Giving Thanks After a Tough Running Year

When I was a was a twenty-something runner, I figured my knees would be totally shot by the time I reached age 40, and could no longer run. I was wrong on two counts. First, my knees weren't shot when I turned 40, and now at age 49, I've been running a lot since. But while my knees have been mostly fine in my 40's, it's my hips that have given me problems. The upshot from thinking long ago I'd be done by age 40 is that every race is now is a gift. That's still true, even though this year I've spent most of the time either battling hip injuries or recovering from them.

It was with this mindset that entered the Applied Materials Silicon Valley Turkey Trot this past Thanksgiving with a slightly bad wheel. My right hip which gave me problems in October's Healdsburg Wine Country Half-Marathon had recovered some, but was still sore. The goal was just to go out, find a good pace, hold on, stay competitive, and finish strong. I wore a watch to monitor pace, but went in with no time goal. A well run race, getting the most out of your fitness level, is it's own reward.

Even with a bad hip and reduced expectations, the morning reminded me about everything I still love about racing. The nervous anticipation building up to the start. Being a part of the surge of humanity released by the "Boom!" of the starting pistol. Running in the tightly packed herd, punctuated by foot strikes and heavy breathing, in the early miles. Finding ways to overcome the doubt as fatigue sets in around the halfway point. The battle towards the end and the fight all the way through to the finish line. The post-race comrade of strangers who all just experienced their own personal journeys through the course.  The feeling of accomplishment after giving just about everything I had. All of that happened one more time.

I figure I've run well over 350 races over 36 years in my life, and while a lot has changed over that time, a lot has also stayed the same. I've never grown tired of it. In fact, as I get older, I appreciate it even more. So this past Thanksgiving was time for giving thanks for a lot of things, and being able to race once again was a big part of that.

Hill running crash course at Quicksilver

Looking up one of the many hills
at Alamaden Quicksilver Park

As I try to find ways to break routine in my running, Sunday I ran the hills of San Jose's Almaden Quicksilver Park for the first time in over a year.  There is no flat at Quicksilver. You're either running up a hill or running down one. No two footsteps are the same and your legs are constantly dealing with the force of gravity in all sorts of new directions not normally experienced on flat residential streets. That's why trail running over terrain like Quicksilver is a great way to develop strength and balance. I also noticed imbalances and slight flaws in my running form over the hills I'll be working on over the next few weeks to correct.

I'm going to need good hill fitness since I've signed up for the Healdsburg Wine Country Half-Marathon this October 29th and the course has a couple good sized hills on it: A tough 140 foot climb to start the first 0.6 miles of the race and a steep, 160 foot climb between the 8.6 and 9.6 mile marks that will probably make or break the race. So you'll probably see more of me on the Quicksilver trails and doing hill repeats on some of the highway overpasses in and around my hometown of Campbell.

Hills are tough taxing and tedious. They also make you a better runner.

Getting off the mat and into Bay to Breakers

Tortillas litter the ground on the
Bay to Breakers Starting Line

There's the old sports cliche', it's not about getting knocked down, it's how you get off the mat. I'd say I got off the mat rather slowly and deliberately after shredding my left hip in the Napa Valley Marathon last March. It took nearly four weeks after the marathon before I tried running again, and that just a slow hobble of a lap around a track for a grand total of 1/4 mile.  From there, I slowly, and at times painfully, built up from there to a half mile, then one mile, then two miles, and finally 3-4 miles started feeling pretty manageable. I'm not sure which were tougher: Those 20 miler training runs for the marathon, or those 3 mile runs on a day my left hip could only hold together for about a mile.

I was already signed for Bay to Breakers since last fall, so recovering enough to tackle the mid-May 12 kilometer race was the goal.  Day after day of careful runs and twisting myself into bunch of odd, awkward positions to stretch and strengthen the hip, I finally got to the point of completing 8 mile run with hip holding up pretty well. So was pretty confident I could handle whatever Bay to Breakers could throw at me.

And handle it I did. Bay to Breaker is one big San Francisco-themed mob scene of a race, a flow of humanity from the east side of the city to the western edge of Golden Gate Park. The idea was to just go with that flow. I had a modest goal of finishing under 7:30 per mile pace, a little less modest goal of finishing under 7:15 per mile pace, but basically, I just wanted to put in a strong effort for 7.45 miles. At the top of Hayes Hill, a check of my watch had me at just over 7:30 pace at three miles and I wasn't feeling so good. Not an encouraging sign, but I just kept working on getting my knees up, found a second wind, and started zipping through the latter downhill miles in sub-7:00 minute pace, finishing in 52:45 with little soreness in my hip the whole way. That's something like 7:04 per mile pace, faster than I figured to do. I'll take it.

Next race up, Santa Cruz's Wharf to Wharf on the fourth Sunday of July. I'll leave you with a few pictures from Bay to Breakers I snapped with my iPhone.

Tortillas fill the air at the starting line

Star Wars costumes were popular.  Just ahead of me
were a bunch of fast Princes Leia's

Folks are queued up for the beer lunge

A race well run calls for a beer.

The Milestone Pod : Some good running data to be had from this little gizmo

It just sits there laced into my shoe, dormant and barely noticeable, until a few rapid shocks spring it into action. It's the Milestone Pod, one of these new wearable fitness gadgets the Milestone folks asked me to try out for review. You don't need to do a thing to get a good running data from it. That's exactly the way Milestone CEO Jason Kaplan wants it, who says "We're trying to create an experience for runners while doing nothing." It retails for about 25 bucks and doesn't require the hassle of carrying a smart phone around on your run, making it one of the better running gadget values out there.

Milestone Pod App Interface

Here's how the pod works. You simply lace it into your shoes, and the pod starts counting any small shocks as foot strikes and when it counts 100 or more foot strikes a minute for six minutes, it figures I've started my run and captures those last six minutes of accelerometer data. If my running cadence drops below 100, the pod thinks I must stuck at a traffic light, taking a quick drink, or otherwise stopped running for a spell and doesn't include that data into the run. Once my cadence falls below 100 strikes a minute for six minutes, the pod considers the run over.

