First of Three

Week of February 18-24.

I’ve now figured out that Coach Terry likes to do only 3 20M long runs.  In the past, I’d do them EVERY OTHER WEEK once I went past the 10 weeks mark.  Now that I’m older, slower and more broken, 3 times for the course of a training set sounds perfectly fine.

This week was a super mix bags.  Going into Monday’s regular run of 6Ms, I was tired for a change.  Good thing it was President’s Day on Monday…after my morning run in Central Park (which I didn’t bring my Garmin)I went home and passed out.

I did a spectacular Faster Finish class and in typical fashion, after a spectacular Faster Finish class, everything goes to crap from there. 

First of all, this Faster Finish class was bit of a cheat for me, as this lower loop run is classic Terry.  I do these like every other month, well, almost.  They were especially a hit during the summer.  As a result, I’ve developed this weird tendency to sprint across 72^nd Street transverse when going East to West.  It’s also a “cheat” because typically, Terry will make me do 3 loops.  For Faster Finish class it was only 2 loops.  I should do spectacularly. 

Wednesday was a mid distance run of 10Ms out in sub 30F weather, at night, slightly drizzly, all by myself.  I got cold and sad.  I just wanted to get it done, any pacing directions went out the window.  I just ran. 

By the time Friday morning’s second set of speedwork rolled around, I knew I was going to have major issues.  Just going up the subway stairs hurt my bum and I was done with running during warm up.  Friday’s run was going to be fairly straight forward run.  Warm up to 72^nd, run tempo pace (7:30-7:40) around the park to other side of 72^nd Street. 

Did.Not.Happen.

In fact, I botched it after going down Harlem Hills, never hit the pace range, and decided to call it a day.  Nevertheless, I was all sorts of emotional mess – and Coach Terry had to calm me down again.  LOL…poor guy.  Having to baby sit a old drama queen. 

It’s under these circumstances that I did my 20Ms.  OBVIOUSLY it did not go well.  I was first too hot, then too cold, then too hot.  Then I got tired of running at 10Ms and mentally declared that I aint no Boston material and that I’m not going to go to Boston. 

It didn’t help that some full marathon was going on in Central Park.  This guy from Dashing Whippets kept on running around me and him stomping behind me got me all nervous.  I finally lost him when I took a turn across 72nd Street off the marathon course.  However, by the time I returned to the course after Harlem Hill, I was met with a pack of Front Runners.  They kept creeping up on me and that got me all nervous.  They followed me around for most of the course, when I finally decided to stop and let them just pass me.  I was at mile 17.8 anyways, and I really didn’t feel like pushing myself anymore.   From there, I just fell apart and decided to just jog it back (was supposed to be "cool down" anyways).

I didn’t follow any of Coach’s pacing tips - not because I didn't want to.  It was more because I couldn’t.  I pushed out 20Ms, and I mean that literally.  It was like slow death.  I felt gimpy and wimpy and passed the weekend wondering if this Boston thing is for me.

Then, last night, I had a dream.  A FU@KING strange dream.  I met Reid Coolsaet.  Most people would be like WHO?  He is Canadian Olympic Marathoner.  He’s been my inspiration for some time now.  He writes funny blogs.  He runs beautifully.  His form is golden and he glides thrrough air.  You probably never have heard of him because his marathon PR is 2:10:55 – in world of professional marathon with speedy Kenyans regularly clocking in sub 2:10s, Mr. Coolsaet isn’t a super star. 

Well, in my dream, he was signing stuff at some marathon expo.  I was coming in from a run (why would I run to marathon expo?) and found out that he was signing.  I run over to him, but I don’t have anything for him to sign…except for my sweaty and stinky Boston Marathon 2012 jersey.  I’m super embarrassed to even go ask him to sign it.  I don’t want him to think that I'm a snob for handing out a Boston Marathon jersey.  I don’t want him to think I’m gross giving him something I’ve worn to sign.  Then he comes over, asks what marathon I’m running.  I mumble, “well, not Boston, no.  I suck this year.”  And he says, “I’m no Kenyan but I still ran Olympics.  You should run Boston.”  And signed my jersey.

ODD!!!  Now my mission is to get my Boston Marathon jersey signed by Reid Coolsaet.  That would be awesome.

Cherry Blossoms is Falling

I am not entirely sure why the good people at Prospect Park Track Club calls this 10M race “Cherry Tree 10M” because it’s not exactly Cherry blossom season (February 17) and I did not see any Cherry Trees on the course.  I presume it’s called Cherry Tree because it’s on President’s Day weekend, and President George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and tried to lie about it in his youth/myth.

I’d like to think that it’s an homage to this – but that’s just me.

Training for the week of February 11-17 was pretty easy.  First, the Faster Finish class was a classy Caterpillar Run.  Coach Terry was away on a secret covert mission somewhere, so we got a guy with a mop head and a “yogurt voice”.  He was nice and funny but was no Terry.

My second key workout was 30 second sprints + 30 seconds recovery up and down Cat Hill.  I can’t make any sense of the splits, but I’d like to think that I did OK.

Sunday was this “Cherry Tree 10M” that my training partner signed me up for.  While the temperatures were not too cold, the wind was CRAZY.  The race itself isn’t too hard.  Just 3 laps of Prospect Park in Brooklyn.  This makes for an interesting course, where there is basically ONE GIANT HILL every mile and a quarter or so.  Instructions form Coach Terry was “negative split each loop”. 

