Crap. Sorry to hear that cartman.

Shoot, sorry, cartman. Keep the faith, man. They can do some amazing things with medicine these days.

Not anytime soon. I've got some wear on the cartilage in my left knee. High impact and weight bearing activities, such as deep squats or steep stairs, are what's causing the pain. Ortho has me on leg strengthening exercises, stretching, and non-impact cross training. And ice and anti-inflammatory meds if necessary.

If no improvement with these instructions, I'll go back for another examination.

This is a crazy bad run of injuries in here.

Cartman, I have a friend that does a lot of biking on his knee replacement. He had to build up the mileage but he finished multiple long distance races this summer. Take care, hopefully the surgery and rehab will go well.

Thanks guys. I've been doing quite a bit of reading now on what they can do with replacement knees. They have come a long way. But I figure if my grandma could make it through having both of hers replaced when she was 80, I ought to be able to handle one at 42.

Bummed to hear about people heading to the DL/IR. Best of luck to everyone with their recoveries.

Subby - that sounds like a pretty absurd amount of miles. Congrats on whatever silly total you end up with, although I know we all like round numbers.

Sorry to hear about everyone's injuries. Hope you all get better soon and the recoveries go well!

I did the Dallas Marathon yesterday, my first. It was a fun day overall, my son and wife ran their first half marathons and I was attempting my first marathon. Things did not go as planned for me though.

It was warmer than I would have liked. It was 63 when we parked and it was humid at about 90%. We did have occasional mist, which was nice, and it rained hard towards the end and on the walk back to the car.

I used Hanson's Marathon Training to prepare and followed it almost exactly. I didn't miss any workouts until the last week when I reduced the taper mileage on Monday - Saturday from 26 miles to 16 miles. My training paces were based on a goal of 3:35-3:40, a pace of 8:13-8:23 a mile. I knew this pace was a best case scenario but I trained hard.

I'll dig out my watch at some point today but here is how I remember the run:

I started out ok and not too fast. Something like 8:40 for the first mile. I picked up the pace a little on the 2nd and 3rd miles and that's when I knew this would not be my day. I started sweating a lot. Knowing what I do now, I would never have attempted this little test and when I did, I should have backed off a lot. I did decide at this point to hit every water stop on the course and to slow down a bit. I started aiming for 8:30 per mile.

The first half went well; the crowd and the runner support was awesome. This was the enjoyable section of the race. I had to take a brief restroom break so I was hopeful that I was hydrating enough.

The next few miles got tougher. We turned into a pretty strong wind near the White Rock Lake and I made the decision at one point to back off to a 9:00 pace. Or maybe that decision was made for me :). Things got rough at around 19 or 20. It started with a cramp in my left quad, then I started cramping in my right calf.

The next 6 miles was not fun. I'd run until a cramp hit, either stop to stretch it out or walk it off, run a little more, cramp, etc. I finished at like 4:15.

I drank 4 16 oz bottles of water on the way home and I was still -8 pounds when I got home. It's safe to say I completely failed hydration on this one and started out too fast. I don't know if things would have gone better if I had started out at 9:00 a mile as I still would have sweat too much but it would have been a better plan than attempting to run hard in the conditions. I guess I'll just mark this one off as a learning experience. It was still a great time and a very well run event.

I think the first marathon usuallly kicks everyone's ass. But you finished! That's an accomplishment! I don't know that I'll ever attempt a marathon myself. Especially since I seem to get hurt when I do longer runs (10+ miles). Still trying to give my knee a chance to heal up while not running. Very frustrating. Patience is running low.

Yesterday was the series of runs at the Formula One track outside of Austin. I'm bummed I wasn't able to participate, but my buddy's wife won her age group for the 10K race. Not a bad birthday present for her!

Nice!

I put this out on FB last night, but I'll post here, too, so it's out there.

I'll be running the half in the Surf City Marathon (Huntington Beach, CA) again on February 1.

It's my intent to do what our very own ABC did last year, and run all three Beach City half marathons and complete the Beach Cities half marathon challenge.

Which would then be a prelude to running the LA Marathon on 2016, God willing.

I also intend to run at least one Ragnar this year, and may also do my first tri. And I am looking to doing a Spartan race.

Yeah, I know I am nuts.

Sounds like a tough race HRN! But, like Kodos said... you finished. Much props! I'm wondering how soon you'll be chomping at the bit again!!

Thanks - it was a character building experience for sure. I've uploaded the activity and it looks just as ugly as it felt.

Hooray! Major props for finishing :)

dola,

And Subby's on a tear, it's like every other post on my Strava feed is Subby on a ride! GO SUBBY GO!!

double dola,

And hope everyone heals quickly, it's no fun being on the sidelines when your body is craving a run :(

Nice job on your first marathon Todd! It sounds like it went pretty similar to how my first went, especially the last 6 miles. Now you're ready to know what to expect the next one. Great achievement, and something to be proud of!

I saw your FB post. Awesome! Good Luck! It was fun doing all three HM. I think OC was my favorite of the three.

Great job on your first marathon HRN! Definitely have some info you can work off of to prepare for your next one.

Todd, you look disappointed but damn, you shouldn't be. You're a frigging marathoner man, great job!!!

It's in my plans for next summer but it's freaking me out already... Oh well, one step at a time I guess.

After deciding I wouldn't run on Tuesday last week, we got hit with a nasty snowstorm with not much snow per se but lots of gusty wind and icy road conditions. So much so that all roads leading from work to our house were cut off from about 8 am to 2 am but I decided around 11 to take the invite of a coworker and slept there instead of risking it home. Because of that and lots of other sutf, I ended up not running again until yesterday but that was good as it meant the pain gradually went away.

I taped myself with some KTape yesterday and ran a very easy 3.5 km run and didn't feel much pain afterward or even when I was standing up for 90 minutes while pacing behind the bench of my my 17 yo son's hockey team. I just6 ran for 7 km again in very little pain.

