The Heat is Back in a Big Way

As of Friday, the stifling heat and humidity had made a comeback. From Sunday through half of Thursday, it was unseasonably cool and dry outside. The highs on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were only in the upper 70s. By Thursday afternoon, it had started to warm back up and become more humid. On Friday, it was like a steam bath outside. I went out and did my tempo run on Friday night, and I could not believe how muggy it was outside. I left a little later than 8:00pm, and after only running a half mile, my shirt was soaked with sweat. I got through the 8-mile run okay, but I can't believe how much I was sweating. It was running off me like a faucet. When I finished running, I wrung out my shorts three times. I took off my shirt and hung it over a chair as I stretched, and there was literally a puddle of sweat on the floor under my shirt within a few minutes. Mind you, this was after I had already wrung a torrent of sweat out of it prior to taking it off! I plan to rise early on Sunday to try and get my 17-mile long run in before the heat becomes too oppressive.

Thirty-Five Years Young or Just Immature?

I turned thirty-five on Friday. Thirty-five! I know that thirty-five isn't old, but I just can't believe that it's been seventeen years since I was eighteen. I remember turning eighteen years old on the first day of classes my freshman year at Penn State. When I think back, it really doesn't seem all that long ago. I have lived almost that same complement of years again since that time. It just doesn't seem possible. Where have the years gone?

I remember being in high school and my parents and other adults used to tell me not to wish the years away because as you get older, they just tend to fly by at an unbelievable rate. It's not that I didn't believe them, but I just couldn't appreciate what they were talking about as I hadn't experienced it. I was young and had my whole life ahead of me. Now I realize that they were 100% correct. The older that I get, the faster that the time seems to slip away from me. One of my theories for this uneven passage of time is that when you're in elementary and high school, you are always excited for that next birthday or being old enough to drive, etc. Because you are waiting and hoping for time to pass quickly, it seems to go more slowly. Plus, you have Christmas vacation and the summer off from school along with other breaks that act as natural time dividers. This segmenting of your life makes things seem to progress more slowly. Even in college, you have Christmas break, Spring Break, and summer break to mark natural transitional periods. Once you get out into the working world, your daily life is pretty much the same routine day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Because there is very little change, there is nothing to act as a transition point in your life. This causes time to just zip by alarmingly fast. Before you know it, a few years have passed and you think - wow, what happened to the last three years?

Don't get me wrong - being thirty-five doesn't bother me, I just can't believe that's how old that I am. I don't feel thirty-five (except for some mornings when I roll out of bed after a tough workout), and I definitely don't act thirty-five, but I guess that immaturity has no effect on your actual age.

I guess the one thing that does bother me is that there is so much that I want to do and experience in life, and I am starting to realize that I had better start doing it; and soon. That is one of the reasons that I took my Dad to Canada on that train trip earlier this year. It's something that I've been wanting to do for several years and I knew that I just needed to make it happen before yet another year slipped away. I have been telling my wife that we need to start taking some trips aside from going to Disney or the beach. I want to see Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and I want to go to South Africa and get lowered down in a cage in the midst of Great White Sharks. The longer that we wait to do the things that we really want to in life, the less likely that we are to ever do them. Getting older makes me realize that life is a finite thing and no one knows when it will come to an abrupt end. I don't want to leave this world with any regrets. I don't fear death at all, but I do fear not living life to its fullest.

I hope that this entry doesn't sound depressing; it wasn't meant to at all. I don't feel depressed as I write it. I just feel more motivated to experience and appreciate life. I think that is a good thing.

