Week # 5

Summary for week ending Sunday, January 31, 2016:

Number of workouts: 7
Total miles run: 44.11
Average miles per run: 6.30

Miles in January: 184.42
Miles in 2016: 184.42

Toward the end of the week I was able to get off the treadmill and get outside, which was quite a relief. Saturday I did the first tough running of the year (first hard running since Des Moines), 4-minute hard intervals sandwiched between a couple warm-up and cool-down miles; Sunday was a perfect day for a medium-long run (12 miles) with sun and light breeze at 50F. Despite the tougher run the day before, I felt very good today; one of those runs that will go in the books as truly great. In the middle of the run, hundreds of Canada geese came soaring to the reservoir I was running around, swirled noisily over the water for a few minutes before settling onto the lake's surface. I was glad when they finally dropped out of the sky, as the risk of being hit by a goose bomb was considerable, there were so many flying above. They honked and squawked and splashed such a ruckus; seemed like every goose in the state of Delaware must have been there, but after about half an hour, another squadron sailed in and stirred up the hundreds already on the water. A group of sea gulls was banished to the railing on the bridge to the control house, and the ducks that had been there first vanished completely. I'd never seen such a thing.

A woman walking her dog asked me, "Will you run a mile for me?" so I dedicate mile #4 to the lady wearing the Wilmington University sweatshirt, walking her dog with her husband.

VCM via mileage, threshold, and race-pace

The past week was my last week of "unstructured" maintenance running, where I spent my time just getting in miles with no specific pace target (and no official distance target other than aiming for ~40 mpw including a minimum 10-miler on Sundays). On one hand, it's nice not to be pinned down to a strict schedule that says tonight I must run this workout, tomorrow will be that, etc. I like the feeling of having the flexibility to move around a rest day or not take one if I don't feel like I need one (or take an extra one) without the sense that I've just made the rest of the week's running difficult. On the other hand, I find that I get a little antsy when I don't have a concrete goal, and it can be too easy to get slushy about soft goals such as "I just want to run x miles a week". When I have a goal, I need a framework to reach it.

For the races I've run over the last couple years, I have been using the marathon plan A from the 2nd edition of Daniels' Running Formula. (For about a week last year, I thought I might try the Elite plan; at the conclusion of that week, I laughed at my own audacity and rewrote my schedule following the A plan.) Unlike the schedule I picked out of an issue of Runner's World for my first marathon back in 2004 (don't knock the source -- it wasn't especially easy and it got me to 3:22), it doesn't provide day-by-day workouts, instead giving two quality workouts a week during different phases of buildup to the race; you fill in the rest of the mileage.

The quality workouts are tough (as they should be, I wouldn't expect to run sub-3:30 on all easy running). The workouts focus a great deal on improving running economy, with a lot of running at threshold and marathon race pace. I've had to be realistic and willing to listen to how I am responding and accept that I might have to lower the expectation a little. Sometimes, those threshold workouts were kicking my butt before I knew it and had to adjust real-time, so that I wouldn't flame out spectacularly but still reap some benefit of the effort. This gives my system a better chance at good recovery so that I can bounce back and nail the next workout. Naturally, I always try to head into a scheduled workout with the aim of completing it as written, but I have to allow for some leeway given my body's feedback. I don't want to overtrain, I don't want to burn out, and I don't want to get injured, but I'm going to push it as much as I can up to those boundaries so that I can have an honest shot at my goals.

Phase I went well this season, but I'm looking forward to putting some more rigor around my running. I'm looking forward to focusing not only on getting the miles in, but on making some of those miles really count toward improvement. I've enjoyed tallying up miles-per-week and miles-per-run, gathering heart rate and pace data to play with later (I'm a physical chemist, I like having data to plot), but there is even more enjoyment in filling in the schedule chart and hitting that week's training goals and every week seeing improvement. Every training cycle I have learned a little more about how Plan A should work and how I can make it work; I'm looking forward to using it to do even better this spring.

Week #4

Summary for week ending Sunday, January 24, 2016:

Number of workouts: 6
Total miles run: 40.80
Average miles per run: 6.80

Miles in January: 140.31
Miles in 2016: 140.31

Due to cold and other weather-related issues, I spent most of this week's miles indoors. At least this weekend's two runs were in front of the window full of daylight, which is probably the only thing that kept them from being total drags. It was a bummer to have to trade my only daytime runs of the week for indoor workouts, but there absolutely was no running outside on Saturday and it would have been slippery and risky to try it on insufficiently plowed roads on Sunday. I had difficulty getting into a groove where time seemed to pass itself quickly. I probably need to vary the grade more often while I'm running on the treadmill. It's not going to be very helpful in general if I keep it at 0% all the time. It's just easier that way (in more ways than one), but if I have to pay attention to changing the grade and/or pace, it might keep the run more interesting. Well, this was the last week of maintenance and quality workouts are now on the schedule; there will be plenty of paying attention to changing the pace for many of those.

