Adrenaline 5k

So I ran my first race since last December this past Saturday. I had heard about this race during the past few years but could never run it due to conflicts with track season. It has good money for a 5k and is always a deep field with a pack around 15:00 so it would be a good test of where I'm at.

Going into this race I had no clue of where I was in my progression of fitness from taking time off in the winter and not training as hard as I have been training during the past few years, due to the working lifestyle. I guessed beforehand 14:50 but that was without knowing anything about the course, the weather, this year's competition or my own fitness.

The race was in Haddonfield, NJ. A nice town, pretty upscale, sort of like driving through Princeton's main street with Westover Hills surrounding it. The race course was a pretty simple lollipop-style out and back starting at the high school. The first mile felt pretty good and comfortable, but I anticipated that it would get a lot harder once we got deep into the race. We went through the mile in about 4:50 with a big pack, and the eventual winner (Phil Celona) surged and got some distance that he kept for the remainder of the race. That surge broke up the race a bit and I stayed in third through two miles (another 4:50) and until about 200 to go. Two Bryn Mawr guys rolled by me in the homestraight and all of us passed the guy who ran second most of the way so I got 4th. First was 14:45, 2nd/3rd were 14:50 so it was not a total blowout.

I don't have the endurance I would ideally have; when I was in good shape last fall I would feel uncomfortable at these paces but be able to kick hard over the last 800 or so. I do not have that right now. However, this race has gotten me to focus even more on running for the next couple months. I am determined to run as well as I can at Broad Street given my constraints. The immediate first step is to start fixing all of these little aches and pains that I've been accruing over the past few weeks with some beginner strengthening routines. Other than that I will continue to work out focusing on the endurance and paces necessary for a good 10 miler.

Back into training after some layout due to thyroid problems

So after a long layoff from posting and a shorter layoff from running, I'm back into both.

I took a month off of running from mid-December through mid-January when it became clear that serious training would be both miserable and yield no good results due to the hormone problems I had going on. At the time I did not know when I would be able to start running again, let alone training seriously, so I wrote off the entire winter and spring racing seasons. In mid-January I realized that I felt antsy and somewhat normal again; as normal as I could expect to feel without running.

I started jogging casually again without any goals sometime in January and once I felt comfortable that I could build up, albeit cautiously, I started logging again. Since then I've gradually increased mileage to the mid-70s and introduced workouts commensurate with my current fitness, being sure to never overdo it and take it easy when I felt like it. I am still not planning to force any gains.

One thing that I have noticed during workouts is that my cardiovascular fitness has remained considerably better than my muscular fitness. By that I mean that my legs get tired relatively easily and my cardio systems are under less stress than my legs. This is good as it keeps me from overtraining, but it has gotten frustrating because it has been so universal.

As far as racing plans go, I've emailed the race director of Broad Street (May 3rd). This is far enough away that I feel confident in my ability to get in pretty good shape, even running once a day as work dictates. I do not have any specific goals for mileage, but I hope to do enough to support workouts that are specific to prepare for Broad Street.

Not my best month: hormone inbalance

So I haven't put anything on here in a while, but it has been an eventful month. I finished off my fall racing cycle with a 5 mile race in West Chester (Brian's Run). First, I'll talk about this race and then I'll talk about the events leading up to my present situation of being unable to do any real training.

Brian's run was another opportunity to race my least favorite distance and make some money. There were two good Kenyans and Griff Graves, fresh off getting 55th (I think) at NCAA XC for Syracuse jumped in. I had not been feeling great and he was running on tired legs, having finished up the NCAA season the weekend before and run the DE XC open at Brandywine the day before. the kenyans broke away early and ran together while Griff and I whined about African dominance for the first two miles. This race was very hilly for a road race, and Griff put me away mid-race on the uphills. I caught him with a strong last mile and ended up being him by a decent amount, getting 3rd overall. After the race I took a week off of running, with plans to take a fairly easy week of getting back into it and then jumping back into serious training.

After taking the week off, I ran about 60 miles and did not feel especially good. I chalked it up to being tired from work, or just wear and tear. However, after having to cut my run short on Sunday (planned 12, struggled through 9), I knew something was not right with my body. I got a blood test done the next day and it showed a high level of thyroid hormone (T4, for those interested). This meant that I was hyperthyroid and my body was effectively overclocked. I got a thyroid scan this week (12/23 - 24) and that showed that my thyroid wasn't taking up any iodine to produce more hormone.

