slow runners

Off Day

Yesterday was an unexpected day off from running. I am somewhat annoyed about it because it was another nice day, and because I want to run outside any time I can, and I cannot during the week. I woke up with a sore back and hips. My back is fine, it’s just kind of stiff, it’s definitely plain old muscular soreness and not something worse. My hips are just a little worn out, I think, but I’m concerned they feel like the Tin Man’s before Dorothy found the oil can, and I decided a break would be a good idea, even though I just had a rest day on Friday.

I felt a bit guilty about sitting on my couch watching Gilmore Girls during the time I planned for running, but after creaking around the rest of the day at a UMD hockey game and running errands, it turned out to be a good idea. This was confirmed once I started feeling chilled and overall achy in the evening. Since I sometimes write posts in the evening and schedule them for the next day (a shocking revelation, I know!), I could have come down with a full-blown case of influenza by the time you get around to reading this. Or, I’ve successfully given my body the extra bit of rest it needed to fight off whatever crap was trying to take over. With school starting this week, I’m not taking any chances.

With my level of fitness, spotty track record with commitment to running, and overall bent toward laziness, rest days worry me. Since I don’t plan them, instead choosing them based on either my schedule for the day, how I feel on a particular day, or how long it’s been since my last rest day, one rest day can very easily turn into two… or three… weeks. Or more. I hope my two-pronged formula for success this way around will work. This plan is, obviously, 1. Run at an aerobic pace so I’m not killing myself with every run and 2. Write about running publicly (while not doing anything to actively promote this writing), so that I’m forced to keep going in order to have something to write about.

I really hope I am not sick. It would not be the best way to begin spring semester.

Decaffeinated

As I suspected in my post on Wednesday, caffeine was affecting my heart rate. I cut down to one cup a day (12 oz) the rest of the work week, and noticed I could run a bit faster on the treadmill at the same heart rate. It’s not an amazing leap forward, but I’m not doing myself any favors by artificially inflating my heart rate even a few beats.

Cutting down my coffee intake has made me feel pretty crappy the past few days. I suppose that’s a sign that I’ve made the right decision to cut back. I held fast even though Friday I was feeling really gross, with a headache and sort of general malaise, and it was a rest day, so it wouldn’t have mattered, and I went to a hockey game after work, so the energy would have been welcomed. Yesterday I let myself sleep as long as I needed to, which helped, and I didn’t have my usual glorious post-run latte, so I’m hoping I’ll level off soon. Just in time to go back to school, where I will have three lattes a day sometimes just to survive. Hooray.

Yesterday I also took advantage of the warmer weather to run outside. I went down to the Lakewalk, my old standby. I wanted to try running on more even terrain so I didn’t have to plod up a hill at a 40 min/mile pace with my heart rate still spiking at 160.

I didn’t wear my shoe chains since it has been warm enough to melt any built-up ice that might have been on the path. There was a bit of snow cover in places but I didn’t slip. Unfortunately, when I started off, I wasn’t able to get my heart rate under control. I really don’t know why, but it was spiking and then dropping and then spiking again for the first few minutes of the run, so I had to go pretty slowly to start off with. My first mile was the slowest.

Splits:
17:00
15:58
16:13
15:53
15:39 (0.46 mi)

See? That makes no sense. After the first mile I had no trouble keeping my heart rate down, other than the little inclines. I don’t know if there was a problem with the monitor at first, or if breathing in cold air was affecting me, or what, but I’m glad everything evened out. I got a little bit of a headache after my ears got cold, which ended up lingering awhile even after I was out of the cold. I also took a shower too soon after coming in from the cold, so my skin got all itchy and blotchy and it still felt cold to the touch in places after the shower.

A latte sounds amazing right now. Ugh, this sucks. But it’s for the best, right?