I got a possible cause for the fasciitis pain. As crazy as this may sound I'm thinking it might be cause by my new ASICS Nimbus 15 shoes I got this Fall. Hve not had this kind of pain all Summer long running in Brooks Ghosts and ran with some ASICS Nimbus 13 last Fall/Winter alos without pain, but the pain gradually appeared, I think, since I introduced the new Nimbus into the mix. They have now about 145 miles on them so it was not instantaneous either and kinda hard to detect since I've been running much less this Fall...

It's also kinda odd since it's a fairly cushioned shoe but I have read in reviews about users saying it gave them fasciitis in one of their foot. Might be an altered gait because of my Achilles problem that'S causing the Nimbus to not work as well anymore...

Anyway, for now I'll remain with the Ghost 7 but will have to eventually think about adding a new pair to the mix as they are now up to about 375 miles...

FM

Ran a couple times so far this week but also did something else that's making me think I have found the source of my foot/heel pain. I did a rare evening run on the belt Monday, some 40 minutes of very easy running with some walking in the middle since I was watching hockey coaching training videos on my laptop and I had to slow down in order to click the "next" icon. Foot/heel felt quite ok after the run but it's what I did on Tuesday afternoon that brought some pain, not only on Tuesday evening but all day yesterday. Right after I got home from work on Tuesday, I did three series of calf raises, 15-20-25 reps with the last one being very hard to finish. That was about 20 hours after Monday's run and I started feeling that pain under my foot and too my heel in the evening after doing the calf raises. That pain continued during the day yesterday, same kinda pain I was feeling last week, like a dull pain under my foot with a tenderness behind and under my heel, especially the left one but also a little on the right one.

Like anybody from the Google era, I started searching the web and found that calf raises, maybe especially when done barefoot as I was doing them, can cause some some tight calves which in turn could cause tightness in the tendons down to the foot/heel area. This seems consistent now with my pain which I thought was plantar fasciitis but didn't really feel like it based on when I was diagnosed with it some 10 years ago. I mean, PF's first symptom is some very rough walking in he morning when getting out of bed. It's not really the case now, more like a dull ache.

I ran again this morning and further proof that the running isn't causing any trouble, I'm not feeling any new pain other than the recurring heel one that is less today than it was yesterday.

In order not to change too many things, I will keep on running with my Brooks for a while but will refrain from doing calf raises. When I will start doing them again, I will do only a few at a time and with shoes in order to give some support to my foot and help keep a better form...


Meanwhile, as a Founding Pro member of Smashrun, I get to renew it for life for $1 a year as long as I run 400 km in the year. More than that, I can gift a one year pro subscription to anyone for only $19 instead of the usual $59. I paid $120 for that Founding Pro member status last year, knowing I'd run for at least two years with them. Now, my average cost per year is down to $60.50 per year...

If anybody is interested in getting it for 20 bucks or so, let me know and we can arrange payment later.

I think the tracking of SPI (Smashrun performance index) is my favorite feature from Smashrun. That index tries to compare every run with one another. I found that it did give me a good idea of how much I progressed through my Summer training last season. Attached is what my SPI graph looks like since I started running.Lots of easy runs then one or two a week that stand out then boom a race!

The fact it syncs easily from Garmin Connect by simply clicking a "refresh" icon is also non negligeable...

Had my follow up appointment today. Got the stitches taken out, and he said the healing is going really well. I still am not allowed to put weight on the knee until at least the end of January. He said he has some plans to try a few things out over the next year (stem cells, gel injections, platelet rich plasma) before making any plans for a knee replacement.

Would be very interested in that SmashRun price. I was already sniffing around on this last weekend, and at that promo/offer price I would do it in a heartbeat.

I need your email address to send you the gift code so send it to me via private message and I'll hook you up when I'm home this evening.

I think I can send three of these gift codes so if anybody else is interested, let me know.

FM

Good to see so many people posting runs on Strava over the past two days.

Anyone working on 2015 running goals? Here is a rough draft of what I'm working on:
1.) 1,000 miles. Finished with 949K reported in SmashRun for 2014, but basically took off 4 months
2.) 200 days running. Finished with 135, so this increase is consistent with hitting goal #1
3.) 21 min 5K. Would involve cutting 1:15 off my current time. I would be a little more aggressive with this goal if 5K's were my primary running ambition like this year, but I'm looking at a more diverse set of runs in 2015
4.) First 1/2 marathon race: have done a practice run, want to run at least one and maybe a 2nd one if I can line up a "destination run" in fall/winter
5.) Under 1:50 time for 1/2 marathon. That would involve taking 7-8 minutes off my training run time.
6.) Get weight under 160 for first time in 25+ years. Was down to 165 in October, but probably need some food discipline on top of running to get this number and sustain it.

I've been following everyone here all year so I'll go ahead and post some goals.

As those that read the weight loss dynasty may know, I'm in physical therapy for all kinds of problems, tightness/shortened muscles all over from a lifetime of sitting and inactivity. Seriously, and literally, "all over": back, chest, hips, calves, ankles, all have noteworthy issues that are being specifically worked on in physical therapy combined with massage therapy and stuff they have me doing at home.

The main thing that triggered the PT was pelvic floor (bladder and that whole gross area) issues, but its turned into a lot of posture and general flexibility work, and recently we've added some specific work on my hips, calves, ankle and foot. I hurt myself running in the middle of last year and the problems I created then have never gone away. I've seen two podiatrists and an orthopedist. The physical therapy has been described as "the last thing we can do before deciding on surgery vs pain management" for the foot problem by the orthopedist. I don't want to feel limited in any way, but the pain isn't nearly bad enough to consider a surgery that isn't guarenteed to work and could cause other problems, so if PT doesn't work it'll just be a matter of avoiding/heavily limiting things like running, lunges, most jumping, things that put all of my weight up on the ball of my foot.


