Weather or not

Anticipating a long run later today in Central Park, I skipped all forms of exercise this morning. It was an odd feeling to watch the news at 4:30 AM with neither the sweat nor endorphins that usually follow a vigorous session on the treadmill. I'm really hoping that the weather cooperates this afternoon although it isn't looking too good right now. As of 6:30 it was raining and that is supposed to continue throughout the day. According to Weather.com it should be 57 degrees with thunderstorms, 74% humidity and windy at 4:30 PM when we plan to start. The only element I can think of to make conditions worse would be the addition of a sandstorm. The thing that will determine whether we run is the intensity of the storm itself. Rain, heat and winds are challenges to overcome but lightning is something to avoid at all costs.

As I look out my office window onto 6th Ave. (above) it's not looking too good: dark, gray and rainy although I'm not hearing any thunder. Tomorrow and Sunday I'm hoping to do a couple of long runs but we're supposed to get some rain and 25 to 35 MPH winds. I'm not sure how I'm going to do it but I'm planning to cover at least 8 miles this weekend, weather notwithstanding.

Running for office

Over the past few years I've noticed another commuter who always gets up from his train seat as we head into the East River tunnel and then proceeds to do calf and leg stretches as we come into Penn Station. When the doors open he's already moving, bounding up the stairs on his way to work. I've recently noticed that this man wears running shoes and despite the fact that the rest of his wardrobe (coat, suit and tie) is all business I'm guessing that he runs to his office each day.

Although running to my office each day from Penn (approximately 1.3 miles) presents an opportunity to add more miles to my weekly total I don't think I'll follow his lead. There is merit to the concept but I don't need to show up at my building each day looking like a damp washcloth. I did a great pre-workday city run a few weeks ago but that was in cooler weather and we wore real running clothes. Tomorrow afternoon Adventure Girl and I have planned a run in Central Park late in the day. It's a 4 mile route that includes the reservoir. It sounds like a great way to end the work week and a good jumpstart to my weekend training. I'd like to start a running club with colleagues and members of my team because so many people from my office are runners. We've even joked about doing a staff meeting as a group run. Of course, it would be great if my company had showers available to people who wanted to break up their day with some exercise but in these days of cost cutting that's not likely.

This week's Sedentary Man

In this week's column Sedentary Man explains the rules of HORSE and also recognizes Carl Yastremski's little known contribution to fitness in Major League Baseball. SM told me that as a Bosox fan he thought I would like that mention. His column is an encouraging message to those of us who plan to run past retirement age. Read it here...

In addition, I have been the featured blogger on the Runner's World loop community page. It's not much more than a goofy picture but you can check it out here before I'm replaced by another community member.

19 days and counting...

My race countdown clock is now at 19 days. What was once an abstract, future date is now just three weekends away. Many runners I know have competed for years. They have t-shirts, running bibs, PR's and stories. Aside from a corporate challenge I ran in 1992 that is disturbingly fuzzy in my memory, I am a complete newbie.

I do appreciate the encouragement that I've received from more accomplished and experienced runners. Unlike other sports where I've competed, ice hockey, karate and, yes, tennis, there seems to be little in the way of trash talking among those who run. The Runner's World Loop community is an interesting and eclectic group of runners at all stages. Some are new to the sport and others are quite experienced. I often see RW Loop blog posts from people who run 6 and 7 minute paces and wonder what they think of those (like me) who brag every time they break a 9:00 mile. My guess is that they think "good for you" based upon the encouraging comments I've seen on mine and other's blogs.

I weighed in today exactly where I wanted to be. I ran 1.8 miles at 9 min/mile and, by stretching before I ran, I had minimal leg soreness. I'm ready for my first race. In fact I wish it was this upcoming weekend. But since it isn't happening for 19 days I'll take the opportunity to refine my performance a little more. I hope to maintain or exceed an 8:50 pace for the 4 miles. I've heard that racing provides extra motivation and adrenalin and I'm counting on that for meeting this goal.

