Autumn Breeze

I was sorely tempted to run the Autumn Breeze 5-K in Tallulah Falls, Georgia this afternoon.  The sky was a brilliant shade of blue, the air was nice and cool with a little breeze, and the course was as flat as it gets in North Georgia.  But this was Martha's race, part of her own half-marathon training plan, and the only real speed work she is doing since she is building her mileage from virtually nothing.  (Derek and Lindsay went down the mountain from Highlands and ran the race as well.)

She was looking at this as a training run, but she surpassed both of our expectations, finishing in just a couple of seconds over 31 minutes and taking 2nd place in her age group despite being the oldest in said age group!  Way to go Martha!  Beautiful trophy, beautiful woman.

For my part, it would have been idiotic to run a 5-K the day after an 18-mile training run, and two days before a demanding set of mile repeats.  Wouldn't it?  Derek joked with me before the race that there was still time to sign up.  And I realized that I was wearing a fairly decent set of old running shoes, could un-zip the lower legs from these hiking pants, and simply replace my easy 3-mile run scheduled for tomorrow with a nice easy 5-K run.  Fortunately I came to my senses.  Because I know I would not have held back, and I might very well have hurt myself.

The old adage is a good one - did Joe Henderson say it in his book? - there is nothing at this point in your training plan that will help you run a better marathon.  But there is a lot you can do to ruin it.

18 Miles on a Windy Day

Following a day of rain on Friday, a strong Canadian front came through Highlands last night and it has turned cold and windy.  Last night the stars were bright and high clouds flew across the night sky, and this morning we awoke to bright October Blue skies (yes, that is a real color!) and a strong wind out of the north and west, which seemed to be in our faces no matter which corner we turned.

We had a nice group this morning, perhaps 15 of us in all, including two visitors from Wilmington, Lon and Sandi, who were up here training for their very first marathon, Marine Corps in three weeks.  It was great talking to them, and despite all I told Lon during the course of our 14 miles together he seemed more determined than ever to get across the finish line - a sure sign that he has a serious case of this strange marathon fever that seems to take over otherwise sane and ordinary mortals at certain times in their lives.  They are both in good shape and I predict they will have a good race.  Sandi cut her run short a couple of miles because a troublesome hamstring had tightened up, a sign of good sense uncharacteristic in most of us marathon runners and a lesson I need to remember every day:  be attentive to your body.

All of this talk about marathons psyched me up for my own race as well.  And that's most of the battle won, here on these long roads:  being psyched up, being mentally prepared to face whatever awaits us out there in the unknown.  Because although I have run 19 of these things, I still have a lot to learn about myself.  It reminds me of Alberto Salazar writing about a marathon being an imponderable event.  Surely even the elites stand on that starting line and realize that anything can happen.  And that's what makes us return to it again and again.  But Lon and Sandi have done all the hard work and for them it is taper time, and then they will get to celebrate for 26.2 miles.

I did adjust my long run as well - the schedule called for 20 miles, but I have another one of those coming up in two weeks and like Sandi I had a recurrence of that tightening high in my hamstring.  So I toughed out the last four miles as the unrelenting wind seemed to pick up even more and more speed.  Coming down Sixth Street in my final mile it was so strong in my face that I started laughing at it.  And recalling one of my favorite quotes from Shakespeare ("As You Like It"):

". . .The seasons’ difference; as, the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
‘This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.’
Sweet are the uses of adversity."

Ten Mile Tempo Run

It's hard for most runners to avoid being a little bit obsessive (some might say anal) about time and distance.  I began the year (see post of January 2) realizing that I am often "The Man Who Knows Too Much."

"I am indeed The Man Who Knows Too Much sometimes. . . I know the predicted weather from four or five weather apps on my iPhone, my exact mileage and pace at any given time during a run, my planned distance, my cadence, my approximate heartbeat, and where that patch of ice will be on Lower Lake Road.  Some of these things are good to know (e.g. patch of ice) but others can distract us from the things we should be discovering along the way, like the aroma of pine needles over by the Biological Station, the light skim of ice on Harris Lake, that indomitable oak tree on Fifth Street that is still clutching all its brown leaves in January. . .This year I resolve to know less.  So that I can discover more."

