Happiness is Running

Meet my training partners, Hunter on the left and Scout on the right, who completed all of my training runs with me but didn't get the pleasure of actually competing in the races. When our Miniature Schnauzers died I wanted to get larger dogs that I could run with. After looking and thinking about different breeds we purchased a Golden Retriever and a German Shepherd Dog and have never regretted it. As we researched the breeds we learned that not only could they run, they needed regular exercise to avoid behavior problems. So from the time we adopted them into our family we have walked and run with them nearly every day. This could become a chore, except that I soon saw how much they love their exercise and their enthusiasm was contagious. Now they've converted me and helped me complete the Austin Distance Challenge for the second year in a row.

A picture is often worth 1000 words so you can click on the following links to see the marathon map and elevation profile.

Anna and I got up a little late at 5:00 am and didn't get downtown until almost 6:00. The on-street parking was already almost gone and street closures prevented me from reaching the parking garage I'd planned on using. But we got lucky and found an open parking spot on the closed side of a side street just one block from the start/finish area of the race. I got in line to take care of nature's call and by the time I was done it was time to gear up and get ready to go. I waited until 10 minutes before the 7:00 am start to take off my sweats and head to the starting area because of the cold. Unfortunately, the entire Congress Avenue bridge was already packed and overflowing with nervous runners and the pace group leaders were bunched together near the front. I wanted to start close to my pace group and I was able to thread my way along one side and get even with the 4:00 pace group. I just had time to adjust my shoe laces and fireworks started going off and the mass started to move south across the starting line.

The crowd was incredible and completely filled the five lanes of Congress for as far as you could see. People of all abilities enter the races including people that plan to walk the entire marathon. What I can't figure out is why the walkers insist on lining up at the front of the race and then walk side by side blocking all of the faster people behind them. But as I headed out I found myself weaving around people walking and jogging even slower than me.

The first mile goes up a deceptively steep hill and between the crowds and the hill I hit the 1 mile marker right with the 4:00 pace group at leisurely 9:36. Halfway through the next mile the course crested the hill and turned to loop back toward downtown and the pace picked up. It felt a little fast but I was trusting the pace group leader even though he was running ahead of the 3:50 pace group. Sure enough, mile 2 went by in 8:55. The entire next mile was a pretty good downhill and the pace picked up even more. The pace groups were supposed to run at an even pace and the 4:00 group should have been running at 9:12 pace. Even though the first mile was slow, the leaders are supposed to not try to make it all up quickly. But mile 3 raced by in a very quick 8:36.

Now we were crossing the Lamar Boulevard bridge into downtown and I started letting my pace group leader pull away from me because the he was STILL ahead of the 3:50 group and my heart rate was consistently above 160. A cool feature of the course is that it loops back within a block of the start/finish area which allows the fans to see the start and then walk over to see the runners at around the 5 mile mark. It was a real boost to cross the bridge and be met with huge crowds cheering and band music blaring and despite the early pace it really energized me and made the time go by quickly. Mile 5 took 9:01 as I tried to get closer to my target pace, but it was still too fast.

We finished the downtown loop and headed west along scenic Town Lake and the hike and bike trail. We crossed under Lamar and finished mile 6 in 8:52. I was still staying close to the pace group but was wondering what the hell was going on. Everything you read and hear about marathons is the need to not go out too fast and the pace group leaders are supposed to slow the pace and keep people from getting overenthusiastic in the early miles and burning up their legs. Instead, my leader was committing the classic mistake and running at a pace much closer to my 10k pace than my marathon pace. I really wanted to run with a group, but at this point I throttled back and decided to just run my own race because I knew that the hills were coming and there was no way I could survive at this pace.

I hit mile 7 in 9:25 and headed up the first of many hills that rise up from Town Lake. The hill slowed me down to a 9:25 at mile 8 and then the course flattened a little before it turned once and for all away from the lake and up a killer steep hill right before mile 9. This was the start of the worst part of the course but I went through mile 9 in 9:20 and my legs felt strong on the steep hill despite the quick early pace. Despite steadily climbing up hills I finished mile 10 in 9:28 and felt good.

