Running through the cold

The last couple of weeks have been cold, snowy, and icy. That being said I was able to get over 20 miles last week. If my face wasn't so cold that I went inside I would have had some more miles. 

I'm really working on running more consecutive days instead of large chunks of mileage. So if I want to run 8 miles, instead of running 8 miles all at once I might run 4 miles twice in one day or 4 one day and 4 on a rest day.  There would still be longer runs over the weekend.  But if it's really cold or the NCR trail is icy then I may split the miles on the treadmill.  Overall I've been running a lot of miles on the "dreadmill". I don't like running in the dark and on icy roads.

Here's to more miles.

Happy New Year and back on track

2014 has gone and we welcome 2015 and a start for new goals and new aspirations.  My aspiration is to eventually qualify for the Boston Marathon within 2 years.  I need to drop about 65 minutes from my marathon PR set in Richmond in November, 2013.  I'm hopeful that I can accomplish it, but it will take time.

I always run the Resolution Run 5KI around Patterson Park on New Year's Day.  It's a fun run, even if it is a bit hilly getting to the upper loop.  My goal was to take it easy, have fun with it and look for people to run with, if even for a little bit.  As usual I went out way to fast, in chilly temps and then held on.  One day I'll learn how to pace myself so I don't blow through my energy so quickly.  I will need that as I prepare for Pittsburgh in May.  I finished the 5K in 28:42 or about 9:11/mile.  By far not my fastest but not too bad for what I was expecting and it was nice to get 2015 off to a nice start.

In training I am really focusing on keeping my easy runs, easy.  I tend to go out a little bit too fast but still feel comfortable.  This type of harder running on my easy days doesn't work the "right systems", so I'm not working the aerobic base I need to run 26.2 miles and instead I'm going into the anaerobic space where I use up energy more quickly than I need to.  I found that if I work both systems with slower easy runs and hard tempo and interval runs and slower long runs, I am able to drop my times.  I'm really trying to focus on that.  Eventually my easy runs will be a little faster and tempo and interval runs will be harder as well.  I just have to be patient.

I'm also continuing my strength training with the IronStrength workouts.  Humbling still but it is definitely making me stronger.

I did have my physical in the last week of December which turned out fine and the labs came back fine.  I did find out that my body is changing for the better due to the endurance exercise so I will keep it up. 

It's time to get serious about my training and see what I can really accomplish.  I'm ready to see what I can do.

Happy running.

Last couple of weeks

The holidays have crimped my training a little bit.  My family and I have been doing the holiday stuff and enjoying the season.  What this has meant is there is little time for training.  While I wasn't going to go hard or even very long I did want to get a few more miles than I have gotten the last couple of weeks.

Overall it's OK since it's early in training and I've enjoyed some of the downtime.  I've done a lot of training on my treadmill in the basement.  I've never been able to go over 7 miles on the treadmill but hoping that it will get easier to go farther as I do more treadmill training.

I've got a New Year's Day 5K through Patterson Park which is always a great way to stay motivated for the year ahead.  It's a fun race with a great post race spread of chili and cookies.

Here are my New Year's Running Resolutions.

1. I want to stop drinking a lot of soda.
2. I want to continue doing the strength training at least once a week.
3. I want to consistently train no matter the conditions.
4. I want to start keeping a food log to see what I eat and how much I eat.

That's about it.

Happy New Year and happy running.

End of the year, how did it go?

The Celtic Solstice 5 mile race on December 13th was my last race for 2014.  It's time for a unabashed look at my race year in review.  I'm also in week 2 of marathon training for Pittsburgh in May, 2015.

The Celtic Solstice 5 mile run is a great, fun race with about 3,200 people that start at the Stieff Silver Company, run on the Druid Hill park trails, around Druid Lake, and then back to Stieff.  It's a great end of year race, with hot soup and warm wine at the end.  This year the temperature for the race was in the low to mid 30's so it was an ideal end of year race.

My friend Rob and I ran together and due to congestion, the first mile was very slow.  The race opened up for the rest of the race and I didn't really have a goal time, so this was just going to be fun.  We starting hitting mid to high 8's for the rest of the run.  I kept telling Rob I wanted to slow down and Rob would say OK.  Rob knows me better than that, so while I tell myself we slowed down, we really didn't.  We finished in 44:38 which is 8:56 a mile.  A new 5 mile PR for me. 

