Tag Archives: marathon training

Sep 15 2021
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Checking In 9/15/2021

My energy levels are like a phugoid cycle this week. Yesterday despite good sleep I was exhausted. I took it easy on work breaks and didn’t train yesterday (though I couldn’t anyway due to stuff I needed to get done after work).

I slept well again, and today now I once again feel pretty good, just like Monday. This could be subliminal communication from my body telling me to go hard/easy on my weekly training right now. Or maybe it was the end result of back to back tough training days, during another hot weekend, while also having a lot of other business to attend to.

In any case, I’m going train today like I did on that hard Monday. Tomorrow is a scheduled day off from training, plus Friday is a travel day with no training before Saturday’s long workout. The rest of this week should be a little easier outside of training, so it’s not as big a deal if I wake up exhausted tomorrow morning.

Today I woke up with no pain at all, compared to the last few days where I was pain-free at work but did wake up with a bit of pain. I finally feel normal again after (and yes I keep specific track of this) 51 days of dealing with the hamstring issue. Never at any point was it as bad as when I strained it in 2019. For the most part, I could run, but it was a lingering pain that at times increased as I ran, and at times would go away if I ran a certain way.

If anything, it forced me to re-balance my running technique, to utilize my other lower body muscles in a balanced fashion, and it compelled me to stretch more (dynamically and statically) before and after workouts, sometimes even during. I definitely notice and feel my gluteus medius more engaged in runs than before. While not dominant, my quads are more engaged and I don’t feel my energy bottling up and landing in my hip joint during steps as it did before (which is probably a contributing factor to the hamstring problem). Forefoot running feels a lot more comfortable now.

It made me better emphasize recovery between workouts and on rest days, making sure to eat recovery-friendly foods, take key foods and vitamin supplements more consistently. I’m eating more fruit than before, cleaner protein more often, once again taking wild fish oil, making sure to get enough water every day (this was always a come-and-go habit), avoiding any processed sugar as much as possible. All of this helps reduce inflammation and I’m sure that’s helped with progress and recovery.

I also made sure to find training modes that didn’t hurt or aggravate my hamstring or groin, and made sure to hit them however hard I could, consistently circulating blood through the affected areas and driving recovery and growth however much I could, not to mention making to aerobically train and progress as much as I could and stay however fit I could.

Every issue and setback can be a blessing in disguise when it forces you to be more disciplined.

While I lost the chance to progress on my marathon training, and once again in a marathon training cycle ended up for circumstantial reasons with a big barren gap of light intensity and volume between blocks of high volume… what I ended up doing in the interim was probably best for me in the long run, regardless of how it benefitted training for Indy.

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Sep 14 2021
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Checking In 9/14/2021

As energetic as I felt Monday, I am rather tired today.

I slept fine. I actually slept fairly well. I probably shouldn’t have had tacos for dinner, but I felt like it so I did. If that alone is the cause of my energy tank I’m absolutely impressed at the anti-healing properties of beef tacos.

But it’s more likely the 3600 calories Garmin says I burned yesterday was the prime cause of the sagging energy levels today, if not also the 3300 calories I reportedly burned Sunday from my long workout.

Yesterday I was completely pain free at work! I could run normally. I went ahead and took runs on all my work breaks, and they went fine! I was thrilled. That sounds like a milestone and it felt like one, but admittedly I’m glossing over it here. I feel good today (did feel a bit sore first thing this morning but that’s once again gone), and am hoping to keep that going.

Of course, then last night I also went a full hour on the elliptical, and though I kept it short I also nightcapped a session on the rowing machine (it’s probably a good thing I did cut it short!).

Between all that, and work and commuting, I can see how I’m tired out. My dad and I also have to transport my trailer today off-site so he can have the main driveway paved, so that required a bunch of prep and cleanup.

Maybe I shouldn’t have trained the last couple days? No, if anything, knowing I won’t train today (I’m just walking out work breaks), knowing I’m taking Thursday off from training, and won’t be able to train Friday as I’ll be traveling after work that evening… it’s better off I run myself ragged now, knowing I’ve got the next few days easy.

I also am approaching the wall for Indy training, less than 8 weeks from the actual race. You can’t really prep anyone in the last couple weeks beforehand, so I basically have the next 5-6 weeks to train however much I can handle. I cross trained as best I could with the prox-ham issue over the last 7 weeks but I lost all that time.

