November Close Out Report

I all together forgot to do a close out report for October but it’s mainly because it was even par with September and that really was nothing to write about …I FINALLY ramped back up in the month of November.

For the first time since April (pre-IT Band flare up) my mileage climbed above the 60 mile mark! It was most notably assisted this time by the running of Ragnar Relay Tennessee where I ran 18.5 miles in the 30 hour period our team was running. It’s kind of odd, the last time I ran Ragnar (New England) I ended with a flared IT Band and having everything get turned upside down. This time with Ragnar Tennessee I actually feel the race made me stronger – here’s how…

After my first Ragnar in May I gave my body about 24 hours of rest after running 15 miles over a 26 hour period. My IT Band blew up on the second run I did which was just 3 days after the relay race…Lesson learned, point taken. This time around I took an entire week off after Ragnar. When that next Saturday rolled around I was eager as hell to run and put in a 6 miler on a run that was intended to be 4. In fact, since Ragnar TN all my runs have been longer and feeling great at that level. I’ve also been consciously slowing down to increase my mileage and get over the “chasing fast 5k’s” kick I was on for a bit there. It’s all in a effort to prepare my body for my big 2011 goal…

2011
It’s hard to believe that 2010 is almost gone. It’s been insanely fast and I’ve turned my sites to planning my 2011 running calendar. It’s all loose at this point, but I’ve got a Ragnar in May, a Warrior Dash in August…and…I’m thinking about the ultimate goal being a 50K at the Vermont 50. I had the chance to handle for a couple coworkers who biked the 50 mile version of the VT50 course in September and I loved the energy and seeing the runners trump around the mountains…I really wanted to be running it. In order to accomplish the goal I need to slow my runs way down and start piling on the mileage. I’m not a fan of structured running plans you see people using and prefer the method that Barefoot Ted told me about earlier this year, just put on miles…FUN miles. So yeah, I need to increase my mileage, but I need to make it fun and just go out there and not set time goals or push it past the point of being enjoyable. I realize at some point around July my weekly mileage needs to resemble something closer to my current monthly mileage. Does that scare me…yeah, lol.

September Close Out Report

September was a great month! I came in at 44.6 miles, up from 41 last month. These conservative gains seem to be a key in keeping my technique from getting sloppy while building up strength to build miles/speed.

Speaking of speed – September had a 5k PR for me as well! A 22:35 which is pretty awesome considering a year ago I was running 5k’s at 11+ minutes/mile…

October is shaping up to be a solid month. I plan on playing it conservative, building mileage to the 50 mile mark. The first of November I will be traveling down to Nashville for another RAGNAR! I was hesitant to commit to it knowing the last RAGNAR killed my summer plans for running after the IT Band issues, but I feel I’m strong enough and smart enough now to take a second RAGNAR on. Those races really are sooooo much fun that as it draws near I find myself getting pretty pumped up.

I also had the chance to go last weekend to the Vermont 50 to crew for a couple friends who were doing the mountain bike version of the course. It was first live exposure to an ultra run race and I really liked it. I’ve now put that up on the board as a 2011 accomplishment, to complete the VT50 50k version and make it my first ultra run. We’ll see if the goal makes it to my final goals list by year end, but I think it allows me enough time to train and be ready for it.

King Of The Hill 5k – A PR!

This was an interesting one…The race takes place in the corporate park where my office is so I literally worked until 6p.m. then shut my office door, changed into my running gear, and walked about 100 yards to the registration booth. How’s that for an efficient race!

I had set out a goal to come in sub-24 minutes, a solid PR attempt for me. That would quickly change when, for an hour and half prior to the start it POURED rain. I stood out in the rain for a half hour to get acclimated (cold and wet) and luckily found a pair of Injinji wool socks in my running bag. Without the socks my feet get shredded when I run in the Vibram FiveFinger’s in the rain. A co-worker said, “what’s you goal now”…I replied, “sub-25″. The plan was really just to go out and run hard. This park is where I do my lunch runs so I have familiarity of every hill and bump along the way and knew I wanted to pour out my best performance on this course.

