Run lots

I have an idea why many people find it hard to stick with running: if you don’t run frequently enough you never get through the point where the discomfort fades.

I’m not sure if the discomfort actually goes away, or if you just get so used to it that it feels normal. In either case, a light bulb moment for me was when I discovered that running more frequently was easier than running less and trying to recover more.

“More frequently” doesn’t have to mean “more mileage”. It just means running more days per week. Same miles, but few miles per run. I always thought running back-to-back days would be too hard, but paradoxically it’s been easier than taking more days off.

This isn’t my own invention of course. You can find this approach documented in many running books and web sites.

Why bring this up now? It’s bike racing season!

Well, tonight I folded up my running clothes and put them into a drawer until sometime in September.

Last year I learned that it was too hard to continue even a minimal amount of running once the racing season started. I hit that point last week. The number of runs per week has been going down, and finally I realized that each run is now uncomfortable.

It’s not the mileage that’s the problem, it’s that I can’t run 5 days per week now. If I didn’t like bike racing so much, I would keep running and just have tired legs all the time.

I guess the “secret” to running is the same as in bike racing. To paraphrase Eddy Merckx: “run lots”.

I often run naked

That was a Twitter response to my “Today I rode naked” post.

Yeah, it’s like that with running too.

I’ve gone from just going out for an easy jog … to wearing a watch … to getting a GPS watch to track distance … to consciously trying to get faster … to doing tempo intervals …

And when my GPS watch stopped working a couple weeks ago, it was at first annoying to not know how fast and how far. Like the run “didn’t count” if I didn’t know how far, exactly. So I went and found another on eBay.

How do we become so neurotic about stuff like this?

One of the reasons I like running — trail running in particular — is that it’s quieter than being on the bike. You don’t have the wind noise, traffic noise, speed, cars buzzing you. But then we go complicate a nice trail run by wanting to monitor and record it.

It’s snowing today. I’ll try running in the snow without worrying about how far or fast, until I don’t feel like running anymore.

***
That “I often run naked” Twitter response came from one of my heroes, Zack Johnson. He somehow manages to find the energy to train for and compete in ultramarathons (including a 100 mile race), organize an ultra team, actually put on a 24 hour race. He put me on his team roster, and I have to say I feel so incredibly inadequate.

He’s also putting on a snowshoe race series — equipment rental available. First race was cancelled, but assuming we do get a real winter soon there are 2 more races scheduled:

http://ohioultratrailrunners.blogspot.com/p/events.html

Mixing Beer & Wine, Continued

It’s been about 6 weeks since I wrote about my desire to continue (at last some small amount of) running during the racing season.

I’ve been doing it. 3 or 4 times per week (so maybe 10-15 miles). Not very fast, so I feel more like a “jogger” than a “runner”.

It doesn’t seem like it has compromised the bike training. So far.

We still haven’t raced all that much. The real test will be whether I still feel like running once we hit the 3-races-in-a- week period, which will be as soon as the Tuesday night races start up.

Like mixing beer and wine?

Sometimes after the Westlake training race, you will see a couple of guys put on their running shoes and run around the course.

I used to think that seemed really stupid. Why ruin a good bike race by running afterward?

Now I am thinking of doing it.

The last few years, I’ve enjoyed running in the off-season. Each year I’ve enjoyed it a little bit more, as my body continues to adapt. I like the simplicity of putting on shoes and running out the door. I love going for a solitary trail run, where the only noise is my own footsteps and breathing. But I stop running completely, right about now, when the racing season is about to start. I’ve always felt that running during the season would compromise my bike training.

Then October comes, and it’s painful to try to get my running legs back. I remember how far and how fast I could run when I stopped in March, and it’s frustrating to start off so slow again.

So I’m wondering … can I run just enough to keep my legs in reasonable running shape without compromising the bike racing? The big questions are how much, and how to fit it in to the training schedule. Running after hard bike workouts would seem to impact recovery. Running before hard bike workouts would seem to compromise the bike session.

I’d like to hear from anyone who’s tried this. Did it work? Or did it just leave you tired?

Did I go to one to many cross country meets last fall?

My Feet are Staging a Revolt

After a bike race ends, racers will often say “wow, that hurt”. We usually mean “hurt” in the sense of extreme fatigue, periods when we were in severe oxygen debt, or legs burning from lactic acid.

But when I say, “wow, that hurt” after a running race — every one of the running races I’ve done — I mean that it literally caused me to be in pain.

The most recent torture was the Run With Your Heart 15km trail race. 15km is the longest I’ve run. Ever. Running that distance on a snow-covered trail made it seem even longer. Going off trail in foot-deep snow to pass people really made it seem longer.

