Well well.....

So, it's almost two years since my last post. Two years! That's cause I don't care that much about blogging. That's got to change a bit I think. My interests and passions wax and wane for reasons I won't get into. It's interesting that I'm coming back to running again after a year plus lay off though. I have always gone back to the weights in-between my passions. The weights have never let me down, transforming my body and giving me something to strive for. Yet, I'm coming to realize more and more that my desires in that arena are more to do with vanity than fitness. I have fallen in love with trail running as there is something transcendent about it that is greater than the way it makes my body look. I enjoy being out in nature and communing with God there. I always have, since I was a little boy, sensing something greater behind the creation, a loving, peaceful presence that calls to me, or pulls on my heart. Surfing has an element in that, running in the woods and hiking have it to.
    I am coming back to running after a foray into Crossfit, and having beat my body up in the process. I am looking for more of those times of communion and plan on sticking around for a while this time, long enough to become a gnarled old man, that is if our whole global order is not upended before then.

Philly Marathon: 3:53

   That's my official time. I guess I feel pretty good about it. I had to hold my pace back the whole race, except for maybe the last 5 miles. I felt really strong throughout the run. I didn't even feel anything noticeable in my body till about mile 12 when I felt a bit of fatigue, or tired legs. I fueled with a Honey Stinger gel every 5 miles and 10 oz.'s of water, and supplemented with a few ounces of gatorade in the second half of the race between the gels just to keep strong. I felt stronger after each gel. I had a blast! The fans were awesome, cheering on in thick crowds for the first half of the race and in Manyunk. They were a real charge. They gave me something to look at in the run instead of the road. It was a charge to pass the leaders on the way out to Manyunk as they were heading to the finish line and to cheer them on.
    I was surprised by how much fun it was. I had a real blast. Yet, this was a stepping stone to the OD 100 next June just to help focus the training and help me get into shape. I felt it did that and I met all my goals. I think I may shoot for a Boston Qualifier next fall after recovering from the OD. So, next up is to recover, then increase my volume, do some 50K's and a 50 miler, maybe two, then OD!

On the edge.

  I feel I'm on the verge of injury. My left ankle niggle is there today, and now my right shin is threatening to turn into shin splits and I have a pain in my right foot in one of my metatarsals that's threatening to become a stress fracture if I push it more. I have a recovery jog planned for today, though some cycle crosstraining may be the better part of wisdom. I know the best training, from what I've read, is one where you are pushing your training to the edge, where you are providing stimulus and on the edge of recovering, the maximum stimulus without overtraining. This is new territory for me as I've trained conservatively for the last 5 years and am now pushing the intensity. This modification of the 4 months to a 4 hour marathon plan has not been a good one, but you live and learn. It's all good to add to my collective running wisdom. Lots of easy running with a little harder running thrown in seems to be the winning prescription from what I've read so far. How to do that incrementally, increasing the intensity and volume incrementally that allows the body to adapt, seems to be the tricky part. Glad this is going to be a recovery week. Only a 15 miler tomorrow. Hope it goes well.
   Bit discouraged as I went to McMillan's running calculator and plugged in my 10 miler from the other day and got 4:04 for the marathon distance. That 10 miler trashed me, maybe a 85-90% max effort, and it was only :30/mile faster than marathon pace. It should have felt easier. Granted, it had some incline and hills and strong headwinds on part and wasn't run on a treadmill or track, but it is still discouraging. Makes me scared going into the marathon. I will have to work on my mental game, go into each run forgetting the past, and stay in the moment, trusting my body and taper to absorb the training.

More marathon training

  I've made it through the peak of the long run training I think with a 23 mile long run last Sunday and a 9.5 mile tempo run yesterday, injury free. I wouldn't recommend ramping up the mileage like I did on the long runs so quickly. I had a left ankle niggle going into yesterday's run that had me nervous but didn's manifest itself at all. Ironically, my right achilles and ankle felt tight. For the rest of the day however and this morning I have to pain, only some stiffness getting out of bed which is just cold tendons and such, so I am thankful for that .
    I started the schedule late and didn't run any 1/4mile repeats, instead having run hills for a the key workout for one month prior to starting the ramp up. I'm hoping that was enough. Yesterdays tempo run really was hard, and I don't think I could have run too much longer than I did. I was aiming for 10 miles as it was and cut it short. This makes me nervous as the pace was only 30 seconds per mile faster than marathon pace and my heart rate was jacked. I'm am hoping that the tempo runs in the next few weeks will do the trick for me.
    One more real long run, a 24 miler, and I'm good to go. I'm planning this week as a back off week, though I'm actually adding two recovery runs and just did the hard tempo run. I'm going to keep those runs low intensity, and do a shorter long run (though maybe I'll run it as a tempo run? you can really see I don't know what I'm doing here.)

Marathon Training

   The training has been going well. The long runs have tired me out a bit as well as the tempo runs necessitating dropping the volume. This weeks tempo run was on a treadmill in a hot exercise room here in Cleveland where I'm at with Julie, accompanying her for a play therapy conference. It's been close to freezing each morning, which is why I ran on the treadmill. I had to cut the distance as the heat cut into my endurance. I felt rotten. I would like to do some longer tempo runs, like 10 and 13 miles, but feel like i'm running out of time. I really don't know what I'm doing on the volume front. I feel my structure is good with 2-3 key workouts each week, but am unsure on the volume. I'm doing the marathon no matter what, though I feel my conditioning is less than I'd like. My confidence is down on my stamina, though I'm sure my endurance will be enough to finish. I'm going to go for it though, and see what happens. Afterward, I'll keep my long run long (2-4 hours per run) while upping my volume during the week, dropping the overall intensity of the mid week runs with maybe 1 key tempo or hill workout. We'll see. Psyched for the marathon though!

