Positive Derivative

Wouldn't it be nice
    if running was predictable?
        If all the work you put in
              determined exactly what
                                you got out.
                                    If, for example,
                                        a great workout
                                           always meant
                                           you were ready
                                                    to run fast
                                       in the near future.
                                   Or if taking
                     some down time
          always made you
    actually feel better.
     In short, if running
                 was logical...
                             If In
                               exactly equaled Out.
                                    But it doesn't all the time.
                                     Call it what you want -
                             a coefficient of chaos
                       or a white noise term.
                          It's a deviation
                             from expectation.
                                Sometimes you'll be
                                          above average,
                                       often below,
                                   and occasionally
                                you'll run about how
                          you thought you could.
                       I think that's why
                   people compare
          running to life.
             Because no matter
                 how hard you try
                          to control it,
                                a certain piece
                                        will always be
                                                unpredictable.
                                                     Celebrate the favorable
                                                                           outliers.
                                                                  But don't dwell
                                                              on the individual
                                                            shitty ones.  
                                                                 The goal should be
                                                                         to minimize the
                                                                               fluctuation and
                                                                                                  keep
                                                                                                    your
                                                                                                      average
                                                                                                       performance
                                                                                                                sloping
                                                                                                                  upwards.

Check out the lap (400m) splits from my most recent 5000 in Palo Alto, California.  You don't have be good at math or know the first thing about running to see what happened:
64   64   64   64   63   64   65   65   65   65   71   72 

I died.  Payed the pied piper.  Bonked.  Blew Up.  Contracted a case of Rigamortus Rex.  I had been on pace for 13:25 and ended with 13:44, far off the US "A" standard of 13:32.

In the hurt locker during the final kilometer of the 5000 at the Payton Jordan Invite

Looking more closely, however, I draw some positives.  Up until 4k in, the pacing was impeccable (thanks Donn)  Instead of tailing off the pace with a few 67s and a 69, the guillotine came down, taking me straight from 65 to 71, and that's fairly unusual.  Apparently I lost my head and forgot that there was another kilometer left.  More likely, I was so dialed in against the pain that it took a tidal wave of fatigue to knock me over, and when it did crest over and fall it really pitted me.  The upshot is that I made it 80% of the way to a great run.  That last fifth can be fixed.

When I look at my trajectory's derivative (can't help but be a nerd), where I'm going, I'm very much encouraged.  Two weeks before this race I ran 14:11 at Mt. Sac.  Right now I'm fluctuating widely in my performance, but the average is definitely rising.  By the end of the season I'd like to run more predictably by tuning out the white noise.  I have a concrete plan for doing so.

We got to work this week with a ten mile progression run out on beautiful Todd Road, one of the few truly flat places to run that distance in the Blowing Rock / Boone, NC area.  At a mild altitude of 3850 feet, Todd follows the New River basin and curves through forest and farmland.  I ended up averaging 5:18 / mile with a few slower miles to start.  The last couple miles were both 5:01 but weren't easy, confirming my need for this type of run.  We'll keep strength sessions like these in our routine well into the year.  I think a lot of people make the mistake of removing them prematurely in the racing season, and lose the backbone of the strength they need to finish well.

With no races until the Music City Mile in Nashville on June 7th, I've deemed this month "Momentum May" because the next few weeks are about stoking the fires of aerobic fitness before returning to racing in June and July.  That means a few weeks of solid volume in the 90-100 range, some longer long runs, and a few good hilly efforts in addition to the event specific interval sessions we do on the track and grass.  It also means getting in the habit of attacking the secondary but very important supplemental activities from now until the end of track season.

Zap Fitness at Half Moon Bay on the Pacific.  Pictured are George Alex, Tyler Pennel, Joe Stilin, and Chris Moen.

As I've become more and more settled into a life at Zap dedicated to running, the days have gone by surprisingly fast.  I'm not spending any more time actually on my feet running than I ever did while I additionally had commitments to school or work.  Yet the days get filled with the little things that support that running.  A big conversation at Zap this year has been about nutrition and hydration.  It's one thing to understand the top level view of what and when to eat and drink, but it's another to know how to use that information in your individual diet.  What to bring to the end of a run.  What to eat when you wake up; what not to eat when taking iron.  How much to eat, when, and in what carb/protein amounts to maximize recovery.  If I can eek out an extra 0.5% from a workout because I had food and hydration ready to go, awesome.  It's something I never did a good job of before this.

Coming out of Momentum May the racing starts and doesn't stop until August for me.  The next two races will be a mile in Nashville followed by a 5k at Portland Track Festival.  Then there's the US Outdoor Championships in Sacramento after which I'll head to Europe again for some overseas racing.  Here's to keeping things moving upwards!

