With the Boston Marathon less than three weeks away, I have officially started tapering. I should be in peak condition right now, so the taper, ideally will help me maintain fitness while giving me the rest I need before the big race.
Unfortunately, I'm not actually in peak condition, not even close. A week and a half ago, I came down with the flu, and I'm only just now starting to feel better. In addition, I've deviated from my training schedule over the past several weeks due to travel and other plans. Ideally I would have done two 22-mile long runs and a 19-mile run over those three weeks. Instead I paced Dave at the Graveyard 100, skipped a long run due to illness, then limped through an 18-miler this past Sunday. Last week I didn't run at all.
This week, while just starting to feel a bit better as I recover from the flu, I've struggled even maintaining an 8:30 "easy" pace for 6 miles. The real indicator as to whether I'm finally snapping out of this illness-induced funk will be on Thursday, when I have what should be a fairly easy tempo run, 4 X 9-minutes with 2-minute breaks. If I can handle that, then that probably means I'm getting over this illness. I'll have one more long-ish run on Sunday (17 miles with 60 minutes at Marathon Pace), then the tapering will begin in earnest.
Since the disappointment at Richmond, my goal for Boston has been to PR and re-qualify. I had been thinking of starting out at a 7:30 pace, which would put me on track for a 3:16 marathon. But right now, 7:30 seems pretty fast. Hopefully it won't seem quite so fast three weeks from now!
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Thursday, March 14, 2013
I am NOT becoming an ultrarunner (maybe): A recap of my 38 miles at the Graveyard 100
When my running buddy Chad Randolph told me he was planning on running the Graveyard 100-miler this year, I figured it might be a good opportunity for me to make my first trip ever to North Carolina's Outer Banks; I volunteered to crew him for the race.
"Well, my wife Laurie is already planning on crewing," Chad said.
"Fine, then I'll pace you for the last 25 miles," I said.
That sounded good to Chad, so we made plans to hit the dunes on the second weekend in March. Soon after, our friend Dave Moore also decided to join us for the ride—and to run the entire 100-mile race. Now Laurie and I would have crew responsibilities for two runners, in addition to my pacing Chad for what had now escalated to 35 miles. I figured as long as I was making the 7-hour drive to the Outer Banks, I might as well get my longest-ever run as part of the package.
After a seemingly interminable drive, we arrived at the race headquarters at 4:30 Friday afternoon and walked out onto a rickety dock to pick up Chad and Dave's race packets. Although the course is nearly completely flat, the runner's race materials had warned us not to take it lightly:
This photo of Chad and Dave pre-race makes the surf look deceptively small — trust me, it wasn't.
This photo may give you a better sense of what the weather was like:
At the pre-race briefing later that night, the Race Director dropped another bombshell: The road on Hatteras Island around Mile 60 of the race was flooded at high tide on Friday morning; if it was as bad on Saturday during the race, he'd have to modify the course: Instead of getting that tail-wind for the whole race, we'd be running into a 25-mph wind for the last half of the race! Even worse, the decision about whether to change the race course would be made at 9 a.m., four hours after the race will have started. He also noted that some sections of the course, though not closed, were flooded with several inches of water. Runners should prepare accordingly. With the entire pier literally shuddering with each breaking wave outside, we didn't doubt that the weather was going to be a big factor in the race.
Fast-forward to 3:30 a.m. Dave and I wake up and quickly get ready. By 3:45 we meet Chad and Laurie in the lobby and drive to the race start, 25 minutes away in Corolla, NC, near the north end of the outer banks. The wind is still roaring around us. After checking in at the start, I snap a quick pre-race photo of Chad and Dave:
Nervous excitement is the order of the moment. We stay warm in the van for 30 minutes or so, then make the 200-yard walk to the starting line. After the starter car blows a fuse and disables the sound system, the group sings the national anthem a capella, and then the runners are off!
The first 20 miles or so are uneventful; Chad and Dave are running comfortably and seem to be in good spirits when we meet them at the aid stations. But Laurie and I hear that conditions are worsening ahead on the course. The race director has indicated that it's okay to find alternate routes, as long as they don't decrease the total distance run. There's little danger of that since the main route is basically a straight line heading south, so we drive a few miles ahead and have a look at the roadway. This is what we see:
The road quickly worsens, but on this stretch there is a sidestreet a block away from the highway. We head over there and see that it's completely dry for two miles! We drive back and let Chad and Dave know how to avoid the mucky road. In places the road is completely flooded, so we're glad we figured out an alternate route:
We hear later that some runners just ran straight through the puddles, getting their feet soaked. Others tried running on the beach, but sank calf-deep in the muck. We pat ourselves on the back for being a good crew!
Not long after this episode we finally find out from the race's Facebook page that the event will be an out-and-back. The runners will have to return to the start, straight into the strong wind that has been at their backs all day. We tell Chad and Dave as soon as we can, and they each independently respond with the same four-letter word starting with "S." But of course, there's nothing to do but keep running.
Everything's going well until we get a text from Chad around Mile 35. His knee is hurting and he wants to change shoes. Laurie and I figure out where he is and drive back to meet him with the new shoes. It's not like Chad to complain much during a race, so this seems serious. We encourage him to walk as much as possible, just to see if he can work through the pain. We're surprised to see him running into the next water stop:
He seems to be doing better, telling us he'd like to try to at least hit 50 miles. We tell him we'll see him at the aid station at Mile 42 and head out. Unfortunately, when he gets there it's a different story. The knee is bothering him too much -- tendinitis -- and he's going to have to drop out. We know that Chad doesn't take dropping out lightly, so clearly the pain must have been excruciating.
Chad had been as far as 30 minutes ahead of Dave, but Dave makes it to this aid station just a few minutes behind Chad. We tell him the bad news -- but also the good news for him. Since I won't be pacing for Chad, I'm available to pace for him for the last 37 miles of the race. He's happy to accept the offer, and we keep on going, with Chad now in the van.
Dave is looking great at every water stop, seems happy, and arrives ahead of when we expect him every time.
Finally he arrives at the water stop at Mile 64, and it's time for me to join him. It's now 6 pm and on the verge of getting dark. We're running into the wind, so we bundle up and add reflective gear:
I'm excited to hit the road, and we head out at a nice clip. Dave is ahead of his goal pace, and I've determined that in order to finish in under 24 hours and receive a silver buckle (instead of the gold finisher's buckle that all finishers get), all he needs to do is keep a 17-minute pace. We're walk-running, but we're averaging closer to a 13-minute pace. I can tell Dave is fatigued, but he's doing well. Even better, the wind finally seems to be dying down. Things are looking up -- all I have to do now is run farther than I've ever run!