But the worst were the parts of the course that were littered with hoof prints from the horsey-people that use the trails. (I don’t ever want to hear one of them complain about how mountain bikes damage trails). It was like running on a miniature ski-mogul slope. Toward the end of the first loop it seemed every other step I would land on a bump that sent a shock wave up through my right arch.

Other than that the course was very cool. Slow courses seem to be better for us “bike racers pretending to be runners.” At the time my foot started to hurt, two of us pretenders (Rudy and I) were respectably holding down the 3rd and 4th spots, talking about bike racing as we ran. But then I had to slow down and change my gait so that I could finish. I did manage to limp my way to the finish and just barely hold on for the 5th spot (Rudy took 4th).

Now I have a feeling that for the next few days at least I will have to carefully choose which shoes to wear, and watch where I step.

But here’s another illustration of the superiority of the bike: even after a painful run, I can still go out on the bike. Tired, yes, but without pain.

Exercising Stupidity

Yesterday I had this realization that if I start out on a workout, I need to finish it. No matter how stupid it becomes. I think that’s why I won’t start a ride when it’s raining, but once I’m out in it I’ll keep going for as long as I had planned.

I signed up for a 15km trail race that’s coming up in a week, and hadn’t done any trail runs in a while because of all the snow. So I figured I should go out and get my “trail legs” back again. The plan was to run for 1hr 15 min. I don’t know why I thought this would be feasible, given the snow/rain/snow we got in the past week. I guess I had this idea that enough other people would have packed down the trail enough. But I forgot that “most people” are smart enough not to attempt slogging through 18 inches of crusty snow.

Well, I could see that a few had tried. It didn’t look so bad, so I started down the trail. 18 minutes and only 2km later, I decided that this was an exercise in stupidity. I was either sinking through the icy crust, or falling into holes other people had made. But I just could not make myself stop and turn around. I thought that maybe it would get better when I hit the main trail. It did get better, but was still more about trying not to get hurt than it was about getting a workout.

The smarter thing would have been to turn around at the start, and just run on the road. The amusing thing is that I didn’t even think about that.

What I did was finish the workout, then go home and start looking online for a pair of racing snowshoes.

Which I ordered today.

Whose Sport Is It?

When my daughter said she wanted to give up soccer and instead run cross country in high school, I admit I was a little disappointed. She’d been playing since she was 8 or 9, and it seemed a shame that after all those years and all that training she wouldn’t play at the high school level.

Or maybe a bit more accurately: it was a shame that I wouldn’t get to enjoy sitting in the stands for 4 years watching high school soccer games.

One of the problems with youth soccer in the U.S. is that players who want to be really good end up playing virtually all year. Outdoors in fall and spring. Indoors over the winter. Camp in the summer. Footskills sessions. It requires a lot of time, and a lot of miles logged on parents’ cars. After a while, instead of being fun it becomes a grind.

I realized this, having coached some of her teams and seeing players become burned out. So despite my own selfish desire to see her play on the high school pitch, no way was I going to question or discourage her choice.

The dirty secret of youth soccer (and other youth sports) is this: in many ways it’s more about the parents and coaches than it is about the kids.

To see this firsthand just drive down to Lodi (Ohio) on a Saturday, which is where all the “premier” teams play. You’ll see an army of kids dressed up to look like little professionals, with matching warm-ups and equipment bags. You’ll see parents wearing their own team gear, as if they were there to see Manchester United play Chelsea. The worst part is what you’ll hear: parents and coaches yelling — at the kids on the field, at the referees, sometimes at other parents. Parents and coaches talk about “our” team as if they were out there playing.

When I went to coaching school, right about the time my daughter started to play, one of the teachers (who was from Scotland as I recall) said something I never forgot: when you are standing on the sidelines yelling instructions to your team, who are you doing it for? You or them?

In that instant I had one of those “aha” moments of understanding. All that stuff that parents and coaches do is for their own egos, and not for the kids.

So when my daughter decided she wanted to give up the sport she’d played for so long, I was immediately brought back to that moment, and my answer was clear.

Next: Why I Ended Up Loving Cross Country

No sitting in

One of the interesting aspects of bike racing is that you can be a bit of an impostor and stay in a race that is beyond your capability. All because of drafting. Or as some might say: “wheel sucking”.

In what other sports can a weekend athlete “race” against the current national amateur champion, and make it look like an actual race?

