3/22/2009

I am getting near 100% now and should be able to start putting in some speed workouts soon. This week I got in 104.25 equivalent miles and 68.25 running miles, which is way more than I have done in the past 2 months or so. I am only planning on getting the run portion up to 80-90 miles/week at the peak, so I am getting close. My hip is definitely getting better with each passing day so I am beginning to get a little more confident about being able to add some quality in the next week or two. I will probably start out with some easy hills on my runs to ease into it. The GCS track workouts start up in about a month (April 22nd) and the Great Bay Half Marathon is on April 5th. I am not sure if I will be ready to race a half marathon in just two and a half weeks, but I will be able to start the track workouts in 5 weeks.

I am looking forward to the warmer weather and the longer days so that I can get back into my schedule of doing my long run early in the morning. All winter I have been stuck doing my second work out late at night and not getting home from the gym until 10-10:30PM because I had to use the elliptical trainer. That makes it really hard to get up at 6AM the next day and work out. Last summer, on days that I did not a track workout, I would get up at 5:30AM, get out the door by 6AM to do 10-14 miles and be home by 7:30AM. That only left the easy run for later in the day. I would usually stop somewhere on the way home from work and hit some new trails. That is when I discovered the trails in Groton and Dunstable (this one is actually on 2 miles from my house and connects to about 10+ miles of other trails heading south into Dunstable). On hard days I would get in an easy 5-8 miles early and then hit the track at Nashua South at 6PM. Since I was averaging 100 miles per week I was usually beat and would hang with the kids for an hour or two when I got home and then crash by 9PM, or 10PM at the latest. I suppose that life style does not seem too appealing to most people (sleep run, work, run, repeat and squeeze the family in there) but I like it. As long as I can make some time to spend with the fam it seems to work. Hopefully it will only be a couple more weeks before the weather cooperates and I can resume my summer schedule.

Monday:

• AM - (8 mi) I went for an hour on the elliptical trainer.
  
• PM - 8 mi (58:00) Easy run at work and it felt pretty good.
  

Tuesday:

• AM - (8 mi) Again, an hour on the elliptical trainer. 8 equivalent miles.
  
• PM - 8 mi (57:15) Same as yesterday.
  

Wednesday: 16 mi (1:58:30) I did not really feel like doing two workouts today so I just did one long ass workout. I ran 4 miles to the gym, did 60 minutes (8 equivalent miles) on the elliptical trainer and then ran 4 miles home. This was a pretty hard workout because I sweat a TON when I was on the elliptical trainer. When I got home I weighed in at 161 lbs. I was 165 lbs when I left, so that means I lost about a 1/2 gallon of sweat. No pain in my hip either.

Thursday: 16 mi (1:52:30) This was the same workout as yesterday, basically. I ran 6 miles to the gym, did 30 minutes (4 equivalent miles) on the elliptical trainer and then ran 6 miles home. I have a hard time believing that this was 12 miles of running, but that is what it measured. That means that I average 6:55/mi for the run. I weighed 162 lbs when I got home, which makes sense because I did not sweat as much when I was at the gym.

Friday:

• AM - (8 mi) I could not stand to do another marathon day today and needed some rest so I got to the gym early and rode the stationary bike for 60 minutes at a pretty decent tempo.
  
• PM - 8 mi (55:55) Got outside and ran at lunch. It was decent weather, but not great. I felt pretty good and got in a good 8 miles.
  

Saturday: 10 mi (71:15) This was the longest run that I have done in a long time. I did not want to risk anything so I drove down to Mine Falls Park and did it all on the trails. It was surprisingly dry but there are still some pretty slick spots were there is still snow pack. There are also a ton of downed trees from the ice storm in December of 2008. My hip did not really bother me and I was able to run a decent pace the entire way. Good run.

Sunday: 14.25 mi (1:41:15) Based on yesterday's successful run I went out on a limb and decided to run the entire long run (what a novel idea). I ran from home to Mine Falls Park to get a little trail running in and ended back home. It was much colder than I anticipated and there were even some snow squalls while I was out, but nothing that stuck. After this run I am convinced that the time spent on the elliptical trainer and the stationary bike was well worth it. My feet were a bit achy at the end since I this was my longest run by far in a while, but cardiovascularly I was fine. I even had to be conservative and hold back the pace to make sure that I would not have any issues later in the run. Very good run.

