Rubber Side Down: June 2005

recent traning runs

Hi

In the last few weeks I had some good training runs, so I decided to blog them. The first one was on the 11th, 4 miles before the group run and then 11 miles with the group. Total time 2:03, or 8:12 average pace. The week after was 3+9+3=15 again a 15 miles, but with wo breaks. Time was about the same, maybe a minute faster. What's nice is that the middle part of the group run (4 miles on the first week, 3 miles on the second) was going at about 7:20-7:30 per mile ! gee, that's a new territory for me, going that fast for that long and without a downhill.

Today Bruce, George and I ran PG&E to the bench. We started slow and kept a steady pace, sometimes walking the steepest slopes. We made it to the top in 47:20 minutes ! had a short rest and zoomed down through high middows and rouge valley. Alltogether 1:26:15 without the rest.

If I did not misuse the map calculator, then what we did is 9.4 miles total, 1715 feet climb.
It comes out as 4.2 miles up (& down) on the PG&E trail to the bench in 47:15 minutes,
then 5.2 miles down via Upper Middow and Rouge Valley in 39 minutes. George's GPS
distance shows 9 miles and if I recall something like 7:30, 7:33, 7:33, 7:57 and 7:57 for
the last five miles (downhill and then flat). Going up was more like 12 minutes per mile :-)
It was a very nice run with a strong finish. We plan to go again.

Arnon

Ready to run again

Ok, it's the 4th day after the marathon and I'm ready to run again.
Here's an observation: I think I've been under the influence of a
prolonged endorphin high these past days. Ok, in the moment right
after the race, I was down and in pain, but since then I'm thinking:
Wazzup? I still feel "pumped up". So I'm wondering: with such a long
distance, does this make sense? a longer endorphin high?

Here is my new strategy to reach 4 hour marathon. What do you think
of fixing the pace (9 minutes) and running as many miles as you can
sustain this pace, with the idea that you would eventually reach 26.2
miles? A variation would be to pick two paces (say 8 and 9 minute miles)
and alternate: one week running the faster pace (shorter) and the next
running the slower (longer). I'm thinking of devoting one day to this,
and keeping all the rest of the runs as before (Sat: team, Mon: hills,
Wed: track). My proposed course would be to start at LGHS, run to Alma
bridge and back, then Campbell park and back.

Rock 'N Roll on TV

Look for yourself!

The Coca-Cola Zero Rock 'n' Roll Marathon will be televised locally and nationally.

Fox Sports Net (FSN) Saturday, June 18, 2 pm*
NBC 7/39 Sunday, June 12, 3 pm
*Check local listings for local air dates and time

Try a Tri?

We were having some discussions about Triathlons and their length. Here is a good site that lists the main distances

How to Measure a Triathlon

my Rock'n'Roll story

Wanting to write this before I get back into the workaday world... I'm really glad I went. You know, it's a long time since Sacramento and it's amazing how different the two marathons were for me. The first one: all worried about avoiding the wall which I guarded against by eating just HUGE quantities of food in the 2 or 3 days leading up. The second one: not really paying attention to this or eating even the NORMAL amount in the days leading up (due to the travel, being in a different city and not making an effort to find the food I wanted, etc, etc) but not worrying about that, thinking that I have more muscle mass than I did last Oct and also that it was more important to eat DURING than PRIOR to the race. Only, I kind of forgot to follow through. Why? I think I started out feeling like 9s would be tough. Only they weren't. In fact, they felt slow and pretty effortless. This lead me to a false sense of security that I would just keep them up and sail in, easily in 4 hours. I really got caught up in this. Endorphins? It was really a fun feeling, just knocking off the miles. This probably sounds crazy (and it will to me in a couple of months if I look back at it, I'm guessing), but I felt like the miles were really going by faster than ever before. I was thinking, "it can't already be the next mile" but sure enough it was. I started fantasizing about it getting more fun, the faster you went. Like I already blogblabbed, I really believed this was going to be easy and so didn't worry about food. Somewhere between 16-19 miles, I started to get slower and I couldn't get back the pace. Once I changed to walk just for a minute, my hips really made their tiredness known. I didn't stop to stretch but I did keep switching between walking and (much slower than 9min pace) jogging.

Lessons learned:
- Do like Sissie - force food down in small amounts, but at regular intervals.
- Continue to build endurance so that walk-breaks are not needed. For me, once I start to walk, I want more - better to just not go there until after 26.2.
- Pamper myself more when it's a unknown location. Don't push it with skipping meals, driving crazy distances, wasting time getting lost due to poor navigation while driving, delays due to traffic jams and construction. Marathon's are hard enough without these extra stresses.

The best parts:
- Tylenol-free this time, despite my new vocation as Tylenol-spokesperson (see photos). I can't say that about Sacramento ;)
- I had at least 16 great 9 minute miles and I know that was not possible last October, so this is proof of the benefit of training over the winter.
- Support from the other RSDers, Coyote and Pegasissie, and Steven!