Once all that run data is captured, I upload it wirelessly to my phone using the Milestone Pod app which crunches the numbers and displays various metrics related to running speed and form. The app displays running form metrics including cadence, stride length, how long my foot is in contact with the ground (stance time), rate of impact, and leg swing as a function of running pace. It also calculates the overall distance covered in the run.

I've found these results most useful as a reality check on recovery/maintenance runs as well as long runs. The pod tells me a lot about these slower paced runs like how fast I actually went and what my form was like. If I feel ragged the day after a hard workout, the pod usually picks that up by measuring longer stance time and reduced leg swing. There's a "Runficiency" metric the biomechanical engineers at Milestone cooked up to determine an overall level of running efficiency that seems to do a good job in telling me when I'm having a good day form wise, or when I need to be working on lifting my knee a little higher.

Towards the end of this run, my stance time went
down and my paced quickened

Having an all knowing pod on my foot has caused me to be more conscious about form, and have found myself thinking "Reduce that stance time"  or "Keep your knees up" during a run rather than simply thinking "Run faster".  Wouldn't you know, once I get home and download the data, I invariably find that when these form modifications results in running faster with little or no perceptible change in effort. Success!

The pod also generates good results for track workouts or tempo runs where my pace reaches or exceeds race pace, which for me is in the 6:00-7:00 per mile range. Of course for this kind of fast running, you really need real time feedback from a watch, so the pod is more of an additional, "after the fact" tool to see how the workout went. One thing I noticed on these workouts was the pod always calculated a shorter distance than I actually covered at these faster paces. A test with a couple runs at 6:10 / mile pace and 7:00 / mile pace on a track confirmed this.  While the pod's distance calculations when I ran at 8:00 / mile or slower pace were pretty accurate, at 7:00 / mile pace the pod calculates a distance about 8%  shorter than I actually ran, and at 6:10 / mile pace, it under counts distance by 15%.

I shared these results with Milestone Pod CEO Jason Kaplan, who acknowledged this could be a limitation of the pod.  As he explains, "Out of the box, the Milestone Pod is more accurate at moderate to lower speeds than high speeds. We offer calibration which makes the Pod accurate for runners at any speed. However, because we calculate distance based on footstrike and gait characteristics, if your form changes as you increase of decrease speed, then we may lose some accuracy. For some, the Pod will remain accurate at any speed if their gait characteristics remain relatively stable even thought their speed changes."

It should be noted my gait is not typical as I run almost exclusively on my toes. At any rate, this wasn't a deal breaker for me even though many important workouts are run at varying speeds, which the pod won't measure completely accurately, no matter how I calibrate it. Thus, it will require more interpretation of the data as I look over the graphs to see how my form was during these workouts.

As running gadgets go, I'm a lot like the Amish. I adapt pretty slowly to the latest running technology. Having run for 35 years, running success is mostly about hard work and effort, and you're not going to get that from any gadget. However, the right tools provide the information to expend that hard work in the right direction. I'm training for the Napa Valley Marathon this coming March and the Milestone Pod will undeniably help me get to the finish line.

Big Sur Half-Marathon at Monterey Bay: Not exactly what I had in mind

My running stuff ready to go Sunday morning

Well, it's over.  After twelve weeks of work directed towards this race, it came and went in just under and hour and a half.  I could give you a blow by blow of how the race went, but I doubt you'd want to read it, and I can remember too much about it anyway.  I vaguely remember something about going out in 6:15-6:20 per mile pace for the first few mile as planned.  Then, around mile 8 on the rolling hills and fighting the slight breeze off the ocean, I seem to recall slowing to 6:30 pace and then it started getting worse.  I dragged my butt through the last couple miles to finish 1:26:11 which isn't really that bad a time, since I finished 1:25:57 last year.  But obviously, I would have run a faster time with a slightly slower start and better pacing and

For the past couple years, I been training pretty seriously for a spring half-marathon and then a fall half-marathon and I'm ready for a break.  I'll still be running, but I'm looking forward to running a few shorter races rather than one big one.

No more big deep thoughts today, I'm still pretty tired.

12 Weeks to the Big Sur Half-Marathon: The Journey Begins

Start of last year's Big Sur Half-Marathon in Monterey
(Photo from Big Sur Marathon Events) 

"The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare"

-Juma Ikangaa

This quote from Tanzanian distance running legend Juma Ikangaa seems the ideal way to start a new series on this blog. Twelve weeks from now I'll be running the Big Sur Half-Marathon in Monterey.  As any runner knows, it takes a lot to prepare for a half- marathon, whatever your ability.  For many of us runners, taking the journey to reach a mountain top of our own making is why we do what we do.

This fall, that journey is to finish the half-marathon in 1:22, a 6:15 per mile pace.    Last year, I ran the Big Sur Half-Marathon in just a tad under 1:26, about 6:32 per mile pace. No question running a 1:22 will be difficult, but after carefully considering some of the runs and races I've done this year, it's doable.  I'd still be pretty happy if I ran 1:23, about 6:25 per mile pace but 1:22 is the target.   Six weeks before the Monterey Half-Marathon, I'll run the Bridge to Bridge 12k in San Francisco both as a racing tune-up and reality check.

I'm going to start a weekly diary of sorts, posting each week on my running experiences and thoughts leading up the race.  Rather than a tedious tally of each day's run, I hope to both inject a sense of purpose into the quest, and share with you the people, the places, and the things encountered along the way.  Sometimes, I'll describe a certain aspect of the training. Other times I'll introduce you to other runners, either long time training partners or anonymous runners who've gained a certain familiarity as they go by in the opposite direction each morning on the trails.  There will be a few random observations about things as they enter my mind. And with some luck, I won't be writing about any injuries.

The goal is to share my little world within the strange tribe of runners to give other runners added direction, comradery and inspiration while showing non-runners the purpose for doing these crazy things.   Ought to be interesting, should be fun and as always, I never quite know where this will take me.  Hope you join me for the ride.

