And now for something completely different: A post about running

So, I've noticed a trend here: Lots of posts about dieting and not much about running. This post is an attempt to rectify that problem.

I have four races on my calendar in the coming weeks:

Bare Bones 5K, May 25

China Grove 5K Main Street Challenge, June 7

Peachtree 10K Road Race, July 4

Grandfather Mountain Marathon, July 13

First, the Bare Bones 5K this coming Saturday in Salisbury. This is mainly an opportunity to check my fitness level as I come off of my recovery month after Boston. As the weather starts warming up, I generally start slowing down, so a big challenge for me this summer is to see how well I can adapt to the heat. So far the forecast is actually for relatively cool temperatures -- low 60s -- on race day, so maybe I'll be able to go all out.

Next, the Main Street Challenge, which is a nighttime race, and an opportunity for Roberta Villneff to try to break the 5K state record for her age group. I'll be running right by her side at her planned 21-minute pace, and I'm very much looking forward to it! I think I'll bring a camera to this one.

The Peachtree 10K is a chance to run in an absolutely enormous event:

55,000 runners participate each year, making it more than twice as big as the Boston Marathon.

My 5K PR of 18:03 puts me in the seeded wave, which is going to be fantastic -- I'll be just behind the invited runners right at the front of the pack. Needless to say, in Atlanta in July, it's going to be hot, so once again I don't plan on PRing in this race, but I would like to break 40 minutes if at all possible. 

Finally, the Grandfather Mountain Marathon is a notoriously tough race in the North Carolina mountains, but I'm looking forward to it as a "no pressure" event because I will certainly have no chance of PRing. That said, to prepare for it I'm planning to do more hill work, and this past Sunday was a prime example. I had an 18-mile run on the calendar and I knew it was going to be a muggy morning, so I started early, at 6 am. Jeremy joined me for the first 6 miles, an out-and-back on Grey Road, the hilliest road in town. Next we joined the regular Sunday 7 am crowd for 10 more. I still had two miles left as I slogged back into town, but fortunately Sam was willing to run those miles with me, so I had company the whole way. It wasn't a fast run, but I got my hill work in, and I feel like I'm starting to get back to prime running shape, so that's good news. Details of Sunday's workout are below.

Yet Another Weight Loss Update

I've now been working at losing weight for four weeks, and while I'm still making progress, it's not as fast as I had hoped. I'm down to 181 pounds, just one pound less than at my last update. That was 11 days ago, and at that point I had lost 5 pounds in about two and a half weeks.

Here's the updated graph of my energy balance for the entire period:

I've made one significan modification from last time: Instead of just averaging the plots for each measure, I've inserted trendlines. So you can see that while my consumption has stayed pretty much flat, I've been burning progressively more calories over the course of the diet. That means net consumption, which is just food consumed minus energy burned, has actually been decreasing over the course of the diet.

So why has my weight loss stalled? It's possible that I simply measured at a point that was artificially low last time. In fact I had a period when my weight went up during this period. Here's the full graph of my weight over the course of the diet:

As you can see, by May 10, my weight actually jumped above what I had reported on May 6, and even two days ago I was above my May 6 weight. But I think there's a bigger issue, which is that my body may have adapted to a lower level of caloric intake. In order to make additional progress, I'm probably going to have to eat even less. So for the next week I'm going to adjust my target calorie balance 200 calories lower. I'm going to replace my highest-calorie snack (a granola bar) with carrots. I'm going to eat lots of carrots. Then I'll get back to you on Friday and we'll see if (a) I was able to keep to that diet and (b) whether it made a difference.

For an example of the kind of workouts I've been doing lately, see below.

Nutrition / weight loss update

In the lead-up to Boston I mentioned that I was trying out a new nutrition plan. So, you might ask, how's that going?

Actually, not too bad! I'm not tracking the dietary categories the way Fitzgerald asks every day, but I did take a look at the foods I'm eating and I've found that, for the most part, my revised diet matches Fitzgerald's suggestions:

This chart shows how many servings of each type of food I had for the first week I was using Fitzgerald's system, and you can see that with the exception of meats, I'm following his suggestions. Fitzgerald says that you should have more of each item to the left of the scale than the right of the scale, and if you remove the meats from the equation, I do just that.

He also says it's okay to omit some categories entirely. If you're a vegetarian, you just omit meats. If you're a vegan, omit dairy too. To my mind, this means I'm actually doing fine -- I'm sort of like a half-vegetarian. If I ate more meat (e.g. 20 servings of lean meat and, say, 15 servings of fatty meat), then I could create a perfect hierarchy, with the number of servings gradually decreasing from left to right. But I choose to eat less meat, so in my mind that's fine.

