Screw this heat

Ok, here's my deal:

• My qualifying time for Boston is 3:10:59, which is approximately a pace of 7:17 min/mile.
• A sub 3-hour marathon, which I believe I am capable of, is approximately a pace of 6:52 min/mile.
• Last week my training plan wanted me to do a long run of 9 miles at 7:17 min/mile, but it ended up being 7:34 min/mile.
• This week called for a long run of 10 miles at 7:17 min/mile pace again.

So, thinking that a fast kid could help me get to and stay at that pace, I ran with BJ. It ended up being a good idea in theory. Due to how hot it was supposed to be yesterday, we wanted to get out there by 8:30, but by the time we hooked up and started running it was closer to 9:00 and already it was a humid 76 degrees. We started at a moderate pace, but we both realized it probably wasn't a good idea to hold it in this heat and humidity, so we slowed it down after a couple of miles. It was an out and back 10 miler along the river trail that runs to Lansing, but we cut off course a little bit at the halfway point to find a water fountain. So it ended up being a tad more than 10 miles. Also, around mile 7 we both stopped so that I could take a gel and so we could both get water from the water bottle I had stashed in the bushes...problem was, I forgot to stop my watch but thankfully BJ did, and we were just about a minute and a half different from each other. At the end, I clocked us at 1:17:22....so take 1:30 off of that and you get 1:15:22, which is a pace of 7:32. Granted, that's only for strictly 10 miles, and I think we went just a tad farther than that. If we extract it to 10.5 miles, it would be a pace of 7:10. So....it felt like we were going at a good pace, but it was also hard to know if that was a product of the heat/humidity, going a little more than 10, or running with a fast buddy....or all of the above. No matter what it was, I was still pretty satisfied with the run. I took an ice bath later that afternoon and really felt great.

I feel like I'm crediting Zeke for everything I put in here, but he really gives out some good links and good info/advice. He had this link in his blog the other day, and I think everybody should check it out. Apparently it's a trailer for an upcoming iMax movie that tracks 6 runners (4 amateur and 2 elite, including Deena Kastor) training for and ultimately completing the 2005 Chicago Marathon. I was reading an article about it and I guess they did a follow-up on the runners through this year's Boston Marathon, then started 5 months worth of intensive post-production. They also said it's gonna be out late this year, but based on the post-production comment, it'll be September 17 at the earliest. I know I'm looking forward to it!

Awkward...

I saw that strip from Mother Goose and Grimm the other day and I almost spit out my lunch from laughing :)

Wednesday morning I did an early morning tempo run which my plan called for 1 mile of warmup, 3 miles at 6:01 pace, and 1 mile cool down for a total of 5 miles. So what I did was run 1 mile to IM West, did 3 miles on the treadmill at 6:00 pace, and ran 1 mile back home. Simple enough. If anything, I felt sort of heavy during the run but that also has to do with the fact that I had just woken up, so it took a little bit of mental toughness to get through it.

Yesterday was also the end of my internship with the tennis camps (hell yea!), so all the pros and I went on a bar crawl to some bars in East Lansing. It sounds fun but it was weird for me....I sort of felt out of place. I've only known those guys for 6 weeks at most and have only talked to them in the tennis setting, and most of the pros have known each other for much longer and have hung out a bunch as well. Plus I didn't drink. Well, I had two shots with the group to celebrate the end of camps, but nothing more, and it got extra awkward hanging out around drunk kids that I don't know too well. It also annoyed me too because I'm not much of a drinker, and in a drinking college town, a lot of people think that everytime you go to the bar it's a requirement to get shitfaced. I guess I won't get into that, but at the end of the night I felt like I just didn't belong so I got out of there and headed home.

Today I was thinking of doing an easy 3-4 mile run, but I instead opted to bike 6 miles and lift weights because I hadn't done that in a good week and a half. It was nice but it was so humid out today that it took an extra effort to do things.