3/15/2009

I made pretty good progress this week towards getting back to running. I ended the week with 99.5 equivalent miles (so close to triple digits ...) and 39.5 running miles. Not much of an improvement over last week in terms of running miles but considering that I spent three days in NJ at a wedding and drank more in those three days than I have in 15 years, not too bad.

On the leg-length discrepancy thing - I was not having much luck with the heel lift so I just ditched the inserts completely and went back to basics. I am now just using the standard inserts that come with the shoes and it feels pretty good. I am not having any issues with my hip or my knee (the torn meniscus) so I may just go this route. The original reason I got the inserts in the first place was that I strained my calf four times last summer while trying to ramp mileage. Once I got the inserts I was able to run injury free for a couple months. Maybe with the cross training that I am doing my body will be able to handle the mileage and I can run without the inserts.

Monday:

• AM - (8 mi) I went for an hour on the elliptical trainer. Felt good. 8 equivalent miles.
  
• PM - (8 mi) Easy 22:30, or 3 equivalent miles, on the bike and then ran 5 miles at about 7:30 pace. Felt decent, but I could still feel my hip.
  

Tuesday:

• AM - (8 mi) Again, an hour on the elliptical trainer. 8 equivalent miles.
  
• PM - (8 mi) Same as yesterday, I did an easy 22:30, or 3 equivalent miles, on the bike and then ran 5 miles at about 7:30 pace.
  

Wednesday:

• AM - (8 mi) 8 equivalent miles on the elliptical trainer.
• PM - 8 mi (58:00) I ran an easy 8 miles at work and it felt pretty good.
  

Thursday:

• AM - (8 mi) 8 equivalent miles on the elliptical trainer.
  
• PM - 8 mi (57:30) I ran a moderate 8 miles at work and it felt pretty good. No hip pain.
  

Friday: (12 mi) I had to get in the workout before we headed out for the wedding. I wanted to get in a bit more running so I ran 4 miles to the gym, did 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer and finished up by running the 4 miles home. My hip did not bother me and I felt good the whole way.

Saturday: (13.5 mi) I had to squeeze the workout in before the wedding but did 60 minutes on the elliptical trainer and roughly 40 minutes of running. I felt pretty good and ran a bit faster than I should have to get back in time.

Sunday: (10 mi) I was really hung over this morning so I did not really feel like doing much of anything. This was the best I could do. I did 60 minutes on the elliptical trainer and 15 minutes on the stationary bike.

3/8/2009

My goal this week was to increase the number of miles that I run from 3mi/day in the beginning of the week to 4mi/day at the end of the week. I had a pretty good week and was able to achieve this with little or no pain in my hip. I was a little skeptical in the beginning of the week but by today I felt pretty confident that I am going to be back to 100% within 2 weeks. I did most of my time on the elliptical trainer and the stationary bike to get equivalent time. I was able to get in 32 actual miles run and a total of 96 equivalent miles.

The other thing that I am looking into this week is a possible leg-length discrepancy. Back in late 2000, when I was first starting to run again after tearing my achilles tendon, the orthopaedist that prescribed my orthodics mentioned that I may have a leg-length discrepancy but it was secondary to the over-pronation so we focused on that first. I have been using Sole inserts (specifically, these) for the last year with a lot of success instead of custom orthodics but I am looking at various heel lifts to see if they make a difference. In the words of the orthopaedist that I saw for my torn meniscus, it is all trial and error and I just have to find what works on my own.

Monday:

• AM - I went for an hour on the elliptical trainer. Felt good. 8 equivalent miles.
  
• PM - 30 minutes on the stationary bike and then 3 miles on the treadmill. It felt pretty good and, even though I was aware of my hip, it did not hurt. Pretty much 7:30/mi pace. 7 equivalent miles.
  

Tuesday:

• AM - I went for an hour on the elliptical trainer again. 8 equivalent miles.
  
• PM - 30 minutes on the stationary bike and then 3 miles on the treadmill. Pretty much 7:30/mi pace. 7 equivalent miles.

Wednesday:

• AM - I went for an hour on the elliptical trainer again. 8 equivalent miles.
  
