Gone Somewhere

Today, as my fun community service, I went out and photographed the GUTS Fatass 50K.  What a blast!

The count I heard was a 115 people starting. It may be off by a couple, but for a fatass, which is supposedly a “no-support, no shirt, no medal, no nothing” race, it a absolute ton of people. And yes, I was one of the people, but more on that later.

Happily, Janice and the rest of the GUTS crew, actually provide a really nice aid station. There was the usual chips, pretzels, gels, water and powerade. And as the bonus, a huge pot of chili (and a smaller vegitarian version), and a keg of beer to help wash it down.  Oh yeah, nothing like running and drinking on a Sunday morning. hehe.

They even provided a finishers medal. Hey, nothing like a piece of bling.  Yeah, so much for this being your typical FA race. (I can’t tell you if this is standard for this race, but it was cool this year.  Good job!)

The course was 4 laps around Kennesaw Mountian, plus a one time 1 mile loop through the neighborhood to boost the mileage up to the  50K.  It was through a completely different part of the park than the Pumpkin Butt race in October. Although it went up Pigeon Hill, which is a pretty brutal climb, it didn’t all the way over the top, which from my perspective was good.  The rest of the course was, well, okay I guess.

You see, I am in a class by myself. I am the only person signed up who was out on the course for 6 hours, but failed to finish at least one lap!  Yes, I ran (and walked) a lot of miles, going in circles around the park, but I never actually completed one real lap.  So I can only guess what the few miles of course that I didn’t see were like.

Now, I’d imagine, that all those people that actually completed any of the loops have some sore legs. But I bet I’m the only one with a sore trigger finger. Overall, I took 847 pictures. Unfortunately, a lot of my starting shots didn’t come out really well, but most of the trail shots came out nice. I did get one potentially really embarrassing of one guy, but instead of posting, I’m going to save it for an appropriate time. (Such as the holiday party or something.

On the miles I covered, I had a really good time talking with people, taking pictures, and enjoying life. I did spend a couple miles with Spurgeon and his daughter, chatting about all sorts of stuff. (She is in “Teach for America”, teaching ESL in Los Angeles.) Spurgeon completed the Pinhoti 100 race I was at a couple months ago, and I had a few pictures of him there. (But I mistakenly was calling him Blake. But heck, there’s another guy Mike, who’ve I’ve been calling Lyle for months.)  There was actually quite a few people I recognized from that race.

I also talked with Al. He was out there cheering for his daughter, and trying to take a few pictures.  And Donald was my tour guide for a bit of the course again. Apparently, this might be the standard now, since it’s happened that 2 times I’ve been out here.

The last 1/2 mile of day was with David, who took about 2 hours off his Pumpkin Butt time, finishing in just a few minutes over 6 hours. (And that’s when I finished, even if I hadn’t gotten started yet.)  I have no idea of the actual miles I did besides that it was more than 10. (I was having GPS issues.)

If you’re interested in looking at the pictures, they’re over at photos.gonesomewhere.com. They are under “Races”, 2009-01-04-FA50k parts I and II. The usual rules apply; feel free to take them. If you want a higher resolution version, let me know.

Edit:  Pulled my tracks off the GPS. Although reception wasn’t great, looks like I did the equivelant of 2 laps.
Kennesaw - GUTS 50K, partial course at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail:GPS Geotagging

Or, in this case, typing before thinking.

Michelle, up in New York, and whom I’ve never actually met, as gotten me into things before. She originally started a streak last year, and I joined in. She stopped at 30 days, which was her goal, but I kept going and got in 98 days or something like that. (Ted was also suckered into this one.)

Well, she put up a post a couple days ago saying she was going to run 5 half marathons this year. So, without much thinking, I jumped right in and said “Hey, I’ll match you and do a half marathon distance at least  5 times this year too.”  Of course, not wanting to be chicked, I had to up the ante, and said I’ll be done by the end of May.

Really, this isn’t too big a deal, since my calendar is already booked for a 50K in Feb and a marathon in March. I figure in training runs alone for these two events will get me there without much problem.  Of course, someone might consider that cheating…but I won’t. Now, if I actually find 3 more races that will fit into the calendar, then we’ll do it that way.

