The Nature of Fatigue

Today's runs made me think about the fickle nature of fatigue and how the body reacts to stress in the short- and long-term. When I say fatigue, I mean the "breaking down" feeling you get after overloading your body for a few days that can persist for weeks. I guess the more technical term is overtraining. Every runner who has hit mileage or workouts a little too hard knows the feeling. Everything over the course of the day, even simple daily tasks, are harder and take more mental strength to get through. All the runner wants to do is lay around and not have to concentrate or undertake any sort of physical or mental task. Just walking up a flight of stairs or writing a new blog post can be a daunting prospect. I tend to get this more from just running mileage with no workouts. When I run workouts I ideally run my easy days easy enough that I feel pretty good on workout days, so the only time I feel run down is the day after a hard workout. When I started back up in this cycle I wasted no time getting to high mileage, so I felt terrible for about 2 weeks and then all of a sudden I came out of it and started feeling better, mentally and physically. I don't think medical science has yet determined the physiological causes of this kind of long-term fatigue, so it is an interesting thing to ponder.

Also interesting is the way the body handles the exact same stresses at different times. For instance, today I had one of the better training days of my life. I ran 15 miles at a good pace in the morning, then tonight came back and ran 5 more at a pace faster than maybe every other secondary run I've ever done. This capped off a 115 mile week, the highest I've done since at least the summer, and my first week of workouts. Yesterday I ran very easily but accumulated a lot of miles, and today I fully expected to feel at least a little bit fatigued from the last 1-3 weeks of work. But I felt great! It truly is a mystery why I felt so good today, after an accumulation of quite a bit of work for me, and bad some other days with much less crap in my legs. I am sure the easy day yesterday made some difference but I felt so much better today than yesterday that I can't believe it's attributable to only one factor. I can only hope that this kind of feeling continues, but given how little I know about the nature of my body's fatigue I'm sure that I'll wake up one morning, after being in a routine, and feel completely different than I did the day before. I'll probably feel worse, but that's part of what training is for - the mentally callousing aspect of training and being able to get through the bad patches as well as revel in the good patches, like today.

First workout back

After about 2 weeks I'm finally feeling good back at normal mileage. The last 2 weeks have felt like a long time, since I was feeling pretty bad most of those days and was basically waiting to get over it. 2 days ago (Sunday) I ran my first long run in a while and we cut the pace down well over the last few miles. I felt great and even felt good the next day, which was a fairly hilly run. Today I ran my first real workout of the new cycle with my roommate/training partner, Dan Feeney (danfeeney.blogspot.com). We ran a good session of hills at the Newark Reservoir, up a paved 0.35 mile hill. I was a little worried about this because my left plantar fascia has been giving me some trouble, along with my right achilles since I sprained that ankle a few weeks ago. I ended up feeling pretty good and focused on good form, driving off the back foot and not slouching, trying to look more like Chapa instead of Salazar:

I expect to be decently sore tomorrow, since I worked muscles hard that I haven't touched for a while. Since my legs have been feeling good lately I hope to continue this, and maybe do another workout like a long tempo run on Friday. As far as mileage, I'm currently in the low 100s so with quality workouts I think I'll be fine. I don't want to start working out too hard yet; low intensity but high volume. I plan on training for the half marathon for probably the next month. Regarding plans for indoor, if I think I'm in good shape in February then I might attempt a fast 5k but I won't attempt to peak for anything until April. Other than that, low-key races and maybe use a 10-miler in January as a good workout with Feeney.

Back in to hard training

This week was my first week back into serious training. After Rothman, I took about a week off, which was convenient as I got to relax around Thanksgiving and the time off from school. Once I got back to school I jumped in with both feet and started running a lot again. I purposefully didn't slowly ease into running again, because I have never had problems with jumping back in and I would rather get the awful tired feeling of running a lot out of the way sooner rather than later. After about 3 days of consistently bigger miles I was pretty much flat on my back, but today (6 days after I started) I actually felt good on the run. Hopefully I am coming out of the "valley of fatigue" because I want to be able to do well on finals next week!

Once I get acclimated to regular out of season mileage again, hopefully in a week or two, I want to get to doing serious strength work. By that I mean long intervals and tempo runs, similar to what I did this past summer to prepare for Philly RnR Half. Those workouts really made me feel strong and I think they gave me a great foundation on which to do more 5k or 10k specific work later in the winter and spring. In past cycles I have just tried to run a lot of miles, sometimes at the expense of recovery and thus compromising some workouts. This time around I think I'll be able to get fitter by taking my easy days easier, letting me get more out of the hard days. One thing I'll prioritize this year is getting faster; if I want to run 14:10 for 5k I had better be comfortable running 68s for longer repeats. That will probably take a lot of practice to acclimate my body to that.

