05.24.08
Posted in Andy's living testimonial at 8:57 am by Andy
We’re getting ready this morning to head down to a hilly portion of Ohio (read: not Columbus). We’ll be visiting some family over the long weekend, and I decided that it would be a good time to get in a little run.
I did some looking at some of the courses I usually run, and the elevation profiles associated with them. The final numbers usually look something like this: 8 ft gain / 8 ft loss. Over five or six miles. Pretty rough, huh?
I mapped out the route I’m going to run later today. The elevation profile looks nothing like the flatlined monitor I’m used to viewing. This run? 633 ft gain / 633 ft loss. Over 4.85 miles.
This is going to be awesome.
I haven’t run since Monday, if you even count that (I do). And I haven’t run hills of any kind since last September. So today is going to be an educational experience. I’m going to take it slowly, and not try to do anything than be strong the whole way through. I’m expecting it to be a hard effort, but fun.
Are there flying monkeys in Southeastern Ohio?
Update: There were no flying monkeys yesterday, but I did cut my run a bit short. My right knee was bothering me on the way up the hill, so I decided to cut about 1.5 miles out of the run and just do one major uphill and downhill. Up the hill (1.67 miles) was done in 23 minutes, which works out to a 13:47 pace. This was one long hill. Damn that hurt. Down the hill was done in 11 minutes which works out to a 6:36 pace. There were sections of that where gravity was doing 95% of the work and I was just making sure I didn’t face plant on the asphalt. It was slightly scary.
Today, I don’t feel terrible at all, but I can still feel a little residual soreness from the run yesterday and my workout on Friday.
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05.22.08
Posted in Andy's living testimonial at 1:20 pm by Andy
Disappointment
I’ve mentioned that Jerry and I were trying to go under 30 minutes in the Komen Race for the Cure. When we lined up Saturday morning and the gun went off, we felt good. The temperature was ideal for running, the course was changed from previous years which provided for better scenery, and our legs felt strong.
And the whole first mile was stop and go.
I never saw the mile marker for mile one, but I never felt like we got going. I’d be willing to guess that we were running close to 11 minutes/mile at that time, which wasn’t going to cut it. We picked it up a little a wound our way around Goodale Park, which was very pretty. Running in the Short North is enjoyable, and I hope to be able to do it again soon.
I knew from the course flyer approximately where the mile 2 marker should have been. When I passed the general vicinity, I checked my watch and saw that we were nearly on target for just under 30 minutes. We needed to run our final mile in less than 9:30. Piece of cake.
As we turned to run south on High Street, I noticed about a quarter mile after the turn that there was a little sign on my right that said “Mile 2″. I didn’t think this could be right, but stated to Jerry, “if that sign is correct, we need to run this last 1.1 miles in 7:30.” Then we laughed, because that would not be happening. We were running together, and I was not comfortable that we could both do that. I wasn’t even sure I could do that without proper preparation.
So we kept our pace consistent, and rolled on towards the finish. The finish line banner loomed larger about 200 yards away and I looked at my watch again. 29:30 and counting. I turned around and told Jerry we had 30 seconds, thinking it might be possible. The next thing I know, he’s blowing past me to sprint to the line. I pulled in right behind him, and we cruised to the finishing chute. I clicked the ‘Stop’ button on my watch as we crossed the line, and looked down to see the results.
We walked wordlessly through the finishing chute, handed our bib information to the volunteers, and headed on to get our water and bananas.
Without turning around, Jerry said, “we didn’t meet our goal did we?”
“Missed by eight seconds,” was my reply.
We talked about thing for a few minutes, ran through the meaningless excuses, and decided that we would try again in a month or two. The Race for the Cure is a wonderful event, but very difficult to run a great time because of the large crowds. The fact that we made a decision to stay together made it even tougher to weave. But we’re not using these as excuses, we’re going to race a 5k in July and see what we’re made of. I can’t wait.
