For Whom the Dogs Bark

May 06, 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

Mon, May 04, 2015

Easy Miles	Marathon Pace Miles	Threshold Miles	VO2 Max Miles	Total Distance
4.90	0.00	3.10	0.00	8.00

61F, 95%, calm and full moon. Out early for a quick workout. 2 wu, 8:33, 8:03, then 5 x 1K, jogging out each mile at an 8:00 pace: 7:22 (161), 7:06 (166), 6:56 (171), 6:52 (76) and 6:38 (180), maxHR 184, then 1 cd. Overall 8.0 in 1:01:35, 7:42/mile. Followed by stretching and lunges, which immediately made my back feel better. Still trying to formulate my approach for the next few months, but kind of like the idea of bouncing back and forth between LLHR and workouts on alternate weeks. Can't work out every day on the "on" weeks, but I think I can go 3 or 4 times without too much risk, especially if I keep the distances low. But need to refine it, and get more focused on complementary stuff, like stretching, weights, jump rope and swimming (I can't do either one at this point), and weight loss.

My new Garmin has some fairly useless metrics in it, like vertical oscillation, ground contact time and altitude (?!!), which starts at 150', goes up to 153' and ends at 150'. This is why I am Flatlander. But since it measures cadence it also spits out stride length. My longest stride length, at 6:38 pace, is 1.17 meters (first split was 1.09 meters, at a slightly lower cadence). The big boys are closer to 2.0, I think I have read somewhere. This is why I look like an old man when I run, right there in black and white on my computer screen. This might actually be a good metric to keep an eye on to see if I am progressing.

Comments

From Yasir on Tue, May 05, 2015 at 09:10:38 from 99.20.240.157

Nice work out flat. any races you looking at this fall? I'm trying to find a fast course for this fall.

From MarkS on Tue, May 05, 2015 at 10:37:12 from 122.26.147.48

My stride is also about 1.2 meters. When I was young it was about 2 meters. I am working on some things to increase my stride but no real improvement yet.

From SlowJoe on Wed, May 06, 2015 at 17:51:38 from 104.51.208.13

If your cadence is the same at every speed then stride length is 100% dependent on your pace alone, right? Seems like if you wanted a longer stride, you just have to run faster...unless you slow down your cadence and take long lopey bounds which sounds like a recipe for injury.

Or, more likely, I'm too simple minded and not considering every variable.

From flatlander on Wed, May 06, 2015 at 18:18:24 from 198.207.244.102

Yasir, doing a half marathon in October for sure, then maybe a fall marathon in November. Undecided on Boston at this point.

Mark, we may have identified the hopeless age-related variable.

Joe, when I run faster, the cadence is speeding up in addition to stride length, so it isn't quite as simple as I hoped. But definitely the stride length is the main variable, as nobody can sustain a 250 cadence, or whatever it would take. Long lopey bounds would not be good; I think the key is to push off rather than reach out. Weights have helped so far and they are going to be key, if I can get the right routines and sustain an organized program without injury. I did a few lunges on Monday and I am just now recovering from them.

From MarkS on Wed, May 06, 2015 at 23:14:09 from 118.22.109.139

I have found that instead of reaching out or pushing off, a pulling motion using the hamstrings and glutes is best for me.

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