The Hearnish 10K-ish: A race report-ish

This past Saturday was the fourth Freezeroo race, the Hearnish 10K (which is a certified 6.385 mile course) and possibly the toughest course of the series.  I have rough memories of this race after last year (mostly my own fault), so I was not looking forward this race very much.  Thus, I'm not really going to write a full race report but rather steal a bunch of pictures from random places.  

From the beginning of the race last year.  This was the coldest race that year (and still not as cold as many of the days this year)...Not sure what was going through my head that day.

Joe, Matt, and I hanging out before the race.  I got a little smarter this year.  Clothes are good.

Ready to go! (Kind of)

Leading the charge (half-asleep)

Thanks to Josh for this elevation graph of the course.  It's not flat.  Couple that with a stiff headwind for miles 2 and 3, and you don't have a fast course. 

Basically, I started fast, slowed drastically for miles 2 and 3, sped up a lot for mile 4, borderline walked up that hill in mile 5, and tried to mentally recover from that for a fast finish. 

Trying to finish strongly.

I came through first in a time of 36:48; it was a good workout and an improvement of over half a minute over the year before, most likely due to the extra clothing.  Next up for me is the fifth Freezeroo Race, the Valentines Run.

Thanks to Rochester Runner Pics for the photos!

Your body knows more than you do

I've learned more and more over the years that training plans should be written in pencil (or at least a spreadsheet on a computer with a working "delete" key).  The body knows how it feels better than any words written on paper do.  This week was one of those weeks that solidified this a little more for me. 

I'm starting to get into more "marathon training mode" now, as I have just over three months left.  My original plan for the week was 90 miles, build up more the next week, then back off for a fast 5K at the Brockport Golden Eagle Invitational, but due to several circumstances, I decided to instead try the 5K at the RIT Tiger Invitational this weekend. I still wanted to hit mileage, but I figured I could frontload the week, do a mile repeat workout (goal: 6-7) on Tuesday, and still be rested for the 5K on Saturday.  

Things were going well until Monday.  I got back to lab that evening after my PM run and dinner and started to work. After a half an hour or so, though, I felt really tired all of a sudden.  I got chills, felt really warm, and had an upset stomach.  My first thought was the flu. (Spoiler alert: it probably wasn't the flu.) I finished up the procedures I had to in lab, then went home, watched "How I Met Your Mother", and went to bed. 

I got up the next morning (the morning I planned the workout) later than I wanted to still feeling awful, but I decided to try to run.  I barely made it a few minutes before feeling nauseous, so I finished up a mile, went home and tried to eat before work.  I had no appetite but did the best I could.  I figured I'd run if I felt good enough after work.  Surprisingly, I did, and I completed a run without feeling awful.  I contemplated trying a shortened version of the workout the next morning.  
 The next morning came and I got to the track well enough.  However, barely halfway through my first repeat, I felt awful again.  I cut off and decided to just go easy, possibly for the rest of the week until the race.  This went well; I could still put in easy mileage, and I finally got my "full" appetite back on Thursday.  The only "hard" stuff I did was two 400 meter pickups on Friday at just faster than goal pace, more as a confidence booster going into the race.

Saturday morning came, and I was feeling surprisingly good.  Dave was also racing; the plan was to let the college kids do whatever they wanted to do (likely go out hard) but ignore them and get to the mile between 4:55 and 5:00.  Then we'd hold on from there.  Unlike last week, I wanted to succeed at sticking to the plan.  I got to RIT, did a warm up, and soon enough, it was race time.

The gun went off, and the race went off more slowly than expected.  We hung back and came through the first lap in 38-39 seconds.  We picked it up a little bit, and soon it was Dave, Chad Byler, and I out front.  We came through the 1600m in 4:57.  Perfect.  Dave soon started to surge, and I went with him but stuck close behind him.  Just after halfway through the race, I started to surge, mumbling something like "I'll start doing some of the work" but which probably sounded like "ladsfa iajdf a;asd".  Chad came back right before 3200m, and we ran through in 9:59ish, and he backed out.  Now was the time to hang tough.  A few laps later, Dave came back and we started to work again.  With 600m left, I started to go and push "hard".  I crossed the bell lap in 15:15ish and tried to kick.  With 150m left, a freshman from Geneseo got ahead of me.  I tried to get him but failed.  I crossed the line in second place in 15:48 (a new PR!), just as the freshman desecrated the track with the contents of his stomach.  Dave was close behind in a solid 15:58.

