Category: Running

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You Gotta Run Slow

Posted this over at Runner’s World, just for the heck of it…

Bit of background: always wanted to run, usually hated it: lungs, blisters, etc. Finally read No Need for Speed, realized slow running was just fine. Finally found out about non-cotton socks. Finally found a way to run and not hate it. Been at it now 4 years, 3600 lifetime miles, one marathon, dozens of halfs, currently 40 years old, 5’8” 185 lbs, etc. I’m so average, I make vanilla look exotic.

Back when I got started running I aimed for 10-minute miles. Longer runs dipped into the 11:30 per mile range at the end, and I could scorch a 5k at 9:45 per if I didn’t mind resting a few days after. I never really tried to “train” for speed—I was just trying to stay on the road longer, if I could. I remember the first time I ran for 75 continuous minutes. Almost  7 miles! It was glorious. Almost as glorious as the beer I had afterwards. Okay, fine, beers.

Books and magazines recommended so-called “Tempo” runs, but frankly, I was baffled. How do people know what pace they’re running at? Is there really that much difference between 10k pace and half-marathon pace? Can a person really know that they’re running at “10 seconds less than 5k pace.” Ah well. I was just in it for sweat and the excuse to listen to loud music in my iPod. On good days I might have been able to say “I finished that guitar solo one telephone pole earlier than usual, hmm…”

I figured I’d just log a few thousand miles and see what happened. And what happened was that I did get faster, of course. I live in Seattle- it’s hard to not run up hills here. And hills just make you faster. And running longer, naturally, makes you faster. And I started running more consistently, too. Instead of a run starting around 9:30 per mile and ending around 11:30, I was better able to stay within 30 seconds or so of per-mile variance. Not an elite achievement, to be sure, but the mark of a little road experience.

Unfortunately, when I say  got faster, I got only faster. It got to the point where a 5k run or a 10 mile run was at about 8:45 per mile, give or take.  No matter what. (I know this isn’t really “fast.” I ain’t qualifying for Boston at that speed.) I still had no idea how people were able to know the difference between their various tempos.

And I was so in love with running. I wanted to do more than 15 miles per week, but I just couldn’t manage more than three days out of seven. Maybe four every once in a while. More than that and I was getting overuse injuries. It was very frustrating. Yes, I was faster, but I felt like I was back at the drawing board.

So one day, I decided, if I’m back at the beginning, I’ll start over. Why not? Why not run slow, like I used to? Yes, when I started, a 5k was a marathon. So I’d try running at my old pace. I went out and did 5 miles at about 9:45 per mile. It was tough, forcing myself to slow down. Had to put slow songs on my iPod, songs I’d never run to before. I am living proof one can run while listening to Adele. Not ashamed to say it.

And I tried running slow again the next day. And then a third day. No soreness, no fatigue. I decided to take another page from the conventional wisdom, and force myself to rest one day. But after that, I did another three-day mini streak—and two of those days where back-to-back eight milers! I had run six days out of seven, and covered three times as many miles.

So here I am, falling in love with running all over again, and logging more miles, more days. I’ve got way more songs that are run-appropriate now to try out. And since more running means I get to drink more beers, I’m thinking this “run slow” thing is actually a gift from the Heavens. Lotterty, schmottery. I got my miles!

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Couldn’t Disagree More, Runner Ted

Over at Runner’s World Ted Spiker’s written a little ditty about being true to himself, and not letting summer indulgences ruin his goals. Getting in his runs and not letting the weather stop him, not eating too much. Good for him. But I couldn’t disagree more.

Let me quote the lad:

Manage Indulgences: Vacations should be fun and relaxing and, at times, rule-breaking. But you’ve got to get out of your mind the fact that a couple of bites of a coconut-covered something-or-other means you automatically go all in. Bite, enjoy, bite again, step away. Eat right 90-some percent of the time; feel no guilt the rest.

Oh god, no. It’s not that you get to automatically go all in, you get to go all in by virtue of having lungs and a heart i.e by virtue of being alive i.e because you #$%^&* want to. Eat till you pop! That’s what vacations are for!