First Physical Ailment of the Campaign

I now have my first physical malady of my Fall marathon training, and it didn't even come from running! Every Thursday night over the summer - usually from June until mid-September - I play volleyball at my friend's place down by the mighty Susquehanna River. He has a sand volleyball court at his cabin. It's mostly friends from high school, and none of us are accomplished players. It's just for fun and a little friendly competition. This past Thursday, I dove for a ball with my left arm extended and landed hard on my left side on a packed down patch of sand. Ouch! It knocked the wind out of me for a second, and my first thought was that I may have cracked a rib. I got up and immediately starting take deep breaths to see if I was capable of doing so. I didn't have any piercing pain, but the area was sore the rest of the night. It bothered me off and on Friday night when I was running, and it is really sore today. I think that I just bruised a rib and that should heal in a short time. It's just a little uncomfortable. I just thought that it was kind of funny that I hurt myself while playing volleyball and not while I was running. It just goes to show that you need to be careful what you do when you get old.

Good Start to the Week

Tonight's speed session went way, way better than last week's did. I ran 6x800m, and I was able to hit my target pace on each repeat. It felt good to start my training week with a productive workout. Now I am that much more convinced that my struggles last week were carryover effects of my pushing too hard the previous week; running three days in a row and barely making it through my long run.

Monday was an off day as planned, and I was going to hit the track and run on Tuesday night, but the truth is that I was just way too lazy. I was in bed and watching TV by about 7:00pm and ended up falling asleep about 9:00pm. I was exhausted and needed the sleep. I have been putting in a lot of hours at work and there has been a lot going on, so it has been more stressful than usual. We had an FDA inspection last week, which went great (no 483 observations), but was stressful nonetheless. I led the tour through my area and had to speak a little about our manufacturing process. I really wasn't nervous, and everything went just fine, but there was still a high level of tension in the plant. I am also having a few personnel issues, which are never fun to deal with, but they do need to be handled directly and appropriately.

The other reason that I didn't run on Tuesday was that it was pouring rain outside. It started to rain on Sunday afternoon and didn't stop completely until Wednesday morning. The nice thing is that the rain brought in a cold front. This front has cooled things down significantly. The high today was only about 68 degrees, with highs in the lower to mid 60s on Monday and Tuesday. It was only about 66 when I went over to the track at around 7:30pm tonight. There was also a nice breeze blowing which helped me to cool down after my workout.

Tonight's run was a promising start to the week. I am hopeful that my other two workouts will yield similar results.

Week 6 of Marathon Training 8/13 - 8/19

The after effects of last Sunday's nightmarish run carried over into this week's training. I took Monday off as planned and considered running on Tuesday, but my legs still felt pretty tight and weak so I took Tuesday off as well thinking that an extra day off from running might be wise.

I went over to the track on Wednesday for my speed session and almost didn't make it through the workout. After warming up, I started off with two 1200m repeats. I was able to run the first at the target pace, but really dropped off on the second 1200. Next, I moved on to four 800m repeats. On the first one, I had to stop after the first lap and recover myself before running the second lap to finish the 800m. At that point, I really wanted to just pack it in and go home. I had to talk myself into staying and finishing the workout. I was exhausted and disgusted. I could run about a half a lap before my legs would start feeling like rubber. I made it through the workout, but I wasn't able to hit my target pace for any of my 800m repeats.

On Thursday, I played volleyball and I noticed that my legs still didn't seem to have the jump and the snap that they normally do. On Friday, I headed out for my 5-mile tempo run. I usually like to wait until evening to run when it's hot outside, but I wasn't able to do that because we had company coming over at 7:00pm. I left the house at around 4:30pm for my run. It was warm and humid, and I felt pretty crappy at the outset of the run. The sun was really pounding on me, and I felt hot and still slightly fatigued. I still was able to run way better than I had on Wednesday although I didn't hit my target pace for most of the miles.

I got up this morning and capped off my week with a 15-mile long run. It was cool and overcast outside and the lack of stifling humidity was very refreshing. I ran fairly well and felt about 200% better than I did last Sunday on my 14-miler. My legs did start to tighten up slightly at the end, but nothing too out of the ordinary. I was able to finish the run at a fairly strong pace and still felt good. After three consecutive subpar workouts, it was nice to finish off the week with a run that felt productive.

