Saturday 23MAR2019 Broomfield Shootout

Broomfield Shooutout today ... I got out with a handful of coaches from other teams and we did six and change around the ditch and Ridgeview Trail after the 4x8s and before the miles.  Still, a track meet leaves me beat down in a way that only a very long run can come close to.

Wednesday 04MAY2016

News today:

• Sure to get some press, Hall has gone all selfie with his muscle gains now that he is not running 120 miles a week. 
• This is a bad ass 5k from a master … Jen Rhines.
• Roes is done writing.  He has written some pretty good stuff over the years, especially chronicling his fall from ultra supremacy into what appeared to be OTS.  I do find it interesting how most of “us” are more likely to be like a Roes and have a few years of personal greatness in endurance events … than to be like a Meb or a Lagat or a Rhines. 
• Lucho shared this article on alcohol related deaths and posed the question:  where is the outrage against booze?  Check it out on his FB feed if you want the fun stuff.
• For what it is worth, KZ and her fellow CBYX participants are wondering if Malia is going to be a part of their program.
• If there is a ball in the yard – it is Bart’s.

Replanted a rose bush today.

Afternoon – I felt okay but I did start to wilt a bit in the heat towards the end of this one.
 
8 miles, but there was a fair size break in the middle down by Josh’s Pond.  Long potty break and then gathering my wits about me after it.  The Achilles whined a bit today but manageable. 

I signed JZ up for the Kohl Elementary 5k today.  His best 5k from XC is 20:42 and with his track season ended, there is some curiosity as to what his fitness is now, and if he can get under 20.  I signed up too, thinking I might be able to pace him.  This could be ugly.

I attended the conference meet at Broomfield High tonight.  I have no voice left … but wow, am I full otherwise.  Watching these two kids get state qualifiers was more than incredible. 

Both kids came in at 23 and 24 on the list before tonight, with 9:50 as the 18 spot.  Both had run about 9:55 this season, and so to put it together – and negative splitting on their home track … it was huge.  This ought to seal the deal for them for State.  I told Jared his time at the finish and his eyes went wide and then he fell to the ground in disbelief.  Awesome.  There was the 4 x 8 as well where kids ran their hearts out, dreamed big, believed, dared to taste copper on the third 200 and got it done.  Nothing finer than a track meet under the lights in the Colorado early summer.

Tuesday 29MAR2016

I played around with some of those insidious race predictors today.  I started with my guess that I could put up a mile in 5:30.

Comparing that to a 5 flat sets up for a pretty big difference across the board.

Going off my result in January of the half marathon in San Diego (Carlsbad) of 86:30:

Which is all to say, I have a lot of work to do.  Clearly a large part of this challenge for me is shifting my head.  It is shifting away from thinking about getting 10 miles a day, it is about shifting to considering focusing on quality workouts (v. quantity), it is shifting to taking on 20 minutes of strength training as opposed to getting another 20 minutes of running, etc.  Can I make myself do things like Bulgarian split squats 3x a week? 

There is clear a part of my head that looks at me as the outsider and says, “NFW.”  It is too big of a gap to bridge and that I won’t do those things, because while I have been consistent in training, I have been consisent in only doing the training I want to do and not shifting things up too much.  That is true. 

But that is the challenge.  I might come up short.  But to try and come up short is a better result than to not try. 

Race of the day to watch in case you missed it 16 years ago kids.

27.5 FOR THE LAST 200.

I have been wondering about my stride mechanics a bit too.  Because of my lawn mower foot, I have a Haglund deformity on my left foot.  For years it has ripped through the back of shoes like a drill back there.  I mean there has been a distinct hole in the actual shoe because of the bone protruding out the back of my foot.  But interestingly my shoes don’t have that much anymore.  And I have heard from people that have not seen me run in a while that they say my form has changed.  I am not sure how to manipulate that but I wonder if my general aerobic / V02 fitness is the same but my economy at higher speeds has just gone to shit so that I am unable to take advantage of that.

