Untamed Runner

We’re starting to see a little more daylight as we chug through the winter months and it’s that time when either spring race training is getting into full swing and/or we’re more carefully considering what the summer and fall will look like.

In the late 1990s, I trained for and ran my first marathon. I approached it with vigor, topping out with a 100-mile training week and adjusting my diet so that when I showed up on the start line, I’d be ready to blaze the course. I knew that professional marathon runners would routinely log 100+ mile weeks, up to 120 or 150, and in my mind, this plan was perfectly reasonable in that context. However, I was a first-time marathoner with over-inflated ambition and my choices included two of three mistakes that likely impacted my race negatively. I finished in 3:17, slower than my goal and what the conversion charts suggested I should run. It’s possible, maybe probable, that I left some time back in the training weeks. (The third mistake was my gear choice for the race but that’s for a different post.)

One thing many people consider when training for a long race is how to eat and drink to maximize training and performance. I made three decisions that fall related to my diet, none of which were bad in themselves. For the entire fall, I cut out red meat. For the last couple of weeks leading up to the race, I cut out soda. For the week of the race, I ate tons of pasta but to make it more healthy, I ate it plain–no sauce, no butter, no salt and pepper.

At the time, I thought I was doing my body a favor (and from a scientific perspective, I probably was). What I was also doing was creating a higher-than-needed level of pressure to excel at the marathon and making myself unnecessarily resolute at the expense of a little enjoyment. Cutting back on red meat and soda and considering what I was putting on my pasta was wise. Enjoying a few splurges here and there may have helped balance things out and helped me to relax more and feel looser on the day of the race.

Should we be conscientious of what we’re eating? Yes. Should we deny ourselves a little enjoyment, even unconsciously, in our pursuit of athletic achievements? That’s debatable. If you’ve got a career on the line, or if this is a part of a bigger lifestyle change you’re seeking, then it may be worth it. On the other hand, being well-balanced and enjoying the journey to the start line is also important and it may lead to a better race result.

The mileage part of the equation is both easier and more difficult to wrangle with. The math says more miles equals better results. However, simply adding more may not always be the answer. I built up to the 100-mile week probably more quickly than I should have and I was sticking to my six days of running and one day of rest. When I reached triple digits, every day averaged out to 16-plus miles. There were two twenty-five mile long runs in there. By the end of that week, I thought my legs were going to crumble apart and was desperately looking forward to a day off. It was too late to adjust my training at that point (not that I would have–I figured it was part of the gig back then) but it should have been a red flag. I had done 50-70 mile weeks in the past and in retrospect, I should have topped out at 70 or 80 with more effective, faster-paced runs. This also may have led to a better race.

Is there going to be some pain and frustration with training? I’ve never heard of a case where there wasn’t. Will there need to be consideration of a diet better attuned to athletic performance? Possibly, depending on your current intake. How far is too far? Unfortunately, there’s not an easy answer. I do know that for the next three marathons I trained for, my mileage was less, I was more relaxed with what I ate, and all three were faster. There are many training plans out there for all levels of runners and lots of research has been put into them. It’s then a matter of figuring out which one best matches your ability and goals.

I used the marathon example because it’s the one where I definitely went most overboard. The same thing can happen with shorter distance races and the takeaway is the same. A pro 5K/10K runner may be running around 90 miles per week but that’s not a level that’s necessary for most people.

Training for a race should be tough but it shouldn’t be excruciating and miserable. Remembering to enjoy life a little and keeping your mileage rational is also an important aspect of it.

One thing Garmin users may notice is that the watch doesn’t always record the exact same distance every time you run. It’s not uncommon for me to be .01 or .02 miles off for a course that I run regularly. There are numerous explanations for this: running tangents slightly differently, having to run around more people than usual on a crowded day, etc. Even when running with friends, it’s common for us to be .01 to .02 miles different from each other at the end of a run. We shrug it off figuring that if one of us took more wide turns than the other, over time that would add up. When you select the workout type on the watch, you need to wait until the watch connects with the satellite before starting. If you don’t, the watch will estimate your distance. It’s not too far off, but it’s definitely less accurate.

