BillstronBlog

This past Sunday (10/5/2008), I ran the Bridge To Bridge 12k race in San Francisco.  I clocked my finishing time at 1:05:18, but my official time is 1:06:10.  Overall, I finished 617 out of 2516.  In my age group (my first year in Male 30-39), I finished 185/433.  My official average pace was 8:53/mi.  You can check out all of the race results here.

I’m really happy about my race.  As you probably know, I’ve been training for speed the last few weeks.  While I’m not by any strech of the imagination, fast, I am faster than before.  I didn’t clock quite as fast a pace as I’d liked, but I believe it’s because my training got thrown all out of wack last week.  I was sick and basically took the week off.  Before the race on Sunday, my previous run was a 10 miler on the previous Sunday.  This is certainly not optimal training.  I’m going to continue my speed training, and hopefully see my pace increase further.  I’d really like to get down to 8min/mi over a 12k distance, but that might be a little too ambitious.

I really love the Bridge to Bridge race.  The organizers bill it as ‘America’s Most Beautiful Run’, and they are probably right.  The race starts at the foot of the bay bridge just in front of the Ferry Building in downtown San Francisco.  It then basically follows the waterfront past the piers to the beach before it doubles back on itself at the foot of the Golden Gate bridge.  The finish line is in Presidio.  This year, in addition to the wonderful scenery,  the weather was perfect too — 65 and sunny.  This is even a good race for beginners because they run a 7k too.

The only downer about this year’s race was that I didn’t have my normal race partner — Scooter.  I’ve run it with him the two previous times, and I definitely missed him this year.  My friend Pete came out, but we split about a mile into the race.  Scooter and I pace each other perfectly.  Plus, he’s almost as big a dork as me, so we have plenty to talk about.  Maybe I’ll try to talk him into coming in next year for the race.

Next year I’m going to do it a little differently, though.  I’m going to run it with Molly.  That should be great fun for Molly and Poppa.

I started back to work a few weeks ago.  Well… work is a bad term for it because it’s not work in the traditional sense.  I do research, and get paid for it.  This isn’t mercenary style research, that is I’m not just doing it for money, but the most of the research will goes into my PhD dissertation.  Therefore, I have a rather large, non-monetary, incentive to work hard.

Three weeks ago, I started back at 10 hours a week.  I can work from home most of the time, so this was really not problem.  Truth is, I really enjoyed this schedule.

Last week was a very trying though.  I moved back to my regular research load (20 hours is all the university will pay graduate students for… something to do with classes taking the other 20 hours… BS, I still need to work about 40 hours to graduate in a reasonable time frame.), and frankly, being a working father is more difficult than I anticipated.  I can do most of it, no problem.  It’s ALL of it that I can’t seem to get done.  This past week, it was exercise that got pushed out, but I really need to exercise.  Running is my therapy, and without it, I’m koo koo.

I’ll get a schedule figured out some how.  This isn’t a novel problem.  Billions of prople around the world figure it out.  I’d love to hear any work/family/self balance tips other parents would like to share.

This time I’ve spent off with Molly and Krista have been the most wonderful couple of months of my life, but my healthy lifestyle really went to hell. Ever since the first pre-term labor episode in May, I’ve been living a slothful lifestyle. I’ve probably only totaled 30 miles of running since then, and I want to be running at least 50 miles a month (more like 75 or 100). After Molly was born, I got really really bad. Since I wasn’t working, I had a kind of vacation mentality which translated into too frequent overeating and evening libations.

The Olympics caused a sea change in my thinking though. Sitting there, on the couch with a beer, watching the best athletes in the world made me see my sloth in full view, and I’ve decided to “turn over a new leaf”, as Jason would say. True to my geek form, I’m going to do it with technology.

Last Wednesday (the 13th), I started running again, with a focus on speed training. I need a goal to my training because I get so bored with the same 3mi lap around Lake Merritt. For further motivation, I’m going to run the Bridge to Bridge 12k race on October 5. I’ve run this race a number of times, but this time I want to run it faster than ever.

So where does technology come it? I’ve been running with a Nike+ iPod Sport kit for nine months and absolutely love it. It comes with a little pod that attaches to my shoe and a dongle that plugs into the bottom of my iPod Nano. The pod transmits information to the dongle that allows for tracking of speed, distance, etc. The best part about the Sport Kit is that the run data is uploaded to Nike’s website where I can view and track my progress.