Here the marathon and half marathon courses split. The half marathon runners headed down a hill and were nearing the end of their race as the rest of us turned north on Exposition and a series of brutally steep hills that I knew I had to be taken carefully to avoid burning my legs out. With my pace group long gone I kept an eye on my heart rate monitor and listened to what my legs were telling me as I rolled over the steep, steadily climing hills and through the upscale Tarrytown neighborhood. There were several churches along the road and the congregations had turned out to cheer the runners on. As I was running along I passed a lady standing on a ladder in the middle of the road and was shocked as cold water hit me. Although I was streaming sweat, the air temperature was still in the 40s and it didn't feel good. I found out later that it was a priest blessing the runners and sprinkling them with Holy Water.

The hills slowed me down to 9:56 and 9:50 on miles 11 and 12. The reward for reaching halfway was cresting the worst of the hills and getting a brief downhill that allowed me do mile 13 in 9:27. At this point I knew the worst of the hills were behind me and that I could safely try to get back on pace. Because of the brisk early pace I was still ahead of a 4:00 pace and still hoped to meet my aggressive goal of 4:00 and was pretty sure I could finish ahead of 4:15. Mile 14 was pretty flat and I got back down to 9:19, but the hills weren't really done, they had just flattened out. As the road resumed a gentle incline I slowed down to 10:04 on mile 15, 9:57 on mile 16, and 9:52 on mile 17.

Things were starting to get rough and I remembered my resolve to not break down mentally and turn the closing miles into a death march. So, I started talking to myself. Flow. Glide. You're feeling good. Sure you're uncomfortable, but you've still got a lot of energy. This is a pace you can run all day long. It feels great to just glide along. Your body is telling you to stop, but you know that it can handle it. Coax your body. Soothe it. Calm it. Steady your breathing. Ride the bike. Be smooth. Keep loose.

I was talking out loud to myself and saying all of those things and more and it was working. I'd reached the top of the course and now the steady climbs reversed into steady downhills with a few climbs mixed in. Unfortunately, even though I was running reasonably comfortably, I my legs were feeling the fast early pace and so I couldn't speed up. Mile 18 went by in 10:04 even though I wanted to get down to a 4:15 pace of around 9:45. A lot of people were out as I ran down a gentle slope at a 10:09 pace but a rise at the end of mile 20 slowed me all the way down to 10:41.

I could feel my will power wavering and my legs protesting at the abuse and this is where I'd faltered in my first two marathons. So I gave myself a short break to gather myself, do some more talking, and steel myself to finish strong. I walked for exactly 3 minutes and groaned as I resumed running down toward the finish. The break slowed me down to 11:59 for mile 21, not as bad as I expected, but I vowed to keep my heart rate in the 160s and let the chips fall.

Mile 22 doubled back north and headed up another long moderate hill that slowed me to 10:47. It was tough, but I was staying in the game mentally and was steadily gliding along. Right before mile 22 we crested the hill and turned onto Red River and a nice gentle downward slope that helped me get down to 10:18 for mile 23.

Somewhere during mile 23 the 4:15 pace group finally caught up to me and as the pace leader drew alongside I matched her stride for stride and hung on. They caught me just before heading down a pretty good hill to start mile 24 so that made it pretty easy to increase my leg turnover and stick with the small group. The change of pace actually felt good to my legs even though it was faster. I tried talking to the pace leader and she tried to encourage me by telling me I could hang on with the group as we turned onto 38.5th Street and hit a short, but brutally steep hill. Being in a group helped me battle up to the top even at the faster pace but my heart was racing at 175. I completed mile 24 in 10:04 but I had to let the pace group go because my heart was pounding at over 170 even after the hill and I still had over two miles to go and one more big hill. But unlike my previous marathons I made a conscious decision to throttle back, but I didn't give up.

Mile 25 was all downhill as we ran through the UT campus and past the huge football stadium. A hard rock band took advantage of the acoustics under the stands to entertain the exhausted marathoners with pounding drums, throbbing bass, shredding guitars, and howling vocals. I was really exhausted. It was downhill but my stride was breaking down and I could only manage 10:36 even though my average heart rate was 170. I recognized a girl walking who had dropped from the pace group right after me. I encouraged her to keep going. With my goading she started running with me. Her IT bands on both legs were hurting. I haven't had this common running injury, but I know it can cause agonizing pain in the hips and the outside of the knee and she was clearly in a great deal of pain. I was talking to her, but it was as much for me as it was for her. But it felt more sane to be talking to someone else than to myself.