So with that update, goals for 2015, which are fairly general for now:

1) Physcal Therapy is *HARD*. Getting through that, especially given all the problems that have been identified, is key. Getting the most out of this can give me a huge head start towards being more fit and healthy overall.
2) If my foot issues can be corrected by PT, I will start running again in 2015. I don't have any goals about making it my primary thing, but I would love to be able to do it a couple days a week on rest days at the gym.
3) Currently I'm going to the gym 3 days a week, doing group classes with trainers, there's a "general fitness" focus, some cardio, some strength, a lot of core, a lot of bouncing around between things in these classes. Its great for me but I would like to add a more specific strength focus, maybe only doing the classes two days a week and lifting twice a week on my own. Adding a 4th day at the gym starting in January is the main thing. I'm not set on a specific program yet.
4) If I can't run, I really need to do more cardio on my off days. I've made great strides but I'm still very sedentary overall outside of the 3 hours in the gym a week. Eliptical/Bike/maybe learn to swim (I can't, so that would become a crazy goal for me on its own)
5) I dropped from 323 to 258 in 2014. My goal weight is 220. I plan to hit that in the first half of 2015. I may adjust that goal as I get closer. 6'4" 220 seems good, especially if I am lifting, but maybe once I get there I decide 200 or 210 would be better, etc.



I have really enjoyed following you all this year, so many marathons and half marathons and Subby being insane biking maniac, its great to see and has helped motivate me towards weight loss and fitness goals, even if I'm not running.

Keep the faith, Richard. You'll get there. I'm glad we can all help by posting our running activities!

Wow, losing 60+ pounds in a year is amazing, Radii. Keep up the great work. I go 6'4" and about 215 these days, you can aspire to look better than my doughy ass :).

For 2015, I want to get in 2000+ miles. I ended close to 1800 miles this year so that seems attainable if I remain injury free. I'd also like to work on a half PR this spring and maybe a full PR later in the year if my schedule allows.

Small bit of progress. Went in for my 6 week post-op checkup. I don't have to wear the full leg brace anymore! Still not cleared to run, jump, squat, or twist, but I can start to get the leg muscles built back up. He said I'd likely be fully cleared at the 3 month checkup. Can't wait! I've gained about 25 pounds since the whole knee ordeal started, not being able to run, bike, play soccer, etc.

Way to go, cartman. Keep it up!

In other FOFC running news, I am running the half at the Surf City this weekend. I ran it last year in a little over 1:50. I don't anticipate doing as well this year, although I am always surprised at the end of these things (I think competition spurs me on).

I managed to run quite frequently right up until Christmas, but then the hectic Christmas schedule plus a plunge into deep freeze temps had me not run once in a full month span. I'm trying to get back into it now (ran last Friday and this Tuesday) but the weather is still messing with me. Went to run yesterday and the path was literally pure ice, like trying to run on a curling rink (the rain made everything pebbled up it was terrible). Had to give up. Today it's gotten fairly cold (-15) with a strong wind making it worse. If the path is still slippery I may have to bail again, but even if it's not the run is going to suck.

Looking forward to April...

Dola

Oh and I have done something to my lower abdomen in the past week that makes it hurt when I run. Not sure if it's just a muscle strain or closer to something like a sports hernia. I don't know what I did to cause it, I can only assume it happened in a recent hockey or spongee game. Annoying.

Didn't expect to have any sort of update of substance this early, but I'm feeling so damn good that I need to share somewhere.


I stopped taking one of my meds from my urologist on Sunday. I'm on my 5th day without it. In the past I've forgotten a refill a couple times and within 48 hours the feeling has always been agonizing. There's a LONG way to go here, I'm on some short term anti-anxiety meds that may be making a difference right now, but man this feels like a seriously positive step.



In the past few weeks I've had the go ahead from my physical thearpist to basically start "testing out" my foot in various situations. To allow it to hurt some but to judge what I can do compared to before. I haven't modified any exercises with my trainers to protect my foot in the last two weeks, and I feel some low level discomfort, but it doesn't feel like its escalating.



Adding to the previous, at the gym we're tracking number of workouts for some promotional thing as part of the new year. I dunno, go to the gym 50 times get a free t-shirt or something, whatever.

But, since we're tracking, I know that I went to the gym for at least a half hour 20 times in January :)

ALSO, as part of "testing out" my foot, I'm still mostly using the elliptical, but once a week or so I'm using the treadmill and seeing how my foot feels. Today was spectacular. I hit the treadmil for a full hour, walk two minutes/run one, and I ran for the last 5 minutes straight. During the hour, my foot never escalated past the "low level discomfort" I mentioned earlier. Now that I'm home and took my shoes off, it hurts more, but I'm pretty sure its still way better than what an hour on the treadmill would have done to me 2-3 months ago.



I wore a 2XL shirt in public today for the first time in god knows how long, 18 years? Not ready to do that every day, still more comfortable in the 3X stuff, but its a big step.


So yeah, today is a pretty damn good day I do believe :)

That sounds great, Radii!

I was able to use the elliptical last night. Before the surgery, I couldn't go 30 seconds before the pain made me stop. That is an incredibly encouraging sign.

That is awesome, both of you, Radii and cartman!

:party:

FM

Yeah, awesome stuff, Radii!

I've been banged up recently...I had a slight tear in my left calf. I kept hoping it would heal on it's own but I kept re-aggravating it. I finally gave in and went to physical therapy after my football season was over. After some physical therapy I'm back to the point where I can run again!

3 good news stories in a row... so awesome guys!

Good news cartman, radii and poli! Hope you get better soon fidatelo and good luck this weekend chief in your race!

Good to hear Poli and well done getting it taken care of! :)

FM

just saw your pic on FB. Took some investigating to put the real life name to the FOFC handle ;)

Hope you had a great race! :)

FM

Thanks Frogman!

It was a good race. The only downer was coming in at 1:55:37 instead of the 1:50 I did last year. But like I said on FB, I knew I was carrying around 15 more pounds than last year (and I'm a year older). Working on those pounds lol.

The weather was great, typical California. Actually, it was even warmer than normal. A beautiful day at the beach.

I didn't plan my morning timing very well, so I actually got on the course a little later than the time I put down. That meant I had to dodge a lot of slower runners. What's up with the women walking in step thing? Very frustrating. They should have just linked arms to complete the race block. Saw that several times.

