Chevron Houston Marathon Blog

The Science of Running (Answers Mysteries and Fixes Problems!)

 Thursday was a running geek’s dream day. But it came with some CONCERNS.

 After all, if you’re a running geek, running isn’t just running. It’s an obsessed hobby that requires its own wardrobe, food, thought and time. Lots of it. And Thursday, I got plenty of food for thought.

Memorial Hermann’s Ironman Institute offers human performance testing for runners, cyclists and triathletes - scientifically and medically uncovering the strengths and weaknesses of endurance athletes. I went through a battery of tests and found answers to some mysteries I had been content to let linger… mysteries that I and every runner need to address.

 First up: resting metabolic rate. This test was conducted by nutritionist Penny Wilson. She had me sit quietly for a few minutes before the test began, since I had been fighting morning traffic into the Texas Medical Center. Then she had me breathe quietly into a mask that measured my intake and output. (Naturally, it’s challenging to breathe normally when all you’re doing is thinking about your breathing and you’re doing it into a mask.)

 The end result: on my couch potato days (I don’t have many of those), I burn about 1700 calories a day.

Next: body composition analysis. The team had me get into a swimsuit. They weighed me (123 pounds) and then had me step into a pool of bathtub-warm water. I sat in a swing in the pool and on the count of 3, I plunged underwater in a ball and blew all of my air out. And I mean ALL of my air. I was told that anything that makes me buoyant – air, fat, et cetera, would be read as fat, and so in order to get the most accurate reading, I had to push out as much air as I could.

Result: 12.5 pounds of fat, or 10 percent body fat and about 110 pounds of muscle, bone, organs, and so on. This might sound good, but it’s something that many female endurance runners need to be concerned about. Here’s why: sports medicine experts recommend women have body fat of 12-20 percent. I’m too far below that and that’s something I have to address in order to be healthy, look my best and be a good runner.

Then, the lactate profile, the KCals per hour measurement (how many calories I burn per hour at different paces) and the 2-d running gait analysis (they looked at my running form). For all of this, I jumped on a treadmill. For the first three intervals, the team had me wear a mask that measured my oxygen intake and CO2 output to measure how many calories I was burning at first a 9:21 minute/mile pace, then a 9:04 pace, then an 8:42 pace. I did seven 3.5 minute long intervals in all of increasing speed, beginning at a 9:21 pace and ending at a 7:04 pace. In between each interval, Terry Dupler, Ph.D., the director of the Human Performance Lab, took blood from a finger to measure my body’s lactate production. The harder you work, the more lactate you release into your bloodstream and the lactate profile measures exactly where your body begins to work hard and where it begins to work very hard and where it begins to work too hard.

The result: I burn 705 calories an hour at an 8:42 pace. And if I want to qualify for the Boston Marathon, I’m going to have to do a lot more of my miles at that 8:42 pace… and a lot more speedwork at the excruciatingly uncomfortable 7:04 pace (I top out in lactate production at that pace.)

 

They also videotaped me running on the treadmill to take a slow-motion look at my gait. Analysis: Pretty good. I land on my forefoot; I land with my calf and foot right underneath the knee; I run very upright. On the downside, my calf muscles take a beating and I drop my hip a little at each stride and that makes a tiny little muscle called the piriformis sore, because it’s working harder than it’s supposed to.

To fix that, Anthony Falcone showed me some exercises on a stabilizer ball and showed me how to foam roll sore muscles and tendons.

Then it was back to a sit-down with nutritionist Penny Wilson again. This is when she explained what my resting metabolic rate is (again, that 1700 calories burned on the days I do absolutely nothing.) I had emailed her this three day food log:

 Saturday

7:30 am – one piece of whole grain toast, buttered, with Sarabeth’s blueberry-cherry preserves. Coffee. Felt hungry with a stomachache before, satisfied afterwards.

8:30am – iced grande Americano with cream and Equal

9:45 am – banana. 1 donut. 1 kolache. Felt full after banana, felt pressured to eat kolache and donut, felt too full afterwards.

11:30 am – Lean Cuisine meat lasagna

3pm – large organic apple (Felt a little hungry before, felt fine afterwards.)

 6:30 pm – Amy’s palak paneer meal (Indian; spinach with cheese, beans, steamed rice), 1 slice pumpkin pie. (felt hungry before, felt satisfied afterwards.)

Sunday

5am – Coffee. Buttered whole grain toast with Sarabeth’s blueberry-cherry preserves. (felt hungry before)

5:45 – second coffee. One bottle of cherry-lime Propel Zero.

6:30 am – one Cherry lime Gu

7am-7:45 – ran first leg of the Metric Marathon Relay. 8 min pace for nearly six miles, 70 degrees and humid. Drank maybe two mouthfuls of water at mile 2 or so.

8am – one banana, one bottle of water (more thirsty than hungry. Ate because I’m “supposed to”) 10am – iced grande Americano with cream and Equal

10:30am - two scrambled eggs (felt sick with hunger, craved protein, felt a lot better afterwards.)

11:45 – Panini – two slices of rosemary bread with smoked turkey, provolone and slices of apple, crisped with olive oil on panini maker. Kettle cooked potato chips.

2:30 – slice of pumpkin bread

4:30 – slice of pumpkin bread

6:30 – Lean Cuisine chicken and broccoli fettuccine, slice of cake, diet Coke

Monday

8:45am – Coffee, one slice of buttered whole grain toast with Sarabeth’s blueberry-cherry preserves.

10:15am –Chobani mango yogurt.

10:45am – iced grande Americano with cream and Equal

12pm – chicken with steamed vegetables and rice with a ginger-jalapeno broth-like sauce. One fried veggie egg roll. Diet Coke.

3pm – large organic apple

6pm –diet Coke

8pm, slices of pesto provolone cheese, smoked ham, one tortilla, a slice of pumpkin pie (homemade – pumpkin, condensed milk, eggs, graham cracker crust.) 

 But Wilson had some concerns that I am addressing. I need to eat more. Even though I am taking in something every two to three hours, I’m apparently only consuming about 1600 calories a day. Add that to my energy output – imagine anywhere from 350 to 1400 extra calories burned a day on top of my resting metabolic rate of 1700 calories a day, and I am facing the same issues many female endurance athletes face – not fueling enough.

My goal now is to eat more – to give my body the calories it needs to work, run and play. She also said my body composition of 10 percent fat was a little too low – 12 to 20 percent is ideal for women and that it can contribute to health issues like bone loss.

This shouldn’t be a problem because I’m eating more – and taking a calcium supplement.

She encouraged me to take in more calories – starting first with switching my iced Americano with a latte, taking my calorie intake on my espresso-drink habit from a mere 30 calories to 150 calories a pop. She also encouraged me to try to eat more, which may be a challenge given time constraints and given the fact that I get full very very easily.

So, it’s a couple of days later and I have bought a foam roller and a stabilizing ball. I’m drinking a tall nonfat gingerbread latte, light whip please, instead of my customary iced grande Americano with cream in the morning. I’m trying to eat a little more. And I’m running a little faster. The human performance tests were eye-opening – I found out a lot that I didn’t realize. And now it’s going to help me eat more so I can perform better, not just in the marathon, but in life too.

Team Tripod Eats A Cupcake

Marathons involve the brain as much as they involve the legs. Training for one is sometimes a contest between which one will give up first – the mind or the body.