Be Still, My Heart

Here is a partial list of things that increase my heart rate while running:

  • Caffeine (even hours later) (duh)
  • How full my stomach is (Because running on an empty-but-not-hungry stomach isn’t always possible)
  • Needing to use the restroom
  • Taking a drink of water
  • Blowing my nose
  • Coughing once
  • A bad turnover in the Wild’s defensive zone
  • Talking to my cat
  • Thinking about something annoying for a second
  • Fixing my hair
  • Shouting at the television
  • A very slight change in incline (I usually run at a 2, knocked it down to a 1 in order to get a little speed back during this training period)
  • The Wild scoring a goal (fortunately doesn’t happen very often)
  • Changing the channel

In these first few weeks of training I’m being hyper-vigilant about checking my heart rate, since I really don’t have a good sense of how I feel when I am running at 142 bpm vs 150 bpm, or at least I don’t until I’ve been running for a little bit too long at that higher heart rate. I am trying to be a little more patient with the 146-147s that flash across my watch display, since they do tend to settle down after a few seconds. I know from day to day I will feel differently and some days it will be harder to run the same pace than other days; I know that patience is key to success with this kind of training. I’m trying to cut down the caffeine (only one cup of coffee today instead of two! Let’s see if that works!), and most of the other things on the list are blips on the radar that can’t be helped. Not watching hockey during a run would also help, as would avoiding emotional investment in a sporting competition meant for entertainment purposes only, but I assure you that ship has sailed.

The good news is running slowly on the treadmill has made me hate it less, so I am able to run on it longer. I spent an hour and a half on the treadmill last night, the longest I have ever spent working out on a piece of equipment. Of course, I also covered a bit over 5 miles, a distance I used to be able to cover in an hour, so there’s still that trade-off.

Slowing Down to Speed Up – Outside

From this morning’s trail review, you can tell that I managed to run outside this weekend. (Sunday ended up being a rest day due to lack of motivation.)

Normally running outside is easier than running on a treadmill for me. I am not sure if it’s the more interesting surroundings, or the ability to vary my pace subtly based on how I feel, or the fact that I am propelling myself forward with each stride instead of staying in the same place. With my newly imposed heart rate restrictions, I’m now slower outside than I am inside.

I’m not actually surprised by this, especially since I picked a hilly course. My plan on Sunday was maybe to give the Lakewalk another try since it’s got more flat portions, but when it was only 2 above at 11:00 I decided to scrap it. The wind off the lake could have been nasty. I will give that a shot next weekend when it’s in the 20s or possibly above freezing again.

I layered up nicely in order to avoid getting chilled: tank top under hoodie with other hoodie on top, gloves, thin running tights under lightweight sweatpants, socks over the bottoms of the running tights (they are too long so I just didn’t pull them over my feet), headband over ears, hood from inner hoodie pulled over head and tied securely, gloves that aren’t very warm, balm on my face to protect it from the wind. Forgot the sunscreen, oops. I ended up not getting cold at all. I was worried about my feet since I really didn’t have proper socks, but they didn’t. Since I had the shoe chains on my feet, the soles of my shoes didn’t have as much contact with the ground, so the cold didn’t come through.

Running on snow feels like it requires more effort than running on pavement. I think my intuition is backed up by science: some of the energy that’s supposed to be used to turn over my legs ends up getting absorbed into the snow as my foot sinks in, so it requires more energy per stride than it would on pavement or other more solid surfaces. I should probably use my knowledge of physics to educate myself about the kinetics and kinematics of running. When I was running on flat ground, I was able to keep my heart rate where it needed to be without slowing down too much. Once I got on any kind of incline lasting more than a few steps, my heart rate skyrocketed and I had to walk. From what I’ve read of others who have started this type of training, that’s fairly standard. On the large hill on the west loop, even going at a snail’s pace of about 44 min/mile, I wasn’t able to keep my heart rate below 142. I ended up having to relax my standards and tried to keep it around 150 for the ascent on the second time around. I am not very efficient at getting up hills. I am working to change that and need patience. I don’t really like chugging my way up hills like The Little Engine That Could so I’m not missing that at all, but I would like to be able to walk up them at a decent clip.

