Runs in the rain
Hello everyone, welcome to September! These past two week I have really cut down on the miles as my taper for the race Sunday. Monday 8-20 and Tuesday the day after I did a 3.87 mile course and had some short segments where I worked on speed/ Wednesday the 22nd I did 12 miles and then 11 on Sunday/ Week total a bit over 30 miles. Rested the weekend and then did about 10 1/2 this Monday, again I did some sections at a fast pace. This course includes the steep hill I will run at the race here. Tuesday I ran 6 miles all at an easy pace. Now I passed the High School track and went into the bathroom to rinse sweat off. Later, I found funny information on my Garmin report from that time on, like I had run miles in the opposite direction at a 3 minute pace! I don't know if it was water getting in the watch, a distant thunderstorm or just being in like a concrete bunker when I went into the bathroom and lost the satellite signal. Anyway, it worked fine the next day when I ran a short 2.28 miles in 85 degree temperatures. Lastly, Thursday I finished the month and my taper with my lucky "watertower" run of about 11 miles.This gives a weekly total (so far, not counting the HM tomorrow) of about 27 miles and a monthly total of 232.6 miles, beating last month by about 4 miles! It was partly cloudy and much cooler, 73 degrees, and less humid! I took it easy, although the first half has a nice hill, and I took my camera and took some new photos. Here is a distant view of the valley looking down from the hill:
Next, some cattle near a pond, the watertower can be seen in the background:
And here is the tower. I often run this course, but my lucky run before a race takes me down a little spur to this tower. It was painted since last year and is a nice shiny blue:
Long distance runner, what you standin' there for?Get up, get out, get out of the door!
Sunday, 9/2... took Friday off and ran an easy 4 miler on the trail yesterday. Up a little early this morning, thinking about this HM I haven't run since 2012. They added a relay a few years ago and a 10K, so I expect parking will be at a premium and why I'm planning to arrive an hour early. I'm not fit to run hard for 13.1 miles, so I'll line up near the back and run by feel. And have fun...
Altair5... thanks for starting off the new month, the next few months are our time to shine as runners, as the temperatures cool and Autumn takes over. Foam rolling is an almost suitable substitute for a deep tissue massage, nowhere near as effective for most muscle groups, but works ok for the big muscles in your legs. Muscles can form knots, or 'hotspots' over time and if left untreated, will effectively shorten the muscle and create all sorts of problems for a runner. They're something I've never had to worry about, but have cropped up lately as I try to get my running legs under me again...LOL Good luck this morning, you've done a really good job getting ready!
Just got up and taking some vitamins mixed with applesauce. Will then put on my running shorts, the new shoes and my lucky tee shirt. Then I'll make a banana smoothie and head out to get there like an hour early. The weather report indicts 72 degrees at my start going up to 78 by 10 am, plus rather humid. I hope I do alright I have to work this evening, no rest for the weary! So I may just have time to post my results after the race. Hope you have a fun run Rich!
Completed the Oak Tree HM today! A quick report, details to follow later. Humid, still air at start. Sunny, not overcast as predicted. I guess it was in the low 70's t the start. I was already sweating walking to the start line and by mile 2 I decided not to push it too hard and if I still had energy by last miles of the race I could always run faster. I was able to keep up a fair pace, but knew by mile 8, when I was at about 84 minutes, that I was not going to achieve sub 10 minute miles for this race, particularly since the steep hill which slows me down to like a 12 minute pace or slower was yet to come. Some breezes kicked in during the last few miles and it became overcast. Many walkers on that steep hill, but I jogged up it slowly, my legs tired but with some strength left. No juice left for a sprint at the end. My time was like 2 hours 22 minutes 50 seconds, like 16 minutes slower than last year. Now last year it was rather cool, so I guess the heat sapped my speed. My thermometer said 78 when I got home.Plus, although not as consistent I did start my training earlier last year and got in more miles. I will post my official time and overall place later, as well as details from my Garmin.