Nothing to say "Dammit" about

My performance at the Dammit Run called for a celebration beer

I'm standing there five minutes before the start of the Los Gatos Dammit Run and it feels like a high school race.  Maybe that's because this five mile race starts on a high school track.  Or perhaps it's because a few high school cross-country teams show up to test their fitness before the season starts.  I don't see a lot of old guys like myself, just a bunch of eager kids ready to have fun and test themselves over the varied and at times very hilly five mile course.

For me, the race a bit of a test of my summer time fitness to see where I stand going into the fall.  Of course, this race has long been one of my favorites.  I first ran it 13 years ago when I was 50 pounds heavier than I am now and have done it 5-6 times since then.  There's always a fun atmosphere and the crazy course, which runs over every possible running terrain know to man in the span of just 5 miles makes this race worth coming back for.  Who needs to run on a boring PR courses? 

The gun goes off and we're off and running a lap around the Los Gatos High School track.  Then we zig-zag our way around the high school grounds before meeting up with the Los Gatos Creek Trail, where the race takes on a cross-country nature as the field churns through the gravel trail.  At this point, I'm just trying to set a decent pace and get comfortable, knowing the challenging part of the race is yet to come.  I come through the first mile in just under 6:00 pace, a little too fast.

Easing off a little, I'm feeling pretty comfortable and just before the steep hill to conclude the second mile.  Turning to the high school kid running next to me, I say "Now the race really starts" as we take on a steep, 50 yard gravel incline.  I pass through mile 2 in 12:40.

Now the fun really begins.  The course runs cross-wise up the Lexington Dam, ascending maybe 150 yards and after a brief 150 yard respite on a paved road, their another 1/4 mile steep uphill before it's all downhill back to Los Gatos on a roller coaster ride of trails and the streets of Los Gatos.  On that last steep uphill, a whole bunch of high school kids start ganging up on me, either passing or surrounding me in a big pack.  I find a little opening in the pack and get a second wind and push my way past a few.  I complete the third mile in 8:40.

Getting over the last hill, I open the throttle on the rolling down hills, passing a few here and there, putting on the brakes slightly at times to keep my legs underneath me to prevent a full face plant.  I'm working hard and running well, hitting well under 6:00 per mile pace.   Getting to the Los Gatos High School Track and going once around it for the finish  pressing as hard as I can, this high school kid blows right by me.  I just couldn't find that extra gear to go with him.  Still, I look up and the clock heading to the finish and see 33:00, and get pretty excited.  My "A" goal was to finish in 33:20, my "B" goal in 33:40.  I cross the line in 33:15, a full minute faster than last year.  Mission accomplished!

Not much else to say.  I'm clearly in better shape than a year ago and now starting to focus on the Big Sur Half-Marathon on Monterey Bay.  That race isn't until November so I've got plenty of time to get better, but have to say I'm pretty happy with how I'm running now.

Everyone milling about before the start of the Dammit Run

Getting Back to Wharf to Wharf

It's been five long years since I've run the Wharf to Wharf race in Santa Cruz. This six mile race of 15,000 people winding through Santa Cruz serenaded by something like 20 bands along the way used to be one of my big "circle the calendar" races a bunch of my hard core training friends and I used to shoot for.  Unfortunately, all that hard training caused injuries to start piling up by the time I got to the starting line in both the 2008 and 2009 races, turning them into pretty big disappointments.

I can't remember much about the 2009 race.  My only real memory of it is hobbling through mile 3, feeling pretty fried with half of the race yet to go. There on the side of the road was this punk band, the heavily tattooed lead singer screaming a bunch of completely unintelligible lyrics into the microphone, finally punctuating it with a simple "Fuck it".  That pretty much summed up the race as far as I was concerned.

That was five years ago.  It was time to go back.  I've spent a few years correcting a hip and leg imbalance that was causing a lot of those injuries and modifying my training to get to the line healthy.  I still train with basically the same crew, but we've mellowed out a little over the years, getting slower as we've all gotten older.  Summer these days is a time to rest from my spring half-marathon before gearing up for the fall.  So while Wharf to Wharf still gets the adrenaline flowing, it's not what it used to be.

This year, I just wanted to put in a good effort, enjoy the bands along the course, and savor a post race beer or two.  The plan was to go out at 6:00 per mile pace and simply try to hold that.  I did a good job of hitting this goal pace and the first mile seemed pretty easy.  So did the second mile, which has a good sized hill in it, so that was pretty encouraging.  I get to the third mile and well, the six minute pace started to get difficult.  Then I started really laboring and over the last three miles were pretty I fell 10-20 seconds off six minute mile pace.  While it was encouraging that a six minute pace seemed pretty easy early on, I was equally surprised how quickly things felt apart.  It probably means I need to work on tempo runs to increase my lactate threshold pace as those first three miles filled my legs with muscle mucking lactic acid.

My official finish was 37:03, 6:10/mile pace which was good for 175th overall and 25th in the men's 40-49 age group which is still a pretty good showing if you ask me.  In a couple weeks I'll take on the Los Gatos Dammit Run before turning my attention the Big Sur Monterey Bay Half-Marathon in November.  I'm shooting for 1:22 at the Monterey Half-Marathon which is around 6:15 per mile pace, so this off-season race shows I have that in me.  Now it's time to put in the hard work to make that a reality.

GPS Data on this year's Wharf to Wharf displayed on MapMyRun.com

Bay to Breakers: I can't beat 'em so I'll join 'em

Trying to hold it together at the half-way point at Bay to Breakers
I'm the guy on the far left (Photo by Leigh-Ann Wendling)

In the past, I have not had the kindest things to say about the Bay to Beakers race held each May in San Francisco.  From afar, Bay to Breakers always seemed like some huge mob scene,  a mass of San Francisco style exhibitionism that had over taken an event which once upon a time had been a running race. But as I often say, "Don't criticize what you don't understand".   So when a friend asked my wife and I to join her for the 2014 running of Bay to Breakers, I agreed.  I figured I should at least try to understand this race for myself so decided to finally experience it once and for all.

