Category Archives: Training

TCM Training Week 9

Sometimes stronger, sometimes utter destruction.

Previous Posts

I reviewed Blaine Moore’s Comprehensive Guide to Marathon Preparation and Recovery. I should probably look for it and give it a second read. Africa has many things going for it, including its natural beauty. I started (twice) the 100 Pushup Challenge but never made it. Foto Friday was of a Superior Hiking Trail sign from vacation. Last year I did a monthly highlight post. Which do you like better monthly or weekly?

Last Year’s Mileage

Run: 26.0 Miles
Bike: 37.0 Miles

This Year’s Training

Monday was a scheduled rest day. Due to some meetings I even drove to work! Tuesday was a group training workout on a 0.75 mile loop in the Tangletown neighborhood of Minneapolis. We ran 3 hills in this loop. I did 3 loops while most everyone else did 4 or 5. They wore me out and I didn’t want to push too hard on my first hill workout back. With the foot taped it felt pretty good. Below is the elevation chart. And if you insist here are my 3 times 5:48, 6:10, 6:03 for a total of 6.5 miles in 52:39.

On Wednesday I had a 7:30 meeting and then an evaluation appointment with a physical therapist at the Institute of Athletic Medicine. The appointment proved that I do indeed have Plantar Faciitis and also some muscle imbalance, especially in my pelvis. So I learned some exercises to work on strengthening the weak muscles, which should help my foot as well as using an ultrasound on my foot. When I woke up on Thursday I actually felt very tired still, yet I couldn’t (physically) fall back asleep. So I got up and did some yoga and my physical therapy exercises. They are surprisingly tough. The plan is to strengthen the muscles supporting my pelvis, which will “fix” my left leg and make it work properly. With the amount of tiredness I felt, I opted to not run. Ugh another 0 in the book.

I had a finite window of time, on Friday, between waking up (finally feeling refreshed) and a breakfast meeting. It was plenty of time to get an easy 6 miles or so in, so I started off planning to do the Minneapolis Riverfront loop on a pretty nice morning (55, sunny, and humid). I hadn’t done it in awhile, so I thought what the heck. I felt terrible right off the bat. My foot hurt really bad and I felt sluggish (as often occurs after a few days of not running). My foot pain slowly diminished and I felt a little better as I started running along the river road. There are several options to shorten the run – which I should have taken. Each time I thought, I can make it, just a little further. I walked for the first time at 3.5 miles. I had no energy, my legs were tired, and I felt pretty blah. I walked for a little bit, got some water, and started running again. I felt worse instead of better and decided to take a more direct way home. Then I walked. I reset my watch because I didn’t want the Garmin to get all screwy. I was a good 2.5 miles from home, no phone and no bus money. I walked for quite awhile but soon realized I wouldn’t make it back in time so I ended up running 1.5 miles (cutting through parking lots and trying to make it as short as possible). I arrived home safely, but at the time I should have been leaving for breakfast. I quickly showered and made it on time – foot hurting and very, very discouraged.

Saturday we were driving to see our families and after the run on Friday I was glad to take the time off. We arrived safely at my Dad’s and after sleeping in on Sunday I went for an easy 4 mile run at Snyder Park in Springfield, OH. The plan was to run a flat course on grass and see how that went. I’m content with how the run went I finished right under 32 minutes so 8 minute pace is a lot better than Friday. Just me and the fishermen.

This Year’s Mileage

Run: 16.2 Miles

TCM Training Week 8

Guest Post: Tune-up Races

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Coach Mike Nawrocki with MDRA’s 2009 Fall Marathon Training Class had some good words to say about tune-up racing for the marathon.

You may be asking, what is a tune-up race? It is a race you run between now and Labor Day weekend to simulate the race day environment of a marathon. I recommend some of the bigger races with fast fields, because that will be closest to what you will experience when the marathon comes around.

Why do a tune-up race?
a. Fourteen weeks is a long time to train without racing. A tune-up race helps break your training up into smaller pieces, so this training process won’t feel like such a grind.

b. Practice race day logistics. Take it from a savvy veteran like me, who famously (infamously?) ran the first mile and a half of the 2006 TC10 with a safety pin in my sock: race day logistics matter. I lost over a minute fishing that **&%$# safety pin out of my sock and am still bitter every time I see a safety pin (unfortunate, because they are used at every race, making me one bitter guy). A tune-up race allows you to practice your eating, bathroom, drinking, and gear preparation routine.

c. Practice pacing and running your own race. Savvy veterans and eager rookies alike need to practice race-day pacing. Running a tune-up race is a low-stakes way to find out if you are prone to being unwittingly sucked out to a faster start than you intend. Better to find this out now than at mile two of the Twin Cities Marathon.

d. Help determine your marathon pace vs. Practice your marathon pace. Don’t know what your marathon pace should be? Race a ten miler, 15k, or half-marathon. Consult me or Marty afterwards and we can put the race in the context of your training to help you come up with a goal pace for October 4. Already know your goal pace? Go run a half-marathon at that pace. See if you can hold it without getting sucked into the dynamic of racing harder.

Buyer Beware
a. Tune-up races may not be for everyone. If you are recovering from, nursing, or managing an injury, a race could very well be too risky in terms of aggravating this injury. Remember everyone’s second goal for this class: get to the starting line healthy.

b. Racing is essentially a hard workout. You should contact me or Marty for guidance on how to train the week before and after any tune-up race.

c. No races after Labor Day. It breaks my heart to not recommend the MDRA City of Lakes 25k to everyone, because I serve on the MDRA board and have MDRA pride. But it’s just a tad too close to the marathon. Talk to Marty or me if you are interested in the City of Lakes race and we can decide together if it is a good idea. If your competitive streak is such that you are prone to racing hard no matter what, City of Lakes or any post-Labor Day race is just too close to the target marathon, as you may put wear and tear on your legs without enough time to fully recover.