I spoke to someone on the phone today who I did not really know and they said, “oh so I hear you are an ultra runner.”  It was way out of context but I rolled with it.  I queried a bit as to how they got that – not that it is hard to find me … but I do find it is a good reminder to me that I put it a lot out there.  Bottom line:  I see it as a good thing because it keeps me honest on putting forth what I want to be and that in turn impacts who I am. 

Afternoon – I did a warm up of three and a half miles and then swung back to the house.  Grabbed the kids and headed over to the school.  I jogged with Greg for an additional 3 ish miles and then I got to work on the track.  I did 4 x 200 on 200 very easy jog to start.  Either amazingly or not surprising at all, they were easier to move on then Sunday.  38 was a rough start for me on Sunday but these came at 35 low to start and worked down into 34 low over the four.  I guess just teaching the body a bit gave it some memory today.  I then did 8 x 100 with full rest … not a full out blast but again feeling my way into that higher speed.  I screwed up the timing of several of these but they fell into the 17 range.  They actually seemed a bit slower than the 200s because a larger portion of the actual rep was ramping up to speed (I did not hit high gear off the line because I didn’t want to hurt anything).  And then 2 x 200, and these came in around 33.  My left hammy was a not sore at the end, but I was feeling the effort there a bit. Six and half miles over the run.   It was then off to the weight room where I did some squats with dumbells, some core work, some split squats, etc.  A good day.

Friday 18MAR2016

Both blogging and ultrarunning are dead. 

This is pretty cool.

Latest ATUC,

Afternoon – got out for about 10k where I started around 8 and the pace naturally dropped down without effort (which was sort of nice), and the headed over the school and jogged with Greg for a bit (40 min).  I got in a few strides too.

It was one of those days where we woke to 8 inches of heavy wet March snow.  Went out and shoveled it and then by the afternoon the sky had flipped to steel blue and the sun was starting to crank.  The snow was quickly turning to fast moving water down the gutters of the street.

I hit the weight room post.  The kids all hit the weight room after every run.  Okay- that is something we never  did in HS.  And these kids are not looking to max their bench.  Sure there is some upper body lifting that some of the kids are doing, but most of the effort is spent on plyos, drills, core type stuff.  Keeps you honest.  Little buggers can do planks all day long, but they all cheat on the pull ups (none of them do a full arm extension).  Good smack talk makes for good work.  The only problem is they blast the most inane crap for music over the speakers.  I replaced it with some of this (and actually most the kids dug it).

Monday 14MAR2016

AM – I headed up to Lucho’s place to catch up with him and get some jogging in.

It has been way too long since I have seen this guy – and it was just great.  We yammered nonstop for 90 minutes on everything from how to make a souflee to knitting patterns to types of homeopathic remedies for peanut allergies.

If one were doing Pikes, this is a good read of what to consider in training now.

This is sort of nuts (and probably sez something about genetic talent).

Afternoon – the wind picked up like crazy and was probably gusting up to 40mph.  I did strides back and forth as the kids did their workout.  Good for 3 miles. 

Weekend 12-13MAR2016

Saturday – the kids had a track meet at the HS and I was there with them all day.  The kids were in the early sessions of the 4 x 800m.  It was their first races of the season and it gave them a good sight of where they are in their fitness and now they have a good competitive objective measure they can work from.  JZ had not done an 800 on a track before and it had been a few years since KZ had done one.  Separately they both commented on how that third 200 has its challenges.

We spent the rest of the day at the meet.  There were at least a dozen schools in the mix.  I helped out in gathering splits on everything from the 800s (every 200) to 1600 to the 3200 and even the 4 x 4.  There were some pretty good perfomances to open the season for a lot of these kids (with some running events they would not typically run by going over or more typically under distance), but none of them are hoping this is their best performance of the season.  They are looking to improve. 

I got so wrapped up in the meet and the day that I completely forgot that Saturday was the day to register for Pikes.  I got a text from JV mid day asking if I had registered and realized I had completely spaced on it.  He also shared with me that it was 188 bucks to register.  

