The Magic Mile

Meeting Jeff Galloway at the
2012 Iron Horse Half Marathon was
one of the highlights of my running life..

The Magic Mile is a keystone in legendary running coach, Jeff Galloway’s approach to training. Whether your goal is getting healthier, running a 5K for charity, or setting a new PR in the Marathon, The MM is the tool you use to benchmark your strength and endurance, and to set your goals. Here’s how Jeff explains it on his website, www.jeffgalloway.com:

• Warm up with a slow one mile run.
• Do a few acceleration-gliders, [short speed intervals, followed by easy jogging.]
• Pace yourself as evenly as possible on each quarter mile.
• Run about as hard as you could run for one mile – but no puking!
• Keep walking after the time trial for 5 minutes.

Plugging your time into the calculator on Jeff’s site gives you your training pace, and predicted finish time for all the major distance events.  I’ve used it over and over again, and yes, it works. So yesterday, as the spring chapter of #reboot2014 came to a close, I decided to take my running pulse on the Legacy Trail.

The Synovial Capsule: Doc says Pennsy's is a little bit squished

First, a little background: I started training for a May 17th 10K race back in the icy days of late March. One morning in early April, after teaching a water fitness class, (the lowest of low impact aerobics,) I felt a sort of popping in my left knee. My 54 year old joints do the snap,crackle, pop quite a bit in the morning, so I didn't think much of it, but when I climbed up the ladder and onto the deck, the added gravity let me know this was no ordinary Old Guy noise. A mild ache started that morning, just under the interior side of the patella, and even now, sitting at the keyboard four months later, it is still there. I started treating it with RICE:  rest, ice, compression, and elevation. I even watched the Cats lose the NCAA final game to UConn with my leg iced, wrapped, and up on a cushion. But it didn't seem to get any better. My race training changed gradually from running to jogging to limping to walking. I noticed that low impact movement seemed to help, but the knee would stiffen painfully when I sat still, even for just a few minutes. I made it to race day for the sake of the kids I was mentoring, but have not run since then. Two weeks ago, I saw the doc. She took some x-rays and found a little arthritis and some compression in the interior capsule of the left knee. So the good news is there's not soft tissue damage and nothing requiring surgery. The bad news is that there isn't an easy way to make the pain go away. I'll be following up with the sports medicine clinic, but for the present, a painful knee is just going to be part of the deal for me.

Lexington's first Full
May 17, 2015

I was determined not to let pain stop my progress toward my weight loss goals for the year or my May 2015 Marathon, so I walked instead of running. I've discoverd some big differences between walking and running, which I'll be exploring at length in future posts, but the most practical difference is that walking takes a lot longer. I had been training at 11-12 minute miles. Each walking mile can take me as much as 20 minutes. On the other hand, I have a lot less time to snack. You can always find a silver lining.

I found that I felt much better after teaching in the pool or the exercise studio. Soaking in the whirlpool after a workout seemed to give comfort as well. I can't take a lot of aspirin because of the blood thinners I've been on since chemo/radiation buggered my platelets, but the folks who make acetaminophen are always happy to see me.I also bought a small heating pad for post workout recovery. After a month of this regimen, the pain started to lessen and I began planning for the Magic Mile I had on my training schedule. 

Here is how I planned the splits for my 4 mile training run:

• One mile of brisk walking
• One mile of 0:15/0:45 run/walk intervals
• One mile run (The Magic Mile)
• One mile of 0:15/0:45 run/walk intervals

I followed this with 30 minutes of deep water running at the Y, a 15 minute soak in the whirlpool, then I drove home for some OTC pain pills, a nap, and about an hour with the heating pad. 

How did it go? Better than I'd hoped. I ran the Magic Mile in 11:31, about 2 minutes slower than my personal best, but let's face it:  I am a long way from my best today. More importantly, I ran without pain for the first time since April. I'm not ready to run regularly yet: I calculated my training pace at 16:58, which is a steady 3.5 mph walk. This morning, the knee was stiffer than it has been in a while, but a 3 mile hike downtown and back made it happy again.

Eyes on the Prize: Raising $10,000 for LS@Y

Looking into my crystal ball, I see 14 miles on the schedule this week, which should be easy to reach. I'll be skipping the Independence Day Bluegrass 10,000 for the first time in several years, but still have hopes for the 5K Midsummer Night's Run in August. I wanted to have a couple of Half Marathons under my belt before May, but have not committed to any yet. My real goal for my marathon is to raise $10,000 for LIVESTRONG at the YMCA, and if that means saving my knees for one last long push, then that's what I'll do. I don't want to do more damage to my body; I want to be smart; I'm getting the best advice I can, and being very conservative. Dropping pounds can only help, and I'd like to lose about 25 more this summer. In future posts, I want to talk about how the pain is affecting my plans, my form, and my mental discipline

I want to finish with something my shrink is teaching me: pain is a part of life. The only way to live without suffering is to keep yourself numb: that's how an addict thinks, and I've seen enough to know that addiction is a doomed strategy. The key to living a rich, full, and meaningful life is knowing your values, committing to action that leads you toward them, and embracing both the pain and joy that are part of your life's journey. 