I got off to a strong start, even while I was trying to temper my pace to save my energy. I did just a little over 8 minute miles for the first four miles. My timings gradually slowed down after that because of fatigue and a course that got a little more incline/decline than the start. Miles 3-6 are mostly on streets away from the beachfront, but the rest of the race (start and finish) is right on PCH, so you're more or less running along the beach.

But PCH rolls up and down a little bit to the north of the race start/finish, and that definitely had its effect on me.

Around mile 9-10 (approaching the comeback I first ran at the start), I started to wonder if I could make it. I was pretty tired, although my breathing was better this year than last year, where I feel like I "sold out" for speed (and probably not in a good way). I thought about walking the rest.

But I manned up and kept going, didn't stop running except for two 3-4 second spots at two water stations because of trying to grab water.

Despite carrying extra weight, I actually felt better at the end than I did last year. And I'm not nearly as sore now as I was last year (which wiped me out for two days of walking gingerly).

Funny thing, I pulled an "ultra MAN" moment (read: stupid man), and said "I'm going to walk back to my car instead of taking the shuttle". Since I actually missed my car and walked past it, I ended up walking a good 4-5 miles AFTER my half, either walking to or backtracking looking for my car. So, smooth move, Chief.

All in all, a good effort and well run event by the event coordinators, and a lot of fun. Now I am looking to run the OC in May.

I am still looking to do a Ragnar this year, too, but I haven't managed to get into one yet (issues with getting a team together).

Have my first race of the year tomorrow, although not a conventional run. Doing the "Hustle up the Hancock" where I'll be taking on 94 flights of stairs. I've done a couple training runs at the 20 story building where I work and have concluded that there isn't all that much overlap between 5k/10k/15k races and stair races. Barring some unusual change of heart tomorrow, this will be my only stair race.

Also picked up some new shoes today to replace the Brooks Ghost 7s once the weather outside cooperates a bit. Went with the Saucony Ride 7, which is my initial foray into a lower heel drop at 8mm.

Also put together my first draft of the training schedule for this year. Assuming nothing changes, and I'm pretty sure it will, I've got the following on tap:
1 stairs run (94 flights of idiocy)
2 obstacle runs
5k - 5
3.5m - 1
5m - 1
10k - 2
15k - 1
10m - 1
1/2 marathon - 2

If I hold this schedule, or something close to it, I anticipate hitting all of my running goals that I set at the start of the year.

Wish you well tomorrow hoopsguy!! Gotta love it when 30 degrees F is beautiful running weather!!!

94 flights of stairs sounds intense, good luck, can't wait to hear how that goes!

I am running an 8K tomorrow. More like a fun run for me, although the event isn't a "fun run" or anything (just a straight little city 8K).

Good luck hoops!

I'm looking forward to hearing about the stair climb. The logistics seem difficult with crowding on the staircase but it sounds oddly fun too. Hopefully they can keep the stairs from getting slippery with sweat and water too.

Good luck HG and CR.

Good luck with your stair race this morning (Good luck to Chief's race too!)

The Ride 7 are the shoe I have been wearing more lately. I like the amount of cushion on the front of it better than some of the other options I've been wearing. Only problem I have had with it is my foot is a wide foot and the Ride 7 has a little less room in the toe box compared to the new balance shoes I had been wearing. It led to a little of a blister problem for me a while back in a new spot that I was not used to. So I had to start using body glide on a different part of my foot to combat it. Since then, very little issues for me.

Some of my old running buddies (from before I got too busy with kids to get out for group runs) were running the Hypothermic Half Marathon this morning. Temp at race time was -32 Celsius... without wind chill. I think it was below -40 with the wind included. Good gravy I'm glad I didn't sign up for that!

17:42 for the official time. This felt quite a bit easier than my training runs where I was running 15-20 flights at a time and then taking the elevator down.

Logistics: our company had 33 people signed up to run, with just about all of them doing the "full" run rather than the "half" run. We were assigned to the 7AM start this morning. They staggered individual runners every ten seconds. As far as I can tell, it was the large corporate blocks (our company is a sponsor) that went first, rather than an "Elite" group of runners.

I found myself passing more "runners" than passed me. I use quotes on runners, as I did not run a single step. I did take the stairs two at a time, and pulled myself up by the railing the whole way as well. The etiquette suggests that you move to the right if someone wants to pass, but that was rarely observed in the time I was running. There was enough room for two people to be side-by-side but no more than that. I only had one time where I had two people in lockstep in front of me impeding my progress.

Goal time was 20:00, with the idea of starting at 4:00 for the first 20 flights and then doing a negative split for each of the following 20 flights. Looking at my run detail in Strava, I came pretty close to that negative split goal but was a bit faster going out than the 4:00 despite trying hard to keep myself slow initially.

I'm sure I could shave time off this run with repeated efforts. I was 8th among people from my company; my wife and daughter both are amused that two women beat me. The fastest time from our group was just over 15 minutes and the top five or so overall finishers are under 10 minutes.

Happy to answer any other questions about format. All in all, glad I did it and will probably do it again next year with my company. But I don't think I'll ever sign up for a stairs race on my own or ever really invest in meaningful effort to gear up for this race at the expense of my standard training.

Way to go, hoops! I must admit, a stair race seems weird to me. But it sounds like it did the trick.

I ran my 8K in 42:17, which is about 8:17/mile. Keep in mind that is my Strava time. I also started off slow to help a friend get started, pacing her, and it took an inordinate amount of time to get my armband off and stop my Strava at the end. So my actual time is probably slightly better.

I felt good about this one, and it helped running with others (two friends and my brother).

There is an outside chance I will run the San Diego half in two weeks. I put it at 10%. I have another friend who wants to do it, and I said I would run with her if she signs up. So we'll see about that.

awesome hoopsguy and chief rum!