I am not going to criticize the cost – because I see that as a simple supply and demand thing.  If you have a product or a service that people want, and are willing to pay for, then you can charge what the market demands.  It might chase some folks off, but if you are filling your till to satisfaction and you have satisfied customers – go for it.  I have taken this sort of stance with races like Bolder Boulder:  a 75 dollar 10k with 50000 people ain’t for me.  It is obviously a great buy for a lot of people.

I long thought that Pikes was a very good buy for a race.  It was often (and probably still is) cheaper than a lot of road marathons.  While it probably does not have the costs of like a big city marathon of shutting down roads, getting police, etc – it does have its own set of challenges in that the course is on a 14er and getting supplies to the aid stations can’t be managed by driving to the A-frame. 

At 175 though, the old man memory can’t help but recall that not too long ago (less than a decade) it was probably half that.  And yeah, I avoided costs for years with comp’d entries to be fair.    I think the Ascent was 50 or 60 bucks when I first did it and that is now 150.  Interestingly for a few years, the Marathon was cheaper than the Ascent by 10 dollars or so because there was some cost consideration of the ride down.

Again, I am not opposed to the outright dollar cost alone.   I dropped close to 400 for Leadville reg last year (which does create the math of cost per mile comparisons) so I am okay with dropping a few bones on races where there is a personally percieved value.. But a combination of the cost of PPM, what kind of shape I am in, what I have planned for rec and work this summer, and what fire I have in my belly right now – I don’t see myself registering for Pikes.  I just don’t put together a subjective value in it … I’d drop 200 bucks to screw around and put up a sub par performance on the hill.  That ain’t worth it.

That is a bit weird because even up through last year, I thought I would do Pikes every year for probably the rest of my life or until I couldn’t.  My thinking has clearly shifted on it and while there is a part of me that is a bit sad about that, I am actually very much – “hey it is okay, the mountain is there when you want to go back, do something else for a bit.”  In fact, I will probably either be at the Leadville course or Pikes that weekend to, at minimum, watch the races if not help or something more.

Oh, back and forth on the track all day, collecting splits, etc was good for 9 easy miles.  My left hammy was a bit irked most of the day though. 

Sunday AM – got out with Shad (who ran a great Salida race), Bob, and Dave over after Mayerhoffer and the donks Boog and Ellroy.  This included paces of 0 miles an hour to paces of 12 miles and hour.  With the number of bikes, dogs, people on the Coal Creek Trail it is always a bit of a challenge … and a bit funny as people whip out their phones and say “you don’t see that every datay

Decent week for me back home … a good number of miles where the pace was nudged by doing stuff with the kids.  Being on or near the track so much has me thinking about goals in that direction … maybe.  The week was a bit more loaded towards the front, and a bit lighter over the weekend – both in terms of quality and quantity - but it was okay on whole. 

Friday 29JAN2016

David left this in the comments the other day.

I think low HR training takes lots and lots of volume to work, especially with an economy-based activity like running. 12-14 hours is the "breakdown" point for many I've seen. That much requires a slow down in order to survive unless a person is insanely durable.
At 10 hours, breakdown risk is less, and it's a pretty small amount of training in the big scheme of things (coming from a 10 hour/week runner). To get much out of that training for experienced runners, you have to be doing work that stresses your running economy in a way that is somewhat similar to racing. My guess is your form at 8:30 pace is completely slog-tastic, compared to 7ish-7:30, where you are probably running similarly to faster efforts. For young guns that are racing at 4:20 pace, those 6 min pace days are MAF AND simulate solid form. For masters runners and non-pro younger runners, 8:30 min MAF pace likely does not simulate the same form as their 6 min race pace. In some ways, I think the slogging is more similar to cross training. Not useless, but not particularly beneficial.  When I start working with runners with your background, the first thing I do is increase the speed of their cruise pace. I always have them start with a mile super slow and easy to work out the kinks, then settle down into an honest easy/moderate effort (probably no slower than 7:30 for you). At first, that's always followed by a recovery day where they run slower, but over time, we take out recovery and have them comfy clicking of easy/mod miles like clockwork. Only then do we add hill intervals and speedwork.  TL;DR. Aerobic benefits in experienced runners accrue from work. With 10 hours a week, work is maximized by increasing the pace of everyday running

Good stuff.

