I guess I'll give some results

The sunny skies and 90 degree temps dashed my hopes of BQing at the Twin Cities Marathon. I finished a personal worst of something like 4:18, but yet it was a personal best of where I finished percentage wise. So one worst, and best in the same race! Yea.

I guess I will have to try next year. I'm thinking of Grandmas.

Still running.....

My last two days

Yesterday I went for my first hill repeat of the official 18 week training program. After a spring of hill repeats, which grew to 10x, the 3x was a breeze. I went for a nice 2mi warm up and then a 1.5 mile cool down. I was experiencing just a little bit of discomfort in my shins (which is probably me just blowing this whole thing out of context) but to be safe I decided to do a cold water run today.

See here were I am it has been hovering in the 60's in the Fahrenheit scale, which is only about 16 degrees Celsius for those of us who prefer a measurement system that makes sense. When I woke up then this morning at my usual 4:30, the temp was at a frigid 44F and 7C. BRRRRRR! So I decided to play the chance that I might be willing to go for a run after work. Well after some mental preparation I finally plunged into our pool. Again I must type BRRRRRR! But after about 5min my legs just went numb, and if I was able to keep my torso dry, I was only just regular cold. So I ran in there for about 28min covering about 1.2 miles or 2K. Not far but come on I was running in water. Anyways I think I will be good for my tempo run tomorrow. Its not a big deal, just a 30min one.

First day is in the books!

Well here is the schedule I will be trying my best to adhere to.

Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun
1	3 m run	3 x hill	3 m run	30 Tem	rest	5 m pace	10
2	3 m run	30 Tem	3 m run	3 m pace	rest	5 m run	11
3	3 m run	4 x 800	3 m run	30 Tem	rest	6 m pace	8
4	3 m run	4 x hill	3 m run	35 Tem	rest	6 m pace	13
5	3 m run	35 Tem	3 m run	3 m pace	rest	7 m run	14
6	3 m run	5 x 800	3 m run	35 Tem	rest	7 m pace	10
7	3 m run	5 x hill	4 m run	40 Tem	rest	8 m pace	16
8	3 m run	40 Tem	4 m run	3 m pace	rest	8 m run	17
9	4 m run	6 x 800	4 m run	40 Tem	rest	9 m pace	12
10	3 m run	6 x hill	4 m run	45 Tem	rest	9 m pace	19
11	4 m run	45 Tem	5 m run	4 m pace	rest	10 m run	20
12	4 m run	7 x 800	5 m run	45 Tem	rest	6 m pace	12
13	4 m run	7 x hill	5 m run	50 Tem	rest	10 m pace	20
14	5 m run	45 tem	5 m run	5 m pace	rest	6 m run	12
15	5 m run	8 x 800	5 m run	40 Tem	rest	10 m pace	20
16	5 m run	6 x hill	5 m run	30 Tem	rest	4 m pace	12
17	4 m run	30 Tem	4 m run	4 m pace	rest	4 m run	8
18	3 m run	4 x 400	3 m run	rest	rest	2 m run	race

Today as you can see was just a simple 3m run plus some strength training. I did this real early in the morning (I left the house at about 4:40) and it was real nice. I think I might like this early morning running stuff. No pain, no nothing. Just a good quality run.

Here we go! 18 weeks til the marathon

Well to catch you all up on my life, I am now going to be a roofer for the summer. This is a tough job so running during the week is going to suck. So I will be running BEFORE work. I will be trying to get up at insane times like 4:30am to go for my runs. I am officially starting Hal's 18 week Marathon Training (Advanced-II) which incorporates speed work which I love so much. Tomorrow I will be doing just my normal 3 mile run with strength training.

And btw yesterday I was able to run a good 7 miler with no pain. I think I should be fine to take this program hard!

Quick Update

Well on Monday I went for my first ever bike ride with a road bike, and after 28 miles I simultaneously blew both of my tires! AHHH. But my mom was riding with me and was able to ride home and pick me up with the car. Then later on that day I went on a ride with my dad and uncle and my uncle blew a tire after hitting a nail! I never realized there was so much waiting biking.

But then today I went for a real running run in between job interviews. It was only 2.5 miles but I was able to make it a quasi tempo run. First mile 9:30, Second mile 7:10. Since I FINALLY got the pool ready to go I might take easy tomorrow and do some water running.

I aquired a road bike today!

My uncle Erv who is majorly into road biking lent me his old bike for a while. It rides great from the little 300m trek I went on today, and I'm excited to get out onto the road. Also I finished preparing our pool today, so I can go watter running tomorrow too! Its all so exciting that I get to start working out again.

So I completely failed on my last couple weeks of the spring training. I still benefited greatly from it, and based on my 5k time, I should be training for a sub 3:00 marathon! Things are looking up for me!

Another day of rest

I rested again today. Unfortunately our pool is not yet ready for people, but hopefully tommorow I can run laps in it for about 30-45 min. I'm just really dying to get out and start running like I am used to.

On a side note I figured out today while playing a little basketball, I can feel my shins hurt as I go UP when jumping, and not so much when I land. I always figured it to be the opposite, but I guess when you are running, all the pain kinda melts into one. Perhaps I can learn to take off a little more gently rather then trying to land softer like I have been. If nothing else, its just one more thing to try.

No I have not abandoned you

I've been busy moving, graduating, registring for grad school, all of this fun stuff. I have also not been running much as I keep having a couple shin splint episodes during every day activities, so I rule on the safe side. On sat though I did run a 5k with my mom. I was doing good, and my wind felt fine keeping up with the leaders by about the half way mark. (I don't know exactly where it was because there were NO MARKERS on the course). Then I got some shin splints and finished in 20:40. Oh well, not bad I guess.

But now for the summer I am living with my parents who have a pool, so perhaps I will be doing some water running soon! I just really want to start training again!

No shoes? No problem!

Today I went for a .85 mile jog in my bare feet! I did not go on the grass somewhere, but in the street. Some people sitting outside yelled out to me "You forgot your shoes". Another lady walking her dog asked me, "Does it hurt". And really, it does not. I've read a lot about the benefits of how your running form improves dramatically, as well as your ability to improve the strength of your foot, ankle, and lower legs.

