The honest truth is, I'm not a natural runner. In fact, I smoked for 11-some-odd years.
Frankly, I remember the moment I decided to quit; it was May 20, 2008. As I took my last drag and flicked the butt away, I thought to myself I'm never going smoke again. This is going to help change my life.What I wasn't thinking about was that in the following 6 years, I'd run 2 half marathons, cycle a full century, lead 2 boot camps and lean out my Buddha belly. If I told myself that at the time, I'd definitely think I was on drugs. haha. That being said, I recognized a long time ago that I need to stick to a very rigid training schedule in order to compete in any type of endurance event.
Here's the technical side of my training. I
think in spreadsheets, it works for me. I don't try to fight what works
for me anymore by reading what works for other people. I've spent the
time to hash out what makes me the best I can be and I stick to it. Nothing
fancy, just straight forward, no mess, gung-ho, rockstar spreadsheets.
I mean, like life, sometime things just need to be made easy. Make a schedule that works, put your damn shoes on and go for a run. That's my approach to most things, especially with running. Without a doubt there were times when I just didn't feel like going for a run, did and was glad I did; and there were times where I said F IT, laid in my bed and vegged out for the night. This goes back to my other statement in Part 1 about listening to my body. Some days, I just wasn't up for the challenge, and that's ok.
My training schedule:
|
Sunday |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
Saturday |
Total |
| 11-Aug |
|
|
3 |
|
3 |
|
|
6 |
| 18-Aug |
5 |
|
3 |
|
4 |
|
|
12 |
| 25-Aug |
6 |
|
4 |
|
4 |
|
|
14 |
| 1-Sep |
7 |
|
4 |
|
5 |
|
|
16 |
| 8-Sep |
8 |
|
5 |
|
5 |
|
|
18 |
| 15-Sep |
9 |
|
5 |
|
5 |
|
|
19 |
| 22-Sep |
10 |
|
5 |
|
7 |
|
|
22 |
| 29-Sep |
11 |
|
6 |
|
3 |
|
2 |
22 |
| 6-Oct |
13 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
13.1 |
|
What really happened LOL:
|
Sunday |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
Saturday |
Total |
| 11-Aug |
4.75 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
4.75 |
| 18-Aug |
|
|
|
|
|
|
4.7 |
4.7 |
| 25-Aug |
|
|
5.08 |
|
5.7 |
|
|
10.78 |
| 1-Sep |
|
7 |
|
|
3.1 |
|
|
10.1 |
| 8-Sep |
8.62 |
|
4.5 |
|
|
5 |
|
18.12 |
| 15-Sep |
10 |
|
|
5 |
|
|
|
15 |
| 22-Sep |
11.2 |
|
|
|
5 |
|
9 |
25.2 |
| 29-Sep |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
0 |
| 6-Oct |
13.1 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
13.1 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
101.75 |
As you can see, I missed my training regiment by over 40 miles and really, I'm not even mad. A couple of highlights from Week 1 to week 8.
Week 1 - MAJOR foot injury, pushing me to keep off of my feet for almost 2 weeks
Week 4 - Ran a really good 5k distance around my house - felt genuinely faster and was able to turn my feet over a lot quicker than I usually do. Very confidence inspiring.
Week 5 - First strong mileage week, was feeling good and consistent with average pace steadily decreasing
Week 7 - I definitely PEAKED this week. Running was strong on the 11.2 and 5, capped with a 9 mile hike around Del Water Gap. HOWEVER, I'm convinced that the 11.2 run really hurt a ligament in my foot, which was later exacerbated by the 5 mile run and hike (I tried the 'recovery run' method, which didn't work too well)
Week 8 - Affected by the heavy week 7, I didn't run all week in fear that I would further injure my foot.
here's the trending line for my average pace:
Actually run breakdowns and average pace
| Date |
Distance |
Time |
Pace |
|
|
|
| 11-Aug |
4.75 |
0:49:04 |
0:10:20 |
|
|
|
| 24-Aug |
4.7 |
0:43:34 |
0:09:16 |
|
|
|
| 27-Aug |
5.08 |
0:47:58 |
0:09:27 |
|
|
|
| 29-Aug |
5 |
0:45:07 |
0:09:01 |
|
|
|
| 2-Sep |
7 |
1:06:31 |
0:09:30 |
|
|
|
| 5-Sep |
3.1 |
0:25:41 |
0:08:17 |
|
|
|
| 8-Sep |
8.62 |
1:20:27 |
0:09:20 |
|
|
|
| 10-Sep |
4.5 |
0:45:00 |
0:10:00 |
treadmill |
|
|
| 13-Sep |
5 |
0:42:49 |
0:08:34 |
|
|
|
| 15-Sep |
10 |
1:31:29 |
0:09:09 |
|
|
|
| 18-Sep |
5 |
0:42:52 |
0:08:34 |
|
|
|
| 20-Sep |
5 |
0:43:32 |
0:08:42 |
|
|
|
| 22-Sep |
11.12 |
1:40:00 |
0:09:00 |
|
|
|
| 26-Sep |
5 |
0:42:37 |
0:08:31 |
|
|
|
| 6-Oct |
13.1 |
2:09:48 |
0:09:55 |
|
|
|
So October 6th was supposed to be race day. We had heard a few days before that the run was canceled due to the government shutting down. No biggie, I decided to run the distance anyway.
