Joe's Running Blog

6/14/21 Training Update: Prepped for Gunstock

A couple of months ago I was perusing Facebook, which informed me that one of my friends “liked” the Gunstock Trail Fest, a weekend-long series of trail running races in the Laconia, New Hampshire area. The festival looked interesting, but wasn’t something I was seriously considering. However Katie was looking for a trail race to put on the calendar to help with her training motivation. And this race was scheduled for her birthday weekend. There is a post-race party that includes music and beer. It looked fun! Put a couple of factors together, and we signed up soon thereafter.

The trail festival has a handful of races on both Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday events include a 5K trail run, a 1.5-mile run up Gunstock Mountain, and a 10K Peak-to-Peak run. On Sunday is a series of races over the same 10K course. Runners can choose 10K, 30K, 50K or 80K runs, with the longer runs simply repeating the loop multiple times. Originally I thought I would do the 5K on Saturday and try my hand at the 30K race on Sunday. I was also drawn to the peak-to-peak race, but didn’t figure I could do 10K one day and 30K the next. When Katie said she wanted to do the peak-to-peak, I decided that I would run that with her and do the 10K on Sunday. Katie is going to do the same thing. My plan is to run together on Saturday and do Sunday at actual race pace.

A few weeks ago I wrote how my running regimen has made me feel ready for pretty much everything I’ve been doing lately, and so I am not stressing out about Gunstock like I would have been a couple of years ago. The Saturday race is a lot of climbing, 1,450 feet over the 6.2-mile course. That’s a lot, but not all that much more than I took on for Infinitus, which was longer but a couple hundred feet less climbing. The Sunday race is over cross-country ski trails, not technical, and covers 636 feet over the 6.2 miles. Which I don’t want to sound cocky about as it follows a challenging Saturday run, but pshaw. I do that kind of run all the time around here. My North Branch/Hubbard Park runs regularly bring 700+ feet of elevation gain.

Plus there’s the CVR trail run series, which has gone on for a few weeks now. On Saturday the 5th I hosted a run in the Montpelier parks, to introduce the trails to a lot of the crew that doesn’t really know them. I designed a loop of about six miles, and another that was going to be closer to eight. We would go up the hill in North Branch, and continue up to Sparrow Farm Road in East Montpelier. There is a steep climb involved, and we would get close to 600 feet of gain in the first three miles. The whole thing would be about 900 feet of climbing.

As I said earlier, I wasn’t too daunted by this run. But it turns out that it was fairly warm and humid that morning, even at 8 a.m., and I also found myself running faster then normal because I was leading the pack and didn’t want to feel like I was slowing people down. So it was tiring. By the time we got over to the Hubbard Park side, the climbs were becoming a slog. As I mentioned earlier, this was going to be an eight-mile run, plus or minus, but a couple of people had 10-mile goals for the day. Being a good host, it was only fitting that I would help them add a couple more, so we took a jaunt on my route that goes outside the park for a bit, then up to Hubbard Tower. The extra miles weren’t that big a deal, but the extra climbing was tiresome. Almost the whole group enthusiastically joined on for the extra distance, and it was fun to help people explore the park and not get lost.

I’ve been doing a ton of hills recently – it’s almost unavoidable around here unless you stay downtown or along the river – and my left Achilles has been acting up again. It’s not as sore as it was a few months ago, but it’s also not something to ignore. My approach is to continue my daily stretches and strengthening, but to work more flat runs in. In fact, this week I plan to cut back the pre-race miles a little and to stay in town on the flat courses, with the possible exception of going partway up Paine Mountain with the Runderachievers on Wednesday. I feel fully acclimated to the climbing that is ahead of me, so the intent now is to not overexert during the week, and to focus on staying healthy.

5/29/21: Infinitus 8-Mile Trail Race

This went about as well as it could have.

One of the reasons I include training updates in this blog is to have a record of input (training) and output (race results). Or, to use a financial term, Return on Investment (ROI). And today’s race provided a pretty decent ROI.

We can also track my progress from “not a trail runner,” through “trails have their appeal,” to “I can’t wait until the trails are in shape to run on.” And we can mark the moment when all this trail running turned into legitimate trail racing.

A couple of months ago a few Runderachievers were looking ahead to this year’s race season and talking about some races they had entered. One I head never heard of, the Infinitus Race, intrigued me. My friends had signed up for the 8-mile race, though there are a lot of ridiculously-long events involved as well. I decided to join them.

Other than a virtual race that I ran with Katie and Tara at the Millstone Trails in Barre last summer, this was my first trail race. This morning I hopped into a car at 6:00 a.m. with Tara and Kim for the hour-long drive to Goshen. After we found a spot in the very full (with cars and tents) parking area, we disembarked to find the weather a bit more brisk than we had anticipated.

The forecast for the race called for temperatures starting in the mid-40s and rising into the low-50s later in the morning. At check-in, however, the temp was a couple degrees cooler. This under overcast skies and with a chill wind blowing from the East. (Maybe.) I was prepared for something a little warmer, but figured once the race started all would be okay.

I’ll take a moment to mark this point in time. After 14 months of shutdowns/masks/social distancing, we appear to be coming out of the back end of the Covid-19 pandemic as the defining phenomenon in our lives. People (not enough) are getting vaccinated, case counts are dropping, and society is returning to “normal.” And so with this race, mask mandates were dropped for those of us who are vaccinated, and we had a group start instead of the smaller waves that have been employed so far this year.

150+ runners lined up for the 8:08 start. This included everybody in the 8-mile, marathon, and 88K races. The 88K is basically a double marathon. All runners start out on the 8-mile loop, which is really more like 7.3 miles, and those doing longer distances then proceed onto a 20-mile loop. This large starting wave resulted in a lot of traffic for the first mile or so as the runners sorted out. The first stretch goes across the Blueberry Hill Inn lawn onto some double-track cross country ski trails. There was room to get around slower runners, though there were the occasional 88K runners who were conserving energy (aka walking) side-by-side and not leaving a ton of space.

The course moved uphill for two miles on the ski trails, then a bit of gravel road, before reaching the gate to the Romance Mountain trail. There wasn’t much romantic about the next part of the race: 700 feet of elevation gain over the next 9/10 of a mile; a 15% grade. There was not much running here, at best it was power hiking for most people. I was moving generally faster than other racers on this stretch. I passed Tara on the lower part of the climb, and then further up saw Kim ahead of me. I passed her before we reached the top. In general the terrain didn’t leave a lot of room for actual running, and traffic kept me from doing what little bit more I would have done if on my own, though that was probably for the best.