I really liked this jog and I think that i might just consider doing a barefoot run every week like this just for the heck of it. In fact, most elite athletes do a barefoot warm up and cool down for every workout they do (in shoes).

Tomorrow I will try and do 10x400 intervals! woo hoo!

I gotta keep the tempo!

I went out for my first real run in a couple days. Sunday I went about .5 miles before I decided to head back due to shin pain. But today I went out not knowing what I would be in store for. I figured if it came down to it, running around the block would not be the worst thing in the world. But if I felt good I might keep going, and perhaps I would even do some speed work.

Well I felt great, and during the early stages of my tempo run, I had to hold myself back. My fastest mile split was exactly 6:00, and I have to say that I am pleased. I also felt NO pain today. But that is not going to stop me from being cautious. Tommorow even if I feel good I am going to take a day off just to make sure that I get plenty of rest. (plus I don't want to ruin myself for my 5k this Friday)

This also reminds me that I finally picked a marathon. I will be running the Twin Cities Marathon up here in Minneapolis where I will be attending graduate school. Yay.

Time to step back a touch

During my recovery run today I started to feel some pain in my shins again, as well as some shin pain after my workout. So I have decided to cut back some of my training miles for a tad. So I am not going to run tommrow, take it as a rest day. Then on Sunday I am supposed to run 10 miles, but perhaps I will just run 7 or so. Then monday full out rest again etc.

During the days of rest I think I will take the time I was going to run, and instead use it to do strength excercises for my shins. I found a good reference for them at this site: http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0161.htm

They usually have lots of good advice for anybody with any running questions. Well that is it for tonight.

Hot Fartlek Coming through!

As of Saturday I will be a college graduate. yay. Now what does a man who is supposed to have all this intelligence do? Decides that when it is 90 degrees outside and sunny, running a 45min fartlek at 3:00pm would be a good idea. My diploma should be ripped up.

It was sunny, so I wore sunscreen. I forgot that sometimes sunscreen block your sweat pores. I got real hot real fast. Eventually I was able to use the sweat from my head to wipe off my sunblock, allowing me to sweat. Then As I was running, and running hard at times because this was a fartlek, I started to feel dizzy and get tunnel vision. Immediately alarm bells started ringing in my head, so I stopped by a nearby tree and did some stretching for a couple min. I then ran over to my fraternities house and got some water.

Feeling better I was able to finish off my fartlek in a manner befitting a fartlek, but for the most part I think that this day was wasted as far as speed training goes. But on the plus side I re-learned a couple important lessons about hot weather running. DON'T DO IT! There was a reason I was doing all my running at night this past week, it was because running in hot weather sucks.

Late night runs

Since it is starting to get a bit too warm around noontime for my cold addapted Wisconsin blood, I have taken to the late night runs. Its kinda nice with few cars, cool weather, and neat views of the stars. But when you find yourself on a stree with poor lighting, it can be a real pain to run. I stepped in a pothole today and it scared me real bad, luckly nothing was twisted or what not. (Not that that would matter, since my ankel tendons are so stretched. I played many years of volleyball my ankes have been twisted so many times that I can just keep running.)

The run itself was only a quick 2.8 miler to help my body recovery from yesterdays interval session. I then did a full 20min of stretching and then 20min of icing of my legs when I got back. I think I am in pretty good shape for my Fartlek tommrow. (A 45min one).

Another thing I wish I could do is have two of my toes chopped off at the tip. The toe next to my big toe is my biggest toe, and since this is freakish, shoe makers assume that that one is smaller then the big toe. So that one gets rubbed and rubbed against the front of the shoe and almsot every other week I perform my own little surgerys on it to keep the pain only minor. So if any of you know of somebody who is real accurate with a butcher knife let me know :)

Spooky Intervals at the track.

Yes, I am back. I did 16x200 intervals with 200m jogs in between. So running to and from the track plus the intervals gave me about 7.3 miles for the day. I ran my intervals late at night, and it was spooky at the track. When I got there I saw another guy running, and as he was coming around the corner I took off, and 200m later I looked for him, and he was gone. Then my next lap a bird seeming came out of nowhere from the track and flew right in front of my face. The strange thing is that I was looking right at the spot that it was coming from. Then the next lap I was looking for the bird again, and again it came out of nowhere. All the while there is lightning looming on the horizon. Then the next lap I noticed, or I think I noticed that a stack of hurdles moved closer to my lane. Finally for the rest of my run every time I ran past this one light it always turned off. So I don't know what was going on exactly, but since I have a hint of superstition, I thanked my little "ghost" after leaving the track and thanked him for letting me run and not killing me.

I got back to my apartment just before the storm hit, and while I like running in the rain, this would have been much, especially with the lightning. I then drank my slim fast high protein shake to build up my muscles, (my legs were burning at the end of the run, it felt great). Then I took another ice bath and wrote my spooky blog.

Yesterday Rest, Today a Recovery Run

I realized yesterday that my body was a bit sore, especially in my hamstrings and knees, so I just iced them and took a rest day. Better safe than sorry. (Plus its finals week for me and I have a lot to get done, so it was not as agonizing a decision for me to make)

Then today I was scheduled to do a 3 mile recovery run and strength training, and I AM FINALLY BACK ON HAL'S SCHEDULE!!!! I feels very good to type that. I ran without much of an incident. I stopped a couple times briefly to massage my shins, but as long as I was running slow I was great. Then today I took another ice bath, and now my legs feel great!

Tomorrow is supposed to be a 16x200 at the track. I'll try to do that.

And on a personal note, I have gotten rejected from all but one grad schools I applied to, but I got great news today that the University of Minnesota (which rejected me) will allow me into their physics program if I agree to pay for my schooling! So I am going to be attending grad school! Yay!

Today was my long run I guess.

