PR - Sea Rim Striders Spring 5K - March 26, 2011

Sea Rim Striders Spring 5K - 25:25, 8:12 pace. 19th place out of 109.
Garmin data and map: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/75139878
Results: http://www.searimstriders.net/results/2011-Spring5K-OV.html

PR? At first, I thought I'd missed it by a few seconds. I didn't remember the exact seconds of my best time, but remembered 8:14 as my PR pace. Garmin showed my average at 8:17. I finished this race 25:25 by the clock, 25:27 by Garmin. After I got home, I looked up my previous best time and found it was 25:34. So, if the course distance was an accurate 3.1 miles, this was a PR. Garmin showed the distance 3.07, which may be within expected measurement variation of 3.1. I'm going to claim it.

At first, I had no intention of going for it. At the starting line, I told my friend Jeremy that with a still tweaky knee and only two weeks of marathon recovery, I was going to treat this as just a "fun run." But after starting out, I felt too good to not give it a try. I think it really helped to do a slow, longer warmup pre-race.

I normally warm up with 4 or 5 minutes of easy jogging.  That's enough to warm up, but not enough to expend a significant amount of energy needed in the race itself.  However I found recently that my knee responds better with a slower, more gradual warmup, and I modified my aproach slightly.  I just warmed up from a walk to a brisk walk to a slow jog to an easy run pace. About 12 minutes of walking, 3 minues of jogging and 2 minutes of running.  Total warmup: 1.2 miles - 17 minutes.

Yoga Day 200: Surya Namaskar

Many of my runner/yogi friends on Dailymile have been great sources of encouragement as I started out to see if I could sustain a daily yoga practice for 30 days in the month of September, 2010.  At the time, I had no thought of being able to stretch the daily streak to months.  On March 15, I was touched by the gesture of my friend Rose, who organized a number of other friends to symbolically celebrate my 200th consecutive day with 20 Sun Salutations, each in their own locations.

So on the special day, March 15, 2011, there was no way that I wasn't going join in.  My morning practice for this day was 20 Sun Salutations, in 4 cycles of:
3 Sun Salutation A + 2 Sun Salutation B.

Namaste.

Gusher Marathon Video

This was video from the Gusher Marathon and Half Marathon from our local newspaper's website.  My three seconds of fame start at 1:06 of this video, as I come up on the right-hand side, cross in front of the camera and disappear at 1:09 (in red shorts and white shirt - #4076).

The Gusher Marathon - March 12, 2011

The Gusher Marathon - 26.2 miles - 5:13:27
Garmin data and map: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/72660419
Results: http://www.iaapweb.com/results/11/03_12_2011_marathon.htm#55-59%20Male

When I hurt my knee during this cycle of marathon training, I drastically changed my expectations.  At first, I thought I'd have to drop out of this race.  I took most of two weeks off from running, during what should have been peak training weeks.  During several of the final training weeks, I trained lighter than normal, substituting cycling minutes for some of my running miles.  It was a trade-off.  If I rested enough to heal completely, I'd have been so undertrained that I'd have no chance of lasting the distance.  If I tried to run my scheduled training miles, my knee would have been in no shape to run at all.  So I tried to strike a balance between the two, and revise my goal downward from PR to simply finishing.  However, the best the balanced approach could yield was to get me to race day both slightly undertrained and underhealed.

As I feared, this race got ugly, was 28 minutes longer than last year's marathon PR, but at least was a finish. Although my knee had made great improvement in the preceding weeks, I knew going in that I was undertrained and not 100% healed. I had almost no pain on my last few training runs, but the runs were short, and that allowed me to deceive myself into thinking the knee was farther along than it was. I even had a few taper-induced delusions of a possible PR. I'd considered possible pacing scenarios, and thought I might be able to comfortably average around 10:30 pace through the halfway point, and assess the situation from there. Even if I had to back off to the low 11's after that, it would be possible to finish a few seconds under last year's effort. The first half went pretty well, but the knee started getting a little sore around 12 miles, and got worse from there. I still managed to keep on track for a possible PR through about 18 miles.  It all came apart at about 18 ½, and by 19, a PR possibility was gone and it was just a matter of survival. I walked more than I ran in miles 19 through 21, got a small second wind around 22, and found a slow jog pace that made the knee hurt less than either running or walking. This pace, plus a few short walk breaks, brought me home. Coming around the final bend, I pulled together what little I had left, and tried to hit the finish chute looking better than I felt. It wasn't pretty, but I'll take it.

