Run to Win

Topics this week last year were dominated by the Beach to Beacon.

• I started the week off by offering 4 ways to determine the length of a pool in response to a reader question on the matter.
• Maine Running Company hosted a talk by John L Parker, Jr. where he discussed his history as a runner and as a speaker. He read the first chapter of his as yet unpublished sequel to Once a Runner.
• The rest of the week was all about the B2B. First, it was announced that everybody would have a chance to run with the elites at the Back Cove race following the Beach to Beacon. There was also an interview between Joan Samuelson and Dave McGillivray published on the B2B site that offered some insights into the founding of the race. I offered up a few tips about running the race and provided a breakdown of the results after it was over.
• This week two years ago, I discussed why it is important to hydrate yourself after a race as well as before and during the race and I went into quite a bit of detail after being asked, “What is a taper?” I wrote a review of the movie Running on the Sun, about the Badwater ultramarathon.

This week last year was filled mostly with racing news, and what wasn’t racing was related in some way to swimming.

• I offered 9 methods for counting laps in the pool. I usually use the buoys on the lane dividers.
• A revolutionary in the shotput in the early 50s, Parry O’Brien died of a heart attack this week last year while he was swimming in a masters 500m freestyle event.
• This week 2 years ago, I demonstrated how to do pushups, suggested that you ride your bike with traffic, discussed tapering for a 10k, and first learned of the Endurance 50 Challenge. I also continued my thoughts on the New Rules of Lifting with the fourteenth and fifteenth rules.

What do you do when you aren’t motivated to run, or when your schedule gets interrupted and you have to miss a workout? If you are like most runners, then you try to make up that workout later in the week. I definitely recommend against doing that, especially when you are tapering for a goal race such as a marathon.

With Boston out of the way, the Spring marathon season is under full swing. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been getting a lot of questions emailed to me from people who are wondering how best to taper, and what they should do about missing workouts for one reason or another.

In general training, if you miss a workout, then just move on. You really don’t need to worry about 1 or even 2 missed workouts as long as you don’t try to double up later in the week. There’s no reason to risk an injury for one workout. If you are consistently missing workouts, then you should look into rearranging your schedule (either running or otherwise) so that you can find a way to get your workouts in when you are supposed to.

If you are tapering for a race, then any individual workouts that you do are designed just to keep your legs fresh. You aren’t going to get a lot of additional fitness in the last few weeks before a race, while you can easily prevent yourself from recovering from any lingering muscle damage. Trying to double up your speed or long runs right before your race can also prevent you from properly hydrating or restoring your muscle glycogen stores so that you can race at peak efficiency.
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Last night I only got a bit over a mile in for a run because one of my socks broke; it kept falling into my shoe under my heel. This is disappointing since it was one of my favorite pairs of socks; oh well, that’s what I get for keeping them around for a good decade.

This actually worked out well in terms of pre-flight strategy, as I needed to go to the bank last night or this morning. I took the opportunity to run there this morning, which means that I didn’t take today off but instead got a good 6 and a half miler in. Unfortunately, the majority of that was in rush hour traffic, but the last few miles were not too bad once I got off of the busiest street in town. Still, running as a means of transportation is a viable option and should be used when readily available.

My taper for the Marine Corps Marathon is a little different than usual. Normally, I start 2 and a half or 3 weeks before the marathon and start steadily decreasing mileage. This Autumn, I used the Pisgah 50k as a pseudo-training/experimentation run, so I didn’t really taper much. I only reverse tapered afterwards. I haven’t really tapered much at all these past couple of weeks for MCM. My mileage has been flat for about 5 weeks straight, including this week after the race on Sunday.

I think that this will work out well for me. I feel well rested, and this week will only be similar mileage because the race is so long. I do not have any nagging injuries worse than some bug bites from raking last weekend. This will be a good race, and will lower my personal record by at least a few minutes if not 10 or 12.

Good luck to anybody else that is running this weekend.

Sometimes, your marathon preparation goes perfectly, your taper is phenomenal, and hopefully your race goes off without a hitch. Sometimes, things are not so smooth. I still expect my race to go off without a hitch, but my taper has certainly proven interesting.

The general goal was to keep up with 50 miles per week through this week, and then workout as normal through Wednesday or Thursday. My mileage this week may have been near 50 miles, but only if you count a couple of miles of hiking and lugging sign posts around the woods after getting done with my run. Of course, whether I cut back on the mileage or not is a moot point, since I followed up the run and hike with 3 or 4 hours of raking about 2/3 of my lawn. Maine foliage is beautiful at this time of year, but raking up after a storm is less than easy.

I was out on the Bradbury Bruiser course today, and it is looking great. The race directors spent a lot of time raking anywhere that the course was not obvious and it is looking good. After running the course today (I skipped the “O” trail loop given the marathon in a week) they divided the course up into sections and sent people out to leave sign posts and flags to mark the trail.

The trail is in great shape. Where there are leaves down, it is still obvious where the trail is. It is relatively dry despite the rain that we have had recently. Jamie Anderson wrote up his thoughts from the day and included an elevation profile for those who want to see how flat the course is. Bear in mind that the scale of the profile only goes from 240 feet to 400 feet above sea level at the two extremes.

For anybody running next weekend, good luck and have fun. I would love to be there if I had not already made plans to be out of state for the Marine Corps Marathon. I’m looking forward to reading race stories, so feel free to send me a link or an email with your thoughts on the day.

This week last year, just like this week this year, involved a lot of preparation for and the running of the Beach to Beacon 10k. At least there was not nearly as many doping scandals this week last year as there were two years ago.

• The Beach to Beacon was won by Tom Nyariki last year, edging out Gilbert Okari, who had won for the three years previously. I did get out of my rut of running the exact same times on the same courses two years running, though.
• After the race, I (re)learned an important lesson about how important it is to hydrate yourself after a race as well as before and during the race.
• I went into quite a bit of detail after being asked, “What is a taper?” I also don’t believe that I have sufficiently revisited the topic and will need to get around to writing more about how to decide what sort of taper is appropriate…
• I reviewed the movie Running on the Sun, about the Badwater ultramarathon. It’s a good watch if you have some spare time. Ultramarathoners are an interesting crowd, which I am getting to learn a little more about now that I am associating with a few of them (and may soon join them.)
• With Justin Gatlin out of the sport for another year, I still wonder if we will ever see two athletes under 9.77 in the same 100m race.
• Two years ago, there were a lot of doping scandals. In business news, Adidas announced that they were going to purchase Reebok.

You will often hear runners and other endurance athletes discuss a concept known as tapering for a race. What is a taper? Why is a taper important?
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Liv over at Liv to Run wonders whether or not she should taper for a 10k.

My Smartcoach schedule has me running my highest mileage ever in this, the second-to-last week before the race, and a hard long tempo only two days before. Should I stick to this, or would it be better to cut back a little and focus on easier runs?

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