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!

Take The Chance

I've migrated North from Austin to my hometown, Milwaukee in favor of cooler temperatures and proximity to my next few races.  Between mama's home cookin' and the familiar high school running routes it makes for a good training base camp.  The comfort of home isn't without its consequences: training alone changes the mental game up a bit.

Today I drove to Marquette University's track for the last hard workout before the US Championships.  The gate was closed so I hopped the fence, thinking how much it would suck to get kicked out halfway through a rep.  The track is blue, just like it will be in Des Moines - that's training specificity for you.

I'm assigned a set of six thousands at 5k pace with three minutes (generous) rest.  I'll follow that with some 200s at mile pace to turn the legs over.  The workout is starkly simple compared to others I've done this year with Texas - sessions I've come to call 'mixed workouts' that might hit a wide range of paces and recovery lengths.  But today it's no nonsense Jack Daniels taken straight, no chaser.

The disadvantages of training solo become apparent during a workout like this. Warming up I feel a bit negative.  'it's warmer this morning than it's been, it's windy, I don't feel that good.'  The usual distance runner whining.  This time of year, as championship season begins, we're especially on edge, believing everything should be feeling perfect.  Today I'm putting the workout on an undeservedly high pedestal; as I begin the first rep, I sort of feel like I'm climbing up to a gallows.

The guy mowing the grass around the track has flooded his engine and I smell gas every time I run the curve.  The first interval usually feels off because your body still needs to warm up.  I run it in 2:42.7, on the low end of the 2:42 - 2:45 range I should be in.  Most of the time I can execute a workout without too much mental agony - focusing on the current rep and not the rest of the workout.  But today I'm being negative.  On the second and third thousands I run 2:43 and 2:43, @StilinIt but not feeling good.  Usually the halfway point serves as a nice mental checkpoint but today the workout is half empty rather than half full.

Hubris attacks on the fourth interval.  Somewhere during the second lap I start letting up.  These thousands require sharp focus literally the entire time, and the slow down snowballs when I check my 800 split at 2:15, five seconds off.  I start thinking about ending the whole thing as I finish in 2:50.

If you go off to die, then take us, too,
to face all things with you; but if your past
still lets you put your hope in arms, which now
you have put on, then first protect this house.

Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 2, lines 914-7

For the next couple minutes I wage a mental war with myself.  Had my coach been there he would have pulled me off the track.  If I end the workout now, my confidence will be shattered leading into important races.  If I try to go on, I'll most likely continue dying and end up feeling worse.  But there's a chance I could sack up and salvage the thing.  I reach a compromise: I'll run 800 of the next rep, on pace, in spikes, and see how I feel.  I beat my chest, let out a war cry that echoes off the casino across the street, and go for it.

The internal soliloquy of recovery period four is for me the pinnacle of the workout and perhaps the entire season.  Reaching such a low mental and physical point and rebounding motivates me.  I'm a touch slow halfway through the fifth interval when I start feeling good again.  I decide to run all thousand of it as I come through 800, still slow, in 2:14.  I speed up and finish with 2:44.  Suddenly I'm almost there, just one rep separating me and the 200's which are just icing on the cake anyway.  I sense the end of the set and run the last one in 2:41, my fastest split.

Nothing changed in my body from that fourth agonizing interval to the last one.  The 2:50 outlier was a product of my mentality.  This isn't an isolated incident: two weeks ago I ran an outlying 2:10 on the fourth 800 of a set of six, the other five averaging 2:04.  And my last two races at Stanford and Oxy had slower fourth kilometers.  Anyone can open well and I'm able to close well, sensing the finish.  But it's that portion of the work - that third quarter - that seems to get me.  It's like traveling from far away, coming around the bend and finally seeing home and being reinvigorated.  Only the trees were in the way.

Today I was shown, by the workout, that it's in the tank.  No matter how hard it is, I have to take the chance and continue working during that third quarter phase.  In the form of a race it will mean going with the leaders after 3k, something I failed to do at Oxy.  I have to trust that instinct will take me home to the finish.  As I put the final preparations in for USA's I'm confident in my strength and toughness, and being aware of my ability to rally, no matter how hard it gets, is valuable knowledge.

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.