Rothman and end-of-season thoughts

Early this morning I raced my last race of this cycle, the Rothman 8k. It was a chilly morning with a slight breeze going out along the river and I was hoping to be dragged out to a fast time. I ended up 6th in a 24:20 PR, so it was definitely a successful day. The race was tactical for a road race, with the lead pack, which I was tucked in to, going out in a relatively slow 4:52.

The next two miles were slightly downhill as we went out along the Schuylkill. At three miles we were around 14:25, and the pack was still altogether. I still felt pretty good at this point and thought I was prepared for a surge from the four Africans leading the pack. At the turnaround just after 3 miles, they put the hammer down and left me and another guy in the dust, with a NYAC guy holding on for a little bit. He fell off and the I outran the guy I was with to try and get up to the NYAC guy. I ended up gaining some time on him in the last mile but he had too much of a gap on me and I got 6th by a measly 4 seconds. The top Africans ran away from us in the last 3k, putting 30 seconds on me. 

Now that I'm done my season and made a successful entry into the road racing scene, I'll take a little bit of downtime the week of Thanksgiving and then get back into serious training for the winter months. I haven't decided if I'll race any indoor meets, but if I do I won't try and run really well in them, instead just using them to keep my racing and tactical senses relatively sharp while training through. I'm excited for the training this winter, because this cycle really opened my eyes to what a good, solid strength base can do for my track times. The only thing that I changed from last year to this year was training for the half marathon in the summer, and I ran 40 seconds faster in the 8k this year, so I'm pumped to find out what this will do for my 5k/10k times. 

As far as this season goes, it has definitely been a good one. I PR'd twice in the 8k (last weekend and this weekend), ran a great half marathon debut and won NIRCA Nationals. It doesn't seem like I ran that many races, but I raced 6 times, which is only one less than had I run a regular XC season, and that's with a half marathon in there. I have but one complaint...I didn't have a chance to make NCAA Nationals, and I would've had a great shot this year. So it goes. 

NIRCA Nationals Recap

The team got back late last night from Charlotte so I decided to wait and reflect a little before putting my thoughts in print. Some pros of the race:

1) The obvious pro is that I won the race. It was a relatively easy win, both because I felt great and the competition was not a top-heavy as I thought it might have been. I'm glad I didn't have to put forth a complete effort to win, since I have an even bigger race next weekend that certainly will require a 100% effort.

2) The course and weather were awesome. McAlpine Creek park's XC course is perfect for fast times, as it is basically a cinder trail with a small hill but otherwise totally flat. The weather was also perfect, mid 50s and sunny with no wind.

The start

The finish

3) The organization of the race was top-notch. From the way the course was set up and marked, to the way the start and finish were handled to the way the results/check-in areas were done was all very professional and definitely better than what I expected based on how Regionals was done. I was definitely impressed with that and had a good experience at my only NIRCA race of the year.

Now for the cons:

1) As a team we didn't run quite as well as we were hoping for. We got 4th, after tying with Minnesota and squeaking ahead in the tiebreaker. We thought we would be able to get top 3 but some guys on the team didn't run quite what they wanted, and the whole race was a lot deeper than we expected. 

2) I doubt the course is accurate. The times were all extremely (unbelievably) fast, and there was another starting line set about 200m back from where we started. I'm not sure if that was supposed to be where started, and they just moved us up to fit more people on the start, but I do think the course was short. I don't think this is a big problem, since cross country is all about place and not times, but on a day and course like that it would have been nice to have run a fast time for eight thousand meters.

EDIT: The course director replied to an inquisitory email regarding this course and confirmed my suspicions. She said the course was about 150-200m short, so I will adjust my time by the 35 seconds it took me to cover the real start line to the fake start line at what felt like race pace. 

Like I said up top, I am really happy with the race. It went about as well as possible, except it would have been nice to know it was an 8k and to run a legit 8k PR, but still, the win was the thing I was after. 

Obligatory Pre-NIRCA Nationals Post

Tomorrow morning the club team leaves for Charlotte, dark and early. It's at least a 9 hour drive so we'll have plenty of time to think about the race. As for me, here are my preliminary thoughts:

- I am in it to win it. With that in mind, I'm going to try and run the smartest race. For me, that means a sit-and-kick type of race where I hide in the pack, cover any moves, and kick only when I know I can hold it all the way to the line. The race will probably go out fast since there are so many people (almost 600!) and that means I'll probably have to go out of my comfort zone for the first mile, but that's just how cross country races go. Just one of the reasons I like track more. 

