January 2011 recap

January was a good month of running... some tough Boston weather (cold and snow) with which to contend, but ran (outdoors) all but 5 days. Ran a total of 136 miles and had a positive 5k race experience. See the image below for weekly and monthly summarized running stats including average paces. Got in a couple bike rides and some other activity / training, but need to add cross-training more consistently.

Happy trails!

Run Clubs

I’ve been running with a few run clubs here in the Boston area lately. It’s been fun logging miles and hanging out post-run with so many different people – getting to know folks in the running industry (technical sales reps and retailers), learning about equipment (and getting some free gear!), racing and swapping stories with fellow runners of all sizes, shapes, speeds and ages – veteran runners, folks getting back in shape from previous running experience, newbie runners that are approaching their first races, and runners that are fundraising for charity.

There’s the 55 year old firefighter (didn’t look a day over 42) who has slogged through the Boston Marathon 11 years straight raising thousands of dollars for charities. He’s looking to retire soon, start running ultra marathons and also dedicate his time to addressing child obesity. There’s the early 20’s gal that ran a speedy low 3-hour first-time marathon last fall within just a year of starting to run, and while an official qualifier for Boston, is fundraising for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute where her sister was treated successfully. There’s the guy who only recently took up running when he embarked on an 11-day adventure running across Puerto Rico with only a backpack. So many inspiring stories…

Run club running is great for getting me faster by hanging onto the heels of faster runners as best I can, or for getting in quality base miles while keeping a jovial, conversational pace. Run club is great for motivation to get out and hit the roads/trails every week, when sometimes I might not on my own. And run club is great for sharing good laughs, food and beverages as well.

There are run clubs all over the place, if you’re interested, they’re probably just a google search away. Here are the run clubs in Boston I’ve been joining most weeks (these clubs welcome runners of all abilities and paces to drop in for a run):

Tuesday, 6:00pm – City Sports (Boylston St.)
Run along the Charles River or through the streets of Back Bay. Great core group of folks, largest group since I’ve been going has been about 25 runners. Usually there’s a monthly corporate sponsor with occasional giveaways and raffle prizes. Bottled water is provided at the end of the run (and this past month the rep from Mizuno brought cookies).

City Sports (Boylston St.)

Wednesday, 6:30pm – Niketown (Newbury St.)
Small group that does varying loops around the Charles River or down through the Boston Common. Water and small energy/protein bars provided at the end of the run.

Niketown (Newbury St.)

Thursday, 6:00pm – Crossroads (Beacon St.)
Lots of folks training for the Boston Marathon, some run along the Charles River, but most others (30+ runners) head out on the green line (D line) to Woodland and then run 9 miles along the Boston Marathon course back to the bar – good training run over the tough Newton Hills including the infamous Heartbreak Hill. Pizza and water provided at the end of the run. Sidenote: Just got my copy of the March 2011 Runner’s World, there’s a brief write-up about Crossroads on page 22. Here’s the on-line version.

Crossroads (Beacon St.)

Boston's Train (the T) - Green Line

Boston's Train (the T) - Green Line - D line to Woodland

Saturday, 10:30am – City Sports/TMIRCE (Comm Ave.)
The Most Informal Running Club Ever. “A breakfast club with a running problem.” Fun, social bunch of folks. This run can get well over 50+ runners of various paces. A few loop options around the Charles River, or just stop by for the pot-luck breakfast afterwards.

City Sports/TMIRCE (Comm Ave.)

City Sports/TMIRCE (Comm Ave.) - run and breakfast

Happy trails everyone!

Wear Test Completed

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’ve been ‘wear testing’ a pair of running shoes for a running shoe company. The shoes are lightweight trainers that have held up well. The wear testing protocol is pretty simple: when they have a new shoe they are planning to introduce, they send you a sample pair and you run in them as exclusively as possible for the duration of the wear test period. In my case, the wear test period has been 6 weeks. During this time, they ask you to fill out three surveys online: an initial survey, a 1-week survey, and a final survey after the 6 week period. Finally at the end you mail the shoes back to the shoe company (pre-addressed mailing label provided) so they can analyze the wear on the shoe. Maybe they’ll send me a t-shirt or something after all’s said and done?

In any case, the process of being part of this wear test has been interesting and has had its benefits.

Primarily, being part of this process has motivated me to get out there and run, run, run – to put as many miles as possible on the shoes to provide the best data and feedback for the running shoe company. When I started running in these shoes, I was just ramping up in my training, but I incremented extra miles in the vein of putting more wear on them.

