The RCQ^2 Triangle

Carpenter (and Friem) outline what they call the RCQ^2 (that is Q squared) triangle in their 2002 text Training for the Ascent and Marathon on Pikes Peak.

The text is obviously written with those specific races in mind, and so the training philosophy, the workouts and the overall expectations laid out with a 7800 plus climb in mind.  Nonetheless, the triangle is applicable for a variety of training and performance goals.  It can be applied to the HS athlete looking to run a fast mile as much as it can be applied to the master looking to churn out a long day at Leadville.

The R is recovery.  The C is consistency.  The Qs are Quantity and Quality.  Without completely plagiarizing all Carpenter’s writing, the goal is defined as balancing the triangle.  Too much (or too little) of any aspect of the triangle and the balance of training is less than ideal, and results will follow.

Week ending 11NOV2018

A good week of training … got a Green in (Tuesday), some repeats in (Monday, Friday) and some weight room work focused on the lower body in.   Miles on whole were fair as well.

I had considered heading out to Green this AM (Sunday) but chickened out, as we got hit with some snow.  I figured I’d save that fight for a day where I had a bit more time and willingness to deal with equipment.

I signed up for the NXR Citizen’s race in PHX next week.  I don’t figure to make any huge splash in that, and should be running just under 20 minutes as I did all summer. 

The mix of Green, and then shorter stuff with the HS distance kids, signing up for a 5k race, overall miles, and weight work pretty much summarizes how I'd like to train over the next few months.  That is I see it as a program that mixes in a fair amount of volume (8-12 hours a week), climbing ideally once a week, getting in some quality stuff at the shorter end of things, and some weight work focused on leg strength development.  Thus, it is not a program that is really phased at this point – like “hey this is the climbing phase” or “this is the period of the year in which I work on volume exclusively.”  It is blended (or what I have heard some call “multi-phased”) at this point, giving me flexibility for interruptions like the holidays or travel or weather, and hitting on all the items I need to consider … because I am weak to some degree in all of them.  If it is missing anything it might be the long run – as in something greater than 2.5 hours, but as the older “seasoned” athlete, I don’t need to hit that as much at this time. 

Minimum requirements

I have a whole rant on the victim mentality but I’ll let this picture cover it instead.

Plugging away here with a week at home.  I was thinking I just need to adhere to some set of minimum requirements for training.  Like every week will include some sort of short fast something, every week will have a threshold tempo something and every week needs a run at least 90 minutes or longer.  It is easy to say that when looking back.

I watched Lucho race on Thursday night and afterwards he said I should train for the 400 with him.  I think the chances of me doing that are about the same as me doing a 100 miler again.  Generally I am happy with my getting out every day but I do think I need to continue to up my “minimum requirements” so that I am not just jogging for 80 minutes every day.  As Bob told me if I keep doing that it will be 20 minute 5ks within the year. 

Summer training with the HS group is progressing nicely.

Weekend through 16APR2017 Week in review and some post meet thoughts

Friday – 10.6 on the Rock Creek Trail. 

Saturday – zero miles for my fourth day off this year.  I was just too cooked after being at the BOCO meet up in Longmont all day.  I was sacked out in bed just a tad after 8.  It was one of those days where I could have gone out and thrashed for 2 or 3 miles just to avoid a zero, but I would not have got much out of it other than some mental satisfaction that would be offset with disappointment in the run.  More on the meet below.

Sunday – 15.2 on the Rock Creek Trail.  I didn’t feel so hot, and then it started to get hot so I began to falter a bit in the second half, but even when I pop on these runs like that, I tend to still hold the sub 8 pace.  I guess that is a good sign of the last 15 weeks of getting regular stuff in. 

Another 70 week (in six days of running), but hardly anything beyond regular aerobic runs.  No need to revisit how that is a problem as I have already covered that here. 

On Saturday I spent the day up at the Boulder County Championships up in Longmont.  We had some kids perform well, and some kids come up short of expectations.  JZ was one of them.  He looked flat, and while he was able to manage that a fairly well in a 4 x 8 leg, he got walloped pretty good in the 3200 later in the day.

One of the things that I think makes a person an expert in their field is pattern recognition.  Be they are a doctor, or a software programmer or a military strategist, they can “see the future” before it happens because they recognize patterns of success or failure before those things actually happen.   I could see that JZ was going to have a tough 3200 in the first lap of his race.  His arm swing was off in a way that happens when he is struggling, and you could see he was flailing a bit.    You can see something like this with all the kids when they are a little off, and you start to recognize that pattern.

Another pattern I have been recognizing is the “the last 1 percent.”  If an athlete does not take care of that last 1 percent, it can have a pretty profound effect on their performances.  High school kids recognize this to different degrees, and for some it is a long lesson for them to learn.   Recognizing what they eat, what they do to manage their sleep, how long they sit in  the sun before their races, and their mental state … it probably actually all adds up to a lot more than 1 percent … but those things are game changers for a high performing athlete.  That is ridiculously obvious – right?  But not necessarily to the a 15-18 year old kids.  This is not only true for their races and competitions, but how they approach practice.  If they approach practice on top of that last percent, they are going to have a better practice and thus ultimately perform better.  And if they come under that percent, they are going to have a poorer practice and thus are likely to perform more poorly. 

Take a 2 minute 800 meter kid … that is a 120 second effort.  In the 5A ranks in Colorado, a 2 minute 800 does not get you into the state meet.  But if you perform 1 percent better … or 1.2 seconds faster, you are now a 1:58.8 kid, and you are right at that number 18 spot that gets you in.

I think JZ is figuring some of these things out.  Maybe not.  It is not easy always for us to recognize what we do outside of a race or a practice has an impact even hours, days or weeks later.  It probably holds true that his old man is still trying to figure out these sort of things for himself despite being 3 decades his senior. 

But the pattern I recognized in myself that was the loudest over the weekend was seeing the satisfaction I had when a kid was able to meet their expectations (or say PR) versus the disappointment when they came up short.  And really how much of that disappointment was on me.  It felt like I had come up short for the athlete in preparing them … a logical part of me knows that is not completely true of course.  I recognize I am not articulating this part well here, but that reflects the mix of feelings, thoughts, and responses that in my head and heart on this topic.  When a kid I coach does not do well, I can see patterns where I think I did not do something to prepare that kid to do their best, but at the same time I recognize there are things they are doing that also impact that.  It also holds true when they do well – I can see where they have risen to be something better than what they were before in terms of athletic performance, and being a little part of the team that helped them get there is hugely satisfying. 

