Big league

I don't think I'm much for words today, so here's a brief recap on the past couple days:

Monday - absolutely miserable. It was just a cold, dreary, rainy day but I did manage to get a few miles in on the bike when it wasn't raining. It was a nice cross training recovery activity after the long run on Sunday. Problem is....my heel was a little sore, so I made it a point to rest it and ice it.

Tuesday - Heel still hurt, so I lifted weights for the first time in a week and a half because of band. It was nice in the summer time because not many students were on campus, but now that school has started up again, it seems like everybody and their brother wanna work out. Not that I'm complaning, I love to see people exercising and living healthy, but do they all need to go at the same time??

Today - It was a kind of give-and-take decision with my heel, but I wanted to stay cautious so I went 4 miles on the elliptical even though my heel is feeling a lot better. Tomorrow I'm thinking of a light lifting session, swimming, or both. I have a HUGE break between 9:50am and 4:30pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester, so that will be real nice.

School's going alright so far...it usually takes me a couple weeks to settle into my classes and really feel comfortable with my schedule. We'll just have to wait and see how it all pans out.

In closing....Craig Monroe is big league!

Where did I go??

So I haven't posted in a while. Blame it on band...for most of the last week and a half, I was involved with the annual preseason drills for the Spartan Marching Band. It all meant that I woke up, left the house, came home, slept, rinsed and repeated daily. It was a grind this week but we got through it. We've got 13 new trombones out of 34 total, so we've got a young section this year. Our first game is this Saturday here against Idaho, but I'll talk more about that and other band stuff in later posts. There's plenty of time for that.

Last weekend I did a 14 mile run and it was probably one of the tougher runs I've ever done. It was early in the morning and in the rain, so I just felt miserable the whole time, but I managed to make it through. The total run ended up being a 7:36 mile pace.

This morning I set out for 16 miles and it felt a hell of a lot better than that 14 mile run. At one point I had to make sure I wasn't sleep-running because I saw a little kid running barefoot down the sidewalk with oven mitts on his hands....talk about random! The only bad thing about the run was that it was about 70 degrees and humid, but the rain shower near the end made me feel better. Here's a couple of splits...

3.77 miles: 28:45 (7:38 min/mile)
6.63 miles: 50:24 (7:36 min/mile)
11.5 miles: 1:26:22 (7:31 min/mile)
16 miles: 1:58:18 (7:24 min/mile)

I felt good enough to haul ass on the last 3.53 miles, and I clocked those at a 6:58 mile pace. I had made it a point to get a split at 9.56 miles, but I guess I either forgot about it or just didn't push the button on my watch hard enough. Hmmm. All in all, I think it's good to see that I can start out slow and conserve my energy for a good push at the end. This week is a sort of taper week for me, my long run is only gonna be 7-9 miles, and then next week it'll go back up to the double digits.

That's all I got. School starts tomorrow. I have no idea what I'm doing with my life.

Short and sweet

I'll save you guys from another long ass post and give some bullet points....

• Feeling a lot better since Saturday, the legs aren't so sore anymore. Did 4 on the elliptical on Monday. Gonna go out for probably 4 today and 5 tomorrow.
  
• I realized on Saturday how difficult it is to down a gel when running a race.
• BJ didn't run as well as he wanted to at his race this weekend, hence the "got ugly" comment.
• If this weather could stay all year long, I wouldn't be complaining.

Quote of the day from Saturday's race, on the back of somebody's shirt...

"Anybody can run 100 meters. It's the next 4900 that count."

Run Thru Hell recap

I don't think I could've asked for better weather for this race. When I left East Lansing at 5:30am for the hour drive down to Hell, it was 50 degrees and hovered around there under absolutely clear skies. My friend Megan hitched a ride down with me, and we got there with plenty of time to spare, but that's ok because I didn't wanna be caught in the log jam that happens if you come within an hour of starting time. Megan and I did a nice relaxing warmup, and it felt great because I was sort of worried about my knee. The knee felt great, and I had confidence to pound out these 10 miles. So, here's the recap...

Mile 1: It's always a crapshoot because you're trying to dodge the slower runners and find a gap where you can just run your own pace without tripping over somebody. It's also not nice to have an immediate steep incline about a quarter of a mile into the race. I looked at my watch after 1 mile and noticed it said 5:40.37....which means a sub-hour race. I knew I had to slow down if I was gonna have on a chance on the hills...

