Someone needs to burn this place to the ground

Last week Josh posted some of the things he wished would disappear for the new year 2014.  That got me thinking, and I tried to figure out what I would like to disappear for the next year. Thus, for my first (mostly) non-running, non-science post, here is my HIGHLY-IMAGINATIVE list of things that I would like to disappear (or at least be reduced by a lot) for the next year.  Some of these have become so amalgamated with our society that they are unlikely to go away, but hey, I can imagine.

1.  The selfie.  Okay, now this is a huge stretch.  The concept is not new: take a picture of yourself and upload it to one of the many social media sites.  Somehow, though, the selfie seemed to grow exponentially this year.  Now you can upload a photo, throw it through a filter, add a caption with a #hashtag or a few, and there you go, you have a selfie.  2013 has been called the "Year of the Selfie", and "selfie" was even The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year. Celebrities, political figures, and almost everyone are all guilty of a selfie or two.  And that's fine.  One or two.  Maybe even more if they are spread over a longer period of time.  But very frequent selfies (daily or more often than that)? A little too much.  If I know what you looked like a couple of hours ago, chances are you look pretty similar now.

2. Sequels to movies that don't need sequels.  Take a look at how many movies today are sequels as compared to earlier decades.  This image, although a couple of years old, shows a decent comparison.  In addition, look at the list of movies that have made over a billion dollars worldwide (this doesn't include totals adjusted for inflation).  The movies that aren't sequels to something are:

 -Avatar (plans for THREE (?!?!) sequels, the first of which is set for 2016)
-Titanic (no plans for a sequel...) 
-Skyfall (kind of a sequel? Third movie with Daniel Craig as Bond, but the story line doesn't follow directly)
-The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (a prequel based on a book...did it really need to be split into three?)
-Jurassic Park (had several sequels)
-Alice in Wonderland (plans for a sequel in 2016)

Fine, the movie industry is huge and makes billions of dollars each year, but some movies really just don't need sequels.  Especially The Scorpion King.  (...oh...spoke too soon...)

3.  Smartphone addiction.  Despite being behind on technology, I have no problem with smartphones.  I still have a flip phone with a keyboard and it does what I want it to do.  The upgrade will come eventually but for now, I'm happy. Mostly, with this one, I'm looking out for everyone else.  With the near ubiquity of the smartphone now, a host of problems are also emerging and become more widespread, ranging from "text claw" (present with previous phone generations, but more now) to sleep problems due to being "wired" right up until bedtime.  It doesn't help that you can now do anything online, anywhere.  Every once in a while, disconnect.  That late night or mid-night email can wait until morning. 

4.  Candy Crush Saga.  This addictive game became widespread this year, and it needs to stop.  I get it; you're stressed (maybe at work), you want to take a break, you play this game.  But a short break turns into a longer break which turns into "s*** I got absolutely nothing done today. I'm going home".  If you want to play on your own time, that's fine.  But there is a reason why work is called "work". The majority of us can't make a living on Candy Crush Saga.  More importantly, I won't join just so I can give you some lives and feed your addiction!

5. Hashtag abuse.  Just like the selfie, most of us are guilty of one or two.  And one or two are fine.  But abuse of hashtags has become common, between using way too many (I'm eating a donut! #yum #frosting #sprinkles #sugarrush #diabetes #toomanyhashtags #hashtag) or using long ones that make no sense (#reallylonghashtagbecauseIdonotknowwhatIamdoing).  There was a Late Night with Jimmy Fallon skit a few months ago poking at this topic.  Don't abuse the hashtag.  It's ridiculous.

If you're taking a selfie on your smartphone and playing Candy Crush as you're reading this, I apologize.

 In a few hours I'll be competing in my 29th (and obviously final) race of 2013, my hometown Twilight Run 5K.  Times have historically been fast since it is not a true 5K, but at least they warn us ahead of time.  It's been a good year, and hopefully 2014 will be even better.  Happy New Year!

Limits

Everyone has limits.  There is only so much physical and mental stress that one can take before breakdown occurs.  Sometimes, those limits are hard to find. For some, injury usually strikes before the "true" limit is reached, when bodily processes start to break down beyond the point of recovery, and time off is forced.  For others, the symptoms of overtraining (which vary widely from person to person) set in, and if that person has common sense, he or she will force time off, or else injury soon follows (I've been in both groups at some point, but those are stories for another day).  

