Cleansing the Spirit

Runningchick6560 had it right yesterday when she posted on my blog, "I'm ready to put the Thanksgiving gluttony behind us."  My wife expressed a similar sentiment this morning, vowing to rid our fridge of all the Thanksgiving leftovers, because her 5-milers simply weren't cutting it.  No, pardon the pun, we'd have to go...cold turkey.  I also reached my limit, though mine came last night.  We drove out to a friends' house for dinner and Rock Band, and I inwardly gasped in horror when they brought out their Thanksgiving leftovers for us to gorge on.  Don't get me wrong, they were delicious, but the food baby had returned, and my turkey counter clicked once more making it four meals in a row involving Thanksgiving-related food.


Two detox runs in a row, except today's called for a 100-minute run (70 mins at 65-70%, 25 mins of intervals - 30sec on 120sec recovery, 5-minute jog).  I had no idea what my body had in store for me, but I can say that at 9:00 when I woke, the puffiness in my face and otherwise lethargic feeling that consumed me down to my bones, gave me a pretty good indication.  


I had thoughts of just going out from the house and running my 12-mile loop with a few extra loops around my neighborhood to make up for the extra time. Then I thought about going out to the Battlefield.  But yesterday, my wife drove over to the Fairfax Cross County Trail for her 5-miler.  This is a trail she and I have used over the summer for some easy runs.  I used it to build strength back up after hurting my IT band (again) prior to the Army Ten-Miler, namely because the opening stretch is pretty flat and the surface is forgiving on my joints.


Plus, I haven't done a trail run in quite some time, and while I thought of today as a detox run, I decided to rebrand it as a cleansing run.  A good friend of mine and I met up in Vegas over the summer and did a week long hiking, camping trip.  One of our stops was Zion National Park (see profile picture) and I came across the following quote that we embraced as our mantra for the week: 

"Break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean."

And so it was with that in mind that I laced up and set out to, not only complete my long run, but "wash my spirit clean."  


The day could not have been more perfect for it.  Under a wind-washed sky, I took off down the dirt trail, breathing in the crisp November air, and leaving everything else behind.  Trail runs always evoke in me a savageness that running along a highway lacks.  You're getting in touch with that primal side of yourself, bounding through woods like a predator after its prey or calling on the flight instinct to run for your life.  I stomped through puddles, kicked up mud from three days of rain on the back of my legs, and grimaced at the branches clawing at my shoulders.  


I also discovered that the flat 2-miles of trail I ran on prior to the Army Ten-Miler are an anomaly.  For about a quarter mile, my quads burned on a particularly rugged set of switchbacks that brought me up and over a slight mountain.  Then there was the straight uphill climb that chopped up my stride and brought me nearly to using my hands to help myself up.  The trail follows a creek that carves through the Fairfax woods, and at one point, I snuck up on a pack of deer that had wandered down.  They ran what seemed like parallel to me for a short time before breaking off into their own savage run.  


I mean running with deer? This was truly the perfect run.  And I really embraced that primal instinct during the intervals.  In 30-second  increments, I took off and tore down the trail, as the hunter, as the hunted, I'm not sure which.


When I clicked my watch and walked back up to the car, between the trees that poked out like thin spires against the naked sky, my body felt empty, completely exhausted, and even...cleansed.  


Back at the house, that satisfying emptiness turned into ravaging hunger.  I opened up the fridge and made...a tuna sandwich.

The Buddy System

Fresh  Hungover after yesterday's 23 second PR  Thanksgiving day feast, I opened my bleary eyes to find Mattie sitting by my side of the bed, tail going like a propeller, her eyes, her judging brown eyes, fixed on me.  I stumbled out of bed, the headache creeping behind my sinuses, and went straight for the coffee, then for the orange juice.  The dog let out an exasperated sigh as she plopped down next to me in the kitchen, as if to say, "You did this to yourself."

