Setting a Goal: Making a Plan

The first, and arguably the most important, step in achieving something is to set a goal.

I do it all the time in business and life then build plans to help me get to where I want to go.  Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don’t, but I have learned that due to my ADD if I don’t have a goal and a plan, then I’m not going to get anything accomplished.  I’ll just look around at stuff and be busy as all get out then look around again and realize I’ve gone nowhere.  It’s like going to the grocery store without a list to get milk and cereal.  I’ll come back with four or five items but no milk.

 

The longest memory is a short pencil.  I live that.

 
Some of the goals I set are beyond what I really think I can do, but I’ve found that helps me do more than I actually thought I could.  Especially when dealing with physical things like weights or running.  When I set those stretch goals I also have secondary ones that I plan to hit “on the way.”  That way I build in successes so I feel good and keep working.  That’s worked really well the past two years as I try to run a mile in under five minutes.

Only about ten people a year in my age group, or the one above or below for that matter, do that in any given year.  The air is rare up there.  Those guys are fast, fast, fast and I’d like to be up there with them.  Of course I haven’t run a sub-5 mile since I was 18 but, pffft, I don’t care.  It’s a stretch goal! 

I’ve already hit several of my secondary goals and had some great races along the way, plus I’ve learned a great deal about training and perseverance.  I’ve also had the good luck to be able to share a lot of those learning’s with other folks and hear about their successes, too.  So today I want to do some more sharing and give y’all some basic pointers for accomplishing any racing goals you might have.

 

First: Set the goal

 

Write it down, tell someone about it, and talk about.  Those things will help make it real to you and keep you working towards it even if you hit some setbacks.

 

Second: Have a plan

 

Things that are worthwhile don’t just happen.  They take effort and you work for them.  With the limited amount of time we all have, we can’t just be wasting it if we want to do something big for ourselves, and having a plan will help us be more efficient and improve the likelihood of reaching our goals.  Think the plan through starting with the finishing point.  If you’re goal is a PR in a Half Marathon, start with the race date and work your ways backwards understanding that you’re not going to be able to run the needed distances at the needed speeds if you don’t build up to it!  Knowing where you need to be and when will help lay out what you have to do to get there.  And be smart about it.  Don’t just go throwing big numbers out there like running 6 days a week 10 miles a day if you’ve never made yourself do it before.  If you’re a three day a week runner, stick to three days.  Play to your habits and strengths if you can.  If you do have to change something do it in small steps.  It’s really easy to get discouraged so it’s important not to plan for discouragement.  Plan for success and go after it in little, manageable steps.

 

Third:  Vary the plan

 

We all know shit happens.  Sometimes it’s self-inflicted; sometimes it’s not but you know it’s going to happen, so be ready to go with the flow.  Missing a workout isn’t going to be the end if you gave yourself the leeway when putting together your plan.  The other key point here is the “variety” in the “vary.”  Regardless of what you’re training to do, just going out and running several times a week is not going to get you very far.  When I began my training I first looked at what the world class “elites” do.  No, I’m not going to be one of them, but they obviously know what they’re doing so I imitate them!  Which brings up a pet peeve of mine: training plans where you don’t ever run the distance you’re going to race.  Please.  To me that’s just a plan to help you FINISH a distance, not race it.  Now, obviously, finishing is the goal for many people.  That was my goal when I ran my one and only Marathon.  I did pretty well even though I hit the wall hard at 23 miles, but I’d never run more than 18 leading up to that so what the hell else should I have expected?  Elite marathoners do 30 mile runs in their training from time to time.  Those of us who want to really race a marathon should think about doing that, too.

 

But back to the “variety.” 

A good training plan addresses lots of different systems and muscles in your body to help you get the most you can get out of yourself.  Marathoners do speed work, and sprinters do long slow runs.  Just in varying quantities and speeds.  Here are the pieces I suggest everyone needs to do when training for any distance.  There are a gazillion variations on these workouts as well as cross-training opportunities that make a difference but these are the ones that will give you the most bang for your buck.  Read that: give you the most benefit in the shortest amount of time. 