I’m tentatively planning on a 17K race (Hogpen) in a couple weeks, so if I can manage to latch another 2 miles onto that run, it will be a the distance for this month. Of course, the race is billed as one of the toughest in the state, with about 9 miles of uphill, so not sure if I’ll be doing anything but drinking after it. And the extra 2 miles might sound really miserable.

If all is well, I’m also thinking about going out tomorrow to support the GUTS 50K by taking pictures and stuff. If I make it, I’ll try to get at least 13 miles in through the course of the day. (I figure I should probably get at least one long run in before Hogpen.)

Well, that’s about it for this morning. Time to go throw the meat in the crockpot for some chili.

Happy new year wishes.

So far, mine is starting off well. Last night, we actually managed to stay up to midnight and watch the ball on the tv.

This morning, the plan was to head over to Little Mulberry and meet up with a number of people from the group for a run. Well, some of us met, and others didn’t.

Clay got talked into going for a bike ride instead, saying that running was for wimps.  Hey now…there’s no coasting down hills when your running.  Way to start the year as a big wuss!

And Roman, being the sleeping beauty that he is, mentioned something about too much festivities, so didn’t manage to make it.

So, here is our group photo to start the year.

Ryan, Mark and Kerry made it on this bright, brisk (34 degrees) morning.  Eventually we got going took off. Mark and Ryan had plans for one lap of the East Mulberry trail, and they quickly left us. Kerry and I took off at a brisk walk. We went up the Carriage Trail (the big hill). Kerry headed back down, while I switched over to the East Mulberry loop to go down.

Once I went down, I turned right around to go back up and over again. I could say that this was symbolic for the new year, knowing there will be challenges ahead, but I will face and conquer them, and come through the other side of them. Uh, sounds good…no wait, it’s a bunch of BS.  Really, I just wanted to get some hill work in to get ready for an upcoming race. I didn’t get nearly enough in, but it’s a start.

As I was coming back across the field at the top of the park, three deer were running across in front of me. I was glad I had my camera, because it was pretty cool.  Again, I could come up with some BS theology, but I think I’ll pass on that. It was just cool to see them.

That’s about it…time to go check on how the chicken in the crockpot is looking.

Happy new year to everyone.

Happy Hannukah.
Merry Christmas.
Best Kwanzaa wishes.

And, happy birthday to my mother.

Wow, been a while since I put anything up…just been busy. Y’all know how that goes.

To catch y’all up:

- Hip injury: Fine.  At the end of my month off, ready to go.

- Toe injury: The day I was looking forward to starting to run again, I got a bad pain in my toe. Needless to say, excrutiating pain while walking put the road off for an extra week. So, my month turned into about five and a half weeks off.

- Toe is better-Heading out of town.  Yup, pretty much all better, but then we went to Florida for the weekend. No running there, but we took a couple interesting pictures. We took US 19 at one point, as a scenic detour. Only after we got home did we look it up and realize it’s one of the deadliest highways in the country. Guess we won’t be going that way anymore.

- Okay, finally started running again. Yay. I felt good on a test run 3 weeks into my rest, but the extra couple weeks on that really seemed to kill my legs and lungs. Oh well…I’m taking the opportunity of rehab to work on building my speed. Figure at long as the legs need to get trained to run again, might as well try to speed them up. Today, I managed a blazing sub 9 minute mile. Needless to say, I was amazed…then I rapidly slowed down to slow and happy speeds.

- Races: I’ve decided to forgo the Jan 4th 50K. I was thinking of a end-of-Jan 40 miler, but I think this will have to wait until April. February’s 50K is still on at this point, as is March’s marathon.

- Facebook:  Jenny yelled at me during this mornings group run about not accepting her Facebook friend invitation. For the record, I check Facebook once or twice a month, so you need to have patience.  (Needless to say, I rapidly signed on and accepted her invite.  Hope I’m not in trouble any more.  My loving wife proceeded to laugh at me.)

Now you’re all caught up. Time to relax, enjoy the holidays, and get plenty of rest.

