The Random Thoughts Review

Here we are… 3 weeks from the marathon.

This morning I did the second of my 20 mile training runs. These are the longest runs I have during training, and after today’s I start tapering down for the marathon itself.

The last post I wrote was on April 25. In the week and a half since then, I haven’t done much running. I was experiencing a case of peroneal tendonitis in my left foot, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it is a slow thing to heal from. As you can see from my training log, I didn’t run on the 25th (was supposed to do 5) and the 26th (5). Instead, I went for several miles on the stationary bike on the 26th. I figured it would take me about 40 minutes to do the 5 miles if running, so I rode for 40 minutes on the stationary bike. I definitely didn’t feel like I was getting as good a workout as running, but based on muscle soreness afterwards, I was certainly using muscles that I don’t use while running.

I have been running on Asics 2100 and 2110 shoes for the past 8 months or so. I’ve been pleased with them, but some online research led me to believe that the Asics might actually cause peroneal tendonitis in some people, due to the high arch support that they have. So, I decided to visit the local running shop (Body ‘n Sole) and get their input. I had an intelligent guy help me this time, and he put me on the treadmill and videotaped my feet while running, and we determined that I definitely overprotonate (when my foot hits the ground it rolls to the inside) so I needed some sort shoe with support (the Asics qualified on this, thank goodness). To mix things up, though, I got a pair of Brooks Adrenaline 6 shoes that don’t have quite as high of an arch support. The guy also thought that it was too early for me to be trying a marathon (after having only been running for a year now) and he really didn’t like that I was playing volleyball (when running the distances I’m running, the body really needs to concentrate on one sport). He has run 6 or 7 marathons and seemed to know what he was talking about. He gave me the names of a few sports massage people in town that I could try if I wanted to. The Brooks feel similar to the Asics. He said that sometimes on his runs he likes to switch brands just so that the feet feel bumps in different spots.
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This past weekend I did my first 20 mile run (20.13 to be precise). I ended up skipping a midweek run last week, but I don’t think it hurt me a whole lot. It’s hard to believe it has been over three weeks since I last posted a note about running, but the past few weeks have been mostly uneventful, at least as far as running goes.

For my 20 miler on Sunday, I was up around 5:20 in the morning, and I was outside putting foot to pavement before 6am. On Saturday night I had eaten whole wheat spaghetti, which is good for the carb effects, and I was hoping that it would serve me well on Sunday. Before leaving Sunday morning, I had filled the camelbak up with water, but not totally full. I took the 50 ounce bladder, and I’d guess that I had about 40 ounces in it.

I started off feeling really great for the run. I actually had to force myself to slow down for the first few miles. I wanted to run faster, but I tried hard to keep myself at the pace that my training program recommends. I ran solid for the first 6.5 miles or so and then slowed to a walk to drink a little bit of water. About 8.4 miles in I sucked down a Gu packet as I crossed the bridge over the Interstate, and I took a second Gu packet at 14 miles in.
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This past weekend’s training activities pushed my body farther than I have ever pushed it while running. To recap, a week ago I had a step-back week, and this past week I started a new three week cycle. The training program says that I should have done 8 miles at marathon pace on Saturday, and 17 miles on Sunday. However, I have more time on Saturday mornings, so I decided to switch the two around. The downside of doing that is that it makes it pretty hard to run at high rates of speed on Sunday after doing the long run on Saturday.

Anyway, I decided to reverse the two on Wednesday or Thursday, so I had some time for my mind to adjust to the idea of having a 17er on Saturday. I wanted to be moving at 7:00 on Saturday morning. I ended up waking up at 7 and was out the door moving at 7:33. But, the beauty of Saturday is that I can deal with that.
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About a year and a half ago, I attended a real estate investment seminar. The information given was quite valuable. I recently received an invitation to another seminar and decided to go. This one wasn’t at Bank Champaign. Instead it was at a local conference center. A different mortgage company sponsored the event (probably why it wasn’t held at the bank) and the room that we were in was quite a bit larger than the area that we had at the bank.

