This is from a newsletter my health insurance company put out promoting personal fitness:
Who the heck is getting fit here?!
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My readers spoke on my weekend training plan. And there was no clear winner. The comments were equally split between ‘stick to the plan’ and ‘taper you fool!’ So I decided I’d stick to the plan unless something came up during the runs. Kathy and I headed down to Forest Park Saturday. I don’t speak of Kathy’s training much, but she is running the half at Little Rock in two weeks. Her plan was for a gentle 10 miles, while I was going to throw down for two hours. We always run in opposite directions around the park, so we can keep tabs on each other. She decided to run the clockwise circuit, leaving me the psychologically damaging counter clockwise direction. What is interesting, is that she thinks the clockwise direction is more difficult. So why we both ran our most difficult directions is beyond me – insanity again! I met her after I had run about 3 miles and she seemed to be going OK. But, I met her again after a bit over six miles and she told me one lap was going to do it for her. Since I didn’t want her to have to wait in the car for an hour while I ran my second hour (and because I’m generally looking for any valid reason to cut a run short), I bagged it also. I did 6.68 miles in one hour and she ran the circuit (5.6 miles) in the same length of time. So I justified my abbreviated Saturday run by planning a 2-3 hour run on Sunday. Sunday dawned rainy, rainy, rainy. The temps were OK, but I just couldn’t haul myself out there in the rain. So instead I sat on the couch, ate mac and cheese and ice cream, and watched the Olympics. And napped. And didn’t run a lick. So its official – the taper started two days early! I will never, I mean NEVER, be confused with a runner who over trains. Starting the taper is OK though. After putting my lazyness on Facebook for all to see, my Comrades buddy Bart Yasso commented on my status, “I’ll see you in Little Rock. Two weeks out is a good time to be lazy.” That’s good enough for me! Another self centered training post. Sorry about that. While driving home from work today, my car informed me that it was 43 degrees outside. And it was still light outside when I got home. Holy smokes – spring is in the air! I decided the five mile tempo run was going to take place in the great outdoors. The headlamp was still needed – my five miles of tempo with warm up and cool down was going to take me into the night, but no seriously cold weather gear. Just tights, two thin tops, a light sock cap, and a pair of gloves would serve me well. My route was the standard subdivision loop. I haven’t run that for a tempo in a long time, so it would serve as a good check as to my fitness level. Literally, six feet into my warm up mile, Garmin decided to give me the old ‘low battery’ warning. Crap! I forgot to charge this power hungry little bastard. Oh well – nothing to do now but run as far as possible before it croaks. I was able to get thru the warm up mile and exactly four miles of the five mile tempo. I went ahead and ran the fifth mile unfettered by the pressure of being timed. But I know I ran at least as fast as my slowest mile during the timed portion. Extrapolating that last mile, my average for the five miles was 7:19 with an average heart rate of 174. My last tempo around the subdivsion was 7:22 with a heart rate of 175. Marginal improvement – I actually thought I was better then that. But I’ll take it! Take a gander at that widget to the right. Comrades is 100 days away! Team Flash is having a minor crisis – Jason is suffering from runner’s knee. He’s taken three weeks off and has just start running lightly again. So far so good and he has plenty of time to get ready. But we need the running gods to send a little health his way. My training is going pretty well. I’m getting in 80% of my workouts and am relatively pain free. The taper for Little Rock starts Monday! Man, its been a week since I posted. My quality of posts was always fairly poor, but now my quantity is suffering. That is not good people. During the week last week I got all my training in, but I suffered while doing it. My workouts were: Hill Repeats – treadmill, recovery run – treadmill, tempo run – treadmill. 22.18 miles in total on the infernal contraption. So I was really looking forward to my long run. My plan was for a four hour journey over the hills and dales of Forest Park. Saturday morning dawned dreary and cool and I headed down to the park. My sustenance consisted of two Gatorades, a black cherry Shot Blok, an orange Gu, a bag of orange Jelly Belly sport beans, and four fun sized Hershey chocolate bars. I left this food bonanza (except for one Gatorade which came with me) in the car trunk and started off around the Forest Park perimeter. First six miles, 8:54 pace. I ate a couple of the fun sized chocolate bars. Second six miles, 9:08 pace and the shot blok hit the dirt. At this point I’m feeling great and I’m on track for a PR marathon (not that it would count on a training run). The third six miles were more difficult, completing them at a 9:49 pace. My goal was to run to heart rate, and while the heart rate was steady, the pace was not. Fatigue setting in. Right about the end of mile 18, the left leg started