I discovered another possible reason to add to the list. One day, right as my watch connected a neighbor walked by and we chatted for a couple of minutes. When we were done, I looked down at my watch and saw that it was not connected any longer. I waited until it reconnected and then went on my run. I have occasionally (though rarely) seen the watch lose connectivity and then regain it in the middle of a run. I had not noticed a situation where the watch loses connectivity while standing still before starting. It’s a good reminder to double check it before setting out.

The GPS measurement should be spot-on and yet I also know it may not give me the exact same measurement every time. So how do I work with that? Along my regular running routes, there are points that nearly always serve as exact mile markers. What I mean is that if the vast majority of the time my watch is clocking the first and subsequent miles at certain landmarks, I assume that that point is exactly a mile. If I’m going on a six-mile run on an out-and-back course, I run to the point I’m 99.9% sure is three miles based on my past workouts. If I’m at 3.0 or longer, I’ll turn around. If I’m short by point-oh-something, I’ll go until it’s 3.0 on my watch. This means I could be running a bit longer than my planned distance, but that’s my preference.

Another feature I’d like to research at some point is the elevation measurement and how they achieve that, whether it’s still satellite or if it’s based on maps programmed into the software. But, that’s for a future post…

*Edited from first post to clarify precision and the elevation observation.

When this blog started, a fair number of posts featured the unprecedented dominance at the marathon distance by Eliud Kipchoge. With the 5000M history series this past spring and summer and a few other posts, I realized it had been a while since I had mentioned anything about his recent races. It was known that at some point, barring discovery of the fountain of youth, that time would be an enemy of his speed and endurance. The question was when?

It was announced this week that Kipchoge will race the London Marathon this spring and now speculation swirls. Can a 40-year old (and some believe he may be a bit older) with a few disappointments in the past couple of years churn out another major marathon victory?

Following a 6th-place finish in the 2023 Boston Marathon, Kipchoge rebounded to win the 2023 Berlin Marathon. After that, he had a 10th-place finish at the Tokyo Marathon in 2024, well outside of Kipchoge standards. He then DNF’d at the Olympics this past summer. If you look collectively at his career: eleven major marathon wins, two staged marathon times of 2:00:25 and 1:59:41, two Olympic gold medals, and three non-major wins, then having five marathons where he didn’t win or DNF’d is remarkable. However, since three of those occurred in his last four attempts, it’s natural to wonder whether he has another major win in him. The betting line would probably be no. If he’s hoping to start another string of wins, that would be an unreasonable expectation. If he’s hoping for one last great race, he wouldn’t be the first forty-plus athlete to have an additional moment of triumph.

At forty-five years old, George Foreman reclaimed the heavyweight boxing championship of the world. At forty-four years old, Nolan Ryan threw a no-hitter in Major League Baseball. At forty-three years old, Tom Brady led his team to a Super Bowl championship.

How do any of these compare to running a major marathon? That’s difficult to say. But, all three of those athletes are generational talents, as is Kipchoge.

The London field is fast, so Kipchoge will have a very tough task when he toes the line. Still, that list of accomplishments by 40+ athletes is not exhaustive and perhaps he’ll be able to add his name to it.

https://baseballhall.org/discover/inside-pitch/ryan-throws-seventh-no-hitter

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/tom-bradys-7th-super-bowl-ring-reaction

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/64525-oldest-heavyweight-boxing-world-champion

https://www.letsrun.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliud_Kipchoge

A few days ago, we got a light dusting of snow overnight. It was so light you could still see the pavement, though the snow was definitely there. The surprise was that because it had been so cold, some of the hard surfaces were incredibly slick. I could tell this when leaving and running along my neighborhood sidewalk. 90% of my route that day was going to be on dirt trails, which would not pose the same slip hazard, and I realized I had an opportunity.

Pacing in races is challenging, as I’ve mentioned several times in past blog posts. It’s important to get out quickly so that I don’t get boxed in with a group that’s running slower than I want. After that, I want to settle into a pace to achieve whatever goal I’ve set.

