Boy, what are we in for??

ORN: Zero. Day two of Rest Week

Darrell pointed out Dean Karnanzes running the Tecumseh Trail Marathon on Wednesday for his Indiana race. Darrell ran with Dean at St. Georges, I ran with Dean in Portland, my work colleage Jay ran Badwater with him in July. Yeah, we’re tight. Here is Dean’s take on the race Darrell and I will be running in about five weeks.

There were very few sections along this course that were flat. You were either climbing or descending the entire way. Most of the route was in thick foliage, making it sometimes difficult to see ahead, and the trail was covered in leaves, compounding the navigational complexities. We traversed countless switchbacks, some ascending and some descending, and skirted several creeks and ravines. At a number of points we got lost and had to retrace our steps to get back on the path.

Yeesh.

Karno did the course in 4:45, validating the advice I had from others here to add 60 minutes or so to your regular marathon time on this course.

Now, some have nay-sayed Karno’s efforts and particularly his publicity efforts. But, hey, he’s doing what he said he would do.

And what a description.

I’m actually psyched. Doing this with Darrell will be a hoot. My knee is responding to the rest…hope I can ease it back into milage for this most interesting of possible “training runs.”

Persevere.

On the Sidelines for a Week

ORN: Tuesday: 3 miles, still some pain
Wednesday: zero

I did some research yesterday and decided to treat this knee pain as the so-called "runner's knee," an inflammation of the cartilage in and around the kneecap. The descriptions of it matched so well what I feel and the causes of it that I'm treating it as such.

So, I'm going to not run for seven days. Wow, will that be hard. But it is probably the best.

I'm going to be faithful on the ice and ibuprofin. I'll be consistent in stretching.

It looks like the move I made on the shoes also fits into a solution. The roll inward onto the forefoot lines up with the symptoms, as does the increased milage I put in leading up to the Portland Marathon.

Plus the breakthrough in my own mind was to now treat the upcoming Tecumseh Trail Marathon with Darrell as a long training run, not a race. Funny how that simple shift in emphasis helped me. Takes the pressure off for the long runs to preceed the race. Instead, it is "simply" a long run in iteself. And, hey, it may be a 20 mile run alongside Darrell and a 6.2 mile walk by myself in the woods, letting Darrell get the car warmed up. That will be OK as well.

So, that's the plan. And, since blogging does not strain cartilage, I'll be commenting here too.

Will be a different week. And we'll persevere.

Will the shoe fit??

ORN: 3 miles, 2.8 of them pain free

Frustrated over the lack of progress on my right knee pain, I had an idea yesterday, Sunday. I had to drive to Indianapolis to pick up the youngest son, returning from a conference in Washington, DC. Why not go by my favorite running store while in Indy to see if they could help me with my shoes??

So, off I went to www.athleticannex.com, where they have helped me a lot. I took my current pair of Brooks Adreneline GTS6 with me. To my delight, John looked and looked and looked at the wear pattern on these shoes, now with about 350 miles on them. He observed something I've seen but I didn't know what to do with; while my heel strike seemed very normal, my forefoot wore over to the inside of the shoe, leaving virtually no wear at all on the outside of the shoe. I observed that this has been the very same wear pattern on my last six pairs of Brooks Adrenelines.

He scrunched up his face, "This just isn't right." So he went to work to find a shoe he felt would help this inward roll on the front foot.

We ended up with a pair of adidas Supernova. I ran in them on the sidewalk outside the store, they felt great, way better than several other pairs. I was cautions...I've never had good results with adidas, feeling they were much more a "mass consumer" shoe rather than a serious runner shoe. Shoot, don't all serious runners wear either Brooks or Asics? Yet, I took the advice of John who was knowledgable and had run a 2:35 marathon the day before.

This morning, I took them out. Ouch...the first 200m were wierd. A new shoe...felt funny. Yet, by my stretching point a third of a mile in, it felt OK. The planned 3 mile run went well and it was great to be out again.

But, with just .2 miles to go, I felt the twinges in my right knee. Good thing I was almost home.

In previous adventures like this, I know it takes a while for the pain to subside. I'm hoping that's the case here. We'll see.

Thanks for the concern from many of you. Stay tuned as I persevere with this.

A few days off in Southern Illinois

ORN: Wednesday: 3 miles, no knee pain; 4 miles hiking
Thursday: 4+ miles, no knee pain
Friday: 3 miles, knee pain; 4 miles hiking
Saturday: no running; 3 miles rough terrain hiking

Gretchen and I took off for a few days off last week. We went to the far south of Illinois, an area we’d never visited and spent time in the hills and hollows of several state parks. Mostly, we didn’t rush anything. We read, hiked, sat, talked, slept, wrote, ate, didn’t eat. With no schedule. Genuinely refreshing.