It was 9:30 and I remembered somewhere between bottles of wine last night, my friend and I talked about going for an easy 5-miler today.  I figured I had about 2-2.5 hours to talk myself into that as well as prepare my body for it.  This is the same friend who ran his first 5K yesterday, debuting at a smoking 6:48 pace.  I think he's hooked.

I've talked about the value I get (at least mentally) from the detox run, that reluctant yet sweaty and often gut wrenching run that follows a night (or week) of gluttony.  So that's essentially what I had in mind this morning: if nothing else, I'd sweat out that food pouch that suddenly appeared around 5:30 yesterday evening and only seemed to grow in girth with every piece of pie thereafter.

At 11:40, I fired off the 30-minute warning text to my friend, he replied a couple minutes later, and my fate was sealed: it was on.

In addition to the swishing of Mattie's tail this morning, the wind whipped at our townhouse adding that extra element or roadblock to wanting to get out there today.  Still, the bruised clouds rolled in and as I debated whether or not to pull a hat on, it started spitting.  Leaves spun in loose tornadoes around the yard and the pine trees bowed in unison.  The sun peeked through in shafts but did little to raise the temperature. It's indeed fall in Northern Virginia.  "Brilliant," I thought.  Betrayed by the hour-by-hour forecast.  When it says 20% chance of rain, who really takes that seriously?  Beyond the debate of should we run, should we not, came hat and gloves?  Hat, no gloves? Neither?  *sigh*

At 12:15, my friend and I met at my front stairs and trotted off on the 5-mile "lake loop" course. This was somewhat of a new experience for me.  It's been quite a while since I've run with anyone.  My wife and I trained together for our first marathon back in 2004, but in terms of running, have gone our separate ways.  There's been the occasional run with my dad when we've visited and vice-versa.  It's not something I'm averse to, rather, the situation rarely presents itself.  Either people's schedules conflict, fitness levels/goals are different, or for whatever reason, I find myself out there alone.

Today was great, however.  My friend normally runs through our neighborhood so this gave him a new 5-mile loop to add to his repertoire.  Plus, we chatted for the majority of the run, which took some of the sting out of climbing the hills, and ensured we kept the pace nice and easy.  It was also fun to have someone along side me to "enjoy" the headwind and the random moments of rain showers that passed through as quickly as they came on.  Like many have said, the fact that we'd made this commitment the night before held each of us accountable for pushing through to get up for this run.  The conversation flowed from piecing together last and making plans for this evening to swapping stories about bonehead motorists and future plans to bike the entire W&OD trail.  Before I knew it, we were coming out of the trail and into the 1-mile homestretch.

Will this happen again?  Perhaps.  He's a morning runner, while I'm an after work runner.  But who knows, some weekends or days off may align our schedules.  At least for today, we used the buddy system to push one another through and make that food pouch just a little smaller.

Did you use today to trot yesterday's Turkey off?

T-Day PR

Famous last words to my wife: "I think I could be in for something special at this Thursday's race."  As the king of karma and creating bad juju and all those other superstitious labels, I regretted it the moment it came out of my mouth.  In my head, it was the equivalent of saying "shutout" with three minutes to go in a hockey game.

Anyhow, I toed the line today, and I say this loosely, because I was one of 3,168 people this morning.  A more accurate description would be, I was crammed into the masses.  I'm used to the half mile or so of weaving and starts and stops, in a 5K but today was pretty rough.  Trying to move to the outside to get onto the sidewalk, I missed my window and ended up taking a sharp, 90 degree turn to get out to the left shoulder (aka the lane of oncoming traffic) much to the chagrin of the police patrolling the race.

Mentally, I felt more comfortable out there but as the 1-mile marker slowly approached, I dreaded looking down at my watch seeing what kind of time I'd have to be making up.  Before glancing down, I thought, "It's just a fun 5K.  Go run your sub-20.  Enjoy it.  Your legs are a little banged up from the week. Kind of a sub-par warmup.  Just cruise."  Then I looked at my watch: 5:57.  Ok, that would explain why I felt a little fatigued.

