Month: March 2020

The other day I recapped my experience in the World Masters 8K cross country event. Here is the follow-up. Five days later I ran the half marathon. The pictures here will tell that story. The day was perfect for a half marathon, about 50 degrees, a slight breeze, and hazy to partly cloudy at the start, mostly sunny when we were finishing.

Garmin splits were:

Mile 1 - 6:08 - very crowded
Mile 2 - 5:51
Mile 3 - 6:00
Mile 4 - 5:53
Mile 5 - 5:53
Mile 6 - 5:54 - with hill
Mile 7 - 5:54
Mile 8 - 5:51
Mile 9 - 6:01
Mile 10 -5:58
Mile 11 -6:05 - pain cave getting real
Mile 12 -6:02 
Mile 13 -6:01
Finish: 1:17:38 chip, 1:17:48 gun
1st place Men 60-64

A year ago this week I was in Torun, Poland for the World Masters Athletics (WMA) championships. And while I’ve done write-ups on some forums and put up pictures on Instagram and Facebook, this the first time here. With everything else shut down for who knows how long (June or July maybe for racing), this might be a good time for some reflection and a few photos.

Background: Getting There
I entered 2019 with a plan and the championships were not part of that. It just seemed too far to travel and too much time. However, in late January final calls for entries piled into my email in-box and I gave it some thought. The best selling point USA Track and Field Masters advertised that if you had a top 6 world ranking at any distance in 2018 they could help subsidize your trip, and if you won medals in Torun they’d throw in some more. So I took the bait, sent out a couple of emails and a day later had a plane ticket and  new plan.

The trip itself was long, some 28 hours from take off in Denver to getting to my hotel (a dorm at a Catholic college), but all went well. Had a few days to adjust to the time and environment, and I took in the opening ceremonies and first day of competition on their world class indoor arena.

Ready, Set!
I would be running “non-stadia” (outside) events and entered the 8K XC, 10K road race, and half marathon, with the plan of doing two of those three. First up, on Monday was the 8K XC. I don’t recall much about getting ready, other than being excited but not overly so. Looking at seed times (roads) I figured a top 5 was a reasonable goal, but had no idea how that would really play out. One thing I do recall is listening to Led Zeppelin’s Battle of Evermore on my iPad moments before heading out the door and catching the bus to the venue.

It was a cool and blustery morning with temperatures in the high 30s F and a good breeze. Some rain kicked in during my warm up, but that let up about a half hour before we were to line up. The course was a winding 2K loop through a wooded park adjacent to the stadium. Each lap featured about a dozen sharp turns and three notable hills. And two of those had 30 meter sand traps that you had to run through or skirt the side on narrow but bumpy moss-covered earth.

Go!

The pictures here tell most of the story. About 35 of us lined up. The course narrowed two two wide after only some 50 meters. I got bumped back to about 10th place for about a half kilometer before we opened up on a flat stretch by a fitness park, with room to pass. By the time I got through in about 5th or 6th place, the two leaders had broken out a good 20 meters ahead. And their lead would grow through the lap. I could only bide my time in 5th place (2nd photo, on the top) and didn’t want to sprint to catch them.

At the end of the lap I caught the Polish runner and passed him, still a good 40 meters back from the leaders. But come back they did! By half way through the second lap I had regained contact and the race for the medals was on.

Both Tommy, from Ireland, and Jukka, from Finland were strong and wily cross country runners, throwing in surges and taking the corners and hills with skill. I hung behind them most of the next lap, but tried to take the lead by the fitness equipment. Only was able to hold on momentarily. A half kilometer later (5.5K into the race) Jukka just took off on a rooted downhill, and Tommy and I could not match that pace on the rough terrain. So it was now a race for Silver and Bronze.

Back and forth we went. Tommy throwing in several surges and getting a gap. Somehow, I’d fight my way back. And we’d do it again. On the last lap I put in my own surge or two but could not drop him. On the last steep hill with the sand trap, he went right. I went left and stepped into to the middle of the sand, a foot or more deep. Lost my momentum and he had 5 seconds on me by the time we crested. That was enough to hold me off. But what a race! I was thrilled to get a Bronze medal, and made some friends in the process.

1 KAUPPILA J. Finland FIN 30:13 

2 PAYNE T. Ireland IRL 30:33

3 SAYRE R. United States of America USA 30:37

 

Hey sorry, was going to keep the content rolling a couple weeks ago, what with so much excitement following the Olympic Trials marathon, close of the indoor season, and thinking about outdoors, training philosophy, and some fillers on my own comeback trail.

But then covid-19, simmering for a couple months here in the States, exploded on us all and turned our lives upside down.

