Friday 30NOV2018 and November wrap up

I slogged through 10 and change at just over 8 minute pace as some snow started to come in.  I felt a bit tired.  Probably from the travel and the work yesterday. 

I got a great note from a kid last night.

November is in the books.  275.8 miles, over 38 hours and just under 14k feet of climbing.  4 travel nights, but only two for work (the other two for NXR).  3048.2 miles on the year over 412.6 hours and 140k feet of climbing.  Got in 2 races in November and 5 workouts.  Also got in 2 Green Mountain efforts. 11 days off on the year so far, averaging 63.9 miles a week.

Back to Broomstock

The thing that drives me nuts about flight delays is the lost time.  I was delayed out of DCA today by 1.75 hours.  We were supposed to take off at 7AM so I got to the airport before 6.  Given that was eastern time it felt a lot earlier than that.  I could of got another hour sleep or got an AM jog in or whatever.

I try to make something of the delayed time but when your sitting on the bird with the doors shut they want the the laptops away, and the phones in airplane mode.  I’ll try to catch up on a podcast or some book or some journaling / notes or something but it just feels like I am losing time. 

Stiff and heavy from today’s travel I was not really feeling a run but I made a go of it anyway and once I got rolling I knew I had to do some quality.  I didn’t want to but I didn’t didn’t want to more.  I did 10x200 on 200 rest in 39-40.  I felt like a square rock bumbling around but I was glad to get it done. 

We had the XC Banquet tonight.  Scored a sweet looking mug from the kids.

Dang kids. 

Love these coaches.

Happy 18th JZ

DC Day 2

I have an unofficial commitment to myself that when I travel to DC that I am going to go to the National Mall.  It is for the obvious reason that it is our nation’s capitol and so it instills some degree of patriotism in me.  I also feel that skipping out on it would be similar to going to a coastal location and not going to the beach, or driving to the Grand Canyon and not peering over the edge. 

I got up early to get this one in before the day’s duties.

DC Day 1

Got to DC this afternoon.  I was able to sneak out for a quick shakeout between afternoon and evening activities.  Technically this is Arlington …

Monday 25NOV2018

Today I got out for the somewhat typical Broomstock loop that gave me 8.7 miles (with some strides).

I headed over to the gym at the school afterwards, and did some weight work for about 40 minutes.  That probably means I did about 15 minutes of actual pushing of weights in some sort of exercise fashion, and the other 25 was considering the universe between sets. 

I tried to focus on legs, doing squats and lunges of different types, including using that hex bar thing and the inverted weight sled thing.  I have come to believe that my leg strength has really waned in the last couple of years.  There is a few things that I consider as evidence of that, including a visible loss of muscle mass in the quads, a thumping I create when I come down stairs, and the struggling with even body weight exercises like lunges. 

My work so far is pretty simple.  I’ll probably not bring in dead lifts or cleans until I gain some “strength confidence” after being regular with this type of work for a while.  And while it was simple today and will be for a bit … I can tell I am gonna be sore tomorrow.

It seems silly to say that I am not really sure what has driven this weakness, since I have done nothing but run for exercise of that body part.  I’ll look to see if I can make a regular habit of some gym work on this a few times a week.  If I see it exercise as a fixed time investment, that does mean I’ll need to cut back some miles (see yesterday’s post). 

Off to DC for a couple of days this week so I had to do what I could to get some lights up.

3000

I jogged with Greg and Jen today.  We were gifted with clear skies and a calm day, which was welcomed after yesterday’s biting wind and freezing rain that turned to snow in the evening. 

I also slipped through 3000 miles on the year.   It doesn’t mean much.  I’d like to say that I’d trade in 1000 of those miles to be about a minute faster in the 5k.  But if I say that, then I have to really ask if I’d be willing to do that – because I could trade in that amount of miles and hence training time (about 135 hours on the year), and probably achieve that result.  Go figure. 

This week went fairly well in terms of training – mostly in that I got in 3 quality efforts this week.  I did the hill repeats on Monday, the 5k race on Thursday and then a 5k “tempo” with some repeats afterwards yesterday. A round on Green would have been nice this week but I generally am not going to do that when it is just going to be a slog in the snow and fighting the ice (as nice as it might be). 

Parkrun 40

Did a workout this morning:  headed over to Parkrun in Boulder.  I had intended to do the 5k as a progression tempo, with the goal of purposely starting around 6:30 to 6:40 pace – so significantly slower than I am currently racing and then looking to build over the race down to race pace.  The goal here was to look to do some work to address the current problem I have which is slowing in latter stages of races. 

