Untamed Runner

There’s a reason sports teams have preseasons or spring trainings. When you jump off the line the first time after an extended period of not racing, you’re not exactly sure what may happen. Getting a sense of your speed and how you’re feeling in a semi-race environment is valuable, even beyond the raw number.

The Dry Creek Striders began our 2023 race season with a 3200M time trial on a track, or roughly two miles. The conditions weren’t ideal with a low temperature and some spots on the track that weren’t dry. They weren’t straight-up icy, but you couldn’t land on them with 100% certainty you wouldn’t lose your footing a little. In a 3200M, normally I can start to settle in within the first two laps and have a sense of how things are likely to play out. It wasn’t until the end of the third lap on this one that I got into a good rhythm.

I’d predicted a 12:10-12:20 for myself and I crossed the line in 12:04. I was pleased I was a little ahead of my prediction. And, as a comparison, when I was in 19-flat 5K shape I would post an 11:53-11:54 3200M. 10-11 seconds off, or roughly 45-50M, is not an inconsequential amount of time (though it’s also not overwhelming) and while I picked my time knowing that I’m planning to ramp up my mileage and speed work (and while the unpredictable spots on the track may have been worth a few seconds), it confirmed that I’ll need to do just that to get to the times I want.

It also reinforced the wisdom of getting races under my feet before going for one where I have a fast goal in mind. Aside from the fact I knew I needed more miles to increase my speed, being away from racing for a few months also means relearning the mental part of racing, too. The best way to accomplish that is to race; I’ve not found a good substitute for that yet. On to more miles, and races…

With the consistent and significant snowfall and longer-than-usual stretches of bitter cold that the Denver metro area has experienced this winter, running outside has proven to be more challenging than in past years.

Trails have been snow-packed for weeks and the surface has varied from soft or firm, to knobby, gnarled, and slick. Sidewalks still have patches of ice and snowpack along them and intersections still have mounds of snow and/or large ice-water puddles. Keeping a steady pace is not reasonable as I have to periodically slow down, navigate a slick/icy patch, and then pick it back up. Apparently, snow and ice don’t melt quickly off of synthetic track surfaces as I went to the local middle school to run a few laps on theirs and it still had a few inches of snow. With all of these obstacles, yesterday I decided it was a good time to throw my usual routes out the window and try something different.

99% of the times I run, I pick a distance and route ahead of time and I go with it. Heading out with an unknown distance and route is very, very unusual. I’d covered a decent part of the route I chose in the past so it wasn’t all new. However, I didn’t map it out ahead of time for the total distance or for the exact route so it would be a surprise in terms of distance and how I would cover the middle portion.

I wanted to cover six miles and when I got to three, I hesitated. I’d already done a chunk of the run over an unfamiliar trail. I had two options: consider it adventurous enough and head back home the way I came, or continue into new territory, gradually heading in the direction I needed to go by going over new ground and through unfamiliar sections of town for a bit longer. While I didn’t know exactly how I would get back to the main road or how long it would take me, I chose to continue the new route.

Logically, I knew the geography and layout of the area so by no stretch of the imagination was this a daring feat of exploration. And, it was a little fun to head into a new section of town without fully knowing where I would go. I found my way through a couple of neighborhoods, looped back to the main road, and then all was familiar.

If you’re trying new areas, obviously you don’t want to put yourself in an unpleasant situation, including adding on lots of extra miles you hadn’t planned on. But, I’d like to think that if there’s a reasonable opportunity to do so, it’s at least good preparation for the unexpected things that will undoubtedly creep up in races. Maybe it’s also a healthy way to keep your running brain alert and engaged.

I enjoy having a treadmill. A couple of weeks ago when it was -16 and slick outside, I ran on it instead of putting on YakTrax and extra layers and grinding my way to a thirty minute run in terrible conditions. However, while I’m not dependent on scenery for enjoying a run, staring at a wall and a clock for several miles while on the treadmill is not exciting. I could watch a video on my phone or put in earbuds for music, but I don’t like having things on my head or ears while running and getting the audio loud enough to enjoy a video on my phone would disturb the rest of the house and possibly blow my phone’s speakers.

