Month: November 2023

Racing in 2023 is a now a wrap, on Thursday I did the Berbee Derby 10K in Madison, WI with our son and future daughter-in-law. It was all good.

After Chicago I made the decision to pass on December’s USATF Club Cross Country championships in Tallahassee, FL in favor of doing the Thanksgiving race in Madison. This will be the third US championship in four years, fourth in five years. I went twice, in 2019 for US Nationals and 2021 for Club XC. Let’s change the venue!

Also, our team was at best lukewarm to travel and we may or may not have even been able to field a team, let alone one to match our victory in 2021. Enthusiasm for the BRR men’s 60+ is at an all-time ebb. Maybe with a little nudging and enthusiasm we could have put together a solid team, but no one else was chiming in, so I just let that one lie and decided to visit family and have some fun with a sea-level 10K.

Recovery from Chicago was tougher than I thought, with one disastrous (three weeks post-marathon) and one fairly mediocre (five weeks after Chicago) foray with local cross country. However, I did get in some solid weeks of training including those races, with 60 mile weeks and some decent tempo runs and repetition efforts (8K-10K effort). I was hoping for 38 or under, but as last week rolled around I kind of felt 38-39 might be more realistic especially since the forecast was for colder weather.

We flew out to Madison on Tuesday evening and had a nice 4 mile shakeout run at the Pheasant Branch Conservancy just outside of Madison on Wednesday. The rest of the day was spent doing some errands and getting ready for Thanksgiving. We did go to a brewery for a beer. I typically don’t drink on the day before a race, but this being the end of the year and on a holiday why not.

Race Day

At least it was not as cold as forecast a few days earlier (they were calling for a low of 18 and high of about 30 on Thanksgiving), but it was still fairly chilling at 32 F with a 10-12 mph wind out of the northwest. But it was sunny, and as long as you were moving it wasn’t too bad.

Did a 15 minute warm up with Mikko and his fiancee McCaleb, and we discussed our race strategies. I planned to go out in about 6:15-20, run the middle miles strong and just see what would be left for the hilly final two miles. Mikko said he’d go in about 6:30 and try to pick it up. McCaleb said she planned for 7:00 pace.

How did it go?

The first turn was only 100 meters after the start, and I took it cautiously in the back of that first wave (sub 7 pace) of a 100 or so runners. We made the turn and I checked my watch to see about 6:00 pace, so I eased up and Mikko took off. He pulled away steadily. I was probably in 50-60th place through most of the first mile, a gap formed as we headed north on Fish Hatchery Road into the wind and rather than lead a group of runners who might be slowing up, I surged a bit to catch the tail end of that group. Mikko was 6:05 and moving up (that would be his slowest mile split of the day) and I was 12 seconds back in 6:17.

That was on a net downhill, but into a headwind. I guess where I should have been, although at the time it felt a little quick. My breathing was in control, however, as we turned south in the 2nd mile and ran past the fish hatchery. We had a couple risers just before 2 miles and I backed off on those, not wanting to dig into my oxygen reserves too early, 2nd mile was 6:22. My thought was can I hold this for another 25 or so minutes? Mikko was out of sight by the end of the second mile, and I was in a no-man’s land. One guy had passed me in mile two and I passed a couple. But for the next three miles I was pretty much on my own with a single runner some 50 meters ahead and I could hear no one from behind.

On the bike path, and the flattest part of the course, miles 3 and 4 went by smoothly in 6:13 and 6:15. I felt pretty good, but kept my effort in check knowing there would be some hills in the fifth and sixth miles. We turned onto Syena Road just before the 4 mile marker and had our first real climb, a 45 foot hill over about 0.2 mile. It was over fairly quickly, and I eased up a little–2 miles left is still a long ways to go in a 10K.

Then I heard voices. A lot of chatter from maybe 40 meters back. I think they must have started in the 7:00 wave and were doing this a progression run. They were talking it up, and I actually looked back, cursing them slightly for I was on the edge and they’re having a lively conversation. And gaining.

They caught me at about mile 5 (6:18), but by then the chatter had quieted some. Looked like high school-aged boys and either their coach or a father of one of them. I hung on for a bit, but they were going sub 6 pace and I wasn’t able to sustain that.

The last mile would be the toughest. The biggest hill had about 50 feet of gain over 0.3, with the middle part at a 6% or 6.5% grade. I really had to slow my roll there, and might have lost a place or two. At the crest my stomach started turning inside out and I heaved a couple times. It took about 30 seconds of easier running to regroup. Over this stretch I was passing a couple runners, a couple would pass me.