White-out on its way....

....aaaaaaand this is exactly the reason I finally invested in my own treadmill.

... which shows slightly conservative snowfall values: liveweatherblogs in fact says my 'hood should expect 20-27" by the end of it. My Landice and I will spend some quality time together over the next 48-72 hours.

It's very interesting how these storms always seem to line themselves right up along I-95.

Races officially added

In the last week, I've registered for two more races, cementing them into my plans and calendar:

April 3, Caesar Rodney half-marathon. I've done this race three times (2012, 1:37:47; 2014, 1:34:46; 2015, 1:39:36). It's not what I'd call an easy course course due to the grueling elevation gain between miles 7 to 9, but the front 10K is pretty flat and the last 5K has a lot of downhill (though the finish is up a not-insignificant slope) so it's not terribly awful either. The weather can be pretty iffy. The last couple years, I've faced damp, chilly (40s), and windy. Standing at the starting line, waiting for Senator Carper to finish up his speechifying, is a little rough. Maybe the slightly later date this year will lead to slightly better conditions. Last year, I didn't force the pace as I wasn't feeling as strong as I had in 2014, and was not especially pleased with my time; it was a difficult training season and I just wasn't as fast. In my mind, 1:40 is the absolute upper limit of acceptable; I always want to be as far under 1:40 as possible. Right now it looks like this will be my first race of the year, a little more than two full months into my training schedule. The last couple years, this has been only a month out from my target race and I had been able to put in a lot of pace work to that point; I won't be as far along this year. It will be a good first test.

May 8, Delaware Marathon Running Festival half-marathon. I was a little hesitant to sign up for this one, as it is only three weeks out from my target marathon at the end of May, but I think it will be good to get a faster-than-race-pace effort done in that time frame and will significantly put into perspective where I am, fitness-wise, for the longer race. The half is one loop of the marathon course and has similarities to the Caesar Rodney course, overlapping in some spots, but with the long hill in the middle truncated somewhat -- only a mile-ish in this race. I've been on the course twice. I did the marathon in 2011, and the half in 2012. That year, it wasn't even a whole month after I thoroughly wrecked myself at the super-hot Boston. It was a disaster all around. Mentally, I was not into it, still nursing psychological wounds over setting a PW (personal worst) at the exceedingly disappointing Boston; I only showed up at the start line because I didn't want to have thrown away the expensive entry fee. Physiologically, I had not fully recovered either, so my legs were in no condition to be racing. To top it all off, I forgot my Garmin and had to run the race pace-blind. I could use this as a warning against relying too much on technology to pace a race, but because my legs were in such bad shape, I wasn't able to judge how fast I was running based on how I felt, either. It was a miserable morning; I didn't do the smart thing and back off when it became clear that this was just not going to be my day and kept trying to race. I certainly felt like I was working very hard, but when I saw a clock around mile ten I felt like weeping because my effort was way out of whack with how fast I was(n't) running. I finished in a personal worst of 1:44. Looking back with several years of hindsight, I am not too upset about it anymore; considering how ruined my legs were, I am glad I still managed to go under 1:45. I probably shouldn't have been running much at all, let alone trying to race a half marathon. I don't know what I was thinking when I registered for it when it was still winter. I have no idea what led me to believe I would be ready to run a half-marathon only a few weeks after racing the full distance even had the Boston race gone well. I suppose I thought something along the lines of still being in top form after all that marathon training. Having never tried to do anything hard again in the weeks after the other three marathons I'd run, I simply must have underestimated now long it actually takes for the damage of the long race to repair itself. All of it led to a terrible experience I hope to supplant by running much faster this year!

While I very much enjoy traveling to new cities and new courses, I like doing "hometown" races (I put it in quotes because I don't actually live in Wilmington). Not only are the logistics easier because I don't have to travel, there is something that feels good about supporting local events. Also, I enjoy tallying up repeat years of results to compare and more distant races are usually more difficult to run year over year.

Scouting for shorter races to run in the meantime ...