5 minutes to the gun. We positioned ourselves to the front line and…the rain stops! It actually quit and never came back, how’s that for timing? I took off hard at the gun because the road immediately curves and then shoots up a hill and I didn’t want to get behind a pack that was slower than me and spend the hill trying to get around them. I glanced down at my watch at the top of the hill and noticed I was pacing at a 6:30 minute mile…good god, I thought I was dead. I told a co-worker next to me, “well, I may have just ended this race taking that hill this fast…” thinking I would inevitably hit my wall. Lucky for me, that co-worker and fellow runner stuck with me through the first mile (he was sandbagging to make me feel better). When I looked down at my watch and saw that mile 1 was done in 7:08 I was sure the hills coming up were gonna end up killing me. My co-worker kept with me, chatting and trucking along until about 1.5 miles in when I noticed I was still pacing at a 7:10 minute mile and told him I need to slow up a bit or I’d never make it up the bigger hill towards the end. Like a slingshot, he was gone. Funny thing is, I actually met him at the finish line and he was smiling because he somehow ended up getting a PR.

I slowed up significantly in mile 2 finishing it at a 7:33 minute mile. In the final mile there is annoying hill. It isn’t massive, it isn’t long…it’s just annoying. It’s about a 100 foot climb in about .20 of a mile. I got up it doing great but then at the top I started to get upper chest cramps from all the heavy breathing the faster pace was doing to me. For the next quarter mile I slowed way up and tried everything to get the cramps to go away without stopping. They finally wore away just in time for me to fly through the final .4 to the finish line.

So…the final was a 22:35 official race result! 67th out of 292 runners.

Official Results
Garmin Results

August Close Out Report

I look at that graph and chuckle to myself. I mean, I’ve always been a bit inconsistent with just about everything, but my running is pretty much the definition of inconsistent. At the end of the day, I like that. It keeps it fun for me.

[BROKEN RECORD] – flare up in the IT Band after stupidly ramping mileage to 6 on 8/8 that resulted in me having to sandbag a week to let the legs rest.

Monthly Numbers & Data
I was able to do 41.7 miles in August, a healthy increase from July which ended with 38. My monthly figures are trending in a positive direction as well.

I picked up a TriggerPoint GRID foam roller this month and have to say that the thing is a blessing for my legs. I roll them out quickly, focusing on the side thigh (IT Band) prior to a run and then I usually do a roll out of my legs again after the run after my legs have settled from a run. It’s just a great way to isolate your various legs areas (quads, Achilles, calf, etc) and give them a tear jerking “massage”.

I head into September optimistic, but purposely reserved. My speed has come way up, running low mileage runs in the 7′s…That’s a physical blessing and a mental curse. The faster I get the harder it is to convince my mind that YOU DON’T ALWAYS HAVE TO RUN AT YOUR FASTEST PACE. There I did it. I put it in all caps so it helps stick in my head.

1 Year As A “Runner”

On August 18th, 2009 I ran my first mile in this journey. It was an 11 minute single mile run that changed everything.

For once, running made sense to me.

For as long as I can remember before that day, running never seemed to be a possibility for me. It was either my knee, my cardio, or something inside me that I just felt would always keep me from running any measurable distance.

After that day my entire mindset changed. I became fully engaged in the sport of running. I started adding blogs to my favorites list of awe inspiring ultra distance runners. I began to think that anything was possible within the realm of running. It was that day that I became a runner.

And it hasn’t always been easy, or fun. Finding flow within my mind is as much a part of the journey as the physical act of running.

I’ve increased my average mile time from the 11′s to the 8′s and now dipping into the 7′s. I’ve experienced the joy of loving every second my foot hit the ground as I tromped through a long run along a gorgeous trail. I’ve felt the miserableness that an ice cold winter run can create when your body is screaming for you to sit in front of a fire instead of pushing it in horrible conditions. I’ve meet people who have helped changed my mindset and make me want to continue on and be able to do this forever. I want to be able to place someday in every race I enter…when I’m 70. I want my son to learn from me. I want people to take their first step to do the same thing I’ve done to help themselves to get the exercise their bodies are craving.

Weight dropped 30lbs in 6 months, never came back. Cholesterol dropped to 141. Blood pressure is perfect. Resting heart rate is 60.

