running


I ran a marathon and didn’t die

Friday, December 2, 2011 4 Comments by Chronic Triathlete

2011 Brooklyn Marathon

It’s been a really, really… really long time since I’ve posted anything here. I do check the emails and respond to people, but I just haven’t had the time (or much interest) to keep the blog going. I’m not “well”, but like I’ve said previously in other posts, I’m getting on with things and just not focusing so much on Lyme Disease.

Anyway… I know that people are inspired by my running so I thought I’d mention that I did a marathon 2 weeks ago — the 2011 Brooklyn Marathon. Surprisingly, it was my first. I’ve previously done many, many half marathons (both pre and post Lyme), but never a full. You can read a complete race report on my coaching blog here, but I ran it in 03:22:38; about a 7:43 pace. This put me in 24th overall and 2nd in my age.

On my other blog I don’t really mention my Lyme. It’s not a secret, but I just kinda keep the two things separate. In training for the race, Lyme was a moderate challenge. My fatigue is minimal, but the muscle stiffness I have and the overall speed of my recovery from hard or long runs makes things difficult. I’m constantly stiff and sore from the knees down. Not in the joints, but in the muscles, like I’m always on he verge of pulling something. I battle with foot pain too, which I think is a Bart symptom.

But all of that stuff is manageable with stretching and a good warm up. The part that I really can’t do anything about are the neurological issues. My right side is “slower” than my left and it often feels that it ran twice as far. It doesn’t effect my stride, but I can feel it as I run.

Also, two weeks post race, I’m still a little sore on my right side. I took most of the week after the race off completely, but have been running moderately this week both alone and with clients. At first I was stiff and sore all over, but now it’s just my right side that’s lagging behind everything else. It’s weird and concerning and frustrating all at the same time.

What else? Oh yeah… brain fog. I have it 24/7, but it’s manageable (I guess). When I run it gets a lot better – I think it’s the increased blood flow to my brain. In the race I was mentally fine until about mile 18 or so and the brain fog came back with a vengeance. I had a really hard time concentrating and maintaining my cool. I kept wanting to panic. One minute I wanted to run faster and the next I wanted to quit. I think everyone gets this at some point in a marathon, but I kinda went a little crazy for about 6 miles. Finishing was like being freed from prison in a way.

So… that’s the story. I’m very happy I did it and I’ll probably do it again next year. I had serious reservations about whether or not doing a marathon with Lyme was a good idea. I’m sure for many people it’s not, but I would say that you shouldn’t let the disease limit your dreams. It might put up some roadblocks, but if you commit yourself and focus, you can get around them.

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Road Runners Club of America Coaching – Part 2

Saturday, September 11, 2010 No Comments by Chronic Triathlete

A couple of weeks ago I went to Boston for a Road Runners Club of America coaching certification seminar. This is the second of a series of posts about my experiences. I wrote the posts as I was going through the classes, but I haven’t had time until now to post them. The previous post can be found here.

Day one

The family and I had been staying out on Cape Cod so to drive in to Auburndale, just outside of Boston, was pretty easy. I got up early and drove the hour and a half to Lasell College where the class was being held.

The certification session was set up in one of the campus auditoriums. In the room, rows of long folding tables were arranged end to end with chairs facing the front. An enormous projector screen was erected on the stage welcoming the 30 or so people who had shown up. We all milled about finding seats and stockpiling the free snacks and Dunkin Donuts coffee.

It felt pretty odd to be taking a “class”. I’ve been out of college for over 17 years and to have to sit down with a notepad and workbook was both intimidating and exciting. Exciting because I was learning something new and doing something I’ve wanted to try for a long time, but intimidating because I didn’t really know how my Lyme-brain was going to work in this situation. I sometimes get easily overwhelmed when a lot of info is thrown at me all at once.

And so it begins…

Warren and Patti Finke were our instructors. Right away I was very surprised at their age. I’m guessing, but, based on some comments they made about past races and other activities, I’d say they’re in their very late 60s or early 70s. Not that there’s anything wrong with elder folks teaching a coaching certification, but I was expecting young, tan and healthy-looking fitness instructor types. Still, if you check out their bios you can see that they, especially Warren, know their shit when it comes to long distance running.

