Oceanside Training Diary – Week 10

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Ian & I before the movie

I was getting ready to head out for my long run yesterday when Ian came into the garage and asked me if I’d take him to go see Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace in 3D.  The matinée was starting in just over an hour and he really wanted to go.  He made it completely clear that popcorn was not a motivator for him – he just wanted to see the movie and hang out with me.  Hearing this, the decision was a no-brainer – I started to unlace my running shoes and within 5 minutes I was changed and we were out the door.

So needless to say I didn’t get my long run in.  But later in the afternoon I headed to the pool for a solid 2500 yard swim.  After a short warm-up I busted out a 1000 yard set – believe it or not it’s been awhile since I’ve done anything that long.  Here’s the good news – the (minor) speed gains I’ve recently made in my 500 yard times carried over to the longer distance, basically to the second.  So though I still need to get faster, I can at least hold what I have gained over longer distances.

The rest of the week was pretty strong, despite a hectic schedule and a few other assorted hiccups along the way:

MONDAY – OFF

I was in Las Vegas for a trade-show and lost forty bucks.  I also discovered they sell Triathlete Magazine in select airport gift shops now.  Since I only ever buy magazines when I travel, I suppose this is a good thing.

TUESDAY – AEROBIC RUN

Being out of town, even for a day, has a tendency to really throw off my schedule.  But I had anticipated that Tuesday would be tight so all I had on the docket was a one hour aerobic run, which I did as one big loop around my neighborhood.

  • Run – 1:08:50/8.01 Miles

WEDNESDAY – BIKE INTERVALS (TRAINER)/SWIM

With my schedule stabilized I was able to get my training load back to normal.  The day started off with an hour trainer session featuring The Sufferfest’s The Downward Spiral video.  I’ve done 4 or 5 of the Sufferfest videos by now and so I think I can safely say that you can’t go wrong with any of them.  The Downward Spiral is centered around two descending interval sets with the efforts done between an RPE of 8 and 10, depending on the length.

  • 2:00 min interval/2:00 recovery
  • 1:45/1:45
  • 1:30/1:30
  • 1:15/1:15
  • 1:00/1:00
  • :45/:45
  • :30/:30
  • :15/:15

Later in the day I headed for the pool for a swim.

  • 200 yd. warm-up
  • 4 x 150 yd. pull buoy (paddles on 1 & 3)
  • 1 x 500 yd. timed
  • 200 yd. cool-down
  • Bike (Trainer) – 1:00:00/18 Miles
  • Swim – 45:00/1500 Yards

THURSDAY – RUN (INTERVALS)

I’ve got Ian’s track practice on Thursday now so it’s become a good day for a shorter, higher intensity run.  The cool thing about running at the beach is the miles of evenly spaced light poles along the beach path.  Keeping this week’s “pyramid” theme alive I did 4 sets of descending intervals using the poles for measurement.  The efforts were run at an RPE of 8 or 9.

  • 4 poles interval/4 poles recovery
  • 3 poles/3 poles
  • 2 poles/2 poles
  • 1 pole/1 pole
  • Run (Intervals) – 41:18/5.01 Miles

FRIDAY – BIKE

As I mentioned in last week’s diary entry, I love my Friday rides.  It’s great to get out the door early and hammer along Pacific Coast Highway by myself.  I’ve also got into the habit of stopping by the local Supercuts on the way home to get my weekly head shave.  Since I’ve been coming here every week for years, no one says anything when I roll into the store dressed in spandex and then show myself to the back so I can rinse my head of the ride-sweat before any of the stylists have to touch it.  This is a good set-up – for them and for me.

  • Bike – 1:38:12/30.82 Miles

SATURDAY – OUTSPOKEN RIDE/RUN/TRAINER RIDE (INTERVALS)

Outspoken peleton with a gap? Hmmm…

As you may remember me mentioning last week, we had an epic ride planned.  But then we realized that a bunch of the road racing guys had a criterium race on Sunday.  That much “epic-ness” (e.g. the climbing) the day before a race would not be a good look for their legs, and the consensus was that 35 miles of fairly easy tempo would be the better way to go.  I’m adaptable, so whatever is good for me.  My now modified plan was to ride with everyone first and then do another 20 miles on my own before I ran.  We set off on the first 35 miles, which was an out and back from the shop, and everything was cool.  But at about 33 miles I had a mechanical – my rear derailleur tweaked out.  Crap.

