Getting Back Momentum

(I saw a cute kitty on the Rail Trail this morning,
but my cel-phone picture didn't save.  So here's Pooka.)

I feel like I'm barely hanging on right now.  I felt the same way before the Philly Marathon, where I'd only get one run in during the week, but then I'd go run 20 miles on Saturday and totally redeem myself (not really...as the marathon results tell!).

Lately I'm in a rut where I just wasn't getting more than 5 miles.  Sure, I got 3 miles in Atlantic City last week, but this past weekend, my Saturday "long run" was right back to 5 miles.

With that in mind, I think I made a little bit of progress this week.  It started off kind of badly, in that I didn't get out on the roads until Wednesday since I was feeling soreness from running HACC Dash way out of my comfort zone and we ran some errands on Tuesday.  I debated between a run Wednesday evening right after work or waiting till later when it might be cooler.  
I didn't want to go out after work, since it was around 80 degrees, but I knew that if I waited till later, I would wrapped up in watching the surprisingly competent Orioles and end up not feeling like going out at 10:00.  It turned out to be a wise decision, since they went into extra innings and wrapped up around 12:30.

So I ran, and it was hot, but I felt ok and made myself run 5 miles instead of the 3 that I'd bargained myself down to.  I added some of the big hills that I'd been avoiding, so even though it was 5 miles again, at least it was a tougher 5 miles.

I also realized that soreness from fencing on Friday night was probably having a negative effect on my Saturday morning runs.  So, I went out for my long run this morning and ran 7 miles on the rail trail with no discomfort other than that 7 miles is outside my comfort zone right now.  

Screw you, fencing!

I'm pretty happy with this, but tying my longest run of the year and having fencing tonight probably doesn't bode well for the Armed Forces Day 5K I'm running on City Island tomorrow.  I have this distinction in my mind of what is a Brooks Adrenaline run vs. an Adidas adiZero Tempo run.  The Brooks run is any run, like today or the Sole of City 10K, where I'm just there...running without an aggressive time goal (and also likely any distance over 7-8 miles regardless of goal).  The Adidas run is HACC Dash or Shamrock 8K...I'm going to PR or die trying.  (Well, that's a little over-dramatic, but one in which I'm really going to run with the goal of being what passes for fast around here.)  

I'll try to run a good race, but I think tomorrow is a day for the Brooks Adrenalines.

We Put the Train in Training

Since I had a day off today, and neither of my usual local routes are great for morning runs right now, I headed down to the rail trail for the first time since mid-December. It was a cold, clear, beautiful morning for a run. Did I mention cold? Weather.com said it was in the 40s, which for me means short sleeves or sleeveless. (I never said I was smart.) It was fine, except for my hands. It took about 3 miles before my hands warmed up. I was sure I was going to lose some fingers. I still might. Except, I'm typing; so probably not. I've got to remember to keep a pair of running gloves in my car for mornings like this.

At any rate, it was a very nice run. 3.5 miles north toward York from Brillhart Station, and then back for a total of 7 miles in 1:04:19. Good pace, and I felt great...except for my frostbitten fingers. I really feel like I've got my strength back these last two weeks. I can't yet run the mileage I was running last year, but I'm feeling confident that I can get back to it.


I also saw for the first time, and was briefly impeded by, a train using the tracks along the rail trail. That train stops in York, but this train (I know you can't see me because it's a blog post, but pretend I'm pointing at myself) isn't stopping until it crosses the finish line in Virginia Beach.

More Trail, Less Fail

I spent the week silently seething with rage over my highly unsatisfactory -- No! -- disgraceful run on the York County Heritage Rail Trail last week.

So, desperate for revenge, I set out southward from Brillhart Station determined to avenge my death!

Well...ok, the above isn't really true. I was ok with my run last week, but was hoping to do a little both in terms of preparation and distance. And I didn't really die. If I did, you'd be spared further blog posts, obviously.

Anyway, the part about heading south from Brillhart Station is true. It was a relatively cool, overcast morning, and there was even a nice breeze -- which the tall trees around the trail completely blocked. It seemed much more humid on the trail than it did otherwise, and so I think on mornings like this, where clouds are keeping the sun from just beating down on me and the actual temperature isn't too bad, I should probably stay off the trail and just run on the roads here in Manchester.

My preparation was a little better than last week. I remembered to both bring and charge Garmin, which worked really well on this relatively straight course. Although it would lose signal quite often due to (I'm guessing here) weather and the thick vegatation (Geez, Brian, you're making it sound like you were running in the stinkin' Amazon Rain Forest.), it seemed like it would "catch up" when the signal came back. That doesn't work so well on my twisty neighborhood courses, since Garmin assumes a straight line from where it lost signal to where I am when it picks it back up.