In order to publicly motivate myself, here is my public Nike+ page (link also in sidebar, at the top under Navigation), and I’ve placed a widget on the sidebar (———>) that displays my last five runs. So if you see that I’m slacking, let me hear about it. Also, if anyone else out there is running with a Sport Kit, send me a challenge.

Coach Andrea and I completed the Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon this past weekend in 4:22:25 as finishers 674 and 675 of 1207 total marathoners.  I was hoping to finish in under 4 hours, but that wasn’t very realistic so I’m really happy with my performance.  The overall winner finished in 2:21:31.  DAMN THAT’S FAST!  Also, my mom walked the Mini-Marathon.  For the full results check the the Marathon Website.

We flew through the first half of the race, and when the mini-racers split from us at mile 11, I felt great.  Andrea, started having trouble at about mile 15, and we separated from each other somewhere around there.  (I’m leaving out some of the boring details about me having to stop to pee.)  I felt pretty good and continued to push myself.  Then at about mile 19 it happened… I hit the wall.

Hitting the wall is difficult to describe.  It happens in a very short time — probably under 5 minutes.  What physically occurs is your body runs out of easily processed energy (glycogen) and start burning the hard stuff (fat).  I don’t know very much else, but I believe that good endurance athletes can make this switch with only a little blip in their performance.  In my case, the blip lasted around 5 miles.  My body hurt all over and my legs felt like jello.  I went from a pretty steady pace around 9 minutes per mile to struggling at an 11-12 minute pace.  Beyond the physical issues, my mental state took an even bigger hit.  I wanted to lay down on the side walk and quit.  This wasn’t just a passing urge either, the idea that I couldn’t finish was my most present thought.

Thankfully, with the completion of mile 24, I got my second wind of sorts.  I didn’t really pick up the pace that much (I must have a little because people stopped passing me quite so easily), but my emotions took a serious bounce.  I knew that I could dust a 2 mile run in my sleep.  So I forged ahead with new life.

A little later, something unexpected happened.  I was about a half mile from the finish line when a too cheerful voice called my name.  It was Coach Andrea about 50 yards behind with a huge smile on her face.  I though, “okay, you have to pick it up or she will blow right by.”  Well, about 30 seconds later she was right next to me.

At that point, I got my third wind, and picked up the pace to what felt like a sprint.  I kept thinking that she wanted to pass me so that she could have the sibling bragging rights, but really, I just wanted to cross the line with her.  (I later found out that she just wanted to cross with me too… or so she says.)  I continued to accelerate with her staying right by my side until the finish line where we crossed  at exactly the same time, down to the second. At this point I was so overcome with emotion about finishing with my sister (and not dieing in the process) that I almost became the mohawked man sobbing on a woman’s shoulder at the finish line.  I staved off my emotions and received a nice kiss through a chain like fence with the Pea Pod.

The other really special thing at the race was that our families came out and cheered us on.  Uncle CT brought cow bells all of the way from Texas for him and the Pea Pod to use.  My in-laws and Andrea’s in-laws cheered us on and some of them had mini cow bells to bang.  Of course we could hear my dad’s distinctive yells of encouragement.  My step sisters in-law made Andrea and I signs, and my sign had a runner with a mohawk.  Very Cool!

This was a really great family weekend.  I had a great time even if I wanted to die for about an hour of it.  I’m really proud of Coach Andrea and Mom too.  Without Andrea’s training advice and encouragement I couldn’t have made it.  Also, great thanks to my family for their enthusiastic support on race day.  I am really luck to have them.

I haven’t fallen off of the marathon training wagon (or is it get on the wagon), but I did briefly fall off of the blogging wagon. I spend a few days away from ever present internets while I was visiting family, and since coming back home, I have just had trouble motivating myself to write about all of those old runs. So, below I will list the runs with the most recent first, and if I want to say something about it I will, if not I won’t.

2/17/2008
Time: 1:50 hr:min
Distance: 11.77mi
Pace: 9:20 min/mi

I’m really proud of this run. I kept a good pace and managed my energy level really well. I ate about 1/3 of a Go-Lean bar at about 1hr into the run, and next time I won’t eat quite as much because it made my stomach hurt. Also, my foot began hurting at about mile 9 and it still hurts today (the day after). I decided to take today off and pray that it feels better tomorrow.

