My Running Journal, 021010

OOOOOH. I need a massage, a soak in a hot tub, a nice long sit in a steam room, and then another massage.

I ache. All over. But is a good ache – the kind that you get when you have worked out, and your body is letting you know it. There are few, if any sharp pains or intense burning sensations – actually, there are none. Just a whole body ache – every muscle feels like it has worked, and is now fatigued and tired.

Today I ran 3.04 miles in 34.25. This averages out to an average pace of 11:15 per mile. Which isn’t terrible, but it isn’t fast. And it isn’t remarkably faster than last week’s 2.95 miles in 33:39 – which averages to 11:24 per mile. Nine seconds per mile is the pace difference between not stopping on a 3.04 miler, and stopping and walking a half a mile during. But this isn’t a terrible performance, and I am not dissatisfied – I didn’t stop to walk today, I went farther than I was scheduled for (Even if it is only 200 feet more), and I finished faster than I started – my splits for each mile show that I kicked off mile one in 11:23 minutes, mile two I finished in 11:15 mins, mile three went down in 10:58 mins, and I finished that last .04 miles at a pace of 9:38 min/mile. So today I won.

I started thinking about the negatively nannering monkey around mile 1.5. I thought about it, and told it to shut up. And then I made fun of it while I kept running. Tomorrow I think I am going to vary the 1.5 miler that is on the calendar into a speed workout – jog a few blocks, sprint a block, jog a block, sprint a block, etc.

Last night I started my Crossfit Onramp program – a 3 weeks series of training classes, 3 days a week, to bring you up to speed on the majority of the basic exercises performed in a Crossfit workout, as well as getting you up to speed so that you can join established classes. The Onramp program, at least where I am practicing Crossfit, is done in a cohort. Which is a lot of fun, and means that you can egg each other on. They have you do a “baseline” workout to establish, well, a baseline to work from – you do a baseline at the beginning of the training cycle and at the end, and compare the times to see your improvement. The trainers also keep track of your form during the exercises – and that becomes another opportunity to improve. My baseline time last night sucked – close to 7:55 minutes to complete a 500m row, 40 squats, 30 situps, 20 pushups, and 10 pullups. My baseline in the intro class was 7:09 (running instead of rowing). And time and resisting fatigue is the only thing that I am going to show improvement in – because I was a gymnast and Marine, and all of the positional training that I have already received – my pushup and situp form is excellent (thank you boot camp), my squat form is pretty good (thank you Martial Arts and bodywork classes), and since I was gymnast, I already know how to kip, and kipping pullups are allowed in the Baseline workout. Which meant that I had not excuse to use a foam roller under my legs during the pushups, or to jump from a box during the pullups. If I had scaled and jumped during the pullups, I probably could have finished in under 6 minutes. But no, form comes first. Performing the exercise correctly and possibly slowly is more important than ripping through it with bad form.

As you improve your form, and keep that form throughout the workout, you increase your speed as your endurance increases. Same thing with running.

This morning I was awake right around the time the alarm went off. The Crossfit class was last night at 1930, and ended at about 2130. I got home, ate a small dinner, took a hot bath, and then went to bed. Which means that when I started running out the door this morning at 0620, I had had all of 8 hours of recovery. This sounds like a lot, but it isn’t for a beginner. Running against the cold, running against the aching fatigue. Running for me. Toes relaxed, head up, take it easy.

My Running Journal, 020910

Today I finished a 1.4 miler in 14 minutes, averaging 10.04 minutes per mile. My pace increased in the last .4 miles to a 9:42 min/mile avg. So I am finishing faster than I started.

This morning it wasn't too hard to get up - my eyes popped open at about 0550, and I rolled out of bed at about 0605, and was on the road by 0630. I don't like having to use an alarm, since the abrupt noise is really jolting. Waking up with a start doesn't feel very good - that surge of adrenaline in response to the sudden noise while in the drowse/snooze state isn't very motivating. This morning I was in that halfway state - I opened my eyes at 0550, check the clocked, and closed my eyes. I should probably just get moving once my eyes open, but there is that part of me that wants nothing more than to stay in bed, warm and relaxed.