Because running on the trail is A) safer than running on the road since I don't have to watch for cars and also B) more boring than running on the road since I don't have to watch for cars, I decided to bring my Shuffle. Here, I failed again. I'd forgotten to charge it, and even though I have a USB charger on my phone's power cord, apparently a Shuffle of this generation needs to be plugged into a computer to charge. D'oh.

Overall, though, this was a nice run. I ran for seven miles, going past Hanover Junction, last week's turnaround point, and turned around. This worked out nicely. Since I take a pit stop at this access point to refill my bottles and eat some Sports Beans before setting out again, it made the run back seem a little shorter than the run down.

Here's a picture of Hanover Junction. as seen from the south.
Abraham Lincoln's train changed tracks here on its way to Gettysburg for the Gettysburg Address.

Until about mile 12, when my legs started saying "Hey Brian, we don't want to do this any more." I had sweating buckets for the whole run, but I was drinking water and (at that point) watered-down gatorade, and I'd taken a salt tablet before the run and at my pit stop, so I didn't think I was dehydrated or in danger of heat-related injury. I told my whiny legs to shut the hell up, and made i back to Brillhart and the safety of my car. In doing so, I abandoned a crazy plan, hatched at mile 10 when I briefly felt like I could run forever, to head a bit past Brillhart and turn around to add a 15th mile.

(This is what the rail trail normally looks like.)

(And here's what it looked like after I sweated my way back to my car.)

I'm really happy with this run. 14.13 miles in 2 hours and 19 minutes, for a 9:50/mile pace. It's my longest run of the summer (by .13 miles), but my pace for my only other 14-mile run of the summer, on July 15, was 10:00/mile, so this is a pretty nice improvement.

Time to eat the donuts.

People are Still (sort of) Jerks
Like last week, I said "hi" to everyone I passed. However, for some reason I got more responses today. I have several theories:

1. People who were on the trail last Saturday read my blog entry and realized that they are, in fact, jerks.

2. I appeared less creepy than last week. I didn't wear the visor today. Maybe the visor is creepy.

3. People saw how much I was sweating and didn't want to make me angry.

Further testing is needed.

Fail Trail

I've christened today's run "The Fail on the Trail". It wasn't a bad run, it was just kind of a meltdown of preparation and mental sharpness on my part.

Like I've said in most of my recent entries, I'm not really starting my marathon training yet, since I'm shaving the first few weeks of Higdon's Novice II because I'm already ahead of the mileage, but I was still hoping to get a longer long run in this morning. 14 was my goal. I thought I'd run on the rail trail, because it would give me a change of scenery and, if I started at Brillhart, the opportunity to stop and refill my bottles at the turnaround point at Hanover Junction. Brilliant! Since I wanted to beat the heat and be on the trail around 6am, I laid all my clothes and paraphernalia out the night before. That's not just preparation, that's extraordinary preparation!

I checked the always reliable weather.com (please consider the italics to be the sarcasm font in this case), and noted that today's low was predicted to be 67 degrees. Awesome! Anything under 70 is a gift I'll gladly accept. But, when I scrolled through the hourly forecasts, none of them showed lower than 74. D'oh! That's not terrible, but a little warmer than most of my summer early morning runs. With that in mind, I considered lowering my distance goals a bit, but instead decided that the shade of the rail trail and the built-in refilling stop would be too much of an advantage to give up.

Alarm went off at 4:30, and I'm ready to be out the door at 5:20. Clockwork. Except for one little thing...I saw that I hadn't put the plug from the charger into my Garmin fully, and it had less than an hour of charge.

FAIL

I like to have Garmin, despite its inaccuracy, since it lets me monitor my pace without having to resort to math, but this wasn't a critical error -- I still have my trusty Timex Ironman Triathlon (no sarcasm here, I seriously love this watch). No problem, everything was still going smoothly. I got to Brillhart station at 6:00am, and headed southward on the trail. I was running along, everything was going fine, and I don't need Garmin when I have an awesome and reliable stopwatch... that I forgot to start.

FAIL

A bit discouraged, I started my watch. I'm estimating I was only 3-4 minutes into my run before starting it. Not the end of the world, but I bet Meb Keflezighi never forgets to start his watch.

I quickly noticed that the humidity was humiditating rather heavily, but luckily the trail has a great amount of shade and it was mostly overcast, anyway. Of course, I'd opted for the visor, even though under these conditions it's unnecessary and even a minor detriment.

mini-FAIL

Within the first mile, I was already sweating profusely. In fact, people following me on the trail probably had to swim for it. My route turned out to be not as well-thought as I'd planned. You see, Chris and I had biked this same section of the trail on Tuesday night. This had the unfortunate effect of making it seem like it was taking forever to get anywhere while running. On a bike, the Howard Tunnel seems just a few minutes past Brillhart Station. Today, it seemed light years away (Really, it's about 2 miles from where I started/finished.)