This all starts with the 16 week marathon training plan. When the Internet spits out my four months of training, neatly lining up the days I run and how far I run and how fast I’m supposed to do all this – it’s also spitting out an instruction manual of how I am supposed to arrange my days and weeks in order to make it to the finish line.

This takes some discipline and time management. Some days this is easier than it is on others. Saturday, for instance, it was a piece of cake. The training schedule calls for three easy miles and I did it on the treadmill with my iPod cranked up high. I barely broke a sweat.

Thursday – totally different story. I just did not. Want. To. Run. Period.  I was supposed to run seven miles at a nice easy pace. I ended up eking out six miles before I had to pick up my daughter from school. I think I pouted to myself the entire way.

Anyway, I’m in need of some early-season inspiration. So I signed up for the Texas Metric Marathon Relay with reporter Sonia Azad and photographer Chris Day. And then I bought myself a new pair of the shoes I loved so much last year – the Asics Gel Speedstar. It’s a very obnoxious shoe.

 

So now Sonia (who is running the Aramco Houston Half Marathon) and I have something for which to train, something we’re half looking forward to and half dreading. Here is the email conversation we had after I registered our team:

Sonia: This means it's real!... 

Sent from my iPhone

Me: I know. I have decided in the last half hour that I am too slow to be allowed to live any longer and very out of shape and surely will die before I finish.

Sent from my iPhone

Sonia: Shut up.  I'm going to eat a cupcake now. 

Sent from my iPhone

The Metric Marathon Relay (26.2 km split up into three legs) is Sunday November 13 in downtown Houston.

We are Team Tripod (get it, three legs? Ha ha.)

 

A Texas Runner. Finally.

I am a Texas runner. I proved it in this last, hottest summer on record.

I was a teenager in Colorado when I first laced up a pair of running shoes, a member of my high school cross country team. For years, that alone was proof of my toughness as a runner – I had run the sidewalks and streets of the Mile High City, the trails of the Rocky Mountains, earning my stripes in the thin air.

I ran through the icy winters of Upper Midwest, swathed in black Lycra tights and fleece tops, breathing through the mask of a balaclava and feeling ice droplets form on my eyelashes. My Yak Traks (essentially tire chains for running shoes) clawed at the snow ruts and slipped over the black ice while I dodged the pot holes and cracks in the asphalt of Michigan’s capital city.

That too, I thought, proved my toughness as a runner – my ability to endure the extreme cold, to get so overheated on 20 degree days, I would rip off my gloves and unzip my running jackets without ever missing a stride.

I knew when I moved here, the heat was going to be an obstacle.

The summer of 2009 was a hot one. I sweated and flushed through my days in the field, reporting, and many days returned to the station at the end of the day with pink cheeks and a heat headache. My photographers would drive, and I would look out of the passenger window at the runners circling Memorial Park or Rice University or cutting through Hermann Park and I would wonder how they did it without collapsing.

The couple of mid-day runs I attempted that summer were slow, short, sickening affairs. I ran a lot on the treadmill at the gym, or after the sun had gone down, striding quietly and surprisingly up on neighbors out walking the dog before they turned in for the night.

It got a little better in 2010. I started to resent too much air conditioning. I returned to the station at the end of a day reporting feeling no different than I had in the morning. I still avoided running outside when the heat index got above 95 or so.

2011 was the year that something changed.

I ran outside without flinching on days when the temperature was 102 and the heat index was easily 105. The running was hard and I’d be dripping with sweat, my face crimson with the effort when I got done with my 3 or 6 miles. I’d stop for water when I could and gave myself mental permission to walk if it just didn’t feel good.

I ran far more often than I walked. The sun didn’t bother me so much anymore, although any breeze was a blessing and I’d run headfirst into one if I found it.

And then the weather broke in the beginning of September – a few sweet days when the highs only got into the low 90s. That’s when I realized what it means to be a Texas runner – when 93 degrees is a nice-cool, easy run; when 105 degrees and blazingly sunny doesn’t keep me inside parked on the couch.

I imagine, though, that I’m going to be making good use of my tough-Michigan-winter running gear to get through Houston’s (comparatively) mild winter.

The trade-off is worth it. Chevron Houston Marathon 2012, here I come.

 

 

One For The Record Book

The marathon isn't much more than a blur to me, one week later.

I woke up at 2:30 marathon morning, with what felt like an asthma attack. An anxiety dream, I'm guessing.

 Sonia Azad and I show off finishers' medals. She ran the half marathon; I ran the full marathon.

The race? It was humid, it rained, it was a long way. I know I ran from 7am untl 10:56am without stopping. I was in an almost-trance and I cannot remember very much of what I thought about. I remember feeling grateful to the people who hand out orange slices along the way. I have vivid snapshots in my mind - the fathers sprinkling holy water at Rice University, the halfway point (it was still raining), the hill on Westpark between 14 and 15 miles, some point in the Galleria, 23 miles on Allen Parkway when I slammed into the wall, 25 miles where I pushed through the wall, the finish line. I was carrying my cell phone and I had forgotten to silence my alarms, so at 9am my alarm went off. It sounds like church bells. It went off over and over again for miles. I'm sure the runners around me were wondering why church bells were ringing in my running shorts for so long. Sorry guys. The last quarter mile was hard - I closed my eyes and whispered to myself, knowing I was going to set a personal record.

3:56:47.

Just a few feet past the finish line and a fist pump, I stopped and doubled over. I thought at the time that I was just stopping to catch my breath, to gather my noodle legs underneath me. But I just saw the pictures and it looks more like a near-collapse, although I swear it was not that dire. Then again, I didn't understand why the medical personnel were on me so fast -- and I had thought the person in the red jacket was a woman. Looking at the Brightroom photos a week later, I see that person was a man - and not only that, there was another medical person, a man in a blue jacket, who I do not remember.

I did not qualify for Boston, but I set a personal record. And now, next year (yes I'm already declaring I will run the full 2012 Chevron Houston Marathon), I just have to shave six minutes off that time.

It was a great race.

Food Loading

I'm not going to call it a "carb load" this year. I'm going to call it a "food load." And I'm starting a week early.

Let me explain the difference between running now and running a year ago. A year ago, it was fine. I was in shape and running was easy. I'd sweat, I'd get all out of breath, I'd run my distance and I'd feel just, well, fine. This year - wow. It feels like I'm gliding from foot to foot, my shoulders square and twisting, my breath just a tick or two above standing still.

Of course, a year ago, I weighed 28 pounds more than I do now. Watching the size drop on my clothing tags over the last year has been ego-inflating. Wearing a bikini last summer for the first time since before my pregnancy was a GREAT feeling. It's been fantastic to get reacquainted with my cheek bones in the mirror.

But I have found running skinny comes with a whole different set of issues - like having enough fuel to complete some of the tougher runs, and eating enough to keep myself from going over the edge into unhealthy, scary skinny. For the record, I am not a fan of the sickly, skeletal, scary skinny thing. And I have a *thing* for blue cheese burgers and hot crisp french fries coated in salt.

Early on in this training season, I discovered I seemed to lose a significant enough amount of weight after a long run that people would comment that I'd lost yet-more-weight. Not good. I also re-discovered the horrible, dizzy, heart-palpitating feeling of completely running out of fuel on a long run - a long long way away from the car - and realized that I cannot take eating or not for granted anymore. Also not good.

