The Procrastination Doctrine

For whatever reason, I insist on making things hard for myself by waiting till the last minute to do things.  When I was in school, I waited till after 10 (or midnight) to my homework.  Studying for exams could not happen until I finshed cleaning my apartment.  I never do laundry till I need my lucky shirt the following morning.  Christmas presents should always be purchased on Christmas Eve.  Go to sleep early?  Sleep is for the dead, and I have hours of gaming to roll through!  A marathon in 2 months?  Well I don't have to do a real long run until 3 weeks out, right?  That's completely fine...Sure it is...If you're a delusional asshat.  And that would be me.  I claim this title honestly and rightly.  When they make the call for delusional asshats, I'm ALWAYS at the front of the line.  If I wasn't a delusional asshat, I would have realized that I'm NOT 7 feet tall, NOT bulletproof, and NOT as fast as Hermes himself.  But these things do not occur to me, because...well...I'm me.

So true to form, I did my first long run over 13 miles today with the Nashville Striders.  It was a 20 mile run along the Country Music Marathon half-marathon course with an additional 7 miles of punishment fun thrown in.  Now every training guide in the world says that I shouldn't have done what I did today, but I needed to know how bad April 30 (the Marathon) would be.  After all, if I couldn't do a 20 miler at an easy pace, then there would be no way that I could finish the CMM in any reasonable time (as my lovely wife reminds me, what I consider reasonable and what every other person on the planet considers reasonable are two totally different things). 

I even tried prepping for the run the night before by drinking lots of fluids and laying out all my gear.  I'm not sure why I even bother sometimes.  True to form, I woke up late, wolfed down my breakfast and left half my gear at home (my GPS watch, my wallet, my GU).  Luckily for me I had a spare watch in my gym bag in my car, so I strapped it on hurriedly as I got to the park just as the Striders were starting to leave.  I grabbed some Vanilla Bean GU and took off. 

I learned two things today:  First, I can stomach, and actually like Vanilla Bean GU.  I usually go for berry/citrus flavored drinks, gels, etc., but vanilla bean wasn't too bad.  Second, I learned that I'm in better shape than I thought.  I managed the run at a slow and easy pace mostly around 8:50-9:00/mi for the first 13 miles with the random 8:30 and 9:41 thrown in for good measure.  Then for the last 7 miles, I tried to hit race pace an managed to keep most of miles at right under 8:30/mi.  Other than the usual soreness and exhaustion that comes from running 20 miles, I feel pretty decent.  Luckily for me, I have to spend all day in court tomorrow, so I have to take a rest day and recover.  We'll see how quickly I recover by Tuesday before I make any predictions about the marathon in a few weeks. 

Some might say that I would have had a better run if I had gotten more sleep and made sure that I was more organized in the morning, but that hardly seems like something I would do.

End of the Week Recap 4/4/10

Hail my running brothers and sisters!  In clearly a week that should have been a recovery week, I…wait for it…wait for it…over-did it.  Awesome.  Yes.  Definitely worth the wait.  After a strong (for me) half-marathon last week, I followed it up this week with 32.02 miles at an average of 9:29/mile.  I managed 20 minutes of conditioning, but just barely.  My weight has stayed around race weight at 156.8 this morning before my run.  A little higher than I like, but I should be right around 152-154 by the marathon.

As for my training this week, I wish that I could say that my pace was a result of strategic recovery, but I really can’t.  I tried to knock out some quality workouts this week, but I had nothing…NOTHING…in the tank.  The only exception may have been my midweek run with my buddy Matt, but overall my kung fu was weak.

Case in point, my long run today should have been a decent workout, but it wasn’t…shocker.  I had planned on a 14-15 mile run today, but due to the shaming I got from reading Adam and Psyche’s training plans, I decided to make today’s run a progression long run.

Let me preface, the rest of this story with the fact that I have terrible allergies, and on occasion, I will take Claritin to alleviate the symptoms.  Today, I took Zyrtec.  If you have allergies and need relief, Zyrtec is the bomb.  If you need to run a 15 mile progression run, Zyrtec may not be the best idea. 