That's all very well and good until marathon training begins.  Then my running log becomes filled with times and distances obsessively entered in great detail.  I still marvel at the beauty of running in Highlands in every season, in seeing the sunlight slanting down through the morning fog as it did yesterday, wispy wraiths ahead of me on the road slowly rising into the cool morning air, and the same dogwood trees becoming more and more blood-red every day.  But measuring my progress becomes paramount during this 16-week period, and it will indeed be a relief after November 9 to run without looking at my Garmin, to simply run in joy and thanksgiving as I usually do for many weeks whenever I have completed a formidable event.

But this week I was obsessive about a good tempo run, my first 10-miler, and everything clicking along just fine, with splits as fast as 9:20 and as slow as 9:39, but averaging out at 9:28 (plus some decimals I resist entering here).  Tempo runs are tough for me, but I kept thinking yesterday that this was the last time I would be doing this workout (although I have some mile repeats still coming up in my schedule), and thus my last opportunity to run them well.

It really is all about the training.  And it's OK to be obsessive about your running a few weeks every year.

12 Miles - Fast Finish Long Run

Today I ran 12 miles on a gorgeous day in late September.  Early on, there was a good bit of cloud cover, almost as if it was preparing to rain.  But it turned out to be just morning fog slowly dissipating, and by the end of my run the sun was shining brightly in a deep blue sky, the air cool and dry.  It was good to see Sam before, his broken toe mostly healed, and some other runners I had not run with in some time.

I ran the first 10 miles at my easy long-run pace, about 11-minute miles, and then tried a training workout I have been reading about recently:  running the last two miles at tempo pace (also known as a Fast Finish Long Run).  I have done this as part of some of my earlier marathon training plans; it is based on the theory that it will teach tired legs to still run hard.  But I was younger then and I usually hammered out a single final mile at much faster than tempo pace - as fast as I could, really.  This time I tried to hit that magic 9:30.  I failed miserably on the first mile, and there was no excuse because it was on the part of the loop where there are splits marked on the pavement every 200 meters.  I squinted at my Garmin's small print, lost track of almost every split, and ended up running 9:08, way too fast - impressive, but not my goal.  My second mile came in at 9:35, with no splits marked at all, just me trying to feel that comfortable pace, that overdrive gear that does not strain the engine at all.  The pace that will get me to the finish line if it is a good day.

"Overdrive:  a gear in a motor vehicle (or a runner) providing a gear ratio higher than that of the drive gear or top gear, so that engine speed and fuel consumption are reduced in highway travel."

Exactly what I want to achieve.

Wallking the Tightrope

I remember watching white-knuckled last year as Nik Wallenda walked on a tightrope across the Grand Canyon on live TV.  That's a little like how I feel toward the end of a marathon training program, especially for an old guy like me:  always trying to walk the tightrope between pushing another mile, completing another hard workout, and losing balance and teetering into injury.

 
I ran some fast miles on Tuesday, faster than my tempo miles, and the program called for more fast miles today:  10 miles including 8 tempo miles.  After 7 miles I knew that I was pushing it too hard, and I decided to call it a day 8 miles including 6 tempo miles.  (That hamstring high up, tightening up again!)  One of my objectives this year was to run only one hard workout each week, and to complete the long runs on schedule, so I'm not sure how my calendar ended up with hard workouts only two days apart.  That makes, after all, 9 fast miles this week, and a long run only two days from now.   I also discovered that many marathon training plan for guys in their 60s includes no speed work at all, merely the long runs.  Perhaps I should be a little easier on myself?

"Listen to your body!"  Good advice, but so difficult to do, even for an experienced distance runner.  Today I listened.  And I crossed over to the other side, one day closer to my marathon.

New Season and New Workout

Today was the first full day of Fall in Highlands, and as I began my warmup by running a mile or so up Chestnut Street and around the loop to Harris Lake, I could hear the acorns falling all around me.  We have noticed that there are many more acorns this year and they are falling rapidly, but nobody is quite sure if this abundance of mast will actually foretell a hard winter or not.  But it was definitely Fall - the first time it has dipped into the upper 40s at our house (49 by my thermometer this morning) as I did my Tai Chi on the deck.