A year ago, I could run 18 miles having eaten only peanut butter toast for breakfast and nothing else. Of course, I was carrying plenty of fuel on board. On Christmas Eve, I crashed and burned attempting 18 miles. As I passed the 11 mile mark, I felt weak and dizzy and sick. I made it to 11.81 miles according to my Garmin and I had to stop. Had to. I made it back to my car slowly and without incident, except for a couple of tears. This kind of burnout - a "bonk" in runnerspeak -always comes with the bottom dropping out of my mood for a few hours until I can rest and eat and drink water.

So lesson learned, I inhaled a blue cheese burger and a side of sweet potato fries 15 minutes after completing a 17 mile run the next week. In the days after that, I ate chocolate chip cookies and a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting my daughter and I made to begin 2011 on a sweet note. I ate fried Japanese dumplings and scoops of steaming sticky white rice. I crunched on Baked Cheetos and noshed on cheese pizza and made biscuits in my oven and slathered them with salted sweet cream butter. I gulped down a lovely pasta with prosciutto and basil and a cream sauce. I've spooned up buckets of Greek yogurt and swallowed loaves of whole wheat toast. I've had handfuls of banana nut Cheerios and imbibed salads made of organic lettuce and heirloom tomatoes and blue cheese crumbles and red grape halves. I've scrambled free range eggs with artisan cheddar cheese and rolled them up in warm tortillas with homemade salsa.

Yeah, I'm food loading.

I've completed yet another very long run and have one more this week. This year, I believe I'm on track to at least break that frustrating four hour marathon mark. I'm not so sure about qualifying for Boston,
but we'll see. If I don't make it, it won't be because I left out one of the biggest components of marathon training - food.

The Thick Of It

No doubt about it - I am in the thick of marathon training!

This is a "light" week - a 12 miler this past Sunday, 6 today, 6 tomorrow, 6 Friday and an easy 9 on Saturday. Then the monster month begins with 12 on Sunday, 3 Monday... 18 Thursday and 6 on Saturday. Funny thing is, the mileage for both weeks works out to exactly the same -39 - but I bet you I am going to be more wiped out at the end of next week than I will at the end of this week. Eighteen milers will do that to you.

Anyway, I've been working on a few issues: speed, diet and rest. First, speed. I've managed my last two long runs - 14 and 15 miles respectively, at an average pace of 8:46 minutes per mile. It may sound like I'm holding steady at a respectable sub-9 minute pace, but in reality, I picked up the pace between the 14 and 15 milers. The key, for me, is the 13.1 mile split, the half marathon split. During the 14 mile long run, I hit 13.1 miles at 1 hour 54 minutes and 55 seconds. Less than a week later, during my 15 miler, 13.1 miles came at 1 hour 53 minutes flat. (I "rewarded" myself by running the rest of my 15 at a slow jog, thus bringing my average down.) It's getting better. I'll break 4 hours at that pace. I won't, however, qualify for Boston. I need to be at the half on January 30 at 1 hour 52 minutes or faster in order to qualify for Boston.

Speed remains a work in progress.

Second, diet. I've been in a protein deficiency for some time now, but even though I've had chronic muscle soreness that would not let up, I didn't think about dietary causes. Pain is part of this whole experience. If you can't run through pain, you “ain't gonna” make it through the race. Instead, I thought I might be overtraining and thought I'd just get over it.

Until I went to one of those Brazilian steakhouses and ate a boatload of meat - beef, pork, chicken, lamb. I don't normally eat a lot of meat. My main food groups are fruits/vegetables, whole grains, coffee and dairy (Greek yogurt, cheese, etc.) It's not a very protein-centric diet, and like a lot of runners, I'm guilty of eating lots of carbs to fuel my immediate energy needs. So, I'd run a very painful and sore 4 miles before going to the restaurant. The next day, I got up and ran a remarkably pain free 12 miles. I ate chicken that night and a piece of chicken every night since then and an egg in the morning, plus my Greek yogurt.

Guess what? I'm not sore anymore. Diet appears to be solved.

And then there's rest.

 After Sunday's 12 miler, I felt a shade or two of the whole body depletion I feel after running 26.2 miles - it's both unpleasant and pleasant at the same time. But alarmingly, I don't typically feel that until after running 18 or 20 miles. It was a sign that I hadn't paid enough attention to my rest and recovery.

Now as a mom who works full time, I have to manage my training during the time I have - and there's really not any room for flexibility. I have to train as much as I can, when I can. But I can mitigate the situation by making sure I sleep enough and by sitting and relaxing more often (ok moms out there, I know. Easier said than done. ) Monday morning, I filled in for Sharron Melton on the morning show, which means a 2:15am wakeup. And boy, did I feel the depletion! I didn't run Monday or Tuesday and tried to get as much sleep as I could.

We'll see if my rest issues have been solved as I run the rest of this week.

Finally, as I run down my mental marathon checklist - there are things that need to be done: new shoes to be bought, new Gu to be acquired, things like that. But for the most part - no injuries, no serious pain, no toenails lost (yet) - I'm heading into my monster month in good shape.

Wish me luck.

Stir Crazy

I haven't run much this week. I've been fighting a head cold.

Luckily for me, this has been a light week in the marathon training plan, so I'm not missing much. Unluckily for me, running is the way I meditate and without it, I go a little stir crazy.

This may not work for everyone, but for me, running is my chance to contemplate, concentrate and breathe. And both literally and figuratively, it's my chance to run away from anything that bothers me. I feel almost uncomfortable in my own skin without it.

At the same time, I've certainly made my self sicker in the past, running with a cold. So this week, I've left my running shoes in the closet and tried to take it easy. I ordered some Gu online, to get ready for some of my upcoming long or hard runs. I started on my Christmas shopping for my daughter. I wrote a couple of stories for which I traveled to Michigan - they'll air November 16th. I got some sleep. I caught up on some email. I hung some curtains. I hung out with a friend who has twin daughters the same age as my daughter. Anything, I guess, to keep my mind busy.

Tomorrow, I lace up the shoes again. I can hardly wait.

Mission: Impossible

Cue up the Mission Impossible theme music. I’m aiming for 3:43 this time around.

It probably sounds, well, impossible after I ran my first two Chevron Houston Marathons in 4:twentysomething (I was so disappointed I have blocked my 2009 finishing time from my mind) and 4:11:26. After all, that’s shaving 18 minutes off my marathon personal record – 4:01:26 at Detroit in 2006.

But theoretically, I can do 3:43. I can run a 5k in 23 minutes without too much effort., so I have the speed. I have finished (running, not walking) every marathon I have entered, so I have the endurance.

So what’s the problem? In 2006, I stayed with my training partner for the first 12 miles. She’d pulled a groin muscle a week before the race and I had promised to stay with her as long as I could. She finished. I beat her by 22 minutes. (Update: She just finished the 2010 Detroit Free Press Marathon in 3:44.)

In 2009, I trained for only 12 weeks. I stopped to talk about the race twice during our live coverage. I was also carrying baby weight I hadn’t lost.