I sat next to an older gentleman who had a duplex that he had owned in southeast Urbana for about 20 years. He had it paid off now, was at the end of his depreciation cycle, charged $5xx a month in rent, had had really good tenants, and only had a single month (out of the 20 years and 2 units) where the spots weren’t rented. He estimated that he only spent a few hours a month on the place. The current tenants have both been there for several years. He wasn’t really looking to buy more properties. He was just curious about the topic more than anything, I think.
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Some (presumably wise) person once said that the first 13 miles of a marathon is physical, and the last 13 miles is mental.

As I’ve been going through my training runs, I’ve noticed something, which I’m going to consider a corollary of the above wise statement. No matter how long my runs are (3 miles, 4 miles, 8 miles, 15 miles….)

I’m always feel about the same at the end of the run.

At the beginning of a run I might say to myself, “Only 4 miles today. Should be easy.” Or, “15 miles today. This will be interesting.”. But, at the end, regardless of how far I’ve run, I’m always tired, and never in the mood to “go run a few more just for grins.” I really don’t think that my physical conditioning moves in cycles from day to day to equilibrate how my body handles the run, so I have to assume that my feelings are mental in their origins.

For my short runs, I just do them. For my long runs, I know I’m going to be running long, so I just do it. Either way, I get to the finish line tired, with legs that are partially stiff, and I’m ready to take a break. For my short runs, this is kind of a downer. I wonder to myself, “Gee.. if the short run makes me feel like this… imagine what the long run is going to do!” But, experience has taught me that I’m going to feel about the same after the long runs. (I’m talking about immediately after the run.. Several hours later, my muscles definitely tell me that there’s a difference between running 3 miles and running 15)

So, I’m looking at this as a good thing. If I can do 15 miles and feel about the same as I do after 3 or 4.. I can do 26.2 miles. It’s all mental. If I go through the training program so that my leg muscles can handle the torture, I truly feel that I can complete the marathon. Will it be daunting? You bet. 6 miles in, will I be telling myself, “Geez. Still 20 to go.”? Probably. But, God willing, I can and will succeed on May 26.

In other marathon news… A bit of a depressing thought. I really don’t see myself qualifying for Boston on this first one. I need to run 26 miles at a 7:28 pace per mile, and I haven’t been running quite that fast during my training. I don’t logically see myself being able to run 26 miles at that pace when I haven’t been running the shorter distances at that pace. Am I still going to try? Well….. I don’t want to burn myself out. So, I’m still trying to be positive, but it will be very disappointing to make the first 15 or 20 miles and then have to drop out of the marathon because I’ve went too far, too fast. So, stay tuned. We’ll see how things feel after the next couple of weeks.

Strange things are afoot in Kirbyland. The parking garage is probably 0.2 miles from my actual office here at Beckman. This morning I had made it into the building and was walking down the hallway towards my office.

I was apparently thinking about something else, and when I got about 20 feet away from my office door, I pulled out my car key and pressed the ‘Unlock’ button on the transmitter. Needless to say, my office door didn’t automatically unlock, and I think I was probably far enough away from my car that I don’t have to worry about it, either.

First time I’ve done that. Wonder what today holds…

OK. So today’s milestone isn’t nearly as personally impressive as yesterday’s milestone. In fact, it’s not really a milestone, according to the technical definition of the word. But, it’s my blog and I’ll say what I want on it.

But, the milestone is still cool, none the less. For the first time in a long time, I ran outside today! Today was a light day. Only 4 miles. My alarm went off at 6, and I kept hitting snooze until about 6:25. Then, I got up, checked the weather, and it was 45 degrees outside. Warm enough, I thought. So, I moved around a bit. Started drinking a bunch of water. Put on the UnderArmour and a synthetic T. Got the GPS ready to go. Made it outside at 6:47.

The run was really nice. I felt good throughout the entire 4.11 miles. My leg still hurt, but it wasn’t anything unbearable, and I feel like I made pretty good time. I have a standard loop that should be about 4 miles (a square around the major streets of my neighborhood. But, I got to where I should have been at about 3.5 miles, and the GPS was telling me 2.83. So, I ended up going farther and winding back around to my house, which is how I ended up at 4.11.

