Plans for the year

Posted on May 30, 2010 by threlkeld

Summer and fall race planning is in full swing, with training plans to be built around it. Basically, I want to continue to run shorter races, either as full out efforts or to supplement training as either race pace runs or to substitute for speedwork.

The fall is going to be all about the half marathon. I want to reach the end of 2010 having excelled at this distance. I’ll state now that my goals are lofty: a half by year’s end in the mid-1:20s. If I can run a half marathon at 6:30 pace per mile, I will feel much better equiped to start training for a marathon again.

So the summer’s got a lot of shorter stuff, with opportunities to score some points for the New York Harriers, and run many races I haven’t done before. Then I’ve got at least three half marathons I can run, about a month apart (I don’t count the Bronx Half, since it will probably be incredibly hot; if I do that one at all, I’m betting it will be as a training run).

The goal race for the fall is Richmond, VA. Jonathan may or may not do the full, but it’s a combined race, so we’ll figure it out as we get closer. I have it in the back of my mind that if things go spectacularly well this fall I’ve always got the option of doing the full there instead of the half. I like having options. Jonathan has a grad school friend who lives in St. Mary’s, Maryland, and whom we haven’t seen since (gulp) circa 1991. So we can hit her with a visit either on the way there or back. Long drive. But I’m good at those, my record being 11 hours from here to northern Maine in one day.

I will unfortunately miss Grete’s Great Gallop (a half marathon in Central Park) in early October as I’ll be out of town. That’s one I’d like to race, not only because of the whole Norwegian themed aspect (and a chance to meet Ms. Waitz), but also because it’s a club points scorer and I should not only be in good shape by then, but also in shape to race that distance in particular. But I’ll pencil that race in for 2011.

May
May 31*        Ridgewood, NJ 5K 

June
June 8*        1500 track race, Icahn Stadium
June 12*       NYRR Mini 10K, Central Park, NY (club race)
Jun 19-20*     Green Mountain Relay, VT (approx 15M over
                 three races)

July
July 5         Firecracker 8K, Southampton, NY
July 10        Women's Distance Festival 5K, Rockland
                 County, NY
July 17*       NYRR Run for Central Park 4 miler Central
                 Park, NY (club race)

August
Aug 7*         NYRR Team Championship 5 miler (club
                 championships - double points)
Aug 15         NYRR Bronx Half Marathon

September
Sept 11 or     NYRR Mind, Body, Spirit 4 miler (club race)
Sept 12        South Nyack 10 miler (could go either
                 way between these two on this weekend)
Sept 26*        Jersey City Half Marathon

October
Oct 10 or      Westchester Half Marathon
Oct 17         Bay State Half Marathon

November
Nov 13*        Richmond, VA Half Marathon

December
Dec 5*         NYRR Joe Kleinerman 10K (club race)

*The asterisks indicate that I've prioritized these.

Filed under: central park, elites, ny harriers, racing, training, travel, westchester | 5 Comments »

Training: May 10-23, 2010

Posted on May 23, 2010 by threlkeld

Well, these past few weeks have certainly been busy. Mileage was low, but punctuated by some interesting workouts and my first ever track race which was less than stellar, through no fault of my own.

Around all of this have been heavy duty work demands (on top of my M-F gig, a new freelance client with a lot of work that had to be done very quickly — lots of juggling and long hours there), plus my entré into running journalism, plus much work preparing to launch my new side project, Houston Hopefuls (see glaring banner in the upper right hand corner of this page), plus meeting my Vermont Relay teammates, plus strange, unidentifiable car parts actually falling off the bottom of my car. Seriously. The shit has been hitting the fan in a big way. But mostly in a good way.

The training has been one of the least demanding aspects of these past two weeks. Here it is. I won’t go into excruciating details because I’ve been wrestling with hand-coded HTML in WordPress (okay, Jonathan’s wrestled with it as I stood over him giving direction) all day and trying to figure out how to set up domain-specific email addresses. One minor triumph was finally figuring out how to podcast using Skype to record MP3s of phone conversations. I’d tried TalkShoe, but rejected it as it’s a proprietary format and you can’t edit the files. Now I’m going native. MP3 native, that is.

I was given two speed sessions earlier in the month to help prepare me for a mile race on the track. These were both really fun sessions. The first was a short set of cutdowns, with the last one having no assigned pace other than to “floor it.”

A few days later I did my first ever session of 300’s and holy crap were those fun. Much easier than 400’s. I got up at an ungodly hour to do those before heading into the city for a NYRR press event for the Healthy Kidney 10K, which resulted in two articles, one about the competitive elites and the other about Khalid Khannouchi’s comeback.

The first one made the front page of LetsRun.com and, shortly thereafter, was also linked as a daily news headline on Track and Field News’ website. No one has picked up the Khannouchi story, so maybe they’re sick of me already.

