Training Camp & Breaking Marathon Pace

When I got to Phoenix last week for the PF Chang's Half Marathon, what seemed like a good idea a month ago was suddenly not seeming so good.  My training coming off of the marathon in December had not gone very well.  My longest workout had been 5 miles and to kill my confidence a little more, I found myself struggling to hit the my marathon pace that was coming so effortlessly 5 weeks before.

When the race started, I stayed between 6:00 to 6:05 pace for the first 5 miles.  Based on my training, I thought I would be lucky to hit marathon pace for this race.  After I got through 5, I felt surprisingly comfortable.  I thought I would try to grind down the pace a little bit and see how it felt.  I began to increase my effort and each mile that went by I was thinking, "Surely this mile is faster than 6:00."  6:05, 6:01, 6:03...5 miles later I was thinking, "You've got to be kidding me!"  My legs were not going to budge from marathon pace.  By mile 10 I was pretty frustrated and had had about enough of that.  I hit a slight downhill in the race and was able to use it as an opportunity to finally break out of marathon pace.  I averaged 5:51 for the last 3 miles and crossed the finish line with a 35 second PR of 1:18:45.  So thankful!

American Distance Project spent another week beyond that in Arizona for Training Camp.  Immediately after PF Chang's we headed up to Flagstaff for 3 days.  I had never been there before, but it was really beautiful...and much colder than Phoenix!  As a group we had been basking in 75 degree weather in Phoenix where Flagstaff was right around 10-15 degrees in the morning.  We had some beautiful runs out at Coconino National Park and were able to meet up with some of the McMillan athletes for an easy run.  I highly recommend Beaver Street Brewery and Macy's Café! 

After a few days in Flagstaff we headed back down to Phoenix for a track workout at Arizona State University.  I sat out of that one, but it was inspiring to see everyone working out under the lights of the track and reassuring to see the paces that they were able to hit at the lower elevation. 

Back to Colorado Springs tomorrow, and excited to get into some heavier training.  Next up is Gate River Run in Jacksonville, FL.  Big thank you to American Distance Project and Sharkees for a great trip!

Master's training

Its been awhile since I last posted. My introduction to the master's level has been a tougher transition then I thought. After running 8:24 3k and 29:54 10k less than two year's ago, my right knee has been a constant struggle. Its slowly getting better after a knee scope this past summer, but it may never be 100%. Hope to hit an indoor track meet 5k at Washington in two weeks with the goal of sub 14:35. Recent training: 1/14/13 - 9 miles easy - Cemetary 1/15/13 - 3 mile warm-up; 24 min of tempo effort on the Poudre River trail at 5:30 pace, two mile cooldown 1/16/13 - 80 min easy - Spring Creek Trail 1/17/13 - 9 miles easy - Cemetary 1/18/13 - 3 mile warm-up 6 x 600m 2min rest on CSU track 1:43 average 4 x 100m fast in spikes running start 13.2, 12.9, 12.8, 13.2 - Felt great to sprint again. Its been a long time, two mile cool down 1/19/13 - Sore today 13 hilly miles at Bacon Strip 1/20/13 - Off 34 minutes on eliptical in basement, light weights Week Mileage 59 miles 1/21/13 - 3 mile warm-up; 12 x 1 min hill repeats - South Horse Tooth two mile cool down 1/22/13 - 81 min Spring Creek trail 1/23/13 - 63 min easy strides 1/24/13 - 3 mile warm-up; 4 x 800m 2 min rest 2:27, 2:26, 2:22, 2:26 Cold this morning could not get going. 4 x 300m - 100m jog recovery (35 sec rest) 49, 50, 49, 47 Good luck with everyone's training!

