Last week, Tuesday through Thursday, I ran 5, 6.25 and 5 miles. A decent mid-week base. The weekend was supposed to be hot, but hotter on Sunday than Saturday, so Saturday I went out for a long run. I’m still running without a plan, so I wasn’t sure how much I’d do. Maybe 8. Maybe 10. 13, 15??? Well, it may have been the cooler of the two days, but it was still hot, so I when I got to Pond Road on the Natick/Wellesley border, I decided to turn there and make it a 10 miler. Besides, Pond Road is one of my favorite streets to run on. You get about a mile or so of this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/saltygal/2883035800/ (Photo has all rights reserved so I can’t post it here, but I’ll link to it.) All in all, the run went really well. I was tired by the end, but felt good.

Sunday I woke up feeling pretty tired. I put off running until later in the day, when it was about 90° with high humidity. When I set out, I thought, “How awesome would it be to do 10 and 10, back to back? A 20 mile weekend!” Alas, it was not in the cards. I headed down Commonwealth Ave. on the Newton Hills. First 3 miles, my pace was just over 9:00. I was winded but felt good and strong. Then everything left me. I had to stop and walk for a couple of minutes. Turned around at 3.25. Took a few more walk breaks on the way back. Pace for the last 3 miles was over 11:00. Blah! But I did manage an 8:30 pace last half mile. That allowed me to come home with some pride.

Total for the week, 32.76 miles. A new record!

Today’s Monday. I took the day off. I’ll run in the morning, but not sure what’s up after that. Wednesday, we leave on a 6:00 a.m. flight to Japan. Actually, it’s a flight to Chicago, then Tokyo, then Nagoya, where we rent a car and drive about an hour or so to Tado-cho. We’ll arrive Thursday evening (damn date line!) so I have no idea if I’ll be running Friday. All depends on how I feel. I’m shooting for at least a short one some time during the day. Generally I’m up at some ungodly hour in the morning anyway due to jet-lag, waiting for the sun to come up and wandering around the rice fields or the temple up on the mountain behind the house. This time I might as well take advantage of my early wakefulness to get in some runs. Mostly I’m scared of getting lost. Hoping my Garmin works well there, and may have to test the “navigate back to start” function on it, which supposedly will tell you which way to go to return to the point where you started the current workout.

No idea what my Internet connectivity is going to be like. Generally, it’s been non-existent other than an occasional trip to an Internet Café to rent time on a pc. We’ll see if public wifi has made it to the town yet. I’ll try to post updates and some pics while I’m there, but not sure how regularly.

Well, the year is half over. Let’s check the scoreboard.

I’ve done 110 runs this year, for a total of 555.41 miles. That’s 55 miles over my half-way-to-1000 mark. So doing great there. Average miles per run is 5.05. Here’s my graph of miles per day:

Pretty plain to see where my half marathon training started and ended. I suspect there’ll be another similar trend between the end of July and the beginning of October, as I plan for my next half marathon.

As for races, I did two 5Ks, a 5 miler, and a half marathon. Very happy with the 5Ks. I was sick with a fever during the 5 mile race so just finishing was good enough. And on the half marathon, I missed my target of sub 2:00 due to the unexpected toll the heat took on me. I fully intend to meet that goal this October.

What has all this meant in physical terms? Well, here’s my weight for the year:

Not a spectacular loss, but relatively stable over long term. Slow and steady, right?

One of the coolest things is how many people I think I’ve influenced to start running and getting into shape. I blog about my running here and there and tweet about it occasionally, hopefully just under the annoying level. But every time I go to a conference or meet a group of friends, a few people will come up to me and ask how the running is going, and tell me how they started running too. Best of all is that my wife and daughter have started running. They are doing the Couch to 5K together and are now half way through week 4. My wife has watched me running for many months now, perplexed at why I get up at 5:45 a.m. each day and complain about this pain or that, yet keep running. But after going to two of my races in a week, and having my daughter run her first race and get a medal, she has fully caught the running bug and is scouting out her own first 5K.

Last I wrote, I had just finished 500 miles. A day or so after that I was off to Minneapolis to speak at the Flashbelt conference. I knew that at least a few people at the conference were runners, so I sent out the word to organize a group run. I wasn’t sure how many would show up for a 7:00 a.m. run, but if nothing else, I had planned to run with Jeni, who I’ve known for several months on DailyMile.com, a MN native. As it turned out we had 5 runners, plus 2 who biked along with us. Jeni took us down along the Mississippi River a couple of miles or so, across and back partway on the other side, for just over four and a half miles. It was great.