And yes, I had a blast.  The crowds were full of an enthusiastic energy all the runners easily fed off of. It certainly got me going, as I "high fived" a few spectators along the way.   Bay to Breakers actually felt like a race, not some big crazy party drowning out the running part.   There's something special and hallowed about running the historic race course that's been run since 1912, which has emerged as the site of one of San Francisco's major cultural events. Whatever Bay to Breakers was going to throw at me, I was going to do my best to simply embrace that moment.

As for the course itself, it was an interesting challenge.  The first 2 1/2 miles were mostly flat before hitting the Hayes Street Hill, a series of steep uphills for a few blocks before the course meanders downhill for the last 4 1/2 miles, finishing at the western edge of Golden Gate Park.  My goal was to hit 6:10-6:15 pace and to take it easy for the first couple miles to save something for Hayes Street Hill, and then attack on the downhill.

Of course, you know how that first "conservative mile" went.  I busted it out at 5:55.  Putting on the brakes bit over the second mile, I struggled up the Hayes Street Hill and was getting pretty worried I was in a lot of trouble as I slowly worked it up the hill as other runners moved past me.  But I pulled myself together, got a good pace going through Golden Gate Park working the downhills and finished in 47:09 over the 12 kilometer distance (6:20 per mile pace), good for 199th overall and 9th in the 45-49 male age group.

If you ask me, that calls for a post-race beer.

Exploring the Mysterious Marin County Half-Marathon

There are races to run because everyone you know has run them and they become a shared and familiar experience.  Then there are races to run because no one you know runs them which become slightly mysterious explorations.  Such was the case when I signed up for the Marin County Half-Marathon, a smallish half-marathon run on the roads and trails in China Camp State Park just east of San Rafael held yesterday.  A few people I know had heard about this race, but no one knew had actually run it.  I hadn't been to China Camp State Park in nearly eight years and hadn't been on any of the trails there, so didn't know much of what to expect.

The view of San Francisco Bay from China Camp State Park
(Photo Credit Wikipedia Commons)

My fitness seemed pretty good.  A couple of 4 mile tempo runs in the last month at 5:50-5:55 per mile pace range, 7-12 seconds faster than last fall, were encouraging.  Plenty of 14 mile runs, with 15 and 16 mile runs thrown made the 13.1 mile half-marathon distances seem pretty manageable.  Coming off a 1:25:57 in last November's Monterey Half-Marathon, which corresponds to a 6:32 per mile pace, the plan was to go out in 6:25 mile pace for the  Marin County race.  Especially since the last six miles of the Marin County Half-Marathon covered moderately rugged trails through the State Park, including the dreaded "Hammer Hill" mentioned on the race website around mile 11. My wife and I drove the road part of the course the evening before to scout out the course ahead of time, but we had no idea what awaited us for the last six mile once we got off the roads and onto the trails for the second half of the race.  So I kept telling myself, take it easy, keep the pace conservative at 6:25 in order to take on what the course was going to dish out on the trails. 

Of course, when the starting horn sounded, I blew out the first mile in 5:56.  I did my best to ease off the throttle, trying to relax and take in all the great views of the San Francisco Bay off to my right.  But I didn't slow down much and came through first seven miles over rolling hills at 43:50, a little over 6:15 pace.   At this point, I'm in fifth place, maybe 45 seconds behind the first female runner.  The guys in front of me all look under 40 years old, so I figured at this point, I'm the top masters runner. That's looking good if I can hold onto that, I'm thinking.

At this point, the course changes dramatically from a rolling paved road to a trail through the woods.  I look up and the first thing I see are switch backs ascending up a hill ahead and my legs are beginning to really feel those first seven miles.  I work through the switchbacks and come through the uphill mile 8 at 7:46.  I'm hanging in there but wishing I held back a little more at the beginning.  The next mile is downhill, but rocks, ruts, and sharp turns force my gaze to the ground to find good footing.  I come through mile 9 at 6:46 and look up to see glimpses of the top female runner ahead through the trees and underbrush.  "Let's try and catch her", I say to myself.

Every time I pick up the pace and pull her in, I start going heavier into oxygen debt, can't sustain the pace, and fall back.  The hills aren't getting any easier, and the next miles are all well over 7 minute pace.  I make it to mile 10, and around 10 1/2 miles, the course starts going uphill, and I figure that's the vaunted "Hammer Hill".  I keep working up the hill for another quarter mile before the trail descends.   That wasn't so bad, and I'm thinking  "So much for Hammer Hill."

Then I get to mile 11 and there's a sign saying "Start of Hammer Hill".  Hammer Hill is a series of three or four steep switch backs leading to a more gradual upgrade that lasts for another half mile.  Not a killer hill, but at this point, I'm pretty fried.  Getting over the top, it's all down hill to the finish line along the San Francisco Bay shore at McNear's Beach.  I've got a good stride going and can see I'm reeling in the top female runner ahead of me, but it's clear I'm not going to catch her by the time she gets to the finish line.  The finish line clock says 1:26:03, but my Garmin watch says 1:26:59 and says "12.95 miles", so it looks like the course is a little short.  I maintained fifth place overall, and finished first in the male master's division.  Mission accomplished!

Enjoying an Alter Boy Belgian Pale Ale
at Marin Brewing

I tend to over analyze things, so instead of kicking myself for going out a little too fast, I'll just say this effort was clearly better than the Monterey Half-Marathon where I ran a 1:25:57 last November over a much less challenging course.  And that race was definitely better than the Santa Cruz Half-Marathon I covered in 1:28:26 in April of 2013.  So over the past year, it's clear my training is going in the right direction. 

So with the Marin County Half-Marathon in the books, it was time to enjoy some post-race beers at Marin Brewing, rest up for a few days, and start getting ready for Bay to Breakers next month.