I really didn’t know what to expect for this race, in terms of time. I knew the climb would be slow, but I had no idea what the trails were going to be like going downhill. It is, after all, billed as a “rugged trail race.” In my mind I was figuring 12-minute miles, or about 1:30 for the race. Because I didn’t have any idea what to expect, I didn’t set A/B/C goals. My only thought in that regard was that it would be nice to finish in the top half of the field.

The first two miles I did in a little over 21 minutes, which was pretty good given the terrain, traffic, and climbing. Mile three, which finished just after the peak, took me 17:25. Three miles in about 38 and a half minutes, and the final 4.3 miles almost all downhill. Unless there were some big boulders ahead, my expectations were going to be pretty pessimistic. But there were no big boulders, or really even much in the way of little boulders ahead. It was grassy single/double track with worn paths, and some patches of mud. It turns out I could cruise on this terrain, and I felt really strong.

I made my first downhill power move at 3.2 miles, going past a couple of guys when I found an opening. Somewhere around this time, maybe a little before, a guy in a red jacket passed me, and I was a couple hundred feet behind him as he bounded down the hill. We passed one woman, then another, and a couple of guys who were gathering themselves on the side of the trail. It was impossible to know who I was actually “racing,” however, as I wasn’t taking the time to check bib colors. I shouted to a woman in black, “watch out for that muddy patch,” as I passed her going through the muck. She seemed to give me a bit of a scowl as I went by.

I didn’t hear the buzz from my watch at mile four, but mile five I did in 8:27. So yes, I was making good time. I was catching up to red jacket guy and passed him on a relatively flat part of the trail. Soon I was approaching a tall woman with a very athletic build. I stuck behind her for a while, because she was running a pretty good pace. With less than two miles to go, the trail turned sharply to the left and presented us with another little climb. As we turned the corner I heard someone behind me. It was the woman in black, who cruised past on the uphill. It struck me that she was the first person who had re-passed me since the peak.

My legs weren’t totally into climbing, but I mustered some energy and went ahead of the athletic woman. She wasn’t having that, though, and a couple of minutes later she sped past me. She was running a good pace, so I stayed behind her for another few minutes. Eventually the trail became a steady downhill again, and made the final turn back to the inn. At this point, I felt like athletic woman was slowing me down, so I kicked it up a notch and passed her again. This time she did not return the favor. As we got back to the lawn, there was one more person in front of me. I was debating how much I wanted to kill myself to get around him at the finish, but he was a marathoner and split off before I reached him, so it was moot. There was no finish-line race today.

My official time was 1:17:42, a 10:38 pace, and well ahead of the 1:30:00 I had envisioned. I figured, based on the number of people who I passed vs. those who passed me, that I had met my goal for the top half. But I didn’t have a great sense of how many people started out faster than me who I never ended up catching. Or even, as I mentioned before, who was running what race. As it turns out, I placed 13th out of 64 finishers for this race, and I was the only 50+ entrant in the top 25. I’d call this far and away the best race I have had to date. Other than the steep climb, I’ve been running more difficult terrain, and often for longer distances, and I was physically and mentally very well prepared for this race. It felt great!

RACE SUMMARY:
Distance: “8 Miles” (7.3 miles)
Time: 1:17:42
Pace: 10:38
Overall Finish: 13/64
Age Group: 1/6

5/27/21 Training Update: Ready for the Trails

In two days, I am entered to run the 8-mile Infinitus Race. Infinitus is a series of “rugged trail races” presented by The Endurance Society. While I am sure I am underestimating the course, the 8-miler is only one that seems “do-able” to me. The others range from the ridiculous (trail marathon) to the insane (888 Kilometers in 10 days).

This is my first-ever trail race (a rugged one at that), but I have been priming myself for this, as well as back-to-back races at the Gunstock Trail Fest with Katie in three weeks. However, I’ve been running mostly trails – and a lot of hills – since the Adamant half three weeks ago. CVR started up a new Saturday morning trail series, and Katie and I have joined both so far. The first was supposed to be a 5.6-miler in East Montpelier, but we missed a turn and ended up going 7 miles instead. This was a good reminder to bring water for almost any run this time of year.

Last week we signed up for 6.5 miles at Blueberry Lake, with an option to add on for those interested. A few of us took an extra loop that brought us up to 8 miles. At that point, I knew that I was really close to 40 miles run for the week, though I couldn’t get a signal to check my Strava stats. I did one more flat-ish loop, but when I was able to check I was was still 0.55 miles short. So Sunday morning I got up and did a little 3-miler to set my new weekly high.

I am finding that, as I’ve reached newer levels of running – I’ve averaged 35 miles per week in May, whereas I am usually in the 25-30 mile range – I am actually enjoying it more. I think the improved stamina takes off some of the pressure I’ve historically put on myself when preparing for races. In the past I would be worried about being able to run the full distance, or run a certain pace at that distance, but I’m not worried about it for these races. I’m sure the fact that I really don’t know where to begin for a target time for Infinitus has something to do with it.

I’ve also been able to add extra miles to a run, and it’s no longer a big deal. I started doing this during the winter, but it seems less taxing now than it was then. My neighbor Sal and I have taken up running to the weekly CVR fun runs from our homes, which adds a total of four miles round trip to the fun runs. So the six-mile loop now becomes ten miles. It’s all flat, easy terrain, so it’s an easy way to build up mileage.

The extra runs add breaks into the Tuesday fun runs. We also get breaks as runners regroup during the trail runs. And this week I took a trip to Maine. I did two runs on unknown trails, which resulted in me taking frequent stops to get my bearings. This helps keep the heart rate and breathing moderated, and frankly it’s quite pleasant to do so. It makes me feel like I can run longer distances in total. When I first began this hobby I thought the goal was always to run the whole time after starting a run, but that’s no longer the case. In fact, it’s kind of dumb in retrospect, and I am glad to have shifted this paradigm.

All of which leads back to Infinitus. According to the maps, it’s a short course, meaning it’s more like 7.5 miles than 8 miles, with about 1,200 feet of elevation gain. Surely that’s not easy, but I’ve already done something similar several times this year. I know I’ll be able to reach the end, and also that it’s unlikely I will win my age group. It’s really a no-pressure learning experience for me. I assume the more trail races I do, the more I will have a competitive focus. But for this one, I just want it to be fun.

5/11/21: Adamant Half Marathon

Just two weeks after the Paul Mailman Ten Miler, the next race in the CVR season is the Adamant Half Marathon and Relay, which starts and finishes in the lovely village of Adamant in Calais, Vermont. The course is a figure 8 with an 8-mile loop through East Montpelier followed by a 5.1-mile loop through Calais. It’s a beautiful, but hilly, course.

