The running week and a bloody nose...

The weather decided to cause havoc on my running week. Okay, I caused havoc on my running week and blamed it on weather.....

After the trail race (race report to come shortly!), an easy week of running was planned. Well - let me rephrase that - it was a week without speed work but some nice long slow miles.

All week, I heard it was going to rain on the weekend. I got really worked up about it, and sliding my Saturday run to Friday morning (also kids schedules played a role), and my Wednesday run to Tuesday. Tuesday run was a success. On Thursday, one child was sick, so it was my turn to stay home. No issues, I had planned to take the day off of running, and run Friday morning. Well, Thursday was a gorgeous day, Friday called for rain, and I didn't want to take more time off of work for running since I just took time off to take care of the kiddo....

Hmm....I could do the long run on Thursday night. My wife was going to be home around 7. I could start at 7 at night, end around 11. Okay - I can do this.

I ran 9.5 miles. Called my wife to drag the kids out with her and and come and pick me up. Bonk. Working around the house all day, not eating right, and doing a nigh time run were not for me.

Okay, long run had to wait until Sunday - it was suppose to rain.

So, yesterday, I went out - ran long, and had a really good run...some of it in the rain. Nice run in prep for the 50k in less than two weeks. Clif bar and Clif Mocha gels were used along with 40 oz of HEED. Probably not enough while I was running, but it was good enough and I felt fine after the run....

Well, until later that day...

When I was playing catch with my son and wasn't paying attention (yes, me, not my son) - he nailed me in the nose with the baseball. Hard. I think I've had two bloody noses in my life. The amount of blood that came out yesterday was nothing like I had ever seen. I could have ran to a blood bank and someone could have used the pint of blood I lost....

Anyway, all good. Next time, I'll be paying attention to the ball.

The week that was:

4/21 - 8.3 miles

4/22 - 9.5 miles

4/23 - 7.14 miles

4/24 - 5.77 miles

4/25 - 27 miles

YTD - 851.95

Running weather, kids, and the Twins!

The weather has been great here the last couple of weeks. The trees and flowers are blooming and it feels great to get outside and run. Getting out and running is really fun when the weather is as nice as it has been!

My oldest son's under 9 baseball team rocks. My son throws the baseball harder than I have ever thrown a ball - yes, even today he can out throw me!

My other son is playing tee ball. He gets bored and doesn't understand why he can't play "big boy" ball. Why does he want to grow up so fast? Tee ball is the best - there are no losers, everyone hits, and everyone is always safe!!

Just so I don't forget to log the miles - here are the past couple of weeks of runs. There is a race in there and I'll do a race write up soon.

4/9 - 10.33 miles - 10 x hill workout

4/10 - Easy 6.5 miles

4/11 - 7.5 miles

4/12 - OFF (Taper for race week!)

4/13- 8 miles

4/14 - 7 miles

4/15 - OFF

4/16 - 4 miles

4/17 - 16.5 miles (1 mile warm-up - 15.5 mile race - 1 hr 51 minutes and change - 7:11 pace for the trail race - write up soon!)

4/18 - 6.5 miles easy

4/19 - 7 miles easy

4/20-13.15 miles easy

YTD - 794.24 miles.

Oh yeah - after the race on Saturday - I was treated by my rock'n bro to this:

What a great afternoon!! By the way - the Twins won this game against the Royals! Twins are the best!

Be careful what you ask for.

As most of you know, I have a running coach who puts together my running plan. Basically, it works like this. I email coach and tell him I what races I want to run. Coach provides me a training plan that includes 5 to 7 running days a week, and includes a mix of one or two days of speed work, a midweek shorter-longer run, a weekend long runs and a few days of easy recovery runs.

(A shorter-longer run is a run greater than 10 miles but not nearly as long as the weekend run- see, I have lost it....)

Nothing too much out of the ordinary for any plan you might pick up from Runner's World, Running Times, or a book such as Advanced Marathoning or from legendary coach Jack Daniels in his book - Daniels Running formula. There are plenty of them out there but all of the long distances basically have the same formula as above.

So why hire a coach? I ran a 3:06 marathon without a coach and haven't run one faster since. For me, it basically comes down to three reasons.

1. Injuries - I know have a history with stress fractures. Books don't exactly do the best job of making adjustments on the fly when my shin problems rear their ugly head.