I found a way to cut down on the boredom on the treadmill and as a possible bonus, I think it might help with pacing for races. Let’s say I’m planning to run four miles. I’ll set up a target time at the beginning of the run, say 29:00 or a 7:15 per mile pace. If I was going to run outside, I would attempt to start out at 7:15, hold that, and if I was still feeling good by mile three, kick up the pace and try to blast the rest of the way home.

On the treadmill, with the aforementioned pace, I’ll start at 7.0 miles per hour, or roughly 8:30 per mile. As I run, I’ll periodically, every 100M-400M, nudge the pace up by .1 miles per hour through the first couple of miles until I hit 8.3, which is my target pace. Of course, I’m still behind my overall target because I was under pace for a while. At this point, I have to run faster than my goal pace to hit 29:00. Depending on when I got to 8.3, I not only have to go above the pace but I have to continually do mental math to determine the speed I need to go to cruise in at 28:59, or faster.

My treadmill goes up to 12.0 miles per hour so it would be possible to push the speed way up for a quarter mile or so, then back it down and essentially do an interval workout. However, there’s a much bigger thrill to gradually increasing the pace, wondering if I’ll be able to hold it, but knowing I have to do so or even push it a bit higher for the last half mile to mile.

The boredom is now alleviated with this tactic and here’s where the possible bonus comes in. I’ve mentioned the challenge of pacing in races, especially when aiming for a specific time. There’s temptation to create a time cushion so that I’m not right on the edge for the last chunk of the race and having to push for a goal time when I’m running out of gas. Of course, I’ve seen plenty of times that even pacing is the most effective way to reach a goal time so creating the cushion is not a good plan. While I wouldn’t want to start a race too slow and create too much time to make up, my hope is that by using this game to avoid boredom on the treadmill, I’m also reinforcing a more effective pacing strategy. This is different than even pacing, but it does condition my legs and brain to trust myself to continue to push hard at the end of a race, even when it’s extraordinarily challenging to so do.

I don’t think I’ve ever made a New Year’s resolution. However, since I don’t race very often between late November and early March (four times in that span in the last eight years), recently I have found myself setting up loose racing and training plans in the December/January time block. It’s possible I outline my running year during that time frame because I have better perspective when I’m not in the middle of race preparation or higher-mileage training, where recent performances may unduly affect decision-making. I can look at how things have played out in the past, adjusting for anomalies, and strategize a little better. Also, since this is the time of year where we’re starting to make more firm plans around summer and the kids’ camps, it allows me to factor in the races to whatever else we’re doing.

By the end of this past year, I noticed that my finishing times tended to be faster in the fall. With that in mind, I have penciled in a couple of 10Ks for the spring, with a handful of 5Ks and shorter track events for the summer that I’ll train through, meaning race with no taper. I can then scout out a couple of flat, fast 5Ks for the fall in the hopes of hitting fast times. In theory, these would come after a stretch of higher mileage with speed work, and then an appropriate taper.

Of course, I stay open to unexpected possibilities. The Mile High Mile this past summer is one example of taking on something not in the plans at the last minute. So was the 5K I ran in Evans, CO in the spring. However, both of those were within, or close enough to, my overall plans that I knew they wouldn’t throw me off too much. Taking on something unexpected that’s far out of the range, especially something that involves long miles, may not be wise to do. I was briefly tempted to try the Cheyenne Marathon last fall on super-short training but wisely backed off. I mention that partly to illustrate that it can be very alluring to try something different on a whim but that keeping perspective is valuable.

Good luck as you embark on your 2023 running. If you do have a period of time during the year with less racing or intense running miles, it may be a good time to outline what you want to do for your race calendar, or for your running in general.

For my final race of the season, I signed up for the “Pumpkin Pie 5K” in Denver’s City Park. We got a decent sized snowstorm the Thursday before the race and the temperature stayed frigid. On Saturday, the day of the race, it was barely above twenty degrees and a significant portion of the course was covered in ice. Not good running conditions.