Wed 8/15: Speed Work 2x1200m, 4x800m
Fri 8/17: 5-mile tempo run (5 miles at mid tempo pace)
Sun 8/19: 15 mile long run

Week 5 of Marathon Training 8/6 - 8/12

Aside from the fact that I had to squeeze all three of my training runs into a three-day span, and that my long run turned out to be brutal, I am pleased with the results that I obtained from the week's training. During my speed session, I hit my pace targets for my 1-mile repeats dead on, and I really smoked through my tempo run - running slightly ahead of my target pace. Even with how I suffered on my long run, I still ran a pretty respectable pace considering all of the circumstances.

Thursday 8/9: 40-minute weight workout
Friday 8/10: Speed Work 3x1600m
Saturday 8/11: 6-mile tempo run (2 miles easy, 3 miles at short tempo pace, 1 mile easy)
Sunday 8/12: 14 mile long run

Training, Interrupted

I had a challenging week of training last week. After running three out of the last four days the previous week, Monday was a planned rest day. While I was at work on Monday, my nose starting running, my throat was sore, and I began coughing. This oncoming illness probably began the day before, as my throat felt dry and raw when I woke up on Sunday morning. Well, throughout the day on Monday, my condition worsened. I went home and fell asleep at 8:00pm. When the alarm sounded on Tuesday morning, I felt like a truck had slammed into me; and I'm talking about a tractor-trailer, not just an ordinary old pickup truck.

I stayed home from work on Tuesday, slept until noon, and then spent the rest of the day just lounging around the house. I felt slightly better on Wednesday morning and went to work. Even though my chest was still very congested and I was coughing vigorously, I probably would have attempted a run on Wednesday night if it hadn't been 98 degrees outside with a heat index close to 110 degrees. I just didn't think that it was wise to run given the combination of circumstances. I went down to the river to play volleyball on Thursday evening, but it was pouring down rain and we didn't play. Again, I could have gone home to run, but didn't know if it was a good idea to run through a deluge while still dealing with a chest cold.

Suddenly it was Friday, and I still had all three of my runs to do for the week. I did my speed work at the track on Friday evening, blasted through my tempo run on Saturday evening, and left the 14-mile long run for Sunday.

It was close to 90 degrees again on Sunday, so I waited until 6:00pm to leave for my run. For the 14 miles, I planned to run a six-mile loop, a five-mile loop, and then finish up with a three-mile loop. I felt really good during the first six miles, came home, changed out my Fuel Belt bottles, and headed back out for the next loop. I still felt really good for the next four miles. During the last mile of the five-mile loop, I noticed that I was starting to tire noticeably. I returned home, used the bathroom quickly, dropped off some unnecessary items, and left to finish up my run. By that time, I had run about 11.2 miles, so I only had 2.8 to go. Let me tell you, I think that was the longest 2.8 miles of my entire life! I felt absolutely horrible. I don't know if it was running three days in a row, my lingering chest cold, the heat, dehydration, or the more likely combination of all those factors, but I struggled mightily to finish. I did make it through the run - barely, as I began cramping just as I was crossing over the 14-mile threshold. It took me a full hour and a half to realize any recovery whatsoever after the run ended. I was so tired that my jaws were too tired to eat until a few hours later. I don't ever remember feeling that badly after a run; not even after marathons that haven't gone well.

I learned an important lesson from last week's training. I will not be running three days in a row again; it just takes too much of a toll on my body. Sometimes my schedule necessitates running two days in a row, but I will try to ensure that one of those two runs is not my long run for the week. At this point, I'm just glad that I was able to complete all of my training runs for last week without hurting myself.

Week 4 of Marathon Training 7/30 - 8/5

Even though I was busy with work and some other things that I had going on, I managed to get all three of my runs completed this week along with a really good gym workout. As mentioned in my last post, I ended up shortening my 20-mile long run to a 12-miler as I've decided to change up my long run schedule for the remainder of marathon training. Overall, I had a pretty good week of training.

