Monthly Archives: March 2008

Race Review: Human Race 8K

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Awhile back I registered for my first Minnesota race – the Human Race 8K, which is part of the USATF Series. The race was also featured at Down the Backstretch – which is a well-known and respected running blog in Minnesota. Here is DtB’s recap and a link to photos.

The race was efficiently run from the beginning. There was a variety of options for registration and I chose using active.com which allowed me to enter my USATF # (and receive the discount) and get everything done pretty quickly. The event was put on by TSL Events (The Sporting Life Events) and hosted at the University of St Thomas in Saint Paul which is a pretty campus.

Packet pick-up was pretty smooth for me – pick up your chip and number and then go get your shirt. You had a variety of options when you registered and could actually choose not to get a shirt – which I kinda wish I hadn’t. I selected a short-sleeve wicking shirt – hoping for a really nice technical shirt. Instead I got a nicely designed “wicking” shirt that almost feels like a t-shirt. It claims to be 100% polyester, but definitely doesn’t feel like my other technical shirts. Oh well, its bright green!

I warmed up with Team MDRA and had a good warm-up and got some advice for running the course. It was a nice course along Summit Ave in St. Paul. You may have heard of Summit Ave because it is also the last stretch of the Twin Cities Marathon and maybe the hardest because of its long uphill. Since this was an out-and-back course the uphill was fine on the return when it was actually a downhill! The course is actually an overall negative course with the finish line actually below the starting line. My Garmin said we lost 29 feet of elevation throughout the course.

The race was won in 24:06 (4:50). My overall time was 31:27, my watch said 31:24 but it was chip-timed so I’ll go with that! My goal was 32 minutes – which I extrapolated from my 10K goal of breaking 40 minutes.

I tried to start out at a decently easy pace since the first mile was mostly uphill. We gained about 50 feet of elevation within the mile. It was hard to let people go by me, but I also knew that I needed to be smart. I saw a couple of the MDRA guys within striking distance and just hung on with them. I thought I crossed the first mile in 6:30, but my watch actually said 6:20. I think if I had known that I might have freaked a little so it was ok! We basically just ran along tree lined streets for the whole race. We ran out did a little loop and ran straight back. Nothing too exciting in the second mile, I tried to stay focused on the MDRA runners ahead of me and maintaining an even pace. I actually passed one of the MDRA guys somewhere near here and I just kept pushing on. My second mile was 6:12, thanks in part to some downhill! I tried to keep it even since I knew we’d have the hill coming back up!

During the third mile we made the loop around a law school and headed for home. We did have some uphill here but I kept forging ahead. I grabbed a quick sip of water at the water stop and still ran a 6:25 mile. For the next mile I could have sworn I ran a lot slower, I was doing mental math trying to figure out what I needed to run the next mile to stay under 6:30 overall pace. I was way off!! I think, that I thought I had just run a 7 minute mile because I came through 4 miles at 25:30 and somehow I thought that was back at 6:30 pace but I was actually still 30 seconds ahead. Or something like that… I don’t know – I’m confusing myself trying to remember what was happening out there!

From about 2.5 to 4 was almost all uphill not very steep but just enough to make you dig in and work a little bit. I came through the 4th mile at 6:34. With the downhill finish I tried to give it everything I had… I worked hard running it out and with about a quarter to go I dropped the hammer. My final .99 miles was 5:51 which is a 5:54 pace. Looking at my Garmin’s pace chart I dropped from a 6:03 pace to a 4:31 pace in the final quarter of the race. Going geeky with the Garmin that is a 76 second last quarter!

The finish was great because we lost about 100 feet of elevation during the last mile which really helped me run a 5:51 0.99 which is a 5:54 actual mile pace. I also laid out a killer kick knocking off at least 5 guys in the last hundred meters or so.

I had a great race, it was fun and a nice atmosphere. It is a different league up here though than running around Anderson. Especially races in the USATF Circuit are going to be hard to pick up any hardware, but I might have to try and find some obscure races in the middle of nowhere to even place in my age group!

It was a beautiful day for racing! The full results are posted here. I finished 139th overall out of 1,033. I got 32 out of 83 in my age division!

UPDATE: Team MDRA placed 6th out of 10 Male USATF Teams and our female counterparts Team Unattached placed 5th out of 8.

[tags] 8k, Road Race, Human Race [/tags]

Half Training: Week Seven

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This is an interesting week – the weather definitely warmed up which continued to create its own unqiue problems and I had a race on Sunday which changed my scheduling a bit. In Indiana there were very few Sunday races so it was never a problem for me to add a race into a training schedule, it usually just replaced or was added into Saturday’s long run. This “dilemma” created some unique problems. I want to be able to race well and see where I am fitness-wise and actually next weekend the schedule called for a 10K time trial. The race is 8K so it is close enough in my opinion. The only problem is that this week had some intense workouts which didn’t necessarily provide a good opportunity to have a mini-taper! As you’ll see the only changes I made were reducing the mileage of one of my easy runs and taking Saturday off.

