The Track is Back, Jack!

I believe we all have those friends who we seldom see yet when life brings us back together, we slip into the old routine as if no time has passed. I have this same relationship with trails long since run and that perfectly measured oval known as: the track.

With roughly seven months until the Marine Corps Marathon and no big goal races on the calendar for the foreseeable future, it’s time to have some fun. Because readers, this runner has reached his limit of long tempo runs, 2K and 3K intervals, and 14-18mi training runs. Of course we're defining fun as lung searing, lactic acid storm repeats, the kind where you can feel your stomach getting ready to heave but don’t quite let it, or your hamstrings feel like they might seize after a particularly punishing 400.
No more ogling workouts online or in running magazines only to have to turn the page and sigh knowing that that 10K workout isn’t going to do much good for a marathoner.

It was with this in mind yesterday that I laced up my new Nike Elite Zoom kicks and drove to the nearby track. I slung my backpack off my shoulder, moved to the starting line, and started a slow trot around the oval. The sun had begun its descent into the tree line, which did little to shield it from my eyes on the back stretch since not all of the leaves have filled in yet. I felt clunky and out of synch during that four lap warm up, but as the pace quickened on that final lap, I hit the last 100m and felt my canter increase. I caught myself, There’ll be plenty of time for that, I thought.

Remembering my hockey days, a shoddy warm up always meant I had a spectacular performance in store, and for some reason that holds true for my running as well.

Breaking in the new kicks

I moved over to the goal post, went through some dynamic stretches, and then back on the track for some drills. After the last butt kick, I sipped on my water bottle, traded my Elites for my Asics Racers, and there was nothing left to do…except the workout.

I saw this one back in Running Times a few months ago. It’s a Greg McMillan in and out workout where you run 10 laps, using the straightaways to push the pace and the curves to recover. It’s supposed to help increase your turnover, make your stride more efficient, and as the warning said, not be as easy as it might sound.

I set off on my first lap, having already decided to break the workout into five sets of two for mental sanity. I started to sling shot myself around the first turn down the backstretch. When I shut things down heading into turn two, my breath turned raspy, my heart rate thudding. Shit, I thought. This could suck. But before I could ponder it further, it was time to start the second strider.

I barreled down the final 100 and lifted a finger on my left hand to denote number one, set one was indeed in the books.

The workout continued that way. My body settled in after that initial shock, when all signs pointed to STOP!, but the override switch is nearby. And I spent those surges on the straightaways letting the whispers of races past speak to me and perk that adrenaline up some.

When I lifted the final finger, I jogged a mile cool down and finished with some more dynamic stretching. The school was desolate as I walked back to my car. A satisfying ache lingered in my quads and hamstrings that I knew would still be there this morning. A track workout beats you up in ways a marathon workout could never touch.

More fun to come in the next few weeks. I’m just happy to see my old my friend again.

Back on Trail

A dark, ominous forest -- or how I looked at trails until
yesterday

Two miles in. Two fingers up representing the completed 800s. Six more fingers to go. I bounced on the curb as the Tuesday night rush hour crawled by. I took alternating glances between the green light and the headlights. I had zip in my legs and energy to burn off. But it wasn’t the next interval I thought about. Instead it was the road ahead, which wasn’t a road at all but a crushed gravel trail, the Big Rocky Run trail to be exact. I was nervous. The light jumped to yellow. I took one more sip of water, waited for the last car to zoom by to make the light, then…I took off.

I suppose it had to happen sometime. I just wasn’t sure it was going to happen yesterday, and perhaps, in hindsight, that was best. The calendar called for 8x800 with a 200m recovery. I decided that could take about 7-8 miles with warmup, recovery, and cool down factored in. So I started to plan my route accordingly. Over the past few weeks, that meant getting creative trying to avoid the trails, thinking that I still needed to rebuild the strength in my ankle. But with the daylight lingering longer, the ankle sprain more than eight weeks ago, and the first of four trail races just over two weeks away, the time had come.