Houston Marathon a hard 2:30

 

It was a long over due marathon which I was planning on racing New York City Marathon and it was canceled.  I started to train for NYCM in July, top mileage was 118 miles, longest mileage day was 35 miles, A1C during the build up was 5.7, and my best workout was 8x1mile hard, 1mile medium- avg. 5.01, medium miles 5:40 which was 85-90% of marathon race pace and 12x2min, 8x1min that same afternoon.  As good as my Training was for New York  Marathon was great until I raced USATF Club Cross Country Championships.  I was a 10k and I don't know why it messed me up, but my training suffered.  At Club Cross Champs,  I started the race out a little too fast 4:40 first mile, but we used it as a tune up for Houston and it took 2 weeks to get over the mental and physical strand on my body.  I'm sure training for 6 months was too long without any breaks, but it was hard for me to conceder to throw away all the hard work I had done so I pressed on for 10 more weeks from NYCM to Houston Marathon.  I also was a little sick going in to the race with a lingering head cold and a bunch a junk in my throat.  I don't know if that was a problem but I know all week long it kept me from sleeping.  I'm sure it had some effects on my for the race, but there is no gauge on how much it would have affected me.

 

The extra time for figuring out my blood sugar problems with racing fast helped to fix some of the kinks.  That helped me out a lot I was also much better at traveling and eating what was available to me and for Houston I didn't have any problems with my hands swelling.  Which has been a big concern that I have chatted with Missy Foy about and Dr. Chris Monty.  I know some of my issues with racing fast is my body buffering system is not working correctly and I feel I'm getting closer to a solution.  I don't always have the option of going out slow for every race especially if I want to compete for the win.  Winning is much less likely if I don't go out with the leaders or at least closes to the leaders.  That was one of the biggest success I had in Houston was that my hands didn't swell up much at all.  I have been trying a couple of different things to stop the hands swelling.  I changed my diet to 99% gluten free and Dairy free to keep from slowing my lymphatic system down some of the other digestive problems that comes with those foods.  I also need some more vitamin B-6 and that was more for my Krebs cycle and training at the high intensity level that I do.  Probiotics to keep my digestives system running and healthy.  I took a little more then I had been thinking and it worked great!  I also started to take some of Power Bars High Intensity- Beta Alanine which helps buffer the lactic acid in your body.

 

As for Houston pre race nutrition preparation I was eating more carbs then normal and had to take a little more insulin to balance that stuff out a little better.  I would have smoothie in the morning maybe some Organic Sharkies as a snack, salad for lunch with a Lara bar or 2, then I did make some chili for some of my meals that week, but dinner is usually pretty small.  The day before the race I had a package of Sharkies and a Protein Plus Power Bar, Lunch I got in to Houston later so another Power Bar and some cashews, and Dinner I had a big salad and a little bit of chicken with another bar for the carbo loading.  Race Morning I had a couple of bars worth about 400 to 500 calories and was ready to race.  durning the race I took a Power Bar Gel at mile 8 or 9 because I felt like I might be a bit low of BG and at 25 because I need something to change up the scenario.  Other than gel I had water most of the way and at 5 miles I took some Gatorade at an aid station when I missed a gel stop.

 

It was an overall ok race, but I want more and all my training was based on 5:00 to 5:10.  My body was ready tor run under 2:15 and racing much slower is a big problem because the way my body used energy was based on those paces.  I did not train to run 2:30 or 2:20 and that made racing this marathon much more painful.  I did feel pretty good up until 10 to 11 miles and at that point I could feel my body really start to tighten up.  I had a side cramp right after 11 miles to 14, plus I could feel my IT bands start to tighten too.  There are a lot of things to improve and I need to change for my next marathon.  For the most part I was pretty happy with how I controlled my diabetes for the race.

 

I want to race a Marathon where I feel good at 1/2 marathon at my goal marathon pace.  It has not happened yet and it drives me nuts that I can put together a half marathon.  It will come and I know I'm close and the weather was bad, but in my mind I still want more then a 2:30 marathon.

 

What is next for me I will hold off to plan because I need some time off training.  I will take a couple of weeks off and start a build up, however I wont start setting up races until I'm extremely fit.  I hate planning races before my fitness comes around and not know if I'm ready to race or not.  I will fight all temptation to put anything on my schedule until I know I'm and my peak fitness.

 

Tommy

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Since it's the Bobby-and-Shannon-Blog Show, it looks like I'm up.

Alright, so maybe nix USA Cross Country this year. Following a return to training post-Club Cross Country, I managed to string together a handful of half-decent runs...but my foot. My dadgum foot. I figured taking a week off after Clubs would yield a miraculous recovery--actually I never thought twice about it--but to no avail. Following a uh...really delightful (attempted)...long run up the Chutes to Goldcamp Road that ended up being abruptly halted by said foot--resulting in a LONG walk/jog/hobble/shuffle back home (but at least it was nice out) I actually had to relent to the fact that there might be something up. And that it might unfortunately have nothing to do with too-tight shoelaces, which is what I'd been telling myself since freakin' October.

