Working Class Runner

Yesterday’s runs, both the work breaks and the training workout that evening, felt different. I certainly didn’t feel faster or energetic, but they felt stronger.

I didn’t feel myself struggling to stay with it on any of them. The 45 minutes on the treadmill could have possibly lasted another 10-15 minutes, and that was after a difficult turbo weekend where I had to stop 3 times on a 50 minute fast finish workout (never minding the brutal long workout on Saturday). My work break runs in what is now 110°F heat somehow felt more comfortable yesterday than they should have.

I didn’t get a ton of sleep over the long weekend. In fact, I only got about 5 hours Monday night into Tuesday morning before last night’s workout, and I definitely felt it on the drive from work to the gym.

But I got on the mill and after starting with the familiar easiness that turns 10 minutes later into tense struggle… suddenly something shifted and it became sustainably easy once again. In fact, I was a bit too far toward the front of the treadmill and had to increase the velocity a bit to maintain a comfortably easy pace. The final 5 minute cooldown snuck up on me, as did the 45 minute end of the workout. I could have easily kept going.

I also didn’t eat any special food this weekend. Until yesterday, in fact, my diet had been relatively poor throughout the long weekend. Perhaps getting back on track helped? But my first full meal yesterday wasn’t until after my first work break run (in 99°F morning sunshine) and that run felt good.

In any case, that feels like progress, and I do feel decent this morning. I have a full rest day today, and then turbo training continues tomorrow. I may also have special plans for Saturday’s 8 miler. We’ll see.

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I have to remind myself to be patient with training. These difficult treadmill workouts, struggling to get through 10-12 miles, struggling to work outdoors. I have to remind myself it’s also very hot, and even indoor conditions are relatively warm, that these conditions dramatically slow everyone down. I have to remind myself that Vegas is high enough in altitude to affect your aerobic capacity (2350′-2700′, 725-825m), and that the dry, often dusty desert air adds to the challenge.

Even as I’m trying to burn fat and lose weight, I have to remind myself that restrictive eating, undereating, is counter-productive, that your metabolism goes into bear mode and slows down in kind when you restrict food while training.

My weight loss stalled, and then I stopped trying to restrict calories, and now it’s moving downward again. I always forget that when I slimmed down to 160 I wasn’t actively trying to lose weight. I trained, ate smart, and just let it happen.

I have more thoughts on this but I’ve got to head out. More later.

Much like the long workout Saturday, I had a hard time with yesterday’s fast finish workout on the treadmill. I needed a couple of breaks to get through all 50 minutes.

This time around, I didn’t eat much of a meal in advance (I had a typical 3 poached eggs earlier in the morning, but nothing else). I also had a bit of a headache that (while getting on the turbo helped get my mind off it) stuck around through the day, and may have been a mild migraine. I think both were contributing factors to the struggle, though the pace and power on the whole workout plus the fast finish was pretty good. Still, I’m struggling to finish these longer workouts as continuous workouts.

Headaches for me are somewhat rare and usually go away after sleep. But I awoke overnight and still had a headache, but fortunately I tracked down some old, not expired Tylenol PM in the house (I hardly ever take NSAIDs) and it managed to quickly eliminate the pain.

This week for me should be lighter on volume, and the high-end extreme heat forecast this week may compel me to turn work break runs into walking depending on how I feel. Last week was a week to push extra training effort, and this week is not.

My long run is 8 miles and I may take that out of town this weekend to a cooler location. I do plan on a hill repeat workout later this week but everything else is a standard 40-45 minute training run.

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I’m reading High-Performance Nutrition For Masters Athletes by Lauren Antonucci, and there’s a lot of good info in here. I’ve taken particular note on the section on improving overall sleep, as obviously I’ve been unusually struggling with that lately. It offers a few general tips, some of which I’ve been aware of.