2. Going beyond the 26.2 marathon. Like I mentioned above, a plethora of choices for 26.2 training but going beyond seems to narrow down the training guides and books quite a bit. And even then, the message is not nearly as consistent as it is for the marathons. Some plans do not include speed work, others really rack up the mileage, etc.


3. Keeps me accountable. I send a report to coach weekly.

I was taking a look my plan and noticed with my 50k coming up in May, on my schedule, my longest run was "only" 3 hrs and 15 minutes.

So the email looked like this...

I was just taking a look at my plan between now and the two upcoming racing (4/17 & 5/8). It looks like this weekend’s (4/3) 3 hr and 15 minutes is my last long run. This seems a little far out from the 50k to start to shorten the training plan, at least mentally. I trust your plan, just now sure about me mentally to go the distance of a 50k. Longest run so far this year was 22 miles. Thoughts?

I was hoping for an email to just run longer on the weekend of 4/24 - maybe 25 miles or so. Here was his reply...

4/3- 3 hrs. 45 min. ~27-28 miles
4/10- 60-80 min, EASY
4/17- Race 25k-- Warm up 3 miles, race 15.5, cool down 5 miles-- ~23 miles 4/24- 4 hrs- Easy- ~28-29 miles

Wow!! Serious mileage.

During the 4/3 run - it ended being on 4/2 due to traveling on Easter weekend, and I came in right at 3:45 with 27.66 miles. I've decided to pay attention more to my nutrition on these long runs. So I decided to track what I was eating just prior and during the run. I had a pre-run snack of a Clif bar and 12 oz water. Over the 3 hrs and 45 minutes – I had 40 oz of Heed (.75 scoop per 20 oz of water) and 6 fig Newtons (2 per hour at 1 hr, 2 hr, and 3 hr). After running that long I was a little nauseous. I went home, and had some chocolate milk for recovery.

After some review, I don't think I hit my carb target right. Basically, I'm aiming for 40-60 grams of carbs per hour and the above worked out to 25.6 grams of carbs per hour.

I don't have many long runs to experiment with, however, I did have a 90 minute progression run (30 min easy, 30 min at 7:12 pace, and 30 earlier this week. For the first time, I used a HEED and Clif Mocha gel together. I drank about 5 oz of heed mix after the easy warm-up, 10 oz along with the gel at the 45 min mark; and the last 5 oz with the 35 min left. I felt great through my run. Here are the products I used:

On a side note - I was running along a gravel road for an easy 6.2 miles one day. It looked like this. The road had recently been flooded so I expected some rough spots.

Looks like a pot hole coming up.....

Wow - this pothole is bigger than my car! Yes, I believe that a car was lost in the pot hole - do you see all that is left is a tire???

Anyway - the week of running that was:

4/1 - 6.2 miles - easy

4/2 - 27.66 miles in 3:45

4/3 - OFF

4/4 - 7 miles - EASY

4/5 - 5.2 miles of tech trail

4/6 - 40 min tempo run - 6 miles at 6:47 pace - total of 8.7 miles

4/7 - 30/30/30 min each of easy, race and threshold - 12.15 miles total

4/8 - 6.2 easy miles

YTD - 707.76 miles

Trails...

I hit some trails yesterday. We've had some flooding issues, and usually some of these trails are well underwater. However, yesterday the trails were in good shape.

The first picture is one of three "water" crossings. I went over these twice, for a total of six small water crossings. I know, not really a water crossing, more of a running through puddle....

The trails were pretty technical, lots of turns and switchbacks, so it was hard to get an even pace. However, the small ups and downs and quick turns are great training for the Afton Trail Run 50k in July.

I was out for a total of 1:45 and ran 12 miles. Not a great run, but after Tuesday's hard interval work, I was happy to enjoy the trail running. It was a windy and warm spring day - about 80 degrees and decided to carry water. During the run, I went through 20 oz of water and HEED mix.

3/26 - 14.5 miles

3/27 - 6.5 miles

3/28 - OFF

3/29 - 8.15

3/30 - Split day - 8 X .5 miles @ 3:06; .25 X btwn with a warm up and cool down of 2 miles each at 7:10 pace - total 10 miles. 4 miles easy in the PM - total for the day was 14 miles

3/31 - 12 miles - 6 miles of tech trails.

YTD = 634.65