So fast-forward a couple of weeks and one reluctant MRI later, the mystery of the last two and a half months of not quite being able to run longer than about 4-5 miles at a given time and not even being able to put together more than a couple consecutive days of that without my toe feeling like it might snap in half, was finally solved as there was not one, not two, but two and a half (the half being a stress reaction) stress fractures in my big toe. One toe. It didn't even spread the love to any other toes. That poor guy, not sure what happened there.

Sometimes it's just like....wtf?

So as my friend/teammate Amanda asked me the other day, "So, are you just like 'SERIOUSLY?!'" Yes, I'm just like SERIOUSLY. Not being particularly prone to stress fractures, there's about a half a dozen potential reasons I could think of for how the whole thing transpired: Could've been the upped-mileage this past year (slightly likely), the upped-mileage being performed mostly in less shoe than what I'm used to (very likely), the attempt at vegetarianism that I still get made fun of for (unlikely), the slightly altered and hopefully more effective (at least eventually) mechanics recommended to me by a biomechanist I saw last spring; more specifically, one issue being that I didn't effectively use my big toe during push-off (incidentally on what ended up being the affected side) and needed to learn how to do it better (also very likely), the suggestion of acquiring more of a forefoot strike (also very likely) with less of a shoe (again, likely), or it could've been the quick-as-possible comeback from an SI joint injury last summer (slightly likely), or maybe the fact that I stupidly can't seem to learn to take an easy day all that easy and can't get away with it as easily as I could in college any longer (very likely), or it could be a combination of most or all of these things. Whatever the case, advice thrown in for free: when it comes to your mechanics, if you're going to make changes, no matter how small, you'd better do it painstakingly slowly. Thousands of steps a day makes small pretty huge.

Or it may not have been any of these things. I've decided that if you try to figure out a reason for every single setback your body throws at you, you'll just drive yourself nuts and get paranoid over every niggle. There will always be weak links to fix, but if you change one thing, you'll change everything, so approach with caution. Sometimes it's a single misstep that'll throw you off for weeks, and it just has to run its course. I guess you just have to avoid things that you know don't work, be proactive, and take care of stuff as best as you know how to before a molehill becomes a mountain, but you can't prevent everything and you can't always learn from everything either. But in spite of that, there are always blessings in disguise. A screwed up SI joint and messed up hip/hamstring that put me out for almost two months last summer led to the discovery of an awful lot of longstanding imbalances going on in the hip flexors, glutes, core, and low back, and thanks to being forced to address all of those issues during the downtime, I now have a pair of hamstrings that aren't forever feeling ripped-in-half after EVERY workout (for the last two years) and glutes that actually do their share of the work. So there is occasionally a silver lining. Two steps forward, one step back, and eventually things get there. Although truthfully the actual training part of this sport can sometimes be the least challenging part of the process of "getting there."

On the upside, this injury isn't nearly as tough a nut to crack as that one was: No tight this or weak that or scar tissue to be broken up here or there. Just four to six weeks and GO. In the meantime, back to my Injury BFF's the pool and the stationary bike out in the garage (who I have christened Old Goldie--he's older than me and has been my faithful ally in many a comeback) and soon enough the Alter-G.

Okay, admittedly 2013 hasn't gotten off to the greatest start, it's a pretty discouraging start actually. I'm really disappointed I won't be on the line in St. Louis on February 3rd, chances are I'll be unplugging myself from the running world as much as possible that day. But sometimes that's the risk you run for putting most of your eggs in one really small basket: extreme disappointment. But, as Cassie said to me referencing her broken foot following last year's Clubs (and that was a legit break, none of this measly crack-in-the-bone nonsense) that caused her to miss most of last year including the Trials, "There's a reason for it, I just haven't figured out what it is yet."

2012 was far from everything I was hoping for. But even so, I PR'ed once, I finished higher than I ever have at Clubs (and a few spots closer to Team USA--baby steps), and I got out of some of the training ruts that I got myself stuck in for the last few years. Two steps forward and one step back. So here's to an injury-free and PR-plagued rest of 2013.