So I’m working from home, semi-shelter in place, not getting out much other than to shop for food and get out for a run. I figured they’d keep Nordic skiing going because it’s an ideal social distancing activity, because you can’t get closer than about 6 feet from other skiers. But all the centers closed and grooming has all but stopped. We made an attempt last weekend but it was mission fail with track skis on fresh snow.

Nevertheless, more content is on the way soon!

The other week I wrote some on returning to form following an injury setback. I’m about half way back in terms of volume, maybe 90% if you go by fitness (which I’ll term ability to cover a given distance from say 5 minutes to an hour at an appropriate race or workout pace). Getting there but not yet back.

Today I’ll just mull over some more numbers, thoughts, and approaches to this build-up. First though, I’m pain free, and not even any residual stiffness after a run or next day. I’ll attribute that big step to physical therapy (PT) and time. I’m spending about an hour a week at core and glute-strengthening PT and it is really working.

On Time Over Distance
We runners get so caught up in tallying numbers, in particular miles per day or week. That can be good or bad, or just insidious. When I’m at lower volume, and building-up, I prefer to go by time. I tried my build-up in December, and was thinking ahead to miles per week for January, even entertaining some racing in the middle or late part of that month. However, I probably jumped up too quickly, and that resulted in a setback in which I had to take another week off completely and start over again. And start PT. So I lost about a month in the short term, long term hope to be better off.

Going back to the first of the year here is a summary of my running build-up. In minutes:

13
1:04
1:51
2:12
2:35
2:49
3:16
3:52
4:10

It doesn’t look as cool as miles, but by increasing my volume by about 5 minutes per day of running each week I’ve managed to temper my build-up and give some time for my body to re-adapt to the training. I feel good and will continue this for a couple more weeks, and then I’ll get back to counting miles and minutes.

My Current Approach
I started out at running three days a week, and transitioned to five days by mid-January. This week is my first step back to six days. Before the injury I had been doing just one day off every two or sometimes three weeks. We’ll see where I go from here, but I’m thinking by summer I’ll be back to 10 days on one day off, with a three week microcycle. But that’s getting ahead.

For the first seven weeks I just ran easy and fairly short (20-40 minutes). Once I got over that, I have added a little bit at tempo effort. Two weeks back I did 15 minutes at what felt like threshold, and last week I did 18 minutes, with these workouts with the 5K test effort on my birthday. And last week I introduced a very short hill session of 5X 30 sec on a 7% grade. This week it was 5X 45 seconds on the same hill. I’ll do a fartlek on the weekend and another hill session on next week. By then I’ll be at about 5 hours of running and ready to think some about miles, and adding more miles.

Next Month and Beyond
I have a big (championship) 10K at the end of April. I don’t have great hopes of cruising through that easily but definitely want to represent and mostly help our team out. Coronavirus and any travel restrictions aside.

By then I hope to be at 7-8 hours a week (50s/week) with two workouts and a longer run (1:30 to 1:50) every week, and I’ll keep it at 6 days a week until summer.

Leading into summer I have Bolder Boulder, and that’s always a big target for anyone here. And I have some good stuff in store for summer, like World Masters in Toronto, but haven’t committed to anything yet. If all goes well, should be rolling pretty well by then.

Well we didn’t see a lot of of that coming, with most of the women’s like top four or five in many people’s predictions not finishing or finishing far back (Hall, Sisson, Huddle, Hasay). However, Tiliamuk and Kipyego were up there in the top six or eight predictions, so their rise to the podium were less surprising consider the favorites had an off day, or were not able to withstand the relentless hills and wind last weekend. Now Molly Seidel WAS a huge surprise. Very talented (with a bunch of NCAA titles) but oft injured and has had some other issues with an eating disorder and fallout from that. Plus it was her first marathon, after qualifying with stellar 1:10 half bare a month ahead of the Trials. I didn’t have her in a top 10 list and figured 12th to 15th in a 2:32 on that course would have been a very good debut. So kudos to the women!

As for the men, likewise three of the top four of most our favorites did not make the team, although Leonard Korir was an agonizingly close fourth. When Rupp returned to form with 1:01 half marathon last month, which was presumed to be a training effort, he was back on as a podium favorite. The only thing surprising there was how easily he did it, or made it look–I’m sure it wasn’t easy. The downfall of Ward (26th) and Fauble (12th) were a surprise. Looks like they (Ward in particular) just had off days. Fauble’s 2:12 was close to what we’d expect on that course last Saturday, it’s just that all those 2:10s and 2:11s ahead of him were not expected from most of those athletes. Abdi got the men’s surprise of the day, at 43 years old. I saw his name mentioned a couple times but not frequently, but like many others thought Lagat would be the masters breakout runner. I did have Jake Riley in the mix of one who could make it, based on his 2:10 performance at Chicago last fall, and knowing that he was on the upswing.

That was a great event weekend, and one we’ll be talking about for years.