For Whom the Dogs Bark

May 02, 2024

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Location:

Cypress,TX,

Member Since:

Oct 10, 2009

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

5K: 24:22 (March 2010); 22:33 (October 2010); 20:47 (May 2011); 21:05 (May 2012); 21:33 (September 2012); 21:23 (November, 2013); 22:31 (September 2014)

5M: 39:22 (November, 2012); 35:54 (November, 2013); 36:03 (March, 2015)

10K: 44:08 (November, 2010); 49:20 (July, 2013); 44:07 (April, 2015)

12K: 56:03 (December, 2013); 58:58 (December, 2014)

10M: 1:11:58 (October, 2012); 1:15:24 (October, 2014)

Half Marathon: 1:53:xx (London's Run 2010); 2:05:21 (Cowtown 2010); 1:37:04 (Gusher 2011); 1:42:19 (Huntsville 2011); 1:33:47 (Baytown Jailbreak 2012); 1:33:50 (The Woodlands 2012); 1:42:52 (Texas 2015); 1:49:17 (Jailbreak 2015); 1:38:34 (The Woodlands 2015)

25K: 2:01:47 (Fifth Third River Bank, May 2014)

Marathon: 5:51:35 (Texas Marathon 2009); 6:21:36 (Ogden 2009); 4:58:29 (St. George 2009); 4:13:45 (Texas Marathon 2010); 4:04:12 (Utah Valley Marathon, 2010); 5:11:14 (Hartford ING, 2010); 3:41:43 (Richmond SunTrust, 2010); 3:39:27 (Texas Marathon 2011); 3:41:46 (Utah Valley Marathon, 2011); 3:30:35 (St. George 2011); 3:41:51 (Richmond 2012); 3:49:15 (Texas 2013); 3:46:59 (Paavo Nurmi, 2013); 3:34:04 (St. George 2013); 3:49:51 (Texas 2014); 3:31:59 (Richmond 2014); 3:28:34 (Boston 2015)

Short-Term Running Goals:

3:20, 1:30, 0:20

Long-Term Running Goals:

I'm 60, there is no long term.

Personal:

I live, work and run in Houston, Texas. I have run 17 marathons, some good ones and some others. I prefer straight, flat, cold, sea-level marathons, still waiting for my first one. I feel like there are more PRs out there. When I have them, I am told it is time to dial it back, run for healthy reasons. I'm sure that's right, and I'm sure it won't happen.

My wife and I are from the mountains of the west. We have five kids, three granddaughters and three grandsons. The kids and grandkids are native Texans but we are not -- you have to be born here.

As for my blog title: I run most of my miles before sunrise, sometimes hours before. On the back road of my neighborhood two hours before daylight, I can depend on a pack of mutts behind the boundary fence lighting up when they hear my footsteps. I have wondered what they wanted; but according to Hemingway I needn't ask.

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Miles:	This week:	0.00	Month:	0.00	Year:	0.00

Thu, Sep 09, 2010

Easy Miles	Marathon Pace Miles	Threshold Miles	VO2 Max Miles	Total Distance
2.54	10.00	0.00	0.00	12.54

76F, 97% humidity, calm and clear, beautiful morning outside, glad to be out and moving around. My legs felt heavy at first, meaning I will need to back off soon, but not today. Ran 12.54 miles in 1:52:05, average pace 8:56/mile, regular shoes. Warmed up for 2, 11:04 and 10:03 then ran 10 miles at marathon pace (8:37), actually averaged 8:31 for the 10, slowest mile 8:41 and last full mile at 8:17, then slogged it in for .54 to finish the run. I didn't run all the way to failure, but I did lose my appetite, worked pretty hard on this one, felt a little woozy at the end when I stopped but was happy to make my goal in soggy shoes and in full summer heat. Iced my right groin down and everything seems fine, although it appears I have a cold coming on, so don't know what the rest of the week will bring. I assumed my heart rate in heavy shoes would be about 10 bpm higher than yesterday, but it was actually one or two beats lower for most of the miles. I don't think I got that much better in one day? My fast miles were 4 seconds per mile slower than yesterday, but that doesn't really explain it. Just one of those mysteries.

I got curious about my maximum heart rate and went on the internet to poke around. That was a mistake. It is apparently a religion that HRmax is 220 minus your age, which puts me at 165, meaning I was at or above my "max" for the last 6.5 miles of my run today. It gets so bad that they have bloggers worried about what happens if they run faster than their max, which is exactly the same as asking what happens if I run faster than I can run. One thing that has me a little worried, though, is that there are a lot of people who are convinced that you can damage your heart by running at max, like red-lining your engine. I am pretty sure that is questionable as well, but I am looking for reliable science. No one is more aware of the benefits of low heart rate training than me, but I also know that the faster I run the better I feel, not sure where the damage is.

UPDATE: Here is some reliable information from my brother-in-law's blog. He is a smart cardiologist in Omaha and a 3:00 marathoner. He says don't worry about HRmax, so I won't. A couple of the comments are interesting as well: http://www.blogalegent.com/Cardiology-Maximum-Heart-Rate

Comments

From lightitup on Thu, Sep 09, 2010 at 11:41:36 from 67.185.20.107

It's a lawyer thing, they're just worried if they set the max higher and someone has a heart attack, all them bleepin' lawyer types will go after them. Kind of like following the instructions on a turkey; the result is a dry bird. Run as fast as you want. Oh, but not till the actual race.

From SlowJoe on Thu, Sep 09, 2010 at 17:08:33 from 214.13.130.104

Yeah, you should quit running faster than you can run! I like that. Nice effort today.

From baldnspicy on Thu, Sep 09, 2010 at 20:00:58 from 72.77.98.144

If that HRmax is true, mine is 181 and I've never been over 173, I don't think. That was during a max effort for an 800. Anything over 170 or so, my heart feels like it's going to burst. I'd say as I train more it will be able to beat faster, but as we all know, the opposite effect happens since the heart gets stronger and more efficient.

I still collect my HR on most of my runs but I have yet to really use it for anything. It seems there are so many variables that go into your HR that it almost doesn't seem worth it to try and use it for much more than data for me to obsess over.

Your runs are looking incredible, Flat!

From flatlander on Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 11:04:57 from 76.31.26.153

E, thanks for the tip, this might be a new practice area for me.

Joe, never ceases to amaze me what people will say without stopping to think.

Wes, it is now clear to me that HRMax is all over the charts, some guys it is low and others high. I think the formula is a mean, but almost useless for predicting individuals because the variation is so high.

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