Around Mile 72 we're told by a race official that the road ahead -- the same stretch that Laurie and I had scouted earlier in the day -- was even worse now and that we should probably try an alternate route. Fortunately, I knew the route we had scouted earlier, so I figure we'll be just fine.
Then we arrive at the first flooded section, about two miles before I expect to see it. I don't know a good way around this. Looking on my phone, I can see that the sidestreets don't go all the way through in this section. Our options are to run through the cold water on an increasingly chilly night, or run a half-mile away to an extremely busy highway. We choose the highway. This road has tons of traffic, despite the fact that it is now around 10 pm. The speed limit is 55, and drivers clearly don't expect to be seeing pedestrians, let alone runners with headlamps and reflective gear. The shoulder is about 2 feet wide, and cars don't slow down or move over at all as they pass us. Eventually we are so spooked by the traffic that we start walking in the sand next to the shoulder. Our pace slows considerably.
Finally we reach the point where I had previously found a dry way through, and try to cut back towards the ocean. The first thing we see are two runners coming the opposite direction. "Are you going that way?" one of them asks. "We're trying to get away from this!"
"We're going to give it a shot," I say. Then I turn down the street that had been completely dry in the morning. As I strain to see in the darkness, I notice that streetlights and porch lights are being reflected in the roadway -- and the reflections stretch as far as I can see. The road is completely flooded. We are either going to get soaked, or we'll have to head back out on the highway. Given that my mittened fingers are already numb from the cold, adding cold, wet feet to the equation doesn't seem like a good idea. I suggest to Dave that we head back to the highway. We follow the other runners back to the main road and spend the next two and a half miles dodging traffic, doing an awful lot of walking, and getting awfully cold.
As we approach the streetlight that we hope indicates our turn (for real!) off the main highway, Dave suggests that "we should probably stop at a gas station to get some coffee and warm up. We're pretty cold." Actually I have finally warmed up, but clearly Dave is getting cold, so I agree. We reach the streetlight, and we see a gas station, along with a course marker -- we're back on the official route, and it's dry and there's little traffic! We head into the gas station where the attendant greets us as if he's seen a lot of skinny aliens like us this evening. Dave buys coffee, uses the restroom, and we both warm up. There's only about 23 miles to go from here!
As we head back on the highway we're greeted by another runner. "Is this the right way?" she asks.
"Yep," I say.
"I ran the whole way through the water," she says. I recognize her as a runner who had been well ahead of us, so I'm confident that running—or should I say, walking—on the highway was the right decision. She soon passes us, but clearly the water has taken a major toll on her.
For the next 10 miles we keep run-walking at roughly a 15-minute pace, easily on target for Dave's 24-hour goal. Dave tells me that he's basically running until his stomach gets too upset to continue. Then he recovers during the walk, and starts it over again.
As 2 am approaches, we remember that tonight is going to be Daylight Saving Time. We wonder if our Garmins will automatically adjust for the time change. Sure enough, I watch my Garmin shift from 1:59 to 3:00 am! We keep going.
I'm starting to notice that I'm developing a hot spot on the bottom of my right foot. A blister at this point, with over 10 miles left, would not be pleasant. At the next water stop I remove my shoe and check it out; actually it doesn't look bad, so I add Body Glide and change socks, figuring this will help.
A few miles later, I find that it hasn't helped at all. The new sock seems rougher on my foot -- either because it really is rougher or the blister is just getting worse.
At Mile 98, we pass by the finish line (!). A race official tells us we have to run to the "end of the road," where there will be a cone. We'll run around the cone, then come back to this point, and at that point, we'll finally be finished.
"How far is that," Dave asks.
"Two miles" is the reply. Four miles added to the 34 I'd already run would be 38 miles, or 12 miles farther than I've ever gone in a single run.
It briefly occurs to me that I could just stop now. Surely Dave could handle these last four miles on his own, I'd still have a PR run, and it would be a lot easier on my feet. But the I decide that if Dave can do 100 miles, I can suffer through four more. We continue on.
The road winds on and on, and we see lots of runners coming back in our direction. When will this road end? Finally we reach a bank of sand-dunes, and the promised cone, completely unattended. Although we could easily save a hundred yards and turn around early, we dutifully run all the way around the cone and head back home. By now my blister has become so sore that walking is actually more painful than running. I figure out a way to jog along at Dave's walking pace when he takes walk-breaks.
Finally we see the finish line again in the distance. I let Dave cross the line alone. He's not only broken 24 hours, he's run the race in under 23 hours! Here he is getting his well-earned silver buckle:
Moments later, we are all in the van, heading back to the hotel, where we had reserved a room for a 5-hour nap from 5:30 am to checkout. Dave is asleep before we leave the parking lot.
Since I completed a 38-mile run, Chad has declared that I'm officially an ultrarunner, and gave me a really cool shirt from our local ultrarunning group, the League of Ultra-Running Enthusiasts, or LURE.
I'm not sure I'm a true ultrarunner since I still haven't raced an ultra, and I'm not sure I want to. I've still got a lot of marathon- and shorter-length racing that I want to do. But I do like the idea of participating in a race where just getting to the finish is the primary goal. Maybe I'll try some really intense ultra where it's more of an adventure than just a matter of staying on your feet for 8-plus hours.
Given how beat-up my feet were after just 38 miles and 10 hours of running, I'm truly astonished at the ability of runners like Dave to keep it going for over 20 hours and nearly three times the mileage. What an accomplishment!
"Well, my wife Laurie is already planning on crewing," Chad said.
"Fine, then I'll pace you for the last 25 miles," I said.
That sounded good to Chad, so we made plans to hit the dunes on the second weekend in March. Soon after, our friend Dave Moore also decided to join us for the ride—and to run the entire 100-mile race. Now Laurie and I would have crew responsibilities for two runners, in addition to my pacing Chad for what had now escalated to 35 miles. I figured as long as I was making the 7-hour drive to the Outer Banks, I might as well get my longest-ever run as part of the package.
After a seemingly interminable drive, we arrived at the race headquarters at 4:30 Friday afternoon and walked out onto a rickety dock to pick up Chad and Dave's race packets. Although the course is nearly completely flat, the runner's race materials had warned us not to take it lightly:
Remember this race was designed to create the most difficult race possible out of seemingly easy terrain. The UltraRunning.com rating of 1 (surface) & 1 (terrain) is a little misleading. Weather in the Outer banks in March is wildly unpredictable. Everything from 70-degree days, to snow to nor’easters has happened, and can & will happen. This year during the GY100 Staff run we were greeted with snow, sleet, rain, sub-freezing temperatures and 35mph sustained wind. Unpredictable weather is a hallmark of the Outer Banks in March. This event will not be cancelled for foul weather. The only reason it could be cancelled or delayed is in the event of a road closure.Almost on cue, we were blasted with a strong north wind, and absolutely massive waves crashed around us so hard that the foam from the whitecaps was forced up through the cracks in the dock.