Thanks Mike!

TCM Training Week 7

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Been Sick.

Past Posts

Two years ago I ran the CdLS 5K. Someone stopped me recently when wearing the shirt and asked if I knew anyone with CdLS. I said it was just a race I had run. He had a son with CdLS and thanked me for helping raise money for the cause. That was pretty cool. I bought a pair of Pearl Izumi shorts to wear for my marathon and reviewed them. I wrote about education in Africa as part of my World Vision fundraising. I run a lot on the Midtown Greenway, it is a great place to run and bike. Foto Friday was from the Outer Banks Killer Dunes 2 mile race.

Last Year’s Mileage

Run: 39.3 Miles
Bike: 30.3 Miles
Swim: 300 Yards

This Year’s Training

Last week I felt a little off one day, ran the next and felt great, then didn’t feel so well again. On Friday I woke up with a pain in my neck and lower back (when I stretched). I opted not to run and by the evening I was starting to feel achy and exhausted.

Saturday I woke up with a fever, achy, chills, and still with the 2 pains. I convinced Christy to take me to Urgent Care and we arrived right before a big rush. The doctor spent maybe 10 minutes with us – listening to my symptoms and quickly checking my body over. She ordered a CBC to check my white blood count. The lab tech had trouble drawing my blood because I was so cold, he managed to get enough to test my blood. We then met the doctor again and she said that things looked fine in my blood so I had some type of virus. She indicated that she couldn’t test me for H1N1 aka Swine Flu. She also said that she couldn’t prescribe the tamiflu to me anyway so there was no reason to test for it. I was also missing 2 of the “indicating symptoms” of H1N1.

My symptoms don’t really match any specific virus that I can find online. I don’t have enough for lyme disease or West Nile. WebMD has lots of great diseases that I checked out over time, but none really matched my symptoms.

I mostly have a fever while I’m sleeping or napping. Which is what I’m supposed to be doing. My temps have ranged from 96.3 to 102.3 since Saturday. Friday was the last time I slept through the night. Every other I’ve been awoken by the fever. When I haven’t had a fever I feel pretty good and life seems normal (except for the being cooped up at home part). But once the fever hits I don’t feel so hot again.

Luckily, I’ve been able to eat full, regular meals without an stomach or intestinal distress. That is the only upside of my being sick.

Over the last week I’ve had to miss work everyday, a board meeting for the YNPN in the Twin Cities, SALT (English tutoring), a race, 2 group runs, small group, and had to reschedule an appointment with a physical therapist for my running. Not to mention that it has been an amazing week, weather wise.

I’m planning on going to a doctor today. Hopefully they will be able to do something for me, besides just rest and drink lots of fluids.

I’ve been tweeting about my illness. Check out this link to see what I’ve said #stupidvirus

By the weekend I was feeling a lot better, but not quite good enough to risk going for a run or bike. Soon enough.

This Year’s Mileage

Nada.

Did you actually finish MOby Dick? I couldn’t do it, but I tried in 7th grade

2009 Marathon Class #1

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The first “class” session of this year’s Fall Marathon Training program focused on three areas

1) Places to run in the Twin Cities Metro

2) Training Philosophy

3) Goal Setting

Where to Run in the Twin Cities Metro?

Of course I’ve written about great places to run, some of which Nathan included in his presentation:

Here are some links to the places he talked about:

Minneapolis City Bike Routes
Hennepin County Bike Maps
St Paul City Bike Routes
Metropolitan Council Routes
Three Rivers Park District (lots of parks and trails)
Fort Snelling State Park
Afton State Park
Minnesota Monthly lists some other bike trails
Dakota County Parks – including Lebanon Hills and Terrance Oaks
Kate Havelin’s Minnesota Running Trails book

Listen to the audio of Nathan’s presentation here. [audio:NathansRunningRoutes.mp3]

Marty and Mike talked about the training philosophy of this year’s class (I guess it varies slightly with each year’s coaches) and what we might expect. Marty mentions that he isn’t a huge proponent of using lots of fancy terminology or wasting money on expensive tests for things like VO2 Max or Lactic Threshold. He subscribes to a more “old school” mentality of getting the miles in and alternating between hard and easy runs. With a diverse group of athletes in the room, he said that we won’t work much on specific speed workouts but getting the long runs in and doing some hill training. We are hitting the hills much earlier this year than last and knowing these guys we’ll be doing some long runs on hills as well. Their goal, as stated later by Mike is to make sure we have fun and cross the finish line.

Feel free to listen to their sometimes humorous discussion here.

[audio:marty&miketrainingphilosophy.mp3] For some reason I can’t get this to work. Any suggestions? It is the same exact link as the one above… You can scroll to the bottom and listen to the full audio – this section begins about 16 minutes in.

Mike continued the evening’s discussion with a talk about goal setting. He used a simple pyramid diagram to show what the most important goals are. The three main goals of a training program are to

1) Have fun/good experience in the training program

2) Get to the starting line healthy

3) Finish (this is then split into 3 subcategories)

a) Finish

b) Target Pace – Double your 1/2 marathon time and add 10 minutes (similar to McMillian Calculator)

c) Dream time – This is a stretch goal that you shouldn’t even think about on race day until after the 1/2 way point and really start going for it after 20 miles.

Listen the audio of Mike’s presentation here. [audio:mikegoalsetting.mp3]

You can listen the complete audio (about an hour long from this first session here) [audio:July7MarathonTalk.mp3]

Team Cross Runs and…

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