The next day I went in with Jonathan to watch the elites (and him) race. This one was his debut as a Warren Street member and he did well, placing 4th in his AG (those club points races are competitive) and helping to put Warren St. in 2nd place for the men’s 50+ team scoring in this race.

Jonathan appears startled at the end of this race verité clip from Joe. Also note the none-too-subtle dig at the New York Harriers.

The following week I ran my soppy race on Tuesday evening.

Then some quicker recovery runs (they are getting faster) during the week. Yesterday I did a run I haven’t done in at least a couple of years, one that I call the Yonkers Lungbuster. Yonkers is very hilly. If you want to put together a good hill run, it’s very easy to do. I ran just under 7 miles, climbing a total of 1,400 ft. My HR showed it too, averaging 86% for an 8:27 pace. It was warm and humid, which pushed it up. Still, it was a very satisfying run and it seemed to prime me for running reasonably fast again today.

This morning’s run was done along a three mile loop that circles Rockland Lake, about a half an hour northwest of our house, over the Chimpan Zee Bridge. Jonathan ran a 10K race up there. In fact, he won it in a time of 36:28. For his efforts he received an ugly trophy and a basket of Swiss skincare products. If he didn’t live with me, they’d have gone straight into the garbage. But because I’ll use anything that’s free, I’ll be slathering these expensive products on myself for weeks to come.

Weird booty.

Would you like some Swiss skincare products with your bagel?

Filed under: central park, elites, racing, training | 8 Comments »

Healthy Kidney 10K: Khannouchi’s Comeback

Posted on May 22, 2010 by threlkeld

As promised, here’s the second report on my journalistic gatecrashing exercise. In this installment, I share what I learned from talking with Khalid Khannouchi and with his wife, Sandra Inoa, who is also his coach and agent.

I was so involved in yammering with Patrick Smyth about altitude training that I didn’t notice Khannouchi had come in. But I did sense people drifting away from our table and eventually figured out why they were flocking to the other side of the room: the comeback story had arrived. I joined them a few minutes into their session.

If you don’t follow elite running, or your exposure to it has been very recent, you probably have no idea who Khalid Khannouchi is. Khannouchi is a Moroccan-born runner (he became an American citizen in 2000) who got on the radar by winning gold for the 5000m at the World University Games in 1993. But he gradually moved up in distance over subsequent years, establishing himself as a world class marathoner in the late 1990’s.

His marathoning career began with a bang: he ran a 2:07:01 in Chicago (a race he would go on to win three more times) in 1997, which was then the world’s fastest marathon debut time. It was also (again, at the time), the fourth fastest marathon ever run. But, as it turns out, Khannouchi was just getting started. Over the next few years, he managed to lower that time in four out of his next seven marathons. His best was a 2:05:38 in London in 2002, a time that still stands as the American record.*

Then, later in 2002, Khannouchi’s fortunes turned. He began to experience problems in his left foot, which would plague him for years an cut short his training for the 2008 Men’s Olympic Marathon Trials race in Central Park. Despite that, Khannouchi finished fourth, securing a spot as the team’s alternate in Beijing. After that, he ran just one more race, the Steamboat Classic in Peoria, IL, a four miler held in June, in which he would place ninth.

Surgery, followed by rehab
Khannouchi has had several surgeries on his foot and he’s hoping the most recent one, which was performed a little over a year ago, will be the one that solves his problem once and for all. When asked about the details of the surgery, he began to describe it, then leaned down and took off his shoe and sock to show rather than tell. There were his scars: one to remove a bunion and another along the top lateral instep to remove a bone spur. (Khannouchi has very attractive feet for a runner, by the way.)

Completing the rehab package are two custom made orthotics, with the left one being completely different in form and appearance from the right one. He has two sets of orthotics, one for running and one for just walking around. It took three months to arrive at the right structural formula for them. He’d get a pair, try them out, report back and then try a new pair that had been tweaked.

In the meantime, he was cross-training on a stationary bike, doing a lot of pool running and testing the waters with some jogging on the roads. He’s only been running again, after a complete post-surgery layoff from road running, for about six months.

Although he occasionally trains with his brother (I don’t know which one; he has several), Khannouchi usually trains alone, doing his track workouts at Sleepy Hollow High School’s track, trail running in Rockefeller State Park and sometimes doing a run in Central Park, where he is often recognized.

Baby steps, starting in Central Park on Saturday
What Khannouchi wanted to make perfectly clear was that the Healthy Kidney event was not meant to be a competitive race for him. He had no expectations of winning. Instead, this was a trial run to test everything out. Could he run fast and hard on pavement without pain? Could he race up and down hills? Could he push himself? These were the questions he was looking to answer on Saturday. He needed a competitive race for this experiment, and Healthy Kidney seemed like a good place to start: it’s in his backyard, he’d have competition around him and he could count on the full support of NYRR.