It’s been an awesome first year of putting miles behind me. And to think it all started with a conversation in Newport, RI about how I should buy some Vibram Five Fingers to help the ole knee…thank god that conversation happened.

New Milford Fair Days 5K Road Race: PR Time!

I have a lot of writing to do because August is the 1 year anniversary of me starting this ‘running’ thingy!

So much has changed in one year. My progress in running has blown me away and the benefits I’ve experienced with my health and overall personal development has been momentous.

Next week I’ll do a write of my reflections on the first year…this post is about a new personal record 5k I ran this weekend!

The event was the New Milford Fair Days 5k Road Race. I haven’t exactly been preparing for a race of any type but our move that was scheduled for the morning of the race was suddenly moved to Friday night so I jumped at the opportunity to get into the race.

Last week I had run a 5k-ish distance and was able to clear it in just under 8 minute miles, so……that had me thinking that I could really tweak it for this race and make it something great. I set, in my mind, a goal to get a sub-24 minute time. As I was standing around for the start though, my stomach was feeling a bit uneasy and when my wife arrived minutes before the start I whispered in her ear, “the goal is a sub-25″. HA, I was chickening out a bit because I know there is a set of hills on the course and if I told myself I had to do sub-24, I’d kill myself trying…

Anyways, the race went awesome. I was in the back of the pack, which I now know not to do again (ill explain below), but completed mile 1 in 7:23 according to the girls yelling out times on the course, then came the hills at mile 1.5. I was able to climb them without much issue. I did see two guys walking at the top of the second hill and walking never looked so sweet and I had to do everything to remind myself that this was  a race.

RESULTS
A bit of a discrepancy. I used my Garmin 305 to pace me and according to it I did the following:
3.22 miles in 24:49 (7:43 minute miles) – which would be a 23:55 5k, a KICK ASS time for me!

I was disappointed when I crossed the finish line though and saw the race output on my finish was:
3.10 miles in 25:03 (8:04 minute miles)

Based on the official race results I finished 42/330 – woo hoo!
even better, based on my time, I’d have finished 22/330.

I have since driven the course with my wife and in fact found my car even had the distance at 3.2 miles, so I’m pretty sure the course was a bit long. As well, starting at the back was a bad idea. There was no start gun, I just noticed people running…I was probably a good 15 to 20 seconds from the actual front line starters and then had to fight through a pack for the first 1/2 mile.

So I’m calling it a goal accomplished on all ends. Even the official race results are fantastic considering a year ago I was running 11+ minute miles!

I’m convinced that measurement of progress is a big part of what keeps me ticking. Running allows you to see improvement right before your eyes, in a relatively short period of time. It’s the greatest individual pursuit I could have thought of.

June Close Out Report

So that graph looks a bit different than all my previous monthly close outs…

To make a long story short, the knee (IT Band) still isn’t back to normal. The purple is the biking I started doing to keep my cardio up and to basically keep my sanity as I haven’t been able to run like I want to.

I’m learning a lot about my  body through this experience. I totally got cocky for RAGNAR and didn’t account for the wear and tear on my body from racing 5-6 miles, jumping in a van for several hours, racing 5-6 more miles, back in van, etc…Then to only take 1 day off and think I could just go back to my running routine, ha! It’s a lesson for a beginner I guess. I now fully understand the importance of rest after you task your body with something like that. I’m also back to yoga. About 30 minutes a day devoted to it. It feels great. I couldn’t even touch my toes the start of the month when I got back into it; things got TIGHT.

I’ve been now sitting at this cross roads where I’ve drastically cut my runs and mileage and am more or less working through some discomfort while hoping the IT Band issues are healing up. My wife said the other day, “just take July off then you’ll be 100% to enjoy the fall running again…” I threw up a little bit in my mouth when she said it. Sure, it sounds practical enough, but the idea of not running an entire month sounds like overkill and would possibly drive me nuts. So what to do…

Well, here’s my take. My runs in the start of the month would KILL at about 1 mile. Enough to make running not possible. I moved my running to the dreaded treadmill and ran short miles with lots of rest in between (days). The last week of the month I noticed marked improvements in my hips and ultimately, my knee. I even jumped back on the trail for a run…Not good outcome. It flared up at just over 1 mile. Treadmill the next day, 4.5 miles with only the last 2 miles feeling some discomfort, but nothing really painful. I feel like things are improving with this slow build and I’m going to try and keep at it until I feel like my body is back to the way it was…

I Haven’t Been On A Run For Almost Two Weeks

I’ve gained a little over 2 lbs, I feel like poo, I’m pissed off.