I have this habit of going out for a run, thinking that I will be out for say, 4 miles. Then 8.5 miles later I am thinking, wow, that was great. Well that happened to me today, and I did this, only because there was ZERO pain in my body. I was running and felt great. I was even running kinda fast. the 8.5 was done in 1:10:00.

Once I got back to my apartment I did some thorough stretching and then iced both my shins and knees just to make sure that I was not going to be in pain later. I guess all I can say is wow, and I am glad that I can finally run, run far, and run fast.

I cut loose today!

I started my run pretty slow, not too fast, but I was not going very slow either, in about the 9:00 min mile range. I was running on grass to keep the impact down, and I think this has been helping. But after about half a mile I realized that my body was feeling great. So I guess yesterday's rest day was a good thing.

I then started to speed it up a little bit. By the time I reached my first mile my stopwatch said 8:00. I felt I could do better. Next split was 7:32. Then I started to head back into the wind, and damn it was windy, the flags were almost horizontal and I was running right into it. And I'll be damned if I was going to put up a slower split, this had been turned into an impromptu temp run. The split for mile 3 was 7:11. Ok, I was getting bit tired, but I had to run about another half mile before I held up. By this time I was out of the wind, and cruised in to my apartment at 4 miles, with the last split of 7:59.

Overall it was a good run, I did run pretty hard, and considering the wind I think I did pretty good. I have lost some from the last 5k I ran, but I don't think it would take too much to get it back. On a side note I was wearing my heart rate monitor today, and it registered an average HR of 163, so yea. I was moving!

We'll see how I fell tomorrow, but I think I might do some LSD of about 5 miles, and then get ready for 10 on Sunday. I hope, hope, hope, hope that I am ready to go and resume my program at 100%!

2.6 Miles Plus 1 Day Rest

Yesterday I ran a short 2.6 miles, and I started to feel sore in my shins, so I cut my run short. Today then I rested up, figuring that yes I have been making progress, but I could probably use some rest. After this week I will only have 4 more weeks of pure speed training and I want to make sure that I get some of that in, and enter the full out marathon training full strength. So I am just going to take it easy. R.I.C.E

Step down day

Yesterday I ran two miles, and it was cake. Pace was slow, about 9:27, but I felt pretty good again. Earlier in the day my knee was feeling a tad on the sore side for no real apparent reason, so I wore one of my knee braces. After the run I felt a little more pain in that knee. I am beginning to suspect that the design of that brace is bad for me, so i will not wear it for a while and see what happens. Also I just wanted to say that last Saturday was the last dance performance I will probably ever give, so I am done dancing on stage. Time to focus on running.

Today I will go out and run 3 maybe 4 miles and see what I have going on. Then do plenty of stretching and icing.

It feels great to be running again!

I guess I should re-hash the last 3 days

Saturday: I went out and ran a nice and easy 1.8 miles. I felt pretty good and the weather was fantastic. I have been noticing though that I am getting kinda slow. I'm not sure if that had to do with me not running for 10 days, or just trying to take it easy on the body but I averaged a 10:30 pace. That is normally a very slow recovery for me. Overall though some sensation in the shins but not too bad

Sunday: I went big. 2.5 miles. I ran a good chunk of that on grass in a park to keep the impact down. I felt pretty good, but man it was hot out yesterday. I'm not used to running in 85 degree weather, especially after a very cold winter/spring. It also did not help that I realized that I had not drank any water that day, and I ran at 6:00pm I was not feeing good, but a little bit of water fixed that. Shins for the most part felt good. Pace was ok 9:00, but fatigue wise it felt like I ran it at a 7:00 clip or faster.

Monday: I'm going bonkers now! 3.6 miles! Pace was 8:48. So I'm running longer and faster, but even today this fatigued me more that it really should have. Again shins felt good I guess. There are some quarter mile stretches were I can feel the pain, but it goes away pretty quickly, and I am not noticing any pain whatsoever in my daily life. I also did my strength training today, feeling good all around.

Tommorow I think I will forego my speed training and just go for a slow 2 mile jog. Take it down a notch, and see how that goes. But man it's hard to keep pulling back on the reins like this. I just want to run and run fast! Ahhh.

I ran a mile!

Yay! I felt ok for the most part. I had a couple stretches where I had some pain in my shins, but I also think that when I was out running I was payin way too much attention to my shin splints. I mean if I am sitting here now, I can try and feel pain in my scalp if I want to. Walking around today I felt no pain after my run. Perhaps I am almost done with these shin splint bastards. We'll see tommrow when I try two miles! gasp!

Yet another update

My shins are feeling Ok. I am in the middle of a dance performance through the weekend, and every once in a while when I am dancing I feel pain in my shins, especially when I do big leaps and land on my left leg. Other then that, walking around feels great. I know I have been saying I was going to do a test run soon, and I just want to make sure that I am ready for it, and I am fully healed. We'll see.

Also, I will not be running in the 5k this weekend. Its a good thing I did not send in any money, because that was a somewhat expensive race ($25). Anyways I hope to be running at full steam sometime next week, perhaps early in the week if I am feeling good.

Status Update

I have come to the conclusion that for my particular body, wraping my shins when I have shin splints does not work, and it amplifies the problem. Saturday I did not wrap my shins, and I felt rather good. I did not do anything really out of the ordinary that day to irritate it. Then Sunday came and I forgot to wrap it as we had load in day for dance, where we spent 12 hours getting lights and stuff like that ready for our dance performance. My shins felt great. Today I wraped them for the first half of today and they hurt. It took it off and a couple hours later the pain was gone.

So bye bye Mr. Ace Bandage as far as shin splints are concerned. Given my lack of progress I only jogged a quarter of a mile today after the ace bandage came off, and I felt ok, a little tender at the end of the run. Tommorow perhaps I will go for a whole mile and see where I am at.

4th day rest

Today is my 4th day of rest after bad shin splints. Two weeks ago I took 4 days off, and I felt pretty good the week after, but then I got injured again. So perhaps I will take it another day or two. Perhaps Monday I will go for a short jog. I don't know, I will take it as it comes.