This was just the second running of this race at this length, as the previous version was a 20-miler. The new course was first run in 2019, and the 2020 race went the way of all the other 2020 races, cancelled due to Covid-19. I ran the course in 2020 as a virtual race, aided by my girlfriend Katie and paced over the second half by my co-worker Lauren. It was a decent run that I finished in 2:00:52, which was my PR at the time. I had set a goal of 2:00 for that race and fallen just a little short, but I really hadn’t known what to expect in going the full 13 on this course.

I usually do A/B/C goals for races, but I didn’t do that this time around. My only goal was to beat two hours. You could quibble and suggest a goal to beat last year’s time, but you’d be talking about a really small window between the A goal and the B goal, so why bother? I wasn’t going to be thinking 2:00:51, I was going to be thinking 1:59:59.

As I said in my post about my 2020 virtual race, planning the pacing strategy for this course is difficult. In my mind I was thinking 8:30 miles for flat/slight downhill, 10:30 for uphill, and 8:15 or less on the true downhills. But I don’t really know how much of this is uphill vs. downhill. After the first three miles (which are slight downhill), it’s all up and down and up and down and up and down, with the last almost two miles being downhill. There are six climbs of over 100 feet, and two more over 50 feet that interrupt otherwise fast downhills. They are relentless. So pacing was a guess. Last year I felt like I started too fast, with those first three miles in an 8:20 pace. I wanted to be more in the 8:30 range and make up for the lost time with better pacing later in the race, and avoiding food-related slowdowns that I encountered in that race.

So that was the plan at the start. As with other races this year, we started in small waves. I was wave 3; the super speedy people were in the first wave, and the medium speedy people were in wave 2 along with relayers. I think there was just one more wave behind us. At about 10:02 we took off. Weather was pretty much perfect, upper 50’s and overcast, and we didn’t receive all the rain that had originally been predicted, so the roads were dry and firm. The race adrenaline combined with the opening downhill made for a pretty quick start, but I calmed the pace and settled into what I figured was the middle of my wave pack.

Early in a race like this I try to figure out who “my people” are: who does it look like I’ll actually be running with. For example,a guy named Mark Howard was in my wave, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to hang with him for the whole race. I didn’t really know anybody else, so there would be some working it out as I went along. About a mile in I approached Bob Murphy, who had started in the previous wave as he was doing the first part of the relay. You may remember Bob as a rabbit I couldn’t catch in my first Half Marathon, the 2019 Leaf Peepers. Since then I have gotten faster, but Bob hasn’t. Bob is 81 now, and what he lacks in speed is a steady metronome-like pace honed over 60 years of running. He just chugs along. I passed him on Sodom Pond Road as I was assessing my crew. I could still see Mark Howard up there, because he is about 6′ 6″ tall and was wearing a bright yellow shirt. There was a younger couple running together just ahead of me, along with two women who I figured to be mother and daughter because they both were tall and similarly built. Up ahead was another woman in a yellow shirt and red hair who looked fit and had a nice stride.

My first two miles were 8:25 and 8:37, so if the goal was to start slower than 2020, mission accomplished! I was actually at the 8:30 pace I had planned on. Mile 3 was done in 8:28. Everything was going as planned.

Mile four starts to go uphill as it swings around from Putnam Road to Dodge road. It’s wooded on both sides as it climbs and then starts to descend. I slowed down a little bit to take some ibuprofen, eat a shot block and drink some water as I passed the four mile mark (9:28 – good for an uphill!). A woman in pink tights caught up to me and said she was happy to see the four mile marker, because she thought it had only been three. But then we came over a little rise and saw the next hill looming ahead. “Oh!” she said, with a touch of disappointment in her voice. “Get used to more of that, I guess,” I suggested in what I hoped was an encouraging voice. She moved ahead of me on the climb.

Up ahead I saw a woman in black walking up the hill, and further ahead still the daughter was doing some sideways hops while mom walked. There is a water stop at the end of Dodge Road, and I was able to close a little ground on some of the folks as they stopped, because I was carrying my Camelback. I was now right behind the young couple as we continued the climb on Center Road.

I am typically a little slow for my overall pace on the uphills, but I make up for it on the downhills. I made my first power move of the race on the second downhill, around the young couple, speeding up to get around before an oncoming car reached us. Little did I know, but this was the last I would see of them. I was able to see the woman’s race on Strava, and their splits were much slower after about four miles. The hills on this course are great for sorting the contenders out. Hill number 3 was the biggest yet, gaining 100 feet over a half a mile, with a couple of curves built in so you really don’t know how long it’s going to continue. Mom was doing some more walking here, and I caught up to and eventually passed her and daughter (note – in looking at the finisher list I don’t believe they were actually mother and daughter given the 16-year age difference, but it’s possible). The woman in black I had seen ahead of me was also walking, and I had made up some ground on her. I was also gaining on the red-hair, yellow-shirt woman from a couple of paragraphs ago.

Hill number 3 peaks out just above Templeton Road, then there’s a longish, steepish downhill before Hill number 4, which is a steep climb up to Sibley Road. I passed yellow woman on this downhill, and it turns out she was quite young, probably college age. So that made me feel even stronger at this point. But she gained on me on the next climb, which was shorter but also steeper than most, and passed me again at the top. I figured we might be trading off the rest of the way. On the Sibley Road climb, I passed pink-pants lady, who by now had decided to walk the steep hills. (She turned out to be a Strava Aquaintence named Natalie, who introduced herself after the race and explained that she decided “no walking” was a dumb rule to force herself to follow.) This hill peaks at about mile 7, after which it’s downhill – except for the first momentum-busting mini climb – to the 8-mile marker back in Adamant village. Yellow shirt took off ahead of me and established a wide gap. I was tempted to try to stick with her, but I realized she was a relay racer, and racing her was a fools game.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s hard to know what my splits should look like given all the ups and downs. My one major benchmark for breaking two hours was thinking I needed to finish the first 8 in 72 minutes, or a 9-minute pace. That would give me 47 minutes (9:20) to do the last five miles. I got to that marker at almost exactly 73 minutes, so a minute slow and also almost exactly what I had run the first time. Only this time I felt stronger, and the goal was still in reach.

Or so I thought. Mile 9 is basically all of hill number 5. This is the biggest climb, at 225 feet, and suddenly I did not feel strong at all. I slowed down at the bottom of the hill to kiss Katie, who had been enlisted to guide traffic onto Adamant Road, but when the climbing started my legs weren’t into it. This was a very slow mile: 11:10. That kind of pace didn’t work with my goals. Daughter caught up to me, then looped back while mom was walking, then did that again. After the climb peaked out they passed me for good. Mile 10 is pretty much downhill, but with a 9:02 split again I didn’t have the speed I needed. At this point my time was a little over 1:33, and ten miles in means 5K to go. I can run 5K in less than 27 minutes, but not with a big hill, and not after having already run ten miles.

