The Marathon as Experiment

ORN:  3.1 miles, R5/W1

Another marathon is near.  The Illinois Marathon goes off at 7:30am Central Saturday and I'm looking forward to it.  I suppose I will be a "legacy runner" in this event, since I've run each of them.  Of course, this is only the second year, so let's not get carried away.   The taper has gone well...I've run well, shortening the distance and picking up the tempo over the past three weeks.  

The race affords me a chance to try something that has been bugging me ever since I finished the Portland Marathon last October and then talked with Jeff Galloway in the finishing area.  And Saturday I get to try it.  An extreme run/walk ratio, with an eye to real enjoyment of the experience.  

I am going to do a 1/1 run/walk Saturday.  Run one minute, walk one minute.  From the start.  And finish under 5 hours, feeling good.  Using my pace calculator, this works out to 11:37 miles.   More importantly, in the run segments, I'll run at a 9:10/mile pace.  Can this work??  And, importantly, how do I feel at the end?  

I'm hoping to finish at a steady run.  Last year, I ran the last mile of this race.  Can I run the last two this year?  Dare I hope for the last three??

We'll see.

Weather could be dicey...scattered thundershowers, windy, humid, 60F at the start, mid 70s when we end.  Such is springtime in the Midwest. 

Full report coming on this experiment.  Here you see the objective... how will it turn out??  

Persevere.

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Big-Race Goodie Bags Lead to Fun Pix

ORN (Sat): 14.0 miles, R3/W1, 2:24:26, 10:19/mile

After my truncated "long" run last week, I hoped to have a more positive long-ish run yesterday, 2 weeks ahead of the Illinois Marathon. I walked out the door committed to 12 miles, hoping though to do 14 if the strained upper right calf cooperated.

On a perfect, sun-swept, cool spring morning, it was fabulous to simply be out. Since the plan is to run a 1/1 run/walk in the marathon, I wanted to run a 3/1 for training, while keeping the same run pace I intend to use on race day, 9:12/mile.

It worked. The pace felt fine. Better was the news about the right calf. Around mile 4, it mentioned to me "Hey, I'm still here!" But, it never got louder. Just a bit of a minor whine from the back seat which never got worse. This could be the story on race day... it was good to experience and know it is manageable.

But, I digress.

When John and I ran the Honda Los Angeles Marathon four weeks ago, we got, as usual, a full goodie bag at registration. It had the usual mishmash of local race notices, pain relievers, restaurant deals and odd nutritional drinks. Most funny, though, was a complimentary Sweatband emblazoned with the 2010 US Census logo. I guess the tax dollars were worth it for the publicity, but it seemed odd to John and me.

I did have the idea it would make a fun gift for my twin, six-year old grandsons, so John happily donated his to the cause. I gave it to the boys last week and they gladly posed for grandpa to take a photo.




Then, as two kindergarten boys are wont to do, Drew looped behind Nathan and they began to wrestle, leading to this epic image.




Which then raises the Census Question of the Day; Just how do they count two-headed boys?

I guess if you are a Census worker, you just shrug your shoulders and persevere.


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Taper by feel, not by book

ORN:  (Saturday) 11 miles, R2/W1, 11:20/mile

Three weeks from yesterday, I line up for the Illinois Marathon.  That means I should have done my last long run yesterday.  

My taper for the LA Marathon was really messed up by a 24 miler three weeks pre-race on a very slick, snowy surface.  I had decided to not go so long this time, aiming for a "mere" 17 miles this weekend and then keep active until race day.  

However, about 8 miles into the planned 17 yesterday, the strain in my upper right calf (which has been steadily resolving since the LA race) acted up. It got tight and was affecting my gait. I was approaching a "T" in my running route, where I had to decide to either head back home for only 11 or keep on grinding it out to try to get the 17.  I decided to head home, in hopes of staying healthy, keeping the miles up through the taper and seeing what happens.  I knew from the LA prep what happens when I grind it out and then can't run for 2-3 weeks.  

So 11 miles it is, three weeks out.  May try again to do 12-14 next Saturday.  In either event, we'll learn more about tapering, won't we?  

Persevere.  That's always the right thing to do.

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1979 was a long time ago

ORN: 12.4 miles, 2/1, felt good

It had to be 1979, it just had to be. We were living in Lesotho, a tiny country in southern Africa. My mother did us a huge treat two or three times that year, long before Al Gore had invented the Internet. She subscribed to Sports Illustrated, kept all the copies and would then ship a stack to us in a box via sea mail. Nevermind the lateness of the news…we lived in such a remote spot, it was marvelous to read even old stories about familiar sports.

And one new sport. I still remember reading a feature article in one issue about the then nascent sport of triathlon. It described the amazing tenacity of the early winners, their pain tolerance, their training regimens, their just plain toughness in the original Hawaii race. And weirdness. In particular, I remembered one quote by one guy to the effect that he didn’t like races because they got in the way of his training.

I recall marveling at that statement at the time. I could not remotely begin to understand his viewpoint.

Recently, I recalled that comment, understanding it much better. (I actually wrote about this in 2006, here) It hit me when I looked at my running mileage in March…a mere 41 miles. Forty-one miles?? In a month that contained a marathon?? Yep…forty-one. My lowest month in two years. The race got in the way of my training.

So, on my enjoyable 12 mile run this morning, I wondered…did I really remember that quote correctly? Did someone really say that? Might I find the article somewhere, some archive copy of old, pre-digital articles?? Amazingly there was a site. And, I found the article, from the May 14, 1979 issue.

Two pages in…pay dirt. Describing the winner of the event, that year conducted in January of 1979, the author quoted legendary Tom Warren as follows:

He says…the bad feature of racing is that it interrupts his training routine. “I could never associate racing with pain,” he says. “It’s like going to school. You have to take exams to find where you stand.”