This photo of Chad and Dave pre-race makes the surf look deceptively small — trust me, it wasn't.
 |
| Chad and Dave are also cleverly standing on the lee side of the dock, away from the 25-mph winds. |
This photo may give you a better sense of what the weather was like:
 |
| I wasn't kidding about the foam coming up through the dock! |
At the pre-race briefing later that night, the Race Director dropped another bombshell: The road on Hatteras Island around Mile 60 of the race was flooded at high tide on Friday morning; if it was as bad on Saturday during the race, he'd have to modify the course: Instead of getting that tail-wind for the whole race, we'd be running into a 25-mph wind for the last half of the race! Even worse, the decision about whether to change the race course would be made at 9 a.m., four hours after the race will have started. He also noted that some sections of the course, though not closed, were flooded with several inches of water. Runners should prepare accordingly. With the entire pier literally shuddering with each breaking wave outside, we didn't doubt that the weather was going to be a big factor in the race.
Fast-forward to 3:30 a.m. Dave and I wake up and quickly get ready. By 3:45 we meet Chad and Laurie in the lobby and drive to the race start, 25 minutes away in Corolla, NC, near the north end of the outer banks. The wind is still roaring around us. After checking in at the start, I snap a quick pre-race photo of Chad and Dave:
Nervous excitement is the order of the moment. We stay warm in the van for 30 minutes or so, then make the 200-yard walk to the starting line. After the starter car blows a fuse and disables the sound system, the group sings the national anthem a capella, and then the runners are off!
The first 20 miles or so are uneventful; Chad and Dave are running comfortably and seem to be in good spirits when we meet them at the aid stations. But Laurie and I hear that conditions are worsening ahead on the course. The race director has indicated that it's okay to find alternate routes, as long as they don't decrease the total distance run. There's little danger of that since the main route is basically a straight line heading south, so we drive a few miles ahead and have a look at the roadway. This is what we see:
 |
| Yep, those are hunks of wood with nails in them, littering the "street"! |
The road quickly worsens, but on this stretch there is a sidestreet a block away from the highway. We head over there and see that it's completely dry for two miles! We drive back and let Chad and Dave know how to avoid the mucky road. In places the road is completely flooded, so we're glad we figured out an alternate route:
We hear later that some runners just ran straight through the puddles, getting their feet soaked. Others tried running on the beach, but sank calf-deep in the muck. We pat ourselves on the back for being a good crew!
Not long after this episode we finally find out from the race's Facebook page that the event will be an out-and-back. The runners will have to return to the start, straight into the strong wind that has been at their backs all day. We tell Chad and Dave as soon as we can, and they each independently respond with the same four-letter word starting with "S." But of course, there's nothing to do but keep running.
Everything's going well until we get a text from Chad around Mile 35. His knee is hurting and he wants to change shoes. Laurie and I figure out where he is and drive back to meet him with the new shoes. It's not like Chad to complain much during a race, so this seems serious. We encourage him to walk as much as possible, just to see if he can work through the pain. We're surprised to see him running into the next water stop:
He seems to be doing better, telling us he'd like to try to at least hit 50 miles. We tell him we'll see him at the aid station at Mile 42 and head out. Unfortunately, when he gets there it's a different story. The knee is bothering him too much -- tendinitis -- and he's going to have to drop out. We know that Chad doesn't take dropping out lightly, so clearly the pain must have been excruciating.
Chad had been as far as 30 minutes ahead of Dave, but Dave makes it to this aid station just a few minutes behind Chad. We tell him the bad news -- but also the good news for him. Since I won't be pacing for Chad, I'm available to pace for him for the last 37 miles of the race. He's happy to accept the offer, and we keep on going, with Chad now in the van.
Dave is looking great at every water stop, seems happy, and arrives ahead of when we expect him every time.
 |
| Lookin' good! |
Finally he arrives at the water stop at Mile 64, and it's time for me to join him. It's now 6 pm and on the verge of getting dark. We're running into the wind, so we bundle up and add reflective gear:
 |
| Lookin' goofy! |
I'm excited to hit the road, and we head out at a nice clip. Dave is ahead of his goal pace, and I've determined that in order to finish in under 24 hours and receive a silver buckle (instead of the gold finisher's buckle that all finishers get), all he needs to do is keep a 17-minute pace. We're walk-running, but we're averaging closer to a 13-minute pace. I can tell Dave is fatigued, but he's doing well. Even better, the wind finally seems to be dying down. Things are looking up -- all I have to do now is run farther than I've ever run!
Around Mile 72 we're told by a race official that the road ahead -- the same stretch that Laurie and I had scouted earlier in the day -- was even worse now and that we should probably try an alternate route. Fortunately, I knew the route we had scouted earlier, so I figure we'll be just fine.
Then we arrive at the first flooded section, about two miles before I expect to see it. I don't know a good way around this. Looking on my phone, I can see that the sidestreets don't go all the way through in this section. Our options are to run through the cold water on an increasingly chilly night, or run a half-mile away to an extremely busy highway. We choose the highway. This road has tons of traffic, despite the fact that it is now around 10 pm. The speed limit is 55, and drivers clearly don't expect to be seeing pedestrians, let alone runners with headlamps and reflective gear. The shoulder is about 2 feet wide, and cars don't slow down or move over at all as they pass us. Eventually we are so spooked by the traffic that we start walking in the sand next to the shoulder. Our pace slows considerably.
Finally we reach the point where I had previously found a dry way through, and try to cut back towards the ocean. The first thing we see are two runners coming the opposite direction. "Are you going that way?" one of them asks. "We're trying to get away from this!"
"We're going to give it a shot," I say. Then I turn down the street that had been completely dry in the morning. As I strain to see in the darkness, I notice that streetlights and porch lights are being reflected in the roadway -- and the reflections stretch as far as I can see. The road is completely flooded. We are either going to get soaked, or we'll have to head back out on the highway. Given that my mittened fingers are already numb from the cold, adding cold, wet feet to the equation doesn't seem like a good idea. I suggest to Dave that we head back to the highway. We follow the other runners back to the main road and spend the next two and a half miles dodging traffic, doing an awful lot of walking, and getting awfully cold.
As we approach the streetlight that we hope indicates our turn (for real!) off the main highway, Dave suggests that "we should probably stop at a gas station to get some coffee and warm up. We're pretty cold." Actually I have finally warmed up, but clearly Dave is getting cold, so I agree. We reach the streetlight, and we see a gas station, along with a course marker -- we're back on the official route, and it's dry and there's little traffic! We head into the gas station where the attendant greets us as if he's seen a lot of skinny aliens like us this evening. Dave buys coffee, uses the restroom, and we both warm up. There's only about 23 miles to go from here!