Today was the second annual Run for Reading 8K in Braselton, GA, put on by our good friends at Runners Fit. Still having a couple days left of recovery (and hence, no real running), I volunteered. I got 2 high pressure jobs:
- I was the course marshal for the turn-around point on the 2K. I had to make sure no one short-changed themselves, and ran all the way to the turn-around point.
- And I got to manage the 1 mile clock on the 8K course. This was a high pressure job, having to flip the switch on the clock when the horn went off. Then I had to stand with the clock and keep it company. (Okay, really I stood there and took pictures.)

Last years run was a big hit, with about 250 people showing up. This year, there were about 150 registered, so a pretty good showing. I’m guessing the fact that it was 27 degrees out this morning kept a few people bundled up in bed instead of running. (Go ahead, make the “wus” comments…They weren’t around to hear them.)

Sarah, the race director, had the good idea to get Christmas ornaments as prizes for the different categories. They looked pretty good. I know this, because one of my friends told me:
F: Wow, the ornaments are a good idea.
R: Yeah
F: They look really good. I’d be happy to take one home and put put on my tree.
R: (smile and nod)
F: They look so good, I can’t imagine who wouldn’t want one.
R: Uh, any of the Jewish runners.
F: Doh!

(Now, you’ll notice I didn’t say who my friend was. She was quite embarrassed about possible showing up here, so I told her I’d be discrete. You have no idea who she is. See Helen, I can do pretty good sometimes.)

Okay, in reality, it was pretty dang funny. And anyone who is going to get upset about getting one of these as a prize really needs to lighten up. I wasn’t offended. Really.

For food and refreshments this year, they were prepared with coffee from Starbucks and chicken soup (from Papa Joes or something. I can’t remember the name, and I’ll fix this soon as I remember who they are.)

A group trying to raise awareness for Alzheimer disease was present. They are trying to get congress to give more funds for support and research. Feel free to check them out, or write your local representative.

Our usual bunch made a good showing. Ryan R. missed his goal of getting under 40 minuted by a mere 2 seconds. I guess we can still call him a wus, because he got beat by his brother. Richard took home the masters 1st place, surprising no one. Joe was noticeably absent, probably making some excuse about resting for his 50 miler next weekend. Too bad, we could have used him to push Dr. Alsobrook. (He’s the Dr. I saw a couple weeks ago, from Advantage Sports Medicine, who also helped sponsor the race. He came in 2nd place overall.)

I had a blast, hanging out with my friends and helping out. Hi to everyone to came over and said hi to me, even if I didn’t know who you are or recognize you. (Yeah, makes me feel almost famous.

Photos are at photos.gonesomewhere.com, under the Races link.

See y’all next time.

In the last segment, I gave a brief run down of my running history and how I approach my training. Great, you say…maybe there was some useful advice in there, maybe not.

Now, lets take a look at the typical advice we see:
Don’t increase your mileage by more than 10% per week.

I’ve always taken this to mean that the length of a specific run should never increase more than 10% of your previous long run, and you shouldn’t do this increase more than once a week.
So, if my current long run is 10 miles, next week I can do a long run of 11 miles. The week after that, 12.1 miles.

Looking around on the web, I must admit, I think I’ve been interpreting this wrong for years. :O

Seeing an article on Best Running Tips, and on About.com, I see than in reality, they are saying don’t increase your total mileage for the week more than 10% at a time. Hence, if I’m running 20 miles a week, next week I should be able to safely run 22 miles. Okay, this seems a bit reasonable, but still, it should be taken with a grain of salt and a person should use their own perceived effort as a guide.

However, the About article led me to another path. There was a study done in the Netherlands to determine whether the 10% rule was valid, and it showed that it wasn’t. The original article is here, but I couldn’t get to it through my research library. You can read the summary I saw here. (I’ll keep looking for a copy of this.)