My only gripe with the course is that most of mile 26 was an extended hill that took us up from the UT campus to the state Capitol building. About halfway up the hill both hamstrings started getting little cramps that had me running with short, stiff, steps, afraid to bend my knees. I don't know how I did it, but I wasn't going to walk. I was reaching back with my hands and kneading the tortured muscles as I hobbled along. It would have probably been faster to walk. I got to the top of the hill, but not really. As I turned south toward the Capitol the driveway still sloped upward. It finally flattened out as we looped around the east wing and the final downhill stretch to the finish line.

My hamstrings finally quit. They didn't lock solid like at Dallas, but they cramped enough that I couldn't move. I'd been looking at the time for the last mile and desparately trying to pick up the pace despite the hill because I still had a chance of beating my personal record of 4:17:34. But I stood at the corner of the Capitol waiting for the spasms to stop. I don't think it was more than 10 seconds but it felt like forever. Fortunately the rest of the race was a straight shot down Congress Avenue. As I headed down the front drive of the Capitol I couldn't remember what street ran in front. I knew the finish was at 4th but I didn't know how many blocks were left and I couldn't see the finish line because of the crowds. I got to the bottom of the drive and saw the sign for 10th street. Only 6 blocks. I trotted along and the downhill gave my hamstrings a break and allowed me to finish smoothly. I didn't have any kick, but I was running. I crossed the finish line and stopped my stopwatch with my heart pounding at 172 and 4:19:03 showing.

I walked a few steps, grabbed a powerade and a space blanket and had to stop before I fell over. I was relieved, happy, proud, and exhausted. No regrets or any misgivings about how the race unfolded or how I performed.

I don't have any blisters. My right foot isn't very sore so maybe I'm not getting a stress fracture. A little chafing, but nothing serious. Very sore hips. Some sore muscles, but not too bad. I won't run for a couple of weeks but I think I prepared well for the race and it paid off.

Mission Accomplished

Yesterday was a beautiful day for a marathon. At 7:00 am fireworks lit up the clear, 38 degree air as nearly 12,000 runners left the Congress Avenue bridge to loop through the hills of Austin, Texas. I had a great run and other than some minor cramps in both hamstrings in the last mile I was able to run a steady race and never really felt like I hit a wall. My goal in this race was to keep my head in the race and not have things degenerate into a death march in the last 6 miles like in my first two marathons and on that basis alone it was a great success.

I'll start off with the raw numbers and I'll follow that up with some commentary later tonight. But as I'm writing this the following day I'll tell you that I feel great. My legs are a little sore and my hips tighten up pretty badly when I stop moving, but other than that I really, really feel good. I'm very satisfied with how it all turned out.

Heart rate zones:
zone 1(under 145): 0:02:52
zone 2(145-158) : 0:14:44
zone 3(0ver 158) : 4:01:32

Mile split HR avg HR end Cumulative
Mile 1: 9:36.5 avg=158 end=164
Mile 2: 8:55.0 avg=163 end=159 0:18:31.5
Mile 3: 8:36.1 avg=165 end=165 0:27:07.6
Mile 4: 8:48.1 avg=165 end=164 0:35:55.8
Mile 5: 9:01.0 avg=166 end=168 0:44:56.7
Mile 6: 8:52.3 avg=163 end=163 0:53:49.1
Mile 7: 9:25.6 avg=162 end=161 1:03:14
Mile 8: 9:25.3 avg=164 end=165 1:12:40
Mile 9: 9:20.0 avg=163 end=165 1:22:00
Mile 10: 9:28.9 avg=165 end=165 1:31:29
Mile 11: 9:56.9 avg=164 end=166 1:41:25
Mile 12: 9:50.3 avg=162 end=164 1:51:16
Mile 13: 9:27.9 avg=162 end=158 2:00:44
Mile 14: 9:19.9 avg=163 end=162 2:10:04
Mile 15: 10:04.9 avg=163 end=163 2:20:08
Mile 16: 9:57.5 avg=162 end=164 2:30:06
Mile 17: 9:52.0 avg=164 end=165 2:39.58
Mile 18: 10:04.9 avg=164 end=164 2:50:03
Mile 19: 10:09.6 avg=164 end=165 3:00:12
Mile 20: 10:41.2 avg=163 end=163 3:10:54
Mile 21: 11:59.6 avg=154 end=164 3:22:53
Mile 22: 10:47.1 avg=165 end=165 3:33.40
Mile 23: 10:18.2 avg=166 end=173 3:43:59
Mile 24: 10:04.9 avg=172 end=169 3:54:04
Mile 25: 10:36.7 avg=170 end=173 4:04:40
Mile 26.2: 14:22.9 avg=168 end=172 4:19:03