You can't obliterate suffering. You can't ignore it. But you can learn to accept it when it comes, to make room for it in your life, and carry it along with you as you travel toward becoming the person you want to be. 

And that's the thinking I hope can keep the Fat Man Running: at least for a little while longer.

Peace,

Pennsy

#401: The Big One

Most sensible marathon training programs recommend a long 20 miler before your race. The theory is that if you can run 20, you can probably run 26.2. Because in the not too distant past I couldn't even run 1, I am unpersuaded by this hypothesis. Guru Galloway suggests a different approach. If you can run 26.3, then you can absolutely run 26.2. He hasn't failed me yet, so on Good Friday, I took his advice. Here's yesterday's log entry.

34°-56°. 26.55 mi/05:55:41 @ 8:04 AM. The Big One. Lime Pegasus. 2:00 run/1:00 walk. Stopped at all 3 YMCA's.  A little cold, but otherwise, a fantastic day for a run! Time to start tapering.

I realize that my enthusiasm probably gets monotonous. I'd apologize for that if it wasn't so genuine. But the truth is, I find something to love about every run. Here's what I loved about The Big One.


I was up at 5:30 with the dogs, so I spent some time on Garmin Connect revising my course for the day. The day before, I had laid out a huge circle: one that hit the biggest hill I know in Lexington at just about the same distance as the mountain climb in the Pittsburgh Marathon. That afternoon, I got in the car and drove the route, just to be sure I was familiar with all the turns. It was deadly dull. Lots of miles along Man O' War Blvd, the bypass that orbits about 3/4 of the city. There are sidewalks, which is a plus, but there are also lots of cars zooming past, and fairly new residential developments surrounded by privacy walls and other barricades. As I drove it, I noticed how uninspired I was feeling. It was like miles and miles of the same hill again and again. I did not feel eager to run this course, and I took that as a very bad sign.


Plan B was to plot a more urban course. No giant hill, but lots of rolling climbs through city streets. To keep myself interested, I chose a gimmick; I would run past all three YMCA locations in the city, starting and finishing at North: my home Y. 


I loaded the course onto the Garmin, and waited for the sun. Coffee and toast with jelly. Grease the feet and nips. Don the running togs. Hit the bathroom. Check the weather. 34... huh? 34°? What's up with that? We just went through the warmest winter in my lifetime and barely ever saw 34°! Now was  a puzzler. How should I dress? I knew it was going to take me between 5.5 and 6 hours to run this distance. By the time I was finished, the temp might be in the low 60's.  In that heat, tights and a jacket would cook me. I decided to tough out the cool morning temps in shorts, gloves, and a long sleeved tech shirt. Feed the dogs. Kiss Mrs P. Hit the road.


I tried to start out easy, but the shadows were long, the wind was cold, and running felt a lot better than walking, so I just kept going. One measure of the shock of starting was my heart rate. My pulse averaged 149 BPM that first mile, about 20 BPM faster than my average for the run. Early on it spiked at 169, which is my theoretical maximum heart rate. Consequently, I ran that first mile a minute and a half faster than my target pace. My heart soon settled down, and so did my split times, but it took me a while to really find a comfortable way to move through the chill.


The first leg was a 5 mile jog to the North Y. The Garmin quickly scolded me. In the fog of early morning, I had planned my course to go to the Beaumont Y first, on the southern end of town. By the time I realized this, I had gone about 2 miles, and did not relish the prospect of doubling back and adding 4 miles just to get back on course, so I stayed on Broadway, moving north. From here on in, I would improvise.


I reached the Y in about an hour. Way too fast. I stopped for a pee and to top off my water bottle. Said "Hi," to Coach Melissa who offered to come get me if I crashed on the road. I had one of my PowerBar gummy energy chews, scanned my card at the door, and headed off toward the High Street Y.


High Street is the downtown Y in Lexington. I moved south through neighborhoods that had seen some hard times. The houses needed repairs that no one could afford. The dogs behind chain link fenceswere tough and loud. The sidewalks were rough and perilous. I kind of liked running here. People on the street sometimes nodded at the goofy old white man jogging through the 'hood. I smiled back. It was actually a very nice leg of my trip. I reached High Street in good time, chatted with the girl at the desk. Scanned my card, used the can, and topped off my water bottles. Then it was off on the long trek to Beaumont.

"Bow to the Brow"

I jogged out Nicholasville Road, through the UK campus. The school is still hung over from Monday's NCAA men's basketball championship, and every gas station has a vendor selling over-priced tee shirts celebrating Gr-8-ness and "The Brow," Anthony Davis: an extraordinarily talented young man who is about to become a very rich one. I passed book stores and hookah lounges. Now and then, another runner passed me, sometimes smiling at the goofy old fat man jogging in the cold wearing shorts and little more than a pajama top. As I waited for the light to change at the top of the very long hill that runs from town to Pasadena Drive, I heard a car horn and someone shouted my name. It was Bob, my training buddy and fellow half-marathoner from the week before. He smiled and hooted encouragement as I trotted through the cross-walk. It was like a shot of energy for me as I started along the ridge that would lead me to the big Beaumont Y.


