Fast Miles - Disappointing Data

Just ran my first fast miles since June 14th. My favorite 5 miler that goes from my house, out to Los Altos Hills and back. A mile of roads to start, then 1.5 miles of trails with a nice little climb at mile 2. It's a run that I've done many times so I was interested to get a good comparison to my pre-injury runs.

Started out easy at 8:00 pace for the first mile, then progressively picked things up. Fastest pace dipped just under 7 (haven't seen 6:5x on the watch for a very long time!) and the mile splits were 8:02, 7:30, 7:19, 7;32 and 8:00. Average overall was a respectable 7:44 for just over 5 miles. It was nice to get moving quickly again after such a long break. Didn't feel too strained, and achilles was fine, but I know my heartrate was pretty high and the average was 165 (which is usually what it is for a half marathon)

On May 28th I ran this exact same route, in very similar weather at the same sort of pace. That run was a slightly steeper progression (8:30 down to 6:54) but average pace was similar (7:41). Heartrate for that run was only 154. So I'm up 11 beats for a tempo run. Or put another way, I'm running slower at 165 than I used to. Previously that heartrate, for that sort of distance would have been run at around 7:15 pace, so I've lost about 30 seconds/mile since the end of May, which is pretty depressing. Guess I should have run a little harder in the pool on some of those days....

So I have my work cut out for me if I'm going to get back to where I was for the 10k in 23 days. I was blindly hoping that I'd be able to match my pre-injury best of 42:51 (6:54 pace) but all the signs right now suggest a pace more like 7:25 which is right around what I was running way back in January (46:25 10k on New Year's day). I'll be really happy if I get down to 42:51, and really disappointed if I'm way back at 46:25. Chances are that I end up somewhere in the middle.

Of course, I need to do all this without buggering up my achilles again, which has been OK through these first few weeks back, but I'm obviously at fairly high risk of doing too much too soon. Let's see if I can manage to reign in my enthusiasm long enough to do this properly.

A Confession

one thing I forgot to mention..... Now that I'm running again, I have completely bailed on pool running - Did none this week, and only one last week. Barring re-injury, I will be very surprised if I ever do any more, even though it is supposed to be part of my training for another 2 months. It's just going to be running, stretching, calf exercises and leg weights (plus, shockingly, I actually did some situps the other day!)

Another Run

Yesterday was another run, 4.5 miles at an average 8:01 pace. Soft trails with a few easy hills. It was warm, probably in the 80s, and I definitely felt the effort at the end. Achilles was OK, there was some discomfort when running anything uphill, especially if I didn't back way off the pace. Feels OK this morning, just a little ache, but not much more than the other leg.

I've been looking at my pace/heart rate for these last 2 runs and comparing to some of my pre-injury trends. The very basic measure I use is average heartrate divided by average speed. At the end of May I was running just under 20. (When I started a year ago, it was around 28). These last two runs were 20.5 and 21.4. This simple measure is the red line on the chart below [lower = better].

Now heartrate/speed doesn't take into account how hilly the course is or how far you run, so I have a more complex formula that includes distance, elevation gain, and average elevation (for running in Tahoe). This is the blue line on the chart below [higher = better]. Pre-injury trend was about 47, with some runs peaking just over 50. These last 2 runs were 41.3 and 43.6, which is about where I was in terms of fitness way back in February.

Neither of these formula take into account temperature, since most of my runs are in the same range. The last two runs were both in the daytime sun when it was at least 80 degrees, so I'm hoping it's not as bad as it looks from these runs.

Overall it looks like I have definitely lost some real fitness, possibly as much as 4 months of training (early Feb to late May) but it's probably too early to tell. After a few weeks I should have a better idea, and of course I'll know for sure after the first race, which is currently planned for September 16th.











Red dots are races, white diamonds are runs at altitude (Tahoe), red shading is injury periods.

First "Run"

Yesterday I ran for over 3 miles non-stop. Haven't done that since June 14th (9 weeks ago).

Two goals...
1) To see if my achilles holds up during and after the run.
2) To get some rough measure of my fitness compared to the end of May.

First, the run. It was an easy 8:30 pace 1/2 mile up to the high school track, followed by 2 miles at 8:00 pace, then 1/2 mile at 8:30ish back home. Overall 3.09 miles at an average pace of 8:12. Weather was pretty warm, about 80 degrees and it's all in the sun.

Goal 1. Achilles felt perfect for about 15 minutes, but started to ache a little around mile 2. Slowed down a little and it went away, so no problems there. Iced when I got home and didn't have any issues that evening. Slept last night with my ankle brace/night splint (I'll explain that one in a post soon) and this morning it feels OK. I'll find out for real once I get moving about.

Goal 2. The run felt easy, which is good since 8:15 is supposed to be my easy pace. Average HR was 150. Average heartrate/average speed was 20.5. Looking back at a few 5 milers from the end of May that I ran about that pace shows that the HR was more like 145 back then, with a HR/speed of 19.2-20.2. So I'm off a little, but not much - it's hard to compare directly on just one short run.