But right now I am icing, and taking ibuprofen. Every once in a while if I am shopping and walking a lot I will feel my shins hurting just a bit. I will then sit down for a while until I am good again. This is probably not a good sign, but it takes a lot of walking to get that to happen.

I'll update you all agian on Monday at least, perhaps even tommorow.

Keep on running!

Today was GREAT! But I lost some shoes today...

Today I rested. Granted I did have a dance rehearsal, but that does not do NEARLY the same to my legs as say running. My shins were to be honest a bit sore today, and probably will be tomorrow, but I plan on taking them out for a test drive. Not the 45min fartlek that is scheduled, (unless they feel great) but rather something more like a jog around the block a couple times.

I am also beginning to suspect that my every day sneakers are to blame for this. I recently threw out my old shoes because they had many holes in them. I then unearthed in my closed a pair of Nike running shoes that I had a couple years ago. I am pretty sure I did not even get 500 miles out of them, but I know I was close. But the reason I replaced them was because I could start to tell that they were causing me discomfort during my runs. But I thought that if I was just walking in them and not running, I should be fine.

Wrong. I think I will stick with shoes that do not hurt me now, and these shoes of mine, even though they look just fine are crap now. I have to add them to my garbage and kiss my shin splints good bye.

So the moral of the story. Converting old running shoes into everyday sneakers may seem like penurious advice, but not only are they not stylish, but they will hurt you.

Final Hill Repeat of the Spring!

Today was my final hill repeat of the spring according to Hal, and he took me out with a bang. I was to do 10 of them. And oh boy, for as much as I like the challenge of hill repeats, I am very glad to be finished. I guess some of it does have to do with the hill I run. Its a cement sidewalk which is not always very forgiving on the bones, the hill is fairly steep, and runs up the middle of a valley. This creates large gusts of winds that blow down it, and right into my face as I run up it. And to top things off, there is a highway overpass that seemto channel the wind even more as I reach the top. It was tough, but damn it I did it!

Aside from today being my last hill repeat, it was also WARM and SUNNY! So for the first time this year, I got to take off my shirt, put on some sunblock, and go running. I really like the feeling of having the sun on my back as I run, it just feels good. Plus the tan I end up getting is not half bad either. It really feels like summer is starting to come after a very wicked winter!

One down side to today was some real bad cramping I had in my calf today. This I believe stemmed from a slight cramp I started to get Sunday and even Monday. Then today the cramp got to be very bad and even though I was able to run my repeats pretty fine, I did have to walk the last .5 miles back home. Not a terrible thing, but OK.

Then while I was walking through Target with my girlfriend, I started to get shin splints :(
I am going to try and take care of them just like I did before, and I might even skip tommorow's recovery run and replace it with some biking or perhaps some walking/slow jogging. We'll see but just when I though I was back on track...nope.

But I am still optimistic that perhaps this episode is attributed mostly to my calf muscle and not the same one that was troubling me earlier in my training.

Two Recovery Days = Half-Marathon?

Sunday and Monday I was supposed to just do a couple of recovery runs. No big deal, just jog a little bit and get ready for next week. Well on Sunday I started running, and just did not want to stop since I was feeling very good and knew I had another recovery day on Monday. In the end I ran 11 miles that day. Then yesterday I ran 2.5 in real recovery run fashon. So for two "recovery days" I ran 13.5 miles, which is just over a half-marathon.

I think I should have just stuck with 3 miles a day for those two runs, since I feel a little run down right now, but it is not too bad. I guess we'll see when I run my 10x Hill repeates today, which just so happen to be the last hill repeats I will do for Hal's spring training. After today it will be all track work on Tuesdays.

The results are in!

19:30

I finished 3rd overall out of about what I estimate to be about 250 people so I was very excited. I got second place in my division and now have a shinny new medal. What I guess is really cool is that I was able to stay within sight of the leaders at all times. All of these experiences are new to me so I am just busting.

The race started out at 8:35 in the morning, so it was just starting to warm up and the frost was thawing on the grass. I started in the second row, not wanting to get caught up in the quick start, but not wanting to get behind everybody. Funny little kid was in front of me, he had to be about 12. I did not have the heart to tell him that he would never be able to keep the pace of the front couple people, so I let him sprint out of the start. He lasted about 200 meters until I passed him, but he was still running pretty quick. I think I saw him cross the finish line in a little over 30min.

But at those 200 meters I was about 15 to 20th, and we started to run up a hill. It was not a very big, steep, or long hill, but when I reached the top I was in 5th. I stayed behind a guy with a white shirt for the frist mile then since the wind was blowing in our face, and I wanted to use him, plus he was running at a pretty good pace. Then once we turned the corner I passed him up and started working on the next guy.

The next guy stayed with the leaders for the frist mile and then started to rapidly drop off. I finally passed him at about 2 miles and just had the leaders in my sights. I was counting the times between me and them and I realized that I was starting to catch up to them. I tried to pick up the pace just a little bit more and see if I had a shot. But it was too little too late and they beat me. But that last surge of mine put a good min or so between me and the guy in 4th. So I finished my frist race outside of middle school track in the top 3. top 10 even!

I would like to thank Hal for his training program, and my Nike waffles for making me fast. I'm real excited now and I can't wait for my next race. I just have to decide which one. But I want to run one in two weeks!

Woooooooo hooooooooo

I race tommorow

I am ready to goto sleep and race tommorow morning. The weather forcast is supposed to have temps of around 35-40 degrees F during the run. No to little wind is expected as well. I have my waffles with me, lets see how fast they can make me run!

I'll post tommorow with the time of my run

And for the record today was the frist non-injury day that I have not run for over a month! yay me! (Gotta get those legs rested for tommorow)

I'm caught up again!

I have finally got caught up with my blogging, and I am no longer blogging yesterdays runs! Today was a short 30min tempo run. I normally would have done a 45min one, but since Hal has me running a 5k on Sat, I am in a mini-taper. However that did not stop me from going fast. Towards the middle I was was running pretty well, and even posted a 5:54 mile for mile number 3. I think that I am ready for the race. I feel great both in my wind and in my joints. So after tomorrow's recovery run (or rest day if I feel like it) I hope that I can break 20min for the 5k.

