Solid, Solo 10-miler

OBJECTIVE
10 mi. w/last 2 mi. @ marathon pace (MP = 7:55)

ACHIEVED
10.04 mi. @ 8:39/mi. [last 2 mi. - 7:52/7:35)

5:46 AM 79° 82% 7 mph

It was tough to get going this morning but I'm glad I did. It turned out to be a good run. I went from the Y on a solo trip. I took it out slow and tried to hold the mile pace around 8:45-8:50. The morning was warm and humid. At the turn around point, I stopped at a convenience store for a Gatorade. My knee felt a little loose but I think part of that was mental now that I have a diagnosis. With about 4 miles to go, I started seeing people from the ChampionsFit group in their way out. This was helpful in that it sparked my pace at a time when I may have fallen off some.

By the time I hit 8 miles, I really wasn't sure if I would be able to slice a minute off the pace to finish strong over the final 2 miles. But once I got going, it felt good. It's the concept Jonathan has talked about before. Basically that it can be harder to go slow than it is to go faster. It's hard to explain but it held true for me today. The last two miles felt good and I was able to hit my planned for paces.

9:13/8:49/8:46/8:49/8:49/8:45/8:51/9:03/7:52/7:35

Tinman has set my EZ pace at 8:24 - 8:54 for now. My CV pace is 6:40 and my MP is 7:55.

It looks like I'll just stick with the same weekly plan I followed this week over the next 4 weeks while I'm doing rehab. That way I keep my longest run to 10 miles (in line with Dr. Cianca's orders) but still get 34 miles each week. Assuming I get a clean bill of health in 4 weeks (how's that for optimism?), I'll have a decent base to build on for my sole goal - the 2008 St. George marathon on October 4.

PRE RUN
apple juice

POST RUN
SlimFast
Later, oatmeal w/skim milk; water & multivitamin

Weak Butt

Well it's official, I have a weak butt! That's not the official diagnosis.... But I'll get to that.

I finally made it to the doctor today. After dealing with the problem on the outside of my knee since November 10, I now have an understanding of the problem and the treatment. I met with Dr. John Cianca this morning. Shellie Patton recommended Cianca but I later found out that Stephanie, William, and Randy have each been to him as well. Cianca is the former medical director of the Houston Marathon and a runner himself. I found him to be very good. I liked the fact that he seemed very thorough and precise. I benefited from the fact that Dr. Cianca was being shadowed by another young doctor today. So he was explaining to her anything he was doing to me as he was doing it. After discussing my symptoms an detail, he took me through an extensive battery of physical tests. Things like squatting, hopping, balancing on one leg, etc.

So the diagnosis: iliotibial band syndrome caused by weak gluteal muscles.

The doctor was surprised that I've been able to continue running as much as I have and that the pain isn't more debilitating. To a lesser degree, he was a bit surprised that I'm only experiencing pain in one leg. He believes a regimen of physical therapy can overcome the weakness.

So the plan is physical therapy with Danni (haven't met her yet) twice a weak. I start next Friday with an evaluation. Dr. Cianca said that I can continue running but I shouldn't go over 10 miles at a time. He also suggested that I rest one day before running again. He doesn't think running will slow the progress of the therapy. For now the therapy sessions are expected to last 4 weeks.

I'm hoping this is the beginning of the end of this problem!

Four Consecutive Days ... May be a Record

OBJECTIVE
4 - 6 miles : EZ pace (8:34 - 8:54)

ACHIEVED
5.12 mi. @ 8:45/mi.

5:33 AM 81° 74% 9 mph

I managed to find the pace this morning. It actually felt pretty good. I'm somewhat surprised that I'm feeling as good as I do so far with daily running. (We'll see how the last couple miles of tomorrow's longer run goes!)

I took the York Minster loop again (same as Tuesday). There seemed to be a bit more traffic than usual this morning.

I feel much better having a target pace.

I'm visiting the doctor this morning for an evaluation of my knee / IT band issue. I'm hopeful that he's not going to shut me down.

Tomorrow is a 10-mile run that it looks like I'll be doing on my own very early.