paining me a bit. I had started my fourth lap around the park, but decided that continuing to run would only exacerbate the pain for no real reason. So I turned around and headed back the way I came. I got to the car at 20 miles and called it a day. A bag of jelly beans and a fun sized candy bar survived to feed me another day. 3 hours, six minutes, 53 seconds on the trail and I kept the heart rate in line – average for the day was 154 beats per minute. My ankle tendon was a bit sore on Sunday, but seems to be completely recovered today. So I guess these long runs are just working on strengthening the connective tissue, which obviously is the point. So, I’m asking the blog-o-sphere to dictate my training plan for next weekend. I have the Little Rock marathon in three weeks. Remember that Little Rock is my Comrades qualifier. It will be the last all out race I run before the end of May so I want to be in peak condition for it. I was planning a 2 hour Saturday/three hour Sunday next weekend but I’m mulling over other options: 1) Go for another shot at a four hour long run and take the other day off. Let me know what you think. I’ll let my readers decide my training fate! I didn’t do my super secret run as I teased a couple days ago. The conditions weren’t right. Too much moisture so parts of my planned course would be a quagmire. So you’ll have to continue to wait to hear about this highly anticipated run. So I did a ‘routine’ 3.5 hour training run on Sunday. This was my longest training run ever in both time and distance (21.79 miles). My only longer runs have been in marathons. I spent the hours mostly down in the Chesterfield Valley – running from my doorstep to Spirit Airport and then running the full length down and back of the North side Chesterfield Levee before returning home. Thankfully, nearly the entire run was on the flats which my legs greatly appreciated. I’m a bit sore today after the 31+ mile weekend. But my biggest hurt is my belly. Kathy forced me to do the P90X Ab Ripper workout. My day off today is welcome! I don’t mind the running, but the time commitment is a little insane. That’s a good chunk of valuable discretionary time. What’s more, my longest training runs (starting next Sunday) will be four hours. There will be several weekends over the next three months with a total of six hours running time. Kathy will become a running widow. One of the reasons I quit my vintage base ball team was the time commitment and here I am doing it again. I’m not a good learner… After Comrades, I’m going back to short runs. All summer I’ll be staying short – no more then six or eight miles for my long runs. I’ll do the speed work and tempo necessary for 5K and 10K runs, but the next marathon will have to wait until late fall. The 2009-2010 Frostbite Series is over. I finished 8th in my age group in the 15K yesterday, officially clocking 70:52 (PR since I’ve never ran the distance before). I finished 76th out of the dudes and was chicked by 16 ladies, including two who are older then me. That’s a chicking+geezering! Let’s recap shall we – the items I needed to have happen to place 7th for the series: 1) Jonathan Visky must not show up. Jonathan DID show up and finished 2nd in our division. Congrats to him, but I didn’t pass him in the standings. Oh yeah – Neil Berry did show up so he held me off in the series standings. He finished well down in the race, only pointed the five points for showing up, but that gave him 75 and I’m at 70. One other runner ahead of me in the series had only run in one race, so he was going to fall off the list regardless. So, my passing of John and holding off everyone behind me, puts me into 8th place! So, unofficially (I’m sure certification will follow shortly), I’m the 8th greatest male endurance runner aged 40-44 in the St. Louis area. I await your congratulations! Tomorrow is the big day! The St. Louis Track Club is hosting a 15K, the last race of the Frostbite Series. I’m currently in 10th place in the series standings for my division. This is a three spot improvement from my standing due to my heroic performance in the half marathon two weeks ago. I’ve crunched the numbers and I’ve calculated the best overall finishing place I can possibly achieve would be seventh. There are several things that have to happen for me to end up with this lofty placing. 1) Jonathan Visky must not show up. A runner must appear in at least three races in the series to qualify for the age group awards. He’s finished second in our division in the two races he’s been in (thereby scoring more points then I will score in my four races), but if he somehow misses tomorrow’s run, he doesn’t qualify. Jonathan – you’ve got nothing to prove. Stay home! There is a ghost of a chance I could finish as high as sixth – I’d need to finish fifth in the age group, grabbing 30 points and Neil Berry would have to not show up. So, against my better judgment and breaking the promise I made to all you readers (and myself), I am going to run tomorrow’s race full out. Or at least almost full out. My plan is to clock each mile below 8:00 during the run. I can’t run the race tactically, because I don’t know or recognize any of my competitors. So I just need to turn in a good time and let nature take its course. One more thing to root for is horrible weather – that could help Jonathan and Neil decide not to show up. Today we are getting lots of slushy snow so if this mess continues it could keep the field down. On Sunday, I’ve got a special run planned. I don’t want to give it away at the moment because bad weather could cause me to skip it, but if nature allows, I’ll do it. And share on Monday of course…