• You want to eat well enough to meet energy availability needs, or you will have trouble falling asleep.
• Melatonin is overrated and can cause energy problems the following day, BUT can be useful with exercise for handling jet-lag after traveling. You need to make sure to exercise during late morning and/or early afternoon, then take 3g half an hour before going to bed.
• Obviously, foods with tryptophan can help you sleep. The big surprise is what foods aside from turkey are rich therein: Milk, oats, bananas, tuna, pumpkin seeds.
• Eating high glycemic carbs in your last meal of the day also helps sleep: White rice, potatoes, pasta, your typical runner staples.
• A high-fat diet can actually hinder sleep.
• Liquid meals like protein shakes can hinder sleep duration.
• Tart cherry juice taken 1-2 hours before bed can help sleep, but because of its strong antioxidant properties can also hinder training adaptions if taken closely following training (though much like ice baths this can be conversely useful during and after competition, such as when you run a heat and have to run a final the next day).
• L-Theanine of course helps with sleep by relaxing you, and Antonucci heavily recommends ingesting this as non-caff tea. (I would also recommend waiting until well after a meal to have this, since it can interfere with protein absorption)
• Valerian Root can also help with sleep, though like melatonin it can cause drowsiness and dizziness, so it’s best taken before bed.

I’ll sit on this for a while before adding any thoughts. Until then….

On Saturday I made my first attempt at doing a true long run workout on the treadmill. As I’ve mentioned before, the idea of doing 3-4 miles on the turbo is somewhat hard for me, often more so mentally than physically. Trying to do 9-12 at once is a true mental test, even if physically it’s not terribly arduous.

However, I wasn’t physically at my best coming in. Along with the 34 miles I’d run over the previous 6 days, I had also taken a sunrise run of about 2.8 miles in already warm temperatures, to see how much of Saturday’s mileage I could get before the heat was too much, but I wasn’t feeling great right off the bat. That ill advised foray had taken a bit out of me. I had gotten better sleep the previous night but was still uphill climbing back from the sleep issues and lingering fatigue of the previous days.

Thus I felt like I started the long workout on my heels, so to speak. I had already planned to slow to a walk for fluids and shots of the Hammer gel I had brought every 1.5 miles (roughly the expected distance between Indy aid stations), and did so. (I also did make sure to eat a light meal before the long run.)

But I found I had to stop entirely a few times for a few minutes to cool off, as running on a treadmill in room temperature got me rather hot and I sweated a lot. I also ran out of water, because sure enough I didn’t bring anywhere close to enough, and had to get some over-flavored Gatorade from the counter to stay hydrated during the final 1/3 of the workout (this also meant I had to abandon my gel, as you shouldn’t drink sugar liquid and take energy gel at the same time).

In all I ran about 100 minutes to get the workout finished, but the workout itself took a total of about 2 hours 10 minutes with all the needed breaks. Some of this may have been aggressive pacing in some segments, and I can dial that back in future attempts.

I also know now, as I’ve suspected, that I need to not directly battle the heat on key workouts, and just do all of my long workouts on the treadmill for now. It was hard, but I came in not well rested and made a mistake trying to get early mileage outside. I also only brought one 17 oz bottle of water and now I know to bring more.

Things I did right:

• Bringing gel and practicing fueling with it.
• Starting the treadmill workout later in the morning which gives me a chance to eat a meal beforehand and drink my coffee, coming in fueled.
• Pulling up every 1.5 miles to hydrate and fuel to roughly match the aid station pattern at Indy.
• Adapting the pace as I progressed, even if a couple of sections were a little fast.

During the past week I had been running workouts post-work on the treadmill and found good results with it. So I think I will stick with that routine for now.

I was within reach of Garmin’s 2Q 505K running badge this week, and I definitely ran consistently in large part to get it before the June 30 close date.

Today I had scheduled a hill repeat workout, and I also made the mistake of eating a large breakfast since I woke up closer to starving. Let’s also say it wasn’t a healthy set of choices either.

The bottom has fallen out on my energy level. I usually just eat some poached eggs and drink coffee. I slept well the last couple nights, so it was definitely the low quality food this morning. Lesson learned.

I’ll probably go to the gym and do 20-25 good minutes on the elliptical or turbo instead. I’ve logged substantial miles this week, and I don’t mind erring on the side of caution.

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A brief thought:

I’ve seen more and more frequently the statement that a runner who runs every day or close to it is yet only “working out twice a week.”

I was momentarily baffled the first time I saw it, before I realized that the speaker only considered speed or tempo sessions an actual workout. The other easy runs were not considered by the speaker a workout.

I don’t want to say that’s right, and I don’t want to say that’s wrong. To some degree, one or the other could be true.

Depending on where you are at in your training, those non-speedwork easy runs may either be valuable hard work, or just junk miles that are wearing you out more than rest, strength training, or another quality workout could help you.

Which case pertains to whom is a case by case discussion, depending on each case’s fitness.

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The 128 miles I logged in June are the most I’ve logged since the 141 I logged in April 2019, the month before Vancouver 2019.