We had two short (0.1) rollers over the last half mile, Tamara was at the bottom of the last hill (0.3 to go) cheering us on. I crested that rise and hit 6 miles just before making the final turn (6:28 mile). With the last 350 m a net downhill, swooping toward the finish banner I wound it up, still hoping to break 39, but rolled through in 39:11, 1st in age group by several minutes, 43rd overall out of some 2000 participants.

I’m still happy with the result. I paced well (GAP miles between 6:12 and 6:20) and ran at my fitness level. 86.4% age grade is down from the 90+ I was running earlier this year, but being six and a half weeks post marathon I felt good about it. It just takes some time to fully recover and perhaps more importantly to rebuild that aerobic fitness after such and effort an some downtime.

Mikko and McCaleb finished 4th and 3rd in their age group (Mikko missing 2nd by just 5 seconds) and were happy with their races.

I got to meet Joe, a long-time online friend, soon after the race and we chatted a bit before the shivers took over. Did a short, somewhat hobbling 1 mile cool down (my sciatic seemed to be acting up and my lower leg kept giving out), and hopped into the car to warm up and get read for the Thanksgiving meal.

In short, we had a great trip in to Madison and had a fun run on Thanksgiving. And that’s a wrap on 2023’s racing calendar!

Like the seasons in a year, running has its changes. Unless you are a relative newbie in your first few years of training, or have increased your training volume and intensity the fairly recent past, you are going to have ups and downs in training and fitness. That’s the nature of the sport, and most of us can’t be “on” all the time. However, if you like to race just for its own sake there is a good probability that you’ll have to deal with some ebbs in performance and when you are in an ebb you often need to be able to handle that with some humility and grace.

I am in such a state.

Coming off the Chicago Marathon last month I did not need to run a race this past weekend, and even less so doing the disastrous 4K two weeks ago, but there are not many opportunities to run cross country in Colorado and this is the season. Besides, the final race of the year for me will be a 10K on Thanksgiving, and being seven weeks after the marathon I hope to have had enough recovery time to run a good time, maybe 90% age grade which would be about 37:45.

Maybe I should take more of a definitive break from any quality work or training, but I signed up anyway for last weekend’s 5K Colleen DeReuck Classic, USATF state cross country championship knowing that I’m still not fully recovered from the marathon block and in particularly the race itself. Plus with winter ahead, late-November through most of January will be my break from racing, and when I’ll be doing a lot of training volume on skis as well as running. At least in my narrow, one-sided lens doing this little string of three races was logical and justifiable. Or maybe it is just a fools journey and I should take a longer break.

Training

My mileage has crept up following the first weeks of recovery, and two weeks ago with 47 and 52. With marathon taper and recovery, my six week average was only about 40 miles a week. Some runners seem to get a boost after a marathon block and run PRs or extremely well immediately following their big race. I am (and almost always have been) the opposite. Marathons beat me up and it usually takes a couple of months to feel right again.

There was a time (in my late 20s into my 40s) when 40-50 miles a week was all I would do, although I would make up for the lower mileage with two or three quality workouts a week, but I kept getting injured. Over the past 20 years I prefer to be 60+ miles a week, preferably averaging in the upper 60s with frequent 70 mile weeks interspersed with drop down weeks to rest for races.

I had a couple decent workouts, with tempo reps on hills and and reps progressing from threshold to CV (critical velocity). A couple weeks ago I did 20 minutes of 4-6 minute reps, and last Tuesday it was 2X 5 minutes at threshold followed by 4X 3 minutes at CV effort. That was actually a pretty decent workout, and I figured four days before the race would provide enough recovery if I took it easy for the rest of the week. I did, just running an easy 6.5 miles on Thursday and 4.5 Friday but maybe that wasn’t enough of a taper to be sharp for a Saturday race. I went in figuring to run fast than last year’s 20:36 (my worst race of 2022, when I had a cold), and thought a 6:30 pace (low 20s, which is what I did in 2021) on the tough two loop course in Boulder would be attainable.

A low 20s should be enough to win my age group by a large margin, as well as to beat all of those in the 60-64 category, as well as most in the 55-59.

That was the goal.

The Race

Although this was just a training race, I was nervous at the start because I know the course and it’s unrelenting nature and I remembered how difficult it felt last year. They held us on the line for the clock to tick to 9:45. The race was started by Olympic Gold Medalist Constantina Dita, who lives in Boulder.

I sprinted off the line for about 6 seconds and was near the lead momentarily, and then backed down into an even pace.

I have to admit it felt like 6:20 pace as we rounded Viele Lake and headed toward the hill, it’s less than 10 meters of climbing over 200 meters but in the middle it ranges from 6% to 9% grade, which is enough to take the wind out of you for the next couple of minutes. Fortunately, we only had to run it twice.