As the morning came, I woke up and immediately ate a clif bar, drank some coffee and sucked down a GU gel. 15 minutes later, I took another GU and drank my preworkout (cause ya know, I needed the pump!). Stretching and warming up then took place and I was off!
The 26 Stages of Running
BOOM! immediately both my left and right foot felt uneasy. I didn't even get to the half mile mark before I started just feeling weird. I said to myself, ugh, this is 'race day, suck it up and stop being a bitch' and off I went. Rounding the 5k mark, I popped another GU in and headed towards RVCC (my friendly community college alma mater). The laps around the campus have about 125' of climbing up the front end and is about a 1.7 mile loop. The funny part is, as soon as I started running I noticed a million orange cones. Apparently, as part of my 3x loop around RVCC, I "participated' in the JDRF 5k walk. So maybe I should call that organization and tell them to give me a damn medal.
Heading back, I was on mile 8 or so, my feet were killing me by then. The slight elevation and descent, paired with funky feeling foot bridges started bringing in some intense pain. By way of compensation, I ended up adjusting my running gain slightly and that most definitely contributed to runner's knee and metatarsil pain in the left leg and arch pain in my right.
By mile 10, I felt like I was pulling a freight train with me. I look down and I'm seriously plodding along at an 11 minute pace. Wow. WTF happened?
Mile 10 > mile 11 > mile 12 all progressively got harder and slower. The pain was creeping up on all sides. Luckily, my energy levels were in check, so I didn't hit a wall, but the pain forced me to walk for a hot minute. The whole time I was thinking about how I was dealing with so much crazy complications when I ran a solid 11 miler only 2 weeks ago. I guess I'll never know.
As I approach 12.5 miles, I tried to pump myself up. Imagining the people that should have been there to cheer me on. To say "hey dude, only another half mile!!!". I tried to imagine the clapping, the fanfare, the festivities, the banana and medal that I would have earned. And then reality kind of set in. I was running around my neighborhood and ended in an extremely anti-climactic way, in the middle of the street in Bridgewater suburbia.
well that was a shitty ending I thought, as I looked down to see the 13.1 click over on my Garmin watch.
I finished at 2'09". Not bad I think. In hindsight, had I been at the level I was 2 weeks prior, I would have finished right at the 2 hour mark. No big deal, I ran sub-2's my first race and that was more than enough for me. I'm happy I ran, I'm happy I decided to take the challenge again to complete the distance and now I'm happy to start ass-to-grass squats at the gym.
Cheers to another short, quick chapter of my healthy life and here's an ugly cry for the medal that I never got.
:)
13.1 miles. thirteen point one freakin' miles. Yep, that's how I far I ran this past Sunday. To some, it's a lot, to others, it's pretty normal - for me, it's the second time I've crossed this distance. Except this time it was a lot different. For 8 weeks I trained, ate and mentally prepared myself for this race, only to find out at the 13th hour that it was cancelled due to the government shutdown (Sandy Hook State Park/Beach). With no recourse, I decided to run the worst kind of half marathon I knew of: The half marathon that had no glitz, no glamour, no people cheering you on, no aid stations, no awesome pictures to showoff on instagram / facebook.. nothing. and worst of all no DAMN (you have to say it like that lol) medal waiting for me at the finish line.
I was pretty deliberate to mentally record several thoughts as I was training/running this half. I hope this is as informative as it is entertaining. So brace yourself, lots of broscience is about to rock your world.
Let's talk about nutrition first - that's always the biggest obstacle for me. The last time I ran in 2011, I hit the 'wall' so hard on mile 10 it wasn't even funny. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the wall is what happens when you literally feel like you've run into a brick wall. Low energy levels, low motivation, the desire to quit escalates, you feel like you're running so hard, but you're barely moving faster than a quick jog. It's a pretty shitty feeling and sometimes it's inescapable - sometimes you actually just need to stop.