Treading lightly

This morning I needed to run to reset my conditioning. I hadn't run since Saturday at the hotel and though my pace for that run was good it took a lot of effort to get through it. I'm still fighting a cold and that's contributed to fatigue. After two days away from running I figured I had rested my leg enough to get back on the treadmill. I felt good and was hopeful that I had made progress in terms of my injury but as I started to run my leg felt very tight and there was some sharp pain. I kept my pace around 10:00/mile for the first few minutes in the hope that I would warm up enough to loosen my muscles and ease the pain. Once I started to feel more flexibility I increased the speed and by the 8 minute mark there was neither pain nor stiffness so I kept increasing the speed in the hope of getting a decent overall pace.

I ran a total of two miles and really poured it on near the end of my run. My overall pace was 9:01 which pleased me because, according to my Garmin, the first mile was run in 9:40. That meant I ran below 8:30 for the second mile. I strongly feared that this extra exertion would do some damage but my leg is no worse today than it was the prior two days with no running.

Tomorrow morning I will do some light stretching before I run to try to head off the initial stiffness. If I could do two miles at the same pace as my second mile today I'll consider myself back on track in terms of race training.

Off in the distance

Last night I uploaded my prior week's runs to Garmin Connect and also updated my total workout history to MapMyRun. The Garmin Connect reports verified that my average pace has improved but, when I looked at overall monthly distance on MapMyRun, I noticed I was falling short of the previous month. This bothered me for two reasons. For one, I've never had a decline in total distance compared to the previous month. To date, I've gained about 3% each month over the last six months. The second reason was that March, a month with 31 days, will likely show a 7% decline against February, a month with 10% less days.

At this point, the only way I could end up even with February would be to run five miles tomorrow and that isn't going to happen. I guess I could blame my leg injury because I have been very careful not to strain it. I've also been focusing more on faster paces rather than longer, slower runs. Yesterday and today I chose the elliptical to further help my leg recovery and I'm pleased to note that I've had the least amount of pain today than I've had in the past three weeks.

If less mileage and more cross training leads to better injury recovery I think I can take the hit on distance. If things continue to feel this good tomorrow I'll try to run 2.5 miles and split the difference.

A vacation from running

As much as it pains me to admit it, I haven't been able to defeat my cold. It could be because all weekend we have been constantly running around, being social (not a strength of mine) and keeping different hours. Yesterday's hard run didn't help my leg problem and I seriously considered playing the sick, tired and injured card in favor of a rest day.

I got up early (I rarely sleep well in hotels) and my wife was already preparing to head to the fitness center. I decided to wait until she returned and see how I felt. I figured an easy run might be doable so I changed into workout clothes and headed down when she came back.

The gym was empty when I arrived so I took a minute to try one of the Life Fitness elliptical units. I was interested in seeing the difference between this high end machine and the one I have at home. The feel of the Life Fitness unit was different in terms of petal and arm positions, not necessarily better, but it was a nice change. The built in TV was nice too and the display provided not only speed but pace. Though my BH Fitness machine lacks a pace reading (only speed) it does show energy expenditure as watts. I was surprised to see that the LF machine didn't have that feature.

I ended up spending 28 minutes at medium high resistance on the elliptical. It was a good choice over the treadmill as my leg pain has been minimal today even with that exercise. As for my cold, it's there, but no worse than before. We'll be back to LI later today and if I'm up for it I may just try an outdoor run.

The Exhausted Runner

We're staying at a hotel this weekend and it's raining outside so my Saturday run was accomplished indoors. The hotel has Life Fitness treadmills and I was impressed that the speed on the treadmill's display almost exactly matched the readout on my Garmin 50. To my left and right were a couple of women doing workouts and updating each other with facts like, "I just ran up a 70 foot hill!" I felt bad when I hit the speed button to get to my 7 MPH pace because the noise level interrupted their communication.

The treadmill's display had multiple ways to view progress and I chose the "trail" view that showed a 5K course with markers in 1K increments. It wasn't virtual reality but it was a good distraction. The fitness center was really hot so I was sweating very early in the run. I was tired at the one mile point and it got worse as I went on. I kept a moderately fast pace and ended up running 3 miles at 8:54/mile.

After the run I was very tired, much more than after yesterday's run. The heat had much to do with that. I'm a little concerned about running in the warmer weather as we move from spring to summer. At the very least I'll need ensure that I pre-hydrate before longer runs.

