mechanics

one aspect of my training that I haven't addressed thus far are the biomechanics of my running form. So tonight I've been using YouTube as a research vehicle to learn about efficient running. Not too surprisingly I've got some things to work on.

1: foot plant: should be mid foot or forwards. why? planting the heel, as I have been doing, increases the impact and braking action of your stride. Planting the mid-foot or ball of the foot reduces impact and braking action, thus reducing stress injuries and increasing efficiency. The outer edge of the foot should be the first part of the foot to contact the ground to further decrease impact.

2: stride length: the front stride should not extend very far in front of the body. Doing so will increase the tendency to plant the heel and lower overall efficiency.

3: back kick: lift the foot sooner than is typical by keeping the toe pointing more forward than down. Also increase the height of the back kick to decrease the effective lever length of the leg and therefore makes it easier and more efficient to swing the leg forward for the next stride

4: upper body: stay loose and relaxed in the shoulders, neck and back. focus on keeping the shoulders down and driving your elbows backwards.

5: never let your arms cross your midsection or you'll be wasting valuable forward energy in a side to side fashion. Don't let your elbows go forward past your abdominal area.

6: smile! this helps keep you relaxed and decreases perceived pain, effort and fatigue. All of which are important factors in keeping yourself moving quickly and efficiently.

wednesday & thursday

Wednesday: day off
Thursday: easy, hills, progression (treadmill except for hills)

2miles @ 8:00/mile
10 x hill sprints @ approx 10 seconds/sprint (tractor shed to the bump in the path)
0.5 miles @ 8:00/mile
0.5 miles @ 7:47/mile
0.5 miles @ 7:30/mile
0.5 miles @ 7:03/mile
0.25 cooldown

34:26 for the pace running.

sprints took about 10 seconds each plus the jog back to the bottom of the hill.

back in the saddle, hills

2 miles @ 8:34/mile
10 hill sprints
1.5 miles @ 8:34/mile
0.5 miles @ 7:19/mile
0.25 miles @ cooldown backoff

monday, tuesday, wednesday

Monday: 3miles easy, 24:26, 8:09/mile, Richardson's almost to Onekahakaha and back
Tuesday: was supposed to be a hill workout. didn't happen
Wednesday: currently shaping up to be a late night treadmill workout. probably will combine the hill workout and the 3-4 miles of easy pace that were slated for tonight.

I'm happy to see the road workout @ easy pace has dropped to the 8 minutes/mile mark. This has me more upbeat about making my 7:19/mile or better that I'm aiming for @ Sacramento.

sunday long run

13 miles

1:56:00

8:55/mile

picked up the pace a small amount for the last few miles. and I mean a small amount

9mile pace run

9 miles @ race pace
race pace = 8.2mph aka 7:19/mile

ugh

total mileage 10.15
total time: 81:03

was not really into it this morning, but did the work. time to go reward myself with a swim before my ART appointment.

skipped Wednesday, double up on Thursday

i'm feel like I'm playing catch up and am sore all the time. So I've been opting for more rest days and then combining easy runs with speed work. So far so good.

Today was a workout that included:
Wednesday's 4 miles easy pace
Today (Thursday's) 40 minute tempo run.

Done in the following order:
3 miles @ 6mph (aka 10minutes/mile)
40 minutes done as follows:
4 minutes @ 6mph
4 minutes @ 6.5mph
(repeat until reaching 9mph)
3 minutes @ 9mph
4 minutes @ 8mph
4 minutes @ 7mph
5 minutes @ 6mph
1 miles @ 6mph

by the end I was getting bored, but in the final 4-5 minutes I actually managed to focus on foot technique and notice some interesting things about how my feet were landing. As a result I feel like I was able to achieve a smoother more efficient stride during the last 4-5 minutes. So that was cool.

and the 3 minutes @ 9mph were tough! as were the 4 minutes at 8mph that followed them. I guess I was getting tired.

dinner was raw avocado, cucubmer, tomatoes and cooked sausage, onion, zuchini and garlic pan friend and finished with a beer reduction.

time to clean up the kitchen, shower and go to bed.

BURP!

skipped Monday, penance Tuesday

I had my head firmly up my ass on Monday. I skipped my workout. I didn't do much of anything all day except finish reading a novel and take the dogs to the veterinarian.

