Now to choose another race before I leave for Fall recruitment travel at the end of August. Then in November, Route 66 in Tulsa.
Happy Trails!
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
The Scorcher Half Marathon
Sunday, June 5, 2016. Stillwater, OK. The Scorcher Half Marathon. Nice and cool start at 6:30 AM. The sun had come up and it was light. But still lots of shade from trees and houses. It stayed pretty cool for the first hour. After that the sun was more direct and and we all started warming up. As I didn't wear a GPS watch and didn't print out splits I could only guess at my pace. Had my watch recording the time. So I knew I was well under an 8 minute per mile pace. The runners ahead of me got further ahead and no one passed me over the last few miles, so I was running by myself for the last twenty minutes. I picked up the pace a bit over the last mile and made up some ground on the runners ahead of me. However I was unable to catch up with them at the finish. My time was 1:43:27. Would have loved to break 1:40. Think I needed some longer runs prior to the race. My longest was two weeks before, a 12 mile run. Finished fourth in my age group. 50 -55 men is the most competitive group. If I could have dropped down two groups younger I would placed in the top 3. And drop to the next younger group below I would have won. All in all though a nice race. Nice finisher medal. (see below)
Now to choose another race before I leave for Fall recruitment travel at the end of August. Then in November, Route 66 in Tulsa.
Happy Trails!
Now to choose another race before I leave for Fall recruitment travel at the end of August. Then in November, Route 66 in Tulsa.
Happy Trails!
Thursday, June 2, 2016
The Scorcher
The Scorcher
It has been years since I last posted. Ok, well at least one year. Did not do well in Green Bay. And have not run any marathons since. It's quite challenging to to be on the road for four weeks in the Spring and 8 or 9 weeks in the Fall. Really hard to find training time when you arrive in a city at night and have to be out on the road early in the morning. Sleep is always the priority. Running is second or third priority. My work comes before running. So I try to squeeze in a 30 minute or 40 minute run every few days. Maybe get an hour run in once a week.
So my next run is just a few days away. The Scorcher Half Marathon. Sunday at 6:30 AM in Stillwater. Weather should be really good for the first week of June. Low in the morning around 61 degrees. Hoping to come around 1:40. Would be my fastest half in a few years. Half marathons are easier to predict that full marathons.
My hamstrings are pretty tight. Had a massage today and found out how tight they are. So hoping to work on stretching over the next weeks and months.
So till next time...Happy Trails!
It has been years since I last posted. Ok, well at least one year. Did not do well in Green Bay. And have not run any marathons since. It's quite challenging to to be on the road for four weeks in the Spring and 8 or 9 weeks in the Fall. Really hard to find training time when you arrive in a city at night and have to be out on the road early in the morning. Sleep is always the priority. Running is second or third priority. My work comes before running. So I try to squeeze in a 30 minute or 40 minute run every few days. Maybe get an hour run in once a week.
So my next run is just a few days away. The Scorcher Half Marathon. Sunday at 6:30 AM in Stillwater. Weather should be really good for the first week of June. Low in the morning around 61 degrees. Hoping to come around 1:40. Would be my fastest half in a few years. Half marathons are easier to predict that full marathons.
My hamstrings are pretty tight. Had a massage today and found out how tight they are. So hoping to work on stretching over the next weeks and months.
So till next time...Happy Trails!
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Three Weeks, two days to Green Bay Marathon
Ran the longest run of my training this morning. Also the last really long run of my training. My plan was to run 23 miles at marathon pace. 7:50 per mile. Right at 3 hours. But seems I was not quite up to it. Ran 22 miles and just a few minutes less than 3 hours. Pace was 7:58. My longest previous run was 17 miles, so I think this was just a little too ambitious. But the time is short so I couldn't wait any longer. As my title says, 3 weeks and two days to my marathon. The race is on Sunday, May 17.
I wanted to make sure my 20 plus mile run took place more than 3 weeks before the marathon. A Dutch study a few years back showed that most runners had not fully recovered from their last long run. 3 weeks is not enough time. So rather than running on a Saturday, I took off work today, Thursday, to do my long run. The weather this morning was great. Cool but not cold. Mostly cloudy. Took it easy the first mile or so. Mostly uphill so my times were a bit slow. Hard to hear my splits due to the sound of traffic on the Creek Turnpike. Even with the trees and the wall it was still a bit difficult to hear my phone. Splits ranged from 7:27 to 8:33. 8 of my 22 miles splits were over 8 minutes per mile. One was my water break. Had a bottle of water under my car at about the halfway point. Mile 11. Another was at the turn around at 44th street. Walked about twenty yards. Then at mile 21, I walked another twenty yards or so. Mile splits 1, 2 and 4 were just over 8 minutes a mile. These were mostly uphill. Most others between 7:43 and 7:58.
