***The Official Running Thread***

[Kento]

Had Day After Valentine's lunch yesterday with my wife, absolutely gorged. Had not run since the long trail so a few hours later it was a very sluggish 4 miles with stomach churn about, oh, 0.3 miles in. Note to self -no massive denver omelettes the morning of a race. All good though. No puking.

A lot of restless energy today but didn't really want to overdo it. However, once I was moving, I felt good. Ran about 7.2 miles in a little over 55 minutes. Went out a lot faster than I started out; hardly went through any water too, although it is in the low 50s and overcast.

It seems to be raining for most of the foreseeable future so glad I got this run in. Aside from those two big toenails that had better come off at least semi-naturally before the race, am feeling solid. Just need to maintain at the very least.

 

[Kento]

Rainy most of the day yesterday, which coincided well with a rest day. Perfect window this morning before the rain came in. 14 mile run today, felt good, had bad timing with traffic lights triggered by church traffic so took a minute break at that point each time. Even so, ran the 14 in about 1:54 and change with the half marathon around 1:47:20. Had one pinole cookie before I left and 20 oz of water throughout and it lasted me. Cool that those cookies can provide that much clean energy. Meant to take a couple GUs with me but left them on the kitchen counter. Oops - well, at least it forced my hand one way or another.

25 mile rest week was good - feel a bit recharged. Up that mileage again next couple of weeks.

 

[One-Off]

Rainy most of the day yesterday, which coincided well with a rest day. Perfect window this morning before the rain came in. 14 mile run today, felt good, had bad timing with traffic lights triggered by church traffic so took a minute break at that point each time. Even so, ran the 14 in about 1:54 and change with the half marathon around 1:47:20. Had one pinole cookie before I left and 20 oz of water throughout and it lasted me. Cool that those cookies can provide that much clean energy. Meant to take a couple GUs with me but left them on the kitchen counter. Oops - well, at least it forced my hand one way or another.

25 mile rest week was good - feel a bit recharged. Up that mileage again next couple of weeks.

Are those cookies sweet? How big are they? When you bring them on runs you have them in a ziploc? In your pocket?

I just ran a 10k through a red blob on the weather radar. I had a rain jacket on but was wet, I assume from sweat. The water appeared to be beading on the jacket.

It was fun. I purposely looked for big puddles to splash through like when we were kids. Sing in the rain !

☔

Zone 2 10k at 8:45. A big improvement over the 10-10:30 pace at the beginning. One more week and then I’ll start adding in hill intervals and 10k tempo runs.

 

[Kento]

Are those cookies sweet? How big are they? When you bring them on runs you have them in a ziploc? In your pocket?

I just ran a 10k through a red blob on the weather radar. I had a rain jacket on but was wet, I assume from sweat. The water appeared to be beading on the jacket.

It was fun. I purposely looked for big puddles to splash through like when we were kids. Sing in the rain !

☔

Zone 2 10k at 8:45. A big improvement over the 10-10:30 pace at the beginning. One more week and then I’ll start adding in hill intervals and 10k tempo runs.

The way I baked them, they were the size of an Oreo, maybe slightly larger in diameter. Pretty dry - I will add more dates to the recipe next time. Yeah, I just put them in a baggie in my pocket.

Nice on the Zone 2.

Raining with intermittent heavy patches, may just go on the treadmill later for an hour or so. Should clear up later in the week.

 

[Kento]

Resigned myself to treadmilling it on Tuesday with the steady rain. Had to wait until after kids were in bed. Dinner digestion or what but I sweated my ass off as I ran 10 miles in 83 minutes or so. Was hilarious how drenched I was. Treadmill messes up my gait a little, something about the extra bounce, but absolutely better than nothing. Does get boring after a while - I try to look at where I am mileage-wise and daydream/zone into where I would respectively be on one of my main routes. That's probably where you need the shrooms - jesus, could you imagine that torture being locked on something for that long while tripping balls?