Monday – Run 7 x 1600 meter repeats at 10K pace or 15 seconds per mile slower than 5K pace. Jog for 800 meters between repeats. Jog for 800 meters to cool down. It was 10 above at 6:40 when I began this workout. I really would like a track for interval work, but the only one I know of is still covered in snow! So I ran these along the Greenway, around Lake of the Isles and Lake Calhoun before heading home. The plan was to run each repeat around 6:26-6:30. I probably sound like a broken record but there is still a significant amount of ice on the trails and some of the sidewalks I ran on. One of these days I won’t have that reason (excuse?) for poor performance! My splits were 6:55, 6:47, 6:39, 6:56, 6:42, 7:12, and 6:35. The 7:12 was almost all on ice covered sidewalks. Only the last one was in a decent range of my goal splits, which means I probably should have taken each one a little harder! Overall I ran 12.34 miles in 1:35:53.

Tuesday – Run 6 miles easy. Run 5 acceleration strides. Per my plan to “taper” into the race I ran 4 miles in 34:38 along the Greenway. It was 33 and sunny at 6:55 when I went running. It was pretty dark actually when I started thanks to Daylight Savings Time!

Wednesday – Run 2 x 400/800/2400 meter supersets. Run 400 meters at 20 seconds per mile faster than 5K pace, 800 meters at 5K pace and 2400 meters at goal half marathon pace. Do not rest between the distances. Recover between the sets with 800 meters at an easy pace. Cool down with 800 meters at an easy pace. Ah, another superset! I’m going to be honest – these sucked, my times sucked. A lot of ice on the Greenway still, the warmer weather felt good but the run just stunk. The goal times were 1:20, 2:53, 10:14 (6:52 pace). Here are my intervals: 1:22, 3:29, 11:36 and 1:40, 3:57, 11:33. HORRIBLE! The total mileage was 6.6 miles in 54:57.

Thursday – Run 4 miles easy. Run 5 acceleration strides. This was my cross-training day. I did 7 miles on the bike again in 28:30. No lifting this week.

Friday – Run 4 miles easy. Run 5 acceleration strides. I ran around noon and did an odd – almost touristy route downtown and along the river for a little bit. It was 4.68 miles in 37:02. It was almost 40 with bright shiny sun!!

Saturday – Run 14 miles. Run the first 10 miles at an easy pace. Run the last 4 miles at goal half marathon pace. As planned I took this as a rest day instead of Sunday, when I’ll race.

Sunday – Rest Day! After some frustrating days running this week I was excited and nervous to see how I would race. I was quite pleased with my first race in Minnesota. I ran the Human Race 8K at 1:20pm in 40 degree weather. I must report that I am very excited about my time! My overall time was 31:27 (officially) which was 33 seconds faster than my goal time! My mile splits were 6:20, 6:12, 6:25, 6:34, and 5:51 (.99 miles). That is all I’ll say for now, so be sure to check back tomorrow for a full race report!

Weekly Totals: 35.5 miles of running for 4:11:52 and 7 miles of biking in 28:30.

[tags] Half Marathon, Training [/tags]

Foto Friday

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More memorabilia – this number is from my Olympic Trials 800 meter run.
Oh wait that never happened! I’m really not sure where I got this number but we raced in Atlanta
and other places that had connections to the Olympics in the past so who knows.
Taken February 2008


[tags] Foto [/tags]

What is your Strategy?

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Image provided by stock.xchng.

Do you have a running strategy? Something like run fast and then run faster or go out hard and finish faster? Mine is run fast and don’t die at the end. Those are more racing strategies than running strategies. When I sit down and think about long-term races and plans – then I “strategize” by picking a training plan, setting a goal, finding a race.

Is that a good strategy? It is definitely a good starting point. But what about a real plan to achieve real success? It takes weeks of training to create a successful race and like any good dessert – there are many ingredients.

Runner’s World offers these 5 parts of strategy:

1. Minimal Training for Optimal Results – I like the sound of that! If you could run a 4-hour marathon by just running 5 miles a day – would you ever do a 20-miler? I’d hope not! While that’s not really possible, we need to make sure we aren’t over-training ourselves. Running more miles doesn’t necessarily make you a better runner capable of producing faster race times.