They jumped right in with Patti doing most of the talking and Warren sitting there nodding along. I thought for a moment he might fall asleep.

They had us go around the room and do three-minute bios on ourselves. Most people were either like myself — somewhat accomplished, self-taught coaches or group leaders who wanted to take things to the next level — or runners/athletes who simply wanted to know more. There were also a couple of Physical Therapists there who wanted to better understand running and runners. They both said they figured they should come and try to understand running a little better since, at work, they had to spend so much of their time listening to runners whine about their feet, ankles and knees.

A semester of human physiology in four hours

After getting acquainted, the first half of the day consisted of going over the different energy systems that power a human body in motion. This was great because it’s one of the aspects of coaching that I know a little about, but want to really understand better. Unfortunately, the way the material was presented made it really hard to follow. Endless Powerpoint slides that were either full of bullets that were too brief or charts that were too complex and small on the screen to read.

I became increasingly thankful that I had been recently working my way through Runner’s World The Runner’s Body: How the Latest Exercise Science Can Help You Run Stronger, Longer, and Faster (Runners World) by Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas (aka the Sport Scientists). If I hadn’t, a lot of what Patti covered would have completely gone over my head. Looking around I could see that others were having trouble absorbing the info too. Lots of furious note taking; basically writing down everything she said without really knowing what was important.

Sidetracked by shoes

Lunch turned out to be interesting. In the morning, I had randomly chosen a seat next to James, the Lasell College Cross Country coach, and his assistant, Chris. Over pizza we were chatting about XC and coaching when I noticed James was wearing a pair of Vibram Five Fingers. A conversation on minimal shoes ensued and we were soon out in the parking lot digging through James’ car. He had a demo pair of the yet-to-be-released New Balance Trail Minimi that he wanted to show me. I’d read about them, but hadn’t seen them in person yet. They look great! Nice and flat. As soon as they’re released to the public I plan to pick up a pair.

Meso, macro and hard/easy

After eating, we regrouped to go over the RRCA’s approach to training. Patti, now with the help of Warren, laid out their mathematical, methodical and somewhat conservative training framework. In a nutshell, this consists of developing plans around long term goals that incorporate long training blocks called “mesocycles”. Each mesocycle, in turn, consist of a series of four “microcycles” — base building, sharpening, taper/race and recovery. The microcycles are further reduced into daily training plans that breakdown into alternating hard/easy days of running.

Experience had taught me that this was the way to structure training, but the manner in which the meso and macro cycles are devised and planned out had never been explained. This framework was very helpful in assisting me, an exceedingly visual person, create a mental picture for how everything fits together.

Wrapping up day one

End result? Well, it did take most of the day, but I finally felt confident that I had made the right choice in signing up for the session. I left looking forward to tomorrow.

Some people made plans for dinner get togethers, but I took off and checked into the Westin where I had made a reservation. I was pretty wiped and, after a day of doing nothing but talking about running, was desperate to take a run myself. I looked on DailyMile.com as well as MapMyRun.com, but couldn’t find an easy and suitable route so I ended up in the hotel gym sweating it out on the dreadmill. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but certainly better than nothing.

Up next, day two…

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Road Runners Club of America Coaching – Part 1

Wednesday, September 1, 2010 No Comments by Chronic Triathlete

A couple of weeks ago I went to Boston for a Road Runners Club of America coaching certification seminar. This is the first of a series of posts about my experiences. I wrote the posts as I was going through the classes, but I haven’t had time until now to post them.

Oh my God does my brain hurt

If I hear “splits” one more time, think that’s what’s going to happen to my head. I just wrapped up a weekend of RRCA coach training in Boston. 16 hours over two days of lecture and group sessions on the RRCA methodology of distance running.

I’ve been wanting to take the training certification for about a year now, but they rarely do them on the East Coast so I had to wait and wait. When registration opened for this session way back in May I jumped on it and signed up immediately.