My legs were still feeling the Thanksgiving Day effort and I felt my typical less than super stellar in the warm up but apparently I was fine enough to botch the objective.  I rolled out and a watch check showed sub 6 pace in the first quarter.  I adjusted but then I was with a group of a couple of other gray hairs and we were making ground on a young woman that was 40 yards ahead.  The plan went out the window … I fell to the back of the group but decided not to let them get too far ahead.  We went through in 6:18.  We caught the woman and then the group seemed to falter a bit as we “climbed” up the Creek (it is super shallow grade) and so I made my way around to the front and we came through 2 with a 6:31.  I caught the shadows of the two geezers sitting on me (and despite losing hearing I could hear that breathing) and made a slight push in the last mile for 6:19 and finish in 19:50.  It was closer to an overall tempo than the plan so a good workout. 

I have only done the Parkrun there once and it was 19:35 so that probably shows that I am not really digging too deep in races these days if I call something 5 seconds a mile slower a tempo. 

To finish the workout I did 10 x 30'’ at mile pace post. 

Eagle Court

JZ was officially awarded his Eagle rank today.  It was a pretty neat day.

Thanksgiving Day 5k

I tried to be a bit more conservative in the opening mile of this one.  I can’t say it felt easier or better or even slower.  Ground on through to a 19:05.  I can’t say this that this is an improvement over last Saturday as that course was a bit long and this course was a bit short.  I opened with a 6:09 which was about what I thought I’d do (6:10 being the goal) but struggled in the “uphill” mile 2 (6:24).  I was able to rally a bit in the third mile (6:07) (which sums to 18:40 for three miles so its probable that I’d be near 19:25 on a proper course). 

Enjoyed the musical “Come From Away” last night.  It is a heart warming rendition of what happened in the immediate aftermath of 9/11/2001, with the landing of 38 aircraft in Gander, Nova Scotia, Canada.  The town went from 9000 to nearly double that in a few hours and they opened their doors to their homes to them for almost a week.  It was a great show, and a timely reminder of how we can be better for each other even in difficult times.



Really grateful for so much and this week all the family being home.

Enough with the “I’m old” thing

JZ seems to have enshrined his NXR SW experience.
I am trying to make it a thing where I don’t do the “I’m old” thing.  It seems to me that in almost every circle I cross through there is some quip or statement about how old we are.  “Well, I ain’t what I used to be.”  “I don’t sleep well now that I am old.”  “I don’t recover the way I did when I was a kid.”  “Youth is wasted on the young”  All that sort of stuff.

Ok, yeah I get it.  But we don’t need to drum on it because a.) it ain’t gonna change that time moves forward and b.)  it might actually be problematic in that you are creating excuses for something that you don’t need an excuse for.  Yes, I’m older than yesterday and I will be older tomorrow and Father Time wins all races but talking about it as a curse of some sort if just a waste of time, calories and air. 

Thanksgiving Day race tomorrow so I kept the run light and easy today with a few strides at the end. 

The pursuit of nothing

We got the whole famn damily  out last to go see Free Solo, the National Geographic movie about Alex Honnold and his climb on El Capitan.

The cinematography in it is truly incredible.  Really.  That alone is worth mentioning – the subject matter aside.

And the film was definitely thought provoking as it follows Honnold over a near two year period as he becomes the first to climb the entirety of the three thousand foot plus granite wall without any ropes or gear to protect him from falling. 

In the film, Honnold has lived in a van and been working on this project in some regard for eight years.  The movie takes steps to paint Honnold as someone who is wired different.  He has to be different, right?  How else is he to not freak out and seize up in fear when he is 2500 feet above the Yosemite Valley floor and his only connection with the rock is between his thumbs, his toes in climbing shoes in an area totaling about the size of a postage stamp?

But they also make Honnold seem unaware of relationships and broken in connection to others – even described by film director Jimmy Chin as “Spock” at a point in the film.  His relationship with his girlfriend is portrayed as the best relationship he has ever had but also as something he is casual and flippant about when compared to his love of climbing. 

It seemed to me that perhaps some of this is true to some level, but as you’d expect from a movie, it only captures part of the story. 

It is worth celebrating the exploration of such boundaries.  The accomplishment is amazing.   Free solo-ing El Cap is its own Bannister breaking the four minute mile or walking on the moon sort of thing in that it shifts what we think is possible. 

At the same time, there is a small voice in me that struggles with the glorification of such things.  Is it really that important?  Did it make a difference in the world really?  And if he fell to become a puddle at the bottom, would we care any differently?   Should we take delight in the pursuits of Honnold over the accomplishments of a someone who is punching the clock at some 9-5 to make it a better future for their kid?   Do we want to create a society where people have great physical feats like this but at the cost of eroding the ability to love?