There are two problems with settling into a pace that’s too fast. One is that if I try to hold it, there’s a good chance I won’t be able to and I’ll flame out and have to trot the last part of the race. The second is that even if I don’t try to hold it, backing off is equally challenging. By the point I’ve realized the pace is too fast, a small amount of fatigue may already be creeping in and when I back off, it will be too easy to go with a pace that feels good, but is much slower than I wanted. The trick is to have the discipline to both back off when necessary, then speed back up if you need to.

Here’s where running on the ice the other day was an unexpected training boon. Every time I had to run over a stretch of concrete or asphalt, I slowed down to avoid falling. Every time I transitioned back to the dirt, I sped back up. This may not have mimicked perfectly when I would need to switch gears in a race, but it gave me a little practice in the exercise of doing so.

Many of us hope to keep our training mileage at our standard levels through the holiday season. However, there are many good reasons why doing so can be challenging. There are a few ways to work around it, physically and mentally.

1. Reasonable expectations. If you’re travelling or have a busier social schedule and think that reaching your normal mileage will be difficult, adjust your weekly expectations. For example, if you normally run 25 miles over 6 days, consider aiming for 20, either through shorter daily runs or running on 4 or 5 days.

2. Related to #1, fewer miles are better than no miles. This is true for any given day or week. Even if you don’t run for a long enough time/distance to improve or maintain fitness, any amount helps keep the training routine going. It’s far more encouraging to get to early January and see a bunch of short runs than a long stretch of goose eggs on the calendar.

3. If you’re adamant about keeping mileage at your normal training level but are concerned about holiday interruptions, consider signing up for a race that occurs in late December/early January. There are holiday themed ones out there and if you have a race on the horizon, that is good motivation to keep the training going.

The holidays are meant to be a time that you enjoy, so whatever you decide on with a routine, make sure you’re likely to enjoy it and that it fits in a way that doesn’t overly stress you out.

As I pondered a goal time for the 10-Miler, I kept a couple of things in mind. I had only ever run one 10-mile race and that was in 2021. It was mostly flat: net uphill on the way out, net down on the way back. I posted a 69:50, or 6:59 per mile. Was I still capable of running sub-70 minutes? While the Virginia 10-Miler is at sea level and that should buy three-five minutes, it has significantly more hills. Also, in 2021 I was three years younger. Following my 44 post, I suspected that natural aging and biology were not going to be allies.

Based on my training pace, which for my ten milers was generally under eight minutes per mile, 80 minutes was a minimum goal. Considering different factors, I settled on being pleased with 75 minutes and very, very happy if I could crack 70. I decided to run the first five miles at a pace that was on the aggressive side of moderate but that I was 99% certain I could hold for the full distance. If at the halfway point I still had a ton of energy left, then I would ramp it up.

Off the line, I kept my pace moderated and by the time I got to four miles, I felt good and was passing people. By the fifth mile, which comes at the top of a nasty, hairpin hill, I was still feeling good. Not enough to go berserker on the pace, but like I was in command of a solid time. For the next three miles, my pace actually got faster as I pushed just a tad.

However, looming at the front and back of my mind the entire time was the final “Farm Basket Hill” because no matter how good I felt, there was no getting around that final, long climb. On a dramatic side note, while most of the course featured music and a healthy number of spectators who were cheering, there was a quarter mile stretch just before Farm Basket that had zero spectators and was eerily silent, as if foreshadowing the grind to come.

The Farm Basket climb is terrible. I should add that though I had never officially run the 10-Miler, I had run on parts or all of the course many, many times. I don’t remember the hill being as bad as it was on race day but I was 20+ years younger and not racing it, which might have had something to do with it. My goal as I went up was to keep running and do what I could to make it to the top without completely falling off the pace.

I could tell by my time and how I felt, especially over the last few miles, that my pacing had worked well. I knew it had been spot on when I hit a quarter mile to go. How did I know? I tried to launch into a final sprint but my legs were not having it. After 50 meters or so, I shifted back down to race pace, then kicked it back up again for the last 100 meters. Feeling that kind of weariness while maintaining race pace at that point is a good thing, in my mind. It means I left nothing on the course. 