BTW the McMillan Running Calculator says that based on me running a 5:54 mile I should be able to run a 5k in 20:23

So considering that I could have done the mile faster than that had I not already run two, I think I can make this goal.

I guess I have a blogging backlog

As far as yesterday went...

It was a recovery run. I felt good and had to constantly put on the brakes as I noticed I was going too fast. That is one thing that I always find hard to do, is not go out and give 100% every time. In every sport I played as a kid my coaches would always be talking about giving maximum effort. One quote that really stuck with me was

"You will play the way you practice, so practice the way you want to play"

I want to run fast, so how do I run fast? I run slow during practice. Such a strange philosophy in running. But it works.

Also yesterday at my university, the health and human performance department had their annual health fair, and a friend of mine have a yearly competition to see who has the lowest body fat %. The first year we did it, I came in at about 6% and he was about 7%. Then last year I blew his 8% out of the water with my 4%. This year he came in at 10% keeping his trend going, and I keeping mine got 2.9% body fat.

Now this is not a good thing. The minimum amount of body fat to be considered healthy is about 8%. I guess last year my switching from skim milk to 2% and margarine to butter did not quite work. I eat about 4000 calories a day and plenty of fatty foods, I just burn it all up. Perhaps I need to start eating 5000 calories a day, but that would make me sick. Hell last week I got a gallon of chocolate ice cream and ate that in 3 days! How do I gain some fat? I wish I could just have people sell me their fat and I then burn it off for them. That way I would make money by selling burn calories, and I would also save on my grocery bill! Now to find a way to sell burnt calories....

Yesterday's Hill Repeats

Despite my running all day on 3 hrs of sleep from my frantic work the night before, I somehow managed to drag myself out onto the road to do some hill repeats! Since I was feeling a bit lathargic and due to the fact that my 5k is on Saturday and my racing flats are not quite broken in, I wore the Waffles! I did a nice slow jog to my hill, which is a pretty steep section of a hill that rises for about 2 miles (not vertically mind you). Its actually a pretty fun hill to run all the way up, probably because I like the challange.

Like I was saying, yesterday I was supposed to do 9x repeats, and despite being tired I managed to do all 9 at a pretty good clip. I think the shoes helped a bit, even though my body felt like it had gotten beat up at the end. I guess I did not anticipate that I would be running 6 miles in those shoes. I am almost positive I will not be running a marathon in those shoes, but if I give it a little bit longer, I might get used to them and take them out on a 10k race.

On the injury front, I have been doing a good job I think of keeping myself from relapsing into either the shin splints, or the hamstring tendon rupture by not doing any full out sprinting, and maintaining a steady dose of ice and stretching after and before my runs, as well as throuout the day.

Today I got much more sleep, and will be nice and rested for my recovery run today. Such a weird phrase, but I had to use it.

Yay, done with the paper!

My Seminar Paper

Now that it is just about 4am here, I think I will goto bed. I think tommorow's run is going to be a bit rough. :(

Slow Recovery Day

I'm taking a break from writing the final draft of my senior semiar paper entitled:

"Quantitative Verification of the Which-Way Experiment Using Single Photons"

Phew.

anyways once I am done I just might post a link incase any of you physics geeks feels like reading up on my pittiful undergraduate research that just re-does what people with higher degrees than me have already done to more accuracy than me 10 years ago.

But back to running. Today was a slow run, a recovery run and I milked it for all it was worth. I was running close to 10:00 min miles as my body was a bit fatiqued from my weekend's runs. But I did not mind as who cares about times during a recovery run. Plus I need to keep those nagging injuries from coming back.

I guess the one thing about recovery runs that really suck is that most of my friends know I am a serious hard core fast runner, and while I am out plodding along at a very un-me like pace, I happen to see one of my good friends. Now the question I must ask is why can't they ever drive/walk by when I am doing speed work?!?! They are probably thinking to themselves "pfft, I bet he can't even run a 8:00 min mile, he's just full of hot air"

I guess perhaps that is extra motivation to do well at this weekends 5k. So when I see that person next, they will invariably say "I saw you running." and I can say, "Oh yea, that was pretty slow for me, this weekend I ran a X:XX 5k" and then they go Ok and don't think of me as some big liar, and instead just some arrogant prick who has to tell them their 5k times. I'm screwed either way.

Tommorow is a 9x Hill run. I'm excited to get back into that! And please somebody drive by! :P

Good Sunday LSD

And for you out there that arn't familiar with running lingo, LSD is not the psychedelic drug that the Beatles sang about. In running it stands for Long Slow Distance. So today's LSD was scheduled for 9 miles, and 9 miles I went. My body was a tad sore after yesterdays double run, but it was not bad. I ran a little slower than I am used to, but that is probably a good thing, since I am still trying to make sure that my knee and shin problems do not come back.

One think I really like about LSD is that I can go find some strange country road to run down, and get out of the constant turning and changing of direction the suburbs of my town. I also usually find it worthwile to bring my little ipod shuffle micro miniature music thing. (I don't know exactly what it's called, but it weighs only .5oz, so its small) Its a good time to just go out and relax while running. It was a good day

Today was a 2 for 1

I did get in my extra run today. Since it's late and I want to break my stay up late sleep pattern I will make this quick. I ran a 30min tempo, I felt great, no nagging injuries, I ran fast. I can't wait for tomorrow when I can run again. God I missed running!

All systems are go!

Today I decided to go out and test my body with a short 2.5 mile run, as well as try to break in my new racing flats, the waffles. I will first off say that those shoes are awesome. It feels like I am running barefoot. These shoes are not designed for confort by any means, but I actually had no problem with them. My feet feel good, and I don't feel like I took much of a pounding.

As far as the run I started out kinda slow, but the shoes. I swear it was the shoes. They convinced me that I should run faster. So my first mile was done in 7:19, then my second in 6:48 and my final half mile was at a 6:01 pace! I think I am going to be ready to put on a pretty good show at my 5k next week.