I like training like this, not just because I can walk up hills, but also because at no time was I sucking wind, gasping for air, cramping, feeling nauseated, or otherwise physically hating the run. I felt great during and afterward. This is good news, because school starts next week, I’ll still be working, and I’ll have a ton more crap to do. A run that not only eats into my study and work time, but wears me out so I don’t have the energy to do homework/work afterward, is not a good situation. Of course, if this training method isn’t really working and I don’t improve, that’s also not a good situation.

I still got chills after the run even though I didn’t overexert myself, and even though I had a huge latte and a hot shower afterward. Of course, going to a hockey game 45 minutes after my run and sitting in a cold rink holding a cold pop in my hand was a poor idea.

I do wonder if I will see results from this training faster than an speedy runner would. Since I am already slow, will slowing down help me faster? Does that even make sense? Or am I just hoping that will be the case when really I’m just being impatient? I guess I’ll find out as I’ll end up getting faster or blowing a gasket.

Trail Review: Bagley Nature Area (Winter)

Saturday I couldn’t stand another day on the treadmill, so even though it was -2 when I got up, I told myself if it was in the high single digits by noon, I would get outside for my run. It was, so I did.

I headed out to Bagley Nature Area, on UMD’s campus. A small portion of the trail is on the Superior Hiking Trail as it winds its way through the city. The trail is not paved, but is not particularly technical; there are no large rocks or tree roots or other obstacles. In the winter, its two main loops are groomed and there are classic x-c skiing tracks. There is a small hill where kids can go sliding/tubing that might cause some traffic jams or collisions on the way on or off the loops. Since school is closed, there’s parking right near the trail. When school is open, the parking lot is for campus residents, so I don’t know what non-students do. Street parking is impossible during the weekdays when school is in session.

I wore my shoes chains, which gave me plenty of traction on the groomed and slightly packed trails. At times there was ice directly under the snow, so I was glad to have the extra traction and stability. There weren’t that many people out since it was cold: a couple other runners and a couple cross country skiers, plus the kids on the sliding hill.

Click here for a map of the groomed trails. The east loop is definitely the easier loop: it has a few very small hills, but nothing too challenging. In autumn I love the east loop because the trees are simply gorgeous and the trail is carpeted in leaves.

The west loop, while shorter in distance, is more challenging. The walking trail diverges from the ski trail for a bit, so it’s a little longer than 1.2k as shown on the map. Two cute wooden bridges cross over a little creek and back again. Once the loop rejoins the ski trail the path comes to a large hill. I mean, not large by Rocky Mountain standards or anything, but it’s a more difficult hill than might normally be found on a tiny, semi-urban loop. The scenery at the top of the hill is lovely, in the winter there’s even a glimpse of the lake, but for some reason every time I’m up there, a dog at one of the nearby houses is out and barks and ruins the serenity!

The loop comes back down along Junction Ave/St. Marie St., following the pond. The descent is more gentle than the ascent (note that I run the paths the same direction as the skiers), but along the pond I found the path was at its iciest and had to be cautious. Since the two loops come together on the north side of the pond, it’s easy to make a few figure 8 loops of the trail and turn a short trail into a good place for a medium-length run.

Bottom line: Bagley Nature Area has groomed trails, few flat stretches, and lots of trees. It’s a great place to go on days when I’m not sure how I feel, because the loop is so short it’s easy to tap out after a few miles if it’s not my day. It is not a great place for speedwork or aerobic training, due to the large hill on the west loop.

Slowing Down to Speed Up

I took my first stride toward becoming a faster runner by running even more slowly than usual last night.

It’s counter-intuitive, and maybe it won’t work, but I’m going to try it out. I’m jumping on the metabolic efficiency training bandwagon, kind of. As usual, I am jumping in with both feet without any education or research on the subject. I will figure that out later.

