Winter Running and Finishing Strong

It was cold this morning!

Not the first frozen morning of the year, but 22 degrees is right chilly.  Makes you realize men have nipples, too.

That first step outside was coooollllldddd,

Since it was Saturday I slept in a bit and didn't head out until 7:00 am.  Other than the temperature it was a gorgeous morning.  Very sunny, not much of a breeze and a bright blue sky.  With the right gear it wasn't bad at all really.  I had my hat and gloves, a couple of long sleeve shirts and my Nike track team running tights.  Those things are incredible.  I don't care how cold it gets I'm comfortable in them.  If it gets down below 15 degrees I'll wear two pairs of tights, but if it's any warmer I'd burn up.  I also wore my running jacket, but even with the underarm zippers undone it got kind of hot towards the end of the run.

Saturdays are my long runs and last week's was done as a Progression Run with a Fast Finish, so it was a hard workout.  This is supposed to be an easier week, so today was to be 10 miles at a relaxed pace.  The purpose of these runs is to keep the aerobic capacity up, maintain good endurance, but also let the muscles have a little break from the hard stuff so they can heal and get stronger from the work in prior weeks.  Most coaches advise having one "easy" week out of every four.  I put that in quotes, because your mileage will still be fairly close to normal and there might even be a hard workout in there, too.  But not as hard a week as others.  Think of it as the flat part of a stair step.  The hard work is moving you up and you use the flat part to position yourself to move up again.

That being the case I brought my phone for tunes and to take pictures.  I didn't look at my watch a whole lot and decided to do a video for the blog!  Once again I found out that I have no discipline when it comes to pace.  I kind of just run until I realize I'm getting too tired and then either back off or more often than not, push a little harder.

Yeah, I'm a dufus.

I realized after cutting off the camera that I was also running up one of the long hills while I was recording.  It's one of the few times I'm on a sidewalk and in this case next to a pretty busy road.  Because it was late I only saw one other runner and we high fived as we crossed paths.  That's so cool.  I've never seen this guy before that I know of but we both pointed at each other than high fived like we'd done it dozens of times.  It's a club.  A very cool club.

I exercised a little bit of discipline after this and brought the pace down somewhat, but not by a whole lot.  I just felt fine so I kept trotting along.  I still pushed the last mile a little because that's just a good habit to have in training.  And today's tip!

So there you have it!  Finish strong each and every time to train that kick into your races.

One last thing.  I can tell my shoes are getting "old" which means they have over 400 miles on them and the cushioning isn't quite there.   My calves were getting tight and actually hurt a little bit towards the end of the run.  Looking at the soles there's some good wear there, too.  So it's time for another pair!  Now where should I go to look for a good deal on shoes?   I wonder....

Running Smart

Ed -

I realize that I come across at times as one of those running psychos.  You know the guy.  The guy who'll run in any weather, in any pain, regardless of how stupid it makes him look he's going to tough it out and be a man, dammit.

Well I'm not really that guy.

Of course I'm not exactly a casual runner either seeing as how I'll run until I throw up now and then.  Just the fact that I have a training schedule and actually do things like track workouts, hills, flamboyant plyometrics puts me in a different category than most.  And then there's the whole running while having shingles thing.  But there's some logic to that and today gave me a good example to share.

The trick is knowing the difference between getting stronger pain, and damaging pain.

They both hurt, but they're two very different things and should be treated differently.

I'll start with the shingles.  It's the chicken pox virus that hangs out in your spinal cord waiting for the right moment when your immune system is weak, lazy or whatever then it pops up again and runs wild on your nerve endings popping up to your skin and looking like poison ivy or hives.  It itches, burns and is surprisingly painful in a deep bruise or broken bone sort of way.  But the truth is there is no broken bone and no bruise.  No damage at all except to the nerve endings and they're just transmitting phantom pain because of the inflammation around the virus.  The only course to fixing this is to build up your immune system and try and avoid tension related stress.  "Relax" the doctor says.  Well how many times have you heard that exercise relaxes you?  It does, and it promotes a healthy immune system by increasing oxygen and lymph system flow throughout your body.

Ergo....no reason to stop exercising just because shingles hurts.

Of course you want to pay attention to it and make sure it's not spreading or whatever, and those first couple of weeks are not the time to toss in a PR attempt at a marathon, but there's nothing wrong about moving through the pain and continuing to keep your body in motion.

The pain in training that comes from massive lactic acid build up in an interval session is getting stronger pain.  It hurts.  It  makes your stomach do flips because your body is not using oxygen as energy because your demanding more energy than your body can deliver that way.  You push a little beyond the edge and you fall on the track at the end of a quarter or you lean over your knees at the top of that last hill and just puke your guts out.  Not comfortable, not fun, and it definitely hurts.

