1/7/15. wed. just another "hilly" run...

55 min "hilly" run.  I think i hit all the elevation change mukilteo has to offer.  it was as tough of a training run as i have ever done.  It was chilly (37 degrees), and it was really dark and foggy.  so dark and foggy, in fact, i had to slow down my downhill runs because I couldn't see the ground.  I was afraid I'd trip and sprawl into the road. 

i ran down the big hill from my house to the lighthouse park boat launch (and dipped my fingers in the Puget Sound), just so i could say i hit zero elevation (sea level), then i ran all the way up the speedway.  this is a long haul.  at the mukilteo lodge i turned left and ran up the hill I used to do my 400m hill repeats on (this is a really steep .25 mile, probably the steepest in town, worse than a 12% grade).  after an upper loop and down, i even ran up the hill by OV middle school.  my avg pace was *so* slow, due to all the uphill.  this was so hard.  Now I'm ravenous, and my entire lower body aches.  even the bottoms of my feet hurt, maybe from the downhill impact?

in retrospect, 740 feet of elevation gain doesn't sound like all that much.  but this was hard.  so hard.  looking at the elevation data, my long haul up the speedway was basically 600 ft of elevation gain in 2 miles.  just brutal.  wednesday runs (hill repeats alternate weeks with "hilly" runs) are really a workout.  fast becoming the day I worry about the most.  when wed goes to 70 minutes, all bets are off.

1325 in 2014

so i was reviewing my data from 2014.  I ran 1325 miles in 2014.  and 4 of those months were not even training months (avg'd less than 20 miles/week in Jan, Feb, Oct, Nov - the 2 months before and 2 months after Berlin training).  I remember every step of every mile.  distances, elevations, temperatures, miles.  From short runs to long runs, hill repeats to sprint intervals, peaceful relaxing trail runs to angry elevation mask grinds.  from Long Beach WA, to Mukilteo, to Myrtle Beach SC, to Berlin, Germany.  From early spring running on the foggy beaches of the OR/WA coastline, to late fall miles along the River Spree between East and West Berlin.  from cold and rainy and snowy to hot and humid.  midday broiling shirtless runs to 5am freezing trail runs with headlamps and flashlights.  It was a long, eventful year.  I'm proud of how it went - i set a goal to run in the Berlin Marathon, I ran my miles per plan, and I traveled alone, farther than i have ever gone, and ran it.

now i am about 4 weeks into my ultra plan, with 12 weeks to go.  things are settling into a rhythm, and i can kind of see the patterns.  every tues morning i run 50 minutes.  wed alternates hilly or hill repeats, and the duration increases each week.  every thurs morning i run 75 minutes.  every sat is the long run, right now it inches up by 2 miles a week.  every sunday is an hour on the trail.  I still hit the gym Mondays and Thursdays.  like i said, settling into a rhythm.  by my best estimates, my weekly mileage will top out at week 12 with about 50-55 miles.  that is just unbelievable.  I can't wait to see if I can keep it up.

so far so good.

12/16-17/14. tues, wed. 50 min easy pace, 3x600m hill repeats

tuesday.  up at 0440, out the door by 0453.  plan called for a 45-60 min easy pace run.  i ran for approx 25 minutes, turned around and looped back.  50:50 elapsed, roughly 8:41 min/mile moving pace, very comparable to last week's easy pace.  5.85 miles total.  it was pretty warm, and i felt pretty good.  I actually saw a lot of people out (relatively).  2 runners, 1 walker, 1 run/walker.  i usuallly have the sidewalks completely to myself.   when i was going to come up on someone and pass them, i tried to announce myself and give them some warning, rather than just  sneak up on them and startle them.  Just a day to put in some miles.

wed.  had a little trouble getting out of bed.  alarm at 0440, in bed until 0450, still out the door just after 0500.  plan was for hill repeats.  3x600m.  i didn't have a specific hill/distance mapped out, but i knew 600m is approx .40 miles.  So i picked the steepest downhill i could find from my house, with some length.  the hill i used to use for my 400m repeats is awesome, but levels off after that 400m.  so i ran to oldtown at the bottom of the hill (approx a mile from my door).  turned around, ran up it until the GPS watch said i covered .40 miles,  ran back down, and repeated.  but on the third climb, i just kept on going back up the hill towards home.  this run truly sucked.  worst. 5k. ever.  approx 500ft of elevation gain over the 3.15 miles. that hill from oldtown mukilteo up towards my neighborhood (lincoln ave) just sucks for an uphill run.  I guess I will keep this route for my hill climbs. I also contemplated just running up/down the hill from the ferry dock (muk speedway) but it just doesn't seem steep enough.  i wore my heart rate monitor.  I like to check out the heart rate data during intervals and hill repeats. my recovery seems to be impacted by the number of repeats.  the more repeats, my HR cannot return to the baseline.  this trend gets worse as intervals/repeats add up.  I think the ability to fully recover is a good measure of cardiovascular health.  it looks like i need some work..