Atonement
I’m perfectly fine with the statement that I was not incredibly upset at not meeting our goal last Saturday. But I’m also not the type to let things go unchecked. I had Sunday scheduled for three miles, presumably to recover from the race the day before. As the Saturday race was pretty easy, I decided to go all out on Sunday and go for broke in a hard 5k.
I went out hard, kept it up through the second mile, and knifed my way through a vicious headwind in the last half mile. The only thing that slowed me even the slightest was the nausea I was experiencing with about a quarter mile to go. I was suspicious that if I kept up the pace I was running that one of my neighbors would have some projectile vomit in their front yard. I didn’t feel like ejecting my breakfast, so I slowed up just enough to keep things where they belong.
I crossed the finish line sucking wind, and fell into the grass in my front yard. I looked at my watch. It stared back at me, 23:23. Damn, that felt good.
Pain
I went out for an easy five on Monday night, and it was quickly apparent that all was not well in my right leg. My IT band had been slightly aggravating me the last week or so, but proper warm-up and cool-down procedures and stretching had kept things from getting too bad. What started as an uncomfortable run quickly progressed to painful, and for the first time in my life I not only cut a run short, I quit running and walked home. It was the smart thing to do, I’m sure, but it took a big bit of pride swallowing to switch from that painful hobble to a walk. A five mile run turned into a one mile run, and I rested the rest of the night (and got a very painful massage on my legs as well).
Tuesday I felt like I was 90% healthy, but decided that a day off here is better than a week or more off later. More ice and stretching were done, and by yesterday I felt back up to par.
Last night was a softball game, as is tonight. Tomorrow I’m scheduled at Equivita, so the earliest I’ll get back on the road will be tomorrow night or Saturday morning.
But I’m not worried. I’d rather get this stuff fixed now, than arrive in Nashville six months from now, hobbling around broken.
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05.12.08
Posted in Andy's living testimonial at 10:06 pm by Andy
I mentioned in my last post that I would take a crack at 20 miles in the past week, something I hadn’t done since the week of October 15, which culminated in my half-marathon. As you can see from the chart below, I did it.
I’m pretty damn happy with that. I’ve worked my mileage up in a safe and steady manner since February, and I’m being rewarded with some nice workouts, feeling good and strong, and injury free (knock on wood).
If you look at the box in the bottom right of the chart above, you’ll see my total stats since I started running in late 2006. Tonight, I ran a little over 8 miles and clocked 1 hour and 20 minutes on my feet. This pushed me over the 100 hour mark since I decided I was going to be a runner. It’s not like I’m setting records or anything here, but I think it’s important to sit back every once in a while and take a look at how you’re doing and not be afraid to feel good about hitting some nice, round numbers. It’s a pretty number, and it makes me happy. Next topic.
My legs freaking hurt.
“Well, yeah, stupid. You’re running more than you have in almost seven months, it kinda makes sense.”
No, not like that. I got reacquainted with the leg press machine at Equivita on Friday night. I did some wonderful wide-leg / close-leg series, accompanied with squats of various sorts, and some hip work. Simply put, my hamstrings and glutes (read: ass) hurt so bad yesterday that I considered letting a tear slip when I fell back on my butt while folding laundry.
And strangely, running feels very damn good. How nice.
This upcoming Saturday is the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, which I’ll be running. I’ll be helping pace Jerry to a sub-30:00 finish, and then heading back to Equivita afterwards for some flippin’ pancakes! Maybe I’ll see you there. If you read this testimonial, I’d love to hear what you think.
Just look for this guy (I’m the guy on the left, but I won’t be wearing a bandanna. The guy on the right is the race director for the hell I’m going to endure in November. No, we did not call each other and color coordinate.):
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05.05.08
Posted in Andy's living testimonial at 1:55 pm by Andy
Last week was busy, and tiring. After a week of two personal bests, a long run of seven miles in the rain, Tuesday came and I simply felt run down. Rather than push things too hard during the very early training phase, I took a rest day before two straight days of softball.
