An icy track workout

Here in DC we're wimps in the winter. The One couldn't believe it, for instance, when they shut down the school system earlier this week for "some ice," as he described it. He's from Chicago, by way of Hawaii with a layover in Indonesia. Winters in Chicago are ferocious.

Our running friends to the north just deal with it. They find indoor tracks to run on, indoor marathons to race, and venture out to run in minus degree temperatures.

Wednesday's track workout for my Half Marathon Training Program called for 4X1600 with 200M recovery jogs. That's at tempo pace or interval pace or race pace or something. I can never keep it straight. It translates loosely, with the gang I run with, to 7:55 miles or 1:58 laps.

Tuesday and Wednesday it snowed and sleeted and froze so the track was closed on Wednesday night. No school, remember? Track workout was cancelled. Yay!!

The cold temperature has been hanging around and putting a nice polished sheen of ice on the snow that is extant. It's slippery. So running out there violates my one rule of running--Be safe.

Runners aren't obsessive. The week was about to slip away without my track workout. So this afternoon I headed up to the W&OD Trail behind my house. My house providentially sits right on MP 7. Lessee, one mile thataway and back, and one mile thisaway and back, with a minute jog at the end of each mile, that sure sounds like the track workout to me.

Off I set eastbound. About a third of the trail was rutted with icy frozen snow fields but the rest was clear. There was no black ice because it had been above freezing all day (38 degrees). I booked on the clear parts and ran haltingly and gingerly, like the old man I am, on the clumpy parts.

I hit the first mile at 8:20, after passing the half mile marker at 4:00. I looped around on the trail for 40 seconds and then came back for the second mile. This was into a stiff wind and I covered the same terrain, with the same gingerly steps in the same places, in 8:40. This time I jogged around for 1:40 before I took off westbound.

It was hard to tell, but I think there were more ice-afflicted parts of the trail to the west. The wind seemed to have dropped though, and I had the hang of the exercise by now, breaking out of my periods of mincing little steps on the clotted parts of the trail with rapid bold strides on the long clear parts between the islands of ice. The third mile was 8:20. I jogged down the path aways, turned, and as I came back I hit the milepost at full speed, where I switched on my watch.

The wind was at my back for the last mile. I wanted to do at least one sub-8. And I did, with a 7:44 fourth mile. I jogged back to my house, having "checkmarked" in my head this week's track workout. It was a little different, but then us runners have to adapt.

Wednesday was Ugly!

Wednesday was a hard day. After not running for a week due to frigid temperatures, travel and Inauguration restrictions and closures, Wednesday was the day of the 420th running of the monthly noontime Tidal Basin 3K race. It was my 92nd running of it (out of the last 102).

My agency’s rock star, G, ran the two and a half miles to the race’s start with me, at a 7:45 pace. So at the start, I was already dying, with my glasses so steamed from my perspiration that I had to put them in my pocket.

Off we went. My legs were feeling tired so I hoped that if I went out fast, the speed might come. I caught up with my doppelganger Peter early in the race and ran by him, elbowing him out of the way as he tried to pinch me off into a curbside bus as I passed him on the inside. A quarter mile later I heard his familiar shuffle coming up behind me and he ran by me, for good.

I entertained my familiar I-should-just-walk-now thoughts as I passed over the inlet bridge across the water from the Jefferson Memorial. The septuagenarian who always beats me passed me there.

I passed the mile mark in 7:28, well off the pace of most of last year’s runs, which tended to be around 7:00 or better at the mile mark. Running along the serpentine walkway by the Memorial, I felt sluggish and slow. I knew the only two women in the race, a sexagenarian and a septuagenarian, were behind me but I wondered how close. I successfully fought off the urge to turn and look because that is a sure sign of a struggling runner.

I passed the 2K mark at 9:08, a 7:21 pace, so I had picked it up a bit. That didn’t last long. Coming down the long last quarter mile straightaway, the wind hit me just as I was having a fantasy that I was making up time on the runner 30 meters ahead of me. All I had to do was summon a burst–from where?–and pass him, I thought. What are you, weak? I asked myself. And 10 yards further up was Peter. I could pass them both!