As we head back on the highway we're greeted by another runner. "Is this the right way?" she asks.
"Yep," I say.
"I ran the whole way through the water," she says. I recognize her as a runner who had been well ahead of us, so I'm confident that running—or should I say, walking—on the highway was the right decision. She soon passes us, but clearly the water has taken a major toll on her.
For the next 10 miles we keep run-walking at roughly a 15-minute pace, easily on target for Dave's 24-hour goal. Dave tells me that he's basically running until his stomach gets too upset to continue. Then he recovers during the walk, and starts it over again.
As 2 am approaches, we remember that tonight is going to be Daylight Saving Time. We wonder if our Garmins will automatically adjust for the time change. Sure enough, I watch my Garmin shift from 1:59 to 3:00 am! We keep going.
I'm starting to notice that I'm developing a hot spot on the bottom of my right foot. A blister at this point, with over 10 miles left, would not be pleasant. At the next water stop I remove my shoe and check it out; actually it doesn't look bad, so I add Body Glide and change socks, figuring this will help.
A few miles later, I find that it hasn't helped at all. The new sock seems rougher on my foot -- either because it really is rougher or the blister is just getting worse.
At Mile 98, we pass by the finish line (!). A race official tells us we have to run to the "end of the road," where there will be a cone. We'll run around the cone, then come back to this point, and at that point, we'll finally be finished.
"How far is that," Dave asks.
"Two miles" is the reply. Four miles added to the 34 I'd already run would be 38 miles, or 12 miles farther than I've ever gone in a single run.
It briefly occurs to me that I could just stop now. Surely Dave could handle these last four miles on his own, I'd still have a PR run, and it would be a lot easier on my feet. But the I decide that if Dave can do 100 miles, I can suffer through four more. We continue on.
The road winds on and on, and we see lots of runners coming back in our direction. When will this road end? Finally we reach a bank of sand-dunes, and the promised cone, completely unattended. Although we could easily save a hundred yards and turn around early, we dutifully run all the way around the cone and head back home. By now my blister has become so sore that walking is actually more painful than running. I figure out a way to jog along at Dave's walking pace when he takes walk-breaks.
Finally we see the finish line again in the distance. I let Dave cross the line alone. He's not only broken 24 hours, he's run the race in under 23 hours! Here he is getting his well-earned silver buckle:
 |
| Still looking like an alien—but a happy alien! |
Moments later, we are all in the van, heading back to the hotel, where we had reserved a room for a 5-hour nap from 5:30 am to checkout. Dave is asleep before we leave the parking lot.
Since I completed a 38-mile run, Chad has declared that I'm officially an ultrarunner, and gave me a really cool shirt from our local ultrarunning group, the League of Ultra-Running Enthusiasts, or LURE.
 |
| Want one? You gotta run 31-plus miles first! |
I'm not sure I'm a true ultrarunner since I still haven't raced an ultra, and I'm not sure I want to. I've still got a lot of marathon- and shorter-length racing that I want to do. But I do like the idea of participating in a race where just getting to the finish is the primary goal. Maybe I'll try some really intense ultra where it's more of an adventure than just a matter of staying on your feet for 8-plus hours.
Given how beat-up my feet were after just 38 miles and 10 hours of running, I'm truly astonished at the ability of runners like Dave to keep it going for over 20 hours and nearly three times the mileage. What an accomplishment!
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Low-carbing it
Last fall I was able to get my weight down to around 180, a figure I haven't seen in over 20 years. But the weight didn't stay off long — after Rocket City Marathon in December I took a vacation and didn't run for 10 days, gaining about 10 pounds. Since January 1 I've been trying to lose that weight back, but it's been very tough. My wife Greta also gained a little weight on our vacation so we decided we'd try a different approach and see if we could lose weight together.
Greta is a psychologist, so she knows that most diet plans are overhyped and under-perform, but one thing is clear: Almost anything that changes your eating routine can help you lose weight. You could try a diet banning all foods starting with letters in the first half of the alphabet, and if you stuck to it, you'd probably lose weight. Just the fact that you have to find a substitute for all those apples and bananas you've been eating will probably lead to weight loss.
That said, some recent diets have shown enough success to suggest that they really may work. The one that looked to us like it would eliminate some of our problem foods while still allowing us to eat some tasty foods was a low-carb diet.
So, starting yesterday, I've changed my eating routine to eliminate as many high-carb foods as possible. Here's what I ate in a typical day previously:
High-carb diet
Breakfast
Bowl of cereal / milk
V8
Morning snacks
Yogurt with fruit on bottom
Granola bar
Lunch
Taco Salad
Afternoon snacks
Apple
Banana
Toast w/peanut butter and jelly
Dinner
Some kind of meat, vegetable, and carb -- maybe steak, salad, and bread; or chicken, couscous, and asparagus; or fish, broccoli, and rice; or roast beef sandwiches with green beans. You get the idea.
A couple glasses of wine
It's actually not a super-high carb diet, but the carbs add up, especially those snacks! A typical day would involve 300 grams of carbs, including over 150 from snacks alone. Now compare that to what I had yesterday:
Low-carb diet
Breakfast
Bowl of low-carb cereal (Bear Naked high protein granola)
Light Soy Milk
V8
Morning snacks
Handful of mixed nuts
Celery sticks with peanut butter
Lunch
Taco Salad
Afternoon snacks
Carrot sticks with hummus
Handful of mixed nuts
Vanilla tea soy latte
Dinner
Roast pork tenderloin with olive tapenade
Roast asparagus with olive oil, salt, and pepper
A couple glasses of wine
Once again, this is not an extreme low-carb diet. A true Atkins Diet fanatic would scoff at this meal plan. But it involves considerably less carbs than what I had been eating before: about 130, with just 67 coming from snacks. The "low-carb" cereal I had for breakfast actually has more carbs than you're supposed to have in an entire day on the Atkins plan. But given that I'm also running 40-70 miles a week, I think it's still likely that I'll lose weight on this plan. That's the hope anyways. I'll keep you updated.
One other note: I do plan on consuming carbs in the form of GU for my longer training runs. This is just to (partially) replenish fuel burnt over the course of the run, and I don't think it will affect my weight-loss plans adversely.
Greta is a psychologist, so she knows that most diet plans are overhyped and under-perform, but one thing is clear: Almost anything that changes your eating routine can help you lose weight. You could try a diet banning all foods starting with letters in the first half of the alphabet, and if you stuck to it, you'd probably lose weight. Just the fact that you have to find a substitute for all those apples and bananas you've been eating will probably lead to weight loss.
That said, some recent diets have shown enough success to suggest that they really may work. The one that looked to us like it would eliminate some of our problem foods while still allowing us to eat some tasty foods was a low-carb diet.
