Product Placements, or Injured Again

The second week of training for the National Half-Marathon, to be run fifteen weeks hence on March 29, 2008, was held yesterday morning in South Arlington. I went out with the intermediate group, and we ran seven miles out and back on the Mount Vernon Trail at a 9:09 pace. Before the run, the Reebok rep came by with running outfits for the coaches. Reebok is sponsoring the training program, while my running club is supplying the coaches. I liked the running jacket provided, it was light-weight and wind-resistant, keeping me warm on a cold windy morning without allowing too much of a heat-buildup as the run progressed. (Above: Reebok's lightweight men's running jacket. Absolutely perfect for West Point graduates.)

During the run I developed a painful cramp in my right calf muscle, which I ran through. It hurt, although I couldn't imagine how you could injure your calf by just running. Perhaps the two miles I did the night before, an 8:28 outbound mile uphill and a 7:55 return, started the problem. I really should warm up before I just "head out" when I return home from work and before I eat dinner.

I was going to do 18 miles this morning. It was in my brain that eighteen was what was on the schedule and it's so hard to give up when it's locked in. Forget about the cold pelting rain out there, other runners were out in it. But as I worried my calf "injury" with my Runner's Stick, it really hurt. Dragging the stick over my right calf twenty times, even lightly, was pure agony. I decided not to do the eighteen, nor even to run at all today even though the rain stopped. (Above: The Stick. Hey you, it's my right calf that hurts.)

I couldn't walk up the stairs but I was wrestling with guilt about not augmenting last weekend's fifteen mile run with eighteen today. I feel like a such a slug. Are runners insane or merely strange?

A Busy Day of Running

Lots of running stuff happening. Yesterday was the start of the Reebok Marathon and Half Marathon Training Program for the Wirefly National Marathon on March 29, 2008, which is a must-do marathon. Reebok's training program is "powered by" my running club, and I am directing the half-marathon portion of it, operating out of the Gotta Run running store in Arlington. Four coaches took seven runners out on a 10K run in about an hour in South Arlington yesterday. You can sign up for the training program on the race website. I am very excited about this, as all of the program coaches will receive the opportunity to get coaching certification out of it.

(Left: Almost there! Approaching the bridge over Leesburg Pike WB on the W&OD. Right over the hump of the bridge is MP 7. 200 feet further and you'll be passing by my house.) This morning I ran 15 miles on the W&OD in 2:08:32 (8:38) in cold and rainy conditions. Along the way I did my eight on date eight (actually the date was the ninth) in 1:07:27 (8:26) and I completed my virtual Blue and Gray Half-Marathon run, actually held in Fredericksburg, in 1:51:51 (8:32). Jeanne and Susie and David, Susie's husband, actually ran the race in Fredericksburg. Susie achieved her excellent time of last year, David broke two hours (congratulations to him!) and Not Born To Run PRed! I'll let her tell you all about it when she posts about it, at this very moment she is limping back to DC in a car without a muffler. She called me from the road and asked if I could hear her muffler, or lack of it, over her cellphone. Naw, I said, I could hear it before you called.

NBTR reports that she called Bex after the B&GHM and Bex answered on her cellphone and reported she was at that moment at MP 11 in the Honolulu Marathon, slogging through a heavy rain on her 26 mile "training run."

December 7th

December 7, a date which will live in infamy.

On that day in 1941, Japanese naval aircraft flying off aircraft carriers bombed the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor in a surprise attack. They sank or damaged all the U.S. battleships in the Pacific. The sneak attack brought the U.S. into WW2, which changed the country, and the world, forever.

What the Japanese didn’t get at Pearl Harbor were any of the U.S. carriers, which were elsewhere. Perhaps unknown just then, carriers were the true behemoths of the oceans, and the Japanese lost the war on the first day by missing them. But it was a long and bloody road to Tokyo and Berlin from the debacle at Pearl Harbor.

My father and all of my uncles fought in WW2. One was a Marine radioman who fought in two island battles in the Pacific. One was a Marine Gunnery Officer on board a warship which participated in numerous combat operations. One was an Army officer in the Philippines engaged in mopping up scattered Japanese forces after the battle for Manila. One flew a B-25 in the North African campaign. Thankfully they all returned unscathed (except for, perhaps, horrible life-long nightmares). All have since departed except for one who lives in a nursing home in Colorado, cared for by his loving daughter.