Sprint Work:  Short, 40 to 80 meter, full-out-hard-as-you-can sprints with about 4 to 5 minutes rest between each rep.  Those build leg muscle and help you learn to move your feet faster and faster. 

Speed Work:  Distances from 200 meters up to a mile.  Intervals, where you run at a fast pace then rest and repeat, work the best here.  One of the most used workouts anywhere is a “10 x” where you run ¼ the distance you’re going to race at your goal race pace, then rest for about a minute or jog for about a minute and a half then hit the rep again for a total of 10 times. 

Stamina Work:  Distances ranging from about 1/3 to the full distance of your goal race.  The iterations that exist here are also numerous but think Tempo Run since that’s the most used workout.  These runs are done just a little slower than race pace and usually for a distance a little shorter than your goal race.  These are the workouts the Kenyans (a generality, but there’s some merit there) focus on most.  Supposedly it’s almost all of their training and that makes sense since this most closely resembles your goal race.  If you’re training for a 10K then 2 to 5 mile Tempo Runs will be what you’re doing. 

Endurance:  Distances as long, or longer, than your goal race.  These are really important just so your body is prepared to do what it needs to do for a given period of time and distance.  It’s going to be very difficult to race for an hour if you never run that long in practice. 

The balance and focus of these segments depend entirely on your goal race and secondarily on your physical capabilities.  My goal race of the mile means my time is spent on Speed, Stamina, Sprint and Endurance in that order.  If you’re training for a Marathon then it’s going to be more Endurance, Stamina, Speed and Sprint.  But all of the pieces should be there. 

Plus one more:  Easy Days. 

One of the best things you can do for your body is have a day where you run, but it is short and very easy.  This type of run gets the fluids flowing through you to speed up healing, elevates your heartbeat and breathing so there’s a little cardiovascular benefit to it, but it doesn’t stress your muscles and joints at all.  Very, very beneficial. 

That variety of training will not only improve you physically faster than doing just one type of running, it makes running a whole lot more interesting and fun!  And those two things, interesting and fun, bring me to the last word on a training plan.

 

You're the designer, so make the plan fit YOU!

 

One size does not fit all in the running world and while a plan by Higdon might be a good one, it might not be good for you individually.  The same goes for any plan out there.  I've got books and articles you could read on the subject, but I realize not everyone is as geeked about running as I am.  Just think of yourself and your goals when you lay out a plan to reach them.  Play to your strengths and deal with your weaknesses in ways that you CAN and WILL deal with them.  If you hate rigid things, then it doesn't make much sense to have a 7 day a week plan complete with the time of day you run, rest, stretch and eat does it?  No.  Just make a list of three or four runs you're going to do that week.

 

Interesting and Fun.

 

If you keep those things in your running, you will do it more and do it better.

 

 

Base Building

Man, it’s been over two weeks since we posted up on here.  Sorry about that.  A lot has gone on and I know Bob will want to talk about his Half and all of his buddies who hit PR’s on what was just a perfect race day.  But for me I’m just going to talk about boring old training stuff.

 

My Outdoor Track season ended back at the beginning of August and I moved from there into a Rest Phase of training.  It’s pretty much impossible to maintain a peak fitness level so there have to be times where one backs off the intensity to let the body and mind recover and get ready to grow again.  The mental part is as important as the physical in that it helps us avoid burning out and losing the desire to really push.  My Rest Phase lasted about six weeks.  I still ran some, but only about twice a week and always at a conversational pace.  Nothing intense, no racing, no intervals, no real pushing at all except for that fast finish I did down in Manteo a couple of weeks ago.  After those runs I remember feeling like my heart wasn’t even beating hard and my breathing was as relaxed as before I started.  But I still got a run in and that would keep my circulatory system operating smoothly and allow me to move into the next phase, Base Building, without having lost all of my endurance.

 

I also used my Rest Phase as a time to start building muscle back that I had lost during the last nine months.  Hard distance running actually removes muscle mass over time and eventually your top end speed begins to decline because you simply don’t have the muscle cells there to move you.  So I used my Rest Phase to begin adding that muscle back with weight training.  I think it was El G that said he spent his Rest Phase time “getting fat.”  He was never, ever fat, but he lifted weights the most during that time to build muscle so he could put it to work running later.  My weight days are divided up into Leg Day, Back Day and Chest Day.  I do core exercises and kettlebells throughout the week to augment that and round out my body’s work.