Payton Jordan Invite

Stanford University,  The Ivy of the West.  I've always loved coming to this sprawling land grant campus with its palm trees, spanish colonial architecture, open spaces, and proximity to some of the coolest tech companies in the world (Google, Facebook, Lockheed Martin). This weekend, runners from all over the country and world are descending on the Angel Cobb track stadium for the dependably consistent weather and great fields at the Payton Jordan Invitational.

The 5000 is Sunday night at dusk.  I land at San Francisco International Airport around noon on Friday, giving myself plenty of time to relax and adjust before the race.  The BART train takes me to Millbrae for a transfer onto Caltrain, which takes me on nice ride down to Palo Alto.  Californians love to talk about their mundane travel arrangements so I thought I'd throw that in there.

I'm staying with a buddy on campus, which turns out to be an enormous asset.  I can jog to the track in about five minutes, eat at the dining hall, and pretend to be a Stanford student for the weekend.  I even have a bike to ride.  On Friday night my friend and I went with some of his buddies to see Michael Bay's new flick Pain and Gain with Mark Wahlberg and the Rock.  What a ridiculous movie.  It provided some inspiration for my race though -  Marky Mark has some good lines.  "My name is Daniel Lugo, and I believe in fitness." "be a doer, not a don't er."  It was a hilarious movie that you should see if you don't mind losing a few IQ points.

All this was a nice break from the typical experience I'm used to at meets.  Hotels make me mildly anxious because I can't help but associate them with races.  Being on a campus around libraries and sunbathing chicks makes me feel at home and coming into Sunday I'm feeling pretty good.

Race Day

Usually when I wake up on race day, the coming experience flashes though my thoughts, followed by an acute surge of nervousness and excitement.  I lay there on the air mattress on the floor of my friend's apartment, feeling the adrenaline course through my veins until it ebbs away.  There's no falling back asleep after that.  Now the body knows something big's about to hit it.  It's part of my preparation.

The 5000 entries for tonight are so deep that my 13:38 seed did not make the fast heat.  The Schumacher clan, Oregon Track club crew, World Cross Country sixth place finisher Ben True, and collegians Diego Estrada, Eric Jenkins and Maverick Darling headline a 5000 field that surely every American distance running fan is drooling over thanks to Flotrack's coverage.  Hanging around on the grass before my warm up I'm surrounded by the who's who of American distance running. (Derek Rubis, if you're reading this, I know you'd love being there)

I'm confident going into this race.  Workouts have been going very well, I've been healthy for a long time, and eight days ago I soloed a 3:44.1 1500 back in Austin.  I haven't raced much lately, especially over longer distances and I'm wondering what going past 3k will feel like.  But I push any questions I have out of my mind and get to the line focused.

Two laps in the pace has settled at 65 seconds per lap, right at 13:32 rhythm.  There's a rabbit leading Nouredine Smail of France and Mitch Goose of Iona.  I'm sitting third.  At the beginning of a 5k, tiny changes in pace are very obvious when the body is still fresh and perceptive.  Even a one second per lap change feels like a lot.  Over the third and fourth laps I feel the tempo slack ever so slightly, prompting Smail  to drop a 63 after we pass one mile in 4:21 and the rabbit steps off.  Goose lets a gap form and I quickly go around and get in Smail's wake as we pull away from the rest of the field.  Going with him is a gamble, but it's the only way of giving myself a chance to run fast.  On the homestretch Smail gestures for me to go around him and lead.  I decide to do so, partially since it's polite, and partially because I might be putting money in the bank for later when I'll need him.

Video of the Race

I lead for about 800 and with a look over my shoulder, Smail re-passes me.  This time I won't be starting another round of lead exchanges because as we approach the 3k, I'm starting to feel the hurt. I come though in 8:07 and pass two miles in 8:40 (technically a 3200 PR) slightly off of Smail, and from there I begin to slowly fade.  I'm quickly in no man's land (Luckily it's no man's land in front of the race and not behind it) and all I can think about is finishing.  In situations like this, runners either grind it out or they die really hard.  I say to myself, "you didn't come here for the first two miles, you came here for the last one."  I'm running 67 second laps, not on pace but not terrible.  You think about the weirdest things in that situation.  Whole wheat pancakes, volleyball nets, spanish class in 6th grade.  You don't hear anything.  The pain tries to suck your thoughts towards it like a tractor beam.  You go through pulses of focus and loss of focus.  I think about my form as it erodes, trying to switch backup systems on, finding anything I can in my legs and body.