On a final note, in response to Zeke's comment from a couple of posts ago, you may have noticed that I have races on 4 straight weekends in September/October. They're all part of the Playmakers Race Series and I ran 3 of them last year, but due to my marathon training this fall, I've pretty much decided that I'm gonna scratch three of them off the list and run only one of them....most likely the 10 miler. I really want redemption from last year - it was my first 10 miler and I bonked at mile 8. Which reminds me, I'm running the course with my buddy BJ on Saturday morning so I'm pretty confident he can help me keep a good pace over 10 miles. Another reason I'm scratching three races off is that I wanna focus on getting some quality long runs each weekend as well as building up my mileage for the big day. I'll make a definite decision about those races sooner than later though.

All about Ele's Race 5K + results

Yesterday was Ele's Race 5K, but I wanted to give some info about it. There's no info on the website about how the race was formed, so I'll go with what I remember...

The race is in honor of a girl named Ellen Osborn, who died while getting her tonsils removed because she had a very very rare reaction to one of the meds they gave her. At the time, I think it was 1995 and she was about to head into the 6th grade. She was actually a week younger than me, and the race is always held at the end of July around her birthday. Her parents formed the 5K, which started at the elementary school she went to and wound through the streets of her neighborhood, and they appropriately named it Ellen's Race. This race is the first 5K I've ever run (in 2001) and I did it in 20:53...I've improved a bit since then :) It's fun because it's well organized and a TON of people run it. The only bad part is that it's usually very hot and/or very humid, so race performances tend to suffer.

Early in 2005, Ellen's parents decided to move to Missouri, and since they felt that there would be no more use for the race since none of Ellen's relatives were left in town, they decided to discontinue it. Little did they know, a bunch of runners didn't want the race to disappear. Enter Ele's Place. It's a place for grieiving children to talk to somebody about the life's daily battles, and they spearheaded the whole thing. They switched the name from Ellen's Race to Ele's Race, kept the same course and date, and the rest is history.

Last year's race, the first one with the new name, was one of the most eventful races I have run. While I was warming up, I saw the sky was getting darker and darker, and eventually about 15 minutes before the race, the race directors made everybody come into the small school gym because we were under a severe thunderstorm warning. Just great! A good warmup for nothing. No worries....might as well enjoy listening to the band playing while sitting in front of the fan....that is, until the power went out! No power + a ton of people crammed into a small gym = a very humid environment. Eventually the rain subsided and the race got under way about an hour and a half late, but it ended up being a success as usual. I ran a 17:51, which was surprising because it was so humid after the rain, but I'll definitely take it.

This years race was sponsored by Jackson National Life Insurance Company, so they moved the race to their headquarters about 15 minutes southeast of where the race had always been held. I wanted to go watch the race but wasn't able to due to my internship, so I got info from the results page as well as some details from my buddy BJ. Oh what a race it was...BJ said the course was flat and fast, as he came in 3rd with a time of 16:09. The winner was a 15 year old who clocked in at 15:35, beating the second place guy by 17 seconds (15:52). Can you imagine how fast that kid will be in high school cross country the next couple years?! The craziness doesn't stop there....the female winner came in 7th overall with an unbelievable time of 16:20. BJ talked to her after the race, and apparently she's a senior at U of Michigan and is the second best female 5K runner in the nation. He also said she was like 4'8", 80 pounds, and very good looking....but possibly has a big boyfriend. Haha, oh well.

As for me, today I ran an easy 3 miles early this morning, and everything felt good. Really that's all I can say about it, it was that uneventful. Time for me to get a good night's rest...

What a day, what a day

Deep breath....ok, here we go.

The alarm went off at 5:30am this morning so I could leave myself enough time to run up to 9 miles if I felt good enough and then get to my internship on time. It was kind of funny because I was anxious about the run...I've taught myself how to relax, but for some reason I just felt like I was freaking out a bit about this long run.

Ok - this is no big deal. We've done this many times before, just relax and let your feet lead the way.

After I rolled out of bed, I drove out to mile 6 so I could hide a little water bottle in the bushes because I'm experimenting with the GU gel packs for the marathon. While I was driving out there, the radio was playing "How You Remind Me" by Nickelback and that helped to ease my nerves because that song was popular during my senior year of cross country in high school. It just took me back to all the good times I had with my teammates.