We stayed at a delightful B&B that Gretchen found on-line, The Davie School Inn in the small town of Anna, Illinois. A converted old schoolhouse, we had the 4th grade classroom (the Brown room) as our home for three days! We were spontaneous in finding places to eat, making one marvelous find and one that was not.

On Saturday, we visited Vulture Fest. I am not making this up…it celebrates the return of the migratory turkey vultures to the area after their summer in Canada. It actually had nothing to do with vultures, much more a hippie/new age flea market. Gretchen really wanted a T Shirt, but alas, none for sale, only sun catchers. (Sorry, links don't seem to work today...if you want to find Vulture Fest, try Google!)

One of the fun parts of running while traveling is heading out the door each day and just running in one direction to see what one can see. This trip was no exception. I ballparked the distance from my watch (my Garmin is on the fritz) and that was plenty good enough.

On Friday, however, came a not-fun part of running; the right knee pain came back after a mere three miles. I do have this feeling of slipping into serious mileage deficit for the upcoming trail marathon. Until I do some long weekend runs, I won’t settle this gnawing concern. Yet, I resolve to remind myself I’m running for the long term (and I have a specific goal for this I’ll mention sometime) and won’t injure myself further in the short term.

Back in the saddle this week. Persevering.

A BQ, Two Things New and Race Plans

ORN: 3 miles, 29:09

So much to report, from big to banal…

BQ for The Running Chick! Blogging buddy Dianna, a.k.a. the Running Chick with the Orange Hat, qualified for Boston today in only her third marathon, setting a PR by over 20 minutes and beating the BQ limit by 10 minutes. Read her prerace comments and then the blow-by-blow race report. She’ll likely add her own comments in a day or two. Di is one of the best running writers in the blogosphere, you’ll enjoy it.

I did two new running-related things today.

Cross Country Excellence This morning, the second round of the Indiana state High School Cross Country competion went off about 4 miles from my house. Never having been to a cross country meet before, I decided to go and see it. Many thoughts, but the most striking was the start of both the boys and girls race. I watched it from about 100 yards down course. On a spectacular, crisp fall morning, the starting line was 100 feet long and about four or five runners deep. At the gun, a hundred lean, young runners broke quickly, instantly. It was beautiful. Not even thinking, I said this out loud. One of the attending Moms was next to me and we smiled at the amazing nature of it.

Surging into the 21st Century And then, for the first time, I ran with an MP3 player today. A gift from my recent birthday, I’ve never run with “sound” before. In fact, I’ve been a little critical of it. I’m still not sure. But since the unit has an FM radio built in, I used it to listen to Purdue play Northwestern in football (an epic stuggle between the movable force and the resistable object). We’ll see how much I use it…but it was a first.

The run itself wasn’t much. But I did run, not run/walk, three miles. My right knee felt better but not great. I cut it off at 3 and we’ll see if we can ease back into more enjoyable runs. Note to self: Probably not a good idea to run a hard 5 mile race six days after a marathon. Next time, I take a week off and then ease back into it.

Which brings me to my

Next Marathon Plans Man, I enjoy running. And blogging adds a communal nature to it that spans geography (witness the connection above). And here’s a cool illustration of same. Blogging pal Darrell and I have discovered a lot in common over the year. He’s actively trying to run marathons in all 50 states. Serendipitously, he expressed interest in the Tecumseh Trail Marathon in Bloomington, Indiana on December 2. After I wrote about A Hike up Pikes Peak in July with my son David, all of this started to gel, I got to thinking about trail races more. Long story short, I offered to host Darrell in his effort to knock Indiana off his list.

So, that’s what we’re going to do!! He’ll fly in, I’ll pick him up, we’ll head to southern Indiana and run for five or six hours through the woods! Neither of us has any major time objectives; indeed, I’ve talked with three local marathoners in the last few weeks who have run the race. They smile and say “Yeah, just add 90 to 120 minutes to your regular marathon time and plan accordingly!” We only have three real marathons in Indiana each year and this is hands-down the most unique. So why not have an interesting marathon to run in a far away state, eh Darrell??

I’m excited, despite how my knees feel and how his calves are doing, one week after he PRed in the Saint George Marathon. So, stay tuned as we blog about our preparation and the get together!

And, I guarantee you, we will both persevere.

On the Usefulness of a Running Log

ORN: Tuesday: 0.3 miles, left knee pain
Wednesday: 3 miles, run/walk, right knee pain
Thursday: 4 miles, run/walk, right knee pain

So, here in week two following The Most Recent Marathon, I'm hobbled slightly. What gives? And after I did OK in a race last Saturday? I was wondering.