Sunday, 9/2... fun time at the covered bridges half this morning. I didn't set any speed records, but did finish upright. First mile marker wasn't until mile 4 and my Ironman read 38:29, so running just about a 9:37 pace. I'd already climbed one hill and felt like I could keep that effort up, but the rolling hills finally got to me at 10 miles and the walk / jog to the finish started. I'm happy, my legs are pretty sore, which means when they recover they'll be stronger, exactly what I need. Finish time was 2:16:46, finished 109/176 overall and 8/14 age group. The sun was out by the time the gun fired and I shed my shirt less than a mile into the race, which made for a comical exchange at about the 5 mile mark. I'd just passed a couple of young women when a vehicle pulled alongside and the female driver did a wolf whistle, then said "Hi Girls" in sing-song voice. Clowning around, I yelled "Hey, I thought that was for me." In unison the women yelled, "It was"! LOL Then one of 'em added "That's what happens when guys take their shirts off." LOL Apparently the vehicle and women runners were together, the vehicle pulling ahead, then stopping to offer support every mile or two.
After the race, I approached an older woman and asked about the shirt she was wearing that said "100 half marathon club." Turns out today's race was number 77 in her quest to reach 100 and she'd run a HM the day before. Said Tuesday was her 66th birthday as well, a really sweet lady...
Altair5... congrats. on your race! It was definitely a little on the hot side today, eh? You didn't run the time you were hoping for, but more than likely in about 2 weeks you'll get a fitness boost from today's effort. In my case, I forgot about the hills on the course. None of 'em are really steep or long, but they're one right after another by mid race and my legs weren't up to the task. Tomorrow's another day...
Got a 4 mile run in this morning before going to see a movie. There was a tinge of coolness in the air plus a slight breeze so the run felt good.
Altair - Congrats on finishing the half. Nothing like a hill and heat to mess with your plan. Your marathon should have much better weather.
Rich - Great job on finishing the race upright. Even flirting with the women. That lady doing her 77th half sounds like our type of person. She set a good goal for herself. Way to stay young.
Art in AZ
Mesa, AZ
Rich - Good job on your race, you beat me by almost 8 minutes! Nice to have the young women whistling at you! I should have run shirtless too, could have handled the heat better. So the lady with the "100 Half Marathons" shirt ran a half and was doing another HM the day after? Quite a goal to run 100 of them.
Art - It is nice to run in the cooler weather, let's hope for good runs in the fall.
Here are some details from the race as well as comparing my performance with last year. It was not swelteringly hot, My Garmin gave a 75 degree temperature for the run, just humid and uncomfortable at the start. I did stop at most of the water stations and took like 40 seconds to have some water or Gatorade. I did make an excursion into the woods for like 50 seconds and once stopped to see if a stone was in my shoe. All these together added a few minutes to my time which officially was 2:21:52. The winner finished in 1:10:53. Overall I came in 149/248 which I calculate means 59.27% were faster than me. Last year in this race it was like 59 degrees and I ran it in 2:06:28 and was 157/267 and 58.6% were faster. Basically I was in the lower 40% both years. I was 4/7 in my age division, last year was 7/10. In the 65-69m division the first did 1:46:02 and third did 2:06:33. Too bad I was not as fast as last year so I could place. Looking at the times last year in my AG I see the same people ran 6 to 8 minutes slower this year. Oldest in the race was a male who ran 2:44:13. Now, looking at my Garmin data it gives my best pace at 7:39 on a steep downhill and then when going up that same hill at mile 11 my worst pace of 14:32. In the mile splits my best was the first mile at a 9:30 pace and the worst mile 12 with a 12:40 pace (that steep hill). Last year my fastest mile was 8:30 and I did 7 miles at or below my marathon goal pace of 9:20. To sum it up, I was not as fast as I hoped this year. I was hoping for a 10 minute pace and did 10:50. I think the humidity, less training miles and perhaps less drive all figured in to the slower finish. However, I did feel really spent by the end of the race and feel the soreness today, so I would still say I made a good effort at least. Lessons learned: Start training earlier, don't try to "ramp it up" in a few intense months and work on running distances at a faster pace. Perhaps more hill work would be called for in training for this specific race. I did see a friend about my age who was running the 5k. He said he still runs half, but not this one because of that difficult hill. Note that the hill might not seem like much to you trail runners, between mile 10.7 and 11.7 it climbs 238 feet, but it is really like the last section of it that becomes really steep. (See "MAPS" in this forum) When I reached that hill I saw like 20 people walking up the hill with only another two trying to jog up it slowly like I did. However, I'm sure the faster runners who had gotten to the hill before me had ran up it fairly fast. Well, about 27 days to the Wineglass Marathon, I expect to benefit from running this race and there still some time to train, and the Wineglass is basically flat!