Here’s Jeni and I on the bridge on the way back:

And me with the rest of the runners…

The next day I went out again, unfortunately alone. Did approximately the same route. Running with the group was awesome, but it was also nice to take in the scenery in solitude.

The last full day I was there I went for a walk down to a mountaineering shop a couple of blocks from the hotel. I noticed they had Vibram Five Fingers. I’ve been wanting to try them out for a while, but wanted to wait until my last two races were done. So on a whim I got fitted for a pair. The next day I got up early and went out for a mile and a half in them. I knew better than to do too much all at once. Didn’t feel bad, a bit of tightness in my calves later, but not bad. By noon I was in the air on my way back home.

I got back home Thursday. Friday I went out for a five miler in my regular shoes. It was a pretty fast one – almost 5K pace for the first four miles. I wound up burning out after that and had to walk a bit and came home with just 4.75. The next day, Saturday, I did a 2 miler in the VFFs. When I got back, I spent the next several hours doing heavy duty yard work, including carrying 16x16x2 inch concrete tiles from the front of the house, up the steps and into the back yard, leveling the ground and putting them in place.

Somewhere between the really fast run on Friday, the 2 mile VFF run, and the heavy lifting, I did some damage. Sunday I went for a 3 miler in the VFFs and had a really sharp pain deep in the right glute. Probably the piriformis muscle. But after about a mile into the run it eased up a bit. More lifting and carrying on Sunday.

It was pretty painful on Monday, but I took a day off running and stretched and iced.  Tuesday I went out for what planned to be 5 miles, but wound up in such pain that I had to stop and walk, limping for several minutes. Came home with only three.

So yes, an official injury I think. I took the next two days off, stretched, foam rolled, and iced. Friday I tentatively went out for a nice slow one. The rest, ice, stretching, rolling had apparently done its job. I took home 4 miles with some sensation back there, but no pain. Over the weekend I did another 6 and 8, feeling pretty good. So as injuries go, I think I got off pretty easy.

But now I’m pretty skittish about the VFFs. I’m pretty sure the injury was not related to them, but it’s hard not to connect them. My guess is it had a lot more to do with the fast run and the heavy lifting and carrying two days straight. At any rate, there’s still some very minor discomfort back there. So I’m going to wait until it feels 100% before I go back on the minimal shoes again.

Today: 8.00 miles
Week: 24.1 miles
June: 33.98 miles
2010: 502.0 miles

Back in December, I set a goal for 2010 to run 1000 miles. Today, two weeks shy of six months, I’ve met the halfway mark of that goal. Today’s run was 8 miles at a overall pace of 8:58. My first 8 miler was back in January, at a pace of 10:42. I’ve come a long way, baby.

When I started – ok, when I re-started – this blog, to talk about my running efforts, I was writing up every run, every new thing I learned or new piece of equipment. Now, as you can see, I just stop by every once in a while to give an update. It’s not that I’m not into running anymore; it’s that running has just become a normal part of my life, that writing that I went for a run today is kind of like saying I breathed today. But I still want to come by every once in a while to give a generalized update on what’s going on.

Last update was about Boston’s Run to Remember, my ugly attempt at a sub-two-hour marathon, beat by the heat. The week following that, I did a couple 3 milers to stretch the legs a bit and followed up with the Schofield 5K Road Race last Sunday. Here’s my Daily Mile report of that race:

That was perfect!

The sun came out just as the race was starting, heating up to mid-high 70s with close to 80% humidity, echoing last week’s deadly conditions. But I went out strong. There’s a longish, slow hill right after the start. I also had a massive adrenaline rush when we started. The hill + adrenaline made me a bit lightheaded for a bit. But got over that and finished the first mile in about 7:40, feeling really good.

Right at about 1.1 or 1.2 miles, there’s a short, but VERY steep hill. That was a killer, but the other side is a very long stretch down hill, followed by another short not-so-bad hill. By the end of mile 2, I was hurting, but encouraged by the fact that there was only one to go.

Mile 3 was a mental challenge, but picked up the pace a bit. It’s mostly flat, with a bit of downhill near the end. The mile 3 timer said 23:50 something. I knew I was in the running for sub-25 minutes so gave it a strong kick. The home stretch is all down hill. I saw the finish line timer at 24:40. Gave it everything I had and came in at 24:56.

New 5K PR, #64 overall and #18 in my age group. Pretty happy with myself today.

So, yeah, that was great. Also, on that day, my daughter, Kris, ran a kids’ 1K fun run. All finishers got a pretty awesome medal. She is so proud and has seriously caught the running bug.