In 2010, I paced someone for the first half and stopped at the half to talk to Elissa Rivas for our live broadcast. I was also still carrying weight. I’d stopped calling it baby weight since my daughter was nearly two and a half.

2011 is going to be different. No excuses.

The day after the 2010 marathon, I started eating better and cutting my portion sizes. To date I’ve lost 28 pounds – and that’s 28 pounds that won’t be slowing me down for 26.2 miles. My body mass index dropped from a healthy 24.6 to a svelter but still healthy 20.5.

I have begun a 16 week training plan.

I won’t be pacing or staying with anyone. I’m running solo. I won’t be stopping to talk during our live coverage.

During the 2010 race, it slowed me down by more than 5 minutes. Justin Sternberg, the special projects producer who is part of the marathon coverage, said, “You can make Boston this time.”

Gulp. No excuses.

So my mission, which I have chosen to accept, is 3 hours and 43 minutes. It breaks the frustrating four hour mark. It qualifies me for the prestigious Boston Marathon. And no, I don’t think I’ll self destruct on the way to a 3:43.

See you at the finish line

The Last Run

 

I don’t know how far I ran on this last training run for the Chevron Houston Marathon. Three miles, maybe. I didn’t wear my Garmin and I didn’t worry about pace or time or distance.

Instead I suited up in my obnoxious outfit for Sunday and laced up my shoes and headed out the door. Since I was in an inward sort of mood, I wended my way around my neighborhood, dodging raindrops and people out walking their dogs, instead of fighting traffic through the Galleria and going to Memorial Park.

It felt good, as all last runs should feel. If I had to guess, I ran three-ish and worked my way up to an 8:30ish minute per mile pace. I’m as ready as I’m going to be.

But back to the outfit. I’ve chosen a hot coral tank top, red running shorts and red-and-white striped sleeves that I made out of some knee socks that came in the goody bag for a 5k I ran a few years ago that benefited the Ronald McDonald House. I’ve never worn the socks because they’re, well, obnoxious. But when I was mulling over my need for long sleeves that I could possibly remove should I warm up enough and my need to be very very visible to my co-workers who will be working the race from the sidelines – you’ll see reporters and photographers all along the route –  I remembered these knee socks. I cut out finger and thumb holes and took them for a test run.

It looks like they’ll do the job just fine on Sunday. I may wear a garbage bag at the start as a windbreaker and to trap some body heat in the cool morning air.  I expect by the finish, I will have lost the garbage bag and the sleeves and will look more like a runner and less like a heap of Raggedy Ann dolls thrown in the garbage.

Another important point: I have decided to pace my husband for the first half of the marathon to keep him on pace. If I qualify for Boston, awesome, but I am not gunning for it.

Don’t forget, we’ll be carrying the first three hours of the marathon live Sunday morning – and we’ll have a marathon special airing at 10:35 Sunday night, anchored by Tom Koch. I”ll be stopping (gingerly) in the studio to talk about the race and we’ll be Skyping with runners from their homes. We’ll even Skype with my husband, who is running his first marathon.

And until then, it’s water, water, salt, carbs and more water.  See you at the finish!

The Taper Begins

The twenty-milers are done!

We ran our final twenty mile run on Christmas Eve, in cold temperatures and a gusty wind that nearly blew my feet out from underneath me on Allen Parkway. I also under-dressed - wearing just shorts and a short-sleeved shirt in 40-something degrees (minus the wind chill factor). Around 8 miles, I thought about detouring past the car to pick up a fleece. Later I was sorry I didn't.

I had also decided that I had been finishing the long runs with a little too much energy at the end. I know that sounds crazy but I finished my 18 and first 20 miler fast and without that "concrete leg" feeling. About halfway into the last 20-miler, I SERIOUSLY picked up the pace. At one point I looked down at my Garmin to see I was trotting along at a 7:06 minutes per mile pace and decided that was too fast. But I finished mile 11 in 8:11 minutes, and miles 12 and 13 about 7:40 minutes apiece.

Needless to say, my legs were a lot heavier from mile 15 thru 20!

John wasn't too happy with me at the time, but afterwards agreed that it was a hard training run -- and it really should pay off in the marathon.

I have some thoughts on how John might perform on the marathon, but I'm afraid to put them out there. Running is a very mental thing; running one's first marathon is extremely mental.  His legs absolutely have the training and the conditioning it will take to get him to the finish line. It's going to be a matter now of how he expends his energy out on the race course on January 17 and how he manages the mental part of it.

The training part is almost over, after all. Now it's a matter of focus, discipline and carbs.

Running Company

Doing a little catchup on the holiday break. I kept running! This is from December 19th.

"There's a reason running clubs are so popular. Even though running can be a solitary, head-clearing activity, it's really more fun when you have someone along for the ride.

With the exception of the long runs with my husband, because of scheduling conflicts, I have done every other run by myself. I don't have a place in my schedule to make it to running club meetups and my husband and I are trading off childcare when it comes to making time for running, for the most part.

To be honest, my motivation to train for the marathon was waning a little bit, withering from lack of company.

Of course, that's not all there is to finding a running buddy. Compatibility helps. As does speed. And scheduling. When reporter SOnia Azad agreed to do nine miles one Tuesday night, I was excited. She's training for the Houston half, as well as another half-marathon, and she's got a zany schedule too -- and she'd been saying it was tough to find the time to work in some of her longer runs.

We chatted the whole nine miles - about running, and training and general runner-geek stuff.

We agreed to try to get in a couple of more runs together before race day, and when I left, my marathon motivation had perked up. I had a good 20 miler with my husband, and at this point< I'm in pretty good spirits about the upcoming race.

One more monster week to go before the taper... "

Spent

Friday's 18 miler was a glorious run, with the kind of weather runners love and everyone else hates. It was cold, overcast and windy. We ran the last five miles faster than the first 13, and I felt great. Confident and energetic. No concrete legs.

And I had a post-run cheeseburger, with extra salt. Yum.

Sunday - well, it was a different story. I was spent. Or rather, my legs were spent, still recovering from the 18 miler. I slogged through six miles and was happy when it was over. It may not have felt great, but it wasn't a total waste. I finished up the last mile at marathon pace, in keeping with my theory that since the last part of the marathon is the hardest, then the last part of my training runs should be the toughest.

I had a less-than-congratulatory boiled egg, tiny whole wheat bagel with peanut butter, fruit and a veggie burrito for lunch. Recovery food, yes, but not as fun as a cheeseburger. Remember, I have requested cheeseburgers (extra salt) after both of the marathons I have run.

On another note: I think the verdict is in on the shoe issue I wrote about some weeks ago. I'm sticking with the Mizuno Wave Inspire for the marathon, instead of switching to the Wave Rider. The bottom line is that I do not think about my feet when I run in the Inspire. I think and fuss about my feet constantly in the Rider. Twenty six point two miles is an awful long time to think about my feet. I'll mess around with a potential permanent switch *after* the race.

Pass The Salt

The more I run, the more I crave salt.

It has been so intense at times that I have taken the salt shaker and generously sprinkled table salt onto my bacon and pickle sandiwch, apres run. On the flip side, though, sometimes when I get done running, I'm coated in tiny crystals of what I can only assume is salt - and I'm guessing I just lose a lot of salt on a regular basis, thanks to running.

As I write this, I just got done with a small bag of baked Cheetos, with added salt.