When I got back to the shop I ditched my bike and did the run – 4 miles along the beach.  Annoyed that the ride had been cut short, I can’t say that this was the most amazing 4 miles of running I’ve ever done.

But there was no way I wasn’t going to have a 3 1/2 hour training day.  So when I got home I put the bike on the trainer (the derailleur was fixed during my run – thank you Dominic) and did another hour’s worth of riding.  And to punish my bike for breaking at an extremely inopportune time, I made it do the Sufferfest The Hunted video, which includes a nice 20 minute climb simulation and a whole bunch of situational accelerations after that.

  • Bike – 1:57:18/35.18 Miles
  • Run – 33:44/4.03 Miles
  • Bike (Trainer) – 1:00:00/18 Miles

***

Weekly Totals:

  • Swim – 4000 yards/2 hours
  • Bike – 102 miles/5.60 hours
  • Run – 17.04 miles/2.40 hours

Total for the week was exactly 10 hours.  I know, I know, it should have been closer to 12.  But to be completely honest, I was feeling guilty about the lack of time I had spent with Ian during the week.  So when he invited me to the movies, it was like I said – a no brainer.

This week is looking like 11 1/2 or 12 hours, and I need to nail it.  So I will.  Six weeks to go…

Bands You Should Know – The Replacements

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Formed in 1979 and hailing from Minneapolis, The Replacements were the best example of what a perfect mixture of The Rolling Stones, Badfinger, The Clash and the Ramones should sound like – memorable “classic rock” influenced songs fused with the urgency and brashness of punk rock.

Part of what made them so good was that they were so unassumingly real.  The band was never in a hurry to get where they were going, both artistically and in terms of whatever their version of a “career artist” was.  As a result, it took them a few years and a couple of albums to find their sound.  But when they did, it was perfect.  Live, they were perhaps one of the most unpredictable bands that ever existed.  You never got technically brilliant from The Replacements.  But depending on the amount alcohol the band had consumed prior to taking the stage, you either got one of the wost shows you ever saw or one of the best.

Their three mid-career albums are the best – 1984′s Let It Be, 1985′s Tim and 1987′s Pleased To Meet Me.  The song below is called “Valentine” and is from Pleased To Meet Me.

As is the case with many bands with a streak on instability in them, the cracks started appear in 1986 when guitarist Bob Stinson was kicked out of the band, partly due to excessive drug and alcohol abuse and the balance due to creative differences.  Though Pleased to Meet Me was recorded after the departure of Stinson, it eventually became clear how influential he had been on the bands sound.  The albums Don’t Tell A Soul (1989) and All Shook Down (1990) sounded much more generic and commercial than any of the band’s previous releases.  But by this point the band were critical darlings, and the albums were described by the music press as “mature” and “introspective”.

The band called it quits in July of 1991 after a long farewell tour.  Singer/guitarist Paul Westerberg immediately embarked on what was to become a successful solo career.  Bassist Tommy Stinson (Bob’s half brother) has been the bass player in Guns N’ Roses since 1998.  Drummer Chris Mars is still active in the Twin Cities music scene but primarily works as a visual artist.

Unfortunately, Bob Stinson was never able to get a handle on his addictions and died in 1995 of an overdose.  He was 35 years old.

Why The Replacements Matter:  If you are a fan of bands like The Fray, Matchbox 20, Lifehouse, The All American Rejects or Maroon 5, then you need to thank The Replacements for being one of the reasons why these bands exist.  And if you like Green Day, you should know that Billie Joe Armstrong credits The Replacements with changing his life.

Check Out:  The album “Tim” if you are a little scared of the punk rock, or the albums “Pleased To Meet Me” or “Let It Be” if you aren’t.

 

The Guns Of Bolsa Chica

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First it was the Batcave.  Then it was the set of M*A*S*H.  Thus inspired (and yes I use this term loosely), I started racking my brain to see if I could come up with something that was even cooler for this week’s “random and/or oddly historical places” post.

Well, I did and I didn’t (come up with something cooler).  I found a historical site that is in fact less than 2 miles from my house.  This is pretty cool.  But I won’t be able to dazzle you with copious amounts of exhaustive research, because quite frankly I couldn’t find too much information about it.

Bolsa Chica Wetlands

During World War II, the military installed a number of gun batteries along the coast to protect the entrance to the Port of Los Angeles.  Two of them were built on a bluff in the Bolsa Chica Weltands.  The Wetlands are what separate my neighborhood from the beach and is a place where I run in the cooler months when there is less of a chance that I’ll run into snakes.