Week #3

Summary for week ending Sunday, January 17, 2016:

Number of workouts: 5
Total miles run: 36.84
Average miles per run: 7.37

Miles in January: 99.51
Miles in 2016: 99.51

No run shorter than 10K this week. During every run, I felt better and better as I went along, particularly Sunday's long effort. For that run, I was feeling so fine I added about 3/4 of a mile more than the last two weeks to hit 11 on the day -- turned on the metronome and turned out the miles. Had I gone fifteen minutes later today, I would have ended the run in snowfall. I guess it is really winter now. I wore a new pair of tights (a Christmas gift) today that were maybe a little too much for the 37 degrees -- they seemed a little more reinforced against weather that we weren't quite having yet and there were times when I felt a little constrained and warm. I hate having to wear long pants to run, but when it dips below 40, I'm just not comfortable enough in shorts (unless it's a race -- then I might tough it out). It isn't going to be very warm this upcoming week, so I may get an opportunity to use them in more appropriate conditions (assuming I don't wuss out and hit the treadmill instead, which will probably happen at least once). How long is it until spring?

Subconscious is overthinking it

Last night, I dreamed I was running a marathon that had three laps of a course that (unsurprisingly) in some places ran through buildings and in one of those buildings, it went up some stairs to a window, several stories up, from which participants had to jump / fly / otherwise get down. It was also raining. In the areas that were not inside, where I could actually run, it was almost impossible to do so. In addition to almost always following unconventional courses, I can never really run in dreams; I'm always bogged down by legs that won't work right and I end up crawling or dragging myself along with my arms. Same difficulty occurred in this dream, and on top of it, I was terrified of having to jump out that window, over smaller buildings and what looked like someone's laundry line -- and would have to do it more than once! I was very annoyed that the course was so difficult -- evidently I hadn't known it was a three-lap loop course involving stairs and jumping out a window -- I wasted all that training to do a race where there was no hope of running a good time?!

This, I suppose, is my punishment for taking an unscheduled rest day and declaring that I would not feel guilty about it. Evidently, somewhere, my brain does feel guilty about it.

Week 2 roundup

Summary for week ending Sunday, January 10, 2016:

Number of workouts: 6
Total miles run: 38.78
Average miles per run: 6.46

Miles in January: 62.67
Miles in 2016: 62.67

Still on target with the Sunday 10-mile long run feeling much, much better than it did last week, and not just because it was 65 out.

2016's first race registration

After discussing with B, my decision to run the Vermont City Marathon over Memorial Day weekend was solidified and I registered today so as to secure the super early bird rate ($99).

While registering in 2014, I discovered they have a preferred start corral and if you've run under certain cutoff times for different events after a certain time frame, you're in. I took advantage of it then, having run under the 1:35 barrier for the half marathon (if only just) at the Caesar Rodney in March 2014. I haven't run that fast since, so I figured I was out of luck this time (I'd hoped that maybe I could update my registration later if I happened to run faster this spring). Fortunately, I found that their cutoff time frame for the preferred corral is January 1, 2014 -- so it looks like I can double-dip with my Caesar Rodney time. I'm pretty happy about that; it was nice to have a special, non-busy chute to walk through to the starting line, and be guaranteed not to have someone who didn't belong up toward the start clogging the front.

Also, they will have personalized bibs: I requested that mine say CRUSHER. It's more interesting than just having my first name, no?

While we're talking about races, it's still forecast to be pretty rainy tomorrow morning, so the odds that I run the Mayor's Icicle 10-miler (not so icy?) look slim. I'll check the conditions early in the morning and make the call then.

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UPDATE, 1/10/16: Yeah, it's raining. If it were a race I'd been looking forward to and working toward for a couple months, I'd have gotten tough and gone. But I only learned about it last week, so I will allow myself to be not tough about it.

Common cold, and how it's changed me

I don't mean the illness. I'm healthy on that front, have been since I picked up a Canadian cold virus in Toronto in December 2014; I do my part to avoid grabbing another somewhere. I mean the kind that is outside everywhere, permeating my every cell and leaving me almost as miserable as I would be if I were sick.