All of that … I love the process this represents on so many levels … dedicating yourself to a craft for hours on a week for an effort that will take you only minutes, learning from your successes and failures, trying to be a better person physically, mentally than what you were the day before …

Seeking or avoiding physical discomfort

I have been contemplating how I play this personal no win game of seeking physical discomfort, while also trying really damn hard to avoid it. 

For example, I notice I am rarely hungry.  Occasionally I am hungry, but it is usually only after a long day of not eating and some physical activity.  I am typically not far from having a few bites or a drink of something.  In terms of running performance,there is probably a measurable impact in that I am a bit heavier than I ought to be for optimal racing.  

Hunger is a pretty basic discomfort.  I am never in a position where I am seriously food deprived even if hungry.  But well before I get to that, I am shoving something in my mouth.  I’d run better if I embraced the discomfort of hunger a bit more.  But I don’t. 

Even though “I did a workout” yesterday, I am not sore today.  Or even hugely tired or fatigued.   I can feel the work a bit on the edges but nothing significant.  There are the occasional days where I am tired or a bit sore, but that is a bit atypical.   I tend to be tired if my sleep is jacked or if I have travelled a lot or if I am stressed about something.  Recent running soreness or fatigue seems to come off of longer hard efforts or maybe a mountain run.  But not track workouts like yesterday.  And that is a bit weird because those used to wreck me.

So I am wondering if I am just avoiding discomfort, or going through motions to get a bit of it, but just enough.  Not too much so that I have to really deal with it.

I see how as people age, they tend to move towards a comfortable existence, even to the point of putting a lot of energy in fighting change in society because it might shift some fabric in their lives that impacts, or even appears to impact their comfort / discomfort level.  Is my aging driving a move away from a willingness to do uncomfortable things, including eat less than I do or train harder?

I have wondered if it is maybe not an age thing but rather a how much you want to take it on thing and that capacity might be some finite well for each of us.  We have heard of people “burning out” after short stellar bursts of discomfort and thus results, but yet others carrying on and on and on as if they can do nothing else.   Most I know that have pursued running over decades are content to quietly slip from regular competition and the grinding of teeth found in hard workouts.  It could be a simple “been there and done that” thing, or that folks grow weary of only getting so far and seeing the limit of their results (and choose to spend their time elsewhere more wisely) … or maybe it is those ideas that come to mind as the brain looks to preserve itself.  So some flavor of the central governor perhaps.

The capacity for such taking on such discomfort might be an attribute in each of us that varies like height, but maybe it changes over life as well.  I can “see” in high school kids, the highly talented kid that is less willing “to put their hand into the fire” and the kid that might be a bit less talented but hates the taste of losing so much that maybe they outperform others of equal ability.  Obviously this is not a black and white consideration or some measurable attribute but it is something that is observable enough that people speak to it as if it is a quantifiable object.

seeking comfort ain’t just a human thing …

Monday 31JAN2017 Shad’s Hills

Shad put the email flag up for a run and I took it, but him know that his plan for hard hills was not something I was really game for.  My stomach was none too happy.  I enjoyed a bit too much pizza last night and I was feeling it. 

Shad mentioned that we did this same workout nearly a year ago to the day so I had to go look it up.  I recalled the run and I was pleasantly surprised to see that while I was not feeling the groove today, my half hearted attempts to move with some effort up the hill were significantly faster this go around over a year ago (even though I think I was trying a bit harder last year).  I’ll take that.  And it helped the stomach as well.  7 miles.

Great photos from the NB meet over the weekend from Dave Albo.

I connected up with the HS squad in the afternoon (and then Neeraj joined us) and did more hills:  2 x 1 minute, 4 x 40 seconds, 4 x 20 seconds with the jog down as the recovery.  I had little “pop” today as the legs were not “popping” with the Saturday tempo effort, the longish effort yesterday and a hill run this AM.  Still – I ended up breathing hard.  5.5 miles.

I ended up chatting with Neeraj a bit about “running principles.”  I am pretty sure that I have posted this sort of thing before but I will give it a shot here again.  First, I think it is important to note that such principles are general considerations … in other words, the broad approach that applies to most people.  But the applicability of principles is almost a thing that never happens because you take these and then make them appropriate for the individual.

I first started thinking of these when folks would come to me around this time of the year and ask something like, “last year I ran the Bolder Boulder in 60 minutes.  This year I want to break 50.  What should I do?”  I’d probe back with a few questions like, “how much do you run?  do you have an injury history?  how important is this to you?” and I’d hear things like “I run 3 times a week for 30 to 45 minutes.”  It made my advice back to them painfully easy and almost so blunt it was probably sometimes received as unhelpful. 

1.)  Run more.

That principle holds true not just for the weekend warrior athlete looking to improve their 10k in May but for most of us.   The HS athlete who is just starting needs to run more as does the HS senior needs to comparatively to their frosh self (remember the principles are broad and not always true for all individuals). 

The other principles that come into play …

2.)  Mix the speeds.  There is probably a host of posts here in strides to short speed work to V02 work to tempo work to long run work to easy run paces.  Touching all of these in your training at the right time is necessary for improvement.

3.)  Do hills.  It is sort of a corollary to 1 and 2. 

4.)  Do a longer run.  It does not matter if you are running 5k or a marathon – you need a longer set of stimulus (also a corollary to 1 and 2).

5.)  Everything else.  This is all those other things:  diet, altitude training, ketosis, forefoot running, cadence, HR, metabolic rate, ketosis, etc … this is not to say there is not an importance in these things as they may be very important to the individual, but I think for most the other things are of greater importance (and in fact, a lot of people go with this principle first … which probably sets them up for a bit of failure in reaching optimal results).

Clearly it is MORE specific than this.  But that is where you get into the needs of the individual:  training a competitive HS female is different than training a newbie runner masters male (and even within those stereotypes there are differences) …

Yeah, I have posted this previously.  At least twice.