I’m not going to totally claim my training got derailed following that marathon, but a lot did happen in somewhat constant succession.

• I got an elbow infection the week after that required medication and rest.
• I hurt my hamstring that summer.
• I moved from Chicago to Vegas that summer.
• The job I transferred into went south and I had to leave it soon thereafter.
• Needing income, I had to go find another job.
• That new job gave me a lot of problems and interfered with my life.
• COVID happened and everything was locked down.
• All races were cancelled.
• Vegas is a hot place and it took 2020 to adapt to the summer climate.
• I eventually had to leave that problem job without a new one lined up, because they were about to close down.
• Needing income, I then had to find another job.
• Despite this, I did start running regularly again, except…
• I got a temp job that was an absolute cluster and required all my energy, so I stopped running until that temp job ended.
• Finally I got a new, decent job in early 2021, and started running regularly enough to train again.

This last few months marks the first time I’ve truly been able to train unencumbered and regularly.

And go figure that handling the higher volume hasn’t at all been a problem. Handling short runs in the extreme heat hasn’t been a troubling ordeal. Handling quality workouts and getting back to long runs, however challenging, hasn’t been unworkable.

The one thing keeping me from regular volume wasn’t my health or my capability. It was mostly life circumstance and other needs.

And as I mentioned before, I spent much of that interim time strength training and cross training at the gym, or going on extended walks. I maintained a good deal of general fitness. I still had a bit of a climb to get back into 30-40mpw running shape, but I wasn’t starting from zero.

So obviously I need to keep it going with Indy in November: Longer runs, tougher quality workouts, continue with steady foundation runs, probably lean on the treadmill to ensure steady pace efforts.

Vegas actually got a monsoon season this year, and a solid storm system passed through the Valley this last couple days. I managed to dodge it during my work breaks, though the rain eventually came down overnight and it’s now intermittently raining through this morning.

If the clouds and humidity hold while the rain stays off me, I may get in a good work break run or two in 75-85°F, 50-70% humidity conditions… some actual in-city practice with Indy’s cooler but more humid November conditions, before the drier, hotter Vegas sun returns.

The new A/C combined with a really big meal after last night’s treadmill session led to my first really good sleep in over a week, snapping a string of brutal 4-5 hour nights with subsequent brutally tough days. While it’s good mental and physical practice for the later miles of a marathon to run with that kind of cumulative fatigue, you really don’t want to do it if you can. I had no choice.

Yesterday’s fast finish workout went to the treadmill, and even before I started I knew this one was going to feel tougher than the days before, where somehow despite my fatigue and overall aversion to the turbo I managed to get in strong workouts at day’s end.

This one, while done as strong, definitely didn’t feel as strong. I returned to the cooler-conditioned Mountain’s Edge gym on the edge of town for this one, and while the cooler air helped I got a bit too sugar-shaky and had to stop after 23 minutes, a little over halfway through the workout.

I thought I would have to outright cut it short, but after some water and a bit of rest I felt convinced to get back on and finish. I got back on, initiated the workout’s fast finish within 3 minutes of restarting, and finished the 40 minute workout even though yes it was stopped dead halfway through. Does it count in the eyes of a given beholder? Maybe, maybe not, and I don’t really care. I needed sleep.

I got and ate a big meal on the way home, got home fairly late due to the travel (after 7pm) and headed to bed shortly thereafter. I woke up at 4:30am this morning feeling a lot better, having gotten a lot more sleep than previous nights.

I did the prior 3 workouts on very poor sleep with cumulative fatigue from that poor sleep plus each prior workout. I’m admittedly impressed with myself. Today should feel a whole lot better, and hopefully more forthcoming days are like today than the last few days were.

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I finally received on Tuesday night a supplement-refill shipment from Hammer Nutrition. I previously mentioned wanting to revert back to my prior stack, and this was just a top-off of certain supplements I regularly used and still have a use for: The tendon/joint healing Tissue Rejuvenator, and the energy and supercompensation boosting Mito Caps.

I also finally got a reload of Hammer’s gel, the product I originally sought out and bought from them a couple years ago. Their gel is easiest on the stomach, I’ve had good experience using it, and it will be my fuel of choice on longer workouts. I already noticed on last weekend’s 10 miler that my energy began to flag (though my Stryd metrics showed I did a good job of maintaining effort in the last half), so I’m now at a place where the gel can benefit my workouts as I now look for intensity to catch up with endurance.