I wrestled with the idea all day, knowing full well that it was time to set foot back in the ocean and run the route that I’d left so many footprints on in the past without a second thought. And why make it a casual jog when I could go all in and turn it into an interval workout? No dipping my toe in the water. This was a full on swan dive.
When the walk signal burned ahead of me, I clicked my watch and bolted across the highway, took a sharp right and began my descent onto the trail. The bare branches reached up toward the clear, dusky evening. The temperature dropped noticeably and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as the cold settled on me. I made one hard plant with my left foot and heard the first crunches of gravel beneath my trainers.

Focus on your footing but don’t dwell on it, I thought. I made small adjustments to my course as the size of the rocks got bigger or where trenches had formed. A shower had passed through in the late afternoon, soaking the ground and forming stray puddles.

I stole a look at my watch and marveled that a quarter mile had already gone by. The trail rose to meet a neighborhood cross street. I surged and shot across it and back down into the woods. My legs started to tie up from the effort but I pumped my arms harder and repeated Keep it neat, meaning my form, and felt my legs turn over quicker.

Those tired legs carried me across the creek where the watch beeped and I hit the brakes bringing the pace to a halt. I trotted on suddenly remembering that I had been previously worried. I acknowledged the thought, snickered, and went about enjoying the brief reprieve. The sun had nearly gone down but it set the sky aglow in a palette of pastel pinks that receded to purple and finally what would become the night.

I tossed a wave to another runner coming the opposite direction with an eager dog at his side. The creek burbled from the afternoon rain, and though the temperature was mild for the winter, I knew the water would be perfect for an ice bath.

When I looked at my watch again, I had just another few feet until…beep! I folded my three outstretched fingers into a loose fist and took off down the trail. One more for the set, I thought as I roared away.

With .2 to go, I huffed on, A marathon finish, I thought, whizzing by the orange post that marked the end of that trail section. I made the soft turn onto the sidewalk and carried on up the hill allowing myself a smile that I’d come through unscathed and left some new footprints behind...along with some old fears.

One Small Step in 2012

The Confucius saying goes, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." With that in mind, I began my first run of 2012. The sun disappeared behind the woods-lined track in the late afternoon dusk, and I cinched up my laces extra tight, paused at the starting line, and took my first step around the oval.

The step is only significant in that it’s my first determined step since spraining my ankle just over three weeks ago. While the coloring and shape of my foot has returned to normal, I’m just now able to walk without the lace up brace I’ve relied on so heavily over the past 24 days (who’s counting?).

January 2 has been the date circled in my head that would mark my return to running since being relegated to the couch.
In these 24 days, I've written the alphabet backwards and forwards, in uppercase and lowercase, in cursive (remember cursive?) with my right foot. I've done tight circles and long lazy circles with it while watching TV, watching traffic, or simply watching the world slip by. There's been no heat, moist heat, heat from the steam room, the sauna, the shower, ice cubes, ice packs, and icy hot. I've hopped, hobbled, and walked (forward and backward) around the house, up and down stairs. I've poked, prodded, and massaged the swollen areas.

Everytime Saturday came around again, I marveled at the progress and imagined with great hope and whimsy what it might look like in seven more days.

My wife and I took our dog to the track and began speed walking to get things loosened up. When we reached the back stretch, my confidence rose with every step I took without pain. Gone was the tightness in my Achilles, the quick, sharp pain at the top of my toes, and the dull ache that lingered on the outside of my ankle.

Memories of races past and hard fought interval workouts on this very backstretch began to whisper to me as the wind bit at our faces.

When we hit the quarter mile mark, I chickened out and decided one more walking lap was in order. My wife urged me on and laughed as she dropped a few steps behind me and mock chased me as we sped around the turn.