• PM - 30 minutes on the stationary bike and then 3 miles on the treadmill. Pretty much 7:30/mi pace. 7 equivalent miles.

Thursday:

• AM - I went for an hour on the elliptical trainer again. 8 equivalent miles.
  
• PM - 30 minutes on the stationary bike and then 3 miles on the treadmill. Pretty much 7:30/mi pace. 7 equivalent miles. This was the first day that I tried a lift in my right shoe. It felt a bit weird so we will have to see how things go in the next couple of days.
  

Friday: I was a bit tired of doing the two-a-days this week so I just did one long workout today. I went for an hour on the elliptical trainer and then 4 miles on the treadmill (30 minutes). This was the first day at 4 miles and it felt good. This was a total of 12 equivalent miles. I ran with the lift again today and it felt alright. It was still a bit weird. The lift is only about 1/8th of an inch but it makes a big difference.

Saturday: It was 50+ degrees outside and I am sooooo tired of running on the treadmill so I decided to go out on a limb and run to the gym, which is about 4 miles away, go for 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer and then run home for a total of 12 equivalent miles. This was 8 miles of actual running and I felt pretty darn good. I am hoping that things keep going well.

Sunday: Another 50+ degree day and I decided to repeat yesterday's workout for a total of 12 equivalent miles and 8 actual miles. Again, this went well.

Overall, this was a good week. I am going to start up the week by running 4 miles/day and increase to 5 or 6 miles per day by the end of the week and increase the total equivalent miles to 100-110 miles for the week.

3/1/2009

I have been pretty beat about posting in my blog lately and it is directly correlated to my ability to run. If I can not run I do not feel like posting, eating right, reading race results or even thinking about running. I guess that it is a defense mechanism to keep myself from getting depressed. I am slowly switching back to running and figured that I should start posting again too. I was planning on running the first New England USATF Grand Prix race, the Jones Town and Country 10 Mile race in Amherst, MA, last weekend but did not want to risk running on the injury too soon. Based on what I heard about the weather it was probably not a bad thing that I missed that one. Unfortunately, I have to miss the second Grand Prix race, The New Bedford Half Marathon, on March 15th because of a wedding. Hopefully all of my friends will be married soon so that I can stop missing races for weddings.

So, about the injury. My hip flexor was bothering me on every run so I just bit the bullet and stopped running cold turkey to give it a rest. Since I did not want to lose all of my conditioning (I was up to 90 miles/week before I stopped running), I have been doing the equivalent time on both the stationary bike and the elliptical trainer. Over the last three weeks I generally spent between 30 and 40 minutes on the stationary bike in the morning and then about an hour on the elliptical trainer in the evening or at lunch each day. This has been REALLY boring, but I have to do it. Last week I started adding 1 mile of running each day at the end of the time on the elliptical trainer. At first I was not too hopeful because although it was not painful to run I was definitely aware of my hip. Since I did not seem to be going backwards I upped the run to 2 miles on Sunday (3/1) and that felt good too. I am not sure what to do about entering the equivalent miles in my log but I may just punt it and start fresh next week.

The plan going forward for this next week is to run about 3 miles/day after an hour on the elliptical and try to squeeze in 30 minutes on the stationary bike at lunch. That should give me about 15 equivalent miles per day, or 105 miles/week. I will probably go by feel but plan on upping the run portion by a mile/day every 3-5 days so that I can hopefully run a full 10 miler by the end of the month, just in time for the first NH Grand Prix race, the Great Bay Half Marathon in New Market, NH on April 5th.

2/8/2009

This was a very good week overall: I hit 82 miles (although not all of it was running), I got in two decent workouts and I upped my long run to 13 miles. I am dealing with a bit of a hip issue though - my hip flexor has flared up and is a little tender, especially after hard runs. I can still run on it but decided to do most of my easy runs on the elliptical trainer to give my hip a rest. I still did all my hard workouts, my long run and a couple other runs outside or on the treadmill. It was fairly painful on Monday but was much better by the end of the week.