Green Mountain

After the sun rose on the last day of 2012, I decided that despite surviving the now-miscalculated Mayan Armageddon, along with the other 364 days in the year 2012, I would finally take a shot at the mountain that shadows over my apartment each evening. Green Mountain stands 8,100 tall, and I've reached the summit on a run once before - though never deep in the winter, when the trails are covered in snow and ice, and never when the mountain itself was lonely of most of its' visitors. At this time of the year, I had slight chances of seeing beers, mountain lions, or ultra runners. The Boulder Bubble doesn't reach into the open space during the winter months, so I knew I would be safe. I went into the mountains to get away from the noise, I went into the mountains to find out why I had the desire to go into them in the first place.

What I found on my journey, was that multiple times a year I'll grow weary of the bubble, with seems to be littered with overly-priced lattes, restaurants, and gym memberships. Not that I indulge in any of those consistently, though the rat race does attempt to steer you in that direction. It's hard not to simplify the equation: Why not brew coffee at home? Why not cook food at home? And more importantly, Why would you pay $100 on a gym membership for information you access on the internet? It's been my experience that if you can afford a $100 gym membership, you can afford the internet. Maybe it's the navigation where most people grow confused and tired, so for them I'd like to add one more one-worded tip: Google. When you have a town full of fitness advocates, health nuts, and talented athletes, you're bound to have both sides of the coin. The bubble at times can be suffocating, which (back to my point) is why I sought to get up and over the ridge, to the west side, away from the noise, away from the lattes, the insanely pricey (and small) steaks, and the overly-priced gym memberships.

The trails were quiet, they didn't talk to me, and I to them. I ran in silence, body and mind. Understanding works best when you're mouth is closed. The only challenges were natural - hill (mountain) climbs, sections of slippery ice, and animals (deer, mountain lions and bears, oh my!). The stability of the cosmos seemed to exist here, where man hadn't intervened to tip the scale. I didn't pass a Starbucks, see any training groups in matching uniforms, or anyone trying to find a signal on their Garmin watch. The challenges in the wild are Real. Unlike life on the Front Range, the purity of the canyon I climbed, the rocks I hopped from, and the peak I summited, the simplicity of things here made the challenge worth it. The mountain doesn't offer trivial pursuits, it offers a challenge of the Will, nothing more, nothing less.

I glided on the packed snow, up and up as the peak grew larger and larger. The higher I got, the more I could hear the crunch of the snow beneath my feet, and my ailing breath echoing through the canyon. The final push to the top was a rocky scramble, coated with ice, owning a pack of chia seeds, or having a fro-yo date on the calendar wouldn't be any help here, only caution and patience would. I bounded from rock to rock until finally reaching the summit.

The beauty of reaching the top of mountain is always in the opportunity to look back down on where you came from. Boulder seemed small, and insignificant. Each overly-priced restaurant sat next to another, but in that same bubble was the lone McDonalds (which ironically enough is next to the only Burger King). I wondered how their business was in this town for a moment, then got cold enough to head back down, not before realizing that the both sides of the coin exists in the same bubble.

Perspective. This is the only word I could come up with in my brief moment atop Green Mountain. From down low, within the bubble, the noise and chaos of the rat race can be annoying, and quite depressing, but  from up here, beyond the bubble, or just outside it, it's quiet and serene. Life is simplified in the mountains, which explains why so many (including myself) head out into the wildness to find some quiet trails. The mountain does not care if you ate a $50 steak last night, what gym you go to, how many times you went to Pure Barre last month, what training group you're a part of, how often you eat frozen yogurt, if you're a part of something bigger than yourself, smaller than yourself, or being someone else's self. The mountain, quite simply, does not discriminate. It only cares for one thing, and one thing only: The Will.

It cares only for the Will to reach the top, the Will to burn your legs and your lungs, depleting them of sweet oxygen as you pump hard up a mountain - at altitude - as quickly as possible. It cares for your Will to survive. Now, don't misinterpret this post as me dramatizing a monstrous climb to the top of Green Mountain, which actually isn't insanely challenging, this is about what the mountain whispered to me while on my journey. This is about simplifying your life, getting rid of the excess "weight"; the unnecessary items and things that only complicate what we're all actually here trying to do: Run Fast and Enjoy The Journey. 