Metro is the elder statesman of our animal menagerie. He has been a member of the family for a long time – almost as long as we’ve been a family! He turned 18 in December and is definitely showing signs of getting old. He has lost some weight over the last year or so, but he’s an old man so that’s to be expected. I brought him to the vet this weekend. It has been a few years since his last visit and since he was getting old (and having some trouble eating) we thought a visit was due. He is extremely friendly (a purring lap cat) to Kathy and I, and will put up with others who he can sense are cat lovers. But the vet has always been an issue. Metro does NOT like the vet. In fact, vets tend to be quite scared of him which always seems a little crazy. I mean, don’t we have any James Herriot‘s around anymore? You can’t defend yourself against a little 8 pound fuzz ball? So, for the vet to take blood, they insisted on gassing him. They don’t subject him to a lot of gas, just enough to immobilize him. So they do their thing and knock him out. When the vet brings him back after taking his blood, he can’t move because of the gas, but he is just growling. A continuous low angry growl. Totally a riot! He must have thought that was his only defense. When he comes out of the anesthetic and we get him to the car he stops growling and goes back to being the friendly cat he is. On Monday, the vet calls and tells me that he has kidney disease. Nothing immediately devastating, but not exactly great news. They’ve prescribed a new diet and a renal pill. Metro loves the new food – he tucks into it with a vengeance! Plus he eats the pill, saving me the requirement of force feeding him. When his time comes, it will be a sad day for us obviously. I’ve never had a pet for so long and he’s been a great cat. Hopefully the new diet will keep him happy for a nice long time. I have no real purpose or message behind this story – I’m just sharing. I thought this might be more interesting then my hill repeat workout yesterday. I had a nice 9.5 mile run that included 10 climbs up Mt. Flash at decent pace. But I have no data to share because Garmin choked while downloading and lost the run. Stupid GPS watch… I’m interrupting this running blog to discuss my ‘culturing up’ I received on Friday night. My lovely wife Kathy celebrated her birthday early in the week so we made plans to go out on Friday night to dine and to attend the St. Louis Symphony. As an aside, her birthday is a big yearly milestone for me because she becomes the same age as me. In August, I get older again, but for the next few months we are chronological equals. Anyway, I made reservations at The Melting Pot, voted St. Louis’ most romantic restaurant in 2003! I’m not sure what has happened since then, but they are still celebrating that vote as evidenced by the plaque in the waiting area. As you might expect from the restaurant name, they are a fondue restaurant. They seated us in a secluded little alcove (this must be part of that romance thing) and gave Kathy a red rose for her birthday, claiming the rose was from me! That was a nice touch on their part. But, I feel nothing says romance like many sharp sticks and extraordinarily hot liquids. You better get along pretty well before going in, because the risk of bodily injury is potentially high. We had a very tasty meal: a cheese fondue with assorted dippers, a salad course, and then the entrée – raw meats and veggies to be cooked in steaming hot liquid. The meal must have measured out at around 2000 calories. And that was skipping the dessert! One more wonderful thing about the place. The four course meal is one price, but they allow diners to take a rain check on the dessert. Now we can go back anytime and enjoy our bits of yummy treat dipped in blazing hot chocolate. That and drinks will probably easily fuel me up for a future ten mile run. I avoided both burns and punctures so the meal has to be considered a success. Then, off to Powell Symphony Hall. Our plan was to listen to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra play some oldies but goodies. They had Mr. Beethoven on the program. The first piece was the Leonore Overture #3, a little piece that the symphony busted out. It was exceedingly well done – very easy on the ears. The second piece was Violin Concerto in D Major, featuring guest violinist Christian Tetzlaff. Christian rocked (or classicaled) the piece and the timpanist was stellar, but some of the other symphony players were kind of stiff. Beethoven was an angry composer at times, and some of this concerto came off like that. The third piece was the classic, Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. You know, Da, Da, Da, Dum; Da, Da, Da, Dum! The symphony rose up and PERFORMED! This is such a classic piece that got the players fired up. While I’ll never be a classical music fanatic, getting a little exposure occasionally is good for the soul. Plus, whenever I hear Beethoven, I’m reminded of this: |
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