I'm playing with my stride. I took a "Chi-running" basic skills class a couple of years ago - whether or not you believe any of the anecdotes within the books about it being a revolutionary running style, the overall mechanics involved do make for a lessened felt impact. The mechanics of the style are pretty simple, and follow the way that Taijiquan and Xinyiquan practitioners move - your spine is aligned, head is erect and chin tucked slightly, and you lean forward slightly to set your speed - the further forward you lean, the faster you go. And instead of lifting your knees on the forward stride and striking the ground with your knee, your feet rarely come forward of an imaginary vertical line drawn from the tip of your nose to the ground. Which means you take more and shorter strides, and all of the impact is supposed to occur at the ball of your foot. There are other details about the style, but it is very similar to the styles out there that focus on running barefoot.

Which I think that I am heading towards. I already own a pair of Vibram Five Fingers, and have run on trails in them. You very quickly learn not to heel strike at all, and to run "lighter." I think the biggest barrier to my jumping into my VFFs right now is the fact that I basically just bought a brand new pair of running shoes, and I don't want to feel like I have wasted my money. We'll see - I have a 3 miler scheduled for tomorrow AM, and then a 1.5 on Thursday - I'll pull the VFFs out on Thursday for the short run.

I am trying to change my attitude while I am running. Why am I training for a Marathon? My initial impetus is probably centered on a friend's illness, and having a physical outlet for my stress - but if the physical outlet stresses you out as well, then it probably isn't helping. I should probably run because it is fun and an exploration of my limitations - there is nothing physically stopping me at the moment. I have no reason not to.

My Running Journal, 020810

Today is a rest day on the schedule - although I took it to mean "rest" from running, and so I altered my morning Qigong routine to include a more vigorous form that I need to practice more, and will be taking a Taiko class this evening that should use up nearly as much energy as a 1 mile run, if not more.

Yesterday I met up with a couple of friends and did a brief run on the Leif Ericksson trail in Forest Park. We were scheduled to run 3 miles, and according the markers along the trail we did, but my GPS said that we tracked 2.74. I think we ran somewhere in between that - and we were moving at a pretty slow pace - tracked at 33 minutes for that distance, which means were moving along at about 12 minutes per mile.

One of the people who joined me to run is a friend from my Marine Corps days (R), and she is training to run a half marathon this upcoming April. She is doing most of her training with Team in Training, and is already up around the 6 mile mark.

It is interesting to track her developing running injuries and mine - we have both been training on hard surfaces - pavement/concrete, and yesterday's run really showed the difference between running on a trail and running on pavement. At about the 1/4 mile marker on the trail it goes from dirt/gravel track to a short stretch of pavement which is about an 1/8 of a mile long. Going out we were out of breath, and working on just finding our rhythm, but coming back we had spent the majority of the run past the 1 mile mark talking and just cruising along. Turned around, running back downhill, and neither of us was really complaining about the injuries we both have started to sustain. Until we hit the pavement, and within about 5 strides we could tell the difference - my hip started to ache, and her knees started to burn - and then we got off of the pavement and the discomfort lessened a little bit.

My other running partner (B) yesterday is in considerably better shape than either of us, and so he took off on his own pace, and ended up basically running circles around us. He has been training in Vibram 5 fingers for the past couple of months. I got a pair a couple years ago, back when they were introduced, and quickly realized that I got my best use out of them on the trail, and not on pavement. Running without any cushioning under your feet is a completely different experience, and unfortunately I think that I am too heavy right now to run sans cushion on road surfaces. Anyway B has been training primarily on a chip track, and yesterday he had to run on mud and stones - again, totally different experience for him, and he probably bruised his feet a little.
I'll probably keep running in the shoes that I just got for a while, until I am comfortable running 3 miles a day, and ideally by that point I will have taken off enough weight, or increased my strength levels, so that I can go back to wearing my VFFs.