Goodbye Yoga

I had my last yoga class tonight for awhile. Back when I was running really well in 2006, I was training really hard (doing track workouts) and doing yoga at least once week. It made a real difference in my times by increasing my core strength, helping my flexibility, allowing me to cope with a hamstring injury through stretching routines and teaching me better breathing techniques.

I take a Vinyasa Yoga class at my town's community center from 8 to 9 pm once a week. It forces me to leave work at 7 o'clock to get to it on time because otherwise I'm in no particular hurry to go home to an empty, cold house. (I can't get the thermostat below 49 degrees so sometimes the heat comes on and heats the entire house no matter what I wish.)

Why this brand of yoga? I like the instructor, LR. She doesn't ignore the two men in the room and she doesn't get uptight if things get a little disrupted, like people coming in late. The last class I took, the instructor locked the door right on the hour and I experienced stress whenever I heard the doorknob turn as people tried to enter at one minute past the hour. I didn't like the fact that they were shut out.

Tonight was the last night of class until February and it was a good workout. Me and Larry sort of flopped around while the rest of the class flowed through the mini-vinis. Afterwards I walked out the door of the community center and immediately broke into a run to do the town's 3K Memorial Day Fun Run course. I do that race every year and it's free, self-timed and you get a T-shirt at the end, gratis. It's also flat and short by about 500 feet, so you can get a really good time. Not that any of it is official.

The route leaves from the community center and returns there. All the Moms in the class know my routine and I think they congregate briefly in the parking lot to watch me take off running after every class. I have no doubt they have a good laugh about me after I streak off. (I have determined it is bad form to run to yoga class because no one wants to start a yoga class with a guy in there breathing heavily and already sweating up a storm.)

It's great to run footloose and carefree after spending 55 minutes stretching and 5 minutes luxuriating in a final relaxation pose (which is akin to taking a nap). The kinks are already all worked out.

Tonight I pounded out the 3K in 13:59 (7:30) in the dark. I had no drive in my legs after last weekend's exertions of 30 miles. But the run felt good. I was feeling like such a slug after not running yesterday nor this morning. Maybe I should get a life. (Left: Last Memorial Day, May 28, 2007, I ran a 12:52 (6:54) in the daylight.)

I'll miss yoga til it resumes again.

Once More

This weekend there were two races I wanted to do, a club half-marathon on Saturday and a metric marathon today. But since I didn't want to pay $40 for the metric marathon, and I like to do the worst first, I flipped the races and ran them both as virtuals yesterday and today.

The club Half would have been free for me since I'm a club member. Can you imagine, a free supported Half-Marathon? For non-members, it's $5. You can read the metric marathon account (and splits) in my last post.

That's a lot of running for me for a weekend, 16.3 miles and 13.1 miles back-to-back. I lay in bed a long time this morning feeling cozy and warm before I finally arose, laced up my Brooks Addictions and headed out to MP 7 on the W&OD Trail behind my house. After my virtual metric marathon of 2:19:58 (8:36) yesterday, I was sore and listless today. No energy. (Left: MP 7 on the W&OD on the bridge. Beyond, the blue & red sign in the second storey window is one of the two Bikram Yoga studios in the DC area. Once you do your 14 miles by running to the trail's head and back, you could go over there to get relief for your aches and pains by doing deep stretching routines in Hot Yoga.)

That was immediately apparent as my splits today started out about 30 seconds slower than yesterday's. Going to the turnaround at the trail's end, I ground out 8:30, 8:38, 8:38, 8:44, 8:44, 8:30 and 8:49. 1:00:35 (8:39) for seven miles, 3:19 slower than yesterday.

Coming back was just a slog. I felt like I was deep in the throes of a marathon and I worked on resisting the urge to walk. 8:57, 8:47, 9:07, 9:02, 9:14, 9:19, 9:14, with a finishing time of 2:04:19 (8:53) for 14 miles. A slippage of 4:37 from yesterday. My pace was off by 20 seconds per mile a day after running 16 miles. (Below: Looking WB on the W&OD Trail in Falls Church.)

Along the way, I passed by my virtual half-marathon finish line in 1:56:05 (8:52). Too bad I couldn't claim the time I passed the same line yesterday, 1:51:40, but yesterday I was working on my virtual metric marathon and you can only do one race at a time.

I just wanted to break two hours for the half today. I also wanted to see if I could do two long races, albeit virtuals, in two days. I have run thirty miles for the weekend and dropped nine pounds since Friday. I'm going out for pizza now.

What's an anomaly?