 

Leg Day to me is the most important and that consists of doing squats, deadlifts, lunges, step ups, calf raises, box jumps and skipping exercises.  This routine builds my power and trains me to transfer that with some pop in my legs and stride.  I’ve only done five workouts for Leg Days so far, but I’m now comfortably squatting 205 pounds and deadlifting 185.  Three sets of 5 each.  I’m set to move up again in both those this next Monday to 225 and 205 respectively.  I know I could do more right now, but then I wouldn’t have enough to do the lunges and step ups!  I do those with the big straight bar, too and load 115 pounds on for the lunges and 135 pounds for the step ups.  The lunges I do slow and steady to work on balance and I do those in 3 sets of 5.  The Step Ups I do with 135 pounds on the bar and I use the 12” box.  I step up starting with the left foot then bring the right up so I’m standing on the box, then step down with the left foot first then the right foot so I’m back on the ground.  I do ten of those then immediately switch to stepping up with the right foot first.  So 20 at a shot for three sets.  Makes my heart pound!

 

It also makes my legs strong, along with my hips and improves my balance.

 

I’m continuing my lifting through at least the first half of my Base Building phase since I really need about three months of lifting to get my body to significantly different place.  To help that part along I’m adding sprint workouts back into the mix once a week.  Those are the ones where I sprint all out for somewhere between 50 and 90 meters with complete recovery between each rep until I do two reps slower than the previous one back to back.  My goal is to see my 100’s drop into the low 13’s and my 200’s get done around 26 or 27 seconds.  That should make running 37’s feel  easy and that’s where I need to be to go sub 5 in the mile.

 

The Base Building part is just like it sounds.  Sort of boring to write about.  I’m running three times a week right now doing somewhere between 5 and 10 miles.  I did throw in a 14 mile run with a bunch of the Outer Banks Running Club folks and that was fun.  The main difference between my runs now and the rest ones is that instead of cruising along at somewhere around 8:30 minutes per mile, I’m doing them all at under 8:00 pace.  I still don’t feel like I’m busting it or anything but I definitely focus on doing negative splits each time out.  This week I’ve done a 5 mile run and this morning a 7.5 miler.  Saturday I’ll do 10 miles and try to stay below 8 minutes.  Next week I’ll move the 5 mile up to 7 and repeat the other two.  Little by little I’ll move them up, and then add a fourth run of about 3 to 5 miles on Sunday.  I’ll also begin doing some fartlek and Tempo runs in there as well.

 

Ten weeks from now I’ll have a nice solid base of endurance underneath me along with some stronger, more powerful legs.  That’s when I’ll start the Hills for several weeks and move back onto the track with a focus on February and March as peak time.

 

Mentally, I can hardly wait.  I’m beginning to chomp at the bit all ready, so I know I’ll be ready to kick it hard when I finally turn myself loose again!  Geez, I love this stuff.