Felt good Wednesday, probably right in that Zone 3 - didn't care, cruised 5 miles in 37 and change. Followed that up with a more cruisy 8 miles and change in about 1:03 today. My breathing feels good, I can maintain a conversation if needed without gasping for breath, legs definitely don't feel at that Zone 2 though. Maybe just slight muscle fatigue? Not like I'm blown out, I dunno they just feel leaden at times.

 

[One-Off]

This guy says strength training doesn't prevent injuries...unless you do dynamic balance/plyometric work. But he doesn't link to any studies. Click through the slides.

So now I've got to do plyometrics on top of everything else???

http://instagr.am/p/CnVh8cvpYLS/

 

[Kento]

Beautiful warm, sunny day today, mid-70s. I've been fighting this sore throat/cold for several days. It's funny that I don't even cough at all while I'm running but have had fitful sleep.

Nonetheless, put a 20 mile run in this afternoon, entailed two long laps, just felt malaise around miles 5-7. I ran well but I also took a few fast walking breaks just to rejuvenate, powered through those last several miles. Did it in about 2:56. But yeah, I may have ran a little too hard on Wednesday/Thursday. I felt great those days albeit a little fatigued and I paid for that today. Overall, though, nice to get another of those 20 milers in the books with race 7 weeks away.

 

[One-Off]

Beautiful warm, sunny day today, mid-70s. I've been fighting this sore throat/cold for several days. It's funny that I don't even cough at all while I'm running but have had fitful sleep.

Nonetheless, put a 20 mile run in this afternoon, entailed two long laps, just felt malaise around miles 5-7. I ran well but I also took a few fast walking breaks just to rejuvenate, powered through those last several miles. Did it in about 2:56. But yeah, I may have ran a little too hard on Wednesday/Thursday. I felt great those days albeit a little fatigued and I paid for that today. Overall, though, nice to get another of those 20 milers in the books with race 7 weeks away.

One of my LA marathons I’d been fighting a cough for days beforehand. I got to the start line having full on coughing spasms to the point one guy looked at me and asked, “Are you really going to do this?” As soon as the race started the coughing was gone. Never coughed the whole race. As soon as I crossed the finish line and stopped running the coughing immediately started back up.

 

[Kento]

Do you ever have lower abdominal tightness after long runs? To the point that it hurts when you cough? It goes away after a couple hours but definitely uncomfortable.

Very irritated that my board hit me in the calf, resulting in swelling, charley horse. Had me limping until I could ice it after washing out my stuff.

But I wanted that 3 hour recovery run after yesterday's 20 miler. My stride felt ok despite the injury, no overcompensation but every step hurt like fire. I jogged at about 8:40 pace but 2nd half of that run was very hard. Took a tremendous amount of mental willpower to finish that run but I did. 20.4 miles in exactly 3 hours. Took a few walk breaks here and there but finished those last 10 minutes strong.

But overall, two 20 mile runs back to back, each under 3 hours. 63.5 on the week, most I've ever done.

And I am beat. to. sh!t. Getting an average of 4 hours sleep the last few days has not helped. But, hey, good to know what my body is capable of and how deep I can dig if needed.

 

[One-Off]

Do you ever have lower abdominal tightness after long runs? To the point that it hurts when you cough? It goes away after a couple hours but definitely uncomfortable.

Very irritated that my board hit me in the calf, resulting in swelling, charley horse. Had me limping until I could ice it after washing out my stuff.

But I wanted that 3 hour recovery run after yesterday's 20 miler. My stride felt ok despite the injury, no overcompensation but every step hurt like fire. I jogged at about 8:40 pace but 2nd half of that run was very hard. Took a tremendous amount of mental willpower to finish that run but I did. 20.4 miles in exactly 3 hours. Took a few walk breaks here and there but finished those last 10 minutes strong.

But overall, two 20 mile runs back to back, each under 3 hours. 63.5 on the week, most I've ever done.