The run yesterday was fun - and it highlighted what I have been saying about running by yourself - it is far, far easier to keep going when you have someone keeping track of you - R wanted to stop and walk about a mile in, and I wouldn't let her - we slowed down a hair, and I had her change her stride to take some of the jarring impact off of her knees. Without me there, she would have slowed to a walk, and without her there, I probably would have as well.

I'm about to start reading a couple of books about running - the first being "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Had Never Seen." We'll see if I gain anything from it.

My Running Journal, 020510

I should subtitle this - the woes of dietary romanticism.

No running this morning - today is a rest day on the training calendar, and I probably need it. While I feel that this week is a rough start, I think that it actually went pretty smoothly. Except for some snafus with mileage and motivation, everything else is coming into place.

I have added several small, achievable goals into the mix that increase the complexity of the process. Like any other goal driven activity, you can break the process down into individual bits, and each one of those part of the process can be as complex as the entire process itself. Hooray for intellectualizing physical activity! (actually, it is good to intellectualize it, as your Brain is the biggest individual/small system energy consumer in your body. - the more and harder you think, the more calories you burn).

So within the hopelessly complex network of small goals leading to a bigger goal, there are a few that I have started working towards. I have already covered some of it - getting up at an early hour on a regular basis, charting my mileage, following a training schedule, etc., etc.

Today I want to talk about diet, and the small goals therein.

I am about to start Crossfit training, and part of that is keeping a food log and modifying your diet in the direction of the "Paleo" diet. The basics of the Paleo Diet seem pretty simple - the underlying theory behind it is that Humans were distinctly Human by the paleolithic era (Stone Age). And the assumption being that Paleotlithic Man's diet was primarily that of a hunter/gatherer. So the focus of the modern primitive diet is meat. Easy enough, I love meat. Another protein source is tree nuts, which are enormously high in fat and protein, and are very healthful when eaten raw. Supplemented by lots and lots of vegetables (not tubers or legumes, but actual vegetables) - again, this is a good idea, since you need dietary fiber and other vitamins, with a small amount of fruit, and as little processed carbohydrates as possible.

I love it - simple diet to follow, and it is pretty much what I have been trending towards - although I still eat loads of processed foods.

Now, the concept of "processed" foods is an interesting one. I've read a bunch of writing in support of the Paleo diet and the theory behind it - Paleolithic Man had minimal tools, and so would have had limited ability to process foods. Additionally, most tubers and legumes will make you sick if eaten raw on a regular basis. So why would Paleolithic Man eat them? Same goes for grains - the argument being that 10,000 years ago grains would have been found in limited areas, and that the processing necessary to get from a seedhead to a usable, edible product, would have been energy inefficient.

That is a big component, as far as I can tell, about the philosophical theorizing behind the Paleo diet - the food that would have provided the biggest immediate bang for the buck would have been the one that Paleolithic Man would have gone after. The more time you have to spend gathering and preparing food, the less energy efficient it is, or so the theory goes. The more tool development needed to prepare the food, the less likely Paleo-man would have eaten it - tubers and legumes generally need to be cooked in order to be safe to eat for any length of time, and grains need to be harvested and in most cases threshed to be useable, and in order to make them edible, they need to be cooked.

While I appreciate the overall dietary concept of the Paleo Diet (Proteins and Vegetables with a minimal amount of "processed" carbohydrate sources), I would argue that the theory that Paleolithic Man was primarily a carnivore, roasting his kill over an open fire is romantic claptrap.

Think about it for a minute. We can think of all of the tribes that still exist, and that have in effect been recently discovered in the Amazon, as well as the Bushman of the Kalahari, the Australian aborigines, and many of the American Indian tribes.

Yes - they all hunt animals for food. Yes, they all place alot of store on successful hunts - meat is a brilliant source of energy when you can get it. But do any of these particular groups avoid eating tubers or legumes or grains?

Several of the indigenous tribes in the Amazon harvest Manioc - otherwise known as cassava, and is what Tapioca is made from. the Manioc grown in the jungle is poisonous - the plant contains compounds of cyanide in its raw state. This necessitates processing. It is also the staple food source for the tribes that harvest it.

