It's still a matter of training (Wineglass 2023 Marathon race report)

 

On the shuttle bus to the starting line of the recent Wineglass Marathon (Corning, NY), I said to the guy sitting next to me that this was the least prepared I’ve been going into a marathon. For several reasons, I’d missed about two weeks in my training, out of a total of 12. My weekly mileage barely exceeded 30, which should have been a clear foreshadower of what was to come. This marathon was my first one since before COVID (Harrisburg Marathon 2019), so there was also some racing rustiness. The result, not surprisingly, was my slowest marathon finish thus far (5:20:17).

This was my fourth Wineglass run and about an hour nine minutes slower than the last time I ran it in 2018. I don't think it's the five years difference in age, at least not the main reason. It's more not being fully prepared from training. The result was a race that went from Boston qualifying (BQ) hopeful (first 10 miles) to walking the last three miles. So, my training was good enough for just 10 miles (maybe 15 if I'm being generous). It's still a matter of training!

Standing near the starting line near Bath, NY, in a group gathered around the 4:20 pacer, I actually thought I was being conservative. Although 4:20 was my BQ time, that would not have been enough to run Boston (see 2024 Boston Marathon qualifier cutoff time). In hindsight, I should have gone with the 4:30 pacer, or 4:40, or 4:45, or anyone under 5:00! The 4:30 pacer passed me at around Mile 15, followed a few miles later by the other pacers. I didn’t even notice the pacers after the 4:40 one, because I was struggling to just focus on getting to the finish, somehow.

As the above pace chart shows, the first 10 miles were on a BQ pace (9:55/min). They felt good—well, the first 10 always do. 😊 But, at around Mile 10, going through the village of Savona, NY, my legs intimated their soon-to-come complaints. The second 10 miles gradually slowed. Still, I didn’t walk except through the aid stations, except I was taking longer and longer to do that and to start running again. Miles 21-23 were walking/running, and Miles 24 to just before 26 were all walking. In those last three miles, my leg muscles just felt weird and occasionally cramped up. I felt that I had nothing left. And, yet, what’s with the last 0.4 mile to the finish?!

Somehow, I managed to run that last 0.4 mile, starting around the middle of the bridge over the Chemung River on Bridge Street, crossing the finish line at a sub-9:00 pace. In a way, I sort of had to: the race photographer on the bridge was taking pictures, as were others closer to the finish along W. Market St. And the crowd was cheering! I had to at least make the finish look good! 🤣

“Sort of had to” seems to apply to almost every runner nearing the finish line. This “end spurt” also occurs in shorter-distance races, but especially so in endurance events. Here are some recent data and analyses on this interesting behavior. Two of my previous posts, “Mind over muscle?” and “No-running running,” also delved into this, including Tim Noakes’ Central Governor Model.

As for the Wineglass race management, I’m impressed every time I run it (See 2013, 2017, 2018). Here, I just note again how impressively efficient were the shuttle busses that took some 5,000 runners to separate marathon and half marathon starting lines, all within one and a half hour. Corning, NY has a population of about 11,000, which, during race weekend, increases by about 50%. More than 2,000 volunteers are typically involved.

Bib pickup at the race expo was at the Corning Museum of Glass, which always makes it fun.

Of course, a bottle of champagne and a companion glass (with paper to wrap it) are both part of the swag. 😊

And, the glass finishers medal is always unique!

BOSS, what else the world could be like, part 1 (heart circles)

 

Shortly after I had returned home in early July from a BOSS (Boulder Outdoor Survival School) 14-Day Field Course in the wilderness of southern Utah, I finished Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell. It explored what happens in the immediate aftermath of disasters, how survivors, left to themselves, self-organize much more altruistically and collaboratively than what is conventionally assumed and expected. What a hopeful, optimistic view of human nature! “Disaster reveals what else the world could be like,” from the Epilogue, sums up for me the essence of this wonderfully revelatory book. The BOSS course, a challenging, fun, mind-expanding, and life-changing experience that parallels in so many ways the stories in Solnit’s book, also “reveals what else the world could be like.” It was almost as I was meant to have begun the book in preparation for the BOSS course and, then, to finish it during the post-course period of retrospection and reflection.

Campsite at Spring Gulch alcove, southern Utah (second night of the BOSS 14-Day Field Course).

This was my second BOSS course. The first one (in 2015) was a 7-Day Field Course, for which I had written several “BOSS, the ultimate cross-training” posts. The last one was on the BOSS community (links to the other posts are contained in the latter). In this 14-Day Field Course, I gained a deeper understanding and appreciation of BOSS: what it means and why it is important. During the course, in conversations with the other 11 students and three instructors, I talked about the connections between BOSS and the work I was doing on more effective climate crisis communication. After returning home and researching more, these connections are turning out to be stronger and more direct than what I had thought back in Boulder (Utah). I will come back to these connections in future posts.