Monday, 9/3... 4 mile trail recovery run this morning, walk / jogged the first 2 miles, then ran the last 2.. Checked my resting heart rate before getting out of bed and it was up about 10 bpm, so some serious rebuilding going on in my legs. A good thing! LOL I'm thinking about running another HM in a month or so, if I can find something close. The more fitness I can gain between now and cold weather, the better.
Art... good to get that 4 miler in, is the cooler weather just a teaser or is it time for your temps to start dropping? And I didn't flirt with the women at the half, I was just running along minding my own business. Looking in the mirror, it's hard to figure why I'd get whistled at...LOL At any rate, they were flirting with me, probably from too much sweat getting in their eyes and blurring their vision...LOL
Altair5... big difference in the weather conditions between this year and last, eh? The fact that other runners ran slower this year by 6 to 8 minutes over last year is an indicator it wasn't just less training that slowed you down. FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH... if you're working harder during a run, but running slower, it's a good indication you're over trained. It's possible that's why you "felt really spent" after the race. I know I harp on it, but after all the training miles you've run, it'd be a shame to be at less that 100% for your marathon if all you've done is pushed too hard and not given your body enough time to recover. Search for symptoms of overtraining and see if it's what you're experiencing. Remember when Trump told Blacks to vote for him he said, "What the Hell have you got to lose?"
Rich - Good idea to do a recovery run. I don't have time today, but will do something tomorrow I think. I'm sure your body is hotter than you give yourself credit! Will take it rather easy to recover this week. Will train hard the following week, maybe not 70 miles, but 55 seems right with a bit of speed sessions. Then another two week taper to prepare for the full. Maybe I was overtrained, I still felt a bit stiff in the legs before my race, hopefully I will get it right for the full!
Did a 26 mile bike ride on my South canal route. Lots of people taking advantage of the nice weather and holiday.
Altair - I don't think you were over trained. Never liked that saying. How can you be over trained? Based on your thoughts, you didn't have enough training so your endurance wasn't what it could have been. If the temps were 15 degrees cooler you would have been faster. You made several stops along the way costing you time. The hills beat you up. Take all these little things and they add up. I'm not sure if you were around some time ago and Rich might remember when we talked about an article that discussed 'run less, run faster'. It's an interesting concept I thought and it was something to consider along with all the other articles about running and preparing for a race. Each of us will have a different outcome. Don't beat yourself up.
Rich - The weather is just teasing us right now. The weather report is predicting 109 degrees this weekend. This is the time of year when it usually starts to dry out and slowly start getting cooler. I believe the latest the area has hit 110 degrees was September 19th. So the potential is still there.
ART - You do some long bike rides, 26 miles, a marathon! I think actually a 100 mile ride is equivalent in effort. What's the furthest ride you have taken? Temperatures above 100 are pretty hot, good thing you get air moving past you on a bike ride. It is still hot here, unusual for this late in the summer, and temperatures are expected to be in the 90s on Wednesday. I seem to recall mentions of the run less, run faster concept at this forum and have seen a book available about it. Now, I am sure it is possible to both be overtrained and undertrained at the same time! The explanation of the contradiction is that as you do a training run it causes stress and breakdown of the muscle fibers, joints and tendons and then with recovery time they build back stronger. Also, you accumulate lactic acid and use up glycogen. But if you don't have enough recovery time you may not be ready for a major effort since not everything is not built back up yet. At the same time, in my case, I did little speed work. I should have gotten in some longer runs, like a 10 miler at race pace and also did more hills to build strength. I was ready for the distance but not the effort to accomplish what I hoped for in the race. So it is likely that I was both over and under trained! As far as all those stops during the race goes, well once I decided I was not going to get close to last year's time I figured I would just take some small rest stops while I make myself keep hydrated with lots of water breaks. I am not really beating myself up, I just try to analyse what happened so I know what to do better!