2/16/2008
Time: 35min
Distance: 3.85mi
Pace: 9:06 min/mi

2/14/2008
Time: 30min
Distance: 3.1mi
Pace: 9:44 min/mi

2/13/2008
Time: 40min Speed Work
Distance: 4.45 mi
Pace: 8:59 min/mi

This speed work was interval training — 3 fast minutes followed by 1 slow minute.

2/11/2008
Time: 35min
Distance: 3.61mi
Pace: 9:41min/mi

2/10/2008
Time: 1:35 hr:min
Distance: 10.15mi
Pace: 9:23min/mi

WooHoo! My first time over ten miles!

2/8/2008
Time: 30min
Distance: 3.18mi
Pace: 9:28min/mi

2/7/2008
Time: 35min
Distance: 4.02mi
Pace: 8:42min/mi

2/5/2008
Time: 30min
Distance: 3.47mi
Pace: 8.50min/mi

Coming off of a long run, I was supposed to take it easy, but I ran this one with my brother-in-law. Apparently machismo made us keep up with each other. Resulting in us running faster than either would have run on our own. Everything they say about the male ego is correct.

2/4/2008
Time: 1:20 hr:min
Distance: 8.89mi
Pace: 9.00min/mi

I ran this one on a tread mill, and I am very glad I don’t have to do that very often. The gym was hot and I got really tired of looking out the same window for 80min.

Time: 40min
Distance: 4.27mi
Pace: 9:22 min/mi

I ran a pretty hilly course, and attacked my biggest hill ever toward the end. I swear this was at least a 50% slope, and by the top my legs were burning like I had been doing squats. I really love hills though. I get a really strong feeling of accomplishment after getting to the top.

Time: 30min
Distance: 3.16mi
Pace: 9:31 min/mi

I actually ran this yesterday. I am just a little behind in my posting. Today is a day off, and my calves are very happy about that. They were pretty tight yesterday after Sunday’s long run.

Time: 65min
Distance: 7mi
Pace: 9:18min/mi

It was a great run.

Time: 30min Tempo
Distance: 3.43mi
Pace: 8:44min/mi

My plan was to run 5min slowly, pick up the pace to my lactate-threshold (about 170bpm) for 20min, and finish with 5 slow minutes. All of my planning went out the window when I actually hit the bricks. As soon as I started the fast portion, I checked my pace and I was running around 8min/mi which is considerably faster than my planned upper 8min pace. Regardless, I kept running at that pace for 10min until I checked my pulse. It took a few seconds to get my pulse and when I did, it came out at 130bpm, much slower than the 170bpm needed for lactate-threshold. So I decided to work on moving my feet as quickly as I could for the remainder of the 20min fast run and not worry to much about my pulse. As planned I finished off with 5 slow minutes.

I’m not exactly sure why my pulse measured at 130bpm. I know I was running much faster than normal and breathing much harder as well. So my heart rate must have recovered to 130bpm during the time it took to find my pulse. This definitely makes it difficult to use my pulse as a metric for anything. I’m either going to have to get faster at finding it or find another method altogether.

Other than that hiccup, the tempo run went well. I enjoyed the fast portion as it was a nice break from the usual pace. Also, I recorded my fastest mile yet at 8:08min. Next week, I’ll try the tempo run thing again, but this time I’ll worry less about my pulse rate.

Time: 30min
Distance: 3.20mi
Pace: 9:25min/mi

I just got my run in before the rain started this afternoon. In fact, I was just finishing stretching in front of the house when it started sprinkling. I took it kind of slow today because yesterday was a long run and Wednesday is speed work.

Last night I did a bit of research into what exactly speed work entails. Tempo runs are the most effective speed training for a marathon. A tempo run is a 20minute run at the lactate-threshold. The lactate-threshold is the point where your body can just get rid of the lactic acid being produced by aerobic exercise, and this works out to about 85%-95% of your maximum heart rate. Running Times has a great article on this that I suggest anyone considering doing tempo runs read.

I did some experiments on myself today. My resting heart rate (measured before getting out of bed) is about 55bpm. From this and my age, 85% of my maximum heart rate is 170pbm. During today’s 30min run at 9:25 pace, I measured my heart rate about every 10 minutes and got 120bpm, 126bpm, and 132bpm. From this I’m going to try to run my tempo pace at about 8:50 - 9:00 min/mi. Of course I’ll check my heart rate too to see if this works out correctly. I’ll talk more about this after the tempo run on Wednesday. I hope the weather holds out.