Beaumont Centre is an amazing facility. It's the size of a small high school, and has multiple pools, basketball courts, and more class rooms than I can count. A nice young man joked with me about all the monitors I was wearing as I scanned my card for the third time today. Along with the Garmin, I was wearing my Timex to beep the Run/Walk intervals, and the heart monitor was visible through the damp spot on the chest of my shirt. I guess I did look kind of silly. But then the boy had no idea what an odyssey I was on. I decided not to brag about it, hit the can, topped off my water bottles, and headed back toward North.

Transylvainia University

Like so many of Lexington's streets, the main north/south artery changes names several times. Harrodsburg Road becomes South Broadway, then North Broadway, then Paris Pike as it passes through town. I hit nearly all of them as I came through downtown around lunch time. Here I encountered other joggers, business people rushing to lunch, and a tourist or two in town for opening day at Keeneland, shaking their heads at the old hick running in the cold in his underwear. North Broadway passes Transylvania University, a beautiful old private college where the streets are lined with white ornamental cherry trees.   As I approached the North Y and my 20th mile, I thought about it being Good Friday. Was I doing some sort of penance run, an act of piety to remember the day? I decided that I was enjoying this far too much for that. Instead, I was running as an act of reverence, honoring the day by remembering the life I had nearly lost. I reached the Y at right around 21 miles. I was going to be a little short of my goal, so I needed to add some distance on the way home. More improvising. After topping off my water bottles and forgetting to pee, I headed for home and the hills of Versailles Road.


Pennsyltuckians say "ver-SAILS". There's one in Kentucky and one north of Pittsburgh and they are both pronounced the same way. Snobs in Lexington love to make fun of this, and I always ask them if they call Paris, KY "pear-EE." I really should work on being less of a wise guy. Versailles Road is not pretty, at least not in town. Bridges over train tracks. Old strip malls. Seedy motels. One of Lexington's toughest public housing developments. I jogged past a bus station where two guys with that rough urban redneck vibe were dancing the preliminaries of a fist fight. A friend drove by and honked. Another witness. I climbed the three big hills that lead to the last turn toward home, noting the moment when I passed 23 miles. Farther than I'd ever run before. At 25 miles, I swear I could hear crowds cheering, even if the only person around was a little Latino lady, squatting beside a table full of perfumes she was selling. We exchanged smiles and I have no idea what she made of me. I looked down and was pleased to see there was no blood on the front of my shirt. Aquaphor had done the trick. I was within a mile of my goal, and it felt like a victory lap.

How 26.2 feels

Somewhere around 25 1/2 miles, I heard a car horn and the voice I love best in the world."GO BOB! YOU CAN DO IT!" God had arranged Mrs P's schedule so she was driving home just as I was finishing my run. If I was tired after that, I didn't feel it. I watched her disappear up the hill and thanked God for such a woman. She's spent nearly 25 years saving my life in one way or another. Now, she was going to finish The Big One with me.


26 miles. 26.1. 26.2. I didn't want to stop. I wanted to go for 27. 30. 50. I understand now why some people burst into tears at the finish line of a marathon. It's a completely insane and nearly impossible goal that eliminates your fear of anything in the world. As I hit the stop button on my watch at 26.5 miles, I thought to myself that there was no challenge that could possibly frighten me. I was going to be able to run a marathon.


So that was The Big One. I won't be going that far again until race day. "The hay is in the barn," runners like to say. For the next four weeks, my runs will be about maintaining my conditioning, building my strength, and raising money for LIVESTRONG at the YMCA. A month from today, it will all be over. But then, I don't think this one will ever really be over. This experience has changed me in way I never thought would be possible. There's just no telling what other changes are waiting for me between  here and the finish line on the Boulevard of the Allies, right down the street from the newspaper where my father and his father earned their living. There's still a long way to go.


And I'm going to love every step of the way.


Peace, 
Pennsy

#400: Run the Bluegrass Half Marathon

An unlikely cover boy

The Run the Bluegrass was my second Half Marathon. Parts of it were easy and familiar to me, others left me struck with awe, admiration, or stupor, depending on the circumstances.

My pre-race routine is getting pretty set. In the days before a race, I prep as if it were a marathon. Ease up on the the training. Focus on fruits, veggies, and whole grains at the table. I always pickup my race packet early so I don't have to figure out what to do with a plastic bag full of coupons and swag half an hour before the race. The day before, I do the sleep math, counting backwards. On site about 90 minutes early. Travel time. Two hours to dress, eat, and use the bathroom before I leave. Seven to eight hours of sleep. An hour to pack my bag. Wherever that puts me on the clock, is where I start my countdown. This weekend it was 8:00 PM, Friday night.

This little bald lady is tougher than you

We finished our LIVESTRONG at the YMCA session with a half hour walk on the Legacy. The girls zoomed on ahead while I walked behind with F, who is the toughest man I've ever met. F has had cancer three times. He also has a rare wasting disease that is slowly erasing his muscles. And he has the heart of a lion. I've watched him grimace as he squats four or five inches, the most his legs will allow. I've seen him progress from pantomime bench presses, straining to simply move his clenched fists up and down, to knocking out 12 reps with a 9 pound bar. I watched him get thrown off a treadmill, take stock of his bumps, ask for a hand back up, then get back on the thing and finish his cardio. F isn't exercising so he can fit into smaller jeans. F is fighting for his life. He's one of the reasons I keep asking you for money. (You can do that by clicking the link, by the way.)