And I am beat. to. sh!t. Getting an average of 4 hours sleep the last few days has not helped. But, hey, good to know what my body is capable of and how deep I can dig if needed.

Never had ab pain after running. When I had my back "injury" coughing and laughing were like torture.

20+20 sounds great, but make sure you're getting some rest. Running 20 miles does not sound like "recovery."

 

[Kento]

Never had ab pain after running. When I had my back "injury" coughing and laughing were like torture.

20+20 sounds great, but make sure you're getting some rest. Running 20 miles does not sound like "recovery."

I have a dr. appointment in a couple weeks so will bring it up. Worried I might have a hernia but no bulge and it goes away once muscles loosen up over time.

Definitely a rest day today. Picking up some firewood later today - toting a quarter cord of wood back and forth will be semi-exercise I suppose. If the drizzle keeps up, might be faster exercise than planned!

This is one of the last hard weeks I have before the race. From the training plan I'm going off, this is another hard week (64 miles) but funny thing is, my legs actually feel fine this morning. Icing that calf bruise helped a lot - the knot in my lower leg was almost a foot long after that run. Hopefully it's greatly reduced by tomorrow.

 

[One-Off]

I just did the last run of my exclusively zone 2 training. Actually I will probably do one more tomorrow, because I found out it's a leap year. It will have been three months.

Yesterday I did 24.5 miles. 6 hours zone 2. I was intending to do 26 miles but forgot my end point was different than my start point. It was my record for time on my feet. I never stopped (except for red lights). At Temescal Peak (turn around) I walked for 10 minutes while eating a sandwich. My zone 2 pace on flat land is under 9:00 ( at the beginning). My overall pace was more about the climb. To stay in zone two I had to walk most of it. I thought I could race down but the top had a lot of technical areas (steep and rocky) and the bottom was still slippery, damp mud. The trail was actually roped off again, "closed due to dangerous conditions," but I said F- that. It was really nice because almost no one was on the trail (also being Tuesday morning didn't hurt). Actually going down was more tiring on my quads than walking up.

I felt really good. The ball of my right foot started hurting about mile 18 and I wondered if I'd have to walk the finish. But I've noticed on long runs the pains will come and then go. This one subsided substantially after a few miles and I finished pretty strong (despite, or maybe because of having to stop for stop lights in downtown Santa Monica).





Another's runner's high moment-.

The view-



The song-

 

[Kento]

I decided to let that bruise heal an extra day, ran 8 miles Wednesday. Still a little residual pain but generally felt good, ran another 10 on the treadmill last night because of intermittent rain, want to do a long run tomorrow but will be interesting with the rain. Maybe a window. Thought of doing 20+ on the treadmill is less than enthusing, although definitely better than nothing.

 

[One-Off]

I decided to let that bruise heal an extra day, ran 8 miles Wednesday. Still a little residual pain but generally felt good, ran another 10 on the treadmill last night because of intermittent rain, want to do a long run tomorrow but will be interesting with the rain. Maybe a window. Thought of doing 20+ on the treadmill is less than enthusing, although definitely better than nothing.

Maybe put a big screen in front of you and put on a video like this one-

 

[Kento]

Intermittent showers for the most part. Watchdogged the weather all morning, looked like more or less a decent window. Knew I would get rained on but nothing too bad. But not hail (again) barely 1.5 mile in. Just grand - getting absolute pelted under high-tension power lines (the huge ones) and less than a quarter mile from an electrical substation that is lightning-bait. Only a little over a mile from home at that point so picked up pace, was absolutely soaked. One way or another, was going to finish that run. Verified weather, changed clothes, and went back at it.