Well.  This instructions went right out the window as I started running.  First 1M clocked in at 8:12 pace, due to a nice gradual down hill and some good tail wind.  First round of the “hill” went fine as I rode the wind…this is a technique I created in my second marathon that also had 20mph winds.  More on this later.  So by the time first loop ended, I had no hopes of beating it. LOL.  From there on, I decided to just run it as a supported long run (I had ran 5M before hand).  I suffered from a stitch from mile 6 to about 8, and also faced some serious headwind on hill climb #2.  Due to the stitch, I couldn’t exactly “ride the wind” this time.  Not sure what I did, but my Garmin shows a deficit of 0.10 mile. I ended up with a 7:56 pace run and came in 9^th in my Age Group. 

“Riding the Wind”

I am not sure if this is some official technique, but when there is a severe head wind, instead of banging up into it, I like to lean quite a bit forward.  Like almost 45 degree angle from the hip up.  I also spread my arms a little wider, so that while still swinging it, I imagine myself as a skydiver.  When the wind is strong enough, this creates my upper body to be supported by the wind, I seem to get some kind of aerodynamic thing going, and I end up going faster with much less effort.  I just “fall into” the wind and let my legs just kick me forward.  I do feel like I’m flying when I succeed.  8:03 pace up for an elevation gain of 94 feet is pretty impressive for me.

New Book

After not being able to lose much weight, I finally fell for Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald.  The thing is…it’s not anything I don’t know.  Quality carbs, sensible diet, low fat protein, correct portions.  Hmph. 

Hell Repeats.

Week of February 4-10…10 weeks to Boston.

I like to compare data from last year and torture myself (and my Coach) insane, lamenting and crying as to why I’m so slow this year.  (hint:  weight)  So this week’s Faster Finish, instead of doing exact same workout as previous year, my Coach did the unthinkable.  He rearranged the pattern and the length of the “Yasso 800s” we do in Central Park’s Great Lawn. 

1)      It was counter clockwise rotation instead of clockwise rotation.

2)      It went from 800m to and odd “half mile and a little bit”.

3)      He made us run it despite icy grounds (forced slow down).

I was slower than I would have like to have gone, but I consciously slowed down for ice patches.  So now I can’t compare, and it wasn’t a full effort.  I managed a 7:00/mile at one point, so I guess that’s good.  I believe my Coach decided to save himself from my harassing e-mails.

Thursay came with the Harlem Hill Repeats, which from now on, I shall call it HELL REPEATS.  I did these back in December:

Split	Time	Distance	Elevation Gain	Elevation Loss	Avg Pace
Harlem Hill 1	03:02.4	0.35	71	0	8:43
Recover	03:18.4	0.33	0	65	9:57
Harlem Hill 2	02:41.5	0.3	65	0	8:50
Recover	03:25.4	0.32	0	65	10:34
Harlem Hill 3	02:40.3	0.3	67	0	8:50
Recover	03:28.2	0.33	0	65	10:36
Harlem Hill 4	02:41.9	0.32	67	0	8:32
80% to 90th Street	07:13.0	0.9	54	43	8:02
Cool Down	15:36.8	1.66	36	84	9:24

Back then it was “good” in the sense that I wasn’t going up these things at 9:00/mile.  I was pretty happy with the 8:43 to 8:32 on the hills, and this was supposedly 80-90% effort.  I think the best part was that I didn’t have to stop mid-hill.

Here is this Thursday.  Now…it took 6 WEEKS to get here, which is a long time... 

Split	Time	Distance	Elevation Gain	Elevation Loss	Avg Pace
Harlem Hill 1	02:48.3	0.33	68	0	8:34
Recover	03:40.5	0.35	0	64	10:25
Harlem Hill 2	02:47.8	0.33	68	0	8:33
Recover	03:53.0	0.35	0	63	11:14
Harlem Hill 3	02:42.1	0.33	45	0	8:16
Recover	03:56.8	0.34	20	66	11:34
Harlem Hill 4	02:42.6	0.32	61	0	8:21
80% to 90th Street	07:08.7	0.33	68	0	7:55
Cool Down	13:01.4	0.35	0	64	8:16

First two repeats at “easy” pace, then last 2 repeats at 75% effort, so marathon pace.

Remarkably better.  I’m especially pleased with the Repeat #3.  I had a target to chase here.  I was chasing an alien cyclist up the Hill.

 

Grant it, I could’ve gone a little harder on these, but the point was to keep marathon effort.  I think these are pretty decent start to the last 10 weeks of training.

This weekend’s long run was an 18-miler.  After not having anything over 16 in a while, I was a bit hesitant.  What if I crap out?  What if I don’t have any endurance?  Well, I’m happy to report that other than some rough patches where I became utterly bored with running (happens after mile 15 usually) I was able to go pretty smoothly.  The only thing I regret was not having any water.  My right calf cramped up at mile 16 and it was a bit of a struggle since then.  (LOL?)  But now I know.  Even if I’m in a good “zone”, I should stop and hydrate.  Or else, I will end up mugging people for their water.  You live and learn!

So with 10 weeks to go, I have to, I have to, I have to really start my diet and lose 10lbs.