| 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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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 19.20 | 10.01 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 29.21 |
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| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 4.02 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 4.02 |
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66F, 100% humidity, nice familiar running this morning. Back to the routine a little bit. Thought I should get out and stretch my legs. Lots of sore muscles still but gradually getting better. Ran 4.02 miles in 44:53, average pace 11:09, low heart rate and flat shoes. Took my daughter to seminary, parked and ran a route from the church then brought her home.
There is an interesting article in Runners World about regular shoes vs. flat shoes. It was fun to read it because it came to the same conclusions I have reached after running in both for about 10 months. You are faster in flat shoes but you have to be careful because you are stretching and working new muscles and tendons. It's like getting into shape, easy to get injured if you overdo it. Worth it, though, in my opinion, because you are running with a more natural stride when all is said and done. I will say my legs are pretty beat up from running Hartford in them. I brought my new pair and my old pair and decided at the last minute to wear the old ones, on the theory that you don't do anything new on race day. But the old ones are paper-thin on the balls of the feet and there is a 3-miles section on the out and back portion of the course (6 miles altogether) that is concrete with rocks sticking up, kind of a winter traction thing I suppose. It was quite painful and distracting, though I am not counting it as something that ultimately affected my results. But I am not talking anymore about results. Anyway, I am in my new flats now and they feel better on the rough pavement.
Still thinking about Richmond. It appears to be a rolling course with a hill at the end. Sounds very familiar, my kind of course. | | Comments(1) |
| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 4.07 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 4.07 |
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62F, 70% humidity. Pretty much ideal running conditions. Legs felt a lot better today. I actually have a bruise from the groin injury which traces the culprit muscle, but it is subsiding today and I didn't feel much effect from it. Same drill as yesterday. I ran 4.07 miles in 42:34, average pace 10:27 per mile, low heart rate and regular shoes. The faster pace today shows I am recovering from the marathon. I probably won't do anything other than low heart rate this week, then start picking things up on Saturday if all is going well.
I filled in my profile last night with all of my races, including 5Ks and halfs. In terms of my first two marathons, Saturday wasn't that bad at all. At least I didn't finish last in my age group like I did at Ogden. I finished in the bottom 20% though, quite a change from the 5K the week before when I finished first, both groups about the same size. | | Comments(2) |
| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 5.02 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 5.02 |
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64F, 57% humidity, Wind N 6 mph. Pretty much a perfect, bone-dry day out there. Dropped my daughter off at seminary and ran 5.02 miles in 52:05, average pace 10:22 per mile, low heart rate and flat shoes. Felt good, probably time to start ramping things up a little more, but so far keeping my promise not to push anything this week. Going out for 10 on Saturday with Wade.
My client sent me an interesting article from this morning's Wall Street Journal:
It is about qualifying times for the Boston Marathon and the ongoing controversy over women's times vs. men's times. Despite the cast of the article, I am not sure if it is really much of a controversy. I don't care about it and I don't know of any men who do. I think it is interesting, however, that the race might fill up really fast this year, will be fun to watch the process now that I am out of the mix. They have to do something about that, though, even a lottery is better than a 2-hour cattle call or whatever it turns out to be on the morning of October 18. I have heard rumors that they are going to lower qualifying times, but so far it appears to be just rumors. | | Comments(8) |
| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 6.09 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 6.09 |
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47F, 92% humidity, wind N 1 mph, clear. Really great running weather. Ran a mile in the neighborhood then took my daughter to seminary and ran 5 more from there before bringing her home. 6.09 miles in 59:58, average pace 9:51, low heart rate and flat shoes, no splits over 10:00. Still feeling good. This is the first time I have done a low heart rate run in the 9s, which was once a fantasy goal for me. Gee, with conditioning like that you would think I must have run a good marathon or something.
Speaking of the marathon (we won't call it by name), I whined to my brother-in-law in Omaha, a cardiologist and a 3:00 marathoner. Actually was curious to see what he would say about the heart rate issue. Here is what he wrote back:
"I think something must have been going on with you during your last race. It is very odd for you to have such a high heart rate in a long race--I have to believe you were suffering from some subclinical illness (ie. your viral cold) or dehydration, or something. You're right, there's no way you would be able to tolerate that kind of rate for 26 miles.