Then I flipped back on my running log to the three weeks following the St Louis Marathon in April. Ahaaaaaa, I say. Week one felt good, though the quads were sore. Week two showed knee pain, alternating back and forth. Week three showed improvement. Week four was back to normal.

I relaxed. I'm on a normal pattern. This will resolve. No biggie.

Yeah, persevere.

PS. I've culled my log down to a very simple small sheet that covers 8 weeks at a time. Keep it taped to a cabinet right next to our shower. If you'd like a copy of this simple Excel spreadsheet, email me and I'll send it to you

Race Report: Mel Henry Memorial 5 Mile Race

ORN: 8 miles total for the day, including 5.0, 42:36, 8:31/mile

What a week!! Running the Portland Marathon on Sunday, then a small local race here on Saturday. I wondered what it would be like..and now I know! Here are the similarities and differences for a different style of race report!

Portland Marathon: Nationally known and publicized.
Mel Henry Run: Very local run, with just a few fliers handed out, plus word of mouth

P: 7,000 runners, 3,000 walkers
M: 45 runners, 1 walker

P: Carbo-loaded the night before with new friends from Seattle and middle son Nathan in Italian restaurant.
M: Meat-loaded the night before at a family gathering at my house celebrating youngest son Matt’s 18th birthday. Matt likes pot roast and he got to pick the menu…

P: Paid $85 entry fee
M: Paid $12 entry fee

P: A spectacular fall morning to run.
M: A spectacular fall morning to run.

P: Traveled across the country at much expense.
M: Backed out of the garage at 7:15am for the 8:00am start and still had 15 minutes to kill.

P: Had no space or time to warm up.
M: Left the house at 6am and ran three miles early just to get loose before changing and heading to the race.

P: Had busy and full expo and registration set up in hotel ballrooms.
M: Had one person at a card table set up outdoors to handle registration.

P: Took public transport downtown and walked seven blocks to the start.
M: Parked own car 30 yards from the start.

P: Ran through a major city, seeing business, industrial and residential areas.
M: Ran on rural roads, seeing a village and lots of soybean fields.

P: Knew nobody in the crowd.
M: Knew or recognized nearly a third of the runners.

P: Had thousands of volunteers to help.
M: Pretty much run by one guy, with a couple others pitching in on race day.

P: Had a cool, large bib number with advertising and my name.
M: Got a Popsicle stick at the finish line to figure the awards.

P: Had mile markers labeled with large balloons and someone calling out the times.
M: Had mile markers spray painted on the asphalt and I looked at my own watch for the time.

P: Ran without pain for 26 miles.
M: Ran with a good bit of pain in the right knee, which subsided as I continued.

P: Ran consistent splits for 15 miles, then gradually slowed.
M: Ran negative split. Mile times were 9 13, 8 58, 8 52, 8 18 and 7 12. I’ve never run a race before where each mile was faster than the previous mile. This was assisted somewhat by the course layout that was uphill to the turnaround point.

P: Got a space blanket for warmth after crossing the finish line.
M: Walked to car to get my nylon shell for warmth after crossing finish line.

P: Got a cool long-sleeve t shirt.
M: Got a cool long-sleeve t shirt.

P: Didn’t bother to go to awards ceremony.
M: Awards happened just after the last finisher crossed the line, as we all stood in a semi circle around the registration card table.

P: Preregistered and got emails from the organizers.
M: Preregistered and all 22 of us who did so won a door prize. I now have new cool, heavy-duty maglite flashlight.

P: Did not allow dogs or jogging strollers.
M: Did allow dogs and strollers. And the dog beat me. The collie Maggie paced my early-morning running pal Lu all the way and beat me by about 3 minutes. Alas, I did come in ahead of the couple with a five and a two year old in a jog stroller.

P: Wore a fluorescent green shirt to allow son Nathan to spot me in the midst of the crowd.
M: Wore official US Army PT gear to honor oldest son David who deployed this morning for his second 12 month tour in Iraq. As my knee bugged me in mile one and I thought about bagging it and walking back, I looked down at the Army shirt and realized neither David nor any of his colleagues would quit due to just a bit of discomfort. I could do no less if I wanted to honor him. The knee pain eased up and I carried on.

P: Enjoyed the race immensely.
M: Enjoyed the race immensely.

In flipping back through my race log, one other interesting thing pops out. I ran this race two years ago at the start of this era of my running life. I trained for it, focused for it and ran it in 45:50, a 9:10 pace. And my knees and legs hurt terribly afterwards. Today, I ran it 6 days after a marathon in 42:36, with no lasting discomfort. Looking at the numbers like this is encouraging…I guess all the miles and work has paid off.

Hope you enjoyed this, I sure did.

Persevere. In Oregon and Indiana.