We finished at 7:30, and I booked it on home. Mrs P had a hard day, and had stopped for pizza and beer. I was tempted for a moment, but the thought of port-a-potties somewhere around mile 10 convinced me that I'd be better off with a bowl of granola for supper. Then it was time to pack.

Locked and loaded

For me, packing is a fairly obsessive process. I empty out my whole bag onto the bed. Don't need the swim goggles. Don't need the lifting gloves. One wet sock? Seriously? Get a towel. Extra towel. Three towels. You never know. Find the expensive running socks. Both pairs, in case of puddles. Which shoes? The new shoes, of course. My favorite compression shorts? My black LIVESTRONG running shorts? They're in the washing machine. Crap. Put them in the dryer and pray not to forget where you put them in the morning. (as if I'd forget to put on pants. Garmin? Charged. Timex? Run walk interval alarm set. Tape, Body Glide, Aquaphor, Band-aids? Check. Finally, I lay out my new dri-fit YMCA tank and pin my bib on. Mrs P managed to get the blood spots out from last weeks long run, but in my mind, I know they're still there, right over my heart. Pack and repack two or three times, just to be sure I haven't forgotten anything. Trim my toenails. Take a shower. In bed by 9:00, where visions of Bluegrass hills dance in my head. 

The dogs wake me at 2:00 to go out for a pee in the rain. The alarm wakes me at 5:00 and it's race day.


Weight? 254. Excellent. Heart rate? 58. Right on. One cup of coffee. One bagel with jelly. Wait for nature's call. Swap my jammies for the royal blue compression shorts and the black shorts. Mrs P is stirring in the bedroom, so I go back there to finish dressing. Grease up the feet with Aquaphor. Pull on the good socks. Double knot the shoes. Sun block. Slather the nips. Try to put 'Iron Man" cartoon band aids on them. Mrs P points out I've done that backwards, as the band aids fall off my lubricated chest. Finally, pull on the shirt and my YMCA Staff fleece to keep warm, and let my sweet bride go back to sleep. She promises to be there at the finish line with her camera. 


Nature finally calls, but only on line 1. I finally give up on waiting for line 2 to ring and leave, hoping for the best.

 "Is this heaven?" "No, it's Kentucky."

You know the final scene from Field of Dreams where miles and miles of headlights are snaking along the road in the dark toward the baseball field? That's what I see in my rear-view mirror as I turn onto Versailles Road at 6:00 in the morning. All these people. From all over the country. All coming to run these hills that I love so much. Last night's rain has left a misty, mystical fog on the ground and the air glows with pre-dawn light.


Something cool is happening at these gatherings. I'm meeting friends. These are people I've run with. People from the Y. People I know on Facebook. Faces from other events. A guy I used to go to church with. Ladonna, my fellow cancer fighter. Bob, who swore me to secrecy about his training, who has been preparing for this day since autumn. I'm one of them, now. I'm part of the community of idiots who get up at 5:00 in the morning to run. And they're some of the most supportive, generous people I know.

LaDonna reminding me why we're here

I wander around the crowd, taking it all in. Long sleepy lines for the bathroom. Drowsy bodies in warm up clothes stretching on the floor. A few of us trotting around outside to get the blood flowing in the legs. Slowly, 2000 people gather at the starting line. The horn sounds, and we're off.


Actually, the elite runners are off. We mortals are waiting in a line four lanes wide to filter through the starting gate. It takes my group about four minutes to reach the gizmo that will read out timing chips. I start my Garmin, and we're off. 

Target pace? 13:00/min. Must have been the Gatorade...

I told you all about the course in last week's post. We flow along the curves and hills, this river of brightly colored running clothes. Runners are stopping to take pictures. We laugh to each other as each new climb starts. I tuck in behind one runner after another as I fall into my 3:00 run/1:00 walk intervals. Many who pass me early, I catch later when their legs start to tire. God bless Jeff Galloway. Every two miles or so, a crowd of cheering kids holds out paper cups. "Water? Gatorade?" I stick with water for the first half, then switch to the sweet sticky stuff at around 7 miles. The last 3 miles are a celebration for me. I follow a group of friends, much stronger runners than I, who are joking and teasing and stopping every few hundred yards to take pictures. This isn't a contest, it's a festival, it's a holiday for loving life. I run the last two miles faster than I ran the first, and as I approach the finish line, there is Mrs P, always beaming, shooting pictures through tears of pride. I feel myself choke up a little too, but I'm not sure if it's from emotion or if I'm having a heart attack. 

He's with Stupid

At the end of the finisher's corral, a person whose gender I don't even remember holds up a blue and white checked ribbon, just like the colors Secretariat wore, and slips my medal over my neck. I float through the crowd dazed until Mrs P catches up with me. My friend Bob greets me with a bottle of water and a banana in his hand. We embrace, take more pictures, smile and laugh, then drift off toward the parking lot. When I look over my shoulder, I see Bob, standing still, watching the crowd. He isn't ready to leave. He's drinking it in. 


