The 75-year-old friend that I was running with Saturday came with me on Monday, when I began Week Two of the Plan. This week is identical to last week - six miles of hills on Monday, six miles easy on Wednesday and Thursday, and then 10 miles on Saturday. The only different was that it felt so much easier this week! It's the magic of training - we condition ourselves to run long and to run fast, and it is an absolute miracle to discover that we get stronger with smart training (i.e., training that pushes us, rest that strengthens us). Surely this is the miracle that keeps all athletes training, over and over, re-learning the secret of training, that the body responds to hard work (and rest) by getting stronger, not weaker. As the Plan continues, I will eventually be doing mile repeats and 800-meter repeats, and comparing them week to week. And it is always so encouraging to find that what seems daunting today will seem relatively easy by the time I stand on the starting line. I will always remember what Martha told me when we were training together for her first marathon, and we were increasing our long runs each Saturday to18 and 20 miles on alternate weeks. One week we were supposed to run "only" 10 miles and she said, 'I never thought I would get to the point where I would think that 10 miles is an easy run!"
My 75-year old friend is Jim Askew, and he is a real inspiration. Last year he led the way for 10 or 11 miles of a half marathon race that we ran together, and I think I only passed him because his longest run was 10 or 11 miles. This year he is already posting 5-K times that I ran years ago and could not imagine running today. And Monday, although he took some strategic walking breaks, he ran all the way up both mountains with me. I will give thanks every day if I am merely walking at the age of 75, let along running like that. And then there is Charlie Dotson, my 89-year old friend from Lake Junaluska, who is still running strong! It's no surprise that these old-timers get the loudest applause from the rest of us at the Awards Ceremony. We are applauding the kind of men and women we would all like to be at that age.
But what a disappointment this week! My bear was not anywhere to be seen. Jim and I were prepared to tell him where to go . . .
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
The Long Run
The Plan for Saturday called for 10 miles, and I ended up going a little more than that - 10.27 by my GPS watch. I have run farther than that in recent weeks, but I decided to roll the distance back because there is plenty of time remaining in this plan for double-digit runs. If the plan calls for 10, or 14, or 18 miles, I would count it as much a failure to run more than that as less.
Still, I depart from the Plan in one way, and this has helped me (I think) in many marathons so far. I run the last mile faster than all the other miles, faster than my marathon goal pace (MGP = 9:00-minute miles) if I can. The theory is that this will teach me to run fast at the very end of a long run, when I need to dig deep. Saturday I ended up doing the final mile in 8:20, which was very satisfying. Even though the 75-year old friend I was running with finished in 8:13.
We all do the best we can.
Still, I depart from the Plan in one way, and this has helped me (I think) in many marathons so far. I run the last mile faster than all the other miles, faster than my marathon goal pace (MGP = 9:00-minute miles) if I can. The theory is that this will teach me to run fast at the very end of a long run, when I need to dig deep. Saturday I ended up doing the final mile in 8:20, which was very satisfying. Even though the 75-year old friend I was running with finished in 8:13.
We all do the best we can.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Amazing Weight Loss Secret! Lose Three Pounds a Day!
As I post this entry early in the afternoon, it is 87 degrees outside and there is still a lot of time for that number to rise. I know that is "cool" by Atlanta standards, but it is hot and humid for Highlands, and so we ran this morning when it was only in the upper 70s and there was a nice breeze. Still - despite drinking often before, during, and after running - the combined heat and humidity caused me to lose three pounds (and mowing the lawn after lunch did not help any). Three pounds! At this rate I will lose 21 pounds in a week!
Losing excess weight is a good thing for a runner. The age-old, tested formula that comes to mind is this: two seconds per mile per pound. That is the amount of time over distance one can expect to gain by losing weight, down to the optimum weight, below which diminishing returns can be expected. Translated into time, the loss of ten excess pounds means a gain of 20 seconds per mile, or 8.73 minutes over the course of a marathon. But I know what my optimum weight is - 180 pounds - because I have always achieved it by the time I stand on the starting line of a marathon. One of our runners told me three years ago, when I was training to qualify for Boston, that I looked "gaunt," which pleased me no end. That may be a little extreme, but it is true that by the end of this training program I will no longer have that little pooched-out bit of flab right under my navel - my auxiliary fuel tank for the final six miles. I will not have any excess fat on me at all. I will be lean and focused and in the best condition I have ever been in, which in itself is a good reason to train for a marathon.