Of course, there are also many connections between BOSS and running, this being a running blog. 😊 (See the “BOSS, the ultimate cross-training” posts referenced above.) One particular connection has to do with the why. I have often asked myself, why do I run? And, the honest answer is that I have no idea, not really. Similarly, during the 14-Day Field Course, we students at times asked each other, especially in the initial “Impact” phase of the course --and only half-jokingly (?)--why do I pay to starve all day and freeze at night?! No one had a good answer either. Another connection to running--and to the climate crisis--is that running, like all outdoor sports, is being and will be increasingly adversely affected by the warming climate. Here is an interesting example of a map of climate change impacts along the Western States Endurance Run course (oldest 100-mile race in the United States) in the Sierra Nevada foothills. And, finally, a core philosophy of BOSS is “Know more, carry less,” which, being a minimalist runner, resonates with me.

“Know more, carry less.” All the gear I had for the 14 days, before packing (top) and after packing (bottom). During the day, the blanket becomes the “backpack.” The white “Versa” cloth becomes a carrier containing stuff that likely will be needed during the day.

To wrap up this first post on the BOSS 14-Day Field Course, I am going to the end of the course, at the last heart circle that Saturday morning, just before we all packed up and headed back to “civilization.” Periodically throughout the course, we held these heart circles. They provide “a form of group communication and sharing that aims to foster deep connection, empathy, and nonjudgmental presence among participants.” We used a “talking stick” that provided each person holding it a protected time and space to speak (or not), with no one interrupting. The head instructor would start the process by passing the talking stick to his left (“left is law”).

Before that last heart circle, in thinking about what I might say when the talking stick got passed to me, three words came to mind--humbling, grateful, and hopeful--that summed up my two weeks out there in the wilderness. So, while holding the talking stick:

Humbling. As I was preparing in the months before the course, I thought, being a long-distance runner and with the routine training that I do, that that was enough for the physical part of the course. As much as 15 to 30 miles of hiking in one day? No big deal! I regularly run 20+/- miles, and marathons are 26+ miles; I should be fine, so I thought. I also thought that, because I had finished the 7-Day Field Course in fairly good condition, twice that should not be so difficult. Well, I could not be more wrong! In the process, I discovered a new BOSS math, where 2 x 7 is > 14! 😊 If I were to do this course again, I would train very differently and with much more specificity. It was a lesson learned that really should not have been one, because of course I know, in running, training needs to be specific to the goal race. Never again would I look at a hiker with a backpack and think, meh, that is just walking! 😊

Grateful. Wow, where to even start? My gratitude overfloweth. 😊 I am grateful to have had the opportunity to be part of this BOSS course and to be in that grand and hauntingly beautiful landscape of southern Utah. (The Southwest has long been my favorite part of the country, having done fieldwork

Out there in southern Utah, one can see really far into the distance.

there many years ago.) I am grateful for all my wonderful fellow students and amazing instructors who gave me a hand--sometimes more--when needed, as well as for everyone helping and looking out for each other. I am grateful for Michael, our head instructor, who offered me the opportunity to extend my “Solo” phase of the course at the BOSS property. It was there, with BOSS and its staff offering me such warm hospitality and assistance, that I was finally able to start my first friction fire! After the 7-Day Field Course in 2015, I wrote that BOSS is like a home away from home. Now, I can say BOSS is literally my home away from home!

Except for the cord, everything is derived from material found in the wilderness.

Lentil-quinoa stew cooking on my first friction fire.

Hopeful. The average age of a BOSS student is in the early 30s. That was the case for my 14-Day Field Course, with me being an outlier (😊). During the course, in talking about the connections between BOSS and the climate crisis, I lamented that it is such an immense problem that, often times, seems intractable and hopeless. But, when I look at the younger generation, both my fellow students and the instructors, that makes me more hopeful. BOSS matters. What BOSS is and does is important in many ways, including, in addition to the latter, perhaps showing a way out of, or at least to mitigate, the climate crisis. Most BOSS students leave a course as a changed person—for the better. Better values, better perspectives, better priorities, which in turn positively affect one’s relationships with family members, neighbors, friends, and colleagues--and, with oneself. BOSS alums are kind of like “ambassadors” into the world, not just in the sense of helping to publicize BOSS, to get more people interested in taking a course, and to grow BOSS; but also in the sense of being points of positive influences back in their communities. Adapting a quote from Rebecca Solnit’s book, Hope in the Dark, BOSS alums “can make each of us one small republic of force for good.”

BOSS reveals what else the world could be like.