In any bike race I would enter, there’s little chance that the race would start and I would immediately be left behind the leaders. Later in the race, yes. But not from the start. The race might start blisteringly fast but just following wheels and staying out of the wind would keep me from getting dropped.

So it’s been a humbling experience to enter running races and watch the fast guys (and girls) pull away right from the gun.

And even after doing two races so far this year, and knowing all this, there is still the bike racer’s instinct to stay up with the front group. So when we all lined up at the OhioOutside.com Trail Series #2, and the starter’s gun (well, it was a horn) went off, I went out fast. You can do this in a bike race, because you’re going to have a chance to recover at some point (before blowing up).

But when running, you can’t coast down a hill. You can’t soft-pedal. You can’t just sit in the draft of the guy in front of you. You can only slow down to a walk and watch everyone in front of you go away.

OK, well I didn’t have to walk, but about halfway through the race I started to hit the wall from having gone out too fast. I could tell when I started to get that tingly feeling in my arms and the side-stitch that was getting worse. The same feeling when you realize you’ve gone out too fast in a time trial and have to go into damage-control mode.

It actually helped when my teammate, Tris, passed me with about 1 mile or so to go and provided some motivation and a target for pacing. Had it been someone else I probably would have been discouraged. Then I could hear the labored breathing of another guy 10-15 seconds behind me. And thought: if he is still moving while breathing like that, I’ve GOT to be able to move faster than this.

My turn for fun in the mud

“Running is, uh, hard” — Lance Armstrong, Nov. 7, 2009, via Twitter.

I watched NE Ohio regional cross country meet and came away inspired. It was wet and muddy. It was hard. Everyone suffered. In short, it was epic.

Just the kind of thing I wanted to try … oh … the very next morning.

Someone told me about the Autumn Leaves race at Lake Farmpark. I read the description and comments: “bring your mud shoes”. Sounded perfectly dreadful.

So I line up with about 180 other runners to take on a bit of pavement, dirt roads, lots of soggy fields, and even a section of corn maze.

I still haven’t figured out this running-race stuff. Waiting for at the line for the start, I feel like an impostor. Like I don’t belong here. Yet the competitive side of me wants to line up next to the “fast guys” at the front. When we start, and they take off, my racer’s instinct tries to make me go with them. But my brain at least says, no, that would be suicide.

Starting on the pavement, runners pull away from me. But once we hit the wet, heavy fields to my surprise I’m passing people like mad. We hit the dirt roads, and some catch back up. Back in the muck, I pull away again. Beneath the pain, I’m thinking, “what the heck”?

I think that on the pavement, I just am not comfortable “opening up” and going fast. It doesn’t feel right. It feels like I will pull or strain some muscle at any moment. But I’m able to keep my same (slowish) speed through the muck as on the pavement. Weird.

All of a sudden I don’t mind the soaked shoes and try to take advantage of every stretch through the wet stuff.

But there’s still lots of fast guys (and one very fast woman) in front of me … by a lot. No hardware this day. But a respectable (for a bike racer) 22nd place overall.

So I’m wondering … what would it take to get really fast?

A little mud wrestling

120 runners are lined up across the starting line at the girls regional cross country meet. At the starter’s signal they crouch and ready themselves for the start. The gun fires and the long line quickly forms into a pack, with runners jostling for position. Elbows are thrown and runners are pushed.

Standing at the slight rise about 200m from the start, the mass of runners moves toward us. You can hear the pounding of 240 feet, even on grass. Family, fellow students, and fans line the course and ring cowbells. I’ve watched my daughter play a lot of sports over the years but none of them has a scene that compares to this.

Of those 120 girls on the start line, only those on the top 4 teams or top 16 individuals will run again the next week at the state finals. Stakes are high.

The course and conditions on this day are a true test. I run back and forth to different spots on the course to take pictures, but mostly want to watch the drama and not be distracted by the camera. I hear a number of parents talk about girls being sick all week but still insisting on racing (count my daughter among them).

The best spot on the course is a short-but-steep, muddy grade. Some runners slip and fall. The smart ones find the firmest ground just over the edge of the course lines. They have no regard for the fans crowding the course; we are forced to step back.

Those who can power through the mud begin to separate themselves. The rest try to find the strength to not give up; they are faced with a cold, wet slog to the finish. The fans cheer for all of them, down to the last runner.

In the end, there are more tears than smiles. Several girls lose shoes and finish the race in muddy socks that will never again be clean. One is carried to the medical tent by her teammates. One faints after the finish. Another is bent over, vomiting. One sports a large clump of mud in the middle of her forehead — apparently the result of a face-plant.

No one can doubt that the most deserving are going on to race again next week.