So, starting yesterday, I've changed my eating routine to eliminate as many high-carb foods as possible. Here's what I ate in a typical day previously:
High-carb diet
Breakfast
Bowl of cereal / milk
V8
Morning snacks
Yogurt with fruit on bottom
Granola bar
Lunch
Taco Salad
Afternoon snacks
Apple
Banana
Toast w/peanut butter and jelly
Dinner
Some kind of meat, vegetable, and carb -- maybe steak, salad, and bread; or chicken, couscous, and asparagus; or fish, broccoli, and rice; or roast beef sandwiches with green beans. You get the idea.
A couple glasses of wine
It's actually not a super-high carb diet, but the carbs add up, especially those snacks! A typical day would involve 300 grams of carbs, including over 150 from snacks alone. Now compare that to what I had yesterday:
Low-carb diet
Breakfast
Bowl of low-carb cereal (Bear Naked high protein granola)
Light Soy Milk
V8
Morning snacks
Handful of mixed nuts
Celery sticks with peanut butter
Lunch
Taco Salad
Afternoon snacks
Carrot sticks with hummus
Handful of mixed nuts
Vanilla tea soy latte
Dinner
Roast pork tenderloin with olive tapenade
Roast asparagus with olive oil, salt, and pepper
A couple glasses of wine
Once again, this is not an extreme low-carb diet. A true Atkins Diet fanatic would scoff at this meal plan. But it involves considerably less carbs than what I had been eating before: about 130, with just 67 coming from snacks. The "low-carb" cereal I had for breakfast actually has more carbs than you're supposed to have in an entire day on the Atkins plan. But given that I'm also running 40-70 miles a week, I think it's still likely that I'll lose weight on this plan. That's the hope anyways. I'll keep you updated.
One other note: I do plan on consuming carbs in the form of GU for my longer training runs. This is just to (partially) replenish fuel burnt over the course of the run, and I don't think it will affect my weight-loss plans adversely.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Race Recap: Myrtle Beach Half Marathon
As the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon approached, everything seemed to be converging to make this a special day. The weather looked to be a perfect 43 degrees with very light winds. Myrtle Beach is a flat, fast course. I finally seemed to be recovering my speed after taking some time off in December. While I had been waffling on whether I would be able to attain my ambitious goal of a 1:25 half-marathon, which would qualify me for guaranteed entry into the New York Marathon, with everything looking like this was going to be a fast day, I had to give it a shot.
Let's put this into perspective. A 1:25 half requires an average pace of 6:28 per mile. My previous half-marathon PR was 1:31, just over a year ago in Mississippi. That's a pace of 6:57 per mile, almost a half-minute per mile slower. I've only barely done better than a 6:28 pace for a 10K. While I'm in better shape than I was a month ago, I'm still not quite as fit as I was last fall, when I weighed 8 pounds less and was coming off a summer working out at high elevation in Colorado.
But still, I was committed to giving this a shot, and so I decided to keep my splits at 6:28 or below for as long as I could. While the weather was perfect, there was one small hitch in our routine. As Bobby Aswell and I drove to the starting line at 6 a.m., we were stopped by police, who had already blocked off the roads in anticipation of a 6:30 start. We quickly parked on a side-street, but now instead of leaving our gear in the car, we'd have to carry it with us and check it in at the start line.
We arrived at the start at about 6:10, and headed straight for the bathroom lines. After a nervous wait, I finished at 6:18, and then headed to check my backpack, and was again confronted by a long line. As the clock ticked later and later, I thought about just leaving my backpack, with my wallet and a $500 phone in it, but finally at about 6:23 they took my bag and I was off to find a place at the start. I tried to be nice as I pushed my way through the crowd to get closer to the line. I ended up stopping about 30 rows back.
At the start gun, I weaved my way through the traffic looking for clear space. I looked at my watch and was already running below my planned pace, just 7:00 per mile. Finally things opened up a bit and I was able to start picking things up, just in time to hear fellow DARTer Ashley Naelon yell "That's some 6:30 pace, Munger!" She estimated my pace at that point at 6:15, and that sounds about right, but by the end of Mile 1, I clocked in at 6:26, right where I needed to be.
In Mile 2, I caught up with Adam Mayes, who I had talked with before the race. He was running the full marathon and shooting for a 2:50, which meshed nicely with my plans to run a 1:25 half. We didn't have much of a chance to talk during the race though, because at this pace, I'm not really able to put more than two or three words together.
The next 3 miles went well, and I was able to maintain a sub-6:30 pace without much difficulty:
Mile 2: 6:23
Mile 3: 6:28
Mile 4: 6:25
But on Mile 5, despite my watch reading a 6:27 pace, the Garmin measured it at 1.04 miles, so my total time for the mile was 6:41! This was, naturally, rather frustrating, and between that and having to eat a GU over the next mile, my Garmin pace ended up slowing to a 6:34 pace for that mile. Fortunately this one was a bit short, so I completed it in 6:25. Here I am with Adam around Mile 6:
During Mile 6 and 7, the course loops back on itself in a sort of lollipop, so at the start of Mile 7, you are running opposite the other runners who are still heading out. I saw Roberta Villneff, Stefanie Rodsater, and Rebecca Roquemore Bocker, all of whom were on their way to great performances. Roberta ended up with a 1:41 PR, good for second in her age group!
This cheered me up and I picked up the pace. Before I knew it I was running a 6:15 pace. I decided to dial it back but ended up dialing back a bit too much:
Mile 7: 6:33
Mile 8: 6:33
Mile 9: 6:35
Up until now I had been able to keep fairly close to Adam. We weren't running side by side, but I had always been within 10 yards or so of him. Now he started to pull away, and there wasn't much I could do about it. We were heading north on Ocean Boulevard, a block from the beach, and a chill wind was hitting us head-on. It wasn't enough wind to slow us down, but it was definitely making me cold. I could feel each vibration in my legs down to the icy bones as I tried to keep the pace up. But it wasn't to be:
Mile 10: 6:51
Mile 11: 6:47
Mile 12: 6:56
Three slow miles in a row meant there was no no chance of breaking 1:25. But I still was set to get a decent PR, as long as I could hold on for a little more than a mile. I tried to pick it up for Mile 13. Soon I could see the baseball stadium near the finish line. We were turning off the road and into the entrance to the stadium parking area. I saw a mile marker and hit my "lap" button, but oddly, someone said "just .2 miles left." Uh, wouldn't it only be .1 miles? Then I saw the 13-mile marker ahead. What's up with that? It wasn't until later that I realized I had seen the 26-mile marker for the marathoners. Oops.
I completed mile 13-ish (actually .91 miles) in a 6:43 pace, and the last 0.22 miles at a 5:58 pace, for a final finishing time of...