It's a good time for me to look back at the past year and look to goals in the year ahead.  Frankly, though, I've never really done that at the end of the year.  I started recording mileage in the summer of 2008, but what good is data that is recorded and never used? Here are my mileage totals from 2009 to this year.  Although I don't use a GPS, these totals are probably fairly close. I always assume 7:00 pace for easy runs, despite the actual pace, and it seems to average itself out in the long haul. 

2009: 2,381
2010: 2,437
2011: 3,097
2012: 3,278
2013: 3,784 plus whatever I do in the next three days

Without knowing anything else, there are a few points of note.  Most obviously, I've been increasing every year.  That's one good sign.  The other items of interest are two sizable jumps in mileage, between 2010 to 2011 and between 2012 to 2013.  I had injuries in 2009 (running-related) and 2010 (running-exacerbated), which knocked a few hundred miles off.  However, my training while in college was fairly conservative in terms of mileage.  I hit my peak mileage during my track season of senior year, with a whopping 80 miles in one week.  We had four-week training cycles (27 days of running, 1 day off) but overall mileage was low.  

Once I graduated, I could do more "playing around" with my training.  I realized I like miles, so I ran more miles.  I also played around with shorter training cycles.  I began with three-week training cycles, then dropped to two-week, and eventually got to one day off per week early in 2013.  I stuck with this for a while while still doing higher mileage.  However, I eventually realized I maybe don't need a day off every week.  So at the end of September, I decided to start testing the limit.  I bumped my mileage up significantly (I was just over 400 miles for each of October and November) and decided to see how long I could go without feeling like I needed a day off.  One week went by, then two, then three, and I was still running near-PR times.  And here I sit at the end of December, still in a 90+ day running streak, still feeling well, and still uninjured (despite occasional soreness or tiredness not beyond what is normal) (a day off is coming, even if it is by force). 

Winning the Garden Spot Village Marathon this year.  Hoping to cut some more time off of my PR in the coming year!  Credit: Garden Spot Village

Maybe it's dumb that I'm testing these limits.  I thought I knew what I could handle, but maybe I can handle more.  Since the end of 2012 and with a very back-loaded 2013 in terms of mileage, I've dropped my marathon PR by 10:30 (to 2:35:31), dropped my half-marathon PR by 70 seconds (to 1:12:12), and increased my peak mileage week to 131 miles.   In 2014, I feel that I can brings these times down more and safely increase my mileage, both peak and overall.  Despite wanting to push these limits, I need to remember the long-term goals of getting to the marathon starting line and actually being healthy to run a fast marathon.  If I stop feeling well, I'll back off.  If I start to hurt, I'll back off.  If workouts or runs start to suck, I'll back off.  But until these happen, I'll push on.  After all, you can't burn out if you never catch fire.

Reindeer Run 5K

This past Saturday was the Reindeer Run 5K.  I missed this one last year, but it is now the largest 5K in Rochester (over 2000 registered).  I was excited for this race for some reason.  It was the last potentially-fast 5K for me for the year, and I was hoping to go hard. I was looking forward to a good race.  

I woke up on race morning to temperatures in the low 50s, which felt great considering what I raced in the previous weekend.  Unfortunately, I also woke up feeling completely drained and with a mild sore throat.  The stress from the last week of work before Christmas vacation had been affecting my sleep (more than the usual sleep issues, but that's a story for another day).  I still figured I'd go out there and give it all I had, but I knew there was potential for the race to be a long ride on the Struggle Bus, destination Pain Town.

I got to the Strong Museum and did a three-mile warm-up. I felt a little more winded than I should have for that warm-up, but I didn't think anything was wrong.  In the last half-hour before the race it started to get cold and windy pretty quickly; it had been raining off-and-on all morning, so the cooler temperatures started to make the rain feel worse.  I saw Matt and Dave at the start along with a few of the other local burners, so it looked like it could shape up to be a good race.  Once all of the hundreds of people finally got to the start line, the race got underway.

Right after the start of the race. Credit: Brian Hughey

The course is essentially an out-and-back on the Inner Loop that starts and ends at the Strong with a few turns along the way.  There was a nice pack of runners out to the start of the Inner Loop, but then we hit a headwind.  After a little bit, a group of four (Dave, Robbie Wade, Zachary Rivers, and Mike Heymann) started to pull away from me, but I couldn't find the strength to go with them.  I was through the mile in about 5:11, about 10 to 15 seconds or so behind the lead pack, and it felt a lot harder than 5:11.  Soon after, Mike and Zachary started to pull away even further.  By this point, my hands and feet already felt somewhat frozen; those 50 degree temperatures earlier that morning were a tease!

