What's Next?

Think back to your PSAT or SAT tests for this one.

Complete this series: Earthquake, hurricane....

We here at the Earn Your Donuts Research Labs have concluded that the next catastrophe is right around the corner, and it will probably take one of three forms:

Space rocks.

Dinosaurs coming back from extinction.

Cats rising up against their owners and taking over the world.

Now that I've had my MS Paint fun, I should get back to running.

Even though the above scenarios render the Philly Marathon unlikely to take place, I've paid my entry fee and so I should probably hedge my bets and train for it. Since we'd been without power (and plumbing, since we have a well) from early Sunday morning through yesterday afternoon, it made it difficult to find a way to get our runs in. I finally got out for a nice 10-miler this morning. Though I missed out running on the two nicest weather days in months (Monday and Tuesday), it was a cool, beautiful morning -- the kind of day where running is a joy. So, kind of the opposite of Saturday's run.

Hal Higdon's going to be even madder at me, though, since I lost a run yesterday I'm winging my midweek mileage again this week. I'll also probably do my long run on Monday, when the weather looks cooler, instead of Saturday. I've got a 14-miler this time. I'd rather run it in 50-something degrees than 70-something, but I know I can get through it either way. That's as far as I've run this summer, though, so for runs longer than that (15 miles the next week, and 17 two weeks after that) I'll really be hoping for some cooler temperatures.

Lights On

I am fully aware that it Irene's impact could have been much, much worse and that there were many in the Mid-Atlantic region and New England who did have a tougher time or more damage. Still, after 2.5 days w/o power or plumbing, this is a welcome sight.

It also means I can put my plans to adopt a nomadic lifestyle on hold for now.

Irene'd

Thankfully, it seems like overall, Hurricane Irene's impact was not as bad as predicted. Speaking only of our own property, there wasn't any flooding in the front yard and the water in the basement was much less than I expected. But, we've been without power at our home since 2am Sunday morning. Since we have a well, no electricity means no water.

We're at the point where we need to decide if we stick it out at home for a few more hours, or if we need to find somewhere else to stay for a night or two. I called Met Ed to see when the juice would be back on, and got this recorded message:

"The Met Ed Customer Service Center is closed due to outages from Hurricane Irene."

That's sure not the answer I was looking for, but unfortunately, I guess it is an answer. Looking for more information, I went to Met Ed's website and was surprised to find an informative outage map.

If you look at York County, we have 2,000-5,000 outages, which I was surprised to see was more than counties closer to Philly. However, I think it's because other utility companies service those areas. Compared to Berks County (Reading area) and it's 12,000 outages, York County got off relatively lightly with just under 5,000.

A quick drive around Manchester last night made it appear as if it were just our street that was without power, but there's 144 customers without power in Manchester.


This, along with Met Ed's own outage, makes me think the lights won't be back on for quite awhile.

If you're reading this from somewhere within Irene's Path of Devastation, or in our case, it's Trail of Inconvenience, I hope you fared well and/or wish you the best of luck with any repairs.

Update: Moments after posting this, I got a call on my cel from Met Ed's automated system to verify whether power had been restored. (Hit "1" for yes, "2" for no.) I felt like this was a huge cause for optimism, but since I'm not at home, I called my wife, only to find that the power is still out.

Saturday Long Run: Return to Humiditytown

It was really, really humid this morning. The kind of humid that makes me think it's time to find another hobby. The kind of humid that makes me question the existence of good in this world. The kind of humid that makes me right write posts complaining about humid it is. The kind of humid that makes me screw up homophones.

Hal Higdon called for 9 this week. Since I've done such a great job of listening to him so far, even this week, my first full week "on program", I just ran my usual 10-mile route through Manchester and Mt. Wolf. I had a slow pace again today, but unlike Monday's unexplainable bonk, I'm just going to attribute this one to slogging through 100% humidity.

(Yours truly at my finishing point, Humiditytown Middle School)

Did I mention that it was really, really humid? It was 73 degrees at the start of my run, which is quite warmer than it's been for my morning runs the past two weeks but nothing special overall for the summer, but the humidity must have been AT LEAST 1000% if not infinitely more. It was very overcast, which allows me to forgo the visor, but I was still disgusting and sweaty within half a mile.

Since words are powerless to convey exactly how much I was sweating, let's again use the power of MS Paint to try to capture the level of disgustingness (That's not a word, spell check? Screw you!) we're talking about here (click to enlarge):


Good luck on your runs, everyone. I'll be inside playing video games. (And best wishes to anyone in Irene's path.)