Or several of the American Indian tribes that existed prior to European exploration - putting aside the more advanced forms of plant cultivation that they used, we can look at acorns. Acorns in their raw state are pretty much indigestible by humans - most contain very high levels of tannins, which make them very bitter. Most things in the wild that are bitter tasting Humans avoid. But when you soak them in several changes of water, you can remove the tannins. And then the acorns can be eaten as is, or pounded into a flour and turned into cakes.

Now, it can be argued that manioc/cassava is a bad example - undoubtedly what is meant by "paleolithic man" means pre-pre-agriculture.

Okay, so let's look at the Bushmen of the Kalahari. What do they eat? It is well known that they are great hunters and trackers, and that they eat every last part of the animal that they kill. But they also collect tubers - which are an important component of their diet, as they are great sources of water in the desert.

The argument about efficiency in the Paleo diet doesn't bear scrutiny or logical thought. The argument that you eat what is most convenient in nature excludes most tree nuts. Almost every tree nut in existence comes in the following package - outer layer of fruit, then shell, then nut. Now, I don't know about other people, but I have collected and eaten fresh Almonds. Getting to the nut is a pain in the ass - the fruit around the nut is bitter and slippery, and the shell, when it is fresh, is very difficult to get through. Same thing with Walnuts - slippery, bitter outer skin, tough shell, and then lots of work getting the edible parts of the nut out. How about Brazil nuts? I've never harvested them myself, but from the looks of it, you have to penetrate something that is as tough as a coconut's outer husk and inner shell, and then the shells of the individual nuts. Nice and energy efficient there, huh?

I also don't understand the argument that, since it requires time and patience to gather some of these foodstuffs, that Paleolithic Man wouldn't have done it because of inefficiency. Why? Because he was in a hurry to get somewhere? If we take the romantic idea of Paleolithic Man as a member of a small tribe that existed prior to regular trade and "civilization," then what else, other than hunting and gathering food, would he have to do? Get to the Stonebucks to meet with his next Client? No - when you are existing in the wild, you spend the majority of your time foraging - anything that is edible goes into your bag, and when you hunker down for snacky times, you eat what you found. If you live in a small tribe, and have communication and organization, you will learn to divide the foraging and hunting - that way you optimize, in your Paleo brain, the opportunity to always have at least some food available. Paleo Man didn't have to be anywhere specific most of the time - I doubt that there is much rushing about when you don't have to be anywhere or meet any specific deadline.

While I fully intend to trend my eating habits away from processed and refined carbohydrate sources, I'm not a fan of the argument behind the Paleo Diet. I wildcraft/collect a fair amount of my food, and let me tell you - active hunting is perhaps one of the most dangerous and high energy consumption processes out there, with little guarantee of reward. Tubers don't run away from you.

I could go on and on about this. Suffice to say, I am going to start following a modified Mediterranean diet next week - heavy on the leafy greens, fruit, fish, and nuts, with the modification of adding in animal proteins and small amounts of grains.

My small step will start with modifying my lunch to look like that, and then my dinner, and eventually my breakfast.

My Running Journal, 020410

Today I came in about 500 feet short of a mile and a half today - the IMapMyRun app tells me that the route that I jogged was 1.42 miles, and that I finished in 13m59s. Which equates to about a 10 minute mile. Slow, but hey, I'm starting up.

I need to map out my runs a little better - 500 feet is probably about two blocks. Missing the mark by 500 feet isn't terrible, but as I get up in the miles, I need to make sure that I am actually running at least the mileage planned. Right now, I can fudge it a little bit, since I am getting everything dialed in.

I've started using the Imapmyrun app on my Iphone, as well as the website, to track my course, run time, pace, and mileage on the shoes. I've also started using the Daily Plate app from Livestrong to track my diet. I'm not concerned with calorie counting right now, but I need to keep a food log so that I can really focus in on what my eating habits are like.