FAIL

(Isn't it pretty? Doesn't it look humid?)

Once past the tunnel, things seemed to take a turn for the better. Using my now-running chronometer and the mile markers on the trail, I could tell I was running about a 10-minute mile pace, and I started feeling better, or at least getting used to how gross I felt. There was one close call where I thought I saw a snake coiled on the trail ahead of me (EPIC FAIL), but fortunately it turned out to just be a branch with some leaves.

I reached Hanover Junction in approximately an hour. It turned out to be between and six and seven miles away from Brillhart. I took a short break to drink some water and refill both of my bottles, and then headed north (to FREEDOM!)

The way back didn't seem to take as long as the way down (In reality, it took the same time or a few minutes longer.) I was still laying down between 9 and 10 minute miles and, since the trail is picturesque but really just running in a straight line, was bored out of my mind. All I could focus on was watching for the next mile marker, just wanting to get this one over with. Finally, it seemed, I reached the cool relief of the tunnel, which was just a cooler but more humid spot on this humid run.

(Crap. Is it "Come into the light, Brian." or "Don't come into the light, Brian"?)

From there, though, it was easy. Just two miles to go. As I reached Brillhart Station, my watch read 2:03:10, so I'm estimating my full run at 2:07. It turned out, according to the distance reading from Tuesday's bike ride, to be 12.76 miles.

Good enough.

Also, People are Jerks
As I ran, I said "hi" to everyone who passed. Maybe 1 in 10 returned my hello. I don't expect to become best friends with people I meet on the trail, but I'm running, they're running, isn't the bond of shared suffering enough to warrant a friendly greeting?

Several people have told me that they've noticed that solo female runners usually won't say hi to a lone male runner. Do I look like a creepy stalker? I've never stalked anyone, and I really don't think I'm that creepy looking. So thank you to the two ladies who did return my hello, you reassured me a bit that perhaps I don't look like an axe murderer. And even if I were, where I would hide an axe while I'm running?

There was one guy in particular that I thought was a jerk. He was definitely a better runner than me, catching up to and passing me after starting at Brillhart a few minutes after me and then pulling way ahead of me. I said hello as he passed, and was greeted by a stony silence. At what I believe to be the 5-mile mark (based on a previous bike ride along this course), he turned and passed me going the other way. I said hello again, and this time was glared at for my troubles.

Well Mr. Cool, I'll have you know that while you may be (much) faster than me, I continued on to Hanover Junction and back again, and I believe that makes me the better man.

So, that's the end of today's rant. Am I off-base here? What's proper running etiquette in this situation -- hello or no?

22 Miles

So, this is supposed to be a running blog.

Not a haiku blog. Not a cat-pictures blog. Not a pictures-of-food blog. And not a cranky guy complaining about the weather all the time blog.

So then. Running. Yeah...ok. Usual route (10 miles through Manchester and Mt. Wolf), usual pace (1:39ish), usual amount of sweating (gallons). And we're done. Carry on. Nothing more to see here.

Easiest. Post. Ever.

What? We're not done. But it's really &^%$ hot out there! Oh, fine.

12 miles ridden on the rail trail at 3:00pm in the afternoon in 90+ degree weather then.

Now I'm done, right? Ok, someone please lift these donuts into my mouth.

Therein lies the dilemma of the running blogger, at least this running blogger. On one hand, yesterday's 22 miles was my second-highest mileage day ever (even if 12 of it was achieved through cheating), and that seems worthy of blogging. But on the other hand, it's pretty boring reading -- I've already posted lots of pictures from biking on the rail trail, wrote about my normal running route (a pretty boring one, I admit). There's not a lot of race reports, which I admit are my favorite thing to write, over the dog days of July and August, since I don't race as much during these months, so it could get even more boring around here. I'll probably resort to a post of my favorite races, best swag, worst races. You know, exciting stuff like that.

******************************************************************************************************
But, anyway, here's the longer version:

My run on Sunday morning was complete drudgery, so the above summary pretty much suffices. It wasn't quite as slow as Friday's version, but still definitely on the upper end of my range. It was a better day for testing the new Reebok Playdry visor, since it was sunnier. The visor still seems ok. It covers my forehead and keeps sun out of my eyes, but is cooler than a regular hat or even (in my case) sunglasses. The visor itself gets soaked, and I think it will be fun to post a picture of how gross it is by the end of the summer, or at least until I can't stand it anymore and need to try to wash it.

When I picked up some other stuff at the running store last week, I noticed that Brooks and Nike had visors that were a thinner material on the non-brim parts of the visor than the Reebok. Maybe they would stay dryer? At any rate, my new piece of gear seems adequate, at least, but other than that it was usual pace and usual route -- NOW with even more humidity!