Hill number six starts in mile ten, and it’s the worst of them all, as it persists for 1.7 miles and gains another 150 feet. The last water stop is here at 10.2 miles, and it was just after that point where I cracked and had to walk for a few second. The road levels off for a bit, then climbs again, and I had to walk again.

This final climb goes up to County Road, the only paved portion on the whole run. A woman in black – I don’t think it was the first woman in black, but I can’t be sure – passed me at this point, then started to pull away as the climb continued. On the back side of that hill I was pulling out whatever speed I could find, and I was gaining back some ground. Shortly after we turned on to Martin Road I caught and passed her. But there is one more little climb at the 12.5 mile mark, and she passed me back, which was the backbreaker. I had to walk a few more yards to focus my strength, then managed to muster enough to get to the top and sprint the final 4/10 of a mile to the finish. And no, indeed, I did not break two hours, nor did I beat my previous time on this course. My watch recorded me at 2:01:38, though my official time was two seconds slower.

I did manage to finish four seconds ahead of Natalie pink pants, which was a bit of a moral victory because she was a few minutes faster at both the Unplugged and the Paul Mailman. And despite being slower than the Unplugged, this was a much better race than that one; my Grade Adjusted Pace was 8:56, ten seconds faster than Unplugged. I felt like I had a pretty good plan, but if I made any errors it was likely that I got too invested in racing other runners on the hills of Center Road. It’s not the place to make good time, and the never-ending hills just took too much out of me.

This is a tough race, and a good challenge. Right now I think I will do it again next year, though in looking at the results I can see that very few people who ran in 2019 came back for this race. On the other hand, there were a few people who were just happy to have a live race, I think. And special kudos to a few people who were out there running their first half marathon. What a way to start. I can promise you that they aren’t all like this!

RACE SUMMARY:
Distance: Half Marathon
Time: 2:01:38
Pace: 9:17
Overall Finish: 39/57
Age Group: 6/9

4/24/21: Paul Mailman Ten Miler

What a difference two weeks, or three miles, or 15 degrees (or all of the above) makes.

I was looking forward to this year’s Paul Mailman as an opportunity for growth and redemption. Growth in the sense that I would be able to measure continued improvement on this course. As you may remember, my first time running this race in 2019 was actually the first time I had run as far as ten miles. I ran two virtual races on this course in 2020, both of which I ran out of steam on toward the end. That’s where redemption comes in – I wanted to be able to keep a strong pace throughout. And I also was hoping to have a good race following the struggles of the Half Marathon Unplugged two weeks prior.

This was the first live CVR race, and the first live race pretty much anywhere in central Vermont, in nearly 16 months. As a result, the race attracted quite a few more entrants than normal, particularly the 5K version, which had nearly 40 entrants after only 12 or so entered in 2019. Due to pandemic protocols the race featured a staggered start; waves of ten runners would go off every minute, with the first 5K racers starting five minutes after the last ten-mile racers. Katie decided to enter the 5K to test her injury-recovery progress, and her start time was 14 minutes after mine.

The waves were designed to spread out the racers by having the faster runners go first, and indeed the first wave had the usual front runners such as Neal Graves, George Aiken, and this kid Avery Smart who is in high school but who I recognized from Strava. I was in the third wave, and was surprised to see a guy who works at Onion River Outdoors, and who sold me some running shoes, was in my wave. But everybody else looked like they might run the same speed as me.

Just before it was our turn to go I noticed people checking their watches. Holy crap, I had forgotten to turn on my watch! My heart skipped a beat, as I am very watch-motivated, and my late response meant that I was already a few seconds past the start line when the satellite kicked in. But soon enough I was able to settle in and assess the competition. ORO kid, who might be 20, pulled away pretty quickly. There was a tall woman wearing black, who was asking a lot of questions about the course at the start line, who also got out ahead of me. I was right behind a slouchy guy wearing a white tee and a crooked ball cap. To be honest, I watched him run and immediately figured he’d be slower than me. But we were going a good pace and so I settled in behind him.

As with previous races, I set C/B/A goals, where C is “just passing,” the low bar you want to clear even in a less-than-ideal race. B is kind of the “real” goal, and A is what you go for if everything is clicking. For this race, “C” was to improve on my previous best in the race, which was 1:33:24. The B goal was to break 1:30:00, which is a 9:00/mile pace, and “A” was to break 1:28:00. The A+ goal was to catch somebody in the wave ahead of me, but judging by how they all took off that wasn’t going to happen. (Indeed, the slowest person in Wave 2 finished six minutes before I did, including the one-minute head start.) I was somewhat confident about the B goal, because I ran the first ten miles of the Unplugged in just over 1:30:00. Yes, that’s flatter, but the weather today was cooler and I wouldn’t have to save up for an additional three miles. It seemed like a push.

The course goes out the bike path, then on to Junction/River Road, before turning left on to Jones Brook Road a little after 2.5 miles. It’s basically flat until Jones Brook, then climbs for 2.5 miles until the turnaround, at which point it’s 2.5 miles downhill and 2.5 miles flat back to the finish line. The hill is actually pretty gradual; it has a few steep spots but only gains about 200 feet over the 2.5 miles. The strategy to breaking 1:30:00 was basically to run the flats in 8:40 – 8:50 miles, a little faster on the down hill, and be able to accept a 9:30 pace on the uphill. The last time I ran this, things were going as planned, albeit for a slower target time, until the last part of the downhill when the speed wasn’t there. The last two miles were a hot run/walk slog on dead legs.

In this race, slouchy guy and I finished the first mile in 8:37, which per usual was faster than my initial targets but (also per usual) felt pretty good. Shortly after the one-mile mark things began to happen. First Matt Caldwell, one of my Runderachievers friends, passed me. This was a surprise, because he’s a much faster runner than I am, and it didn’t make sense that he was in the wave behind me. As it turns out, half the people in the race put down 1:30:00 as an estimated race time, which the race coordinator used to set the starting waves. I did, Matt and Kim Caldwell did, and ORO guy did. They are both a lot faster than I am, as were a lot of the wave four runners.

After Matt passed me, I swung around ahead of slouchy guy. Then a pod of people who were in my wave swung ahead of me, a group of four who were running together. Then half of wave 4 ran by, including Kim Caldwell. It was a little unsettling, and the natural instinct was to try to run faster to keep up. But I managed to cull that instinct. In fact, mile 2 was done in 8:49. That was slightly slower than mile 1, but I felt I was staying in good position for 1:30.