My next run will be Saturday, when I'm planning to do 4 miles at 8:15 pace. Before then I still have a couple of days in the pool.

Next week I officially exit my "pool running phase" and enter my "fitness rebuilding phase". Unfortunately, that doesn't mean zero pool running, it just means that there will be more real running than pool running. The goal is to gradually build up the mileage over the next 13 weeks (thru mid November) to hopefully get back to where I was at the end of May.

Big Day

I am sitting on the deck in Tahoe, icing my achilles, after my first run in about 2 months!

After an easy 10 minutes run/walk warmup and stretching, I ran for about 20 minutes, at round about 9-10 minute pace. Overall it was 3 miles, mostly on soft dirt trails thru the woods and reasonably flat. I walked up any hills but other than that ran pretty solidly, albeit at a fairly gentle pace. At the end when I left the trail and got back on the road I could feel my achilles a little but otherwise it seems good.

Knees are still messed up just like before. I had been hoping that they would magically have fixed themselves too, but I guess pool running still keeps things tender. Assuming nothing bad happens due to this I will try running 3 miles continuously on Monday or Tuesday.

It feels really great to be able to run again, I am crossing my fingers that I am over the worst.

Another week over

Yet another week of no running goes by. Just 3 sessions in the pool this week, less than 20 miles and only 2 hours 15. Total time running in the pool is now almost 17 hours, which is about 17 hours too many.

My achilles is strangely starting to hurt a little more - probably due to the fact that I've been stretching a little more. It's now hurting at night when the foot is bent (so the tendon is being compressed). Research seems to indicate that this could be because it has healed and there is scar tissue that's getting squeezed. I now sleep on my front with my feet stuck off the end of the bed, which keeps the foot at 90 degrees and avoids compressing (or stretching) the tendon. That helps. People who've been thru this mention that they had some pain like this and that the first few runs usually "sorted things out" as the scar tissue breaks down.

I am going to try a 20 minute run this Wednesday or Thursday up in Tahoe on a nice flat trail. I'll be sure to stretch/warmup before and ice afterwards. Hopefully it'll all be good, my scar tissue will sort itself out and I'll be back out on the roads again!

July Summary

So July is over, another wet month for me. Slacked off a little in the middle of the month but got back on track this last week or so.

Nursing my achilles problems the whole time, and stuck with the deep water running.

No races:
Mileage:
-- Ran just under 4 miles (and most of that was walking)
-- No biking
-- Amazingly I swam about 800'
-- 15 days of pool running - it's getting very boring
-- 93 "miles" pool running
-- 13 days of nothing - lard ass
-- 854 Running Miles for 2007

August Goals
-- Transition from the pool to dry land!
-- But, no races
-- Week 1 - 2 miles run/walk
-- Week 2 - 9 miles, including a 3 mile continuous run
-- Week 3 - 15 miles
-- Week 4 - 20 miles, including one "fast" mile
-- 56 miles over 13 runs
-- Another 100 "miles" pool running

Assuming I don't encounter any setbacks, by the end of the August I'm hoping to be strong enough to be running 4-5 times/week and pool running just one day. September will continue on the 4-5/1 model, but gradually introduce some faster paces. If things are all going well I'll run a 10k on September 16th to see what my "summer of splashing" has done to my fitness.

6 down, 3 to go

Week 6 (of hopefully, just 9) is coming to an end, and assuming I drag my carcass thru the pool tomorrow it'll be the full 5 days in the pool this week. The first time I've hit all my planned workouts since the first week of this aquatic journey. Plus I swam 20 lengths last night just for grins.

Here's my progress against the plan for the 9 weeks of pool running.....

A green "Y" means I did the workout, a red "N" means I had some lame excuse and wimped out. Given the fact that I had been running 6 days/week pretty much every week, rain or shine, it is obvious that I don't like pool running all that much.

The long "run" this week was over an hour. For me, that is a long time to be running in the pool. After 20 minutes I was thinking about bailing out but I decided I was going to be hardcore and "push thru it". Spent the next 40 minutes projecting where I would be if I was running my favorite 6 mile loop thru the hills. It got me to the end and I felt like a superhero for finishing. Nothing can stop me, I am invincible!!!!

That night I watched a movie called "Running on the Sun", about Badwater, a 135 mile endurance race that starts in Death Valley and climbs up to the top of Mount Whitney. The winner that year ran it in something like 28 hours. Some crazy lady was hallucinating, guys were throwing up on the road, some marine dude needed an IV, it was 130 degrees during the day. and climbed 8,000 feet. After that, I didn't feel quite so hardcore for splashing around in the pool for an hour.

But it's almost time to register for the London Marathon (April 2008), and I am starting to get really excited about that. Hopefully both my brother and sister will get selected thru the lottery and all three of us can run it. I'll try the lottery too as a UK resident, but I can also buy my way in thru a travel company since I'm an overseas entrant.