Mile 2: I felt like I settled into a good pace. About 1/3 of the way into this mile, the girl who had won this race the past two years passed me with another young lady about 3 seconds behind her. I sort of sped up to keep pace with them but then reminded myself, "Hey, this is your race, run how you want to run." So I just let them go, but honestly kept them within 10-15 seconds ahead of me for the next 4 miles. The second mile clocked in at 6:08.35, which was a) a good pace for me, and b) slower than the first mile. Or so I thought. I had my stopwatch set so that it only showed my splits, so after the race when I was reviewing my splits, I noticed that I somehow touched the button after only 44 seconds on the first mile. So I really ran the first mile in 6:25.28. Yea, it confused me too.

From Mile 2 thru Mile 5, I focused on keeping a steady pace and keeping up with the girls. I didn't care about the other guys around me because I wasn't too concerned about placing in my age group. The girls weren't too quick going up the hills, so I made up some ground on them by fighting those inclines and actually passed one of the girls at one point.

Halfway into the 6th mile is when it all came unraveled....literally. I was having a confident race, save for the coming-and-going side stitch, when I noticed that my right shoe was becoming looser and looser by the moment. I looked down, and yes...my shoelaces became untied. I'm anal about always double knotting my laces, but somehow these knots just managed to find a way to escape. I kept going for a moment, pondering whether I should just live with it or just stop and fix the problem, then I remembered we were running on rocky dirt roads and a lonely sock probably wouldn't provide much comfort if the shoe fell off. So, I veered to the side, hunched over, and tried to do my business. Keyword = tried, because with all the adrenaline in me, I had absolutely no hand-eye coordination. I felt like a first grader trying to tie his shoes for the very first time. Though it felt like forever, I think I only lost about 10 seconds but it was enough to put a dent in my confidence. The two young ladies had trudged ahead and they looked like they were far, far away at this point, and it didn't look like I was catching up to them anytime soon.

I had heard there was a huge hill around mile 7, but it really wasn't that bad, at least not compared to the umpteen other big hills on the course. There was a hill on mile 5 that I thought was way worse than this one. Once we got past the pseudo-Heartbreak Hill and pressed onward to the 8th mile, the roads were fairly flat from there on out. All I was focused on was just finishing strong. Somewhere in there, however, I got into no-man's land. I really don't know why it happens, but it seems to happen to me EVERY race. In this case, there was a pack of runners about 15-20 seconds ahead of me, and a pack of runners about 15-20 seconds behind me. It was kind of lonely hearing peace and quiet after hearing tons of footsteps around me for the past 45 minutes. The no-man's land always frustrates me because I do all I can to try and catch up with the pack in front of me, but it just seems like I'm not making any progress. Eventually I did catch up on the last mile, but I was gassed. I was also hurting...around the beginning of the 9th mile, the no-show sock on my left foot slid down low enough that the back of my shoe rubbed against my Achilles Tendon each time I took a step. It hurt, but I just had to suck it up and keep going. Now I can look at it and be proud to call it a battle scar!

When all was said and done, the clock read 1:03:06 (6:19/mile), good for 11th in my age group and 61st overall out of 870 runners. The one girl won again for the third straight year in 1:01:54 and the second place girl came in at 1:02:27. The top time for the guys was 53:39 by a guy who, if I'm not mistaken, is part of the Hanson Racing Project. My mile splits:

1 - 6:25.28
2- 6:08.35
3- 6:10.06
4- 6:09.40
5-6:22.78 (the mile with the huge hill)
6- 6:31.41 (the mile where I had to tie my shoe)
7- 6:21.44
8- 6:26.86
9- 5:55.04
10- 6:35.81

Yea, the 9th mile looks out of place. I did feel like I was going faster, so it doesn't surprise me. I also think the 10th mile was slower because of the pain on my Achilles Tendon.

How do I feel about the race as a whole? Well...I know at the end I was just thinking about somehow finishing, but after I took off my timing chip and started my cooldown, I thought to myself in a sort of sadistic way, "That was fun...I wanna do that again." I really think that, now that I know how the course is laid out, that I can come back next year and really utilize a good strategy on the hills and get closer to the one hour mark. Another positive mark is that I felt strong on the inclines, and it makes me wonder how much stronger I'd be if I didn't have to take all of June and part of July off. I also mentioned in my last post that this course easily adds 3 minutes to your usual time for 10 miles. So, do the math....take off 3 minutes for the course and 10 more seconds for the shoe fiasco and *poof!*, you have a sub-hour 10 mile race. It may just be on paper (or the computer screen in this case), but it makes me think that it's possible, and I can do it. It's all about confidence.

This morning, the hills got the last laugh because I was sore as hell...no pun intended. I biked a total of 13 miles today just to keep my muscles loose and it worked for a bit. Now they're just as sore as I was when I woke up. Just gotta let it run it's course. This morning was also the Leg It For Life 5K in East Lansing, the next race in the Playmakers Race Series. The results haven't been posted yet, but my buddy BJ (who runs every race around here, believe me) left me a message simply saying that the race "got ugly, man." Hmm...wonder what that's about...

