The Bowlegged Runner

The trouble with doing any kind of sport is that if you want results, you need to be consistent with your training.

It’s easy for runners to go out and run.

The thing is that at a certain point, running is not sufficient to produce the results that you want, or even to prevent injuries.

Go to any physical therapist and he/she will come out with a list of the weaker parts of your body. Running will not improve those parts. You have to do various exercises.

I had a bout of ITB once and part of my regime at the physical therapist was a series of leg strengthening exercises.

The problem there is that once your physical therapy sessions are over, you risk reverting back to the old condition. But trouble is, since it’s not running, it’ll hard to do.

With the cold weather and end of year holidays, I will be running less. So the plan is to do more static exercises; perhaps every day. So that when the holidays are over, I can start ramping up for Napa Valley.

Anyway, the plan is to do the following:

(1) 3 sets of side leg raises for ITB prevention

(2) 3 sets of bicycle exercises for the abs

(3) 1x set of bird-dog for the butt et al

(4) 3 sets of a bastardized form of calf raises

(5) A glass Pinot Noir

The last is what I’m drinking now.

We’ll see how it goes…

In the mean time, the results for the Christmas Relays are in:

Fast Old Guys - 2:07:42 (7:10 pace) {86 overall 11/18 division}

Limping Reindeers 2:23:38 (8:03 pace) {149 overall 43/61 division}

Many thanks to Mark for organizing the teams and for the pics.

This was the second year I ran the West Valley Track Club’s Christmas Relays at Lake Merced in San Francisco.

My friend Mark knows a whole bunch of people who run. So every year, he tries to organize a number of teams for this event.

When I ran this last year, it was cold and wet. It was not so cold this year, but much wetter and actually rained during the first two legs of the relay and just before we left.

The challenge with a relay with many teams is to make sure that everyone can make it and to have enough “spare” runners. So the first thing I heard when I arrived was “Ben, do you want to run for another team?”

Ummm….

Each relay leg around the lake is about 4.46 miles. Not very much, but still a little challenging one week after finishing CIM. Two times round the lake?

My answer, of course, was “sure”!

I ended up running the first leg for one team and the third leg for another with something like 20 minutes to recuperate in between.

The first leg was slower than the second. I started off a little fast. I’d met another friend, Joe, who was going to run a sub-8 min/mile pace. So I said that I’d be following him: I didn’t want to run too fast after a marathon. But there’re intentions and then there’s the reality. And so, I started off a little fast. By mile 2, I’d slowed and Joe zoomed past me. I didn’t manage to catch up with him after that. I did about 34 minutes.

When I ran the second leg, I was already a little more familiar with the route and so ran a little more intelligently. I ran 33+ minutes but felt that it was easier with less huffing and puffing (think: severe asthma attack).

All in all, it was a fun race. Relays are great because you’re part of a team (or teams if you’re crazy/hardcore) and there’s the social aspect of that. Some guys even turned up at the porta potty queue and asked for volunteers to join their team!

To recover from last week’s marathon at Sacramento, I ran 3 slow miles at the hotel treadmill on Tuesday evening. It was somewhat painful.

Tomorrow, I’ll be driving up to San Francisco with a bunch of folks to run the Christmas Relays organized by the West Valley Track Club. Approx. 4.4 miles around Lake Merced.

It’s going to be wet. Like last year.

The rain that we missed in Sacramento will be present tomorrow. Hopefully, it’ll be warmer…

So how was CIM?

The thing about races is that 50% of the fun is the build up to the race, 40% is the social aspect of the race and 10% is at the point when you run (or limp) past the finish line.

So I generally blab like crazy before the race, then fall silent as I nurse my wounded pride (if it was a bad run) and my injuries/aches amid a painful fall back to reality. The latter being home, work and work-related travel.

Anyway, for me CIM was a success. I had originally aimed for 3:50 (3:55 being my PR pre-CIM) but I was able to finish in under 3:45. My chip time was 3:44:45 to be exact.

