The GU Taste Test - Part I

Two weeks till the Broad Street Run, and my long runs are getting long enough that I'm needing to take energy gels to carry me through to the end. In previous years, I've stopped into a local running or sporting goods store to indiscriminately grab a handful of GU gels. Problem is, they're not cheap, so I know I'd be better off buying in bulk. But that raises another problem: what could be worse than having to consume a box of 24 gels in a flavor that you discover repulses you?

Fortunately, GU offers a sampler pack containing an assortment of various flavors. It costs a little more than the single-flavor boxes, but, if you're like me and are worried about getting caught in the unfortunate scenario I described above, it's probably worthwhile for assisting you in determining which flavors might merit the purchase of a 24-pack in the future.

Today I began my taste test. I ran 10 miles, accompanied by four GU packets, two each of Vanilla Bean and Mandarin Orange. Following the directions, I consumed the first one, a Vanilla Bean packet, 15 minutes before I began my run.

YECHHHHH! The Vanilla Bean was awful. At first, it seemed okay, but as I finished, its sickening sweetness lingered in my mouth for minutes. And the worst part? While there are two of most of the flavors in the sampler pack, there are three Vanilla Beans! Fortunately, the Mandarin Orange was much better, almost refreshing, in fact.

So that's week one. Next week, I'll try out two more flavors and render my verdict. Stay tuned.

Broad Street Run 2011--Part II

Although only 32 years old, the Broad Street Run has become one of Philadelphia's great civic rituals. Its place on the city's liturgical calendar is fixed to the first Sunday in May, a point near the midpoint of spring by which time it has become clear that winter has lost its grip and summer has made a few tentative attempts to be noticed.

Nor is it possible to notice the race itself. From under 8000 participants in it's first running, in 1980, the number of runners has grown to 30,000, a figure at which its sponsor has capped registrations and which has been reached the last two years.

Coming on the year after the hottest race day and two after one of the coolest, this year's race occurred in near perfect spring weather. The temperature when we arrived at the starting corrals (around 7:15 a.m.) was probably in the high 50s, nor did it rise to an uncomfortable level in the course of the race. Indeed, as I ran, I passed a number of other participants who commented on how much nicer it was this year.

Broad Street Run 2011--Part I

Yesterday I ran my second Broad Street Run. It was a great experience, as was last year's, although I was disappointed that not more friends were able to run it. Registration filled up quickly, faster than many had anticipated. I got a place by registering as soon as it had opened--which is not to brag; rather, it's more of an indication of the running geek that I seem to be becoming. It is, in short, an indication of a near-pathological condition.

First the big picture: I ran the race in 1:42 and change. My goal was to run in under 1:45, so I was pleased with the outcome. The specifics, however--well I'll deal with them in a subsequent post. My daughter Madeleine also ran and finished. She and I were both happy about her having done so, although she's not sure if she'll run a race like this again. Still, it's exciting for me to see her take on something like this and to stick with it through a sometimes arduous training regimen.

Run-up to the Run

It’s that time of the year again: the Broad Street Run will take place in less than three weeks, and, once again, I’m training for it. This year’s registration filled up within five days of opening, but I played it safe by registering within minutes from the beginning. Within a few days, but before the registration closed, my seventeen-year-old daughter informed me that she, too, wanted to run, so I got her in under the wire.

It’s been alternately fun and maddening to train with my daughter. Case in point: I spent all of last Saturday at a conference for my work, so I knew I’d have to do my long run on Sunday. Late Saturday afternoon, Madeleine texted me to let me know that she’d have to run at 7 a.m. because of a commitment she had at 10. I’d looked forward to having a little more time between waking up and running, but it was not to be. Psychologically, then, I wasn’t in the best shape for a long run, but I got it in.

Still, it’s been fun to do this with Madeleine. She’s faster than I am, at least on long runs, but I’ve been able to finish earlier on some of the short runs. It’s excited, though, to see her do the long runs: each week she runs a longer distance than she’d ever done before.

Coming off the injury to my ankle, I’m doing pretty well. I still have to be vigilant to do exercises to strengthen my left leg, and I won’t run without an ankle brace. Still, I’m feeling pretty good at this point, so I have no concerns about not being able to race on May 1.

And the hiatus is ... OVER!!!

Today I ran for the first time since November 21, the day of the Philadelphia Half-Marathon. My left ankle and foot seem to have healed, and I've also undergone physical therapy to build up my ankle. And, thanks to the physical therapist, I acquired this little piece of exercise equipment:

It is an inflatable balance disc, and it's good for all sorts of balance training exercises. I've been using it to strengthen my ankle by attempting to stand on one foot for 30 seconds.  And it seems to be making a difference: I at least have more control of the ankle than I've had in a while.