I have had a pretty horrible winter training session so far. This winter has felt so much worse than last year. I managed to get outside today to try it out but the snow banks and narrow roads still make me have to stop running and wait on traffic at times for safety. Regardless, I still am quite a bit slower than pre-surgery , probably more to do with being about 10 pounds heavier from my time off than the actual time off itself I guess.

Either way, tomorrow is my first "race" post surgery, a 30km race (about 18-19 miles). I am not actually racing it though. I have a 18 mile long run on the training schedule for tomorrow so I figured this would help me get out running on roads that hopefully are safer with police helping would be nice. Will be the longest run I have done since last October, but I figure it may be slow but I should be able to finish it at some point.

yeah, it's been a very rough winter this year. You with lots of snow, us up north with some crazy cold temps...

I have about the same plan as you for this Summer. In the middle of my marathon training, on a weekend in which I'm supposed to run a 20 miler, there's a race that does a 7K loop any number of times you want so I plan on doing it 4 times for 28 km. With a couple km as warmup, that would put me just one mile short of 20 and I would do it only slightly faster than my usual long run pace but would benefit from having rehydration taken care of by volunteers on the race ;)

FM

Yep, I finally managed to put in a decent week of running last week for the first time since December. Things are looking up, though, and I'm hopeful that weather won't be preventing me from getting many runs in from here on forward.

Went in for my 3 month checkup. Doc was very happy with the progress of my knee. So much so that he cleared me to pretty much do anything I felt my knee could handle. He said the microfracture healed really well. I still need to build up the muscles more in the leg that was worked on before I try anything much more than bicycling and golf. He even said I could try soccer again (albeit with a brace) to see how my knee reacted.

The PT doc told me to dust off my Wii and Balance Board, and incorporate that into my workouts. First time I got on, my balance readings were 60/40 in favor of my good leg. When I shifted my weight to get the dot in the middle, it felt like I was going to fall forward and to the left.

I can't wait get some serious hours in on my new bike. I got it last year, but haven't gotten to really ride it at all.

Way to go, cartman! Keep up the good healing work! You're almost there.

Hope things keep heading in the right direction for you, cartman!

Really fun run today. Did the Shamrock Shuffle 8k run, and was hoping to get under 40 minutes. I bested that time last fall, but was running longer distances at that time. I've really only gotten serious about my training schedule over the last 6 weeks, and so far felt like I've struggled to hit the kind of speeds that I had at the end of 2015.

Anyway, many of those concerns fell by the wayside after posting a 37:44 in my run. I got off to a sluggish start in the first 1k that probably cost me the 7:30 pace for the whole run, but I suspect responding to that slow start is what got me the pace I sustained for the last 7k so hard to project times too much.

10k next month, 10 mile in May. Time to get a little more aggressive with some of my goal times. And a nice reminder of how fun it is to really push hard in a race and see a surprisingly good time at the finish line.

Way to go, Chris! Keep it up.

Busy schedule for me, too. 5K on April 11 (like an appetizer), and then the OC Half Marathon on May 3. I'm essentially dedicating all of April to shaping myself for this one.

Amazing improvement, Chris. I actually said, "Wow" out loud when I saw the Strava update.

I haven't been able to schedule a race this spring due to my kids' schedules but my son picked up a 3rd place at an invitational yesterday in the JV 800. He has worked his ass off to get to this point so that was a really nice moment for him.

It's been fun seeing the flurry of activity on Strava this March as we all unbury from a tough couple of winter months. The results of the group definitely help motivate me to stay on pace with my own schedule.

I tried riding my bike as soon as the doc cleared me, but I still had a big discrepancy in the muscles between my right and left legs. I was pulling to the side really bad when I pedaled harder than just above coasting. I've been working on that the past month, and now I'm starting training for a 100km bike ride in June. Found an 8 week program that should get me ready in time. It is the Tour d'Italia in Italy, Texas. I rode the first one back in high school, and this year is the 30th anniversary.

My son and I signed up for a race this morning pretty last minute. He ran the 5K and I did the 10K.

This was a small, local event in its first year. The 5K and 10K started together on a paved trail, the 5K did a turnaround at the 1.55K mark, and the 10K continued on until the 5K mark before returning on the same path.

The event suffered from all of the issues that you would expect. The trail wasn't closed to other traffic so I had to weave through normal pedestrian traffic, a lot of 5K walkers walking side by side blocked the trail, and both turnaround points were poorly marked.

I started way too fast in an effort to get around kids and other slower traffic at the start line. I got through the 5K turnaround area and lost some time dealing with the poorly marked path. I saw 2 other runners in front of me at that point, it turns out both were 5K runners that didn't navigate the turnaround correctly.

I caught both of the 5K runners over the next mile or so and I didn't see anyone else in front of me. I hit a water stand at about 3 miles, saw the poorly marked 10K turnaround, but ended up running an extra 50 feet or so when I misinterpreted the instructions. You would think there would be someone posted at that turnaround but they didn't. Running the extra distance wasn't a big deal since the off course 5K runners were thinking their race was ending and not at the halfway mark. They both took a walk break and I didn't see them again until after they finished.

I had to weave through a lot of traffic on the path back to the Finish line but I won the race by quite a bit. I didn't see any other 10K runners behind me so I'm not sure how close the second place runner was.

I'm pretty sure the fact that I won a race automatically invalidates as an actual race but it was fun anyway. My son won a close 5K so it worked out well for both of us. I doubt I'll ever win a race again but it was fun while it lasted.

I ended up with a 45:24 but my watch only measured 6.17 so of course it doesn't count as a 10K on Strava. It was a certified course so I'll claim the PR though. I was hoping to get under 45:00 but considering my bad start and all of the weaving around traffic, I'm fine with the time.

Way to go, HRN!

A win is a win, as far as I'm concerned. Sounds like a pretty poorly designed and run race, though, unfortunately.

I am running the OC Half tomorrow morning. It's supposed to be a very scenic run. I'm looking forward to it.

This was a year ago. Tomorrow is take two at this race, the Lévis Half Marathon in which I crashed and burned pretty hard last year.