On the knee/shin front I did not feel any significant pain in my knee. There was a little tightness for the first 100 feet, but that went away and never came back. My shins gave me a brief little trouble for a couple strides, and now that I have stopped, they feel a little sore, but nothing like when they were a problem.

So like the title says, all systems are go! I have a 9 mile run scheduled for tommorow, and technicly today was supposed to be a 30min tempo run, so perhaps I will do that yet. I'm really excited to be back.

Dead...Freaking...Tired

I don't know why I am posting tonight, but I am TIRED. In case you did not know, I am a physics major about to graduate. And to get that diploma you have to do a senior seminar on a project of your choosing. Well due to factors, and I state this lightly, BEYOND MY CONTROL, I had to put in string of late nights to get this thing done.

So in hinesight, my injury had pretty good timing. It would have been tough to fit running into my schedule these last couple days as I was leaving the lab routinely at 2am only to goto work on my paper at home until 4am, hence the wacky time of this post.

But on the running front I have good news. I got my new racing shoes today! I got the Nike Zoom Waffle Racer IV. I took them out for a quick spin around the block to both start breaking them in, and to check out my knee situation. And yay! Both felt very good.

So I am excited to start running again tommorow. Back to a normal life, and blogging!

Just Dance!

Today I was feeling pretty good. I iced my shins and knee in the morning. Took some ibuprofen and went off to my classes. Then later in the evening I went off to my dance rehearsal, when the ibuprofen should have been worn off. I was prepared to step out at any time should my knee start bothering me, but that never happened. So I am pretty excited about that.

Perhaps tommorow I will take that test jog and see what is happening on the knee front. But for now its RICE.

On the Bench

I'll be sitting on the bench for a while. I went for a short test run to the nearby middle school to vote. I kept a slow pace but I could definitely feel the pain in the back of my knee. It was not bad, and were I a couple years younger and dumber I would have just run through the pain. But I have decided to shut it down for a couple of days, enjoy the beginning of baseball season, get some projects done, and strength train my upper body.

So my time should not be a loss, and perhaps this little rest will finally put an end to my brief shin splints episode for good.

To be honest I will still probably go out everyday and walk a bit, perhaps jog a quarter mile and see how I feel. So I will keep my young blog full of posts, and I'll keep reading yours. But for now, Play Ball!

Good News and Bad News

<---------Bad News is that this might be an exaggerated version of my hamstring tendons. Since the pain I felt today was pretty strong, and I did slightly notice it the night before I did some searching, and according to sportinjuryclinic.net:

Symptoms of hamstring tendon rupture:

• A sudden sharp pain in the back of the knee.
• Swelling, tenderness and heat coming from the point where the tendon inserts into the knee.
• Pain when you bend the knee against resistance.

I seem to be having the first two, and none of the other injuries described anywhere in my searches have come close to describing the sharp pain in the back of the knee that I am feeling.


Now for the good news. This can be treated with RICE. Which for those of you unfamiliar with this notion, RICE stands for: Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation. I should also be able to keep running, just making sure I don't push anything.

Turns out that this injury pops up mostly when you do fast acceleration and decelerations. This pretty much describes my hill training for tomorrow :( So I will try one, see how the knee feels, and then go from there. But the good news is that this is nothing very serious, and yes that picture is a vast exaggeration.

On another note when I saw the description of the symptoms and saw that picture I shed a couple tears. And since I have done considerable sweating, and have had some bleeding from a toe blister that I got a couple days ago...I have successfully accomplished the Blood, Sweat and Tears portion of my blog title in only 2 weeks or so!

And finally, I added some stuff to my blog. I have some good links to running websites. The last two are great resources for runners. You just have to check them out to realize their vast wealth of information. I also put in a race countdown timer! The geek in me is cheering

What!? Another One!?

Today my shins felt good again. I'm liking the progress I am making here. Now though on the same leg as my shin splints I have a sharp pain in the back of my knee. I have never felt this before, but I don't like it. I was able to adjust my stride enough so that it did not hurt, but damn, I hate these little injuries that pop up, and I sometimes feel like this poor guy to the left. But I guess unlike him I was able to do my 3 mile recovery run today plus some strength training. I know running has more than its fair share of nagging little injuries, but I think I am getting the raw deal here. Anyways I hope to be back and running strong tomorrow when I do my hill repeats. And for the official Hal definition of hill repeats!

Hill training is scheduled for the first six weeks of this program on Tuesday. The speed benefits of hill training are similar to those for interval training on the track (below), but in the early spring it may be easier doing this workout on the road than doing repeat 200s or 400s at the track. Select a hill about a quarter-mile long, but don't worry about pitch or the exact distance. Run up hard, as hard as you might during a 200 or 400 repeat. Then turn and jog back down, repeating the uphill sprints until finished. Be sure to warm up by jogging a mile or two before and cool down with the same distance after.

Before I started this 30 week program I was doing some of these exact hill exercises, and I was only able to do 4 of them, and 4 that were not done well at all. So its great to see progress, but 8 is tough, really tough.

Just pluggin along.

I ran yesterday for 8 miles. My shins hurt only a little bit at times, and during those time I slowed down and they went away. I think the big key to my success last night was that I started out very slow. I ran a 10:30 mile for the first mile, and then once I picked up the pace the rest of the way I was fine. I ended up with an average pace of 8:27.

One thing I am sick of though is this weather. The last 7 runs I have been on have had some sort of precipitation. I don't care if it rains out, and I actually welcome a downpour. It makes me feel like I'm a hardcore runner. But the last 7 runs have had this lingering mist and light rain junk. I also don't think I've seen the sun in about the same amount of time. I think somebody went and stuck me in Seattle without telling me. And today's forecast, light rain and drizzle! AHHHHH.

Soon I will go out for my 3 mile recovery run, and strength training. Then I will tell you all about that one!

3rd Straight Day of Running and...