I grew up in Iowa. Winters are not kind in that state. Some years they start early, with snow and misery happening even in October, and some years they linger into April, when you'll be surprised with a cold and damp snow mid-month just as you're starting to think you might be in the clear. In Iowa, you're almost guaranteed at least a week of shatteringly cold nights and daytime highs that struggle to reach even zero Fahrenheit, and these are almost always accompanied by a razor wind that intensifies the effect. On such days, even wearing glasses hurt, the frames resting on the bridge of my nose and feeling like two needles sucking every last iota of warmth away. The rest of the time, it's just your normal freezing cold, sometimes snowing, sometimes icing, sometimes crystal-blue-sky sunny; always, always cold.*

Given the 30-ish years I spent in this yearly tundra, you'd think that I'd have built up some kind of immunity to it. I now live on the East Coast, where it gets cold in the winter, but typically not that kind of cold. A stretch of days in the 20s is about as bad as it gets, with rare forays into deeper chill; average highs are in the 40s for the winter months, which, when you think about it, should actually feel quite tolerable compared to Iowa where the average highs are about ten degrees colder. The problem is that I very quickly acclimated to the milder winter; I was already having more and more difficulty handling the cold with every year that I lived in Iowa, and after one winter in Delaware, I had softened almost completely. I seldom go back to Iowa for the Christmas holiday anymore, generally due to some outright wretched traveling experiences at that time of year, but also, in large part, because I simply cannot stand the temperature. The last time I went, the warmest it got the whole week was on Christmas day: ~25 degrees. And it felt splendid. (Is it not a sad thing, when the cold is so awful that you are uplifted when the temperature manages to climb to 20? 20 is not warm!)

During the second half of my graduate school tenure, I started up running seriously again. It had been a few years since I ran with an almost-every-day regularity, and when winter came, I did not put it back on the shelf because I was afraid it would be too difficult to start it up again; also, I didn't want to quit running. I would not stoop to running on the very short indoor track at the Field House or, even worse, on a treadmill.** I went out. I ran after the day's work in the lab, so it was dark and the daily high temperature had long sunk with the sun. It was usually well below freezing, and sometimes I had to slather polymers on my exposed face to protect it. My stipend was not generous, so I did not have an array of expensive technical running gear, either. In fact, I had one long-sleeved shirt that was made for running and was not cotton. Of course, cotton is the worst base layer, but unless I wanted to wash that one technical shirt every single night (naturally, I did not), long-sleeve t-shirts were all I had. Until Santa brought me a lined, nylon Adidas jacket in 2002,*** I also did not have any good, lightweight outerwear; I had sweatshirts and a fleece that I loved. (One particularly cold night, I wore the running shirt and the fleece together, and when I was done, I had frost spread across my shoulders. I was amazed at this evidence of how well the running shirt and the fleece worked to wick moisture away to the outside.) I had two pairs of tights and two pairs of nylon pants, one of each I'd had since high school.

One of the attractive aspects of running is that you don't actually need expensive clothes to run, just whatever is adequate to protect from the elements, but now that I am no longer a poor graduate student or post-doc, I can allot a larger portion of my discretionary spending to lighter-weight, better-performing technical running gear. And looking back, I sometimes can't believe how much running I did weighed down by sweats and cotton long-sleeves getting damp and clammy against my torso. It was all I knew then, and I went out, night after bitterly cold night, and got some miles in. If it was "nice" (in the 30s or warmer), I might stay out for 45 minutes or an hour. However, if it dropped below 20, it got to the point where no matter how long I ran, my muscles struggled against the cold to get and stay warm; I usually would not stay out longer than half an hour under those conditions. I would only hang up the shoes and say "no thanks" if the temperature was in the single digits.

I used to be tough.

My years of running in Delaware winters have completely recalibrated my toughness. While snow is certainly not unknown -- see winter of 2009-2010, three giant storms with gross snowfall totals; last year seemed overly snowy in my opinion as well -- there have been several where snow was a stranger. In the winter of 2011-2012, I don't think there was a single measurable snowfall and I ran in shorts most of the season while training for Boston. I'm not completely soft; I will run in shorts until the temperature goes below 40. For the first few years, I ran outside all winter, taking the day off if it snowed or was unusually chilly and I didn't feel like braving it. Then, my workplace opened a small gym with treadmills.

I had never liked the treadmill. I very seldom had used one, because I was so averse to the very idea, and the only time I did use one for a significant stretch was when I was rehabbing a stress fracture in my foot and my PT didn't want me out on the pavement until well after it no longer gave me discomfort. I could not believe how slowly time passed while running on that thing at the Y. I forced myself not to look at the display screen; it would only discourage me to see that what had felt like twenty minutes was, in fact, five. I hated that I had to go to the Y late to make sure that I wouldn't have to wait for a machine. I hated every single thing about it, so when my foot healed, I intended never to go back to one. But then winter came, as it always done, and I needed to train through it for a spring marathon. I had no issues with rearranging the running schedule to get miles in if inclement weather interfered with my schedule, but there were weekly speed sessions that were hard to get done if I couldn't use the track or flat park, whether due to lack of daylight or snow or ice cover. Reluctantly, I took advantage of the treadmill at work.

It wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be. Seldom did anyone else use the gym after work, and I had the workout room to myself most of the time. There was a TV in the room, but it was offset on the wall so I couldn't really watch it; I'd have it on just to prove to myself that time was indeed passing in the real world. I did quality workouts on that machine and some very long miles; threshold workouts and long runs with race-pace in the middle up to 19 miles. The treadmill miles kept me in good shape for my races, and my attitude about running on a machine shifted. My first choice would always be outside, if I had that choice, but even in a relatively mild winter, bad weather would crop up at a bad time. I did not dread those days anymore from a mental standpoint.

The only problem with the treadmill at the gym at work was that it was at work, and work is not a walkable distance from home. There would be days when it would not be prudent to stay at work and run, due to a storm arriving; there were days when weather would prevent me from going to work entirely. Once, I did a 15-mile race-pace workout there and when I emerged, it had snowed several inches, making driving home on as-yet unplowed roads a challenge. After a couple years of this, I finally sat down with myself and faced it: I had not liked how the weather could force me to use a treadmill, but I eventually acclimated to running on a machine; now I did not like how weather could force me to not be able to use that machine. Last year, I decided I'd make the plunge and splurge on my own. In February, I bought a Landice 7 Cardio. Since then, I've had a weird relationship with it. It was a snowier-than-usual winter and it served its purpose wonderfully; I no longer had to worry about getting to/from work to get a workout in if the weather was poor. Bad weather seemed always to hit just when I wanted or needed badly to get outside for a long run -- I needed long, hilly road work to prepare for Boston but it was hard to get out on many Sundays because of ice, or snow, or rain. I did a lot of long running on the Landice and it did its job, I liked the results, but I hated to have to use it. I found it dryly amusing that I had spent so much money on something I hoped I wouldn't have to use.

It was cold on Wednesday this week. The temperature never reached 40, and when I went out to run after work, it plummeted as twilight moved in. My toes went cold and then numb-ish before even half a mile. It's odd how overly-cold toes can both have no feeling yet also feel twice too large inside the shoes. After another 15-20 minutes, the feeling started to come back, which led them to feeling painfully hot for a few minutes before settling into being fine. By the time my toes had recovered, the rest of me was starting to feel too cold. I had not quite dressed right; after a mile or so, I'd wished I'd had tights on under my pants, another light layer over my long sleeves, and my real running gloves rather than the little stretchy ones. It's been since last March that it's been this cold -- cut me some slack for not getting it right on the first day out. I had wanted to do 6 miles, but I wasn't feeling it and stopped after 5.3, which is three laps around the park with lights on its path.

Thursday was slightly warmer, but I wasn't even going to give it a chance. I hit the treadmill at home and ran 10K. I am too soft now to want to run in sub-40F darkness. If it were daylight, I would have been more willing, but the combination of cold (that is, below 40) and dark is too off-putting anymore. I have been on the treadmill three out of four running days this week. Those nights of running outside unless it was single digits are long, long gone.

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*There are some days in the dead of winter in Iowa where there will be a lovely, beautiful anomaly and the high gets to 50-60-maybe even close to 70. While you should enjoy the diversion, do not trust it. Tomorrow -- maybe even this afternoon -- the cold will regain its bitter grip. Don't leave your winter coat at home.

**When I lived near Philadelphia as a post-doc, I did not trust to run outside in the darkness, so I ran on the indoor track on the Temple University campus. It was a great facility: 5 laps to the mile and wrapped around the upper reaches of the Liacouras Center, with windows providing views of the city. I tried to squeeze as many miles in as I could without having to take the later trains home, and I credit the work I did on this track as a large part of the reason I spent 2004 running PRs. I got in a solid base where running 7-7:30 miles was comfortable. When I think about running on that track, I can still smell the mix of working-out people and the track's flat, rubbery surface. I would have preferred to run outside, but this was an acceptable alternative. If there had not been this indoor track available, I don't know if I would have deigned to use a treadmill or would have steeled myself to run on roads I was not completely comfortable running. After about two years in Pennsylvania, I moved back to Iowa for a couple years, and it was back to running outside, even in the darkness.

