Seebo's blog

With a Whimper

Time to round up the dogies and piss on the campfire.  To run off into the sunset.  I haven't written much on this blog in about a month and it obviously ain't doing it for me anymore.

I have thought on more than a few runs that it was time.  Each time I thought about counter-arguments, but none of them really stirred me.  I don't have the fire to keep this going.  There are some days running that I thought of some cool things to write about, but I don't feel like putting them out here anymore. 

I'm not going to run down memory lane, nor do I feel particularly sentimental about this.  Will I come back to this?  I doubt it.  If I write about running I imagine that it will be in some other format.  Life moves on, there are no second acts.

Enough with the cliches.  I am still running, lately between 25 and 35 miles per week, with no speed.  My knees ache sometimes and my ankle is pretty much okay again, but I'm not going to try to run fast again for awhile, at least not until I am convinced that something is different and I will have a shot at sustaining my training without succumbing to another injury.  I don't know what that is yet.  I talked to Paul Hines today and he said I should lay low till I hit 50.  Maybe that's what it takes.  Maybe not.  As I've said before, there is always running in costume.

I chatted with Paul during miles 2 and 3 of today's Broad Street Run.  I agonized over running that several months ago, and it was the last time that I tried to train.  That led my PF to flare up again, and forced me to dial things back.  Yet again.  Thus I faced BSR less than enthusiastically and nowhere near racing shape. 

So I figured if I broke 70 minutes I'd be happy.  I figured if I had fun running the South Philly miles I'd be happy.  I figured if I got to see the battleships instead of being so intent on finishing that I'd just run by them as they sat mothballed alongside the course I'd be happy.

I accomplished all three.  Running with Paul, I did the first miles in just under 7 minute pace, and started to pull away after mile four.  Halfway split was 34:30, right on target.  As I motored through South Philly I picked up speed, and ran the second half in 33:00, a minute and a half negative split.  Nevermind I got nosed out by a 12 year-old girl at the finish, I had a good run.  Final time was around 67:30.

I didn't wear a watch.  I saw an historical marker for the Baker Bowl, the Phillies old ballpark, that I had never seen before.  The music along the way was alot of fun, my favorites were the percussion group up on North Broad and the marching bands (playing in place) at Temple and in front of the Inquirer building.  I saw a guy in the subway heading up to the race with "Bring it on" written on the back of his t-shirt, I ran past him at about 9.5. 

But, at 34,000 finishers, Broad Street is behemoth now.  The race does very well in handling that crowd, but its too damn big.  I told Reba that I feel like a hipster in that my reaction to something getting that popular is to move on.  So I expect I'll let someone else get my slot next year.

So, no races on the horizon, and no plans to further update this blog.  If you've been following me and have gotten this far, I hereby hang a virtual medal around your neck, as you are a finisher.  Congratulations and thank you.  I imagine what never was a large following has dwindled to people I know, but I also have gotten to know some folks through this blog and for that I am grateful.  Keep in touch, if by no other way then by sending a comment, which gets forwarded to my email. 

Otherwise, happy trails.

 

Sequel

Last time I blogged was in mid-post, in a funk after a disappointing 5k.

After that my right heel started flaring up.  Plantar fasciitis again.  Didn't really run Monday or Tuesday, and then Wednesday I went to New Orleans.  Didn't really run there either, but walked.  Did lots of walking.  Justified it as crosstraining, but really I just love walking around cities.  Got home and then Monday through Wednesday I also didn't run.  But I cycled each day, as I had somewhere work related to cycle to on each of those days.  This morning I ran, 6-mile art museum loop.  First four or so were a slog, but the last two weren't bad.  Then my heel has been aching for most of the afternoon.

So here I am again.  I think of the by-now hackneyed definition of craziness, where you do the same things and expect different results.  Many cliches, however, have a grain of truth.  This is something like the fifth or sixth cycle of this, my running goes well, I ramp it up a bit, and then somehow I break down.  So I'm not sure what I'll do at this point, other than I know I'll have to do something different.  I'm thinking just run miles and leave the watch at home.  Its springtime and too nice not to run.  But I'm not feeling like competitive running is in the cards for awhile, if ever.

Don't know where that leaves this blog, I imagine I'll come back to it every so often.  Maybe you will too.

Cooling down after the Adrenaline 5k, I was dwelling yesterday on the narratives that I (and I'm sure all of you as well) construct around my running (as well as the rest of life).  I had my performance, the raw data if you will, fresh on my mind and, like clay, was sculpting it and then mushing it all up into a ball again.