Ironically, even with my relatively slow finish, I later found that I'd taken a 3rd place age group trophy.  Only 5 men in my age group ran, and I at least finished before two of them!

The mile 26 sign was such a welcome sight!

After the finish, with two local running friends, Dailymilers Will and Jeremy Fermo. 

Daily Yoga - Half Year, Full Circle

My yoga practice for this evening: "The Primary Series - Express"

 As a retrospective on this 182nd day of daily yoga practice, I looked back in my online workout journal  (at dailymile.com) to the first day of this streak, August 28, 2010. I remember I felt like I'd outgrown the "beginner" yoga sequences I'd been practicing for about a year, was looking for some intermediate level videos to explore, and had come across the videos in the Yoga Today YouTube channel. On that day, I tried my first of those videos, a shorter version of the normally 1-plus hour Ashtanga Primary Series, "The Primary Series - Express," at http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=yogatoday#p/u/33/LP9IFX-Agt4

I loved this sequence from the beginning, and have returned to it many times in the last 26 weeks, like an old and trusted friend. On first try, I struggled a little with some of the moves and to keep up with the pace of the flow. After repeating many times, I don't struggle with it, but it remains an enjoyable and reasonably challenging practice. It seemed fitting, on this 182nd day, to come full circle and return again to the practice that it all began with.  It felt very good.  Namaste.

Bring Them Back

I support the return of the Parthenon Marbles to their righful ownership in Greece. If you agree, please consider reposting this video or forwarding to your friends. www.bringthemback.org

A Valentine's Day Message

Tuesday Quote of the Week

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

~Buddha

Meatless Monday

Running Green supports Meatless Monday, an initiative associated with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The goal of Meatless Monday is to help reduce meat consumption in order to improve public health and the health of the planet.


These delicious-looking recipes are published by the Meatless Monday initiative, and may be found at http://www.meatlessmonday.com/category/this-mondays-menu/.

Weekly Training: January 24 - 30

(The graphic is from my page at dailymile.com.)


This was better than the previous week, but still just trying to hang on to as much conditioning as possible while this knee continues to recover.  It looks like a lot of miles, but only six of Saturday's eleven were running; the rest were cycling.  However, the cycyling was much less knee strain, and I'll take what I can get.

Don't get me wrong.  Cycling is great, it's just not comparable mile-to-mile with running.  With that in mind, instead of substituting cyling miles for running miles, I substituted cycling minutes for running miles at a ratio of 10 minutes of hard cycling for each scheduled running mile.  The rationale for this conversion was based on run training at roughly 10 minutes/mile.

By the end of the week, knee soreness was gradually improving, and I'm optimistic about working more running miles back into the mix.  Daily yoga practice is now up to 156 days.

YTD: 98.2 miles running, 104.3 miles cycling, 202.5 miles total.

Training Tips Thursday - Yoga Power Poses for Runners

Tuesday Quote of the Week

"I run because it's so symbolic of life. You have to drive yourself to overcome the obstacles. You might feel that you can't. But then you find your inner strength, and realize you're capable of so much more than you thought."

~Arthur Blank, co-founder of Home Depot

Meatless Monday

Running Green supports Meatless Monday, an initiative associated with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The goal of Meatless Monday is to help reduce meat consumption in order to improve public health and the health of the planet.


These delicious-looking recipes are published by the Meatless Monday initiative, and may be found at http://www.meatlessmonday.com/category/this-mondays-menu/.

Weekly Training: January 17 - January 23

(The graphic is from my page at dailymile.com.)

A pathetic week, five miles on the bike Monday and a six mile run Saturday.  I had rested a sore right knee since for a week and it felt pretty good, but soreness and a little swelling developed after Saturday's run.  I'll have to allow more recovery time.  I'm also forced to consider the possibility of dropping out of my March 12 marathon. 