Battery 7 Panama Mount

The first, designated “Battery 7″, was a pair of 155mm Panama mounted guns that were in service between 1941 and 1944.  The second, designated “Battery 242″ was a pair of 6″ long-range artillery guns that were in service between 1943 and 1948.  As far as I can tell, none of these guns were ever fired in anger, even though Battery 7 was operational on February 24th, 1942 during the Battle Of Los Angeles, when anti-aircraft and other gun batteries fired more than 1,400 shells into the night sky in response to a suspected (but subsequently false) attack by the Japanese.

All that remains of Battery 7 is remains of the gun mounts and a concrete slab which I assume covers access to the former command and control and ammunition storage tunnels.  Battery 242 was demolished soon after being decommissioned.  There is now some very high-dollar housing on the site.

Battery 242 Being Demolished

I’ll be more than happy to take anyone on a personal tour of the area, as long as it’s between October and March.  Remember, the snakes.

 

Oceanside Training Diary – Week 9

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“Twelve percent….now it’s eleven…wait, it’s back up to twelve.”

Vista Ridge…It’s Steeper Than It Looks.

This was my friend Erik calling out the grade changes as we climbed up the last half-mile of Vista Ridge to Signal Peak last Saturday. Erik’s got one of the Garmin devices reserved for the cycliste elite. Not only does it display climbing grade, it also measures altitude by barometric pressure. His particular model of Garmin is for cyclists who will accept nothing less than the absolute best. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you can set custom alarms to warn you when you’ve got too much stubble on your legs or when the espresso you have in your hand was not made with a La Pavoni machine. It’s the ultimate accessory for those who recognize that cycling is equal parts effort and art, and no doubt can only be purchased with Euros.

Pre-Ride

This particular stretch of steepness isn’t very long. But when you consider that the top of the climb is in sight and that you’ve already been climbing for 4 miles on grades that average about 5 or 6%, the ride temporarily becomes a little bit of a grind.

It was at about this point when Erik had a good idea. “Hey man,” he said. “Why don’t we climb all three Newport Coast approaches next week?”

The actual climb to the top of Signal Peak starts at the height of land where Newport Coast Road and San Joaquin Hills Road meet. So our plan is to approach from the north and bag the summit first from San Joaquin Hills Road. From there, we’ll descend the back-side of Newport Coast Road into Irvine, do a quick loop and climb back up. Then we’ll do the same thing on front-side, this time descending to Pacific Coast Highway before u-turning for the climb.

The ride will be 50 miles, though we’re still calculating the elevation gain. A ride report will no doubt be a big part of next week’s training diary.

On Sunday, I swam and did my weekly long run before heading to the airport to catch a flight to Las Vegas. Yes, that’s where I was in case you’ve been wondering why I haven’t been blogging for the last few days. I had to go to a trade-show, and that kept me pretty busy. Plus the hotel WiFi was on the fritz. They probably do that on purpose to keep guests out of their rooms. But I’m home now, and the good news is I only lost forty bucks.

As to the rest of last week’s training, here’s the rundown:

MONDAY – RECOVERY RUN

Since I ran the Surf City Half Marathon on Sunday, I needed to get out on Monday and flush the lactic acid out of my legs. I ran five miles along the beach path and it felt awesome.

  • Run – 45:12/5.17 miles

TUESDAY – SWIM

The swimming seems to be getting better, which is a very good thing. I’ve been doing a lot of sets with paddles and pull buoys to both work on upper body strength and really “feel” how efficient my stroke is. I also did a few timed 500′s. The time is creeping down.

  • 200 yd. W/U
  • 200 yd. pull buoy/paddles
  • 200 yd. pull buoy
  • 500 yd. timed free
  • 200 yd. pull buoy/paddles
  • 200 yd. pull buoy
  • 500 yd. timed free
  • Swim – 1:00:00/2000 yards

WEDNESDAY – BIKE (TRAINER)

I killed myself on the trainer. I’m not really sure what else to say about it, except it was the hardest session I’ve done so far. Man.

The pain and suffering was courtesy of The Sufferfest Hell Hath No Fury video.