Let's Run Two? Tackling The Double Road Race in San Jose

Baseball great Ernie Banks was well known for saying "Let's Play Two!" as part of his infectious enthusiasm and love for the game of baseball.  The Double Race series, a brainchild of legendary Runner's World founder Bob Anderson channels Ernie Banks's zest for baseball into the road running arena. It involves a 10k run and then a second 5k run the same morning, the two starting times separated by an hour and forty five minutes.  Now what do you suppose Ernie Banks would think about The Double Race?

Before you answer that, I should tell you that odds enough, I actually ran a 10k race with Ernie Banks back when I was a high school freshman.   Banks retired from baseball 10 years earlier and was there to support the charity putting on the 10k fundraiser.   Ernie Bank fleetness on the baseball field had clearly left him by that time, as he slowly lumbered from the starting line after the starting gun went off.  At the finish, Ernie Banks was nowhere to be found, suggesting that when it came to running at age 50, Banks was in no mood to "just run one".

Chicago Cub Baseball Legend Ernie Banks

I was set to "run two" as I lined up last Saturday morning for the 10k to start at The Double Race event in San Jose.  Never having run this type of event before, I was like a lot of runners, totally unfamiliar with this novel concept and guessing how to best to pace myself.  Should I run the 10k as hard as possible and try to survive the 5k?  Or hold back in the 10k and lose some time on those running it hard, but make up for it in the 5k?    I settled on a strategy of trying to make the first 10k as boring as possible. That meant no big moves or accelerations, very little racing, and to just go out and hold a consistent pace around my estimated anaerobic threshold to keep my legs from getting too worn down and saturated with lactic acid.

The good news is that's basically what I did.  The  10k course consisted of two 5k loops around a South San Jose industrial park and I hit the first three miles in 6:15 pace coming through the first 5k around 19:15.  The hill on the second mile of the loop course got to me the second time around, and I slowed to something around a 6:40 mile on mile five.  Recovering on the downhill to the finish, I caught a couple people who were huffing and puffing like steam engines, suggesting my even pacing strategy was paying off.  One of those I passed looked like he was a fellow member of one of the old guy age divisions, so I started pushing a little to put some extra distance between us. Coming through the 10k finish in 38:55 was not as fast as I was hoping for, but it was still good for 13th overall at that point.   I was feeling pretty good about how I set myself up for the 5k in a little over an hour.

My GPS watch after the 10k
(GPS watches are known to measure about 2% short)

The Double Race had a Recovery Zone which, in addition to water, fruit and other snacks, was full of massage therapists and physical therapists with various gadgets and do-dads eagerly waiting to knead, compress, and manipulate tired running muscles to get ready for the 5k.  Having other ideas, I grabbed a bottle of water and a banana and got myself out of there.  As good as a massage sounded at the time, it's not something I normally do to recover, and this didn't seem like a good time to experiment with recovery aids.  I just kept walking, hydrating myself, stretching and jogging around for the next hour finding way to keep loose, burn off lactic acid and kill time.  Surprisingly, I was feeling pretty good as the 5k start rolled around.

With 10 minutes to go, I started grooving to the Creedence Clearwater Revival songs the band was playing while getting ready mentally ready for the 5k  lactic acid extravaganza. The  increased tension in the air throughout the starting line for the 5k compared to the 10k was palpable, and as the horn sounded releasing the field for the final 5k, everyone charged off the line.   I was gasping for breath trying to hold a six minute mile pace. Virtually all of my training over the past few months, geared towards a half-marathon, had been at a slower pace, so I just tried to hang on and keep the legs moving kept this up until the hill at mile 2 when I really started dragging.

Getting over the hill and pushing hard downhill to the finish, I tried to pull away from this younger looking guy and thought I had him, until he put on this incredible finish over the last 100 meters and crossed the finish line just in front of me, where he promptly collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.  Give the man credit, I worked the last mile hard trying to pull away from him but he just refused to be beaten.  With a 19:08 5k, I again finished 13th overall in the 5k, and the combined time 58:04 was good for 13th overall out of 233 finishers, 1st in the Men's 45-49 division, and 3rd Men's Master (over 40).  Afterwards, I did go to the recovery zone and got a really good stretch and even a chiropractic adjustment.  I felt so good, I was almost ready to run a third race after that.  I said almost.

As for The Double Run concept, I liked the change of pace from one continuous long run and the additional pacing and racing strategy and preparation involved with it's broken into two races.  A sense of familiarity arose between us as we all soldiered through the 10k, recovery and 5k that doesn't happen with a standard race.   Let's Run Two?  Why not!

Runners in the Recovery Zone

Big Sur Monterey Half-Marathon: The Privilege of Being a Runner

The Start of the Monterey Bay Half-Marathon
(Photon from Big Sure International Events)

I'll do my best not to be one of those runners that bore you with all their training and race performances.  Yesterday, I ran the Monterey Bay Half-Marathon, and let's just say I ran pretty well.  I've been running for over 30 years and at age 46, I can still compete in events like the Monterey Bay Half-Marathon which are every bit as competitive as any race I ran in high school or college.  How many high school or collegiate athletes, outside of runners, can say that?

I finished in 1:25:57 and according to my Garmin watch, the "half-marathon" course was 13.3 miles, so this roughly translated to a 1:24:40 half-marathon.  The weather was ideal, the scenery along the Monterey Peninsula Cost was spectacular.    I finished in the top 100 and fifth in my 46-49 age group.   Hope you'll forgive the bragging, but it's nice to know at my age, I'm not too old for this shit.  It's days like these that remind me I hope to be running until the day I die.

The "Let's Go 510k": No More Horsing Around with a Toe Injury

And they're off at the Let's Go 510!  Look closely and you can
see me in the middle with the grey singlet
(Photon from Brazen Racing)

I found myself walking up to the starting line of the Let's Go 510 10k thinking, "Just try to finish".  If I ever went to the starting line in any race with the goal to simply finish in any race in my 30+ years of running, I can't remember.  Of course, finishing any distance race is an accomplishment in itself, but I've been fortunate to complete all but one of the nearly thousand races I've ever entered.