Rock the Mornings: You have to start every day strong: Get your runs and lifts done early and you won’t feel like ruining it with a frozen drink that has the caloric equivalent of an entire grocery-store aisle.

Won’t feel like ruining it? Ruin a run with a frozen drink, Ted, seriously? Sometimes the only reason I run is for the beer afterwards. Which is why I try to drink them on my non-running days, too, for the sake of consistency. And yes, that means I drink them in the morning. But it’s summertime, which mean the sun is out early, so it’s not like I’m drinking vodka shots in the gloom of a winter morning. Not in the summer, anyway.

Step Back: We know, we know. You stopped weighing yourself this spring when you grew frustrated with a plateau. But you know what? You’re going to step your cheese-loving arse back up on the scale to keep yourself accountable and gauge your progress. Because you have made some, and you’ll tell these good folks about it soon. You are—are!—going to come out of this tempting (yet glorious) seasonal stretch with a smaller number than where you started.

What’s this accountable nonsense? Are you running to lose weight, Ted? You little cheater! Running’s not for losing weight! I’m not saying you gotta gain when you run, I’m just saying: the run should be enough. You know those commercials: What’s your Anti-Drug? For me it’s “What’s your Anti-Diet?” Running! I run so I don’t have to weigh myself.

In Ted’s defense, he does title the blog entry “Letter to My Summer Self.” And I’ll never begrudge a man his inner dialogue to get himself going. Probably, Ted’s better looking than me, faster than me, thinner-even-when-he’s-fat than me. (He’s certainly a better writer than me and more famouser).

But he’s delusional. Eat the coconut thing, Ted. Drink the frozen drink. Smile while you do it, love the calories, and go bust out a fartlek. Not because you have to, but because you can. Attaboy.

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Running Knows

Who knows what it is to be running?
Only he who is running, running, running, knows…
Ru-u-u-u-u-un! Ru-u-u-u-u-un!
Ru-u-u-u–u-u-u-unning knows!
Run running knows! Run running knows!

Iphigenia in Brooklyn, P.D.Q. Bach, S.53162

As soon as I got out of the car and walked in the door this morning, I could smell that unmistakable aroma: ammonia. It meant only one thing, that I was burning protein on my morning (treadmill) run at the gym, instead of glucose. Not necessarily a bad thing, but in an amateur like me, it was probably a sign that I had been running too hard.

What’s too hard? I ran a warm-up mile at 6 mph (10 minutes per mile) then ran a “fast” 5k, the first half at 6.7, the second half at 7.1 mph. Over the last half mile I bumped the speed up to 7.3 and 7.5. The latter’s an eight minute mile pace, which I am capable of doing for about three miles, on a good day. And then a cool-down mile at 6 mph. Overall, didn’t seem too hard.

Heart rate on the warm-up: about 155, easily ten BPM more than it should be for me at the speed, suggesting a bit of dehydration. On the first half of the 5k: 165, also a tad high, but not horribly so. Second half: 175, approaching my theoretical “max,” and understandable at that speed (for me). On the cool down mile: 160, too high, definitely due to dehydration. Note that after the 5k, resetting the treadmill to get on the cool down, my HR dropped to 120, so that last 160 was not merely slow recovery. And after the second cool down, my heart rate dropped below 120 in just a few minutes. My heart’s good an healthy.

Every once in a while, as I ran, I did little cadence checks, and pretty much every time I was hitting between 90 and 94 strides per minute (per foot). That was at all the different speeds, which means at the high speeds, I was taking longer strides. And this is supported by my Nike+ device, which was behind by about 3/10 if a mile—it was counting my usual stride length.

So, I’m concluding that longer strides burned up all my available glucose, and once the fast-twitch fibers where engaged, they remained engaged, eating up protein, as evidenced by my high recovery HR. That’s not the most scientifically rigorous conclusion, but we’ll see if I can apply it to my next run: if I’m going to run long, I need to keep that heart rate from cresting. No long bursts (yes, that’s an oxymoron).

The good news is that at no point where my muscles too tired to sustain the effort, nor was I ever out of breath. My calves and ankles weren’t too happy, but that’s a different issue altogether.