The course was a bit more hilly than I remember the Inner Loop being.  I kept pushing on to the halfway point, and I was still about the same distance behind Robbie and Dave.  I had hopes of catching them, so I tried to push a little bit more in the second half.  I started to make a little bit of progress.   I was through the two-mile mark in 10:30 and tried to do a little more work to catch up to the two in front of me, and somehow I was still making some (incremental) progress.  I was still in chase mode when we got off of the Inner Loop, but I wasn't exactly sure where the race ended.  That question was soon answered when I saw the 3-mile mark and knew I'd have to go.  I tried hard to muster any speed I had to catch Dave (Robbie had pulled away a little bit), but I couldn't.  The course ended right after a hairpin turn, and I finished in 16:18, in fifth place overall.  This led to 1st place in my age group since the top three can't double dip which scored me some delicious Once Again Nut Butter and a trophy.

Overall, it was a solid effort.  I was hoping for a little faster, but given how I felt and the weather, I'm not disappointed.  It gives me confidence that I'm still in decent shape, since the race from the previous week couldn't really tell me much.  There is still a long way to go until the end of April, but this is a good start.

Full results here. 

Winter running

Start of my hometown Turkey Trot.  Cold and some residual snow on the ground.  Winter came early this year!  Credit: Hollidaysburg YMCA

Despite today being the first day of winter, the winter weather has hit full-force (with the exception of being in the 50s temporarily this morning).  We've seen the first major snows of the season, and we're already a foot ahead of the average.  Many people seem to dislike winter running, and people don't seem to even like knowing about it during the winter either. Although the weather makes running a little more of a challenge this time of year, there are some great things about winter running.  

1. I run "better".  Sure, the snow and ice make a mess of things.  But as the temperature cools down from the hot summer months into the fall and winter, most runners become more efficient.  Some can handle the heat of the summer well, but others, like myself, can not. During the summer, this either means I do my workouts and runs really early (even earlier than I usually do them) or at dusk/early evening (which I try to avoid). Even early morning races during the summer can be hot and humid, which means I'm riding the Struggle Bus for most races longer than 5K (and even some 5Ks).

2.  I slow down.  This sounds like a bad thing.  However, one of my goals every season is to make my running more "polarized": make the easy days easy and the hard days hard.  I usually keep to this goal well for a couple of weeks before my easy pace starts to creep down.  Before I know it, most of my runs are done at some "middle" pace with workouts only a little faster.  This works for a while, but it runs me down after some time since every run is done at "near workout" pace.  Winter running helps me with the polarization goal.  Unless I'm purposely looking for dry roads or clear sidewalks to do something fast on, many runs can end up going through snow and ice.  It's not worth pushing through that stuff out of risk of injury or being tired for when the effort really matters.

3.  Workouts become a lot more effort-based.  During the less-snowy months, I enjoy a good track workout or two a week.  I know exactly how far I'm running and how fast I run that distance.  However, this gets to me mentally after a while. It's a high to crush a workout, but missing times can be a downer.  With snow on the track during the winter, though, runs are mostly on the roads.  Workouts, when I can find clear roads or sidewalks, are fartlek-like; I don't run with a GPS, so I go hard for "x" minutes several times with breaks.  But most of the time running over the snow is enough of a workout. I might not get into PR shape quickly, but effort-based training helps delay the mental burnout that comes with training by splits all of the time.

Of course, there are downsides to each of these points, but I try to make the best of this tough running season.  For the most part, this week of training went well.  Up until this week, I had prided myself on not having a single treadmill (Dreadmill) run since before I moved to Rochester.  Unfortunately, my first two winters here were considered "mild"; this time last year, we had less than an inch of snow for the season.  I finally caved early this week and decided to try some treadmill runs.  I tried a short run on Sunday to get adjusted to it, and Monday was my long-run/workout on it. It wasn't terrible except for the fact that it tried to force me to cool down by slowing the pace after an hour. Then today was the Reindeer Run 5K.   I felt miserable, both due to physical and environmental conditions, but I probably wouldn't have been much faster under better conditions.  It was a solid effort.  Race report to come.