As I eluded to in my May close out post, I did a bit too much without the proper training for Ragnar and as a result have had the old familiar burning coal in my kneecap feeling. Well, I’ve been nothing but resting it, icing it, and doing lots of yoga. I’ve pinpointed the issue as being an IT Band issue which I think causes a flare up of a tendinitis in my knee that I’ve had forever (that’s the pain that I used to get heel striking with shoes on).

Not running is having a dramatic effect on my mood…I missed a massively fun 5k on Friday night and met up with friends afterward for cocktails and was so frustrated that I wasn’t able to run that thing.

The worst part is not knowing how long you need to rest. My knee is finally feeling better as of today, but I know if I were to run, it’d flare up at about .75 miles in. When the hell does it end? I’m just gonna error on the side of caution and let it rest until this weekend. Yoga will become a regular part of my training now as will some type of quad/hip strength training which is the fundamental issue that causes this issue and break down in form on me. I’m back to a slow ramp up period again…I really can’t wait to post on here that I ran a mile without that feeling; I HATE that feeling. It’s like an old school yard bully that showed up again after I worked so hard to avoid it and do things the ‘right’ way…

Thanks for letting me sulk.

May Close Out Report

“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” -Benjamin Franklin

Admittedly, that quote is a bit of a melodrama for May, but looking now at that graph above I can totally see why my knee started to hurt on those last two runs (5/24 & 5/28)…

Let me explain. May was my month for Ragnar. I was to run 15-ish miles in a 20 hour period and do it at race pace. In hindsight I didn’t prepare…at all. I had one two-a-day run on the 5th and that was about all this data shows of someone actually preparing to race that event.

I still managed to log 55.6 miles for the month and would have eclipsed my highest month yet if I hadn’t felt an old burn in my knee that I haven’t felt since I wore shoes a year ago. The burn was the runner’s knee that constantly kept me from running more than a mile and was spurred by less than perfect running technique (to say the least). Since the switch to Vibram’s and creation of this blog at the same time, I’ve never felt one ounce of pain, anywhere…Until this past week.

Ragnar essentially was running a six mile leg, cramming into a van, then running another leg several hours later. I simply didn’t prepare my body for this. I haven’t raced since before last winter. I didn’t ramp my mileage up and do long runs. I didn’t really do much, but I totally ignored that and just took for granted my body and the fact that preparation is everything.

So, on to the knee. After that 2 mile attempt on 5/28 I realized I needed to stop. I went for a three day ice, rest, elevate regimen that, as of today, seems to have done the trick. My plan now is to get back into running on Thursday and get back to the basics. A real slow start up with mileage and then tweak in longer runs for the weekends.

You have to train for the runs you want to run. I want to run these events at a bit longer distance (1/2 marathon) so I need to stretch the mileage and build my technique to it. Can’t wait to get back at it!

T-Minus 1 Week To RAGNAR!

Next Friday at 1pm our 12 person relay team will set off to hop scotch 198 miles from New Haven, CT to Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts in the New England Ragnar Relay.

I setup a team micro site for us at milesbehindme.com/ragnar which is a great way to communicate for these types of events if anyone is planning one in the future. Now we’re a week away and putting the finishing touches on what will certainly be a lifetime memory.

This will be my first real test of endurance. I am running 3 legs at 4.8 miles, 4.7 miles, and 6.8 miles for a total of 16.30 miles in about an 18 hour period. Legs 1 and 2 I am pretty confident on, but that last one…it’ll be a doozer! It’s that battle of mental tiredness and mental toughness and I’m hoping the toughness factor overcomes…

I’m sure my next post will be a wrap up of the event and some photos and maybe even some video action!