About RRCA

Founded in 1958, the Road Runners Club of America is the oldest and largest national association of running clubs, running events, and runners dedicated to promoting running as a competitive sport and as healthy exercise. They are to distance running what the USATF is to track and field events or what the USAT is to triathlons. However, they aren’t quite as powerful and they don’t play on the international stage like those other organizations, but, in America anyway, they are the torch barer for road running.

The RRCA coaching program is designed to provide training for individuals so that they may work as coaching professionals for the sport of distance running. It covers all levels from beginner to advanced runners.

Why the training?

For a little over 3 years now I’ve been assistant coaching through my coach, Jonathan Cane of City Coach, who, in turn, manages all of the running and triathlon training programs for the running store I use to work for, Jackrabbit Sports. It’s been a great learning experience, but I wanted to take things to the next level and taking a certification program seemed like the best route to follow.

All of my coaching knowledge has come from either personal experience, going through the training that Jon has given me, managing the programs that he’s put together or from reading books and blogs. This has made me great at dealing with people, helping them get through a run and instilling confidence that they can do whatever it is that they’re attempting.

I’m also good at answering general questions about injuries, training strategies, race tactics and the like, but there are wide gaps in my ability to do anything bigger. I can’t really assess someone and then confidently structure a program for them based on their ability. I’ve helped a few friends in the past, but I always swiped a plan from Hal Higdon or Jack Daniels and tweaked to what I though would work for the person.

How’d it go?

In short, it went really well. It was a lot to absorb in two days, but I think most of it stuck. Thankfully I wasn’t coming in without any experience like some people. However, I haven’t taken a lecture-style class since college so it definitely taxed my attention and mental focus.

I’ll follow this post up with a couple more and discuss the two days I spent there. Stay tuned.

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Trail Running Cougar Mountain

Monday, June 21, 2010 3 Comments by Chronic Triathlete

Me (left) and my buddy Tom.

Just got back from another trip to Seattle

What a really cool place. I’m becoming increasingly sold that the Pacific Northwest is the place for me. Within the span of 12 hours I got to do two of my favorite things — sailing and trail running.

The sailing

The sailing was a sunset touristy outing on an old 70′ ocean racer. The boat can cruise with 32 people and anyone can pay $40 and go out, but because it’s really early in the season for tourist sails there were only 12 on my ride. Because of the size of the vessel this made it almost a private cruise. Most of the other passengers sat safely aft in the cockpit, but I grew up doing a lot of sailing and felt more than comfortable up on deck near the bow. Upwind we healed over quite a bit and I really had to hold on, but that just made it more fun.

The running

The next morning I got up at 6:00am and headed out to Cougar Mountain with my friend Tom. The last time I was out there, I did some trails I found on my own. They were great, but I wanted to see what a local recommendation might be so I sent a tweet to Scott Jurek who lives out there. I met and did a brief run with him a few weeks ago when he was out here in NYC. I didn’t know if he’d get back to me, but to my surprise, I got a quick response with some suggestions.

Cougar was pretty effing amazing and probably the better of the two places I’ve run out there. It also seemed less touristy to me. We did come across several other people on the trails, but almost all of them were seemingly local runners. In fact, at one point, we came across this group of four who were all geared-out with their headlamps, CamelPaks and Vibram FiveFingers. They were going down as we were running up, but they were doing it effortlessly. Definitely not weekenders out for a stroll. Here’s a map (PDF) if you want to check it out.

I’m hoping to get back out there in a couple weeks. Maybe next time I’ll lug a better camera into the woods with me to take some real photos. The camera on my iPhone ain’t so great in low light.

Oh and in case you were wondering…

Yes, I checked EVERYWHERE for ticks when I got home from the run.

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Barefoot Running With Lee Saxby

Monday, June 21, 2010 No Comments by Chronic Triathlete

Just came across this video from Terra Plana. They are the “alternative” source for barefoot shoes if you don’t want to wear the ridiculous-looking Vibram FiveFingers (VFF) which I, admittedly, own a pair of.