Friday Haiku, Volume XIII and a Brief Word About Training

After a tough week,
With Irene now on her way
Step-back week is great.

It's been a tough first week back from vacation, and I've ignored the daylights out of poor Hal Higdon again this week. You see, Hal wants me to run on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, rest Fridays, long runs on Saturdays, cross-train on Sundays, and rest Mondays.

I ran my long run on Saturday and then rain prevented a bike ride on Sunday. However, since an off-site meeting would make a Tuesday run more trouble than it would be worth on this step-back week, I cut a run from Higdon's plan and ran 10 on Monday and 10 on Wednesday, which I went into more detail about in my previous post. My long run tomorrow, according to Higdon? 9 miles.

It was a step-back week, which I felt I'd needed because my long runs had been ahead of schedule, so I didn't feel bad about ignoring Higdon (again), but I should probably get on plan next week since my next two long runs are 14 and 15 miles. I've run 14 miles twice this summer, so the mileage doesn't scare me. If the weather's nice it won't be too bad, but if it's hot and humid those mornings...ouch. I probably won't be able to bike this week due to Irene's approach and my cat adoption room duties, but I can get on (and fall off of) the NordicTrack for the first time in years.

After that Higdon wants me to run a half marathon, but though that seems like a step-back I think I'm supposed to run the 13.1 like I'm in a race. After that, the distances get longer and the donuts become more rewarding.

Have a good weekend, and stay dry!

Don't Call it a Comeback -- A Tale of Two Runs

Running has been a bit of a struggle since coming back from vacation. I had my very tough 12 miler on Saturday, and went out for a run on Monday morning that definitely ended up not meeting my expectations.

It was a gorgeous morning, in the low 60s if not the 50s. The humidity was a bit high, but nothing unreasonable. I ran my usual 10-mile course (I'm kind of ignoring Higdon this week because schedule is permitting fewer than recommended midweek runs) and just sucked. I'm usually between 1:36 and 1:39. My best 10-miler this year is 1:33:26 back on May 8, and my slowest was 1:40:28. On Monday -- 1:43. Ouch!

I can explain this. It was a cool morning, with humidity no worse than most of August; I felt fine, ; level of effort seemed good (I don't race these didn't feel like I was taking it easier than usual); and I was on my usual route through Manchester and Mt. Wolf.

Today, ignoring Higdon again, I set out for another 10-miler. I was running a bit late, and it's the first day of school and my usual route has a lot of bus traffic and students walking to school, and since it was another cool, beautiful morning (around 60 degrees) I decided it was a good day for "Pain Lies On the Riverside", which I think is a tougher route.

When I run this route, I try to make it to the flagpole at the square in Goldsboro, 5 miles away, in 45 minutes. I hardly ever make it. Today, I seemed to have a good pace and felt great, but it was almost 48 minutes when I got to the square. Since the second 5 miles in this run is tougher, in my opinion, than the first, I know that I could be on my way to a similar pace to Monday's debacle. I dug in, knowing I had to make up time before I got to the steep, half-mile hill right at Mile 8, where I'm lucky to be able to go over 4mph. I climbed the hill faster than usual, and now, thinking I had a shot an under 1:35, which would be excellent, ran as fast as I could the last two miles, which are mostly flat or downhill...until a brutal quarter mile hill at the end that ended any chance of 1:34:xx.

Still, a much better pace than Monday, and I don't know why. I felt better Monday, they were equally nice days, and if anything I was better rested on Monday. Sure, there's some variance from run-to run, but this is a seven-minute difference on a distance in which I've been really consistent. A few theories:

1. My subconscious caused me to run slower on Monday in order to delay my return to the office. If that's the case, it should have impelled me to run even slower.

2. The East Coast Earthquake, which I didn't notice as I drove through the Philly suburbs in the mighty Neon, changed the magnetic field of the earth which somehow made me, and probably everyone else, faster.

3. This is just regular variance -- look at any runners marathon or half-marathon times and there's a lot more variance than this.

4. Monday's run was an outlier to even my normal variance.

The answer, I suspect, lies in numbers 3 and 4. So, in hindsight, this blog post is probably an over-analysis of nothing. But, not only did I have fun writing it, it made think about my two favorite local routes, how I attack each one differently, and how the one I thought was a lot tougher may not be so tough, after all.

Here's the elevation chart for "Pain Lies on the Riverside", aka York Haven to Goldsboro and back (click for a bigger view):


The tough climbs in this route are within the first two miles and at mile 8. But there's a five-mile continuous stretch of relatively flat roads in the middle of this, before the very steep climb at mile 8 (and it is devastating -- during my first year of half marathon training on this route, I walked this hill every time), and then a downhill stretch on the upper plateau for most of the last 1.5 miles in which I can make up some time.