   Being in Cleveland I'm a bit worried about the long run, though it should be an adventure! I may just do a tour of the city, crisscrossing the whole thing till I hit the mileage. We'll see. 

I've been taken with the idea of running the Philly marathon this November. I'm a little late into the training cycle to do it gradually, but with a little luck and my body holding up I should be okay. I'm tired of training over the last few years with no races to show for it. My best memories of running in the last 5 years have all been the races I've done, despite loving the training and the communion with the Lord of life I find on my runs in the woods (which is the primary reason I run). My couple of attempts to run a marathon so far have been met with injury(due to changing my shoes in a training cycle) and getting pnuemonia (which I'm not sure I really had). I'm going to go for it, and see what happens.

Goal: OD 100 Cross Country Run

I have honed in my focus and I am going to be running the OD 100 next summer. It is in June so it's a hot and humid race. I have to qualify so I have to run a 50 miler in the time limit set prior to registering, so that will be my short term goal and focus. Right now I am just trying to build my fitness and volume of training. I will talk a bit about the structure of my training in a moment. I have copied the elevation profile and the list of the significant hills in the course. I will be training these most likely on the treadmill over the winter and spring as I can control the grade and distance and I don't know of any hills other than the Wiss. and those hills are not long enough. Maybe I'll look around but the treadmill is my plan at this point. Here is the list of the hills and there grade, as well as an elevation profile:

Climb	Start	End	Length	Start Elev	End Elev	Avg Grade
Cat 2	4.20 mi	6.88 mi	2.67 mi	715 ft	1,743 ft	7.3%
Cat 3	9.64 mi	11.26 mi	1.63 mi	1,178 ft	1,740 ft	6.5%
Cat 5	17.87 mi	18.88 mi	1.01 mi	946 ft	1,116 ft	3.2%
Cat 5	28.64 mi	29.29 mi	0.64 mi	1,052 ft	1,129 ft	2.3%
Cat 3	31.66 mi	33.71 mi	2.05 mi	1,211 ft	1,746 ft	5.0%
Cat 2	35.69 mi	39.95 mi	4.27 mi	1,357 ft	2,530 ft	5.2%
Cat 2	47.41 mi	52.79 mi	5.39 mi	1,279 ft	2,244 ft	3.4%
Cat 3	55.79 mi	57.45 mi	1.66 mi	1,827 ft	2,337 ft	5.8%
Cat 5	70.01 mi	70.87 mi	0.86 mi	1,116 ft	1,270 ft	3.4%
Cat 2	73.78 mi	75.54 mi	1.76 mi	819 ft	1,711 ft	9.6%
Cat 2	78.89 mi	82.01 mi	3.12 mi	607 ft	1,576 ft	5.9%
Cat 3	87.54 mi	90.87 mi	3.33 mi	943 ft	1,744 ft	4.5%

It looks like the significant climbs are the first and second, and 5-7, with the final 10-12 being shorter but steep. 11 and 12 are both 3 miles.

   To train for this, I'm going to shoot for running a 50. If I can do that without walking, I should be good to go for the OD at a slower pace. To run the 50, I will follow a marathon program but with longer long runs. I am using a pace based formula with a loosely structure plan where I do a few key workouts per week with recovery runs in between and 1 day off for total rest. Right now it's 1 hill day (though I may switch this with some speed work just to make the rest of the running feel easier), 1 tempo day, and the long run. I've been following this for 3-4 weeks, and I'm starting to feel the effects. I feel good, and my recovery runs are keeping my hr real low, which indicates growth in my aerobic transport system. My pace on my recovery runs wants to go fast too, and I have to reign it in a little, which is another good sign. My knees are a bit achy due to doing too much too soon (look at my log. In one month I went from 0-35 miles per week; not recommended, though I do have a good base of fitness). 0, 25, 30, 35, 32 (back off week). Tomorrow I will shoot for a 12 or 13 mile long run, maybe foolishly, we'll see. I'll check in tomorrow to see how I feel. I need to beef up my road shoes I think as my nueromas are hurting. Looking for a good road shoe. I'm a bit worried too as to whether my trail shoes have enough cushioning as I think 40% of the OD takes place on fire roads. My man Dean runs in one kind of shoe, regardless of terrain, which I might adopt too. I'm enjoying the loose structure of my training and the simple approach of pace based training as it keeps me from obsessing about hr etc... Seeing the quick adaptations in my body i realize I have wasted lots of training and racing  time over the last 5 years having bought into Van Aaken and Maffetone low hr training. It takes too long and is unnecessary. It's a good, albeit very conservative approach to building fitness but I do not have the patience, especially as there are quicker, just as safe, effective means to the same end. All that is to say I want to get a pair of shoes, and stop thinking about them, and just run, wherever my feet take me, road or trail. The 50K and 50 miler will be good tests as to the sufficiency of my current shoes, unless I change before them. We'll see. I have my eyes on a pair of Saucony's but can't find any good reviews on them. I forget the name. I haven't chosen the 50K or 50 miler yet but am looking to the spring, maybe more than one 50 as I need to do one early enough to be able to register for OD, which means I'll have to do a couple to keep my fitness up. Maybe after the official one I'll do a treadmill 50 with the hills in there !!!! That's seems a bit ambitious (read crazy). We'll see. So there is the general plan. Now the trick is to maintain my focus without becoming obsessed, and being consistent. I think my plan is a good one, and I'm stoked to do my first 100. I am getting too old to do well, so I am really focused and honed in on getting as fit as possible to run as much as possible to really give a good effort. Just to finish is not good enough, though I know this is always the first timers goal. I have enough knowledge to know what to do, and heart. It will come down to being mentally disciplined, consistent in my training, and heart. Let the fun begin!