After firing down the mountain on the soft packed snow, I arrived back at my car and looked up at the mountain I just ran.  From down here, it's just a blue silhouette each evening, but each evening it beckons me back, reminding me not to get lost or caught up in the things that really don't matter, the mountain  reminds me to do one thing: Simplify.

Club XC Wrap Up and What's Down the Road

Welp, Club Cross is done and dusted and happily our women came away with second place, and our dudes got third. But those things are old news by now, and we got the job done. Next year I think we are due to move up a place though.

As always, there was not a dull moment the entire time. Cody must do some sort of behind-the-scenes psychoanalysis/interview/Rorschach Inkblot Test before allowing people on to the team to make sure that their personalities are sufficiently quirky enough to sync together in a really freaky way. No other team stops traffic the way that we do (and in Brie's case I mean this literally). And Levassiur, you're an excellent dancer, don't let them call you Ape Arms.

I would go over highlights from the trip, but Bobby took my idea so never mind.

So now it's back to the grind and looking ahead...what next? First order of business, get my foot straightened out, it didn't fail me in the race but had me pretty nervous leading up to it. Let's just say that the Minimalist Experiment was not the success that I was initially envisioning. After that, USA Cross Country is on the docket as usual, maybe an indoor 5k (for the sake of trying to PR, NOT because I like track. I don't. It's flat, and hard, and unnatural, and oval, and everyone looks like a bunch of freaking graceful impalas running on it EXCEPT for me who looks like a laterally-lurching-bow-legged-pigeon-toed ox for whom foward locomotion is an absolutely authentic praise Jesus miracle that defies all laws of nature. I mean, my arms....why are they doing that? No. Just no. Track is a necessary evil and that's it.), then hopefully Gate River....and I think that three months seems like a more than adequate time-frame and I'm not looking past that.

In any case, I would like to try some new stuff in 2013, perhaps dabble in the trail and mountain running scene just a little, and while I don't like to put goals out there in print because I believe in Do-First-Talk-Later, there's a little rinky-dink half-marathon in late summer that goes up this awfully big 14,000 foot hill that overlooks all of Colorado Springs, and it's been calling my name for a couple of years now, this might be the year to actually acknowledge it, we'll see.

I've also been debating the possibility of having a coach help a little bit, I've briefly had a couple since being out of college, but in looking back I've truthfully never really wanted one, it always felt necessary because everyone else seemed to have one. But sometimes I debate their effectiveness, and mostly I just don't like the feeling of having lost ownership of my own running because it's my project, I dislike feeling the need to "people please" and like I owe someone else success, especially when I know that they will only be there during said success and won't want to know your name otherwise. So I get nervous and I get cold feet and then I run away...sounds coachable! And admittedly so far I've wanted to do what I want to do and that's not necessarily what Coach So and So wants to do: They say 25x400, I say hills, they say tempo run, I say miles (and I'll be damned if I'm doing them on a track). But after a while it's like, I have forever to do what I want to do, I have now to really do something, and that might eventually require conceding to someone else's knowledge. I already know what I'm going to get doing it myself, I don't know when I might stumble on a good match and turn a corner if I never even give it a fair shake. I mean, I do the same thing like every week: Pyramid Fartlek The Original, then Pyramid Fartlek Version 2.0 (which is the same as The Original, but now with hills for added exertion!). But that's all still really up in the air, it always seems like such a big risk because running's a lot more important to me than I know that it should be, so relinquishing control of it sometimes rubbs me the wrong way. Either way, I have a lot more soul-searching to do on that one, it really comes down to keeping my head on straight, which is no small feat.

That's all I got, usually I strive for deeper meaning in my posts and try to employ similes, metaphors, and complex symbolism, but I think that I sound sufficiently undecided about pretty much everything in life by now so this is a good stopping point. Great work to everyone at Clubs, it was as always a joy seeing everyone kick some ass and represent.

BUS 900 out.

Mattie and Brie's kickass-fest that I thoroughly enjoyed being part of.

Down, But Not Out

It's been over a week since Club XC's, and I think it's taken that long to (almost) fully digest my (disastrous) race. When a race doesn't go your way, it's always disappointing, but it's only a failure if you let it end you, otherwise, its' just another lesson learned along the journey to a better race. So after nearly a week, I've decided to not let this "end" me, but use it as yet another lesson-learned.

