Counting down . . .

Back in Tennessee, with frigid weather and snow in the weather predictions for the week, so it looks as if I'll be on the treadmill rather than the road for the next few days.

For this serious slow runner, the big annual milepost is the Tom King Classic 1/2 Marathon, which runs in Nashville on the second Saturday of March. My sort-of-daily casual jogging routine becomes a training regimen around Thanksgiving, which is to say that I get more or less serious around New Year's, and begin panicking around February.

Thus, The Countdown:

The Countdown to Tom King 1/2 Marathon March 13

Days until TK	Miles logged today	Comments
68	3	treadmill

I hope to offer a training, technique or motivational tip every time I post, beginning here.

Have you heard the saying that the hardest steps of any run are the ones from the couch to the front door? If, like me, you find it hard to get up and get going, take inspiration from the story of Jeff Clark, an over-the-road truck driver -- and runner -- as told in this article from the Runner's World site.

Now, lace up and go!

Good news for brains of a certain age

 It was very encouraging to read about the resiliency and the trainability of the middle-to-old aged brain in this article by New York Times health editor Barbara Strauch, entitled How to Train the Aging Brain. Strauch writes,

"Many longheld views, including the one that 40 percent of brain cells are lost, have been overturned. What is stuffed into your head may not have vanished but has simply been squirreled away in the folds of your neurons."

Admittedly, this is a little off the core topic of Running Through the Middle Ages, but hey, as time marches on, my brain might carry me farther than my legs . . .

The Mammal in Winter

On a holiday visit with NJ family, we grab what time we can to run, but weather and holiday circumstance are always in the way. Today is the third very cold day in a row, and also the third without a run. It's been too icy, or too bitter cold and windy since Wednesday. QMH is down with a stomach ailment, and I'm losing the battle with my appetite.

For several years now, I have noticed my winter-time urge to eat more, especially more sweet and fatty foods. Peanut butter sandwich? Yes, please! Have some cookies? You bet! Why bother putting away that little bit of leftover spaghetti? It'll just be another dish to wash later!

I joke that, being a mammal, I must obey the biological imperative to add an extra layer of fat for the cold months. Kid Kate says it's just an excuse to indulge myself.

Dr. Michael Smolensky, who studies chronobiology at University of Texas Houston, says, “Adults typically consume 6 to 7 per cent more calories in the winter,”  in a London Times Online article headlined Are we hardwired to feel hungry in winter and put on weight?

A piece by Donna Watmough at Suite101.com discusses Why we eat more in Autumn and Winter and how not to, explaining that the appetite spike could be linked to a shorter-days deficiency in Vitamin D. The article goes on to suggest increasing exercise, eating smaller amounts more frequently, and getting more Vitamin D either from more sun exposure or dietary supplements.

I know I won't be able to get back to running before Monday, because tomorrow we drive back home, and I hope I can keep from overeating until then.

Do you find yourself packing in more food and packing on the pounds in colder weather? What do you do about it?

Leave a comment and let me know!

Crrranking up again

It's New Year's Day 2010. I've been a teensy bit better about my running discipline than about this blog, but it's Resolution Day, so here's to good intentions fulfilled.

This diary trailed off after the 2007 Tom King Half Marathon. Therefore today's entry offers a brief recap of that day, plus two years of running, and two more 13.1 milers.

For 2007, with QMH eating pain pills and using a walker to get around, and with Kid Kate leaving me in the dust at Mile 1, I was pretty much alone with my mp3 player. I ran my best time ever, at 2:10 and some ticks. I am a serious slow runner, as mentioned in previous posts, but I indulge in some pride at having finished 34th in my 55-59 age group, and 742nd in the race overall. Anyone who finishes a half marathon at any pace, ever, is in a small percentile of the population at large, and is entitled to remember that, especially when in fatigue or pain.

In 2008, QMH beat the odds and made it back to the race. Her back injury in January '07 had put her on the couch for 10 weeks, but between the passage of time and some very useful yoga, she has made a significant recovery. In the depth of that downtime, our doctor told me that QMH might have to forget about running any more. I'm glad Doctor Maggie was wrong on this one.