This race was the climax of my running week, so I might as well start with it.  I have written on how I really haven't done much to prepare for racing a 5k and was hoping for a performance like last year's, where I had similar training and still did okay.  St. Patrick's Day in Haddonfield and the weather was beautiful, got to see some of the usual suspects that I bump into only at races, at the race was off.  I know this course well enough to know that mile 1 is fast, so with a 6:06 split I knew I wasn't going to break 18 minutes.  But I already knew that by looking around at my competition - guys in green wigs and one guy pushing a stroller among others.  Mile 2 was in 6:24, and I realized I was going to have to work hard to get a sub-19 minute time.  Don't know what my final split was, but I didn't pick things up - 19:11 was my final time.

Slowest time I had for a 5k since I can remember.  So what is up?

This is where the framing comes in.  I didn't feel bad during the race, just slow.  I did have some heel pain earlier in the week that led me to take the week easy, but didn't have any pain to speak of before the race.  I did get to bed at about 2 a.m. the night before after going out for awhile and then cooking up a gumbo for a dinner party we had that evening.  Looking back further, I haven't done any track work and my tempo times have plateaued of late at a pace about 20 seconds slower than my 5k pace here.  And I'm a year older than I was at this race last year (obviously).

So what gives?  This is where the narrative comes in.  Constructing a story around these (and possibly other) details that makes sense of this.  A master schema to explain this.  But first, I have to eat dinner, so I'll come back to this...

Weekly Roundup

Another 16.5 miler today.  Same loop as I did last week.  Took miles 6-14 in 55:49 - all 8 miles in sub-7 minute splits and, when I tacked the next mile on (done in 7:55) then it means I did a third of the marathon distance at sub 3-hour marathon pace.  Altogether, the 16.5 miles came in in just under 2:06.

I have no idea where that came from.  I was minding my biz and taking the first six miles at a mellow clip and just ramped up when I hit the Drives - first up Kelly and then down MLK.  The first mile was a 6:46, which surprised the heck out of me.  After that I just kept up that pace, which felt reasonably comfortable, for the next seven miles.  I downshifted somewhat for the mile after that, and then totally slowed down for the last mile and a half, which acted as a kind of cool down.  Its interesting how that last mile and a half were the toughest - when I let down the intensity I felt then all of the pain makes itself known.  Mostly good pain, though my knees weren't feeling too well at the end.  Hopefully a hot soaking afterwards did them some good.

This run is exciting because this is where I want to be.  If I were to keep this level of effort and go on to run a sub 3 hour marathon, I'd call it a successful year.  I know I still need to get my mileage up and my tempo pace down, but this is a good sign.  It reinforces the feeling that I'm training.

I went up to Tyler Park yesterday to run with two guys - Mike and Bill - who also I the Broad Street Run masters team I'm on.  Easy 8 miles through the park, a little hillier than I'm used to but also pretty and novel.  Both of them are not only good runners but also serious runners - meaning that much of the conversation during the run was on topic.  I don't get that much anymore.  I miss that.  The best part of the run were the six strides - about 100 meters each - that we did at the end of the run.  I'm not a big strides guy, but when we hit them it felt wonderful.  Not only did the speed feel effortless but my strides felt incredibly light and bouncy.  It felt like running fast should feel. 

I thought about that feeling later yesterday and actually welled up with tears.  Not sure why, but something clicked with that.  It was a wonderful feeling.  Don't know if it's a payoff from the 100-ups I've been doing, or the push I got by hooking up with good runners, or just a feeling whose time has come from the miles I've already put in.  I also can't help wondering if some of that rubbed off on me today.

Before that, the rest of the week seems like long ago.  Briefly, I did a pair of identical 11 milers on Tuesday (88:43) and Thursday (87:42), with 3 tempo miles in 20:23 on Tuesday and 19:49 on Thursday... still a good bit slower than the tempo speed I want and no improvement over last week.  Recovery runs of 4.5 miles (Monday) and 6 miles (Wednesday) rounded out my week and got me up to 57 for the week.  Still trending up but still not where I want to be.

So, looking ahead, Saturday is the Haddonfield 5k.  I remember wringing my hands over this one last year, this year I just don't feel like a 5k is going to tell me much on how I'm doing, as my training does not match well to this distance.  So no pressure.  I'll train through it, perhaps make a trip out to the Bartram track on Tuesday, and see how it goes.