Secondarily, shoes being a consumable product, the general rule of thumb is that you’re supposed to run anywhere between 300-500 miles on a pair of shoes, then stop running in them due to the compression, wear in traction and loss of cushioning of the material. So instead of wearing down my own shoes, I put in some ‘free miles’ on another pair. Except for two short 5k races, I ran all my miles for the past six weeks on these wear test shoes.

So, my weekly mileage on these shoes for the past six weeks of wear testing went as follows: 25, 18, 32, 20, 28, 37 for a total of 160 miles in six weeks, an average of 26.6 miles per week, a little over the distance of a marathon (26.2 mi) per week. These last two weeks were a bit quick a jump of mileage, perhaps too much – a general rule of thumb is to increase your week-to-week mileage by no more than 10%, so clearly I broke that rule by quite a bit – not shockingly, I’ve been feeling achy in my lower leg/shins so have to be careful to avoid overtraining (doing too much, too soon).

These last two weeks I’ve been running a lot in my Yak Trax traction, and so with all that said, I’m looking forward to getting back to running in my usual training shoes – Asics Gel Trabuco trail runners, which more naturally should provide extra traction on the snow and ice, guess I’ll find out quickly since the snow and ice aren’t going anywhere anytime soon…

Thanks for reading!

Plow at your six!

Sidenote: Sorry for the delay in blog posts - hopefully though you've been following along with my workouts on Endomondo and reading my micro-blog in the Notes section there.

So runners sometimes say rather cryptic sounding things as they run by. Most often we say “On your left!” as we approach someone from behind in preparation to pass on their left. We’re trying to be polite and not startle anyone by slicing by and surprising them on a tight and narrow trail. Or we just want to get them the heck out of our way cause we’re having a rockin’ run and don’t want to slow down - ok, well most of us runners are of the patient and polite variety when it comes to sharing the trails. Also amongst runners, there’s a bunch of sayings that we share with one another to indicate caution should be taken. Common sayings are “Car up” or “Car back” if there’s a car coming from ahead or behind that should be heeded. “Clear” can be used when crossing intersections if the first person goes and verifies that it’s clear for the next couple runners to pass. Other cautionary exclamations can be used such as “Branch!” if there’s a low hanging or jutting out branch that someone might run into and certainly a favorite, which is also a staple used in cycling is “Hole” specifying a pothole ahead, which is often accompanied by lowering the arm and giving a fanning or sprinkling motion with the fingers indicating where the hole or other debris on the ground might be in order to avoid it best.

So, these saying and others being familiar, it took me a couple split moments to process what someone said to me last night. As I was running my normal 4 mile loop along the Charles River on a clear night of 27F, a fellow runner was running in the opposite direction approaching me, moving at a very good clip I might add, and managed to utter to me “Plow at your six!” just as we were passing one another. Now it was cold, I had a headband over my ears and her voice could have been distorted from it being so cold (meaning that she might not have been able to enunciate those words as clearly in the moment given the huffing and puffing of running combined with your mouth not working as well when it gets below freezing temperatures outside). I just gave my standard hand wave and said “Hey”, but then tried to process what the heck this person had just said to me. Then I got it, turned around and saw a snow plow truck barreling towards me plowing the running trail. An elongated version of her message was: ‘Dude, there’s a snow plow coming from behind you (at your six o’clock position) and so you might just want to step over that little snowbank and let it pass in case the driver doesn’t see you and you get swallowed up by the plow.’ Yikes, thank you my fellow runner (can’t say I’ve ever heard that particular caution before). So I paused my run and took a couple shots of the trail in front of me and of the plow going by just as I stepped over the snow bank. Well, I guess it’s nice to know that they were in fact plowing the trail making it more easily runnable.

Charles River running path somewhere between the Hatch Shell and Mass Ave

Charles River running path - plow truck cruising by plowing the snow after a snowfall (I'm standing in a snowbank)

Later on, after my run I took a couple shots along the Charles River Esplanade of my Yak Trax buried in their element and also just one of me with my headband covering my ears, hair a bit poofed out.