  • 3:30 Warm-up
  • 5:30 Stage 1: Easy, flat terrain at effort level of 6/10 with a few accelerations
  • 20:00 Stage 2: Rolling terrain with a series of attacks as the pack tries to take the lead from you.
  • 6:00 Recovery
  • 20:00 Stage 3: More rolling, attacking racing in which you try to break away to get the lead back.
  • 4:00 Recovery
  • 3:30 Stage 4: Team Time Trial in which you have to crush yourself in order to take the lead, and the Tour of Sufferlandria victory.
  • 6:00 Recovery
  • Bike (Trainer) – 1:15:00/22.5 miles

THURSDAY – MILE REPEATS/SWIM

This was the first time that I’ve ever tried my hand at mile repeats and I screwed them up. The plan was to do 4 x 1 mile at half-marathon pace with 1 minute recovery periods in between. But I did the first one too fast, and the next 2 even faster. This meant I was too gassed to do the 4th. It’s nice to run fast and all, but it’s even nicer to finish a workout as planned. My bad, I’ll try it again this week.

Later in the day it was off to the pool for more pull buoy sets and a timed 500.

  • 200 yd. W/U
  • 4 x 150 yd. pull buoy (paddles on set 1 & 3)
  • 500 yd. timed free
  • 200 yd. C/D
  • Run – 45:57/5.20 miles
  • Swim – 45:00/1500 yards

FRIDAY – BIKE

Friday is always one of my favorite sessions of the week when I am in a training block that schedules a bike ride for the day. I’m doing this now and it will most likely stay that way through Ironman Coeur d’Alene. Of all my bike sessions during the week, this is the “easiest”. But with that said, it’s not that easy – I like to do this ride alone on my TT bike and ride a large portion of it at tempo. It was warm, but it was windy. In fact, it’s been pretty windy around here lately.

  • Bike – 1:41:05/29.63 miles

***

Weekly Totals:

  • Swim – 4500 Yards/2.25 hours
  • Bike – 97.11 miles/5.57 hours
  • Run – 20.39 miles/2.95 hours

Total volume for the week was just under 11 hours. This week will be bigger, and the week after that even bigger. Then it’s a recovery week with an Olympic distance race thrown in as a tune-up. At the end of the recovery week, I’ll be 4 weeks out from Oceanside. At that point, I plan to go ridiculously big for a week and pick a day to do what will pretty much be a full dress rehearsal for the race. From there, it’ll be taper time. Overall, I’m feeling pretty good. And I’m happy with what seems to be some improvement in my swim. I’m almost prepared to say that the swim improvement is motivating me to spend more time in the pool…let’s see what happens.

I Just Got Back From Las Vegas Where I Lost $40

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I just got back from Las Vegas, where I lost $40.  Except I didn’t lose it at the tables, playing the slot machines or betting on the horses.  Rather, I simply just lost it.

It happened at some point in time between when I pulled the money out of an ATM machine in the hotel lobby (service fee – $4.99) and when I jumped into a cab headed for the airport.  When the cab pulled up to Southwest departures, I reached into my pocket to pay the driver.  But the $40 wasn’t there.  And it wasn’t in any of my other pockets, in my wallet, on the floor of the cab or in my bag either.  This meant that I probably dropped it on the casino floor mere seconds after stepping away from the ATM.  At least one person got lucky in Las Vegas today.

Since the cab didn’t take credit cards, I had to go into the airport to find another ATM machine while the cab driver waited curbside holding my luggage hostage.  If you’ve ever been to Las Vegas, you’ve come to understand that at any given time, you are never close to anything you really need.  The ATM was no exception – I had to sprint down an endless ticketing concourse and take an escalator to an even longer departures concourse where I finally found a bank just outside of security.  I withdrew another $20 (service fee $3.50) and sprinted back the way I came.

Surprisingly, the cabbie was still waiting despite the fact that the contents of my bag were somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 times more valuable than the fare.  Desiring to bring this embarrassing incident to a quick conclusion, I gave him the entire $20 for his trouble and headed back into the airport.

When I got through security I still had time to hit up Starbucks before my flight.  Cashless (again), I paid for my $2.99 grande drip coffee with my AMEX.  I got the distinct impression that the barista was not pleased with taking a credit card for such a small purchase.  Oh well.

How I Got Here

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Is triathlon a passion or a hobby to me?  Well, depending on the day it can be either or both.  Some days (though not frequently), it’s neither.

But whatever triathlon is, it’s not the first of it’s kind.  Since I believe that everything is somehow connected, I thought it would be fun to timeline out how I got to where I am now, starting with my earliest memories of things that I enjoyed and that ended up becoming passions (or hobbies) in their own right.  Here it is:

1977

I get a copy of Heart’s 7″ single Barracuda and decide that music is pretty cool.  Shortly thereafter, I get a cassette player for my birthday.  My grandmother takes me to a discount department store called Ann & Hope where I buy a cassette copy of The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  I play that cassette until it wears out.