Just the same, 13.1 miles was a long, slow slog. The 2008 Tom King begain in a booming thunderstorm; really dangerous looking and sounding. Pre-race, many runners took shelter from the intense downpour beneath the stadium ramps. Only a few brave or foolish souls stepped up to the starting line, ourselves among them. For the first mile or two the lightning and thunder made the soggy runners flinch often. QMH's stamina was way down, but we persevered - the time was 2:56, if anyone must know - and got back to LP Field before they dismantled the finish line. More importantly, there was still some food at the buffet when we hobbled up there.

2009 was the coldest, wettest Tom King we have ever done. We had sacrificed some training time to a trip to the presidential inauguration, but that was way worth it. QMH was further under-trained, owing to theater and visits to Kid Kate's college. It was really ugly, weather-wise, which slowed us down, and tended to push up our focus on aches, pains, stiffening joints and muscles. But, done is done, in 2:28.

That'll do for now. In posts to come, I'll share some more recent training experiences, and chronicle my train-up to the 16th Annual Tom King Half Marathon, coming on March 13.

Feets don't fail us now!

Post Race Impression

The Tom King went down this morning, and I ended up cutting about 9 minutes off last year's time! As of this writing, the official times haven't posted, but my time was 2:10 and a few ticks.

This was not accomplished without some pain. Probably, I trained fewer miles and less carefully for this year's run - my fifth time - than for any other so far.

I felt pretty tuckered at moments in the miles between marker 11 and the finish, and both hips and both feet are feeling their age and more. I ran through the knee pain, and never did experience much of the discomfort in calves and ankles that bugged me in training. I tried running past a couple of little aches in my feet, but they waited in the bushes for me as I hit 11, and jumped back bigger than before. I really noticed the change at this distance, as a whole list of little aches started up.

Afterward, the effects of overexertion were evident quickly, as my feet and left calf stiffened and cramped. In the men's room to change to dry clothes about 20 minutes after the finish, I was startled by a cramp in my pectoral muscle at the right shoulder when I leaned over to pull up a sock. My system was definitely overtaxed today.

Kid Kate ran away from me just as we reached Mile 1; saw her again at the turnaround, briefly. She finished at about 2:07, and vows never to do this again -- boring and painful is how she described it.


That's it for now -- I'll be back on the road by Tuesday for 3 or 4 miles, and we'll see how we're feeling.

On Aches and Pains

It's probably inevitable that an athlete will at some point be injured. It's certainly happened to me several times over my slow running career. I've dodged the ACL and rotator cuff injuries, more or less -- mainly because jogging doesn't involve those.

So, you're on your x-many mile run, and some part of your body begins to complain. There's a decision to make: keep going or stop. Some pains you can run past, like the little stitch in your side that comes and then disappears as you warm up. Some you might try to run through -- the aching knee is not going away, but if it doesn't hurt too badly during the run, and doesn't make you suffer when you're not running, you'll keep on going.

I run past the stitch in my side -- I never experience one anyway when I'm in good aerobic shape. I run through the knee pain, since it settles down as I finish the first mile or so, and doesn't hurt that much on the stairs or getting in and out of cars. Many years ago, QMH was jogging a charity 10 K when she stepped on a pebble and turned her ankle. Not feeling that bad, and not knowing a shortcut back to the car, she let pride tell her to run the rest of the course. That same ankle has been in horseback riding accidents too, and it hurts often.

One risk of running through a pain is that you'll compensate elsewhere in posture or stride, and cause a longer-lasting injury. In a fairly small way, I discovered this a year ago, when I was having trouble with the 10-mile training threshold. Running beyond about 8 miles just seemed labored and awkward. Finally, I realized that I had been looking down at my right toe, where our greyhound Mareo had taken a test bite and left a fraying hole in the nylon upper of the shoe. I was concerned about pebbles getting in, and trying to decide whether the shoe was still serviceable for the full 13.1 mile run. Once I got my chin back up, I stopped having the problem.

Not for the first time, though, I notice this season that my calves, ankles and feet get very fatigued on uphill segments of my fairly hilly neighborhood run. This got so uncomfortable one time a week ago that I walked most of my course rather than run through the pain. Just yesterday I walked the last 25 or 30 yards up my biggest neighborhood hill near the end of a brisk 4 mile training run. No pain or discomfort in between runs, so I've decided to do nothing at all.