Based on this recent injury, yeah I get a lot of injuries now for some reason, I think that I am going to do a little experiment this spring racing season. The ultimate goal is not to see who can run the most miles. The real goal is to get to the starting line (actually, the finish line) healthy and run the fastest time. Since I am already running most of my easy days much easier than I have in the past I am going to go one step further and do all of my easy runs on either the elliptical trainer or the stationary bike. This will have a twofold benefit - first, it will cut down the pounding and two, it will provide for a little cross-training and work some of the support muscles that I do not regularly work when running high mileage. On my easy days I will do the long run on the elliptical and run the short run and on hard days I will do the short run on the elliptical and run the longer, harder run. This way I am running every day and will still get in almost 80 miles per week of running at my peak but will cut the abuse on my tired, old body by 40-50%. Hopefully this works out.

Monday: 8 mi (57) Slow, easy recovery run. My hip is a bit tender so I iced, took advil and used the foam roller to work it out. I am not sure if it is tendonitis or if I strained it by running on the ice last week. Hopefully if I attend to it this week I can get over it before I have to take any time off.

Tuesday:

• AM - 4 mi (30) Real slow and easy on the treadmill.
  
• PM - 9 mi (63:00) I did 56 minutes easy on the elliptical trainer since this was just an easy recovery run and I wanted to give my hip a rest and followed this up with just a mile on the treadmill. Felt good.

Wednesday:

• AM - 4 mi (30min) Real slow and easy on the elliptical trainer to give my hip a rest.
  
• PM - 10 mi (64:20) I did a slow 2mi warm up and 2 mi cool down along with a 6mi steady-state run. I started the workout at 10mph/1% incline and then increased the incline by 0.5% each mile. I was only able to do this for 3 miles (mile 3 was 10mph/2.0%). 2.0% incline seemed a bit too hard so I backed off to 1.5%. I did the 5th mile at 2% again and then did the last mile at 1% but gradually increased the speed from 10.2mph to 10.5mph. 10.5mph/1% seemed much easier than 10mph/2%. Easy tomorrow.

Thursday:

• AM - 4 mi (30min) Real slow and easy on the stationary bike to give my hip a rest.
  
• PM - 8 mi (60:00) On the elliptical trainer again just to work out the legs a bit.
  

Friday:

• AM - 4 mi (30min) Real slow and easy on the elliptical to give my hip a rest.
  
• PM - 9 mi (64:20) This was a "progressive hill fartlek" again. I did an easy 2 mile warm up and 1 mile cool down (should have done more but I was pressed for time) and 6 miles of hill work. I alternated 0.5mi on and 0.25mi rest, all at 8.6mph, with the hard parts at 5.5-7.0% incline and the rest was at 1% incline. The interesting thing about running hard runs this way is that you get the effective workout of running at a faster pace, but you also have to run for a long time. For example, in bouts 7 and 8 I ran at an effective pace of 5min/mi for 0.5 miles, but was only actually running 8.6mph. Therefore, I ran this effective pace for 3:30 while if I were doing this workout on the track I would cover the 0.5 mi in 2:30. So, not only are you running at a faster pace but you are doing it for longer. The 0.5 mi hard sections were more like 1120 meters (0.5*3:30/2:30 *1600m = 1120m). The following table shows the incline and effective pace for each section.

Bout	Incline	Effective Pace	Comment
1	5.5%	5:28	Good
2	5.5%	5:28	Good
3	6.0%	5:19	Moderate
4	6.0%	5:19	Moderate
5	6.5%	5:09	Hard
6	6.5%	5:09	Hard
7	7.0%	5:00	Really hard
8	7.0%	5:00	Nearly died

Saturday: 9.0 mi (70:00) This was on the elliptical trainer for the entire time. Really boring but part of the routine I guess.

Sunday: 13.0 mi (1:42:) I went up to Hollis and ran with Brian, Joe, Trent, Molly and Chris around parts of the Applefest Half Marathon course. The weather was awesome (if you were in New England this winter you would understand) - it was 45 degrees but really windy. We went at a pretty easy pace but I think this is what my body needed. I felt really good afterward and my hip did not bother me at all.

I am hoping to get into the high 80's next week and try to hit three workouts (hill fartleks on Monday and Friday and a steady-state run on Wednesday).

2/1/2009

I came across the picture to the left when I was cleaning out my laptop. Man, that was a long time ago - it was the 1000m preliminaries of the 1995 indoor Division III New England Championships. I ran 2:38.15 to qualify and ran 2:29.95 (second place was 2:29.96) in the final to win by a hair. It was probably the closest race I have ever run. Man, I was thin back then.