Fitzgerald also says that the recovery period after a marathon is the best time to lose weight. I've been trying for over a year to get down to 175 pounds, so I figured I'd follow his recommendations. He says to just maintain his diet plan, but consuming fewer calories. Also, he recommends adding weight training to your fitness regimen, so I've done that -- My plan is to lift three times a week, and I've done that now for the past two weeks.

So how's the diet going? Again, not too bad. Since I started tracking calories on April 17, I've gone from 187 pounds to 182, a loss of five pounds. I use the website myfitnesspal to track calories, and according to the site's recommendations, to lose 1.5 pounds per week, I should be consuming a net of about 1,500 calories per day. Net calorie consumption takes the total calories consumed and subtracts out calories burned through exercise. In the past, I've found that the calories burned, as calculated by the site, are a little optimistic, so I created my own system of tracking my exercise that discounts my calories burned by about 30 percent.

This graph charts my energy balance from April 17 to yesterday (since I'll still be eating more today):

As you can see, I'm averaging about 2,200 calories consumed per day, and 660 calories burned, for a net of about 1,700 per day. That's more than my 1,500-calorie goal, but I've still managed to lose 5 pounds in less than three weeks, so perhaps myfitnesspal isn't overly optimistic about calories burned after all.

The graph reveals quite a bit more than that. Saturday is my rest day, and also a day when I tend to consume more calories than average -- I drink more, and I go out for meals more. I consume more than average on Sundays as well, but since it's also my long run day, my net calorie consumption on Sundays tend to be lower than average. Midweek is when I do best, since I can easily get into a routine on those days.

You can also see that my calorie expenditure has been gradually increasing over the three weeks; that's intentional as I continue to recover from my marathon. By May 13 I'll be fully recovered from Boston and ready to start a quick training cycle as I prepare to run the Peachtree 10K in July.

Hopefully by the end of May I'll be down to my target weight and will be able to return to a sustainable level of calorie consumption. Keeping my consumption down has been a little easier this time around than in the past -- I'd like to think that's due to the addition of weight training to my regimen. That said, it still has required quite a bit of willpower, especially when eating out. Losing weight has never been easy for me, and this time around is no exception. I'll try to post a few more updates as my plan progresses. In the unlikely event that you want to follow along at home, you can check out my myfitnesspal profile.

High-fivin' it in Boston!

I don't usually purchase race photos -- I have a lot of photos of me running without paying extra. But this one seemed worth the money! Thanks, Marathonfoto, for taking a good one!

Boston Marathon: Still Awesome. My Race: Not so much.

I spent last week simultaneously reeling from the impact of the horrific attack on the Boston Marathon and feeling proud and humbled by the overwhelming response to my article about it. Over 30,000 people read the post, and dozens of them contacted me personally to let me know what they thought. I haven't been sent a negative response yet (although there are a few out there -- see the comments on this post). I'm glad at least something good came out of the awfulness that scarred a beautiful day.

But as I've reconnected with my local running friends, after they heard my story of what happened to me during the bombings (answer: I finished 50 minutes before the attack; I was over a mile away when it happened and I didn't see or hear the bombs, but when I found out about the attack, like everyone else, I spent the rest of the day glued to the TV), the next thing they inevitably asked was "But how was your race?"

The first thing I told them all was: it was awesome -- the crowds lining the streets, my fellow runners, the race organization; all of it was unlike anything I had ever seen.

My performance in the race, on the other hand, ranks as one of my worst. Of the seven marathons I've raced, I've only run three slower, and they were all on substantially more difficult courses (I also ran Thunder Road slower, but that was a pacing / training run; I wasn't racing). I even did better at Rocket City on a difficult, muggy day.

Why did I do so poorly? Let's compare my last six training weeks for this marathon with my training leading up to Richmond, where I qualified for Boston:

In weeks leading up to Richmond, I ran 276 miles, compared to just 200 in the leadup to Boston. Four and six weeks out, I had high-quality long runs, and sandwiched in between them, I ran a half-marathon PR at the Bridges Half Marathon.

In the weeks prior to Boston, I didn't have a single high-quality long run. The 38.64-mile run was a pacing effort in which I averaged 15:47 per mile. That's some good time-on-feet, but not exactly a marathon-prep effort. My 18- and 15-mile long runs both involved major bonks and weren't really long enough to prepare me for a marathon.

Perhaps even more important was the lack of speed work -- just one 4X8 tempo run leading up to Boston, compared to 6 speed workouts (counting my half-marathon PR) leading up to Richmond.

There were good reasons for all of this, of course: I had a busy travel schedule and I was sick for three weeks, starting 4 weeks out. It just didn't make sense to try to run hard if it was only going to make things worse.

