a break. But, I know by the last week I’ll begin to feel I’m losing all the fitness I’ve worked so hard for.

I’m curious how this will all turn out. I’ve done enough of these marathons now to know that bombing on race day will be meaningless in the big scheme of things. This season’s training will just add to the next no matter what happens on November 21st.

I might go out with a gamble in mind in terms of effort. If I hit a goal, great! If not, I’ll get the PR next time.

Oh yeah, Happy Halloween. Hopefully, I can now start posting about stuff other than my training.

Packing the last hay in the barn

October 26, 2010

herb mindless dribble, running, training Leave a comment

I’m in the last week of hard training before tapering for the Philly marathon. I’ve been keeping my thoughts to myself lately and off the blog, mainly because they’ve been somewhat negative in regards to my motivation.

What defines this as “hard” training for me is simply one tempo run of 9 miles on Wednesdays, and a long run of 20 miles at marathon pace. I promised myself to do this for the entire month of October. In between are easy days with just Tuesdays off. But it’s the long runs that are kind of adding up and taking their toll. More mental than anything else.

Surprisingly, all is well on the physical front with the exception on my right achilles a bit tight at times, but I have enough experience with it to know it’s not near anything like tendonitis or tendinosis. I’ve been taking some precautionary measures as well with the heating pad at nights (that’s right, NOT ice). After my long runs, I’m very diligent about getting carbs and protein in the form of tart cherry juice and 2 hard-boiled eggs (usually without the yolks). The cherry juice also has an added benefit of keeping inflammation at bay and might be why I’ve been able to recover better than usual. If it sounds gross, well, it is. But I’m a sucker for placebos like these, and these seem to work great.

Tart Cherry Juice - Liquid Aspirin


Tastes great when washed down with a glass of tart cherry juice - NOT

For October, I’ve done 60 miles for each of the past three weeks. Each week ended with a long run that left me completely hurting. Each one hurt more than the one before. I’ve done three so far. Here, here, and here. If I do all my planned miles for the rest of the month, I’ll finish off with 260 miles total. This has been the toughest month I’ve every put myself through.

For the long run I just did last Saturday, I originally planned to do it easier. And, I started with that intention, but it’s like I forgot how to run these slower. When I covered the first 10 miles, and my garmin reported an average pace faster than what I would need for a sub 3:00 marathon, I naively hoped I could hold it for 20 just to see.

Lo and behold, I could not. At least, not on that day. I slowed down enough to average a 6:59 pace by the end. And although its not a faster pace on average than the one I did in the prior week, it was probably the most painful 20 miles I’ve ever pushed through. And it was done on a day where I really could have used a long run with a finish that left me feeling great. I had a few of those back in the spring. With the last two, all I could think of was how the hell am I going to get through the next one?

End of this week, I might do my last long run a little easier. But, I’ll probably stretch it out for an extra two miles and make it 22. Then I’m done. I’ll do plenty of marathon pace runs during the taper.

I want to feel a 20 mile run at marathon pace will be easy on race day. These runs aren’t really doing that for me. In fact, I’ve been dreading my long run. That is quite the opposite of how I normally feel, since I’ always looked forward to running long on the weekend.

But, it did prove to me one thing. I could do 20 miles at marathon pace, even on a bad day. An extra 6.2? Dunno yet.

Will all the extra effort pay off? Hard to tell, regardless of the outcome. If I bomb it could be for a slew of unrelated reasons. You can’t prove a negative. And if I do great, it doesn’t necessarily prove running 20 miles at marathon pace four times was the sole reason either.

Some progress

October 16, 2010

herb running, training Leave a comment

I just ran 20 miles on a measured course in 2:19:11. That’s a 6:57 pace.

Two more of these long runs and then I being my taper.

I’m trying to figure out what pace I should target when I run Philly.

Beeturia

October 14, 2010

herb health, mindless dribble, running, training , , 8 Comments

I’ve always been a big fan of juicing or blending vegetables. Actually, I tend to blend more often than I juice. For one thing, there are more benefits to consuming the whole vegetable instead of just its juice. But more importantly, the blender is a hell of a lot easier to clean than the juicer.

There are 6 vegetables I juice and/or blend on a regular basis. Each of these were selected for a particular reason to fit my specific needs.

  1. Kale (blend)
  2. Celery (blend)
  3. Cabbage (juice)
  4. Carrots (blend or juice)
  5. Broccoli (blend or juice)
  6. Banana (blend) ok, it’s a fruit.

From there I tend to throw in additional vegetables or fruits based on whatever is available. Beets has been one of them on occasion.

Then I read this article on how beet juice and nitric oxide can help performance. Afterwards, I decided beets should be added to the list above as a regular addition to my regimen.