Moment of Truth

Everything is laid out and ready for tomorrow. The alarm clock is set for 4:30 am so we can beat the crush of people converging on downtown Austin for the 7:00 am start of the AT&T Austin Marathon and Half Marathon. The half sold out its 6,000 entries and they are expecting nearly 6,000 more runners to enter the full marathon. I'm planning on lining up with the 4:00 pace group and trying to hang with them for the whole race. I'm really nervous about whether I can do it, but take some consolation that I've trained well and am healthy. Part of me wants to get it on but another part really doesn't want to do it.

I think that the marathon web site will have live scoring information if you want to check on my progress.

Race Pictures

Here's a few snapshots from last Sunday's race.

Almost There

Today I successfully completed the sixth of the seven races in the Austin Distance Challenge. I had a good, uneventful, unspectacular race and finished the 3M Half Marathon in 1:58:39.4 at an average pace of 9:03 minutes per mile. I'd hoped to run maybe 10 or 15 seconds per mile faster, but my body just wouldn't respond.

I got back home from Santa Clara, California late Friday night and slept in on Saturday. After wasting time on the computer I picked up my race packet and had a nice large Freebirds burrito full of rice and beans for lunch. After wasting some more time in the afternoon I took the family to see Eragon and then stayed up too late watching the latest episode of my favorite show, Heroes.

The race started at 7:00 am so my day started at 5:15 am. The temperature was a crisp 33 degrees according to our patio thermometer, but it was clear and it was supposed to warm up quickly once the sun came up. I wore my typical clothes, spandex shorts and a long sleeve under armour shirt with a light skull cap and running gloves.

The turnout for the race was pretty large; the results listed a total of 3438 finishers. Along with the half marathon they were also simultaneously running a half marathon relay which probably added a few more participants. I stayed in the car as long as possible and I lined up at the back of the crowd. When the horn sounded it took almost 5 minutes before I was able to cross the starting line but they had all four lanes of the street open so it was pretty easy to work through the crowd of slower runners.

The first couple of miles are up hill, as you can see in the linked elevation profile, and I wasn't warmed up yet so the first mile took 9:22.7 (161 avg HR) and the second in 9:23.5 (158 avg HR). At that point I had a good sweat rolling even though it was in the 30s and the hat came off. Mile 3 had a steep downhill followed by a steep uphill but I was able to get on my target pace and finished in 8:58.2 (160 avg HR). The gloves came off and I stuffed them and the hat into my fanny pack as I slurped an energy gel. I finished the fourth mile in 8:53.2 (159 avg HR) but it was tough because the road had a slight incline.

At this point I was a little worried because my heart rate was under 160 and I wanted it to be around 163 or 165 for the first half of the race. I wondered if the low temperature was keeping my heart rate down in a similar way that high temperatures elevate it. Whatever the reason, I just couldn't sustain a faster pace.

Starting at mile 4 the course steadily dropped nearly 200 feet over the next two miles and I was able to complete miles 5 and 6 in 8:39.8 (157 avg HR) and 8:54.1 (162 avg HR). Miles 7 was slightly uphill and felt hard after the extended downhill, but it was a bit of a wakeup call when I passed the mile marker in 9:27.9 (158 avg HR). As the course flattened out a bit I picked up the pace and finished mile 8 in 9:03 (161 avg HR). This was a difficult part of the race. I was starting to feel stressed and was having a tough time maintaining a steady pace on the roller coaster course. My heart rate seemed to indicate that I was running too slow, but I was already getting fatigued and having a tough time with my cadence even though my heart wasn't racing.