Tie goes to the runner

I took advantage of a commute-less work day by sleeping a little later and running a little farther than I would on a week day. The cold is retreating and my leg, if somewhat stiff, is in good shape. I waited for the sun to come up and set out for my run a little after 7:00 AM. I'm used to neighborhood running on weekends where, for the most part, I have the roads to myself. This morning I was inundated with cars and school busses and spent more time running on the sidewalk than I ever had before.

I started a little slow because my right leg felt stiff but started to push it when I reached the mile mark. My intention was not to run a "weekend-length" distance because we're heading out for a long drive and I didn't want to be too tired. I ended up running just short of 3 miles at 9:00 minutes per mile. So I didn't get under 9:00 but I didn't go over it either. I have work to do this morning prior to my trip so I won't have time to Gmap my distance. I hold out hope that I actually ran farther than the Garmin said I'd run. If that's the case I would have made my goal of 8:59 or under.

I'll probably only do treadmill running this weekend in the hotel but if I have a chance to run outside I will certainly will.

Racing to run

As I've mentioned in past postings, my morning routine is planned with a similar precision to a space shuttle launch. The alarm goes off at 3:55 AM, I pour my coffee at 3:58, turn on the treadmill at 4:00, put on my shoes and running clothes by 4:05, set up the HRM by 4:06, consume half my Special K bar and 1/3 of my coffee by 4:08 and start my warm-up by 4:09. This gives me approximately 20 minutes to run two miles at target pace before ending with a couple of minutes to cool down and reduce my heart rate.

Some mornings the routine goes flawlessly and I sometimes gain a few minutes and run a little longer. Other times, like this morning, time went by in fast motion and before I had even started my run the clock read 4:12. This left me with only 15 minutes to run, forcing me to get up to speed faster than normal. I ended up running 15:00 at 9:05 (1.66 miles). I thought I'd actually run faster than that but the Garmin doesn't lie (unless I calibrate it wrong). Making things worse was my treadmill display that sputtered out after about 5 minutes. That left me no easy way of monitoring progress and performance short of toggling through my watch settings as I ran. That's fine once or twice during a run but repeating this process soon becomes tedious.

It seems like 9:05 is my new default pace, quicker by far than my average daily performance in 2008, but again, not under 9:00. I could blame my cold and my leg soreness for being off goal pace but I know that I could have pushed harder than I did today. I'm working from my home office tomorrow which will give me an opportunity to run a little later (possibly outside) and longer. If I keep it under 3 miles tomorrow I won't be happy with any pace above 8:59.

Signs of recovery

No, I'm not talking about the Dow or the housing market. I'm actually referring to my cold and my leg injury. I'm happy to say that both seem to be losing intensity. I ascribe the cold recovery to the theory that exercise helps the immune system. I refuse to let the cold win and, compared to the past, I seem to be coming through this fairly quickly. On the other hand my soreness around and across my upper thigh has reached a point of leveling off. It hurts but it hasn't got worse.

#

I took an Aleve last night and this morning the pain was less severe. I used the elliptical machine for about 25 minutes and stepped off feeling okay. My leg is still a little stiff but the sharp pains have lessened. I'm hoping that this continues. My fear is that Aleve, which is actually Naproxen, a powerful anti-inflammatory, is giving me a false sense of improvement. I really want to work on speed between now and April 19. Race day is coming in less than a month!

Powering through

My head cold continues and yesterday afternoon I paid a visit to my company's medical department. The doctor, who I've known for years, said "Sorry, but I don't have a cure for the common cold." I told him it wasn't the cold that was bothering me, I actually wanted his take on my running injury. He had me lie on the table and tried to isolate the problem but it was inconclusive. He didn't understand why the pain was intermittent and why the discomfort went away after I walked or ran on it. He then suggested that I see an orthopedist and though he warned me not to overdo it he didn't tell me to stop running.

This morning I was determined to run and, despite some sneezing and coughing I got on the treadmill for what I'd accepted to be a low impact run. Once I got moving my leg started feeling better so I turned up the speed. I ended up running 1.75 miles at a 9:05 pace although the last two thirds were probably faster since I'd run the first six minutes at about 9:50/mile. Since the run I feel pretty much okay. It wasn't a long run today but I needed to show my cold who's in charge.