I don't think the HR is the primary problem, just a reflection of something that's not quite right with the body. In a long run like that you would ideally never encroach upon the HR that represents your VO2-max, until you're sprinting for the finish line at 3:45 of course.
Wearing a heart rate monitor, in my view, is not really all that helpful since everybody's rates are so different and there's no such thing as a high rate that's dangerous. Having said that, in your case it may allow you to recognize when you are having an "off" day and adjust accordingly. Perhaps you may find that you need to ratchet back your pace from the start if your rate is too high and see if your body picks up as the miles progress. I don't know. My guess is that you'd have done poorly in your last marathon regardless of what your strategy was--you're body was just not up to running that day.
I find that there are days when my running is just "off," as I'm sure you've also experienced. I feel good before the run, but immediately I find I can't get my speed up comfortably. This happened last spring when I did a half-marathon in Iowa that I'd hoped to smoke. I took off at the pace I was hoping to keep for the entire rate (about 6:30-6:45, the pace I'd been training at) but found right away I couldn't keep it up. I ended up walking at several points and in the end I ran the worst time I've ever posted for a half marathon. I don't know what the deal was, but I can tell you it was demoralizing. I wore my GPS watch but not my heart rate monitor. It's possible that I might have found, like you, that my HR was too high from the start." | | Comments(2) |
| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 0.00 | 10.01 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 10.01 |
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50F, 94% humidity, calm, clear and dark. Ran with the group at the Y this morning, very nice weather at 6:10 a.m. but nearly stepped in a couple of pot holes because it was pitch black with no moonlight and almost no street lighting. I'll be glad when the clock switches. Ran 10.01 miles in 1:27:15, average pace 8:43 per mile, regular shoes. Didn't intend to run that fast, but I am childish and I just had to stay with the guys up front. At one point they were running 8:10s, but slowed down to 9:10s toward the end. So without planning it I ended up getting some marathon pace miles and an interesting comparison to last week's actual marathon. Here are some comparative paces and heart rates for a few splits:
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Split
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Today (50F)
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Hartford (51F*)
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Mile 3
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8:07 (163 bpm)
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8:24 (169 bpm)
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Mile 4
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8:14 (167)
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8:26 (167)
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Mile 5
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8:38 (165)
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8:39 (168)
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Mile 6
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8:45 (163)
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8:28 (170)
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Mile 7
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8:42 (162)
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8:35 (169)
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Average:
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8:29 (164 bpm)
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8:30 (168-169 bpm)
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| * They announced 57F at the start, but the Weather Channel website says 51F, big discrepancy. |
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So today my heart rate for a similar speed (and presumably similar temperatures) was about 5 bpm slower in regular shoes (I wore flat shoes for the marathon), which isn't as dramatic as I would have guessed but it could be significant over the marathon distance, assuming that whatever raised my heart rate in Hartford isn't a factor in Richmond. But no matter the reason, it is probably still too high. The whole game for the next few weeks is going to be to try to cram my heart rate down. If I could run MP at 160 I should be fine. (Saying it differently, perhaps 160 bpm is my MP, I just need to learn to run BQ pace at 160.) I think I will run a lot in the upcoming weeks in this zone and see what happens. It is clear that I have greatly benefited from low heart rate running -- my legs are stronger, more resilient, and faster recovering. And until Hartford every marathon was a PR. But I also need to improve at higher heart rates.
During the run today I started talking to one woman who was willing to listen to my sad marathon stories. She is from England, and told me that the ultimate flat course is found in Edinburgh, Scotland, gentle downhill for 6 miles then flat as a pancake, i.e., flat as Houston. She ran it once and couldn't say enough good about it, except it got unseasonably warm. I think she still ran a PR. It's in May and usually not hot. It might be time to save up some coins, brush up on my brogue and hop on my first Virgin Air flight.
Well, this concludes my recovery week. Back to regular running next week if I'm feeling good. | | Comments(3) |
| | Easy Miles | Marathon Pace Miles | Threshold Miles | VO2 Max Miles | Total Distance | | 19.20 | 10.01 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 29.21 |
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