One article I was able to get to was “A prospective study of running injuries: the Vancouver Sun Run “In Training” clinics, from the British Journal of Sports Medicine. (1) Now this didn’t address the 10% rule exactly, it was looking for injury rates in a training program preparing for a 10K. However, it did have a couple key things in it:
- Age is a key as you get older
- Older shoes may make you more at risk for injury
- BMI plays a role in preventing injury.
- And, what I found interesting:

We found that incorporating cross training into the In Training regimen did not influence the injury rate. However, it has been suggested that cross training can decrease the risk of injury in two ways18: (a) by correcting strength imbalances by conditioning key muscles not affected by running; (i) a non-weight bearing activity such as swimming or cycling can replace some of the weekly running mileage, eliminating some of the impact forces that contribute to injury.

Now, does this help my decide on how much to increase running on a regular basis? No, but it was interesting to read.

From scanning various other articles online, it looks like the collective wisdom is:
- Novice runners should increase their mileage slowly.
- Experienced runners may increase mileage more rapidly, assuming they have the experience to recognize what their bodies are saying to them.

Now, if you’re here looking for advice, here is what I recommend at thi point.
For any “short” race, a marathon or less, if this is your first time running this distance, follow a plan. You may want to follow a plan the second time too. From there, you should be getting familiar with the training and can adopt as needed.

For “long” races, you should have plenty of experience with your body, and you should proceed as you feel fit.

Next time, hopefully I’ll have more time to look into this, and have advice that may not be so generic.

References:
(1) A prospective study of running injuries: the Vancouver Sun Run “In Training” clinics
J E Taunton, M B Ryan, D B Clement, D C McKenzie, et al. British Journal of Sports Medicine. London: Jun 2003. Vol. 37, Iss. 3; pg. 239

As I mentioned in a recent post, a doctor put me an a non-running regime for a little while while I let my hip rest. Will sitting around, I wanted to look into the advice that’s usually given:

- Never increase your mileage by more than 10% per week.

I thought I’d look at my own running history as a starting point. Bear with me as I stroll down memory lane for a moment.

Years ago, when I first started running again after a sedentary life, that advise seemed reasonable. I looked at the plan, and thought about it for a few weeks as I got started. Then I realized, it didn’t make any sense.

My very first run, after I stupidly decided to run the Seattle marathon, was running to the corner on the block I lived on. Total distance: less than a quarter mile. And as I recall, I was completely wiped out. (From there, I walked about 2 miles at a very leisurely pace, assuming that was a step in the right direction.)  A couple days later, I tried again, and got around the corner and a little way up the block.  I almost doubled my distance. Oops.

Over the next couple weeks, my endurance rapidly improved, and I was eventually able to go a mile. My training partner mentioned Jeff Galloway’s run/walk method, which sounded like the wisdom of Solomon. I took this to heart, and eventually worked up to running 8 minutes, walking 2. (I played with various combination of times that added up to 10, since it makes keeping track of them much easier.) 8 months later, I completed my first marathon.

Obviously, I must have increased more than 10% per week in order to do it. I just used common sense and let my body tell me how it felt. Sure, I had a training plan that said how many miles to run every day of the week, but I let my legs and lungs tell me whether I was going to fast and slow. It took months to dial it in, but in the end, it worked fine. Besides blisters, there were no injuries.

Since them, five years, a few marathons and thousands of miles ultra later, I’ve pretty much continued following the same pattern. I think it’s summed up well by John Bingham:

“…as an adult-onset athlete, as I was, we can’t train with the intensity as someone starting earlier in their lives. I have ALWAYS used a run/walk strategy. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Run until you’re tired. Walk until you’re bored. Repeat until your finished.”

This works better for me than my original 8/2 plan. When I was on that, I realized that if I ran for 8:30, then I was wiped out. My endurance ended at 8 minutes and about 10 seconds.  So I gradually shifted over to running until I felt the need to stop, walk, repeat. Some days the period is short, say 10 minutes. But other days, it’s longer, 25-30 minutes. The best thing about this approach is, it’s all about being flexible.

Now, I’ve never been a speedster*, but I can see how if I ran all out every time I ran, I would not want to increase too much each week. Of course, I never see myself doing this. If I were to only train for shorter races, such as a 5K, then I can see doing this. But that’s not where my interests lie.

Now, the other thing Mr. Bingham recommends is taking adequate rest breaks. In generally, I agree with this. Until recently, when I decided to start a running streak, I rested a couple days a week. Now that the streak is over, I can go back to taking time off.