A little more on predictions and Horwill’s rule

Extending a bit more on the predictor that Willis put forth for a four minute mile (12 second flying start 100 speed, 20 minute 4 mile tempo run strength) and my take on it for a 5 minute mile (15 second flying start 100 speed) 25 minute 4 mile tempo run strength) …

… I am not the only one that lives in this house that is eyeballing a five minute mile.  I am pretty JZ is a heck of a lot closer to 15 speed than me (without the straining that I’d bring).  I might be a bit closer to the strength end of the equation but I am leveraging 35 years of running … he’ll win that battle soon enough if he keeps training.  Additionally, I have “eyes on” kids regularly competing at this distance.  It will give me some data points to consider.

Perhaps the grand daddy of all predictors is Horwill’s rule, or basically the premise that as you double distance you slow by 4 seconds for each 400.  Some interpret this as each classic jump in distance rather than just a doubling (so 2 mile to 5k would have the same effect).  Again, it depends and the evidence is pretty clear on that … no one thinks that 400m WR WVN is going to take his 43 400 speed, slow that to back to back 47s or 48s and suddenly run 1:36 for the 800.  But if you consider Rudisha’s 800 (1:40, or 50 per lap) and the current WR for the mile (El G, 3:43 or just under 56 a lap) to the 2 mile (Komen 7:58, or just under 60 a lap) – regardless if those are clean records or not, you can see the pattern.

In HS, if a kid wants to break 10 for the 3200(75s for 400) , it is pretty well expected they need to be under 4:40 for the 1600 (70s) … a bit closer to 5 seconds for lap, but younger or lesser trained athletes, tend to move the Horwill rule up in the 5 or 6 or even higher seconds per lap.

I am personally curious about my 800 speed because if I can only manage a 2:25 right now – or 72.5 a lap, the rule would say I am going to put up 77s for a 1600 – or a 5:08 to 5:10.  Again, working the enticing game of the predictor, I sort of feel I need to get to under 2:15 speed (67 a lap) to have a good shot at breaking 5.  Hypothetically I could be as slow as 2:20, but I think that is cutting it a bit too close for me.  70 a lap sounds not so bad, but when I consider that I was doing 300s at 74 pace and that felt pretty fast … well, I have work to do.

Again, predictors can mean nothing.  Or a bit of something.

Willis mile prediction thoughts

For as long as I can remember, I have enjoyed “predictor workouts” in running.  I recognize they have their shortcomings, and are not a guarantee of race days success.  But, it is often fair to say “hey, if I can do this, I ought to be able to do that.”

One of my favorites (as I have written here before) was 6 x 800 on a minute rest, 3-4 seconds per 800 than 5k race pace.  That seemed to work well for me.  I also liked 3 x 800 at mile pace on a 3 minutes rest to predict mile performance but that never played out in a race for me as well as it did in the workout (maybe I left the race in the workout).

I got dozens more, including even guesses at what a run up the SAG route on Green Mountain in Boulder does for predicting a Pikes Ascent time.  I love them.  So when I recently heard elite miler and 2x Olympic medalist and miler Nick Willis provide a predictor of sorts for the mile, I got really interested.

In response to one of the questions on a podcast, Nick mentioned to be a 4 minute miler you needed to be able to run the 100 on a rolling start in 12 or better and a 4 mile tempo run in 20 minutes or better.  I found this pretty thoughtful.  A strong mile race requires both speed and endurance and these tests that Nick put forth were hitting right on that.

His idea reminded me of a discussion I have had with Lucho and Bob over the years about how to prepare for a distance race like a 5k.  When jumping into runs with Lucho, he’d often want to do diagonals on a soccer field.   That is sprint the diagonal (corner to corner of a soccer field) and take the hard turn on the end zone to jog that distance to the next corner.  Do that 20 times and you’ll get pretty ripped up of you are not used it and Lucho thought it was good for helping him get in shape.   Conversely Bob thought this sort of work did little to prepare for a 5k race and that this sort of work was not necessary until you demonstrated some ability to hold a good pace over a 20 minute tempo run.  Where was it best to spend the training “buck?”

So who was right?  Both, neither and “it depends.”  The first “it depends” is it depends on what you are a responder to (and probably what you enjoy).  Another “it depends” is it depends on what you are weak at.  Those could be the same thing … or not.  I have felt that while it depends on the athlete, a blend of training both of those ends is necessary to get you best prepared for a goal race – speed and endurance (in fairness to those guys, they do to, and the discussion was probably more a debate about what we wanted to do that day to play to our strengths so that we could hurt the other guy a bit more … Lucho would crush on short stuff, Bob would vampire grind us on long stuff … as long as it was not too hot).

Willis’ proposal seems to hit on both ends as well.  I asked BrHS coach Greg Weich what he thought and I could see he was quickly going a review of the athletes he has known over the years in his head.  The answer:  it depends.  There were guys who were speed guys that could go 50 in the quarter (and thus likely faster than 12 on a rolling 100) but would not be able to go sub 20 in a 4 mile tempo run.  He knew of guys who’d go 19 on a tempo run but be lucky to run 13 in the 100.  These were guys really close to the 4 minute mile so it seemed that Willis equation was in the ball park – or like a lot predictors, it worked for a lot of people some of the time but not all of the people all the time.  The old George Box adage is “All models are wrong but some are useful.”

The Willis pitch got me thinking if his prediction points could be extrapolated for a 5 minute mile – or a goal that I have been thinking about.  A 12 second 100 is 25 percent faster than the 15 second 100 that a runner needs to hold for a 4 minute mile (yes, I know that a mile is a bit longer than 1600 meters but for the simplicity of this work, go with that for now).  A five minute mile pace for four miles is 80 percent the speed one needs to hold for a four minute mile. 

Willis did not describe what he meant by a tempo run in the interview.  Very classically, I think of a tempo run as an effort that you’d be able to hold for an hour – as in it is your race pace for 1 hour  but usually are only doing for 20-40 minutes to get stimulus without a full on race effort.  I am not sure if Willis mean that he expects 4 minute milers can also run a 12 mile effort in an hour race (or a 67 half marathon).  In some regards, that seems appropriate … but that would be a stretch for some as well (it depends!).

More to the point here I think it is important to note that this is a tempo run for 4 miles – NOT an all out race effort. 

In regards to what it means for a 5 minute mile effort – since a runner holds 18.75 per 100 there (or slightly faster because of the 1609 meters of a mile over 1600), 25 percent faster than that is 15 seconds.  And following the 80 percent modeling for the tempo run, that would be a 6:15 pace or 25 minutes for the tempo run (check my math, I might have messed it up).

