While I was Away

Haven't posted much because until recently haven't run much.  Having more or less successfully completed 9 months of exercise physiology and major changes to my gait and stride I can now run pain free.  The weird thing is that I can't both maintain correct posture, gait and stride and my breathing all at the same time.  So its kind of a best 3 out of 4 at any one time.

I'm at the very end of the walk run rehab portion of my recovery where I tend to walk a bit every 12-15 minutes which isn't a lot different before I saw the doc in early 2015 after lumbering through a painful and not that fun New Orleans half-marathon with Matt Sag.

Three nice things to report running wise.  About a month ago, I finished the Chicago half in just under my lousy New Orleans but pain free, running better, and enjoying it more.

Second, I took advantage of a heavy domestic travel schedule and I ran in Little Rock, Providence, New Orleans, and Chicago all in a 12 day period! My main take away from this is that Little Rock has its River Run half right and man is Providence hilly.  Also fun to rerun the last half of the New Orleans actually enjoying it compared to January.

Finally, best wishes to Matt Sag who is running NYC this weekend for his third marathon in the past 7 weeks.  Truly inspired and crazy even by the standards of this esteemed blog.

Race Report -- Hudson Mohawk Marathon

Sunday, October 11, I ran my last marathon of my early 50s -- the Hudson Mohawk Marathon, from Schenectady to Albany along the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers.  I picked it for one set of reasons, and enjoyed it for an entirely different set.  The original concept was that a whole bunch of us from the South Brooklyn Running Club would go and use the race to try to qualify for Boston.  The race is small.  The course is pretty flat and net downhill.  What's not to like.  As we got closer to race date, however, the phalanx dwindled due to injuries and other health concerns.  By the time the race rolled around, it was just me and F.   Oh well, the few, the proud.

As I have detailed earlier, I'd been wrestling with various goals -- BQ, PR, 4 hours. . .  Quite frankly any of those would count as a success, but the question was which one to aim for.  Boston qualifying was the original idea.  In 2012 I ran 3:42 -- a freakish outlier and PR.  The qualifying standard for me for 2017 is 3:40.  That seemed vaguely within reach.  That is, until the qualifying standard for 2016 was announced to be 2:30 under the stated standard.  There's a big difference between a two minute PR and a 5 minute PR.  That knocked the wind out of my sails, along with the fact that I simply did not feel quite as fit as I was in 2012.

That said, I made a plan (in conjunction with my guru M).  Go out at a stead 8:20 pace (3:40), and if there's gas at 20, light the afterburners -- Hah!!  There were two flaws in this plan, and I knew them. It assumed: (1) that 8:20 was a conservative, rather than aggressive pace; and (2) that I have ever, ever, ever, in my life, run negative splits in a Marathon.  Oh well, go big or go home, right??

So that's what I did.  After a cold wait for the start, I lined up with the 3:40 pace group, and headed out.   While at the time, I thought (due to Garmin peculiarities) that we had gone out a bit fast, careful review of the data showed stead 8:15-8:20 miles from the start.  I felt good, comfortable, the weather was cooperating.  The course was spectacular -- first country roads, then the shores of the Mohawk River on a perfect fall day.  I hit the half marathon right on schedule -- 1:49.30 and held pace, mostly (okay, assuming 8 minute miles for the last 10K), through 20 (2:49.40) miles. Without going into the details, though, I slowed a little bit at 18-19, over a tough part of the course, gunned it to get back on pace at 20, and then blew up big.

It wasn't an injury blow up. I just ran out of gas.  My legs just wouldn't go anymore.  My heart rate dropped, and I lost my mojo.  I was okay doing the survival shuffle, but not much more.  I stopped to pee, I chatted with the other broken souls, and gutted it out.  End result, 3:55 and a bit.  Gotta say, that surprised me.  Out of defeat, a pretty nice victory.  Sub-4 hours, 9 minutes faster than last year, and in what I usually think of as my happy zone.  The vast majority of my marathons have been in the zone of 3:50-3:55, with the plurality in the vicinity of 3:54-3:55.  I am so _not_ complaining with that result.

Another one for the books!

Marathon Tune-up

Calf healed just in time for me run the Marathon Tune-up as a last long run before Hudson-Mohawk.  I ran a mile before the race, and then joined M who was leading the 4 hour marathon pace group as an official pacer.  His assigned goal was 9:09 miles.  I ran with the group for 12, then took off and finished at an 8:59 pace.  I felt good, finished strong, and was happy with it. I've been way faster at this distance, but whatever.  The odd thing was that my Garmin and the race had almost nothing to do with each other.  The Garmin measured the course as .5 miles shorter than the markers, and my pace as therefore considerably slower. I'm not sure what to do with that information.  I am going to go out on a limb, and assume that NYRR has a fair amount of experience placing mile markers in Central Park . . .