1:26:37!
Although I didn't qualify for New York, I did manage to take 4 minutes and 23 seconds off my PR for a half, and averaged a 6:36 pace for the race.
As a bonus, I chalked up a victory in my friendly rivalry with Chas Willimon. Each time one of us beats the other's PR in an event, the runner whose record was just eclipsed has to buy a beer. I beat his PR in the half by exactly ONE second!
[update: Corrected to reflect the fact that both me and Chas had our times wrong. Fortunately for me, we were both wrong in the same direction, and I still have his PR beat by one second]
As it now stands, he's got me in the 8K, 10K, and full marathon, while I have him in the 5K and half. Quite a rivalry! I'll be looking forward to that beer!
Here I am at the end of the race:
And, in case I haven't given you enough numbers in this post, below is my GPS record of the race.
Let's put this into perspective. A 1:25 half requires an average pace of 6:28 per mile. My previous half-marathon PR was 1:31, just over a year ago in Mississippi. That's a pace of 6:57 per mile, almost a half-minute per mile slower. I've only barely done better than a 6:28 pace for a 10K. While I'm in better shape than I was a month ago, I'm still not quite as fit as I was last fall, when I weighed 8 pounds less and was coming off a summer working out at high elevation in Colorado.
But still, I was committed to giving this a shot, and so I decided to keep my splits at 6:28 or below for as long as I could. While the weather was perfect, there was one small hitch in our routine. As Bobby Aswell and I drove to the starting line at 6 a.m., we were stopped by police, who had already blocked off the roads in anticipation of a 6:30 start. We quickly parked on a side-street, but now instead of leaving our gear in the car, we'd have to carry it with us and check it in at the start line.
We arrived at the start at about 6:10, and headed straight for the bathroom lines. After a nervous wait, I finished at 6:18, and then headed to check my backpack, and was again confronted by a long line. As the clock ticked later and later, I thought about just leaving my backpack, with my wallet and a $500 phone in it, but finally at about 6:23 they took my bag and I was off to find a place at the start. I tried to be nice as I pushed my way through the crowd to get closer to the line. I ended up stopping about 30 rows back.
At the start gun, I weaved my way through the traffic looking for clear space. I looked at my watch and was already running below my planned pace, just 7:00 per mile. Finally things opened up a bit and I was able to start picking things up, just in time to hear fellow DARTer Ashley Naelon yell "That's some 6:30 pace, Munger!" She estimated my pace at that point at 6:15, and that sounds about right, but by the end of Mile 1, I clocked in at 6:26, right where I needed to be.
In Mile 2, I caught up with Adam Mayes, who I had talked with before the race. He was running the full marathon and shooting for a 2:50, which meshed nicely with my plans to run a 1:25 half. We didn't have much of a chance to talk during the race though, because at this pace, I'm not really able to put more than two or three words together.
The next 3 miles went well, and I was able to maintain a sub-6:30 pace without much difficulty:
Mile 2: 6:23
Mile 3: 6:28
Mile 4: 6:25
But on Mile 5, despite my watch reading a 6:27 pace, the Garmin measured it at 1.04 miles, so my total time for the mile was 6:41! This was, naturally, rather frustrating, and between that and having to eat a GU over the next mile, my Garmin pace ended up slowing to a 6:34 pace for that mile. Fortunately this one was a bit short, so I completed it in 6:25. Here I am with Adam around Mile 6:
 |
| Adam is so fast he's blurry! (Peter Asciutto photo) |
During Mile 6 and 7, the course loops back on itself in a sort of lollipop, so at the start of Mile 7, you are running opposite the other runners who are still heading out. I saw Roberta Villneff, Stefanie Rodsater, and Rebecca Roquemore Bocker, all of whom were on their way to great performances. Roberta ended up with a 1:41 PR, good for second in her age group!
This cheered me up and I picked up the pace. Before I knew it I was running a 6:15 pace. I decided to dial it back but ended up dialing back a bit too much:
Mile 7: 6:33
Mile 8: 6:33
Mile 9: 6:35
Up until now I had been able to keep fairly close to Adam. We weren't running side by side, but I had always been within 10 yards or so of him. Now he started to pull away, and there wasn't much I could do about it. We were heading north on Ocean Boulevard, a block from the beach, and a chill wind was hitting us head-on. It wasn't enough wind to slow us down, but it was definitely making me cold. I could feel each vibration in my legs down to the icy bones as I tried to keep the pace up. But it wasn't to be:
Mile 10: 6:51
Mile 11: 6:47
Mile 12: 6:56
Three slow miles in a row meant there was no no chance of breaking 1:25. But I still was set to get a decent PR, as long as I could hold on for a little more than a mile. I tried to pick it up for Mile 13. Soon I could see the baseball stadium near the finish line. We were turning off the road and into the entrance to the stadium parking area. I saw a mile marker and hit my "lap" button, but oddly, someone said "just .2 miles left." Uh, wouldn't it only be .1 miles? Then I saw the 13-mile marker ahead. What's up with that? It wasn't until later that I realized I had seen the 26-mile marker for the marathoners. Oops.
I completed mile 13-ish (actually .91 miles) in a 6:43 pace, and the last 0.22 miles at a 5:58 pace, for a final finishing time of...
1:26:37!
Although I didn't qualify for New York, I did manage to take 4 minutes and 23 seconds off my PR for a half, and averaged a 6:36 pace for the race.
As a bonus, I chalked up a victory in my friendly rivalry with Chas Willimon. Each time one of us beats the other's PR in an event, the runner whose record was just eclipsed has to buy a beer. I beat his PR in the half by exactly ONE second!
[update: Corrected to reflect the fact that both me and Chas had our times wrong. Fortunately for me, we were both wrong in the same direction, and I still have his PR beat by one second]
As it now stands, he's got me in the 8K, 10K, and full marathon, while I have him in the 5K and half. Quite a rivalry! I'll be looking forward to that beer!
Here I am at the end of the race:
And, in case I haven't given you enough numbers in this post, below is my GPS record of the race.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Getting ready for the Myrtle Beach Half
The Myrtle Beach Half Marathon is just three days away. It's not exactly a target race for me -- my primary training goal right now is getting ready for the Boston Marathon in two months. But training for a half isn't much different from training for a full, so I feel like I'm in good enough shape that I can PR in this race.
The weather, for once, looks to be cooperating as well. Forecast overnight low on Friday is 45 degrees, and with a race start at 6:30 a.m., it won't warm up much between then and when I finish (hopefully before 8 a.m.). Wind can be a factor at this race, but the winds are currently predicted at just 8 miles per hour, so that shouldn't be much of a factor either. Three-day forecasts are usually pretty accurate around here, so I don't think this forecast will change much between now and race day.