All about the Run Thru Hell

The name of this race is both literally and figuratively true...

Literally: The race takes place in a small town named Hell, Michigan (population: 266 according to Wikipedia, though I have heard there are 73 permanent residents), about 60 miles west of Detroit. Apparently it's the only town in the USA with such a name too. There are conflicting stories about how the town got its name, but the most known story goes somewhat like this: A man by the name of George Reeves settled into the town with his family and built a mill and a general store. When officials from the State of Michigan came around in 1841 to ask him what he wanted to name his town, he replied "I don't care, you can name it Hell if you want to." And the rest is history. Some of you non-Michiganders may have heard about this town on the news on June 6 because they had a huge party to celebrate the occasion...check out more about the town of Hell here.
Figuratively: It all starts when you get close to Hell because, since it's a small town, there's only a couple of roads that go to it and they're only one lane both ways. A lot of runners make the pilgrimage here every year, so you can imagine how backed up the roads can get if you're a little behind schedule. Once you get there, you're directed to park your car in a makeshift parking lot which also doubles as a horse farm, so when you get out of your car and walk to pick up your race packet, you're doing your best not to step in horse manure. If you're one of the unlucky few to wait until race morning to register, you might have to wait a bit. The race is scheduled to start at 8am, but by the time they corrall everybody into the starting area, it tends to be almost 8:30 before the starting gun goes off. Wanna go out fast and get a good start? Think again...the first approximately 3.5 miles are on narrow dirt roads, which makes it very difficult to pass slower runners, especially in the first mile.

This event offers a race of 4.8 miles and race of 10 miles and it doesn't help that the two races start at the same time. The two races follow the same course until the 10 milers heed the directions of a guy dressed up as a devil and take a right turn around mile 4. I have run the 4.8 mile version three times, with my best race coming last year. It had to be one of the best, if not the best, races I have ever run. The course is VERY hilly, but I went into each hill with the attitude of attacking it and fighting through it. It must have worked....I finished in 29:35, which doesn't sound too impressive because it's a 6:10/mile pace, but it was good for 2nd in my age group and 18th overall out of 1,039 people. I lucked out too because 10 of the 17 people who finished ahead of me were in the 15-19 age group! Another unique aspect of the race is that awards go five deep, and the sixth place person in every age group gets a special "horse's ass" award....which is pretty much a trophy of a horse's ass.

This is my first time taking on the 10 mile course, and from what I hear and see from past results, the 10 miler is a LOT more competitive than the 4.8 mile race. The course boasts their version of Heartbreak Hill around mile 7, and when all is said and done, I hear that the hills on this course easily add 3 minutes to your usual time for a 10 mile race.

What about my knee? Well it felt markedly better on Wednesday and I ended up doing 4 miles on the elliptical yesterday just as a precaution. It was nice workout...not too easy, not too hard - just right. I really think I'm gonna be ready for the race tomorrow. It's gonna be real nice too, the low tonight is supposed to go down to 50 degrees under clear skies...perfect racing weather :)

Goals for Saturday:
1) Consistent splits or, if everything feels good, negative splits
2) Under 1:05:00
3) Keep my mom's Highlander from smelling like horse poop

Bury my heart at wounded knee

Well, here I am trying to capitalize on a good week. This morning I was planning on waking up and running 6 miles, so I did my usual warm-up around the block as usual. Right near the end of it though, I felt a twinge in my left knee. Nothing bad, this happens to me every now and then, so I massaged it for a couple minutes, then stretched as usual, and everything felt fine. Ok good, it was nothing. I headed out and felt fine til about the end of the 1st mile, and it just started hurting. It's nothing bad because this always goes away in 2-4 days, but it just frustrates me when it does occur. I've found that it's usually because of nervousness about some upcoming event, but there's no rhyme or reason to this one because, if anything, I'm so damn excited about this race on Saturday. I really wanna prove my worth. The pain in my knee is hard to explain too....if I could relate it to anything, it would be chondromalacia patella, a.k.a runner's knee. Another reason that it doesn't make sense is that I always pay careful attention to my stretching...although I forgot to stretch before I went to bed last night, so who knows.

This all may mean that I have to skip my run on Thursday, and there's no way I'm gonna run on Friday with a long race very early on Saturday (8am), so I could be going in with 5 days of rest. No matter what happens though, don't doubt for one second that I'm gonna run like the dickens when that starting gun goes off.

"Because you had a bad day....."

The crazy week that was...