My friend and I drove the course yesterday after picking up our packets to get a handle on the hills.  This proved a wise decision since you could barely see 75 meters ahead of the fog that rolled in overnight.  Now we knew when they'd be coming.  Mile 1-2 also became the hilliest section of the race in terms of elevation gain.  I called upon my weeks of hill striders and interval workouts and powered up and ahead of a lot of the field and made some ground back.  Mile marker 2 came out of nowhere: 6:15.  Contrary to the way I felt after Mile 1, I felt some juice in my legs still and thought I had a better mile in me still.  So, the stride got a little longer, the turnover got a little faster, and the pipes opened up.

With the fog, I couldn't see the finish line but could hear the announcer.  I feared that I'd go into my final kick and that voice wouldn't get any closer.  That's when I saw the crowd of people lining the shoulder and knew I had to be close.  I threw the hammer down and sprinted to the finish.

I caught the 8 as last number on my watch (my shirt covered the rest of it) and thought 18:58.  A smile crossed my face, happy to have broken 19.  After ensuring I wasn't going to throw up, I took a peek at my watch and....18:28!  I chuckled and then thought, "Did they measure the course right?"

Final stats: 29/3,168; 8/256 (19-29); 18:28/5:57 pace

If I had any doubts that this training program was working, they have since been wiped away.  A 23 second PR will do that for you.  After that first thought, my next one was, "Let's go eat some turkey!"  And it's with that that I conclude this Turkey Day post.

Hoping everyone has a happy Thanksgiving and successful Turkey Trots today!

Running Through the Storm

For the last two days, a storm has settled over the Washington area. With it has come troughs of rain, chilly winds, and the general gloomy pall that seems to accompany consecutive gray days. However, with no thunder booming or lightning crackling, I've seen no reason to stay inside, or God forbid, pound on the hamster wheel known as the treadmill.

So, after throwing back a few extra vitamin c chewables, I pulled on my waterproof jacket and headed out on the roads of my neighborhood. Last night the program called for a recovery run, and while I wanted to take the day off, I couldn't afford to and still get all my miles in this week. Rather than making it a 7-miler, I took it down to 5 and finished with 4x(3x30m) on a medium incline hill. Blinking back the rain, I felt the badness from my legs get flushed away and my legs return to normalcy....believing in that recovery run.

Actually, I've really come to enjoy this basic aerobic runs. While every run has a purpose, this one is simply to go out and run...doesn't matter how fast, and I feel better, looser, and stronger when it's over. It doesn't hurt that I feel pretty hard core going out there in the rain. Right? I mean don't we all (a little bit) feel bad ass after heading out into the rain after, before, during work and answer that fateful exchange: "What did you do last night?"

"Well, I ran and then..."

"Wait, you ran?"

"Yeah...what? Oh, I mean it's just a little water."

But there are other storms out there. Tonight was night two of the rain storm that doesn't seem to be going anywhere until Thursday. That wasn't the issue, though. Tonight was about forging through the lactic acid storm that raged in my legs and at times felt like a hurricane. I wondered if the three consecutive days of running would eventually catch up with me. I'd had some IT-band tightness going on, which brought on a rigorous healing regime last night of stretching, foam roller, icing, bio-freeze, and "the stick" before bed. Over the top? Perhaps. But I felt great this morning. That is until I set out on my second interval tonight.

I haven't been going to the track for these workouts lately, partly because the Flint Hill Football team hates me, partly because I've been getting out of work late, and partly because I've heard how incredibly hilly Boston is (beyond heartbreak). Therefore, I've been running my intervals on the hills around my neighborhood. Tonight called for 6x1000m. The odd intervals featured more downhill than uphill. The evens the opposite.

