I’m reading Running With The Buffalos, and one segment refers to “Billy Mills Hill” at the KU XC course. So today you get a retro post. If you’ve never seen the video of Billy Mills’ 1964 Olympic gold in the 10,000 meters (the only USA 10K gold ever), do yourself a favor and watch it.
This will give you chills.
I may have FINALLY found a strength training program I can live with. It’s called Body Fit Burn. I described it to my friend Mark as “Crossfit for the older gentleman.” It is 3 workouts per week, each 15 minutes of circuiting through 3 exercises, using body weight. I THINK I can stick with it. It’s no piece of cake though. Friday I did the workout, which was a circuit of:
Repeat the circuit as many times as you can for 15 minutes. Not as easy as it sounds. Anyway, it’s a little less time consuming and equipment intense compared with Crossfit.
If you’ve never heard of a burpee, it looks like this:
This woman must do them really well, because this is overwhelmingly the most-viewed burpee video.
In other news I’m going through The Competitive Runner’s Handbook trying to formulate a good training plan. The issue is most plans are 12 weeks or so, and there won’t be many races in January. 26 weeks (until my goal race) is too long for one cycle. I’ll figure something out. I do plan to immediately incorporate one hill or speed workout per week, based on reader feedback – thanks!
Simple 3 miler in the Parkway today. Took this shot of Hunter’s Cabin, which is just off the main path.
Hunter’s Cabin, Lehigh Valley Parkway. Built in 1740, it has two rooms, a loft, and a basement. It overlooks Bogert’s Covered Bridge, which was built 100 years later.
Finally, in the Nudge department, we have a scale that tweets your weight. Now THAT’S motivation.
I just got back from a trip to Butte, Montana. Between work and all-you-can-eat buffets I squeezed in some training, but less than I would have liked. We were putting in long days which limited available daylight hours to "none." The scale claims I'm officially overweight, again. Turns out restaurant food is high in calories. Who knew?
On the plus side, the hotel had a "fitness center." I use the scare quotes because it was one of those setups where there was juuust enough equipment to call it more than "an exercycle in a lit closet." At least the equipment was good quality, and the place was always empty.
He fitness center contained:
1 treadmill
1 elliptical
1 weight machine
1 TV
1 artificial plant
So I did get in some time on the treadmill or elliptical most evenings. I decided I much prefer running outside. Running inside seemed far more tedious even though I was able to watch TV. The other choice was watching myself gasp in a mirror, and that's only entertaining for so long.
Ready to log some miles on the electric trail.
You can work up a surprising sweat in a small, unventilated room.
Prior to leaving for Butte I had scouted some potential outdoor runs via Google maps. The hill in the next pic would have been accessible from the hotel. It didn't have a trail per say, but the vegetation looked minimal and I thought I might be able to wander up it and get some good pictures. But I didn't attempt it in the dark.
The easy hill
The folks at the office told me of a serious trail going up another "hill" (below). I really wanted to get there and get some pictures but, again, the timing didn't work out. Beautiful country out there.
The object circled in red near the bottom is a tractor trailer. Kind of bigger than the parkway hill.
Oh yeah, snow in September is routine in Montana. They've had snow in June.
So between work and travel I'm a little behind on mileage. Back to the streets of Allentown, at night. There's a 5K for the Lehigh Valley No Kill Shelter at the Parkway Saturday. Possibly Sarah and I will head over if there's no soccer conflict, and maybe I'll even put in a hard effort / benchmark at this one. I'm also looking at the Christmas City 5 Miler (probable) in December and the South Mountain 10 Miler (possible) in November. That will probably be it for me this year.
The first 90% of running is physical. The other 90% is mental.
I don't set weekly mileage goals - our ever-changing schedule makes that a losing battle. I just try to run every day I can squeeze one in. This week I had the goal of getting in 10Ks instead of my more common 5Ks whenever I could. The planets aligned and I ran all 7 days including 4 runs of 10K or more. I finished just shy of 40 miles for the week, easily surpassing my previous high of 25 miles.
