Return to Running

Seems like ages since the last time I ran the half marathon. Since that day many things have happened. My parents had their first USA visit the following week and spent some wonderful 6-months with them. During that duration of course my running suffered, I went down from running 20+ miles per week to hardly 20 miles a month and stopped all forms in August. A bit unavoidable actually, can be attributed to helping my wife Ingrid move to San Diego from texas, and then mid of august we started a 2 1/2 month US road trip. Every possible weekend was spent on the road and weekdays were spent shopping and socializing. I really enjoyed that time. The net result of all that fun, I went up from a reasonable 179lbs to a well fed 189lbs today. Dusting off some rust, I started hitting the gym last week and that paid off, because I did my first near 4 miler in ages and I feel great. What a nice beautiful day, 65F sunny no wind, a perfect day as one can ever hope for. I must say hitting the stair climber in the gym for 20 mins hits the spot, its a killer workout at level 10 out of 20, and doing 20 mins is a challenge. That stair master workout paid off today, no pain after the run, no sores and actually felt good. I think hitting the stairs couple of times a week is now a must in my routine. I will spend the next couple of weeks just doing timed runs, hitting the road for 40 mins on sunny days, and on rainy cold days hitting the gym 20 mins treadmill, 20 mins stair master. No distance or speed goal. I will probably try to hit one weekend for a 60 min run, but lets say just maybe, I need to start getting to enjoi the run and so long runs can probably wait till mid of december. I also want to check out races in dec and jan, I think its time to hit a 10k and plan for a 13 miler half marathon for spring.

La Jolla Half Marathon

So after much thought I decided to run after all the La Jolla half. I had not had much chance since El Paso half to train and got very few runs 6 weeks leading into this race. Probably did only one week of long run and some short runs. I felt a bit tentative since I had run only once, 3mi, in two weeks leading into the race. To top it off I had not even hit the gym. This was due to uber busy work schedule and super tight deadline so I dont feel that bad, but I need to figure out some way to get some workout done some how.

This was probably the hardest run I had done, the route had three hills and rolling hills in addition. The tricky part was a one mile 3% gradient uphill from mile 12 to 13. I had been preparing to run the torrey pine 1.5 mi stretch so no surprises there.

The day started at 4am with some clubbing done previous night and 4 hrs of sleep. After grabbing a couple slices of bread and oatmeal off I was to race finish for bus pick up at 530am. We were driven to del mar fairgrounds at 645am and the race was scheduled to run at 730 for fast runners and 740 for slower (>8min/mi). There were thousands gathered to run, some 7000 odd, and the temperature was perfect at 60F.
I had on me a couple of GUI shots my ipod, glasses, cap and left my phone and keys at the bag checkin. The fast runners started at 730 and I took a bathroom break before the run, also popped in a cpl of lomotits :) . I started at the very end at 740am.

I made good time running at 8:30 min/mi for two miles. Then came the first ascent uphill at 3% for 1.5 miles. At mile 5 we were at the base of the torrey pine hills and I was doing 9 min/mi till then. I took 10 mins to run 3/4 mi of 7% gradient and was at the end of the hill at 9:30 min/mi. I felt good and did some strong runs to burn off lactic acid build up and was on familiar roads of torrey pines road with its rolling hills. At this point around one hour and 6miles in I had my first guy shot. I was hurting a bit so I took a few 30sec walking breaks till we turned near UCSD and made our way to la jolla shores drive. At mile 8.0 we entered la jolla shores where in 5mins or so we had a steep descent. This point I saw a lot of runner go past me, and I need to figure out how to do this descent faster.

The run for downhill until we hit the boardwalk at mile 11 and this point i felt my leg stiffen as it did during training. I was 9:45 muin/mi or so and started to slow even more. At miles 12 we were at the start of the third climb. By this time soreness had take over and I was 2 hrs into the run. I did not realize that the climb would last almost a mile so I walked most of it hoping that flatter terrian was around the corner. The stiffness in my leg meant that it took me 15 mins to finish the last mile and I ended up with time of 2hrs 15min 25 secs. I will take it and this is without much training for last six weeks.

Some take aways:
Work on down hill run speeds
Strengthen legs to avoid stiffness after 11 miles
strategy of running fast till torrey pines meant i got a decent time. Planning ahead seems to help...

two short runs, today and monday

Did a 3.0 mile run in gym and a 3.0 mile run today. This weekend I will do 2hr 30 mins run and see how much distance i can cover. Want it to include torrey pines and some of the la jolla shores that will be part of the race on April 17.

This will probably be my last long run before the race.

