Today: 3.00 miles
Week: 3.00 miles
March: 28.63 miles
2010: 181.56 miles

Today’s plan called for 3 miles easy. I set my sights on 10 minute miles and achieved that within a few seconds. Ran on the trail off of Walnut Street, just a block and a half from my house. Saw two other runners, which is rare there.

Also, on Sunday Kristine was begging me to go out an run. She really wants to train for her 1K race in June. So we went out and did 1K down the street. It was the day after my 10 miler, so her 12 minute pace was perfect for me. In the end she kicked it out and finished strong. I couldn’t.

Tomorrow, speed work!

Today I officially started my half marathon training! Very excited to do this program. It’s the intermediate half marathon program from Hal Higdon. http://www.halhigdon.com/halfmarathon/inter.htm

It starts of with “stretch and strengthen” so I did my usual one hour workout this morning, but it had an extra vibe to it knowing that it was part of my half training. Running starts tomorrow. A pretty easy week. Three easy three milers, some interval work and a long run of only 5 miles. But I’m moving up to 5 days running a week instead of the 4 I’ve been doing for the last couple of months. So it will be interesting to see how different that is. If all goes well, I might add on a mile or so to the long run each week. The intermediate plan peaks out with a 12 mile run. I wouldn’t mind accomplishing 13 miles or more some time before the race itself.

My goal is for a sub-two-hour half. I feel pretty confident about that, especially after this weekend’s 10 miler. I did that with no problems in 1:42. At the same pace (10:14/mile), 13.1 miles comes to 2:14. But I plan to run a bit faster.

Sara reminded me of one of my favorite books of all time, A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. I read this book quite a few years ago and followed it up with “Dance, Dance, Dance”, the sequel. In it, the main character is going through some rough times, and a mystical character called the Sheep Man (who talks without spaces between his words) appears and kind of helps him through it. I was going through a really rough point in my own life at that time, and this speech by the Sheep Man became my mantra. I knew that no matter how hopeless things seemed at the time, I had to keep “dancing” and eventually things would get better. If I gave up, I’d be stuck.

“Dance,” said the Sheep Man. “Yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougottadance. Don’teventhinkwhy. Starttothink, yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, you’restuck. Sodon’tpayanymind, nomatterhowdumb. Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou’retired, tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, okay? Justdon’tletyourfeetstop.”

Well things did get better. A LOT better. I no longer need to keep this quote in my wallet to look at daily. But I just looked it up again and realized it’s a great running quote as well. Especially during a race: Justdon’tletyourfeetstop!

Today: 10.00 miles
Week: 25.00 miles
March: 25.00 miles
2010: 177.93 miles

My longest run and my highest mileage week this week! This also marks the end of no-rules-month. On Monday I start training for my half marathon. But per my program, Monday is “stretch and strengthen”. Running doesn’t start until Tuesday. So I have the next 2 days off. The way I feel now, I’m really glad for that. The rest of the entry comes directly from what I posted at Daily Mile.

I joined the double digit club! The run went amazingly well. I just had a mini clif bar and a bit of gatorade before I left. Brought some gel and more clif bars and some gatorade along, but only needed a few ounces of the drink and nothing to eat. Felt strong the whole time, though my legs were pretty wobbly once I stopped running.

Incredibly gorgeous day for a run. Not a cloud in the sky. About 29ºF when I left, but almost 40 when I got back. Pond Road, the North-South road at the end of my loop on the other side of Wellesley College, is absolutely beautiful. It’s a narrow paved road through thick woods, broken here or there with farms and big old mansions. Runs a mile and a half, but only two cars passed while I was on it. It was hilly at points though.

Counted 34 other runners along the way, and in the wildlife department, I saw a pair of swans. Got in at around 9 am. We are going to the Boston Symphony Orchestra family concert today at 12, so as soon as I walked in the door, wife was pushing me to get ready. Immediately showered and shaved, and only now, 45 minutes later, am i sneaking 10 minutes to finally sit down and eat something.

Today: 4.00 miles
Week: 15.00 miles
March: 15.00 miles
2010: 167.93 miles

Today’s run really surprised me. The first mile is always the slowest – warming the body up after just crawling out of bed and all – but I noticed near the end of it that I was under 10:00 pace. That was nice. I had planned to do the whole run at something just under 10:00 so I was on target.

