Planning for November

One of the things I never get used to about marathons is the need to plan. I'm not a planner by nature. That's probably why my training tends to be unfocused. While I enjoy the competitive side of running, I most like that it doesn't need to be overthought: you put on shoes and get after it.

But maybe that's not really the case. I know to perform well requires not only running hard and lots, but doing quality runs. A big part of that is figuring out races. The past few years, I haven't been great about races. I only did a handful last year and a few the previous year. In fact, I ran a 3:01 without doing any races in the entire year leading up to the marathon. That's probably not the best approach.

After skipping the New York Half Marathon this weekend, I started thinking about my strategy leading up to the marathon. I went to the NYRR to register for some races and long-training runs, which aren't actually races of course. Here's what I'm looking at:

Aug. 2: Long-Training Run: 20 miles at 8:00/mile pace

Aug. 16: Team Championships: 5 miles. I want to see what kind of speed I have, as well as represent Downtown New York.

Aug. 31: Cross-Country Classic: 4 miles. Another speed test. I'm also interested in trying the Van Cortland trails. Not positive I'm doing this one. The 5-miler might be enough.

Sept. 13/14: Long-Training Run: 20 miles or Queens Half Marathon. I'm debating which is better for my training -- 20 LSD or 13.1 hard.

Sept. 28: Marathon Tune-Up: 18 miles. This race should tell me exactly how close I am to 2:59. Maybe it's better to skip Queens -- the bus leaves at 5am -- and concentrate on building up to this as a test.

Oct. 11: Harry Murphy 5k. This is in Van Cortland, a good chance to get out on the trails.

What's missing? A half marathon several weeks before Philly on Nov. 23. I'll have to travel somewhere to get one in.

7 miles, 54 minutes (20 minutes tempo)

The Week's Miles

I'm going to start to post my weekly running log. I keep it through an application on Facebook called Runlogger. It's OK, but not great. The app doesn't convert minutes into hours and sometimes it posts the wrong date. There are also very few trending features.

All in all, it was a good week. I only ran five times, rather than six, mostly because I needed to hoof it out to Westchester to speak on a panel very early on Thursday. This week saw the introduction of some speedwork into my routine. I also lengthened my regular non-speed runs to 7 miles. Maybe I'll change my approach once the Pfitzinger book arrives. Yesterday's long run was a little rough. I felt bad most of it on account of the heat and humidity. About 10 miles were on the Central Park road, which beat me up quite a bit. When a run is rough, I fall asleep later. I'm not much into naps normally. Yesterday, I fell asleep for three hours. It was rough.

Mileage: 41.75

Figuring Out Pace

The biggest challenge for runners is pace, keeping a consistent one and finding the right one for training. Lately, I've done some wondering if my training pace is off. The problem is I'm too consistent: I've fallen into a habit of training at a pace not that different from my marathon pace. Now, I rarely run a 20-mile run at 7:00 pace. Typically, I run my long runs at 7:20. I'm wondering if that is too fast. At the suggestion of Barney, my friend who incredibly ran a 2:35 marathon, I ordered a copy of Pete Pfitzinger's Advanced Marathoning. (When someone who runs that fast recommends a program, I listen.) My plan is to follow his recipe, which seems premised on the twin pillars of tempo runs and long runs. Tempo runs build a runner's lactate threshold. That helps because lactate is what makes muscles tire during races. The way it looks, I need to start doing tempo runs once or twice a week. My question, naturally, comes back to pace. How fast should a tempo run be for a runner looking to do a 2:59 marathon? I don't have the book yet, but Pfitzinger's Web site talks about 15k or 20k pace. My guess: 6:30. Ouch.

Then there's the long run. I go back and forth about how easy to run these. I try to relax throughout the run, but they typically wind up around 7:20. Reading the site, I'm doing the long runs too fast, since they should be 10-20 percent slower than marathon pace. At 10 percent, that's 7:30; 20 percent is 8:07. A prudent pace seems about 7:40-7:45. Today, I went out for my first "real" long run of training. I did 17 miles. Since my watch is in Avalon, I don't know what the pace was. I definitely did the first five miles too fast, then made sure to ease off for the last 12. Overall, the run hurt a lot, partly because I began still tired from what turned out to be a fairly hard 7 miles Friday morning. By the last couple miles, when the temperature reached the mid-80s, I officially felt like dog balls.

I turned down a shot at a number in tomorrow's New York City Half Marathon. I'm not sure why. There was just the feeling that I'm not ready to perform at that distance right now. I'd probably do it in 1:28 or 1:27. I need to get down to 1:22 or 1:23 for the half. Much work remains.