And now the fun of the predictor:  can I do that and what do I need to improve (later followed up by the question – if I have done that can I do what I need to for the goal race)?  A 15 second 100 is probably a bit out of reach for me at the moment.  I might be able to do it but it would be very risky (injury).  It seems do-able with some work, but that might just be an overactive imagination of an aging man.

On the other end, a 6:15 paced four mile tempo run … I think I could do this but today that would be well above tempo range.  It is probably a bit above my abilities straight up for four miles (based on recent 5k times) but I think I could hit it … but hold that pace for an hour?  Yeah, not likely.  6:30?  Maybe.  6:15?  Not right now.

Anyway … I need work at both ends – the strength and the endurance.  And I don’t know if I am going to be able to get to that sub 5, but the Willis thought experiment has me chewing on how to get there a bit more.

(PS – I did not ask Bob or Lucho their permission on any of this so I am probably horribly misrepresenting them)

A possible personal challenge

Great podcast from HOR with Sweat Science guy Alex Hutchinson on the Nike play at breaking 2 hours.  Alex is a pretty insightful guy and he was part of the RW team that was invited up to Beaverton to break the story. 

I have seen a few folks do push up challenges in recent months.  The typical goal is to get 3000 in a month, or about 100 push ups a day. 

I don’t think the physical is the bulk of these challenges.  Instead the challenge is to have the discipline to do something different and look to make some sort of habit of it.  It just doesn’t need to be a physical thing – you probably have seen things where folks list what they are grateful for over the course of a month.  Or even just straight up list 50 of them in an effort to shift perspective.

I suck at doing something different.  A push up challenge won’t be a huge challenge for me and it is not really aligned with the gains I am looking for.  So I am considering a squat challenge.  I suck at squats, and I could gain by doing them regularly.  I was thinking 3000 squats would be a nice number but Shad called me weak and said I need to make that 5000 – particularly since I’d probably just do air squats. 

I decided to test myself a little bit and see if I am actually physically ready to do this.  I did 5 sets of 30 today.  Not bad, but I’ll have a better read on it tomorrow.  Been getting some good consistency as of late … 210 plus miles over the last 20 days, even with the interruptions.

2016 was a slow down

I am also not a huge fan of “the year in review” or “New Year plans” posts but I understand why they are done (simply because now we are getting more hours of light daily), and I have certainly been kicking around such thoughts in this regard for the last 12 months.

This year has been different for me.  On the running front that is quantified with the lowest miles on a year in probably a decade plus (I will come in around 2800 high), the most days off (67 as of today) that came with injuries, vacations and other typically dealt off days, and no real “A” races like a Pikes or Leadville.  I had a major job change with a leaving of the corporate world and starting of my own business.  I got involved with assisting the coaching staff of the distance squad at the local high school. 

Some of this is good, in fact even great.  But on the running performance front, I have seen the results shift to be slower … or as I like to sometimes joke – the watch runs faster now.  It ain’t too hard to figure out why this has happened, but nonetheless, I will jot some of that here as a record …

The thickening:  a more appropriate way to put this is I have gained weight.  I don’t have a pot belly though but I can see the subtle thicker arms, more rounded shoulders, and a few less ribs and veins showing through.  Most folks in our society would describe me as skinny but I can see a slow increase of mass that has come about with a slower metabolism, a few less miles … keep the same aerobic fitness and try to move a greater mass and you are likely to go slower. 

The thinning:  while I see a thickening in some areas, I can at the same time see a loss of muscle mass in other areas – namely my quads.  I do nothing to regularly work my legs other than run and it shows as my gams get more and more old man looking. 

The lack of a goal:  with no goal race picked to keep me honest and on a training plan, I have not had a training plan.  When I have no training plan, while I will look to get out regularly because of the habit of it and the head space health I gain from it, I am not regularly getting to a key workout each week.  When I was looking to get on Pikes I was at Green a lot, or when I was looking to get after a 10k I was doing road or track work regularly.  I still do that stuff, but it is ad-hoc and not regular. 

There was of course the burro thing, but that is different even though there is some cross over.

Paying attention to other things:  I remember hearing that it is was really tough to be a good coach and a good runner.  I have a new appreciation for that.  When focused on the results of other people, even if you are running with them to some degree, or hanging out at the track, it does not necessarily mean you are doing what you need to do improve your performance.  There is clearly a benefit of course to being involved in the success of other people’s athletic endeavors, but for me, with limited hours in the day, personal improvement on the running performance front, is not one of them.

There were other things I paid attention to in this area … like getting a new business going (which has been a big learning exercise to me, I have called it my own MBA program), hanging out in Canada in a canoe for 2 weeks, etc. 

Oh yeah, this aging thing:  yeah, 47 ain’t 35.  The degradation in those 12 years is way more than the 12 before it.  At least the degradation of the body … the brain often thinks things are just fine and so I ended up doing stupid stunts like jumping on the track for a mile in spikes even though I had not worn spikes at all leading up that.  That ended up messing my calf up for a while.  And then my right hip wanted to fall out later in the year.  Injuries happen, but I was not dealing with these like this in my fourth decade of life like I am in my fifth (or at least in this last year).

2015 leftovers:  I’d say that I was still reeling in a good part of 2016 from Leadville – and I do actually believe that – but I won’t really say that because all the ultra community that does a bunch of these hundreds every year will just mock me for that (appropriately so too).  I do think I was on a bit of a cascade effect there though in the first half of the year of trying to come back a bit too soon, mixed in with all the other items above.

Add this stuff up and you get a 47 year old guy that is sort of fit but not really reaching his athletic potential.  Each off the above have a pretty simple opposite that I could leverage to address (well except maybe the aging).  I sort of know better to say I will make those happen because my hit rate on that is probably 1 in 5. 

I really don’t see this step back in performance as all bad.  It just is.  Maybe there is even some good in it if you think that a down year is necessary to relight the fire.  I am not sure I believe that either but I recognize that the choices I have made have got me here and I am pretty good with all of it.  That itself might actually indicate that the fire is not ready to be relit.  I have wondered if that thought is an outcome of age due to nature (biology) or due to nurture (been there and done that). 

I have also seen that edge of wanting to succumb and give up on it because I am not what I was.  I have seen guys go through this over the years:  once a big fish in the small pond, once they started to lose that edge, they got out of the water and just stopped competing.  And then they often stopped running.  I can understand how that can come about when the 400s that you do in a workout are what you used to hold for 10k … maybe that frame of mind will come around for me someday but I am still willing to chase some stuff, pin on the bib and get thrashed a bit. 