For the year now, I stand at 494 miles. I plan to pop it over 500 this Saturday. That leaves me at half way to 1000 for the year, a good two weeks ahead of schedule.

Overall, I’m still seeing my progress improve. Late last year I was struggling to get below that 10 minute mile mark. Back then, I could do it, but only with much pain. Then it got so 10:00 was a comfortable pace. Then high 9′s. then mid 9′s. Now I’ll bring home a 5 or 6 mile run in the low 9′s. Today was 9:17, with nice negative splits leaving the last two miles at sub-9:00 and feeling pretty comfortable.

Also doing well on the weight front. After a steady progression downward all year, I hit a plateau for several weeks, bouncing around from 199 to 202. But for the last week straight I’ve been under 200, and feel like I’m back on the losing track.

As for the title, Runner Without a Cause, I’m only referring to the fact that I have no races scheduled, and no training plain that I’m working through. I’m planning when, where, how long, and how fast I run on an impromptu basis. It’s kind of fun that way, but a little strange after months of being on a strict schedule. I’m looking at doing the BAA Half Marathon in October, which means I’ll be back on a training plan in July. The next month entails quite a bit of travel anyway, 5 days in Minneapolis, and two weeks in Japan, so it’s probably best that I’m flexible now.

Today: 13.1 miles
Week: 20.31 miles
April: 124.93 miles
2010: 467.28 miles

Boston’s Run To Remember

Well, I now have a half marathon under my belt. Wasn’t exactly the time I was hoping for, but I’ll take it and do better next time. I’ve been running my last few long runs not too much slower than my target race pace of 9:00. In fact, a week ago today, I did 13.0 miles in 2:03. So I thought it would be a shoe-in to do less than two hours today.

What I didn’t count on was the effects of heat and humidity. It was in the low 70′s when we started at 8:00 a.m. and climbed to high 70′s quickly. Not sure what the humidity was, but it was up there for sure. Sun was beating down hard.

The race starts in the Seaport section of Boston. There’s not much out there other than some office buildings, a convention center and hotel, and lots of parking lots and construction. But the first thing you do is go over a bridge into Boston proper, wind around a bit and finally cross the Longfellow Bridge into Cambridge. Then it’s down Memorial Drive along the Charles River for a few miles and back. When you cross the Longfellow again, you go down historic Charles Street, a couple of blocks down Commonwealth Ave, then through downtown Boston and back to the Seaport.

Click for full-size map.

By mile 4, I knew I was in trouble. I was going along at about an 8:50 pace, but I was beat already. I knew I couldn’t keep that up for another 11 miles. By about 5.5 miles, I had to give in and take a one minute walk break. Around the half way mark, I remembered that I’d brought some gel and ate that. There was a water stop at about that point too. I had to take more walk breaks, going for a one minute or so break every mile. But around mile 7-8, the gel kicked in and gave me a bit more energy. I continued liberal walk breaks, but tried to keep them to a minute or less. In my defense, there were PLENTY of others walking – people a lot younger and more in shape than me.

By around mile 10, I was really hurting. The walks were coming closer together. I finally reached the Longfellow Bridge to take me back into Boston. It’s about a half mile across. I determined to do it all in a single run. Half way across, I saw a man over on the side, holding onto the railing, obviously just trying desperately to stay upright, and not doing a very good job of it. A couple other runners ran over to him and about the same time an officer or EMT or something on a bicycle zipped over to help him out, calling for more help on a radio.

That caused me to take stock of myself, wondering how close I might be to the same situation. This guy seemed younger and in better shape than me. But I didn’t feel THAT bad, so I made my goal of getting across the bridge. Right after that on Charles Street, another woman was lying on the ground, feet propped up, being tended to by an EMT. She looked to be early to mid 20′s and very fit. Again, I assessed how I was doing and determined to avoid any heroics. From there, the walk/run ratio became almost 1:1. I don’t really know because I was beyond trying to time anything. I’d just run til I knew I couldn’t run anymore, then walk until I felt I was ready to go again.

I saw my 2:00 goal vanish early on, then 2:05, and finally even realized 2:10 was out of my reach. But it seemed like 2:15 was still obtainable. I got through downtown and back to the bridge to the Seaport. With the finish line in sight and less than a half mile to go, I still had to take a walk break. By this time, my calves were cramping up pretty badly but there was not much to do than just push on. I finally ran in the last quarter mile or so, knowing that my wife and daughter were watching near the finish line.