The source of my concern wasn't my fitness, the race distance, the course, or the weather conditions.  It was my little left index toe.

For the past couple weeks, I've felt great in my half-marathon training leading up to the Monterey Bay Half-Marathon in November, but my little index toe on my left foot had other ideas.  A couple weeks ago, I'd notice it would be sore at the end of runs.  Then, a few days later, the pain would start to flare up 5-6 miles into a run.    I never gave it too much mind and really didn't do things like ice it down like you're supposed to do to keep it from getting worse.   Before I knew it, it would start hurting after a mile of running and the pain during a simple 6 or 8 mile run would require me to stop every 2-3 miles to flex my toe and let the pain subside a bit so I could manage to get home.  Some time off and sort runs of 2-4 miles helped but it was still hurting. There I was at the starting line of a race I signed up for weeks ago as a tune-up four weeks before the Monterey Half-Marathon.  The idea when I signed up for this race weeks ago was this 10k was be a test of my fitness with four weeks to go before the half-marathon.   Instead, it turned out to be a wake up call on just how bad my toe had gotten and how little I had really done to treat the injury. .  "If you can't run a 10k now, how are you going to do a half-marathon in four weeks?" I was asking myself sitting in my car putting on my racing flats, fifteen minutes before the start.

The crowd was excited enough from the fun atmosphere surrounding Berkeley's Golden Gate Fields horse race track where the race stared and finished.  "Here's goes nothing," I thought as the starting gun went.   I felt OK through the first mile, with just a dull ache in my toe and came through the first mile in 6:03.  A little too fast, but I concentrated on maintaining 6:10 pace as we ran alongside the Berkeley Marina and into Cesar Chavez Park, coming through mile 2 in an encouraging 6:07, the toe increasingly feeling more sore.   A guy in the East Bay spirit of things wearing an Oakland Raiders t-shirt pulled up to me and we battled through the slightly uphill third mile in 6:22, the toe feeling worse but still bearable.  I was actually more concerned with my faltering pace and holding off the Oakland Raiders guy than my toe at that pint and pulled away from him around mile 4, coming through in 6:10.  Not only was I pulling away from that guy, but my toe was actually feeling a little better and I'm thinking, "Hey, I'm going to finish this thing."


That's me on the Golden Gate Field Horse Track.
I'm going to finish!  (Photon from Brazen Racing)

Unfortunately, my reduced fitness due to backing off with the injury showed in the last couple miles, as Oakland Raiders caught and passed me big time just before mile 5, and I struggled through the last mile, slogging to the finish on the Golden Gate Fields Horse Track in 39:01.  But h, that still took 11th overall and first place for the old guys 46-49 age group, and that's still pretty good.

The rest of day I got serious about icing my toe every couple hours and also started applying Zim's Max Freeze, this gel I got as a free sample a fews months ago from the Zim's Max Freeze folks in hopes I would promote it on this blog which I never got around to really testing.  The day after the race, the toe handled an 8 mile training run OK so it looks like I've turned the corner with the toe injury and more diligence, I should get to the Monterey Bay Half-Marathon starting line OK.  And since Max Freeze seems to be part of the solution, I'll say "Thanks Max Freeze".

So time to get this toe thing straightened out and bring on the Monterey Bay Half-Marathon!

Answering the Burning Fall Racing Questions

No doubt you're all tossing and turning each night, unable to sleep wondering what races I'll be running this fall.  Well let me break that awesome suspense and tell you I've signed up for the Let's Go 510k, a 10k in Berkeley October 19th as a tune-up for the big "circle the calendar race", the Big Sur Half-Marathon on Monterey Bay this November 17th.  The Let's Go 510k runs around the Berkeley Marina and has a unique finish on the Golden Gate Fields Horse Race Track, the Big Sur Half-Marathon runs mostly along the Monterey Bay coastline, offering plenty of views of waves crashing into rocks in spectacular fashion.

I'm looking forward to the Let's Go 510k because I'm a big believer in a tune-up race 2-4 weeks before the big goal race.  Tune-up races serve as a reality check of how the training is really going,  and the Berkeley 10k should provide a means to establish a sensible opening pace for the Big Sur Half-Marathon.

So far, training for the Monterey Bay Half-Marathon is going well.  I'm up to about 45 miles a week, more than I was doing weekly in preparation for the Santa Cruz Half-Marathon I ran last April.   I'm still doing the Eric Orton core and form workouts and they continue to pay off in improved running efficiency and injury prevention.  I'm also doing a lot of tempo running, including the long distance tempo runs I wrote about previously to get ready.  Stay tuned, because I'll be writing about one of my favorite work-outs, the four mile track tempo run shortly.

Sure, I'll admit this is a pretty self-centered post with a very high density of self-referencing links.  But if I can't write about myself at least once in a while, what's the point of writing a blog?

My old friend Dammit

Runners milling about at the finish on the Los Gatos High School Track

It had been five years since I last run the Dammit Run when I settled in at the starting line on the Los Gatos High School track yesterday.   Every year there was some injury or comflict that kept me out of this race, and finally running "The Dammit"  was like reconnecting with an old quirky friend.

Who ever laid out the five mile Dammit Run course forty years ago was a diabolical genius.  The race starts easy enough, with a lap around Los Gatos High School's synthetic all-weather track before weaving through a parking lot and athletic fields onto the gravel Los Gatos Creek Trail.  The next mile on the gently winding, slightly uphill trail is easy enough, but then there's a short, steep hill at mile two.  One you get over that hill, there's a flat section, then steep down hill to the foot of the Lexington Reservoir Dam.   You then take a paved trail diagonally across the Dam, climbing upwards from the bottom corner to the top, and then after a couple hundred yards on a street, take a rocky trail where immediately a steep ascent with uneven footing greets you.  Get to the top of that and you've finally made it to mile 3.  Then it's a roller coaster ride to the finish, with descents down rugged hills before you hit the streets of Los Gatos and finish back on the high school track. 