I am pretty sure that 2017 won’t hold a true ultra race for me (like a 100) as I am just not willing to prepare, recover and hope for good execution on that day but I will figure out some not to amazing goals for it soon. 

Get out of your comfort zone

It was hot today so I had a lot of excuses.  I slept in so I missed the early morning cool temps, and then I was over at the church that charters my son’s Scout troop painting the shed that holds all our equipment.  It was hot.

I was fairly …. umm … “pooped” … or “tuckered out” after an affair of painting a shed in the sun for most of the mid day.  So the excuses for getting out for a run were piling up.  I took a short nap on the couch.  I am a bit of a belly sleeper and so I feel that any time I can fall asleep on my back easily, I must be pretty tired.

It dropped to eighty something around the dinner hour.  I knew that I not only wanted to get out for a run, but I wanted to get out for a workout.  But the excuses were piling up.  Frankly, doing a workout sounded a bit scary because I had not really done one in a while. 

Doing a race like I did last week was not as scary because … well, there were really no expectations.  And you get a certain amount of a bump of motivation because folks are around you also racing.  It is the magic little nudge you get by pinning on the number.  Doing a workout however … well, you are on your own.  And you have some expectations of what you at least want or hope to do. 

I have avoided workouts, at least structured ones or ones where I expect myself to hit certain paces for some bunch of months.  There are probably some stories in that, but none really worth telling because we all know what it is really and that is an avoidance of getting out of my comfort zone. 

I have been doing some work with the BrHS XC team this fall, and the staff there has been discussing the concept of “getting out of your comfort zone.”  Racing cross is not a comfort sport.  And so the training for it is often not either.  You need to teach your body and your brain about discomfort, so that it becomes the next level of comfort.  Ancillary to this is that if you never embrace discomfort, you will continue to lower a bar of comfort … always seeking lower and lower ground.  I have reached a pretty comfortable level and am a bit of a fraidy cat for discomfort.

But I am old enough that I know that.  I can talk about embracing discomfort and making your teeth sweat and digging deep, but I know I am just talking it.  I ain’t doing it.  I am exercising, but I ain’t training.  And there is a lot of me that does not want to.  But there is a voice in there that argues back.

The excuses were piling up in the 2 mile warmup over to the track.  I felt flat.  It was hot.  I was tired.  I got to the track and it was locked up like Fort Knox.  Easy to make excuses then but that little voice told me that it made no difference if I did repeats on the track or the roads. 

And so I got to it.

It was not so bad.  Not great.  Looking back at it a few hours later I know I was pretty much training my head more than my legs or lungs.  Training it that doing this sort of thing was a little uncomfortable, but necessary and unlikely to kill me.

So I am going to try to make getting out of the comfort zone a bit more of a habit.  This past week was sort of some of that.  In addition to the workout tonight (5 x 800 at 15-30 seconds faster than current 5k race pace on 3 minutes active rest), I got in a fair fartlek earlier this week, and some hill reps with the kids.  70+ on the week, but the slow stuff was super slow.

The boy in a zone of discomfort.

BrHS XC girls  … well, supposedly by some rankings they are a national power.  They are pretty amazing, regardless if the polls are right.  7 girls sub 20 on 5k at altitude.  They won the Liberty Bell meet (for the division they were in). 

The boys are a story in the making.  Figuring out the process, and learning a lot about running, commitment, and … discomfort.  A great set of young men.  They took second in their race at this meet. 

I am pretty dang lucky to be able to be a small part of their journey. 

The 750 Club

I go through a little check at the end of every August.  That check is did I run 750 miles over the months of June, July and August.  My high school had a 750 mile club.  There was a little board on the window of the coach’s office that listed the dozen or so guys that had done it.  There were no lesser distance clubs.  It was 750 or nada.   

The concept of averaging 8.1 miles a day for those 93 days seemed impossible to me.  I made a start at it with a couple of ten milers the summer after my sophomore year.  Or maybe it was freshman, I can’t recall.  I do recall needing to quit on it pretty early because the cotton shorts I had chaffed my thighs raw.  That did not go well with New England heat and humidity in the summer. 

I knew a few of the guys who had done it.  One was a classmate and a pretty good friend of mine.  In our senior year he’d be our number 1 runner in cross.  Basically, it was clear that putting in miles of base helped you as a runner.  We did not have a regular meet up program like it seems kids have now, and so getting that sort of volume on your own was a rare thing. 

While I never did 750 in a summer while in high school, it was a big enough deal to me that when the end of August rolls around, I can’t help but check.  I don’t set out with designs to make that sort of mileage for the summer, but because it was impactful enough to me … like say a 5 minute mile … I check.  While this summer has been my lowest mileage in quite a few, in part because of 17 non running days, I did make “the club.” I am pretty sure I have done this since at least the mid 90s.

There is probably a price though for being able to manage this “what was once difficult but is now easy” task:  speed.  I certainly could not have been able to manage a 29 mile race with a burro in the Colorado mountains when I was 17.  And if I had I would probably be unable to walk for a week.  But for any race less than 10k, my 17 year old self would be waiting a while at the finish line for my current bag of bones.

Recognizing that I am not going to just “train myself up” and then magically show up and run a respectable time … I am going to have to get into a few races where I get punched in the mouth a bit.  To that end I registered for a 5k XC race this weekend.  It is the open “citizen” or “coaches” race over at Waneka Lake before the Centaurus Warrior XC invite.  

Workouts and stuff

So I have been trying to get back on the horse (burro?) of doing some training other than just basic runs. 

I happened to be in the People’s Republic on Monday and had some time between meet ups.  I headed over to Buff Ranch to do some work over there.  Buff Ranch is the CU XC course but I don’t think they use it much anymore.  After a short warm up I did four of the hills, which for me start at the first turn in the course (on the flat).  You head almost due west for about 125 yards, then head up Jawbone Hill.  Once you crest the hill and it flattens again, you continue on to the M4mi sign.  It is a good gear changer between flat, hill and then getting rolling on the flat again. These were taking me between 2:40 to 2:50. It is about four tenths long, and if you jog the back side of the hill you get a touch over another six tenths in the loop.  I wanted to do more but the clock was pressing me.