What a bunch of crap

My running is getting better.  I am able to go longer distances at a faster pace and I am able to talk for a good bit of it.  I partially judge my fitness on how much I can talk on a training run.  I actually can't believe that I have become a running talker.  Or a talking runner.  I think it comes from my inherent hatred of long distances.  I need something to take my mind off the miles.  When running with people I am comfortable with, that means talking.  When running by myself, that means I need music.  Trail running provides all kinds of distractions.  Squirrels, bears, twigs, roots, rocks, cliffs, etc.  The miles go so much faster when I am distracted.  We ran yesterday in the aftermath of a "snowstorm".  In our area, we got about 5 or 6 inches of snow, which wasn't bad, but it was windy.  Very windy and cold.  The wind was blowing right in our faces for much of the time.  We also run in a fairly hilly area.  I found that the concentration it took to not let the wind blow my face off, took my mind off the hills.  My friend said that the hills took his mind off the wind.  It is all in the perspective.  My point being, I like stuff taking my mind off the run.  I may have said this before, but I don't think that I am a runner who goes out to run to clear my mind.  I don't find joy in the run.  I find joy in the effects of the run.  In other words, especially when I run by myself, I just want the run to be over.  Once it is over, I think back to how wonderful it was and I can't wait for the next one.  I think part of the euphoria is that I didn't die.  My runner's high comes at the end.  I'm in my car, I have a Dunkin Donuts coffee, and I am alive and thinking about what I just did.  Time spent with good friends sharing in the run is also incredible.  During a race, I am totally different.  I don't want to talk.  I can't talk.  I shouldn't be able to talk.  For those running purists out there who say you should just be in touch with your body and listen to your pace or your feet and shouldn't talk or listen to music or communicate with squirrels...well, fuck you.  I am a middle aged, average looking, middle of the pack amateur runner who is just trying to stay in shape and die in a healthy manner.  Speaking of music, I have had disagreements with people over whether to listen to music or not when we run.  My opinion is that if I am too stupid to see or hear a car coming, or a bear attacking me, then I deserve to be run over and/or eaten.  There are runners out there that take themselves far too seriously.  As important as it is to me, I have to rein it in every once in awhile and say it is just running.  I am a decent recreational runner with some goals I want to achieve.  Therefore, I train with the intent to perform at a certain level.  That level kicks me out of the run for joy club.  The joy I get is seeing my body respond to the miles and the surprise I still have when I am able to get certain results.  I am on a quest to see what my body can do at a semi-advanced age.

I just read an article about what aging does to performance.  Everything falls apart, basically, as we age.   I don't really need to read this to know it, but it when you read about it, it is kind of scary. Testosterone levels, heart rate, muscle tone, bone structure, fat loss, brain cells, rate of recovery...pretty much everything.  What gets stronger as we age, at least in some of us, is the resistance to quitting.  When we are younger it is just easier to quit.  We think we have plenty of time to make up for things.  Well, time catches up with us.  We get older.  Life beats us down.  At least it thinks it does.  But we make it to a certain point and we make it through certain things and we kind of beat time and life.  It pounds us and pounds us some more, until it just doesn't hurt that much anymore.  And something like running, while painful, is really nothing.  It is just running.  I personally feel that I am still in my twenties.  I am an old, kind of wrinkly, gray and sore twenty year old, but mentally I don't feel like maybe a 52 year old should feel.  However, I realize every day that I may hit a plateau physically at any time and I'm not ready for that yet.  I want to try to pull every bit of performance out of myself so I can start the slide down the other side knowing I did everything I could to see what I could do.  I can't go back to high school and do things again.  Back then I half assed everything, never really pushing too hard.  I can't get that back, but I can do what I can right now.  I would like to see what I can do.  All I really know, is at this age, pain just doesn't hurt that much.  I'm gonna leave it at that.

A post not about running, training, P90X, cross-training or any other super searchable words

So let me tell you how things work in my house.

My wife told me the tank on our toilet seemed to be sloping backwards.  I took a quick look at it and tell her it's because it's an old style toilet with only two bolts.  These things sit up straight because the rubber seal between the tank and the bowl has four little feet on them and after awhile they get squishy and it slopes forward or back.  "I just need to replace it," I say, "Only take fifteen minutes."

"We'll stop by Lowe's after church," she said while brushing her teeth.

We get into Lowe's and walk around to the plumbing supply area and I can't find the part I want.  I start describing it to the guy (there's always 'the guy' at Lowe's) and he says, "Yeah, that's an old toilet. We'd need to order that."

Debbie pipes up and says, "Let's just get a new toilet."

Fine.

So we cruise around two aisles and pick out a new one.  On sale!

"Hey," Debbie says, "We've talked about remodeling the bathroom anyways.  I hate that shower unit."

The Old Shower

"Sure," I chime in.  "We can tile the walls, get a nice tub and new fixtures. Let's see if we can find a tub that will match the toilet."

So we walk around the corner and immediately find a great one on sale because it's a display model and they were discontinuing the model.  There were only two left and we grabbed the left hand drain one and put it on one of those big ol' trolleys, leaving the toilet on it's own little one.  Fortunately, the designs of the two looked remarkably similar so we were really pleased with our luck.