When asked about what other plans he had for his burgeoning comeback attempt, Khannouchi said he planned to do two more 10Ks this summer as similar, iterative tests: the Atlanta Peachtree race in July and Maine’s Beach to Beacon race in August. I went over to talk to Inoa about these races, since I figured she was the brains behind the plan. And she was. But first, she rolled her eyes and laughed when I asked about the two races. “He told you about Peachtree and Beach to Beacon?” she asked, looking a little exasperated. (As it turns out, Peachtree was already out there, but I don’t know if he was supposed to mention Beach to Beacon; a note to them post interview to inquire resulted in permission to publish their plans to go to Maine here).

Khannouchi didn’t do any 10K specific training for this race, primarily because he can’t. Because of his foot, he can’t run 200-400m track repeats, but, as he said, “You don’t need those for the marathon.” The 10K is a distance that’s long enough to reveal any lingering issues, but short enough to race frequently. I gathered that it’s also a distance that will allow Khannouchi to return to the races/courses in Georgia and Maine, where he’s done well and gotten organizational support in the past.

Two more tests, then a decision
Inoa has him running around 70 miles per week at this point. The plan is to gradually ramp up the mileage and intensity of training over the summer, using the two 10K road races to similarly test how he’s handling the load. A hard race will accomplish two things: for one, it will provide a “stress test” from which the couple can gather information about how his body is holding up to the ever increasing demands; for another, it will show whether he’s making absolute progress in terms of speed. If he’s going to compete at any distance, he needs to get faster.

Which brings me to another interesting facet of this story. Khannouchi is 38 years old. That’s not young for a male marathoner. Yet he is making a comeback in the open category, not as a masters runner. He wants to compete against everyone, not just his Age Group peers. Making a statement like that will almost certainly open him up to a wave of criticism and naysaying, which makes it all the more compelling that he’s saying it. As a side note, Khannouchi mentioned Meb Keflezighi’s comeback from what many had declared a dead career as an inspiration and galvanizing influence on his own decision to give competitive marathoning another go.

Anyway, the idea is that by the time he runs that third 10K race, he should be in or approaching full marathon training mode, meaning up to 110-120 mile weeks again. Beach to Beacon is going to be Sink or Swim, in a sense. That race should reveal his level of readiness to take on the full marathon at the competitive level he expects of himself. If he’s not ready, they’ll back off from their plans and reevaluate. If he is ready, then it’s full speed ahead.

Learning to be patient
At one point I asked Khannouchi about recovery time. I prefaced the question by saying that, since I’m a few years older than he is, I felt I could ask him this: “As you’ve gotten into your late thirties, do you find you need more recovery time? What about entire recovery weeks?”

His answer was that he did need a lot more recovery time and that it was not unusual to take workouts that he used to cram into one week when he was younger and spread them out over two weeks. But he does not take entire “down weeks.” Inoa just keeps his workload at a reasonable level throughout the training cycle.

Still, now that he’s running well again, Inoa has to rein him in. As she told me, “He’s been frustrated because he wants to jump back in and run fast workouts.” She has to hold him back and remind him that the focus right now is on regaining his fitness while avoiding injury. That means being patient.

Race day success
I spotted Khannouchi well behind the lead pack at mile 1.5 of the race, but holding up well. He was running fast and looked good. There was no sign of pain on his face, hitches in his stride or any other indicators of something being amiss. For a non-competitive effort, he still placed in a respectable 21st place, a little under three minutes off his best for the distance. He looked genuinely happy when he crossed the finish line.

I caught up with him after the race in the media area, where he was getting a massage. We chatted for a few minutes about how the race went. Here’s a transcript of our exchange:

Me: You looked really good at mile 1.5. You looked smooth and relaxed.

KK: I felt good throughout the race.

Me: So how was it?

KK: It was hard. First race in three years. I mean, it’s not going to come easy, but we felt like it was a good effort and it was very exciting to be out there. I feel like I pushed hard and, 30:30 or so — for a first race in three years, that’s a good time. Well, something promising. Not a good time, but something that we can build on.

Me: So you feel it was successful in terms of what you wanted to achieve?

KK: Just by being here it was a success. Like I said [yesterday], we talk about the fear of having injury in my mind. Just by being here it feels like I’m motivated to start all over again. It’s not going to be easy, right? We know that. So at least it was a start, and it was good.

Me: So no twinges?

KK: No, I’m going for a cooldown now, and [pointing to left foot] it feels good.

Me: I was talking with Sandra yesterday about how, if you don’t race for awhile, you can sort of forget how to race, how to pace yourself. Did you feel any of that today?