- I would like to run a fast time, but obviously the win is more important. The course is supposed to be super fast, with a packed gravelly surface and very flat, and it's supposed to be good weather so if the competition is fast I will hopefully be pulled to an 8k pr (current PR = 25:00). 

- Speaking of competition: I have no idea what kind of competition will show up on race day, but the current favorite is a guy who's reliable 8k pr is 25:37 on the roads (he has a 24:33 pr from XC but that course is known to be short) and a 15:07 track 5k. Given these credentials, I'm not expecting a huge challenge but I'm definitely not discounting the possibility of other guys like myself coming out of the woodwork.  

All in all I am excited for this race. Training has been going well and I think I'm pretty well tuned to race well over this distance. I do wish I had a better handle on the competition but we'll see how it all shakes out come Saturday at 11 am. 

Racing Season Has Begun!

Today was the first race in a string of races over the next few weekends. The race today was a cross country 5k (or at least a distance close to 5k - it may have been a little long, the jury is still out on that) over rolling hills and soft grass in 15:20. I won by a second and it was definitely a race effort, but in retrospect if I had to go a little harder I probably could have. I didn't feel "bouncy" so I know I still have some room to improve in racing. Since this race kicks off my racing season in earnest I'll start taking the in-between training really easy, backing off both mileage and intensity, so I can give a maximum effort when it counts. This was also my first race in a Delaware Running Company uniform which I will also be donning in Philly in 2 weekends.

Next weekend is the NIRCA national championship in Charlotte. This promises to be a good race up front and I will definitely be trying for the win. Who knows who will come out of the woodwork to try and win the individual race, so it promises to be an exciting time. UD Club team also has a good shot at winning the team race, coming off a good win over UVA at the regional meet last weekend. A pleasant surprise we had this week was that UD is giving us a sweet coach bus down to Charlotte, which is about a million times better than us driving ourselves for 9 hours.

Two weekends from now is the Rothman 8k in Philly, which is my other target race after NIRCA. The course is super fast and a road race, so hopefully the weather cooperates and it isn't painfully cold. If everything lines up it will be a blazing fast race. I'm in the elite field so I hope I can hang on to the leaders and get pulled to a really fast time. Depending on how I feel in the week after that I might either take a break or keep training for another race.

A third race I could do is an early-season indoor 5k at CNU. It'll be 2 weeks after Rothman and in the past has drawn a lot of good guys from places like W&M looking for an early-season qualifier running off of cross country fitness. If that seems like a promising choice then I might do that, otherwise it's curtains for the season and looking forward to being back on the track.

Race Simulation

Tomorrow is the NIRCA regional meet at Belmont Plateau. Tomorrow I am also taking the FE exam all day, which is a really big engineering test that I signed up for before the dates for these meets were released. Due to this unfortunate conflict I thought I should do a race simulation-type workout instead. I settled on doing 5000 meters of sprint 100/float 100 on the track. I had done this workout only once before, during the spring of 2010, and I ran about 15:32 and subsequently ran 14:46 that season so I was excited to see what I could do this time around. When I thought about doing this workout I had 15 flat as a time to shoot for in the back of my mind, but that was only a convenient round number. I really had no idea what I could do but decided to just go out and shoot for a good effort.

I ended up running 14:56, and it was HARD. I was working hard by 3 laps in and 2 miles in I thought that it would be a good workout even if I stopped there. Instead I kept at it and ran consistently (the range of 1600 splits was 3 seconds). I'm really happy about this workout; I was completely by myself without any company even on the track, and tried to keep the efforts honest and only hammer the straights. Hopefully that means I'm in near-PR shape for 5k, since I know I have plenty of strength to carry me the extra 3k, and with the 5k speed endurance I hope to pop a really fast few races coming up.

I decided on this workout because it forms a capstone to the pyramid of training that I've done since June. I ran about 6 weeks of quality strength/threshold work to prepare for my half marathon, then a few weeks of 8k/10k pace work, then a little bit of sharpening/faster than 8k pace work, and finally these last few workouts integrate all of those different energy systems to get the body racing fit. I'm racing 2 big races starting in 2 weekends, so next week I'll do 2 more hard workouts, either at faster than race pace or at goal pace but with little rest, both with the goal of further preparing my body to race as well as possible over 8k. Then it's time to slack off (I believe the technical term is "taper") and race well!