I recognize the deep hypocrisy in me when I state all that.   Running every day or running four laps around the track as hard as I can or 100 miles in the trails outside of Leadville or even encouraging others to do so as well are equivalent pursuit of nothing sort of activities as well.  Or maybe/probably worse, just the pursuit of some feeding of the ego. 

If the some of the intent of Chin was to pose such questions and thought exercises, it is a great success.  I don’t have solutions or a treatise as to how I consider this conundrum, other than I am glad that we live in a place and time where we can freely chase and glorify such endeavors.   That itself is divine and a gift that we should forget.  Nor should we forget what what it has taken to get to such a place.

Monday 19NOV2018

I’ll likely hit another 5k on Thursday.  There is a free (canned food drive) Thanksgiving run in Louisville that we have done which is great.  In light of that, I decided to do some quality today – assuring I have a bit of space between the quality efforts.  I headed over to “Eagle Hill” (a hill near my home and so called because the Broomfield Eagles leverage it for their regular hill workouts) and did 10 x a minute on it.   Listened to a bunch of George Jones, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Steve Earle.  This tune came up in the mix with it. 

Week ending 18NOV2018

I really didn’t get much accomplished in terms of meeting my training goals.  There were no true “workouts” or a long run or a climb.  I did of course get the race in, and that is part of why those other things were lacking.  Travel to the site with the kids also had an impact of course. 

In one of the prior posts, Kevin commented “Every time I decide I have to quit racing altogether for the sake of my sanity, I wind up enjoying my running more in the short term, which leads to reminiscing about glory days that were never worth a damn anyway, leading to more ideas about competing, etc. and the cycle just keeps going.” 

That is a statement for me as well.  I race, and get two scoops … a dollop of the buzz that comes from racing, competing, being with the community, and pushing yourself and a spoonful of dissatisfaction that comes from coming up short of goals, and coming to terms with what I really am.  It is all ego in some regard, and as a psuedo-coach I often tell kids that they are not their performance, but I still have some of those same issues myself. 

I don’t think it is at all bad however … it is a dichotomy I have dealt with for three plus decades and that I’ll look to continue to embrace.  That is bound to cause some confusion.  I’ll be happy to be racing, competing and lining up with friends and “rivals” but I’ll also probably also have a bit of a “well that sucked” tone behind it.  It will be rare that I will be wholly satisfied with that the entirety of any single result, because there will almost always be a realization I could be better, I should have done things to be better, and a drive to be more resilient and improved in the next cycle.  There is a success that is gained through these non-important “failures” that I am convinced  helps to make for a better me (and you). 

NXR SW

Fun day at NXR SW. JZ and his buds had races in which they all PR’d but the highlight might have actually been meeting Galen Rupp.

I did the Citizen’s 5K race in the AM.  I had some loose hopes that I’d break 19, demonstrating some sort of fitness progress, but also hoping to take advantage of a lower elevation and flat course in pretty ideal weather conditions.  I ended up with a 19:26, on a course that was a bit long on my and some other GPS watches, but in case I put up a marshmallow of an effort in the last mile (going off my GPS splits, 5:55, 6:05, and 6:18).  I was disappointed but not surprised … I felt heavy and stiff going into the race.  I tried to manage and fake the effort to some degree in the first mile (and was sort of happy with the 6 minute effort and not going out too fast) but at 1.75 I was struggling. 

Just need to keep plugging.

NXR Day 2

Got out for a jog with the kids in the AM and then headed down to Casa Grande to check out the NXR course.  Casa Grande is about 40 or so minutes south of Phoenix.  

It is a bit bizarre to head through the desolate and harsh desert for 50 miles to end up on a green and well manicured golf course and to suddenly see a lot of the familiar faces you see at many of the meets back home. 

NXR day 1

Escaped Denver for a couple of days … we took a few kids to the Nike Cross Regional (NXR) meet just outside of Phoenix.  While Phoenix is ridiculously oppressive to run in Phoenix in July, it is as ridiculously wonderful to run here in November:  cool, dry, big skies …

a’retirement

I went through 2900 miles on the year today.  There have been 11 days I did not run for whatever reason, but usually it is about travel kicking me in the tail enough that I fail to get out at the end of the day.  So yeah, flight delays weigh in there.  I’m at 64 miles a week on average, and coincidentally, I have also had 64 nights of business travel. 

I complete a half century of Sol laps next year and so the drum beat of retirement planning seems to be slowly growing louder in the distance.  It is natural of course … what to do with the retirement investment accounts, where do we want to live, how do we want to live, what about the kids, what about the aging parents, etc. 

I have long seen work retirement not necessarily as being done with work and just going off to play golf, fish or nap but instead working on more of the things that I want to work on.  I think some call this financial independence but that seems to be a weighty term.  It could be construed as a business owner I am financially independent and it could also be construed that I am doing what I want to do right now.  So maybe my definition makes me retired at this very moment.  I sort of think of it as being financially stable enough that we can be more active and dedicate more of our time in the community developments and efforts that we enjoy and make a direct positive impact. 