Sunday: AM: 9 miles 
               PM: 5 miles (Dreadmill)
Monday: 4 miles easy, 7 miles (6:00 pace), 1 mile (5:30 pace), 3 miles easy (Dreadmill)
Tuesday: 7 miles easy
Wednesday: 12 miles, with 4x(4:00 hard, 2:30 easy)
Thursday: 9 miles easy
Friday: 6 miles easy
Saturday: Reindeer Run 5K in 16:18.  13 miles total
Total: 76 miles

Freezeroo #1: Don Curran Memorial 5K

I've never tried writing one of these race reports before, so we'll see how this goes.  This past Saturday was the first race of the Freezeroo Series, the Don Curran Memorial 5K.  This race was the final race in the series last year, but it was changed to the first race for this year.  Coming off of two lighter weeks of training, I was not sure what to expect.  I figured I would not be in PR shape even in ideal conditions, but I also didn't think that I lost all of my gains from the fall racing season.  As is usual before races, I couldn't sleep amazingly well, but enough, so I got up and got into school to get some work done before the 10AM race.  

I enjoy running and racing in the winter weather, and it's only been this year that I've gotten smarter about dressing well for races (yes, the slightly extra weight of more layers outweighs being lighter but freezing for the duration of the race).  Josh's report of the coldest Freezeroo race last year shows my previous, not-so-intelligent school of thought.  Saturday's race was roughly the same in terms of temperature, but the wind chill brought the real-feel to sub-zero.  This time, I caved and used a long-sleeved spandex shirt.  It'd have to be a little colder for me to break out the pants for a race.

The course itself is a pancake.  It starts on roads/parking lots for about half a mile, goes along a "bike path" for a quarter-mile, then returns to roads to the turn-around. Despite a fair number of turns, this course could be a pretty fast course...if run during the spring or fall.  Both this year and last year, the course had slush on the roads and snow on the bike path (I didn't realize it was actually a bike path until looking at the map after the race).  In addition, even though it wasn't snowing too hard yet, it was enough to keep the roads slick and slushy.  I won last year in 16:50 under less windy and warmer conditions than this year. 

I ran the warm-up with Dave Rappleyea and two of his athletes to preview the course, and it was about as messy as expected.   Getting ready to race, I found two other RoadKill teammates, Matt Roberts and Joe Williams, and we were pumped to kickoff the series (but mostly, it was freaking cold and we wanted to run).

The siren to start the race rang, and we were off into the slush.  Right from the start, it was a battle to gain speed and maintain traction simultaneously.  By the time we got to the bike path, Dave, Matt, and I had started to break away, and I took a slight lead.  Once we got out of the park, I looked for a less slushy part on the road to try to speed up, but these attempts were quickly thwarted.  The course traveled on the shoulder of a main road for about a quarter-mile before turning onto a sideroad.  The mile mark was along this stretch of main road; I was through the mile in about 5:30, with Dave and Matt fairly close behind. 

I thought that the second mile would be somewhat faster, seeing as though we were now on roads that had been plowed at some point.  However, the slush on the roads made things tricky, in addition to running into a headwind for about a third of a mile along the side road.  From the turn onto the sideroad, I could see the turnaround, but it was a battle to get there as quickly as possible.  The turnaround killed momentum before heading back the same way we came.  Dave and Matt were still about the same distance behind me.  I made it back to the two-mile mark (along the same stretch of main road as the mile mark) in about 10:55 (5:25 mile).  

At that point, I just wanted to be done, and the cold and slush were unrelenting. Weaving back through the park and parking lots, I was through the three-mile in about 16:50 and "sprinted" home to finish first in 17:25.  Dave and Matt both finished soon afterwards before a large gap to the next finisher. At that point, we ran a short cooldown before getting some hot post-race food and drink.

It's blurry because I'm fast. Or that's what I like to believe.

It was nice to see a great turnout (181 finishers) for a race on a day with such unfavorable conditions. On a normal day, the time would not be anything special (time-wise, the last time I ran a slower 5K, cross-country or otherwise, was the summer of 2010).  Saturday was not a normal day, though.  One misstep could have wrecked anyone's day/week, derailing future goals.  Overall, it was a solid effort and an enjoyable race. Fortunately, no twisted ankles for me.

Full results here. Thanks to Rochester Runner Pics for the photo!

That time of year

It's that busy time of year again. The semester ends a few days before Christmas, which means that a decent chunk of research/work needs to be accomplished in a short period of time.  Although Winter doesn't start for another week, it seems to have already arrived.  Fortunately, it's in the early period of marathon training, so mileage is not ridiculous and workouts are not too intense yet.  Unfortunately, the weather may just get worse from here on out. 

