Building Up & Breaking Down

Lovin’ the weather here in Southwest Germany.  Winter finally arrived last week, smack dab in the middle of my recovery week.  Not just a tease, but a full-on, in your face arrival.

Thursday morning’s very isolated snow-shower pretty much shut down any commute for anyone on the south side of Heidelberg.  But not for me.  Gotta love the bicycle.  I floated through the forest and across the fallow fields on a pillow of fresh snow.  Shaking my head at all the poor folks in their single-file parking lots.  Once I got into town, I dropped the tire pressure to 35 p.s.i. and the studs stuck to the ice.  No issues at all.  My commute was extended by only 2-3 minutes, which would be about the time that it took for me to let the air out of the tires as well as account for some creeping around corners (I haven’t found the edge of control with the studs yet).  For those on four wheels, the commute was extended anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes.

Friday was a bit more of the same in the afternoon, but everyone on four wheels seemed to behave themselves.  Then the cold set in.

Saturday was a bit chilly, dipping down to +4°F (-15°C) and gradually warming up to +12°F (-11°C) by early afternoon.  Luckily there wasn’t much wind, so the run wasn’t bad at all.  Matter of fact, I layered too much and was peeling off layers, caps and gloves just a few miles into the run.

Here it is, Monday, the Winter Solstice, and we still have a fair covering of snow on the ground.  Perfect for jumping in to the next Base period.  But I’m jumping ahead of  myself.

As I said above, last week as a recovery week.  That made it week three of my Base 2 cycle for my next race on January 31st.  Being the “old guy” that I am, following Friel’s protocol of using three week cycles for folks over 40, vice the four week cycles for those under 40, has worked quite well for me.  Especially since I’m not focusing on long-course triathlon right now, but instead basically living the life of a duathlete.

So Base 2 was a good cycle.  Through the second week I pushed my running mileage up to 35.5 miles.  Nothing extravagant, but on top of my 90-miles of commuting each week, the legs are getting abused a bit.  And with another Base cycle, leading into my Build cycle, I’ll be dancing very close to my upper manageable limit of 60 miles per week of running.  That’s not counting the commute.

Besides, if I’m to run more than 60 miles per week, I better be getting paid for it.

The workload wasn’t overwhelming, but for some reason the recovery took a bit longer than normal.  Perhaps all of the holiday parties?  Typically I’m good to go by Wednesday.  Last week it took until Saturday before I felt fresh.  But that’s OK. 

It’s the result of doing good work.  And some good parties.

Today’s run, warmer than this weekend, looked similar to the photo at right, although not as deep.  The nice thing is that it adds a nice bit of strength training to the run.  Although strength training in the middle of 10-mile runs are typically not the best thing for the legs.

But it’s good work.

Since I’ve taken this week off from work, the commute isn’t necessary.  So that leaves my legs fresh for the runs, which will tally up to ~50 miles.  Next week there will be just a few commute days, so bike mileage will remain low, but I’ll have to ramp up the miles through the weekend, seeing how close to 60 miles I can dance without overdoing it.  And then rush headlong into the next recovery week, which includes several days of skiing.  But it’ll be good recovery from running.

What’s interesting is that right now, with a full Base cycle followed and Build cycle still to come, I’m aerobically in better shape than I was going in to last March’s 60K Trail Run and significantly better than when I ran my 40-miler in September, 2008.  That isn’t a subjective feeling, but looking objectively at output from the Training Load plug-in for SportTracks.  So things are looking good.  The trick will be keeping injury free over the next few weeks as I ramp up the miles.

Then crank out an enjoyable 50K in six weeks.

But my challenge right now isn’t with the running.  It’s with eating.  I know that’s a funny thing to say during the holidays, but it is what it is.  With this workload I need to be ingesting approximately 4,000 calories per day on average.  That’s a lot of food, especially since I don’t eat a “normal” western diet, full of processed carbs, fats and salt.  Basically, if I can’t identify it as something that came directly from a plant or animal, I eschew (or would that be “won’t chew”?) it.  Within reason, of course, because life’s too short to be that strict about anything.  And although I could reasonably identify a Whopper as mostly coming from animals and plants, I stay away from that stuff as much as possible.  And the recent results of my blood work tell me that I’m definitely on the right track.

So I’m typically falling short of that 4,000 calorie mark by somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,200 calories.  That’s a lot to miss.  It does hamper my workout recovery.  And since it’s such a large daily deficit, I’m not losing weight since my metabolism is slowing down to hold on to every calorie I ingest.  Basically, my body is going in to survival mode. 

Someone hand me a cookie!