I don't really have an ending for this. On the drive home, a thought came to me: How much better would our world be if every now and then, we all got together on a Saturday morning and ran together? I think it might make a big difference.


Peace,
Pennsy


Hey, don't forget to make your donation to Living Strong at the Y. It's easy, it's cheap, and you'll be a much better person if you do. Promise.

#391: Walk Before You Run Before You Walk, etc.

Living Strong at the Y
I launched a fundraiser yesterday, to coincide with my preparations for the Pittsburgh Marathon in May. I hope to raise $11,000 for LIVESTRONG at the YMCA. It's a program that helps cancer patients, survivors, and fighters like me to take control of our lives and wellness through exercise, nutrition, and education. This program has meant so much to me over the past year, and I want to help make sure it is available for many more cancer fighters after me. I'll be bombarding everybody who will listen with pleas for money over the next two months, so keep an open mind... and an open check book!

Training Week
It's been a pretty good training week, now that the great Groin Fest is over. I took a couple days off,. and the rest did me good. Not many miles, but I felt very strong and faster than I have been in a while. Looking for some Long Slow Miles this weekend when I hit the Run the Bluegrass course with the Striders. My cross-training included a great Zumba class on Sunday before work, and some quality laps in the pool. My stroke is getting stronger, but my endurance still leaves a lot to be desired. I'm doing my workouts 50m at a time, which is fine until the 9 year-olds come in and start swimming 500's.

In Praise of Walk Breaks
I have two friends at the YMCA who are training for upcoming races, one is a 3K, and one a half-marathon. At one time or another they have both expressed anxiety and frustration to me because they still can't "run the whole way." They really don't want to have to stop running and walk. And I have to ask myself, "Why?" Here's my tale of two Fat Men Running.

Before I bought into the Jeff Galloway Run/Walk/Run schtick, I logged fewer miles, I ran them more slowly, and they hurt more. The idea of completing a 10K was beyond my imagination. I didn't have many serious injuries, but I was sore a lot. I still took walk breaks... I just waited until I was too tired to run before I would take them. I didn't walk to recover, I walked to surrender.

Today, before I start a run, I set my watch to beep out the intervals I want to run/walk. If I feel like superman, I might take a break every 10 minutes. Once, when I felt especially bad, I set it to go off every 30 seconds. And I have to tell you, both felt like really good runs. When I know I'm going to be running for 3 or 4 hours, that first break after 4 minutes can seem a little goofy, but I know I'm saving gas for the end of the workout when the minutes are longer and the hills steeper. I'm not afraid to press my pace a little, because I know there's a walk break coming in just a few seconds. I can maintain good form after several miles, so I don't get as sore and tired in my upper body as I used to.

The bottom line for me is, I can run as often as I want to run, and I can enjoy every single step. I'm not going to be an elite runner. I will probably never win my age group, no matter how old I get. But I will be able to keep running and feeling great about it. I don't mind taking walk breaks at 51, if it means I can still be running when I'm 91, and that's my plan.

The secret to exercise success is finding something you love to do. Until you do that, you won't feel drawn to a workout, you'll have to push yourself toward it. But once you find that thing that makes you want to pack the bag, pull on the fins, or lace up the shoes and go, then by all means find a way to do it that doesn't turn your love into an obligation. I would never run if it were a chore. No sane person would do something that hurt every time they did it.

Take it from someone who lives at the back of the pack. The scenery is still beautiful, the cheers at the finish line are still sweet, and that medal still  feels great around your neck, even if you don't have to crawl to the stand to receive it.

Peace,
Pennsy

#383: A Week of Workouts

I'm fighting off a cold, so this morning I'm blogging instead of running the 13 miles I had planned. After I wake up a little more, I'm going to the gym to run some hill repeats on the treadmill in solidarity with my friends out there who are doing the real thing. Meanwhile, here's how the week went.


Strength and Cross Training


Here's how my circuit workout is progressing. 

	12/28	12/30	1/2	1/5
Squats	72	86	93	82
Push ups	70	68	81	66
Lunges	23	22	26	27
Planks	120	120	120	120
Leg curls	62	83	88	82
Russian Twist	58	64	91	84
Pull ups	18	20	9	21
Dips	41	41	25	46

 It's pretty clear that I was getting tired by Thursday, even after a day off. I think that's when my cold was starting to catch hold. During my workout, it felt as if my upper body was really weak, but now that I look at the numbers, I see that my arms and shoulders are actually getting stronger. That's the kind of surprise that makes me glad I keep a log.


I started a TRX class on Friday. It really challenged me in a good way. TRX is a body-weight exercise you do using nylon straps hanging from the ceiling. I can't really describe it, so here's a video.

This workout hits all my weak links, engages muscles head to toe all the time, and provides a great, low-impact cardio challenge. I'm going to like this, and will be making it a weekly part of my cross training routine.

One of my favorite parts of the week was a 2 mile walk with my friend Dee Dee on Friday. She's one of my LIVESTRONG  sisters, and has had a much tougher cancer battle than mine. I admire her courage and determination as she continues choosing life. Our walk was a nice way to button-up a good week.