The rest of the race was up and down with a net drop but there were no more flat spots. This part was interesting to me because it is basically the same as the last six miles of next month's Austin marathon. Even though it is a net descent the hills are going to be very tough with legs that have already run 20 miles. I only had 4 miles left and I tried to push a little harder. I finished mile 9 in 9:05.5 (161 avg HR). With only 5 km left I tried to push hard but mile 10 took 9:26.7 (159 avg HR). I kept pushing and finished mile 11 in 8:51.2 (162 avg HR), and mile 12 in 8:53.3 (160 avg HR). The final 1.1 miles took 9:48.0 (163 avg HR).

My average HR for the race was only 160, but as I walked through Waterloo park and drank water and listened to the live band that was playing I was periodically doubled over with hoarse coughing that didn't produce anything other than pain. I've continued to experience wheezing and coughing through the day so either I'm coming down with something or else some allergen in the air was affecting my lungs.

My previous fastest half marathon was 2:08:05.3 at last year's 3M. My time was even faster than the 1:59:00.0 that I ran the first half of Dallas last month. I should be happy, but I'm disappointed because I know I could have run faster. I'd have felt better if my time had been slower and my heart rate higher, but the low average heart rate means that I left something on the table.

So, I'm pleased but not thrilled. Another bright spot is that I didn't have any injuries. I finally peeled the dead skin off my pinky toe yesterday and the combination of new shoes and 3M bandages kept it from blistering again. My sore right foot is still sore, but it's not any worse. I'm a little sore and stiff, but I should be able to train well over the next 3 weeks as I taper and do final training for the Austin Marathon on February 18.

A big thanks to my lovely wife who took care of my sweats at the starting area and picked me up at the finish.

Now That's a Blister

The pictures speak for themselves. The swelling has gone down, but it puffs back up when I run.

Survival

What a weekend. I completely rearranged my bedroom and ran a 20 mile race. It's difficult to decide which was harder.

One thing you have to understand about me and my wife is that we are not neat people. We have lots of hobbies and love to read. So we have lots of stuff. Our children were raised by us and learned our love of stuff and also learned our disregard for order. As a result our house is characterized by stack and piles on top of every horizontal surface. Once all raised surfaces such as desks, counters, rails, dressers, shelves, couches, chairs, and night stands are covered the piles overflow onto the floors. Occassionally I get tired of it, usually when I can't find something I need, and blow a gasket and start cleaning. So, I knew that rearranging the bedroom would be a task because of the piles.

Several weeks ago I used measured our room and all of the furniture and made a CAD drawing that allowed me to move everything around virtually on the screen. I didn't like our current arrangement because it blocked our access to the windows and felt a little cramped. After several hours of learning the CAD program I had a workable solution that the wife and I agreed on.

But before I could even contemplate the rearranging, I had to run some new satellite and telephone cables to the wall where the entertainment center would be located. We have DirecTV with Tivo so I have to have two satellite cables so that the Tivo can record two shows at the same time. It also needs a telephone line to confirm subscriptions and purchases and whatever.

So Saturday I headed over to Home Depot to get supplies. I purchased a drywall saw to cut a hole for the outlet box. Then I purchased an outlet box, a modular outlet cover with 4 openings, 2 cable outlets, 2 telephone outlets, 50 feet of satellite cable, and 50 feet of telephone cable. Then I started looking around for something to help me fish the cables down into the wall from the attic. When the DirecTV installers originally put in the Tivo box they used some fiberglass poles to fish the wires so I was looking for something like that but had no idea where to look. I headed over to landscaping think maybe they'd have something that'd work. A salesperson saw my puzzled, lost look and asked if she could help. I described what I needed and she said, "Oh, you want a fish tape." A fish tape. Of course. Everybody knows what a fish tape is. Back to electrical and it turns out they had a whole rack of various implements for fishing wires through walls or under carpets or wherever they needed to go. A fish tape, by the way, is sort of like a tape measure on steroids where the tape is about 1/4" wide and maybe 1.5 mm thick. So it is stout enough that it can be pushed, but it is still flexible.