I think at this point that if I can consistently knock out long workouts, on my feet or cross training, can starting hitting mid-length easy interval workouts plus some long runs… I think I’ll be okay for Indy. Any notions of a serious time goal are about out the window. Whatever time goal I end up with will be a function of how fit I can get myself before late October (which by the way is next month).

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Sep 08 2021
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Checking In 9/8/2021

This post is a little later in the day, as I’m now trying to work out in the mornings and there’s not as much time to write.

Though I woke up early, my left ham still felt about the same, so I decided not to do any easy interval training. I may drive-test at least a couple of intervals tomorrow morning if I’m at least feeling the same. I could have done them today but erred on the side of extra rest.

I did go strength train this morning before work. While that went okay, the commute out of the southwest end of town to work resembled a nightmare. I would have been better off driving into and out of Red Rock Canyon up to Charleston Blvd. The problem with the 215 Beltway in the southwest is it was built with no over/underpasses between the interchanges, creating bottlenecks on the major roads. It doesn’t help they’ve closed lanes for construction on at least two of the inbound roads, but I’m not sure that mattered.

So driving from my base gym to work in the morning may be a problem. There are a couple other possible options for routes I have yet to try (that aren’t driving out of the way through Red Rock), but if they don’t work I may need to pivot to other gyms in the region for that morning workout.

They are also opening a gym near work in October, so I could go there during my lunch hour.

I will train on the elliptical tonight and see how that feels, as well as how I feel in the morning.

At this point I’m about 8.5 weeks from Indy, and I’m about a month removed from my last long workout (on the elliptical). Consistent easy-interval workouts through the month would be a big step forward, but the key is I need to produce some double digit mile long runs in the next month, or Indy’s going to become unlikely. If 18-20 miles is too tough a task by mid-October, I’m probably going to pull the plug on the trip and move on.

Provided the next couple of running workouts are pain free and do-able, I think I can make the needed progress. It becomes a dicey proposition if another week goes by and I’m still not running much.

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Sep 06 2021
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Checking in 9/6/2021 from Milwaukee

Hello from Shorewood. I’m flying back into Vegas later today.

In a twist of irony, I flew out here expecting to run an eventful half marathon during an uneventful stay in Milwaukee. Instead, I DNS the half marathon and end up spending a lot of time checking out Shorewood, which is quite a nice part of town.

May be an image of beach, ocean and nature
Looking down at Atwater Beach in Milwaukee

Shorewood, immediately north of Milwaukee’s northern city border, is a lot like Capitol Hill or Upper Queen Anne in Seattle, very relaxed but with a lot of coffee/food shops, and multiple parks within (somewhat lengthy) walking distance. Notable is I had enough to check out in Shorewood alone that I didn’t actually visit the nearby UW Milwaukee campus, the Riverwalk, or Downtown Milwaukee at all.

I was surprised last night to discover I walked 13.86 miles total between multiple excursions yesterday. I guess I basically did that half marathon after all? Albeit, it took 5.5 hours total between multiple round trips and I was walking casually for much of it. However, I did visit two of the area’s beaches (Atwater Beach and Buckley Park), both of which require a steep descent down stairs or paths, then a subsequent climb back up. Hiking up these hills wasn’t exactly running uphill in the Cococino Forest, but the climbs were a bit steep!

The Milwaukee job market isn’t exactly hot, plus my current situation is too good to walk away from, or else I’d consider moving out here. The rental market is actually fairly affordable out here, and that probably has to do with the muted economy out here. There is one very active running group in Shorewood, and they have a bunch of open tracks. I wouldn’t have access to altitude, but you can train much more easily in a place like this. And they have hills, unlike Chicago. You could even do all your hill repeats at a place like Atwater Beach if you wanted to.

In any case, I’m heading back to Vegas after a mostly relaxing long weekend. Part of the reason I didn’t want to attempt the race Sunday was that I woke up that morning with some of my best numbers I’ve had in a while.

My body battery nearly hit 100 for the first time in over a couple months. My overnight oximeter reading (as expected) was over 92% for the first time in a while (thanks obviously to being at lower altitude). I had slept well over 8 hours overnight, despite an early end to the day via time zone change. I knew from experience that running 13 miles hard would screw all of that up the next day and I wouldn’t return home particularly well rested.