Basically what happened was that some stimulus (likely a virus or bacteria) made my thyroid freak out and dump all of its hormone into my bloodstream relatively quickly. These hormones are responsible for essentially every metabolic function, from body temperature to heart rate to digestive processes. Once the thyroid exhausted its hormone from puking it into my body, it was all dried up, swinging the metaphorical pendulum in the other direction. So I started out with too much hormone, now I have too little, and it will take a couple months for my thyroid to correct itself and return to equilibrium.

Bottom line: there is no cure for this except to wait for my body to figure itself out and get itself back to normal. 2-6 months (broad range, I know) is the typical recovery time, but further complicating that guess is that it's hard to pinpoint when it started. So hopefully I'm all back to normal in two months, but until then I am writing off any hope of racing this winter or spring and am just focusing on getting back to normal health before I start thinking about running goals.

Rothman (and working full time)

So now that I've been working at my new full-time (8-5) job for two weeks and have been training twice a day on top of that, I have a race under my belt and finally got some real feedback from my body and learned how I'm handling it. The answer is apparently not very well. I felt bad in the race and was pretty tired; I didn't sleep exceptionally well going into it but I don't know if it's possible to be well-rested getting up at 5:30 and working all day. 

The race itself was a little rough, as I alluded to. I didn't feel 100% beforehand and warming up but I still thought it would be decent. We went out quite fast, 4:36 at the mile, which put me deep into the red. Compounding the problem was the fact that I was utterly alone after the mile, so I slowed down pretty hard despite my best efforts to hold a good pace. I ended up running 24:13 thinking I was in sub 24 shape. 

In two weeks from today I'll run another 5 miler, Brian's Run up in PA. It has decent money but perhaps better for me is the fact that it's the Sunday after Thanksgiving, which will give me 3 days beforehand of no work and good rest. 

Another change I'm making starting this week to get more rest is running once a day and sleeping in an extra hour or so. Obviously my mileage will drop a bit but since it is the end of this cycle I figure it's a good time to experiment and see how I feel the next two weeks running 80-90 mpw in fewer runs. If it goes well I may continue this schedule indefinitely and see how I can race throughout the next cycle on singles. Since I'll be focusing on 1500-5k distances I shouldn't see performance suffer much if I increase the quality a bit. 

My first real plunge into road racing (September 2013)

This past month I took my first real introduction to serious road racing. I had been training all summer with the goal of running a fast half marathon on September 15 at Philly RnR, but I wanted to do a few prep races to get back into the swing of things and win some money. I was also pretty curious to see how training strictly for the half marathon would benefit my shorter racing.

The races I ran were:
Sept 2 - 5k (14:25, 2nd)
Sept 6 - 5k (14:19, 1st)
Sept 15 - half marathon (1:05:40, 15th)
Sept 28 - 5 mile (24:30, 2nd)

I would definitely characterize 4 races in a month, with one being 13.1 miles, as a dense racing schedule. All were good experiences: I won some money, set PR's every time out, beat some good people, and made some new friends. The half marathon was obviously the highlight, with a time that is only 40 seconds away from qualifying for the Olympic Trials.

This month of racing was a good learning experience. I learned that I definitely can't realistically race every week perpetually. It's pretty tiring and tough to stay in good shape while constantly backing off or recovering from races. Maybe every 2 weeks is a sustainable frequency, at least for races in the 5k-10k range.

Another lesson learned is that I can race extremely well off of half marathon training. I knew this in an academic sense, that half marathon/LT training is very beneficial and probably the best training for getting in overall good distance shape (assuming adequate base) but I was surprised to run 14:19 on the roads with no specific 5k work whatsoever. That's my 3rd fastest 5k ever, counting the ones on the track where I was sucked along in a paceline. I ran 14:19 on the roads leading every step of the way, beating Owen and Kyle Dawson, both of who have no business losing to me.

I'll take an easy week this week and hopefully resume good training again soon, I just need to get some goal races to keep me motivated. Besides Rothman/Philly half, I'm sure there are some other ones in November/December to carry me through to indoor track where I want to race the mile/3k and see what all this good distance work translates to.