After all that excitement, not much happened in mile 3. The pod was pulling away, the woman in black was still in sight, and the ORO guy was long gone. Slouchy guy wasn’t far behind me. This mile is the beginning of the climbing, though none of it is steep. This one clocked in at 8:52, still quite respectable. Things started happening again during the fourth mile. There’s a water break at 3.5 miles, and I was passed by a woman (from wave 5?) shortly before that. This is when I start thinking about when I will meet the leaders coming back. I’d like to not be embarrassingly far behind, though with the two minute head start they had it’s difficult to define “embarrassing.” As it turns out, the kid Avery came flying by at the 3.8-mile mark. He had a sizeable advantage over George Aiken, who in turn was several seconds ahead of Neil Graves. Now, I’ve never been in a CVR race with Neal Graves that he didn’t win, so seeing him in third was a bit of a shock. He looked like he was working harder than the other two at that point, and I suspected he wasn’t going to win this race.

The next couple of miles were a steady stream of seeing people heading back down. ORO guy had covered a lot of ground. I saw my neighbor Sal and Donna Smyers, who were both in the wave ahead of me. I reached the turnaround at 5 miles in almost exactly 45 minutes. This is halfway to 90 minutes, or 1:30:00, and the second half promised to be faster than the first provided I avoided the wall. At this point, though, I wasn’t feeling super chipper. In particular my glutes and hips were sore, but I had taken some ibuprofen and a shot block at mile 4, so I had to trust that they would do their magic.

It wasn’t long on the downhill before things started feeling pretty decent. I was pretty much by myself at this point. I could see the pod ahead of me, which by now included the woman in black, but they were quite a bit ahead. Slouchy guy was next behind me, but he was quite a bit behind. I noticed a sign of trouble in front of me, when the woman in black had a short walking spell on a slight uphill portion. But she started running again and stayed with the pod. The water stop at 3.5 miles was also a water stop at 6.5 miles, and the entire pod stopped for fuel. I was carrying water in my new Camelback hydration vest, so I didn’t need to stop, and the next thing I knew I was just a few yards behind them.

I reached the seven-mile mark in just under 1:02:00, which meant that I had 28 minutes to run the final three miles to break 1:30:00. The last two downhill miles were both done in just under 8:30. I needed to run 9:20 miles the rest of the way to make the B goal, and since all my flat splits so far had been well under 9:00, I knew that goal was in the bag. At this point I started thinking about what it would take to hit the A goal of 1:28:00. It would take 8:40’s, which seemed a little fast at this point.

But also, why not try? My pod was running 8:40’s, and had started to get a little ahead again, but I decided to try to keep up with them. I wasn’t dying, so I stuck with it. Somewhere around the 8-mile mark the woman in black couldn’t stick with it, so she faded back. There was one more water stand at the 8.5-mile mark, and to my surprise the pod went in for more. Suddenly my pacers were gone, and I was left to push the tempo for myself. The pod became sort of a reverse rabbit for me, though. Now that they were behind, I wanted them to stay behind.

I was actually feeling pretty strong at this point, and managed to run the final mile in 8:37, which exactly matched the first mile. I never heard the pod gaining on me, and in fact they came in 30 seconds after I did. Woman in black and slouchy guy were another 3-4 minutes back still. Katie was there at the finish, along with Cheryl Lasell, who had also run the 5K and who was waiting for Darrel to come in. Katie had a good race of her own, while maintaining the discipline to walk periodically as is part of her recovery plan. Happily, she had enough time following her finish to run out and buy us coffee for after the race!

My watch had me at 1:28:18, and the official race time was a few seconds slower than that. So I did not quite reach the A goal, but it was pretty darn close. Unlike the Unplugged, this was a race where pretty much everything went well, and I was especially heartened to be able to push the pace the last couple of miles to be within shouting distance of reaching my goal. Ultimately I finished below the 50th percentile for the race (27th of 46), but two years ago I was 15 minutes slower 47 of 50 runners. So huge improvement is evident, and I already feel like I am getting into shape to start chasing PRs again.

RACE SUMMARY:
Distance: 10 miles
Time: 1:8:25
Pace: 8:51
Place: 27/46
Age Group: 5/8
CVR Points: N/A – there is no race series this year. Which is a bummer because I am pretty sure it would have been 100 points for me!

4/22/21 Training Update: Right Back To It

By now I’m well into year three of being a Serious Runner, but I am still new enough that I put things into the perspective of my earlier experiences. I am analytical by nature, and I like to use past results to inform current strategies.

Of course this is all centered around races, because otherwise running is just running, right? If you’re not racing, why would you ever do “training” such as hill repeats or other speed work? You’d just go for your runs and do whatever miles in whatever time on whatever course and just be happy with it. And that would be great.

That’s not what I am doing, though. I like races. I like the energy of the other competitors, and I also like competing with myself, to challenge myself to improve. So my daily running, as much as it is for physical and mental health, and as much as it is to get myself out of the house, is also largely in support of race preparation. And, now that I’m a few years in, I want to use lessons learned to better prepare for the next race.

Except, I’ve never had a “normal” race season. My first year, 2019, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing to begin with, and then I broke my leg in the middle of it. Early in that year I wasn’t considering preparing for longer runs, and late in that year I was simply getting back into running shape and trying to avoid further injury.

My second year, 2020, as you know, was the Covid year. Almost every live race was cancelled, so I ended up doing a ton of virtual races. The rewards for which, if any, were based in participation and not in race times. Sure, I was competing against myself, but the stakes were low and, in any event, I was setting the schedule to meet my needs.

Now we are four months into 2021, and live races are starting to happen again. A week and a half ago I ran the Unplugged Half Marathon. In two days is the Paul Mailman 10 miler. And two weeks after that is the Adamant Half Marathon. The latter two are CVR races and I am motivated to participate in those, even if the Onion River Outdoors-sponsored race series remains up in the air for this year.

My first couple of Half Marathons, and even my first 10-mile race (the Paul Mailman from two years ago), were the “thing.” I was gearing up and putting together my training plan with those races as a focal point. But when long races stack up on each other like this, how does that impact the training plan? Do I consider one or two of them “runs” and not “races”? Or is it possible to put in a race effort at this distance every two weeks? After all, it’s not all that unusual for me to work in a run of at least eight miles each week, often 10+. So it’s just a matter of getting those up to race pace.

Right now I feel like I am somewhere in-between. My pace for the Unplugged a couple of weeks ago was decent, but not where I want my “race” pace to be. Likewise, my goals for the Mailman this Saturday I feel are a little modest. I’d like to break a 9:00 pace, which works out to 1:30:00 time-wise. That’s three minutes faster than my best time on this course last year, but I think my conditioning matches up and expect cooler temps to be on my side. I ran a 9:06 pace for the Unplugged, and although this course has a hill, it’s also three miles shorter. So it’s a good length to tune up for Adamant, but I also believe I can set some goals without compromising the training for that race.