Despite what my wife says, I’m not completely insane.  I did bring my fuel belt with me today along with 2 bottles of G2, so I figured I had plenty of liquid for 15 miles.  I was doing my run at PWP, so I purposely rested 2 days before to make sure that I could hack the all those damned-runner-hatin’-you-suck-dumbass hills (Oh yeah, Lent' is over.  I get to swear again!  Yay for me.)  I started off slow to work into my easy pace, but for some reason, it took some effort to hit it.  I chalked it up to being tired and plodded on.  Eventually I made it to the park entrance and managed to start building up to marathon pace on the flats.

It was at this point in the middle of my run that I realized my predicament and the cause.  As I said, I had been sipping on my G2 throughout my run, and the weather was hot, but not unbearable.  However, I noticed that despite the profuse amounts of sweat coming from my forehead my hands were remarkably dry and chalky.  Here in Tennessee, we see all sorts of weather and I’ve trained through most of it.  I’m used to running in 100 degree heat and watching the sweat evaporate into salt.  However  (Why does this word keep coming up in my stories?  Clearly I’m an idiot and I need an intervention.  Hi, my name is Joel, and I’m an obsessed runner.), I’ve never actually sweat out salt before.  Now I’m not a medical doctor, and this may not actually have been what was happening, but I really think it was.  I quickly figured out that the Zyrtec was not only drying out my sinuses, but it was adding to my dehydration.  Rapidly.  My hands were so dry that I had to run them through my hair to keep them cool and wet.  I found a water fountain, drank several greedy gulps and cooled off my face in the water.  Despite all this, I had to admit that there was no way I could maintain any semblance of pace that I had been running without ride in an ambulance.  So for once, I did the smart thing and pulled back.  I decided to walk the uphills and jog/run the flats and downhills.  This worked fairly well though I felt like a complete asshat for not having more fluid on me to re-hydrate, and eventually I made it back to my car and home.  When I checked my post-run weight, I tipped the scales at 152.2.  Yeah, that’s 4.6 lbs of weight loss due to dehydration.  Not good.  So, I’m a little tired now.  To say the least.  And I think that I’m gonna crash now.  Hopefully next week will be better as it is my last week to get in some quality workout's before I start my taper.  Later kids!

End of the Week Recap 3/14/10

Hail my running brothers and sisters!  This week was a big week for mileage, but short on cross-training/conditioning.  I ran 46.33 miles at an average pace of 8:22/mile.  I did only 35:00 minutes of cross-training.  This is a sad trend for me, in that my cross-training tends to diminish exponentially as my mileage goes up.  In my defense, I’m tired after 40+ miles for the week.  I weighed in late this morning as I was helping my wife and kids pack up the car for spring break (miss you guys already!), but I did come in at 159.2 lbs.  Interesting little fact:  after my long run today, I lost nearly 5 lbs from dehydration! 

My long run was 21 miles at 8:48/mile.  I was hoping to keep it around 8:30/mile, but my back was sore from cross-training yesterday (I did a lot of bridges and deadlifts).  When you throw in that my right shin has been bothering me periodically, I guess I should be happy that I was able to manage sub-9:00’s.  Today I ran the back half of the marathon course. 

From elevation charts

I was doing okay, right around 8:30/mile until, I hit mile 19.64.  I had the worst leg cramp that I’ve felt in a long time slam me to a stand-still.  The pain in my left calf was so acute that I would have fallen to the ground if I were able to bend my knee.  Instead I let out a bellowing scream as my leg locked up and nailed me to ground.  I managed to stretch out my calf and start walking.  I walked a tenth of a mile and picked up my pace to a slow jog.  It was rough, but I finished the last mile and half to end my run.

I didn’t get any time at the YMCA this week due to my crappy schedule, and I probably won’t again this week because of another craptastic schedule.  My family is on spring break in Gulf Shores, and I miss them already.  The only upside is that I should be able to get lots of rest and guilt-free exercise.  Later kids!