I have learned from this but still, I'm kinda freaking out right now. I have trained hard for this race, as hard if not harder than how I trained last Spring. I know some of the things I did wrong last year and I'm definitely one year wiser. I will drink on the course, walking the water station as I did back in August and I will take two gels during the race.

I had high goals for this race, wanting to make it as fast as 1:30 but now I'm second guessing everything. I PR'ed my only half marathon finish with a 1:36:09 back in August but that was in crazy hot weather. Tomorrow's weather should be just about perfect. I will also keep a very close eye to my heart rate, something I didn't do last year.

See ya tomorrow, hopefully ;)

FM

mileage at which my Garmin was stopped last year is 20.45 km and ever since, every time I see that number on my watch, wether in training, or during my first half marathon finish, I always get a bit emotional.

There are some bits I don't even remember from last year's race, like the last 3-4 kilometers. I fully intend to live them and remember them tomorrow...

FM

That is great Todd, congrats on your win! Awesome stuff!

Good luck this morning Matt & Steve! Have fun and do great!

Anyone else having difficulty uploading to Strava today? I can't get my Runkeeper GPX file to upload from this morning. I even tried to remake the file manually by plotting out the run on the map. Getting irritated, especially because I had a good run on one of my segments where I was hoping for my first KOM...

I didn't have any issues this morning when I did my upload from my watch

other than Garmin Express not working with Chrome anymore, it's been working ok, but I have now linked my Garmin Connect account to Strava, so it's all automatic now...

FM

Lévis Oasis International Half Marathon
May 3rd, 2015

As I said, this race was my big crash and burn HM. With big ambitions, I went out too hard and didn't even have time to feel cramps or something like that, I totally blacked out. Watch was stopped at 20.45 km (12.7 miles) but I have no clue by whom.

Had plans of running my first marathon in August last year but that was downgraded to a half marathon which I finished in some very rough conditions (heat/humidity) but with a very decent time of 1:36.09.

I suffered through some Achilles woes following the training for that half and it took me most of the Fall season to finally get better only to realize I had some btis of plantar fasciitis that wanted to set in. Achilles remain stiff at times but I was able to train well up to the race.

I again had big ambitions for this race, training with my mind set on a 6:50 average pace for a possible crack at 1:30. It the back of my mind the whole crash and burn thing remained though. The course is nice point to point that starts with about 2.5 km of uphill but then goes into a lengthy downhill section for almost 10 km. I spent a good chunk of last week obsessing over my numbers from last year. Over the first 15 km last year, I was averaging 6:51/mile, I was flying, but I was also keeping the heart rate just too high in retrospect. I didn't fuel during the run and because it was kinda chilly, I never really felt the need to hydrate myself, which all together caused me to crash. I made the conscious decision on Saturday during the day to go more by heart rate than by pace, in order to enjoy the race. It was becoming more and more obvious I couldn't sustain 6:50 over 13 miles by keeping my heart rate almost 10 BPM lower but by then, I was ok with it.


Uphill start (2.5 km)
Last year's half was my first very big race. With about 1650 entrants, for me it was a big one and I remember feeling cramped in the middle of everyone last year. I averaged 7:16/mile last year over those 2.5 km and I felt it went better this year and my time somewhat reflected it with an average pace at 7:12/mile. Heart rate also reflected a bit of that in being 2 BPM lower this year despite going faster.

Long downhill (9.5 km)
I really went hard on that section last year, averaging a pace of 6:41/mile but also keeping the heart rate consistenly in teh 160-161 range which is more consistent with a 10K kind of HR for me. I averaged 155 this year but it also meant I wasn't hitting my goal pace, instead averaging 6:54/mile, but I was ok with it.


Mostly flat last half (9.1 km)
I again kept running by heart rate for the rest of the race and I'm sure glad I did. There are portions of this back 10K that I don't even remember seeing the first time around. That's kinda scary to be honest. I know I slowed down from the midway point to the end but the main goal was to finish it on my feet, and I knew that unless a major catastrophe happened, I would get a PR. Still, I got an average pace of 7:20/mile out of those last 9 km which is the same pace as my august half marathon overall. I finished that one with some miles toward the end more around 7:45 so I'm happy with the progression. I also kept my heart rate right at 155 for the portion while it kept going up to the 164-166 range around the 17th kilometer last year.

Speaking of scary bits I don't remember from last year, there's this nice little bridge over which we run getting to the finish, about 1 or 1.2 km from the finish line. Looking at the GPS map from my watch for last year's race, I have at least walked over that bridge. Don't remember it, not at all. I ran over it this year, starting my final push in which I would average 6:47/mile over the last kilometer, and my only thought was "wow, that's a really nice river"...

Official time: 1:33:33, a PR by 2:36 with room to grow!

VERY happy with it and I know i got room to push a bit more. It's now just a question of finding the spot.

This is what I looked like a year ago:


This is what I looked like right after this year's race


I sat down in the grass, ate the little post race brunch they give us and I cried, somewhat overwhelmed by the emotions. A year ago, the whole family was waiting for me at the finish line and they all got worried and this year, nobody was there. My wife was out of town for a hiphop dance competition and my sons had no way to get to the finish line. Very happy I got it done. Training continues, or should I say, starts anew, 17 weeks until my first marathon.

FM

Congratulations on smiting a past demon!

I have my first half (Branford Half) coming up at the end of the month, although I plan to treat it more like a workout than a race. I'm sure adrenaline will make me start out a little fast, but I hope to settle in to a decent pace and finish the run.

Thanks! Have fun at your race, enjoy the moment! :)

In other news, that 1:33:33 when plugged into Jack Daniels's calculator would predict a 3:15:02 marathon time, or a 7:26 pace. Yeeeeeeah right. Don't see that happening for a first marathon. Goal pace as it stands now is about 8:00/mile which would be good an oustanding finish time of 3:29:36 and again, somtehing I think I could build on. I really want to run it even split instead of slowing down so much in the second half.