Why, oh why, do I remember details like this when I can’t remember which side of the plate the fork goes on?? Probably because it is related to sports. Oh my.

Happy Easter, everyone. Persevere.


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Video Race Report: Los Angeles Marathon 2010

Earlier this week, I posted my full race report for last Sunday's Los Angeles Marathon. Thanks to the constructive feedback many of you provided, I figured out how to edit, connect and title the videos into one 8 minute review and embed it into this blog. I also added an epilogue, with the perspective one week's time allows following a marathon.




Hope you enjoy it. Keep Persevering.



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Race Report: Los Angeles Marathon 2010

ORN: 26.2 miles, 5:44:31, R1/W1 (mostly), 13:08/mile

Quick Summary:

The Honda Los Angeles Marathon. It's perhaps hard to be upbeat about my slowest marathon ever, but, on reflection, I did "run the best race conditions allowed" and that's my goal. The combination of a bad head cold (which morphed into bronchitis a couple days post race), three weeks of virtually no running and a hot day conspired to a long day on the road.

The course was terrific. The logistics of 26,000 runners going point-to-point in a big city are daunting. Being with family for the weekend was awesome.

The Gory Details

Pre Race

We flew to San Diego on Friday afternoon and stayed with my sister. On Saturday, her son John and I headed to LA while Gretchen and my sister dug in the garden all day. First stop for us was the Expo at Dodger Stadium. For two guys who enjoy both baseball and running, this was a perfect spot.



The Expo was a crush of people but we got our bibs and escaped with our sanity. At the expo, we met up with Darrell and headed out for lunch together. It was terrific to connect again. Thanks for your hospitality, Darrell!



After taking Darrell home, we worked our way back towards the end of the course, actually driving its last six miles. We got out and walked along the view overlooking the Pacific. Wow, that was neat. Fighting LA traffic all this time meant it was late afternoon. We found our hotel a couple miles from the finish line and were pleased to get out of the car. John and I had some pancakes for supper, watched some basketball and tried to get to sleep around 9pm.

Race day came early. Up at 3:45am, drive to our assigned parking spot in Santa Monica and board a shuttle bus at 4:50am to the Dodger Stadium start line. It turned out to be a good thing we booked the 5am shuttle. We only took 14 minutes to get there. I read that folks on the 6am shuttles got stuck in traffic and barely made the start. In fact there was so much traffic, they delayed the start by a half hour.

The Race

Here's an experiment. I recently bought a new-to-me digital camera to try producing a video race report rather than writing it all out. It seemed approprate to try this in this race, given we ran through Hollywood. The effort is amateurish, I know. I'm no video editor, so this is just as I shot it during the race. But, it is real. If you've never run a marathon, it might make it more real for you. If you have, you can identify with the degrading conditions and mental ups and downs.

Starting Grid Report How will it go?

Mile 5 Report All systems are working.

Mile 10 Report Feeling better.

Mile 15 Report Realizing it'll be slow.

Mile 20 Report Slowing down.

Mile 24 Report Legs done.

Mile 25 Report Reflection during final half mile.

I welcome any feedback on this video report.

Post-Race Reflections

The race was a good one for John, only his second marathon. He pulled off a 4:20 race and finished ahead of 80% of the pack. He felt good at the end, which was one of his aims. I was thrilled for him. We will do this again on October 10, when we run the Chicago Marathon together. It will be a unique opportunity to compare two mega-races in the span of seven months.

We stayed an extra day in San Diego and flew home on Tuesday. Feeling badly on the trip home, I saw a doctor late Tuesday afernoon. He diagnosed my "cold" had moved deep in my lungs, forming an early stage bronchitis. He put me on an antibiotic but before it could kick in, the gunk got worse Tuesday night. I ended up missing work on Wednesday and Thursday, awake both nights coughing badly until 3am or so. Hardly the poster boy for invigorating marathon experiences. Nevertheless, if this was lurking in my lungs on race day, it explains a lot.

I also pulled up the graph of my daily runs for the past month, below.



Yeow! My 24 mile training run, three weeks pre-marathon, was essentially my last run until race day. The taper truly matters. Even if the mileage in a taper decreases, it should not go to zero. THAT picture speaks a thousand words to me.

So, taking all of this into consideration, I'm pleased with even finishing this marathon. My lungs ache but my legs do not. I had very little soreness in my legs after Monday Monday...even 6 hours in a cramped airplane seat on Tuesday did not add to stiffness. My feet, which have often ached following a marathon, feel fine. I'm actually antsy to get out and run again on Saturday, if the lungs allow. I'm much more pleased with the race today than I was on Sunday.

So, that's the report. Thanks for listening. Persevere.



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Quickie Race Report: Los Angeles Marathon

ORN:   26.2 miles, R1/W1 (mostly), 5:44:30, 13:08/mile

 

Finished the LA Marathon yesterday.  It was my slowest marathon ever (by far).  There is much to think about following this. 

 

The course itself was very enjoyable.  What got me, I think, was a three-fold problem.  First, I had the left knee problem three weeks ago, which left me only running twice in the past three weeks.  Second, I came down with a head cold early in the week and was coughing and hacking extensively all week.  Third, it was a warm day in LA, temps in the mid 70s.  The transition from midwest cold to SoCal heat was a real shock. 

 

The good news is my left knee gave me no grief, at all.  I felt some twinges in the first half mile but made sure I was "gentle" in my form and it held up fine.

 

Bottom line?  Just plain slow.  And, at mile 23, the legs were done...I had to walk the last 2.5 miles, managing only the most meager "jog" the last 20 meters just for pride's sake. 

 

I have some surprises for my full report which I'll post later in the week. 

 

Persevere.

 

 

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