Wet but exhilarating (Parks Half Marathon 2022 race report)

Yeah, I know, this Parks Half Marathon race report is a year late. But, after reading this recent NY Times article on excess deaths, it is interesting to contrast two very different (at least for me) running worlds regarding COVID between then (September 2022) and now. According to the article, “[t]he total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal.” To be sure, COVID is still here; people are still dying daily from it; and common-sense precautions are still prudent (e.g., wearing a mask on a crowded airplane). But, the effects of COVID are no longer reflected in the number of excess deaths.

It was a rainy early morning last September, as I lined up for the 2022 Parks Half Marathon, with just a little bit of trepidation. It was not the rain that I was concerned about. Rather, it was my then still apprehension about COVID that occupied my thoughts. Though I have run several virtual races since March 2020, this Parks Half was my first in-person race since the Harrisburg Marathon in November 2019. Although many in-person races have been run starting in 2021, including large-city marathons, with no known large outbreaks of COVID, I was still a bit anxious standing among the waiting runners around the starting line.

Fast forward a year and now, not only are in-person races back to routine, but seemingly also life in general, because of vaccines, immunity from so many having had COVID, and more effective treatments. It does seem that being outside, as in races, makes a big difference. I recently finished a Boulder Outdoor Survival School (BOSS) 14-Day Field Course in southern Utah. All of its courses are entirely outdoors. After shutting down in 2020, it restarted courses in 2021. So far, there has not been a single case of COVID. So, I am racing again: three 10Ks so far this year and a couple marathons coming up in the fall.

OK, back to last year’s Parks Half. It felt a bit rusty in the early miles, but splashing through the big puddles emphatically brought back the joy and exhilaration of in-person racing! I have heard nice things about this race, but I have always had schedule conflicts, though I did volunteer once at one of the aid stations. The course mostly followed the Rock Creek Trail of the Rock Creek Regional Park, MD (see map).

It was wet! The trail has an asphalt surface. But, depressions resulted in many puddles—and some veritable rushing streams across the asphalt. Some of the runners had garbage bags on—after the race had started. Some tried to detour around rain puddles but over muddy soil next to the trail, which was actually worse. It was better to just run through the puddles. Once wet, it does not really matter. Most running shoes drain well. Running through puddles was not only fun (😊) but, because many slowed down to detour, I was able to pass several whenever we encountered puddles.

[Side note: In recent years, I have been doing an “ankle walk” exercise after each run, in which I alternate walking on my toes and heels (e.g., 10-count on toes and 10-count on heels). I think the toe part of this exercise helped me to not lose too much speed at the puddle crossings.]

Parks Half is one of the major races organized by the Montgomery County Road Runners Club. As usual, the volunteer support was superb--especially in the rain! The course crosses many local roads, which facilitated setting up of aid stations, as well as viewing by spectators. Great food at the finish was provided by Mama Lucia. Bag check—dry cloths (!)—was especially appreciated this time. The finish line was conveniently located near the Grosvenor metro station, just four stops back to the start.

My finish time of 2:07:21 was the slowest in recent years. But, I was fairly satisfied, given this was my first in-person race since before COVID and the wet conditions. I ran the race conservatively, i.e., I did not push it. I did not leave everything on the course. Shown below are at least two ways to finish the race.

I plan to run the Parks Half again, to see what my time might be in sunnier weather. Meanwhile, it feels great to be racing and training for races again! 😊

To run, or not to run (a "runnable" injury), that is the question

Of course I should have known better, after all these decades of running, than to try to run through an injury. Though I rarely have gotten injured in all these years of running (can count them on the fingers of one hand), I knew the possible risks.

Maybe if the injury had been more serious and I could not run at all, I would not have tried the experiment. But I could run, albeit at a modified pace. In fact, the very next run, after the one that had resulted in the injury, was an unplanned 24-miler.

Maybe I was just looking for an excuse to continue running. Even with injuries, or at least those that do not prevent one from running (e.g., a muscle sore), the temptation to run is hard to resist.

In part, that is because of the concern with losing fitness, once missed runs begin to accumulate to more than a few days. Alex Hutchinson summarized these fitness losses in a recent article based on a large Strava data set:

“runners who missed a 7- to 13-day stint of training during their 12-week build-up ran 4.25 percent slower than when they had an uninterrupted build-up. If the gap was two weeks, they slowed by a little more than 6 percent. At three weeks, it was about 7.5 percent.”

The above is for those training for marathons. But, it can be generalized to exercise overall.