Yay!

I think I was able to do this thanks to several factors.

The first was mental. One of the RWOL runners, TankGirl, mentioned that she would take a gel every 5 miles. Until CIM, I was taking a gel on a time-basis (according to instructions) as opposed to one based on distance. For example, I would take one at +45 minutes, then at +1:30 etc.

By taking a gel every 5 miles, I was able to mentally split the marathon into 5-mile blocks i.e. by focusing on the next 5-mile point for the next gel.

The other factor was that I got my hill-running groove back. This is going to sound weird, but here it goes… This is a running gait that I had “discovered” while running RnR Seattle. It basically has my feet “glide” uphill, with arms low down next to my thighs and pumping forward and back, my head looking down at the feet of the person in front of me. By not lifting my legs too high, I was able to conserve energy and by not looking too far forward, I was not discouraged by the length of the uphill. For some reason, I had lost that gait post RnR Seattle and basically crashed and burned at the hilly SFM.

The third factor was that I learned from my son’s first half marathon when he ran RnR San Jose. He had thought of running with the 1:40 pace group. But his cross-country coach suggested that he run with the 1:30 pace group instead. Which he did and ran a sub-1:30 half marathon! Obviously, there are risks there. When I ran RnR San Jose for the first time, I had tried to keep up with the 1:45 pace group and died at mile 4.

For CIM, I had considered following the 3:50 pace group in order to beat my 3:55 PR. However, I decided to try for a 3:45 instead as a stretch goal.

Fortunately, during the first few miles, the 3:50 and 3:45 pace groups were within view of each other. I started off at the mid-pack. So the 3:50 group was ahead of me. When I caught up with them, I found that I had enough speed to overtake them, which I did.

I caught up with the 3:45 group and basically ran with them the rest of the way. There were times, especially towards the end, when they were really far ahead of me and I had to push to catch up.

It was tough.

In many ways, this was a classic marathon. I did not really hit the wall, but I automatically started slowing down at the last couple of miles and had to push hard to catch up with the pace group. The crowd support was awesome throughout most of the 26.1 miles and that helped fuel the adrenaline in the last miles along L Street. I actually managed to do a kick at the last few yards when we turned left towards the finish line and overtook several people.

At the end, it was a great experience.

The organization wasn’t perfect. There were no bus marshals at the pickup points so runners basically grabbed which ever bus turned up, although they did queue up to board the buses. Some bus drivers also got lost bring runners to the start. We could hear about every wrong turn on the radios.

The nice thing was that they allowed runners to stay in the buses to keep warm (temperatures were below 32 degrees). Several Sacramento organizations had tables set up with free coffee, food and even GU.

The organizers were proud of the fact that there were 26 porta potties for every runner, so queues were short.

The finish area was a challenge to navigate for exhausted runners. It was horribly crowded with friends and family jostling to find “their” runners. We had to wade/limp into that crowd in order to make our way to food/drinks and to pick up our sweat bags. It would have been better if post-race amenities had been within the runners-only area.

I was unable to book a room at the Sheraton. The Hyatt was good enough to automatically extend the check out hour to 2pm instead of the usual 12pm (at which point, a bunch of people were still in the race). So I’ll probably stay there again next year. It is also closer to the finish line, which is extremely important!

I had mentioned the social aspect of the race. The night before the race, a bunch of RWOL runners met at the Spaghetti Factory to feast on pasta. Some of us were meeting for the first time face-to-face. Then post-race, we adjourned to the Pyramid Brewery for celebratory drinks and to swap war stories. It was, next to the PR, the highlight of the race.

So while I nurse my aches, I am already planning for the next races: Christmas Relays at Lake Merced this Sunday, a run on New Year’s day, Kaiser Half at SF, Napa Valley Marathon in March.

Can’t wait…

So here I am, sitting in a hotel room in Sacramento.