I also ran my work fun run 5K, which really doesn't turn out to be a fun run, but more like a race for me.  I work at University of Maryland, Baltimore, which is the Medical School, Pharmacy School, one of the Law Schools, Social Work School, and Dental School for the University System of Maryland.  There is always a bunch of young 20 somethings running this to blow off stress.  They always decide to take off at some pace much faster than I want to run.  I also can't let these kids get away from me easily, so usually I try to stay up for a couple of miles.  I also catch those that aren't in great shape, who blow up after a couple of miles.  I get asked, how old am I, and then wow you're pretty fast.  Makes an older guy feel proud.  This time I let the kids go at their fast pace and I drop into a tempo run pace and keep it.  A lot of the students who went out with the faster group started to drop off and I was able to catch them.  The route is a little short for 5K, so I always go around the building one more time to finish off the 5K.  I'm almost always the only one who goes around the 2nd time, but this time I was joined by a few students who ran my pace for the last bit.  It was pretty cool to lead the pack to the finish and then some mint protein shakes that are given out.

I finished off my marathon training week with 22 miles, most of which were done faster than marathon pace.  I'm still staying with my strength workout and getting better at it.

So how did my year go?  It was very much an up and down year.  January, February, and March were a great three months.  I set PRs in the 5K and at the Kennard 10 miler.  I was feeling confident going into my half marathons in April and May.  Unfortunately April started off a 5 month group of bad races.  I hurt my calf in April, but limped through a half marathon.  In May I had two half marathons that were no better than the April.  I wasn't able to train at all and I started Chiropractic therapy as well to which I had some bad reaction to.  In June I had two 5Ks and I did OK, not great, but felt like I was about to turn the corner.  July and August I was on some a oral meds for a toenail problem and I had a side effect reaction that made me feel like I couldn't run well nor did I want to run.  It took about 4 weeks to get myself back to normal.  In September I won 3rd place in Age Group in the Race for Every Child in DC and a new 5K PR.  The next week I also finished 3rd in AG for the 10K at the Race for our Kids in Pikesville.  I ran the Baltimore half marathon in October and while not a PR, it was certainly the best I had run in Baltimore by about 2 minutes.  I was back on track. I ran a few more 5Ks in which I was consistently back in the mid 8 minutes per mile to complete.  November was the Across the Bay 10K and I set a 10K PR.  Then the December Celtic Solistice where I set a 5 mile PR.

Overall I was pretty happy where my racing went this year.  I cut back on the half marathons and focused more on the shorter distances.  I set PRs at the 5K, 10K, 5 mile, and 10 mile distances. 

I'm now focusing on the marathon/half marathon for 2015.  My goal in the next two years is to drop about 65 minutes in the marathon and hopefully qualify for Boston and of course stay healthy while doing it.

Thanks for reading and happy running.

Week 1 of marathon training in the books

Week 1 of marathon training is in the books.  6 workouts, 1 tempo, a lot of easy running, and the hardest strength workout I've done in a long time for 21 miles.  It looks like where I thought I could do some kind of workout every day, that just isn't possible.  I took rest days on Wednesday and Friday this week where I had an easy run and a strength workout.

The IronStrength workout was crazy hard and I don't think I can do that twice a week right now and will do it only once a week until I get a bit stronger and learn to stretch better.  I think if I stretched a little better I would not have gotten such stiff legs and stiff shoulders.

Most of my running was done on the dreaded treadmill which is not ideal since I don't like the mill, but I really don't like getting up at 0 Dark 30, putting on the cool weather gear and heading out for a run, when the treadmill is right downstairs in the basement.  I can only go so long on the treadmill which may mean some doubles are on the way.

I'm pretty happy with where week 1 has gone and will hope to continue it throughout. 

This coming week I'll be running my work's 5K fun run, where I try to keep up with graduate students, med students, dental and law students.  Faculty and staff don't like to run it very much because the students finish the 5K quickly and leave while we older people are still out running and the Celtic Solstice 5 miler on Saturday.  It's a fun race and a great way to end the year.

On to week 2 and more miles and more fun :)

Keeping on keeping on.

Marathon training begins

I'm training for the Dick's Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon in May and decided on a 23 week training program to give me time to recover from harder workouts, get stronger and deal with whatever other issues come my way.