12/13-14/14. Saturday-Sunday. Long road run, 1 hr trail run.

The plan has me running both weekend days.  typically a long run saturday, followed by a medium effort 1 hour run on sunday.  i have decided that as much as possible, i will do the long run on the road and the 1 hr run on the trail.  trail is quite a bit slower (due to elevation, trail conditions, etc).  I don't have the time to spare to do my long runs on trail, but this seems like a good compromise.  i feel that when training for a specific run (like trail), some of your time should be spent running on those conditions.  if i trained flat and level running for 16 weeks (like on a track) and then went to do my ultra, it would seriously kick my ass.  not that it won't kick my ass anyways, but hopefully less so if i run some trails as much as possible. 

saturday was 10 miles.  doesn't sound like much in the grand scheme of things, but 10 miles is still 10 miles.  nothing to brush off.  this is the first week of the plan, and starting with 10 on a saturday feels reasonable.  felt pretty good doing it.  ran the same looping route i ran last saturday.  i really ought to try and branch out and find some more variety to my local runs.  try something new. 

sunday was 1 hour on trail, ended up with just over 5 miles.  this was a good run.  the sun came out, and it was cold and clear (maybe 37 degrees).  just beautiful on the trail.  this might be the last week I can get away with running without pants (well, the second week in december is a pretty good hold out for shorts).  thanks to last weeks wind and rain storms, the trails were a mess.  really really muddy, and lots of trees/branches down across the trail.  i did my share of clearing the trail, and climbed over anything that was too big to move.  I felt good on the trail, and actually saw a lot of people (maybe 4-6 over the course of the hour).  I'm glad i could take the time to run on the trail.  I wish every run felt this good, and gave me such a sense of accomplishment.  although i have friends that say they want to try running some trails, when it comes time to give it a go it just doesn't seem to work out.  oh well, their loss - i'm going out no matter what.

so in retrospect, this was a 34 mile week.  in comparison, it took me until week 19 of my berlin plan before I hit 34 miles in week.  so if i call week 1 of this plan roughly comparable to week 19 of the berlin plan, i may have my hands full this time.

12/11/14. Thurs. 1:15 of running...

wow. that was a lot for a thursday morning.  the plan called for 1:15-1:30, at easy pace.  i ran 1:15:02.  2 seconds longer than i intended.  approx 8 miles.  i would venture to say that was my highest mileage thursday ever, and definitely my highest mileage 5am run.  in my peak Berlin training weeks i was only hitting 5 on thurs mornings.

so i will get into an issue that affects many distance runners, GI tract issues.  seriously, if you are afraid of TMI regarding bathroom issues, stop now and come back tomorrow.

scientifically, i have read that distance running causing additional blood flow to your extremities.  all the extra work requires blood flow to your legs, feet, swinging arms, etc.  a side effect is that blood flow is diverted from your digestive system.  without the ability to digest and absorb nutrients efficiently, your body wants to just get rid of the dead weight.  in layman's terms, i guess your whole digestive systems screams "i'm getting shaken up like hell, i can't do my job, get this shit out of here."  literally.

Not a problem on my typical early am mid-week short runs.  by the time my gut figures out what is going on (3-4 miles in) I am typically back home and getting on with my day.  not a problem on my weekend long runs, either.  I get up, drink some coffee, eat some breakfast, give my system a chance to move the mail.  no problems that 2-3 cups of coffee won't get going.

but my new training plan puts long runs in the early am on weekdays.  a recipe for disaster.  everything i ate the day before has had a chance to work its way through overnight in my sleep.  and then it hides in waiting, just waiting for the worst opportunity available.  twice this week i practically limped home in a cold sweat with the poopy cramps.  serious GI anguish.  waves of constriction and pressure, cold sweat while running.  audible intestinal distress.  this morning was the worst so far.    about 2.5 miles in, i starting thinking, "hmm, that's an uncomfortable feeling".  by 4 miles in, i was seriously feeling like i was having labor pains.  cold sweat. waves of pressure/pain. groaning out loud.  not sure i was going to make it to somewhere safe, warm, well-lit, and intended for the purpose. luckily I was able to run/hobble into the Y and desecrate the men's room.  nothing particularly out of the ordinary.  firm solid BM, practically no need to wipe, probably 5 pounds.  but a terribly close call.