So, I go up in the attic and find where I need to put the wires in. I push the cable tape down into the wall and go back down stairs. Simple hitting the wall with my fist make the cable tape rattle in the wall so I knew where to cut. I used a stud finder to locate the studs and cut a hole in the dry wall next to an electrical outlet that I knew was next to a stud. Wonder of wonders, I pull out the drywall and am staring at an AC duct of the flexible variety that the outlet box would pinch. So I cut another hole a foot over that misses pinching the duct. Then I safety wired all of my cables to the cable tape and went back up into the attic to pull them up. They pull up 8 feet and stop. After diving headfirst through a couple of feet of blown insulation and fishing my arm into the wall I discover that my fish tape had gone between a 2x4 and the drywall. So we pulled the cables back out and I rethreaded the cable tape on the other side of the 2x4 and along the AC duct that I could now see buried by insulation. After a few more contortions I threaded the cables back down into the master bedroom closet where all of the cables in the house go into a structured wiring box.

By now it was early evening and I really needed to eat because I had a 20 miler early the next morning. My wife also informed me that there was a party that we wanted to go to. So it was off to Quizno's for supper and Home Depot to get a wall patch before running to the party. I'd only planned on staying for an hour or so I could get a good night's sleep, but we were having so much fun that we didn't wind up getting home until nearly midnight. I had to get my racing gear together and it was after 1:00 before I got to sleep.

Sunday started at 4:30 am because the race was 1.5 hours away in San Marcos and started at 8:00 am. The weather was a crisp 43 degrees which warmed up to 60 by noon. I got there a little more than an hour early and read a book and listened to music while I waited for the start. The course was a beautiful country run through rolling hills, some of which turned out to be pretty steep and long. Around mile 7 I started getting a blister on my right little toe just like in the previous two races. I loosened my shoe and kept going and the pain didn't get any worse and it actually got kind of numb toward the end. More on that later.

My intent was to go out slow and then run marathon pace for about ten miles before slowing down and just finishing. I don't know if it was the 3 hours of sleep or that my legs haven't completely recovered from the Dallas Marathon or whether my conditioning has dropped since then or if the hills killed me, but running at the same pace I did at Dallas turned out to be really hard. My heart rate was pretty high at 9:30 pace and climbed to over 170 when I pushed to a 9:00 pace. By mile 11 I was ready to slow down. I could have kept going, but this was just a training run and I didn't want to punish my legs to the point where I'd need a lot of recovery. So I jogged and walked at a very slow pace. It was majorly sucky because I just wanted the race to be over and I was pretty tired from the hard initial pace. I wound up walking the last two miles, grateful to have put the run behind me.

When I got back to the car and took off my shoes and socks I was sickened by my little toe. Saying that I have a blister doesn't really do justice to the damage. It's more accurate to say that my little toe is a blister. The entire toe top and bottom is one big blister that is full of fluid and blood. Yuck. But it doesn't hurt. I don't think that is good. Time for a trip to the running store to look for a different pair of shoes before the next race.

Not that it matters much, but I finished in 3:45:25 with an average pace of 11:16. That's actually slower than last year's time of 3:43:11, but last year's course was pretty flat compared to this year's hilly course and I ran it differently and walked a lot more. I finished the first 10k in 1:01:34 (9:55 pace), 15k in 1:31:09 (9:57 pace) , 20k in 2:04:57 (10:11 pace), 25k in 2:42:45 (10:35 pace), and mostly walked from there. Not too stellar and pretty disappointing but a good reality check.

Anyway, I spent the rest of the day moving piles and pushing furniture around the carpet. All of the furniture is moved but our bathroom floor is still covered with piles of books and magazines. It turned out nice and I slept like a dead man.

Yesterday's race was very hard and afterwards I really, really didn't want to run the Austin Marathon. Today I feel pretty good and am a little more up beat. But I've significantly scaled back my target pace from 9:12 to 9:45. That would still give me a PR and won't risk overreaching my current fitness level. My hips are a little sore, but my legs are fine so I'll be able to resume running tomorrow and I'll be ready to finish the season strong.

My next race is the 3M Half Marathon in three weeks and I AM looking forward to that.