But today was different. Today it was all about fluid loss in this heat and humidity, and I am under no illusion that I have lost weight as I eventually will when my mileage increases (the rule for that is 100 calories per mile). So I will drink as much as I can all day today, and tomorrow too, and eventually I will be back up to normal. Three pounds is a lot of water!
Losing excess weight is a good thing for a runner. The age-old, tested formula that comes to mind is this: two seconds per mile per pound. That is the amount of time over distance one can expect to gain by losing weight, down to the optimum weight, below which diminishing returns can be expected. Translated into time, the loss of ten excess pounds means a gain of 20 seconds per mile, or 8.73 minutes over the course of a marathon. But I know what my optimum weight is - 180 pounds - because I have always achieved it by the time I stand on the starting line of a marathon. One of our runners told me three years ago, when I was training to qualify for Boston, that I looked "gaunt," which pleased me no end. That may be a little extreme, but it is true that by the end of this training program I will no longer have that little pooched-out bit of flab right under my navel - my auxiliary fuel tank for the final six miles. I will not have any excess fat on me at all. I will be lean and focused and in the best condition I have ever been in, which in itself is a good reason to train for a marathon.
But today was different. Today it was all about fluid loss in this heat and humidity, and I am under no illusion that I have lost weight as I eventually will when my mileage increases (the rule for that is 100 calories per mile). So I will drink as much as I can all day today, and tomorrow too, and eventually I will be back up to normal. Three pounds is a lot of water!
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Chief Nourisher in Life's Feast
Today marked my third day of training, but only my second day of running. I ran six miles Monday and six miles today (Wednesday). But yesterday? Yesterday I took that very special supplement that all wise runners take on a regular basis: a Rest Day.
It is not always easy to remember when embarking on an ambitious training plan that one or two days of complete rest each week is an essential part of the training. And that means a day and a night of nourishing sleep and nourishing food, of avoiding the temptation to "get in a few extra miles." When we rest, our bodies recover from the stress of the previous day and become strong. This early in the program, it seems especially counter-intuitive to take a day off ("Already? Really?"), but it is as important now as it will be in October in the midst of 20-mile runs when a day of rest appears on the horizon like an oasis. We climb the summit of marathon training just like we do a real mountain, gradually, looping back and forth in ever-ascending switchbacks. Only the elite or the foolish can dare to ascend Satulah Mountain by climbing straight up its rocky race.
So yesterday I rested, and last night I got a good night's sleep - isn't that a wonderful expression? I am reminded of MacBeth's famous quote about sleep:
"Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast." [Act II, Scene ii}
Chief nourisher in any sensible marathon training plan, too.
It is not always easy to remember when embarking on an ambitious training plan that one or two days of complete rest each week is an essential part of the training. And that means a day and a night of nourishing sleep and nourishing food, of avoiding the temptation to "get in a few extra miles." When we rest, our bodies recover from the stress of the previous day and become strong. This early in the program, it seems especially counter-intuitive to take a day off ("Already? Really?"), but it is as important now as it will be in October in the midst of 20-mile runs when a day of rest appears on the horizon like an oasis. We climb the summit of marathon training just like we do a real mountain, gradually, looping back and forth in ever-ascending switchbacks. Only the elite or the foolish can dare to ascend Satulah Mountain by climbing straight up its rocky race.
So yesterday I rested, and last night I got a good night's sleep - isn't that a wonderful expression? I am reminded of MacBeth's famous quote about sleep:
"Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast." [Act II, Scene ii}
Chief nourisher in any sensible marathon training plan, too.
Monday, July 23, 2012
The Long Road Upwinding Ahead
Today is a new day. It is Day One - the first day of a sixteen-week marathon-training plan. It is always a little intimidating embarking on a journey like this, especially as I discover with amazement that I keep sliding into older and older age groups. But it was a beautiful day and my plan on Day One called for six miles of "hills," so I chose Big Bearpen Mountain and Sunset Rocks. Running up mountains is an appropriate way to begin, because training for a marathon is a gradual process, moving forward and upward step by step, climbing to the summit of fitness, the acme of preparation, until I can stand on the starting line and say, "I have done all that I could do, and it is enough." So I climbed slowly and easily, feeling the strength in my legs, the cool morning breeze, watching the long road upwinding ahead through the green rhododendron, until finally I stood at the very summit and stopped and gave thanks (and stretched my tight hamstring), gazing out at Satulah Mountain and Whiteside.