A little ways into mile 2 I looked at my Garmin and it said I was averaging around 9:15 for the lap. Again, I’ve set the display to show average pace for the lap, so it wasn’t just some momentary spike. Part of me said that I should slow down, but I felt really comfortable at that pace. Heart rate was in a fine range, definitely not pushing it at all. So I just stayed the course. Then, two women runners came out of a side street a bit up ahead of me and started running in the same direction. They were going just slightly slower than me, so it was either slow down to their pace and creepily run just behind them, keep running at the pace I was running and creepily slowly pass them, or pick up the pace a bit and pass them like I meant it. So I passed them, we smiled and said good morning to each other and I went merrily on my way. Next time I did a pace check I was at something like 8:46. Whoa. I was still pretty comfortable, but realized I couldn’t hold that pace forever. Slowed down some and finished off mile 2 at 8:55.

Miles 3 and 4 I was starting to feel a bit tired, but not bad at all. All told, the splits were:

9:51
8:55
9:11
9:08
Overall pace: 9:17

These are amazing splits for me, given the level of (non)exertion I felt. HR was 145 average, and maxed out at 153. I was just looking back at a somewhat similar run from two months ago, January 8, a 3-miler. Overall pace was 9:19, with splits of 9:47, 9:24, and 8:46. Average and max heart rates were 152 and 166. That’s a lot more exertion for a shorter run at similar pace. It gives me hope that if I can keep up that kind of improvement over the next 2-3 months, I’m going to have a rocking half marathon.

I know a lot of people have a goal of a sub 2-hour half. That’s what I’m going for and I’m pretty confident about it right now. Not sure I could pull that off right now – probably not quite. But with 12 weeks of training, if my body keeps responding like it has been, I am pretty sure I can pull it off.

Half marathon training starts in 4 days. It’s actually going to be an initial cutback in mileage for me. I’m tempted to push the mileage a bit, but it’s also going to be 5 days running instead of my current 4 days, which also means one less rest day. So I think I better do it by the book at first anyway and see how that goes.

In addition to running, I’ve been trying to do some core and upper body work as well as some leg strengthening exercises. I’m not particularly looking to get ripped. I’m doing it for a few main reasons:

1. Core and upper body strength helps running in a number of ways: balance, form, etc.
2. On the days when I’m not running, I feel lazy. Getting in a workout makes me feel like I did something.
3. OK, maybe a little to get ripped. I’d love to discover my inner six pack.

Here’s what I’ve been doing.

Abdominal exercises.

• Bridge: 1-3x 30 seconds
• Oblique bridge: 1-3x 30 seconds
• Supine Running: 3×10
• Hip Twist: 3×10
• Lying draw in with hip flexion: 3×10
• Traditional crunches: 3×20
• Twist crunches (elbow to opposite knee): 3×15

Most of these I got from this article.

Upper Body

• Pushups: 9
• Dumbbell curls: 3×10 w/15lbs
• Dumbbell bent over row: 3×20 w/15lbs
• Dumbbell lateral raise: 3×15 w/5lbs
• Dumbbell Lying triceps extension: 3×10 w/5lbs
• Dumbbell bench press: 3×10 w/10lbs

Most of those you can just do a search for. As you can see, not a lot of weight. Going for more reps. I’ll probably pick up some 25 lb dumbbells in the next week or two. I think I’m ready for more weight on the rows at least. The curls are still a challenge with 15 lbs and the rest still have a ways to go progressing through the weights I have. Anyway, this is just a snapshot. It’s constantly evolving. I’ll have more to say on the pushups next week. Also, I don’t have a bench, so the “bench presses” are really more “floor presses”.

Leg work

• Squats: 3×12 (no weight)
• Leg extensions: 3×10 w/10lb ankle weights (sit straight in chair, raise one leg horizontally, back down, next leg)
• Side leg lifts: 3×15 (lie on side, raise upper leg, lower, 15x, switch sides)

These are mainly targeting the quads, which don’t always get as much of a workout from running as, say, the hamstring and calves do.

All told, this takes me close to an hour. I’ve actually stopped doing the bridges since they seem to aggravate a pulled muscle in my lower right back. I’m just going to let it heal thoroughly before I try again. Anyway, I’ve been posting my workouts on Daily Mile without a whole lot of detail about what I’m doing. I figured I’d write it up here, then can just link to this if anyone wants to know.