Running


I did quite a bit of work on the treadmill this week. I had trouble finding a machine with a heart rate monitor I could rely on, but for the most part, the pace and distance readings I got from the treadmill were consistent with my Nike+.

Sunday, 11 miles (6.5 LSR, 5 race)
Tuesday, 2.25 miles (Recovery run on Treadmill)
Thursday, 6 miles ( 2 Tempo on Treadmill. 4 intervals)

Thursday's intervals were fun. I was at the Arboretum and my legs were very heavy and tired. I didn't want to bail out on the workout, but I could tell I wasn't going to make it using my usual approach. I switched my watch to 30 second intervals. 0:30 run/0:30 walk. There were a couple of very cool things about this run. I was able to run much harder, because I knew there was a break coming up any second. I was able to recover quickly, because I had only run for 30 seconds. And my time for the four miles was 47:13. That's 11:48 per mile. Essentially, walking half the time did not slow me down. It allowed me to run faster, longer. There's no way I could run 9:00 miles for 20 minutes straight, but that's just what I did, using these very short intervals. Good old Galloway strikes again!

Nutrition

Something weird is happening. I'm gaining weight. This makes no sense to me, but there you have it. I spoke with Nancy, the Dietician at the Y, and her first question was, "are you getting enough protein?" I'm not really sure, so I'll be keeping a food log for the next week, then she and I will sit down and look it over. My body fat is staying pretty consistent, around 23%, but if I'm going to be logging all these miles, I really don't need any extra weight to carry along. Training for a marathon is a really bad time to think about going on a diet, but I don't want my eating to be working against me.

Epiphany


So yesterday was Epiphany: Twelfth Night; the last day of Christmas. For the church, it's the finish of a journey that started way back at the beginning of Advent. Tradition has it that Epiphany is the day the wise men finally made it to Bethlehem to visit the Holy Family. Here's my favorite line from that story.

Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way ~ Matthew 2:12

There is a literal meaning to this passage, of course. The magi took a different route home than the one they had traveled to Bethlehem. But I think it means something more.They had made a long, difficult trip, these wise men from the east. Finally, they did what they set out to do: they met Jesus, and the meeting changed them. Their lives were not the same once they saw Christ. They had to live another way. That's the heart of Epiphany, to me. Once you see God in the flesh, once you bear witness to the Holy Spirit in the eyes of another human being, you just can't keep living the way you used to live. If we take Christmas seriously, if we are really willing to take the journey of the Magi, we have a chance to be changed. Once we know that Jesus lives in our neighbors, we can never treat them the same way. Christmas can change us. We can come to the manger just as we are, but like JT says, we can go home another way. 

Merry Christmas, for another year.

Peace,
Pennsy

#379: A Christmas Day Run

Nephew.. keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine. - A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens.


So here's how I kept Christmas this year:

‎32° 10.01mi/2:07:47 @ 9:15. AGL/ParkersMill Loop. Adidas Grey. 5:00 run/0:45 walk. Splits: 12:53 12:11 12:12 12:15 12:33 12:54 12:55 13:17 13:18 13:10.. Once you're off the highway, this is a beautiful course. Hills, farms, horses, South Elkhorn Creek. Perfect Christmas run.

It was still dark when the dogs woke me. I let them out and bundled up next to Mrs P for a few extra minutes. Before long, Clare started yipping and a smoke alarm started the chirp that tells you it's time to remove the battery and forget to replace it until the time changes again. I got up and fumbled with the thing for a while, then let the dogs back into the house and gave them breakfast. Put on a pot of coffee. Pulled on the running clothes I had laid out last night. Made some toast.


Even under the best circumstances, it's a bit of a chore to get Mrs P up and moving on Sunday morning. Of course, last night we were at church until late, then we came home and made our final preparations for Santa's arrival, (just in case, you know?) I was pretty confident she would be sleeping in this Christmas. The dogs returned to their naps, and I opened up mapmyrun.com to find a route for the morning. There is a road near our home I've been wanting to run, but it's pretty narrow and I worry about traffic. I figured Christmas morning was likely to be a low volume time, so I laid it out. 10 miles. Rolling hils. Country roads. Just my style.


While I was there, I did a search and checked out the route for the Pittsburgh Marathon. Man, it looks so brutal. There's a nearly 200 ft climb from mile 11 to mile 12. That's steeper than anything I've ever tried to run. I'm going to need to spend some time in the mountains this winter.


Once the sun had come out and the temperature had risen to a balmy 32°, I put on my warm-up suit and reflective vest and hit the road. The morning was just beautiful. The steely gray sky gradually warmed to clear blue as the day warmed my face. The first 3 miles are along a highway that I have driven many times. It's such a different perspective when you run. At one point, a bunny loped along ahead of me, by the side of the road. I'm not sure if he was running away, or trying to coax a tortoise into a race. We had fun for a few yards, anyway. My route took me past my beloved Actors' Guild, then turned toward farmland. This little road follows the banks of South Elkhorn Creek for a while, then climbs up toward Bluegrass Airport. Running past horse farms on a sunny morning is heavenly. Doing it on Christmas morning defies any language I can put together. I can't explain this, but when I'm running, I find the smell of horse manure in a field to be so exhilarating. It smells of earth and life and it's just so... I don't know... pure, you know? 