My season so far, and looking ahead

This is an exciting time of the year for me. I have two very important races coming up in 3 and 4 weeks, and possibly another 2 weeks after that. This training cycle has gone better than ever for me, especially regarding the strength I've built up since July. The big change this cycle was motivated by my first-ever half marathon, the Philly RnR Half (formerly Philly Distance Run) that was in mid-September. Normally I would focus my training on 8k/10k pace work starting in September, but this year I started doing long workouts and tempo runs starting in July as preparation for the half and I think that the strength I gained will really pay off for the upcoming 8k races.

First XC race this season (UMES)

The first important race is the NIRCA national meet, or the club XC national championship. It's at Charlotte and should be a pretty good race. I give myself pretty good chances to win, but you never know who might show up. Last year it was won by a Michigan guy by about 20 seconds in a respectable time so hopefully it's a fast race. I also think that we have a great shot to win the team race, which promises to be exciting. 

The weekend after that I'm racing the Rothman 8k in Philadelphia. This is known for being a super-fast course and typically has a pretty strong field. I was fortunate enough to make it into the Elite field on the strength of my half-marathon and 5000m PR's, and looking at results the winning time is always under 24 minutes so I hope to put myself in contention for the top spots there. 

After that I might either call it a season and get to work this winter on a high-mileage and strength workout plan to prepare for the upcoming track season and the challenges of 5k/10k racing, or if I still feel good I may extend my season to an early-season indoor meet at Haverford that usually draws some good college guys looking for an early 5k qualifier. It would be nice to race there but I'm really focusing on the next few weeks so it's not a big deal if I decide not to race. 

Some background info on me (a running resume)

I am a 21 year old college student living in Newark, Delaware. In high school I focused on the 3200m and my eventual PR was 9:19, with a 1600 PR from junior year of 4:26. I grew up in Delaware and liked the school and the coach so it was natural for me to attend the University. 

Freshman year I made the varsity XC squad and ran a 15:03 5000m, but hurt my hip three days before the conference meet and had to call it a season then. In hindsight that probably was for the best, since I was due to run my first 10000m and I was absolutely not prepared for that at all!

Sophomore year I was on varsity in XC and track and got down to 4:01 in the 1500, 14:46 in the 5000 and a 31:25 10000. That 10k was a big eye-opener for me; I just didn't think I would be tired for a week after a track race! I ran another 10k at our conference meet but it was at George Mason in May, so of course the weather was unfavorable and the race was rough. Those races convinced me that I needed more strength and basework. 

Junior year I started training much more seriously than I had been before. In the summer I upped my running to twice a day, every day and was consistently over 110 miles per week, even with the terrible heat and humidity from June through August. I ran well when it counted that fall and scored an All-Region spot in the Mid-Atlantic region as well as an All-East spot at Van Cortlandt. In the winter I set my goal as running well outdoors, but when our team got cut in January I made the difficult decision to try and run well indoors in a Delaware uniform, even if it meant compromising my outdoor season. I made IC4A's indoors and ran a school record at that meet, as well as qualifying for the outdoor IC4A meet. That was great, since getting it out of the way so early took some pressure off! Outdoors I ran 3:57 in the 1500m, helped our 4 x 1500m relay run a school record at Raleigh Relays and then in April and May had a string of some good 5k races with a relatively poor 10k thrown in at Penn Relays. That was quite the experience, since the gun went off at almost 1 am! I ended the season with an 14:22 5000m PR and a 2nd place medal from the conference meet.

During the summer I resumed running over 100 mpw but once I registered for the Philadelphia Rock N' Roll Half Marathon I tried to focus on quality strength workouts in preparation for that race. I ran even better than I thought I could and finished in 1:07:32 and 46th place overall. Only two women beat me!

That's a pretty concise summary of my running career up to this point. I hope I can continue to improve and get on the radar of any potential sponsors out there looking for someone to advertise their products at the front of the field. Look for more updates as the season and training continue!

First Post

Hello World!

I finally caved in and started a blog, with the goal of reaching out to potential sponsors, and fellow runners. I am currently a senior Civil Engineering major at the University of Delaware. I had been a varsity member on the track XC teams for three years, beginning freshman year, until the University in its infinite wisdom surprised the team and the Delaware running community last January by cutting the men's cross country and outdoor track teams (indoor track had already been cut two years prior). Since then I have turned my focus towards high-profile road races and the UDXC/TF club team races. I hope to continue improving and climb through the ranks in the hopes of making a living doing what I love. If you want to contact me, my email is agweaver@udel.edu and I also have a public training log on athleticore.com.