Here's my usual route.


Until the end, the hills are not as steep, but the 2nd half of the course is mostly uphill. The overall incline is gradual enough that I can make up time on the 2nd half, but not as easily as the flat stretch of the other route, and by mile 8, I'm done. The steepest uphills are still both ahead of me so there's no real chance to make-up time.

What does this mean? Maybe I haven't gotten slower...or as much slower as I thought. Maybe the 1:33s or low 1:30s I'd been putting up in a flatter part of the county in the spring of 2010 aren't as unreachable as I thought. I'd love to be able to come in under 1:30 at the Broad Street Run next year, if I can get into the next one before it closes, that is.

Closing the Book on Montreal and Opening the Book on Marathon Training

Some odds and ends:

I already described my excellent, challenging run through Montreal's parks and waterfronts, but that wasn't my only scheduled run on vacation. I was planning to run on Tuesday, my normal "every other day" run, and then again on Wednesday, since I didn't want to get up super early to run and then drive all day on the trip home. However, I found that I was considerably sore from my Sunday run. I suspect it was a combination of a faster-than-usual pace at that distance and the inclines of the bridge and the park at the end of my run. But, at any rate, I'm used to running and then sitting around all day at work, not walking around a lovely Canadian city. I wasn't up to doing so much walking after such a tough run.

So, on Tuesday, I decided to take it easy and stay on the Longueuil side of the river, taking the bike paths and sidewalks (mostly) along Rue Riverside in order to give myself a flatter course. At one point, I tried to take a path that crossed over the highway and ran directly along the river. However, the section that led northbound, through a portion of Jean Drapeau Park that had spread to this side of the river, was closed, leaving me with a southbound gravel access road along the St. Lawrence Seaway that I really didn't think I should be on, so I kept myself to the paths and sidewalks of Longueuil and Saint-Lambert. It was a nice run: 9.9 miles in 1:37:53.

(This sign either says "St. Lawrence Seaway" or "Keep Out, Idiot.")
(I just didn't know where "ici" was.)

Not bad, considering how tired my legs were. Since my calves hurt all day as we walked around Montreal, though, I decided to skip Wednesday's run and just enjoy the last day of vacation. Great decision.

************************************************************************************
With vacation over, I needed to hit the streets of Manchester again. At last it's time to officially start marathon training, jumping into Hal Higdon's Novice 2 plan at week five based on my current mileages. Since I needed 12 miles, according to Higdon, instead of 13 or 14, I just stayed on my local Manchester and Mt. Wolf course.

My knees had been hurting me on Thursday and Friday, during the long drive home and the day after, and I was worried that I was heading for a relapse of ITBS. While the knees were a bit sore during the run, it was my calves that were the biggest problems. It just took them approximately 5 miles until they really felt loosened up. It was a cool, but extremely humid morning and just one of those runs that makes me think I should get a new hobby. However, around mile 7 I found out that I was concentrating so hard on how much I hated running and how gross I felt, that I actually felt better! I believe I ended up with 12 miles in 2:05.

(When it looks like this at the start of a run, I know I'm in for a tough time.)

Of course, my actual time and distance are educated guesses, as I paused Garmin to take a picture of the fog, and forgot to restart. For comparison, I ran the Philly Half Marathon in less time than this both times, but this isn't too far away from where I usually am on my training runs. (Keep in mind the Philly Half is a pretty fast course compared to stupid, hilly Manchester). Not my best run, but I got in my garbage miles. Higdon's calling for a step-back week next Saturday, with 9 miles. While I just started the plan, I've run higher-than-recommended long runs the previous two weekends, so I think I'll take my step-back week, which works nicely with a busy weekend coming up. Midweek runs are 3, 6, and 3 on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Schedule this week is crazy with business travel and even possibly a 7K race (which I'd just treat as a training run) Friday night, so I'll probably change this to two 7 or 8 milers tomorrow (Monday) and Wednesday.

I chose Novice 2 because even though I'm not a rookie marathoner this time, I still feel like a noob, since I didn't adequately prepare for Shamrock due to my ITBS, and also since I'm not really very far out of my current comfort zone until week 10, when I have a 17-miler, and week 11's 18-miler (which I may try to stretch to 20). Hopefully this means I'll have cooler weather for most of these longer runs.

One of the original, often ignored purposes of this blog was to keep myself accountable, so I'll be giving boring marathon training updates from here till November 20.