Along with that having been sorted (I didn’t sleep a bunch last night, but I didn’t need to), I now have a battle plan in place for training going forward ahead of Indy. The Vegas heat is beginning to recede enough that I can resume morning workouts, so body permitting I want to start running Easy Intervals in the morning, as well as stop by the gym en route to work and do my strength training then. I have to touch-and-go the latter depending on crowds at the gym in the evening, so going in the morning makes that less of a problem, plus avoids some morning commuter traffic. I then have more time after work for elliptical workouts, which account for most of my aerobic training. Then I can do a long run workout once every couple weeks or so, away at altitude if still needed, to specifically train for Indy.

My left ham pain is lingering and mild, and doesn’t impede running for the most part. I’ve been hiking and running across streets without any problem, with or without my backpack. In DNSing I mostly didn’t want to risk aggravating it, as the morning pain persisted a bit more over the past few days. I probably will take it easy today (aside obviously from traveling; I might do a shorter workout tonight), and plan a full rest day from training tomorrow. Once I resume training Wednesday I’ll see how I feel.

If this revised routine works in September, I may be in better shape than expected after all this for October and the marathon the following month. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, more to come once I return to Vegas.

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Jul 30 2021
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Checking In 7/30/2021

Woke up late after sleeping in so I have to hurry on this one….

Vegas is very overcast this morning after more monsoon weather rolled in last night. I like this weather, and am almost bummed that it’s supposed to be cloudy in Vegas this weekend. But I’m happy to go experience (hopefully run) in some 50-60 degree morning temps instead.

It may also be the last best chance to travel out of town for a bit, if Delta variant Coronavirus conditions cause a rumored lockdown or restrictions in a couple weeks. I may be forced to tough out treadmill long runs for a bit… presuming gyms stay open (which I believe they probably will).

Given how the Delta situation rolled through Europe so far, it may be a quick wave of restrictions, so I’m not too concerned about Indy being cancelled. I have other training plans and projects for after Indy, and if somehow it was wiped out I could just pivot into those. But again I’m not expecting a cancellation for now.

Meanwhile, my hamstring is actually feeling mostly better, lingering soreness hinting that it’s still healing up. My left groin is still a bit sore, and I’ll continue taking things carefully today and obviously during tomorrow’s scheduled day off (which is also a travel day: lots of sitting!).

I’ve been sitting on the Orb Mini much of the last couple days and have noticed a big positive difference in how my leg feels from that constant fascia stimulus.

I actually overslept this morning after having trouble getting to sleep last night, so I managed not to lose much sleep despite it.

At the gym last night I did a bunch of rehab exercises and stretches, focusing on engaging the psoas and iliacus as well as obviously the glutes (medius and maximus). However, I think the lack of aerobic training was a reason why I had trouble getting to sleep last night, so tonight I plan to cross train again since tomorrow my plan is to drive and do nothing other than walk.

If I’m feeling good, I will take a work break test run this morning. Obviously I’ll shut it down the moment I feel any sort of undue pain or stiffness outside of simple soreness. But hopefully it goes fine and progress will continue.

Not leaving tonight but will drive out early tomorrow morning, so I’ll have tonight to relax a bit after the gym.

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Jul 29 2021
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Checking In 7/29/2021

One thing yesterday appeared to cause aggravated pain in my hamstring/groin. I go sit in the grass in a park area near work during lunch. Often I will get up without my hands, hinging through my legs and transferring weight before I rise up.

I went to get up, and quickly noticed that my weight bears/transfers through the exact spot that’s hurt… because it hurt to do it.

Could this be a key contributing factor to my issue? If so, then simply not doing it anymore (or at least turning the other way to get up, or just using my hands to support like most people) would remedy that contributing factor.

It doesn’t heal the issue, obviously, but perhaps this is inhibiting healing.

I haven’t talked about this much but my arms have been kind of sore the last few days. I have some sort of lingering issue in my left deltoid, though I’m certain it’s overuse from everyday life and I’m actively working on not using or bracing on that arm so much.

But the overall soreness was real strange, given I had only done a moderate strength training workout on Monday and nothing else upper-body prior to last Friday. That is, until I remembered I had started using the elliptical a lot more, and that the arm handles require constant movement and work while exercising. Okay then, that would make your arms sore.

In last night’s brief session I made sure to hold the static handles on the front instead of the moving handles, and hopefully they’ll rest up soon. I also forewent my planned push workout, wanted anyway to focus on rehab strength exercises for my legs with the hamstring situation. I don’t have another upper body workout planned before Monday so hopefully that’s enough to heal things up.