I tried to maintain the activity I could, and continued with normal schedule of weights, core and yoga, even investing extra time to these activities.  My daily yoga practice is up to 149 days.

YTD: 91.9 miles running, 36.8 miles cycling, 128.7 miles total.

Food Rules Friday

Michael Pollan is an acclaimed author and whole food/heathy eating advocate. He is the author of the best selling "In Defense of Food" and "The Omnivore's Dillemma."

Rule # 28: "If you have the space, buy a freezer."

A freezer dedicated to longer storage than the kitchen refrigerator/freezer may allow the consumer to prolong use of the good natural foods purchased at farmers markets.  It also provides storage space if one finds a good source of natural, pastured meat that may be more economical to buy in larger quantitiy.

Training Tips Thursday

MYRTL Routine - Jay Johnson - insidenikerunning.nike.com.  A routine of 12 exercises to strengthen the hip area and increase flexibility.  I found this at http://www.runnerspace.com/video.php?do=view&video_id=8190.  Pdf instructions are available at http://nikerunning.nike.com/nikeplus/us/v2/en_US/pdf/myrtl.pdf.

Green Choices Wednesday - Buying Bulk

Many stores offer some of their staple items from bulk containers.  This option often reduces packagaing waste greatly. 

Our local store recently stopped carrying one of my favorite cereals, Bob's Red Mill 5-Grain Rolled Cereal wih Flaxseed.  It's like oatmeal, but has a lot of extra whole grains, and I like it better.  It's a combination of rolled whole wheat, rye, oats, barley, triticale and flaxseed.   I like oatmeal, and eat it often, but kept Bob's Red Mill on hand for a change of taste.


If I find Bob's Red Mill at another local store, I'll still buy some occasionally.  However, after looking around, my wife found an acceptable substitute, Sunridge Farms Organic Four Grain Cereal, in the bulk cereals in one of our better local grocery stores. 

Some stores will let you bring your own reuseable container for bulk items.  Our store is set up to dispense into a plastic bag that they supply and then put on their scale; it prints a label with the name, codes and price.  I'm not a fan of plastic bag waste, so we'll just peel off the label and take the empty bag back to refill again.

Tuesday Quote of the Week

"Mind is the king of the senses.  One who has conquered his mind, senses, passions, thought and reason is a king among men.  He is fit for Raja Yoga, the royal union with the Universal Spirit.  He has Inner Light."

~B. K. S. Iyengar, "Light on Yoga"

Meatless Monday

Running Green supports Meatless Monday, an initiative associated with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The goal of Meatless Monday is to help reduce meat consumption in order to improve public health and the health of the planet.


These delicious-looking recipes are published by the Meatless Monday initiative, and may be found at http://www.meatlessmonday.com/category/this-mondays-menu/.

Weekly Training: January 10 - January 16

(The graphic is from my page at dailymile.com.)


Week: 28.09 miles running, 10.0 miles cycling, 38.09 miles total.

Lowlight:  Sore knee condition, cancelled Thursday run.  Soreness was gone by Saturday morning, but returned after Saturday's run.  Cancelled Sunday run.

Food Rules Friday

Michael Pollan is an acclaimed author and whole food/heathy eating advocate. He is the author of the best selling "In Defense of Food" and "The Omnivore's Dillemma."


Rule # 27: "Eat animals that have themselves eaten well"

"We feed animals a high-energy diet of grain to make them grow quickly, even in the case of ruminants that have evolved to eat grass.  But even animals that can tolerate grain are healthier when they have access to green plants-- and so, it turns out, are their meat and eggs."

Training Tip Thursday

"Do you know your maximum heart rate? formulas don't work for everybody, meaning. One way to determine maximum heart rate is to measure your heart rate in the last 90 seconds of a race where you have sprinted all-out for the tape. If your heart rate hits a peak, then flat-lines for that length of time, that should offer you an accurate reading."

Hal Higdon's Tip of the Day, January 11, 2010, http://www.facebook.com/halhigdon

Weekly Training: January 3 - January 9

(The graphic is from my page at dailymile.com.)