I feel like things are moving in a good direction. My little pains seem pretty minor right now, and I am feeling good while averaging over 30 miles per week for the past month. (Albeit pretty slow miles.) I guess my thought is to approach the Mailman race as a race, set some A/B/C goals, and see how it feels. I’ll run Adamant two weeks later, and if I feel like I can take a shot at a decent time (say under two hours), I’ll do that. Otherwise I’ll go for a 13-mile run. It’s nice up there either way.

4/10/21: Half Marathon Unplugged

I was excited for this race, as it was to be the first half marathon that I’ve run twice as a live race. Adding to this was the fact that the first time I ran the race, last October, I set my PR for the distance. It’s a flat and fast course in a fun town.

And to give some perspective before we get into the details below, by the most objective measure this was a very good race for me. First and foremost, though I did not achieve a new personal record, it was one of the fastest half marathons that I’ve run thus far. Given a training regimen that was good-not-great due both to skiing and a dodgy Achilles heel, a PR would only be possible if everything worked out perfectly. That usually does not happen, and Saturday was not an exception to that rule.

I returned to the concept of A/B/C goals for this race. The “A” goal is supposed to be the low hurdle – if you don’t achieve this it’s a disappointment. For my earliest half marathons, the A goal was “get to the finish line.” For this one, I set the A goal at two hours. That’s somewhat ambitious given I’ve only broken that mark twice previously and I’m not really in race shape, but it seemed like something I could do even if a couple of things went wrong.

The “B” goal to me is the “real” goal for the race, the time to plan around, and the “C” goal is what you go for if everything is clicking and you feel like you can push a bit harder. I set my B goal at a 9:00/mile pace, or essentially 1:58:00, and the C goal was 1:56:00, which would be nine seconds per mile faster. As I said, my PR of 1:54:34 really felt like a bridge too far.

One complicating factor in any race is the weather. Saturday’s weather was sunny, with high temperatures getting into the 70’s. I was in the final starting wave, at 9:30 (there were four waves to accommodate the need to not overcrowd in the time of Covid). The temperature was in the upper 50’s at the starting gun, and was only expected to be mid-60’s by the time I expected to finish. That sounded pretty good. I’d be able to run comfortably in shorts and a tee shirt.

Something that I learned last year, but may have kind of forgotten over the winter, is that heat is very taxing if you’re not acclimated to it. Further, temperatures don’t have to be overly hot to be “hot” when you’re not acclimated. And finally, sunshine just makes it all more challenging. So 60 and sunny in early April is not at all the same as 60 and sunny in mid-September. And if you look back at the title of this post, you’ll see we are in April right now.

We are six paragraphs in and haven’t started talking about the actual race, so I will skip over the part where I got to Burlington a little late and wasn’t able to do my full warmup routine. As I mentioned, this was the last of four starting waves, which took off every half hour starting at 8:00 a.m. When I picked up my bib on Friday evening I was told that there were over 700 entrants, so I figured there would be over 100 in my wave, and that could well have been the case. There were definitely more people than I recall in October. The Covid rule was to have masks on until you cross the starting line, but things were congested enough that I kept mine on for the first mile. I crossed the line near the back of my wave, but found myself weaving through a lot of other runners as things were getting sorted out.

The start is a kind of convoluted figure 8, starting from Waterfront Park and going south toward the Echo Center, then north on the bike path until it doubles back south on Lake Street to the Echo Center again, before making the commitment to head north to Colchester for the next five miles. Somewhere in the melee I heard a guy say to a friend, “if you need some motivation at the end of the race, just pick out someone like an old guy ahead of you and say, ‘I’m not going to let that guy beat me.'” I took that rather personally!

It felt a bit slow going, but I got to the one mile marker in 8:45, so that was in the ballpark of what I was hoping. I remembered my virtual races last spring when I repeatedly started too fast and ended up paying the price at the end of the race, and this was a little fast for a 9:00 pace, but it felt good and I figured it was okay.

The next few miles cruised along in similar fashion, with my splits a little on either side of 8:50. It wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, but the previous fall I had been able to keep a steady pace and I was hopeful I could do the same this time. I settled in behind a couple of shirtless Bros who were chatting with each other the whole time. They were also cheering runners from the previous waves who were on the return trek. I admired where they were coming from – “dude, when I get to the end and am gasping for air, I want someone cheering me on!” – but the execution was a little off. People approaching us would be greeted with one of the guys drawling out a loud “yeeeeeeeAAAAAHHHH!” that didn’t always come across as obvious encouragement.

Still, we were all running a little better than 9:00-minute miles, so we were a little pod. There’s a bridge over the Winooski River between Burlington and Colchester, and just before that one of the Bros started rubbing his leg a little and said he wanted to stop and massage it a little. They did that shortly after we got into Colchester. As I went by them, one of them said “you finally caught us!”

The Colchester portion of the race is a loop-within-a -loop through a residential neighborhood. There’s people coming and going, and because Airport Park is right there with plenty of parking, it’s a good spot for the relay exchange. It was a flurry of activity for awhile. One young woman started her leg of the relay just a few yards ahead of me, but she was speedy and left me behind pretty quickly. And suddenly I was kind of by myself. I experienced something similar last October. And similar to last October, the three miles traversing Colchester, particularly miles 7 and 8, were the slowest yet.

But last fall I was able to pick the pace back up on the return trip, and so I expected more of the same. I really was averaging just under a 9:00 pace for the race at this point, so the C goal of 1:56:00 had gone by the wayside, but I was directly on pace for 1:58:00. Just around the 8-mile mark, I heard one of the Bros say, “I finally caught you!” He explained that his brother (they really were bros!) was dealing with some blister issues. He seemed genuinely impressed with my pace. Perhaps a 20-something Bro doesn’t expect a guy with gray hair and a gray beard to be able to move all that well? After chatting a bit longer, he took off.

So that was a highlight, and pretty much the last one for the day. When I got back to the bridge I had my second shot blok (the first was basically at the bridge on the way out) and some water. For the first time during the race I decided to power walk to recover my breath a little while I chewed on my food. I didn’t really get as much of a recovery as I wanted, and instead of improving on the 9:10 pace of the Colchester miles, I ran mile 9 in 9:29. Mile 10 was a bit better at 9:14, but the B goal was slipping away.