Flash Back Friday -- Barefoot shoes

On Tuesday I got inspired to dig to the bottom of my closet for my now vintage 5-finger shoes from 2012.  I've been working on reestablishing my quick cadence short stride form, and I used to find that a few miles in the Vibrams was a good form drill.  

I thoroughly enjoyed the run.  I kept my cadence above 180, my vertical displacement came down as did my ground contact time.  I worked on a relaxed smooth flow through.  I had planned to do a few laps of Cadman Plaza for a mile or 2.   I felt so good, and it was such a nice morning that I decided to run the Brooklyn Bridge.  When I was done with a three mile jaunt I felt loose and comfortable.  Big success.

Until, and, of course, this was to be expected, the next morning, when my left calf tightened up like gangbusters.  Oh yeah, that's what happened the first day I ran barefoot on Christmas morning 2011.  Oy!  I took yesterday off, and did a short run today, and it seemed to loosen up, but there's still a "spot."  Someday I'll learn not to make the same mistake twice . .. 

Why Runners Inexorably Slow with age

Interesting article in NYT Science Times today.  Spoiler alert, shorter strides due to changing muscle use.  antidote may  be specific form of strength training.

Pickletrophy!!

Thursday was the annual Superfund Super Run, sponsored by my friends at the South Brooklyn Running Club.

The race falls into the "goofy things runners do" category.  It starts at 10:00 pm and runs a 10K from one polluted industrial canal (Newtown Creek) to another (Gowanus Canal), finishing at one of our favorite bars (Lavender Lake).   There's no real course.  The challenge is to get from point to point as fast as you can.  There's a division of opinion as to whether the fastest route is the shortest, or the flattest, or just the one where you're least likely to get lost . . . 

The race sold out, but the field was slightly depleted due to, um, rain.  Still, about 50 folks showed up to run.  My training has been long and slow, so a 10K made some sense.  What the heck.  My goal was to try to run 8s, or as close as I could muster.  Three of us (Arvi, Caroline and I) agreed on that goal.  We did not, however, agree on route.  Caroline and Arvi planned to make a key turn at Gold (slightly longer, more complicated, but flat), and I had planned to turn at Washington (hill, but won't get lost).  We set out.  Caroline took off way too fast.  I know this because I went out way too fast and she went out faster.  I assured Arvi that we'd come back together, and we did, but we still ran the first mile in 7:45.  Yikes.  Then I got inspired, and kept going, blowing past the two of them, running the second mile in 7:50.  The field split pretty badly, and I found myself running by myself along deserted Brooklyn streets.  I slowed to 8 and change, and then Arvi and Caroline came back (or so I thought).  We ran together under the BQE, and then we came to the route decision point and Caroline (or at least I thought it was Caroline) turned toward Washington and Arvi continued toward Gold.  Rather than follow Arvi, I followed the person I thought was Caroline, but she got a few steps on me and picked it up.  I hung in behind her, keeping her in sight, but about 50 yards behind.  Our pace slowed pretty badly, down to 8:30 plus, and then, disaster struck.  At Atlantic Avenue Caroline (who might or might not actually be Caroline) caught the light and I got stuck -- for about 45 seconds.  Argh!! Then I took off and finished the last mile at 8:30.  As I was coming down Third Avenue a clutch of runners came up from behind, and I kicked it out with them, finishing in a pretty tight group.  I averaged 8:20 (I stopped my Garmin at the light), which is a little bit slower than I'd hoped, but it was dark, rainy and dark.  

The coolest part was that due to some good luck and a statistical anomaly or two, I achieved what may be a first for the blog:  Age Group Honors!!  I came in third for my age group and won a jar of pickles.  The race didn't have classic age groups, as there were only 50 runners, so they divided the field in thirds.  I was in the 38 and over age group.  Actually, I was the oldest guy in the race at 53.  Luckily for me, the next oldest guy, Joe, celebrated his 52d birthday by winning the race, so he didn't count.


 Oh, and it turned out that Caroline wasn't Caroline at all.  She finished a minute or so back, and I never found out who I'd been chasing. Arvi got lost, and was a few minutes further back yet . . . 

Anyway, that was probably the most fun I've had at night in the rain . . . 

