Today I Run: 5/10/09

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Sandbagger's Special

Ogden Half Marathon
Unofficial 1:31:35 (new PR pending)

Yes, I am still injured but the injury forced me to run the smartest race I've ever run.

... more later ....

Thursday, May 14, 2009

I suppose training for 4 months just to get injured on my last training run, 48 hours prior to the race isn't the worst thing .... I can't believe it is happening. In fact, that's what I yelled out immediately when my foot was hurt, "This can't be happening!" I was two miles from the house and caught the edge on the elevated sidewalk and grass/dirt 2-3 inches below. My self-diagnosis is strained ligaments on top of my left foot. I'm walking with a limp and running is out of the question.

The irony is that on two occasions earlier this week, I was thinking about injuries. Coming home from Monday or Tuesday's run, I thought wouldn't that be stupid to catch an edge on the sidewalk this close to the half. Fortunately I'm much too experienced for that to happen. (This came to mind at a place that this same thing happened before; a long time ago and not nearly as severe.)

My other injury thought was. It seems most of the other runners I know seem to be battling injuries right now. I'm sure glad I'm not.

... the whole thing is pitiful ....

It's not as bad as dropping a bottle of wine on your foot less than a week from a marathon though. This actually kept a person I know from running Chicago 2007 (not a bad one to miss given the circumstances!).

Irony & Injury

I may not be running Saturday. Let's just say I was feeling like Wile E. Coyote in this video. After starting a bit slow, everything was going great until I hit the wall (a.k.a. caught the edge of a sidewalk and really screwed up my foot). I walked it in.

Now Playing Requests

You asked about this, Mom. The first, of course, is the original Frank and Nancy Sinatra version. The remake is Nicole Kidman (yes, the actress) and Robbie Williams. If you want to vote, just do it by commenting. I haven't figured out a good way to segregate this from my running stuff on the blog.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Cold, Hard Fact ... 1:30 is Not in the Cards

... more to follow ....

OBJECTIVE
6 mi. incl. warm up, 4 mi. tempo @ 6:47, & cool down

ACHIEVED
WU 1.01 mi.
6:43/6:46/6:46/6:54
CD 1.12 mi.

6:13 AM 74° 93% 5 mph

Tough run. I hit my times over each of the first three miles but was dying over the fourth mile. This pace is only 5 seconds slower per mile than the pace for a 1:30 half marathon. Based on this, how I've felt in training runs over the last couple weeks, and my 10K race three weeks ago, it's not reasonable to expect to run 1:30 in Ogden. Oh sure I could go out at that pace and hope for some "race day magic". But the reality is that I'm not at the same fitness level that I was in January. I realize now that the change up I made in my training to focus on speed has jeopardized my endurance.

I know that I have more speed than I have endurance but for some stupid reason I have to keep learning it over and over again. Leading up to the Houston half marathon I was logging 50 mile weeks. More recently, I've barely worked back up to 40 miles per week. If I want to be successful over distances, I flat out have to log miles and forget about speed work.

As for my Ogden strategy, I'm still working on it.

PRE RUN
weight 161
sleep 7:00

POST RUN
SlimFast & multivitamin

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

What Pace?

I've run four marathons. Two have gone well (St. George 2007 and 2008); two haven't gone so well (Ogden 2008 and Austin 2009). I'm by no means experienced enough to be offering advice but why should I let that stop me now?

It seems the key to a successful marathon (or other distance race) is choosing the appropriate time goal. Choose too fast of a time and you're almost certainly going to blow up along the way (see my Austin effort ... rocking along for 15.5 miles then it was "game over"). Choose too slow of a goal and you'll finish wondering what you could have done had you made a more committed effort. The thing about marathons is that you can't go out and run another one the following week or month. I haven't perfected the art of choosing the proper pace but here are a few things I consider.

First, take a look at your recent race efforts. What were your times? How did you feel? Your most recent race can be a good indicated of your current fitness level.

Second, convert your recent race efforts to an equivalent marathon time using each of the following:

runbayou.com
attackpoint.org
mcmillanrunning.com
(there's also one at runnersworld.com and runworks.com)

These converters will give you a range of possible goal times for your
upcoming marathon.

I like to plug in a 5K, 10K, and half race to see what the converters think I can cover 26.2 miles in. If you're like me the trend you'll see is that your converted marathon time off your 5K race time is faster
than your marathon time for your 10K which is faster than your half. This suggests to me that I haven't built the proper endurance to trust the converted 5K time or 10K. The half is more reliable unless it was just a particularly bad day for some reason or it was far enough in the past that your fitness level was different. The converted half time may also reflect more endurance than I have trained for so it's probably not a bad idea to add 5 minutes to the converted half time.

This should offer some idea of how to arrive at a reasonable goal time for a marathon. The tricky part is that for a marathon all of this calculating is still very subjective. The converting tools don't take into account differences in terrain, weather, weight, nutrition, hydration, rest, mental outlook, etc. Any or all of these - and more - can come into play. But the converters can give you a frame of
reference.

>From there you can get a pace band to wear during the marathon to track your progress. I've gotten into trouble before when I have failed to
"stay in the mile." What I mean by that is just concentrating on running the current mile at the assigned pace. If you've set your goal pace correctly, this should almost always be do-able. There have been times when I start thinking about how much farther I have left to run. Worrying about how I feel now and worrying even more about how I'm going to feel later. This has led to thoughts of being overwhelmed and negativity. Before and after this year's Boston marathon I watched and read several interviews and comments by elite runners. I heard a few of them talk about the negative thoughts and the hard parts that inevitably come during a marathon. If the elites deal with this, is there any
reason to think a regular Joe like me isn't going to have to deal with the same challenge? Stay positive out on the course! This is always very important for me because I tend toward pessimism.

OBJECTIVE
4 mi.@ 8:04

ACHIEVED
4.04 mi.@ 8:12

6:08 AM 72° 94% 4 mph

PRE RUN
sleep 6:45
weight 160

POST RUN
water, multivitamin, vitamin C & oatmeal w/brown sugar & 1% milk

Monday, May 11, 2009

I've Got Somewhere to Be October 3

Cory Birt
St. George Marathon Lottery Results
1 message
St. George Marathon Mon, May 11, 2009 at 5:34 PM
To: cory.birt@gmail.com

Congratulations! You have been selected to run the 2009 St. George Marathon. You are one of 7200 runners selected from 10,510 registrants. You can access your name through the successful marathon entrants link which will be posted today at 5:00 p.m.

Please check our website at www.stgeorgemarathon.com beginning Thursday, May 14 to access the runner's guide, which will give important information pertaining to this year's race.

We are pleased to have you join us for our 33rd annual race and wish you the very best in your training.

St. George Marathon Staff

OBJECTIVE
4 mi.@ 8:04

ACHIEVED
4.02 mi.@ 8:10

4:57 AM 75° 89% 5 mph

PRE RUN
sleep 7:45

POST RUN
SlimFast
Later, water, multivitamin & Kashi GoLean cereal

Today I Run