I have to balance the disappointment that I feel in going slow and not quite reaching the distance with understanding that I need to limit myself.

I have trained with people who insist that you finish faster than you started. This applies to races as well as training.

Right now, I am aiming for a 10 minute mile. It is a pace that I can run at right now without feeling like my lungs are going to burst or that I am going to pass out - and that is important. I'll reference earlier posts - when I start to fast, I wear myself out at the beginning, and end up calling it quits before reaching the goal.

Getting up and running wasn't such a chore this morning, and besides so lingering soreness in one of my hips, the run itself wasn't difficult. What I do need to do is maintain a good pre and post run stretching routine that involves heat. Since I don't have a hot tub, a nice hot bath with epsom salts is going to have to become part of my regular morning routine. Which means that my runs are going to have to be pushed even earlier. Today I was out the door and running by 0630 - the next early morning run, which isn't scheduled until next Tuesday, is going to have to start at 6am for me to fit in a soak. I'll probably end up starting and finishing my days with a soak, since I am going to be running early in the morning, and I start Crossfit next Tuesday. And I need to figure out what is causing the soreness in my hip - I doubt that it is bursitis, more likely a muscle - but which one? So many muscles involved with the movement of your leg, and I can't find my copy of Clemente's atlas.

Tomorrow is a rest day from running, but since the weather looks like it is going to clear up a little bit, I believe that it is time for me to start meeting another small goal, which will be cycling into work. And then I have a mid-morning, 3 mile trail run on Sunday planned, with a group of people.

Right now, I am sore and tired.

My Running Journal, 020310

So I failed to meet two goals this morning, and I chalk it up to a lack of motivation.

I woke up at 0550, and then let the alarm tell me when to get out of bed. I charted a path that was a little over 3 miles, got put together for the run, and headed out. Into a light, cold rain.

This morning was a tough one - I woke up feeling fine, but knowing that I was scheduled to run 3 miles, which to me is a long way, I wasn't very motivated. The "3 miles is a long way" is a difficult mental block - before I joined the Corps, I had never run for more than a mile. I was a sprinter. A mile seemed like a long, long way (even though I was bicycling 7 miles to work/gymnastics in High School).

It is funny to me how you get a distance stuck in your head, and that becomes the insurmountable odd. Intellectually, I know that 3 miles is basically nothing, especially since I plan on running 26 miles in one go. And it isn't like I haven't run further than 3 miles in a single run before. I have.

But all of the times that I have bothered to run farther than 3 miles, I have had other people with me. People that I could talk with, whine about the distance with, and generally stay motivated. It helps me immensely to have another person running with me. Running by myself gets to be boring, and then the negativity creeps in. Which slows you down, or stops you entirely.

So this morning I was supposed to run 3 miles. I failed to meet that goal by about 170 feet - my route totaled 2.97 miles. And I finished in 33 minutes. Beside being a slow, slow pace, I stopped to walk around the 2 mile mark, and walked for probably 1/2 a mile. And I probably didn't have to - but I was cold, tired from waking up early and achey. Raining on me, gait feels funny, "Oh, ouch! uh, my hip hurts, yeah - that's a good reason to stop running."

The other goal that I failed to meet, and this is more important right now than the mileage, is to not stop running.

I basically allowed my negativity to perform an inertia creep on me. Part of me doesn't care about running, or staying shape, or fuck all, and that part of me has undermined almost everything that I have done in life. It popped up as soon as I awoke - that disappointment and not quit dread that almost kept me in bed. It popped up when I realized that I needed to put on a raincoat. got a little stronger in my head when I realized that I needed to actually run with my hood up. At the end of the second block, the monkey was ooking "screw this." I made the first mile, reminding myself that it normally takes me about a mile and half to push past the complaining little monkey.