FM

My goal is modest - a sub-2 hour half. I ran close to that in a practice run last fall. (2:02:57)

Those of you who follow me on Strava will already know my general results, but just to update here...

I ran the OC Half with an official time of 1:53:59. I am somewhere in the middle on this result.

It was my third half and my first time running the OC. My other two halfs were both at the Surf City. The first time in 2014, I was in pretty good shape and didn't know what was good. I ran it in under 1:51, which is still my PR for an official half. In February I ran it again but I was carrying more weight and finished it at around 1:56.

The Surf City is a very flat race, but the OC is much more hilly. I considered it a tougher course. So improving on my February Surf City time is a decent accomplishment.

But I still feel I can do better. I'll complete the Beach Cities Challenge at the Long Beach in October, and I am hoping to be running at around 160 for that one (I am at 180 right now; I ran the 2014 Surf City at 170 and the 2015 at 190). Being lighter and with a longer training program should help whip me into shape for the Long Beach.

The OC is a beautiful run, BTW. Much of it is along the bluffs near Newport Beach and Balboa Bay.

Congrats Frogman and Chief Rum!

I think I already said it on facebook, but great job again on the race! I think it is cool that you are running the 3 half marathon series right? Do you get a special medal or anything for completing all three?


From the paces that you usually run on Strava, I think you should be able to break that pretty easily (as long as all of your Strava runs haven't been all out effort or anything). I think you're going to do great in your race. Which one are you running?


I think one of the mistakes that I made my first two marathons was in believing the calculators on estimated marathon finish time. Both cases ended up being way too fast for me.

I read some recent studies that seem to indicate those times for a marathon really are more suited for an elite runner, or perhaps experienced runners that have many many years of base built up more so than someone who has "only" run a few years or perhaps not even run the marathon distance much at all.

Their studies seemed to indicate that it is far more common for a newer marathoner to finish a marathon in roughly their half marathon pace + 1 minute per mile. Based on that, the calculation comes out to being a 3:40:57. (Still something pretty far out of my reach ) :)

outrunbranford

I'm doing Outrun 38's 1st annual half marathon in Branford, CT. Outrun 38 is a group of runners who donate their miles to help fund research to cure CF. I'm a member of their Facebook group. Welcome to Facebook. The group is very positive and supportive.

Thanks Alan! It is definitely an achievement sorta thing for me. And it will roll up into next year, when I intend to train for and run my first marathon at the LA.

And, yes, there is a big medal that goes with it. ABC would know for sure, as he ran it last year. I know for sure there is a Beach Cities medal, but I am uncertain if it is created from putting all three individual medals together, or if they give you a whole new medal. I just new that whatever you get is a pretty big medal lol.

yeah, the enormity of the task of running a marathon is not taken into account well by the calculators I think.

I've read about estimating by doubling your HM time and adding 10 minutes but even that seems quite optimistic. That would give me 3:17:06...

Your HM pace + 1 per mile estimate would put me at 8:08/mile, just a little off from my goal marathon pace of 8:00/mile. Strangely enough, if I go 8:08/mile for 26.2 miles I end up with 3:33:08, not 3:40:27 which would be a 8:25 pace.

As I said, for this first one, I really want to enjoy it and I will not really push for a time. Being able to even split it would be really great and I think that I could do 8 minutes miles for a very long time. Right now, when I get close to that kind of pace in long runs, my heart rate stays in check somewhere between 125 and 130, or at most 75% of my max which I think would be pretty good. Need to get the legs in shape now.

I would be VERY happy with a first marathon done in anything between 3:30 and 3:40.

FM

I probably just did the math for your pace on the half in my head wrong :)

For my last marathon, I ended up doing it 1 minute 11 seconds per mile over my half time. So for me, I'm not even doing as well as the average I guess!

I actually have a marathon coming up this Sunday, I haven't written much about it on here this winter as it has been a fairly frustrating training season for me. The 1 1/2 months - 2 months of no or light activity really crushed me from an encouragement point of view. The worse part is that I actually didn't change my eating, so lack of almost any activity caused me to gain 20 pounds too.

Since then, I've tried to bust my butt all winter to get my fitness back, and I've lost about 10 pounds of that back since then (which is surprisingly hard during marathon training to lose weight). I think for this marathon I'm in close to the same fitness level as my last marathon now (CTL score is 122 right now, was 117 for my first marathon and 129 for my last one, so I guess somewhere in between the two).

Unfortunately the 10 pounds heavier suggests an extra 10 minutes it will take me to run this one though. I am going to try to still PR though, but by running it smarter this time and see if I can avoid falling apart at the end.

Anything under 4:15 will make me happy I suppose, and I'll spend the next 5 months getting my act back together too fully before the next one.

If it makes you feel better, as an outsider watching your results on Strava, it sure looks like you have been tearing things up this spring. :)

dang, your CTL gets high! I'm kinda skewed on that because it's heart rate based ;) I've never been higher than 81 and that was about a month before my Summer half marathon last Summer, in July. I also had quite a bit of time with low running, although no real long period off, and because of that, my CTL going into last week's half was 54. That's somewhat lower than what is was a year ago at 61.

I expect it will start going back up as I ramp up mileage over the course of Summer...

FM

So, way back in I forget when, I decided to do the Tinkerbell weekend at Disneyland. I saw there were 3 medals if you completed the Pixie Dust Challenge, which is a 10K and a half-marathon on back-to-back days. 10k Saturday, half-marathon Sunday. My BFF was doing both, so I was like fuck it, I'll do both too.

January started with ambition and attention to a training program. Then the semester started, and I'd run a grand total of 3 or 7 miles, I forget which, since about February or March.

Clearly, I was not prepared, and was making jokes to my students about how I was going to die on Sunday.

Friday
Flew into San Diego Friday morning, and BFF and I head up to Anaheim and check into our hotel room. We grabbed food from Earl of Sandwich, ate, and then she had to go down to Vista for a Les Mis performance. I wandered around Disneyland.

Fell asleep around 11:30 pm, after going to Denny's for a bacon and lettuce sandwich with fries.