What My Watch Says I Can Do

Just before doing the NYC Tri I bought a new Garmin Tri-watch.  As I mentioned before, it has a bunch of nifty features that are new to me, like a cadence monitor and a vertical displacement monitor.  These two measures, turnover and bounce have turned out to be useful to watch while I run.  My natural cadence seems to be about 170 footfalls per minute (85 steps).  But, if I can take it up to 180, my bounce goes down, and everything gets a lot smoother.  It also usually means I speed up, but I've also tried going slowly at a quick cadence and this turns out to be a pretty good drill.  My better runs in the last few weeks have had me averaging 175 footfalls per minute. The difference is not in pace.  I'm averaging about the same speed, but I feel less beat up at the end of the run.  Perhaps because I'm "galumphing" a bit less.

More recently, I've discovered a couple of other toys buried in the new watch's programming.  An estimated VO2 Max and a race predictor.  My first instinct was to consider both of these features to be sort of BS.  How can you measure VO2 max without, well, equipment.  But here's the interesting thing.  A few years ago -- the last time I was running well -- I went on line and looked at a few race predictors and an algorithm that estimated VO2 max based on race times and body weight.

Anyway, I remember that at the time, the race predictors pretty accurately matched my 5K time to my  10K time to my 1/2 marathon time.  They also predicted a marathon of just under 3:30 (which is a white elephant of mine).  As I recall, these same measurements generated an estimated VO2 max of 45ish.  That's nothing to write home about.  World class athletes measure up in the high 80s and low 90s.

Well, when I found the measurements, the watch had decided I was at 45 for my VO2 max, and was predicting times just a hair slower than what I used to be able to do.  Hmm. that was encouraging.

A few long runs and a few days of speed work, and suddenly it is telling me that I've bumped up to 48, with predicted race times in line with my former PRs.

I will admit that I'm feeling better than I have in a couple of years, but these times still seem quite ambitious.  On the other hand, I'll take any encouragement my watch chooses to offer me.

I guess my next measurement point is a club 10K in two weeks.  I'll report back.

Back to Back -- Long

I'm getting a bit excited -- knock on wood . . .  Each of the last three weekends, I've managed to do a long workout both Saturday and Sunday.  It's making a difference.  First I ran 15 and rode 50.  Then I ran 14 and 17.  This weekend I ran 20 and then biked 40.  Suddenly it feels like I've turned a corner, from my long struggling comeback to actually feeling pretty fit.  Today I hit the track, and it was sort of fun.  I've never actually said that before.  I hate track work. It hurts . . .  But today I went with a moderate aspiration, to do 400, 3x800 and 400.  I wanted to get my 400s down to 90 seconds, which I haven't been able to do for a while, and then I wanted to run the 800s at Yasso pace of 3:40.  The good news was that I made my times on the 400s and actually went too fast on the 800s, hitting between 3:17 and 3:23, and getting my heart rate into a zone I haven't seen in a while . . .  Maybe I will actually be able to run a sub-4 hour marathon in 7 weeks . . .  

LSD

This Spring and Summer I've been doing many of my runs with the SBRC which has been great.  I enjoy the company and the challenge.  Most of the running gets done at a pace between 8:30 and 9:15 per mile.  This is a light jog for many, but for me, right now, it's closer to a tempo run.

I'm beginning to get nervous about the approach of the Hudson-Mohawk Marathon in mid-October.  I'm used to aiming at an early November Marathon, so I'm already feeling a bit behind schedule.  In particular, I'm feeling pressure to start logging those 15 mile + long runs.   That said, the club runs are leaving me feeling pretty beat up after 10-12 miles.

So, I decided to revert to my old approach of long, very slow, long runs -- chugging along at a 10 minute plus pace.  I had plans to run with M on Sunday, but no plans for Saturday.   The end result was that I set a one-weekend distance record, running 14 miles on Saturday and 17 miles on Sunday.  It was  a pleasure. On Saturday, my legs twinged a bit after 9 miles, but then were okay. Sunday was just a pleasant easy run 11 with M, and 6 on my own.

We'll see how the recovery goes . . .

New Garmin, New Data

In another post I will explore my annoyance with my old (but not that old) Garmin 910 and why I just replaced it with the newer Garmin 920.  Short version, GPS died and it stopped pairing with the heart rate strap.  I should ask them for  a free new one, but before the NYC Tri I broke down and threw money at the problem.  

I will say, I like the new model a lot better.  It moves more easily between functions.  The Triathlon setting worked smoothly during the race.  It uploads to my phone using bluetooth without me having to do anything.  All pretty cool.