Being outside was a very nice change of pace. It was actually too warm for me to be wearing the UnderArmour. I think I would have been fine with just the T shirt and shorts. Obviously, this doesn’t bode well for the next 7 months or so, but I’m assuming that my body will start adjusting to the warmer weather and I’ll be OK. Sunrise was at 7:08 this morning, but I think I could have left the house at 6:30 or so and would still have had plenty of light. This could be useful information for tomorrow morning, since I have to go (err… get to go) 7 miles, and I definitely want to do it outside if it isn’t raining.

Spring is coming!
I know it’s true.
It helps my running,
and helps keep me from becoming blue.

It’s still cool outside.
In the morning the sky takes a beautiful orange hue.
It’s much more fun to run than ride,
and you should get outside, too!

This morning yielded another milestone in my path towards May 26. For the first time ever, I’ve run more than half a marathon. This morning’s run was 14 miles.

My training schedule is currently online (and continuously updated!) at:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pYJUJKn6ym-oOfd19inzxaQ

Normally, weekends are the long runs. Saturday was a 7 mile day (at marathon pace) and Sunday was supposed to be a 14 mile run. I ran Saturday’s run, but I decided to not run on Sunday.

Since I last wrote (after doing my first 10+ miler) the past few weeks have been mostly uneventful with respect to running, up until this past week.

For the past week or so (5/6 days maybe) I’ve been experiencing a little bit of pain in my right calf muscle when I walk. I suspect that I just pulled a muscle a little bit, and these things just take some time to heal. Last Tuesday was a 4 mile, Wed 7, and Thursday 4. Somewhere in that time frame I started noticing this minor pain. On my 7 mile Wednesday run, I took a water break (where I slow down from 8 miles per hour to about 3-4 miles per hour so that I can drink water with spilling it all over myself) at about 1.5 miles and again at 3 miles. Each time that I restarted running my leg hurt and I kinda felt like I was just carrying my right leg with my left. Once I got up to speed, the problem went away and I could run as much as I wished with no pain at all. After going through this at 3 miles (on my 7 mile run) I decided to just run the rest of the way. So, I went the last 4 miles without a break. No big deal, really. Thursday’s run was similar. I just reduced the number of breaks.

Friday is normally a day of rest. Up until recently I’ve been playing volleyball on Friday night, though. This past Friday I decided to skip the volleyball and give my leg as much chance as possible to heal. Saturday morning rolled around and I did my 7 mile run. The pain wasn’t quite as visible during the restarts. But, off and on for the remainder of Saturday, when I would walk, I would “feel it” every time I had my left foot on the ground and was swinging my right food forward.

Sunday morning arrived. I got up, and every single step I took when leaving the bedroom hurt like this. I decided to be kind to my leg and not attempt to damage it anymore than I needed to. So, I went back to bed. Other than a couple mile walk on Sunday afternoon, I didn’t do any real exercise yesterday.

The primary rule of the training program that I am using says: Don’t skip the long runs.

So, I knew that I needed to make up my 14 mile run in the next few days. But, I didn’t know if my leg would cooperate. My long runs usually wipe me out for a while. Monday night I have league volleyball games. So, I thought very seriously about not even attempting the long run until Tuesday morning.

But, I woke up this morning and my leg was doing pretty good. As I was preparing to run, my leg didn’t hurt at all while I was walking around. So, I decided to do the 14 miler this morning before work.

While I did feel my leg during running restarts, it wasn’t too bad. I had plans to take water breaks every 3-4 miles, but ended up taking an extra break in the 10-14 mile range. I had to refill my glass at about 10 miles, and getting restarted running was difficult. I refilled again at about 13, and restarting was tricky, not because of my leg, but just because of the distance, I think. The mere couple of minutes that I had stopped to refill my glass was enough for my legs to decide that I was done running, and they were ready for a break. So, I had to coax them back into a running mood.

This is one of the bits of wisdom that I’m going to take with me into the marathon. Don’t stop running. Especially near the end of the race. I think that will be key. If I stop running, it is going to be very difficult to restart once my legs are tired. So, hopefully I can keep going.

Anyway, the fun continues. Thanks for coming along for the ride!