I reason that the Tom King course is so flat, that with a tiny adjustment in arm swing, I can get through Saturday's race without suffering. Stay tuned for the post-race wrapup.

One week to go

With QMH out of the running (out of the walking mostly, too), our daughter, Kid Kate -- a standout high-school sprinter who professes to hate any run longer than 200 meters -- is stepping in for our JumpStart Jog fundraiser. Kate is 17 and stubborn; although she has done very little training for the distance we're about to tackle, I expect her to fly through the half marathon on youth and guts. Last Saturday, after much bickering about the dwindling days before the Tom King, we started a ten mile run at the campus of her school, JPII. There's no track at this new school yet, but the coaches have sketched out a two-mile circuit that traverses parking lot and playing field. Kate led the way, immediately pulling away from me, of course. Matters got plain scary for me when I hit a stretch of lumpy grass and a coarse gravel lane that I'd have to negotiate twice in every lap. No doubt the track team kids have developed strong ankles and good balance from training on this obstacle course. I knew that at best the extra effort would wear me out. I was also afraid I'd turn an ankle or twist a knee just a week before the Tom King.

So, I decided to run around and around the parking lot for two hours, clocking about twelve miles at a carefully measured pace. Meanwhile, Kate charged through her ten miles, pausing several times to catch up with her phone calls and text messages, and then went off to the dance studio for a hip hop rehearsal.

Youth is wasted on the young.

Lost my driving wheel?

With QMH's recent benching (well, couching is more accurate), I have trained almost entirely by myself for the coming Tom King Half Marathon. Running alone is pretty typical for me, but for every one of my four half marathons I have done most of my long distance training-up with her. Her situation is that in late January, completely out of the blue, she became A Person With A Bad Back. Without warning and without any history of troubles, she ended up in the ER with exploding pain in her right leg. Pain medication keeps her more or less comfortable, but for close to seven weeks now, no treatment has had much effect on the underlying spinal disruption.

Losing my training partner has triggered an unanticipated worry. Way back when we were bicycle tourists, I used to say that QMH was the leader, no matter which of us happened to be riding in front. When she was the lead cyclist, I followed her pace whether or not I felt it was too slow. On my turns as leader, she never failed to tell me when I was holding her back or pulling away.

When it comes to long runs, I fear I don't pace myself. I worry that in the adrenaline rush of the real thing, with Kid Kate running away from me, I'll spend my stamina prematurely. This has happened on recent training runs. Several times in the past two weeks I have found myself either winded or leg-tired early in a four or six mile run. Once last week, I wound up walking close to three miles when my feet and ankles began complaining insistently.

So, it's a real concern, running without my leader by my side. I hope to regulate my pace and my mood with music.

Endorphin Encounter

You know about endorphins, right? The Wiki link a few words back discloses that the some of the brain scientists who discovered our naturally synthesized feel-good chemicals named them by melding their working term: "endogenous morphine." Some people experience an exercise-related endorphin rush called "runner's high." Like, euphoria, yessssss.

I've only been seriously training for the Tom King since February 20. Other years, the training gets going in November, so I'm coming from pretty far behind. Still, owing to two theatrical productions in the last year, my weight is lower. Maybe someday I'll describe my "hell week" weight loss plan.

This week I have run 6 miles on Sunday, 2 fast ones on Monday, 3 hard ones Tuesday and two pretty good 4's on Wednesday and Thursday. I can finally say that I'm back to running, instead of *getting* back to it. Oh, and those endorphins are working, Dude.

It's much like writing. The pain and difficulty levels range from tedious to excruciating, but it's better if you whack at it regularly.

And running or writing, it always feels much better when it's done.

Back on the trail, lamely

More than a year has passed, yes, and it's been a busy one. My focus on running has had some blurry stretches since we finished up the 2006 Tom King. QMH's knee problems remain, with additional discomfort from an ouchy ankle she seems to injure quite reliably every few years.

Like many people, I let my priorities slide. Sometimes over the past year I let as much as a couple of weeks pass between runs. The cumulative feeling is that running almost always feels like getting back to running. Very seldom does it feel like maintenance or training up.