***One of my all-time favorite jackets; it's a hot orangey-red color with dark gray stripes. I still wear it, but not usually while running.

10-milers: possibilities and Broad Street musings

Got an email a couple days ago with links to upcoming local races. Among them was the Mayor's Icicle 10-miler taking place in Wilmington this coming Sunday. I'm a little wishy-washy about taking part, but most of my mind is on the go-for-it side. Right now I'm doing 10-milers on Sundays anyway so regardless of my time, I'd get the mileage in that I want to. I haven't done any pace or speedwork since before the Des Moines marathon, so I'd have no high expectations as to a finish time, but it will be illuminating to see where I am now at more or less baseline, and later contrast to where I will be in the spring. The course overlaps a great deal with other longer races that are held in Wilmington, so I'd be familiar with it (particularly with its long and arduous hill(s) in the middle). Unfortunately, while the temperature is forecast to be in the 50s on Sunday (though no doubt cooler at the 9 a.m. race start, pretty good for racing), it's also forecast to rain. I did the cold rain in Boston last year. It wasn't pleasant by any means, and obviously this is way below Boston in importance, so my mental softness about running in cold rain would keep me away in that case. I can get my miles in later if it stops raining, or do them on the treadmill.

Online registration closes tomorrow, but in-person registration is open race morning, so I have until essentially the last hour to decide. Right now it's the specter of cruddy weather that's holding back my 100% about it.

I haven't done a 10-mile race since I last did the Broad Street Run in 2008. It is not a particularly common race distance, but I actually kind of like it -- more challenging than a 10K, but not quite the challenge of a half-marathon. I've avoided doing the Broad Street race since then for a number of reasons, chief among them being that it falls on a weekend that's either too close before or after to some marathon I've done in the spring. Also, because it's ballooned in size/popularity, you have to decide many months in advance that you want to run it, and I was not always ready to make that decision when I had to. And then there is the size...

This phenomenon of skyrocketing race participation leaves me feeling cold. It's nice that road racing is more popular, but I very much dislike the idea that for some races I would like to run, I have to decide half a year (at least) in advance that I'm going to do it, because the moment registration opens it's going to sell out, and I won't have an opportunity to decide later. (I'm not talking about marathons, because obviously, given the training required, that decision must be made many months in advance regardless of registration times.) When I ran the BSR in 2004 for the first time, there were approximately 10,000 runners, which to me is a good size; big enough so the field is competitive and you are never alone, but you don't have the jam-packed feeling that a larger field can give. In 2006, when I ran it for the second time, it had swelled a few thousand, but that still felt manageable. I could still get on the subway in Center City to hitch a ride up to the start and was not crammed into the train car. By the time I ran it last in 2008, it had grown to almost 20,000 runners, and I had trouble getting onto the subway way down at its start at Broad and Pattison -- never mind making stops at City Hall, no one could get on. It was awful being squashed so tightly into those subway cars all the way up to Olney. It's a terrible way to get psyched for a race. Last year, there were nearly 40,000 participants; can't even imagine what it must have been like trying to get a ride on the train. Even though they've opened up the field to such a grossly large number, not only do you have to decide in the winter that you want to run this race in May, they have to hold a lottery -- so you even when you decide while it's still winter that you want to do it, you still might not get to.

I liked the Broad Street race. The course really couldn't be more conducive to good racing; it's straight (except for the brief bit going around City Hall) and no uphill to speak of. It's a rush to run a race through the heart of a big city, and you get a very good flavor of Philadelphia (good and bad). I had not lived near Philly for very long when I ran it the first time, so my memories of it are pleasantly linked to those feelings of excitement and awe of a big-time race in a big-time city. When I ran it in 2008, I was somewhat disillusioned; the horrid train ride, missing the start of the race because I was stuck in a porta-potty line*; it was only after a couple miles that I was able to relax and get back into the right frame of mind to just race. By the end I was feeling better about it (I was shy of my debut PR by only 8 seconds -- how do I always do that, miss a PR by 10 seconds or less?), and always intended to run it again -- some day -- better prepared to deal with what evidently I had not been prepared to deal with. I thought this year could be the year, because I'm not running Boston and my planned spring marathon is later in May. Leery about the field size, though; as years have gone on, I've found I want to deal with giant crowds less and less, so I felt that if I did not get in through the lottery, it wouldn't break my heart. Registration opens in February, so I didn't have to really make up my mind quite yet.