PRE RUN
1/2 Rice Krispie treat & water

POST RUN
other 1/2 Rice Krispie treat, multivitamin, water & oatmeal w/skim milk

Recovery Run

OBJECTIVE
2 - 3 miles : slow

ACHIEVED
3.02 mi. @ 8:59/mi.

5:30 AM 81F 74% 8 mph

Legs felt a bit tired this morning but just took it easy and got the miles.

Exchanged blog posts with "Tinman" at The Run Zone regarding proper training paces. I was right that my scheduled pace for yesterday was too slow (although I hit the right times in 3 of 5 of the sets). Tinman was surprised by the BIG disparity in my 5K and 10K times. Of course, I've noted this before myself but didn't realize it's as dramatic as it apparently is. One excuse I had come up with is that I'm mentally weak the longer the race. The other reasoning is that I'm simply not properly conditioned for endurance. I think there's something to this theory. Essentially I've been following training plans that allow runners to finish a marathon rather than a plan that yields best results. Anyway, I've got revised training paces for EZ, CV, and MP runs. This should help.

Tomorrow will be 4-6 EZ miles.

PRE RUN
apple juice

POST RUN
apple juice, multivitamin, & GrapeNuts w/skim milk

Peculiar Run

OBJECTIVE
8 miles w/ 5x2 minutes @ CV pace (7:15), jog 2 minutes between

ACHIEVED
8.03 miles w/5x2 min. (see pace detail below), jog 2 min. between

6:15 AM 78° 81% 7 mph

This really was a peculiar run. I haven't done one like this before ... that I recall. After looking forward to this run, I actually had some dread going into it. But it turned out fine.

Today is Cameron's first day out of school so I didn't have to get up at a particular time. Normally that wouldn't matter and I'd just get up early like always but I actually slept in a bit today. I went to the YMCA to start my run. I like the 8-mile route that starts there since over half of it is off the streets on a paved trail.

I'm not exactly sure how fast the run is supposed to be when not running the speed portion so I really eased into this one. My legs felt a little fatigued but loosened up as I went along.

After about 2.5 miles, I hit the trail and that's where I had decided the faster portion of the run would begin. I'm sure I looked like a dork since I had my Garmin GPS on my left wrist and my Timex Ironman on my right but I wanted the Ironman to run repeating 2:00 intervals with an audible indicator. The sound on my Garmin is hit and miss so I didn't want to rely on it.

I banged out the first 2 minutes and was surprised by my comfort with the pace. I was a bit worried that this may be a trick since I still had 4 more to go. I slowed for a 2:00 jog then hit it again. The pace again felt fine. This repeated then it was time to turn around. I jogged a little extra only because I didn't want to turn around during a speed portion. After the turn, I run then jogged for two more segments. Then it was three miles back to the Y.

I wondered if I somehow miscalculated the pace of my speed segments. They seemed too easy this morning. Well, I think the beauty of this type of run hit me as I was working my way back to the Y. The speed part seemed to catch up with me. And even though I wasn't running an aggressive pace at all. I could feel the 10 minutes of blasters (for lack of a better word) that I had done. I'm curious to see if I feel the same next week.

8.03 mi. @ 8:38/mi.

2.45 mi. @ 8:53/mi.
2:02 min.@ 7:09/mi.
2:00 min. recovery
2:00 min.@ 7:11/mi.
2:00 min. recovery
2:00 min.@ 6:55/mi.
3:03 min. recovery
2:00 min.@ 6:47/mi.
2:00 min. recovery
2:03 min.@ 6:39/mi.
1:58 min. recovery
3:02 mi. @ 8:44/mi.


PRE RUN
Clif bar & water


POST RUN
water, multivitamin, oatmeal w/skim milk

Uneventful 5

OBJECTIVE
4 - 6 miles : easy

ACHIEVED
5.13 mi. @ 9:03/mi.

5:25 AM 76° 88% 7 mph

Rolled out five plus miles this morning ... Day 2 of the new training plan. Having posted the week's schedule at the beginning of the week was good because it had me thinking about today's run throughout the day yesterday. When it came time to go this morning, I felt okay and mentally seemed prepared too. Not that today's run was a big, major effort. I just seemed better prepared.