But here we are, about a week before another Tom King Half Marathon, which I will run for the fifth time. I'm 55 now, and this year will be different in a lot of ways. This dispatch posts on March 9, the Friday before the race. Many miles (but not as many as other years), and many circumstances (way more than other years) have spun out already.

I'll be back in a little while to articulate some of 'em.

Race day, remembered

OK, so the half marathon is done. Not too bad, but it could have gone better. Back up a couple of weeks:

The training schedule began to fall apart nearly two weeks ago. QMH was having persistent knee pain which her doctor rates as to be expected at the age we are and the distance we’ve been training for. We both were busy at critical moments, and couldn’t quite tackle the last long run, a 12-miler that we should have accomplished on March 4. So, we have run no distance longer than the 10 miles on February 25, and at most, maybe 10 runs of 3 to 4 mile in the last two weeks. Not exactly peaking for race day, no.

Because we planned poorly, we needed extra time on Tom King morning to pull our gear and our après run clothes together. Consequently, we left home 20 minutes later than planned, then hit traffic, and got to the stadium with under 10 minutes to spare before the start of the race. NOT my idea of the best way to psych into the distance.

Still, we wiggled our way as close as possible to the front of the crowd (they do separate the 15 or so top competitors from the rabble, but we were close enough to cross the starting line within a few seconds of the gun. The weather was clear and cool at 35-40 degrees, very good for runners as the race stepped off.

It matters not that a thousand people pass us in the first mile. Some serious runners are fast; we are serious and slow. The first 3-4 miles were as usual somewhat hard for me, with too much time to worry about whether my timing chip was securely tied on my shoe laces. In spite my having to stop for a shoelace retie, we chugged through the first few miles at 9.5 and then 10 minutes each. Both of us had been concerned that our wind was not as good as other years, but this didn’t turn out to be any problem. We were surrounded much of the time by runners who sounded much more labored. But, we got into a comfortable pace and the early rawness eased.

At the halfway point turnaround, we clocked under 61.5 minutes – a very good pace, all things considered. Things began to slide a bit after that. In the confusion of our disorganized departure, TQOMH had forgotten to take the medicine that holds her acid stomach at bay. It was really bugging her, so we walked probably four stretches in the second half.

Both of us finished with much less “leg” than we’d have preferred. And, well after the race was over, I noticed that I had worn my year-old shoes instead of the month-old pair.

Fine. Next year, we lay out our clothes and pack up the lip balm, tissues, gloves and hats the night before. Oh, and we won’t lose our grip on the training schedule just when we need it.

In the end, we finished in 2:19 and a few seconds, about 5 minutes behind last year’s time.

We took the rest of the day to recover calories, ice tender knees and feet, nap and celebrate our sense of accomplishment.

Erm, postponed

The 12-mile training run we planned for Friday got cut off at 4 miles, because we got started a little late and ran into a schedule conflict. No run today, Saturday, and precious little time for a run on Sunday. This means we must run the 12-miler on Monday, and early, before the day gets away. With the Tom King run only 2 weeks away, this is squeezing the schedule more than a little bit . . .

In earlier days QMH and I ran 6 miles every other day, and we have often observed that missing a run made the next one exceedingly hard.

So, we are in for a challenge on Monday; to soften the blow, we hope to get in 4 miles on the Hunter's Lane track during Kid Kate's track practice Sunday afternoon.

Cross fingers.

Epiphany in the 7th mile

Hoo, boy. Did I mention that I turned 54 last weekend?

Today was 10-mile day, and it was a revelation. On my birthday last Sunday, I got up early and cranked out 4 miles on the treadmill, mainly so I could own a sense of accomplishment on a milestone day. During the week, two more 4s and a 3, all on the treadmill. And none of them all that easy. Friends, if you're training up to a long distance run, don't neglect the midweek maintenance runs. Missing one this week would've put me out of the game.

As it turned out, I was almost out anyway. The weather today was good for running 10: cloudy, high 50's. We chose to run on the measured course at Moss-Wright Park in Goodlettsville. We ran the 2.1 four times, then the 1.5, plus a little, to make 10. About half the course is asphalt, half cinder. When we hit the cinder part of the track, I started to suffer, my ankles, shins and feet feeling fatigued and worn out. By the time we hit cinders the second lap, now 3+ miles into the 10 mile run, I was worried. The third time, it was serious; I'm tired, I'm winded, I'm wondering if I need a stress test before the half marathon. Trying to imagine how we'll survive financially if I need a bypass operation. Don't laugh, this is serious.