KK: Yeah, sure. Not only that, but you lose the rhythm, you lose the impact with the ground, you lose a lot of things that we have to work on. We need to improve everything little by little. It’s not going to come in a day or in a race or two. But it’s going to take patience and it’s going to take hard work and it’s going to take also, you know…the people around you have to be people that can motivate you, people that, in a bad time, will come to you and support you. I think all that stuff has to be together in order for us to make a comeback or do better or improve.

Me: And how was the crowd support? Did people recognize you and cheer you on?

KK: There was big support. I was very impressed. I always come down and do my running here when I have to get therapy in the city and people do recognize me. But there was more [of a] crowd today and there was more support. I was thrilled to run in front of them. It wasn’t what I usually run. It was, you know, more than two minutes off my personal best.

Me: Can I check in with you after Peachtree?

KK: Yes, of course! We’ll update you with what’s going on. I’m hoping it will be good news.

Me: Based on today, I think it will be.

*When I asked him which American marathoner he thought had a chance of breaking his record, he diplomatically demurred and went off on a tangent about things needing to go perfectly on race day. The guy certainly knows how to give an interview without getting himself into hot water.

Filed under: central park, coaching, elites, injury, inspiration, racing, recovery, training, westchester | Tagged: , , , | 10 Comments »

Training: May 3-9, 2010

Posted on May 9, 2010 by threlkeld

50 mpw seems to be my training “set point” these days. I hope it’s not too much of a shock when I start up higher mileage in the summer. But I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it.

This was an eventful week for two reasons. First of all, this week featured the first race in which I was sporting a blue bib. The other big event this week was that both Jonathan and I joined the ranks of running clubdom. But two different clubs.

Joe has been working on Jonathan for awhile to join Warren Street and finally broke him this week. Then I was plied with iced tea and delicious nibbly things by a New York Harrier on Saturday and in a moment of weakness said I’d join up to bolster the 40+ womens scoring.

I don’t know how competitive these two clubs are against each other, but I suspect that once we start racing for points in earnest, the crockery will be flying. I’ve already warned Joe that I plan to sabotage Jonathan’s training at every opportunity.*

I also have to admit that I don’t really understand the points scoring system, which seems arcane, at least at first glance. But this isn’t the first time I’ve committed to something with only a vague understanding of the requirements or consequences.

Below is a picture of me with said troublemaker. We are admiring our magical blue bibs (her first as well).

Bibstruck.

The week was capped with Yet Another Race, a Mother’s Day themed 4 miler. This is getting old, I know. So old that I’m not even going to write a dedicated race report this time. Since I’m on the subject anyway, here’s my quasi race report:

On the surface, it looks like I made zero progress between this 4 miler and the 4 miler on the exact same course in March. March was a 27:34. Today was a 27:35. But one must look at the splits, grasshopper. The splits. Very important. The splits, they hold the knowledge.

March: 6:47, 6:48, 7:06, 6:42

Today: 6:47, 6:43, 7:18, 6:34

It was hellaciously windy this morning, a very strong wind mostly going from west to east, although at times it felt southwesterly. My goal was to try to run 6:45s for at least three of the four miles. Mile three on this course is always awful for me — the transverse is often windy (as it was today) and the hills on mile three, while rolling, are exhausting.

I established a 6:45ish pace pretty much immediately and was feeling really good until the transverse when the wall of wind hit us. I was really working during mile three but trying to not work so hard that I’d wreck myself for the last mile. I was more successful with that today than I typically am, as evidenced by my 6:34 final mile. This is why looking at splits is important; they tell a more informative story than the finish line clock does. I’ve got a higher level of speed endurance than I had six weeks ago. I credit all the racing for that.

I also started up with the weight training again and have been experimenting with eating loads of protein and a bit more fat throughout the day. I lost three pounds, although I know quite a bit of it was water weight. But at least the scale’s moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, as part of this effort I’m tee-totaling, which is always a drag. But I find it’s easier to just not drink than to try to drink in moderation. Not because I have a problem. I just love to drink.

I briefly flirted with the idea of doing next Saturday’s Healthy Kidney 10K race. But I need to keep my eye on the immediate prize: running a halfway decent 1500 on the 18th. Racing a hilly 10K three days before that is not going to help. So next week will feature two speed sessions: another cutdown workout on Tuesday followed by some 300s (this is new) on Friday.

I thoroughly enjoyed the 400m repeats I did this week, hitting most of them at 90, although I cut the session short at the tail end of the ninth one when my pace fell off and my left hamstring started complaining. It’s taken so many hard lessons to learn to cut a workout short when there’s an issue, or not do it at all if it’s the wrong day to try.

In other news, my Olympic Trials interview project has started off well. I’ve got at least six women who are very interested in taking part, and I’m hoping to add at least a couple more to my roster. But I haven’t stopped looking. All the women have quite different running/racing backgrounds, which I’m very happy about. They are all interesting in one way or another.