11.5 mile run today and 3.0 yesterday

I did a tempo run again in the gym yesterday going up to 7.5 twice and 8.5 twice. A total of 30 mins and 3.0 miles.

Today I decided a long run at noon. I ran from home to torrey pines beach and back. I ran upto the trader joes complex, a distance of 11.5 miles in 2 hrs 3 mins and walked 0.7 miles home to cool down. This is a tough run, the weather was perfect, in the 60s sun was out no wind and great day to run. I maintained a race pace of 10 min/mi for the first half of the run and then came the uphill 7% gradient part that I think I did ok. I ran most of it and walked only once. But by the time I was off it and up to start of the golf course I had spent some energy and had a tough time getting pace back. I just could not find the spark to speed up and ran slower and ended up with 10:45 min/mi time.

I need to crack the hill and figure out what I can do to get my energy level up, maybe some quick energy food, or a different strategy for this dreaded hill that I will face in next months La Jolla half marathon.

lazy runs

so after just two runs last week i decided to get my behind out there and so far did two leasurely runs on monday in the gym and today outside. The monday run was building up pace to 6.0 miles for 12 mins and then hitting 7.5 for 3 mins slowing to 4.0 and then again building to 8.0 for 3 mins and slowing down. A total 32 mins workout for 3.0 miles with walking included. It was the first time i tried tempo run and I need to do more of those.

Today I just went and run 5.0 miles in approx 47 mins, nothing too hard or fast, and it felt good. I need to start hitting the road 4 times a week and throw in long run on weekend, la jolla half is barely 4 weeks away, and then if i can build up to 20 miles long runs by 1st weekend in May I might actually have a shot at full marathon on June 6th.

Back after a weeks hiatus

After taking a week off from running and quite enjoying the welcome break had to dust off some cobwebs to get back to the road. Changed it up and went out on a run early morning at 7, for a short 3 miles. Now I have the rest of the day to do some thing else :)

First half marathon Mar 6th 2011, El Paso texas

I did my first ever half marathon race on Sunday, Mar 6 2011 in El Paso, Texas. We started that weekend by celebrating Ingrid's birthday on Friday night followed by some light socializing on Saturday night. Picked up the race packet on Saturday morning after breakfast with friends. It was pleasant to run into a lot of people we know, and it was refreshing to see a big turnout. Right after we got home and went about doing some chores in the afternoon. In the evening we had some authentic Mexican tacos and went to a wine bar to socialize and picked up some groceries on the way home; returning at 930pm. NOTE to self, avoid hot spicy food and any alcohol the day before the race :)

Called the night early as the race starts at 7am. We got everything ready, the clothes, shoes, put the BIB on, and hit the bed at 1030pm aiming to wake up at 4am. Alas, the butterflies finally caught up and I got only three hours sleep :( . Woke up at 4am, made some coffee had one bagel and a small cup of oatmeal. So far so good, but the spicy Mexican food started to play its role :)  oh well,  I did what I had to do with a few lomotils and watched some cricket. Jumped in the shower at 530 and got ready by 6. Since it was a cold frigid morning with temperature at around 38F, I wore a thermal inners on top. My legs were fine with running shorts. I used a lot of Vaseline on legs and chest and that turned out to be effective as I did not feel any discomfort during the race. I had to also improvise and use a monkey cap since it was expected to be windy. The only thing I was missing were gloves but luckily I got by without them.

I had on my i-pod nano, some jelly beans, and lomotil in pocket. I grabbed a small duffel bag with change of clothes, banana and locked it in car trunk to use after the race. We all set out and reached there maybe 20 mins before race time. The crowd was in, a thousand strong, and everyone was ready and raring to go. All age groups shapes and sizes showed up. At about 10 mins before the race we got some instructions, the national anthem was sung and off went the race gun. I noticed some interesting gear, most impressive was a head band that wrapped around the ears to protect against the cold.

During the first couple of miles I ran a bit faster then usual and I had to take a bathroom break at mile two and spent some 5 mins waiting in line. But that was the only bathroom break and off to racing the remaining distance. After 4th mile I took off the monkey cap and put it in my pocket. I was running well, and to my surprise the thermals did not hamper me and the wind was ok for the first half of the race. As we headed down towards race track where at mile 8 the half marathoners turn around I saw the speedier half marathoners going past on the other side of the road. I crossed the 10k mark, 62 mins into the race and this includes the 5mins bathroom break ! So I was still on target and kept this pace. At all water stations I walked for a minute, the stations were 2miles apart, so I walked every other mile as well.