Overall, the run was pretty lonely...not many people are up and at 'em at 6am on a Saturday morning. Then again, I did run along some less traveled roads south of campus. Somewhere between 2 and 3 miles, I came across a herd of cows that were all laying by the fence, and they all just stared at me as I ran by. It was actually kind of creepy because like I said, there was nobody else around...but they're cows, what are they really gonna do? For most of the first 5 miles, I was worried about my leg (there's the anxiety again) and it seemed to be holding up well...but the worrying made me think that something was gonna happen. Around mile 5.5, I finally saw another runner and actually caught up to her right at mile 6...though I think I scared her because I didn't pass her and I had to veer off into the bushes to get my water bottle to wash down my gel pack. Oops :) This was my first time consuming a gel pack on the run, and I found it to be simple but sort of awkward, but I guess that goes for everything you try to eat on the run. It was also a blessing in disguise because I realized that once I started thinking about the gel pack, all the bad thoughts regarding my legs had disappeared, and I finished pretty strong....I ended up running all 9 miles!

Final stats...
Mile 3.75 ---- 28:43 (7:39 min/mile)
Mile 6 ---- 45:33 (7:35 min/mile)
Mile 9 ---- 1:08:03 (7:34 min/mile)

I went out slow because I hadn't run this long in a while (March 27 to be exact) and then started to go faster once I realized that I was feeling alright, but it turns out that I was overall pretty consistent. The marathon plan wanted me to do a pace of 7:17 min/mile, but I'm satisfied with 7:34.

Enough about the run....after that, I spent 14 hours at my internship. LONG DAY! Tonight we took the campers to the Lansing Lugnuts minor league baseball game, and getting them back to campus was a nightmare with all the traffic and construction going on. We should've gotten back by 10, but we had to scramble for a bus and didn't get back til 10:30. So yes...very long day and I deserve some good sleep tonight. Tomorrow is Ele's Race 5K, so my next post will be a combo of what the race is about as well as some tidbits about the results.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

Speed of light

So let's see....I gotta recap two days worth of running in this post.

Tuesday I did a short three mile run in the morning. I really don't remember too much of it, probably because I had just woken up...but I vaguely remember that nothing hurt on my lower leg. So yea....three miles.

This morning I got up early once again and hit up the outdoor track next to the football stadium shortly after 6am. I'm feeling well enough now that I'm gonna follow my marathon plan as best as I can from here on out. Right now I'm in the middle of week 2 out of 16 leading up to the big day. Anyway, my workout had me tagged for a fairly light speed work session...at least I considered it to be fairly light. It kind of makes it harder when you're not fully awake. The "light" speed session was a one mile warm-up, 2 x 1600m at 5:41 pace with 800m jogs after, and a one mile cool down for a total of 5 miles. The first mile gave me splits of 1:26.18, 1:29.21, 1:27.81, and 1:24.33 for a total of 5:47.53. So I was 6 seconds slower than what I was going for, so I chalked it up to still being tired. I gave myself a mental slap in the face, then ran the second mile with splits of 1:25.03, 1:25.66, 1:27.10, and 1:19.74 for a total of 5:37.53. Ahhh yea, much better! Exactly 10 seconds better than the first mile....weird how that works out. Averaging the two gives me a 5:42 pace, which is good enough for me. I remember that I had a little bit of tenderness in the beginning of all the running but that quickly went away and then didn't bother me at all the rest of the day. Coming up on Saturday I have myself pegged for a 9 mile run, so we'll see what happens with that. I may have to shorten it up a bit again depending on how I feel, or even break it up into two runs, but I'm pretty confident I can make it through.

I also decided that I'm not gonna run Ele's Race on Sunday. I just feel that since I'm finally getting back into the swing of things that I shouldn't rush it and run all out. I'm a competitive guy and I know that will happen, even if I try to slow it down a bit. I've got like two speed sessions under my belt since I've come back too, so I might as well stay on the safe side of this one.

Happy birthday to me!