Official time: 2:13:43. Not anywhere near to my original goal, but I made it across on my own two feet, so I can’t really complain. Now I have a new PR to beat. All in all, a grueling, not very pleasant experience. But hey, I have my very first race medal!

Last we saw our intrepid hero, he was running along the banks of Lake Ontario in Toronto and breaking PRs. But what since then?

I returned home from that trip a run short and skipped a day after I got home. This left me at Friday still not having done my intervals. So Friday morning I did a 40 minute tempo run. Saturday I did a 5 mile race pace run, and Sunday I did another 10 miles. Monday, I just hurt. I got through my weekday runs, which included a 9×400 meter repeat session, and then thankfully had both Friday and Saturday off. This was especially good because I spent the latter half of Friday and the beginning of Saturday on a plane to Belgium.

I was in Belgium speaking at the Multi-Mania conference. This is put on by a good friend of mine, Koen, who has been asking me to come out for a few years. I finally gave in and accepted his all expense paid trip to Kortrijk, Belgium. I arrived Saturday morning, seriously jetlagged, rested a bit, explored the city, and got some food. Later, Koen and some friends fetched me from the hotel and we did a tour of the local pubs trying to sample as many Belgian beers as we could. We did pretty well, I must say, finishing up at around 4 a.m. I slept until noon and woke up feeling rather under the weather. By about 2 p.m. I was able to drag myself down to go for a bit of a walk and get some food. After that, I felt vaguely human again. I knew I had an 11 mile run ahead of me and though I didn’t believe I could do it, I finally got the courage to at least try at around 3:30.

The hotel is right on a canal, right next to these two ancient towers, one on each side of the canal, with this cobblestone bridge between them. I figured that running along the canal would be a great way to go for a long run in a city and country I didn’t know. On the map, the canal was the only one around and went a good way in either direction. You run along it for as long as you want, turn around and run back. So off I went.

Amazingly, despite the jetlag, despite the hangover, I found myself running along at 9:00 per mile. This is my projected half marathon race pace. But it felt comfortable. So I kept going. Within a mile, I was out of the city and running along farms. Huge pastures filled with cows, horses, sheep, goats, ducks, geese, chickens, rabbits, and magpies. The highlight was seeing a mare and her colt, the colt galloping in circles around its mother, just celebrating the joy of running. How can that not inspire you??? On I went.

At just about the 5.5 turnaround mark (still averaging 8:57 – 9:07) I stopped and took some photos of these horses, which were right on the edge of their field, next to the canal.

I continued right around half marathon pace for the first 7 miles. At 6.55, which would be the halfway point of a half marathon, I was at 59:21. Pretty much on target for a two hour marathon. What really excited me was that I wasn’t really even trying hard, I was not really tired, and I was hungover from being up til 4:00 a.m. drinking Belgian beer! I can only imagine that I’ll be in much better shape on race day!

After mile 7, I slowed down a bit and finished up the last four between 9:30 and 10:00. Part of it was a strong headwind on the way back. That wind was probably pushing me forward during the first few miles.

Anyway, a fantastic run. Possibly one of my best. total time for 11 miles was 1:42:03, for a 9:17 average pace. Not bad at all! That was also my highest mileage for a single run. Then, after I was back in and uploaded the data from my Garmin to my pc, I checked out the map:

If you drag that up a bit and to the right, you’ll see a dark gray line on the bottom left. That’s the French border. Had I only known, I would have gone the extra mile or so. Not sure if I could get through without a passport, but it would have been great to say I ran to France. Oh well, probably for the best. I’m not sure how I pulled off 11 miles that day. 13+ would have been pushing it.

Tuesday I got out again for a slower 5 miler. I was tired, but pulled it off. Had to get up early to get that in before I made it to the conference venue to do my talk. And yes, more beers were consumed the previous evening, though not to the extent of the first night. Wednesday I was flying home so missed my speed work day, but made up for it on Thursday, and this morning did 3 slow.

So yes, still on track. Tomorrow’s run should break 400 miles for the year, which is just amazing to me. And I’m more than 30 miles ahead of schedule for my 1000 for the year.

Today: 4.8 miles
Week: 4.8 miles
April: 95.36 miles
2010: 337.85 miles

I’m in Toronto this week for the FiTC conference. Having a great time and somehow have kept to my running schedule, despite late nights and alcohol consumption. Ran 10 miles on Sunday. Was only scheduled for 9, but I’m running a mile ahead of schedule on the long runs, so I might as well keep that up. Found a nice running path along the lake. Was nice to explore the city. I’ve been to TO four times before but have not really got out to see much of the city before now. Running is good for that.