*Since I am the nutritional director of the household this should be very easy for me to do. I’ll plan to feed him copious amounts of goose liver paté, slightly spoiled Stilton cheese and Baconnaise. I’m also going to start keeping an airhorn next to the bed for very early morning wakeups.

Filed under: central park, drinking, eating, ny harriers, olympics, racing, strength training, training | Tagged: , , , | 7 Comments »

Training: April 26 – May 2, 2010

Posted on May 3, 2010 by threlkeld

This was not a great week for either training or racing. That’s okay, as my expectations were low going in (although I then had to lower them yet again as the weather changed). I’m posting this more or less as a formality, since details about the week can be found in earlier posts:

I’m not thrilled by the fact that the one event that resembled a “goal race” was shut out by horrendous heat and humidity. But it is what it is. I’ve still got a couple months’ worth of totally new racing experiences to look forward to: track racing at Icahn Stadium, a cross-country race and then the ultra relay in Vermont. So I’ve got lots to look forward to.

Then I buckle down this summer, get the mileage back up and start my preparations for the fall, which I’ve decided is going to be all about getting good at racing half marathons.

Filed under: training | Leave a comment »

Pleasure Dawdle: Long Island Half 2010

Posted on May 2, 2010 by threlkeld

I ran this race as a low key training run for reasons previously stated. I ended up with 13.25 miles in just over 2:05, or roughly 9:30 pace. Average effort was around 80%.

Well, it was hot and humid today, just as predicted. I’d resigned myself to not racing it, although a few minutes before the race, when it was only in the mid-60s I toyed with the idea of doing an all out effort. Then I decided against it; it’s not like you can race the first 10K, then change your mind. Once you’ve exerted yourself in conditions like these you’re in it for the haul, meaning the damage is done and running slower after a fast first half will be a lot harder than if you’d jogged the whole way, which is essentially what I did for most of the “race” today.

If you enjoy running on barren, completely exposed major roadways, then this is the race for you. But if you decide to take it on in 2011, be sure to get there early! We were trapped in a sluggish, single lane of cars crawling toward parking for at least 15 minutes after getting into the park entrance. Jonathan finally gave up and bolted from the car at 7:20.  Unlike me, his plan today was to race and neither of us had a clue about where the start was. It turns out the race start was a five minute stroll from where I parked. He took the long way around. We wouldn’t see each other again for another three hours.

Somehow we managed the separation and, in our own ways, both had a grand old time. Jonathan came in (he thinks) 13th overall, having managed an unofficial 1:20:03. He was, of course, unhappy with this, whereas I was astonished, considering the conditions and the fact that he hasn’t actually been training for a half (or even a full). His paces were very even. I think it was among his most successful races, but he doesn’t share this opinion.

In terms of his performance in a relative sense, one of the many quirks of this race is that obtaining “results” consists of lining up to use a machine into which you enter your bib number, which then burps out a printed receipt of your time and pace. But you have no idea how anyone else did. We assume he won the M50-59 AG, but won’t know until the award shows up (or doesn’t) in the mail eventually. Edited: Well, he won M50-54, but was beaten by a 58 year old!

There was apparently some drama at the start line. Jonathan was lined up  near the front, and right before the start the race director surveyed those in front and pointed to a man who obviously didn’t belong there (very overweight) and demanded that he move back, which he did. Then he approached a woman who in his estimation also didn’t belong there (although Jonathan said he didn’t think one could necessarily have made that assumption by looking at her). The RD demanded she move back as well, but she resisted. So he ripped her tag off and disqualified her on the spot.

Jonathan said the calling out of some vs. others seemed random and inconsistent to him, as there were other people on the line who didn’t belong up there. I suppose it’s the RD’s prerogative to decide, perhaps for safety reasons, who can and can’t be in the first row. But ejecting someone seems excessive. My guess? The LI race director is just another power mad jerk.

I was way back in the middle of the pack at the start. At 8AM we started walking toward the start mats and the women behind me were exclaiming how we had “perfect weather.” That’s when I hit “Play” on my MP3 player.

This is the first race I’ve run with music and let me tell you, I understand why people do it. Jogging for 13+ miles can be really boring. I knew this already, which is why I have an MP3 player in the first place, although I’ve heretofore been a purist when it comes to mixing music with racing. But I figured if I was going to play contented midpacker for a day, I may as well go whole hog and do it with headphones jammed into my ears. For today, I chose my “Sunday Run” mix (see below). It’s what I listen to on Sundays. Easy decision.

The first few miles ticked by without incident. I distracted myself with judgmental assessments of the wide range of tattoos that surrounded me. There were lots of “tramp stamps” to be seen, but I was most impressed with one woman’s “Farm / Ancient Rome” visual pastiche along her upper back, the centerpiece of which was two pigs with (and I can’t explain this, so don’t make me try) a large Doric column emerging from their spines. The other highlight was the woman with two tattoos on her calves: a Star of David (left) and Christ on a Cross (right). Mixed marriage?