I read about this a few months ago in a few different areas and thought it would be great. I can run slowly and have a reason to do it! Hooray! My version of metabolic efficiency training SO FAR is trying to build an aerobic base by keeping my heart rate under 142 at all times during my runs. That is not at all what metabolic efficiency training is really about. It is also about burning stored fat instead of stored carbohydrates while running, and it also involves nutrition planning. I will eventually need to make some changes to how I eat, for a variety of running-related reasons, but for now I am just running slowly.

Actual real runners do this training too, and I find it interesting to read some of their accounts of the training. Almost every speedy runner who starts this training talks about how embarrassed and ashamed they are to run so slowly. Most of them don’t even put up their times, but I guarantee you those times are still faster than my maximum speed for even a single mile. Welcome to my every day, speedsters!

I really, really, really had to slow down for my first run (on the treadmill, bien sur!); I ended up running about 17 min/mile. That was interesting. I can also walk at that pace, but resisted the temptation. And even then, I still ended up with my heart rate a little higher than it should have been by the end! I averaged 143. So I failed. But I didn’t mind running three minutes slower than my usual pace, because I was running with a purpose!

On the plus side, the pace is supposed to be sustainable forever, figuratively speaking, and it was. I didn’t end up red-faced and I wasn’t nauseated or crampy. It also made the treadmill bearable because I wasn’t pushing so hard while bored out of my mind.

On the minus side, I ended up going over my heart rate target by doing my favorite form of cross-training: shoveling snow. Well, I assume I did based on how I felt, because I don’t have an orthorexic need to track every calorie burned in any activity anytime.

Just so you know, I do plan on doing actual research on this method of training to make sure I’m not completely screwing it up. I’ll share what I learn as I go along.

Like Magellan

I took a rest day Monday, and then had a homemade-Chex-Mix-fueled 3.2 mile run on the treadmill yesterday while watching the first period of the Wild game.

Treadmill Strategy: Run til the game starts (I started about 5 or 6 minutes before the broadcast began, which was maybe 10 minute before the game started, which I didn’t plan for), and then recover during the commercials. This is great in theory because it isn’t based on anything on the treadmill display, so it helped my running posture.

It didn’t work out exactly as planned, as the game didn’t start on time and a commercial didn’t come until I’d been running for almost 25 minutes nonstop. I did take one recovery break of about 30 seconds when I thought they were going to commercial but they didn’t. When I’m watching hockey live it usually feels like there’s a commercial every whistle, but I guess my perception is off. After the first break, I was cruising along and with about ten minutes to go on the treadmill clock, I decided there was no reason for another walk break and just kept running. So, hooray.

For years, I’ve been using shoe inserts while running to cushion my feet. It’s probably not good for them or for my stride or something, but I did. My insteps were very sensitive and I thought I needed the extra support. I also spent a lot of time on my feet when I worked as a makeup counter jockey so I used them in my work shoes (sensible flats!) too. I really hated those stupid “gellin’ like a felon” commercials so for a long time I resisted using the massaging gel inserts, but I finally gave in and used them for a few years.

This summer I started noticing hot spots on my feet when I was running, mostly on the heel base of my left foot. I’d never experienced them before, but it was a very strange sensation, slightly gentler than what I imagine it would be like to have a cigarette extinguished on the bottom of my foot. It happened with different socks, so I don’t think that was the culprit.

I also read a little bit about running shoes and how they are sometimes overly cushioned, and that a more minimal shoe might be a better choice. I am easily persuaded of things, and instead of doing research, I decided to quit using the inserts when I bought my most recent pair of shoes. I didn’t buy a super-light shoe, but I figured my first step toward minimalism was ditching the insoles.

I was concerned I would get foot cramps, which I have in the past, but so far so good. I’ve done long runs and short runs, indoors and out, and haven’t had any issues with foot pain, or with hot spots. I have only run indoors with a fan on or in cooler temperatures outside, so I can’t say the hot spots won’t be there once it’s warmer again (in six months). The shoes, I could take or leave, but that’s a post for another day.