The one upside of pool running is that it is much more of a full body workout. I feel a lot better in terms of overall muscle balance and I am hoping that it will help me when I get back to running on the road sometime in August. I'm going to run/walk a couple miles this Thursday, and maybe a few more on Sunday if things go well, but it'll be August 8th (in Tahoe) when I finally try to run 2 miles solid. It will have been 55 days since I last ran properly (June 14th - a very hot 7 miler that almost killed me). Given that I hadn't run at all prior to April 2006, I can't believe how much I miss it.

Another week splashes by....

Five weeks down, four to go (Hopefully). Only three pool running sessions this week, but all of them pretty brutal. I've decided that if I'm going to get in the pool and run I may as well go for it. The new goal is to pool "run" hard enough to make me throw up. I have got close to puking at the track doing 400 meter repeats but never quite crossed the line.

Now this may sound a little extreme, but I need to have a goal and there's little else measurable in the pool to strive for.

Monday was 2 sets of 9x1:30 hard effort, with 30 seconds rest. That may not seem like much, but it's like running 18 laps (4.5 miles) of the track at 6 minute pace. About 6 intervals in, I picked up the pace bigtime and after doing 3 real fast, thought that this pool thing might be a good workout after all (heartrate up to 170). That was the start of the "pool run 'til you puke" goal...

The second set of 9 was not quite enough to reach my new goal despite doing the last 3 all out (the kids thought I'd gone crazy). Two days later was 2 sets of 5x2:30 with 30s rest. This didn't get me quite as close. Today was 50 minutes steady to hard effort - that is definitely a tough workout, and its hard to get out of the pool at the end, but it is not going to do it. I think the short intervals are the key, so I need to really focus next week.

Tomorrow is 2 sets of 10x1:30, which I'm thinking may be enough.

That is going to have keep me motivated until August 2nd (11 days from now), as that is the next time I'm running out of the pool. Still hoping to get back to some level of normal running by August 20, but we'll see....

4 Weeks in the Pool

I've been doing my best Aquaman impression for almost a month. First week was 5 times, the next 3 weeks were only 3 times. But still, it's almost 8 hours of pool running, or 61 "miles". I am definitely ready to be done with this particular stage.

Achilles is good, no pain anymore. I started stretching again this week and I'll start the eccentric calf exercises this week. A couple miles running is planned for Thursday (run 2 mins, walk 1 min). All in all things are going well and I feel confident that I'll be able to start building up the mileage by the second half of August.

I've picked out a couple races and made a plan. I am hoping to be able to train enough to match my pre-injury 10k time (which was on a hilly course) at the Banana Chase in SF on Sept 16th. Then if that goes well, match my half marathon time from the hilly (but short) Santa Cruz race in the San Jose Rock'n'Roll Half on October 14th. Then it'll be time to pick things up again and get back on track for the sub 1:30 half marathon assuming I can find one in December.

Here's how it all looks graphed out.....

Plan C

It's been 4 weeks since I decided I needed to take some serious time off. Things are going well, but most likely I have another 4-6 weeks of pool running before things are back to normal.

I have been attempting to design a 15 week training schedule that takes me from August 20th to December 2nd (race day) dealing with the fact that I am starting at 10 miles per week and not 50. Although mathematically I can schedule an aggressive ramp up in mileage and training intensity it is looking quite ugly. During the 15 week plan, I'd only get 3 weeks at 50 miles and only have 4 long runs anywhere near 20 miles.

I could probably do it, and maybe run the marathon around 3:45 but I really wouldn't be prepared properly. Having run 2 marathons unprepared, I don't have much desire to do it again. Also, the risk of reinjuring myself on that sort of plan is very high - which would put be back at the beginning of pool running once again.

So I have made the decision to skip California International. I will emerge slowly from the pool like something from the primordial soup, over the next 6 weeks, and then spend 3 months rebuilding mileage and speed. That will involve some races to assess progress. By mid November I should be back where I was before injury (running 50 miles per week) and ready to jump into a solid 20 week training plan leading up to the London Marathon (April 13th).

This is the conservative, sensible plan. "Going for it" at the Sacremento race in December is almost certainly going to end badly and I really don't have the will power to deal with another round of extended pool running.

So now I get to pick out a bunch of races, starting with a 10k on September 16th, to assess progress. This will tell me how much my fitness has dwindled. I'm really hoping that I can get close to the time I was running back in May.

Big Day

Today was a big day! I ran for the first time in 21 days. It was a monster 1.48 miles, alternating every minute between easy running and walking. Average pace was a blistering 11:32. No achilles pain during or after, so that's very good news. Plus, my new Mizuno shoes were very comfortable.

But it's back to deep water running in the pool tomorrow. I'm going to keep running to just 1 day this week as there is no point pushing it.

Next week, it'll be 2 miles on Thursday and another 2 on Sunday! Crazy stuff.....