Saturday
Get up just before 4:30 am for the 5:30 am start and get ready. She heads off to corral B, while I jump in corral E. Although my primary goal is to finish, I have a secret desire for a 12 minute per mile pace. First four miles are relatively easy - surprisingly easy, in fact. Mile 5, I start getting a little exhausted, and I also stop to take a woman's picture by the Ferris wheel in California Adventure, and have her take my pic, figuring damn the delay, it's also about having fun. Mile 6 I was terribly hungry, and it didn't help when Pandora played a restaurant commercial.

Final result:

Finish 10K in 1:14:33. Pace 12:00.
10K - 79th of 188 men age 30-39; 514 of 1,493 men, 2,371 of 8,873 finishers

Note that this is the official Disney time. My GPS time, of course, told a different story:

MapMyRun: 6.46 miles in 1:14:32. Pace: 11:31 Calories Burned: 1,260. Slowest pace: Mile 5, because of photo stop 12:45. Otherwise they were pretty consistent:

Mile 1 - 11:44
Mile 2 - 11:09
Mile 3 - 10:49
Mile 4 - 11:08
Mile 5 - 12:45
Mile 6 - 11:34
Remaining .46 - 11:31

The difference is in that MapMyRun tracks the full movement, which involves dodging and weaving through the traffic of thousands of runners to find the holes and run through the open spaces.

We grabbed food from the Jazz Cafe, splitting a 10 count of beignets. She got bacon, I got sausage patty.

Afterwards, BFF had to run down for both a matinee and an evening performance of Les Mis. She was also fighting a kidney infection, and managed to give herself a concussion during the evening performance, so she had a lot of stuff going on, too. :D

I spent the rest of the day at California Adventure. Came home and fell asleep early, around 9 pm.

This might have been my first 10K ever, depending on how long I ran when I ran cross in middle school. And as I joked afterwards, at least I did my first 10K before my first half-marathon. It just happened to be the day before. :D

Sunday
A pit of dread in my stomach when I woke up at 4:30 am with creaky knees and a small bit of soreness in my right Achilles tendon. BFF felt better enough headwise to go ahead and run.

5:30 am start again. This time I'm in corral F, which is the second to last corral (somehow I avoided being in the last corral). Per BFF's advice, I winnowed my way as close to the front of the corral as I could manage, because the pickup wagon starts after the last runner from the last corral crosses the start line, and in order to finish, you have to maintain a 16 minute per mile pace. Also in my gameplan: Attack early in the first few miles and build up a time reservoir for the inevitable second half decline. I decided to just take it mile by mile, and not worry too much about the end game.

Knee and heel soreness went away once I started running, and through the the first six miles, I was relatively okay. Then, Mile 7, I hit a wall, and it was tough, grueling slog the rest of the way, getting slower and slower, walking more and more. I had to switch to interval running to try and get through it. Then, in Mile 12, my fucking sim card on my phone kept blinking out, so I had to slow down, take off the cover, push it back into place, and put the cover back on. That was obviously my worst mile. I started to get a little bit of a second wind on the last mile, and then the remaining third of a mile, I turned on what I had left of the afterburners, damned willing to risk a heart attack for a strong finish.

Result:
Finish half in 2:48:53. Pace 12:53
Half - 891 out of 1,630 male finishers and 5,565 out of 13,049 overall finishers.

MapMyRun: 13.34 miles in 2:49:09 Pace 12:41 Calories Burned: 2,250(!)

Mile 1 - 11:08
Mile 2 - 10:13 (Best mile of the weekend)
Mile 3 - 11:28
Mile 4 - 12:20
Mile 5 - 12:04
Mile 6 - 11:38
Mile 7 - 12:52
Mile 8 - 12:37
Mile 9 - 13:10
Mile 10 - 13:16
Mile 11 - 14:53
Mile 12 - 16:53 (Sim card snafu, and the only mile over the 16 PPM requirement)
Mile 13 - 12:54
.34 mile - 10:59

I was absolutely floored when my half-mile pace per mile wasn't that far off my 10K. I never would have expected that, EVER. Literally my only goal was to A) finish and B) Get under 16 PPM mark.

So three medals collected :D

Yes you get a whole new medal, and it's big. This year, I believe it's a clamshell style, one you'd have to open. It's really cool. I wish I had completed the series this year just for that medal

To get the medal, go to a separate booth (outside of the finishing chute) after your run and present your bib. There should be a special icon image on the bib that'll show them that you're completing the challenge this year.

Good luck!

Image of Beach Cities Medals.

Spoilered for size.

I always enjoy reading the race reports. There have been a lot of great results already.

I'm sure I'm late to the party on this one but has anyone else been following this Mike Rossi cheating scandal? I stumbled on this report yesterday and spent entirely too long reading through the Let's Run post. It's fascinating that someone would call that much attention to himself after cheating in a qualifying race.

http://www.runnersworld.com/general-...ied-for-boston

Yeah, I read the first 40-50 pages on Let's Run when it first came up, but didn't keep up any further than that.

If you enjoy this story, look up the story on Kip Litton some time.

Now that one had some legs to it.

:rimshot:

I read a little about Litton since he was mentioned several times in the thread but I'll have to catch up on that one. There's also a thread over there on Parvaneh Moayedi, another person they busted for cheating multiple times. I find it all fascinating.

Oh, and before I forget again, good luck this weekend Alan.

Bleh, I suck.

I will give a better race recap tomorrow, have to drive 8 hours to Long Island for work. But the recap will likely give more detail about why I suck

70 degrees for a marathon is enough to make any person suck. I found out that I'm more than capable at sucking on a 65 degree day :). Sorry it didn't go well but those miles are all adding up and will pay off.

Ran a practice half marathon yesterday in the humidity in preparation for my May 31st race. Ran it in 1:58:17 according to Strava, so already beat my goal for the race. Guess I will have to adjust that a bit. I hope race day is cool and not humid.

Hang in there. You are so dedicated to running and training. A marathon is going to click for you soon.

You weren't kidding. Linked here for those interested.