Boston Marathon Volunteering

As I am sure everyone knows the Boston Marathon was a complete disaster this year because of a heat wave that hit.  I volunteered as a clockwatcher at mile 16 which is in Newton Lower Falls and I have never seen so many people hurting that early in a marathon ever.  At one point, the water station we were near had 8 people passed out on the group awaiting medical attention. There was one guy who came off the course threw up, passed out and we had called an ambulance for him, but while we were waiting for it to come he got up and continued running on.  I have no idea if he finished or not but it was pretty insane.

It was hot just standing there in the shade, so much so that I had to do my Bear Grylls impersonation:

Luckily I didn't have to drink my own urine as there was a Starbucks about 100 yards away from where I was.  I also picked up a cool souvenir as Geoffrey Mutai chucked his water bottle at me and it has his name hand written on it with his seed #1.  I really enjoy volunteering for these events as it is cool to cheer on everyone who is trying to do something that only 1% of the population will ever accomplish.

BAA 5K

My first race coming out of base building and although I hadn't done any speedwork I was optimistic about improving my 5K PR.  The race was pretty insane given that they crammed 6,000 people onto Bolyston street.  I was lined up in the 5:30 pace corral despite knowing I wasn't that fit, but how can I not when theres a guy dressed up as a hamburger in the same corral.

The start of the race was an absolute shit show where I had to jump over a lady who got trampled and was face down on the pavement because obviously she can't run a sub-6:00 mile.  After the crazy start it opened up a little bit and we came around the commons to a big hill which definitely slowed me down. On the downhill portion I saw a guy get his foot suck in a rut in the road proceed to break his ankle and smash his face which was slightly concerning and made me overly aware of my foot placement for the rest of the race. Overall I was holding back in this race as I had no idea what pace I could hold.  I ran a crazy negative split with 6:19, 5:59, 5:53 for an 18:45 5K which was a PR by 45 seconds over my previous from September.

Base trainng is the real deal...

I haven't had much to blog about since my last post as its just been a grind of miles each and every week. I have tested the limits of my body and pushed beyond what I really thought would ever be possible.  If you had told me even after the marathon that I would be capable of running 90-100 miles a week I would have thought you were crazy.

I now have a much better understanding of the physiology of running and the adaptations of the human body to training.  I know that my training will take time and the key is patience because I don't have the years of aerobic conditioning that many fast runners have from high school and college.  That being said I am confident that I can get there eventually. There are two great quotes that really have been sticking with me lately as something I have learned about not only training but life in general:

"The dictionary is the only place where success will come before work."

"And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heart-rendering process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials. How could they be expected to understand that?" 

This was my first real introduction to aerobic conditioning and base building; I find it humorous now when I hear people say that Lydiard training is all about long, slow distance as this period of training was the hardest I have done and yet the most rewarding.

The end result...with no speed or specific training I have taken my easy aerobic pace from 7:45 to 7:00 and I ran my first fast-finish long run where I was able to close in 6:58, 6:58, 6:50, 6:47, 6:38. I ran a freaking 6:38 for mile 20 and felt like I could have kept going.

I am starting the anaerobic phase of Lydiard training to try and exploit my aerobic base and see just how fast I can get during this round of training.  I think a sub-18:00 5K and sub-40:00 10K are realistic goals and just maybe I'll even surprise myself.

Been a little while...

I know I have been slacking a little in the blogging department, but I am sure my four followers will cut me some slack!

There is not much going on in terms of running lately, just really grinding out miles as much as I can each week.  Last week I came down with Bronchitis which was finally diagnosed after running about 50 miles during the week.  The doc put me on antibiotics and an inhaler which helps but really just time will clear this up.  My doctor said that as long as I didn't have a fever there was no reason I couldn't still run, but everything I read online has said that its not a good idea so I took 2 days off including missing a long run over the weekend.

I know most people won't understand but getting faster and fitter is all about consistency and even missing a single run makes me feel like I set myself back slightly.  I have been sticking to a pretty rigid schedule which gets stressful so I am taking a new approach until my racing starts in April which is to plan on running within a given range for a week.

I have done quite a bit of research lately on training theory and programs and most of the really top level coaches focus on theories developed by Arthur Lydiard.  His premise was to break training out into cycles for base building, strength, speed and sharpening.  Right now I am focusing on base building which is the foundation for his whole program. The general premise is everyone's performance has a limit which is based on their aerobic conditioning so the idea is to run as many possible miles each week at easy aerobic effort in order to set your ceiling as high as possible.  My initial thought was 70 miles or so would be sufficient for my baseline but Lydiard recommends around 100 miles a week as the best range for optimum performance.  I don't think I can get there this year but I am at least going to push my limits and try to get up to between 80 - 90 miles a week.

