. . . but (not too) seriously folks

Ed -

I do want to run fast.

I even have a ridiculous goal I’ve written down and said out loud and I’ll do that again here:

I want to run a mile in under 5 minutes when I’m 50. 

That’s just next year and I’m all ready hedging my bets by letting myself think “. . . in my 50’s” instead.  Hell, I just got blown off the track by a guy who’s 57 and ran a 4:43 1500 earlier this year which puts him just a tad over 5 minutes in the mile.  So I can allow myself a couple more years to hit it.

When I first stated that I wanted to do this I didn’t really believe I had a snowball’s chance.  But I’m the kind of person who thinks if you want something big you start out by saying that you want it.  Then you figure out how to go about getting it, following that up with going out and getting it.  I’m hardly ever successful because I’m an absolute dreamer, but I know that mindset has helped me accomplish things I otherwise would not have accomplished.

As you may have seen in our little description I only started running about four years ago now.  Sure I ran in high school, but as my wife points out, that was a hundred years ago.  The short story is that I had cancer, got really weak, and as I recovered I started running.  Run Ed, run.  (Shameless Plug:  You can read all about that in my book “Ed . . . It Was Malignant” sold through amazon.com or at my website www.alwayscalled.com) A friend of mine that happens to coach distance runners all over the world, caught wind of my efforts and helped guide me to completing my first marathon just one year and one day after being diagnosed.  In that process I got faster than I thought I could be, but she was always unimpressed.  Not to say she wasn’t enthusiastically supportive because she was incredible, she just kept telling me that she expected the speed.  Then she asked me a question.

“What was your fastest mile in high school?”

“4:43.”

“Do you want to do that again?” she asked directly.

“There is no way on God’s green earth I could do that!”

“You can get close,” she calmly said. “You can break 5.”

“Puhleeeez.”

She immediately began naming world class athletes who are considered old in their sports, but were hitting personal bests.  Folks like Dara Torres.  Man, that woman is amazing on so many levels. ; )  Then she convinced me to start logging my miles and times and paying attention to how I felt during and after runs.  I didn’t have a real clue as to what I was doing at the time and didn’t for a minute believe I was capable of going sub-6 let alone a full minute faster, so I just started up a spreadsheet with the dates and I put down the distances and the times of my runs.  I also used that spreadsheet to set goals for the coming weeks and to keep me on track to be ready for the marathon.

Wasn’t long before I started to see the significant increase in mileage and slight increase in pace.  Then she started talking about speed work and getting onto a track.  I was training for a marathon so the track seemed dumb at first.  But my wife, who was being very nice considering she teases me that I’m obsessed with this stuff, bought me the Runner’s World complete book on running.  In there I learned about “Yasso’s 800’s.”  Coach Robin told me how to approach the workout and pumped me up after I did the first ones terribly slow.  But two weeks later when I did them again I knocked a huge chunk of time off each one and did several more reps!

“The stuff works doesn’t it,” she said and I could hear her smiling over the phone.

Then, all of a sudden, I dropped almost 20 seconds per mile off my pace for my 10 to 14 mile runs.  The varied workouts resulted in amazing gains.  I was beginning to believe.

Since then I have become quite the running geek.   I ask experienced runners questions all the time and I read up on things I want to know about.  However, I’m very tactical in my approach.  I don’t just read running books or anything.  I only go after specific information I want because I feel I need to know it.

Take my last race where I went out too fast.

The old(er) really fast guy told me I experienced acidosis because I went out too fast for too long, but I knew that’s the pace I need to run to break 5 minutes in the mile.  So how do I keep that pace for longer if it killed me this time at 800 meters?  The answer must be in the acidosis if this guy knows what he’s talking about.  So I did what I always do when I want information and want it now:  I got on google.  Google is good, and I’m a lover of alliteration.

Go back and read that, that’s a very clever joke right there.  I’ll wait.

I discovered acidosis is a really severe condition that basically is the same as exercised induced lactic acid buildup but caused by other bad stuff.  However, the information I found led me to this nice little article that explains it really well.  And it also reminded me of the other things I’ve read about workouts designed to improve “lactate turn” or your body’s ability to process lactate and more efficiently handle lactic acid.  In a nutshell these workouts are designed to help you run at a faster pace for a longer period of time.  Between improving my overall endurance with longer sustained pace runs, and improving my lactate turn I will go faster longer.

Then I went to my handy dandy folder full of workouts for milers/1500 runners, and found this one that is supposed to just flood my body with lactate and make me collapse.  I hadn’t tried it yet since it seemed silly when I first saw it, but I’m glad I saved it because it’s a beauty.  I tried it tonight as my first two a day workout (I ran a little over 5 miles this morning at an easy pace) and only got through two reps before my legs just wouldn’t do any more.  Here’s the deal:

Start by running a half mile to warm up.  Then run 50 meters at your typical long run pace.  The distance is so short you just kind of have to feel for it at first.  At 50 meters; take off at full speed, an all out sprint for 50 meters.  Then back down to the moderate pace for the next 50 meters.  Repeat this pattern until you turn a complete lap: 400 meters.  The object is to complete that lap at a pace that is a little slower than your best mile time.  I set out to do a 1:30.  I figured it would pretty easy since I’ve done 10 x 400 workouts where I averaged better than a 1:25 with only a minutes rest between each one.  Three of these things should be a piece of cake.

I did the first one in 1:25 and was breathing so hard it was surprising.  The fourth sprint in there didn’t feel much like a sprint even though I was able to stay up on my toes and drive it hard.

From there you jog 200 meters then repeat the pattern twice more for a total of four laps.

The smart, experienced people that come up with these workouts know what they’re doing.  I could only get through two reps.  My second 400 was a 1:32 and the last two sprints were pathetic, heel striking, skeleton dancing, rubber legged efforts.  I almost horked and I’d only gone half a mile.

I also felt my arms go tired and burn again like in the race.  This time I knew that the workout was doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.  Flood me with lactic acid, fatiguing the life out of my body, then the slow jogs in between and the final half mile I forced myself to run (sort of) after the second set was teaching my body to process that stuff better.

The workout calls for me to do this once a week for three weeks.

Based on past experience and looking at each of my annual spreadsheets, I know that next week I’ll get the third set in, then the week after it will feel even easier.  From there I plan to do this every other week or so, working it in with my short hill and other track workouts.  I also need to lengthen all of my runs to build that endurance base.

::::shiver::::  This stuff just gives me goosebumps!

Oh, here's that article I mentioned.  Use it to improve your running!

 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-does-lactic-acid-buil