Now with just a little over three weeks to go, it is time to start my taper. Same intensity but less distance.
3 hours 25 minutes seems like a bit of a long shot now. But it looks like 3 hours 30 minutes is still a possibility.
Happy trails...
I wanted to make sure my 20 plus mile run took place more than 3 weeks before the marathon. A Dutch study a few years back showed that most runners had not fully recovered from their last long run. 3 weeks is not enough time. So rather than running on a Saturday, I took off work today, Thursday, to do my long run. The weather this morning was great. Cool but not cold. Mostly cloudy. Took it easy the first mile or so. Mostly uphill so my times were a bit slow. Hard to hear my splits due to the sound of traffic on the Creek Turnpike. Even with the trees and the wall it was still a bit difficult to hear my phone. Splits ranged from 7:27 to 8:33. 8 of my 22 miles splits were over 8 minutes per mile. One was my water break. Had a bottle of water under my car at about the halfway point. Mile 11. Another was at the turn around at 44th street. Walked about twenty yards. Then at mile 21, I walked another twenty yards or so. Mile splits 1, 2 and 4 were just over 8 minutes a mile. These were mostly uphill. Most others between 7:43 and 7:58.
Now with just a little over three weeks to go, it is time to start my taper. Same intensity but less distance.
3 hours 25 minutes seems like a bit of a long shot now. But it looks like 3 hours 30 minutes is still a possibility.
Happy trails...
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Training for Green Bay
A lot has happened over the last year. The Route 66 Marathon of 2013 did not go as planned. Extremely cold. Temperatures in the low 20s to start. The training that I thought would be sufficient was not sufficient. Apparently running sub marathon pace training runs three times a week was not enough to run a sub 3:30 marathon. Rather I crashed and burned (froze actually). 4:20. My slowest marathon ever.
Got married in November of 2014. A couple of weeks later I ran the Half Marathon at Route 66 in Tulsa. Managed a 1:37:49. Not quite as fast as a couple of years ago, but just a couple of minutes behind. (I was not going to train for a marathon and plan a wedding with my wife to be. So I chose the Half instead.) And so feeling hopeful once again I have signed up for the Green Bay Marathon in May. I think I will go with the Run Less schedule for a 3:25 marathon, though tweaked to match the lack of a track to do intervals on. I will try to do some mile intervals. And this time I will do some cross training rather than just resting on the non running days. Cycling.
I'll let you know how that goes. And later this month training while on the road.
Happy Trails!
Got married in November of 2014. A couple of weeks later I ran the Half Marathon at Route 66 in Tulsa. Managed a 1:37:49. Not quite as fast as a couple of years ago, but just a couple of minutes behind. (I was not going to train for a marathon and plan a wedding with my wife to be. So I chose the Half instead.) And so feeling hopeful once again I have signed up for the Green Bay Marathon in May. I think I will go with the Run Less schedule for a 3:25 marathon, though tweaked to match the lack of a track to do intervals on. I will try to do some mile intervals. And this time I will do some cross training rather than just resting on the non running days. Cycling.
I'll let you know how that goes. And later this month training while on the road.
Happy Trails!
Monday, November 11, 2013
3 Runs A Week - Training for Tulsa's Route 66 Marathon
Less than two weeks until the Route 66 Marathon in Tulsa, Oklahoma! (Sunday, November 24) Six weeks of travel in Latin America and Asia messed up my training schedule. Too many late night arrivals and early morning departures. Found it hard to get in enough training runs. Some weeks just two runs, others three. My long runs on the weekend were never long enough.
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| Ran up Mt. Doi Suthep to Wat Doi Suthep |
I believe that I can run the Route 66 marathon in under 3:25 (3 hours 25 minutes). But my weekly mileage totals have topped 30 miles only the past two weeks. I have only one run of 20 miles. It seems unlikely that with only three runs a week and only one run of 20 miles that I could finish in less than 3 and a half hours. It also seems unlikely that I could break 3:25 when I have never run a marathon faster than 3:32. And finally I have never put in so few miles prior to a marathon before. Prior to Houston I ran just three times a week but had multiple 20 mile runs. (I finished in 3:34. My goal was a bit too lofty. Faded badly.) But if I can run 20.2 miles with an average pace of 7:47, surely I can run 26.2 with a 7:48 pace. 3:30:00 or less would qualify me for the 2015 Boston Marathon. 3:25:00 or less would greatly improve my chances of actually getting in. Beating the qualifying time by five minutes or more puts one into the third of four groups. The first group are those who finish 20 minutes faster than the qualifying standard. The second group are those who finish 10 minutes faster than the standard. The third group are those who finish 5 minutes faster than the standard. The fourth and final group are those who finish less than five minutes faster than the standard. Following the listing of each group on the Boston Athletic Association page are the words "if space remains"(starting with the second group).