The thing I wanted to mention was that it also comes with a bunch of new running data that may or may not be useful.  I'm just figuring out what they are, and I thought I'd share.  The main thing is that they seem to have taken the instrument that measures swim strokes and laps in the pool by measuring momentum and adapted it to running by putting the same sensor into the heart rate strap.  So it now takes the jiggles and wobbles along your run and tells you about them.  Here are the new features:

1) Cadence -- This is proving to be quite helpful.  Just as in bicycling, there is a lot to be said for maintaining a quick smooth cadence.  On the bike I try to keep my pedal strokes between 80 and 90 RPM.  The Garmin now measures footfall.  The common wisdom seems to be that you want to aim for 180 footfalls per minute.  My natural cadence turns out to be around 170 but bringing it up does seem to help.

2) Vertical Displacement -- This is how much you bounce up and down while running  Less is better.  I seem to be at the low end of the range -- sometimes as low as 6.5, but generally averaging 7.2-7.5.

3) Ground Contact Time -- This is how long your foot is on the ground each step.  Less is better.  As far as I can tell this doesn't tell you anything more than cadence.

4) VO2 Max -- It seems to create an estimate while running, based on weight, speed, heartrate, etc.  Who knows.

Anyway, after running with no data but time and distance for several months, my old data obsessive tendencies are coming back fast.

Race Report -- NYC Tri

Sunday was the NYC Tri.  The gist of the report is that I had fun, and it feels good to be back!!  It was not my fastest.  In fact, of the four I've done it was the third fastest.  That said, I didn't go into it with great expectations.  I've been much more trained each of the other times I've done it.  Even 2013, I was fitter.  I just couldn't run worth a damn because of tendonitis.  Also, it was super hot.  But enough with the excuses.  The overarching story of the day was that I felt good and stayed steady the whole way, and finished comfortably in the top 1/4 of my age group.

Race Prep -- Getting ready for a tri is always soooo much more complicated than a run.  Even dealing with the layering and delayering of the NYC Marathon is nothing compared to the OCD inducing mania of making sure that you have your swim stuff, your bike stuff, and your run stuff, and your food.  They give you three separate plastic bags:  one for bike check-in; one for race day check-in; and one for swim start bag-drop.  What goes where, and most importantly, how are you going to get it all home with your bike on the subway?   Here's everything but the bike, the towel, the wetsuit, and the Maratona Di Roma backpack that I used to transport everything.

Bikes have to be racked the night before, so part of the pre race taper involved an easy ride up the West Side to transition.  

With the bike racked, subway home and a quick date night with Vicki for pizza, beer, and and ice cream cone.  I love carbo loading!!

The Swim -- The swim is always sketchy for me.  I'm not fast, and I get nervous swimming in open water in a bunch.  Just to give you some idea, sitting on the lawn, waiting for the start, my heart rate was elevated (up 20 beats).  If I thought about it, I felt shortness of breath just sitting around.  This is nonsense, obviously, but frustrating.  Before putting on my wetsuit, I took a number of quick strides on a cinder track near the baggage trucks.  It helped to get my heart rate up legitimately, and opened up my chest.  When I lined up, my running friend Illya was stationed in our corral as a "swim spotter."  While I waited, we chatted.  Distraction was most welcome.   It helped me to ignore the dead fish floating near where we were standing . . .  The swim was fine.  I took it nice and easy.  My entire goal was to stay calm and steady.  It worked. I got a bit nervous/out of breath a couple of times, and then eased back and was fine.  Towards the end of the swim, things got  rather bottled up.  I did get kicked in the goggle once.  That was annoying.  For a second I couldn't see out of the eye because the goggle was holding the lid closed.  I flipped onto my back, popped off the goggle, put it back on, and continued on my merry way to the swim exit which was a mob scene.  You pretty much had to breast stroke until you got to the front of the crowd, to be pulled out of the water by a pair of friendly volunteers.   I am always so happy when I get out of the water and the swim has gone relatively smoothly.  This time I was so jazzed that I forgot to stop my watch, and ran about 250 yards before hitting the lap button.   I wanted to sprint to transition, but they had us lined up single file on the way back to transition, so, again, things got a bit backed up.  T1 went smoothly.  There were actually bikes and people still at the racks when I got there.  That is always a plus.

The Bike -- I love the bike course.   It quickly kicks up out of Riverside park.  Then you ride up the West Side/Henry Hudson Highway into the Bronx.  It has a few rolling hills and a decent climb at the turnaround, but basically, you can just settle in and ride.  This year there was a special  treat:  fresh pavement.  For the first few miles the asphalt was super smooth.  That said, there was a lot of traffic, so mostly I was passing the whole time.  A few miles in a  Brooklyn Tri-club guy went by me, and I decided to chase.  I kept him in sight through the turnaround and the motivation really helped.  I never got back to him, though (until drinks in the evening).  Anyway, I rode hard without killing myself, drank all the Gatorade on my bike, and averaged a respectable 20.1 mph.  Someday, I'd like to break 21 mph for 40k, but yesterday wasn't the day.  I just stayed comfortable and motored along.