Kinda wished I hadn't expended that energy. Funny that I forgot to turn my watch off so it recorded about 5 minutes of fuckaround time at home. Just incorporated that mentally, still had half marathon at 1:52:20. No hail this time but rain started pissing down again although didn't look entirely too foreboding. Had nice shelter under some redwoods, waited a couple minutes, had about 10 miles to go. Knew I would run into the teeth of the clouds but also a lot of sun beyond it. Hard upwind run from there against traffic with rain and roadwash right in my face. Bright side was no rain from there. Hips started feeling it right around that 20 mile barrier. So tempted to quit at 22 and 23 miles but I did set out to run 24 miles and that's what I was going to do. That last 4 was definitely tougher than the previous 20. Took a couple brief walk-breaks, definitely welcomed the poorly timed traffic light, but muscled through everything all-told 24 miles in 3:30 even.

 

[stringcheese]

when people run this much, do they taper off as time goes by, or is it more common to one day just stop all together?

it doesn’t seem sustainable, which makes me wonder what the long term considerations are

 

[Kento]

when people run this much, do they taper off as time goes by, or is it more common to one day just stop all together?

it doesn’t seem sustainable, which makes me wonder what the long term considerations are

This is a good question I would also like the answer to. No idea. It's a new world that opened up for me and just riding the wave of it as long as I can. Anything is fun when you steadily get better at it, getting rewarded with the time you put into it and how hard you push yourself. Vince Lombardi knew what was up when he said:

"I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious."

Even if I feel like thrashed death at the end, man, it feels good to know what I accomplished and then I pretty much left it all out there. If you're not hurting, you're not trying. Usually it's when things stagnate overlong that I get antsy and moving onto new journeys. Thinking back, there are a quite a few things I've done where I've mastered (at least on my terms) and then pretty much gone cold-turkey after. Surfing and snowboarding are the primary 2 that endured over everything else, probably because they're something you always improve at one way or another; you never truly can master them, especially when the medium is different every time.

 

[Buck_86]

This is a good question I would also like the answer to. No idea. It's a new world that opened up for me and just riding the wave of it as long as I can. Anything is fun when you steadily get better at it, getting rewarded with the time you put into it and how hard you push yourself. Vince Lombardi knew what was up when he said:

"I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious."

Even if I feel like thrashed death at the end, man, it feels good to know what I accomplished and then I pretty much left it all out there. If you're not hurting, you're not trying. Usually it's when things stagnate overlong that I get antsy and moving onto new journeys. Thinking back, there are a quite a few things I've done where I've mastered (at least on my terms) and then pretty much gone cold-turkey after. Surfing and snowboarding are the primary 2 that endured over everything else, probably because they're something you always improve at one way or another; you never truly can master them, especially when the medium is different every time.

Exactly. In my early 20s you could have not told me I would end up enjoying running the same way I enjoy surfing. Even when I’m not training for a race I’m still running about 20 miles a week. It brings me a lot of enjoyment.

 

[One-Off]

it doesn’t seem sustainable, which makes me wonder what the long term considerations are

Having a heart condition I've delved into this pretty deeply.

First of all, a warning- there were a couple of studies done back in 2012 that declared- LONG DISTANCE RUNNING IS BAD FOR YOU! They got a lot of press and media coverage. Upon closer scrutiny it was found they "adjusted" certain parameters in order to compare "like" groups. The factors they "adjusted" were BMI, blood pressure and cholesterol. Hmmm. In the words of the article linked below, it was like saying, "If you ignore the known health benefits of running, running has no health benefits."

The reserachers eventually had to amend their statements to- running is really, really good for you. Running a lot (more than 20 miles a week) does not confer added benefits, but neither does it create more risk. Their revised statement did not get the same amount of press and was kind of ignored, so many people were left with RUNNING IS BAD FOR YOU.

Then another scientist began publishing studies with a much, much larger database that showed people running more (at least 40 miles a week) were 26% less likely to develop coronary heart desease than those running only 13 miles a week.