It was kind of taxing, as the past 3 week's mileage had been 10-15-16. What's the rule? Don't up your mileage by more than 160% all at once? Phew, just made it under.
MON - 6.4
TUE - 6.42
WED - 3.05
THU - 3.05
FRI – 3.89
SAT - 6.24
SUN - 10.51
The Mental Game
None of this week was very fast; I felt increasingly heavy legged as the week went on (I wonder why?) The single worst and slowest mile was Mile 2 on Wednesday. Never before have I wanted to walk so badly in training. I came close many times, but kept telling myself "just to that next tree," etc. Somehow by mile 3 I felt better, probably because the end was in sight, and I finished in without walking. Mile 3 felt so much better that the problem had to have been in my head. I had probably convinced myself I was overdoing it coming of 3 runs of 10K (including the previous Sunday which counted toward the prior week).
Saturday was a full Parkway loop. Coming west back to Bogert's on the north side (roughly mile 4) I was feeling awful and considering skipping the west side and truncating the run at 4.25. I was positive I was crawling along at 11 minute miles (I had been slowing down as the week went by). A glance at the Garmin showed me I was averaging 9:30 pace at that point. While still slow, it was so much quicker than I expected that my spirits immediately picked up and I finished with ease. So much of how good or bad I feel is in my head. I went from feeling spent to energetic only because I saw my pace was better than I thought. All mental.
One other mental angle - two of the 10Ks plus Sunday's 10 miler consisted of 2 loops around the same course. I find I really prefer not having to make 2 loops because during the first loop I can't seem to stop thinking I have to do this again. On Sunday I kept thinking I’m X miles into this, it will be over 5 miles and I’ll be right back here again, and I still won’t be done. Yuck. I need to find an after-dark 10K loop with no repeats and a similar daylight 10 miler. Don't know how realistic that is while still keeping it close to home.
All in all a great week for training. I certainly hope it pays dividends down the road, but I haven't seen any yet. I did a slow 3 today (Monday) and felt like a mummy (stiff and slow). I’m torn – part of me says a day off would be optimal as maybe I could then train a little faster. But part of me says keep piling on the fatigue, you’ll have to take a day off due to scheduling before long. We’ll see what happens.
Total mileage last week was 39.58. If I knew how close I was to 40 I would have gone another quarter mile up the trail and back just to hit that milestone. But I hadn’t done the math.
I have no illusions that our schedule will allow me to maintain this mileage most weeks, although I do hope to be more in the 25 range than the 15 range moving forward. It's obvious to me that simple miles in the bank will produce the best results right now. Take 'em while I can get 'em is my new motto. And take as many as time allows!
Back to the bricks.
OR
L-R, 1st Place female 18 and under, Sarah Dainauski (age 11), 2nd Place female 18 and under, Anna Dainauski (age15)
We woke up at 7:30 to a steady drizzle. The girls didn’t care for it very much but were determined to do the Bruiser Memorial 5K for Canine Cancer. We recently lost our sweet lab mix, Casey, to cancer. I assured them once we were running they wouldn’t mind the drizzle.
Team Casey, prerace. we should have made t-shirts with our team name, as did many people. Next year.
We got to the parkway where 113 folks showed up to run the standard loop starting and ending near the clubhouse. The organizers were on the ball and everything went smoothly. We sat in the car until 8:50 to avoid getting too soaked before the race began.
Check in. Note I’m pretty wet just from the walk to the tent. Nice number-pinning job there Sarah.
Chilly before the start. Anna, having been aware of Herbert’s Offroad Run, asked if we had to cross the stream. I should have said yes.
Our plan was to run together. I told the girls I didn’t expect an all out effort but suggested we try to run the whole way. Sarah put in a few (3 or 4) short training runs, and Anna none. Without relying on the watch, my plan was to zen-pace us to finish just under 30. We started at the very back of the pack.