Most of my mileage, at least during the week, occurs in the early morning.  Sometimes it's hard to drag myself out of bed and out the door before work.  It doesn't help that the snows have started already and that the muscles are cold and dead from sleep.  However, this usually works better for me. At the end of a long day, it's hard to get myself motivated to go more than a few miles; it's much easier for me to get it out of the way early.  Also, even though it's much easier to crank out a fast workout at night, that kind of effort affects me.  A hard effort at night keeps me amped up for way too long, which keeps me awake for way too long.  I'd rather sacrifice the fast times for proper rest.

For the first real week back, I had a few good workouts and a race in the snow, so I would call it a successful week.

Sunday: 12 miles.  Miles 7-9 at 5:18/mile average
Monday: 9 miles easy
Tuesday: 3x1600m w/ 3:00 rest (5:03, 5:07, 5:10). 10 miles total
Wednesday: 8 miles easy
Thursday: 8x(200m-ish hard, 400m-ish easy). 6 miles total
Friday: 6 miles easy
Saturday: Freezeroo #1: Don Curran Memorial 5K in 17:25. 10 miles total
Total: 61 miles

I was feeling well on Sunday, and I wanted to do a few "push miles" towards the end, with the goal of 5:30/mile.  They went a little faster than I should have let them, and I was feeling it for the workout on Tuesday (originally planned for Wednesday, but I wanted to beat the wind and snow).  I was still happy with how the workout went, considering I was finished by 7:30 AM.  The snow came Wednesday and has been persistent since.  Thursday ended up being a stride-like workout around a 600m-ish grocery store parking lot to get ready for the race Saturday.  The race was a mess between the snow, wind, and frigid temperatures, but it was a good time nonetheless. Maybe someday I'll attempt a race report.

Next up on the agenda is the Reindeer Run 5K next Saturday.  Hopefully by then it's a little less snowy and a little more warm!

And so it begins...

I'm a runner and a scientist, and I need to balance the two.
 

Sometimes, I'm kind of intense.

My start in running came in high school as a desire to get in shape.  I joined the cross-country team as a freshman and was awful.  Granted, as a dumb freshman, I thought I could show up at the first meet in the fall and run "fast".  It didn't work.  I should have learned by the next year to actually run over the summer... but I didn't.  It took until my senior year to start caring about running, but even then, with many, many improvements made during my senior year, I graduated with personal records that were fine but not awesome (~4:57 mile, ~10:45 two-mile, and ~18:30 5K).  I thought that I was done racing for good, and during my freshman year at Juniata College, I ran when I had time. But something was still missing.  I joined the track team in the next semester, and I quickly improved.  By the first meet of the season, I ran a 17:16 5K, and by the end of the season, I was down to 16:54! But alas, injury struck for the next two years, and it wasn't until my senior year that I was injury-free and able to improve.  I graduated with good times, and once again, I thought I was done racing.  But I couldn't quit, and as I was moving to Rochester in the fall, I found that the Rochester Marathon was in the fall, and I signed up right away.  After that race, I realized I didn't have to give up racing just because I was in graduate school.  Within the following year, I raced another marathon (which will likely not be discussed here...), I joined RoadKill Racing, and I started racing many more cross-country and road races in the area.  

Start of the final cross-country race of the year.

Following that long introduction, that leads up to now.  I'm coming off of the most successful season of my career, in which I raced more than I ever have (11 races, ranging from 5K to half-marathon, in three months) and ran more miles that I ever have (~1150 in the same three months).   I lowered my 5K PR to 15:51 and my half-marathon PR to 1:12:12. I learned several things about my running:

1. I can handle many more miles than I previously thought.

2. I can race more frequently than I previously thought.

3.  I'm a lot more "injury-proof" than I previously thought.

4.  Maybe if I ran more NOT when I'm racing almost every weekend, and if I rested a little bit more when I was racing, I could have a very successful season, even more so than the season that I had.

 My next goals are to get some base-like training in for the next few weeks; I'll have some light workouts, start to build up my mileage, and race a couple of races (including the first race of the Freezeroo Series).  Long term, I hope to find a spring half-marathon and some other races before I race the Gettysburg North-South Marathon in April. 

Since I'm coming off of one season and into another, my training has been light; this is "Week 0", if you will.  The next week will hopefully include at least a little bit of quality.

Sunday: 5 miles easy (~7:00 per mile)
Monday: 3 miles easy
Tuesday: 5 miles easy
Wednesday: 4 miles easy
Thursday: 6 miles easy
Friday: 7 miles easy
Saturday: 10 miles easy
Total: 40 miles

As for the science....well, I said that I had to find a balance.

Thank you for reading.