I knew that Chris and I were planning on biking later, but I was in a hurry to run some errands and then get to PetSmart for my cat adoption center volunteer gig, so I failed at breakfast. Usually after a long run I'll have waffles or bread with lots of Nutella or peanut butter (or waffles with Nutella and maple syrup on them -- delicious!), but since I was in a hurry I chugged a bottle of gatorade, quickly ate a bowl of cereal, cleaned up and headed out.

As I was driving on my first errand, I realized this wasn't going to cut it -- I could hardly stay awake. So my first errand was to eat a the King Size Payday bar. 440 delicious, peanutty calories later, I felt MUCH better.

(Mmmm...recovery)

After refueling, I went to help adorable homeless cats find homes. Well, that's the intent. There weren't any applications, but at least I got to play with kittens (Sorry! I know, not a cat blog.) before heading off to the rail trail.

(This is Chester. Want to adopt him? Trust me, you do.
www.ycspca.org)

We began our ride at the northern end of the rail trail at the old courthouse in York. The temperature was in the mid-90s, significantly hotter than our other rides on the trail. Usually as we ride, I feel cooler. However, this time as we rode southward, the heat kept its intensity. I briefly took my helmet off to try to cool down, with little effect. Luckily for us, once we started to get out of the city, the trail became shadier and cooler, and we paused for water at 4 miles, 6 miles (our turnaroudn point just past Howard Tunnel), and at 9 miles. Overall, we rode 12 miles in 1:20,going faster on the return trip.

The total for the day was 22 miles in 2 hours and 59 minutes. Two Maple Donuts were earned by the day's adventures. (The Payday was lunch!)

One day later, my legs are very tired. Luckily, today was a day off. I was going to run tomorrow morning, but it's supposed to be 75 at 6am. Since, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, have lows predicted to be in the low 60s, I may wait an extra day and run Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.

Back on the Trail

(York County. We put the "rail" in Rail Trail.)

We hit the York County Heritage Rail Trail again on Monday morning. This time, we started at Brillhart Station, south of York and headed southward to Hanover Junction, which is south of Seven Valleys and back. (I know these names mean nothing to anyone outside York County -- and I admit I'd never heard of Hanover Junction and I've lived in York most of my life!)

(Oh, THAT Hanover Junction.)

Our ride totaled just over 14 miles in an hour and a half, so we improved on Saturday's ride in both pace and distance. It was a very warm, humid day -- it didn't feel bad on the bike but it would have been murder to run in. Thus, I felt kind of like I was cheating. Did the few runners few runners on the trail look at us and think "What a bunch of wimps?" Probably. Were other bikers laughing at our 20-year old Huffys? Probably.

Who cares?

(You won't find any carbon fiber on this bike!)

(This IS my "powering through the mountain stages" face.)

It was a nice way to spend the morning. I'm looking forward to more rides on the trail this summer and also doing some running there in the fall when cooler temperatures arrive. The trail offers more shade than the neighborhoods where I run in the mornings now, but since the closest access point is 20 minutes from my house, it's not a good option for trying to get out early and beat the heat on weekday mornings.

(No one knows how the ancient peoples of Seven Valleys erected these bicycle statues
2000 years before the time of Christ.)


(A good time was had by all.)

I'm taking Tuesday off, and then resuming running on Wednesday, so this will be a lighter week than last week, but like I said last post, I don't think that really matters. Right now my legs aren't sore, but they are tired. I'm hoping that mixing in some biking this summer will eventually make me feel stronger when I get into my deadly-serious, intense, Novice marathon training. Maybe cross-training can be right up there with packet pickup and carb-loading in the parts of the marathon that I'm good at.

And Time Doesn't Wait for Me, it Keeps on Rollin'

I'm undisciplined about a lot of things in my training. Speedwork, tempo runs, and cross-training among them. (I've got long, slow, distance down though!) But I think I've found my cross-training for the rest of the summer and fall, though.


Today, Chris (my wife for any newer readers) and I took a gorgeous 12-mile bike ride on the York County Heritage Rail Trail. Our ride took us an hour and a half, but we weren't looking to set any land-speed records. In fact, I am much more likely to set a speed record for flying over my handlebars and smashing into a tree. We just wanted to explore this new (to us) place to ride and make sure we left enough energy in the tank to get back to the trail head in downtown York, since the ride out seemed mostly downhill. The way back didn't seem as hilly as I thought it might, though, so next time we can push our pace a little bit more and or head further south -- the trail goes 20 miles down to the Maryland line.

(I'm not so confident on the bike, yet. Here I fell behind as we crossed the street.)

We didn't go quite as far as we'd planned, but it was gorgeous ride on a beautiful day, and I'm looking forward to more adventures on the rail trail this summer. Great idea, Chris. I'm glad I tagged along!

(We turned around just south of the Howard Tunnel, one of the many interesting sights along the trail.)