At 13.1 miles, a half marathon is basically a ten-mile run followed by a 5K run. At ten miles my time was 1:30:14, meaning to break 2:00:00 I needed to run a 5K in just under 30 minutes. Which seemed simultaneously highly doable and a bit of a challenge from where I stood. (Ran.) I walked a bit at the 10-mile marker to give myself a recharge. Didn’t work. Mile 11 was in 9:20, which was fast enough for my 5K, but I wasn’t feeling strong. I walked a bit to take on water just after the 11-mile marker and just before the 12-mile marker. As a result, the 12th-mile split was 9:50. Yikes!

Luckily, the last 1.1 mile is mostly downhill, albeit gradually. I needed to run it in about 10 minutes, and though I was pretty much toast at this point I was at least pushing close to a 9:00 pace. I saw Katie waiting for me with about .7 miles to go, so I spruced up my form for a photo, then she ran alongside and encouraged me to push through the finish.

Just after Katie joined me, I got passed by a shirtless guy. It was Bro #2. I said “you finally caught me,” and he didn’t say anything, but gave me a smirkish grin that told me I really was the old guy he couldn’t finish behind. There was no keeping up with him, so now it was a race against the watch. I had enough left to win that contest, crossing the finish line in 1:59:30. A moral victory at least.

Back in September, toward the end of the Adamant Half Marathon, my friend Lauren was pacing me and said, “remember, it’s a race. It’s supposed to hurt.” That one didn’t really hurt much afterward, but this one did. It took me quite a long time to get my breath back. And after that happened, the cramps started, which I’ve not experienced before. I laid down and did some stretching while Katie helped with some targeted massage. They came back a couple of times in my right quad, but also briefly in my left calf. I guess this is a call to make sure I have proper hydration and electrolyte load for races, particularly when it’s warm.

I’ve learned something from almost every race I’ve run, often the result of analyzing a strategy or deliberately trying something different. The Unplugged this year gave me some valuable lessons that I wasn’t seeking, but that I am sure I need to learn for future references. One is to be prepared for the most impactful weather conditions that can be reasonably foreseen, like heat. The bigger one, though, is that you don’t really know until you get out there how your body (or mind I suppose) will react, and you’ve got to adapt. Because ultimately, the “A” goal really is as simple as, “get to the finish line.”

RACE SUMMARY:
Distance: Half Marathon
Time: 1:59:30
Pace: 9:06
Place: 280/515
Age Group: 14/25
CVR Points: N/A

4/6/21 Training Update: The Vaccine Bump

It is interesting to consider the relatively short history of this blog. I originally started this about a year and a half ago, both because I wanted to remember the races and other significant running achievements and because I wanted to document my journey and growth as a runner. But just about the time I caught up on writing recaps of previous races, Covid-19 came along and wiped out the 2020 slate of races almost completely. This blog instead turned into a chronicle of running during a pandemic, which if I am honest with myself will probably be more interesting to future generations than my race recaps and training reports!

We’ve learned a lot – by which I mean medical science has learned a lot – about this disease in the past year, how it’s transmitted, and what circumstances various activities are safe. We have improved treatments, and most importantly we have developed vaccines that appear to be effective in preventing the spread of the virus. Though the infection numbers don’t reflect this yet, the tide is certainly beginning to turn. More people are getting vaccines, the Governor of Vermont is announcing the state’s reopening plan, and we are planning on having a lot more live races in 2021.

And so here we are, back to the original purpose of this blog, to talk about training for this weekend’s Unplugged Half Marathon in Burlington. I wrote just a few days ago that the training for this race has been a little weird, and that in recent weeks I’ve focused on nursing my Achilles tendon more than actual race prep. This has continued in recent days. I’ve still been getting in 25-30 miles per week, but it’s been almost exclusively on flat ground, and I’ve done no speed training to speak of. This week is taper week, with the plan to complete a longish run on Sunday (8.75 miles – check!), then basically 5-4-3 Monday to Wednesday, and two rest days before the race Saturday morning.

But Life During Covid had one more trick up it’s sleeve – the vaccine. I was eligible to register last week and lucky enough to get an appointment at Montpelier High School for Monday (yesterday). I know the vaccine can come with some side effects, but those are usually most pronounced with the second shot of the two-dose varieties, and this would be just my first shot. But as it turns out, I arrived on Johnson & Johnson Day – the one vaccine that is effective with a single dose. I decided to build my run around the vaccine, after reading up to make sure it was safe to do so. From my house I ran out to the end of the bike path before returning to the High School, which is at the start of that section of the path. That was about 3.5 miles. I had some “don’t be late” adrenaline, which resulted in much faster splits than I’ve been running lately, essentially my target race pace. It felt good.

I got the shot, then had to sit for a half an hour to make sure I didn’t have an anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine, so my down time was about 50 minutes. From there it was a little less than two miles back to the house at a more sluggish pace, because I did not re-warm up.

The thing with the J&J vaccine is that, while the total reported cases of side effects are lower than the Phizer and Moderna varieties, they are more pronounced than we see after the first dose of those vaccines. And I was lucky enough to feel some side effects. In particular, I developed a headache Monday evening, which was followed by basically a full body ache. The good news is that it got me off the Internet – sleeping was much more appealing than scrolling. I took some ibuprofen and went to bed.

When I woke up today, there was more of the same. Not as pronounced as last night, but I felt like I had a full-body hangover. I took more ibuprofen in the morning, and felt okay most of the day. “Okay,” not “normal.” As the day went on, I was looking at the beautiful weather outside and wondering if I should go for a run. On the one hand, my body seemed to be telling me I should take the day off. On the other hand, I had a training plan to stick to. On the other other hand, it’s not like I am going to win anything in this race, so less-than-perfect prep is probably okay.

I decided that it would be okay to take one of my two rest days for the week today, do my 4- and 3-mile runs Wednesday and Thursday, and take another rest day on Friday. It’s going to be a light week leading up to the race either way, and why torture myself? The matter was settled when I went upstairs to put on some clothes to take a walk, and realized in looking at my foam roller that I had no interest in going through my pre-run warmup routine.

I fully expect the side effects to continue to dissipate, and that I will be able to resume my training plan tomorrow. No matter what, I know I’ll be ready to go by Saturday, and that I will run the best race I can that day. It’s going to be a sunny, 70-degree day by the lake, and why would anyone not want to enjoy that?

4/1/21 Training Update: 9 Days Until a Real Race

We are now more than a year into the Covid-19 pandemic (or should that be capitalized: Pandemic?), and in the time since our society locked down I have run in only one live race, the Half Marathon Unplugged last October. That race had several staggered starting waves, and was completed just at the start of the fall/winter surge that led to a return to more stringent protocols. As a result, the few races that ordinarily are scheduled during the winter were cancelled.