2. Be Consistent – This is the key to success in almost anything. It is a vital component of any training plan. While running 5 miles a day won’t make you a sub-4 hour marathoner it is better than running 5 miles a week or running a 25 mile week and taking a week off and running 3 miles the next week. Regular and consistent running lets your body adapt to the stresses and pressure of running which will greatly improve your outcomes. Even if it is a couple of days a week you should maintain some type of consistent schedule. On a side note it is easier to be motivated to run if you do it at the same time each day (consistently!).

3. Balance hard efforts with rest – Even as your body is adapting to a consistent running schedule, it needs time to rest and recover. Your body needs a little down time to repair all the muscle and bone tears that the stress of running causes. Think about this as letting the no-bake cookies set into hard cookies. I personally take one day off completely of exercise and cross-train one other day a week. This is helping keep me healthy and strong. A few weeks ago I had a “down” week and I felt a lot more rested and energized afterwards. This also helps prevent over-training and burnout.

4. Expect peaks and plateaus – My entire life ebbs and flows – I have exhilarating days and days where I’d rather just stay at home. You make a good batch of cookies and then next week using the same recipe they taste horrible. A consistent work load creates change in the body and you’ll see improvements – yet your body can only improve so much unless something else changes. If you feel like you’ve reached a plateau or stale point in your training, try something new. Find some new trails, mix in some speed work, find a running group, race a different distance. Each of these and many more ideas can help you reach new goals and overcome a stale stage in training. If you follow a training schedule it should include a time of peaking – allowing your body to be at top performance during the race. You may have mini-peaks throughout where you run a route a little faster than usual. If this happens you get excited, until next week when you run it again and its slower than before. This happens to me sometimes and then I’ll look back and realize that during the second week I had done more speed work or something and my body was tired and needed a little extra time!

5. Practice Patience – This may be the hardest for me. I want my times to start dropping immediately. Just like we want our fast food fast – we want performance improvements fast or we want to be at 35 miles a week during the first week back from an injury. To continue with the cooking analogies if you are supposed to bake cookies at 350 for 20 minutes – you can’t bake them at 450 for 10 minutes and get the same result. You can’t speed up the baking process. In the same situation you can’t pull the cookies out after 10 minutes of baking and expect them to taste right. You must be patient and follow directions to get the perfect cookie! In running you should follow the 10% rule – increase your overall mileage by 10% and any long run by 10%. You should also be careful not too add speed work too quickly. You need to have a good base/foundation before you start building up intensity.

For the perfect cookie you follow the recipe, so for the perfect race follow the strategy. Well that’s not always accurate either! Sometimes you can do everything right with the cookies and they still get messed up somehow – the same is true in running. You can follow every piece of advice, read all the blogs and article, and still have a bad race or get injured. But thinking strategically and being careful should ensure a good season.

[tags] Training, Running, Strategy, Cookies [/tags]

Smog’s Impact on Running

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We’ve heard lots about the impact of smog on the environment and that there really is no upside to having smog around. Here in the USA we’ve done a decently good job at beginning to reduce smog – especially in metro areas. We aren’t smog-free by any means but some places are doing better than others.

By now most people have heard about the Olympic Games in China – and maybe even the fact that China has a lot of pollution due to the high number of cars in areas like Beijing. That’s part of why oil prices keep rising. Good old supply and demand economics (for a simple explanation!) There are a lot of concerns about the Olympic Games being held in China – probably too numerous to mention here.

Today’s post focuses on the issue of how smog will impact the games. The Washington Post is reporting that:

Fearful of the effects of air pollution on their performance, Olympic athletes are taking extreme measures to prepare for this summer’s Games in Beijing.

The article goes on to say that at least 35 countries are planning to house their athletes outside of China or outside of Beijing. Additionally, most athletes will remain outside of the country as long as possible to reduce the impact of the environment on their bodies. The article talks about food concerns and I actually saw somewhere else that the US is shipping its own food for its athletes. Generally, the Olympics are seen as a great boost to the host country’s economy, even with all the expenditures related to construction and hosting the games. If other countries follow suit this may not be as good as China had hoped for their reputation.

Recent measurements show that on some days the amount of smoke and dust particles in the air exceeds by three to 12 times the maximum deemed safe by the World Health Organization. So while some teams say they are encouraged by the progress, they are preparing for the worst. Jacques Rogge, the head of the International Olympic Committee, has said events could be rescheduled if the air quality does not meet safety standards on a given day.

It is mentioned at the very end of this article that Halie Gebreselassie, was considering changing his running plans, it is actually a fact. According to the BBC article, he is going to try to qualify for the 10K and then do whatever is best for his country.  It could be an interesting few weeks while we watch and see how China handles the intense outside pressure and all of the major concerns.

[tags] Olympics, China [/tags]