Today: 6.00 miles
Week: 11.00 miles
March: 11.00 miles
2010: 163.93 miles

Had an acquaintance come in from out of town last night, so a few of us in the office went out to the pub. Had a few beers, some chinese food. Got home much later than usual. Nevertheless, I had a six-miler planned for this morning and I wasn’t going to skip out on it. So I got up and out and got it done.

Went pretty well actually. First warmup mile was a bit slow, but after that, all under 10:00 pace. Splits were:

10:14
9:38
9:24
9:51
9:48
9:49

I changed the display on my Garmin to show me lap pace rather than current pace. I think this works much better. Smooths out some of the jumpiness of the GPS-based speed calculations and lets you know where you are really at for the current mile. Effort wasn’t bad either. Heart rate didn’t really get high at all until mile 5, which per the elevation profile seemed to be mostly incline. Those last two miles though, it definitely took a bit of concentration to keep it under 10:00. I probably get too fixated on that 10:00 pace thing. It’s probably the double digits. My mind says > 10:00 is slow, < 10:00 is fast.

As far as distance, this was my longest weekday run yet. Up to now, 5 miles has been my max on weekdays, though I did do that 5.75 miler last week. My weekend long runs have been from 6 to 9 miles up to now. Shooting for 10 this weekend.

Today: 5.00 miles
Week: 5.00 miles
March: 5.00 miles
2010: 157.93 miles

Reset all the counters. 5 miles for the day, the new week and the new month.

Woke to the sound of heavy rain and heavier wind. Looked outside to a land of slush. Apparently before it started raining, it had snowed a half inch or so. Oh well. It was 35ºF and I had a new and unused rain shell. By the time I dragged myself out of bed, got dressed and out the front door, it wasn’t really that bad. Still, some decent rain though.

Did the run into Natick and across Echo Bridge and back via Quinobequin Road. Around mile 3, it had turned into a mere drizzle. I was plenty warm, so took off the hood to cool down. The light, cool rain felt great. My feet were plenty cool after slogging through all the slush.

I was running at just around a 10:00-10:15 pace. Around mile 3.5 I decided to kick it up a notch and did about a quarter of a mile at 7:30-8:00. That felt good. Recovered for a bit and at mile 4.5 decided on one last burst. Did about 200-300 yards flat out as fast as I could go. Garmin reported a max speed of 5:43. It took the rest of the 5 miles to recover from that.

Been doing a bit better with the side stitches. Been alternating belly breathing with one of those proprioceptive cues – pulling in your belly button toward your spine. Although opposite in action, both seem to help. When I’m running fast, I breath out hard and fast every other left foot strike. I realized after I was doing it for a while, that I should actually have been timing breathing IN with my left foot strike, if that whole “organs pulling down while diaphragm pulling up” thing is true. Nevertheless, when I breath that way, I can run really fast and sustain it pretty long with no side stitches at all.

Last thing I learned recently has to do with the quad pain/stiffness/weirdness that’s been plaguing me for many weeks. It’s been slowly improving, but still, after any hard run it’s noticeable. What I realized a few days ago, though, is that after I gave my hamstrings a really good stretch, the quad pain was almost completely gone. This has worked really well repeatedly. I guess maybe my hamstrings, being tight, could be pulling things out of place and causing pain in the front of the thigh.

Well, today was my last run of February, so time for an update.

For the week I did just over 20 miles. It was supposed to be a cut back week for me after doing 21 and 23 the two weeks before. I guess I didn’t cut back as much as I intended, but it was OK.

For February, I wound up with just under 75 miles. A bit short of my target, due to A. it being a short month, and B. an short 11 mile week the week of my 5K race. I ran 16 out of 28 days this month and spent 12 hours and 45 minutes pounding the pavement.

For 2010 so far, I’m up to about 153 miles done, 34 days running, and 26:41 hours, mostly in the dark and cold. As for my 1000 mile target, I’m just over 15% there. If you figure it all out mathematically, I should ideally be sitting at about 159 miles at this point, so I’m about 6 miles behind. That’s not bad at all. One run could take care of that. But looking at my half marathon training plan, which starts in 9 days, and calculating my projected miles for the next few weeks, I should be on or ahead of target by the end of March.