1978

I start taking trumpet lessons.  I choose the trumpet simply because it’s not the flute or the clarinet.  I really enjoy playing music, but begin to resent the trumpet when I realize that there is no trumpet player in Aerosmith.

1979

I quit trumpet lessons and start taking drum lessons.

1980

While holding my cassette player up to the radio to record some songs, I hear The Clash’s Rock The Casbah for the first time.  While I eventually realize that Rock The Casbah is one of the worst songs The Clash ever recorded, at the time I believe that it’s the most awesome song ever written.

1984

Having spent the last 3 years listening to as much music as I could get my hands on and keeping up with my drum lessons, I decide it’s time to start a band.  However, the problem at my High School is that there are too many drummers.  So I trade my drum kit for a guitar and small amplifier.

1985

I finally get a band off the ground.  The fact that I can barely play guitar might become a problem doesn’t occur to me or anyone else in the band.  In fact, it wasn’t a problem at all.  Because hearing The Clash for the first time led me down the road to discover punk rock.  And while I never thought that playing in a punk band gave me unlimited license to be a terrible musician, I also felt that inexperience shouldn’t be considered a barrier of entry.  This, by the way, is an attitude that I’ve carried forward with me all my life.  Oh yeah, the band was called Vacant Authority.

1986

Vacant Authority breaks up because two of the members graduate from high school.

1987-1988

Two things happen:  I graduate from high school in the spring of 1987 and I get my driver’s license.  This gives me the ability to expand my horizons.  I start a few more bands and all of them are terrible.  I do manage to get slightly better at playing the guitar, though.  I also become a regular face in and around the Boston music scene.

1989

A friend of mine gets me a gig as the fill-in guitar player for a Los Angeles based band who had a member quit just before the start of a tour.  I spend two weeks learning all of their songs, another two weeks rehearsing with them and then ten weeks touring the US and Canada.  It’s a disaster – I can’t stand them and they can’t stand me.  However, our roadie is a bass player (and former member of one of my favorite bands of all time) who is planning on moving to Boston at the end of the tour.

1991

The bass player and I, now joined by a drummer and a singer/guitarist, start a new band called Alloy.  Since all of us have various levels of “veteran status” (with mine being the lowest on the totem pole by far), things happen pretty quickly.  We have a record deal before we play our first show and are touring within 6 months of forming.  These are good years and are the closest I get to fulfilling my dream of being a rock god.  And yes, I was dead serious about this back then.

1992

On a whim, the singer of Alloy and I decide to drive up to New Hampshire and climb Mt. Washington.  We both really enjoy it and start climbing everything we can.

1993

Alloy breaks up and the singer leaves Boston to take a job with Microsoft in Seattle.  I fly out to Seattle with him when he first moves and camp by myself at the base of Mt. Rainier for a week.  We decide to keep climbing together and start formulating a plan to climb Mt. Adams, one of the 4 or 5 volcanoes in the Cascades.  I start jogging to get in better shape for the climb.

1995-2003

With a few mountaineering trips under my belt, jogging turns into an on-again/off-again activity that I bring with me as I move between Boston, Atlanta, New York, London and then finally California.  As I get more and more wrapped up in my career, I hike and climb less and less.  However, I do run a couple 5K’s in 2002 and 2003.

2004-2006

I don’t do anything that is even remotely good for me for a few years, both physically and mentally.

2007

I start to get my act back together.  This includes joining a gym first and then after awhile I start to jog again.  Unfortunately, panic attacks stop me dead in my tracks more than once while running.  But I don’t give up.

2008

I try to pick back up on mountaineering and join a group attempting a winter climb of Alta Peak in the Sierra Nevada.  Unfortunately, I last a single day.  In hindsight I realize that based on what I went through between 2004-2006, it was still too early for me to be doing this kind of stuff – I wasn’t even close to being mentally prepared for it.  But when I get home I keep on jogging.  Late in the year I see a copy of Triathlete Magazine at REI and buy it.

2009

I decide to give triathlon a shot and sign up for a sprint distance race that is scheduled for mid-summer in San Diego.  I buy a bike and jump into the pool for the first time in many, many years.  I somehow manage to finish the race, even though the actual race swim was the first time that I had attempted to do a freestyle stroke since I started training.  I end up doing two more sprint triathlons before the end of the year.