Then I got this email a couple days ago, which, in addition to the 10-miler this weekend, listed another 10-miler in Lewes, DE on April 23, a week before the Broad Street Run. It's an inaugural race, so there may be some hiccups, but the option of this race at about the same time of year has led to me toss the whole Broad Street idea. The Lewes race will be a good alternative to get the same race distance in at about the same time of year, and without the hassle of Broad Street and the 40,000 other runners. Just a guess, the course probably won't be very hilly (I haven't been to the Delaware shore all that often, but my experience on the east coast is that the coast doesn't have much up and down to it -- if I'm wrong about Lewes, please, let me know!). Also, being a week earlier, I could still do one of the Triple Crown trail runs on April 30, which I was actually looking forward to trying for the first time.

Sorry, Broad Street. Looks like the next time we maybe can hook up again will be 2018 (I'm planning on Boston next year).

*Porta-potty timing is crucial for any race (there could be a whole post about it on its own), but here it was especially critical. It had been quite a while since my last pit-stop. I'd driven up from Wilmington to Philly; the train ride from Pattison to Olney is not short, even when "express", and somewhere in the middle of it, while I huddled among the arms and legs and shoulders of thousands of others, I realized I needed to go, all the while knowing that these thousands of others were feeling the same way. I had thought the timing was OK, but I was using 2004/2006 as my standard, which was a mistake. Twice as many people, etc. I was still in the porta-potty line when the race started. I was infuriated, but there was no way I was going to be able to run ten miles without making this stop now. The reasonable side of my brain piped up and tried to console the irrational side, which was the one that was front and center just then: come on, Crusher, you were not in contention to win this race -- you were going to start miles behind the front anyway -- chip time is all that really matters here, so not being blocks back on Broad Street at the time of the gun isn't a big deal. (I had a 5:30 differential between gun and chip times -- not much worse than in 2006 when I was lined up properly (5 minutes); in 2004, it was only 3 minutes.)

It still felt like a big deal. As I said, it took me a couple miles to get over it.

Weekly roundup #1

The running week is Monday-to-Sunday.

Summary for week ending Sunday, January 3, 2016:

Number of workouts: 6
Total miles run: 41.08
Average miles per run: 6.85

Miles in January: 23.89
Miles in 2016: 23.89

~40 mpw is right about where I want to be at this time. Gold star for me!

Trail treat

In the interest of time, I do much of my running on paved surfaces. In the winter, as a person who runs after work, this is also done out of necessity. In the summer and fall, when daylight lingers late into the evening, I am able to spend more of my running time on the trails. I very much enjoy running in the woods and across the hayfields between them around here, but the time required to cover a particular distance is always significantly longer than if I do that same distance on paved paths or roads -- never mind the way my Garmin struggles with accuracy under treecover. When the miles get long, I tend to stay away from the trails.

In the winter, my opportunities to run during daylight occur chiefly on the weekends, unless I have magical time off during the work week. I've been trying to maintain Sundays as "long run" days (right now, ~10 miles) which I do on paved surfaces, and Saturdays are always easy recovery days. As long as the weather permits, I prefer to do those on the trails. I simply cannot worry about pace in that environment, so I do not clock-watch and run entirely based on effort, which I keep on the very comfortable side of comfortable. Because it's once-a-week at best right now, trail running has started to feel like a luxurious treat. It is satisfying to cover my distance under the bare tree limbs, navigating roots and rocks partly hidden by leaves; I have to focus my mind on what I'm doing a great deal more than when I'm out turning on the mental treadmill on the path around the park or reservoir. I can listen to more than the tappy-tap of my shoes and the sound of my breathing, which helps me to let go of pace concerns. There is trickling from streams, there is a variety of bird noise, the occasional crashing through underbrush of a deer. The ding! alerting me to a mountainbiker approaching and a "hello" from a hiker. Sometimes I lose focus and end up struggling to stay upright as gravity wants to pull me down after stubbing my foot on a root, or I end up eating the trail, hoping I don't bang up a critical limb as I land. It's an altogether different running experience that I seem to take for granted during the summer months.

It was chilly today, but very sunny and the trails were moderately populated as I ran on them for an hour. It's been a few weeks since I last went through there, so it felt especially liberating to roll up and down those hills. Recent rain had some areas in a state akin to tar pits, but they were small enough to stretch a stride over. There were a few yards in a sheltered spot, always away from direct sunlight, where the muddy track was still frosty and stiff from overnight freezing. It's been a warm winter, only lately dipping to "normal" temperatures.