It got me thinking about Joseph. Poor, old, quiet Joseph. He had to walk a long way, a lot longer than I ran this morning. He had a young finance who had turned up mysteriously pregnant. He had a dream telling him he should marry her anyway. Now, he had the Romans calling him back to Bethlehem for a "census," whatever that meant. Probably more taxes. This was no way to start the winter. Then, when he finally dragged his little family into town, they couldn't find a bed. Wound up sleeping in the barn. Surrounded by animals. The smell of horse manure. I wonder if the carpenter from Nazareth took any comfort from that. Sitting there awake while his wife delivered somebody's child in the straw. Smelling the animals. Hearing their breathing and shuffling feet. And once it was all over, and Mary slept with the child on her breast. Did Joseph put his head down in the straw and look up at the stars, breathing in the earthy smells of the stable, wondering what just happened, and what it would mean for him and his bride-to-be? Before long, Joseph would be walking again, the Gospels tell us. This time, he walked all the way to Egypt while Herod hunted for the little boy hidden in swaddling clothes, riding in his mother's arms on a donkey laden with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Myrrh. Just what a newborn needs. Maybe he could sell it when they got to Egypt to buy some tools. I wonder if Joseph had any hope in his heart, in the midst of all that confusion. He was doing his best to do the right thing, and it was turning out to be more difficult than anyone could have anticipated. He would marry the girl. He would raise the boy. He would pretend nothing was wrong, that he couldn't hear the snickers, that it didn't hurt to know his wife had been unfaithful. He did it for the sake of the child; for the sake of the woman. He did the right thing. And in a way, Joseph taught his son how to do the right thing; even when it hurt; even when it made no sense; even when it cost more than anyone could have imagined. 


I made it home just as Mrs P was wrapping the last present. She got a set of Harry Potter DVD's. I got two books on marathons by Jeff Galloway and Grete Waitz. We went out to Hunan for dinner, but didn't have the Chinese Turkey. Now, as I type, three dogs are stretched out on the floor, Clare is curled up in my chair, Kizzie is sleeping on a blanket in front of the heating vent in our bedroom, and Maggie is rolled up in a ball on our bed. Mrs P is reading. It's as perfect a Christmas as I can imagine. I hope old Joseph got to enjoy one or two in his life. That's the best part about Christmas. It's the night Hope was born.

He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms.

Peace, and Merry Christmas
Pennsy

#376: You Only Get One Chance at your First Marathon

Pennsyltucky dreaming...

I now have 26.2 reasons to look forward to the new year. I sent the money in, and I’m registered to run the Pittsburgh Marathon on May 6. It is a long way, but then, so was 13.1. And 6.2. And 3.1. I thought 1.8 was going to kill me. And then there was that morning I had to stop and rest after crossing the street. A full marathon is a long way. But I know I can run one step. I’ll just keep doing that. Am I nervous? Yeah. Do I have a plan? Also, yeah.

I’m using a program from Galloway TrainingPrograms. It’s designed to prepare a first-timer to finish the race without injury and without swearing to never run another one. No speed records. No near-death experiences. No puking. After all, since it’s my first, no matter what time I get is going to be a personal best.

I’m doing two training runs a week to build strength and maintain conditioning, with a Long Slow Run (LSR) on the weekends. That will give my old joints plenty of time to recover between workouts. On Monday and Wednesday, I’ll be cross-training (XT). XT is the work you do because you’re too crazy to take a day off, but you don’t want to kill yourself. At least that’s how I understand it.

I have a lot of options for XT: weight lifting, circuit training, swimming, spinning, body-weight training, Pilates, TRX. I intend to mix them up to keep things interesting. I have three goals in cross-training.

1.      Continue building my endurance. Nothing matters more in long distance running. It doesn’t matter how fast you can run if you can’t keep going all the way to the end.

2.      Build core strength. Not just my abs. The skin around my belly is so stretched out, I don’t ever expect to see a six-pack, but I do need a strong center. That includes the whole abdominal girdle, stomach, sides, butt, and lower back. It’s important to give the running muscles a recovery day, so I won’t be doing so much leg work while I’m training for the race.

3.      Dump some ballast. I want to get my weight down about 15 pounds. When I’m climbing up that hill to Oakland, I don’t want to carry more than I have to.

4.      Get pretty. This is my vanity goal. I want to look better in a tee-shirt. I tend to overlook bench presses and curls and such movements because they’re so isolated. I’m going to take the opportunity to focus more on my upper body: arms, shoulders, chest, and back. I confess, there is a macho man hiding inside me, longing to come out and kick sand in cancer’s face.

I also have the Run the BluegrassHalf-Marathon tucked into my calendar on March 31. That fits nicely into my schedule as a tune-up for the big one. There’s also something poetic about running races in Kentucky and Pennsylvania this spring that warms my Pennsyltucky heart.

I’m planning a major fundraiser to go along with this race. I’ll have more to tell you about that later. I’ll only get one chance to run my first marathon, and I want to make the most of it. As always, FMR will be a big part of that journey.

I look forward to traveling with you.

Peace,

Pennsy

#351: A Dawn Run for a New Day

No seriously, RIGHT NOW!