I had just worked my way through a pack of runners around the lake and led a group of about six or seven other runners up and over the hill. I just passed Tom from our rival team and I could hear people cheering for Jay, also from that team and he was just a second or so behind. Me of old would be 10 or 15 seconds ahead of these guys, but not on Saturday. Tom sprinted past at the crest and just after I split the mile in 6:38, and that was pretty much the only time I looked at my watch.

By the bottom of the long-gradual downhill (probably 400 meters) Tom eased up and I passed again, as we circled back along the ditch I could tell Jay was right on my tail. I maintained my effort but just before half way Jay went by. That was decision time, try to stick with him and grind it out for another 10 minutes or settle into my own private Boulder funk and at least keep some semblance of contact.

By the time we had rounded Viele Lake a second time Jay had mounted an 8-10 second lead and that pack had swallowed me up. But at least I was maintaining as we picked off a few others who had slowed.

The low point of the morning was hitting the hill a second time and slowing to a crawl on that steep section. Jay got a couple more seconds on me and I fell to the back of the pack. I regrouped somewhat on the long downhill, keeping in contact. With about 500 to go I surged some and pulled ahead of the group. There were three just ahead and then Jay still a good 10 seconds up. Over the I passed the three with about 300 to go, and rounded the final turn in a full sprint. I was 5.5 seconds behind Jay in 20:52, so 16 seconds slower than my virus addled time from last year.

Not as bad as two weeks ago, but somewhat like Bolder Boulder in the spring, not a great day. You have to roll with days like Saturday and accept the outcome.

My post-marathon recovery got off to a bumpy start, I caught a cold virus in Chicago, probably riding all those crowded trains or at the marathon expo on Saturday. Symptoms kicked in Tuesday, but by Friday I was feeling mostly normal, so this was a short-live and mild cold.

I took off five days from running, and started back up on Saturday the 14th with an easy jog in the woods and creek trails along Bear Creek. Since then I have run 6 days a week and added a little bit of cycling and core work. With weeks of 36, 47, and 52 I’m starting to get my legs under me again, but not without a setback last weekend.

Maybe against better judgment in hindsight, I signed up for a short 4K cross country race in Boulder. 4K is definitely too short for XC, but then again it once I got out there it felt too long. After a mild couple of weeks the weather turned cooler on Friday, with temps only in the 30s, and Saturday’s forecast was for colder yet, with about 30 degrees aby race time. However, when I arrived to the park in North Boulder it was only 24 and breezy with snow flurries.

The loop was really small, 1K, and 2X 1.5K (which was just the main loop with a couple fingers on the infield), but it was hilly and slow. No one ran particularly fast, I ran really slow. Plan was for a start at 10K effort 6:30s and then working down to 5K effort with a strong finish over the last km. I figured final time be in the 15s somewhere and imagined it would all feel easy.

That didn’t happen and it wasn’t.

My first km was about where I had expected 4:10 or so, but I felt slow off the bat, and within a couple hundred meters I was struggling with my breathing. The first mile was only 6:48 (that’s just a few seconds under sea-level marathon pace) but I decided to ease my effort from that. For the rest of the way I only averaged 6:50s to finish as the last male and near the bottom overall (17th of 24 I think).

Looking at my heart rate data, it spiked to 159 (96% of maximum) in the first mile, and that is not sustainable for more than a few minutes. So backing down was the only option. It held at low 150s for the final 10 minutes of this cardiovascular debacle.

What happened? I think a combination of not being fully recovered/prepared (no speed work in five weeks), and the shock from the cold weather. All my other runs until Friday’s had been in the 40s or warmer, so 24 was a shock. No big deal.

This week I had a couple pretty good workouts, a set of hill/tempo repetitions on Wednesday, and a set of 10X 2 minute reps on rolling/hills on Friday. On these my heart rate held at moderate levels 140s for the tempo work on Wednesday 140s-low 150s for the shorter reps on Friday. These workouts indicated low-mid 39 minutes for an altitude 10K, low or sub 38 at sea level. I’d be happy with that this month.

Seems like Saturday was just an anomaly.

I do have another cross country race next weekend (five weeks after the marathon, and that’s still kind of soon), and a 10K road race on Thanksgiving. I’m not too concerned about the 5K, it’s more of a tune-up. The 10K, I’d like to run faster than my 12K split of 38:00, from September.

In the meantime I’ll keep upping the miles, into the 60s for a couple weeks. I’ll cut back for the turkey trot, and then winter base really kicks off, hopefully with some cross country skiing every week. Ten hour weeks, with two workouts on average, will be the standard from December into spring.