It was an auspicious day. Before I even got onto the lower slopes of Bearpen, I ran through Highlands Manor and talked to the owner of that big white Irish wolfhound, Czar (shouldn't it be an Irish name, though?). His little helmeted son rode his training-wheeled bike beside me, legs furiously turning, asking me if this was my "first loop." And then he asked, "Are you running, or jogging?" Admittedly, it might have been hard to tell the difference at that point. But this is a new day, the beginning of a plan, and I am a firm believer in planning your run and running your plan. So I am no longer just running, and certainly not merely jogging - I am in training! And that is a very satisfying feeling: to focus once again on that distant goal, to become a little leaner, a little more disciplined, a little less likely to eat that brownie at the Roadrunners Club picnic.
I always feel as if I am on the edge of the miraculous when I embark on this adventure, because, truly, for an ordinary person like myself to run his 18th marathon at the age of 63 is the height of incautious behavior. Only a miracle will get me to the finish line. But perhaps that is why we try it again and again: because we want to be part of the miracle, to dig deep and dip into those deep wells of the miraculous.
And another miracle happened today. I had stopped to talk to Vicki Heller at the beginning of my run, and she asked me if there had been any bear sightings recently. Vicki achieved notoriety in the pages of our newsletter recently for famously encountering a bear on Big Bearpen Mountain and shouting to it to "Go Home!" I told her that no bears had been seen in the past couple of weeks except on Fred Motz's deck, but that if I saw one I would command it to go home. As I circled the loop at the top and started down, I was thinking to myself, “I am going to be running Big Bearpen a lot this summer and it is only a matter of time before I do encounter another bear,” and - I swear this is true! - at that very moment I came around a curve and there was a large black bear standing in the road less than 50 feet in front of me. He turned and looked at me, and began unhurriedly to walk away down the middle of the road. He did not look like any of the three bears photographed recently onFred's deck, or a cartoonish Yogi carrying a swiped picnic basket. Instead, he was decidedly lean and lanky, sauntering away from the trash can he had just opened for breakfast. I stopped in the road and watched from a safe distance, and then I clapped my hands, hollered “Hey,” and then laughed and shouted, “Go home, Bear!” He looked over his shoulder at me with a kind of insolent smirk, then slouched down a driveway and out of sight. What a miraculous sight!
The journey begins . . .
It was an auspicious day. Before I even got onto the lower slopes of Bearpen, I ran through Highlands Manor and talked to the owner of that big white Irish wolfhound, Czar (shouldn't it be an Irish name, though?). His little helmeted son rode his training-wheeled bike beside me, legs furiously turning, asking me if this was my "first loop." And then he asked, "Are you running, or jogging?" Admittedly, it might have been hard to tell the difference at that point. But this is a new day, the beginning of a plan, and I am a firm believer in planning your run and running your plan. So I am no longer just running, and certainly not merely jogging - I am in training! And that is a very satisfying feeling: to focus once again on that distant goal, to become a little leaner, a little more disciplined, a little less likely to eat that brownie at the Roadrunners Club picnic.
I always feel as if I am on the edge of the miraculous when I embark on this adventure, because, truly, for an ordinary person like myself to run his 18th marathon at the age of 63 is the height of incautious behavior. Only a miracle will get me to the finish line. But perhaps that is why we try it again and again: because we want to be part of the miracle, to dig deep and dip into those deep wells of the miraculous.
And another miracle happened today. I had stopped to talk to Vicki Heller at the beginning of my run, and she asked me if there had been any bear sightings recently. Vicki achieved notoriety in the pages of our newsletter recently for famously encountering a bear on Big Bearpen Mountain and shouting to it to "Go Home!" I told her that no bears had been seen in the past couple of weeks except on Fred Motz's deck, but that if I saw one I would command it to go home. As I circled the loop at the top and started down, I was thinking to myself, “I am going to be running Big Bearpen a lot this summer and it is only a matter of time before I do encounter another bear,” and - I swear this is true! - at that very moment I came around a curve and there was a large black bear standing in the road less than 50 feet in front of me. He turned and looked at me, and began unhurriedly to walk away down the middle of the road. He did not look like any of the three bears photographed recently onFred's deck, or a cartoonish Yogi carrying a swiped picnic basket. Instead, he was decidedly lean and lanky, sauntering away from the trash can he had just opened for breakfast. I stopped in the road and watched from a safe distance, and then I clapped my hands, hollered “Hey,” and then laughed and shouted, “Go home, Bear!” He looked over his shoulder at me with a kind of insolent smirk, then slouched down a driveway and out of sight. What a miraculous sight!