That afternoon, I jumped in with the XC kids at the school.  They had 5 x a minute at a 7/10 effort, and then 6 x 30’’ at a 8,9/10 effort with a jog back down and 20’’ recovery.  It is amazing to see how easily these kids float on these and my only chance to stick with them is to dig pretty deep.  I was pretty fatigued in the legs form the earlier session in the day.  It got fairly hot and the dust on the Lake Link hill made the workout a bit tougher than it normally would be.

I have been getting out with TZ in the AM to walk the dogs and I saw a guy doing repeats on the so-called “Col d’Kohl” hill recently.  Motivated by this I swung by the hill later in the AM and got in 8 repeats on it.  Each effort is about 50-55 seconds long.  Some work needs to be done to get them back down to the 45s they were at one time.

All these workouts are not amounting to much in overall volume but my fitness ain’t that great right now so it does not take much to work me over.  No magic here other than the basic elements of getting out of your comfort zone, working weaknesses, and looking to do it a bit regularly.  If I can get on some hills every few days, maybe twice a week, and toss in a tempo in the once a week, I can take this getting ready to get ready to get ready and dial it down to just two of those.  Or sumthin’ like that.

Some recent pix …

While watching the Valmont XC meet, I was running across the tall grasses and must of hit a yellow jacket nest.  I got dinged about 10 times.  Ouch.

It is interesting watching JZ progress.  There is the component where I am emotionally tied to him and ride his happiness or disappointment with any given race, workout or run.  Mostly I am a step away from that, trying to be a parent that supports, is an open ear, regardless of outcome, and then there is a step away from that where I am just an objective bystander, coach that might be able to provide some help … if he wants it.  He is figuring this thing out, and even though I am involved with the team, it is his thing to work through.  It is a bit of a ride for me.  I mean, it is good because I know he is growing from it, regardless of the outcome, but at the same time I know he is pretty tied to that outcome. 

This bit of insight into Zach Miller’s living is making the rounds.

I met this guy when on a training run out in Leadville last year.

Monday morning quarterbacking

Excellent podcast from House of Run with Malcolm Gladwell wrapping up on the Olympics.  They take on loads of topics, including intersex athletes running in women’s events.  Gladwell dissects the recent NY Times article (and similar) on the topic.  I think this SOS on it is excellent.

Sean O’Day apparently ran the PPA in a g-dam gorrilla suit.  Good God.

Wesley Sandoval took fourth at Leadville in 18:40 and now has the Leadman record in 35:54:55 breaking Travis Macy’s three year old record.  Going into the run race, it seemed that Aish would most certainly get the record as he “only” needed a 19:32 to nab it.  Given his abilities and history, that seemed like a walk in the park.  My fanboy thought going in was that he is too geared to go for the win, crush the race and that it was a coin flip as to whether he’d run 17 hours or 22 hours.  It ended up the latter.  I mean no criticism of Mike, as his stripes are his stripes and the desire to go for it is admirable.  But it can leave a mark.

Looks like summer is over.

King’s implosion from Outward Bound in …a morbid curiosity overtook  me and  I had to check:  I took 7 hours (almost exactly) to cover those last 25 miles.  Max took 7:50. .  Aish took just under seven hours.   Jaime was a little more than that.  I can relate.  A grind to get it done.  Ugh.

Saturday night at Periodic Brewing Bob and I caught up with another Front Range area runner.  We got into a conversation that we had before – the entire conundrum about what we seek in these events: fulfillment or accomplishment.  For me, I am not sure they can be entirely separate, but I get the difference.  You can feel fulfilled even if you have not met the expected goal of the accomplishment.  Ultras embody this more than any other race because the accomplishment is often just to finish.

I have been churning on this thought for a bit.  I could go out and do a 5k on a local track with no one else around, no results posted, no bib or medal to take home.  Or I could run from Harrison to Winfield and back and save a few hundred bucks.  Putting a start line and finish line in the sand does something though, and not just for races.   My son earning the rank of Eagle Scout (if he does) has some importance to him.  Would he learn those skills and values anyway if he was seeking the fulfilment of it versus the accomplishment?  I find for myself I recognize that I am doing these things for some sort of personal fulfillment but the structure of an accomplishment helps drive it. 

Olympics:  yeah, I have been a sucker.  I am as equally as stoked to see some of the performances as I am doubtful about their legitimacy.  But I get sucked in every time.  Even if it was a 4:05 mile for Gold.

PPM:  Dobson has created quite a legacy on the mountain and her double win this past weekend further cements that.  Her record on the Ascent might be even more stout than Carpenters.  She now has six wins on the hill, which pushes her into legendary territory among the women.

Pretty fast double over the weekend (but not for the win) – from yesterday’s comments.  So was Weldemariam's double time the fastest ever? He ran 2:15, 2:19/3:42 for a combined 3:58. It looks like Carpenter ran 2:16, 2:24/3:53 for a combined 6:09 in 2001, and 2:12, 2:23/3:48 for a combined 6:00 in 2007. Of course Matt won all four of those races, so who is to say he couldn't have gone faster if pushed (although in 2007 Mackey was less than 2 minutes back in the marathon, and he only won the ascent by 3 minutes). He also might be the first person to run sub 2:20 on back-to-back days.  My reply:  In 1989 Carpenter went 2:08, 3:39 for a combo of 5:48. I think that is the fastest combo.

By the way Carpenter has 18 wins on the hill.  That is insane.  As I have said before, it gets to a point where the numbers are mind boggling enough that it becomes ho-hum.  If he had 10 wins that would be a big deal.  You sort of lose perspective as to what it means between numbers when it gets that high.

Some audio from Justin in the moments post the Buena Vista race. 

KZ’s latest pic to us this AM.

I was pinged recently by someone who asked why I don’t post my training up here any more.  Basically, I don’t feel like it is training right now … it is exercise.  5 miles a day does not really count for much, particularly when there is not a goal or objective other than maintaining some sort of basic fitness.  It could change though.  The head is geared a bit to getting some performance out of a 5k/10k distance … I’d just have to put a plan in place (other than basic consistency) to make that happen. 

That said, today I grunted on hill repeats over on Jawbone at Buff Ranch.

I owe JT a beer growler for his 3:12 after calling out the other day he wouldn’t break 3:18.  There has been a protest appeal lodged however for DNFing the next day.   Jury is still out.

Sunday 26JUN2016

Mid day – a day that would have seemed hot a few weeks ago is pretty well par for the course and not that hot a day.  I headed out with Jack and got some time working with him.  Along the way, we spotted some pretty large snapping turtles.