2010-2011

I continue to train and race.  I start a blog.  I make a whole bunch of new friends.  I also become a wicked bike and running shoe snob.  As the endurance sports lifestyle begins to take hold, I realize that I haven’t enjoyed doing something this much for a long time.  I swim, ride and run a lot in an attempt to get stronger and faster.  I’m successful at becoming a better runner and cyclist, but continue to struggle with swimming.  Undaunted, I keep training and racing.  I achieve things I honestly never thought were possible.  But I also enter my first 70.3 in September of 2011 and fail miserably.

2012

I have a busy race schedule planned coupled with a very ambitious training regime.  Instead of focusing on trying to get faster, I’m focused on getting smarter.  I want to learn everything I can about training and why I am doing what I do.  I also prefer trial and error over any other method.  And since there is plenty of “error” floating around my efforts, I have plenty to keep me engaged for years to come.

But most importantly, I’ve come so far in this journey that riding my bike on a trainer actually makes sense now.  This is the most remarkable thing of all.

 

Visiting The Set Of M*A*S*H

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M*A*S*H set then

My guess is that anyone over the age of 35 has seen at least one episode of the TV show M*A*S*H. The series, which was adapted from a Robert Altman directed feature film of the same name, aired on CBS from 1972 to 1983. The show was a medical drama/black comedy set at an Army field hospital during the Korean War and starred Alan Alda, Harry Morgan and Lorreta Swit, amongst others.

If you remember the show, you probably remember the rugged mountainous terrain surrounding the field hospital. To simulate the landscape of South Korea, the producers chose a location in what is now Malibu Creek State Park (Formerly the 20th Century Fox Ranch) to build a set complete with tents, perimeter wire and a helicopter pad.

M*A*S*H set now

What was left of the set after it was abandoned was pretty much destroyed in a 1986 wildfire. These days, you’ll find a pair of rusted out vehicles, rope outlines marking the original footprint of the tents, a replica of the wooden sign post as seen in the show and a few information panels.

I hiked in there a few years ago. It’s about a 5 mile round trip from the main parking lot of the park on fire roads, which makes the hike pretty easy. And I’m sure the roads were in even better condition 25 years ago, because I doubt Alan Alda hiked into the set everyday. It’s well worth the trip if you are in the western part of the San Fernando Valley or in the Malibu area and you have a few hours of free time for a little bit of adventure. Malibu Creek State park is about 25 miles west of downtown Los Angeles on Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas.

Zen & The Art Of The Recovery Run

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Ready to recover…

I like race days.  But I also like the next day (almost) just as much.  Because there is nothing better than a good recovery run.  For starters, the pressure is off – there is no personal record or bragging rights at stake.  And there also isn’t a nutrition plan to perfectly execute lest your body revolt and your mind spin into the far reaches of hell.

The sole objective of a recovery run is simple – run to feel better.  Sure, it might take a mile or so for your legs to loosen up.  But if you are doing the run correctly (which is simply running slow and easy), pretty soon your legs will start feeling pretty darn good.

I set out at lunch time on Monday, along the beach.  I was planning to go twenty-two and a half minutes one way, and then twenty-two and a half minutes back.  Distance was completely irrelevant.  So was pace, to the extent that as long as I picked one that was in no way stressful to my legs I was fine.

As predicted, it took a mile for my legs to loosen up.  But after that I was on cruise control.

I shared the below article (courtesy of fastrunningblog.com) on an old version of my blog.  But it’s such an interesting explanation of why recovery runs make sense I think it’s worth re-publishing.  Enjoy.

An interesting note on structuring your training in connection with long run days and rest. In his book Brain Training For Runners, Matt Fitzgerald suggests that we should insert our recovery runs on days following glycogen deplete days. He recommends that runners do not take a day of rest after a long run, but rather employ a recovery run the day after a long run. He does not suggest that you should not take a day of rest, rather, that it should not come the day after a long run. Here’s the science behind it, and it may not be what you think it is. Previously it has been suggested that recovery runs increase blood flow to the legs, clear away lactic acid, so forth. Fitzgerald claims that lactic acid levels return to normal within an hour after even the most brutal workouts. Nor does lactic acid cause muscle fatigue in the first place. Nor is their any evidence that the sort of light activity that a recovery run entails promotes muscle tissue repair, glycogen replenishment, or any other physiological response that actually is relevent to muscle recovery. Perhaps what is going on during these ‘recovery runs’ isn’t even ‘recovery’. So what is going on?