Like the VFFs, Terra Plana’s new Evo shoe is marketed towards the barefoot running crowd. But, unlike Vibram who leave it up to the consumer to figure out how to run in them, Terra Plana has produced this video to help. Done with natural fitness guru, Lee Saxby, they’ve actually done a rather good job (for a 10 minute video) at pulling the curtain of mystery back on barefoot-style running.

One of the main points highlighted in the video is the fact that just going minimal (or without) your shoes is not enough. Runners need to change their posture as well as their tempo in order to reduce injury. This underlines my feeling about the whole natural running movement – that the shoes are just tools to use in the process.

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Coaches Dean and Joe Discuss Barefoot Running

Friday, June 11, 2010 2 Comments by Chronic Triathlete

Bla bla bla… running… bla bla bla… runnning…

Websites about running are plentiful, but it seems that many of them are committed to voraciously evangelizing or debunking a certain training program or style of running. Others are pure fanboy fluff about how great this product is or how you should only be running in a certain brand. It’s tiring to weed through the junk to find the truly interesting.

Thankfully, coaches Dean Hebert and Joe English have recently launched a new site — Running-Advice.com. On there you can find a whole collection of weekly videos full of level-headed and sensible discussion about everything from pacing to vomiting (I think experiencing the latter means you didn’t apply the former properly).

I particularly liked this video about solitude, introspection, and meditation because for me this is what running has become all about.

Discussing barefoot running

Another video (I haven’t watched ALL of them) that I found interesting was their discussion about barefoot running. If you’re not already aware, barefoot running… or “natural running” and it’s often called… is probably the hottest topic in the running community right now. Even I get asked about on a regular basis from the runners I work with.

I’ll talk about why it’s such an issue in an upcoming post, but when it comes to running barefoot there are two camps:

  1. Those who embrace the concept and would rather die than have to strap shoes on their feet again.
  2. Those who believe that mega-corporations like Nike who spend millions on research must know what’s best for their running.

Personally, I believe, as is often the case with such heated and fierce debate, that the truth lies somewhere in between. Dean and Joe net out in the same place and for this I was really grateful. I’ve read a lot on the subject an have found very, VERY few neutral opinions. But I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. This follows along with the tone of the other videos.

So, if you want to watch some quick, quality videos that don’t preach, checkout Running-Advice.com.

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Running With Scott Jurek

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 1 Comment by Chronic Triathlete

Scott Jurek (back middle), myself (black shirt with orange sleeves) and some running friends

Runners are awesome

The running store that I coach for is very friendly with Brooks. I like to think that it’s because we’re all-around damn fine people to hang out with. But it’s probably due to the fact that we’re their top retailer within the specialty running store category on the East Coast (not including FootLocker, WalMart, etc.). Who knows? Regardless, because of our relationship with them, we get some special Brooks perks.

The perks usually involve them sending us free shoes or discounts on shorts. Last week, however, completely surpassed any freebie footwear. They sent us Scott Jurek for four days!

Who’s that?

If you’re not a runner – or even if you are – you may not know who Scott Jurek is, but in the world of ultra-running (greater than marathon distance) he’s pretty much The Man. To give you an idea of how baddass a runner he is, here are some of his accomplishments:

And the list goes on. Check out the highlights section of his website to see more. All of them are pretty staggering achievements most of which boggle the mind of even the seasoned ultra-runners I know.

He’s also somewhat featured in the hot book, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen. Which, by the way, is a fantastic read. Probably the best book I’ve ever read on running.

Visiting NYC

While he was here, Scott gave a series of slide show lectures at our Manhattan store, had dinner at a local organic farm/restaurant with a small group of lucky people (Scott’s a vegan) and did two group runs. The first run was in Central Park; the second in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. I couldn’t make the lectures due to work, but I did get to share in the organizational duties of the Brooklyn run. Myself and a couple of other guys from the store mapped out a four-mile mostly trail surface route.