I've heard too that it might be a potassium deficiency, since sodium and potassium work together in the body. Whatever, I eat a lot of bananas, which are supposed to be rich in potassium. I've never had the insane craving for a potassium-rich food, either, just a fiendish craving for salt - table salt, sea salt, salty foods, salt on salty foods, you name it.

Of course salt makes anyone retain water, but I don't know that hanging on to extra water is a bad thing in a Houston runner.  My salt habit doesn't seem to have any bad effects -- my blood pressure is about 110/70 and has been since I can remember;my resting heart rate is in the low 60s. 

Salt cravings are pretty well-documented among distance runners, cyclists too. Some running experts recommend eating small amounts of table salt during exercise. I know I recommended salt to my husband a few years ago when he was suffering from muscle cramps after a long mountain bike race. Within a few hours, his cramps subsided.

So until the marathon is over, pass the salt please.

Breaking Through The Wall

I got the chance to talk to John Warren, head men's track coach at Rice University, Tuesday.

We were shooting some of the pieces for our marathon coverage on the morning of January 17th, and the topic was training for the race. Of course, both John (my husband, not John Warren the coach) and I are both well into our training schedules. Last week's long run was 12 miles.

I asked Coach Warren a number of questions about training and running the race, including how to avoid hitting the wall late in the race. If you've ever hit the wall, you know exactly how terrible it feels. You're exhausted, you're drained and a lot of times, it's all you can do to keep walk-jogging. I hit the wall something fierce last year. It wasn't fun. I fantasized about laying down on the race course and staying there.

Here's Coach Warren's answer to the wall: "The long runs, getting used to those long runs will help," he said. "But if you want to do something during the race that is going to be the diet. Make sure you're not dehydrated (My thought bubble: I was last year!) and if you have never attempted things like Gu, food intake, carbohydrate intake throughout the race."

Gu, by the way, bills itself as "the performance food." It's one of many brands of gooey, sweet packs of gel made up of sugars, salt, caffeine, electrolytes, et cetera and designed to get into the bloodstream fast to feed the muscles during endurance sports, like say, a marathon. I've tried other brands, like Carb-Boom, but my personal favorite is Gu. I'm picky about flavors too -- I don't like the chocolate, espresso nor lemon-lime flavor.

I have a picture somewhere of me making a face around 18 miles at Detroit, because I'd grabbed a lemon-lime Gu and ate it.

Coincidentally, I introduced reporter Andrea Lucia, who is training for the half-marathon, to Gu last weekend. I gave her one of my Orange Burst flavored packs to try.

So, I knew about Gu and I have Gu'ed at 5 miles, 10 miles, 15, 18 and 22 in my previous two marathons. And I thought that was a lot. But Coach Warren had some breaking news for me - that may not be enough and Gu may be the answer to avoiding the wall.

"Usually an hour into it, you can start taking a Gu pack, and every 20 minutes after that. That will help against that glycogen breakdown that causes the wall," he said.

This was such new information to me, and to Justin, who is running the marathon and was the field producer on the shoot, and to my husband that we had several conversations about it. I'm going to start practicing Coach Warren's method of Gu-ing on this Friday's 14 mile long run. If I can run my last 4 to 6 miles at marathon pace or faster, and I don't get any stomachaches, we're golden.

Coach Warren had a lot of great information about training and racing for the marathon that will air during our coverage on the morning of January 17th, so if you're not running or a spectator, tune in. We'll also put it online after the race, here at abc13.com

The Thrill Is Gone

I am considering giving up my beloved Mizuno running shoes.

Before you think I'm planning to run barefoot or in heels or some other foolishness, it's not that. It's that I tried on a pair of Asics and they were, well, tempting. Soft. Cushiony. Floaty.

It begins as a long story full of details that only dedicated runners might find interesting, so I'll gloss over it: that I'd sprained my ankle very badly on a trail run in 2005; that I'd gone skiing at Vail the very second my ankle was pronounced "healed" but without doing a lick of physical therapy and therefore tore my MCL in my right knee; that when I was finally able to run again, I'd gone to a running specialty story where they took one look at my wobbling ankle and put me in Mizuno stability shoes that seemed tailor-made for my long, skinny feet.

I've had blisters here and there and two or three blackened toenails that fell off, but no sprains. And it's been in Mizuno stability shoes (First the Wave Alchemy, then the lighter Wave Inspire) that I went from a 25 minute 5k runner to a 22 and a half minute 5k runner, and then went on to run 10 mile races and marathons and such.

Well, to be honest, I wore Mizuno Wave Riders for some of it, because they're lighter.

They're also neutral shoes, for people who don't need all that stability. Stability shoes are for people who have stability problems, like people who overpronate, or roll inward on their feet. Or for people who strike the ground with their heels.

I don't do any of that. I actually supinate a bit - that is to say, I run on the outside of my feet. And I strike the ground with my forefoot (yeah, I basically run on my outer three toes of each foot.)

By the way, all this foot-strike, supinate-versus-pronate stuff generates lots of talk among runner geeks and it's big business. Think about all the people who drop $100-$150 on a pair of running shoes to correct this or help that or cushion each footfall. Then multiply that by two or three, because most serious runners I know have at least that many pairs of shoes in rotation at any given time.

So I went to Luke's Locker and they said I didn't need those stability shoes anymore. I guess that ankle is finally healed. I tried on a bunch of different neutral shoes and it came down to the Asics and the Mizunos. The Asics were bouncy. The Mizunos felt... familiar.

So I bought the Mizunos.

Now that I've put maybe 25 miles on them, I don't know. I run on probably the least cushiony part of the feet and well, I'm feeling like my new Mizunos could use a little softness in them. On the other hand, I feel like the Asics are tempting me to stray from the known and true -- and what if I got them and they proved to be nothing more than a twisted-ankle, blistery hoax?

I'm sure Asics fans will be quick to point to the popularity of Asics and Mizuno fans will tell me to just get the new Wave Riders broken in. As far as everyone else - Brooks, Saucony, Nike? Sorry. None of them are right for me.

Run, John, Run!

I finally got my Garmin. So, that makes me officially a runner, right? All the real runners have them so I guess that I needed to have one. Now I just need to learn how to use it. I tend to be a little challenged when it comes to technology, but this toy is so important to my training and that's all the motivation I need. Improvement through technology. Knowing how fast I'm going and where to make the adjustments will help tremendously. For example, I got the chance to run with a co-worker of coach Adela's, Justin, and we broke the Garmin in on great tempo run from the station of ABC13 to Rice U and around before returning back. Knowing my pace of the run in different areas helped show me where I could be going faster at times and slower in others when training on my own. By the way, Justin is a tri-athlete and an avid runner with a few marathons under his belt and he wasn't even breathing hard, while we maintained a 7:39 pace for six plus miles. I did keep pace but I was in charge of the heavy breathing Along the way, he did give me some great advice about my future runs ,along with, changing up the runs by running with faster people in order to push myself. Plus, a few tips on the Garmin to play with. Thanks Justin. This past week was a low mileage week for a couple of reasons. Hip problems for one. Funny thing is that I hurt my hip holding my daughter. It had nothing to do with tough training, just a two year old that is getting heavier and a father who is getting older. Thisweek my focus is to break through the 30 mile week which will include a 12 run on Friday. I know its going to get easier as we get closer, right. Ha ha. Well folks, my focus is there and I know I can get there, so stay tuned.