In part—perhaps a bigger part—the temptation to run through an injury is because running is such an integral part of my life--je cours donc je suis. 😊

Scott Jurek, in his book Eat & Run, wrote “Not all pain is significant”; but, how does one know which is which? Recently, I heard from someone who is planning to run the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race later this year that, supposedly, the early miles are hard but, after a certain number of the 0.5488-mile loop (in Queens, New York), it gets easier. Similarly, with shorter distances (e.g., marathons), a slight soreness or dull pain or twinge sometimes goes away after a few miles. The body “complains,” but if it does not get any attention, sometimes it eventually stops complaining. In Richard Askwith’s book, Today We Die a Little!, about Emil Zátopek, the Czech long-distance runner best known for winning gold in the 5K, 10K, and marathon at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, there is this quote: “Pain is a merciful thing. If it lasts without interruption, it dulls itself.”

Whatever the reason, or excuse, I decided to do the experiment: Run through a “runnable” injury and, thus, maintain some level of training and fitness, while the injury recovers. Perhaps with the hypothesis that, if the body strengthens from running and other exercises, through the repairing of and adapting to microtears (hypertrophy), then running through a “runnable” injury would stimulate a faster recovery (haha).

I did not actually feel anything untoward after that run, though I remember thinking that those tempo intervals felt harder than usual.

Then, two days later, right as I began my Sunday long run, I felt a distinct soreness in the left leg, where the hamstrings and glutes meet. For a few seconds, I thought about playing it safe and calling off the run. But, it was a nice day and I had looked forward to exploring some new trail segments. So, I headed out, thinking that, if it got worse, I could always turn around. Though I continued to feel the soreness, it did not get worse, and I finished that longer-than-planned 24-mile run.

For the next three weeks, I ran according to my training plan, though at a slower-than-usual pace, including my first though “accidental” ultra run (marathon+1) (!). I followed two rules I had set for myself: (1) Each run should feel better than before and (2) there should be no sharp pains. There was none of the latter. And, each run did feel better. 

Until it did not. I stopped running the fourth week, test ran the fifth week, and, now, nearing the end of two more weeks of no running, I have to reluctantly conclude that the experiment failed. I should have known better. I should have followed what the Kenyan runners do, because, “[i]f they’re fatigued, ailing or potentially injured, they shut it down. It’s simply not worth it.” Not worth it to experiment.

The lesson learned (or re-learned)? Resting is also training!

So, now what? With the Coast Guard Marathon coming up in a week, I will have to adjust my goals and expectations. Depending on how my test runs during this final week go, my options are (1) defer my registration to 2024 and, if not possible, consider it to be a donation; (2) switch to the half marathon option; and (3) just enjoy it as a weekend long run with a different scenery and not worry about the finishing time.

As for qualifying for Boston, I do have one thing going for me—I recently aged into a new group, so I now have 15 more minutes. 😊

Running shoes, lifespan and rotation, an update

I’ve previously indicated what I thought about the widely recommended 300-500 miles for running shoes before replacement: hogwash! I’m still waiting to see a supporting study. Now, there have been studies on the cushioning of soles and the number of miles before the spring function of the cushion degrades to, I suppose, some less- or non-functioning state. But, that begs the question and the search for studies on whether this cushioning is needed. We are born to run—on bare feet.

In any case, at least for my running, the recommended replacement mileage is just hogwash! Back in July 2020, in my post on shoe rotation, I showed the following photo of my then five shoes that I was rotating through and their respective years in usage and mileage.

Now, two and a half years later (as of December 31, 2022), they are all still in use, joined by two more. The bottom row of five shoes in the following photo is arranged in the same order as that of the photo above. The top row shows one new Merrell Trail Glove (my second pair and still all-around favorite!) and one de-mothballed Vibram FiveFingers (more on that later).

                                        * Includes two mothball years, so actually 4^th year of use.

In these two and a half years, I’ve run 664, 484, 578, 495, and 613 miles, respectively, in the bottom five shoes. Even the Merrell Vapor Glove, of which I’d tweeted my disappointment back then (https://twitter.com/dragonabs1/status/1274759976972582913), is at 648 total miles now. I ran almost 600 miles in the Merrell Trail Glove in 2022, in its first year, because I used it for most long and/or trail runs.

Each run does, of course, wear out a bit the soles of the shoes, more in some parts than in others. I use, routinely, Shoe Goo to level up the worn-out parts and, as needed, duct tape for more extensive “shoe recovery” after long runs.

Regarding that de-mothballed Vibram FiveFingers: I put it back into my shoes rotation in mid-2022 and ran 45 miles in them. Previously, I’d run in them mostly during 2017-2018, added another 55 miles in 2019, and then mothballed it. In my “Vibram to ductbram” post, I’d half-jokingly wrote that, if I de-mothball all of my previously retired shoes, I may never need to buy another pair. It looks now more like quarter-jokingly.

(NB: I’ve zero relationship with any of the manufacturers of products mentioned in this post.)