The Run -- A bit of conservatism on the bike paid off on the run.  The run begins with that same nasty climb out of Riverside Park (from T1).  I expected to really feel it.  I didn't.  Much to my surprise, T2 did not hurt that much, and I felt good as soon as I hit 72nd Street.  My state of mind was captured by running buddy Bari, as I give a master class in: (1) mugging for the camera;

'

(2) what heel strike looks like; and 

(3) settling back into form.

What can I say, I was happy!  Not forever, though, because it was hot, hot, hot.  I was very lucky to have my Garmin back up and running. I just locked in my heart rate, and  settled in.  I was hoping for 8:30s, and held them for a bit, but finished with an average pace of 9 minute miles.  No complaints there. Again, I was passing people the whole way.  The only folks who passed me were tall 30 somethings with hollow bones.  Anyway, I felt fine the whole way, maintained steady form and cadence.  I kept trying to lift my heart rate a bit, because I seemed to have a few beats to spare, but my legs and the heat wouldn't seem to allow it.  The worst moment was at the last water stop, I poured the water over my head and it was tepid.  Then I drank my second cup, and it was tepid too.  Yuck!!  But, if that's the worst that happens . . .   At the end, I still had a bit left for a kick. 

All in all, a good day, and a great return to Triathlon!!  

Congrats to Cassandra (center) for a great first NYC Tri, and thanks to Richard (left) for company, conversation and encouragement on the way home (the hardest part).  Special thanks to Illya (next to Cassandra) for the swim start encouragement, and Bari (right) for the photos.  The training was made much more fun by the folks at SBRC (running, swimming and coffee) and BTC (bike, brick and beer (I get the next one Scott)). 

  

What I've Been Up to ... Runningwise

Well it's been almost 4 months since I've run more than a few minutes at a stretch.   Lots of biking, my first spin classes, walking on treadmills on healthy inclines etc.  But so I don't bury the lead, I have been cleared to resume a 7 week walk/run program as long as I remain pain free.

To recap, I have very little cartilage remaining on the inside of my left knee.  Plus more or less I have doing everything wrong form and stride wise for the last forever putting too much weight and uneven pressure on that side of the joint causing the problem.  And gee, I thought I was having a tracking problem!

I have been in a clunky knee brace since mid-winter when I am awake and not exercising so relieve the left knee from bearing weight.  And I have been working with an exercise physiologist on redoing everything about my walking and running gait as well as a series of funky exercise to strengthen and equalize various muscle groups.  Not exactly sure how this differs from PT but includes lots of micro muscle adjustments.

My new stride is more upright more glute and quad driven and hopefully more efficient and less pounding.  Aiming for mid foot strike, shorter stride, more straight so knees, hips, core better aligned.  Fairly similar to chi running from what I can tell but a little less tilted forward. There are about 7 different things I have to keep track with I can handle but having difficulty do everything and breathing normally. 

Aiming to get back up to regular 3-5 mile runs 3-4 times a week by the end of August and shoot for a 10K in the late fall.  After that who knows but hoping everything holds in the meantime.

So to celebrate I went me the Saucony Zealot ISO which is the true heir to the Kinvara, with the company having crapped up the Kinvara 6.  Light, flexible, and cushy.  Can't wait to starting breaking it in tomorrow for a couple of minutes every mile I'm out there.

Summer!

I had a great nine days in Italy, with very little running.  The running I did was spectacular, however, along the Naples Waterfront (the castle is also where our conference was held!!),

 and the Arno in Florence

 Then we got to retrace our steps from the Rome Marathon in 2013, with cocktails on the Piazza Navona, and

Dinner at La Campana, the site of some excellent carb loading that we blogged about back in 2013 -- this time with Vicki and Emma.  Happy Father's day to me!!

I even got to correct my ordering mistake and tried the black truffle linguini!!  Then to top off a perfect week, who should show up in New York, just in time to cure jet lag with a fantastic, hot, humid run through Central Park, but Philip!

Summer is off to an excellent start!!

The bad and the ugly (not much good here): Part One

As promised, I am sharing some "highlights" from last week's 3D gait analysis at UVA. In case anyone has forgotten, I have been suffering from a variety of lower leg and foot issues for the past several years (more than two for sure). Before that, I was pregnant, and before that, I had my knee stuff (arthroscopic surgery in '08). I haven't been able to string together any consistent mileage (not without pain, anyway) in about nine years.