A small pit grew in my stomach as we took on the final 100m that would mark a half mile. This feeling, at this moment, on this track, was familar. It's the anticipation of the next interval, when the first 100m of recovery feels like there's an infinity of rest to be had. At 200m, the breathing returns to normal, the stinging in your muscles recedes, and you think that, "Hey, this isn't so bad." But after 300m, when you steer around the final turn and stare at the final 100m of straightaway that 90 seconds ago seemed to go on into eternity, is suddenly approaching at warp speed, and though the stinging may have receded, the body never forgets.

“I’m nervous,” I finally said out loud.
“Don’t be nervous,” Rachel said. “You’re going to be fine, whether it’s today or another day.”

I crossed the line, took a deep breath, and said, “Here we go.”

My first footfall on the injured foot rattled with pain. I grimaced and trudged on in a slow jog around the first turn. My foot felt like the heavy, yet delicate tree limbs encased in ice after a day’s worth of wet snow. With each step, the casing began to crack and my foot gained a wider range of motion. Like Forrest Gump, the braces fell to the roadside, only instead of getting faster, I grew more uncomfortable. My foot felt like it lacked the up and down flex it needed to complete each stride. At 50m, the pain grew too great on the inside of my foot and throughout my Achilles.

“I have to shut it down,” I said, and I returned to a brisk walk.
“I’m proud of you,” Rachel said.
“For what?”
“For not pushing it and letting it heal correctly.”

We forged on until crossing the line for the fourth time to mark one mile, the first of the new year. Rachel carried on while I moved to the outer lane and worked on my core. At least I could keep getting stronger so that when I can finally run, I’ll be ready.

“Are you disappointed?” she asked as we made our way back to the car.
“Not as much as I thought I would be,” I said, actually believing that answer. “It’s my second full day without the brace and I can walk pretty damn fast and my ankle actually feels better that all the scar tissue is breaking up. I’m not thrilled but I’m optimistic.”

So, where to go from here? I am a walking, foot-flexing machine! To the dog’s delight, I am trying to get in three miles of walking a day and will see if I can pepper in some Gallo-walking. It’s 11 weeks until my first goal race of 2012, the Rock ‘n Roll DC Half Marathon. Will I hit my sub-1:20 goal?

One step at a time.

The Interval Workout

The chapter begins "'An interval workout,' Cassidy once explained to a sportswriter, 'is the modern distance runner's equivalent to the Iron Maiden, a device as you know used by ancient Truth Seekers.'"

Over the years, I've found myself mentally preparing and physically bracing myself for the interval workouts appearing on each training calendar.  It's a case of steeling the mind for the pain you're sure to endure...and knowingly -- and willingly -- inflicting it upon yourself.  There's something raw about intervals, the reduction of the body into a primal state of survival as you take counterclockwise turn after turn around this interminable torture device.  It's also where we learn the most about ourselves.

As I mentioned previously, normally my training programs conclude with some sort of race.  This one, the only end goal was simply to get faster and prepare me for the next calendar.  So, this became the circled date on my calendar.  As Bruce Denton said, "This is where you find out."

I walked from the far corner of the parking lot, cutting across the soccer field to avoid the questioning gaze of onlookers at the high school I was surely trespassing on, and really had no right to be at.  High school boys scooped and flung lacrosse balls back and forth at one another from a field looking out over the track.  To them, hopefully, I was just some faculty member of no consequence out for an afternoon jog.  With a deep exhale, I dropped my keys and water bottle by the finish line and set off on my customary one mile warmup trot with some 100 meter striders mixed in.

The warmup is always sluggish.  My body seems already to be rebelling against the effort.  The breath is abnormally labored and the form is sloppy.  The strides feel taxing.  I relish the 10 minutes or so I take to stretch and do some plyos.  In my head, I'm simply catching my breath.

It's a hot one.  My arms already glisten and sweat drips from the brim of my hat.  The sun eases down behind the the spires of trees that ring the west side of the school and cast a merciful shade upon the backstretch.   