And then at mile 2, it won. This is where having another person with you to motivate helps. Because, ideally, both people are working to motivate each other. To push a little farther, and to keep the pace up.
*Editted to add* I just read through this paragraph, and I realized that thinking this is again the negative inertia monkey talking. Yes, it is fun to have another person to work out with, and it does help, but to do what I intend to do, you have to be your own partner.*

I didn't need to slow down to a walk - I wasn't running very fast, and it isn't like I was on the verge of exhaustion/dehydration. I allowed the part of me that self-sabotages to do it this morning. Part of this training is to get away from that self sabotaging effort, and redirect all of my negativity into forward momentum. Because if I don't, then I won't even make it the first three miles.

My Running Journal, 020210

Today was the first day of the rest of the training schedule. Not a rest day, but a run day. 1.5 miles is all. I charted a route around my house that was 1.7 or 1.8 miles according to Google Maps, so I figure that I met the goal of 1.5 miles.

Up before the alarm at 0550something, out of bed by 0610. I loitered in bed for a bit, thinking about what I am getting myself into as far as planning on running a marathon. stretched a little, massaged my feet, got up, and got rolling. My left foot hit the deck and I was off running by 0625.

Right now I'm keeping a loose idea of how fast I am going. I anticipate that I will finish the Marathon in about four hours. Because I plan on being a slow poke.

Back in the day (as in, in my late teens/early twenties) when I was in the Corps, I was a serious sandbagger when you put me out on the road to run. Not that I was out of shape - far from it, but I wasn't trained as a runner. I grew up doing Tae Kwon Do and then Gymnastics – neither of which really push for true endurance beyond a basic workout. I was a sprinter and fast twitch sort of guy. Running more than 400 yards felt like absolute murder to me. I grew up in the D.C. area, near the Potomac. Washington D.C. is built on a swamp, and like every other city on the East Coast south of, say, Portland Maine, the summers are incredibly hot and muggy. Moving fast in hot weather is, well, gross. So I didn’t do it.

When I got in the Corps, I had already broken and dislocated one ankle and severely sprained the other in gymnastics. Being a teenager meant that I didn’t follow the PT advice that I undoubtedly got, and so my ankles were in terrible shape. Pounding from the gymnastics, even though I was landing on mats, had dropped my arches, and to top it all off I have duck feet – EEE is the width for me, not that I knew that then.

So when I got to Boot I was issued boots and shoes based on five seconds on a foot measuring device and the number that I thought I was. Unfortunately for me, Boot Camp was not the place, evidently, to learn good running habits or how to correctly size footwear. I grew to really dislike running. Whereas I disliked it before, once I started having to run more than 400 yards at a time, I really discovered what it was like to have messed up ankles, feet and poor running habits.

They don’t really coach you in Boot Camp. They motivate you for sure, but they don’t coach you. No one sat down with the Platoon at any point and said “Recruits, today we are going to observe each and every one of you running. And then we will teach each recruit what the recruit is doing wrong, or can improve on.” Nope, it’s “RUN!”

I could have trained myself to run properly after getting out of Boot Camp, but the desire to do so never surfaced – I could run my PFT and feel like crap at the end of it, which was acceptable. I stayed in “shape,” but running never became a habit or an enjoyable activity. It hurt, it was tiresome, and I never felt rewarded by it. Truck it or Fuck it.

One of the things that I wasn’t clearly taught was pacing myself. I understood it on an intellectual level, but all of the sports leading up to my entry in the Corps had dealt in explosive, immediate power. Put all of the effort out, all at the same time. Which meant that I could run a sub-six minute mile, and then collapse from the effort.

I have been trying to learn to pace myself. And it is really, really hard to do. All of the intense physical activity that I did as a kid is getting in the way of building endurance. I have to re-train part of myself to learn to move in an efficient way, and that the distribution of my energy needs to be spread out over tens of minutes to hours, and not seconds or minutes in furious pace. I’m terrible as conservation.

This morning I probably ran at about a 7 minute a mile pace – I can’t believe that I was going any faster, but my watch showed 0625 when my left foot hit the deck, and 0635 when I got back inside the house after reaching the starting point and walking a block. We’ll call it 1.5 miles in 9 minutes. Which, believe it or not, is probably too fast right now.