My final time was 72:37. While far off of my best-ever 10-mile time and not one that I would shout about, I was pleased, most of all with my pacing. It was reflected not only in mymile splits and overall time, but in the dynamics of the race–over the last six miles, I passed 10-20 people but only got passed by two. Also, I maintained my pace over the final Farm Basket stretch. Most importantly, I felt simultaneously in command of my legs and pace while also realizing that I was precisely running my body down to empty as I moved to the finish line.

I’ve mentioned in prior posts that our best races may not necessarily be the ones where we achieve our fastest time or a win, it may be those where training, race strategy, and execution come together, and that was the case last Saturday. I’m not sure of my 10-Miler’s exact ranking in my best races, but I’m confident placing it in the top 5.

Last October, I signed up for the 2024 Virginia 10 Miler which was held this past Saturday, the 28th. This is a somewhat legendary, 10-mile road race in Lynchburg, VA, the town where I grew up. The winning times have been under 50 minutes, or sub-5 minute mile pace. It features over 700 feet of total climbing and the course has a steady diet of hills, including the infamous “Farm Basket Hill,” a grueling 1.5 mile net climb at the end of the race.

Though I began running earnestly when I was 14, I had never run the 10-Miler. Among running cross-country, being out of town for college, etc. it was something I’d never been able to fit in. The 2024 edition was the 50th anniversary of the race and I figured that it was as good a time as any to give it a go. It was going to pose some challenges.

Where I live in Colorado is relatively flat. There are slight ascents and descents and a few large hills, but nothing close to the constant grind of hills I would face on the 10-miler course. So, I adjusted my training routes. I made sure to incorporate a set of bigger hills near my house into more of my training runs and I did two types of ten-mile training runs. One was where I would run net downhill on the way out and then have net uphill on the way back. This helped approximate the profile of the 10-miler course. The second type was including long sets of grueling hills into the run. These training runs generally felt terrible but I kept in the back of my mind that it would (hopefully) pay off on race day.

I also worked on pacing. The 10-miler is net downhill on the first half and at sea level and I knew that it would be tempting to go out too fast. I worked to moderate my pace on the first half of my training runs and thus save some fuel for the second half, especially those runs where I was finishing coming back uphill.

Finally, I also began incorporating a three-part race strategy: RBR, or Relax, Breathe, Race.

Relax: the goal was to focus on relaxing my body north of my waist. There’s no need to waste energy tensing up muscles that I’m not directly using to churn out the miles. This is something I’ve been working on for a couple of years and I continued to emphasize it.

Breathe: In a book I highly recommend, The Track in the Forest, it talks about how one of the coaches of 1968 Olympic team encouraged his athletes to incorporate heavy exhalation into their racing. The idea is that as distance runners, we’re sucking in high levels of oxygen and that it’s beneficial to our bodies to also try and release some of the extra CO2 that we’re building up. This is easier said than done since we rely on taking in the oxygen. What I focused on was using downhills, where I don’t need to take in as much air, as opportunities to do one to three sets of deep, forced exhales, depending on the length of the hill, to help keep everything in my lungs a little cleaner. Towards the bottom of the hill, I would then do several deep inhales to replenish the air before starting on the next climb.

Race: I’m an easily distracted daydreamer. It’s common for me to lose focus on a long run while thinking about any number of topics. While this can help me to forget about the pain of a training run or race, I also can lose track of things I want to think about related to my strategy. For this race, I simply tried to make sure I was keeping my focus sharp.

My training went relatively well, minus a few hiccups, so when I showed up at the start line, I had to hope that it was sufficient to run the race I wanted. How did that go? Stay tuned for my next post…

I read an article a couple of weeks ago that gave me a bit of context regarding my race times from the past sixteen months. From the spring of 2023 through now, I was/am struggling to hit race times that matched what I was doing in 2022 and earlier. 

At the times of the races, I would think about the factors that may have impacted me including heat, having an off day, tough course, etc.

This past winter, I dealt with a wonky left knee and then something went wrong with my right calf. I took a full three weeks off to see if I could fully reset, then very slowly started building back up.

Because of this, when my time at a 5K early this past summer wasn’t great, I blamed having to build back and assumed a few more weeks of training would take care of it. Except, I knew that with that same level of training several years ago, my time would probably have been thirty seconds faster. Was the slower result a lack of speed work, age, or something else?