<DISCLAIMER: Any and all training that I describe works for me and flies in the face of much conventional wisdom.  The reason it works for me is that I have a few decades of activity and fitness under my belt and know that my body can recover quickly from a given workload.  So don’t think that you could, or should, jump from 35 miles of running one week to 50 miles the next.  If you do, you’ll get hurt.>

Building

Gotta love the feeling of a good Build period.  It’s been a while.  Eight months, to be exact. 

Eight months ago was the Build for the Country Music Marathon.  But since finishing that race, training has been very unfocused, occasionally non-existent.  And that’s what works for me.  I’m typically the opposite of everyone else, building and peaking for some great late winter, early spring races.  Summer is not for me.

Basically it boils down to the fact that I generate a lot of heat when I run.  A lot.  When it’s 30°F (-01°C), I’m still in shorts, although I will start out with a long sleeve that typically gets pushed up to the elbows just a few miles in.  Once it reaches 20°F (-07°C), I’ll cover the legs up and start thinking about a full cap.  The range in between 20-30°F will get me to put on different ear coverings and occasionally gloves (that usually don’t last but a mile).

Summer races?  Forget it.  Unless they also involve a swim and bike.  Then I just deal with the run.

So here I am, in the middle of December, building for my next race.  Mid-December, when most of you are taking a break from the year’s schedule, just thinking about your upcoming Base schedule, hoping not to put on too much weight during the holidays.  Me?  I’m realizing that I’m not eating enough to keep up with the additional 2,000 calories a day that I’m burning above my daily caloric needs to stay alive and function.  Simply put, I need to eat more.  Easier said than done, unless I start eating at Burger King every day (no thanks).  But I’ve got to fuel to race.

My next race?  A 50K (that’s 31 miles for y’all that only use the Imperial system) on January 31st, 2010.  Fifty kilometers is not a huge race for me (after last year’s 41-miler and last March’s 60K (37.2 miler), but something to focus on.  The 50K is just for fun, mainly to see how the Germans run their races.  And to give some focus to my training.

So this weekend was my first 20+ miler weekend of this cycle, getting ready for the race.  That’s when I know I’m building strong.  Instead of single long runs, I function better with “double-long’s”, which are two days in a row of long runs.  That’s every weekend for the next five weeks. 

My first experiences with double-longs are almost two years ago and they’ve served me well.  One thing I’ve learned since then is that I can actually build to 32-mile weekends (22 on Saturday, 10 on Sunday) and recover well.  Much better than if I do a 24-26 miler on Saturday and take Sunday off.  I guess I’m weird that way, since it flies in the face of every training plan put out there by the experts.

So here I am, at the tail end of this first Build cycle.  I’m now entering my “recovery” week, which I definitely need.  Amazing how I can enter this weekend completely knackered, yet still push through comfortably.  Saturday morning it was everything I could do to drag my carcass out of bed.  But I did, had a bit of breakfast and some coffee, then headed out the door.  The first few miles were slow, but that’s OK.  By mid-way through the 13.1 mile run, I was cruising, powering up and over the overpasses (it’s pretty flat around my house, so I find the hills where I can).  I finished strong.

Today, I was hobbling for the first hour or so.  I guess that’s a sign of aging, but I refuse to accept it.  Although it’s inconvenient, it works well with goals of my second long run of the weekend, which is to get the body used to running hard and fast when it’s tired and sore.  So Sunday’s run is always with the goal of running a negative split (i.e. run the second half of the run faster than the first half).  Sounds easy, until you do it with 15-25 miles of running in your legs in the previous 24-30 hours.  It builds a skill that comes in very handy after 20 miles in any race of marathon distance or further. 

So that’s the framework for the weekend now.  This weekend, it was 13.1 miles on Saturday, 8 miles on Sunday (that’s 21.1 miles for the math-challenged amongst you).  Since next week is a recovery week, I’ll back off to 9 miles on Saturday, 6 miles on Sunday.  After that, the next Build begins, so it’ll be 15 on Saturday, 10 on Sunday.  And so on over the next few weeks.  Then to race.

So enjoy the holidays, enjoy the food, enjoy the drink.  Most of all, smile when you drive past that lonely runner out there in the snow and wind.  Because most likely they’re someone just like me, who’s schedule is offset six months from yours. 

Support your Local Bike Shop

Before there aren’t any.

That goes for running stores too!

C’mon, y’all can post numbers like that, right?

Yeah, right.

h/t to Gale Bernhardt.

 

2010

The tough part right now is that I honestly don’t know how next year is going to pan out.  So it’s tough to schedule races. 

For all of you that have already entered and paid for their Ironman’s, Half’s, Marathons, Ultra’s, etc., in 2010, I’m truly jealous.  For various reasons, I just can’t plan that far out right now.