So I went looking for answers, or at least insights. I read about 3D gait analysis one night randomly (probably on someone else's blog) and when I found out that there was a facility less than three hours away, I had to look into it. And it turns out that my most recent PT knows the director of the lab and he was able to brief him on my case a bit in advance of my arrival.

Max, the 3D guy, also set me up with an appointment with UVA's head physical therapist, Eric Magrum, who is pretty well known as a runner-fixer. The only thing I couldn't make happen was an adjacent appointment with the medical director of the program, who literally wrote the book on running. But I still got a lot of info.

Here is the raw data I got. When you see that I was "running" at 5.3 mph, you will get a good sense of how much I've been struggling lately. I wrote a lot more here previously about the conclusions and recommendations I got, but then I forgot to save it. I'll let you all stew on this and then will report back in Part Two of this saga.

Body Type

It's a bit daunting when you roll into the 7am meetup on a holiday weekend, and only the speedsters have shown up . . . There were four of us. I was the shortest by about six inches and probably the heaviest . . . Yikes.  I knew what was coming.  The three of them were going for a leisurely jog, and I was in for a long tempo run . . . We did six miles at about an 8:20 pace.  The good news is that I kept up.  The bad news is that it was hard.  I'm aiming to bring my half marathon pace back down under 8:00/mile by Fall.  That still seems like a long way off . . .

Lots of data

I took a day trip to the Univ of Virginia SPEED clinic today for a 3D gait analysis and other assessments for my never ending issues. It was super informative and awesome. I will post some of the data when I get a chance since you all are a good audience for it. 

Bottom line: I have learned to NOT use my quads, hips and glutes while running. The result is a biomechanical mess that has me doing more to stop myself than propel myself. This PT I also saw said I look like someone who has torn both ACLs and never had them repaired. (That definitely didn't happen to me, but he was making a point.)

I need to stretch and do some rudimentary things to get my body working normally again. At this point I am hopeful but realistic that I've tried so many things and nothing has worked. More to come. 

Return of the Glute

Last week was a good training week.  I was encouraged by the race two weeks ago, recovered, and running felt really good.  Thursday, though, I did a hard brick workout with the BTC folks.  2 mile warm up.  Then "race pace" 1 mile run, 13.4 bike, 2 mile run.  I didn't keep any data, but I went hard and it was fun.  I got home, and my lower back was tight, as was my left glute.  By later in the day, the glute was spasming, ugh!!  I was a bit concerned that I had really done something to my back or hip.  Two days later, a bunch of ibuprophen and a lot of walking, it's calmed down, so I think I just yanked it, but I'm wondering what I did.  I think the issue is still the seat height on the tri-bike -- a bit too high -- and that is goofing up the ergonomics of my pedal stroke. Time to start experimenting . . .

Why I haven't been posting

I have been more or less on the shelf since lumbering across the finish line at the New Orleans half marathon in a serious ugly 2:20 plus.  I finally went into the sports doc to see about the constant clicking and tracking problems with my patella and tibia.  He thought it was my left meniscus which has had a very minor tear for 2 1/2 years and sent me for a follow MRI.


 

Good news, bad news on the MRI. The meniscus is unchanged from 2012 but I have very little cartilage remaining on the inside of my left knee.

So at the moment, I am in a knee brace and doing all kinds of weird but kind of cool exercise physiology.  But no impact running other for a 1-2 minutes at a time to see how thing are doing.  They want me to stay active with biking, swimming, pool running, walking on trade at 4-5% elevation.  No running other than 1-2 minutes at a time to check on form and discomfort.  Trying to be stoic about it but man do I hate running in a pool, god awful boring stuff.

Only good side is the exercise physiology is starting to correct a lot of little flaws in posture, gait and foot strike that have crept in over the years.  Goal is to stabilize knee, strengthen the surrounding muscles, take stress off the inside joint by improving balance between larger muscle group and gait.


No surgery on the horizon just a lot of tedium in the mean time.  Will keep you posted. 

The Marathon That Will Not be Spoken Of (after this)

The marathon distance must be respected.  This I know.   And do.   One trains.  One rests.   One fuels.   One starts out slowly.  One is conservative.   Only when things are going amazingly does one push things to the limit, usually in the last 10k of the distance.   And yet, and yet, STUFF happens.    Welcome to Milton Keynes, GB.

 

"MK" is a planned city.  So unlike anywhere else in the UK it has a grid system of streets.   (This becomes relevant later, dear runners).  It also has a marathon a week after The London, which is quite popular with the overflow of capital city marathon draw rejects: 5000 or so of us.  