So it has been 22 years that I've been a part of this world :) As a birthday celebration for me and my roomie (who turns 21 tomorrow), we and the other two roomies went to Mongolian BBQ for dinner. There's 26 locations in 9 states (most in Michigan), so it's a fairly rare restaurant, but it's SO good. I fill myself up with so much food when I go there. For like $15 you get all you can eat stir fry...but it's good because you pick everything that's in it, and then the chefs cook it on this mongolian style grill. So it's hard not to try different combos and want to keep going back for more. Good news is I'm running tomorrow morning to make up for it, haha.

It seems like everytime I publish a post, I think of something an hour later that I wanted to include in there. I really should start saving my posts as drafts and then posting it a few hours later. Anyway, when I got my new running shoes from Playmakers, it was during their semi-annual sidewalk sale, and my high school cross country coach was there helping out. He's up there on the list of most influential people in my life, he's such a great guy. We talked about shoes and stuff and how I'm running my first marathon this fall....you know, the basic stuff. He also talked about the "what if's"....like what if I had run cross country before my senior year of high school? He thinks I would've been one of the best in the area during my senior year if I had a wealth of experience under my belt, yet fate had it in me to only run cross during my senior year. Also, what if I hadn't run cross during my senior year? Would I be running now? It just kind of makes you wonder, not just about running, but about anything in life. What if you hadn't done certain things, would it make you any more or any less of a person? Would it change the kinds of activities you do or make you look at life differently?

Top spin squirrels!

It's been a busy past couple of days....whew....
















Good news is that I got a new addition to my "family" - Brooks Adrenaline Six, as shown to the left :) I've been breaking them in, and wow....do they feel great.

Thursday I did a 3 mile tempo run on the treadmill - 2.5 miles at a 6:18 pace and the last .5 at a 6:03 pace - with a 1 mile warmup and cooldown. Everything felt great, which really leads me to believe that I am getting over the hill with this injury! Yesterday (Friday) was the first day in a while where I didn't apply any Icy Hot or anything to my lower leg. Usually I've been doing it as a precaution, but I didn't feel the need to use it yesterday. It worked well, I didn't feel any pain. At the very least, I'd go for a while doing something with my internship, and then when I had free time it would pop into my mind. Though, when it did, I thought to myself "Wow, this hasn't hurt at all for a long while today!"

This morning I wanted to do a long run. I had penciled myself in for 8 miles based on my marathon training plan, but I wasn't so sure of myself going that long considering I'm just getting back into the swing of things. So just in case, I made sure to plot a couple of cut off points so that I could make the route a little shorter if I needed to bail. I think I felt good enough physically to make it 8 miles, but my mental game made me only go 5.5. I felt it was better to take this one a bit easy and come back slowly, because in reality I've got 14 more long runs before the marathon. It also didn't help that it was already a humid 75 degrees at 8am. Even though I was adequately hydrated, I didn't wanna kill my body today. I really sympathize for all of you that live in the middle of the country where the temps are getting up to triple digits. My lower leg feels fine, though it seems as if the muscles down there are a bit tight, so I'll be sure to massage them and give them some rest and relaxation in the next couple days.

Speaking of the heat, it's supposed to be around 90 or above for the next 4 or 5 days, and tomorrow is my first of 11 consecutive days with the tennis camp internship....which means I'm gonna be in the heat for a long long time! Good news is that it's the last 11 days too. This past week was probably the best in terms of how well-behaved the campers were. At the end of the week they split campers up into six generally equal teams, and the team that me and a couple other guys were coaching named themselves the Top Spin Squirrels. Sounds kinda lame, but it grew on us. :) They ended up being champs at the end of the week by absolutely dominating the competition. There was this one girl who was actually the best person on the team that was head and shoulders above all of the rest of the girls at camp. She could also hold her own with the really good guys...she could rip the forehand, had a wicked backhand, and was VERY fundamentally sound. Not to mention she also had a great personality and was always smiling. If I could find a girl like her somewhere on campus, I'd be set. But who am I kidding...


Time to catch my breath...