I kept pace with a race pack for most of the race. On return part of the journey last 5 miles we hit the desolate side of paisano drive, there was little scenery and the wind started kicking in. I felt my heart beating a bit harder than during the training and I slowed down and walked a bit to normalize. Even though I planned on just running comfort pace, I planned to speedup if I could during the last 3 mile. So when I saw the sign for mile 22, I knew that with 4miles to go, I could make a dash for the end and try to do it in 30 mins. I think with 4miles to go I was around 1:26 or close. I thought I had a chance to get in under 2:00 as I had done 4 miles in 35 mins during training. But the altitude and the breezy took its toll and since and I am not used to these conditions, I got tired a bit faster and I had to slowdown a bit more. Eventually with 2miles to go the time read 1:47, so I was still 10 min/mi pace. I started to feel the distance at this point and I slowed down even more. At 1:59 I was one mile out and I felt the pain in the right hamstring, not a cramp but soreness. So at this point I was running 2 mins walking 30 secs maybe more. I lost count.  It took me almost 13 mins to cross finish the last mile. My stop watch read 2hrs 11mins 46 seconds, that was my race time 10:06 min/mi !

As I neared the stop, I heard some cheers, and just past the finish line I saw Ingrid, and she snapped some pictures. I felt a bit tired and out of breath but no cramps. It took me 5mins to start talking. Finally I realized I had finished my first race and savored this personal mile stone. Which I did, with some cold beer served at the finish line. Burritos were offered but I was unable to eat, so instead I had a banana and protein shake.

We then saw other racers cross the line, lot of variety old, young, wheelchaired, walkers. Saw one friend finish the half and another finish the full. We finally left at 12 noon and walked a mile to reach our car and took the slow ride home feeling satisfied. Late lunch at 3pm was sushi and ice cream. And today morning had a slice of pizza and a couple of breadsticks.

I did a recovery run on treadmill for 2.5 miles and 15 mins bike in the gym the following day, and taking two days off after.

I enjoyed my first race and I would like to run another one. I need to improve my hill running, and start doing some tempo runs so I can speedup when required. These are the two areas I will need to improve for the next race.

I will plan for a full marathon some time soon, hopefully real soon.

6.6 mile run on last wed

Just to post that I did a 6.6 mile run along torrey pine hills in 72 mins, slower than my normal pace. I feel I need to do some hill intervals to overcome this hill, will come handy for the la jolla half marathon.

4.5 mi short run

Did a 45 min run after skipping the weekend run. Felt stronger but a couple of pizza slices 2 hrs before the run bothered me. Note to self, no fatty food before running.
Aside from that it was a good run, now need to get in a 60 min run on wednesday to get ready for sunday morning race. I will try to throw in a couple of 7am 20 min runs tues, thurs to get used to the setting for the race.

Speed workout

Did a short speed workout, added 100m sprints but I think I put strain on my ankle leading to cutting the workout short. Need to gradually include different training sets and mix things up.

2X100m: 20s, 19s
2x200m: 47s, 46s
1X400m: 1:50s

Short run 3.7 @ 8:53min/mi pace

Did a short but a min/mi faster run to get out the lactic acid build up and soreness.
It was short but felt good on a cooler day than normal. Cant wait to run on March 6th. I will do one more short run a speed workout and on sunday run at 7am for an hour to simulate the race timing.

Next week is race week so just two easy pace 45 min runs, no speed workout no leg workout in gym. No workouts at all on Fri, Sat not even gym, just an easy swim class on Fri morning.

My first 13.1 mi training run

This is a milestone that I never thought I would achieve and that too I finished at nearly my target of 10min/mi. I finished in 2:13 on a sunny early afternoon with 60F temperature. I prepared by having a couple of slices of bread with peanut butter, cup of oatmeal, coffee around 2 hours before the run.  I carried a bottle of water and off to run.

First up, I felt a bit heavy in the stomach, so I guess I need to eat 3 hours prior. As the run progressed I felt the heaviness disappear and I consciously tried to keep a steady 10 min/mi pace. I also reduced the walkin breaks and used it only when I felt I was breathing hard. I think walkins help but should be used only when required because otherwise they break the running rythm.

The course which winded through La Jolla Shores has a 2 mi uphill run, out of which 1 mi is at 2% gradient and a mile at nearly 7% gradient. I tried to finish strong on the hill, and the steepest mile i ran with 3 min strong runs, 1 min breaks and I put effort to finish strong. Another thing I did was to do a strong 1 mile run after the hill to get back the rythm and make up time. I think last few runs  I have not picked up rythm and slacked off, resulting in bad times so this time right after the hill also i ran hard.