The Balancing Act

It's not always easy to get out the door on a run, so I have a list of priorities during marathon training.

First, run. Second, run the distance. And third, run the pace.

I don't always do the prescribed run on the prescribed day, as per the training schedule. Sometimes, it's just not possible.

This week was the perfect example of how life can throw a wrench into training. I was scheduled for a 7 mile tempo run on Tuesday, a 4 mile easy run on Thursday, a 9 mile distance run on Friday and a 5 mile easy run on Sunday. Tuesday, I worked late and there was just no way I was going to be able to drive to Memorial Park after work, knock out seven miles and get home before my daughter's bedtime. So I drove straight to the gym two blocks from my house and ran an easy 3 on the treadmill before going home to tuck her in.

I thought I'd get back on track after that, but Tuesday night, my husband and I were up most of the night with our daughter, who was crying in some kind of pain. We ended up taking her to the ER early Wednesday morning. I was exhausted and worried Wednesday AND Thursday, so Thursday's run didn't happen. Period. It was a low key day at our house as I watched my toddler carefully.

Friday, things seemed to be getting back to normal, so my husband and I went to Memorial Park for the distance run. Instead of 9 miles, I did 10 in an effort to get my weekly distance up. Keep in mind that at this point, I'd cut four miles off of Tuesday's run and hadn't done Thursday's 4 miler. I was supposed to be at 20 miles by the end of Friday; I was at 13.

So Sunday, I was determined to push for more distance, even though my legs weren't quite recovered from Friday. Instead of 5 easy, I was hoping for an eight mile tempo. 

I ran the distance, but not the pace. My legs were like concrete.

In the end, I racked up 21 miles this week, 4 short of the goal, but not bad, considering. This next week: 27 miles. I can't predict what the week will bring, but I know with a little bit of strategy and flexibility, I'll run, and run the distance, and even run the pace.

Marathons In The Time Of Swine Flu

So how about this for race schwag?

The New York Marathon is including hand sanitizer in its goody bags for the 42,000 runners taking part in that race on November 1. Usually one gets energy bars or powered energy drinks or bandaids in nifty little cases with advertiser logos or sample packs of Heel Balm or Biofreeze and the like.

U.S News and World Report says marathon organizers are including the hand sanitizers as a step to protect participants from the H1N1 virus. They're also asking people who come down with something this week to please stay home and not run. It may sound like common sense to you, but from a marathoner's point of view, it's very hard to stay home in bed after physically and mentally preparing for weeks and weeks. One of my friends pulled a muscle in her thigh two weeks before a marathon, but she still ran it, figuring she could rest up and heal all she wanted *after* she'd run the 26.2. And me, I'm guilty of taking Dayquil to get through a little 8k race, and still being sick the following week, when I not only ran a 10 mile race, but doubled up and ran the course again afterward.  It was my 20 miler week. Funny thing is, I don't remember the cold as being that much of a problem; my IT band was giving me trouble that day.

Iliotibial band syndrome is the inflammation or injury of a band of muscle running down the outside of the thigh. It is a common knee injury, perhaps as common as the common cold. The IT band stabilizes the knee joint, and in a running stride, is supposed to slide smoothly over the joint. When it gets inflamed, it doesn't slide so smoothly and it, well, hurts.

The article also mentions the suppression of the immune system marathoners face, but the magazine quotes 72 hours of immune system vulnerability versus the 24 hours or less I've read about.

Hmmm. If supplies of the H1N1 vaccine don't arrive, maybe I should think about stocking up on Vitamin C and echinacea.

Lost

This week's long run was  six miles, the crown jewel of an "easy" week, built into the training schedule to allow me to rest and prevent injuries over the course of the next 12 weeks.

I thought it would be a great time for my husband and I to run with Justin Sternberg, a special projects producer at the station -- a guy who is among the seriously fast. I've called him Mr Ironman under my breath a few times. He just completed a half marathon over the weekend. I ate macaroons over the weekend. (Well, okay, I also ran five miles on Sunday.)

Justin wants to do the Houston Marathon in 3 hours and 10 minutes. If I have a good day, I theoretically can do the race in 3 hours 36 minutes. My husband, training for his first marathon, hopes to run it in four hours. And I figure if we have a shot at making time, we need to run hard.

That's where Justin comes in. Logging some miles with faster runners is always a way to get pushed when you can't push yourself hard enough.

Friday we met up with him - and he was off and running from the station at a 7:36 minutes/mile pace, if I remember correctly. We kept up this pace through West University Place and onto the dirt path around Rice University. I thought things were going pretty well until the 3 mile mark, when I ran into, shall we say delicately, phlegm issues. I had to stop to deal with it.

My husband and Justin kept running.

I didn't think this was a big deal, figuring I'd catch up or they'd stop and wait at some point. Problem was, I'd never run around Rice before and so when the dirt path kept going, so did I. All the way to Bissonnet. Which was definitely no longer Rice and definitely not where my husband and Justin went. I ran up Bissonnet a little ways and then cut back to the university, where I ran around to University, hoping to catch up with those guys.By that time, I had logged an extra mile. I didn't see them, so I kept going down University, past Kirby, turning on Belmont (I think) to Bissonnet and down a block to the station. My husband was waiting.

"We figured you got lost!" he said. They'd run the entire six miles at an average 7:39 minutes/mile pace. Me... well I'd slowed down when they weren't around to drive me (remember, this was WHY I wanted to run with Justin in the first place) and then my Garmin did something strange and reset itself so that it didn't auto pause when I stopped (like say, for traffic crossings) and it didn't auto lap, giving me a split for each mile.

I'd be willing to bet I did the first three miles at a 7:36 - 7:39 pace though. At least I got seven miles out of my little detour.

Train, Train Go Away

If you've ever been late to work or an appointment because you were held up by a train, then you'll appreciate this: the lead runners at the Des Moines Marathon in Iowa this past weekend got stopped by a train. A quarter of a mile from the finish.

The Iowa Interstate Railroad apologized for the incident, saying a miscommunication had allowed a train into the race area early and that it wasn't supposd to happen.

The winner finished in about 2 hours and 24 minutes.

The managing director of the Chevron Houston Marathon says trains are an issue for him in the mayoral race, because they have to hammer out an agreement with Metro to stop all those trains in all that wide area of Houston the morning of January 17. He told me quite frankly that Mayor Bill White has been very supportive of the marathon, and has helped to mediate that situation.

After all, Metro probably just wants the trains to run, because that's what they do.

Steve Karpas told me that of course the race adminstrators and all 22,000 runners would like the trains to NOT run that morning. And he says he's very interested in the election, because the race organizers would like the next mayor to be as helpful as Mayor White.

We'll see. It might be a story, come January.

Tragedy At Detroit Free Press Marathon

It would have been a cold dawn for the 32nd running of the Detroit Free Press Marathon this morning.

Thousands of runners were milling around in the dark, some wearing hats and gloves and leggings, others draped in garbage bags to ward off the chill air before the starting gun went off. My old running buddy was in it, running the full 26.2 miles. The weather was on the runners' side, and everyone would have been hoping all those weeks of training would pay off. But it wasn't to be.