When you build yourself up to something for so long it's hard to let it go and move forward. Bad races are like gravity, they keep pulling you back even long after the race has been run. The phrasing "Let us kill the spirit of Gravity!" rings in my mind, and I try to convince myself to take it to heart as Zarathustra did (the fictional Zarathustra, not the prophet). Indeed, gravity must be killed in this sense. No one ever moves forward by looking back, you can learn where to go by looking back, but the act of moving forward must come with actually looking in the direction you wish to go, which is this case is (you've guessed it), forward.

When replaying the miles and steps in between the start and finish of the race, I'm still having difficulty putting my finger on exactly where I let go of my desire, but somewhere in the puddles of mud and hundreds of wild men in long spikes it fell out and got lost. The answers to bad races always seem to elude us until time has passed, and other races have been run, so in the mean time, I'll just chalk it up as a question mark and move on to the next challenge. The lesson will sink in when my mind is ready to absorb it.

Besides the race, the weekend itself was incredible. I feel proud to be a part of the best club team in the US, and surrounded by so many great runners and people. This was my first Club XC experience with BRC/Adidas, and it was a memorable one. With a variety of fun personalities, everyone fit like puzzle-pieces together to form an awesome team, one I'm truly honored to be a part of.

In an attempt to focus more on the positive or more fun memories of the weekend, I decided to come up with a highlight reel, which some things are explained, while others I'll leave un-explained, as they have now turned into some version of an inside joke or story to be told for years to come.

Highlights of the Weekend:

- Cutting your pizza tip-first is considered "weird"

- Driving down an "exit only" after circling Lexington for 20 minutes

                - Brianne persuading a cop to let the van in… Against traffic

                - Cassie's brush with the Lexington PD

- Sweatpants in public + collared shirt = The Old Man's Mullet

- Jay watching Japanese television

- The $7 sausage

- "Flossing your Nerves"

- Mattie & Brianne Dominate

- Men's & Women's teams Top 3

- "Wack! Wack! Wack!"

- Post-Race Levassiur : "My goal is to puke tonight"

- Tally of those who owe me gummie bears:  Cassie, Brianne

- Hotel room party

                - The Empty Fridge

                - DJ BJ

- Stella's got her groove back

- Dogs can count as children

- Whiplash on the dance floor

- Don't ever pack with a hangover

                -Fortunately, the Hyatt-Regency in Lexington has excellent customer service.

                (I received   the items I left neatly folded in the dresser drawer.)

- Hanging out at the Lexington airport. Enough said.

So now, onward into the cold, dark winter months. Back to running in the shadows, dreaming of better races and bigger results. I would've loved to sprint in through the mud with a great performance, but that'll have to be saved for another day, another race. The disappointment will wear off as the miles click by. "Come, let us kill the spirit of Gravity!"

It's only a failure if you let it end you.

Baby Steps & Beet Juice

There's a chill in the air and the roads are quiet. I'm jogging across Baseline Road towards Kitt Field, the venue for the days workout. These mornings have been colder lately, as we transition into Winter, but still, it's nearly 50 degrees and almost December. Blame it on Global Warming, solar flares, and the Mayan Armageddon, either way it's a nice morning for a workout.

As usual, there's barely a cloud in the sky and the Flatirons are leaping out of the plains in the distance, their ragged edges allude to their escape, perhaps they clawed their way out of the even grounds before they reached fresh air. The natural beauty of Colorado never gets old, and this picturesque backdrop to a painful oxygen-debt style of a workout seems odd, but appropriate. I soak in the views as I circle the turf field awaiting Jonesy's arrival and begin to recap the journey here. The last half year has been littered with baby steps of improvements and today, I'm finally feeling the pop back in my stride.

Let's backup.