I hit the gym in the early afternoon today. I ran intervals: 2 minutes running, 1 minute walking. As should come as no surprise, I'm not aerobically anywhere close to where I was last fall, but these things will come back with time. For now, I'm just hoping to strengthen what needs to be stronger so I can avoid another injury-enforced hiatus!

Pain-Enforced Rest

It’s been a month to the date since I last ran. November 21 was the date of the Philadelphia Marathon and Half Marathon, the latter of which I ran. It was great fun. The weather was almost perfect: sunny, with temperatures in the upper 30s or low 40s. Although I had some trepidation going into it, the energy of the mass off other runners made the experience exhilarating. As I had done during the Broad Street Run, I ran without music, and I didn’t miss it at all.

Unfortunately, the week before the race, I ended my last training run with pain and weakness in my left ankle. I spent the week wearing an ankle brace (which I also wore during the race), but I knew that I was going to have to take a few weeks off to let my ankle heal. I also made a trip to the orthopedist, who prescribed physical therapy.

I’m happy about the physical therapy, though. I’ve learned that, in many cases, running injuries can be prevented with the right combinations of exercise, stretching, rest, and so on. I’m hoping that what I learn in PT will forestall at least some future injuries.

The orthopedist also recommended that I wait until I’ve gone two weeks pain-free before running again. At that time, I’ll need to spend a little while running on soft surfaces, like a local track or a treadmill. For me, two weeks will end Sunday, and you can bet I’ll be running again next week!

Longer and longer runs

In advance of the Philadelphia Half Marathon, my long runs have been getting longer and longer. All along, my plan has been to increase my total weekly mileage by 10% each week. The increase has been coming on my long run, for which my goal is to run 20% more than the the half-marathon distance (13.1 miles) the week before the race.

Training for Philadelphia's Broad Street Run in the spring, I had increased my long runs to 10 miles. I'd wanted to go further, but I didn't start early enough to increase my mileage safely. This time, though, I planned better than before. During the previous two weekends, I've run 11 and then 12 miles. During the next two, I plan to run 14 and then 16. Barring schedule conflicts, I run two four-mile runs on the weekdays.

The last two runs have been among my most difficult. On the Saturday before last, I woke up later than I'd planned, and, constrained by a tight schedule, went straight from the bed to Forbidden Drive. To suggest that I was unprepared psychologically for the run is an understatement: within the first five minutes, I was already thinking about how long the run was going to be (i.e., interminable). Nor did my attitude improve appreciably during the course of the run. By the time I reached mile 6, I was asking myself why I ever signed up to run the half-marathon in the first place. Unfortunately, hanging it up midway through the run was not an option. The best thing I can say about the run is that I finished.

This past Saturday's run went better, but it was not without its difficulties either. I left from my house and took a route I'd not followed before, running about a mile-and-a-half to the woods at the top of the Wissahickon Valley. I then followed the trail that led down to Forbidden Drive, where I planned to run the middle eight miles of my run. I felt much better about this run. The first four miles went well, and I the third and fourth miles rather hard--too, hard, in fact, for so early in the run. Unfortunately, I had eaten a big lunch, and by mile five, it was coming back to haunt me. Again, I found myself around mile 7 or 8 puzzling over why I had ever committed myself to undertaking a half marathon.

Nevertheless, the route I had chosen offered a number of psychological advantages that made the last four miles easier. I turned around at Bells Mill Road to return home; the very familiarity of the route helped me to bolster my attitude. I then made my way up Valley Green Road--slowly, to be sure, but with no sense that exhaustion was waiting to overtake me. Finally, upon reaching the top of the hill, I resumed a normal pace and continued it (with a couple of walk breaks) until I reached the 12-mile point.

Still, this was a run about which I felt much better in retrospect than during the course of the run. I shouldn't have eaten so much hours before the run, nor should I have run so hard in the early stages. Although I didn't feel tired while I was running, when I stopped running at mile 12, I was surprised at how exhausted I felt. I learned a lesson about pacing, and I gained some confidence not only for the 14- and 16-mile training runs I have coming up but also for my performance on race day.

Another Evening in Chestnut Hill

The shortening days have forced me to take to the streets for my weekday runs, and I have to get them in after dark. On Tuesday evening, I ran through Mt. Airy, following Ardleigh Street to where it intersected with Washington Avenue.