But I stumbled across a portion of the 2010 schedule for Germany. 

So for those of you nearby (or willing to travel), who’s game for a 50K (31 miler) on January 30th?

It’s through countryside like this:

Brrrr!

I had to wear arm warmers for this morning’s commute.

It was a wet, muddy commute too.

Perfect conditions for the very hilly 6.5-mile trail run that followed.

Life is good!

Wet Spinnin’

I finally got off my butt and scouted out the trails through the woods behind our town.

It is 9.1 miles door-to-door, according to my trusty Garmin.  The first five miles are lush forest, followed by 2.5 miles of farm land.  Only the last 1.5 miles is through town, which is no big deal since the speed limit is 30kph (18.3 mph).  And unlike the states, drivers here actually look out for bicyclists.

But it was pouring rain the whole way.  With some mud on the trails.  Luckily the dirt portions are hard-pack, otherwise my tri-bike would have a bit of an issue.

Methinks there may be a single-speed cyclocross bike in my future instead of a car.

I’ve just got to convince Goddess.

Up (and down)

Got in a nice run at work today.  I’ve found a new favorite run.  Short but sweet.

Here’s the profile:

If you read the scales right, you see that it’s 320’ of elevation gain in .17 mile (35.6% grade).  The way to get that was by going up about 540 steps.  It’s quite a quad-buster that turns the legs to Jell-O.

Afterwards it’s a nice descent down soft dirt trails, including some pretty brutal switchbacks.  If you notice that sharp drop at about 1.37 miles, that’s a nasty, nasty stretch of the trail that’s paved, then drops down about ten steps right onto a street.  Not too comfortable on the legs.

All told, just under two miles.  But I already see multiple laps up the stairs and down the switchback, now that I know the route and can plan for it.

RUTS

Run Under the Stars starts in just 2.5 hours.

Ten hours (8pm-6am) around a 1/2 mile horse track, which is packed limestone.  Should be interesting, should be boring.  Will be fun.

This is a fun run for me.  I have only very loose goals for this one – set a new distance PR of greater than 41.5 miles, or break 50 miles.

Even if I don’t achieve either one, I’ll be happy with it, considering I haven’t run in almost three weeks, we’ve been extremely busy getting the house packed and shipped to Germany, getting the vehicles to Florida and the shippers and setting everything else up.  In other words, it’s been a very hectic May.  So this is the icing on the cake.

Goddess is humoring me on this one.  She had ultimate veto authority over this one, given the timing.  Over the past couple of days she’s even expressed some doubt over fitting this in amongst the last few days here in country.  But she’s sticking it out with me.

And that’s where goal number three comes in, if neither one of the above look feasible.  Goal number three will be crawling into the car and curling up with Goddess for a couple of hours. 

I hope y’all sleep well.

Breathe!

Seriously, I needed to remind myself (and Goddess) to do just that.

Over the past couple of weeks, post-duathlon and post-CMM, we’ve been busy taking care of vehicles and getting the house packed.

Vehicles?  We had to take my ‘64 Chevy truck down to my parent’s house for storage.  It made it about halfway before the transmission went thermo-nuclear.  Seriously, on the side of the freeway that thing was white hot, boiling off all the transmission fluid.  So we drug it the rest of the way.  Then the Subbie made a trip to St Louis so it could be shipped to Germany.

Then the house was packed.

But in the meantime, a good friend made it to Nashville.  So we made a trip, had some drinks, and enjoyed his reminiscing of growing up in that town while seeing (through his eyes) how things have changed.

Then last Saturday was the Elton John/Billy Joel concert.  Three and a half hours of some of my favorite karaoke songs.  We definitely had a great time.

The last of the moves is tomorrow morning. 

And here’s a pic a couple of hours before the concert.  The shirt says it all (after the sign):

Then we finally made it to the local running club’s monthly meeting.  We got to meet Runnermom, as well as the guy who I suspected was drafting during the duathlon.  I recognized him, then when we met he said “Hey, I read your blog”.  It could have been awkward, but it wasn’t.  Good folks all around.

Finally, over the weekend Goddess prevailed and I finally set up a Facebook account.  It has been everything I feared, namely a huge time suck.  But then again, I’ve already talked to people I haven’t seen in over 20 years, so it’s a good thing.

In the meantime, man I’ve really got to get a run or two in.  Next weekend is the 10-hour overnight “Run Under the Stars”.  I haven’t put a single mile in in the past two weeks thanks to all of the other activities.  Hopefully it just means that I’m well-rested.

I may or may not get a race-report in after that one.  I finish at 6am Sunday morning, run a 5K (Run for Beer) at 5pm Sunday afternoon, then fly to Germany on Tuesday.  So I’ll fit it in when I can.