I spend a couple last seconds rationalizing the workout to myself.  Somehow trying to break it into smaller, manageable chunks: it's only five miles; it's only five miles with periods of rest even.  But no matter how simple I try to make it, the fact of the matter is, the work still has to be done.  I ran paces through my head one more time (no slower than an 85, that computes to a 5:45 mile).  No more stalling.  I toe the line, click my watch, and am off....

The first one is alarmingly easy.  I complete the loop in a 79 I know I'm going to regret in about 30-40 minutes.  I trot slowly around the curve that will serve as my 100m recovery.  Down below, near the edge of the woods, a pack of deer regard me with caution.  I swing beyond them with a lingering look before disappearing around the bend.  Somehow, it's already time to go again.

The first set disappears quickly but not smoothly.  I feel like the rest is too short and the effort for each interval is tremendous.  My chest burns from the humidity (and the air quality alert explains that later).  I try to visualize the smooth flow of a river, getting swept up in a current, but the hard, raspy breathing only conjures thoughts of thrashing about in my river trying not to drown.  I take the 200m jog at a shuffle to gain as much back as I've lost.  After the 100 recovery, it nearly seems like an eternity.

Rather than accepting my 85 threshold, I'm stubbornly fighting to grind out anything close to 80.  The second set passes nearly as miserable as the first does.

Before I get ready to start again, I take a long swig of water and look around.  The deer have long since gone.  Short, shrill blasts from a whistle and barking orders tumble down from the lacrosse game.  Sweat flings from my arms with each stride, so I can only imagine how hot they must be with pads on.  It dawns on me that we're all toiling, all striving toward an end goal.  Unbeknownst to the other, we're suffering in our own way.

It's at this point that I tried to pull a song into my head.  I don't run my intervals with an iPod.  I want to be fully aware and in touch with what's going on.  But, usually there's some song (good or bad) that plays on a loop in my head, and normally it's some line that I cling to and repeat as a mantra.  Tonight, there is nothing.

Each arduous effort kept blending together.  Because the rests are so short, I keep tally on my hands: reps on my left hand, sets on my right.  Each completed set is like a slash against a prisoner's cell wall.  Sometimes, I dash across the line dramatically, hands to knees and sucking in deep, haggard breaths; others I simply trot through, click my watch, and start the slow jog to recovery.

It's until mired in the middle stretch of set three that I settle into a rhythm.  A slow tightening begins to draw across the tops of my quads.  Yet, I swing around the second turn as if fired by a slingshot.  With a 100 meters to go, everything relaxes and the thrashing stops.  The movement feels effortless.  I click my watch and look down at a 78.  I have life.

I start the next one and in my head, I reason that if I can somehow just coil like a spring around those curves, I can unleash a smooth almost floating stride down the straights.  And so I do.  To the point where the curves became 100 meters of waiting.  I'd experienced this during my 200s.  I'd repeat "coil, coil, coil, coil....release!" in my head and come barreling down the straightaway.  

Each rep simply comes and goes.  I lock into some in-tune yet detached state.  Those 78s become 77s.  The monumentalness of the workout subsides and it just becomes another training session.  

Then my right hand has four fingers in the air.  One set to go.  One measly mile.  I call on past "final miles" from races, from training runs, from any place in my catalog of memories.  "It's only one mile.  Anyone can run one mile," I say.  

I try to run it like any other set, but I find myself counting down each rep: 300, 200, 150, 100, click!

The sun has disappeared in total behind the trees.  A warm breeze blows across the track.  Three fingers on the left.  Four fingers on my right.  The starting line approaching.  One lap the track.  In my head, I know I'm finishing on a straightaway and I just need to maintain that same rhythm I've found back all those reps ago, and just let the current carry me.  Click!