Sic'em Bears!
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Is Too Much Running Bad for You?
"Can You Get Too Much Exercise?", asks Gretchen Reynolds in the New York Times on Wednesday. This question and other similar questions have been asked and debated extensively over the past year. Can you get too much exercise? Probably so, but it is clear is that exercise improves heart health
in most people and reduces the risk of developing heart disease or dying of heart
disease. The questions of too much and how much is too much, remain to be answered. Back in November of last year, Dr. James O'Keefe suggested that one should not run more than 25 miles a week and never faster than 8 minutes a mile.
http://indorgs.virginia.edu/MuscleClub/OKeefe_JH_article1%2B2.pdf
The graph above is from that article. The data, which was taken from a study published in The Lancet, appears to show that the benefit of vigorous exercise levels off after about 50 minutes of activity. In reality the data did not end at 50 minutes, it went on well beyond that point. Such that at 120 minutes the hazard ration for all-cause mortality reduction was at .55 noticeably better than at .48 or so at 50 minutes. For a more thorough discussion take a look at Alex Hutchison's column in the November 28, 2012 Runners World.
http://www.runnersworld.com/health/too-much-running-myth-rises-again
Wednesday's NYT article focuses on study involving athletes who can completed the Vasaloppet, a grueling 56-mile cross-country ski marathon held each March in northwestern Sweden. The study found that among male participants of a 90 km Vasaloppett, a faster finishing time and a high number of completed races were associated with higher risk of arrhythmia. This was mainly driven by a higher incidence of atrial fibrillation and brady arrhythmia. No association with supra-ventricular tachycardias or ventricular tachycardia/ventricular fibrillation/cardiac arrest was found. And while the risk of arrhythmia increased, the authors state that "participants in Vasaloppet have lower mortality than the general population and that mortality decreases with increasing number of races."
So your risk of arrhythmias increases slightly with very high levels of exercise. However your risk of dying goes down. Hmm. Guess that means I should keep on doing my long runs, my fast runs and my marathons. As Dr. Anderson says,"Carry on as usual, but remember to listen to your body and seek a doctor if you experience any symptoms from your heart."
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/24/can-you-get-too-much-exercise/?_r=0
http://indorgs.virginia.edu/MuscleClub/OKeefe_JH_article1%2B2.pdf
http://www.runnersworld.com/health/too-much-running-myth-rises-again
Wednesday's NYT article focuses on study involving athletes who can completed the Vasaloppet, a grueling 56-mile cross-country ski marathon held each March in northwestern Sweden. The study found that among male participants of a 90 km Vasaloppett, a faster finishing time and a high number of completed races were associated with higher risk of arrhythmia. This was mainly driven by a higher incidence of atrial fibrillation and brady arrhythmia. No association with supra-ventricular tachycardias or ventricular tachycardia/ventricular fibrillation/cardiac arrest was found. And while the risk of arrhythmia increased, the authors state that "participants in Vasaloppet have lower mortality than the general population and that mortality decreases with increasing number of races."
So your risk of arrhythmias increases slightly with very high levels of exercise. However your risk of dying goes down. Hmm. Guess that means I should keep on doing my long runs, my fast runs and my marathons. As Dr. Anderson says,"Carry on as usual, but remember to listen to your body and seek a doctor if you experience any symptoms from your heart."
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/24/can-you-get-too-much-exercise/?_r=0
Monday, January 14, 2013
Houston Marathon Review
Today is the day after the 2013 Houston Marathon. And boy am I sore. It's been over a year since my last marathon and forgot how sore I get after these.
The Houston Marathon is one of the larger marathons in the US. A total of over 25,000 people in the marathon and half marathon. The weather was not ideal, but the temperature was close to ideal (upper 40s). Standing in the starting corral with the rain coming down and winds blowing from the north was not too pleasant. Finally after the greetings, opening remarks, Star Spangled Banner, and prayer, we finally started. I was wearing a trash bag (with holes cut out for my head and arms) over my shorts, t-shirt and running singlet (tank top). On my head a wore a cheap ball cap that I had waterproofed. Shortly after the start we crossed a long overpass. Rather cold as the wind was really blowing. I ran the first few miles with my arms inside my trash bag. Finally after the first 30 to 45 minutes the rain stopped. A few sprinkles after that but nothing much. Also running through tree lined streets helped with the wind. The course is nice. Mostly homes, small businesses and shopping areas. The course also passes Rice University and goes through Memorial Park. A group of the Marching Owl Band was playing near the entrance to Rice. I yelled out to them as I passed, "The MOB rocks!". They seemed to appreciate the praise. Overall pretty good crowd support considering the cold, windy, rainy weather. Lots of cheering folks with signs, one garage band, a group of belly dancers and some Bolivian dancers as well. The course finishes downtown with a long straightaway toward the convention center. Downtown both sides were mostly full with a number of folks in interesting costumes. The finish area was nice with blue bleachers on each side. A large group of friendly volunteers gave out the medals. The medal design was attractive. Good size, not too small.