One step closer

If there's anything to be happy about, it's the workout that I had this morning. I felt ambitious enough to hop on the treadmill and see how my calf would hold up...and it started bugging me in the first quarter mile. Just great. So I decided to finish out the quarter mile and then hop on the exercise bike, but I got distracted. I was watching Sportscenter and they had this feature on about a girl who played with an all guys little league team, but then she got brain cancer or something and couldn't play anymore. After some rounds of chemotherapy, she finally reunited with her team and since she lives in Washington, the team got to run onto Safeco Field where the Seattle Mariners play and also meet the team and watch the game from special seats. It was a great uplifting story and by the time it was over, I was half a mile down the line and totally forgot about what was bugging me near my calf - it all went away! So I planned on doing 3 miles and I kept to that, all the while monitoring my leg and possibly stopping if things got bad. Luckily, I never had to resort to that.

I also played an hour of indoor soccer with the kids at camp tonight because it was raining out, so they couldn't go anywhere, and my leg really responded well to all the short sprints and twisting/cutting I had to do. It also helped that we played on the new turf with those shreds of tire rubber, so it was a nice forgiving surface. I have myself penciled in for a tempo run on Thursday, but I may just take it as an easy run if I'm not feeling comfortable with upping the pace just yet. Thursday is also an exciting day because it's the start of the Playmakers Sidewalk Sale, which means an early birthday gift of new shoes for me ;)

Right now I'm watching the MLB All Star Game....and is it just me, or are the announcers on Fox really really REALLY boring? It's not helping that the score is low (2-1 in the 7th) but the crowd just seems to be so dead too. Hopefully the American League can come back!

Max's 5K round-up

This race was the 6th race out of 12 in the Playmakers Race Series, and it was the same old thing as far as the winners go. Eric Stuber is a man (a 42 year old man, that is) among boys -- he won his 4th race of the series in 16:16. The womens race was nothing new either, as Regina Vissochi stayed perfect in the series with a winning time of 19:04. It was sunny and in the low 60s, but it seemed to be humid and a lot of the runners seemed like they were laboring more than they should've been. I talked to my buddy BJ after he finished and he said went out wayyyyy too fast -- he rattled off a 4:54 first mile and had the lead, but ended up finishing 3rd in 16:32.

As runners were finishing, I noticed there were a couple of massage tables so I took the opportunity to see if I could get a massage on my calf. Nobody was in line yet so they were more than happy to work on me. I told the guy what was up and he could really tell by massaging my calf that I have tendonitis in my soleus. I told him that I've pretty much been trying every treatment in the book to make it go away, and he told me to focus on ice massages and stretching. I also talked to a few other people after the race who were wondering why the hell I didn't run the race, and they seemed to all come to the same consensus. One of my mom's friends who ran the race introduced me to a lady who looked to be in her 30s who had the same exact problem as me. Basically she said she did the same things I've been doing and she got back into the swing of things slowly by running a couple minutes, walking a couple minutes, and just alternating between the two. Tonight I did some 3-minute loops in my neighborhood and walked in between each of them and did an ice massage when I got back, and everything seemed to respond just fine.

In a sense, I think all I needed was to hear it from people that I know and love running just the same as I do. It just gives me that added sense of comfort that I will come back from this and I will end up training great for the Detroit Marathon. This week is the 1st of 16 weeks leading up to the marathon, and I penciled myself in for a 3 mile run on Tuesday if I'm feeling alright. Right now, I feel I can do it....but Tuesday is not right now, so we'll see how everything responds between now and then.

All about Max's Race 5K

Even though I'm not gonna run it, I want to say a little bit about Max's Race which will take place tomorrow morning at 8:30am on the MSU campus.

When Maxwell Matthews was only 7 months old, he contracted bacterial spiral meningitis and spent a month in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing. He overcame the illness, but still underwent 7 surgeries. One of these surgeries was a cochlear implant, and at that time Max was the youngest person in Michigan to ever receive one. Max always persevered thru each obstacle during his young life, but he eventually lost his battle and passed away on March 12, 2005 at the age of 6.

With help from Sparrow Hospital, Max's parents somehow arranged a 5K race in only 3 months time and on July 9 of last year, the inaugural Max's Race 5K took place. 585 runners participated (which is a lot for this area) and they collectively raised a whopping $25,000 for the Sparrow Pediatric Program Fund and the Maxwell C. Matthews Foundation. This year the goals are 800 participants and $40,000 raised.