From there we hit the flooring department to look for tile, and went to the piles of them they had on clearance.  There were several different kinds and I had figured we only needed about 60 tiles.  We narrowed it down based on color wanting to keep it fairly neutral in case we decide to sell or rent the place in the future.  The tiles we settled on were only 58 cents a piece which is just ridiculously cheap, so we decided we'd bump up the design a little bit with some sort of accents.

Normally in showers where I'm doing 12 x 12 tiles I'll go about 5 feet (tiles) then rotate the tiles at 45 degrees.  Makes a nice look.  In this case we also picked up some cool glass accents that I'll use to create a 3" divide between the first 5 tiles and the angled ones at the top.  It's going to be really nice.

So we haul everything home after miraculously getting it into the Equinox I'm driving right now.  Then from there I got it all upstairs.

We decided to just set it all in the guest room because it was going to take me a bit to get all this work done since I was only going to be able to work at nights and on weekends.

Notice how that one box of tiles is opened?  Bottom right of the picture there.  Well Debbie pulled some out and carried them downstairs.  I get down there and she's laying them out on the foyer floor.

"I really hate this old slate in here."

"Only because it's hideous," I reply, "So what are you thinking?"

"How much would it cost to tile the downstairs?"

"I figure we've got just under 790 square feet down here, so not even $500!  I'll call Lowe's and see if they've got enough of those tiles left."

They did and delivered them two days later.  41 boxes of 'em.

While waiting for the tiles to get there I made some attempts to get the slate up.  No dice.  They were installed into a bed of wet cement as opposed to be glued down to a slab.  The kitchen has tile that would pop right up, but then I'd have to level that floor with the foyer.  Same was true about the ugly laminate we have in the dining and living room areas. The laminate was glued down, so it wasn't going anywhere and was a nice flat surface. I checked the bottoms of doors and measured the dishwasher and decided I could just go right over the top of everything.  Not the best way to go about things, but sometimes the most cost-effective.

From there we talked about the layout and snapped some lines to follow to ensure the pattern matched up perfectly from the foyer and around the hall and kitchen.  Then I started removing doors and hauling stuff out of the kitchen, like the big hutch full of dishes, cookbooks and glassware.

Now our house looks like Oscar Madison's place.

 

Dishes on every flat surface

 

Tools on the table and floor

 

 

 

Everything shoved out of the way for the layout work

 

Doors and tile all over

 

Well, since I didn't have any of my tile saws up here I decided to get started doing all I could without cutting anything or putting myself in a tough spot to get a tile under a door jamb when I go to put those pieces in.  I've done that before and it's a big mess and pain in the butt because those pieces have to slide under the cuts I make in the jambs so I've got to leave room to slide the tiles.  And this way I could get that critical layout work done as well as get the dishwasher out of the way.

 

I got a long way prior to going to Manteo for the weekend and coming back with a saw which I needed to use to get things finished under the dishwasher.  Once that was wrapped up and put back together I got to get all the dirty dishes out of the sink and cleaned up at last.

 

So here's where I am right now:

 

Kitchen Floor

 

Foyer Floor

 

Connecting the two in the Dining Area

 



And here's where the toilet is that started it all:

 

... sigh.

 

"It'll take about fifteen minutes."



Shameless grab for attention

Bob-
I was talking with Ed and telling him how inept I am at this blog thing.  He has learned by trial and error and then tries to point me in the right direction.  He just texted me and told me how to add a picture.  Of course, I had to add one where I look tough.  This wasn't really an event, it just so happened that a picture was taken of me while I was saving a village from burning bales of hay.  Also a  coincidence that I was wearing my favorite number shirt.  Just a typical day in my life. 

When I first went running . . .

Ed -

Some time running just sucks.

Of course it very rarely has to do with the fact you're running.  It usually has to do with the Peripherals, or what some folks call "Life."

I began my running career just before my freshman year in high school.  That was the summer after my mom and remarried after my parents divorce.  Enough said about that.  Anyone who's been through that as a kid knows its pretty much miserable.  I had developed a really nice distrust of adults and authority figures because if I couldn't trust what I saw in my parents why would I trust anybody else?