We won on Wednesday, and again on Thursday. Friday was spent visiting with family until late and Saturday was just a mess, which meant that I’d unintentionally made it six days between runs by the time I got out the door on Sunday morning. This is not how I’d intended things to go.
I was scheduled for eight, but decided to maintain things at seven miles since I’d done no “maintenance” work since my last run. It was slightly cool at the start, but I quickly warmed up, and realized much later that there is a major downside to having little hair (very little in some places): sunburn.
The major victory for yesterday was that seven miles felt very good. The first five were at an easy 10:30-11:00 per mile pace, but then my body said “go!”, so I did. Not sprinting, or even running hard, but just letting my legs run a little and stride out the last two miles of a comfortable run.
Tonight I’m on the hook for four, and I’ll at least get this, maybe push a little to five to make up for the nothing run on Saturday.
During my training session at Equivita on Saturday morning, Adam was asked (not by me), “why are you beating up his [my] legs, he has to run a lot this weekend?”
Adam’s response? Typical. “My goal for Andy is to make the marathon feel easy.” With that goal in mind, I don’t have a problem with the physical torture. I still have a problem seeing my way around perceived limitations, but I’m working on this.
More easy running on the schedule for this week. I’m thinking I may take a crack at going over 20 miles this week. I’ll see how the legs feel as the week progresses.
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05.01.08
Posted in Andy's living testimonial at 3:40 pm by Andy
The scene is Monday evening. The day before, I’d pushed my long run back a day due to a lack of time, and it was getting to be close to 8:00 and the sand in the hourglass was running low on this day as well. I decided I’d waited the necessary amount of time after dinner to go for a nice 7-mile run, so I got ready and headed out.
It was colder Monday than Sunday had been, and rain was in the forecast. I had two long-sleeve layers on top, but still only shorts, no pants. I walked out the door and was instantly chilled. I decided that to ensure that I was properly ready for seven miles, I’d make sure I did my warm-up of about 6/10 mile to the usual starting point. I’d gotten about 100 yards from my back door, and it started sprinkling. Big fat rain drops intermittently pattering on my quickly balding head.
As I noted in my previous entry, I’d done some hard running last week, so this was to be a nice’n'easy seven miles. Nothing faster than 10:00 per mile. Turns out this ended up being as much of a mental exercise as a physical one. Why? Think about it this way: when it’s raining outside and you have a ways to go to get to your car, what do most people do to get to their door if they don’t have an umbrella/slicker/etc.? They run, and they run hard. By the time I officially started my run, it was a steady drizzle that did not let up for any of the next 75 minutes I was outside.
And by drizzle, I do not mean misting. I mean that everyone who was passing in their conveniently covered vehicles was using the ‘Normal’ setting on their wipers. Nobody even had their windows cracked so they could shout at me that I’m insane. Yeah, that kind of drizzle.
The last time I got caught in a rainstorm, I hightailed it back home. This time, I set the cruise control and enjoyed the flight. It’s so strange for me to enjoy being out in the chilly rain, but I had a blast. I wasn’t freezing, but felt comfortably cool. I was soaked, and for the last two miles my shoes and socks were squishing with each step. But I was happily propelled each step by thoughts of people who can’t run for some reason, thinking of family members who have passed on, and in general just splashing around like a three year old in a puddle. It was very enlightening.
As I was going through the warming up process at home after the run, two things became clear to me. First, it was colder out than I thought. It was 42 degrees, and with the windchill it felt like 34 degrees (plus, the rain). Secondly, I found that if my attitude can overpower a lot of discomfort. Seven miles is my longest run in over six months, it was cold, raining, and I’d run extremely hard about 24 hours earlier. And I felt great.
Some running friends of mine have gotten me to think about the mental aspects of running. They call it running “kung fu” style. Running by feel, working towards your goal, believing in what you’re doing. It sounds sorta “hippie-ish”, but damn if it didn’t work.
29 weeks, 3 days until I toe the starting line.
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