Also, I finally figured out how to get a basic Java based calculator to work for the Daniels treadmill incline conversion for effective pace. You can find it in the right-hand column. I will enhance it when I get time to give more information, to allow pace as an input and provide pace as an additional output. I may also modify it so that it returns the effective pace for other treadmill inclines greater than and less than the desired input (basically a table output). Try it out and let me know what you think.

It is hard to believe that it is already February. Man, time flies. This was a much better week than last week since I hit about 74 miles and got in two good, hard efforts. I am getting really tired of the cold, ice and snow. We had maybe 2-3 days above freezing in the last 2-3 weeks, a couple feet of snow and 3 ice storms. The ice is the worst because it is so treacherous running outside that I have to do most of my running on the treadmill.


Monday:

• AM - 7 mi (5:45) Yeah, it was really slow. I did not think that I could run this slow but I think that I am fighting something. I also only got 6 hours of sleep last night.
• PM - 4 mi (30:25) Yeah, slow again. Just plugging along putting in the mileage.
  

Tuesday: 8+ mi (56ish) This was supposed to be an easy run but I think it was close to 8.5mi and probably closer to 55 minutes. Felt good but wanted to rest for tomorrow's workout.

Wednesday:

• AM - 3 mi (22:50) Real slow and easy.
  
• PM - 9 mi (63:00) I did a slow 2mi warm up and 2 mi cool down along with a 5mi steady-state run. I tried to do the SS run at 9.4mph/3% incline, which is equivalent to 5:58 pace, but it was just way too hard for me. I backed off to 9.1mph/3% incline, which is equivalent to 6:10 pace, and this was much better. Near the end I was starting to hurt so I ran the last 1.25 miles at 10mph/1% incline and this was the easiest, by far. I am not sure how to interpret this: either Daniels' charts are off or I suck at hills. I am going with the later and figure that this is an opportunity for me to work on a weakness. I will continue to run my SS runs at an incline between 3-5%.
  

Thursday: 9 mi (69:40) Yes, this was a really slow run, but I just wanted to make sure that I am recovered for the hill fartlek that I am going to run tomorrow. I started out at 8min/mi pace and worked down to 7:30 pace. My right hip flexor was a bit tender so I will have to keep an eye on that.

Friday:

• AM - 3 mi (22:35) Real slow again just to make sure that I have a good workout this afternoon.
  
• PM - 10 mi (72:30) I ran a 3 mile warm-up, 5 mile workout and 2 mile cool-down. The warm-up and cool-down were run at 7:00-8:00 min/mile pace. I did the hill fartlek at a constant pace (8.5 mph / 7:03 pace) and alternated 1/4 @ 1% incline and 1/4 mile at an increased incline. I started at 3.5% incline and increased 0.5% each time to finish at 8% incline for the final bout. The following table shows the incline and equivalent pace for each section along with a comment about how difficult each session was. I added the comment before I calculated the equivalent pace.

Bout	Incline	Effective Pace	Comment
1	3.5%	6:21	Easy
2	4.0%	6:08	Easy
3	4.5%	5:55	Easy
4	5.0%	5:43	Moderate
5	5.5%	5:32	Good
6	6.0%	5:22	Good
7	6.5%	5:12	Good
8	7.0%	5:04	Hard
9	7.5%	4:55	Hard
10	8.0%	4:47	Glad I only had to do one

This may be the last time I use tables - I can not figure out why there is a huge space before the table and it does not show up in the page preview or the HTML code. Hmmmm....

Update: As I said, I figured out a hack to get rid of the space but am not happy with it. I have to do a bit of post processing of the HTML code and I have higher expectations of Google.

Saturday: 8.5 mi (56ish) This was a nice and easy run just to recover from yesterday. I was trying to run really easy so I am surprised that it was sub 7min/mi pace.

Sunday: 12.4 mi (1:28ish) I was lazy and just ran the same route as last weekend. This winter is dragging on too long because it was 15 degrees and I did not think that it was too cold. Easy pace and I felt pretty good.

Next week should be pretty similar to this one - I will probably hit between 75 and 80 miles, get in a 7 mile steady-state run and probably try to fit in 1-2 hill fartleks.