The key to time is for me to keep comfort breathing while running as hard as I can at the breathing rythm and keeping check of it periodically to watch for slack.

The last two miles were just on inspiration my back and hip were sore, so I did all i could to finish strong and I think now I am ready for the El Paso half marathon. On a side note I think the speed workouts help and taking a weekend off before this run also helped.

Swim workout

Ok so i did a swim workout, i belive it was 750 yards plus 400 approx of kick board.
I think this is down to a technique, I have gotten better but still below average.
This is what I have to do
1) Keep body afloat with hips high and not slanted
2)Head not too down but at 45 degree gazing slightly forward so that ears and
forehead is in water but top of head is forward
3) The hand coordination, yes thats an issue, I need the hand to finish such that when i finish the pull, and take it forward, pinky comes out with elbow high palms facing out and thumb side and fingers enter water and then stretch it. In this way the shoulder goes front and the pulling hand shoulder is back. This is the coordination. Second the pulling hand should finish such that imagine I am scooping and throwing sand behind, so the pull finishes at the back pocket.
4) I should alternate breathing on both sides, every three for relaxed and every five for speed. Also for speed rotate the shoulder faster.

Bottom line, I need to focus on technique and get faster with less effort. I am still 40% slower than my peers.

6.2 mi cold morning run

Today went for a cold morning run temperature around 50f. Wore a thin sweater and normal running clothes. The run was cold to start with and probably got 5 degrees warmer by the time I finished. Overall I did feel pretty normal, only concern is that sweater is not ideal it does not ventilate and becomes wet. Maybe I need to experiment with a hoodie or thermals.

Swim workout

Today was swimming day and its good being cloudy rainy day and all. Last time around one fundamental flaw of my body not floating while doing free style was corrected. Today I continued work on it and am getting better, less tired and more relaxed. Yet, much needs to improve, I need to continue with the body positioning, at the same time my strokes are not generating much power.

A couple of things I need to work on next time, clapse fingers closer to become like a paddle, and make the stroke finish towards the back pocket. I need to be able to go faster, right now my best is 50 yards in 67 seconds with 52 strokes, sum it to get 119, rest of the class was averaging around 80 ! 

 Other points I need to make sure that my strokes are not the catchup style, i.e. the hands thats pointed forward, waits for the storking hand to come forward before starting the stroke. Another is roll of the trunk in direction of forward hand to get a better S-curve stroke and lastly make sure to form chicken to put the hand forward.

Speed workout

short 30 mins speed workout, rests between splits till breathing was normal.

2X200 48s,46s
2X400 1:44, 1:41
2X800 4:03, 4:04

Building up distance added speed, should may start with a couple of 100m and go upto a mile.

Attack of the torrey pine hills

Finally took it to the torrey pine hills and ran down to the hill to the beach and back to SDSC. A 6.7 mi run that had 2 miles of non-stop uphill, 1 mi at > 5% gradient, took that with a couple of walkins of 1 min mixed with runs of 3 mins. Turns out thats not bad and still had sufficient strength to finish the rest of this hill. Overall it was 10:30 min/mi with additional walkins (3-4) apart from the hill and feeling ok so far.

Took weekend off

Decided to cool my heels so to speak and take the weekend off. Give a chance for some of my aches and niggles to go away. But today I will be trying the torry pine 7mi run from SDSC
Its got 1mi of climb at 5% - 7% gradient and another 1.0 mi at 2% or so gradient in one stretch. Lets see how that goes.
http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/27273964

Good Swim today finally getting it right !

I am learning to swim and taking a lesson where we do some basic drills. I am not sure if I can show it scientifically but I seem to benifit by swimming on my non-running days.

Today i made some good strides to becoming a swimmer, one of the big problems I had was bad body positioning, so to speak my legs were down and body was at a slant and i was dragging through water. Resulted in being out of breath, tired, pains in shoulder and some stress on neck and back. I tried to correct it my pinning my chin to my chest trying rolling with the stroke etc, but I still felt a drag and it wore me down.

Finally today coach saw it and in one stroke corrected it. Asked me to float on my chest with head down in water and said thats how my body should be, back relaxed not bent and position as if floating. Its also called do so as "butt is reaching for air" or the "butt up" position. Whatever it is, it can be said your trunk (chest back) should be afloat and you should feel it, kinda like what you would if you swam with a buoey between your legs. In this case your limbs move (arm legs) hips start the movement and your trunk just naturally rolls in direction of the forward arm. Secondly, breath by rolling your head, nothing new here, but dont press down on the forward arm, just roll head so that one half of head is in water, the purpose not to loose the floating.