The colorful visual treats so held my attention that I was taken by surprise by the sudden appearance of the 5 mile mark, only noticing it because that was when the sun emerged from the clouds, necessitating that I move to the shady side of the street, where I ran with a few 10K race stragglers. At mile 8 we turned into a headwind and for once wind was a refreshing, cooling force rather than an obstructive, energy sapping one.

I picked up the pace then, figuring on upping effort for the remainder of the race. Even in that weather, running the last 3-4 miles at higher effort wasn’t going to kill me. Anything I can do at this point to acclimatize myself for the coming summer months is going to help. At 9:30, or around mile 9.5, the sun came out for good and it was beating down on us. I was running at around 80% at that point and started to pick things up, primarily to get this over with.

I started passing people, although other people were also picking things up, so I had lots of company. One thing I noticed was that most of the (much younger) people around me weren’t running all that hard. Meaning they weren’t really racing. I used to notice this when the pace I ran today was my race pace way back when and it used to drive me crazy. It still happens in some NYRR races, where I’m about to eject an internal organ, I’m working so hard, but I’ll sometimes be running with guys who are chatting about where they had dinner last night. But nothing like this in terms of sheer numbers. My point is that I suspect a lot of “average” runners could run much faster if they tried. I don’t know why they don’t. Maybe because it’s very uncomfortable? Yeah. I’ll bet that’s it.

At mile 11.6 I saw my first heat-related casualty, a guy who looked to be in his mid-20s, slightly overweight, flat on his back. He was surrounded by cops who hadn’t bothered to try to get him into the shade and were otherwise making no visible effort to get him cooler. I listened for sirens, but heard none. Then at 11.75 miles I spotted Guy in His 20s #2. This time the cops were raising his feet (he was passed out cold), but, again, no ambulance.

The final straw was a man I saw at the 13 mile mark, clearly in big trouble. He was falling, then getting up, then falling again. The spectators seemed to find this funny, like he was some sort of trained bear. I found it alarming, but lucked upon a volunteer about a hundred feet along, around a curve. We had the following exchange, which would have been comical had it not been so frustrating:

Me: “There’s a runner down at the 13 mile mark. You should call for medical help.”

Him: “Where?”

Me: “The 13 mile mark.”

Him: “Way back there?”

Me: “No, a hundred or so feet back, just around the curve.”

Him: “Oh. I thought you meant mile 13 of the marathon.”

Me: [Confused look] “They’re the same finish.”

Him: [Dashes off]

The LI event uses some sort of newfangled tracking system — an RFID strip is attached to the back of your bib rather than to your shoe. A little ways before the finish I spotted a trash can in which to dispose of the transmitter that would indelibly record my finishing time were it to pass over the finish mat. Still, I was surprised to hear my name called as I neared the finish — and pronounced correctly yet again (the planets must be in alignment) — so that was weird. I’m hoping they were just looking up bib numbers as we came in, as I don’t want my cruddy finish time recorded. Because I’m obsessive that way.

Edited: Dammit. They managed to record my time somehow. I have no idea how that happened. Mystery solved: there are two strips on the back of each bib.

I’m a little tired now, but no more so than I’d be after any hot midlength run. For once I did the smart thing. For once.

Some news stories (and a blog report) from various races today. It wasn’t pretty out there today:

Sunday Run
Someday – Shawn Colvin
6 Underground – Sneaker Pimps
Blink – Yuji Oniki
Can We Still Be Friends? – Todd Rundgren
All I Really Want To Do – The Byrds
Modern Girl – Sleater-Kinney
Learning To Fly – Pink Floyd
September Gurls – Big Star
Bound By The Beauty – Jane Siberry
Fireflies (Live Version) – Fleetwood Mac
Rikki Don’t Lose That Number – Steely Dan
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? – She and Him
Walk With You – Ringo Starr
Singing In My Sleep – Semisonic
Knocked Up – Kings Of Leon
Big Nuthin’ – Maggie & Terre Roche
The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead – XTC
Time Stand Still – Rush
Home by the Sea – Genesis
Livin’ Thing – Electric Light Orchestra
Beach – Mew
Where The Streets Have No Name – U2
Apocalypso – Mew
Don’t Let Go The Coat – The Who
Figure Of Eight – Paul McCartney
Looking For Water – Carl Craig
Switch On [Featuring Ryan Tedder] – Paul Oakenfold
Fruit Machine – The Ting Tings
Paranoid Android – Radiohead
Airbag – Radiohead
Inni mer syngur vitleysingur – Sigur Ros
The Shock Of The Lightning – Oasis
Finer Feelings – Spoon
Read My Mind – The Killers
Nailed – Bob Mould
It’s All In My Mind – Teenage Fanclub
Souls Travel – Bettie Serveert
Miracle Medicine – Jason Falkner

Listen on Rhapsody

Filed under: music, racing, training | 7 Comments »

Against my better judgment…

Posted on May 1, 2010 by threlkeld

We picked up our bibs on the off chance that tomorrow we get up and it’s perfect weather. But even if that’s not the case, we’re going to the Long Island race site tomorrow morning. If it’s hotter than the ninth circle of Hell, I’ll probably skip the race altogether (I’m bringing a book in the event that my better half decides to run it).