So there I am, yes 9 short weeks after the Malta marathon (negative split!) and amid lots of heavy rowing ...



Oxford City Bumps:    BOOM Four
 

... but lined up on the Start feeling quietly confident of a sub 3.45.  I'd been training at the required pace, and faster during track outings.   Especially yummy Yasso 800s.

Levitating at the Oxford Iffley Track

I had a conservative first ten miles planned of lurking just behind the 3.45 pace group.  Then my second ten would shave off 5 seconds per mile and I would catch and pass them.   Then my last 6.2 would see me really put the hammer down and fly off to a 3.43 or so.  Still slower than my PBs but a necessary step towards faster times next year.   Or so went the plan.  

And so went the plan, for the first ten miles.    But it was a clammy muggy warm day, and we were all feeling it.   I was hydrating and taking on Powerbar and gel goodness, but it was HOT (for the UK).   And it was also a winding and much more hilly course than I expected.  Not so much big hills, but unrelenting small ones, it seemed there were no straightaways or flats where you could get a rhythm, we were forever charging up and down hills, berms, underpasses, roundabouts and severe 180 degree turns.  Check this out

... especially please note the first half of the race (to the left, mainly in purple).   It was back and forth and back and forth and up and down and around and around - all with little hills and my legs really felt it, I just didn't know it yet.

So at 10 and again at 12 I dialled it up and tried to reel in the 3.45 pace group and...and...nothing happened!   I tried again, and again, and saw I was SLOWING.    This was ridiculous.  I felt strong, I felt light.   Yes yes I felt hot, but goooooooooooooood.    To no avail.  

 

Consternation set in.   The next few miles were worrying, I was slowing down, not by much, but it was getting harder and harder to keep my spirits up.   The pace group vanished from sight.   It wasn't The Wall, it wasn't a swamp, but it was unpleasant and painful.   Every few hundred yards was another berm and another turn and another windy path or turn and all in scarcely any wind, and quite a bit of humidity.  

So 20 miles came and I thought I would just bank those middle ten miles and now turn on the jets...hunkering down, I reached for that special pedal, and ... the tailfin fell off and I actually started weaving!    Oh my oh my.   I was still hydrating, I was still taking in nutrients and yet now I was walking shady underpasses and water stations and all the positive thinking in the world wasn't helping much!   Walking, weaving, grinding down into a very nasty positive split.

and so, what lessons?    Could I have trained more if I just wanted to lop 30 secs per mile off?   Should I have trained less given the rowing?   Was it just environmental: heat and wee hills?   Perhaps not that wee at that, since my gadgets say I climbed a lot more than I did during Malta, on a suburban course in the UK!   I think it is all of that, but mainly, that the marathon always deserves respect, and no matter how trained and confident you are, STUFF happens.   The plan now is to take the finishing stadium smile below (never so happy to see a Finish line) and apply it to a summer of training, and try again in the autumn, as determined as ever and as happy to be running as ever.    But first...some rest and genuine relaxation.     (oh, and rowing)

 

New Jersey Devilman

The winter was murder.  Just as my conditioning was coming back in early February, I sprained my ankle.  Snow, snow and more snow kept me inside, and travel, travel, travel limited training time.  It wasn't until mid-March that training moved outside and running began again.  I had a pretty good April, mileage wise, and actually got outside on the bike twice, but still it was a cold and dreary April.  I did not anticipate this when I signed up for the New Jersey Devilman tri.  In early May, there have usually been a fair number of warm days to warm up the water . . . Not this year.

The race is a long sprint. .4 mile swim, 20.5 bike, 4 mile run.  I went into it thinking of it as a long hard workout rather than a race.  These things always change on race day, but with tris the wave format makes it hard to do anything other than race with yourself.

The weather was as nice as you could ask for.  Cool at the start and warming up into the 70s by the end.  I had a good day.  The swim was a mess.  Lack of open water practice showed.  I went out fine, but heart started racing rounding the first buoy, so I had to flip over on my back.  It happened again as I got to the second buoy.  Ugh!! Then, as usual, I settled down and finished it out.  There were still a few bikes in the rack when I came through the ungodly long transition, but not many.  As usual, I made up time on the bike. I finished the 20.5 mile course in 1:00.42 seconds.  So I maintained a 20 mph, including time lost in transition.  No complaints there. The run was fine.  Once I got through the sluggishness of transition, I settled into an 8:15-8:20 pace.  The official time has me running a bit slower than that over the course, 35.38, or just under 9 minute pace.  Not sure where the discrepancy came from -- measurement, or just slowness out of transition. Anyway, the end result was that I finished right in the middle of the pack, 6 out of 15 in my age group, and a minute faster than my fastest time for the course.  Luckily, I made up what I lost on the swim on the bike.  All in all a good day.  It's good to be racing again.