I thought that maybe running 14 miles in 1:57:26 (8:23) with M last Friday might have been an anomaly--a good training run time created by running with a considerably faster runner, having a huge tailwind for half the run, and benefiting from the subtle ministrations of M talking me past the wall as I started my typical plodding routine around the thirteenth mile.

The truth is, I haven't been pleased with my running for awhile. I was starting to suspect that maybe I was falling prey to, well, getting old. Or that perhaps my pre-race dinners of Cheez-Its and Millers were starting to catch up with me.

So this morning I set out to recreate that run alone, as part of a slightly longer run that simulated a metric marathon being held tomorrow in Columbia. That way I would save two hours driving time, gas and the $40 entry fee. I call these runs "virtual" races and I do two or three each year. 26.2 KM is 16.28 miles, BTW.

Off I set from MP 7 on the W&OD Trail behind my house. Last week's splits are listed in my last post. Today they went like this: 7:59, 7:59, 8:07, 8:13, 8:19, 8:20, 8:18 to the turnaround at MP 0 in Shirlington. 57:16 (8:11) for seven miles compared to 55:44 (7:58) a week ago. Not bad so far. I have run in three actual 7-mile races, and this would still be my second best one.

Coming back I headed into a strong wind (again) and slowed down considerably: 8:44, 8:52, 8:47, 8:50, 9:01, 9:07, 9:02 for a fourteen mile total of 1:59:42 (8:33) compared to last week's 1:57:26 (8:23). So running with a faster runner is worth about 10 seconds per mile. (Left: Looking WB on the W&OD Trail about 400 meters before the bicycle bridge.)

I stupidly hadn't brought water and I longed to go into my house at this point to get some, but I knew that if I stopped now, I'd never return to the run. I had brightly brought a solitary Gu though, and although it was hard to get down sans water, consuming it in the twelfth mile revived me and enabled me to finish the run.

A further mile out, and back again, and a guesstimate quarter-mile route to the 7-11 store brought me to the end of my virtual metric marathon in 2:19:58 (8:36). I have done one actual metric marathon and I missed beating that time by 15 seconds. Dang! I got some work to do.

My Black Friday

The morning after Thanksgiving, while everybody else was out shopping, I met M at 9 o’clock at the bicycle bridge on the W&OD Trail for a medium to long run. It was forty degrees colder than the day before and windy. M has actually won a race, in 1:29 at a Half-Marathon somewhere. She modestly said that all the good runners were off doing Boston that weekend.

She came running down the trail with her husband R, who thereupon ran the mile and a half back to her parents’ home to complete his workout. He is new to running and does ten-minute miles so they run together only infrequently. (Left: M & R on the W&OD Trail.)

We set off for the turnaround in Shirlington seven miles away. Here were our splits: 8:06 (our warmup mile); 7:53; 7:55; 7:55; 7:57; 7:57; 7:57; turnaround time at 7 miles, 55:44 (7:58).

Let me here state the obvious, that seven miles is an oddball distance for a race. There is a 7-mile race in June I like that runs around the Inner Harbor of Baltimore which I have run three times. This seven miles would have been my second-best 7-mile race, and we still had seven miles to go! (Left: In the 2006 Survivor Seven Inner Harbor 7-Mile Race in Baltimore, this runner came charging by me at the end and we put on quite a show sprinting fullbore towards the finish line after seven miles. I'm the old guy getting scorched.)

M was being encouraging, saying how easily I was running (looks can be deceiving). She's great to talk with. She has a masters degree in physical therapy from an Ivy League school and we chatted about Ryan Shay's untimely death from an enlarged heart at the National Olympic Team trials (M had presented a paper on that condition previously, and received some recent calls from information seekers), OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, know any runners displaying some of its symptons?) and its cousin, ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder, I have at least one child so afflicted). She would elucidate interesting observations as we ran along and I would respond in ragged three-word bursts. My tongue was hanging out.

I discovered as soon as we started back why the outbound trip had been so smooth–there had been a strong wind at out back. Now it was in our faces, whistling through our gritted teeth.

Our splits weren’t so pretty going back: 8:15; 9:26 (a blessed Gu break); 8:28; 8:37; 8:42; 9:11; 9:01. The numbers confirm that I was getting tired. No negative splits there!

We finished the fourteen miles in 1:57:26 (8:23), counting the Gu stop. I waved goodbye to M as she ran on to her parents’ home, probably at her interval pace once she rounded the bend. I was wiped and I walked home on unsteady legs. But as I prepared to go to work, I knew it had been a good run for me, my best since the last time I ran with M way back in July.