We finished in the same order. The strong arctic wind blowing in off the Potomac on the straightaway stayed our speed. My normal goal in this race is to break 13 minutes, something I did twice last year, but I had to hustle to break 14 minutes this race. I finished in 13:58 (7:29), my slowest time in well over a year, 51 seconds slower than last month.

I was 19/24, finishing just ahead of the first woman, and ahead of only two other men who were younger than me. A nice 79% showing for the race, or 86% for my gender. This race can suck.

My booby prize for being so slow was running the two and a half miles back to work with G, who finished fifth in 11:14 (6:01). He had mercy on me though, and trotted back alongside me at a leisurely 8:58 pace.

And then at 7 pm I went off to lead the weekly track workout for my Half Marathon Training Group. We did 5X1000 at 1:51 laps (7:27 pace), with 200M recovery jogs. Yeah, Wednesdays can really suck alright.

Another Full Wednesday

Wednesday's have become a bit of a chore for me lately because on this day, I usually lead my work running group out on a mid-day run on the Mall and then, on account of the half-marathon training group I direct for my club being in full swing, I lead the faster runners in an evening track workout. This Wednesday was no different. (Left: The National Christmas Tree. Photo credit K.)

To commemorate the upcoming inauguration, at noon we ran down to the White House to look at the preparations. We ran to the Ellipse to look at the National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse with its little railroad snaking around it, and the nearby National Menorah. Around the other side of the White House, on Pennsylvania Avenue, workers were busy constructing some towering reviewing stands. It looked like a little village was being constructed next to Lafayette Park. Then we took off for a run from there to the top of Capitol Hill, completing a five mile run in about fifty minutes. We had to stop at intersections a lot because of the busy route we chose. (Right: The National Menorah.)

At 7 pm I showed up at Washington & Lee High School for the club's regularly scheduled track workout. The routine was 10X400 with 100 meter recovery jogs between each set. It only took less than 40 minutes but doing 400s is rough because the workout is done at such a fast pace. The recovery jog of 100 meters barely gets your heart rate back down.

One fast trainee showed up so Matt took him off to do laps in the mid-90s, while I led a group of four other faster runners in a set done in the mid-100s range. We were pretty consistent, hitting each one at between 1:40 and 1:47. We took turns leading the pack. It was a warm night and I was pouring sweat by the end of it. Andrew and Katie led the other half-dozen Program participants in slightly slower laps. These track workouts are a sure way to get faster in races.

Track Workout

Speed workouts make you faster in races. My best year racing , 2006, when I set or came close to all my PRs, I did track workouts once a week pretty much all year. That speed work that year made me run at age 54 like I was 48 again, when I started racing.

So last Wednesday evening, after doing six and a half miles on the Mall on noon, I went to my club's regularly scheduled weekly track workout so I could lead my half-marathon training group in the prescribed workout, three single-miles at a ten-mile race pace with a 400M recovery jog between each split. The target race is in mid-March and we're trying to build up the group slowly, so no one gets injured.

The regulars from the half-marathon Program were there. A bunch of marathon Program trainees were also there, and coaches Katie, Eric and Andrew led them on their rounds.

Matt was there, the fast coach in my Program. He's a modest guy who isn't whippet thin like many obvious runners. He gets the competitive, fast trainees who always run faster and faster at the end of training runs to show how bad they really are. But Matt always finishes right behind them on their shoulder, smiling and talking, no matter how much they crank up the pace at the end. Then they enter a race with him and he crushes them. Last year our best trainee did a 1:31 half, an outstanding effort. (He went to all the track workouts.) He finished ten minutes behind Matt.

I was a little sore from my earlier run but it was a nice evening for running, cool and not windy. The group was happy with eight-minute miles and we took turns leading, putting the burden on a new pace-setter each lap to figure out a two-minute turn (I know, a 400-meter track is about three yards shy of a true 440, but we try not to get totally obsessed at these workouts).

We hit each mile at a pretty steady pace, about 7:50. The very last lap of the workout, the competitive juices started flowing and a couple of the participants announced that they intended to nail a 7:30 last 1600. So with half a lap to go, off three of us went on our horses. Matt didn't come along on our ending sprint as he, in fact, is not competitive in that way. Just fast. The fit and fast woman in the group, a triathlete by preference, led the charge and I was hard pressed to stay glued to her shoulder.