So on Tuesday I did the Monday and Tuesday workouts.

Monday workout: 4 miles easy pace
Tuesday workout: 6 x 800yard @ 9mph (supposed to be 10mph, aka 6 minutes/mile)

I started out with 3.5 miles at 6mph. easy enough. Then I cranked the treadmill to 10mph and ran for 3 minutes. Jeebus and a milkshake!

Let me explain intervals the way my training plan has them laid out. Speed intervals are done at a pace determined by your race pace mapped onto the 800 yard interval in minutes instead of hours. So my goal at the Sacramento marathon is 3:10 or faster. This maps onto the speed interval as 800 yards at 3minutes 10seconds or faster. once you finish the interval you do half the distance at walking or jogging pace. Then repeat the cycle.

So anyway. I did the first two intervals at 10mph. I was practically going off the back end of the treadmill (it's got a motor and when you tell it to go a set speed it revs up the motor and you'd damn well keep up!). At the tail end of interval #2 my pulled ass on the left and the entire leg down to the calf started to tell me that perhaps I should back off a bit. So intervals 3-6 were done at 9mph. Much less bitching and whining from the left leg. And as it turns out when I did the math afterwards 9mph for 800yards is perfect if i'm targeting a 3hr race pace. So I'm stoked I did the entire workout and at the desired pace.

but i am still looking ahead to Saturday and 9 miles at race pace with some amount of "What the fuck am I thinking?"

dinner consisted of 1/2 lb of raw tuna, a bag of sprouts, carrots, beer and some chips. I might go downstairs and attack the avocado later if i'm still peckish.

putting in the miles

today's schedule workout: 17 miles, easy pace

actual:
Sunday swim clinic saw me putting about 1200-1500 meters on the odometer first thing. Then I got out of the water, changed, ate a little bit of trail mix and started running.

mileage: 17.3miles
route: Richardson's Bay to Honolii gulch and back again. fairly flat with several very moderate and tiny climbs. Honolii gulch had some down and back up again, but mercifully it was almost all in the shade
time: 2hours 35minutes
pace: 155/17.3 = 8.95minutes/mile = 8:57/mile
pain: moved around in my legs. most persistent was left knee IT band area and left calf upper central just below the knee. feet were pretty cranky by the last 3/4 mile.
weather: sunny and awesome. 80's. Apparently it dumped rain on Richardson's for a few minutes while I was out running.

amusing moments: saw Jake Bierman of Bierman home inspections as I crossed the singing bridge on my homeward leg (he is in my business networking group). Ran into Leslie and Emma Rose just as I was 50 yards from the Richardson's parking lot. They were headed to a birthday party. Leslie said to me, "STOP RUNNING! Go swimming! It's HOT!" She cracked me up. Also ran into Erin on the beach after my run. Or rather I swam briefly, began stuffing my face with bananas, apples and trail mix and noticed Erin sitting about 25 yards away talking to someone. As I finished eating she went in for a swim so I followed her out and swam underwater until I was near her and said, "Boo!" It turns out she is also a runner so we may schedule a few mutual runs in the coming week or two.

Oh yeah. They closed A Bay yesterday afternoon an hour or two after I had my swim there. Apparently the sharks got bored at Hapuna and wanted to see if there was anyone to be eaten at A Bay. Happily I was miles away by then.

14 foot tiger shark says, "No you AIN'T swimming!"

Today's workout: 7 mile run, easy pace

actual: 7.6miles
pace: 8:45/mile
body complaints: left calf, left outer quad, left knee (IT band), right scapula

and yeah. seriously Hapuna Beach was closed today due to a 14 foot long tiger shark that has been hanging out in the bay the past few days. So while I ran one of my regular spots (Hapuna - Puako) I had to drive down the road a ways to A Bay (@Waikaloa) and swim there. Did another mostly arms only swim. Estimated to be 400 meters. Swam to the black and white striped buoy that is always offshore in A Bay and back to shore. And yeah while I was out there I considered how it would take the shark @ Hapuna about 3 minutes to swim down the coast, find me, and eat me, but he didn't.

Afterwards I had an ART appt in Kona w/Dr Nancy. Good stuff having your workout complaints worked on almost immediately after you're done working out.