I felt great up until 15min into my fartlek. I think I went out too fast, and did not give my shins adequate time to warm up. So the second half of my run was quite a bit slower as I mixed walking with slow jogging to try and prevent any more injury. But before I had to shut it down, I was feeling fast and I was feeling good. So on the bright side only 3 weeks into my training program and I am feeling a lot lot faster. Right now a 7:30 min mile seems like a nice slow relaxing pace. 3 weeks ago that was me pushing. Extrapolating this success for 30 weeks, which I know is impossible, has me going to bed at night fantasising about winning my marathon!

Well its off to a wedding for me today, tomorrow is scheduled for an 8 mile run. Hopefully I will be able to complete it.

Short but good

Today I ran a quick 'recovery' run. I had about a 40min window between a particle physics exam and dance rehersal. The rest of the day I spent driving to Milwaukee for a cousin's wedding. But my run, wow it was fast. I did not feel like I was pushing it, but I crused. My frist mile was fast enough, at 7:30, but then I ran my next and final mile in 6:03! I don't know if was training paying off or some wind I did not sence going out, but wow I flew.

Weather wise it was a bit drizzley, so perhaps that helped keep me cool, but wow.

Tommorow is a 30min fartlek, which by Hal's definition is this:

Fartlek was developed in Sweden; the word means "speedplay." Fartlek is similar to tempo training in that it features a continuous run that starts and ends slow with fast running in the middle. The difference is that fartlek includes multiple changes of pace over varied (mostly short) distances. Run as you feel. Be creative. Pick out a tree and run hard to it. Ease back into a jog until rested, then pick out another landmark for your next sprint. Hard, easy, hard, easy. You define the tempo by how you feel. It's an enjoyable form of training that can either be your toughest or easiest workout of the week.

See you tommorow!

Oh Yea!

I went on a tempo run today. I started off very slow, running 12min miles. This was to hopefully warmup my shin muscle things. I was even running on peoples lawns next to the road to soften the blow. I ran through a park, and along side a cemetary to find the grass. I think this helped, along with the gradual pickup of speed. I just had to watch out for fallen tree brances that I could not see because it was dark. Those bastards can sneek up on you in a hurry.

Also, since I am a physics major, and we love making graphs, I will treat you to one of my run today. The blue line is speed, and the red one is my avg heart rate over each mile. I think that is pretty close to textbook on how to do a tempo run.


As y0ou can see I increased my speed slowly, then kept up a good pace for a while, then droped off to cool down. Its always a good feeling to know you went out and rocked a run.

And on an injury update, I have my shin wrapped in ice as I type this, but it did not hurt at all during the run. Since Tuesday's run irritated it on Wednesday, we'll see how it is tommorow. But again things are looking up.

On the bike again :(

I was not able to go running today, but I did get out on my bike. I spent about 25 min going up a huge hill against a very very strong wind. When I turned around, I got to the bottom in about 4 min! that was one big hill. Needless to say I think I got my cardio work in with that one.

I also did some real good stretching today at dance. (Yes I dance, but that does not necessarily make me gay). I have noticed that when I do the laying on the ground hamstring stretch, I am now able to get my leg well past vertical, and if I wanted to I could kiss my knee. Its always nice to see progress with something, be it running or flexibility.

As far as shin splint care goes, I am keeping up with my regimen or ice, icyhot, compression, rest, elevation, and ibuprofen. I have a 45 min tempo run scheduled for tommorow. And just so people know what I mean by that, here is the official Hal Higdon definition of a tempo run.

A tempo run is a continuous run with a buildup in the middle to near race pace. (Notice I said "near" race pace. You don't want to go faster than your 5-K or 10-K race pace.) In this program, tempo runs are scheduled for Wednesdays or Saturdays, alternating with fartlek runs. A tempo run of 30 to 40 minutes would begin with 10-15 minutes easy running, next accelerate during the 10-20-minute middle, then decelerate gradually and finish with 5-10 minutes easy running. Important: The pace buildup should be gradual, not sudden, with peak speed coming about two-thirds into the workout and only for a few minutes. You can do tempo runs almost anywhere: on the road, on trails or even on a track. In this program, tempo runs alternate with fartlek on Saturdays.
I hope I get to do that tommorow. For now I am out.

Cut it short, very short

Coming off of yeserdays great run, I thought that I would be golden for this morning. Think again. About .1 miles into my run my shins started to hurt bad. This was even with my compression bandage on it. So not wanting to injure myself further I walked back home. I iced my shins, stretched, and put on some icyhot.

I think I will try to go out and run a little bit later, and if that fails I will again go biking. But I really want to run. I don't like my bike.

while I was icing my shins, I put my mad paint sills to use, and edited a photo from me at my last marathon, to reflect my goal this year. Wow, I did get high up there though :P

I'm feeling much better now

Today I went running again. I was scheduled to run 7x hill repeats, and I was quite nervous about doing so. I did not know how my shins would feel, and to be honest, last week the 6x repeats had me nearly collapsed after the sixth one. But I FELT AWESOME! I had no pain in my shins during the run. I ran fast up the hill despite a very strong headwind. I even ran an extra half-mile just because I felt good. I can actually feel myself getting faster, and I'm only into my 3rd week!

I did make sure I stretched my calf in many different positions before I started up the hill for the first time, and then once more after 4. I also did some major stretching once I got home, and resumed my icyhot and ace bandage compression. I feel good today, but I don't' want these to come back in a week.

Tomorrow is a recovery day, and I should be running 5 miles. Hopefully I can do that too. I think that two back to back days of running will tell the story. Wish me luck!

Went Biking Today

Today was officially the first time I went biking in place of a run. I found that in order to even start breathing moderately I have to stand up on the bike and pedal pretty hard. Overall though it was a pretty enjoyable process. I even got to experience some wicked speed as I got up to 30mph on a downhill according to my Garmin 301. I did not know my cheep $40 bike could go that fast without falling apart!