Run All Day

Today was a long run.  Because I stayed in bed till past 9 this morning I already had got a relatively late start on my day.  Having a semi-leisurely breakfast of bread and Nutella, a clementine orange and a cup of coffee with Reba and the NY Times delayed my going out in a deliciously Sunday morning manner, and then getting various electronic gear together and tending to nature's calls and the like and it was past 10:30 when I got out the door.  A wonderful morning other than this 16-miler hanging over my head.

And good preparation made for good running.  Partly sunny and in the 40s, energized and emptied, I was primed to run well this morning.  After my usual slow start down to Schuylkill Crescent I picked things up a little going through South Philly and Center City to the bike path.  I picked things up again at mile 6 when I hit Kelly Drive at Lloyd Hall.  Ideally I wanted to shoot for a 7:30 pace for as long as I can hold it and, in contrast to last week (where my actual pace was slower than my perceived pace) today I felt slower than the sub 7:30s my watch was showing me.  I kept it up, into the wind up to East Falls Bridge and then back down, running miles 6-14 in just about 59 minutes.   After that it was just hanging on for the final 2.5 miles.  While these were the least pleasant miles, I always picture them as the most important ones, the ones that force me to dig deep.  It's also a time when running becomes a total leg thing, as my breathing is easy and the rest of my body gets together to coax the legs to move just that much farther.  16.5 miles went down in 2:11.35 - just inside of an 8-minute pace. 

But the run did not end when I got home.  After running there was a soak in the tub, lunch, and catching up with this blog.  My knee continues to twinge, this time toward the end of my run, and I like to think a hot soaking helps it.  I also want to go back to lifting a few times a week, as I like to think that helps it too.  "Like to think" as I have no proof that any of this helps, but can't imagine it can be bad for it and gives me the illusion of doing something.  That's also why I've been doing the 100-ups, which has continued to get me to focus more on my stride and mechanics.  The only problem with 100-ups, and with lifting, is that I have a tough time fitting them into my day and then remembering to do them.  So they are at best sporadic.

So its coming on to 3 pm now.  I'll summarize my week and then move past running.  Its been a good week that started badly.  Monday I had a stomach virus that led me to take a sick day, something I very rarely do.  I shook the bug in a day, largely because of the opportunity I got to engage in copious amounts of sleep, but didn't run Tuesday either.  I didn't expect much from this week but went right into a tempo run Wednesday.  My legs felt wonderfully refreshed from the time off but my tempo times did not reflect that - 2 miles in 13:05 (I wanted sub-13) - and 9 miles in 71:34.  Easy Art Museum loop (6 mi) on Thursday and an 11-miler (SMB loop) on Friday with 3 tempo miles in 19:48 (87:31 total).  Easy 8 yesterday and then 16.5 today.  This puts me over 50 for the week for the first time this year.  That's a good feeling.  Still got a ways I want to go, but I feel like I'm training again.  

And so I signed up for the Adrenaline 5k on March 17. 

Running With Reba

I just spent the last 30 minutes trying to fix my computer's unwillingness to recognize my Garmin as a device.  I had this problem a month or two ago and fixed it by not doing anything and trying again in a few days.  But this time I tried to fix it for good, which meant updating alot of the Garmin-related software, and I still can't get the computer to recognize the Garmin.  So instead of getting thoroughly obsessed, I have put down the Garmin and will try again another day.

I looked at my log from last year to see where I was in my training then as compared to now, as I will be shooting for a similar Broad Street time this year.  To my pleasant surprise, I'm only about a week behind, best I can tell.  I had little quasi-injuries slow me down last year as well.  I was doing tempos a little faster by this time last year, got my weekly mileage into the 50s already, and had a 16 mile long-run by this point.  These are all still things I'm aspiring to, but I'm not that far off.

Did a 15 miler this morning.  Had the once in a blue moon offer by Reba to run some of the way with her - an offer I couldn't refuse.  The fireworks popped and the butterflies fluttered as we went north through Powelton, Mantua, Parkside, and the Horticultural Center and down to MLK Drive, where Reba went right and I went left.  That proved a pleasant diversion for four miles and even led to a memorable quote.  When going down Montgomery Drive on our last few hundred yards together, she responded to my fishing for some gratitude by saying, "Yeah, well the tailwind is wasted on the downhill."  I love running with Reba, perhaps because it's so rare I get to do so, and not just because she got me started on a (for me) blistering 8:47 first mile.