Of course, my views on this “retirement” thing might change.  Maybe I will just want to nap a lot more.

Anyway, all that said, someone recently mentioned to me that both he and I were “retired racers.”  It is true that our best of best days are behind us given the basic biology of age, but it got me wondering if my psuedo-definition for work has some applicability in running and racing. 

I still want to run, pin on a number for races, and chase that elusive feeling of the perfect race.  I want to do that silly ass Ass thing in Fairplay the last weekend in July.  And I want to play on that big hill in Manitou or the big hills in Leadville every August.  I want to see kids realize that they are more in control of their life through the process of running, and to have some of the best times of their life by throwing down on a track under the lights on a spring evening.  I want to run roads, trails, and tracks sometimes with no one but the noise of my own heartbeat and over labored breathing and sometimes I want to do it with friends where we discuss nothing and everything. 

Racing retirement?  Okay,  I can go with that.  I’ll have to work on the work one being as “fuzzy: I guess.

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.

“Inch the ball forward”

Something that has been spilling out of my pie hole as of late is the term, “inch the ball forward.”

I use it to drive an attitude of “hey, let’s get something done versus nothing.”   Rather than look at the clock and think “I only have 20 minutes to get xyz done, that won’t get it done” - so I won’t do it, I am trying to get a something done.  A couple of slides on that presentation, some exercise, some connecting with someone.

These are not complete substitutes for full or dedicated bodies of effort of course, but I can do something rather than nothing in these little periods of time.

I have a notebook.  It is a series of notebooks actually.  I started them the summer than I ventured into my own business.  I mark each page with a page number and as of today I am on page 1060.   Some days there is no entry into a page.  Some days there are many entries.  Most days get a page.  Most of the days, it is the simple list of things to do.  Cut hair, cut lawn, pay bills, run, walk dogs, talk to TZ about healthcare premiums, vote, call Shad, register for race, do these work tasks, prep this presentation, submit invoices, etc. 

I rarely get it all done.  So if you looked from day to day, page to page, you’d see some things repeat many times.  Sometimes for months at a time.  Replace the mailbox post has been on there as a long term project for a while (it is functioning, I just don’t like it).  But I look to get some of it done.  Inch the ball forward, dig the ditch with the spoon sometimes, with the shovel other times. 

Be better.  A better husband, father, friend, athlete, coach, co-worker, community member, student, leader.  It is not an overnight transformation but a lot of little steps. 

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. 

Humble Pie

I recently asked someone how I needed to be prepared for an activity I’d do with them.  They gave me some of the expected details, but also said, “just have the beginner’s mind.” 

I felt a need to recall that over the last couple of days with my running.  I was a bit sore on Monday from my Green outing on Sunday with JV.  My legs were not super eager to jump into a workout of repeat 200s with the XC kids, and my mind was taking a beating as I pretty much was smoked on each repeat. 

The 200s started at 39 and I got a few of them down to 36, but I probably averaged 37 or 38 over the ten of them. 

This morning, I took an invite from JV to meet up with several of Green Mountain’s regulars:  Buzz, Homie, Bill, Derek as well as Jeff.  By the first turn up Amphitheatre, their headlamps had started to disappear into the pre-dawn darkness and I felt a bit embarrassed they came back down from the summit to check on me when I had not arrived in what was an expected normal time. 

I managed the ASG climb in 48:25. 

So I am not fit, or at least not fit by what standard I have set previously.   I have to keep the “beginner’s mind” and just keep plugging away.  The alternative is to not and that certainly won’t make anything better.  

Week ending 04NOV2018

I asked Siri on Friday how many day it was until August 23.  It replied that it was 294 days.  That is 42 weeks.  Hypothetically that ought to be a fair amount of time to undo some of the shift that has happened in the 1541 days since August 17, 2014. 

I have heard this coyote pair from the hollow just up the street at night.  Today, as we went for a walk for the dogs, they wandered out for some sun.  They were not easily hazed. 

In the spirit of “rebooting” for a “something,” I did get a round with JV on Green on Sunday AM.  As it has been countless times before, it was one of those runs where the time just disappears and there is hardly any “air time” as we fill the run with yapping on anything and everything … just fun.

That said, I am in horrible “hill shape.”  Things that were once easy climbs or at something I could shuffle a run out of have become hikes.  There is work to be done.  We went up via Long Canyon – one of my favorite but also one that rarely have hit because it ends at the Flagstaff Road, and then came back down the “middle” route – also one of my favorite. It was a great fall morning jog.