Yak Trax traction strapped to my shoes, deep in snow

Closer look at the Yak Trax, the undersole has steel coils wrapped around rubber tubing for traction

Just another run along the Charles River in the frosty snow

Finally, as I made my way back home, crossing the street a bundled up pedestrian jokingly yelled out to me in my shorts and rolled up sleeves: “Hey, don’t get heatstroke out there!” Ha, ha - people do say the darnedest things…

Race Report: 5k Resolution Run to Kick Cancer [Sat, Jan 8, 2011]

Race Report: 5k Resolution Run to Kick Cancer on Saturday, January 8, 2011

SUMMARY

• Date: Saturday, Jan 8, 2011, 11:00am start
• Location: Knights of Columbus, Lexington, MA
• Conditions: 28F, little to no wind, ground slightly wet after light snowfall
• Distance: 5k / 3.1 mile race (flat course)
• Finish time: 21:15
• Average pace: 6:51 / mile
• Mile splits: 6:49, 7:04, 6:46 (0:36)
• Overall Finish: 24th out of 548 total runners
• Age Group: 3rd place in M30-39 Age Group

Resolution Run to Kick Cancer 5k

PRE-RACE
Great race for a great cause. The Resolution Run to Kick Cancer 5k is not only a great race, but also a community fundraising event to support cancer research (The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society). Here's a notable quote from the race website leading up to race day: "Attention runners: Saturday’s forecast is for snow. We are planning to hold the race 'snow or shine'.... It's winter. It snows. Running in winter is hard, but not as hard as battling cancer."

As for nutrition, I had some Masoor Dal (lentil soup) for dinner the night before and some more for breakfast, I think I may try that again for the next race since it kept me feeling full and nourished.

Race day morning wasn't without drama. Snow wasn't an issue, but my car didn't start (hadn't driven it in a couple weeks) - fortunately a fairly quick jump-start and I was off to pick up my buddy James and head over to the race.

Registration at the race site was quick and easy, and after a 5-10 minute warm-up with friends James, Andy & Joe, we toed the starting line ready for the race to kick-off. Race time conditions were 28F and cloudy, with practically no wind. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt with gloves and a headband in case my ears got cold.

THE RACE
The course was mostly flat with a couple short rises and dips, slightly wet at points, but clear of any snow. We ran past the historic Lexington Battle Green and right through Lexington Center.

I hoped to pace the race evenly, and have two sets of data to gauge that:
-- GPS tracking splits using phone: 7:11, 6:52, 6:31 (0:41)
-- Stopwatch splits at mile markers: 6:49, 7:04, 6:46 (0:36)
The stopwatch splits seem a lot more reliable since I registered them at each mile marker and they more clearly seem to match the effort I felt. Besides, the GPS tracking technology tends to have to 'catch up' sometimes, so I think those figures are less reliable. Anyway, still want to work on my pacing, but in any case, my primary goal for this race was to break a 7:00/mile pace, so I'm pleased.

POST RACE PARTY AND RESULTS
Great post-race celebration, lots of yummy food and a warm hall to hang out and enjoy.
Final time for 5k (3.1 miles): 21:15 (pace 6:51/mile)
Overall Finish: 24th out of 548 total runners
Age Group: 3rd place in M30-39 Age Group (nice surprise)

PICTURES

Don't have any in-race pictures yet, will update if the race organizers provide any.

Nilesh, Andy, James, Joe

Nilesh, Andy, James, Joe - fierce "grrr..." pose

Eamon (3rd place M20-29) and Andy (2nd place M20-29)

3rd place M30-39, a total surprise!

New Year's Day run

So 2011 has kicked off nicely...

A bunch of fellow runners and I drove out to Marathon Sports (running store) in Wellesley, MA which is right along the course of the Boston Marathon. The plan was to gather and then run back into Boston -- 11 miles to ring in 2011 -- finishing with post-run splendors (beer and pizza) at Crossroads Irish Pub on Beacon Street (the pub will be mentioned in the March 2011 issue of Runner's World).

We started the run at 12noon, just enough time to recover from the prior night's NYE festivities. There were about 40-50 runners, or maybe more, that joined in on the run. I ended up running a bit faster than I anticipated, but felt good the whole way - then hung out at Crossroads for quite a while afterwards. Great run with a great group of folks.

Distance: 11.01 miles
Time: 1:27:56
Pace: 7:59 min/mile
GPS map: http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/ixr-BlpbC2c
(mouse over the mile markers in the map to see the splits)

Notably, the mile 6 split of 8:39/mile was relatively slow, no doubt due to the infamous Heartbreak Hill.

As an aside, I stumbled upon my Virgo horoscope on this new year's day (1/1/11), here's an excerpt: "You're at a crossroads right now -- and time is running out."
Well, I was at a "crossroads" today and hey, "running" got a mention too, interesting...

Happy New Year everyone!