We passed mile 1 where a person with a stopwatch called our split at 9:55. That seemed fine and we were cruising along nicely. We had slowed a little during mile 2 (by request) but at the 2 mile mark we had a dilemma. Anna wanted to walk a bit. Sarah was going strong though, so she and I kept going. I knew Anna wouldn’t walk long and might even catch us.
At the mile 3 mark Sarah had a little kick left so we picked up the pace a bit. Garmin splits:
| Mile | Split Pace |
| 1 | 9:44 |
| 2 | 9:34 |
| 3 | 9:43 |
| 3.15 slightly long per Garmin | 8:22 |
| Total time | 30:19 (9:37 pace) |
Anna came in less than 2 minutes later. We grabbed some water and I looked over the results. I had noticed there were few kids running. A quick scan showed Sarah and Anna going 1-2 for female under 18. I didn’t say anything to them about it.
After some refreshments the girls were ready to leave. I convinced them to stay to cheer the winners at the awards ceremony. Maryjo Smith, the organizer, said a few nice words. The race raised over $6,000 for canine cancer research before counting the entry fees, which was nice to hear.
They started calling the awards. An 18-ish looking girl got 3rd in female under 18. I knew both girls had seen her finish, meaning they had to have finished higher, but they hadn’t yet put 2 and 2 together. Anna was startled when Big Wayne of Pretzel City Sports called her name (even pronouncing it right which was impressive) for 2nd place. I looked at Sarah. She’s an A student and very sharp, but she still hadn’t done the math in her head. I said, “Gee, I wonder who got first place?” Just then I could see the lights go on as her jaw dropped just before they called her up to accept the gold.
Age group winner medals, actually colored gold and silver. I’ve never seen one up close before.
Nicely engraved.
For me today was a nice, easy workout. 3.15 @ 9:37 pace @ 142 avg heart rate. Tomorrow I plan to go harder, possibly another brick.
Almost all Z1 today.
All the way home Sarah couldn’t wipe the half smile off her face. She would never admit it, but I know she was really pleased with herself to have beaten older girls, especially her big sister.
One of the cooler t-shirts I’ve ever gotten from a race. Also 2 books I grabbed at Barnes and Nobles after the race.
I don’t know if I’ve turned them into runners yet, but it was certainly a positive experience for them. Neither plans to do X-country this season but you never know when the interest may strike. They did say they’ll do this race next year. Maybe I can even get them to train a little more.
I tried my first brick workout. The plan was a 10K mountain bike followed by a 5K run. Originally the run was to be 10K but time constraints shortened it.
The ride was uneventful in that I didn't have any close encounters with large animals this time. I rode the Parkway clockwise from, and back to, the Credit Union lot. By the top of the big hill at mile one I felt, correctly as it turns out, that I was making a withdrawal from the quad bank that I would have to repay with interest. I covered the loop at a blazing 9.4 mph (39:13 for 10K, a lot of people can run 10K faster than that), trying to preserve a tiny bit of elasticity in my legs.
I stopped twice at fountains. Sharp observers will notice the absence of a water bottle in the cage.
I transitioned at my Subaru and headed out for a 3 mile run. Have you ever had a nightmare where you wanted to run but couldn't? That's exactly what it's like to try to run off the bike. The first few steps I nearly went down as my hamstrings didn't want to support my weight. Nearly locking my knees, I broke into a shamble, my form resembling the zombies in Night of the Living Dead.
As I shuffled toward the Robin Hood bridge I was worried I wouldn't be able to lift my knees high enough to go up the hill on the other side. I envisioned myself repeatedly bumping into it and bouncing backwards like a child's wind up toy hitting a wall. But somehow I made it up.
Returning on the north side I gradually picked off a few of the slower walkers. I was very glad the run was 5K not 10K and I had even thought about cutting it short by turning around at the Iron Bridge. However, one of my sources of training pride, perhaps the only one, is that to date I have always finished the planned workout despite frequent temptation not to. I finished up for a 10:26 pace which wasn't completely awful for Frankenstein style running. A great workout, I look forward to doing more bricks.
Parkway Mini-Biathlon PR: 1:10:31