I’ve gone to the CIM expo, got my bib, chip (verified it too), t-shirt (long sleeve), goodie-bag, laid out tomorrow’s clothes on the bed, stuffed the GU packets into the pockets of the Nathan hydration belt, attached the chip to a shoe, laid out the ingredients for the potion that will go into the hydration bottles, set two alarm clocks …

Now what?

The expo was small; even smaller than the on at RnR San Jose. But it was crowded. We had to queue for the bibs, t-shirt etc.

The pace team booth was particularly popular. They had tattoo time sheets which you could apply to your arm or other expose skin so that you have all the necessary pace data to achieve your race goals. I grabbed one each for 3:50, 3:45, 3:40. Maybe I’ll use all of them just to see if I can do a 3:40 (yeah, riiiiight…).

It’s finally Saturday. In a couple of hours, I’ll go pick up the rental car, load it up and drive up to Sacto for tomorrow’s California International Marathon.

The “experts” encourage you to have a lot of sleep in the days before a race.

Unfortunately, I just discovered something called a Kindle. Although I have yet to receive my Kindle from Amazon, I have been able to download Kindle for PC. This is an application that allows you to read/access Kindle content on the PC instead of the Kindle device. And I have already bought a book.

So I stayed up till late to finish the book…

Hopefully, that will mean an earlier bedtime tonight in Sacto.

I checked the weather at Sacto for Sunday morning and it will be COLD with temps below freezing!

Folsom, where the race start is, will be a couple of degrees warmer. Fortunately, the runners will be able to remain in the buses that will bring them to the start from Sacto.

I still have not decided what to wear for the race (vanity vs practicality), but am leaning towards short tights, a long sleeve t-shirt and gloves. I’m always afraid of overheating.

In the mean time, I’ll bring everything. Just in case…

From the various RWOL forum and Facebook posts, I gather that this is the race of the year for a lot of people. Because of its net downhill course, CIM is a popular Boston qualifying race. Also, since the race is at the end of the year (one of the last marathons in the calendar year), running it is the cumulation of one’s training during the year. The climax, so to speak…

For me, it’s going to be a calibration race. It’ll be my first CIM, so I’m going to see what the course is like. I’ll be happy with a 3:50 time.

It’s Thursday evening. One more work day, then it’s Saturday and I’ll pick up the rental car, load it up and drive to Sacramento for CIM.

My regular car has a manual transmission (aka stick). After driving it back from Monterey after the Big Sur International Marathon, I decided that it is probably better to just make my right leg work when driving back on Sunday, instead of clutching in and out with the left leg.

It’s going to be a low cost rental as I’ll be using my United Mileage Plus miles.

Anyway, I went for a walk this morning to work out the kinks. It was a quick-paced walk, not quite a power walk and neither was it a stroll. By the time I had finished the loop, I had worked up a mild sweat.

I didn’t want to run or jog because I didn’t want to tire myself out too much before Sunday. Besides, my right knee was feeling skittish with a mild ache on the left/under side of the knee and the left calf was still feeling tight.

I’m going to blame all that on pre-race anxiety.

It’s Thursday, 3 more days before CIM.

I must have re-packed my bags three times already, re-verified the list four times and added ten more items to bring along. Latest: umbrella, jumper cables (in case the car battery dies or I die, which ever comes first), calf-length running tights…

Fortunately, it looks like the weather is going to be good i.e. they are no longer forecasting rain on Sunday morning.

However, it looks like it’ll be really cold. Weather.com is forecasting sub-32 degrees on Saturday night for Sacramento.

So the challenge is how to keep warm pre-race and during the race. Calf-length tights? Long sleeve t-shirt? Arm warms?

I’ve talked to someone who actually suffered from hypothermia at a past CIM.

In the meantime, those of us running are suffering from pre-race/taper anxiety. A couple are sick. One guy on RWOL said that he had broken a foot while setting Xmas lights. My right knee and left calf/AT are beginning to hurt etc etc.

Can’t we just get it over with already?!