Tune up races leading into Philly

Next weekend, 8 days away, is my target race for this season and what I've been focusing my summer training on. A fast, flat half marathon along the river in Philly, hopefully with great weather like it is right now in the area. I've had some great training this summer, and I believe that I'm in my shape ever judging by workouts and races. I've run 3 lower-key tune up/checkpoint 5k races during my build up to Philly:

8/10 Belmar Chase         14:46 5th
9/2 Quarterback Club     14:25 2nd
9/6 Teri's Run                 14:19 1st

With each race, I've gotten faster and more importantly competed better. Prior to this week, I had the fitness I needed to run well over 13.1 miles, and after these races I'm extra confident in that along with my ability to race when it counts. In other words, I've got the physical and mental puzzle pieces in place, and now all that's left is to consolidate fitness over the next week and get a good taper in for the Big Race.

One point that I feel the need to address is that I don't think racing twice two weeks before a big goal race is the ideal way to prepare, I didn't think it would compromise my preparation much at all. The races both had prize money and I ended up winning $450 combined, so it was a good way to get in a good pair of hard speed endurance workouts in the context of a half marathon. I like racing and I like winning, and I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket especially when I don't think it would hurt to race a little bit beforehand.

Another interesting note about the above 5ks is that two were run in summer heat and humidity and one was run in very dry and cool conditions. Most importantly the 14:25 and 14:20 were run in very different weather conditions, which tells me that I am well acclimated and will be able to run well in Philly regardless of the weather. As usual, a cool dry day would be much preferred over a typical late summer haze, but at least it wouldn't be a total wash like if I was not well heat-trained.

As for real time goals for Philly, I can honestly say that I don't know except that I am in measurably better shape than I was when I ran 1:07:32. I have been running much faster on long tempo runs and a few seconds faster for race-pace intervals. I hope that the fitness gains translate into a substantially faster time. I always say never be upset at a PR, and I wouldn't be upset if I ran 1 second faster, but I will say that 1:06:30 is the slowest I can say I will be happy with, based on current fitness and how my training compares with years past.

Belmar Chase 5k and a new training phase

So I raced up in Belmar, NJ this morning at a really nice 5k that I saw online because it had prize money. I didn't really expect to win any since it had some very good runners last year, and this year was even better. I raced it mainly because I wanted a checkpoint in training to see where I'm at. I ran 14:46, which considering everything like the weather, travel, and lack of a real taper for this race is encouraging.

This race is conveniently about 5 weeks before my big goal race of the Philly RNR half, which is what I'm focusing training on. That gives me 4 weeks of hard training and a week-long taper. Since I started training seriously, I've done pretty much entirely what I would term base work. That is, no workouts have been strictly timed and everything has been done by effort. Now is the time when I will start incorporating race-specific work, in this case workouts geared towards running my goal pace for 13.1 miles. I want to be able to run 5:05 pace on September 15, and I hope that with the base of mileage and hard efforts I've put in over the past 2 months I'll be able to do some key workouts to indicate that sort of fitness. I want to mimic race conditions as closely as possible, so I'll try and go in the morning (the race goes off at 8:00), wear the flats that I'll race in, and run the workouts on pavement, typically on the bike path in Newark. These workouts include:

Mile repeats: 6-8 a little faster than goal pace (4:55-5:00). To work on running at or just below race pace for a long cumulative distance.

Two-mile repeats: 4-5 at goal pace (10:10). To work on grooving in to race pace over a lot of miles when tired and instilling that pace judgement.

Tempo + reps: longer tempo run at a comfortably hard pace + a few longer repeats just below goal pace (ex: 8 mile tempo in 44:00, jog to track, 4 x 800 @ 2:25-2:30 w/ 4:00 jog). Another approach to working on getting better at running fast when tired.

Double Fischigan: At UD we would do a modified version of the classic Michigan workout that Chris Lear described in his book "Sub 4." This is the workout I would do on a track, because it involves repeats of 400, 800, 1200 and 1600. Conveniently for me, if not the team and general public, UD's track is currently unsurfaced (asphalt). The Fischigan is a descending ladder, but the recovery between all the hard segments is a steady mile and thus does not allow for true recovery. It is a simple workout: 4 laps hard (4 laps steady), 3 laps hard, 2 laps hard, 1 lap hard. The entire workout is 5.5 miles, so I'll do two back to back and get 11 miles. I plan to run the hards just under race pace, 4:50-5:00 and the steadys will be whatever is sustainable, hopefully significantly south of 6:00 pace.

These workouts are just some of the key specific ones that I plan to do over the next few weeks. Coupled with the 100-110 miles per week and another solid workout every week I hope to be in shape to run 5:05s in 5 weeks. I also just heard today that I've been accepted into the elite field for this race. Great news, since it means I don't have to pay the sizeable entry and I'm sure I get some sort of perks at the event.