My friend Bryan Massingale had a similar bout with flu about 4 weeks out from his most recent marathon, and like me, he ran 20+ minutes slower than he had been hoping. I'm just not sure it's possible to recover from an illness that's more significant than a minor cold  in that amount of time, especially when the illness comes just as you should be peaking in your workout cycle.

Lesson learned: I'm going to get a flu shot this week, and another one in the fall when the new flu vaccine comes out. I paid the price for neglecting my flu shot this past year, and I don't want that to happen again.

In case you want the blow-by-blow of my race, here are my splits (remember, I didn't have a Garmin, so all I got were 5K splits from the race website):

The plan had been to run as close as possible to a 7:30 pace. I'd take it easy during the downhill first 4 miles, then pick it up as the course leveled off. As you can see, the first 5K was just about spot-on. The second 5K was too. But then after that I slowed bit by bit every 5K (the 8:21 for the half split is over just 0.7 miles including the "scream tunnel" so it should be disregarded). By 35K, just after I finished the Newton Hills, I was toast. I didn't ever stop to walk, but I shuffled in at a 10:15 pace from there on out, despite a mostly-downhill course.

Not ideal at all. 15 minutes off a re-qualifying effort, and nearly 25 minutes slower than planned. But at least I know why it happened, and I have some thoughts about how to prevent it from happening again.

For now I'm going to focus on shorter races. I'll still run some marathons for "fun," but I'll stick to challenging courses where the point is simply to finish rather than to race for a particular time. Grandfather Mountain, coming up next, is one such race. Check out the elevation profile:

Click for larger image

I can't wait!

In praise of Boston

I wanted to tell you about my race yesterday at the Boston Marathon. That is what I wanted to do. I wanted to tell you everything about what happened to me during the race.

I wanted to tell you about leaving my Garmin in the hotel, and running the race with only a 1980s era digital wristwatch.

I wanted to tell you my splits for every mile of the race, how I started out strong, but then just gradually lost the energy to keep up the pace I had planned. I wanted to tell you all about it.

I wanted to tell you that I finished in 3:39, 17 minutes slower than my PR, and that I was disappointed with that.

But instead, I'm going to tell you about the people of Boston, and the way they come together, by the thousands, by the hundreds of thousands, for one day every year, to celebrate what we runners sometimes take for granted.

Before and after the race, I had dozens of ordinary people, not runners, stop me to tell me how proud they were of me. Not one of them asked what my finishing time was, or whether I was happy with my performance. They just wanted to share that they admired my accomplishment.

This race had thousands of volunteers. Not spectators, volunteers, who wanted nothing more than to help out and give the runners the best experience they could possibly have. There were so many volunteers that some of them almost seemed superfluous, but they didn't care. They just did what they could, with a big smile on their face. You could spot them a mile away, in their bright yellow Boston Marathon volunteer jackets.

Every place where a volunteer might be useful there was a volunteer, and then there was another volunteer behind that one just in case the first volunteer got too busy to help you.

I have been to races where there were 3-foot-tall posts in the middle of the course, with nothing to mark them or let you know that there was a potential danger ahead. At Boston, anywhere where there might be a hazard, there were three or four volunteers, telling the runners exactly what to do.

I have been to races where they ran out of water. Or where the water stops were so poorly manned, that even though there was water there, they couldn't get it to the runners fast enough, and so we had to run on without getting anything to drink.

At Boston, there were water stops every mile. Every single mile on the course, there was Gatorade, and there was water. Gatorade first, then water, and there were water stations on both sides of the road, so wherever you were running, it was easy to get what you needed. And of course, at every water station, there were dozens and dozens of people handing the water to you.

But the Boston Marathon isn't just about volunteers. It's about everybody in the city and the surrounding areas getting together to celebrate the accomplishments of gifted athletes, hard-working journeymen, and ordinary weekend warriors who might not be able to qualify for the race, but who raised thousands of dollars for charity in order to participate in a world-class event.

I was over an hour behind the leaders in the race, but on nearly every inch of the course as I ran, there were thousands of spectators lining the road, often three, four, five people deep.

I have been to races where there were spectators. Usually in little clumps, if they said anything at all when you passed by it was "good job." Maybe they gave a polite clap of the hands. At Boston, they were cheering, screaming, as if you had just scored the touchdown that won the Super Bowl. And this was an hour after the actual race winners passed by. They kept it up like that, for several hours more.

At the infamous Wellesley College "scream tunnel," I had heard that some of the girls (correction: WOMEN) held up signs offering a kiss to passing men. What a bawdy ritual, I thought, I can't believe that any of the runners would actually take them up on it.