After jogging Jack, I tacked on another 42 minutes. 

Links

• WS course in 10 minutes.
• The Strava file for Walmsley at WS yesterday.  Yes, go to the bottom.  The Irunfar interview with him is interesting.
• Browning is a badass.

Week – in terms of pure miles and minutes, it was the biggest week for me on the year.  There is good in that as it represents progress of where I was at even a month ago, but I also recognize that I did that with a lot of little runs.  I just need to keep building in terms of miles per run, and speed in a run … but as it makes sense.  I can feel the load but that is also appropriate. 

I was recently asked by someone how they should approach doing a hundred miler as they had never done one.  My response was quick:  “you shouldn’t do it.”  It was not a ding against their character or their desire or their ability … I just don’t think 100s are a healthy endeavor for nearly most of us.  Certainly some of that is based on my personal experience but you can “see it” in a lot of the runners who do them, particularly many of them.  For every long careered “Karl Meltzer” there are five Timmy Olson, Geoff Roes, Mike Wolfe, Jez Bragg, Kyle Skaggs types.   I recall as a teen runner, it was understood that a marathon (26.2 miles) was a distance that most runners only had a handful of good runs at (as in maybe five) before the distance sucked away your speed, and did longer term damage into turning you into a old man “plodder.”   While there are exceptions (like Meb to the marathon), and I think the damage associated with these events and in the training leading up to them is significant enough that one ought to take a long pause before plopping down their credit card to sign up for one.  That sounds easy, but I don’t think it is for many:  I think we jump in because of the culture, the buckle, the fun of the game, the challenge of the experience, etc. 

That said, I was not going to convince this person not to do a hundred miler.  And so with that, I shifted in my feedback to more directly answer their question.  Because heck, I might just do one again someday too.

But probably not.

Thursday 18MAR2016

Another day where work consumed me much more than I would have expected and I did not get out until later in the afternoon.  I headed over to the school and jogged with Greg some.  I asked Greg if he thought I could get back down under five for the mile and he blurted “no” without any hesitation.  When I poked him about that he elaborated by saying, “well you certainly are not going to get there running with me everyday.”

And he is right.  I have been floating around doing exercise, but not training.  In fact if I were training, I’d be getting up early and getting out and after it.  TZ pointed this out:  “you used to get up and get in a run every day before work.”  That habit has certainly slipped as well. 

It is a bit of a weird negative feedback loop.  In the past I signed up for a race, and then that got me motivated to train because I was sort of scared of the result if I didn’t do that and that kept me on track.  Now I have not signed up for a race and so I am not really nudged to train and then I am more out of shape and thus less likely to sign up for a race. 

Thursday 14JAN2015

Good is the enemy of great.  And is one of the key reasons we have so little that becomes great.  We don’t have great schools prinicpally because we have good schools.  We don’t have great government because principally we have good government.  Few people attain great lives because in large part it is just so easy to settle for a good life.  Jim Collins

AM – 5.2 miles.  A little over a 2 mile warm up while I grumbled at myself about being soft and fought the urge to be soft.  The hill I did (leading in / out of the greenway) was just shy of 200 meters and probably a 6% grade (guess there).  10 repeats of that.

It was a bitch to get started this AM.  I woke up stiff, and almost feeling a bit swollen.  I did the stupid leg flex thing a lot of the night.

I started wonder if I wanted to go out and run.  I felt the laziness slip in last night and passed on the run in hopes I be amped for it in the morning.  And I was not.  And then I wondered why I was wondering.  I knew I was gonna get out but then I was just making excuses, staring a the computer, clicking on the next useless article on whatever.  5 minutes past, 10 and the window starts to close. 

There are times when getting out is easy, and there are times when getting out is hard.  Part of why I look to get out regularly is because I don’t want the habit of not getting out to form.  Once it forms, getting out might get really really hard.  Training can beget training.  Lack of training can produce more of the same. 

But even in my getting out more days than not, I have often slipped into just doing that.  The habit has shifted.  The regular mentality of pushing the envelope, going after workouts and just finding the edge so that you can get to the next level from years past … I have let that habit fade away, often hiding in the embrace of some log of just miles and minutes.  At times, it is the appropriate thing to do – like taking time off, or not running hard or just logging big miles. 

But I feel need to shift habits.  The more I think about what I do, and start to challenge it even a little, the more I recognize the more I need to challenge it.  It is easy for me to continue the habit of just getting 70 miles a week.  But would I run 30 miles a week but in a different way and doing other stuff to run a sub 17 5k again?  Not with the habits I currently have.

And when I consider such habit shifting, or perhaps habit slipping, it is not only about training, but appropriate in so many aspects of  life.  Once we trained hard, now we don’t.  We go through the motions.  Once we studied hard, now we don’t because we don’t need to do that any more.  We stop practicing that instrument because we are good enough.  We have got the job and so we don’t push forward to cultivate our career.    Young love turns old.  We get lazy.  Good is the enemy of great.   Ordinary can be extraordinary, but as long as to never settle for ordinary. 

Perhaps it is a passing thought.  And maybe I am too lazy or weak or old to change the habits I have.  Maybe it is just a habit to blawhg about it and not really do shit about it. 

Traveling home today. 

Sunday 03JAN2016

"The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare.” -Juma Ikanga

Shad has some goals for later this spring.  So he is actually training.  Meaning that he is exercising with some specific purpose or goal in mind.  Otherwise it is sort of just exercise.  As he is training for a marathon on the road, ee wanted to get a bit of a longer effort, building over the run and feeling the effort build over the roads.  We decided to jump in with the Hudson Training Group.  They start every Sunday out of Watson Park on the north side of Boulder / east side of the res and work the roads up north of the res. 

Years ago, everyone did the ditch out of the Res up there.  But then runners were buttheads to the utilities workers on the ditch rider road and pissed over the home owners adjacent to the road and it got shut down.  Tim G and I used to call the run there “Certain Death” because of all the signs along the ditch that stated “certain death if the ditch was entered.”  

Anyway it is now it is a freaking track meet out there on the dirt north of Boulder.  We jumped in with the Hudson group (which splintered pretty quickly so I’d hesistate to call it a group run – no problem with that actually) but there was also Darren D’s group out there, the BTC group and a bunch of solo folks like Clint W. Check out the fly by data if you don’t believe me.