Most importantly though, this marks the end my sixth month of running seriously. I went out for day 1, week 1 of the Couch to 5K program on August 31, 2009. I think I mentioned that the night before that fateful run I could not find my “sneakers”. I can’t even call them running shoes because I never ran in them. I found one and searched the entire house for the other. It still hasn’t shown up. Anyway, I ran that first day in a pair of casual shoes, sweat pants, and a regular cotton tshirt. Granted, it was one minute running interspersed with 90 seconds walking, and I did it on a trail where nobody could see me anyway. I bought some real running shoes on the way home that day.

Since that day, I’ve logged almost 320 miles in 87 runs and spent over 58 hours doing it. But more than numbers and miles can possibly show, this has been one of the most amazing periods of my life. I’ve gone from stumbling breathless though those first one minute intervals, to being able to run 9 miles without a pause or any real struggle, from just over 6 miles a week those first few weeks, to over 20 miles a week now, from barely being able to hit a 10:00 minute pace, much less hold it for a few minutes, to being able to run a quarter mile at 7:30 today, not to mention finishing a 5K race in the top 25% with a pace of 8:14. I say all this not to brag, but to explain how massively things have changed for me personally. At any rate, none of these statistics are particularly bragworthy except as seen in relation to where I started. I imagine (hope) that in six months from now, I’ll be looking back at these numbers proclaiming similar improvements over them.

I started running for health reasons. To lose weight, sure, but not just from a vanity perspective. My blood pressure was borderline high – over 130/80. Blood sugar was also borderline high and I was diagnosed with impaired glucose tolerance, aka “pre-diabetes”. And my liver was infiltrated with fat to the point where it was causing damage, as seen by enzymes in blood tests. Cholesterol levels were also borderline bad. All of this was largely weight related (not sure about the cholesterol on that). I wasn’t morbidly obese or anything, but apparently my body just can’t tolerate the extra weight. At any rate, it was time to get a handle on things. Dieting was just resulting in a continuous rollercoaster. My doctor was urging me to get some regular exercise. Finally I decided to listen to him. Here’s what my weight looks like from the day I started C25K to today:

I hope to break the mystical 200 mark this week. I saw my doc in October, just a few weeks into C25K (and had gained a few pounds after a week and a half of English pubs and English breakfasts) so I don’t have updates on any improvements to blood sugar or liver enzymes. But I have been taking my blood pressure regularly at home, and am happy to report that it’s now down in just about perfect range. Last measurement was around 121/73, which is about average for the last few weeks. This gives me hope that my other stats are approaching normal ranges again. I think I’m due for another check up in the beginning of April. Looking forward to it.

One more indicator of how my health has changed in this past year is incidence of sickness and colds. In short, I have not been sick or had a cold at all since I started running. Nothing. As a comparison, in the 2-3 months just before I started running, I had been home sick or worked at home due to sickness so often that my employers (also good friends) had come to me concerned and begged me to take some time off and get some rest. The fact that I’ve made it through the most of the winter / cold / flu season completely unscathed is quite something.

At any rate, onto another week, another month, another six months and my first year as a runner…

Today: 7.59 miles
Week: 20.34 miles
February: 74.86 miles
2010: 152.93 miles

Good run today. Decided on 7.5 miles and did just over that. Was feeling a bit tired through mile six or so, but near the end of mile seven had a surge. Started going fast and held a roughly 7:30 pace for about a quarter of a mile. This felt great. After the quarter mile, I didn’t feel like I was getting tired at all, but noticed my pace had gone to about 8:00 and I was slowing down without even noticing it, so I decided to take it easy for the last quarter mile or so of my run.

During the fast run, I decided to take an alternate route back to my house so I could keep running fast without hitting a big hill. Just when I slowed down, I noticed two runners approaching me. One of them had a Daily Mile (http://www.dailymile.com) tshirt on. These had just been printed off and mailed out this week and a bunch of people on DM got them yesterday. I got mine as well. I noticed this guy was wearing VFFs. Sure enough it was a local DM member, Matt W., aka “Luau” http://runluaurun.com/, one of my DM friends. We’d tried to meet up during the Super Sunday 5K but never found each other in the crowd. We stopped, greeted each other, and got a pic snapped by Matt’s friend, Mike.

After that I ran just a bit more and then walked the last couple blocks home. Weather today was pretty snowy. Was a light snow when I left, got pretty heavy towards the end. You can see some of it in the photo there. But it was above freezing and there was no real accumulation occurring, so it was actually pretty beautiful to run in.