This week did not go as planned, and I still have a lot to learn about listening to my body.  Maybe it's stubbornness or stupidity (or a combination of both) that causes me to not want to give up miles.  Maybe I would have run even better if I had just taken a day off this week to recover.  But with a strong race and a new PR on a 90 mile week, I'd be lying if I said I was disappointed.  I know I can be a little smarter about my training, but this week gives me confidence as I go into the tougher weeks of training.

I'll pretend that course was accurate

The last two weeks have seen a good start to the new year.  I've raced twice in the last two weeks.  The last year ended with a race on New Year's Eve with my hometown Twilight Run 5K.  I had not run this race since high school, and they had changed the course since that time.  The race is run at Lakemont Park.  Each year around the holidays, the park sets up a light display within the park through which cars can drive through so passengers can get a nostalgic holiday feeling as they observe Christmas lights and listen to holiday music.  Unfortunately, that nostalgic holiday feeling works differently with a race.  The course starts outside of the park, runs about a quarter mile into it, does three loops around the park, and exits a quarter-mile to the finish.  The big challenge of the course is that there is also a 2 mile race that starts very soon after the start of the 5K, so dodging through groups of people on a fairly-narrow course made for a fun time.  There isn't a whole lot to report about this race, except that it was somewhat muddy and very cold, there was a lot of pushing and shoving, I barely won, and I got this very deceiving picture at the finish:

Finishing the Twilight Run 5K with a huge "PR"!  Credit: Hollidaysburg YMCA

The race organizers had warned that the course was fast and short, and it lived up to expectations.  If it had been a certified course, it would have been a 64 second PR (my official time was 14:47). Nevertheless, it gave me some confidence heading into the new year.

Training went well for the next two weeks up to the third Freezeroo race, the Pineway Ponds 5 Mile.  I had a few good workouts in the previous week, and I felt that I could pull out a sub-27 minute race and a PR.  Either that or I'd still not be too recovered from the workouts and blow up.

I woke up race morning feeling surprisingly rested for a week with less sleep than I'd like.  Dave, Josh, Matt, and I had decided a few days before to go out at 5:20 pace for a mile or two and see what happens after that. I was truly hoping to stick to that and run a fast race.  Unfortunately, the morning also presented some winds and rain, despite mild temperatures.  In addition, some ice was also still on the course, and we were warned multiple times about the finish being "dicey".   

Being warned about dicey conditions.  Credit: Rochester Runner Pics

I overestimated how good I felt early in the race.  I started the race feeling very confident and threw little concern to how fast I was going, and I became "that guy" who pushes the pace.  One mile and 5 minutes and 5 seconds later, Dave said something along the lines of "Out a little too fast", to which I responded "Yeah...".  About a half of a mile later, Dave started to pull away, and I tried to hold my best.  Any attempt to catch back up was quickly thwarted by the wind.  Despite slowing down greatly over the course of the race (except for a somewhat quick last mile), I came through the finish in 26:46, good enough for a 9 second PR for a 5 mile race.  Although it could have been a better PR had I employed a better race strategy, I am by no means disappointed.

Trying to finish strong.  Credit: Rochester Runner Pics

So what's next?   In addition to continuing to build my mileage in preparation for more hardcore marathon training, I plan to run at least one indoor 5K in the next 3 weeks. I missed the Holiday Classic this year, and I feel that it's time to return to the track; I have not run a track race (indoor or outdoor) in almost three years.  I have a good shot to run a fast 5K and maybe whittle my actual 5K PR down a little bit more. 

The role of burnout

It may seem contradictory that I'm writing a post on my experiences with burnout so soon after a post about pushing my limits.  No, I am not currently burnt out, neither physically nor mentally, and I'm now a much smarter runner than I was to reduce the chances of this happening again.  However, burnout has played a large role in my development as a runner, so I feel it's worth writing a post about.  To that end, we go back to 2008.