As befits a new season, I was trying my new alternative to the discredited Yasso 800s - multiples of miles at 15 seconds or so faster than tempo pace.  I figured that this pace, for me, would be 9:15 per mile, exactly midway between mile repeats and tempo miles.  The workout, which is supposed to have been developed by Kevin and Keith Hanson over 20 years, calls for 2 X 6 mile with a 10-minute rest, and then another 2 X 6 mile (plus warmup and cool-down), a total of about 13 miles.   As the Coach on the runner's website Runner Connect explained the workout:

"My favorite workout is the 2 x 6 mile, which was made famous by runners at the Hansons Olympic Development Project:  1 mile w/u, 2 x 6 miles @ 10-20 seconds faster than marathon pace w/10 min rest, 1 mile c/d.  The purpose of this workout is to run at your threshold pace for a total of 12 miles, which will help you: (1) increase your ability to burn fat as fuel source when running at marathon pace; (2) practice running on tired legs; and (3) simulate the “dead leg” feeling many marathoners experience after 18 miles. Likewise, the goal of the 10 minute rest is to get your legs stiff, stagnant and uncomfortable to simulate how your legs will feel during the latter stag of the marathon.

This all sounded pretty reasonable (although I question the Hanson's insistence on a long run of no more than 16 miles).  And also a good workout for a runner in his 20s, not in his 60s - a hell of a lot more ambitious than I could handle!  So I decided to modify it to 2 x 2 miles, especially considering that I have 10 miles to run Thursday (including 8 at tempo pace).

The first two went well - I was 9:12 and then 9:03 - and I still felt strong and fluid after two hard miles.  But midway through the second set, I began to feel that tightening in my upper right hamstring that I have felt from time to time this year.  So what did this older and wiser marathon runner do?  He decided to be uncharacteristically smart and deliberately stop at one mile (9:09) on the second set, cool down, and call it a day.  Surely learning to train deliberately is the hardest thing for a runner to do - not to be sucked into a faster pace than you planned to do, or more miles.  It's difficult sometimes to know the different between cutting a hard run off soon enough that you don't topple over the brink into injury, and simply "wimping out."  I finished out with a long cool-down for a total of 7 miles.  And I felt good about this new workout.  It seemed to be slow enough that it did not enter the V02MAX zone that the Yassos were, I concluded, unnecessarily getting me into, but it still was a good hard threshold pace effort.  Next time I will try both of the 2 x 2 miles and see how that feels.  Or maybe even a  2 X 3 mile.  The important change this year is that I am running more tempo miles (or slightly faster than tempo miles) and cutting down on overall mileage and VO2MAX workouts.  And so far so good.

Every runner is an experiment of one.  And as I told Karen on Saturday, I have never run a marathon before at the age of 65.  I have nothing to compare it with.  So we'll just see how it goes.

18 Miles

The long runs keep getting longer, by about two miles per week, as I approach the 20-mile mark - the longest run in this marathon-training program.  I was fine for the first few miles, but then the damage of those hard tempo miles on Thursday began to take their toll.  It always seems to be a struggle to run two miles more than the last long run, as if there is a solid brick wall that needs to be pushed through or vaulted over, and that wall was 16 miles today as I struggled through the last two, step by step, finally bounding up the hill to the parking lot, and being sort of amazed to see 18.00 smiling at me from my Garmin.  Marathon runners don't like walls much, which is why some of them (foolishly, I think) want to complete the entire 26.2 miles in a training run, hoping to push that wall out ahead of them or topple it down before the big race.

What made this morning's run a little easier was the unexpected companions that I encountered.  I ran the first two miles by myself, then saw Paul coming down Fifth Street (I had not run with him in weeks), so I ran with him for two or three miles at a nice easy pace.  At 9:00 a.m., a small group showed up and I ran with them, and then with Karen for three miles when Jim and Carol peeled off at a faster pace.  And finally - she had delayed her run because she knows I enjoy her help late in a long run! - Martha, looking for me out on the course, and meeting back at Town Hall to run nearly six miles with me toward the end.

Companions make the journey so much easier in all things, don't they?