It's been a week since my last post and I've got a TON of stuff to talk about, so I'll try not to make this too long. Digging into the "you probably didn't know this about me" files, I don't think I've mentioned this but I play trombone in the marching band at MSU. For this past week, I got hired to be the trombone instructor for a high school band that was doing their annual preseason band camp on the MSU campus, and I got to hang out with the instructors of other instruments, most of which also play in the MSU marching band. This camp started at 6:30am every day (which seemed like no big deal to me) and ended at 8:30pm each night (alright...so I can get a great night of sleep, sweet!). I had never done this camp before and what I didn't know was that the instructors go out every night and hang out somewhere....so making a long story short, I pretty much got 6 hours of sleep each night this week and was never home other than that, so I never had any time to post anything in the blog.

MONDAY 7/31: This was the first day of camp and also the first of three straight days of stifling heat and humidity that gripped so much of the nation. Since the heat was so bad, we all took a big break from 3:30 until 6:40, so I took advantage of that and went running on a treadmill at IM West. This week is my first "taper" week for marathon training, so I did 5 miles at 7:13 pace. Everything went smoothly...really the only problem I encountered was when I accidentally dropped my iPod and subsequently almost flew off the treadmill while trying to pick it up. Oops :)

TUESDAY 8/1: The second day of heat and humidity. I think our high got up to 94 and the heat index was around 104, and I'm sure many of you can relate to that. Anyway, we took another big break in the afternoon and were able to find an indoor pool in Haslett that would let a bunch of campers swim for free. So we all transported them over there, and since I had my swimsuit with me, I figured why not go for a swim too? So I did a few laps and then noticed that they had an aquajogger float, so I put that on and did some aqua jogging. The kids were all giving me weird looks, but I didn't care!

WEDNESDAY 8/2: Really nothing to report, I used this as a rest day because the heat was tiring me out.

THURSDAY 8/3: Today it was a little cooler, only in the 80s, but it was still humid. We were able to get outside for a practice in the morning before it started monsooning on us. So that was episode 1 of getting soaked. Later in the afternoon we went out again, but we didn't learn from the first time...we got drenched again by a sudden downpour. Since it was already about 3:30, the director decided to just cancel the rest of what was planned for the afternoon and have everybody come back around 6:45. So I went home, checked out the radar, and noticed that this pocket of rain was the last one to pass through and looked like it would stop raining pretty soon. Cue the running shoes, I was gonna go out for another 5 mile run. It was still raining while I was stretching, but it coincidentally let up to a drizzle as I was finishing up. The cold front had passed through, so it was 69 degrees when I went out there, but it was HUMID as heck! After a while, I couldn't tell whether my face was wet because of the drizzle or the humidity. I wanted to do this run at 7:14 pace according to my training plan, so I tried to duplicate the pace that the treadmill sets for me. Around the end of mile 2, I detoured in the wet grass to get around some canadian geese, and I ended up splashing through a HUGE puddle. A lot of water got into the mesh of my shoes and waterlogged my socks, so now I was carrying some extra weight on my toes....nice. On the third mile, I kept track of how fast I was going and ended up pulling off a 7:20 mile. Ok, not bad. So I tried to keep that pace for the rest of the run. When I got back, I stopped the watch at 32:35. Do the math...divided by 5 miles, that's a 6:30 pace, which REALLY surprised me. I did feel like I was going at a swift pace, so the 6:30 pace wouldn't surprise me. But how do I account for the 7:20 mile? I was thinking that maybe I just started the split at the wrong place because I know for a fact that the course is 5 miles. Oh well...I'll figure it out.

FRIDAY 8/4: Nothing special, rest day.

SATURDAY 8/5: End of camp! Which means I can sleep again! I lifted weights today because I hadn't done that in a week.

And now it brings us to today, Sunday 8/6. Because this was a taper week, I shortened up my long run to 6 miles. Also, since my 10 mile race on Saturday has a lot of hills, I incorporated a bunch of hills into the run. I made it so that I hit a steep hill about halfway through, and then ran up and down it 5 or 6 times. Finishing time was 47:10, which is almost 8 minutes a mile...but then when I mapped out where I actually ran, I realized I accidentally added another half mile, so it ended up being closer to 6.5 miles, which makes it a pace of 7:15/mile. Perfect, just what I was hoping for!

So yes, a very crazy week. Getting back to the music topic, one of the trombone guys in this high school band I was helping out was a runner, so I had some good conversations with him. He had to be at least 6'5" and can do a 5K in 17:30...when's the last time you've seen a tall AND fast runner?

And so ends week 4 out of 16 of marathon training. This week was 16.5 miles, and week 5 looks to be about 25 or so. Bring it on! And go Tigers! Ivan Rodriguez is the man for hitting that walk-off home run last night, and then the pitchers all took over today to help sweep the Indians! Bring on the Twins ;)