Since Clare woke me up at 4:30 with her "I need to pee RIGHT NOW!" whine, it was easy for me to get out for a cool morning run. First I checked my email, and learned that an article I submitted has been published on Viewshound, a site that accepts contributions from writers and bloggers all over the world. It's a post that regular readers of FMR have probably already seen, but it was cool to get validation from strangers. You know how I love applause.

I hit the street just before 7:00. Today is a speed day on my training schedule. I've arranged my program based on three runs a week: an easy run at the beginning of the week; a short, hard run on Thursday or Friday; and a long, slow run on Saturday or Sunday. That long run increases gradually over the course of my training period, leading up to the half-marathon in October. It's an easy schedule, not exactly designed to win any gold medals, but based on Jeff Galloway's program and intended to get me from here to the finish line without getting hurt on the way.

I checked Swackett to see how the weather was doing. The air was a clear 65 degrees as I stepped out of the driveway. After days of brutal, humid heat, it felt amazing to be breathing air that was cooler and dryer than my own body. I did my usual warm-up, which is a walk around the block, gradually mixing in a few strides of running until I am jogging back past the front of our house. I pressed my tempo right from the start. I would like to break a 10:00 mile this month, and I wanted to find out what that kind of speed feels like. I didn't get all the way down to 10:00, but I did run both miles at the same 10:26 pace: fastest ever for me. Since I knew I'd be tiring quickly, I cut my Run/Walk ratio in half, running 5:00 and walking 0:30.

It wasn't long before my mind was clear and my attention focused fully on my breath and footfalls. As I finished, I realized that I really didn't remember much about the run. My thoughts were all about maintaining my rhythm, pressing back up to tempo when I slowed down. I came home after this short, hard run feeling energized and ready to start the day. After a long one, I usually want to take a nap. This morning, I'm ready to take on the world.

On the home front, we are finally, really out of the old house. I went over yesterday morning and scrubbed the floors. The place is not exactly pristine, not by a long shot, but it's ready for the new folks to come in and start making it their own. We had a lot of troubles and a lot of joyful times in that house. I hope we left a little love behind for the young couple who will sign the papers today. I always called that house "MarthaPark" because of all the trees. I've named our new home "SummerShade," in honor of the little town in western Kentucky where Mrs P grew up. Here's her post about our move. It sums up our feelings well.

We have lots of big plans for the rest of the summer. A race to train for, a couple of trips to plan, a play to rehearse and open, and of course many, many musty boxes to sort. We'll thrown away most of it, sell some, and keep what we need or want. It's a liberating project. And I'm really looking forward to getting all those cartons out of here so I can have my garage/porch/carport back. (Lurkers contemplating a burglary run... save yourself a trip. It's all junk. I'd throw the whole mess away if Mrs. P would let me.)

Today feels like turning a corner. Closing the sale of the house is a milestone we have been looking forward to for a long time. I'm sure we both doubted it would really come. Now that it's here, we can move on to "the next big thing," whatever that turns out to be.

And I know I'll be ready for it. Heck, I've already got my run in today.

Peace,
Pennsy

Expert du Jour - Jeff Galloway

I did ninety minutes of cardio today. A long, gentle run/walk on the treadmill, and a half hour on the elliptical. I really wanted to do 10K on the treadmill, but the left knee said it was time to step off, so I did. I wasn’t really paying attention to speed at all, just trying to listen to my body - run when i was ready, stop when it was time.

Weigh in tomorrow - I peeked at the scale today and am officially at a plateau. I have my quarterly check in with the trainer (Brad is my new man - Jordan is off playing professional football which I find to be incredibly cool). I’ll see what his thoughts are about how to get the fat burning motor started again.


EXPERT DU JOUR

I read a book this week, Running - Getting Started by Jeff Galloway. He’s a blogger and a columnist for Runner’s World and a 1972 Olympian, so I figured he had some valuable things to teach me. And so he did.

The thrust of his message to beginners is to avoid the pitfalls that make most people give up. He suggests a run/walk approach where you begin a run by walking at a very slow pace, then gently work your way up to short runs, stopping to walk again before you become breathless and tired. in this way, you avoid “overdoing” that causes the kind of fatigue and soreness that discourages so many new runners.

He had some things to say that surprised me. He does not think runners should lift weights, especially lower body exercises because they build up heavy muscle that you’re just going to have to haul around when you’re running.

He is also very much against stretching, (except in the case of IT band injury) which really caught me up short. His position is that stretching almost always does more harm than good, reduces your performance, and increases your recovery time.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone suggest that stretching was bad for you. Still, this is a very respected and experienced dude. I’m going to experiment with the no stretch thing for a couple of days, but it still sounds really weird to me.

It is a good book, though. Gallaway obviously loves running, and loves helping others to run. His passion shines from every page. I don’t intend to spend too much time reading books about running, but I think this one will be useful to me for a long time.

SPRINGTIME IN THE BLUEGRASS

Still, a good day to be Pennsy. Thanks to lynross for posting this beautiful photo on Webshots. The Bluegrass flora are starting to bud and bloom. I sure do love me some Kentucky today.

Peace,
Pennsy