In considering Shad’s prep, and in chatting with Bob some as to what it would take me to get back to some basic form of “in shape” … this sort of run came up.  Sunday (or whenever) with a few more miles than usual to long with it not being just an easy blah blah blah run.  You might not look to tag the whole thing, but at least you run a bit of it above that comfortable pace.  It could be a progression over the last half.  It could be that you keep it solid the whole way.  It could be you warm up and then work the middle five pretty hard.  But it is the combination of some level of effort and distance that creates “stress” by which the body will then look to adapt. 

For Shad that was a progression.  For me it was a playing at a pace and effort above what I have been doing easy stuff on for the last six months but not leveling myself so I was sitting on the couch quivering for the rest of the day (although there is a time for that too).  It worked out pretty well: 14 miles at 7:11 pace average, and a few of those sub seven.  I passed through the half marathon at 1:34 so it gives me a touch of confidence that I ought to be able to break ninety for the half with KZ in a couple of weeks.   The run itself is not that great or epic sort of workout, but is one that nudged my physical fitness (stress) and bumped my head a bit in considering what I can and ought to do.  This sort of run:  longer, effort, and with people … it works.

75 and change on the week (including the last dregs of December).  But it don’t matter.

Dude is a bit nuts, but I enjoy his writing and find his all or nothing concerns in this post something I can relate to (NSFW)

A few days in November …

I was considering on my run today how there was a period in my life that regardless of how crappy the weather was I not only ran, I made sure the effort was not compromised by the snow or cold or rain or wind (well, maybe the wind) or whatever.  I recall shoveling a lane in the track to do a 5k time trial with Andrew Crook.  Another time we did 400s on the track in a blizzard in Boulder while members of the Japanese national team looked at us from their cars and shook their heads.  These days I feel a bit too content to look outside and try to postpone my run to the most ideal time of the day and then wonder if it could be a little nicer.  Age may not be so much a thing of the muscles getting weaker and V02 max diminishing as much as the mind going soft in its willingness to do the work. 

KZ has received a good number of acceptance letters to colleges.  More than a handful.  Each of those are a little celebration in recognizing that the work she has done has made acceptance into these schools a non issue.  But it sets up the next steps of considering  where, costs and why.  It is a good problem to have. 

Good read on Bob Schul.

I think how you allocate time in running is more important than the total running time allocated.

Good interview with a CT kid – Donn Cabral. 

Heart rate doesn’t care how pretty the trail is or your level of stoke.

Wow.  Pretty insane.

Afternoon (into a setting sun) .. with KZ and her friend Nat from the XC team – an easy 4 miles with the kids.  It was flippin cold with the sun disappearing and with the wind coming up over the snow.
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I have had a growing frustration and some degree of disappointment with my recovery from Leadville.  I am 12 weeks plus out of the race and I feel some degree of entitlement to be able to run easily without it being a struggle.  I should be able to make myself struggle with harder speed work but I can’t even get to that.  My knees should not be yelling like they are.  There is a part of me that feels all these things must be … but they are not.  There is the world I actually live in versus the world that is.  And offsetting this frustration and perhaps even crushing it is the realization that I had an incredible summer of running, and an incredible life around me, and so much more to do.  I found these words from Nan K today to be very similar to my mindset. 

And now I currently have my thumb on the reset button. Again. It’s disappointing, yes. Frustrating. For sure. But thankfully, in this moment, my gratitude and joy is far over-shadowing my disappointment and frustration. Running is fun, challenging, empowering, and exhilarating. And I’m sure I’ll get to experience those feelings again soon. But in truth, the very greatest joy in my life is through service to my family and to others. The most eternal and rewarding pursuit is in loving others. And I refuse to allow my setbacks and frustrations disable me with self-loathing and sadness. There is just way too much to be happy about. Way too much to be grateful for. Way too much to DO.

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Monday AM – a big storm is expected to come in tonight or late this afternoon.  Between calls I snuck out in the AM for a short jog.  I was just stupid sore.  This was obviously an imprint left from not appropriately hydrating over the weekend and then running yesterday.  It was one of those runs where I ended up wondering what the hell I was doing and why I was doing it.  Ah well, it is the “off season.”  I really ought to just take time off altogether but I am not that smart.  4.1 miles.

Last night KZ was singing and playing the uke in her room.  I tried to sneak a video under the door but she grabbed the camera (I was apparently not stealth enough) and I got this:

But she was kind enough to let me play the guitar with her for several songs … very uplifting to play music with your kid.  Heart warming is hardly an adequate description.

Sign 1482 that I am a #GOM … we recently went to parent teacher conferences at the school.  With one of our children we went to one of the teacher’s classrooms and there were chopped up papers all over the floor.  No sweat – I get it, education can be messy.  But I was less than impressed with the scissors on the floor.  It sort of set a tone for me and then I was noticing all sorts of other things that were bugging me about the classroom and the organization of this teacher. 

But that is not even the good part.  My kids picked up on it because I muttered on the way back to the car, “Jeez, just pick up the goddamn scissors.”  Since then whenever I have started to ramble, they chant “pick up the goddamn scissors!”  So not only am I grumpy, I am a poor example.  And just to add insult to injury, my kid sent me this pic from the classroom today.

I was quick to point out these were not the so called snub nose scissors they told me they were.  Damn hazards.

Early evening or maybe late afternoon … hard to tell as it gets dark at like 2 in the afternoon.  It gets hard to imagine that a 6 PM run that was a no biggie deal in July is a chore at this time of the year.  The rain was falling pretty good as a prelude to the snow that was predicted.  4.5 miles.  Tired but a lot of the soreness that I was grumbling about this AM had pushed off … but it was still a very slow run. 

+++++++++++++++++++++
Weekend with the Scouts.  No running Friday or Saturday as the day was filled with setup and other activities.  We probably had 125 folks out there altogether.  I don’t have a shot of it below at the moment, but Bill L came out with Jack and Ziffel to the Fort Lupton site.  That guy is amazing. 

I got 8 on Sunday after we got back – but I was pretty done already from the weekend efforts, and probably running stupidly in a dehydrated state.  37 on the week. 

Thursday 05NOV15

Old gorilla in the mist in Ulmstead this AM.

6.3 miles easy on the trails in Ulmstead.

Today in your government run amuck …

Wishing luck to Sean B at Pinhoti this weekend.