The finisher t-shirt was ok. Nothing outstanding or unusual but nice. Plenty of food was available after the race. Eggs, sausage and biscuits as well as yoghurt, provided by HEB grocery stores. All complementary for the runners so no need to purchase anything. And as it was inside the convention center I didn't have to worry about staying warm.
Still trying to figure out what went wrong with my marathon plan. My training seemed to go well the last couple of months. Just didn't have it on Sunday. Lost my mojo. Something. Looking back at my last 20 mile training run that I did back on December 22nd, my last 3 mile splits that day were 7:41, 7:38, 7:31. Not bad at all. Maybe my goal was just a little too ambitious. Maybe I would have been ok with running 7:26 mile splits instead of 7:23 that I tried to run in Houston. The shoes I wore were the same model that I had trained in so no change there. Maybe I need just a little bit more padding underfoot. Anyway I struggled to the finish Sunday. Lots of periods of walking over the last few miles. My calf muscles kept threatening to cramp up, but they never did completely do so. After 20 miles, my feet and ankles were definitely beat as were my quads. Made running very difficult the final three or four miles and more so as I got closer to the end. Anyway finished 87th out of 593 in my age group. Not bad. Not good. But OK. I did manage to beat George Bush's Houston Marathon time of 3:44:52 (in 1993). He was two years younger and I beat him by more than 10 minutes. So maybe not so bad after all.
Till next time. Happy Trails!
The Houston Marathon is one of the larger marathons in the US. A total of over 25,000 people in the marathon and half marathon. The weather was not ideal, but the temperature was close to ideal (upper 40s). Standing in the starting corral with the rain coming down and winds blowing from the north was not too pleasant. Finally after the greetings, opening remarks, Star Spangled Banner, and prayer, we finally started. I was wearing a trash bag (with holes cut out for my head and arms) over my shorts, t-shirt and running singlet (tank top). On my head a wore a cheap ball cap that I had waterproofed. Shortly after the start we crossed a long overpass. Rather cold as the wind was really blowing. I ran the first few miles with my arms inside my trash bag. Finally after the first 30 to 45 minutes the rain stopped. A few sprinkles after that but nothing much. Also running through tree lined streets helped with the wind. The course is nice. Mostly homes, small businesses and shopping areas. The course also passes Rice University and goes through Memorial Park. A group of the Marching Owl Band was playing near the entrance to Rice. I yelled out to them as I passed, "The MOB rocks!". They seemed to appreciate the praise. Overall pretty good crowd support considering the cold, windy, rainy weather. Lots of cheering folks with signs, one garage band, a group of belly dancers and some Bolivian dancers as well. The course finishes downtown with a long straightaway toward the convention center. Downtown both sides were mostly full with a number of folks in interesting costumes. The finish area was nice with blue bleachers on each side. A large group of friendly volunteers gave out the medals. The medal design was attractive. Good size, not too small.
The finisher t-shirt was ok. Nothing outstanding or unusual but nice. Plenty of food was available after the race. Eggs, sausage and biscuits as well as yoghurt, provided by HEB grocery stores. All complementary for the runners so no need to purchase anything. And as it was inside the convention center I didn't have to worry about staying warm.
Still trying to figure out what went wrong with my marathon plan. My training seemed to go well the last couple of months. Just didn't have it on Sunday. Lost my mojo. Something. Looking back at my last 20 mile training run that I did back on December 22nd, my last 3 mile splits that day were 7:41, 7:38, 7:31. Not bad at all. Maybe my goal was just a little too ambitious. Maybe I would have been ok with running 7:26 mile splits instead of 7:23 that I tried to run in Houston. The shoes I wore were the same model that I had trained in so no change there. Maybe I need just a little bit more padding underfoot. Anyway I struggled to the finish Sunday. Lots of periods of walking over the last few miles. My calf muscles kept threatening to cramp up, but they never did completely do so. After 20 miles, my feet and ankles were definitely beat as were my quads. Made running very difficult the final three or four miles and more so as I got closer to the end. Anyway finished 87th out of 593 in my age group. Not bad. Not good. But OK. I did manage to beat George Bush's Houston Marathon time of 3:44:52 (in 1993). He was two years younger and I beat him by more than 10 minutes. So maybe not so bad after all.
Till next time. Happy Trails!
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