Everyone's performance captured and tagged

There's never a dull moment in races like these.  Your senses have to be alert to dodge telephone poles and drainage grates along the course.  Mental restraint is needed to hold back on the easy parts at the beginning to save up for the hills later in the race.  And of course, focus and concentration is required to get you up the steep hills, and wrong step on the downhill last two miles is a face plant waiting to happen.  Despite all this, everyone seems to have a blast at this race.  Maybe that's because most people go out and just have a good time running, rather than stressing out on every little detail like me.

Not only did I not want to miss out on the Dammit Run this year, I used it to gauge my early fitness as I begin training for the Monterey Half-Marathon, November 17th.  I'll try not to bore you with a tedious play by play.  My legs had the strength to get up the hills pretty well, the problem was I kept going into oxygen debt and really couldn't get moving up them.  I was pretty pleased with how I kept my speed during the rugged descents that I used to wibble-wobble down, and give credit to Eric Orten's form and strengthening exercises I started doing last spring for that improvement.  A time of 34:15 earned me 26th overall, higher up than I expected.   That got me 2nd in my 45-49 age group, good enough to make me pretty optimistic heading towards Monterey, and made those post-race beers taste even better.

Plenty of cookies greeted the runners at the finish. 

Bay to Breakers? I'd Rather Have a Migraine

You won't find me running with guys in
pink gorilla suits this May 19th
(photo credit here)

This coming May 18th, I'll be running the Miles for Migraines 10k rather than Bay to Breakers the following day.  Running Bay to Breakers is worse than suffering a migraine.  In fact, I'd rather have my spleen removed without anesthesia than run Bay to Breakers.

Can you tell I'm tired of answering questions from well meaning non-runners asking "Are you running Bay to Breakers?".  Like many runners, I avoid this race like the plague.   Now I must admit never having run Bay to Breakers myself.   But everything I've heard indicates it's a huge mob of San Francisco-style exhibitionism and excess with some running thrown in for good measure.  No thank you.

Let me be clear, I'm not against the Bay to Breakers.  It's just not for me. If you're doing Bay to Breakers, knock yourself out.   You'll probably have a much better time without old school curmudgeons like me around, anyway. 
 
Lots of runners like to run races to, you know, like actually run.  There's a liberation in going out and running free from the chaos of urban life.  There's a sense of accomplishment in preparing for the challenge and testing yourself on race day.   Many runners have no interest missing out on these experiences stuck in a mob behind a bunch of drunken streakers.  And smaller races like Miles for Migraines also contain a certain familiarity and camaraderie mega-races like Bay to Breakers simply can't capture.

So instead of Bay to Breakers, I'll be running an actual race that weekend.  Have fun without me! 

Santa Cruz Half-Marathon: Somehow, the Planets Aligned

The start of the Santa Cruz Half-Marathon just before near disaster.
I'm the guy in the white singlet in the middle looking down at his watch
(Photo from FirstWave Events's Facebook Page)

One thing I've learned from running is that no matter how hard you work, a stupid thing like an untied shoe lace can bring months of hard training crashing to the ground.  The flip side is sometimes everything just fits into place and you end up running much faster than you had any business doing.  Such was the case in the Santa Cruz Half-Marathon last Sunday, as everything clicked on a gorgeous early spring Sunday.

Not that things could've gone horribly wrong.   When the starting gun fired, my car remote key entry tied into my shoe laces promptly broke off after I taking the first couple steps at the start.  Some how, it got kicked to the side of the road and a spectator picked it up.  Fighting back through the crowd like a single fish swimming against the rest of the school, I plowed my way back to the nice lady who picked it up, yelling "That's my key!" and took it from her hand in a panic, without even thinking to thank her.  Not the best way to start the race, but imagine the other possibilities.  The remote could've got kicked into the middle of the pack where it would be harder to retrieve, or may have not noticed it missing until half way through the race.  All things considered, I got pretty lucky with the whole episode.

A pristine row of porta-potties is
always a welcome site before a
half-marathon

Working my way through the field, I tried to calm down and settle into a good opening pace.  My plan for the early miles was to make sure no mile was faster than 6:45 pace, so of course, I come through the first mile in 6:35.  Telling myself to slow down and relax, I come through mile 2 at 6:40 pace.  So much for my pre-race strategy.

After five miles at 6:40-6:45 pace, I feared I would finally pay the price leaving the smooth asphalt for the uneven dirt and gravel trails of Wilder Ranch on the west edge of Santa Cruz, but I was still living a charmed life, running 6:45-6:31-6:46 for miles 6 through 8.  There were plenty of great views from the trails as we ran along the cliffs high above the ocean, but I only snuck a few peeks.  I've learned the hard way that taking too much scenery on uneven trails is a face plant waiting to happen.

Exiting Wilder Ranch, the course heads back into Santa Cruz the same way we came.   Coming through mile 9, I wasn't too worried about clocking a 6:59 mile since this part of this mile consisted of a series of uphills, especially since I followed that up with a 6:50 on mile 10.  But the hills and the optimistic pace began to really wear me down, and I started running out of gas from there, with the last couple miles a real struggle at 7:00 pace.  Still, at 1:28:26, I averaged 6:45 pace, the upper end of my pre-race goal, despite chasing down my remote entry key which probably cost me at least 10-15 seconds. 

My training the last three months was plagued with a back injury in early February and a bad stomach flu in early March, each setting my training back about 10 days.  I honestly thought breaking 1:30 for the half-marathon on the moderately challenging course would be difficult.  How did I manage doing nearly two minutes better than that?

Apparently, all those 6-12 mile tempo runs really helped, even though the fastest twelve mile tempo run clocked in a 7:09 pace.  A couple eight mile tempo runs at 6:45-6:50 pace within six weeks of the Half-Marathon were probably good preparation as well, since I came through the first eight miles not too much faster than those training runs.   I find long distance tempo runs help create the pace sense and mental discipline required to keep knocking out mile after mile at the same pace and for the first ten miles, so all those runs really paid off.