1. Large amounts of IL-6 (a cytokine) are released into the bloodstream by the muscles during exercise and travel to organs throughout the body, including the brain. IL-6 in the brain is a major cause of fatigue during exercise. In addition, however, IL-6 is believed to facilitate many of the body’s adaptations to exercise training, ranging from increased fat burning to greater resistance to muscle damage to improved cognitive function. So the very molecule that causes fatigue during exercise helps you become fitter after exercise.

2. The primary trigger for IL-6 release during exercise is glycogen depletion. Because glycogen depletion produces high levels of IL-6, and because IL-6 coordinates many fitness adaptations to training, it follows that training in a glycogen-deplete state will tend to produce stronger training adaptations (of certain kinds, anyway) than training in a glycogen-replete state.

3. Recovery runs that occur within 4-24 hours of hard training, when muscle glycogen is not fully replenished and there is still lingering muscle damage (which is another cause of IL-6 release). Instead of promoting recovery from previous exercise, recovery runs actually enhance running fitness by challenging the runner to perform in a glycogen-depleted state. The notion that relatively short, slow runs can increase the fitness of a runner who also does longer and faster workouts is counter-intuitive, but its true, thanks to IL-6.

4.  The release of IL-6 is probably not the only mechanism by which recovery runs enhance fitness. Research has shown that when athletes begin a workout with glycogen-depleted muscle fibers and lingering muscle damage from previous training, the brain alters the muscle recruitment patterns used to produce movement. Essentially, the brain tries to avoid using the worn-out muscle fibers and instead involve fresher muscle fibers that are less worn-out precisely because they are less preferred under normal conditions. When the brain is forced out of its normal muscle recruitment patterns in this manner, it finds neuromuscular ‘short-cuts’ that enable you to run more efficiently (using less energy at any given speed) in the future.

5.  Another benefit of involving less-used muscle fibers during recovery runs is that these muscle fibers become conditioned to prolonged running. They adapt to the demands placed on them in recovery runs by producing mitochondria (intracellular aerobic ‘factories’), capillaries, and aerobic enzymes, so they can become more helpful whenever called upon again.

Obviously some of these fatigued states are caused by runs other than long runs. Recovery runs should be utilized the day after any key workout. Most plans utilize 3 key workouts a week and therefore 3 recovery runs should be utilized as well, but the glycogen deplete state of the Long Run is most suited to the benefits of a ‘recovery run’. Take your day of rest 2 days after your long run with the day after the long run being a ‘recovery run’.

 

Oceanside Training Diary Week 8

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Yesterday was the annual Surf City Marathon and Half-Marathon.  I ran the half with another 15,000 runners.  Though I don’t think Surf City is even close to being the “biggest” race out there, I’m always amazed how many people turn up for it.  I’m also amazed by how many local people don’t know about it – I would have thought that when you bring over twenty thousand runners (half-marathon + marathon) into town with friends and families in tow, it’s an event that residents can’t avoid knowing about.  Maybe it’s because the course is mostly along the coast and an influx of people that big isn’t too much more than a beach day in the summer, I’m not sure.

Anyway, I ran the race in 1:49:15.  This is 10 minutes slower than last year, but I knew this was going to be the case because from the gun I kept my effort (mostly) in check.  Today was the end of the eighth week of my Oceanside training plan.  Weeks nine through eleven are going to be big – the biggest weeks I’ve ever done.  So there’s no sense in starting this block feeling anything but good.

Last week was also a recovery week.  Here’s what happened:

MONDAY – SWIM

I switched my normal Monday day off to a swim this week and did 2000 yards of drills plus a timed 500 at the pool.

  • 200 warm up
  • 200 kick
  • 200 one arm
  • 4 x 150 pull (1 & 3 with paddles)
  • 500 timed free
  • 4 x 25 sprints
  • 200 cool down
  • Swim – 1:00:00/2000 yards

TUESDAY – AEROBIC RUN

I ran at lunch, but broke convention and ran a 5 + mile loop around my house instead of going to the beach.  This was a standard +/- 140 BPM aerobic run, but instead of going an hour this week I cut it back to 45 minutes.

  • Run – 45:08/5.34 miles

WEDNESDAY – DAY OFF

I took the day off, and there’s not much more to report on this except that it was awesome.

THURSDAY – AEROBIC RUN

I ran the exact same route as I did on Tuesday with the only differences being a slightly different time and a missing .03 miles. Why it took me 9 more seconds to run .03 less of a mile is a mystery.  I must have had to stop and tie my shoe at some point.  Or I’m slipping.