Once I got back I did my strength exercises, focusing mainly on my upper body. Most runners neglect this, and later in races, their arms dangle on their sides, reducing their running economy. I am going to make sure this does not happen to me. So I did 2 sets of 20 bicept curls with 15lb weights, 2 sets of 20 "bench presses" with my 15lb dumbells, 2 sets of 12 behind the head tricept things with one dumbell, and 2 sets of 12 lunges with my dumbells. I also did 2 sets of 30 slow slow slow situps. I think that the slow situps are much more effective than the crunches, although much tougher, since it takes a lot of strength to controll yourself as you go up and down.

As usuall I will be taking care of my shins same as the last couple days, and hopefully I get get back into running tommorow! (BTW not a single twinge of pain whatsoever in my shins today!)

Getting it back

Today I was scheduled to run 7mi at a moderate to slow pace, which for me is about 8:00 to 8:30 min/mile. I again spent the morning making sure that my calf was wrapped in an ace bandage and constantly had icyhot or regular ice on it.

For today's run I kept the bandage on my calf to see how that would work, and it worked awesome. I also decided to run on highways with a nice level gravel shoulder to reduce impact, but I was able to go about 3.5 miles before I started to feel any pain. I then walked for .25 miles, and then ran some more. Then at 5.5 miles I had some more pain, and walked home after each test run had me feeling pain again. My workout was cut short from 7 miles to 6, but I am not too distressed by this since recovering from my injury is a higher priority then getting my miles in. Once I got back home I massaged my leg with an ice cube (yet another trick I found on the web to cure shin splints), then proceed with RICE.

I think that tomorrow I will be taking my bike out for about 30min, even though I know I could run the 3 mile recovery run I am supposed to do, because Tuesday has me set for 7x Hill repeats, and I want to make sure that I am physically able to do that.

Overall I am excided about my seemingly quick recovery rate!

Ouch

I am officially going through injury now. I decided to do my 30min tempo run today, but to make sure I do not hurt myself, I ran almost entirely on grass. I was able to run for about 20 min with minimal pain. Then I decided to stop and walk back home. There I applied RICE to my shin. Right now I have my leg compressed with an ace bandage and icyhot on it. I will go to bed like this and see how I feel in the morning.

If I do not feel better, I think I will take out my cheep beat up mountain bike for a ride to try and simulate the cardio work I would be doing for my 7mi run that is scheduled for tomorrow.

Intro - 12 days in

A brief bio of me first. I am a senior physics student at the University of Wisconsin River Falls. I will be graduating in May, and am training to run my third marathon on October 7th. I have yet to decide which marathon to run, as the Twin Cities Marathon in Minneapolis/St. Paul and the Milwaukee Lakefront marathon are on the same days. I am from Milwaukee, but my school is located just 20 min from the twin cities. But registration is not for a month or so, so I have time to decide.

My first marathon I ran in 4:15 which was well beyond my expectations since I did almost no training. I ran a half marathon about 3 months before the marathon, and jogged sporadically for the summer, and did absolutely no running the month leading up to the marathon (and no this was not an attempt at a super taper, just laziness)

For my second marathon I decided about 15 weeks before the marathon to start training regularly and with a program. I found a good one at halhigdon.com and since I am a young cocky male, I decided to follow his Advanced II program. This involved lots of speed work, and a gradual buildup to 6 weeks that involved 20 mile runs. I was able to follow this program very well, despite being hit with shin splints in the middle, which sidelined me for about 2 weeks. This time the month leading up to the marathon I did some running, but I choose to do other things once school started, and running got put on the back burner. My goal was 3:15 and I was confident I could do it.

During the marathon I was feeling great at my pace, I was even slightly ahead of where I should have been at about 7 miles. Then I started to notice a slight pain in my knee. This grew and grew until at 10 miles I was off my pace, and other parts of my legs were in pain from compensating. I struggled on, and ran into my family at 15 miles, who conveniently had some Aspirin on them. That helped a little, but what made my day great was the knee brace the found at a local Walgreens, and gave to me at 20 miles. With the drugs and brace I felt much better, but still sore from all the compensation. I finally finished at 4:11, disappointed but pleased that I was able to finish.

This year I have the same goal, but I am going to double the time I will allot to training, and I will make sure I correct my running form and strengthen vital parts of my body to reduce the risk of injury.

This winter I kept up my running, and participated in the American Birkiebeiner cross country ski marathon. This year it was shortened due to a lack of snow, but it kept me in shape all the way up to the end of February. So going into March I had been training, doing some hill sprints, long runs, and fartleks. Some weeks my weekly mileage got up to 5o miles. I then slowed down at the start of March to prepare myself for my marathon training.

I will be training for 30 months leading up to the marathon. The first 12 weeks will be a speed training program once again from Mr. Hal Higdon. It is called his "Spring Training: Advanced" program. It incorporates hill training, fartlek, tempo, interval, "sorta-long" runs, recovery runs, and races. Then afterwards I will use his 18 month marathon training program Advanced II version which incorporates a lot of the same as the speed training, but with more of a focus on building mileage and working on marathon pace. Also, no racing :(

The spring training program is here: http://www.halhigdon.com/spring/Springadvance.htm
and the marathon program is here: http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/advancedint.htm

The 30 week mark from the marathon was March 11th, But since the program starts on a Monday I started on the 12th.

The first week went well. I got all my workouts in and felt very good.

The second week was/is a bit tougher. I felt awesome on my 6x hill runs, but the next day during a 4mi recovery run, I started to notice a slight twinge in my shins. My though was "oh no not again" so I immediately started a program of ice, elevation, stretching, and some slight strength training exercises. The next day was a 40 min fartlek, and my shin splints started to come back again, so I took a couple walking breaks to try and prevent any more of an injury. I was able to run most of it, and again felt great. Today I had a 3mi recovery run that I spent only about 1mi running. I figured that its recovery for a reason, and took no chances today.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a 30min Tempo run, and I will see how I feel going into it. Hopefully I caught this before it became a major problem. (I tried to run through the pain early on last summer and it bit me back hard).

The next couple posts should not be as long since I am done giving the basic back story :) Thanks!