Yesterday I researched some functional anatomy and stretching/fascia work, as now I’m thinking a combination of muscular imbalances and possibly impinged nerves are contributing to the hamstring and groin problem, both right now and cumulatively over time. I’m able to move without pain, except with certain movements.

The key anterior hip (front hip) muscles that can contribute to subsequent hamstring overwork, imbalances and pain are the (illi)psoas and iliacus. Obviously, the glutes in the rear are important as well, but it’s often tightness and inhibition of these deep superficial anterior hip muscles that lead to the glutes not sufficiently working and the hamstring etc therefore overworking and straining.

Having dealt with some degree of anterior pelvic tilt my entire life, I know for sure these anterior hip muscles are tight and overactive, and need to be extended. I admit I haven’t worked on these as much in recent months as I’ve ramped up training. And apparently I am paying the price as my hamstring begins to act up, a common ripple effect when you combine the tilt with added training volume.

There are four things you can do to actively combat this without pain:

  • Leg Swings. I do these sometimes as a running warmup and cooldown, but doing them more regularly as a limber-up exercise will help release the anterior hip and hamstring complex, plus activate the glutes. Also, if the hamstring is in fact injured, it will help loosen up adhesions and scar tissue along the affected areas.
Exercise for Low Back Pain - Body and Soul Wellness Center
  • The Psoas Stretch. This kneeling stretch (shown on right) isolates and extends the often tight and inhibited psoas muscle. Typically, you’d avoid static stretching ahead of any physical activity. But when it comes to tight overactive muscles like my anterior hip muscles, stretching them before a workout inhibits them and this can actually help engage the muscles that are being inhibited from these tight muscles being tight… like, in this case, my glutes. It also can help release the over-extension and tightness in my hamstrings and groin, while relieving them of the overwork that has caused my current issues.
  • The Iliacus Stretch. This is similar to the Psoas Stretch. The difference is that the rear foot is elevated to accent the Psoas, while laying the foot and shin flat on the ground accents the iliacus. What you see in the image mixes both worlds.
  • Fascia rolling with a ball. I use the Orb Extreme Mini (pictured right), a rippled massage ball the size of a tennis ball that’s much better at what people generally use a tennis/lacrosse ball for. I’ll sit or lay on top of it with the ball under whatever muscle group I want to massage, sometimes moving along it to roll out the muscle. This helps loosen and release fascial adhesions along harder to reach muscles, much better than foam rolling. I’ll sometimes sit on this to help massage my hamstring, and I hadn’t used it much until just recently.

So I went to work with these four approaches last night and this morning, and while my hamstring needs time either way, all of the above have certainly helped me feel better than I otherwise had.

In particular, one crazy Let’s-Runner on their Message Board once claimed his hamstring problem went away in three days with nothing more than leg swings. I don’t know about that, but I’ve certainly felt better doing those throughout the day.

I’m still not convinced this weekend’s going to be a wash, and that I won’t just have to shut everything down for a few days. But I’m also still not convinced that somehow my aggressive recovery (this plus nutrition and vitamins plus rest and good sleep) won’t quickly turn things around in three days. I’ve had quick recoveries before, and even my prior hamstring injury from 2019 was healed enough to run again after a bit over a week of rest. But I totally realize how these issues can compound into serious problems if you don’t recover and rest enough.

Now, I don’t plan to run today or tomorrow, and as mentioned Saturday is a total rest day. I’ll even scale back my walking routes on work breaks today to minimize any need to jog across a street or similar.

At the gym tonight, I’m going to forego aerobic cross training for a full slate of dynamic and static recovery stretches and some easy rehab exercises. Barring a miraculous recovery, tomorrow will be more of the same even if I’m feeling better.

As mentioned, I have to decide by Friday evening if I’m going to cancel my weekend trip (after which I could not get a refund). To some degree, I would definitely scale back my planned long run either way, whether the outright volume or to make it a long Galloway-style run-walk session. I’d at least want to be able to walk a while without any issues. I’ll see how today and tomorrow feel.

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Jul 25 2021
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Checking In 7/25/2021 (+ a long-treadmill-run recap)

I ran 12 miles on the treadmill yesterday, easily the farthest I’ve gone on the human hamster wheel in one session, let alone without a real rest break.

I knew inevitably I’d have to do a long run on the turbo. Vegas was simply too hot in the mornings for a quality long run outdoors even before the sunrise. And as much as I’d love to, I can’t afford to drive out of town every weekend and run in a cooler, practical high-altitude locale. Even though my current gym has good air conditioning, you can still get hot and humid running on a treadmill for any extended period of time.