In order to do this, I started extending all of my non-recovery runs to a minimum of 10 miles.  The first week straight up sucked and I was hurting badly.  However, my body is starting to adapt and a 10 mile run feels like my 6 mile runs used to where no matter how I was feeling I could bang one out at an easy pace.  My goal is going to be to add a mile or two to each of the non-double 10 milers each week to get to the point where if I am running a double it will be 10 in the AM and 6 in the PM and if it is a single day it will be between 13-15 miles. The only downside is right now I can only run two hard efforts each week, a long run and a threshold run, where as I would try to run two threshold runs (one aerobic and one anaerobic) previously.

I am pretty happy so far with what I am seeing in terms of results so far even in just a short period of time because my easy pace has been drifting down into the 7:00-7:30 range where as it was previously 7:30-8:00 and the runs are typically longer.

That is the boring update on running...

As for anything else interesting, I did spend a week out in Redwood City, CA for a leadership council which was interesting.  I couldn't believe how weird the weather is out there because I would run in the mornings and it would feel like New England (30-40 degrees) and then later in the day I'd go out for my second run and it would 60+ degrees.  Not sure people how can deal with those swings.

I did see a ton of people running out there which makes me jealous because the city is really designed around people being active. There are tons of running trails/parks and the street lights are actually on when they need to be so you can run before sunrise or after sunset and the lights are at regular intervals.

I hate to admit it but one of my runs out there turned out to be a disaster.  I have a normal route that I run from the hotel to the bay that is about a 4 mile loop. I typically run it clockwise and have never had any issues but for some reason this time I decided to run counter-clockwise and proceeded to miss an important turn that brings me back to the hotel.  Because of this I spent about 30 minutes running around in circles in a small community that literally only had a single exit.  It was full of side roads and circles and it all began to look the same and I was running towards what I thought was the hotel only to find out that I was running in circles. I probably should have known when I passed the same group of kids waiting at the bus stop for the 3rd time. Oh well I guess, at least I eventually got back to the hotel...

Who Get's Lost on a Single Lane Dirt Trail...

I haven't been running on the local trail much because it was giving me weird toe pain/cramps and yesterday I decided to give it a go again.  The run itself was great, I had no toe pain and it didn't seem to aggravate the knee pain I have been having and to top it off it gave me a great story for my blog.

So I am running on the trail and I hear a car coming up behind me like they occasionally do since it is used by the DPW and local residents.  However, unlike when they usually just drive by and wave, this guy slows down and rolls down his window. Needless to say I have my headphones on blaring and I'm running at a decent clip like 7:00, so I take my headphone off and try my best to ask him what's up in between breaths. On a side note, the only reason I ever have an urge to run with anyone else is to see if I can actually hold a conversation at my easy pace since supposedly that can improve fitness. As I am running the guy tells me he is lost, mind you this is a one lane dirt trail with only one entrance and exit and its only about a mile long.

In my head I'm thinking, is this guy a freaking moron or what.  I refuse to slow down or stop to talk so I keep running and give the guy directions on how to get out to Rt. 117 and as he is driving off I see what appears to be a camera mounted to the dash with a red record light on.

In addition, to not being able to find his way out of a paper bag, this guy was creating a record of his stupidity. Makes me wonder what the heck he was filming for...

Runner Problems...

I am really beginning to like these "motivational" posters from Runners World. I prefer to avoid this situation whenever possible...

New Year's Resolutions...

If you are a gym regular, you certainly can relate to what I am about tell you. I hate the first week of the new year. Everyone and their mother decides to come to the gym to work on their new year's resolutions. Now I am all for improving yourself and know all too well what type of commitment it takes. But here are some statistics on why I think new year's resolutions are stupid:

• 62% of Americans set new year resolutions
• 8% of people are always successful in achieving their resolutions.
• 19% achieve their resolutions every other year.  
• 49% have infrequent success.  
• 24% never succeed and have failed on every resolution every year. 

I am not sure what it is about the New Year that people think is magical but as you can see over half the population sets resolutions and a quarter of them have never actually accomplished them.

I give it 2 weeks until the gym is back to normal and I don't have to wait for a treadmill or the restroom and until then maybe the people will provide some comedic relief for me.