Finally the bell is ringing and it's supper time.  I gather myself, consciously relaxing my face and hands, and take a few quick steps as I head into the final 400.  People told me I 'closed hard' after the race, but any kind of kick must have looked fast compared to my strugglefest coming into the bell.  The final 100 I'm hoping to God the rest of the field that I haven't seen for 2 miles isn't running me down as my elbows are flying everywhere, knees are knocking, and face is grimacing.  I cross the line in 13:40.04, the second fastest 5k time of my life, having run a 61 second final lap.

Back on Earth as I cool down, I sort out how I feel about the race and decide I'm pretty happy.  1. I'm very close to my PR 2. I'm proud of how hard I fought 3. It feels SO good to race again.  I realize that I absolutely want to race the five again this season.  The original plan was to switch focus to the 1500 if this race didn't produce 13:30, but I know that next time that last 2k will get done the way it needs to be done.  A hard race effort like this works wonders mentally and physically for the next go.  There's a rule I think every runner should follow: if you absolutely have a desire to race, race.  You never know when the next time you'll be able to comes around.  So next up it's the 5k at Oxy High Performance in L.A. in 17 days.

After the meet John Simons, an old high school rival who now runs for Minnesota and I hit up Pizza My Heart in downtown Palo Alto.  We had the right idea because as we sat eating some nice greasy pizza, what seemed like the whole meet patronized the place. (again Rubis, you would have loved it)  People asking each other how their races went, coaches bullshitting with each other, and the kids working the Sunday night late shift wondering why their place was suddenly so full - it just makes me love the running community.  It also remands me that I probably take the whole thing too seriously.  Nah.

Post Race Interview

Fly me to the (California) Moon

Frank Sinatra mixes with the patter of rain pouring steadily on the back patio.  Merber's making his famous turkey burgers and the scent of cooking meat and blue cheese wafts into my room.  It's been smelling like this for what seems like hours, and I'm getting hungry.  Outside, thunder ambles across the sky, the first thunderstorm of the year rolling slowly over Austin.  Our house is an island, safe and cozy, the storm providing an excuse to just stay put.

A long day of work, alternating between using my legs and my brain.   A humid 52:24 ten mile marathon paced run in the rain and reluctant gray morning light, lost in thought and numbed by the familiar instinct of a faster tempo and the crunching of gravel underfoot.  Mind racing and heart pounding after a difficult exam an hour later.  More class, pages of notes, a set of 200s at mile pace on the track in the afternoon as the sun tries to break through the clouds.  It does, and in the humidity I sweat.

Texas Relays Jerry Thompson Mile.  I'm wearing #3.

Later as I cool down through campus, dark clouds threaten above the Texas capital building's glowing red bell tower and the smell of the imminent storm saturates the thick air.  Being at home in the evening, my legs up, listening to the rain and life of the house is enormously relaxing.  Nothing makes a runner happier than a period of solid training (except a great race) and sometimes that can erase the worries of the day.

My training philosophy since indoor nationals could be described as something like "base with workouts".  I'm doing summer-type mileage but maintaining the genre and intensity of 5k workouts characteristic of track season.  Many people here at Texas have identified me exclusively as a miler and act surprised when I tell them I'll be focusing on the 5000 this summer.  I can't blame them - my indoor season went in a direction away from the longer events because of how races and qualifying scenarios panned out.

My most recent race: 2nd to Chris Gowell in the Jerry Thompson Mile at the Texas Relays.

I've come to accept that I don't possess the "stupid speed" required for the end of championship 1500 races - the ability to throw on the afterburners and consistently close in 51-52 over the final lap and rake people in over the last 100m.  I do have a nice combination of strength and acceleration - and that's why I believe I'll have the most success in the longer distance.  That's not to say I won't be running any more 1500s - I have one scheduled for next weekend here at UT, and plan to tag along for the ride in May's Oxy High Performance 1500.  Maintaing legspeed while developing strength has been the name of the game throughout my career, and I won't be changing that system any time soon.

A newfound sense of freedom charges my running in the day to day and long term perspectives.  Without conference, regional, and national team obligations I'm now able to focus more on training and less on racing in the spring in preparation for the summer circuit, when I'm aiming for a later peak than usual.  I haven't changed many elements of my day to day routine, and being associated with Texas' program provides a huge boost.  I still feel very much a part of the team and that has helped the transition.

With a busy running and school schedule I make sure to set aside time to think about all this stuff, especially when the weather puts me in a contemplative mood.  The next big race for me will be the Payton Jordan 5000 at Stanford in 19 days.