It wasn't a good race, my friend texted me later. She was slow.

It was a very bad race for three half-marathoners, three men - ages 26, 36 and 65, who collapsed and died. Our sister station, WXYZ, reports that two died at the finish line and the third collapsed before the 12 mile mark.

Last year, a female runner collapsed and died during a Texas marathon. A couple of years ago, when temperatures reached into the 80s, a 36 year old man - a police officer - collapsed and died during the Chicago Marathon. It was later revealed that he had a heart defect, one he never knew about.

These tragedies make the news perhaps in part because runners are supposed to be healthy and because they happen during tremendously large, public sporting events. But I've never heard of three runners dying in one race. It certainly puts a damper on a day that was supposed to be fun for the thousands of runners and tens of thousands of spectators lining the roads of downtown Detroit and Windsor, Canada.

My heart goes out to the families and friends of those runners.

Marathon RX

I would really like to get a vaccination against the H1N1 influenza.

Before you think I'm an alarmist, consider these things: while many people get mild cases of H1N1 and recover with no problem, 41 states are reporting "widespread flu activity" and the Centers for Disease Control website says, "This many reports of widespread activity are unprecedented during seasonal flu." You can check out the CDC's flu situation update here - http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/update.htm

This strain of H1N1 has claimed lives, as influenza does every year, but the World Health Organization says the 2009 swine flu hits healthy young adults hard, sometimes causing a severe viral pneumonia. It's also killed 43 children in the U.S., 11 this past week. We have a two year old, who has an appointment to get her first dose of the nasal spray this week, for her protection.

And then there's the fact of marathon training. Several studies have been done, confirming a suppression of the immune system in the hours after a hard distance training session - like the long runs we're doing every week that leave us feeling drained afterward (at least we get a good night's sleep out of it!) The studies all say a distance runner's immune system bounces back within a day, but I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of hours of immune system suppression every week. On purpose. After the World Health Organization declared a global H1N1 flu pandemic.

I'm not going to quit training for the marathon, so the vaccine looks like my best bet.

I've had the flu - in 1990 and again in 1998, and I hated the viral equivalent of getting run over by a tractor-trailer. I had severe bronchitis in late 2002 - not quite pneumonia - but breathing was so difficult that I don't want to find out what pneumonia feels like. I got colds during training for both of my previous marathons, and it throws a monkey wrench into training, not to mention life in general.

John and I both got our seasonal flu shots, and now we're waiting on the H1N1 vaccine to become more readily available. The Associated Press reports that while the federal government says supplies may run short this month because of manufacturer delays, there will be enough of the H1N1 influenza vaccine to go around later. And in reality, the runs that are so long they suppress our immune systems temporarily don't start until late November-early December.

Until then, our daughter gets her nasal spray and we all will take care to eat right, sleep well and wash our hands a lot.

The Hamster Wheel (John's voice)

Ok, I have fought it as long as I could, but last Friday I was forced to train on the treadmill due to the weather.  And I hated it!  It was raining cats and dogs last Friday and of course it was our long run day.  9 miles.  My wife-coach has talked about this type of training and I just kept ignoring her until I couldn't any more.  Even with the bank of tv's in front of us it stilled seemed endless, news and sports just loops and loops if you haven't noticed.  We knocked it out in under an hour and a half, oh yeah, Adela just ran 7, she isn't up to my distance yet.  I guess it could have worse.

 

    As far as, the rest of the training, I'm staying in-between 22 - 30 mile weeks.  Listening to my body, along with my coach, has kept me grounded.  There have been times when I wanted to ratchet it up a little, to a 12 miler, but she said I could peak to early and since she has the experience I guess I should do the smart thing and listen, not always the easiest thing for a husband to do.  She's pretty smart. The cross training has slowed, but I have visions of mountain-biking,swimming,and more weights in the future.  Having a 2-year old changes everything and especially the training.  Well worth it and one day she'll be by our side feeling the burn. 

 

    The true key to this process is definitely patience.  Remembering that its not a sprint.  Having the support of all the people around me and listening to former marathoners and their experiences will keep it all in perspective when January 17th comes around.  And having a great looking coach doesn't hurt when training on the long days.

 

   

19.6 Miles

Last year, my husband was my long run partner, even though he didn't have a race. We'd arrived in Houston after registration for the marathon was closed, and I got in because I'd agreed to help with the television coverage.

A pattern emerged on our long runs and became very apparent by the time we racheted up to 15, 17, 20 miles. A few miles before the end of those runs, I would pull away from him. Even though he would keep running, he would never catch up again.

I didn't think about it much at the time. After all, he wasn't really in training. (Yes, he ran 19.6 miles one day for no other reason than to keep me company. What a guy!) But I started thinking about it a week or two ago, as I pulled away from him on a six miler. Well, it was a six miler for me and a nine miler for him, I think. We passed five miles and I began to pull ahead of him. Just like last year. He says I sped up. I felt like I reached - for lack of a better term - "cruising speed." I can only describe it by saying all of a sudden, my stride and breathing got easier and more rhythmic.

I turned and motioned to John to keep up. He picked up the pace, but he didn't catch up. Yeah, I know he had three more miles to go, but later I said to him that I thought he should try to keep up now, so he can keep up when our runs become really long.

On the day of his 19.6 mile run last year, I ran 20. I pulled ahead of him around 16 miles, if I remember correctly. At the end of that run, I ran past our parked car for .4 miles, and limped back. By the time he came jogging up to the car, I was eating a peanut butter sandwich and drinking warm lemon-lime Gatorade and gingerly unlacing my shoes. He didn't run that extra .4 of a mile past the car.

Later he tried to convince me that 19.6 was as good as 20, but if you have ever run 20 or 26.2 miles before, you know that no, 19.6 isn't the same as 20 miles, just like 26 isn't the same as 26.2. I think the reason he had stopped there at the car is because I had pulled ahead of him and because he was alone and because, let's face it, bare feet and mushy peanut butter sandwiches are a lot better than taking another impossible, aching step at that point.

I've been trying to tell him that there are a lot of times in a marathon where anything looks better than taking one more impossible, aching step. A marathon, and the training for the marathon, is about discipline and pushing oneself into difficult mental territory - and coming out a winner, no matter how much time it takes you to cross the finish line.  He certainly could have done the marathon last year. And I'm certain he'll be ready for it this year.  I just want to make sure he has a good race that day.

I just want to make sure he'll come back for more.

On a more routine note, a lot of mileage got done *inside* on a treadmill this week. Friday, John and I did nine and seven miles respectively ON A TREADMILL (Sixty-four and a half minutes for me.) Yes, it was boring. Boy are we glad the weather turned.

Week One, Done

There's a certain satisfaction in precisely following the training plan. Maybe that's just oldest child syndrome (I am the oldest of three), or maybe it's nice to put my faith in a plan that's promising me a nice fast marathon in January. Either way, it's a nice sense of accomplishment.

This week got off to a rocky start - I went to Memorial Park after work on Tuesday to knock out a tempo run - a mile warm up, three miles at an 8:04 minute/mile pace, a mile cool down. I managed one mile at that 8:04 pace, and then just got the remaining three miles of my run done. I chalked that up to all the fitness I lost the two weeks I was laid up with the knee -- and I know it'll be easier next week.