Nearly six months ago, I hit a huge low. I was running on empty (literally). Ferritin levels were rock-bottom, and after some intense observation of my diet, I realized I was barely getting a 1/3 of the protein that my body required. Something had to change. So, I began drinking liquid iron - not the tastiest treat - twice a day. Post-run smoothies also became common (now this was a tasty treat). I packed in a variety of frozen fruits, yogurt, and the key element: protein powder into my blender. Also, I began consistently devouring beet juice, another not-so-tasty-treat. Besides the color-change in my urine, I was recovering quicker within weeks. Though, as with most things worth doing, no miraculous performances began sprouting out of the sidewalks, but my workouts became consistently better.  Day to day, week to week, it all began to connect into some massive spider-web of workouts, long runs, and easy days. Very gradually, things began to click.

Back to the turf of Kitt Field, we're within the final weeks of tapering for Club XC Nationals and things are just heating up. The pop is back in the stride, nothing is wearing me down, and now I've got a new shadow to chase: Tyler McCandless (2:17 marathoner) has joined the group for the grind. The next few months are already looking exciting with this addition to the group. Mr. Matt Duncan (sea-level-flatlander-turned-Mountain-Goat) has kept me honest in long runs, and now we've got another body to push the pace, daily.

We loop around the field for nearly 40 minutes, inching back and forth, finding rhythm then pushing the pace up to cap off the workout. The Flatirons watch in the distance like they did on the warm up, like they always do. We finish with a burst and before 9am, the bulk of the days run is over. It's been a long journey, and there's still a ways to go, but I'm baby-stepping forward. I'll go home, whip up a tasty smoothie, down some beet juice, and maybe invest in Schrute Farms. It might be getting a little chilly outside, but things are heating up…

Coping Mechanisms

Running is a fickle little beast. Sometimes things don't pan out quite as expected even when it was all going so gosh darn well. Perhaps a wrench got thrown into the otherwise flawless preparations. For some reason (that I don't know yet) it appears to have been decided that there needs to be just one decent obstacle going into this much-anticipated race coming up in Lexington next weekend. You know, because where would the excitement be otherwise? Training by itself would just be too easy I guess. So in times like these, you've got to be innovative. Such is the case at the moment going into Club Cross, which I look forward to more than any other race the entire year, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let my little mishap be an excuse to not kick some ass next weekend. If Joanie Samuelson had gone into the 1984 Olympics with preconceived ideas that she wasn't on top of her game, she might be sans one gold medal and we'd be minus one pretty epic story in the running history books. A good reminder to NEVER count yourself out no matter what.

In any case, I'd be lying if I didn't admit to barely reining in the panic right now, but since that only makes matters worse and makes a mountain out of a molehill, which I'm really adept at doing anyway, it's time to bust out the old Coping Mechanisms. Normally, running is my all-time favorite one, but if that's not going so swell and the comforting routine of training gets a little bit broken up, sometimes you need alternatives to restore confidence. That said, my favorite coping mechanisms, in no particular order, are as follows:

#1) This Blog: There's a reason why like 85% of the posts on this stupid thing are mine. When you are an emotionally constipated introvert, you need some kind of catharsis--especially in times of stress--to avoid becoming a homicidal maniac.

#2) Pool-running (really frikkin' hard): Or any other form of cross-training for that matter. Some people might argue that it doesn't do anything, I disagree. Even if some physiology guru makes the same claim, I say they're full of it. This one serves a dual purpose in that not only does it augment what normal training is already being done, but killing yourself in a swimming pool for a couple of hours is like a nice little shot of mental Novocain.

#3) The recently developed Lauren Fleshman "There Is No Future" Coping Mechanism (and my new favorite): "Pretending there is no future is a f*%@ing awesome coping mechanism. You should try it! It essentially melts fear. 'What if I get last?' loses its meaning. The only reason getting last is scary is because of what it means after the race. If last place truly is your best effort, and your best effort is what you are aiming for, then you win even when you lose."
Amen.

#4) Drowning Myself in (possibly delusional) Optimism: This will be amazing. This will be spectacular. This will be whatever I decide to make it be, and I've decided to make it kickass.

Okay, I feel marginally better now. I've been chanting a cutesy little mantra in my head on every run lately: "Just-get-to-the-line-and-you'll-be-fine." A little over a week from now (when hopefully the manly-looking women's Club XC trophy is safely restored in its rightful home at the BRC) I'll probably be wondering what the heck I was so worried about. Till next time, keep calm and ROCK ON.