This weekend was a good window to try, with a 12 miler scheduled and between planned trips. (Plus, it turns out weather wasn’t great in any potential weekend destinations anyway)

One issue: Gym treadmills are designed to let you run for 60 minutes maximum plus a 5 minute cooldown.

Thankfully, my gym isn’t anywhere close to crowded enough where I need to get out at 60 minutes, so I can restart the machine and keep going. But, to minimize the break (because I want this to be a continuous run, not two 60 minute easy running repeats with a 1+ minute rest), I have to make sure to restart the machine and get it back up to speed as soon as possible once stopped.

I started the morning relaxing with coffee and a croissant, and ate a sandwich at Starbucks right before heading into the gym armed with only my 17 oz water bottle. I made sure to treat the morning more like a pre-race routine because I knew this task was going to demand a lot from me. The longest I’d recently run without a break on the treadmill was 50 minutes, and 12 continuous miles was going to demand a lot more than 50 minutes of running. I’ve gone over how challenging I find running on the turbo for extended time.

I’ve played around with pacing on recent treadmill runs, but made sure to keep a consistent moderate but sustainable pace for this extended run. I’ve also experimented with running without my glasses to minimize distractions, and ran most of this run without mine on this time. I also made sure to sip water on schedule every 10 minutes. How much is a sip? The bottle only ran out after 2 hours of running, that’s how much. I did pick up the pacing at 60 minutes to more of a marathon-pace effort for about 3 minutes, before the shutdown and restart.

I hit stop on the machine, and powered past the slightly dragged out shutdown sequence by jamming the button until the display went completely off, then jammed the go button until the display came up again and showed the starting countdown. Once the machine started I immediately restored my original running pace.

As complex as this sounds, it took about 45-50 seconds. During this time, the belt kept moving as it decelerated to zero, so I still was able to log a tiny bit of distance before it stopped. I did take more than a sip of water as the machine worked to restart. But if this was any sort of rest break, it wasn’t more than a few seconds, akin to stopping to tie your shoes or fidget with fluid at an aid station. I certainly didn’t feel like I was recovering.

Into the 2nd hour, I finally started to truly battle fatigue at around the 80 minute mark. Again, I had the pace set to a more moderate effort and certainly faster than I usually run long outside, so this didn’t surprise me.

At around 100 minutes the lactic feeling was rich in my legs and maintaining my pace was starting to feel too arduous to continue for another 20 minutes. So I went to an old trick I’ve seen coaches recommend: I threw in some pickups, kicking the pace up to threshold/10K pace for 60 seconds. Then I’d pull way back to an easier pace than I was originally doing for about a minute, to get my legs back, before resuming my moderate pace.

I did this surge bit at 1:41-1:43 (38:00-40:00 on the previously restarted display) and it worked like such a charm I wished I had thought to do it sooner. I did it again at 1:51-1:53 (48:00-50:00) with an even faster surge and again it worked great for making the moderate pace feel more do-able. Once I got to 2:03 and the machine once again demanded a cooldown I kicked the pace up to marathon-effort again and made sure I got to 12 miles before shutting everything down at about 2:07.

This was the first long run in a long while where I felt sore after the run, and it’s also the hardest I’ve pushed on a sustained run since… probably since the 2018 Chicago Marathon (even Vancouver 2019 was more of a sustained easy run out of circumstance).

Something I never really did in prior marathon training cycles was steady-pace long runs. All were usually run as easy as necessary to cover the distance and that was it. And while that’s still valuable and I obviously still intend to run long runs like that, I also want to do long runs of 2 hours, possibly more, at a faster moderate pace. This one went remarkably well, and the soreness plus the completion of the entire planned workout as intended tells me this was a significant breakthrough.

Then, after slamming a bottle of Gatorade, I went and did some lower body strength training, which certainly didn’t help with the soreness but felt good to limber up with after the extended running. I left and got a steak burrito before heading home and taking a nap.

Sitting here the following morning with coffee, I’m still sore but it’s more a lingering soreness than an intense soreness. It’s certainly not delayed onset muscle soreness because there was no delay in feeling it following the workout.

I’ll probably ride the spin bike today (we got back together recently) to circulate things a bit, but otherwise take it easy before a big training week next week. The plan’s to train all five weekdays next week before another travel weekend and remote long run. How easy Monday’s training will be depends on how sore I’m feeling tomorrow morning.

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