Thursday, March 27, 2014

Johnny's and some track meet fun

It's been a mostly good couple of weeks of training since my last post, and I'm starting to feel like things are coming together.  I've had a few good races, and the next couple of weeks will be the last tough ones before I start to back down for the marathon.  After my 121-mile week, I had a week to recover before Johnny's Runnin' o' the Green.  Despite still feeling a bit tired on race day, I felt that I could pull out a solid race and possibly another PR for 5 miles.  Unfortunately, the weather had something to say about it, as it usually does; the somewhat strong winds made for a tough race.  The race started out into what seemed like a headwind, turned around after 2.5 miles, yet still seemed to be in a headwind for the second half of the race.  It was one of those days on which it felt like the wind was coming at me no matter which way I turned.  I finished the race in 26:47; it wasn't a PR, but it was a good effort considering the conditions.  With a few exceptions, times were rough for everyone.  Roadkill Racing had a strong showing overall, though, putting three runners in the top ten.

Next on my agenda was to head down south to my alma mater for the Juniata Invitational.  I planned to challenge myself with a little bit of "speed" and attempt the 5K and the 3K at the meet.  I never really did many double races in college, with the exception of the occasional 1500/800 double, and I never really learned how to recover between efforts either.  For a small invitational with only a few teams, two events meant not a whole lot of recovery time between the races.  I tried this double at this meet two years ago, but I decided not to look back at my times until after the meet so that I wouldn't psych myself out.  My goal was to run a PR or near-PR in the 5K then see what happened in the 3K.  I was even more hopeful when I found out that two runners from Susquehanna University (our main rival) who have gone well under 15:30 were seeded in the race.  Race day came, and I was hoping for clear skies, warmer weather, and little wind. At least I got the clear skies and warmer weather.

The 5K started at noon.  I was hoping to be through the first mile in 4:55-5:00 and go from there.  Right from the start, I tucked in behind the Susquehanna runners, and we were through the first lap in 74.  Perfect.  At that point, however, they did something unexpected: they slowed down!  Confused, I kept going at almost the same pace, and by the time I was through the mile in 5:01, I had a solid 50 meter lead.  As the race progressed, I started to slow down; the energy used to fight a strong wind on the back stretch was more than what was saved when the wind was at my back.  I finished the race first in 15:56, with the Susquehanna runners about 15 seconds behind.  After they finished, they slowed down a little and continued on to run a workout (allegedly another two miles at 10K pace).  That explained a lot.

After a delicious lunch with my family, it was time to get back to work for the 3K.  The race started around 3:45, effectively giving me about 3.5 hours between the hard efforts.   Due to the combination of numerous factors, including the persistent wind, the fatigue from the earlier race and the training, and just the lack of speedwork in my training in general, I just could not find that higher gear to run fast in this race.  I still ended up in third with a time of 9:24.  It was a solid day of work.  I looked back at my times from this invitational two years ago:  16:37 and 9:27.  This at least gave me confidence that I am a faster runner than two years ago.

Next up for me is the Spring Forward Distance Run 15K.  It should be a decent fitness assessment and good tune-up for the marathon.   I say "decent" as I'm not really doing any sort of mini-taper for the race, just a shorter run the day before (with the goal of still hitting 100+ miles for the week).  Thus, I won't be completely rested, and it will be a good test of how much I can push.  With warmer weather on the way, hopefully I can get a good race or workout or two in before the marathon!

Sunday, March 9, 2014

A little challenge

I enjoy a good challenge and enjoy pushing myself.  I've been trying to put in more miles this winter than I ever have, and I've been lucky so far; I've had no true injuries besides my one injury scare, and I haven't gotten a bad cold or sickness.  When it comes down to it, a runner's mileage is limited by one of two things: time or biomechanics. When I made my tentative mileage plan leading up to the marathon, I planned for a 145 mile week (my previous high week was 131).  As the semester began, I realized I had been very, very optimistic about how much time I'd be able to put in, and I altered the plans.  Which left me to find another challenge.

Recently, Dave wrote a post about the role of doubles in training, which spurned a little debate about how useful or useless doubles are.  My upbringing has taught me to always include several doubles per week.  However, I've recently had a somewhat change of heart.  Even with my higher mileage this winter, for the last few weeks I've limited my double days to an easy few miles in the afternoon after a hard workout in the morning. I doubted my ability to run that long multiple times a week without breaking down, but so far it's seemed to work. This brought me to a (possibly silly) idea: do my highest mileage week of the year so far in singles.  I would attempt to do ~120 miles in 7 awesome/awful runs.  Biomechanically, I felt like I was ready, and at this point in the season, I could keep pushing if I felt great or back off if things started to go south.

Starting the week, I knew a couple of things had to happen to survive.  First, I had to keep pace in check. I wouldn't get much benefit from slogging every run, but at the same time, pushing the pace on each run would break me down.  Second, I couldn't expect to do too much in terms of workouts.  Between the cold and snow and having to probably run a couple runs on the treadmill, I was fine with this. 

The week started with a long run on Sunday of 26 miles.  So far for the season, my highest had been 22, so it was a little jump.  When it comes to marathon training, though, I believe that at least one run should be done at the full distance at some point before the race, as long as it's done far enough in advance.  I also try to limit food and water during the run to teach the body to "dig deep".  When I run a marathon, I drink at every station that I can, but it's hard to predict what could happen on the course.  I try to prepare by going through worse conditions in training.  During this particular run, I had one water stop after 7 miles and ran the distance in just under 7:00 pace.  Unfortunately, this left me somewhat depleted still for my 13 miles the next morning, but I made it, and I ran 39 miles in under 23 hours.

Tuesday and Thursday ended up being fairly cold in the mornings, so I decided to do a few miles outside before the gym opened then do some tempo runs on the treadmill.  Tuesday became a 9 mile progression starting at 5:56 pace and working down to 5:15, while Thursday was an 8 mile steady-state at ~5:51 pace, for a total of 18 miles each day.  These were tough enough to "feel it", but not so tough as to feel broken or overly tired.  My remaining runs on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday ended up being 15 or 16 mile easy runs, for a total of 121 miles for the week.

It was an experiment, to say the least, but I did learn a few things.  First, I felt a little more motivated to run in the mornings.  When I double, I sometimes have trouble pushing myself to get up to run since my previous run ended around 12 hours ago.  This week, though, I generally had 21-22 hours between runs, and mentally this was enough of a break to start the next run.  Second, I found that I had a little bit less appetite.  This kind of made sense.  I'm usually really hungry after a run, and it seems the metabolism stays elevated for some time after a run, so one run a day meant one "afterburn" instead of two, despite the high mileage.  Third, however, I found that it is still possible to gain weight with that much mileage...somehow.  In terms of time and fatigue, I didn't find myself overly exerted or spending more time than if I had done the equivalent mileage with doubles.

This week was a useful week.  Physically, it helped me to gain a stronger base as I continue to push towards the marathon, which is seven weeks away.  Mentally, it dispelled my previous train of thought that high mileage needs to include doubles.  Will I continue to run only singles?  Not sure yet.  But for now, it's Sunday, which means ONE long run.