17 miles, 2:07 (guesstimate)

My Fartlek

Thanks to the encouragement of a couple commenters, Anonymous and Kupka, I'm dedicating myself to speed work. In the eight years I've trained for marathons, I rarely have done any speed training. One summer when I ran with a New York Road Runners Club class, we did speed workouts. But it only lasted a six weeks, then I went back to just running. This has worked just fine for me, but it's clear I've plateaued. Most of my runs, and even my marathons, are at about the same pace, from 7:00-7:15. Anonymous, a 3-hour marathoner, assures me I'm running too fast. I particularly appreciated the simple advice of Kupka: longer on the slow runs, faster on the short runs. Tonight, I tried a hard run.

The best thing would be to finally join a running group to have structured speedwork. But I figured I'd get started on my own with a fartlek run of about five miles. Fartlek is Swedish for "speed play," and it's a way to shove a speed workout into a normal run. Basically, you just choose arbitrary distances -- like a tree 1,000 feet ahead -- to pick up the speed. Tonight, I tried it out at the Bridle Path. I ran over at an easy pace, probably about 8:00 per mile. I did this for nearly one mile. Then I picked it up. My watch is still in Avalon, but my guess is I was running about 6:00 per mile. Hard. I lasted for only 3/4 a mile. From there, things kinda went downhill. I did another five pickups of various distances. I felt like crap, eerily like my first runs ever when I was totally out of shape.

Tonight was hot and humid, but it's mostly a case of my body not being used to me demanding it work hard. That's good. The fartlek is good because it's interesting, and I can still do the workouts on soft surfaces. I figure I'll mix in some hill workouts on the Great Hill and even a trip to the 1/4 mile gravel track in the north end of the park.

5 miles, maybe 35 total

Modern-Day Marathoner

TunaTacoGrande helped make me the face of the modern-day marathoner.

7 miles, 53:00

Getting Serious

It's been awhile since posts, and one at 11pm isn't auspicious. Truth is, I've been busy and, naturally, lazy. The biggest change on the running front is I'm serious again. I went to Vegas, then tried my best to play the Euro playboy in France. I still ran. That's what I find crazy and awesome about running: Even when I was completely tired and hungover, I ate up miles in France. Tonight, a new runner (thanks @decourcy) reminded me of the running mantra: I've never felt worse after a run than before. That's what makes running second nature, like brushing my teeth.

I'm not into just feeling better. It's time to figure out how I run 2:59. I've thought about it a lot. I ran a 3:01 2.5 years ago. It was a crazy day. I hadn't done a race in over a year. My inclination was I was in good shape; I ran a 20-mile training run at 7-minute pace. No regrets, but I screwed up the pacing. I had the race but pretty much pissed it away because I was timid. My mom noticed at the end that I didn't look as horrible as previous marathons. She knew. I hope not to let that happen again.

My goal: 2:59 at the Philly Marathon in November. I need to train an insane amount. I'm OK with that. Right now, a good 18 weeks out, I'm doing 35 miles a week and 5-6 miles daily. I'll start to up the long run and hopefully add some speed work. I loved a recent story in the NYT by Michael Barry about what it takes to ride the Tour. His point is quite clear: it hurts.

The key to training well for the Tour de France is not only to train hard enough that the body is fit, but more important, to train it to recover from near daily racing and not collapse from exhaustion before the three-week race is over. If a cyclist is overtrained, his fitness will fade. But if he is not fit enough, he will be unable to tolerate the speeds in the first week of racing and will head home early.

5.1 miles, 36:30

Heat Acclimation

One of the worst parts of being a runner in the Northeast is the summer. It gets hot and humid. The heat is one thing, but the humidity is killer. I'm particularly susceptible to heat and humidity. For whatever reason, my body gets warm easily. My sweat rate is off the charts. Staying hydrated is such a challenge that twice I've ended races hospitalized with severe dehydration. But like anything, the heat is manageable. The key is acclimation. My guess is it takes two weeks of tough, pretty unfun runs to get the body used to running in soup. No matter what, you can't run as fast in hot, sticky weather, but it's helps not to feel like death is imminent. Tonight, I felt acclimated. I sweat a lot, which tells me that my body is responding to the need for severe cooling, and I felt find the whole way. The forecast calls for two days with highs of 90 and humidity. Let's see how I feel doing a long run in this stuff.