I came in with hopes of running under 19:00, especially since the field was crowded and I was likely to have people to work off of. Through the first half of the race, I stayed on pace for that and felt good. Past the halfway point, I picked up the speed a bit and still felt good.

And then, at 1.75 miles my pace was falling off. Strangely, I didn’t feel like I was backing off but my watch was telling me otherwise. I repeatedly tried to increase my speed and it was like pushing against a brick wall. Short of being reckless, I simply couldn’t make myself move faster.

Frustration was mounting but I managed to keep my head enough to notice that I was mostly passing other people as we got closer to the end. I finished with a 19:58, well off my goal and my times from earlier this fall.

In the aftermath of this frigid mess, I did a quick evaluation. Talking with a few runners afterwards, it turned out we all were roughly one minute below our expected times. The course was basically flat and its profile shouldn’t have led to a major slowdown over the second half. What I think happened is that many of us attempted to keep our goal pace during the first half. Doing so in cold temperatures and on slick surfaces took a lot more out of us than we realized.

This may seem obvious but when you’re keeping pace and feeling good, adrenaline can clearly mask how much gas you’re really burning. While I think I’ve developed a decent sense of when I’m overreaching on my pace and can adjust, in this case, it didn’t quite feel like that kind of a situation. It may be because I would have been able to maintain my goal pace on a dry road but my effort to do so on the ice wasn’t enough of an overreach to trigger the “Caution!” part of my brain.

I’m not sure what I would do differently in a future race with similar conditions. The ice slowed me down but I don’t know whether taking a more moderate pace at the beginning would have allowed me to pick up any time at the end. In fact, given how many people I was passing over the last mile, I think my strategy may have been fine. On a positive note, I followed my own advice from my last post and wore a neck gaiter for the warm-up and cool-down runs before and after the race. That at least kept my lungs from feeling too chilled.

The moral of story? I’m not sure if there is one. If I have a future race with similar conditions, I’ll just run hard and hope for the best.

I’ve written a few posts on winter running but following this week’s speed workout, I have a new bit to add. It generally needs to be extremely cold, under twenty degrees and/or blowing snow, for me to cover my face with a Buff or neck gaiter. Now, I have an exception.

For my speed work, the temperature was in the upper twenties and I wouldn’t have considered wearing a face wrap except that since I was pushing myself at a faster pace, I was going to be breathing in a lot harder than a normal training run. In a 5K several years ago, it was twenty-three degrees at the start of the race. I didn’t wear a face wrap and after red-lining my lungs for three point one miles, I could feel the cold deep down in them. I rarely drink hot tea but I had some when I got home that day to help thaw out. It was a couple of hours before I felt normal again.

Remembering that experience plus several others, I didn’t want to freeze my lungs this week but I also didn’t want to cover my face during the speed work as that restricts my breathing and slows me down. I experimented with a compromise. I wore the face wrap on my warm-up run, discarded it for the track work (4X800 with one-minute rests between them) and then put it back on for the cool-down run. When I got back home, my lungs felt normal. While I did the most intense running without the wrap, I think wearing it ahead of time and afterwards prevented the deep-cold feeling in the lungs, while allowing me to hit my goal times.

Going forward, for a race or speed work I’ll err on the side of a face wrap when the temperatures are cold with the same pattern: wearing it during the warm-up and cool-down segments. Feeling a chill deep in the lungs isn’t much fun, and there’s an easy solution.

Taper, or resting before a race, is a key component of training and preparation. It basically means giving your legs and body a break during the week (or weeks, for longer races) before your event. In short, you run fewer miles than what you were doing during your peak training.

How much taper you need depends on the length of the race you’re attempting. For a marathon, it usually starts three to four weeks before race day, depending on your training plan. For a 5K or 10K, it means lighter mileage in the week leading up to it with possibly an extra day off. Since I include speed work in my training, for the week of a race I reduce the intensity of that workout, and/or do it earlier in the week, or skip it altogether.

How much does the taper help? If you’re not adhering to it with precision, what’s the impact? There are obvious don’ts. Doing a twenty-mile run during the week before a race will hinder your performance. What if you run an easy four miles the day before the race instead of two to three? That’s more difficult to say. I’ve done both and I don’t know that it had a significant impact on my race performance.