Magical Numbers

It seems like one of the first questions people ask you when they find out that you run, you know, the one preceded by the obligatory, "How fast can you run the mile?" that's usually followed by, "Are you training for the Olympics?" always seems to be, "How many miles a week do you run?"

I freaking hate that question. It almost seems as though to be considered "competitive", you're obligated to at least blurt out a certain magical number. I never used to keep track of miles very closely, just minutes really, but I could throw out a pretty decent ballpark answer. However, at some fairly recent point, saying to myself "I'm running 80 minutes this morning," stopped being good enough. Now it's, "I need to run 11 miles this morning (or 7 or 8 or 10 or whatever)" and "I need to hit XX miles this week." There's not even a reason for needing to hit XX miles, just that it seems like the bigger XX is, the better.

So mileage....what is mileage? If you want to get really technical, the Romans decided a mile was 1,000 paces. But everyone has different sized feet, so then what's a pace? They must've wondered this too, because then "feet" came in, and it was decided that a "foot" was the length of one of the emperor's feet. Must've totally sucked when when he died though, then they'd have to re-do the whole damn thing. So if the Romans kept track of mileage, it would vary depending on who was emperor, but fortunately for them, they were too busy with gladatorial contests and vivisecting people to bother with running nonsense. And then there's the nautical mile, which is totally different than a land mile. This is getting complicated. All this is to say, a mile is pretty much some distance that we. Made. Up.

So back to the topic at hand. You could talk to any coach about what the best mileage is to train for a given distance, and some will say run as much as you can as hard as you can (the old, "throw a bunch of eggs against a brick wall and see which ones don't break and those will be pretty badass" method), others will say to run as a much as you can but only hard on the quality days, others put focus entirely on quality over quantity. At the Olympic 10k Trials there were women on the line who ran 65 miles a week, and others logging twice that. So that being said, I guess it's all just trial and error, because no one actually seems to know, but at least we're not Romans.

And I guess that I see a lot of the validity in quantifying by mileage: You have at least some way to know how much work you're doing. But then, the harder you run XX miles, the less time you spend running. The easier you go, the longer you run. But I think that you really have to be someone who doesn't compulsively feel the need to hit a certain number for this to be a good system, which "Runner" and "Not Compulsive" seems a little bit like the biggest oxymoron ever invented. Granted, the minutes-method has its drawbacks too: a progressively hard 90 minute run is completely different than an easy 90 minutes on the trails. But for me at least, thinking in straight minutes eliminates the need to run with a GPS (which I hate using) or run a certain measured loop in order to hit a certain number just to say that I did, and I guess the body has no idea what a "mile" is anyway, it just knows how long it's been going and how hard it's been working. So I think I'll revert to mix of those two ways of measuring work and combine them: say, 12 miles or 90 minutes, whichever comes first.

Since I think I'm going to drive myself to alcoholism if I think about this anymore, I'm going to change the subject to finish on a less confusing and more upbeat note. I know that this deviates a little bit from the topic at hand, but I figure that since blog readers are likely comprised entirely of people who are bored absolutely senseless, it's probably fine. So I'm going to teach you a little bit about my favorite food: Nutella. I will tell you about the history of Nutella and the pro's and con's of Nutella consumption, and why, if you haven't already, you should make the switch from generic Chocolate Hazelnut Spread to the real deal.

In the early 1940's, Italian pastry chef Pietro Ferrero was concerned about the limited supply of chocolate during World War II. With rationing, he had a serious chocolate frosting crisis on his hands. What's a pastry chef to do? Leave those eclairs naked? Heavens no! Instead, he cleverly mixed finely crushed hazelnuts with cocoa powder and viola'! The crisis was averted, the situation was nuetralized, and Nutella was born. Hooray for Pietro!

25 years later, the U.S. received its first imports of Nutella, and even though some dumbass decided to file a class-action lawsuit earlier this year because it's not "healthy enough" and Nutella had to cough up $3 million dollars, they're still doing just fine, and they continue to be THE top-selling chocolate hazelnut spread available. Unlike its generic counterparts, Nutella contains over 80% hazelnuts and is free of preservatives and artificial colors even if a single serving is about 3 tablespoons worth of sugar. Who's counting? Not to mention, it's vegetarian! So all you Boulderites can breathe easy.

So thank you Mr. Ferrero! And let's make everyday World Nutella Day!