Week: 40.08 miles running, 26.8 miles cycling, 66.88 miles total.

Highlight: 20 mile run, 1/8/11.

Marathon Training - 20 Mile Run

20 Miles - 03:24:00 - 10:11 minutes/mile pace

My original plan was to run 10 miles today and 20 tomorrow. However, with 90% forecast of thunderstorms for all day tomorrow, I wanted to make sure I got my LSD run completed.  I moved the 20 miler to today, and I'll take whatever I can get tomorrow.

This run went pretty well. I planned to try to keep it a little slower, on the high side of 10:30, but I had to keep pulling myself back in the first couple of miles. I finally settled into a comfortable stride around 10:14 pace and cruised in that neighborhood through about 12 miles. I struggled a little in the low and mid teens, caught a little second wind at about 17 miles, and finished feeling good. Mile splits: 10:53, 9:59, 10:09, 10:15, 10:10, 10:13, 10:15, 10:12, 10:19, 10:15, 10:15, 10:08, 10:25, 10:23, 10:28, 10:26, 10:18, 10:06, 9:39, 9:21. More stats at http://connect.garmin.com/activity/62495323

Weekly Training: December 27 - January 2

(The graphic is from my page at dailymile.com.)

Not as tough of a week as it appears by the graph.  Actually kind of a "stepback" week in marathon training, with fewer running miles, but 20+ cycling miles inflates the total.

Runs: 6/8/3 miles Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday, a 3.3 mile race Saturday, and a 14.4 mile long run Sunday.  Cycling miles: 5.1/5.61/5.75/5.6 Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday.  For the week, 35.77 miles running, 22.06 miles cycling, 57.83 miles total.

Race Review - Resolution Run 5K

Resolution Run 5K Run
3.26 miles,  27:19, 8:23 pace

Nice local 5K to start the new year. 27:19 clock time/27:23 Garmin time. Finished 38th overall, won't know the number of the field until web posting later. The event's Facebook page says "about 160" No PR, 1:45 behind my best. Saw local dailymilers Tammy H., Shauna A., William F.(running barefoot!), Jeremy F.(in VFF's), and John F. Perfect temps for running, low 50's and low humidity, although north wind was gusting to almost 30 mph. Stayed ahead of PR pace through 2 miles, but finishing into strong headwind made for a slower finish. Splits were upside down, as the turn into the headwind started at 1.55 miles.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/61408059

A 2010 Running Retrospective

2010 Miles – Running: 1,900.3; Cycling: 474.75, Total: 2,375.05.

2010 Goals:
Run 1,500 miles – Done. October 30, 2010.
First marathon – Done. May 1, 2010, 4:45.
PR half marathon <2hrs – Logged PR 2:04; missed target time. December 11, 2010
PR 10K race – Missed this one by 2:24. My 2009 54:29 still stands.
PR 5K race – Done. 25:34, beat previous 26:41. May 15, 2010

2011—Bring It On!



Food Rules Friday

Michael Pollan is an acclaimed author and whole food/heathy eating advocate. He is the author of the best selling "In Defense of Food" and "The Omnivore's Dillemma."


Rule #26: "Drink the Spinach Water."


"Another bit of traditional wisdom with good science behind it.  The water in which vegetables are cooked is rich in vitamins and other plant chemicals. Save it for the soup or add it to the sauces."

Of course, in other methods of cooking vegetables, such as roasting or sauteeing, the vitamins are not leached into water.

Training Tip Thursday

"Hill training is a form of speedwork, a way to build strength and speed. You can do hill training in two ways: 1) Run some runs on hilly courses, essential if your goal race will be hilly, also valuable for quad strength and speed, or 2) Run repeats over a single hill. It matters little how long the hill... or how steep the hill or what you do between. Make up your own workout."

Hal Higdon's Tip of the Day, December 27, 2010, http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1352143337#!/halhigdon

Tuesday Quote of the Week

“The beauty of a lake reflects the beauty around it. When the mind is still, the beauty of the Self is seen reflected in it.”

~B.K.S. Iyengar