It was a little embarrassing to take Scott on a four-mile run knowing that he averages running 125-150 miles a week (yes, a week!), but if was he was even the slightest bit irritated you’d never know it. He turned out to be one of the nicest people you could ever meet. Very laid back, down to Earth and approachable even with his status as an Ultra-Running Phenom.

After the run, some of us went back to the store with Scott and he hung out, answer questions and signed some autographs. I’m not really one to go for autographs, but since he was signing I decided to get one. He signed a little poster for me that Brooks made featuring him in the trail running shoes that he helped designed, the Brooks Cascadia. It’s now hanging on the wall over my computer in my “motivation space”. The spot where I post goal times, inspirational quotes, old race numbers, photos and (sometimes) medals. A nice addition.

Running makes you a better person

For me, the takeaway from this experience was that the old adage of “running makes you a better person” is really true. Between coaching and just being involved in the community I talk to a lot of sub 40 mile a week runners. Most of them are very nice, but over the last year or so I’ve been meeting more and more ultra-runners and I have to say, as the miles go up so does the cool quotient. Whether they’re local folks, highly-accomplished International athletes like my friends Christopher or top-competitors like Scott, it really seems that the more miles you run the nicer you become.

Thanks, Scott!

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Onwards

Saturday, February 27, 2010 Comments Off by Chronic Triathlete

I love this

Onwards is a video by illustrator James Jarvis and Director Richard Kenworthy of Shynola. Jarvis, who is a fantastic and rather popular pop artist, is also a runner… and a pretty serious one too (sub 00:35:00 10k!).

Onwards

Nike invited Jarvis to create a video about running. The video above is the end result. I think it’s beautiful.

When I first watched it,  I was blown away by how he had captured many of the subtleties of running. Then I did some searching and learned how the project all came together. See below.

From the inside

Nike also made a little documentary called Onward From the Inside where Jarvis talks about how his art and his running both feed each other. As an artist myself I really appreciated his words and found a lot within them that I could relate to.

It’s a three-part series. I’ve posted them in order below. You can also go to YouTube and see 1, 2 and 3 there.

Link Love?!

Sorry, but not Link Love again this week. I’ve just been too damn busy. I guess I’ll have to reevaluate the weekly nature of the Love. Stay tuned.

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Race Report: Stop The Tears 5k

Thursday, February 25, 2010 2 Comments by Chronic Triathlete

Who’s fast at 40?

Did a small 5k race last week while we were down in Florida. My wife found it randomly in the paper on Wednesday and I figured I’d take advantage of the light training week to “taper” for the Saturday event.

I haven’t done a 5k in over two years so I was a little nervous. While I’ve done a few hard, fast miles here and there since getting sick, I’ve shied away from doing full-on 5k style training/racing. I just don’t want to tax my body to that level. Still, I was interested in testing my new 40-44 age group, so I showed up at 8:00am to take a crack at it.

The field was very small. I’d be surprised if there were even 150 people there. The race was a fund raiser for a local group that helps abused children. There was a walk component to the event and many of the participants were grandparents walk-running with their grand kids.

What better way to crush the competition than to find a race full of retirees and children?

Who’s bad?

I love how, after racing and working with runners for so many years, I can size up the competition with just a quick look. It’s kinda like poker – everyone has a “tell” that lets me know what cards they could play out on the course. How fit someone looks is a great indicator, but sometimes it’s as simple as looking at runner’s shoes or his clothes. Other times it’s the way in which he composes himself in the final five minutes before the gun. Of course, there’s always that guy who delivers a thrashing performance despite having an iPod, wearing Nike Shox and a sporting a Abercrombie & Fitch sweatsuit, but for the most part who’s who is usually pretty clear.

In this race, though, I didn’t even need to look to see who had racing flats on. There were only four of us even warming up and one guy had his college track team singlet on! We were the race.

Go!

We line up and take off. The course was a zig-zaggy adventure over a grid of roads through a quite neighborhood. There were lots of turns. As expected, the four of us who had bothered to warm up quickly disappeared from the rest of the race. What was surprising though, was just how fast College Boy disappeared from us! I mean, he was gone after about 1/2 mile. I never saw him again.