On top of that I was small, skinny had ridiculously low self-esteem and was pretty much awkward all over.  The chip on my shoulder, though was huge.

I'm pretty sure the only reason I agreed to join my high school's cross country team was becaused someone called up and asked me to.  Not because I was any good, mind you, I had only ever run one "race."  It was at my middle school for a field day sort of thing and I ran the mile.  I chose the mile because the only thing I was ever decent at all was running the 600 for the Presidential fitness patch.  Remember those?  Every year we had to do sit ups, pull ups, run the 50, throw a ball, other stuff, and run the 600 yard "dash."  Most kids dreaded that the most, but I didn't finish last in that one so I didn't dread it as much as the 50 which is what normally kept me from getting that stupid patch.

So I picked the mile, over the half-mile because very few other kids would choose to do it.  I wouldn't be so lousy so obviously.  I still finished somewhere back in the pack, but there was a guy at the finish line who wrote down my name and number along with my finishing time.

It was Deke Johnson.  I learned the next Fall that he held the freshman records in the mile and two mile at the high school and was just fast as crap.  Well, that note he wrote went into a file at the high school and they used that to recruit people for cross country for the Fall season.

And they called my house and said they'd like me to join the team.  I was a puny, loser kid and someone said they "chose" me and the flattery worked.  I joined the team without having a clue about what it meant.

My first exposure to training was to go to Cross Country Camp in Wilson, NC with my new coach and a bunch of guys I had never met, but they all seemed to be great friends.

Once again I was an outsider and the slowest guy there.  Pretty lousy.

On top of that I learned what a "hog" really was that week.

You see Wilson, NC is a pretty rural area surrounded by a lot of farmland, and the prime course we ran was all around and through farms.  One morning on a long run, I had been left behind by everyone else and running down a lonely road between corn fields.  Then the ruckus started.

I heard people shouting and looked towards one of the fields and saw corn stalks whipping down towards the ground a ways back in the field like a small car was driving through the field.  Only I didn't hear an engine, I just heard a sort of rumbling while people were shouting behind it somewhere.  I slowed down a second and then it shot out of the field with a leap.  A sofa with small legs came streaking out of the field and was flying towards me!

I had never seen anything so huge and fast in my life.  And then I realized it wasn't a sofa, but a pig.  A really, really big pig!  The thing was just ridiculous and muddy and running faster than I could have ever imagined a thing that big could move.  And it was coming at me.

I took off.  Scared and hauling ass down the street while this hog nearly caught up to me, then turned and headed into the other field with people chasing it.

I was able to slow down a bit later but my heart kept pumping like it was going to just pop.  I was shaking and embarassed and HATED running.

I was slow, a geek and noone on the team liked me.  And a freaking pig just about made me crap my pants.

But I was stuck there for several more days and couldn't do a thing about it.  Surprisingly I survived and, slowly, the other guys started to actually talk to me.  Took a few months, and I still was amazingly average at running, but it wasn't as hard as it was those first few weeks.  Mark, Mike, Jon, Daryl, Jim and even Deke would say "hi" to me in the halls at school, and screw with me like the freshman I was.  They would pick on me then cheer me on when I raced or was coming up last on that hill on Old Mill Road.

The chip on my shoulder was still there, but I began to use what I was learning by running long distance and applying it to my life.

Things may be tough and even painful, but they were just making me stronger.  And the more I took on, the stronger I got.  That gave me the confindence to start smiling through the hard training and the hard parts of life.  I would joke with the rest of the guys about those gut wrenching (literally) hills and intervals, and I began to joke with my other friends about how geeky I was and what family life was like at my house.

Plus just the time I was spending running became an enjoyable break from the world.  I got to focus on the trail, the pace and the run.  It was freeing.  And as each season passed I met more people, had more fun and became so much more comfortable and confident about myself.  The Peripherals were all still there, but I had something I truly enjoyed doing regardless of how good I was at it.

Now, when I think back to those years I think first about all the incredible times I had and the people I got to share them with.

Running is just so cool...

. . . 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