Evening run on the w&od

I went for a run this evening, starting east on the w&od from Herndon. Down to Route 28, make a U-turn, and then back through Herndon to the Herndon Parkway and then home. I started just before 7pm, the ambient temp was probably 88F (a minor heat wave is going on here, high today was about 96F). Finished 11.07 miles at a 9:48 pace, including that aggravating stoplight where the w&od crosses Elden St - it is Sunday night so the cars keep coming and coming and coming.

The trip on the trail to Route 28 was lovely. The sun was going down, beautiful pink-tinged clouds with dark purple backs, and jets making contrails in the sky. I counted three in a row, they must have come out of BWI judging by their height and direction. A few planes were landing into Dulles and crossed in front of the setting sun, wheels down, ready to touch down. As it turned twilight the bats came out. They were swooping and diving all along the trail eating their fill of bugs. Neat creatures, bats. You can eat my share, ok?

A few other people on the trail - moms with small children going for a before-bedtime walk, and a couple of other joggers, and a few bicyclists. One middle-aged couple riding a bicycle-built-for-two which looked like a racing bike.

All in all a very peaceful evening.

trying something new

Today I tried something toally different let me tell you how it went.

Instead of waking up and going for a run,
I woke up and drove downtown to work. At 5:30 there is hardly any traffic.
I stashed my gear at the office and went for a run. I ran over to the Capitol and back on the Washington Mall which was exhilerating. It was 44F, the sun was just coming up, and lots of fast people were out for their morning exercise. What fun!
I got back to work and took a shower in the work locker room.
I went up to my office and put on my tie and got down to work, more than an hour earlier than I usually get into the office. And i didn't have to get up more than a moment earlier.

How about that!
The only downside is that I am sure tired about now.

Speaking of that, going to call it a night.
Peter

Charlottesville marathon

Wow, what a great race!

I finished Charlottesville marathon @ 5:18.

The course was hilly; my watch recorded 1,867 feet of ascent and 1,883 feet of descent (don't know quite why they are different).

It was a beautiful course - rolling farmland, cows, woods, & picturesque vistas. Lots of Red Bud in bloom, which I like a lot. What beautiful countryside!

I estimate about 1,500 marathoners, and maybe 2,000 half marathoners.

The course was lollipop-shaped. The half marathon shared the 6.5 mile stem of the lollipop with the marathoners. All runners started at the same time out in front of The Charlottesville Running Company, who is the main event sponsor. The first couple miles had lots of downhill,
so the last couple miles were uphill - truly a pain.

It was sunny the whole day. Starting temperature was 42F, the finish temperature was 74F. The heat spiked up in the last hour.

There were plentiful water & gatorade stops. Lots of helpful, friendly race volunteers. The halfway point pink ladies were all in pink - pink shirts, pink hair, pink everything. There were cyclists patrolling the course looking for injuries.

There were very few toilets. Lots of trees with some privacy, but few toilets.

I iced my legs down well right after the race, and again at home later. They are somewhat stiff and sore todat,, but not exceptionally.

All in all a fun race.

To go faster I need a) more sleep regularly; b) longer runs to build endurance, and c) to lose some of the weight I have gained over the last few months. Those three will help me go much faster.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Peter
http://peter-peter-blog.blogspot.com/

Shamrock Marathon

The 2009 Shamrock Marathon was held on a gorgeous spring day. In Virginia Beach it was clear as a bell. The whole weekend probably had 15-20,000 people attend; i think the biggest draw was the half-marathon on Saturday. Maybe 3,000 people competed in the marathon on Sunday.

At the 8am starting time it was 35F in the bright sunshine with just a very slight breeze. It warmed up about 5 degrees each hour, so that soon it was 45, tailing off to reach a high just over 50F.

I ran instrumented and was very happy with the results. I managed my oxygen debt well and took short slow-down breaks when it was getting too high. I was very pleased with that. I figure it added five miles to the race for me.

I ran well through about mile 21, but then i was just pooped and started taking regular walk breaks. That corresponded to the start of a hill on the second half of the race, leading out to Fort Story (a working US Army Fort) and an old lighthouse. We gained about 50 feet in altitude - not that much, but enough to really drain me.



My finish time was 5:10, for an average pace of 11:37. Not what I would like, but certainly what I had expected. Too many cookies and not enough long, slow runs will do that. Now that the weather is getting nicer I can fix that easily!

Confuseled

I'm being confuseled by the Suunto. According to its auto-calculate, it puts my experience through its formulas and tells me I'm a national-class athlete. Wouldn't THAT be nice! When I take any single workout I've done and analyze the numbers against the tables, it tells me that I'm a typical weekend warrior. There's a world of difference being able to keep up a 5.5 min/mile pace for 12 minutes, and keep up an 8 min/mile pace for 12 minutes.

I don't know what gives. I'm inclined to use the lower numbers for conservatism' sake. The downside there is that I won't improve as fast if I am always setting the bar low so that every effort looks like a huge percentage of my capacity. On the other hand, I will needlessly tire myself out and not recover sufficiently if the number is too high. It will be like "oh, you only need a day to recover from this 80-mile death march, plan on more the next day". And I will get injured and go nowhere.

There's lots on the internet about how use the older t6 model, but not very much on the t6c. I don't have a good sense on how similar they are in terms of data and algorithm.

I hope that Shamrock will provide me with some good data points to use that I can make some sense out of.

Morning workout

Definitely one downside of getting more fit is that it takes more effort to really put my body under stress.

This morning it took me all of 35 minutes of hard running (treadmill, mind you, but still) before I could finally eke out a 4.0 Training Effect. In January that would have been 20 minutes at that pace. The good and the bad, all at once.

Good, because I'm in better shape
Bad, because now I have to work harder.

Suunto running

I had a wonderful run this afternoon. Five miles out and about, 45F, a slight breeze. It was amazing.

I kept an eye on my Suunto t6c watch, which was set to monitor my heart rate, EPOC level, and pace. The heart rate and EPOC increased rapidly during the first mile - much faster than I would have guessed. I was moving along at a rapid pace, but I didn't feel tired, or winded in the least, but the rate of change would leave me winded in a very short time. This was fascinating!! I've never been able to watch my body reacting to the stress of running before, in a kind of detached, objective way.

When the EPOC level got near 100, I walked. After a few moments my heart rate began to drop and then my EPOC level began to drop. Once EPOC was under 90, I started running again. My heart rate picked up and the EPOC also rose, but not nearly as fast as it had. When it went over 100, I walked again. And kept on run/walking. And after three miles, my heart rate didn't rise very much and my EPOC level stayed mostly flat, so I only took one more walk break.

At the end of the run, my legs were a little sore as they would be from any workout. But the rest of my body felt just fine, like I'd been out for a brisk walk. I was hardly perspiring at all. I felt like I could easily run another 20 miles. And overall my pace was still just over an 11 minute-mile.

It amazes me that I can react to how my body is handling the run and keep from getting exhausted by slowing down before I near the exhaustion point. And that means I can probably complete the 100 mile run in July. Woo-hoo!


(EPOC: Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption, a measure for the amount of Oxygen that the body needs to recover from physical exertion. Describes the accumulating training load. More-fit bodies produce lower EPOC levels at the same amount of exertion. When the EPOC level gets high enough, over several hundreds, the body is too tired to go on.)