I've been feeling much better over the past few weeks than I had in January, so I really do think I have a chance at a solid race. That said, I still think it would be a bit of a stretch for me to hit a NY marathon qualifying time in this race. That would require a 1:25 half-marathon, averaging 6:28 per mile, and PRing by 6 minutes. On the other hand, conditions look to be nearly perfect, and the course is pancake-flat, so if I have a shot at qualifying, there's nothing about this event that should slow me down.
Even better, I have a friend who's running the full marathon at a similar pace to my half, so for the first 11 miles, if everything goes well, I should have someone to run with.
The only real negative I see right now is my weight. I had hoped last year to get down to a racing weight of 175, but got sidetracked dealing with a skin cancer scare (I'm happy to say that the skin cancer looks to be completely cured). I was down to about 180 in the fall but gained some weight over the holidays and I currently weigh in at 188. That's actually not too different from when I ran my Boston qualifier, but the extra 8 pounds compared to last fall, by some rules of thumb, should add about 16 seconds per mile to my pace. That would still be a PR, but wouldn't get me that coveted guaranteed entry to New York.
But given that there is no larger stake in this race, I still think I'm going to try to keep my pace under 6:30. Even if I can't hold that pace for the whole race, I think it's worth it to try--I don't have anything to lose.
This week I'm doing a bit of a taper, cutting my Sunday long run down to just 10 miles, and running 4 miles or less for the last three days of the week. Given the lower mileage, I'm trying to reduce my caloric intake as well and so far I haven't gained any weight. I'm not planning on doing a lot of pre-race carbo-loading but I do plan on eating well the day before the race.
Other than that, all I can do is show up ready to race on Saturday morning. I'll let you know how it goes.
The weather, for once, looks to be cooperating as well. Forecast overnight low on Friday is 45 degrees, and with a race start at 6:30 a.m., it won't warm up much between then and when I finish (hopefully before 8 a.m.). Wind can be a factor at this race, but the winds are currently predicted at just 8 miles per hour, so that shouldn't be much of a factor either. Three-day forecasts are usually pretty accurate around here, so I don't think this forecast will change much between now and race day.
I've been feeling much better over the past few weeks than I had in January, so I really do think I have a chance at a solid race. That said, I still think it would be a bit of a stretch for me to hit a NY marathon qualifying time in this race. That would require a 1:25 half-marathon, averaging 6:28 per mile, and PRing by 6 minutes. On the other hand, conditions look to be nearly perfect, and the course is pancake-flat, so if I have a shot at qualifying, there's nothing about this event that should slow me down.
Even better, I have a friend who's running the full marathon at a similar pace to my half, so for the first 11 miles, if everything goes well, I should have someone to run with.
The only real negative I see right now is my weight. I had hoped last year to get down to a racing weight of 175, but got sidetracked dealing with a skin cancer scare (I'm happy to say that the skin cancer looks to be completely cured). I was down to about 180 in the fall but gained some weight over the holidays and I currently weigh in at 188. That's actually not too different from when I ran my Boston qualifier, but the extra 8 pounds compared to last fall, by some rules of thumb, should add about 16 seconds per mile to my pace. That would still be a PR, but wouldn't get me that coveted guaranteed entry to New York.
But given that there is no larger stake in this race, I still think I'm going to try to keep my pace under 6:30. Even if I can't hold that pace for the whole race, I think it's worth it to try--I don't have anything to lose.
This week I'm doing a bit of a taper, cutting my Sunday long run down to just 10 miles, and running 4 miles or less for the last three days of the week. Given the lower mileage, I'm trying to reduce my caloric intake as well and so far I haven't gained any weight. I'm not planning on doing a lot of pre-race carbo-loading but I do plan on eating well the day before the race.
Other than that, all I can do is show up ready to race on Saturday morning. I'll let you know how it goes.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Pacing isn't easy
My goal for the Cupid's Cup 5K on Sunday was simple: Run it in as close to 21 minutes and 22 seconds as possible without going over.
I was pacing my friend Roberta Vilneff in a dry-run attempt at the North Carolina record for a 5K by a woman age 60-65.
A 21:22 works out to a 6:52 per mile pace. But of course, when you're running the race, you're not exactly sure whether your Garmin is going to match the official mileage of the race. To be sure, we decided that I'd be running a 6:45 pace. The plan was for me to stay as close to that pace as possible while fellow DARTer Chad Randolph stayed with Roberta.
The course starts uphill, so we expected that I would pull ahead of them, but hopefully they'd reel me in on the downhill finish.
I started up the hill, and as is often the case for me, I ended up running a bit fast. At about .75 miles, my average pace for the first mile was 6:37. Then the course headed downhill, and I had to really hold back as several runners passed me. I passed the 1-mile marker while my watch still read 0.98 miles. I clicked "lap" on my watch and saw that I had completed the first mile in 6:33. Oops.
The next mile started out flat, then headed up a steep little hill. I had to force myself to put out a little extra effort to maintain my pace. But I also wanted to slow down a bit to try to get my average pace back up to 6:45. I decided that I needed to keep a 6:48 pace for the rest of the race.
As the course flattened out I was able to keep my watch at 6:48. But then I noticed that I was at 2.1 miles -- I hadn't seen the 2-mile marker, so I didn't know whether I was behind or ahead relative to the official measurement. As the course headed downhill I had to consciously put on the brakes again. Now lots of runners were passing me as I ran what felt like a very comfortable pace down the hill. I wasn't even really breathing hard. But my watch was stuck on 6:48, just as I planned.
I tried to look over my shoulder every once in a while to see if Roberta and Chad were there, but I couldn't spot them. I kept my steady pace all the way through the finish, and I ended up at 20:50 for the race -- about 30 seconds too fast.
But that meant Roberta still had a shot at the record, so I ran back past the starting line to see if I could spot her. Roberta and Chad came across at 21:56 -- close to a PR for Roberta, and just 34 seconds off the record.
I felt bad because I had taken off too fast, and had finished 30 seconds faster than I needed too. Maybe if I had started off at a true 6:45 pace, Roberta would have kept me in sight and picked it up enough to get the record. That said, my Garmin measured the course a touch short -- at 3.09 miles, and my average pace for that distance was indeed 6:45, so I got fairly close to what I had been shooting for.
At least we can take solace in the fact that this race wouldn't have counted anyways. It was actually fairly hilly, so I think with another month or so of speed work and a truly flat course, Roberta has a great shot at the record.
My Garmin record of the race is below.
I was pacing my friend Roberta Vilneff in a dry-run attempt at the North Carolina record for a 5K by a woman age 60-65.