Some taper depends on personal preference. If your race is Saturday and you want to take a day off right before it, whether that’s Thursday or Friday is up to you. I like to get a few miles in the day before to stay loose but I try to make that run at least twenty-four hours before the start time. 

If you’re training for a specific 5K or 10K time, you may be doing a few events during your season leading up to a specific race where you think you can hit your goal. For any of these preliminary events, I don’t want to back off too much on the miles for the week leading up to them because I am preparing for one down the road. What I will do is adjust my mileage so that I cover more miles earlier in the week and I can do shorter runs in the few days before the race. It’s a semi-taper, so to speak.

Taper doesn’t guarantee a fast performance, it just means your body is relatively rested heading into the event. My general philosophy on race week and tapering is that you can’t do much to improve your performance but you can do a lot to screw it up. It’s a tough week because if you’re holding back after weeks of hard training, your muscles will get more and more revved up through the week and ready to bolt. But, the taper is a significant factor in giving you your best shot at hitting your time or distance goal. 

For races, it’s helpful to check out a course map and an elevation profile ahead of time, if they’re available. Especially with hills it’s useful to know where they are, even if they’re gradual or barely discernible, so you can strategize appropriately.

In a couple of 5Ks I’ve run, though the area didn’t look hilly, the third mile was significantly net downhill. I didn’t realize this for one of them and when I crossed the two-mile mark behind my goal pace I was close to spent, figured I was toast, and kept up at a reasonable pace, focusing on keeping my place. However, with a quarter mile to go, I realized I was back on pace and it turned into a mad dash for the finish.

In the other 5K example, I knew the profile ahead of time. For that race, my first two miles were a little slower than my goal pace but I was able to pour in some speed on a long downhill stretch in the third mile towards the finish, and I hit the time I planned on.

Understanding the terrain profile is also useful for training runs. When I did a 4X800 speed workout several weeks ago, the first and third 800s were net uphill and the second and fourth were net down. I put a lot of energy into the second 800 and went well under my goal time of 2:59, hitting a 2:53. This likely prevented me from hitting all four in 2:59 or faster. I pushed hard to keep number three at 2:59 and for the fourth one, I was so out of gas that I got 3:01. The purpose of the speed workout is to maximize effort and I wasn’t far off of my planned pace. However, it was a good lesson that while the downhill gave me an advantage, I probably gave too much too early. One could argue that the six seconds I gained on number two compensated for the two seconds lost on number four, but maybe not. On the same route three weeks later, I held back a little on #2 hitting it in 2:59. #3 was 2:57, #4 was 2:53. More miles and speed work between the workouts probably had something to do with the faster overall times but going too fast early in the run does have an impact.

So how do you balance pushing hard with hills, even subtle inclines or declines? I don’t think there’s a magic formula. For my own training and racing, on downhills I let gravity do a lot of the work, especially on the first half. If I’m in the second half, I’ll push harder on the downhills. Up is tricky. I keep an eye on my watch and try to make sure I’m not falling too far off my pace but also not clobbering my legs and lungs too early. Any time gained could be offset by depleting your body. Towards the end, especially within the last quarter mile, boosting my effort up a hill may be necessary, either to snag the good time or stay ahead of the next competitor.

My approach is to understand the terrain and attempt to maintain patience. Doing so goes a long way to making my energy output as efficient as possible and minimizing my time on the course.

Kipchoge came and went at Berlin in 2:01:09, 30 seconds faster than his previous world record. His time is seventy seconds from a ratified sub-two finish. More speculation on his future plans and possibilities in a future post, as this is not what greed and ambition refers to…

Following unplanned time off earlier this summer, I focused my training on getting my 5K time back down to the high nineteens, if not faster. In a race in late July, I posted a 20:13 and knew that with a few more weeks of training, I could probably get to my time goal.

The Dry Creek Striders did a 5K time trial in early September and a formal race two weeks after that. My goal for the trial was to go under twenty minutes. If I could do that, I felt reasonably confident that with two more weeks of preparation, I could post nineteen-something in the next race. If there’s any suspense about whether I went under twenty for either, I’ll cut that off and say I happily went 19:31 and 19:11 for the trial and race, respectively. This is where the greed or ambition debate comes in.