If you want more information about the race or just wanna help out with any of the Funds/Foundations, check out their website. Below is a picture of Max that appears on the race form.



























As for me, I think I'm almost back. Wednesday I swam a few laps, and Thursday I lifted weights and then swam a few laps and did some more aqua jogging with help from my buddy Katie. I think I'm getting the hang of it now, and it felt like it was working the muscles that haven't been worked since I stopped running. Today I did 2.5 miles on the elliptical, then decided to see how a mile on the treadmill would go. Everything felt fine, except for a little minor pain in my Achilles, but that quickly went away. The past three days I have taken an ice bath, and I really think that has helped me recover as well. We'll just have to wait and see how it feels in the next couple days.

I saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie last night at midnight and let me just say it's excellent. It's like two and a half hours long but it's still packed with action and all that good stuff. I highly recommend it!

I also think I'll do this little "All About" race report stuff before each race I run. Just wait until the Run Thru Hell, you guys will get a kick out of that one.

Sitting, waiting, wishing

It's a nod to Jack Johnson, but it honestly describes how I've been feeling lately. Yesterday I just lifted weights and today I went swimming for a little bit - not a whole lot of high impact stuff. I'm planning on taking an ice bath later today to see if that helps, but I've also been trying to bombard my calf with all of the healing techniques that I know of. Well....maybe bombard isn't the right word, but really I'm doing all I can.

Have any of you ever been away from something for a period of time, and then when you see it again you get the feeling that you really wanna get back to it? That's how I was earlier today...there's a big long trail along the Red Cedar River that stretches into Lansing that I like to run along every now and then, and as I was driving over a bridge today that goes over the river, I saw the trail. It makes me miss running so much, but I know I just have to wait....and wish this thing will quickly go away.

Guess I don't have a lot on my mind today....hope everybody had a great holiday weekend.

Momma said there would be days like this

Soooooo I finally went out for a run on Saturday! I felt good enough to do 4 miles, and honestly it felt like 30 minutes of heaven. Everything felt great....well, everything was fine except for a little extra huffing and puffing, but give me a couple more runs and I'll be back to normal with that aspect.

I'd also be a total liar if I said I had nothing bad to report. It almost seems like a "two steps forward, one step back" with this injury. The run was two steps forward, but I also still felt a little something there on Sunday to put me one step back. It's not as bad as it was before, but it's still there. To be completely honest, it's getting frustrating and pissing me off, but I'm trying to do everything I can to get myself back out there. As much as I didn't want to, I hopped on the elliptical today and did 3 miles.

I've officially decided that I'm not gonna do Max's 5K this weekend. I was hoping that maybe I could get in a few runs before then and be in semi-good running shape, but there's no way in hell that it's gonna happen now. It disappoints me because this race is on campus and on pretty much the same course where I set my PR back in April. It's also only the 2nd annual race, and I didn't run it last year because I was healing my IT band injury.

I wanna end this post by giving a shoutout to my dad. Back when he was in his 20s, he was running a bunch and was at a respectable weight...but then he blew his knee out and he never really got back into shape after that. He slowly gained weight and for the past few years he's been over 200 lbs. He works out 6 days a week on a treadmill and a Nordic-trak, but he offsets that by constantly eating....it seems like he's always eating something. Finally, sometime last year, he made a deal to lose the weight and he's been doing well with that. He's cut out a lot of bad food from his diet and replaced it with low-fat, multi-grain foods. Sometime last week, the treadmill died so he and my mom have had to go outside for their running/walking workouts. Little did my dad know, he really enjoyed it. He mapped out a little 1.5 mile loop that he planned on doing 3 times for a total of 4.5 miles and last week when he tried it out, he accidentally lost count and did 4 loops for 6 miles. But the thing was, his body didn't notice it either in that he didn't become overly tired or anything. So anyway, when I was talking to him the other day, he told me that he was 230 lbs and has since dropped to 205 and he set an ambitious goal of dropping to around 180 and running a half-marathon sometime in 2007. So, best of luck to him with that! I'm sure I'll be giving updates on that in future posts.

Happy 4th of July to everybody!