I take the first turn with a renewed quickness in my step.  My strides eat up the ground and droplets of sweat fly from my pumping arms.  I hit the halfway in 38.  A wry smile crosses my face as I accelerate out of the final turn.  My eyes lock on the finish.  All the form drills, all the core routines, all the early alarms, all the flat strides, the hill strides finally coming together in one perfectly flowing machine.  The lactic acid begins to wrap around my legs like a vine but still I push.  

When I break through the line, I continue my trot and let my momentum carry me around the track one more time.  I look down at my watch, knowing what would most likely be there.  I let out a "Yeeooow!" and bring my arm up to what I already know is there: a 75.

A smile breaks across my face and doesn't leave until I get home.  The adrenaline carries me through the rest of the night until my wife and I settle down on the couch.  I promptly pass out at 9:00 and sleep just about straight through until my alarm goes off at 5:20 to head out in the dark, once again, onto the road.  

Though the workout, "the interval workout," was a success, there's still more work to be done.

The "Once a Runner" Workout

If you've read John Parker's Once a Runner, you are most likely familiar with the chapter simply titled "The Interval Workout."  For those who haven't read it, consider picking up the book now that it's out in wide publication to really get the context of this chapter and workout.  Love it or hate it, this book is often considered the gospel of the sport.

I still remember my first reading of this book (I've returned to it many times since).  My dad, a runner for the University of Florida back in the mid-late 70s, crossed paths with the author during his time there.  He brought up the book's name a few months before Christmas 2008, said he'd been trying to get it but simply couldn't find it.  I thought I'd do a little digging of my own.  It was elusive.  

I exhausted all resources.  Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Noble, used bookstores, all to no avail.  Finally, I found several copies on eBay...for well over $100 a copy.  People were serious about this book.  What was so mythical about it?

Apparently when Parker first self-published it, he used to enter local road races wearing a sign on his back that said something to the effect of, "If you beat me, I'll give you a free book."  He didn't give away many, but those he did came out of his car's trunk.

My Mom and I decided to go in on the book together, knowing how much it would mean to him (which it did; there were tears).  I eventually won it for a cool $150.  For a book! 

The book came in October.  With three months to go until Christmas, I couldn't just let it sit around.  I mean, I had to find out what all the hype was about...so I dove into it...and finished it the next morning.  The name of this blog is actually from a throw away one liner that stuck with me while reading the sequel, Again to Carthage.  

I ended up winning my own copy of the book months later.  The woman I won it from (on eBay once again -- only $90 this time...it was the deal of the century) turned out to be the mother of a high school cross country runner.  She bought the book for him and now that he and she had read it, wanted to pass it along to another runner.  We exchanged a couple e-mails about it.  It seemed as though everyone had a story about this book, their reasons for pursuing it and the way it affected them as different as the reasons they chose to run in the first place.   This became one of those books where you could refer to characters as if you're on a first name basis, guys you'd go to the bar to drink with, or meet up with for a morning run.  Parker builds such a connection....

Anyhow, I digress.  The culmination of the book, in my mind, comes when Cassidy is asked to put himself through the interval workout that begins with 20x400m with a 100m jog between each rep.  This is the setup.  It takes off from there.

For myself, I'm nearing the eighth and final week of my self-proclaimed speed development program.  After grinding through the hellish 5K two weeks ago, I decided to forgo signing up for another 5K to round out the program, only to battle the heat all over again, and be disappointed by a non-PR.  Instead, I'm waiting for the fall to come to take my new legs for a ride.  Monday, August 16, I'll make the transition to my Army 10-miler program.

But there must be something, right?  Some payoff?  Some mark that everything you've done has worked, has made you a better runner, was worth the sacrifice, the early mornings, the interminable laps around the track, the double dips, the achy quads, the quivering hamstrings...etc.