I was thinking about running shorts recently.  I actually think about them quite a bit without really thinking about it.  I have favorite pairs.   The ones that fit just right.  Not too long, not too short, don’t create any rubbing in the wrong spots, and keep all the bits in the right places. 

I have other pairs that are not so favorite but need to be brought into use because of use of the favorite pairs has relegated those temporarily to the laundry.  They are too long.  Or too short.  Or they seemed to be the right length at one time but with where I am at now, they are a bit too short.  Or when you put them on, they just feel like you are wearing them backwards.  Or they don’t split just right on the side.  Or maybe they rub something and chaff now.   Or the elastic on the waist has given up.  Or the elastic on the under liner has started to fade enough so that stuff is not held effectively. 

Or the under liner has been worn in a pattern characteristic of parts that have rubbed there for hundreds or thousands of miles that stuff is moving in places and directions it ought not too.   I have stared at that and been a bit intrigued that something so otherwise sensitive could actually wear away cloth an an imperceptable way.  

There are shorts that used to be acceptable but because of some degree of fashion sense they are not any more.  I wore city camo Skins for Pikes a few years back.  Not really shorts but the half tight thing.  They were awesome.  But a bit scary.  Particularly on a middle aged man.   My family has threatened bodily harm to me if I wear them again.  It is too bad because they are a great pair of shorts.  I have a pair of shorts from 1996 that were so freaking bright USA red white and blue in some sort of scatter paint pattern that I can’t bring myself to wear them even if they are good fitting. 

I noticed that almost all my shorts now have to have some sort of pocket for a key or a gel or something.  I almost never used that sort of thing years ago.  The pocket in almost all those shorts was so small and positioned in the front waist band that if you could get a key in there it was stabbing you in the gut or the thigh.  Now they are almost always in some little zipper pocket in the back that I use.

Worst of all is the shorts that have to be retired because they are just out and out funked out.  There is no eliminating the smell despite the number of washes, bleaching, cooking in the sun.  They have just become a petri dish of stuff you really don’t want near you … although it usually takes a few runs too many to realize that.  They just need to be tossed or burnt or some how destroyed.

I thought I might race tomorrow but I decided against it.  My head has been on a bit of a roller coaster this week and while a part of me could use the diversion … I will enjoy the AM with TZ in a walk instead.

In the afternoon I headed jogged over to the HS and jumped in with those guys for their run for an hour.  I held on for about 40 minutes and then spun off for my own thing, and so with that I essentially got in a tempo fartlek or something.  They average sub seven pace but sometimes it is 7:15 and sometimes it is 6:05.  Sometimes it stops at the light and then sometimes it takes off when traffic clears.  They gave each other crap, and even talked some smack to me.  It was a good mix up for me, but I could feel it when I spun off.  Sheesh. 

Wednesday 27JAN2016

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. Albert Einstein

I headed over to BHS to get some jogging in.  But then I ended up not jogging.  And that was good.

Greg had set up a workout for the kids:   20 minute warm up, 8 x 1 minute at 5k pace to 3k pace.  Okay, let’s do that.

I ran a bit a better than yesterday and it was a harder workout for me.  It shouldn’t be because 8 x 1 minute should not be harder than 5 x 3 minutes for a lot of reasons, but tat reflects where I was yesterday IN MY HEAD more than anything.

More importantly – the kids kept me honest throughout.   They jumped on their warm up, or it feels like it to me … it gets me getting on it as these kids fall into 7 flat pace to get going … versus my 8:30 fumbling.  And afterwards I found Jake and he was jogging his relaxed 6:50-7:10 pace.  It nudged me to keep moving a bit rather than just slogging.  They don’t know MAF or base or whatever for that part.  They just run. 

8.5 miles.