What to Know About Running and Your Heart

We’ve all seen the scary headlines. Here’s the truth behind the hype.

www.runnersworld.com

I also had a back "injury" so was concerned about the effect of running on my spine and joints. As far as musculo skeletal issues-

How To Start A Running Program For Beginners

Whatever your running goal is, here are tips on how to get started and what you should know.

health.clevelandclinic.org

Does Long-Distance Running Cause Arthritis? - Cary Orthopaedics

Some studies have shown higher rateS of arthritis in runners while others have shown no association or possibly a benefit to running.

www.caryortho.com

The picture gets a little cloudier for ultra running-

Is Ultrarunning Bad for Long-Term Health?

Is ultrarunning unhealthy? Coach Jason Koop delves into new research from Vokler Scheer, MD and Nick Tiller, PhD. for the answer.

trainright.com

Health Risks Associated with Ultramarathons

Running, even extremely long distances, can be done with minimal long-term health impacts for most people. Here’s what to know about the risks associated with running ultras, according to experts.

www.trailrunnermag.com

but the conclusion is-

Article 1-

1-There is currently little compelling evidence that normal ultramarathon training is deleterious to one’s physical health.
2-If you are concerned about the role ultramarathon running plays in your physical health, considering limiting your training to 12 hours per week during peak weeks and racing only once or twice per year. While you’d be hard pressed to find a concrete scientific guideline in this area, both recommendations seem to be safe as well as practical.
3-Your relationship with ultrarunning should extend beyond the physical. Ultrarunning and training for ultramarathon events should fulfill your psychological and emotional needs as well!

Article 2-

"So, are ultramarathons safe? For the most part, yes. With informed decisions about which races to do, how often to race, and how well you are recovered, most people can participate in ultramarathons without negative outcomes. Running is good for your health and ultramarathons can be a fun way to challenge yourself and compete with like-minded people.



FInally, this study said half marathons were the healthiest distance=

Health status of recreational runners over 10-km up to ultra-marathon distance based on data of the NURMI Study Step 2 - Scientific Reports

Endurance running is well-documented to affect health beneficially. However, data are still conflicting in terms of which race distance is associated with the maximum health effects to be obtained. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare the health status of endurance runners over...

www.nature.com

I have come to enjoy running almost as much as surfing, so like surfing, I will do it as long as I am able.


My only caveat to runners is make sure you're dong the strength training too.

 

[One-Off]

Today I ran my first (unofficial) marathon since 2019.

A couple interesting things happened. one- after I reached my destination, Cathedral Rocks, and explored for a while and ate my sandwich, I began to run back down the mountain and my back started hurting. No way! My back never hurts when I run. Just then a song came on, "Clint Eastwood," and the beat was a perfect cadence to help high step my feet down the rocky trail. I started to think about a recent video I watched by an ultramarathoner who spoke about ways to deal with pain/discomfort/bad moments. One was "distraction"- by the view... or by music. So I focused in on the music. Also I began thinking about all the low back pain theories, about the "protect by pain" reposes and how the pain is not related to ongoing tissue damage, nor is pain a signal of imminent injury. Right as I was thinking about this, the singer in the song whispers, "... it's all in your head." It was kind of freaky.

2:56 "No squealing, remember it's all in your head."

The next event happened on the switchbacks near the bottom. I was having fun "carving" around the ramps at each switchback . I would kind of speed up knowing that I could control the speed going around the turn on the ramp. Then I got to one and I discovered, too late, that it was all bumpy. I slid but but recovered without falling, but the recovery was a twisting motion and I wrenched my back and right hip. Muthafukah!

The switchback-




Finally, the free run tracker app I use announces each mile completed and the average pace. As I neared the end of the beach section it announced 24. And then as I ran through the city I did not hear 25. Did I just miss it because I was concentrated on something else? When I got to to my finish there was no 26. It was kind of disappointing. Like missing the only reward for running this "marathon." No cheering crowds, no medals, no food or refreshments. All I wanted was to hear "26." Actually the way I mapped it it would have been 26.5. When I looked at the run result on the app I could see that it somehow lost connection the last couple of miles. It shows an "as the crow flies" course.





Still an enjoyable run. I guess this was the reward-