i have a good mental inventory of available restrooms/water fountains on my loop runs, but there's not a lot of choices on my route at 5am. and honestly, when i get out of bed i am just not ready.  and i don't intend to get up at 4am three days a week, just so i can drink some coffee and purge before running.  I guess I'm either going to be visiting the Y most mornings, or start carrying some wet wipes in a ziplock in my jacket pocket (its best i not get into any more details of plan B).

12/10/14. wed. the "hilly" run

the plan called for a 45 min "hilly" run.  my neighborhood and town have plenty of local hills, that often i try to go out of my way to avoid.  lets just say that I have decided a "hilly" run was a horrible way to start the morning.  really.  this run wrecked me.  I can drop my shit and go run a half marathon, any time.  I might get sore in my legs and stiff and tight.  but it doesn't wreck me like this.  a few hours later I got all hungry and shaky and sore and tired.  this was a workout.  i guarantee my heart rate was way high for some time.  this was far more exertion than a normal run.

now, looking at the data, it doesn't look so tough.  it ended up being only about 600 feet of elevation gain (and 600 feet of elevation loss) over almost 5 miles, in 45 minutes.  trying to break this down, imagine running around a standard high school track (1/4 mile loop).  imagine every lap, the track has an elevation rise like going up a 3 story building and then back down 3 stories, in that quarter mile.  roughly 30 feet elevation gain and 30 feet elevation loss for every 1/4 mile, 20 times in a row.  it was horrible.  at one point, in the dark, the hill I was running up was so steep I actually stumbled because i didn't lift my foot high enough to step forward (like tripping going up stairs).  then on another downhill i rolled my ankle, which is still bothering me.  it was a sharp pain, and ached for a while.  I ran it off, and eventually it seemed better.  but it doesn't feel "right" and I'm a little worried about it.

but that was the "workout" run of the week.  this plan alternates wednesdays as "hilly" runs or hill intervals.  and the "hilly" run get successively longer by 5 minutes each week they come up.  all bad.  but good for their purpose, i guess.

12/9/14. Tuesday. AMMAP run. (as many miles as possible)

so today's run was a little new for me.  in an average week of this new plan, 3-4 of the 5 running days are for a set time, rather than a set mileage.  It is an interesting way to run.  my day called for 45-60 minutes at an easy pace.  So i figured I would set out in my general run direction, run for approx 25 minutes, then turn back and head home.  I guestimated that my typical avg pace of 8:30 min/mile ought to get me to about 5.9 miles.  So I decided to use my 6 mile loop, but to turn back if i hit 25 min before the typical loop turn-back.  there were some opportunities for error because my routes are loops, not really out and back.  so the second "half" is sometimes a little more than half, etc.  But i tried to be casual about it, just get out there and run, and not worry too much.  with a total time in mind, and an instruction to run "easy" i felt like i was running really slow, jogging even.  turns out this was in my head, because my avg pace was once again 8:30 min/mile.  I ran out until approx 25 minutes, then turned around and followed a different loop on the way back. when i hit the usual stopping point, about 2 tenths of a mile from home, i stopped.  i typically walk that last .20 miles as my "cool down".  plus it has a really awful hill that i hate to hit when i'm on my last legs.  When I stopped, I was at 49 minutes and at 5.77 miles.  pretty good adherence to the plan. 

it was really difficult to try and think about times while running.  I have run the same loops so many times, i have distances in my head.  how many miles to each landmark.  how many tenths of a mile between other landmarks.  but when i tried to estimate how long it would take me to get to each location i was all over the place.  time passed really slowly.  if i thought it would take me 5 minutes to get somewhere, it was more like 2 minutes.  it was weird.

i guess this style will allow me to tailor my plan week by week.  maybe staying on my feet for the set amount of time will help build the toughness and the endurance.  if i hit a super long sat training run for more than 20 miles and my body is trashed, my runs for a set time the next week may be lower mileage than the previous week.  as an example, I could see tuesdays being a faster 60 min run for 7 miles, or a slower 45 min run for 4.5 miles.  either of which would be "on plan".  it will be interesting to watch my mileage accumulation day by day, week by week, and see the totals.  with 16 weeks ahead of me, i just gotta trust that this will get me to the end.