One of the things I've realized with my other marathons is my leg and core strength is lacking.  I feel OK through 20 miles, but my legs, hips, and core start to tire out much more quickly and I end up slowing way down for the final 10K.  This year I decided to try a strength training program 1 or 2 times a week.   It's called the IronStrength Workout that I found on RunnersWorld.  It was developed by Dr. Jordan Metzl, a sports medicine physician who found that runners were coming into his practice with injuries more than other sports.  He figured out that runners were getting injured because they lack the overall body strength to do what they were asking their bodies to do.

The workout is a single 50 minute workout done with little rest and let me tell you it's a humbling experience.  Below are the steps.

• 2 minute warmup of 30 seconds each of lunges, jumping jacks, and squats.
• 6-8 sets of 15 plyometric jump squats with 20 seconds rest in between.  Bring your butt down below your knees and then jump up.
• 5 minute superset of rows from plank with dumbbells, then 10 pushups, then 10 situps and continue without really resting for 5 minutes.
• 5 minute superset of 10 plyometric jump lunges and then 10 single leg plyometric squats.
• 5 minute superset of 10 mountain climbers and then 10 Legs Down.
• 5 minute superset of 15 deadlift high pulls, 15 overhead presses, and 15 bicep curls.
• 6 sets of 10 burpees with 20 second rest between
• 1 minute of a right arm plank to a 1 minute center plank to a 1 minute left arm plank.
• Hamstring stretches
• Knee twists
• Hip flexor stretches

I found out that I am lacking in strength.  My initial thought was to do the workout twice a week.  We'll see how that progresses together. Today I ran 4 miles and my legs were stiff and tight.  A little rolling before I run might be in order for tomorrow.

So I've just started back into marathon training and I am looking forward to seeing my progress throughout the weeks leading up to the marathon.

 

Giving Thanks

Being that it is Thanksgiving and also being a runner means that today is the day to run a Turkey Trot.  For the past 3 years my daughter and I have run a YMCA Turkey Trot 5K which has become our tradition.  Wake up early, head down to the Y, join more than 1,200 people in running on the sometimes thin streets of Towson.  We don't care about time, we just have some nice conversation while running with the masses of people.  For a little background, I guess I should tell you how I became a runner. 

My daughter, Rebecca, who is a senior in high school, told me way back in her 5th grade year she wanted to join her middle school cross country team.  The coach had told her team that they needed to run on the weekends and she wanted to run with me.  I hadn't run in probably 10 years and I was out of shape.  I'll always remember that first run together which was only a mile and a half.  I was exhausted after that run and I hurt like I hadn't hurt in a long time.  But my daughter was persistent.  She wanted to be a better runner and she was taking me along for the ride.  It wasn't long before she was faster than I was, since she was running 4-5 days a week and I was running one day a week.  I had to try and keep up and started training more.  We ran our first race together in 2007 at the Komen 5K in Hunt Valley.  I still think I held her back, but we ran together.  In 2008 I was still struggling and she was getting much better, but she never let me quit and she stayed with me.  We ran a few more 5Ks together and started our tradition of running the Turkey Trots and Father's Day 5Ks together. My daughter moved on to Field Hockey and Softball, but we always make time to run a Turkey Trot and the Father's Day 5K.  I will always be thankful for all that she has and will accomplish and it's great that she wants to still run with her Dad.

By 2010, I was really into this running thing.  I enjoyed being out there with friends, my daughter, or even just myself.  I started running with my friend Rob, his wife Wendy (sometimes) and Rob's friend Erik.  All of whom motivated me to continue running and getting better.  I got bit by the running bug.  I wanted to see if I could go faster, farther, and enjoy the running.  We would meet at the NCR Trail and run 10 miles and have great conversations.  During races we would push each other and support each other.  I'm very thankful to have these running buddies with whom to share our successes, failures, and frustations.  It really is something special that I hope continues.

My wife Tamie is also a very important part of my running.  While she is not a runner, she supports me and my running thing.  Sometimes she may think I'm crazy or doesn't always understand why I want to run these races, get up so early, and be tired, but she always supports me and is there for me.  She was there for my first marathon, she was the first person I called to tell her I won an age group award, she's always watching out for me and taking care of me.  I love her with all my heart and truly thank her for supporting me through long runs in the rain and cold runs when I come home shivering.

I'm also thankful for all those people who have put on races I have run, the volunteers who pass out water, Gatorade, gels, and medals.  I'm thankful there is such a vibrant running community who supports everyone who gets out there to run no matter how fast, slow or long. 

Thanks for reading.  Keep on running.