Now, here's the spot where experienced runners can feel free to sneer. I came around again, wondering if I needed to walk a while; then, I tried lifting my chin and looking a little farther ahead on the path.

Everything changed. The legs got better, the wind got better - I wasn't quite new again, but running was suddenly so much easier I had to hold back to keep from running away from QMH. I had adopted a dumb, beginner's bad habit, something like 25 years into my career as a jogger: mostly because of the discomfort in my left foot, I have been watching my feet so closely that I screwed up my form. Tilt the chin up a few degrees so my feet disappear, and I can run as well as I should be running at this stage in my half marathon training course.

The rest of the 10 miles was about as easy as it should be after the training we've been doing.

Did I mention my new shoes? Just a fresh pair of New Balance 991s, my standard shoes for close to a decade. Did I mention that the brainless greyhound chewed a hole in the right toe, just a week after I opened the box, before the shoes had 10 miles on them, for crying out loud?

Next weekend we must skip forward to a 12 mile run, to adhere to our schedule for the 1/2 marathon on March 18. Chin up!

Ramping up to the half-marathon

The training schedule we follow calls for a three-mile run 3-4 times per week, and increasingly longer training runs each weekend leading up to the March 18 Tom King Half Marathon.

Ran 8 on Friday 2/10, on a flat circuit of .8 miles in Joppa, MD. My peroneal tendon thing (see below) was ever-present, but the primary impression was that the second half of the run was much more comfortable than the first.

Ran 9 on Friday 2/17 in the fairly hilly terrain around home in Hendersonville, TN. Again, it takes 1-2 miles before the persistent discomfort in the left foot eases. The last couple of miles were pretty tough; I must report that I thought the run was over a mile too soon and I really had to grit my teeth and persevere once QMH set me straight on the 10 minutes left to run.

Now, some thoughts on injury:

First, if you're middle-aged, take the aches and pains seriously. Find out what causes them, and try to make 'em go away. Some 12 years ago, I had a round of plantar fasciitis in my right foot. This is an inflammation of the big bundle of tendons that runs along the bottom of the foot from heel to toe -- big limp, big pain. The doctor recommended better shoes, and more conscientious stretching. The problem went away and never returned.

More recently, in late October 2005, I developed a pain in the left foot -- not the plantar thing, but very persistent at a low level of discomfort. This time the diagnosis (in mid-November) was a strained peroneal tendon. A month of anti-inflammation pills (and deeply curtailed running schedule) didn't do much, and neither did a round of physical therapy, although the stretches I learned were helpful. Walking, pivoting, stepping off the curb wrong, all these things can make it twinge. Sit in an office chair for a couple of hours, and I sometimes really feel it in the first few steps.

In January, I finally ran out of time for pampering, and resumed my full half-marathon training regimen, being careful to stretch before and after runs, and to ice the foot after the long ones. Running doesn't seem to make it worse, so I'll keep stretching, and keep on training.

Here's a recipe for a reusable water-and-alcohol ice bag.

In the end, this one is not going away, and middle-fifties seems to mean discovering a new aches-and-pain baseline.

Smack in the Middle

At twenty-five years old, I felt I was right in the thick of life, and that feeling continued for at least fifteen years. Now, I refer to myself as middle-aged, and QMH makes the point that my mid-fifties would be the middle of a one hundred-year life span. Hmph.

Still, a week short of my fifty-fourth birthday, I'm smack in the middle of training for my fourth annual half-marathon. Let this be clear: I am not a competitive runner, or a highly conditioned athlete. I'm a long-time jogger who's middle-aged -- er, mid-fiftyish. No special prowess, typical aches, pains and challenges, mental, time-management, physical.

This blog will record my thoughts on the mental and physical aspects of year-round fitness based on jogging three to five times weekly, and the particular challenges of working up to a 13.1 mile run in which I know that more than half the 2,000 other entrants will finish ahead of me. I hope that at least a few of them will finish behind me.

The Tom King Half Marathon steps off March 18 in Nashville, Tennessee. I'll be there start to finish -- you're invited to follow along.