When I got there, I saw that it wasn't just a few of the women, it was nearly every woman. They had signs like "Kiss me I'm from Colombia!" and "Kiss me if you're from the South!"

And I also saw that when the runners did kiss them, they offered up a demure cheek. It wasn't bawdy at all, it was adorable. I wanted to kiss the woman with the "Kiss me I'm a cellist!" sign, but she was a little distracted as I was passing by so I let the moment escape. I wish I hadn't.

The spectators weren't just enthusiastic, they were innovative. At many points, clumps of spectators would make up cheers on the spot for a whoever happened to be running by. If somebody from Mexico came by they would make up a song about Mexico. If somebody named Bob came by they would have a chant just for him.

Many runners put their names on their shirts, so that the spectators could call them by name as they passed. I didn't think to do this, but for several miles I was running next to a guy named Dave who had. I got to enjoy his cheers as if they were my own.

I passed a man who was running to support research for melanoma. I told him that I had survived melanoma, and showed him the scar on my arm, and thanked him for what he was doing. I was happy to receive his well wishes as I ran by.

By the time I reached the intimidating Newton Hills, I knew this was not going to be my day. But whenever a runner stopped to walk on the hills, there were hundreds of people encouraging him or her on, and usually within a few steps they would start running again. I decided there was no way I was going to stop and walk. I might run slowly, but I was going to run all the way. I was going to finish the Boston Marathon running. If these hundreds of thousands of people could show up and cheer us on for hours and hours, the least I could do was run for them.

This was not my race. It was their race, and they were sharing it with me. I was honored to be a part of it. I was tremendously impressed with the people of Boston, Hopkinton, Wellesley, Newton, Natick, Framingham.

After the race was stopped, I heard that the runners that were still on the course didn't know what to do. They weren't dressed to be standing around in cold weather, and they were exhausted. I really wasn't surprised at all when I heard to the local residents invited those runners into their homes, and allowed them to stay until buses could be sent to pick them up.

Marathon day in Boston is one of the warmest and most heartfelt holidays and events that I have ever been a part of. Someone tried to take that away from the people of Boston yesterday, but I don't think they succeeded. They only gave Boston another chance to show how generous and brave its people are. While I am horrified by the events that occurred yesterday, I'm glad to have had the chance to see so many people at their best.

Boston's people showed us their true colors yesterday. They gave the rest of us something to aspire to.

Superstitions? Only if they help!

I don't consider myself a superstitious guy but there are a couple things that always seem to work in my favor (or against me, as the case may be) come race day.

1. If my wife is there, I tend to do poorly. In 2011 during the National Half Marathon my wife showed up and I stepped in a pothole in Mile 2, falling and dislocating my shoulder. I was able to get it popped back in but had a disappointing race. Even worse, my wife and two friends were at the finish line but didn't see me as I passed by! At the Steamboat Marathon later that year, she was there again and I bonked horribly.

2. If I injure a finger before the race, I do well. There's somewhat less precedent for this; it's only happened in one race before now. At the 2010 Thunder Road Half Marathon, I sliced open my thumb cooking dinner the day before. I set a 9-minute PR in the half!

I bring this up because today, just three days before Boston, I injured not one but two fingers. The first came during my run this morning: Me, Sam, and Claire were doing an easy 4-miler, running in the street because of a very narrow sidewalk. But as a car approached in the darkness, we decided to hop back onto the sidewalk using a driveway. The morning was muggy, and my glasses had fogged up, so I missed the driveway, and tripped over the curb just before the driveway. I managed to slow my fall, but somehow I still caught the tip of my left middle finger on the pavement, drawing blood. Here's what it looked like after the run:

Yech!

It's not quite as bad as it looks -- my fingernail was damaged years ago in a vegetable slicer incident, but it still smarts quite a bit.

Then later this morning as I was putting my running gear in the wash, I crushed my right pinky finger between the washer and dryer. That actually hurt more than the other finger, though there are no visible signs of injury.

Needless to say, I don't think either of these injuries will have any effect on a marathon in Boston three days from now, but if superstitions have any value, these two both fall in my favor: My wife won't be there, and I injured a digit before the race.

Otherwise, things are going well. I managed to restrain my urges and ate a respectable number of calories yesterday, so I think my race weight should be fine. This morning I threw in a marathon-pace mile (before the finger incident) and felt okay. I was a little out of breath, but we ran the mile at a 7:35 pace, and given that it included a hill bigger than Boston's infamous Heartbreak Hill, I think we actually ran it a little faster than I'd be running an equivalent section in Boston.

All that's left to do now is pack, continue to eat well and avoid caffeine, and catch tomorrow's flight to Boston!

Details of this morning's run are below.