But I did.

Last Wednesday was a big day

Last Wednesday sat on my monthly calendar like an albatross. It was the November noontime Tidal Basin 3K Race. I hadn’t run this furious little race since September. I’ve been busy at work so I haven’t been running. I didn’t race at all in October. My base, and speed, are shot.

It is a 2.6 mile run from my place of work to the race. I was late and showed up just as the other runners set off. No rest for the weary I thought as I launched right into the race. The race itself was nondescript, just a fast 1.86 mile run around the Tidal Basin, much like the almost 100 other ones I have done. I was almost a minute slower than in September, finishing in 13:52 (7:26). I couldn’t catch my alter-ego Peter in this race. The only good thing was that I hit the milepost at 7:27, and maintained that pace to the end without falling off.

My agency’s rock star, G, was also late to the race, doing 6:15s to get there just as the runners set off, he said. Since he didn’t arrive in time to get a blow himself before the race, he did an 11:27 (6:09) instead of his typical 11:17 or so. Too bad. We were both counting on the race starting five minutes late per usual, but since it was cold out, they set off right at noon.

But what was worse, I had to run the 2.6 miles back with G. He mercifully slowed down for me and we did mere sub-eights going back. I was dying. So by 1 pm I had seven miles in, with most of them fast.

But my day wasn’t through. Oh no. Wednesday evening was week two of track workouts for the half-marathon training group I direct. I’m pretty much expected to show up since my training group is sponsored by Reebok. A light workout of 5X800 at 10K race pace was scheduled. That would be 1:55 laps for me. Me and two other runners huffed and puffed our way around the track for five double laps, burning 1:50s or 1:52s. There were two other coaches there, conducting the slower runners in 2:20s or 2:30s. I eyed them covetously every time we passed by them. I was glad when the day was finally over.

However, it’s all good.

The next Program

Week 2 of the twenty-week 2009 Reebok SunTrust National Marathon and Half Marathon Training Program, powered by volunteer coaches from my running club, is done. Or at least the long Saturday run is over. I have to run the track workout Wednesday evening.

Last week we all met at the Georgetown Running Company, normally the hook-up point for the marathon runners. After we listened to elite athlete Samia Akbar speak about running, we went out for a 6 mile run on the C&O Canal Towpath. It took an hour and the run was along the Potomac on nice soft dirt. I created the route. Yes, it was nice.

I direct the HM Program. Today we met at Gotta Run, our normal starting point. The fast coach wasn't there so I took out the rabbits. We went 7.45 miles running up to Ridge Road, down to Four-Mile Run Creek, over to the Potomac and on to National Airport, back up to Ridge Road and home. Do you get the idea that we ran up a ridge twice? I created the route. No, it was not nice.

We did it in 1:05:02. The four runners I was running with politely let me lead and set the pace. They didn't know where to go anyway. During the sixth mile, going up 23rd Street, which I call Restaurant Row, to get onto S. Arlington Ridge Road the second time, D, who ran a 1:32 Half in Baltimore last month, pulled even. He looked at me and smiled. "Go on, go on," I gasped as I feebly waved him on. His face brightened and he lit out up the hill, surmounted it, trotted back down and came up it a second time with me. Evidently the other three didn't feel like showing off because they stayed put behind me.

Last Wednesday was the Program's first track workout night. All these fasties showed up then too. The routine was 6X400 at tempo pace. I was the fastest of the three coaches there so I dutifully fell in with the fast group. Three guys rocketed off to a series of splits in the mid-80s, and I hung with the rest of the faster group many meters back. I did 90-92-96-98-92-93. I didn't lay a glove on those three students way up in front.

Man is this stuff great or what?

Disruptions

At noon today I ran in the monthly Tidal Basin 3K race. There were about 60 of us mad dogs and Englishmen out there running in the midday August heat.

I haven’t been running too well this year so I have started doing track workouts. Last night I ran 8X600 at 2:50s (7:36 pace) with a 200M recovery jog. Those intervals about killed me so I wasn’t expecting to do well today.