All in all a lovely day.

rest day, brief swim

Friday is the rest day in the marathon training regimen I am following. So of course I went for a swim @ Richardson's Beach. Two laps, arms only, concentrating on technique. On the return leg of lap 1 I noticed that I seem to be more able to flip from side to side as I make each stroke (having your side downwards is faster than swimming with your chest parallel to the surface of the water). So I tried to pay attention to this new conciousness of flipping from side to side and began to have a somewhat surging feeling to my strokes.

I'll be interested to see my times @ the Sunday swim clinic after that brief two lap experiment of side flipping and no legs.

8 miles running tomorrow
17 miles Sunday

the right foot is angry. the left knee is merely a tiny bit sore.

Labor Day Race Results, 3min pace run

Official Labor Day 5K Race Results show me coming in 11th with a time of 19:41. Only 3 seconds slower than the 10th finisher. The 10th finisher who ran the entire race pushing a stroller with a 1 year-old in it..... I'm just shaking my head at that one.

Today's training:
3miles @ race pace
8.3mph
overall ran for 27:51 and did 3.5 miles. That includes 3 minutes warm up @ 5mph and 2 minutes @ 6.3mph.
soundtrack: Audioslave (good heavy metal for exercise)

legs: left knee moderatly bitchy, right foot painful after the run in the area behind the middle toes and in front of the arch. Seems to be between the big toe and 2nd toe.

other oddities: yesterday after my run I noticed that I had a rash or hives on my right side abdomen near a recent abrasion scar. Today the rash/hives have spread to the right quad/groin and left groin..... weird. The only thing I can think of that I have changed in the past few days is my anti-persipirant. Time to completely clean up my diet or sumpin....

Wed run

day 3 of the marathon training.

4 miles.
36:49
slow run. never broke 7.3mph
ran on the treadmill

my legs are still sore from the race on Monday.

left ass, ham, quad, groin and knee all bitched in a minor way about how they thought it would be a much better idea to lie in a hammock while I poured beer down my gullet.

The goal for the upcoming marathon is to run in 3hrs 10minutes or less and qualify for the Boston Marathon. For months and months and months I've been doing the math and thinking that I had to run 7minute 0second miles. It turns out that I was wrong. Instead of doing the math in my head during a bike ride or while driving around in my truck I did it using a calculator and was rather surprised to see that what I really need to run is 7minutes 20seconds per mile. Yay for math errors in my favor! I took the trouble to do the math because tomorrow's training run is 3 miles at Race Pace. 7:20 boils down to 8.2mph. Which will be kind of a bear, but we'll see how it goes. And now it's off to dreamland.

swim - n - run

Our equipment for work didn't arrive in time so I took the morning off and went swimming @ Richardson's Bay. Did four laps between the beach and the reef. Wasn't terribly fast and spent most of my time concentrating on technique.

In the afternoon I did about 25 minutes on the treadmill. It was supposed to be a 40 minutes tempo workout, but I was pretty beat from the race on Monday and decided that discretion was the better part of valor and stopped early. My left knee has felt a touch bitchy since the race and the muscles in that leg were complaining moderately during the run. Pace was 5mph (12 minutes/mile) except for the three minutes that I ramped up to 7mph and back down again.

I still haven't seen any official race results from Monday so..... i'll post that info when I see it.

Other noteworthy item is that I pissed off my pulled ass muscle a little bit when I did my sprint to the finish during the race. I really must remember to keep the effort level dialed down a few notches from "all out" regardless of what I am doing. Otherwise this pain in my ass just isn't going to heal....

Big Island Road Runners Labor Day 5K/10K

Today I formally began training for the Sacramento Marathon. I'm using Hal Higdon's website and doing the advanced II schedule. Starting late of course so I jumped ahead to week 8.

Since today was supposed to be a 3 mile run it was very convenient that the Big Island Road Runners were holding their 5K/10K road races today. 5K is just barely more than 3 miles so I ran that race. I'm not sure of my exact time (I'll post it once I get race results), but it was somewhere around 19:20-19:30 for 5K. I came in somewhere around 10th overall and might have even been the first finisher in my age group. Once I have official results I will modify this post.

Assuming for the moment that I ran the race in 19:20 then I was able to do 6:22:53/mile. Which makes me pretty happy. :)