Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts

Thursday, April 3, 2014

What female runners like to blog about

Image courtesy of MilesToBlog
Today's run (street): 3.25 miles

In addition to my normal publishing channels and RSS, I post on a private Facebook group page called "Miles to Blog." This is a group of active bloggers who write about their training, motivation and races. The writing is uniformly good and some of these people are very funny. I've found it interesting to read what's important to this group of predominantly female runner/bloggers. Please don't take this as sexist, but I'm amused by the one subject that seems to dominate. Is this a runner thing or a gender thing? Can you guess the subject?

Moving to a different subject,  I got out today for my Hal Higdon prescribed 3 miles + strength run. The strength stuff is still pending. Does carrying the clean laundry upstairs for my wife count? I'm in the fourth week of Hal's intermediate Half Marathon training program, the first formal training program I've ever followed. I've been wondering if it's working and had an interesting experience today that answered that question.

My two challenges for the Brooklyn Half are: 1. Getting my endurance back to the level where I can cover the 13.1 mile distance and 2. Developing the stamina to sustain targeted race pace. The Higdon method involves increasingly long base runs, timed tempos, track intervals and shorter runs. Plus strength training which I'll get to at some point. The idea is to bring the base and speed training together over the 12 week schedule so that the runner is at his or her peak on race day.

I was curious to know whether, in the fourth week of this training, I had gained any speed as a result of this long/slow and short/fast run combination. I was in the second mile of today's run when I broke my rule about checking pace on my watch. My Garmin showed an abysmal pace that was disheartening because I felt like I was running much faster. I took up the effort a little, but a few more checks of the Garmin showed that I was still over 30 secs per mile slower than my target. When I checked my time and distance after the run, I saw that, overall, I'd exactly met my targeted pace.

One thing I learned was that I shouldn't assume that the Garmin is providing accurate real-time pace information. The other thing I learned was that this training is helping (although it took that scare to get me to pick up the pace). Nothing motivates like progress. I just hope it continues.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Race report: 2013 Dirty Sock 10K

Final charge to the finish line
Today's race (Dirty Sock 10K): 6.2 miles (clock time 1:02:57)

This morning I ran the Dirty Sock 10K trail run for the fourth time since 2009 (I skipped it last year). Results have been posted, but they seem to be clock, not net times. Either way, it was the slowest time I've ever run this race. But in a race like this, experience is more important than time. As usual, the experience was great.

Team Emerging Runner arrived about 35 minutes before the start under overcast skies and fairly cool temperatures. Far better than in 2010, when the heat, humidity and occasional rain created sauna conditions on the course. After getting my bib number, along with the traditional pair of "Dirty Sock" sweat socks and race shirt, I regrouped with my family. Shortly after that, I ran into my friend Mike who was running the race with his brother Paul.

Paul, Mike and me
We walked together toward the western trail head, and told my wife and kids, "See you at the finish line." Mike, Paul and I continued toward the starting line and found a place to wait. At 7:55, I turned on my Garmin, thinking five minutes would be enough time to acquire a signal. I was wrong, and it took about 23 minutes for the signal to lock in. My hope of capturing full race data was lost, but I was getting my heart rate in real time and the watch came in unexpectedly handy near the end of the race.

A video on the Dirty Sock Facebook page confirms that it took about a minute for me to cross the starting line after the horn. I'm hoping they post the net times, because this would make a difference in my overall time, bringing my pace into the 9:00 range (if only by 5/100th of a second!). I felt good at that point (although frustrated by my Garmin's signal failure), and moved through the crowd of runners until I found a spot where I could open up my stride.

The first two miles went by fast, and I was beginning to think I might do well today. Like other times when I've run this race, the lead runners (winner set a course record of 32:48) were coming back after circling the lake, just as I prepared to turn right toward the Southern State underpass. It was a psychologically positive moment that confirmed my performance was on track. The transition from trail to pavement felt jarring, and I struggled a little as the course rose to the path that goes around Belmont Lake.

The three mile point comes about halfway around the lake and the clock showed that 29 minutes had passed. Thinking that we'd be measured by net time, I was feeling encouraged. But soon after that, I began to feel depleted. I took a sip from my gel flask where I'd mixed some Roctane with water. That helped a little, but I needed to adjust to a more sustainable pace. As we crossed under the low viaduct that leads back to the dirt trail, I thought about what I needed to do to get through the rest of the miles.

Without my GPS to tell me where I was in my progress, I tried to remember landmarks that I'd seen on the way up. I wanted to know how much trail I had left to cover. I started to get passed, indicating that I was running slower than I'd hoped. I finished the Roctane and soon saw the five mile clock that showed 50:40. I put everything I had into it, but still couldn't generate the speed I needed. Not long after that, my Garmin beeped that a new mile had started. Although it didn't correlate to the course, I used it as a rough estimate for the remaining distance.

Knowing that I only had a mile left put me in a state of hope. When I passed Southards Pond, I knew I was about to turn right for the final kilometer of the race. Halfway along that section of trail, my Garmin showed I had a half mile to go. I prepared for that, but when I saw a familiar landmark I realized the watch distance was off (compared to the course). I was really much closer. I put everything into my effort and soon heard the race announcer's voice. I only had a few hundred feet to go, so I accelerated once the finish line (and my wife and kids) were in sight.

Cool-down with Dave
I was fully depleted when I finished and my kids quickly brought water and bananas to aid my recovery. I was wishing for some electrolyte drink, but there wasn't any available. Although my heart rate dropped quickly to normal, it took about 30 minutes before I was feeling like my old self. Mike and Paul finished just a few minutes after me, and I was happy to run into Dave, who ran the course in the mid-50 minute range.

Award ceremony
We waited around and watched the award ceremony which was followed by an endless raffle where a hundred or more people won prizes. By then it was raining, but we hung in because my daughter was convinced I'd win the large screen TV (sadly, I didn't). One of the other big prizes was a $2,500 gift certificate from a hair graft surgeon. That was won by a high school-aged girl, who accepted it with good humor.

Although I would have liked to run today's race a few minutes faster, I was completely satisfied with today's effort. My first half performance compared to the second indicates that I need to work on my base, especially if I expect to be competitive at Cow Harbor in September. Five weeks should be more than enough time to prepare for that course, but I'll need to do plenty of hill, speed and distance training to get where I need to be.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Growing audience


My original intention was to make the Emerging Runner a personal journal that I would use to track my early progress. About two weeks into it I asked a friend (who happens to be an accomplished online media executive) to look at my site and suggest any changes. She mentioned a couple of things to help make this site more "findable" and I've since incorporated those changes. The real effect was to make me think about an audience broader than my wife and the "Emerging Running Advisory Board."

I have done a number of things to increase the reach of this site including using freely available SEO resources from Feedburner and Google Webmaster tools. I've also posted on the CompleteRunning.com network and tried to get Runner's World to link to it. I've also begun to leverage social networks including Facebook, which I joined and then ignored until I had something to talk about. In addition, I've put the site on both my LinkedIn and MapMyRun profiles.

Another great outcome from this (owing more to Facebook than Emerging Runner) is that I have been able to connect with some people that I have not seen for a while. One of those people will be running in the Boston Marathon next year and I hope to have him write a guest column about that experience. I've modified the look of this site to allow more content on the opening page and can now expand it so guest writers can get their own page. After about a month I have seen traffic grow slowly but steadily. The Emerging Runner has been accessed by a couple of hundred "absolutely unique" (Google Analytics' term) visitors with over a thousand pageviews. I can't wait for that first $0.02 check from Google Adsense.
 

blogger templates | Webtalks