My defining mark will be this workout.  I embarked on the speed plan after reading about Ryan Hall's summer plans to get back to basics and develop his raw speed for 10 weeks before going full on into training for Chicago (apparently it paid off because he won the U.S. 7-mile Championship at Bix two weeks ago).  This was one of his workouts.  And funny enough, last month's Running Times including a McMillan column talking about speed workouts for runners that included, of all things, 20x400m.  The universe is clearly calling me toward this.

When I think about this workout, I go back to the summer of 2008 when I started all this speed training, qualifying for Boston business, and a 12x400m workout with a 400m recovery between each was a drain.  I've come along way in two years.  This far?  We'll see.

As the chapter says, "It's one thing to write down 20 quarters with a 110 jog, and quite another to carry out those instructions." Monday night, I'll lace 'em up and head out to the track for one last workout.  There are moments that I'll want to stop, gasp in exhaustion and clutch my knees, but I'll have to dig deep to push through it and think back to all those other workouts that I've filed away and persevered through.  That's how you find out.

The Edge on the Sword

When this adventure started with my dad and uncle right around now in 2008, they laid out where we'd be going training-wise following the National Half Marathon.  My uncle put it like this: "Think of the distance training you've done for that race as fashioning the sword.  Now we're gonna put the edge on it.  It's time to cut someone." 

Little did I know that that edge would come courtesy of many, many intervals, in many forms.  From 400s up to 2000s, step ups, step downs, mile repeats, and everything in between.  The sum of all these sessions equaled a helluva lot of trips around the track, several evenings alone in the cold, in the heat, just me and some curious deer, coming to the brink of throwing up, backing down, then ramping it back up again -- hands on knees, chest heaving, sour saliva emptying into my mouth.

But, in the end, the results are hard to argue with.  I've watched the steady lowering of my PRs in races from 5K to 26.2. 

My latest "sharpening" came this Saturday morning.  Today became the first of three marathon predictor workouts.  On the agenda was the famed Yasso 800 workout.  It was my first go round with these in any marathon training program, so I was interested to see 1) how it would feel and 2) just how my "predictor" time would work out.

Leading into this workout, I wouldn't call myself nervous, but it's been nine weeks since my last race.  For a time (Fall through New Years), I raced steadily and could see almost instant results from my training.  each race was a new measuring stick.  Now, it's been tougher to get that instant gratification, particularly with all the snow on the ground and the monotonous tracing and retracing of only two loops I can run on.  So I've had to put my faith in the program and just hope it was working. 

I released some of that pressure last week with a solid 4x2000m interval workout.  Again, because of the snow, I had to do 1000 out and back...the first 1000 being a net downhill, meaning, the back end is a net uphill.  That back end left my quads stinging and lungs burning, but, as my uncle also said, "You have to run fast...to run fast."  I averaged 5:21 miles and sucked in the relief with those raspy breaths.

So, in addition to juggling loops (over and over and over), I had to juggle my schedule this week.  Due to some extended hours at work, the start of our floor hockey title defense, and a testy IT band, I had to push the Yassos to this morning.

Hoping to actually do this one on a track, my plans were foiled again because...snow.  I drove back home and cut down that 1000m route to 800, got a nice 2 mile warm up jog in and...away I went. 

The first couple felt like all interval workouts: miserable -- the body still waking up, trying to come to grips with the initial shock of the speed and sudden intensity.  Whew!  But by my second set, I'd settled in, the stride smoothing out, the arms driving me forward, the seconds in my favor, and God bless negative splits. 

My initial goal coming in to Boston was to go sub-3 hours.  If that didn't happen, I just wanted to requalify.  And, should it not be on my side that day, I just wanted to enjoy the experience (as much as one can enjoy running 26.2).

When I rounded the last turn back to my house, I clicked the watch, sucked in hard, and glanced at my wrist on its way up to rest on my head.  Some quick math to average out the times (uphill vs. downhill for each interval because of the route).  Drum roll:

Yasso 800 prediction: 2:43

How will I celebrate?  18 miler on the National Mall and Mt. Vernon trail tomorrow.  The edge is sharp.