However, with vaccines starting to roll out and continuous improvement in understanding how this disease is transmitted, there is another live race coming up. And it is…the Half Marathon Unplugged in Burlington, restored to its normal April date. As with the October running, this race will have multiple staggered starting waves. I’m not sure exactly how many people are in each wave, but it’s a chip-timed race. Last fall I was able to hang at the back of the corral and keep my distance for the start. Once on the bike path, people spread out pretty quickly. It felt safe.

So I am signed up again, this time to start of a racing season that I expect to ramp up pretty quickly in the weeks to come. As I mentioned last time, my training and even my goals for this race are different from normal. Last fall I set my Personal Record for a half marathon at this race, and of course the natural instinct is to want to do even better this time. But winter is an odd time to do race training here in Vermont, particularly because I prioritize skiing. Above and beyond that, I’ve been dealing with nagging injuries, in particular an aggravated Achilles tendon that, although not bad enough to stop me from running, has me being very conservative in my training. The primary impact is that I’ve been limiting distance and hills, and not doing any sort of speed training.

In short, I don’t think that a new PR is realistic this time around.

And yet, I am trying to have a half-decent showing. Over the past few weeks I have done a lot of reading about Achilles injuries. I’ve modified my pre-run stretching routine. I’ve read about techniques to massage the tendon, as well as ways to loosen up and lengthen the calf muscles with a massage gun or foam roller. (I ordered foam rollers for both Katie and myself, which arrived today!) But for the most part, I’ve been pretty conservative in the distance and pacing of my runs.

I say “for the most part,” because although everything in the past few weeks has been in the 4-6 mile range, I was really feeling the pull to do a longer run last weekend. It was two weeks before the race, which is “last long run” territory. And I hadn’t done a long run in a month. I planned on Sunday to go for an 8-mile run, with the thought that I could try to make it 10 if everything was feeling good. I did all my stretches and tendon massaging and headed out with a plan to get to the bike path and head out Junction Road. The out-and-back distance to Three Mile Bridge is 8.5 miles, and if I wanted to go further I could run back to the co-op before heading home.

On my run, my Achilles felt okay. I definitely noticed it and there were even a few moments where I would say I felt a little bit of pain. Overall it was just letting me know that it was not healed, and I found that adjusting my stride to land more on the bottom of my feet fixed the problem. But, you know me – I pretty much knew from the outset that I was going to go ten miles unless things were obviously bad, which they were not. Rather than return on Junction Road, I crossed the river at Three Mile Bridge. I had in my mind that I wanted to check out Cross Road in Middlesex, which goes from TMB Road to Route 2. I took the first left after I crossed the bridge, and soon discovered that this was not Cross Road. There were two houses, one of which was a trailer on stilts with peel-out tracks leaving the driveway. This was junkyard dog territory, and it was soon evident that this road was not going to connect to Route 2. I doubled back and found the correct road, which went through a little industrial park. From there it was a little jaunt on the highway before tooling through town and back home. A nice run.

Now I am back to the 4-6 mile range, and it will stay that way until the race. The plan will be to have two rest days on Thursday and Friday of next week. I really don’t think a PR is realistic – I don’t want to stress the Achilles, and I haven’t been doing any sort of speed training to improve cardio and muscular response. Last fall I ran an 8:44 pace, and I am highly confident that under better circumstances I can improve on that. But I want to be realistic, so I am setting a goal of sub-9:00 pace, which is around 1:58. If I get out there and halfway through I am feeling really good, I’ll probably try to shave a couple of minutes off that, but I don’t want to set that expectation.

But it feels great to be thinking about race goals again!

3/23/21 Training Update: Training Update

Man, has it really been over a month since I posted here? Time flies!

I find that it’s sometimes difficult to decide exactly what the “training update” is, because priorities are mixed up in the winter. Actually, not mixed up at all, as skiing is top priority when I can get it. Running takes a back seat.

That said, there’s still been a lot of running. When last we checked in, I had just bruised my butt in a skiing accident, and was concerned that my streak of 100-mile months was in peril. I reached the 25th, with only four days left in the month (and one of those days a ski day), with 24 miles to go. I wasn’t going to make it.

I went out for a run late that afternoon, and it felt good. I was running an easy pace, so I just kind of kept going. I think it was going to be a 4-5 mile run, then “if I go this way” I can get to seven, which turned into eight, and such and such. Eventually I ended up running 10 miles.

I was a little sore at the end, primarily my feet and my hips a little as well. But I felt okay the next day, so I decided to go for another longish run, primarily to see if I could get to shouting distance of 100 miles, but also to see how it felt to do longer runs two days in a row. I kept it flat and easy, out the bike path, and I kept going to Three Mile Bridge Road. That was longer than I had first planned, turning this into an 8.75 mile run, but it felt okay.

That left me just five miles and some change from 100, so on the 28th I picked up the remaining miles. Temperatures were unseasonably warm in the upper 40’s, and I ran in shorts for the first time in months. Mission accomplished!

A funny thing happened on the way to all these miles, though: my Achilles tendon started to hurt. I didn’t really notice for another week, but I know it started the last week of February. I ran 36 miles, which is one of the highest-mileage weeks I’ve ever had. I ran just short of 28 miles the next week. Warm weather was making trail conditions poor for running, so I was on the pavement. The improved traction had me running faster paces.

When I noticed the tendon I started doing some research, and discovered that Achilles problems can result from increasing miles too fast, increasing speed, and running hills. Running on pavement also can contribute to the problem.

Check, check, check, and check. Trifecta plus one. (Quadfecta? I don’t know the word for this!) The website I found, Run To The Finish, has a lot of information about injury recovery and avoidance. A lot of it involves stretching, building strength, and proper warmups. I learned that most running injuries result from the same combination of weak glutes, tight hips, and muscles that aren’t properly warmed up and maintained. So I have changed my warmup routine and started to incorporate some different exercises into my normal PT routine. And, though I am on pace for another 100-mile month, my runs have been flatter and slower. (It’s tough to avoid pavement at the moment, though.) And it seems to be working.

In the midst of all this, of course, I actually signed up for a race that I need to train for. The Half Marathon Unplugged, which I ran with great results in October, has returned to its normal spring schedule, and is coming up in just a few short weeks. So I find myself in a similar situation to last winter, when I was ramping up my training in a short period to be ready for a race. The only difference this time is that I know my fitness will enable me to run the full 13 miles. My tendency, of course, is to want to improve my personal record. At the moment, though, I am telling myself that it’s more important to run the race injury free than it is to go fast. I’m not going to win, so the only person I am really racing is myself. I don’t want to screw up my whole racing season overdoing it on this one.