Both the trial and race were out-and-back courses, net uphill for the first 1.55K and then net down for the second half. On a course like this, assuming you haven’t completely burned yourself out on the opening half, you can use the way back to pick up some speed. In the time trial, I hit the two-mile mark at 12:46 and in the race, at 12:35. Sub-twenty, or 19:59, is basically a 6:25/mile pace, or 12:50 at the two-mile mark. In addition to being under that, I had paced myself well enough that I knew my chances of staying under twenty were very high. In fact, I felt so good in both races that I considered whether I should push for an 18:59. Was this greed or ambition?

Hitting an 18:59 in the time trial would have meant running a 5:29 final mile. My mid-race math wasn’t that precise but it was close enough that I knew my chances were absurdly low. My time in the Mile High Mile was 5:42. That was a single mile on a flat surface. Though I was technically going downhill, running thirteen seconds faster than that was not reasonable so I stuck with my goal as part of the larger plan. I likely left a little on the course but felt comfortable about the race in two weeks.

During the 5K race, I would have needed a 5:40 final mile for 18:59. My mid-race math remained a little imprecise but I knew again that my chances were absurdly low. Not only did I not want to fall apart and come up short on my time goal, I was in third place which meant a spot on the podium. My usual checking methods told me I had a good lead on fourth place, but I didn’t want to lose that.

Was 18:59 greed? Probably, which is why I decided against it. While I wonder if I could have picked up more time, I also ended up with times I was pleased with.

When is it ambition and not greed? That will differ from person to person. In a ten-miler last year, around mile six I thought my chances of going under seventy minutes were shot and then with a mile to go, I realized I could probably make it, and then did. While I suspect my math was still imprecise, it was close enough to make the attempt reasonable, even if it was a substantial push. It’s also good to keep goals in mind. While you don’t want to leave time on the course, in theory you set the goal knowing your abilities and you don’t want to torpedo that by overreaching.


Source used: Eliud Kipchoge (2:01:09) Smashes World Record; Tigist Assefa (2:15:37) Stuns World at 2022 Berlin Marathon – LetsRun.com

With the rancorous cacophony that is our recent news cycle, one could be inclined to believe that Washington, D.C. is currently an anger-filled swamp of hell.

I grew up in central Virginia, have friends who live in D.C., and my wife worked for a contractor at a federal agency for a year, right in the heart of the city. Because of all of that, I’ve spent a decent amount of time there for work and vacation and I’ve gotten to log a number miles in the city and surrounding communities. Though it’s a heavily developed and urban area, there are pleasant places to run, even today.

On my most recent trip, I stayed in Arlington for a conference and my hotel was a quarter mile from the Mt. Vernon trail. Ahead of my visit, I wondered whether this was a good running path or if it had turned into an urban camping corridor. It was the former. The section I was on ran near the Potomac and in some spots, provided wonderful views of several monuments on the National Mall. Other users were consistently courteous, such as cyclists waiting to pass until there was no oncoming pedestrian/bicycle traffic, and people not running or cycling in a way where they were hogging the middle of the path. In one spot, the trail ran through an on-ramp to the George Washington Parkway. When I saw it from a little ways back, I figured I would have to make a mad dash across it to avoid traffic. Instead, the cars were remarkably patient and allowed everyone to cross.

I’ve run on the National Mall and it was a good way to see some of the city’s highlights. Over a five-mile run, there are close-up views of the Capitol, White House, Washington Monument, and Lincoln Memorial, among other buildings. The pathways on the Mall are a relatively soft, light tan dirt and gravel mix (the federal government must have trillions of tons of this stuff locked away for resurfacing/repair because it’s been the exact same for as long as I can remember) and I usually see other runners on it. While there are a few street crossings, it’s a pleasant experience.

Maybe it’s nostalgia but I like to think that my enjoyment of running there is due to good design and people there using the paths in a reasonable way. There are likely pockets of angst in the city these days, maybe big ones, but the running miles are still enjoyable.