  • Run – 45:17/5.31 miles

FRIDAY – OFF

I took Friday off – sort of.  Let’s call it an administration day.  I went to the race expo to pick up my bib and timing chip.  I also picked up a nifty S/B/R travel mug because I’m sick of spilling coffee on my lap when I drop Ian off at school.

Later, I spent almost 2 hours trolling the Internet for swimming advice, and allocating a good 40 minutes of that time staring at Mr. Smooth animations repeat over and over (and over and over) again.

SATURDAY – BIKE/SWIM

A couple of the guys, with me in the middle

Since I’m training for Oceanside, I didn’t want to run the half marathon completely rested.  So as usual I headed out with the Outspoken crew for the Saturday morning ride.  But I did go shorter than I have been lately – 35 miles.  Nice day, nice ride, all good.

And then armed with the knowledge I gleaned from my swimming research session, I headed for the pool.  All I brought this time was a pull buoy and some paddles.  My goal was to simply swim and see what happened.

One of the take-aways from the research was the idea of accelerating through my stroke.  In hindsight this seems obvious, but as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve recently recognized that I tend to get a little lazy just before the recovery phase.

And so I swam.  After a 200 yard warmup, I did 600 yards with the pull-buoy alternating every 150 yards with paddles.  Then I did a short 100-200-300-200-100 pyramid, figuring I’d end the session with a timed 500 and a cool-down.  But after the pyramid I was done – my arms were on fire.  The good news was that my 100 yard split times where ten seconds faster than normal and I was more or less holding this pace through the last 900 yards.  Could it be that I’m on to an improvement and tired arms are a by-product of the adjustment?  I hope so, since I can always work my way up to the required endurance.

  • Bike – 1:59:33/35.18 miles
  • Swim – 50:00/1700 yards

***

Total volume for the week was just over 7 hours.  In my opinion, that’s pretty much the perfect volume for a recovery week.

As I mentioned earlier, the training gets notched up next week – at least 12 hours in total with half of that over next weekend.  I’ll be doing bike/run bricks every Saturday for the next month and pushing the Sunday long runs into some uncharted territory as well.

So I should probably get to bed, it’s going to be a busy week.

 

Ian’s First Mile

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My son’s school has a cool program going on this spring – they’ve established a running club for the kids.  Between drills, games and laps on the tack, each kid will run 25.2 miles between now and the beginning of May.  And then on May 5th they’ll join kids from all over Orange County and run the first mile of the Orange County Marathon course, bringing the total mileage for the program to 26.2 miles.

Ian wanted to sign up and (of course) I was thrilled.  I’m an absolute crap baseball player, so I contribute nothing to Ian’s baseball practices.  But with running…I guess I know 1 or 2 things about it.  So Ian, Mary and I went to the parent/student meeting.  Ian left signed up.  I left as an assistant coach and official t-shirt maker.

We had our second practice yesterday afternoon, and it was the first time the kids got a chance to run – a timed mile.  Since this program is open to everyone in the school there are just as many kindergarteners running as there are 5th graders.  There were a few natural runners – one of the older kids pulled down a 7:20 mile.  But there were plenty of flailing arms, little pumping legs and short attention spans out there as well.

And then there was Ian.  He’s younger.  He’s also probably going to find his sports calling in football and not track and field.  But he hates to lose.  So when the whistle blew, he took off like a rocket.

A half a lap later he was red-lined and walking, head down and defeat written across his face.  As a coach I couldn’t leave my post at turn 3, but another coach was out on the track and she got Ian running again.  For the next 2 1/2 laps she stayed with him – running when he could and walking when he needed to.

For the last lap, I threw my “coaching” obligation out the window.  I jogged across the infield, hit the track at the start line and started to run with him.  We ran some and we walked some.  I tried to explain to him that we needed to find a pace that worked for him, and that with practice we would find it.  But by this point, the look of defeat was gone and was replaced with a stony determination.  When we got to the final straight, Ian showed he has a nice finishing kick and took off at a full sprint towards the finish.  His time ended up being 13:20.

I had to go out to a meeting last night, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to him about practice.  But when I got home I asked Mary if he had said anything about it – I was worried that he wasn’t feeling good about his performance.  Fortunately, Mary said that everything was cool and that he had talked about practice favorably.

Any lingering concern I had about this was put to rest this morning.  Ian woke up and we started our usual morning routine.  I laid out his clothes – a t-shirt, a pair of board shorts and his skate shoes.  I then asked him to get dressed while I made his breakfast.  When I came back, he was dressed, but not in the clothes I laid out.  Instead he had put on a pair of track pants and running shoes.

Awesome.