I was thinking about the track workout as I passed by the half-mile mark in the 1.86 mile race. I was busy formulating in my mind how the prior evening’s routine had doomed today’s race so I could mentally quit and "walk it in" at an easy pace.

This monthly race has its own immutable rhythm. All of the regular males were ahead of me, along with at least one woman. Another woman, perhaps the second female, was practically on my hip. Suddenly my doppelganger, Peter, cruised by me.

Peter, who is about my age and about my speed, keeps me honest in this race. He is my conscience.

Usually he doesn’t pass me until late, after a mile and a half have been run. Then he puts me away with his finishing speed. Whenever I beat him, it’s always because I have built up too large a lead during the first mile and a half for him to overcome.

Today his pass was early. I passed him back. He passed me again. I passed him once more. Again he passed me. I returned the favor again.

This could seem to be a riveting battle if it didn’t merely involve a couple of middle-aged mid-packers in an obscure (but venerable–dating back to 1974) little noontime downtown race.

I passed by the mile marker in 6:55, about 10 seconds faster than usual.

I started casting covetous looks at the back of the septuagenarian who always goes by me early and beats me by a few seconds. Maybe today I would overtake the 71-year old and it would induce me to a sub-13 minute finish, a rarity for me.

This month’s race, unlike most months, didn’t stretch out interminably. It passed by swiftly and I was able to take deep breaths during its latter stages. Maybe the track work was helping, not hindering, me.

Two or three younger men passed me late, but the second woman didn’t, nor did Peter. The 71-year old finished five seconds ahead of me. I finished in 13:09 (7:03), a fifteen second improvement over last month.

Peter came in a few seconds later. I jokingly accused him of trying to disrupt the natural flow of this monthly race by passing me too early. He said he was trying something different, pushing it early so he could pass me sooner rather than later. It left him with nothing for the final stretch, he said. I told him his uncharacteristic appearance beside me so early in the race had induced me to run an extra-fast first mile.

He said earnestly, "You’re welcome," and we both laughed.

Back at the Track

Tonight I did a track workout with the fast group of my club's Half-Marathon Training Program, which I direct. The group (of two) is in the capable hands of Matt, who is fast. I like him very much because he is so accomplished yet unassuming, and he is also a volunteer-type guy (he was my club's Volunteer of the Year in 2002). Plus he brews beer and he gave me four bottles of home brew recently.

The program's target race is this Saturday. I'm running it and I'm so not ready. In January I did a 20K (12.4 miles) in 1:42, an 8:15 pace. That's pretty much only my silver standard because it's not sub-eight miles. But I would take it now! My club's 10K Training Program, which I also direct, started last month and for the last five weeks I have been checking in on Saturday morning at 8 o'clock with the HM Group and then rushing off to run with the 10K Group at 9 o'clock. The 10K group is comprised of more incipient runners so my long runs have been on the order of four miles in forty-five minutes. That program's fast group (of one) is handled very capably by Bob, my club's Most Improved Male Runner of the Year for 2007, so I run with the novices. One weekend my long run consisted of two miles of repetitions of walking for two minutes and running for one minute. (I know, I could run earlier or later as well, but I do have a non-running life on weekends also.) (Left: Coach Bob of the 10K Program, center in white shirt, with the fast group (the runner against the railing) at Fletchers Boathouse earlier this month.)

So anyway, tonight at the club's track workout the three in the HM fast group (Matt and his two students) were tapering down for the big race three days hence and they still left me DFL 40 yards back, sucking wind with my chest pounding. The workout consisted of ten reps of one minute on and 30 seconds off at a "moderately" fast pace after a two mile warmup.

But I finished it, and caught up with them when "we" were done (we weren't actually on the track, which was being used, we were on the nearby hilly Custis Trail). The four of us went out for pizza afterwards. At the Lost Dog Cafe in Arlington, running bridged the differences in our ages (30 years-I skew it upwards), college backgrounds (University of Colorado for me, MIT for Rita) and where we grew up (Staten Island, New York for me, Homer, Alaska for Gene).