If it’s not quite that hot, I’ll do it as training run. I figure I was going to do a run tomorrow up here anyway. At least on a course I’ll have ample supplies of water and Gatorade.

My plan is to run at 75% max. Given the conditions, that may very well mean a 10:00 mile or worse. Who knows.

But there’s no chance of my racing this thing. It’s sort of liberating not to care. But I’m still disappointed.

I’m convinced now that the only safe month in which to schedule a goal race, at least on the east coast, is November. But I’m sure I’ll be proven wrong this fall.

Filed under: racing, training | Leave a comment »

Training: April 19 – April 25, 2010

Posted on April 27, 2010 by threlkeld

Another light week in terms of mileage. Between the 15K race and then a following week of three workouts, I was feeling a bit beaten up going into this one.

My only workout was a revisiting of the half mile repeats on the track I’d done roughly six weeks earlier. It was a screwy session since the intial turn on the track was blocked off so the high schoolers could do some sort of sport that involves climbing up to the top of a pole, strapping on a harness attached to a pulley, and letting gravity pull them rapidly forward along a tilted line. I wish I knew what this was called so I wouldn’t have to describe it every time. practice their zip line skills.

What this meant was that instead of rounding the track at the top, one had to cut straight across, then try to “make up” for the lost distance by running in the extreme outside lane for the rest of the repeat. I was probably slightly under 800m for my loops, maybe more like 780m.

This all makes sense if you understand the Bronxville High School track. This is one of the wealthiest square miles in the entire nation, and per-student spending in their school system is, well, astronomical. Yet they couldn’t manage to put in an accurate track when they spent a million dollars on one a few years ago. What they’ve done is cram a 400m track into too-small a plot of land. Rather than move the lane markers farther apart for the sake of accuracy, they went with aesthetics, distributing the markers as you would on a standard track. As a result, none of the lanes are 400m. The inside lane is 380m. Lane 4 is the closest at 404m. I haven’t a clue what the outside lane is.

Joe had seen my FB post about heading to the track with Jonathan, and there he was when we arrived! He and Jonathan did some 400 (or whatever they could approximate under the circumstances) repeats, first together, then Jonathan took his slower.

Aside from having to dodge around lounging teens, I enjoyed this workout and didn’t find its “twist” at the end (picking up the pace to 6:00 for the last 200m) nearly as taxing as I did the first time I did it some weeks ago. But I suspect I did too many of them. I probably should have done one fewer repeat to save my legs for Sunday’s 5K race and mullet appreciation day.

I took a day off again on Sunday, something I’ve made a habit of over the past couple of months. It was pouring buckets of rain all day and I didn’t feel like dealing with getting soaking wet or disassembling the bed in the guest room (it’s a tiny room) to make room for the treadmill, which is now shoved up against a wall.

I briefly considered going into the city to watch the More Half in Central Park, and maybe do a run in the opposite direction as I did last year (so I could watch the elites, followed by the March on Washington). But, man, it was just miserable out there. My AG hero, Colleen De Reuck, didn’t win, as I’d hoped. She was in the lead until mile 9 when she succumbed to hypothermia (that’ll happen when you’ve got 14% body fat). From what I can gather, later in the race her pace cratered by at least 20 seconds per mile and she ultimately got handily beaten by Sally Meyerhoff (although I’m a fan of Sally’s too, owing to her having meaty thighs and a substantial badonkadonk, like mine).

Colleen with her jaunty red brolly.

I’ve had it in mind that I should do one hard workout this (meaning the current) week, preferably early in the week, then a minitaper for the Long Island Half on Sunday. I spoke with Coach Kevin over the weekend and he confirmed this plan. But he surprised me by giving me a doozy of a workout to do: a 12 miler with the last 8 alternating between 7:15 and 8:30.

I did this workout six weeks ago and, to be honest, it was difficult. I’m expecting it to be a bit easier this time around, primarily because I’m fitter now, although the fact that the wind is low this morning should also help. Now I just need the sun to come up so I can go out there and kick my own ass.

Filed under: central park, coaching, elites, racing, training | 4 Comments »

Training: April 12 – April 18, 2010

Posted on April 21, 2010 by threlkeld

Since I’m in a somewhat manic “oh I’ll just change everything” period, I may as well also change how I label these training posts. I realize that since I’m not training for any particular race, saying I’m in “week n” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. So I’m going to do what the pros do and just tell you what dates I’m talking about.