I could have run longer, but 1) no need to overdo it with tomorrow's "long run" on deck, and 2) there were other afternoon activities to consider. The experience today was exceptionally satisfying, even though I had to wear long pants. I'll keep today's run in mind when a less-pleasant winter day arises.

A running log's blank pages

2015 was a solid year with a record ~1700 miles run. I only ran three races in spite of the bump up in mileage. My half marathon effort at the Caesar Rodney race in March was more or less a where-am-I-fitness-wise test late in a terrible winter's training cycle and I wasn't particularly happy or unhappy with my result (1:39, not nearly my best, not nearly my worst). I finally finished the Boston Marathon under satisfying terms (3:29:11 in wet and windy chill), then ran nearly four and a half minutes faster later in the year in Des Moines (3:24:42, exceeding my expectations). The two marathons were the most intelligent races I've run at that distance, finally having learned how to better pace myself -- that is, spread the effort out, rather than hammer the first half and hang on for dear life in the last 5-10K. I had been considering my semi-retirement from the distance, thinking that this year's Boston might be my last marathon for the foreseeable future, but the two races I ran this year have left me feeling eager to do better. After the 3:24 in Des Moines, I felt I could have gone faster had I only had the confidence to squeeze out a little more in the middle; I briefly considered trying another race six weeks later, but while my legs were ready to do the work, it turned out my mind was done with the long mileage for the year.

I concluded 2015 with glittering visions of 2016.

Goals for filling in this year's running log:

1) 1700 miles last year was a record output for me, but I think I need to bump it up even more if I want to really approach my potential here. In these final maintenance weeks in January, before I have to dive into the training cycle for Vermont City, I'm going to work on increasing the low-intensity miles so that I have a good base of longer running in my legs prior to adding the quality workouts as well as riding up on the mileage scale. Everything I have read about good marathon racing indicates the more miles, the better as long as I can stay healthy doing them -- it won't do me any good if I try to do 60-70 miles a week and then get hurt, so I'm going to do as much as I can given the time I have during the week without pushing injury. This year I plan for solid training cycles focusing on higher mileage and strong pace work.

2) I'm 39. After November 8, 2016, I will be moving into a different age group -- master's running. I'm not leery of that -- actually, as I've gotten closer to that milestone the last couple years, I've begun looking forward to starting this next phase of running, but I view the line between now and then as very blurry. I don't think my best running years are necessarily behind me and I don't think that as soon as I turn 40, I will have to kiss them goodbye. I've been running marathons for 11 years now and I've finally started to run them with my brain as much as my legs and heart, and with smart training and smarter tactics I think I still have it in me to go under 3:22 and run a personal record. My racing goals this year are all focused on setting new PRs at whatever distance I end up racing. Most of my records were set in 2004, when, for whatever reason, I was in excellent form. I have come close, twice, to resetting some of them: 7 seconds shy at the Atlantic City Marathon in 2012, 10 seconds shy at the Caesar Rodney half in 2014 (on a much harder course than where I ran my record, too). I ran an on-the-way record for 10 miles at that same Caesar Rodney race (also harder than the Broad Street course where I'd PR'd before). These much more recent results lead me to believe that with the training I outlined above, I can take serious aim at my best times, shooting to break them.

3) Race more. I did only three races last year and only finished seven in the last three years. There are PRs other than the half-marathon and marathon I'd also like to break. I don't do many 5Ks because I tend to focus my training on the longer distances, but I should be able to do better than 21:15 even so. I have not done a 10K since 2012 and would like to work on that old PR as well. I'd like to do the Bix again this year but that one is at an odd time of the year and it involves arranging vacations, so trying to break what is probably my favorite PR (set on an exceptionally cool July morning) may not happen. And even setting aside the fact that races are opportunities to set new PRs, racing helps keep my legs sharp and gives me a good map of my fitness. I may not have to wonder and worry about how my training is going to translate into racing if I run more races ahead of the big targets.

As I move farther into the year, I may have to adjust my goals up or down, and make room for new ones as well as add more specific subsets of the three I've described above. In the last six or eight weeks, at the close of my year's racing and training, it's been easy to think about aggressive goals for the next year when I haven't had to actually do anything toward them; soon it will be time to lay them out and get to work. I look forward to it, and look forward to trying to chronicle my year's journey here.