Double Blind

It has been a couple weeks since I last reported, and there hasn’t been much to report – because of schedule constraints, I’ve been running with 30 minute loads and tried to get back into ’synchronization’ with the regular schedule this week.

This Monday I attempted to start off what was the week 9 of the Learn to Run 10k schedule, but it was horrible – after the first 10 minutes, my left muscle in my left foot started to feel very tense, borderline painful. One of the few things I remember from physical education in school was that if anything hurt – absolutely stop. Ideally, stop before it begins hurting – which I did. I exercised the better discretion of valor and decided to stop my training session and instead just play around with the weights.

I don’t know what was happening that day, whether I got off the wrong side of the bed or didn’t eat well, but I also felt cardiovascularily tired as well, so it was just one of those days.

I rested for a couple days and Wednesday afternoon, I resumed training – and took a longer than normal warmup time, consisting of stretching the various leg muscles. After getting on the treadmill, I felt quite good and did 50 minutes of running (10 minutes running, 1 minute walk, repeated 5 times). There was no pain or tenseness in the leg muscle, so I was quite happy that there doesn’t appear to be any injury.

On Thursday, I did some swimming, the first time I hit the water in quite some time. I am ridiculously bad at swimming, but floundered up and down the swimming pool enough times to get my other leg muscles exercised. I will be taking Friday’s running session lightly before attempting to (once again) resuming the regular schedule next week.

I decided to don on my old shoes today, and proceeded to blaze through a 32 minute run (4 minute run, 1 minute walk, repeated 8 times) without incident. In fact, the cardiovascular and calf situation was quite good – I suspected I could have gone on for much longer without incident and also faster (beyond my usual training speed of 6.6 miles per hour). The only change this time was the lack of a fan blowing air on me during the run, which caused me to sweat what seemed to be a gallon of sweat after finishing.

My old shoes gave me no issues whatsoever with blisters. My old shoes are tried and true, reliable and great. I am sure that anybody else looking at them would definitely think it’s time for a new pair of shoes.

A couple other exercise notes – one is that I ate some rice a couple hours before training and while I am not completely familiar with the metabolic impact of eating food before exercise, I do know that rice contains starches and carbohydrates which can be easily processed into usable energy.

The first half hour on the treadmill I was watching Poker After Dark – the Cash Game, which I find to be a very entertaining rendition of television poker. The second half hour was spent watching some UFC match where just watching these guys punch and kick away at each other made me feel tired. Eventually one of them won with a “sleeper” hold that rendered the other opponent unconscious. Maybe that’s why I was sweating so profusely.

I am glad to be back on the immunological mend and over my brief illness.

I will also see if I can structure some outdoor runs if we get a sneak heat wave coming around in February – I want my feet to be used to asphalt instead of the rubberized surface of the treadmill.

A few months ago during the H1N1 hysteria, I took the flu shot. I doubt it really did anything.

Just like what plagued my training schedule last year, I got another flu. This is twice this year, just like last year. It was not a bad flu by any means – just a very moderate instance of a sore throat, semi-sore limbs and lots of mucous coming out of the nose. What was ironic was that the run I did last Monday, the longest training run of the year, went routinely. The next day, I started feeling the tingles in the throat, so I took things very easy for the next few days and did not go to the gym.

I am ordinarily a fairly healthy person when it comes to my immune system, but the last few years have featured some sort of flu that takes me out of action for at least a few days. This year and last year were two minor flus so far. At the rate that I am going in 2010, this is a flu each month.

I had earlier expressed interest in healing my legs and specifically my calves, so this was my opportunity to take it easy.

Today I feel mostly healed so I headed off to the gym. My recovery schedule will be doing a day of 3 minute run, 1 minute walk (10 times); then 4 minute run, 1 minute walk (8 times), 5 minute run, 1 minute walk (7 times) before resuming my regular schedule. I did the first day today while watching the middle of the Super Bowl. The onside kick to begin the second half was one hell of a gamble, and amazingly, it paid off.

One other note of comment is that I finally donned a new pair of shoes – another inexpensive Walmart shoe special. I had been running with a very cheap pair for the last year and a half, so this is yet another new cheap pair. I started developing the feeling of a blister on my left pinky toe, so I have experience with new shoes and blisters – doesn’t matter how expensive the shoes are, it always happens. And I have defenses to prevent them from happening again. If these new shoes turn out well, great. If not, I’ve got my old reliable shoes (with holes in the mesh in the side, really glamorous – but functional).

I begin today’s post observing that I forgot to sign up for the Sun Run in January to get the $5 off on the early bird registration. Oops! I’ve set a Google Calendar alert to register for late March now since the late fee only kicks in on April 1. I doubt any corporate sponsors out there will want to take a 60th percentile runner, but no harm in asking the world out there…

After last week’s training, each time I got onto the treadmill I felt my calves were a bit tender. I thought the three days of rest over the weekend would do me some good, but when I got on the treadmill again today, I still felt a bit of tenderness, but it wasn’t as bad as last Friday.