At Planet Fitness I had been using the Total Body Enhancement machine, a red-light therapy chamber that also couples a vibrating plate to ground-up stimulate and massage muscles. I had used it after all my swolework workouts on the weekend, and have noticed the next day that I’ve felt a lot better than prior long/hard workout days, even on the swolework days following longer weekend runs.

I did make a point not to use it after recent treadmill workouts, and have found I still feel okay. Still, I think it has had a positive effect, and since I’m Black-Card at PF it costs me nothing, so even if it’s placebo pseudoscience I enjoy its relaxing effect enough to keep using it at least following my swolework sessions on the weekend.

Speaking of swolework, I’m thrilled that I’m finally able to do sessions with goblet squats and lunges without incredible lower-body soreness the following days.

I also have a great 2 day strength training split now that’s worked well. As mentioned, all workouts are only 20 minutes:

Split 1:
Lat Pulldowns 4×8-12
Seated Rows 4×8-12
Facepulls or Tricep Presses 4×8-12
Goblet Squats 2×8-12
Dumbbell Hammer Curls 2×8-12
Russian Twists 1+ set(s) of 12 to finish.

Split 2:
Incline Bench Press 4×8-12
Dumbbell External Rotations 4×8-12
ATG Split Squat Lunges 2×6-12
Goblet Squats 2×8-12
Nordic Curls 1+ sets 6-12 (however many I believe I can handle)
Cross Arm Sit Ups or Hanging Knee Raises 1-2×8-12

I had been tinkering with exercises and splits the last few weeks and finally found this split worked quite well, and hits every key muscle group. I’ve definitely seen some strength improvement, and I imagine this split plus regular weekend swolework is a factor. Doing strength training only on the weekends, around and after the long run, while staying away on the weekdays has worked rather well, so I’m sticking with it.

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Plan for the weekend is a 12 miler, and I may finally take this long run to the treadmill to see if and how it can be done. Plus, the indoor air will provide extended practice with 70-75°F and 30-50% humidity, much closer to Indy’s November conditions than the current 85-110°F, dry 10% humidity of the Vegas summer.

The long run will also conclude a brutal 10 consecutive day stretch of running. I’m not a run streaker, and the experiment with running on a scheduled rest day may have almost led to injury, so I’m going to honor the rest days as planned, including the Sunday one following 12.

Yesterday morning my mounted A/C unit at home wasn’t blowing air. By touch I could tell the compressor was producing cold air, but the unit simply wasn’t blowing any air. It was obviously an issue with the fan, but I had to go to work so I couldn’t address the issue before I returned home.

Upon retuning home, along with my living space now being hot, there was another compounding issue: I could smell a faint scent of exhaust. The unit was probably a loss, as the scent indicated a greater issue and that fixing it would be more than just repairing the fan motor. Plus, obviously, being hot in my space, I couldn’t spend days trying to get a tech in and hoping they could fix the problem. I needed a solution tonight.

Of course, I first went to the gym and sweated out a needed training run for Indy on the treadmill. Then I went to a nearby Home Depot and paid $355 for a quick solution: A portable 8000-BTU air conditioner.

The install went past my bedtime and there were a few almost-tears-inducing moments when I thought the unit would not be compatible for my space. But I finally got the window hose reasonably installed and the A/C worked like a charm. I barely felt like eating anything, but I took enough protein and nutrients to be able to get into bed and eventually fall asleep.

Given the late bed, the stress and long day, and that it was still fairly hot in my bedspace when I went to bed, I didn’t sleep great (and we’ll see how that impacts training today). But the A/C worked terrific overnight, probably better than my prior unit when it was working fine. It’s definitely cool in my home now, and that’s on a modest setting. I hated the purchase as a necessary evil at first but now I feel like it’s an upgrade.

Also, the scale says I lost 2 pounds from yesterday. And I had drank plenty of water. It was a tough day.

And today, while still a long day planned, is going to feel like a vacation compared to yesterday. It doesn’t help that this week is a particularly tough stretch in my training plan, training straight through until a day off on the 4th of July. I can be forgiving on executing quality workouts but I do really want to get in today’s planned fast finish run and the workout tomorrow. If I can get them done through tomorrow I’m willing to finally pivot further upcoming workouts to cross training.

At the very least, I want to finally get good sleep tonight. Perhaps the new air conditioning and an actually-cool room will make a difference.