The workout, food and company were great, but I am a little worried. I'm dreaming of breaking 1:50 (eighteen months ago I was hoping to break 1:40 although I never got there) but I hope I can do at least a 1:55 on Saturday.

Hill Workout

It's been a busy week. Sunday I held a hill workout for the two Programs I coach. Only two runners showed up and they didn't run many repeats before they left to go on a long flat run.

(Left: One half of a boomerang.) Running up the steep part of Highland Avenue and then down short, steep Mt. Daniel (pictured) is 0.3 mile. Each really steep part is about 500 feet long. Because the hill repeat involves a right turn (left turn coming back), I call that way of running the hill a boomerang. The other way to run the hill is to just continue straight on Highland, down a gentler slope 0.4 mile to the bottom. Those repeats up and over Highland are half a mile long, with a short steep climb or descent on one side and a long gradual climb or decline on the other.

My six miles of hills in one hour left me sore for days. Because of the extreme slope, I was almost as slow going down each steep part (sixty seconds) as running up it (70 seconds). I need to do hills because Bex has assigned me leg six at the Lake Tahoe relay in June. It's five and a half miles of flat running followed by a five miles of hills. The last mile is a run up a mountain pass while gaining 500 feet in elevation. Leg two has a 700 climb, but that elevation gain is spread out over 3.5 miles. Hmm, I wonder what leg Bex has me penciled in for next year? (Right: My former running buddy Bex.)

Doing my first track workout in several weeks on Wednesday (8X400 at 1:45, 7:02 pace) didn't help my aches and pains. I worked out some soreness yesterday by going back to Yoga after a two-month layoff. This class is held at the community center, a mile from my house. I jogged there in 7:54 and then when I was all loose and relaxed from yoga, I ran the mile back home in 6:56. It was my first sub-7 mile in awhile.

A Full Day

Yesterday was a full day at the track and on the trails. I ran the bridges with M during the noon hour, 7.7 miles, in about 68 minutes. Ha, I had M, eleven years younger and faster than me to boot, begging for mercy after five miles. He tried to wave me on to continue without him when we got back into the District via the 14th Street Bridge near the Jefferson Memorial after our foray into Virginia utilizing the Memorial Bride by the Lincoln Memorial. But running buddies don't do that so I slowed down til he recovered. I capped my run off with a run up Capitol Hill (M works in a different building than me).

At 6:30 pm I took Metro to the Washington & Lee High School in Arlington for my club's Wednesday evening track workout. We ran for 20 minutes at ten-mile race pace, which I figure is 7:37s these days, so I shot for 1:48 laps. It was harder than I thought. Here were my splits: 1:48, 1:46, 1:47, 1:48, (then like a dying Energizer Bunny) 1:49, 1:50, 1:51, 1:55, 1:59, (last lap) 1:48, (cool down lap) 1:47. We capped it off with 2X400 at 5K race pace, which I figured should be 1:44s, 1:44, 1:39. That last lap I was chasing a 65 Y.O. friend of mine who was burning 1:37s. He's faster than me, sometimes, especially whenever he does track work. Then he leaves me with my tongue hanging out.

We finished the workout in the gathering gloom of the evening. I hopped onto the Custis Trail which feeds into the W&OD Trail which takes me directly to my back yard line, 4.7 miles away. I was a little tired and it got dark so I couldn't see my footfalls clearly so I went slow. What do you think about when you're running down a darkened but familiar trail? I was thinking that I hoped I didn't step on a snake on the trail even though I have never seen a snake on the trail. Our worst fears, you know? Give me a mugger to steal my two quarters for a pay phone call any day.

I got home in about 45 minutes, very tired and very glad to have this full day of running behind me. In chopped up segments, I did 16.1 miles including warmup and recovery laps.

I woke up this morning and my injured foot was throbbing. I overdid it, obviously. I'll keep you all posted.

My antics yesterday put me over 40 miles for the week for the second straight week and over 137 miles for August as I get ready for Chicago on October 7th. I still haven't done a twenty yet.

More Track Work

Yeah, I been running again. What, are you surprised? Shocked, maybe? After my first Track W.O. since the winter (last post), I fielded a call on Friday night from the mid-group volunteer coach in the TMG (Ten-Mile Group Program) that I direct for my club. She was sick.