After I got on my own on the Drives I tried to bring the pace down to sub-8.  I succeeded, but just barely, as miles came in around 7:55.  Just didn't have the push to get them faster, and didn't want to try too hard on a long, slow distance run.  That kept going till I hit the oasis that is Lloyd Hall, and after that I lost my rhythm.  Slowed to 8:30ish pace and put Soul Rebels on the iPod and cruised from there.  As feared, it was a long slog at the end, but that is what its supposed to be.  I thought again how at this point in my training its all in the legs, my upper body feels very comfortable.  Also got really badly chafed in the groin area, so I'm walking around like Fred Sanford now.  15 miles in

With an easy 8 miler (backwards on the Art Museum/Schuylkill Crescent loop) on Friday, this brings my mileage up to 46 for the week.  Still on the upswing.  Could've gotten 50 if I ran short yesterday, but I was on my feet all Friday night at the Galactic & Soul Rebels concert (great show) and towards the end of that show and briefly the next morning my right heel hurt.  So I went back and forth yesterday morning, thinking junk miles vs. wimping out.  The junk miles argument won, perhaps because it was also very windy out.

Slaying Dragons

Well, I did do another 9 miler this morning, and it went faster, and I do feel better. 

When I run with a Garmin, (not surprisingly) I become much more aware of pace.  My usual goal is, on a run like this morning's which involves some tempo work, to get the whole thing in under an 8-minute average per mile pace.  It's a game I play because I'm an inveterate slow starter, and then I make up time with the tempo miles, and so it often comes down to the final miles to decide whether I get this goal.

My first mile especially goes slow.  Always.  Hi nine/low ten is the usual.  Sometimes I feel like I'm going faster and invariably I cross 38th St. and hit Hamilton Walk and a number in that range flashes at me.  This morning I had a rabbit to chase all the way down Baltimore, a woman who was about 25 meters ahead of me when I turned left from 46th, and who would widen that gap as we headed east but stayed close enough so that I pushed myself to stay within striking distance and thus crossed the one-mile mark in a blazing 9:07.  That set the tone for my subsequent miles and my two tempo miles came in at 12:56, which I am very happy about (though I remind myself I have a long way to go).  After that I had such a cushion that I eased up a bit, which was a nice reward.  9 miles in almost the same course I linked to from Monday, in a little under 71 minutes. 

After yesterday's blog entry I resolved to mention in my blog entries one thing that stuck out about my run.  Sunny and 48 degrees, it was another day to spoil me.  The thing I recall to write about here was passing the statue of St. George on MLK Drive, on a steed about to give the coup de grace to a dragon that is lying on its back at the horse's feet.  Making concrete and literal the metaphor of slaying dragons.  This one was not an enormous, Disney-style fire breathing dragon, it was a much smaller, presumably scrappier dragon but undoubtedly a fierce one.  I couldn't link it with any particular dragon in my own life, though I have several to slay, so I just focused on the 6:30 mile as being the dragon of the morning. 

And he is slain.

Just a Song before I Go...

Wednesday's are my toughest day of the week.  I go in at nine and won't get out till 7 this evening.  I say my Wednesday starts on Tuesday evening, as I usually spend that evening putting stuff together for this evening's class.  When I stay up later with that, its harder to get up on Wednesday mornings.  One answer is to set Wednesday as a rest day, but I already took yesterday off as a rest day due to some early commitments I had.  So I got up later this morning.  Not late enough to feel real rested, but late enough to where I had to settle for a short run.  Penn's Park loop on a sunny mild morning with Kermit Ruffins (on the iPod).  A whole lot better than nothing, but wish I could have done more.

More was Monday.  I stretched the eight mile loops I did last week and came up with this weeks nine miler, which included two miles at sub 7 minute pace (6:46 and 6:52).  I still have a long way to go, but I'm heading in the right direction.

Feeling the pressure to get to work, so I'll wrap things up, and after giving the post mortems of my runs I'm not sure I have much else interesting to say anyway.  The weather continues to be freakishly mild, I'm still at 193ish weight-wise and the needle isn't moving (I need to get that down if I'm going to compete), and I guess, from the mood that is bubbling up from this drivel, is that I feel like I'm in a rut. 