Tuesday, 9/4... 9 mile tryke ride on the trail this morning. It's been a while since I've ridden the thing, but by the first mile I'd worked out most of the kinks. One deer sighting and a silly porcupine who sat on his haunches and watched on the side of the trail as I went by...LOL
Art... nice ride on the bike! Too bad the cooler weather's just a tease, 109 this weekend, eh? Don't put the shorts away just yet! LOL
Altair5... you've still got a month before your marathon and with the taper you've got planned, you should be fine...
Hello everyone! Just not getting to the library as often, rather stay home and avoid traffic and tourists Only drive into town when I have meetings or early mornings for a run on a different, longer trail.
Last Thurs: met up with trail divas, think I ran almost 8 miles as I got there a little earlier and got in couple of miles. Group run was UP UP UP for almost 2.5 miles, whew!! Then return on dirt/gravel road DOWN DOWN DOWN ........ Knee was totally unhappy, and had to ice it for couple of days.
Saturday: stayed near home, ran about 8 miles early morning, just missed the thunderstorm and rain. DH working on his Buick, going into town for parts, fighting the County Fair crowd/traffic, UGH!! Better him than me, LOL!
Tuesday (yesterday): rested my achy knee for two days again .......drove to different trail, finished 10.2 miles, YIPPEE!! Finally a double digit run, HA!! Feeling good today, knee is good.
Hope to meet up with trail divas again for tomorrow's (TH) run.
Been getting sporadic rain/thunderstorm/lightning each day. And Sept brought in a bit more chilly mornings, LOVE IT!!
Altair: love the photos!! CONGRATS on the HM. I agree with others that if it was a few degrees cooler, you would have been more satisfied with time. But you did awesome anyway! Agree with Art that it's tough to 'overtrain' ......especially since you seem to be very aware and in tune to your body in time of needed rest/recovery. But I understand what you mean, I get that way too.
Art: I'm sure the temps are a 'little' cooler for nice longer bike rides. But I can't imagine not being out there very early still. Any races coming up?
Rich: Hey, nice finished time!! With all that injury recovery, you did great!! I would be elated and I usually am when I finish 'upright.' LOL!! Getting some nice speed there. CONGRATS to you too!!
Ray: hope all is well with you.
3.6 miles Tuesday morning. Just a regular run before getting ready for work.
Rest day as I had an early meeting.
Altair - When I go for a bike ride, I like to go for a bike ride. Longest this year has been 31 miles. Usually go for 28 - 30 miles. I haven't done any real long bike rides for quite a while. And only in the cooler weather. These summer bike rides is just my way of getting in a couple of hours of exercise in the heat.
Rich - They have revised the weather for this weekend. Now it's only going to be 107 degrees. Still it has been dry the past couple of days so it feels a little nicer outside. I imagine not riding the tryke for a while it would take a few to get the kinks out.
AZ - Getting in some good trail runs. I don't know what would be worse. Going up and then down or having to do a series of up and downs. Thankfully, to me, there isn't a lot of up and down around here that I could run to.
Thursday, 9/6... out early this morning for a 6 mile trail run. Nothing out of the ordinary, except my legs were still a little sore from last weekend's HM. A line of thunderstorms just blew through here bringing cooler air in behind 'em, so tomorrow's plan is to run the covered bridge route on the roads and climb the hill beyond the bridge before turning back. I need to run more hills...lol Also looked at another HM being run next month. Registration fee was 50 bucks, but then you had to commit to raising another 75 bucks in donations. I just want to race, not fund raise, it's ridiculous what some race directors expect for putting on a race...
Az... you've gotten in some nice training miles lately, eh? Your knee sounds like my heel, only worse. My heel acted up a bit the day after the HM, but during the race was quiet and has calmed back down since. All things considered, I was happy with my time at the HM, I really just wanted to get to the end, then take advantage of the fitness boost from it for the shorter 5K's coming up soon.
Art... those little 3 - 4 milers are a nice way to start your day. Too bad about your weather, but the clock's ticking, pretty soon now things will start to cool. And yeah, I need to start riding the tryke more. I've been focused on running for most of the Summer, but my legs have bulked up a little, so it's time to get back to rowing again...lol