There was another slight adjustment I made in my life which also seemed to help.   I cut back on my beer consumption a bit the last couple months.  Yes, beer is good, but each beer has a fair amount of calories and tots of calories aren't good for running half-marathons.

While I'm pretty happy with the performance, what held me back was that my longest runs, save for a 14 miler in January, were all 12 miles.   At that distance, I simply wasn't prepared to grind out the last 2-3 miles of a half-marathon.  And my speed work was non-existent, consisting of a single workout of four half-mile intervals so I didn't have the strength to handle the uphills of the ninth miles and hammer thelast four miles after that.

So I'll give myself a little pat on the back for a job well done, thank the running gods for looking favorably upon me that day, and just hope I haven't blown too much running karma for not thanking that lady for picking up my key remote.  I'll take a couple days off, re-evaluate my training, and start going to work for the next race.  I'm thinking of a 10k some time in May.

The festive oceanside finish area

I Run Therefore I Am Still Nuts: Dispatches on the Strange Tribe of Runners

We runners are a strange tribe, no doubt about that.  Author Bob Schwartz captures this strangeness in an entertaining way in his new book I Run Therefore I Am Still Nuts which takes a humorous look at the peculiarities and obsessions of runners and pokes fun at their idiosyncrasies.   As someone who's been running for over 32 years, I can certainly relate when Schwartz writes, “We wear black toenails as medals of distinction, use more Vaseline in a week than quintuplets with diaper rash and chapped lips, and try to convince ourselves that a horrifically painful muscle pull that prevents us from even walking is really nothing more than a temporary cramp."   

As with all good books of this genre, it garners its biggest laughs through its human insights. Of courese, it help that runners willingly, often with great joy, engage in activities that other sensible people would avoid at all costs.  And the book also succeeds in describing "fish out of water" situations, such as my favorite chapter in which the author attends his first yoga class, despite admitting he has the flexibility of concrete.

The book is the sequel to I Run Therefore I Am Nuts!, which Schwartz wrote ten years ago.  Schwartz is the author of five books and a freelance writer whose popular articles have been published in more than 40 national and international running magazines and regional magazines, including Runner’s World and Running Fitness.  He's been running for over 40 years, and maintains the website Running Laughs.

Describing his desire to explore the humorous side of his running passion, Schwartz explains, "I’ve continued to enjoy the pleasures of running and the sometimes humbling nature of it as well.  I can now share those laughs with you from topics that include what occurs when your favorite training shoe is abruptly discontinued, the inability to admit that an injury is truly a big one, the issue of competition and aging, the inherent simplicity of running, running alone versus with others, the concept of schadenfreude, running logs, runner’s high, excuses, barefoot running, and the many peculiar talents runners possess.”

 

Proceeds from will the book will help fund running programs for individuals with physical and mental disabilities, recess running programs for elementary school students, and middle school cross country programs.

(A copy of this book was provided by Human Kinetics for the purposes of this review.)

Ode to my Garmin Watch: Breaking 40 minutes in the Theta Breakers "10k"

Finishers milling about at the Theta Breakers 5k and 10k

Maybe this post going to sound like a commercial for Garmin GPS watches, but I don't care.  A few months ago, I saved up a bunch of "thank you" points on my credit card and got one of those Garmin watches that indicate how far you've run using GPS.  Perhaps in part I was motivated by my last big race, a half-marathon in San Francisco last April where the first few mile markers were clearly wrong and I had no idea what my pace was.   This proved to be a killer in the half-marathon as I ran out of gas miles before the finish line.   I'm a pretty anti-gadget runner, but had to admit if I had one of those fancy GPS watches at the time, the half-marathon would have likely gone a lot differently.

It wasn't until today that I finally had a chance to use it in a race at the Theta Breakers 10k.  The race is in it's 27th year, and is put on by the Stanford University chapter of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority to raise money for Child Advocates of Silicon Valley, which provides court appointed representation of abused and neglected children.   The picturesque course starts next to Stanford Stadium and twists and turns through the university and surrounding Palo Alto  neighborhoods. 

And wouldn't you know the Garmin watch came in handy about a half mile into the race.  After we all take off and run all  the way around Stanford Stadium, I look down at my watch and see my current pace is 5:45.  Considering I was hoping to break 40 minutes for 10k which is about a 6:25 pace, you might say I was going out a wee bit too fast. So I backed it off, but still came through the first mile in a way too ambitious 5:58.

At each critical turn in the race course, there was a helpful and enthusiastic Kappa Alpha Theta sister holding a glittery arrow showing everyone where to go.  There were also cheerful Theta's spaced out at each mile of the course holding signs saying things like "4 miles!!!  You can do it!".  Except according to my Garmin watch, each mile marker was actually about a block or two beyond where the actual mile mark should be located. 

My trusty Garmin watch letting me know the "10k"
was really 0.2 tenths of a mile longer than 10k

So instead of having no clue of how fast I was really running, I came through mile 2 at 6:24 (right on pace), and then an uphill mile 3 at 6:39 (yikes!), and doubt set in as to whether sub-40 minutes was really in the cards.   Hope returned on a downhill mile 4 (6:16) and another slightly downhill mile 5 (6:26).  Pushing hard the last mile to beat the 40 minute 10k goal, I crossed the finish line at 40:37. 

Bad news for the sub-40 quest?   Not really.  The course was actually 6.4 miles according to my Garmin watch, and so the effort was equivalent to a 39:16 10k.  Mission accomplished!  And instead of going home dejected with a "slow" time, I discovered I'm not as slow as I thought, thanks to my new fancy Garmin watch.  (And no, they aren't paying me to say that.) 

And forgive the bragging, but this earned first pace in the male master division, never mind that few old guys show up for sorority races, and the fast old guys were probably running the Rock and Roll Half-Marathon in San Jose that day.  At my age, you realize there are only so many small victories left and it's best to just savor them in the rare moments when they occur.  With a beer, of course.

Another shamelessly posed photo of my sweaty 1st Male Master Finisher certificate,
a frilly bag with a gift card to a fancy San Francisco eatery, and a celebratory beer.