Next up, I want to take a look around the internet, and figure out what wisdom is out there and see what other people think about this topic. What do any of you other long distance runners out there think?

(And as note to anyone doing a run/walk plan:  Please show some courtesy when stopping during a race. Glance behind you to make sure no one is directly behind you before you stop. Move over to the side while walking.)

*Well, that’s not quite true . At one point while in the army, I was running with the fast group during PT. Still not sure how I ended up there, but I had a good time trying to keep up. My best time for 2 miles was 13:45 (give or take a couple seconds), which put me under 7 minutes per mile. Whew!)

Well, I’ve gone to physical therapy a few times now. The first, it was painful! Oh, it hurt so good.

Justin, the guy helping me at Elite Sports Medicine, has been real good. The first thing he said after spending a few minutes talking and pushing and pulling my legs in various ways was “we can fix this. You have no flexibility, and once we get that taken care of, this problem will probably go away.”  Made me laugh, because I’ve know for years that I have no flexibility. My buddy in college was going to school to be a massage therapist, and he used to cringe and laugh at me all the time about my tight hamstrings, IT band, and pretty much everything else.

So, Justin hooked me up to the electro-pulse thingy for a while. Kind of fun, but not sure if it makes a difference, then put me to work doing the good stuff.

Starting with various things with a foam roller, I was put through some miserable activities for about 15 minutes, all designed to break up the soft tissue throughout my legs and butt, and make it all more pliable. Yeah, it’s hard. But the good thing about doing it, is that you know it’s doing something.

From there, went through some exercises, some I knew, some I didn’t, and some good stretching. (Makes a difference when you got some big weightlifter cranking on your leg…much better than the bend and touch your toes stretch we all do.)

At the end of the session, I left knowing I should keep doing this every day. So I did. Each evening while watching TV, I sit on a yoga mat and do alot of the same things.

After the second visit, which was pretty much the same as the fist, I noticed a big difference. (Humorously enough, Justin seemed pretty surprised that I was doing everything every day. He’s not used to that. Of course, since I’m motivated to get going again, I’m going to keep doing them as my schedule permits.)

What was the big difference, you ask? Well, I noticed it in the morning before my 3rd appointment. I leaned against a counter while my coffee was brewing, as I do just about every morning. But something was different…took a second and a couple times of standing, then leaning. Wait! My butt got mushy! Now, instead of having a rock hard butt, it actually moves when I put pressure on it.

After my dear, sweet wife laughed at me for a couple hours, I got over it and moved on. Yeah, I guess this is for the better, and it’s what happens when you have some flexibility. I thought it was pretty funny, even it is means I don’t have buns of steel any more.  Oh well.

Anyhow, session 3 wasn’t bad. Added some serious lunges into the routine. No big deal, although they aren’t my favorite exercise. The therapist laughed at me too.

Overall, my hip is better. Still a little sore, but not horrible. The really bad pain I had on occasion has not come back. And I took a 2.2 mile casual walk this morning without trouble. So I guess all is going according to plan.

We’ll keep going. I’ll probably build the walking back up to a decent distance this week, since I’m off work. Then see about a little bit of running, just to test the waters, some point soon.

One thing I meant to mention in the Pinhoti 100 results, but started to run out of room:

While waiting around aid station 18, one of the first few guys (well, someone in the top 5 or 10, I wasn’t counting) came running in wearing pajama bottoms and a heavy flannel shirt. After I stopped chuckling at his looks, and helped him find his drop bag, we exchanged a few words.

Apparently, he stopped at one of the last few aid stations where someone had an RV, and took a 3 hour nap. They gave him the clothes he was wearing to help keep warm. Cracked me up, I wish I would have had my camera handy.

Well, after he was sitting, I looked over and he was checking his blood sugar. I asked, and turns out he is diabetic. To me, this is extremely motivational, since this isn’t the type of sport you’d expect to see diabetics in. Besides being very tough, and needing to maintain track of sugar levels, which is tough enough, I’d also worry about all the potential foot injuries.

So dude, whoever and whereever you are, good job and thanks for the motivation.