I. Suffered. On. The. Evens.

I got about 400m in and felt the lactic acid swirling in my legs and locking up the muscles. I envisioned vines wrapping around my calves and hamstrings, tightening their grip and slowing me down. With every stride, I tried to imagine those vines ripping, but just couldn't make it happen. The rain picked up but I had retreated into myself to try and take cover from the storm raging on the inside.

Everything flowed on the odd numbers and it became a matter of finding a rhythm on those even ones. I kept trying to focus on my turnover, churning my feet and repeating the cycle. I turned the corner to head back to the house and hit that uphill each time, and each time it me back...harder. I was able to keep each rep within four seconds of the last but I paid for it each time. On that last set, weathering that storm one more time, all I could think about was that well-deserved day off tomorrow to get ready for Thursday's Turkey Trot. I'm hoping by then the storm will have passed.

Does any weather stop you from getting out there? How do you weather the storms during your training runs?

Warming up...for Thanksgiving

What could be better than having Thanksgiving dinner? Having TWO Thanksgiving dinners! As luck would have it, my cousin-in-law, who lives not far from us, insisted that we have a Thanksgiving dinner with her because she has to travel to a wedding this week. It doesn’t hurt that she’s a fabulous cook. The offer, quite frankly, was too good to turn down.

Similar to signing up to run a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, I felt I had to “earn” this pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. What better way than to crank out a 15-miler?

Recalling my 15-miler from two weeks ago, I went into this one with some trepidation. I checked the weather forecast religiously this week to find the optimum day to run in case we experienced one of those freak Indian Summer days. Fortunately, the high only hit 55…ideal!

Still, my wife and I just could not get started this weekend. For me, I think the two hockey games and late nights, all while trying to squeeze in my workouts, had finally caught up with me. We moved through the house in a haze of exhaustion on Saturday and ended up putting in 11-hours of sleep Saturday night.

Waking up groggy and zombie-like on Sunday morning, I walked Mattie as a warmup to try and clear my head and get the juices going in my legs. Then, I laced up the kicks and set out.

Rather than heading out to Manassas Battlefield, I decided to stay local and run from the house. But instead of mapping out a 15-mile route, I ran my 5-mile lake loop three times. Similar to the Battlefield, it rolls, both up and down, meaning that no part of my legs is neglected…calves and hammies on the way up and quads on the way back down.

Plus, I’ve been experimenting with a new training program that adds some element of speed work in each workout with the exception of one straight up aerobic run of 40-50 minutes. So, this 15-miler was a cut down run, i.e. starting at 7:30 pace and cutting down 20 seconds per mile every 5K.

What I like about this sort of run is that it forces me to start slower and warmup naturally and pick up the pace as I go…what I don’t like is that running sub-6:30 after pounding out 12-miles is BRUTAL. That’s about where the self-loathing began but as I rounded the corner back into our neighborhood, my spirits lifted, and I started to focus on what I had just accomplished, rather than the suffering part of it.

With each run like this, I learn to push that exhaustion threshold just a little bit more. It’s that good pain, the kind that you know isn’t leading down the road toward injury, rather that you’ve pushed yourself to the aching point. What makes it worth it, to me, is soaking in the post-run/accomplishment euphoria that follows, and channeling the confidence that comes with it into future runs. I’ll always have the memory of that run, and runs like it, to call on when the going gets tough.

Of course, the euphoria eventually wears off and I’m left with the fall out. Yesterday it was the feeling that someone had taken a bat to my legs a la the hobbling scene in Misery. I did some yoga stretching and hit the foam roller pretty hard. It helped…but…I yearned to slide under the covers and just let my body heal itself.

Until I could do that, however, I stuffed my face for an hour with roasted chicken that just fell off the bone when I carved into it, homemade stuffing and cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, and apple pie. I am sufficiently warmed up for Thursday’s feast and ready to take on the week’s upcoming workouts, including Thursday morning’s Turkey Trot.

What are your Turkey Trot/racing plans between now and Turkey Day?