Then along came this article. Maybe the key factor was age, and a very specific age. The argument of the article is that 44 is a year where you make a sharp turn in aging and it does not lead to faster times. I’d turned 44 in 2022 and based on my own experience, that sharp turn makes sense.

It’s a bit of a relief, in that it may be in nature’s control and not mine. Unfortunately, there was nothing about a bounceback at a later time. Fortunately, the next big turn is expected around age 60, so maybe there’s a while before aging takes a big turn…

The Olympics came and went and while there were many historic and captivating performances, the 5000M was mostly under the radar. But, there was one notable occurrence in each the men’s and women’s.

The US men have a 5000/10000 runner, Grant Fisher, who has competed well on the world stage but had yet to medal in a world championship. While I don’t know if he’ll ever be within striking distance of the world record (he’s 11 seconds off of it currently) he has been fast enough to be in the mix for medals. In this Olympics, he finally broke through to the podium with a bronze.

The women’s race didn’t feature any major upsets but it did see hard, jostling contact between Faith Kipyegon of Kenya, who ultimately took silver, and Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia. 

During the race, it looked like Tsegay cut in and created the contact but Ethiopia filed a protest that stripped Kipyegon of the silver. However, on further review, they reversed their decision, restoring the silver to Kipyegon. It was an odd bit of drama but it looked like it got sorted out the right way.

Oddly, the 2024 track season is not over as there are three more Diamond League meets. I’ve not been a professional runner but I have to wonder if running in the Diamond League after the Olympics might be like playing a basketball conference championship after the NCAA tournament. There may be an advantage-maybe it’s more relaxing without the eyes of the world on the meet.

The Olympics start in just under a week. The 5000M features two heats: a first round from which the finalists will be selected, based on their finishes, for the medal race. The women’s will be run on August 2nd and 5th; the men’s on August 7th and 10th. Note the three-day gap, or one mile per day for recovery.

The first men’s Olympic 5000M race was in 1912 and the winning time was 14:36.6, a full 91 seconds slower than the current Olympic qualifying standard of 13:05, which is ~30 seconds off the world record of 12:35.36. The last three Olympic winning times for the men have been 12:58 (2021); 13:03 (2016); and 13:41 (2012). The Olympic record is 12:57 (2008).

The first women’s Olympic race was run in 1996 and the winning time was 14:59.88. The current Olympic entry standard is 14:52 and the world record is 14:00.21. The last three Olympic winning times have been 14:36 (2021); 14:26 (2016); and 15:04 (2012). The Olympic record is 14:26 (2016).

As you can see, the Olympic races are tactical; it’s absurdly unlikely anyone will go out at a world record pace because they want to strategize maximizing their energy for the final section of the race. It’s a game where each person is considering when to surge to go for the win, whether they can hold that once they’ve made the call, and/or whether someone behind them has an even stronger and faster kick (ie final sprint) to catch them. It’s a subject I’ve mentioned in prior posts and while it may seem a little odd to someone unfamiliar with the sport, it’s how it works.

For the purposes of the Olympics (and world championships) it’s a byproduct of the distance races–for the 800M and shorter, there’s really no choice but to go all out so the likelihood of world records at the Olympics is higher. In 2012, if someone wasn’t familiar with the 5000M but decided to watch it, they may have checked the world record (at the time it was 12:37) and wondered why the winning time for the Olympics was 20 seconds per-mile slower.

It’s a good reminder that if you check out the Olympic 5000M, keep in mind that it’s all tactics and that can be fascinating. Will a countries’ runners work together to let one of them rabbit and try to draw out other racers early? Will someone push early knowing others aren’t likely to chase them, and then be able to hold for the win? We’ll know soon.

Sources used:

https://olympics.com/en/news/athletics-track-combined-events-at-paris-2024-the-entry-standards

https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/schedule/athletics?day=31-july

https://www.usatf.org/events/2024/2024-u-s-olympic-team-trials-%E2%80%94-track-field/qualifying-information

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5000_metres

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_1912_Summer_Olympics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_2016_Summer_Olympics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_2020_Summer_Olympics

https://worldathletics.org/records/by-category/olympic-games-records