Unfortunately, as I started out I was unaware that the outbound trip from my house is downhill, so I wasn't prepared for the return trip. I made it, of course, and completed my four miles on streets close to my house. I also ran without walk breaks, so the run seemed particularly arduous. Even my time wasn't very good by my already low standards: I ran at a roughly 11'15" pace.

East Mt. Airy, alas, has fewer wide residential streets than the adjacent neighborhood, Chestnut Hill. On Thursday evening, then, I decided to run from my house through Chestnut Hill. Furthermore, I planned out my run so that most of it would be on asphalt rather than on the concrete sidewalks.

I ran at an even slower pace than two evenings before. I did take walk breaks, but I also had not slept well the previous two nights. I also forgot to wear my reflective vest, so I was more nervous about cars. It was, nevertheless, a great evening for a run, and I was happy to get out. And, notwithstanding my slower pace, the run did help me to alleviate some stress. In short, it was one of those runs that made me feel good about running.

Crazy Eight

One of the great advantages of using a running GPS is that it obviates the needs to plan out one's run too carefully. This morning, faced with some tight constraints on my time (due to my failure to begin my run earler), I knew that was going to have to lop off the more time-consuming parts of my usual long-run ritual. In my case, this is the drive to and from the parking lot above Valley Green. Instead, I knew that I was going to need to run from the moment I left my front door. Fortunately, my GPS made it possible for me to gauge my distance.

Today's run, then, took me from my house, through Chestnut Hill, down Valley Green Road, onto the orange and white trails, to Forbidden Drive, and back. I'd avoided this course until now and would have continued to do so had I other options. Indeed, not having consulted a map beforehand, I nevertheless had intended to find a path to Forbidden Drive with a less strenuous route back. Instead of taking the fork from Springfield Avenue to Valley Green Road, I followed Springfield through a neighborhood until the road dumped me out onto Valley Green Road. From there, I realized that my best shot at hitting Forbidden Drive would be to continue downhill.

Still, I avoided a direct route to Forbidden Drive. Instead, I got onto the orange trail and then onto the white trail (which runs above the orange trail) before it once again meets the orange trail. When I reached the first Rex Avenue bridge, I crossed over to Forbidden Drive and followed it out to Bell's Mill Road.

When I turned around, I became aware that I was going to be able to get my eight miles in if I returned roughly the way I came. This would mean, however, that I would have to ascend the hill from Valley Green Inn to the junction with Springfield Avenue. I adjusted my strategy accordingly: instead of taking one-minute walk breaks every three minutes as I had been doing, I reduced the time between breaks to two minutes. And, sure enough, I was able to make it up the hill comfortably. From there, I continued home, completing eight miles far enough out that the walk home would give me the opportunity to get my heart rate down to close to 100 bpm.

Runs like these build confidence. I now know that running up the hill from Valley Green is not so daunting. Of course, it helped that the temperature was in the high 50s or low 60s with low humidity. Yet I believe a more important factor contributing to the success of my uphill climb was the slower pace that I took. By resisting the urge to run too fast up the hill, I was able to conquer it. Perhaps I even learned a lesson about pacing in the process.

Tennessee Run

Over the weekend, I went to Tennessee to attend a reunion for my high school class. I stayed with a friend, John, who is also a runner; in fact, he's going to come to run the Philadelphia half-marathon with me in November. Needless to say, he was also up for a training run.

This past week, I ran fifteen miles, of which eight were logged during yesterday's run. We had great weather: temperatures in the low to mid 70s and slight amount of humidity. John figured out an eight-mile course through his neighborhood, which, as you can see from the map, lies on a peninsula jutting out into Old Hickory Lake outside of Nashville.

This run was unusual in two respects. First, I've rarely run with someone else (except during a race). Instead, John and I ran together for the first six miles. My pace was slightly slower than usual, partly because I wanted to conserve my resource in order to finish eight miles; I also wanted to maintain a pace that made it possbile to carry on a conversation. This made the run all the more pleasant.

The run was also unusual in that I took no walk breaks for the first six miles. Nevertheless, my time for these miles was comparable to that for running with walk breaks. When I finally did take walk breaks, in the last two miles, my pace was significantly slower, probably because I hadn't been able to conserve enough resources to prior to the seventh mile.

At this point, I'll probably continue to run my short runs without walk breaks. I do run four miles faster without walk breaks than with them. Yet for the longer runs, the walk breaks pay off over the course of the entire run.