Anyway, to prevent this, I planned to eat right. What's that mean? It means slowly and progressively ratcheting up my calorie from carbs content in my diet. So what does that mean? My typical diet consists of about 20-30% carbs, 40-50% protein and the rest fats. Essentially, I just try to eat more meat than bread :) Except for a runner, someone who needs sustained endurance, the diet needs to be flipped.
The ramp up period (weeks 1-4) wasn't rocket science - eat more carbs. No problem. pizza, breadsticks, fried rice all happily made their way into my belly. Of course, these aren't quality carbs, but hey, I was running enough to burn them out. The more I was running (see later for time table), the more I felt that my body needed the carbs. More distance = more carbs, more carbs = more energy. As week 5 quickly approached, I had in my mind that a 90% split was the goal for the week before race day. I mean, if you think about it, that's just plain nasty. 90% of all food coming from carbs? No thanks! So for week 5 to7, I moved to somewhere around 50-70%, just gradually and deliberately choosing to eat the white/brown stuff.
Here's where it get's interesting. At the end of week 6 into week 7, I did a full day of prep-carb-loading and SUCCESSFULLY ran 11.62 miles at training pace (9:00/mile). ZERO BONK, ZERO PROBLEMS. It was glorious. This was for sure the product of eating so much damn pizza.. I mean carbs. One last quip about carb-loading for race day is this (Thanks Mike LaMonica for the advice):
- 1 week before = 70%
- Day before = Doing a full load at lunch time, not at dinner time. This allows the body to fully digest and convert the carbs into stored energy. Eating a nice sized dinner helps, too (but not overboard like for lunch)
- Day off = light breakfast (I had a cliff bar) and some black coffee
Nutrition is just one of the disciplines that needs to be worked on during the training period. The umbrella of discipline covers much more than, it requires sacrifice. So what did I give up?
Oh, I'll tell you what I gave up. Quads. yes, quads. As the natural bi-product of running, my muscles quickly and uniformly adapted from body building to endurance running. Overall, I lost 8 lbs of muscle mass (I stayed at a consistent 9-10% BF range) dropping from 173 to 165, and some days clocking in at 162. It was atrocious. If you're someone who actually trains to put things up and put them down, it's like hell froze over when I started realizing I was giving up my gains brah. As I watched my body shed inches all around, I felt the trade-off run itself up [no pun intend] to how much freakin' energy I had. At the beginning of the program, just a short 8 weeks ago, I was barely putting in the time/energy to run 5 miles. Lately, a 5 mile run was just getting my engine going. I lost a lot of muscle mass, but it showed itself through things like boxing. No wonder why these guys shed weight to fight in a lower weight class. Speed, agility, endurance and stamina all went through the roof. Pretty cool stuff, especially for me who was feeling weighed down by the muscle I was gaining (a good problem to have, I suppose).
Another part of the running discipline was giving up my time. By nature, endurance running is a huge time suck. I trained 3x a week, running anywhere from 2-5 total hours, with double that in prep time / cool down time. The commitment to train for an event requires the discipline of making a meeting and sticking with it. The challenge of a half marathon didn't have time for my excuses, it doesn't care if I trained or if I didn't, because quite frankly, if I didn't train for this half, I would fail. So the proposition was purely black and white. Either I trained and I would succeed, or I would bullshit and I would fail. The choice was mine and if you know anything about me, you already know which way I decided on.
Speaking of which, pride. That in itself is a discpline. To reject it, that is. Although pride finds itself in all areas of my life (of which I constantly fight through), the pride of ignoring pain was something I had to give up; and that stems from knowing when to listen to your body. Everyone wants to be a hero, run like Lance Armstrong (yes, he runs lol), sprint like Usain Bolt, but no one wants to toss in a white towel for a brief minute to recognize that perhaps they're training beyond their ability. I see it all the time, in the gym, outdoors, on the bike, etc. People, including myself, regularly push themselves past the point of good pain, into the realm of damaging pain. This was especially true as I ran my first 5 miles at the beach on week 1. I ran too far, too fast in too little time. My left foot suffered from a lot of endurance fatigue and I was limping for at least a week (you can see it in my run log).
So for me, it's always about knowing when to let my body heal. I have to constantly remind myself that resting and pushing back a training day was far better than sticking to the schedule and risking further injury.
Every training regiment has it's pros and cons, here's my POV:
Pros -
- Better overall health
- Weight management
- Training towards a goal
- Achieving a sense of discipline
- Eating, a lot and staying ripped (don't worry, I won't be posting any swelfies of myself anymore)
- Enjoying the outdoors - street, trail and mountain running
- Runner's "freedom"
- Having my thighs actually fit into the slim jeans that I bought
Cons -
- Having my thighs actually fit into the slim jeans that I bought
- Loss in muscle mass
- Decrease in strength
- Increase in potential injury