Am I Nuts?

So I seem to finally be injury free.  I've had a good couple of training weeks, including an epic 15 miler in San Francisco last weekend.  This weekend I got in a couple of long workouts including some swimming, biking and running, and this morning I had a nice run in East Rock Park, the last of my New Haven runs, as the semester winds down.  The crazy part, though is that I'm signed up for a sprint tri this weekend in South Jersey.  I'm not going to be fast, but I'm comfortable with being able to complete the distance (1/2 mile swim, 20 mile bike, 4 mile run).  The part that has me nervous is the swim.  It has been cold, cold, cold here all April.  I'm expecting 50 degree water, and even with a wetsuit that's going to be unpleasant . . . Wish me luck!!

My Bloomberg Podcast on Google-EU

http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/Politics/Law/vp4KZvpptMiE.mp3

I think they offer a shortened version one day after, so if 20' is too long the 5' version should be up today.   Had the fun of meeting Professor Waxman for the first time in this interview.

Maltese Cross (winds)

Apologies - this report is about the 22/2 (February) Malta Marathon...so sorry for delay!    I drafted it, then thought I'd 'published'.    Hope your interest doesn't 'perish'...

A February marathon?    yes some sun at that time is nice, but how to train for such a thing?    Well it helps living only on a rain-soaked (rather than snow bound)  island, but still it was hard to get quality miles in!    I tried out some new shoes too!   Altras, and love em - here they are after a demoralising Yasso 800s sesh at Oxford's Iffley Track  -->




Anyway, our wee family holiday started well before race day with gorgeous views:




Our pool at the very reasonable Grand Excelsior.



The City Gate, right by our hotel - shades of a certain Ned Stark scene in GoT

 We pottered around Valetta and went to the Hypogeum nearby, a 6000 year old burial chamber with amazing cave art: 

 

 

Then warmed ourselves up for dinner with some stair reps:

 

Evening Wall Stair sesh anyone?

Dinner by the way was amazing every night; and their rabbit and veal specialties and pasta hit the spot.  I highly recommend Ambrosia, for slow cooked food but served super fast for hungry carb loaders!   

That was good because the 'expo' didn't exist, - or consisted of a long queue and then being handed a rubbish bag as a kit bag and a running number...no treats!!   Boo.   I think the 1900 foreign runners were a bit non-plussed.



Race day dawned early, with the race starting at 730 in a lovely hill town, and Game of Thrones set.       

My only goal for this Malta Marathon was to get back into marathoning.   The 100 k last year involved slowing slowing slowing sllloooooowing down; now it was time to speed up again, but not really very much.  The plan this year is for gradual improvement, and the first goal was to get back to Rome and Amsterdam pace: spoiler alert, I was thrilled to finish Malta in 3.57.58 - so I did it!. 

Thrilled also because training was low and the course was very hilly, a lot more than the course profile showed, and because I met my race strategy goal perfectly which was PATIENCE PATIENCE PATIENCE FOR 10, then FOCUS for 10, and the DRIVE DRIVE DRIVE up and down the hills for the last 6.2 and a negative split.    

My main weakness is usually too much speed at the start and then a falling apart at then end, and since the first ten miles were largely downhill I was worried I'd succumb, especially since the first few miles we were also all treated to low altitude drone coverage right above our heads, even mid pack - which made us feel special and faaaaaaaaaaaaast.  

 

The one problem in the last half of the race though, besides the hills and a Mediterranean gale blowing, was the fact that the half marathoners were sent off two hours after us on one loop that we were doubling, and so when we caught them the much-expected negative split feeling of passing slowing runners didn't happen, and if anything we had aggressive half'ers to deal with, pressing us on, when we were doing the best we could!! 

 

Supporting daughter (and sister of Half Marathoning son)

All in all though, I DO recommend the Malta marathon.   It is gorgeous, and a real treat to run amid such history, and usually, perfect conditions - the gale we had was very unusual.    Ans Spencer, yes, the socks you left in Oxford held up, and while drenched, still padded me to the race plan I wanted!! 



Your correspondent notices a camera.  



Dad and son at finish, en route to gelato....weighed down by some serious BLING.

 

Pigeon unaffected by heavy guns.

Little man wuz here.  

PS.    apologies again for the late post....since the run, work has been busy, and we also have been to a training camp (rowing) in Seville - gorgeous....and the next marathon (of 3 this year) is actually coming up soon, on 4 May in Milton Keynes in the UK, and I promise a more timely race report after that!