A tempo run, by the way, helps a runner run fast for a distance. It's different from an interval workout. That's when the runner sprints and recovers, sprints and recovers, to increase foot turnover, improve the response of fast twitch muscles and increase VO2 max, which is basically how much and how fast the lungs supply oxygen to the bloodstream during exercise.

I hate both workouts, the tempo run and the speed interval workout, but they always pay off. That's how I knocked my 5k time from about 25:15ish, where I had plateaued in 2005, to 22:34, my personal 5k record in 2006.

Friday, I did six miles at a 9:13 pace (the plan said 9:15, so right in the ballpark). Sunday, I hit the gym and the treadmill - because it was raining - for 5 miles at a 9:00 pace.

Easy peasy, right?

On Mothering and Marathons

One of our news producers is a runner and a new mother and she’s signed up for the Aramco Houston Half Marathon.  She summed up the juggling act in a recent Facebook status:  Andrea is slowly getting back into the groove... training for the half after baby is going to be harder than I thought it would be!

It does get easier, but I don’t know if it ever gets completely easy. I hold out hope that after babyhood and toddlerhood, when they go to school – then maybe finding time to run gets even easier.

Finding the time to run after the birth of my daughter was a long and frustrating process – I had to feed her every two to three hours (from beginning of feeding to beginning of feeding, not end of feeding to beginning of feeding), she’d nap and I’d get my running clothes on, but then she would wake up and need to be changed, and then she would cry (oh, colic) and I would still have my running clothes on – but be too tired.  This is why new moms don’t manage to get their teeth brushed and out of pajamas, much less out the door for a nice fast five miler. Then there’s recovery from pregnancy and childbirth too.

And then there were the days when I ran, and would pull up short and go home as fast as I possibly could, my arms aching to hold my newborn.

Eventually though, I managed to get into shape. Five months after her birth, I ran my first 5k race. She was seventeen months old when I ran the Houston Marathon in January of this year.

It’s still a challenge to find the time, but with a good child care provider and a husband who adores his daughter, I have managed to make it somehow work. The time management/social support nexus is key from the very beginning of motherhood, according to Jim Pivarnik, Ph.D., the president of the American College of Sports Medicine. “Certainly, those who have been athletic their entire lives, or certainly very fit just prior to pregnancy seem to bounce back sooner, which should not be a surprise,” he wrote in an email, “But it depends on how the pregnancy went, whether there were complications during delivery, and possibly most importantly, the social support that the woman has postpartum, so she can get back to training.  Our research has shown that women feel time and social support (or lack thereof) to be the most important perceived barriers to returning to full activity.  Interestingly, the same perceived barriers appear to exist with all women, but the athletes do a better job of overcoming them.”

Yeah. Motherhood doesn’t stand in the way of marathons. Or half marathons. And I dare say the marathoning may have made me a better, more patient mother.

You can do it, Andrea.

On The Road Again (John's voice)

   Well I finally got moved into our new house and unpacked and now I truly can focus on training for this big run in January. Adela and I finished moving  and it couldn't have come soon enough. It really does mess-up staying on schedule to do what you need to do, as far as, training when finding everything you packed must be done first.  However, the peacefulness of the new neighborhood and the convenience of everything we need will help get me back on track for completing this upcoming race in my goal of under four hours.

 

     Yes my training is back and the runs feel great.  I did two weeks of about twenty five mile spread out over five to six days with a couple of days off in between.  The cross training did take a little break since we had to switch gyms, I like the old gym better, but I'm not driving twenty minutes when I can walk to this one.  The runs have varied from a quick three to up to nine on my long day.  Lots of runs at night after work at Memorial and nothing motivates me more then running with a couple hundred friends probably training for the same thing event as me.  You see all shape, sizes and  fitness levels at the park and it really does help push me when I don't feel like running.

 

    So the plan is to get up to thirty miles this week and I get my long run partner back in the process.  My wife.  She had an injury to her knee and she was shelved.  I look forward to this ten miler on Friday, hope that's not to far partner, but it needs to be done.  And I could use her coaching.  Keep Running!

Back On Track

It's been a productive weekend on my road to the Houston Marathon starting line.

I did knock out six miles today finally, and yes, running (slowly) all the way. I stopped a few times for water,  but that's normal. It's hot after all, and six miles is a ways to go without water.

I'm very affected by heat as a runner, and I don't understand runners I see at Memorial Park wearing long sleeves  or long pants in this weather. I think it's finally just bearable to run outside in shorts and a tank. I'd pass  out if I wore long-anything at this point. Maybe someone can explain that to me?

That aside, the other big marathon thing I got accomplished was plugging in the numbers for my marathon training  plan. It officially starts Monday, September 28 (giving me a little more time to work on regaining my  cardio-fitness) and has me slated to run 20 miles on Christmas Day. I can also tell you that I will be very tired  December 14th through the 27th -- my peak weeks, when my mileage will be in the mid-40s.

I'd like peak weeks of 50-something miles, but I think between work and motherhood and sleep, I should cut myself  a break. The marathon will happen with 40-something mile peak weeks. My sanity might not survive anything more  than that.

Note: I am crediting the Runner's World magazine website for the basic plan, but I made a lot of my own changes, adding two runs a week and upping the pace in about 90 percent of these runs by anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds per mile. I would not suggest first time marathoners make their own changes without talking to more experienced runners first, like the coaches of local running clubs, or staff at specialty running stores. There are quite a few of both in the Houston area. You can check out the Runner's World website for training plans for just about any distance race, and for great running information.

Download Marathon '10 schedule

Out of Shape!

Ouch.

Two real tests of a runner's fitness are the long run and the speed workout and the body doesn't lie.  I didn't feel quite up to a speed workout, and I need to start covering some mileage, so I elected to run six miles Friday.

Before September, I could knock out a six mile run without much thought except for working about 50 minutes into my schedule. Friday, I actually had to walk some of those six miles. I had good company of runners, joggers and walkers at Memorial Park, and the day was nice (maybe a little on the hot side.) But my legs and lungs told the truth -- I'm out of shape.

The knee is fine. That's the good news.

To counter the bad news about my cardio-fitness, I ran another three this morning. I'll attempt another six tomorrow. Wish me luck.

The Injury

If there’s anything to know about training for a marathon, it’s that time can get away from you , easily. It’s true of just about anything, I suppose, but especially true of planning to run 26.2 miles.

I haven’t blogged for a little while – I was on vacation, then we moved to another part of town, then I hurt myself.  I’ve been figuratively holding my breath about my knee for the last couple of weeks, hoping that it will turn out to be nothing serious.

It started with my first run around my new neighborhood. I tripped and fell and spectacularly landed on my kneecap, bounced off, skidded on my hands and rolled over, even getting some road rash on my back. Better yet, I had an audience of senior citizens in their cars, at a stop sign. Maybe they didn’t see me, since they didn’t stop to help, but I have to think that maybe I just scared them by going down on the sidewalk like that, taking my ego with me.

It swelled up, of course, and hurt and a couple of days later I went to a doctor, who told me no running for two weeks. 

Here we are, three weeks later, and I’ve had a few short runs. So far so good – there’s still a little swelling and I can’t touch my kneecap but everything inside the kneecap seems to be firing ok. And so I guess I’m exhaling and  trying to catch up.

Friday’s long run: 6 miles.