I took the York Minster Loop from the house. I haven't run that specific route for quite some time. My legs seemed heavy at different times during the run. I don't think I've fully recovered from the marathon yet. Theoretically by sometime next week, the marathon should be out of my system. Today's slow pace never challenged my cardio.

There's no such thing as wasted miles under the approach to training so this was a good run to get in the books. Tomorrow will be the first test as I include a touch of speed into a longer run. I'm already looking forward to it.

PRE RUN
Clif bar & water

POST RUN
oatmeal w/skim milk, multivitamin @ water

Sluggish Start

OBJECTIVE
2-3 miles : slow

ACHIEVED
3.01 mi. @ 9:08/mi.

5:21 AM 75° 89% 5 mph

Felt sluggish through most of the run this morning. It may have been a bad nutrition weekend. Yesterday being the first Sunday of the month, I took the opportunity for a 24-hour fast. Sometimes this ends up being a good physical purge. Other times it's draining. I think I ended up with the latter. Coming off the fast yesterday, I ate pretty "clean" but later in the evening I junked it up. I suspect that defeats any physical benefits of the fast.

I took today's run slow and didn't look at my watch much. I ended up about right where I wanted to be pace-wise. There will be time for fast runs later in the week and my body needs to be able to complete them.

By the end of the run, I was feeling much better than the first couple miles.

PRE RUN
Clif bar, multivitamin & water

POST RUN
Oatmeal w/skim milk & water

June 1 - 7 Training Schedule

Sun: Rest
Mon: 2-3 miles, slow
Tue: 4-6 miles, easy
Wed: 8 miles including 5x2 min. @ Critical Velocity (CV) pace [7:15] with 2 minutes active recovery (jog)
Thu: 2-3 miles, slow
Fri: 4-6 miles, easy (Doctor)
Sat: 10 miles, the first 8 miles EZ and the last 2 miles at Marathon Pace (MP) [7:59]


I seemed to do much better when I laid out my week's training schedule in advance. I followed that approach religiously for last year's St. George marathon. However, after St. George I didn't blog my weekly training schedule in advance. I had it in writing but it wasn't the same. So I'll be blogging my training schedule in advance again.

Of course, I've toyed with several training systems in the past. The only one I've ever fully committed to was Runners' World's Smart Coach. I did start the Furman Institute of Running & Scientific Training before Thanksgiving but pulled off it after getting injured. Based on my observations, I'm not getting enough mileage to achieve better marathon results. I've been running just enough miles (i.e., the minimum) to complete a marathon. I need to get my mileage up this training cycle but I need to be very careful about how I go about it due to my fragile knee/IT band. High mileage isn't going to mean the same thing for me as it does for others. It's a relative concept. I've run my prior two marathons after peaking at around 35 miles per week. That's not enough for the result I'm seeking. The number of miles matter. It's been confirmed over and over to me by Jack McClintic, Sasha Pachev, and Jonathan Bennett. Jack's and Jonathan's performances really took off once they upped their mileage. And Sasha is adamant that unless you're running at least 50 miles per week, you shouldn't be running a marathon. So I'm going to work on stretching my mileage out.

As for a plan, I'm somewhat following a Jack Daniels approach with some seemingly practical modifications I've culled from various blogs. In other words, I'm making this up as I go. This first week will be a test run. I'll observe how my body is responding and recovering. Over the last two weeks I've run 14.5 and 21 miles as a "reverse taper" coming off the marathon. This week's schedule takes me back up to 30-36 miles. I really need to focus on the slow and easy runs being just that - SLOW and EASY or else I'm sure I won't recover in time for the next run. The focus right now is on miles not speed. All of the conversion tables suggest I have plenty of speed to achieve my desired marathon time. But as I move up in distance, my equivalent marathon time slows dramatically. Therefore, I need endurance. By increasing my mileage, I should be able to increase my overall endurance. If I need to circle back later in the cycle to build speed, I think I'll be able to.

Finally, since this is a trial run, if I'm not responding well, I'll adjust. Ultimately, I necessary I'll pull back to one of the minimal mileage plans but that's not the plan for now.

Also this week, I'll be visiting Dr. John Cianca on Friday. I look forward to seeing him and am hopeful of getting a course of action that will clear up my knee once and for all.