But your body is not damaged, and it knows it.

Your body takes that experience and says, "I need to expand these lungs a little bit and also add some mitochondria to the blood stream so I can get more oxygen around and avoid this crap next time."

And it does.

Muscle cells are added, capillaries are added, blood cells are added, circulation systems change, tendons strengthen, bones strengthen.  It's all a very cool part about being a human.  We can make ourselves better by stressing ourselves in certain ways.

The pain I felt this morning however was different.

My left hip got tight a couple of weeks ago towards the end of my quarter workout, but felt better the following week.  Maybe because the shingles hurt so damn bad I wasn't thinking about.  However, during the last two runs of last week I felt it tug again towards the end of each run.  Today it got sharp right around when I hit 8.5 miles.

I was going to run 10 today, but two weeks ago with the beginning of shingles I ran only 13 miles for the week and last week I did 24.  That's too big a jump in one week and that's where injuries happen.  I turned down a street early and cut the last mile off my run because I could tell if I pushed it I'd be limping by the end and lose the next two weeks of training to "taking it easy."  Tonight I'll ice it down, rest tomorrow and do 7 on Wednesday.

Damaging pain is not something to ignore or "run through" because you can't.  When that sharp stab starts showing up in a joint or the ball of your foot, it's time to shift things and see if it gets better, and if it doesn't it's time to stop running.  I have been surprised how many times a pain in my knee was solved by switching to the other side of the road and changing the camber I was running on, but when that doesn't do it, I've learned not to ignore it.

 

This is damage.  Don't run through it.

Learn the difference between the pains, and Run On!

Raising the Bar

Ed -

Actually it's more like putting the bar back up because I knocked it down.

Back on the first week of May I had what now looks like a beast of a week.  I logged just over 29 miles which included a 10 mile run sub 8 pace, my short hills workout where I ran 10 of them at 1:20 or below, a 5 mile recovery run and a 4 x 1000 workout where I kept them at 3:45.  Nice week.

The week after that I was in a real life "Jackass" moment, although it was accidental, and broke a couple of ribs.  Truth be told my golf partner and I were lucky we weren't torn up as bad as the cart.  After that, running was on hold for a couple of weeks, then I went out and overdid it . . .twice.  Extending my injury time to about 10 weeks.  I did manage to race in there a couple of times, but was definitely hampered by the reduction in work.

But all that's behind me now and I'm trying to do what I was just about to do back then.  Run more like the "pros."

The more I read, and I could tell by the way I felt during workouts and racing it was true, the more I knew that to get really fast I was going to have to put more miles under me.  But how to do that and get enough rest?  I didn't necessarily need to run further on my long days.  12 miles is plenty when my focus is the mile.  But I still needed more work to keep improving my endurance, stamina and speed.  An article written by Greg McMillan {check out his site and calculator here} described those three pieces and how to train for them really well.  That information, combined with other sources including comments from a long time runner friend of mine named Jon, showed me that I could and should rest while running.

Hard days should be followed by easy days.  Two day combos of hard and medium work should be followed by a really easy day or total rest for the legs.  Scheduling out runs in advance helps me lay out a plan that allows for days like this morning.  3 miles easy.  Just however I felt as long as it was easy feeling.  The purpose to this run is just to get the blood flowing for a few minutes, help wash out any toxins, keep the flexibility in the legs, and add some mileage.  The distance, time and effort, however, are short enough that I'm not really taxing my leg muscles so they're still getting rested for the day.  Sweet.

In the past I would have done nothing today or gone to the gym for my day of upper body stuff, because I did my long run (10 miles) yesterday.  Instead, I did 3 miles at about 8:10 pace and stretched some.  Tomorrow will be 6 x 800's on the track.  Thursday will be the upper body gym day with The Flamboyant Workout (which I'll describe then), followed by my 4 x 50's little lactate workout in the evening.  Since Thursday will be a pretty easy day on the legs, Friday's run will be 5 miles at sub-8 pace and then another long slow run on Saturday of 10 to 12 around 9:00 minute pace.  Sunday is rest.

Well that's the plan anyways.  And it gives me a speed workout (the 800's), a lactate turner (the 4 x 50's), stamina (5 miles fast) and plenty of distance which will put me at about 35 miles for the week.  While also giving me ample rest for recovery.  Pretty slick.

I've found that planning ahead makes a lot of difference for me.  I can still blow stuff off for whatever reasons, but I'm always better about doing better when I think it through in advance.