Did that feel good or what, I did not feel tired, breath was normal and all my shoulder aches and pains just went away. Now I need to practice this new "normal" and put it in other strokes where relevant.

Bad run with a sore ankle

Tried to run a 6.5 mile route and learned a valuable lesson. Keep a day of rest after speed workout and sore ankles dont do good while running. Whereas maybe sore calf quads etc can be managed, its not the case with ankles. I averaged 13mi/miles and the soreness got real bad 2 miles into the course so I had to do a lot of walkins and slow jog to make it back. Did a total of 5.5 miles of the planned route

Speed workout today

I did the speed workout today, 6X800M workouts with 400M walkins between. Started with a 800M slow jog, some strecthing and that was enough to warm me up.

I did much better on this my second speed workout. My times were 4:11, 4:06, 4:07, 4:10,4:12,4:09. I averaged 8:18 min/mi and I am closing on my target of 8:00 min/mi

I think the walkins rather than just resting helped me feel more relaxed and not sore as I was on the first time I tried this workout.
I also focused on checking my breathing, I attempted to be just a notch above comfort pace, but not too much more. Next time I want to make sure that my hand and leg movements are more natural and free flowing I think I was too conscious this time.

First 10+ miler

Ran my first 10+miler run, 11 miles to be exact on Feb 5th 2011 and run it a shade under 2 hours (1:59:11). There was another first, I ran with a 16oz water bottle with some bitings and took some walk ins. I think it all worked, walking 15-30s say every 10 mins or so breaks the monotony and I found it useful when I was running up a long 1.5 mile hill with a high gradient. It helps relax the running muscle and gives a boost to carry through the tough stretch.

I have read about over hydrating so I was carefull about water consumption just taking my first sip after 60mins into the run and always taking small sips. In the end I was left with half the water and I did not feel dry in my mouth so I think I did Ok.

Another thing I added was a 5min slow jog and 5 mins walk to cool down. All this meant that, and to my pleasant surprise, that I felt pretty good after the run and did not have any unusual aches pains or cramps.

Feeling good, I think I have a a crack at the El Paso half marathon coming up on Mar 6th ....

Useful links

So this my nth post today but hope that this list of links helps a new runner

100 tips http://completerunning.com/archives/2006/09/12/100-beginner-running-tips/
map runs and get elevation data etc http://www.mapmyrun.com/
sites: http://www.active.com/ http://www.runnersworld.com/
Jeff Galloway training guide http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/index.html
Hal Highdon http://www.halhigdon.com/index.html

Post a question on facebook and experiment and adapt. I have mixed the training approaches to make progress towards my current goal and have found a recipe that works for me. I am sure I will change my training as i get stronger faster lighter and have different race goals, but for now my mantra is "Keep it simple stupid (Kiss) " ...

Registered for La Jolla Half marathon

Just wanted it out there, I am running the half marathon on April 17th 2011 :)
I might also do the el paso half marathon on Mar 6th 2011 if my training gets me to the point, I am at 9miles long runs, I want to see if I can get it upto 12miles. So its now a race between which of these two half marathons will be me first ever such run  woohoo , well fingers crossed I will do both.

Tried my new shoes today on 5 3/4 mile run

Ok so I took the pair of shoes for a short run at lunch break. The good news is no awkward injuries, felt snug fit, and looks like we have a winner. It was a bit chilly, but 60F is a sahara compared to whats happening around the country, yes I ran without any additional layers, ahh cozy san diego :)

I just made a bit of modification to my approach, following jeff galloways training tip, to include walk breaks (http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/walk_breaks.html). Instead of a pre-calculated breaks I just walked across traffic lights so 10-15sec of walks. Total of 7 or 8 walks and I was still on time and less sore. Maybe I should try more of these, but I dont like getting too technical or else that will play on my mind while I run "take break every XX mins", nah I think I will try and do it when I feel like I need one.

Bought some new shoes and a running bottle

So after running around in a pair of NB for a long while I decided to finally get some new shoes. After yelping for reviews I decided to go down to San Diego Running Institute (http://www.sdri.net/).  Its a nice place, small, cozy and friendly. I was first given a shoe fitting test that included some measurements and analysis of my walk by a device. Turns out I have neutral shape. Never have put some much thought to shoes, but I learned today that my left foot is 1/4" smaller and right foot pinky toe needs slightly wide shoes. Oh well ending getting size 10 brooks neutral fit and a bottle of water and a year membership, entitles me to 15% off every purchase plus lots of free advise from the knowledgeable staff.