A 21:22 works out to a 6:52 per mile pace. But of course, when you're running the race, you're not exactly sure whether your Garmin is going to match the official mileage of the race. To be sure, we decided that I'd be running a 6:45 pace. The plan was for me to stay as close to that pace as possible while fellow DARTer Chad Randolph stayed with Roberta.
The course starts uphill, so we expected that I would pull ahead of them, but hopefully they'd reel me in on the downhill finish.
I started up the hill, and as is often the case for me, I ended up running a bit fast. At about .75 miles, my average pace for the first mile was 6:37. Then the course headed downhill, and I had to really hold back as several runners passed me. I passed the 1-mile marker while my watch still read 0.98 miles. I clicked "lap" on my watch and saw that I had completed the first mile in 6:33. Oops.
The next mile started out flat, then headed up a steep little hill. I had to force myself to put out a little extra effort to maintain my pace. But I also wanted to slow down a bit to try to get my average pace back up to 6:45. I decided that I needed to keep a 6:48 pace for the rest of the race.
As the course flattened out I was able to keep my watch at 6:48. But then I noticed that I was at 2.1 miles -- I hadn't seen the 2-mile marker, so I didn't know whether I was behind or ahead relative to the official measurement. As the course headed downhill I had to consciously put on the brakes again. Now lots of runners were passing me as I ran what felt like a very comfortable pace down the hill. I wasn't even really breathing hard. But my watch was stuck on 6:48, just as I planned.
I tried to look over my shoulder every once in a while to see if Roberta and Chad were there, but I couldn't spot them. I kept my steady pace all the way through the finish, and I ended up at 20:50 for the race -- about 30 seconds too fast.
 |
| I cross the line (Bobby Aswell Photo) |
But that meant Roberta still had a shot at the record, so I ran back past the starting line to see if I could spot her. Roberta and Chad came across at 21:56 -- close to a PR for Roberta, and just 34 seconds off the record.
 |
| Roberta and Chad in perfect sync (Richard Hefner Photo) |
I felt bad because I had taken off too fast, and had finished 30 seconds faster than I needed too. Maybe if I had started off at a true 6:45 pace, Roberta would have kept me in sight and picked it up enough to get the record. That said, my Garmin measured the course a touch short -- at 3.09 miles, and my average pace for that distance was indeed 6:45, so I got fairly close to what I had been shooting for.
At least we can take solace in the fact that this race wouldn't have counted anyways. It was actually fairly hilly, so I think with another month or so of speed work and a truly flat course, Roberta has a great shot at the record.
My Garmin record of the race is below.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Helping Roberta Rock
The first time I ran with Roberta Vilneff was last spring. I was planning a fairly hard tempo run and it was a warm day. Roberta showed up along with a couple of familiar faces. She looked to be in good shape but seemed to be a lot older than the others in the group. I told everyone about my plans and wondered whether Roberta would be able to keep up. I later found out that she was 60 years old.
In fact, Roberta held her own that day. After that, I started looking her up in race results. She was easily winning her age group, and even getting overall wins for women. This fall, she put up times in the low 22's for a 5K. It wasn't long ago that I couldn't do that myself. Now I'm quite a bit faster than that, but I've been actively training and doing speed work for the past several years. Roberta tells me that she's done practically no speed work.
After one particularly good showing, Richard Hefner told Roberta on Facebook that she was extremely close to the North Carolina record for her age group. Her PR (on a net-downhill course) is 21:38, and the state record is 21:22. All this with no speed work!
So I suggested that I could help her reach her goal. We'd do speed work together once a week, then pick a couple flat, certified courses to try for the record this spring. Since a 21:22 is a fairly easy 5K pace for me, I can run a nice steady record-breaking pace, and all Roberta will have to do is keep up.
So far we've met three times for track work, and Roberta has improved each time. She's not only fast for a 60-year-old, she's fast for *any* age. This week we're going to do a dry run attempt at the record at the Cupid's Cup 5K, which has a reputation for being a fast, fair course. Unfortunately it's not a certified course, so if she breaks the record there it won't count.
Yesterday we did a mini-taper workout, just 2*800, 2*400, and 2*200, but Roberta was flying on each of the intervals, hitting the 800s at a 6:48 mile pace, the 400s at a 6:19 pace, and the 200s at a blistering 5:45 pace. All she needs to break the record is a 6:52 pace, so I think she can do it.
Just to give you a sense of the level at which she is competing, she easily rates as an All-American in her age group for the 5000 meter distance. All that is necessary is a 26:00 time, and she has run a 21:38 on a non-certified course and in the low 22s on certified courses. Compare that to my best 5K: 18:03, still over a minute short of the 16:45 I'd need to be an All-American in my age group. Roberta's best times actually qualify for All-American status in the 50-54 age group!
I'm really looking forward to Saturday's race with Roberta. If she's close to the record, we'll have to find a certified course so she can go for it for real.
Details of my own workout this morning are below.
In fact, Roberta held her own that day. After that, I started looking her up in race results. She was easily winning her age group, and even getting overall wins for women. This fall, she put up times in the low 22's for a 5K. It wasn't long ago that I couldn't do that myself. Now I'm quite a bit faster than that, but I've been actively training and doing speed work for the past several years. Roberta tells me that she's done practically no speed work.
After one particularly good showing, Richard Hefner told Roberta on Facebook that she was extremely close to the North Carolina record for her age group. Her PR (on a net-downhill course) is 21:38, and the state record is 21:22. All this with no speed work!
So I suggested that I could help her reach her goal. We'd do speed work together once a week, then pick a couple flat, certified courses to try for the record this spring. Since a 21:22 is a fairly easy 5K pace for me, I can run a nice steady record-breaking pace, and all Roberta will have to do is keep up.
So far we've met three times for track work, and Roberta has improved each time. She's not only fast for a 60-year-old, she's fast for *any* age. This week we're going to do a dry run attempt at the record at the Cupid's Cup 5K, which has a reputation for being a fast, fair course. Unfortunately it's not a certified course, so if she breaks the record there it won't count.
Yesterday we did a mini-taper workout, just 2*800, 2*400, and 2*200, but Roberta was flying on each of the intervals, hitting the 800s at a 6:48 mile pace, the 400s at a 6:19 pace, and the 200s at a blistering 5:45 pace. All she needs to break the record is a 6:52 pace, so I think she can do it.
Just to give you a sense of the level at which she is competing, she easily rates as an All-American in her age group for the 5000 meter distance. All that is necessary is a 26:00 time, and she has run a 21:38 on a non-certified course and in the low 22s on certified courses. Compare that to my best 5K: 18:03, still over a minute short of the 16:45 I'd need to be an All-American in my age group. Roberta's best times actually qualify for All-American status in the 50-54 age group!
I'm really looking forward to Saturday's race with Roberta. If she's close to the record, we'll have to find a certified course so she can go for it for real.
Details of my own workout this morning are below.
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