Throwback to 2008, the first time I broke 17 minutes in the 5K!

2008 was a good year for my running. In the spring, I had joined the track team after thinking I'd not compete in college and made excellent gains. I ran my first sub-17 minute 5K (coming after I had never broken 18 in high school), and that 5K itself was the day after a 10K.  Summer running went well, and I came into cross-country season feeling fast.  I ended the season with a PR of just under 28 minutes for 8K, which I didn't beat again until after college.

Then 2009 came.  Indoor track season started well, but towards the end of February (the week before the conference meet), I developed a pain in my one Achilles' tendon.  I took a few days off, took some Aleve, and ran the 5K that weekend.  The pain subsided, and I continued to train into the start of outdoor season.  The week before the first meet, tendonitis hit my other Achilles' tendon, only much more severe than it affected the other one.  This took the better part of a month before I could start running again, and by that point, the season was pretty much shot.

I wanted to come back strongly for the fall, so I took summer training seriously. Within a month of coming back to running, I was in the 65 miles per week range (compared to what I can handle now, this doesn't sound like much, but at the time, my highest week was around 70).  But things went downhill quickly.  I had trouble falling asleep at night and would wake up frequently or long before I planned to get up.  I averaged about 4 or 5 hours of sleep per night.  I often didn't have much of an appetite.  I was tired all of the time.  Worst of all, running became awful. Any type of workout quickly got cut short and turned into an easy run.  I couldn't complete workouts that I had been able to previously.  My only 5K race of the summer ended up well over 19 minutes.  Despite these problems, I was stubborn and thought it was just a phase.  I kept running, hoping it would get better.

It didn't.  The new semester began; I had a tough course load that year, yet I was fatigued and still could not sleep much.  Workouts were awful, and weekend after weekend I suffered through one miserable race after another.  My best race of the season was a minute slower than my worst race the previous fall.  I should have cut the season off early, but I still kept running, hoping it would get better.  

It wasn't until the end of the season that I took time off.  I had one week away from running, and I could feel myself getting stronger every day.  It wasn't enough.  I wanted to get strong and have a strong track season, but by starting back too early, I was doing the opposite.  I was getting more sleep, but sleep problems still remained.  I ended indoor track with a 17:25 5K; it was a step in the right direction.  Soon after, though, I was "injured" again; I felt a twinge in my back during an easy run and had trouble running after that.  Maybe it was a sign from the universe to take a break, so I did.  I only attempted a few outdoor races that season, including the steeplechase, which ended up as the only DNF of my life (and to this day).  

Finally, I took more time off.  Two weeks of nothing.  When I stepped out for that first run, I felt both awesome and awful at the same time.  I was rested and finally ready to get better.  I had an excellent summer training season, leading into what was my best cross-country season in college.  Sure, I didn't PR that season, but I was consistently close to a PR on a wide variety of tough courses.  This season then led into my best track season in college, with PRs in every distance from 800 to 10K (excluding the steeple, which will likely never be attempted again).  I've been improving still since then.

Final cross-country season in college.  Much healthier and stronger than the previous two years!

That burnout phase was one of the toughest times in my progression as a runner, yet it was also one of the most informational, as it taught me how to not train.  It also taught me the more subtle signs of burnout (besides workouts starting to be unsuccessful and running not being fun).  Aside from the loss of appetite, insomnia, and fatigue, I also learned about listening to my body a lot more.  Although I don't train based on heart rate, I became more in tune with paying attention to my resting heart rate and how well I recover.  If it's creeping up day after day, I now know I need to take it easy.  Unfortunately, burnout affects almost everyone differently, and you could google "overtraining symptoms" or "burnout symptoms" and find a dozen more.

I haven't been burnt out since that year.  I can run many more miles than I did back then, but it took time to build up to this level.  Jumping up all at once, especially after injury, is a one-way trip to burnout or injury.  It's easy to look back and say that I should have been smarter, but the long-term goal of having a great next season clouded the ability to accomplish that goal healthily.  The burnout cost me at least a half of a year of improvements, but because of it, I came out a smarter, better runner.

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.