Today I am following the week 8 schedule on the Learn To Run 10k program. Today’s session was 40 minutes of total running, 10 minute run, 1 minute walk, repeated 4 times. It didn’t go too badly since I tried to keep the steps at 180 per minute – my cardiovascular processing has gotten quite a bit better over the past month and exchanging extra cardiovascular load for less impact on the feet is worth it. I didn’t feel as much energy today as I did in last weeks’ session, but I still made it through comfortably – the 20 to 30 minute mark was the worst of it, but the last 10 minute leg went quite well.

There was still the tingling on the bottom of the feet (or rather the right foot) but it wasn’t as bad as previous times.

I am concerned that my calves do feel relatively tender even when rested for three days – makes me wonder whether I should try an ultra-low load week to let the muscles heal. I remember when doing my end of December/beginning of January runs when my schedule was interrupted for various reasons that my legs felt surprisingly good when getting back on the treadmill, at the cost of feeling winded while running.

The rest of the week is relatively light, with 21 minutes of load and 30 minutes of load on the Wednesday and Friday sessions. Next week is when there will be a training session that gets very close to 10km.

The other comment deals with weight management – although weight reduction was not a primary goal for running, it is a secondary objective to at least keep steady, if not reduce weight. After exercise, I try not to eat anything for at least an hour after, and whenever I feel thirsty, I just drink water, until such a time I am no longer thirsty. A very easy way of gaining unnecessary calories through sugar (carb) intake is by drinking sweetened drinks after exercising. Little stuff like this can shed mass – I think I have lost about 4 pounds since beginning this whole procedure. Ideally if I lost another 10 that would be great since it would translate into a much faster run time. I guess the trick is not to gain it back after the race is over.

Some group of researchers are doing some critical analysis on why humans were able to run with bare feet and avoid injury. Which part of the foot touches the ground first is apparently a critical factor – modern running shoes encourage the heel to the ground first, while barefoot running has the forefoot striking the ground first.

The first day of the “week 7″ schedule asks for a 10 minute run, 1 minute walk and repeat this until you’ve done it 4 times or have run for 5 kilometers. At the treadmill pace of 6.6 miles per hour, this works out to about 28.4 minutes of running. The last time I attempted this was back in December 21 and it failed miserably. This time, I fared better. I did the 30 minutes of running, with the observation that exactly after I started the 3rd 10-minute leg, that my calves started getting tight again. It wasn’t bad, but after the 30th minute, my feet really started feeling numb. It didn’t affect my running performance.

I wanted to continue onto the 40 minute of running mark (an “extended mission”) so I lowered the treadmill down to 3.0 miles per hour and walked 4 minutes, and my feet felt a lot better. Then I ran another 10 minutes, but the feet got semi-numb when that was concluded.

I have no idea what is going on in my legs or feet, but it was better than last month. I do historically note that I tend to run better when my feet are numb during the actual race day, but this probably isn’t a good thing.

A positive note, however, is that my cardiovascular performance seems to be quite good – I was never out of breath throughout the entire running procedure.

The last note on the training session was that they had the Food channel on one of the televisions and they had a show of this guy making his own fresh pizzas from scratch with various toppings on it and sprinkled with fresh Mozzarella cheese – and baked inside a wood burning oven stove (which is the only true way to make pizza, in my opinion). It looked sooooooooooo good while running. I love the Food channel, but the only problem with it is that while watching it you get so hungry even when you’ve just eaten!

My “week 11″ (based on the week 6 training schedule) began on January 16th. The January 18th session was done outdoors because it was a sunny day, which was my first outdoor attempt. As I pointed out earlier, I will have to make sure that my shoes are “correct” since I suspect they make a huge difference while running.

This was a four-session week with Saturday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday being run days – I wanted to get back to the Monday-Wednesday-Friday cycle. I just repeated Wednesday’s run for Friday (January 22). I noticed my legs on Friday’s run were a bit more “tired” after running, specifically with the feeling of tingling on the bottom of the feet, but it was not severe. What was a little more disturbing was that my legs still felt noticeably sore for most of Saturday, but this went away on Sunday. I am wondering whether this is normal or whether I’m doing some sort of real damage to myself – I hope it is just regular soreness, but if it continues I will do some more research on it.

I hope after resting for two days that Monday’s (today’s) run goes well with the Week 7 cycle. I suspect that the pounding on the feet and legs is amplified with increased body mass over the past few years, so I am fairly conscious of the holistic nature of running – if I shed 5 pounds, that’s 5 pounds less that my legs have to carry with every step. And since the ideal pace is 180 steps per minute, each 10km race ideally should be 10,080 steps. This implies that each step should be a meter!

Although the beginning of January was disrupted by vacation plans, I resumed running at the regular three times a week schedule and started off again with some maintenance running, with about 30 minutes of total running load, dispersed with 1 minute walks every 3, 4 and 5 minutes. I started to go by “the book” again, starting at week 6 on January 16th, a Saturday.

The runs have been proceeding fine with respect to cardiovascular impact and also the feel of the feet.