Beets! - the new Perpetuem

It took a couple of tries, but I came up with my own recipe for a delicious beet smoothie

In a blender I put the following :

  • 1 whole raw beet about the size of a baseball
  • 3 stalks of celery
  • 2 carrots
  • a glass of ice and some water
  • a squeeze of agave syrup for a couple of seconds

Blend until smooth and viola.

It's actually tastes as good as it looks. ....And I meant it tastes good if that wasn't clear.

If you’re curious what the bowl of green stuff is, it’s my yogurt

  • 2/3 a cup of zero fat fage total greek yogurt
  • 4 or 5 big leaves of kale
  • 1 banana
  • a handful of chia seeds
  • a handful steel cut oatmeal

Blend until smooth.
Add almonds on top

Ok, so that’s all fun and good.

A couple of days later I went out for a pretty good marathon paced run during my lunch hour. I wound up doing about 20 seconds faster per mile than marathon pace. Things were good and easy but I was pushing the effort.

Back at work, after I took my first piss, I almost fainted in fear as I looked at what seemed to be a bright red stream of blood. I almost screamed in horror. What is it that is bleeding inside me? My kidneys? My testicles? But nothing hurts!!! What’s different? Oh right… the beets? Did the beets do that?

I ran back to my desk to google beets urine red. To my relief I have something called Beeturia. Digging deeper, I was curious to find out why all of a sudden? It wasn’t my first time consuming the beets like this. I learned this is sometimes related to an iron deficiency for unknown reasons. I know I’m not anemic. I dismissed this.

It didn’t happen again for a few days.

Then it did.

And it was worse. Much much worse. It was a bright red cherry colored stream with a flourescent hue.

And it was after running a 6 mile tempo is Central Park. That tempo was much more strenuous than the 6 mile marathon pace from before. The days in between I only ran easy. I was beginning to notice a pattern here.

Because I’m fascinated with this I dug a little deeper and I found another article.

…suggests that beeturia is more likely to occur at a time of “iron hunger” perhaps via the pathway for iron absorption. Because beeturia can appear and disappear in individuals, at least some of the 14% incidence may be due to the fluctuating nature of iron absorption in normal individuals.

Hmm. That actually made a lot of sense to me in my layman brain.

It seems, every time I run hard, I piss red now. Kind of funny.

Countdown begins

October 11, 2010

herb racing, running 4 Comments

We’re now in the second full week of October and this is the last month for which I can prepare for the Philadelphia marathon. By the end of this month I begin my taper for Nov 21st. I’m sort of looking forward to this because I’ve been feeling somewhat burned out recently. That’s actually not a good sign, being that the last time I felt like this before my marathon, I had a disaster of a race.

Not only that, but I would have liked to have started this month off with a bit more confidence in my preparation. In some ways, I feel mostly prepared when I think back to the half marathon PR I had in August, and the 18 mile tune up in September.

But, what’s key to my confidence is the 20 mile runs I’ll do at marathon pace towards the end of my training. 20 miles fast is something I need to believe I can easily do before going into the race. It worked very well for me for both Boston and New York.

So, for October, I decided I would get in at least four good long runs at a fast pace. There are five weekends in October this year.

Well, before the first weekend, I came down with a cold and had to skip running for two days. And, Saturday was one of the days. But luckily, I had enough in me to make it down to the Paine to Pain half marathon for a fun run through the trails. I didn’t have plans to race this, and coming off a cold, I wasn’t in condition either. But I did tack on 5 miles before at least, so an easy 18 miles for the day was better than no long run at all.

So, for the following weekend I had the Westchester half marathon planned on Sunday for quite some time. Since I wasn’t able to get in the kind of long run I wanted to the week prior, I decided to skip the Westchester half in favor of doing 20 miles fast on Saturday. It was tougher than I thought it would be, but after completing 20.25 miles at 7:04 pace I believed I did the right thing by skipping the race… Up until the next day.

Sunday morning, with all the excitement of the Chicago marathon going on, and the Westchester half down the block from me, I decided to take an easy run from my house down to the finish of the race. It was such a great day for a race, and boy, did I have regrets I wasnt racing that day along with everyone else.

I saw my friend Mark, who’ve I’ve done 4 of the NYRR half marathons with, and was really happy to hear he blew his PR out of the water. It’s hard to admit this, but I was also a bit jealous. Not just of his success, but of all the finishers standing around enjoying the finish of their race. It really was the perfect day and perfect weather for a race. Conditions I havent had all summer. I knew this course well and could almost feel what it would have been like to race it. It wasn’t until that point did I realize how much I actually wanted to do this half. I realized I missed an opportunity to see what I can really do in ideal conditions, and to make matters worse, I realized I wasn’t getting another chance this season. Summer is over, and fall will be over by the time I do Philly.

Since then, for the first time, I’ve sort of been feeling like this preparation is becoming a chore. Being able to do these fast long runs on the weekend was something I usually looked forward to. Hopefully, that desire will return by next weekend.
I still have three more of these to do before I can start cutting back.

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