And the only answer I have to that is more running.  Somehow I feel that if I run another 9 miler tomorrow, I'll feel better about things.  We'll see.

Good Signs

Good running weekend.  13.5 miles yesterday (course is here) where I got my long run a little longer on my way to extending my weekly mileage a little bit further.  After an easy three warmup miles, I chugged the next four miles at a sub 7:30 pace and kept up a sub-8 pace for the next two hilly miles and then eased back.  Total time, 1:47.36, averaged to just under an 8 minute pace.  It was an interesting run in that after 9 miles I calculated if I went under 8:25 pace I could keep my overall pace at sub-8.  At the same time my legs were starting to feel very fatigued.  Allowing myself, even encouraging myself to slow down worked to give me a feeling of control where I managed my increasingly sore legs and used the time cushion I had built early on to help me out.  Taking the four MLK miles at about 29 minutes also got me more into the tempo-running mindset again, which I'll be doing more of as I prepare for Broad Street.  So, in writing this, I think what I liked most about this run was how it stretched me in several ways and how I'm feeling I'm heading in the right direction.

This morning was an easy 4 miler.  Reba and I had a "cheeseball" here last night, inviting friends to come over and bring their favorite cheeses, which we all shared pot-luck.  Of course cheese means pairings to go with it - food and drink - and I imbibed my share.  Woke up this morning very sore and with a headache that I attribute to dehydration.  All I wanted to get from my run the morning was a cleared out head.  And, as it often has before, it worked.  Painful, stiff initial steps gradually became more fluid and comfortable and after about a mile I could feel a certain rhythm come about.  The reversion to running form came in increments over those four miles, and I was feeling great just as I stopped. 

That gave me 44 miles for the week.  The highest weekly total all year.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.  I just started reconstructing my mileage log for 2012, which I hadn't been keeping yet this year.  That's a good sign.

I'm In

So I'm in.  Broad Street Run registration opened today.  After some hand-wringing, I'm now captain of the Masters Male team for Greater Phila Track Club.  This meant I had to navigate the online sign-in system with countless thousands of others to secure five of the 30,000 race slots.  I'm pleased to say I was up for the task, and the team is signed up. 

Compared to this, running the damn thing should be easy.  But, as I've said on occasion to Reba, if we are serious as a nation about getting fit, this is exactly what needs to happen - that it is harder to get into participant events like BSR than it is to get into Eagles games.  The point where the demand for race entries leads to them appearing on Stub Hub, then maybe we'll be making a dent in our collective lack of fitness.  So while I will complain as much as the next guy about the pain of registering, this is, in the big picture, a good thing.

Maybe, to handle the demand, they should run the BSR once a month.

I ran a 59:40 last year, which will give me a spot up front.  But it also leads to questions about how close I'm going to get to that time this year.  I'm not ruling out breaking 60 minutes again this year, but I'll need to seriously improve my shape to do so.  With that said, I've had a good couple of runs sofar this week.  Ran 8 miles in mid 20's temps on Monday and let it rip on the mile.  It was a strange feeling.  Running out to the Drives I felt like I was going reasonably quick but Garmin told me I was running in the high 8-minute range.  Once I hit MLK I took off, not as fast as I could, but as fast as I felt I could reasonably keep up for a mile.  It felt slow, it felt awkward, and I felt like the Michelin Man in my Penn hoodie.  But I pressed on, as the main benefit of this was to start running fast again.  I really thought I was in the mid 7's, but at the one mile mark Garmin read 6:48.  Haven't run a sub-7 all year.  Its a start.

Tuesday was Valentine's Day, and for a gift my sweetheart let me run with her.  4.5 miles along the Penn's Park loop, with Reba by my side who needs a watch.

Yesterday was another 8-mile loop along the same route as I went on Monday.  Did one more fast mile and got it down to 6:30.  Also got the whole loop, exactly 8 miles, in a low 63-minute time.  This is good for me right now.

This morning I ran a 6-mile Art Museum loop, left the watch and iPod at home.  A no-need-for-speed morning.  Even took two nice Gallowalks in anticipation of waiting at red-lit intersections.  They hit the spot this morning.  Also got twinges of heel pain (hints of PF), enough to make me a bit nervous.  We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

So, except for my heel worries I'm on an upswing.  Also making plans to return to New Orleans.  For a conference this time, but I'm excited and will spend the rest of my evening doing work and watching New Orleans music on the Netflix instant view.  Good times rolling!