That 10 miles put me at 29.49 miles for the week last week. Previous high weekly mileage was something like 28, so a PR there. This was also only my second 10 mile run, and this one was 4 minutes faster than the first one, so another PR there. Also, the 10 miles put me over 90 miles for the month, another PR. Actually there’s a couple days left in the month, so I should break 100. Also, not exactly a PR, but my yearly mileage is now at 337, which is just over 1/3 of the way towards my 1000 mile goal.

So all in all, an awesome week. My speed is also really picking up. I did 4.8 miles today and kept switching back and forth between GPS and my Garmin foot pod because I couldn’t believe I was going as fast as I was going. A few months ago I was struggling to beat an average 10 minute pace. Now I’m close to doing a 9 minute pace as a comfortable speed.

Again, I feel the need to say that I’m not trying to brag. It’s just great to see real, measurable, undeniable progress, and exciting to extrapolate that a few months into the future and imagine where I’ll be at, say, the end of the year.

Today: 9.25 miles
Week: 20.49 miles
April: 61.07 miles
2010: 303.56 miles

When you do a Hal Higdon training plan (I’m doing his Half Marathon Intermediate plan), you ramp up for two weeks and then cut back significantly for one. Gives the body a chance to recover a bit. This was my cutback week. Boy was it appreciated. My legs were seriously tired. Quads and ITB were not happy. But this week I got two full days off! Friday and Saturday. What a difference that made. Completely rejuvenating.

Today I got back on the road and did a 9.25 miler. Actually, the schedule called for a 10K race, but I didn’t have one lined up, and not sure I would have wanted to do one right now anyway. Actually I’m not sure you could find a decent 10K in the Boston area the day before the Boston Marathon, but who knows. Anyway, last week’s long run was 8 miles and next week’s is 9 miles, so I figured I’d get a jump on the 9. It was a bit cool – 39-43 degrees F – and a light rain was falling. But all in all, a really nice run. Ran down through Wellesley College, then realized the way I was going wasn’t going to add up to 9, so cut down through Babson College, then hit a trail, got a bit lost, found my way again and got home in just over 9 miles.

Next week I will be in Toronto for FiTC. Will need to hit up GMap Pedometer and map out a decent 9-10 mile run. And see if I can get any fellow conference attendees or speakers to go for a run too.

Also, on my running spreadsheet, I keep track of my progress towards 1000 miles for 2010. If you divide 1000 by 365, you get 2.74 miles per day. Multiply that by how many days have passed so far and you get where you should be. I should be at 295.89 right now, and I’m at 303.56, so I’m 7.67 ahead. This is good.

Today: 5.48 miles
Week: 9.99 miles
April: 24.98 miles
2010: 267.47 miles

Yesterday was supposed to be 4 miles easy. I had a route that I’d done before that I remembered as being 3.5, so I figured I’d do that and then some. But when I hit 3.5 miles, I was still a mile from home, and realized it was actually a 4.5 mile route. Oh well.

Today was speed work day. Hal called for 7x 400 meters at 5k pace. My 5k pace was 8:18, but I feel like I could do better than that now. So I’ve been doing the repeats trying to get between 7:45 and 8:00. Today’s splits:

7:43
7:38
7:36
7:53
7:47
7:43
7:57

Pretty happy with those. I concentrated on form over effort and it really paid off. Last week on one of the repeats, I noticed I was going a bit slow and poured on the speed, just brute force effort and it nearly killed me. The next one I concentrated on form and it was so much easier to keep the pace. So today was all about form. Using my proprioceptive cues – leaning forward, belly in, short strides, midfoot strike, push off, hands loose. The speed just follows.

About half way through repeat 6, I started feeling very lightheaded. Like I do when my blood sugar gets low. I almost never eat before a run except long runs. Looks like I need to rethink that, at least for this speed work. I walked a bit after repeat 6 and was fine, but didn’t push too hard on #7. Just kept it under 8:00. Had to walk again after that one too. Another lesson learned.

It’s supposed to be in the 80′s today, but was just 44ºF when I went out this morning. Still, it’s nice enough that when I get home, I like to sit on my front porch for a while and let my heart rate come down. I love mornings like this when it’s just cold enough and I’m just hot enough that not only is my breath creating fog, there’s steam flowing off my entire body. It’s very supernatural looking.

There’s a National Guard post not too far from my house. Saw a bunch of Army guys running by as I sat there. I see that every once in a while. I guess they have some kind of fitness routine. Most of the guys looked to be in their 40′s – 50′s. Some not in the greatest shape.

Well, just a couple hours til I find out about the NYC Marathon…