The first mile went by for me in 5:40. I was pretty shocked and new I needed to cut back or end up a heaving mess on the side of the road. I settled into 4th pace, but tried to stay within striking distance of the guy in 3rd place. He got about 25 yards on me before I think he realized the same thing and eased up a little. The gap never grew.

Unfortunately, the gap never closed either. I ran the 2nd and 3rd miles in about 6:00, but couldn’t find the kick to make a move on him. I’d like to think that if I had just held on for a few more minutes I could have stayed with him and maybe made a push at the line. However, I doubt I would have been able to out run him. The entire time I was behind him he never looked back. Not once. Not even when we rounded the corners at the end of the block where a quick glance sideways would show him who’s chasing. This tells me that he was feeling pretty confident and not worried about someone sneaking up on him.

Through the line

I ended up with a finishing time of 00:18:26 which averages out to a 5:55 pace. Pretty fucking stellar considering I’ve not run that fast for that long in over 2 years. In fact, that’s a PR for me on the road. I should point out though that I’ve never done a 5k road race that was as flat as this one. The biggest incline was a speed bump near mile 2.

After finishing, and assuring myself that I wasn’t going to throw up, I started to feel pretty good about medaling. I knew the winner, College Boy, who finished in a blazing 00:16:52, wasn’t in my age group. I was also fairly confident that the 2nd and 3rd place guys were younger than me. There was an award for overall Masters and I thought I had picked it up.

Sadly, it seems that the 3rd place guy was also trying out his new age group and took the Masters award from me. I Googled him up after I got home and, judging from the other race results I found for him, he just turned 40 a few weeks before me. Damn!

All was not lost though. Since he won overall Masters, I won 1st in my age group. While it was a little bittersweet, I’m pretty thrilled about it. The irony is that my time would have had me winning the 35-39 age group. Oh well.

The aftermath

After the race, I felt pretty great for about 2 hours. Then I crashed. It felt super tired and really sleepy so I got into bed, propped my feet up to drain the blood and took a one-hour nap. This gave me a good recharging and, with the help of a coffee, held me through the rest of the day.

The next day I was fine as well. And, much to my surprise, I wasn’t even sore from the effort. Maybe a little stiff, but even 48 hours later I was free and clear of any DOMS. I took this as another good sign of my fitness and ability to run this hard. I don’t foresee adding a bunch of 5ks to my schedule this season, but with the other goals I have, I intend to do a lot of speed work. I feel that I now have a sense of where I can push myself and how hard I can go.

Onwards and upwards…

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Friday Link Love for 02.19.10

Friday, February 19, 2010 1 Comment by Chronic Triathlete

Still on vacation

I’m still down in Florida so this week’s Love is little. I’ve barely been online at all… which is actually really nice. Next week I’ll be back in the office and have time to read up. Expect better Love and a recovery update.

A personal side note: I turned 40 this week! Happy birthday to me! Finally out of the über competitive 35-39 age group :)

Here’s what I’ve got this week

CNN.com: Running debate – Bare or in shoes?: This is a topic that may bore some Lymies, but it’s of great interest to me. I’ve been working on “going barefoot” for about a year now and have seen great progress and positive changes in my running since starting out. It’s a rather controversial subject within the running community. Some say barefooting is a running nirvana while others cry “bologna” and dismiss it as a fad. For the record: I’m somewhere in between.

This article on CNN.com covers the highlights and touches on some new research that’s been published. I linked to previous discussion in a past Link Love.

If anyone is interested in experimenting with barefoot running, please drop me an email. I’m planning a blog post about how to get started, but until I get that done, I can help you out via email.

USATriathlon.com: A case of diminishing skills: An interesting read about a triathlete fighting wacky testosterone levels and the inevitable results of getting older. My levels are “off”, but not to the extent that this guys were. This article reminded me that I need to go back and as my LLMD about the results again.

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