The journey begins . . .
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Can I Run Fast Again?
What a relief to know that I can still run fast! One of my friends, Sam Edgens, e-mailed me today and said that he was coming back slowly from his own debut marathon several months earlier. "Good lord, I am out of shape," he wrote. "I felt good enough to even try 800s on Tuesday but could only muster one at 3:34, then jogged home." I told him not to beat himself up. "Marathons take a real toll on the body and it takes awhile to get over it all, both physically and psychologically. After my last marathon I thought I would NEVER run fast again! I have looked back, too, and wondered how I ever managed to run mile repeats, 800s, and marathon-pace workouts like I did only a few short months ago. I can be really discouraging." I told him about my 5-K and said, "It will all come back again and you will be a stronger and wiser runner for your next big race."
Easy to say to a young runner like him. For me, at this point, I am still struggling with that old line, "The older I get, the faster I was."
Easy to say to a young runner like him. For me, at this point, I am still struggling with that old line, "The older I get, the faster I was."
First Race Since Pirates Fly
We have not run a race since the Flying Pirate Half Marathon, and discovered when we opened our little race diaries that we did not even write that one up. I can understand why I would want to forget it, but Martha should not forget dusting me!
The Firecracker 5-K in Bryson City is notoriously fast, and also short. But this year they corrected the latter problem, extending the start line way down the road and using chip timing. Still, the registration was congested and slow, and the lines to the rest rooms were long; and as a result, Martha did not get to warm up longer than 30 seconds. In addition, they ran the course backwards this year (due to "safety concerns"), a decision apparently made at the last minute, because some volunteer apparently simply remarked the one- and two-mile splits; I noted on my GPS watch that the first marked mile was actually 1.1, and the second was 2.1. This was a bit discouraging for Martha, who thought she was running a 9-minute mile when it was actually closer to an 8-minute mile. These factors prevented what I expected to happen at any moment from actually occuring: Martha coming up beside me, passing me, and beating me to the finish, which I sincerely would have love to see. I kept thinking I heard her, breathing behind me, but it was only a white-haired guy - in my age group? - coming up beside me at the two-mile mark and promptly mumbling, "Got to walk," then disappearing. (He turned out to be 71, and managed to take 1st place in his age group.)
Despite these mishaps, Martha took 2nd place, and I was startled to find that I had taken 1st place. Is it possible that I can still run fast? I had been surprised two days before to find that I would run a 1:42 400-meter in the middle of my traditional 3-mile easy pre-race jog as I tried to stay with little Jackie Cuervas-Reyes in our running group. Perhaps I can still do it! Well, half-fast, anyway . . .
The Firecracker 5-K in Bryson City is notoriously fast, and also short. But this year they corrected the latter problem, extending the start line way down the road and using chip timing. Still, the registration was congested and slow, and the lines to the rest rooms were long; and as a result, Martha did not get to warm up longer than 30 seconds. In addition, they ran the course backwards this year (due to "safety concerns"), a decision apparently made at the last minute, because some volunteer apparently simply remarked the one- and two-mile splits; I noted on my GPS watch that the first marked mile was actually 1.1, and the second was 2.1. This was a bit discouraging for Martha, who thought she was running a 9-minute mile when it was actually closer to an 8-minute mile. These factors prevented what I expected to happen at any moment from actually occuring: Martha coming up beside me, passing me, and beating me to the finish, which I sincerely would have love to see. I kept thinking I heard her, breathing behind me, but it was only a white-haired guy - in my age group? - coming up beside me at the two-mile mark and promptly mumbling, "Got to walk," then disappearing. (He turned out to be 71, and managed to take 1st place in his age group.)
Despite these mishaps, Martha took 2nd place, and I was startled to find that I had taken 1st place. Is it possible that I can still run fast? I had been surprised two days before to find that I would run a 1:42 400-meter in the middle of my traditional 3-mile easy pre-race jog as I tried to stay with little Jackie Cuervas-Reyes in our running group. Perhaps I can still do it! Well, half-fast, anyway . . .
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