5.75 miles, 39: 50

Why to Run

When people find out I run a lot, they often ask why. I don't know the answer to give them. One of the big reasons I like it is that it's very divorced from modern life. We don't really need to exert ourselves much anymore. For all our complaints, life is pretty easy. The other week, the New Yorker published a great essay from the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami about his running. He runs every day without fail. The story is an interesting attempt to pinpoint how running is a central part of his quest to simplify his existence. He fell into it, a chance encounter after many years of late nights as a jazz club owner. I think lots of people who run have these chance encounters. I know I did, when for reasons unclear in retrospect, I decided one day to run around a small park in Washington DC in 1998. Haruki says this about it:

If someone has an interest in long-distance running, he'll start running on his own. If he's not interested, no amount of persuasion will make any difference. Marathon running is not a sport for everyone, just as being a novelist isn't a job for everyone. Nobody ever recommended or suggested that I become a novelist -- in fact, some tried to stop me. I simply had the idea to be one, and that's what I did. Poeple become runners because they're meant to.

Morning Runs

This morning, I got up early (for me) to run five miles. Runners are either early runners or not. Several years ago, when I first started working in New York, I started running in Riverside Park in the morning. My first year was in graduate school, so my schedule was, um, flexible. But with work, I didn't have that flexibility. I went for the pre-work run, because I don't think at the time I knew it was fine to run at night in Riverside. It didn't last long. Running first thing in the morning is hard. My body still wants to be in bed, my muscles are tight, and I'm hungry. I soon switched to night running, though I ran my best marathons very early in the morning. All that said, I admire morning runners. There's something admirable about getting up close to dawn for a workout. The last couple of weeks, mostly because of a hellish work schedule with lots of events in the evenings, I've run mornings. It's cooler then, and I find my diet is better because I'm just eating breakfast afterwards. My goal is to continue this through the summer, though my big test will be traveling to Cannes next week. There will be so many late nights and work to do, I'll be happy if I run three times the entire week. What I wonder is whether someone is a morning runner or not. It might just be that some people are morning people and others aren't. I used to wish there was a marathon that began in the late afternoon or early evening, because I'm big believer that the body is most primed for maximum effort then.

5.2 miles, 35:40

Running Comrades

In a week, over 11,000 people will line up in Durban, South Africa, at the crack of dawn to do something extraordinary: run 55 miles to Pietermaritzburg. The course wends through the Transvaal, covering the Big Five hills: Cowies, Botha's, Fields, Ichanga and the Polly Shortts. The race is renowned for the spirit of helping each other, sometimes runners literally carrying others to the finish.

Ever since I first heard of Comrades about five years ago, it's become a near obsession. Part of it is because the race is held in Africa. Part of it is the challenge seems almost unreal to me, just as the marathon itself was not something I thought I'd do. Running requires taking the long view, and I've tried to do that with my training. A couple years ago, I ran two 50k races. I found I could go beyond the marathon just so long as I reined myself in a bit. Right now, I'm focused on running a sub 3-hour marathon, but my ultimate running goal is Comrades. I know I'll do it eventually, maybe as soon as next year.

Hot Running

There is no beating the heat, particularly when it comes to running. Summers are great for the long days and slower pace, but the high temperatures and humidity make them not so ideal for running. A couple weeks of warm-weather running, though, gets the body acclimated. But acclimation is the hard part.

I have a particular aversion to heat. Twice I've ended up in the hospital with pretty severe dehydration during long runs, including the horrific Delaware experience where I was dragged across the finish line. I really don't deal well with heat.

I ran five miles at about 7:15 pace. Ideally, I'd do a long run this weekend, but it's not important enough to go through that kind of suffering. It wasn't pretty, and I'm still sweating an hour and a half and a shower later. The only way to deal with the heat is adjust the pace, drink tons and eat some salty food to retain water better.

5 miles, 36:13

Long Runs + Calibration

Friday marked 26 days since the marathon. The rule of thumb is one day of recovery per mile of the race. I've felt fine for some time now, but I'm cautious after races because it's really easy to get hurt. Last week, I ran over 30 miles, and I'll probably do another 35 this week. Today I returned to the long run, albeit at a level that I wouldn't consider long during training: 10 miles.

The interesting thing is I might have figured out the Nike SportBand. After I posted about how disappointed I was with the accuracy of the SportBand, the director of Nike's Run NYC replied to the post. That's awesome. He suggested I need to calibrate it because -- and this is the part I really liked -- I run at a faster pace than it's optimized for. I went for a five-mile run yesterday, including the four-mile Central Park loop for calibration. The SportBand was off .3 mile again, and it was pretty easy to adjust the calibration once I found the option. (It's hidden after you hit a little "i" button in the corner of the uploading window. Today's run came up at 10.33 miles and 1:15 for a 7:15 pace. That's more like what I run. What's great about it, for me, is that Nike reached out to me directly. I'm not sure how Ple1 found my blog, but he seems to have helped solve my problem. Nice job by Nike.