Good (I mean, bad for her, sorry to hear it). Now I could really get a workout in, just like in the old days when I was a coach and would run the line from slowest to fastest of my group and back again and get a real workout in. That sort of "training" led directly to a 1:14 Ten-Miler PR last year and indirectly to a 3:50 marathon PR this year.

I plotted out a 7-miler for Saturday morning on the soft dirt C&O Canal Towpath in MD, from bridge to bridge, Key Bridge to Chain Bridge (and over Chain Bridge to VA for a moment and back to burn up half a mile). The appointed time came and off we went. I ran the line. It felt great. NBTR shepherded the novice group along the same route minus the dash over the bridge and I finished up running with her the last mile. She's running great, BTW. I figured I ran eight miles in 82 minutes.

That afternoon I hiked the Billy Goat Trail off the C&O and watched the death-defying rock climbers practice their skills on huge boulders. They think runners are crazy for running themselves into exhaustion; we think they're crazy for clinging to tiny crevices in sheer rock faces forty feet up. My hands aren't strong enough to do what they do, or maybe my heart isn't big enough. I admire them.

Sunday I made it over to Rock Creek Park where I jogged four miles in about fifty minutes through trails in its wooded ravines with a friend who is just starting up with running. I stopped to smell the roses along the way several times as we moseyed along. I am truly delighted whenever anyone takes up running.

Wednesday brought forth the real test of my injured left foot, the monthly noontime Tidal Basin 3K race my club puts on. This was the 403rd consecutive running. It's not older than me but it's a venerable running for sure. My foot held up to the fast pounding.

I improved by 26 seconds over the July race when I was bothered by my hip (it's always something, eh?). 13:10 (7:04), 36th male out of 52. Two women passed me in the last half mile and I had no answer to either of them. I was too busy keeping ahead of the 58 year-old man chasing me and trying unsuccessfully to catch the 70 year-old man I was chasing. Shoot, I swear that when that guy beat me last month, he was only 69.

But I like to break 13 minutes for a 3K so I felt alright about the race. I'm getting close again. Did I feel good enough to call it a day? Uh, no, Wednesday night was track night.

So at 7 pm I was lining up on the track to start four 1000 meter runs at "cruise or tempo pace." That is, according to the track workout director, your 10K race pace. I figured lately that was 7:37s so I wanted to do 4:44s for each thousand meters.

Results: 4:27, 4:26, 4:38, 4:30, and my, ahem, cooldown thousand meters, 4:24. That would be a 22:25 5K if you could claim them in a race and forget about the recovery jogging (and walking) between the sets. I have done four 5Ks as fast or faster than this, twice in 2001 (when I PRed at the Spirit of Gettysburg in 21:58) and twice last year. Either I was then in unconscious shape during those two periods or else I was dogging it a few days ago. But at least I'm back to the track again. That's truly how you get faster.

Odds & Sods: Today I fielded a call at my home number from someone asking for Dr. Edmund Lang. When I first acquired my landline number in 2001 shortly after being served with divorce papers, I used to get a lot of calls from persons seeking a doctor's office here in Virginia. I still get automatic fax blasts every single weekday at 8:45 am. Anyway, this was the first one this year. I chatted briefly with the woman from Columbia, SC, who had undergone surgery on her back in 1986 after a car accident, performed by Dr. Lang out of his Seven-Corners Medical Office. It changed her life by enabling her to walk again. She was sorting and came across his number. If I'd'a been him, she woulda put me on her Christmas card list. He was a sought-after physician then. He was old back then, she confided to me. Being 55 myself, I take statements like this with a grain of salt, but I did wish him good health, or good spirit, whatever the case may be, to her upon hearing her tale. So here's to Dr. Lang, wherever he may be, for making a difference in this life.

I want to thank Bex for her generous support of my determination to run Chicago in two months for a charity, A Running Start. Bex just won a 5K race in Las Vegas. She also just purchased a house in Lake Tahoe. All in a week's work for my friend Bex, apparently. Thanks Bex. (Bex on a run in Lake Tahoe. Look at that Cheshire Cat grin. Do you suppose the East Coast phase of her life is ovah!?)