Thursday 8/2: 6-mile tempo run (1 mile easy, 4 miles at mid tempo pace, 1 mile easy)
Friday 8/3: 35-minute weight workout, 18 minute walk on treadmill
Saturday 8/4: Speed Work 5x1000m
Sunday 8/5: 12 mile long run

Reassessment of Marathon Training Plan

Today I was forced to reassess my marathon training plan. In an earlier post, I talked about how tough it was going to be for me to be able to keep up with the much more aggressive long run schedule of the newly revised FIRST training plan. That earlier concern transformed into harsh realization today. I was supposed to do a 20-miler today in Week 4 of marathon training. Due to some scheduling conflicts this week, I didn't do my speed work until Saturday which didn't allow me any rest before my long run. My legs felt heavy from the start and after struggling through ten miles with dead legs, I decided that I needed to reassess my training plan.

Back in 2004 when I got the stress fracture in my foot, it came from too much running on tired and overused muscles. When the muscles become overly stressed, they can't absorb the shock and strain of running and more of that force gets applied to joints and connective tissues. In time, this can only lead to one thing - overuse injuries. During my run today, I could sense that I was headed down that same path as three summers ago when I lost four months of running and a marathon season to an injury. I don't want to repeat that mistake.

I've decided that I'll stick with the speed work and tempo run schedule from the new FIRST training program. I'm doing well with it, and I am already seeing some measurable speed and pace increases. For my long runs, I'll go back to the original FIRST training plan that I used in the past. Just to compare the long runs from the first four weeks of the two programs, the newer plan had me doing runs of 13, 15, 17, and 20 miles, while the original plan was 10, 12, 13, and 10 miles. Quite a difference heh? I ended up running 12 miles today because I couldn't remember if the week 4 long run from the original plan was 10 or 12 miles and I didn't want to sell myself short. I'm already ahead of the game as I've completed long runs of 13, 15, and 12 miles in the first four weeks of marathon training. Next week, I am now scheduled to run 14 miles for my long run instead of 18. At the current time, I feel that the more aggressive long run schedule is just too much for my body to handle. It's better to train a little less aggressively and be healthy as opposed to pushing yourself beyond the limit and getting hurt. The old training plan got me into great shape two years ago, and I'm still working harder with my speed work and tempo runs than I have in the past. Come October, I should still be in my best shape ever, and more importantly, I'll be healthy.

Week 3 of Marathon Training 7/23 - 7/29

Week 3 started off really well, but ended with some disappointment. My weekend 17-miler was cut short by a really nasty thunderstorm that was just way too close for comfort. When I left the house, the sky was ominously darkening and thunder rumbled in the distance. I told Lisa the route that I was headed and to come look for me in the car if the lightning got too bad and too close. I ran about 4.5 miles as the storm approached ever closer. The wind picked up and lightning was flashing with the crack of thunder less than ten seconds later. I ducked into a park pavilion for cover and thought that I could wait until the storm passed. I spent about 10 minutes or so running laps around the pavilion while I waited for the storm to subside. After 10 minutes, it really didn't seem any closer so I figured that I would continue on my way home in case Lisa was looking for me. She picked me up about three-quarters of a mile from the house. After we got home, I looked outside and noticed that the storm hadn't really gotten any closer so I went out and started running laps around my block so that I would be close to home if the storm got too close. It was very unnerving being out there with almost continuous flashes of lightning followed by loud cracks of thunder. I eventually acquiesced and realized that this run just wasn't going to get completed. It was dark and storming, and I had to get up for work the next day. I ended up running about 7.6 miles instead of the planned seventeen.

Tuesday 7/24: Speed Work 1200m, 1000m, 800m, 600m, 400m, 200m
Friday 7/27: 7-mile tempo run (1 mile easy, 5 miles at long tempo pace, 1 mile easy)
Saturday 7/28: 35-minute weight workout, 42-minute bike ride
Sunday 7/29: 7.6 mile run (scheduled to be 17-mile long run)