Yesterday, however, it was a nice day outside and I attempted to run outside for a simple 3 minute run, 1 minute walk, repeated 7 times. I was wearing a different set of shoes (I was not at my usual location on the treadmill) and noticed around the 15 minute mark that my calves were feeling very tender. It could be either due to me not wearing these shoes for awhile, or that I am not too accustomed to running on asphalt (opposed to treadmill rubber). I will be experimenting with this by wearing my old used shoes that I normally train with and see if it causes as much trouble. I am also curious whether my actual pace is the normal 6.6 miles an hour that I keep the treadmill out – I would suspect I am slightly faster than this outside.

I’ve got roughly 15 weeks to get to the point where I can run 55 minutes straight and to also try to improve my speed such that I will be able to do it at an average speed of 6.7 miles per hour, exactly.

The Christmas holiday is always disruptive to exercise schedules for two reasons – travel and food. I basically have written off trying to keep to the schedule during this time and just get to the gym whenever I can and do my “maintenance running”, which I try to keep to a 30 minute load, and in 5-minute chunks space by 1 minute walks. The first disruption was during Christmas Day where the gym was closed, and the only opportunity I had to work out was on December 28th. Surprisingly it felt fine on the treadmill although I encountered the same issue with the right calf, but it wasn’t that much of a hindrance.

I also missed the December 30th run due to some other commitments, while on January 1st the gym was open and I was able to run again – this time I ended the run with 10 minutes of straight running. Oddly enough I did not encounter any difficulty with the legs or even on the cardiovascular side of things, so it appears that maybe resting my legs on a light-load schedule might be worth it.

I will not be around for the next few days and as a result I will not be packing my running shoes. However, I will be very close to a swimming pool so I will attempt to at least keep in aerobic shape by swimming in a couple days before resuming my running on Thursday, January 7. I will be starting from week 6 of the schedule again and hopefully build up to the point where I can reach week 12/13 and be able to increase my speed. It will be interesting to see what an effect this will have on my endurance.

I have finally gotten out of my summer mode and November was the month I started to concentrate on the next Sun Run. I did the first training today. The game plan is to follow the “Learn to Run 10k” program to the letter. Because of the 2010 Olympics, the Vancouver Sun Run will be on May 9, 2010, compared to the usual start time of the third week in April.

Just to recap, my running times were as follows:

2006 – 57:14 (race recap)
2007 – 57:08 (race recap)
2008 – 56:05 (race recap; this was an exceptionally draining attempt)
2009 – 58:53 (race recap)

I have taken an unconventional view that the Sun Run represents more than a simple 10km race, rather it represents a barometer of age. Since people get slower as they age, it is truly a race against mortality. If you can beat your all-time best time, you are still turning back the clock.

My goal in 2009 was to beat my 56:05 time, but I absolutely ran out of gas during the race and had a very lame performance. This year, my goal is to gun for the 56 minute and 4 second mark, although my analysis would suggest that I would be lucky to break an hour.

Here are some initial thoughts going into the training regimen I will be putting myself under:

1. I seem to have gained a bit more weight than in April 2009; likewise, I weighed more in 2008 than I did in 2007. While this trend of increasing weight is not favourable to better race times, I believe proper weight management through exercise, and disciplined nutritional intake will be a critical variable. Generally speaking if I got back to my 2008 weight I will be happy – it is not a dramatic reduction in weight, about 10 pounds from present.

2. Higher weight puts an excess strain on the feet, knees and joints in that area, especially as you are pounding your bones with more force. I am getting older and have to be very aware not to exercise in such a way that will injure myself.

3. I should really buy a better quality pair of shoes for running before commencing longer duration runs. I know getting better shoes is just like giving me a thousand dollar set of golf clubs to improve my golf game (i.e. it will have no effect at all), but I am more conscious of getting padding on those shoes to avoid potential injury. I know if I ever feel like I’ve injured myself, that it is too late – the goal is to prevent one.

4. What really killed me in 2009 was when I caught the flu and never regained my training regimen to the strength that I had in 2008. If I get sick with the flu (or heaven forbid, H1N1), I absolutely need to be disciplined in getting back to speed again.

5. Heat management will also be important – as the race is starting a couple weeks later in May, it will be warmer and this means more sweat. My body sweats quite a bit even when during trivial amounts of work (and this has always been the case since I have been little). I also know, through experimentation, that my output is a heck of a lot better when I stay cool. I don’t know how this can be managed, but it is something to think about.

6. I definitively can certify that high-cardiovascular exercise improves mental functioning, and look forward to this side-effect of Sun Run training.

7. I am rather proud of transcribing the race results, and documenting this. Keeping a weblog active for a long period of time has huge information retention benefits, and this is worthy of a future post as it has little to do with the Sun Run itself.

Finally, in the style of Anthony, I will be using this weblog as an accountability mechanism and report back periodically on the results of the training.

Today I did 8 minutes of total running; consisting of 1 minute runs, and 2 minute walks, repeated 8 times. The runs were at 6.8 miles per hour, while the walking was at 3.8 miles per hour. Because they were showing Survivorman, I walked for about 15 minutes after performing the official training. I generally felt good, despite the fact that I haven’t really done any heavy cardio-type exercise since the previous Sun Run (April 2009). Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.