First things first — and I’m skipping ahead into this week, so if you’re confused, it’s not you, it’s me — I did not run the Boston Marathon, which everyone else in the world seemed to be doing. (And I should add that I never will run the Boston Marathon, despite its caché, for a host of reasons). But I did have a grand old time watching it on Monday evening.

Since I had so much to do workwise (don’t people know not to schedule meetings on Patriot’s Day? Sheesh.) I had to sit on our Tivo recording until about 8:00PM. Staying away from all news was challenging (although, let’s face it, Facebook was harder to go cold turkey on for an entire day — I slipped once, but only to post something, not to read).

It was a thrilling race, especially on the women’s side, which is becoming a happy pattern in recent years. There are great summaries of the race elsewhere, so I won’t bore you here. Except to say that I wish Larry Rawson would truly retire. He’s like the Rolling Stones (only older) — constantly announcing his retirement only be exhumed yet again, our sport’s own version of Grandpa Simpson, rambling on about how much everyone is earning and how far that money goes in Kenya, reading leg turnover rates like so many tea leaves and getting nearly everyone’s name wrong. At one point he was laboring to compare running the mile (he was a miler in the Mesozoic Age) to running the marathon. Seriously. It was funny.

Okay. Onto the good stuff. I was a bit dumb about training last week, getting carried away and running a bit too hard. But I felt so good after the Scarsdale 15K that I couldn’t stop my legs, which wanted to go. On Wednesday I gave in and let them do a general aerobic run. I was surprised at how slow that was considering the relative effort, although I shouldn’t have been.

I was obviously still tired from Sunday — and probably also from racing over hills for three straight weekends — but that didn’t stop me from doing another speed session two days later. I went back to the “cutdown” workout that I’d done just once before, about three weeks prior. It was a strange session. The first repeat (a mile) was a minor disaster. It was quite windy and between that and running about 15 seconds per mile too fast I just died toward the end. I ended up cutting it short to 1400m. I figured the rest of the session would suck, but that first repeat turned out to be my warmup. The other three legs went extremely well, considering the wind.

I took Saturday off both to rest my legs and to clean our house from top to bottom so my sister and niece would never know what slobs we are. No one must ever know. Niece has decided she’s going to UC San Diego, although since Rutgers’ Honor College apparently offered her a metric fucktonne of financial aid she thought she’d better at least check the place out before deciding to remain a California girl.

While I’m sorry that I won’t have her around on this coast, as she’s really quite charming and the complete opposite — outgoing, cheerful and enthusiastic — of everything I am, I had trouble seeing her living here, especially sequestered away in East Brunswick, New Jersey rather than among the bright lights of New York City that drew her here (insert gratuitous “moth to flame” analogy here) in the first place. But she has her entire life left to move to New York and in the process ruin said life. Like I did! (Just kidding. Sort of.)

On Sunday they headed off into the city for theatre and lunch with more eagerly awaiting family and I dashed up to White Plains and back. Again, it was ridiculously windy and my paces were all over the place, anywhere from 9:30 to 7:50 per mile. But it was a satisfying run and allowed me to eat this monstrosity later on.

This week is considerably lighter: just one speed workout and then my first 5K race in several years on Saturday. I’ll go ahead and say my goal is to break 21:00. Unless it’s windy, I think this might be doable. But you’ll be able to read all about that … next week.

Filed under: eating, everyday life, racing, recovery, training | 4 Comments »

Spring Training: Week Fourteen

Posted on April 16, 2010 by threlkeld

This week I was training myself as my coach continues to struggle with access and computer issues. I didn’t mind. The combination of having worked with him for well over a year and not really training for any goal in particular means it’s been pretty easy for me just to look at old workout schedules and approximate what I should be doing.

I celebrated my birthday with a fun general aerobic run. Then decided to throw in some speedwork later in the week to try to rev up my legs for Sunday’s race. I just did a little — not even two miles. I’d planned to do four 1K repeats, but was beat after the third one and I’ve learned that this is the time to stop.

I took Saturday off, I think because I had a shitload of work to do in order to free up Sunday. There is a great myth that those of us who “work for ourselves” (another concept that really isn’t true; we actually have numerous bosses) have loads of free time. I, at least, don’t. I average around 45-55 hours of work most weeks, between my corporate day gig and my freelance projects. When the freelance is really flowing in it can be as high as 65+, but fortunately those weeks are rare.

Thank goodness I have no commute (it’s five steps from my bedroom to my office), or I’d never be as disciplined a runner as I am. (Either that or I’d have to take a page from Ted Corbitt’s book and run back and forth to work in Manhattan.) It’s for this reason that running in the neighborhood of 50 mpw has been refreshing.

Anyway. Still coasting.

Filed under: elites, training | Tagged: | 1 Comment »

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